Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Philippines
Monday, October 23, 2017
A Most Uncomfortable Feast
From Patheos-There are a lot of reasons not to go to church. It is inconvenient at the very least, and often uncomfortable, being on one of only two days that you have off for yourself. Your work week, like mine, is probably relentless–from Monday to Friday just hanging on and trying to keep incompetence and exhaustion from marrying themselves together and ruining your wellbeing. To finally be able to take a breath for two days, to sleep as long as you need to and then be able to run a load of laundry and drink a whole cup of coffee without it going cold–that’s what you hang on for in the rush of Monday morning. By Friday you’ve filled both days with tasks you just can’t get to in the evenings, with the backlog of life that never gets to be lived. You might manage to sleep in on Saturday, but Sunday finds you looking at another list.
The last thing you feel like doing is getting up and going to be with a lot of people you don’t know very well and who, when you do get to know them, are guaranteed to irritate you. There are better and more interesting things to do.
Read more at
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/preventingrace/2017/10/22/a-most-uncomfortable-feast/#lFbPVFDGyGwLSXpT.99
JESUS AND POLITICS
From Jake Owensby-Some Christians are making political commitments that Jesus would hesitate to call, well, Christian. Let me explain by way of a political run-in that Jesus had with a group called the Herodians and some Pharisees.
We don’t know much about the Herodians.
Their name suggests that they were like other groups whose names derive from a person they follow in some way. Think of Marxists or Freudians or even Christians.
So, it’s reasonable to think that the Herodians may have sought to restore the Herodian family to the throne of Israel. They were a politically-motivated group. They had hitched their political, social, and economic wagon to Herod and his descendants. If Herod’s line came to power, their political muscle, social status, and personal wealth would increase.
In Matthew’s Gospel, we read that Herod the Great was not actually about making Israel great again. At least, not great in any spiritual or moral sense. He was mostly about making Herod great.
More here-
https://jakeowensby.com/2017/10/20/jesus-and-politics/
The death and life of liberation theology
From Open Democracy-This June saw the passing of two of our generation’s most fascinating and controversial Catholic priests: François Houtart and Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann. Houtart was a Jesuit priest and prolific scholar on the faculty of sociology at the University of Louvain in Belgium. His leadership in the dialogue between Marxism and Christianity, his research on religion in society from Sri Lanka to Nicaragua, and his desire to connect social movements in the global South through the Tricontinental Centre (CETRI) which he founded in 1976, matched his academic output of some 50 books.
On the theological front, he assisted in drafting the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes or “Joy and Hope”), one of the most influential documents of the landmark Second Vatican Council. Houtart was a hero to many around the world but certainly no saint. In 2010, he terminated a global campaign to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize when he admitted to sexually abusing an eight-year-old boy in 1970.
More here-
https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/gregory-leffel/death-and-afterlife-of-liberation-theology
Honor the Reformation's African roots
From Commercial Appeal-This year marks the 500th year anniversary of the launching of the Protestant Reformation in Germany. Commemorations will be held from Memphis to Mombasa to Mumbai to Munich.
Yet, most events and books on the Reformation explore it without any reference to African Christians.
This silence is profound, and I would like to break it by offering possible Ethiopian connections to Martin Luther and the Protestant movement.
Luther launched the Protestant Reformation in 1517, but he had begun that year fascinated with Ethiopian Christianity.
That will come as a surprise to many of today’s Christians, even scholars, who are accustomed to discussing Luther and the Protestant Reformation as solely European subjects.
But Luther esteemed the Church of Ethiopia because he thought Ethiopia was the first nation in history to convert to Christianity.
More here-
http://www.commercialappeal.com/story/opinion/contributors/2017/10/21/honor-reformations-african-roots/783252001/
Study: Women Find Men Carrying Leather-Bound ESV More Attractive
A new study performed by LifeWay Research found that Christian women find men who are carrying a high-quality, leather-bound ESV Bible significantly more attractive than men who carry other versions of the Scriptures, or no Bible at all.
When asked to describe a picture of a man carrying a large, expensive English Standard Version, 91% of female respondents used terms like “attractive,” “manly,” and “come to mama,” while the same man without an ESV was described using phrases like “boring,” “total dork,” “completely unattractive,” and “hard pass.”
More here-
http://babylonbee.com/news/study-women-find-men-carrying-leather-bound-esv-attractive/
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Hello, Cathedral of St. Mary and St. John in Quezon City
Priest who supports same-sex marriage suspended from Anglican Church for 'tones of blasphemy
From Australia-Anglican Priest Father Chris Bedding is known for his stand-up comedy and social activism on issues such as same-sex marriage and asylum seeker rights.
On the weekend, Father Chris did not perform his regular duties as Rector of the Darlington-Bellevue congregation at St Cuthbert’s church.
Instead the church’s administrator, Bishop Kate Wilmot, addressed the congregation and informed them of his suspension, Father Chris told ABC Perth radio.
Bishop Wilmot stressed the matter was due to "clergy discipline".
The reverend is still listed as holding the rector position on the Anglican Church Diocese of Perth website.
Father Chris said some members of the church reacted to the news angrily and walked out.
“I think the sense was that in the age of poverty, abuse and injustice the Anglican Diocese of Perth is using its substantial resources to silence a comedy priest,” he told Geoff Hutchison’s morning programme.
More here-
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/10/02/priest-who-supports-same-sex-marriage-suspended-anglican-church-tones-blasphemy
Executive Council ponders, debates next triennial General Convention budget
The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council came face to face with the realities of the 2019-21 triennial budget during its fall meeting and pledged to share the burden of eventually bringing a balanced budget to 2018 meeting of General Convention.
There is an $8 million deficit in the current “working draft” of a budget which will eventually need the approval of the 2018 meeting of General Convention, the Rev. Mally Lloyd, a member of council’s Joint Standing Committee on Finances for Mission told the council. The gap between anticipated revenue and the spending asked for by the churchwide staff and council’s joint standing committees stood at just more than $12 million when FFM began its work at this meeting.
The gap comes even as anticipated income is nearly $3.7 million higher than that expected the 2016-18 triennial budget. Major sources of income include dioceses, an investment income draw, income from renting out space in the Church Center in Manhattan and a planned “annual appeal” beginning in 2018.
More here-
http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2017/10/21/executive-council-ponders-debates-next-triennial-general-convention-budget/
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