Old South Church puts a $19 million price on sunlight

From The Boston Globe-

Old South Church has put a price on sunlight:

$19 million.

That’s how much the historic Copley Square church wants developer Boston Properties to pay as compensation for shadows a planned tower at Back Bay Station would cast on the 142-year-old church, potentially causing moisture damage to masonry and darkening stained-glass windows.

It’s the latest example of development colliding with city landmarks and the complex interplay of shadows on open spaces.

That’s how much the historic Copley Square church wants developer Boston Properties to pay as compensation for shadows a planned tower at Back Bay Station would cast on the 142-year-old church, potentially causing moisture damage to masonry and darkening stained-glass windows.

It’s the latest example of development colliding with city landmarks and the complex interplay of shadows on open spaces.

More here-

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/10/01/windows/l9ZXRHaZJC7ZDfusfEY0DI/story.html

Chicago new church start attracts national attention before first worship service

From Chicago-

Tell true stories. Share good food. Worship beautifully. Those three practices are the building blocks of a brand new church in the Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park that must be doing something right.

Gilead Church Chicago has not yet celebrated its first weekly worship service. It's scheduled for May 7, location TBA. However the United Church of Christ new church start is already attracting a lot of people and attention. The spiritual community's first preview service in January drew a crowd so large, one of the worshippers had to leave because they felt claustrophic. And after its St. Patrick's Day celebratory launch of "Balm of Gilead" Session IPA — a craft brew made especially for the church and created right in the neighborhood — the Today Show came calling. The NBC morning show plans to run a story on Gilead on Tuesday during Holy Week.

All of this is a bit surreal to the church's co-pastors, Rebecca Anderson and Vince Amlin.

More here-

http://www.ucc.org/news_chicago_new_church_start_attracts_national_attention_before_first_worship_service_04072017

Hypocrites vs. climate change

From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-

The resolution on climate change approved last month by the General Synod of the United Church of Christ has garnered mostly admiring attention from the news media. But I admit to a degree of perplexity and sorrow over the document, which seems to place the blame for our heavy use of fossil fuels mostly on the companies that produce them -- not the consumers who demand them.

The resolution is intended to create a path toward divestment of church funds, including pension money, from "fossil fuel companies" unless they meet certain benchmarks. The text never defines "fossil fuel companies," but it's a good bet that the target is oil and mining enterprises.

The resolution also calls upon church members to "make shareholder engagement on climate change an immediate, top priority for the next five years" and to "demand action from legislators and advocate for the creation and enforcement of carbon-reducing laws."

-snip-

I am put in mind of the General Convention of my own Episcopal church, which adopted a resolution a few years back condemning the use of public money to provide vouchers for poor children to attend private schools, and then rejected a resolution encouraging Episcopalians to send their own children to public schools. The breathtaking hypocrisy of the decision was evidently lost on the delegates, who saw nothing peculiar in placing the cost of their own enthusiasm for public education on the shoulders of those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. (Later on, the Episcopalians allowed that perhaps a study of the issue was appropriate, but nothing has come of it.)
Read more:

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/hypocrites-vs-climate-change-696277/#ixzz2ZgKjpYFY