It’s amazing how much I didn’t know about the separation of church and state. I’ve always been a big proponent of the concept (hmm, something to do with being bullied as a redheaded stranger-child in a near-theocracy). But I didn’t know where the limitations lay, and I came up short in a discussion of politics at, of all places, Holy Moly. I had been incensed over the last week or so about how the LDS Church was throwing a lot of money at Proposition 8 (the gay marriage ban) in California, and today I was dismayed to find that the…
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Only Connect: Holding together but going nowhere From our viewpoint the bishops talked in secret little groups in their ‘big top’ surrounded by a ring of police and only emerged once to go to London to tell society how wicked it was not to do more about the debt. Many of us had worked in or visited Africa and experienced the poverty. We do all we can to press for justice and support the aid agencies but we also know about violence against women in Africa and the persecution of gay people. They are the real victims and scapegoats in…
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The Anglican Communion | The high price of togetherness | Economist.com On the brighter side from the Communion’s viewpoint, some Americans who went to Lambeth do now have a better sense of the social and political constraints on bishops in traditional societies. One African bishop recalls that after news reached his country of the gay-friendly stance of America’s bishops, a senior Muslim asked him, in bewilderment, whether he too had ceased to be Christian. “I came to understand as never before that there are places and cultures where it is not possible to discuss [homosexuality],†said Bishop Jeff Lee of…
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Here’s the story: The two pieces of slate, and the large rounded glacial pebbles set in crushed limestone around it, are the salvaged pieces of the altar at Holy Innocents Hoffman Estates, my former Episcopal mission parish. When we closed the church at the end of December, 2006, there were a few people who mourned the loss as if a family member died. Many of them left after trying to remain with the rest of us; they just couldn’t continue in the new place. One of the things that was discussed in the run-up to the closure and merger with…
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The Lead The man who attacked the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church during church services yesterday was said by local police to be motivated by hatred. The congregation’s web site says that they have already begun a healing process that will include a debriefing for those present at the shooting and a community candlelight vigil for those killed and injured. NYTimes: A man who the police say entered a Unitarian church in Knoxville during Sunday services and shot 8 people, killing two, was motivated by a hatred for liberals and homosexuals, Chief Sterling P. Owen IV of the Knoxville Police Department…
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Daily Herald | Cook County faith I need to check with somebody – this news item says that Holy Moly’s food pantry is open every Wednesday – it had been 1st and 3rd Wednesdays…. Technorati Tags: Food Pantry
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I just don’t know what to make of Bishop Deng Bul’s recent comments. Watch and listen to the video HERE and decide for yourself. I imagine a lot of Chicago Episcopalians are going to wonder what to make of them, too. He’s got friends here in the Diocese and long-standing ties to local parishes, and a lot of people will be hurt and disappointed, no matter how garbled Bishop Daniel’s English syntax is. I mean – there are a lot of gay clergy in this diocese. Chicago bishops have been ordaining them for years. Sure, this has turned some traditionalists…
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Dave Walker, Cartoonist of Lambeth, received a “cease and desist” letter from a current owner of the British SPCK chain of Christian bookshops. He has removed all content from his blog pertaining to the odd and ongoing story of how an Anglican bookstore chain got turned over to a group of Texans of the Orthodox faith for a song. And how a lot of people lost their jobs over the last year or so, and how one young man was driven to despair and committed suicide, all because this strangely fundamentalist Orthodox group decided to gut the bookshops, fire the…
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Our PB Katharine seems to be getting a lot of attention in Britain in the run-up to Lambeth; earlier today I read the sermon she delivered at Salisbury Cathedral, and apparently it and another service she preached at were broadcast live on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3. There are links to both documents in the story below. Episcopal Life Online – NEWS [Episcopal News Service] As part of the pre-Lambeth Conference Hospitality Initiative, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and the bishops of the Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS) are visiting the Church of England’s Diocese of Salisbury and…
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New fuel for religion-science debate — — chicagotribune.com