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Diocesan Training for Ministry is tomorrow, March 28,
St. Stephen's Wilkes-Barre.
Registration for Christophany Goes Green, April 24-26, closes March 31.
todayScoop
All is ready for the April 1 launch of the TV ads and website link for the Episcopal Church in Northeast Pennsylvania on WNEP-TV. Here's a sneak preview of the website that will support the ad campaign.
todayStory (2) Four percent therapists believe it is possible to change someone's sexual orientation, according to a new study reported on by the BBC.
(1 Person to person evangelisim works best,
according to a new survey. Would you believe, however, that even the
Southern Baptists say their major obstacle to evangelism is motivating
their own members to do so? But it may be the only effective way to
reach people, according to
a survey of 15,173 people by LifeWay Research, a Christian research
firm.
todaySignup Signup online for diocesan events. At www.diobeth.org, click on "signup" in the righthand column. (2) View tonight's (March 27) Tri-Faith free webcast, 7:00 p.m. ET, a program of the Tri-Faith Initiative of Omaha, Nebraska. The link will be in the top story on the page. See and hear a “Conversation on Peace” with Rabbi Peter Knobel, immediate past president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Primate of the Episcopal Church, and Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, moderated by Mark Pelavin of the Religious Action Center. [Episcopal News Service story here.] (3) Episcopal Relief and Development. (4) I am Episcopalian. todaySoundbite todaySpiel (2) [Jim Naughton at Episcopal Cafe] If one examines the funding sources of the organizations behind the
attempted Anglican schism, and the funding sources of the organizations
that deny human activity contributes to climate change, one finds that
they are sometimes one and the same. Click here for a little refresher course on the politics of Howard Ahmanson,
the most significant financial backer of the Anglican right. It does make you wonder how much longer we are going to pretend
that the upheaval in the Anglican Communion is simply a principled
disagreement over the legitimacy of same-sex relationships that we can
work out if we all just try to see the other fella's point of view. todayShare todaySaints (2) We commemorate Charles Henry Brent today (March 27). In 1902, the Episcopal
Church appointed him (at that time serving as priest in
charge of a slum parish in Boston) as Missionary Bishop of the
Philippines. He arrived on the same ship with the American Governor,
William H. Taft, and carried with him the unofficial but very real
prestige of the American establishment. Brent could easily have confined himself to providing a kind of
ecclesiastical "home away from home" for American officials and
others stationed in the Islands. Equally, he could have devoted
himself chiefly to efforts to convert the Roman Catholics, both of
Spanish and of Filipino ancestry, whom the previous government had
left behind. Instead, he directed his efforts toward the
non-Christians of his diocese: the pagan Igorots of the mountains of
Luzon, the Muslims of the southern islands, the Chinese settlements
in Manila, all areas in which he made considerable inroads and
established thriving Christian communities.
During World War I, he was the
Senior Chaplain for the American Armed Forces in Europe. He declined
three elections to bishoprics in the United States in order to
continue his work in the Philippines, but in 1918, he accepted the
position of Bishop of Western New York. He helped to organize the first World Conference on Faith and Order,
which met in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1927. The following prayer, written by
him, is widely used today: "Lord Jesus Christ, who didst stretch out thine arms of love
upon the hard wood of the Cross, that all men everywhere might
come within the reach of thy saving embrace: So clothe us with
thy Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring
those who do not know thee to the knowledge and love of thee;
for the honor of thy Name." todaySpirit todaySilliness todaySting todaySummary
• Diocesan Training for Ministry, tomorrow, March 28, Wilkes-Barre.
• Christophany Goes Green, April 24-26. Registration closes March 31.
• Organ recital at St. Stephen's Wilkes-Barre, Sunday, March 29.
• Mission in the 21st Century/Beating the Boundaries, April 25.
• ECW Annual Meeting, May 13, Kirby House.
(1) Speaking of Faith, with Krista Tippett, on American Public Radio: Alzheimer's, Memory and Being.
"I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist; and
grandparents who were nonpracticing Methodists and Baptists; and a
mother who was skeptical of organized religion, even though she was the
kindest, most spiritual person I've ever known. She was the one who taught me as a child
to love and to understand and to do unto others as I would want done." [President Barack Obama, at a National
Prayer Breakfast in February. Read more in a WSJournal March 24 article by Laura Meckler, Obama Walks Religious Tightrope Spanning Faithful, Nonbelievers.]
(1) Evangelicalism in America is undergoing a transformation says Tony Campolo. 'Red Letter Christians' have a progressive outlook - but one rooted in taking Jesus seriously "Across America, and even in other countries, there is a new church
emerging that embraces the Red Letter Christian lifestyle. There is a
new generation that no long ascribes to the “easy believism” that
reduced Christianity to a mere affirmation of theological propositions.
This new generation of Christians calls for obedience to the obvious
teachings of Christ concerning wealth and power and what should be done
for the poor and oppressed, and we are committed to live out his
teachings." [More at Ekklesia]
(1) Online with the Diocese of Bethlehem: Diocesan Life April ... DioBeth website ... newSpin blog ... Faith Formation News ... ShareTheBread blog ... Youth ministry website ... Children's ministry website ... The Spin Cycle (daily, weekly and blog): (A) You are reading todaySpin which is uploaded almost daily to the newSpin blog. (B) newSpin, the e-newsletter,
is published online weekly and sent to nearly 1,000 email addresses.
(C) newSpin, the blog, may be accessed here.
(1) San Salvador RC Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez is commemorated in the Episcopal calendar on March 24, the day in 1980 he was assassinated by gunshot while presiding at Eucharist. As an archbishop, he witnessed numerous violations of human rights and began
a ministry speaking out on behalf of the poor and victims of the country's
civil war. His brand of political activism was denounced by the hierarchy
of the Roman Catholic Church and the government of El Salvador. His death finally provoked international outcry for human rights reform in
El Salvador. He is one of the ten 20th-century martyrs from across the world
who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey,
London. [More about Romero here and here. And there's a 1989 movie about Romero, played by Raul Julia.]
Is one man's faith another's superstition? The distance between "prosperity theology" -- the notion that
following God's commands will make you rich -- for example, and
sacrificing animals to appease the gods is perhaps not as great as we'd
like to think. On the other hand, the history of religion could be viewed as the
process, however halting and incomplete, of shedding magical thinking
to reveal truth and meaning, which are the hallmarks of genuine belief
as opposed to superstition.
Rent-a-prayer online. A web service will use computerized voices to say daily prayers for you, if you forget, for Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and others, for $3.95 a month. "My first thought when I found this was: No one would be dumb enough to send these people money." writes Canon Andy Gerns. "My next thought was: Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Bakker, Robert Tilton, Benny Hinn..."
A Vatican achbishop has apologized to “my brother bishops” for statements he made earlier this month
that were released on March 25 in a videotape at the National Press Club
in Washington. In that video, released by anti-abortion activist Randall Terry,
Burke chided bishops for failing to withhold Communion from Catholic
politicians who back legalized abortion.Seems he intended the tape to be shared only with pro-life workers.
In the major newspapers
newSpin newsletter, issue 090302
todaySpiel: The Opinionator, a guide to the wide world of newspaper, magazine and Web opinion.
todayScope: (1) epiScope links to stories from the mainstream media that reference the Episcopal Church or Episcopalians. (2) EpiscopalCafe ... (3) Episcopal Life Online ...
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