From Risk to Opportunities: Congregational Renewal in the Diocese of Bethlehem ... This paper, composed by by Congregational Development Committee of the Diocese of Bethlehem "to discern the standards, practices and resources that will foster faithfulness of ministry in every congregation," will be discussed during our Diocesan Convention in October. Find a three-part commentary by Ty Welles and Andrews Gerns, here, here and here. The commentary had been published in three issues of Diocesan Life.
The Tenth Parallel ... A book by Eliza Griswold [daughter of Bishop and Mrs. Phoebe Griswold] makes the cover of the NYTimes Book Review, reviewed by Linda Robinson. A fascinating journey along the latitude line in Africa and Asia where Christianity and Islam often meet and clash. "The influential political scientist Samuel P. Huntngton theorized about the 'clash of civilizations.' The journalist and poet Eliza Griswold takes on the same topic in a much more visceral way: she traveled through the 'torrid zone' to see, smell, taste and write about it. Her book The Tenth Parallel is a fascinating journey along the latitude line in Africa and Asia where Christianity and Islam often meet and clash. Since Americans commonly equate Islam with the Arab Middle East, this book is a useful reminder that four-fifths of Muslims live elsewhere. It’s also an intimate introduction to some of those who live in places like Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines." More here.
Sins of Omission ... [Philadelphia Inquire, Op-Ed by Elizabeth Evans] "The case against local Episcopal Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr., who returned to his duties Monday, has lifted the veil on decades of silence and inaction toward sexual abuse of minors that reaches to the highest rungs of the church hierarchy." More here.Spinning ... [Bill Lewellis, blewellis@diobeth.org] (1) Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute final way," wrote the late Jesuit Father Pedro Arrupe. "What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.” (2) You live your life forward, but understand it backward. (3) Despite his seeming inability to say or write "priest" without lifting a disparaging adjective from his capacious vocabulary, I have become a fan of Christopher Hitchens, not so much for what he says as for how he says it. I'll give him a break on his priest modifiers. It seems that, when he was 26, his mother and her defrocked priest lover, onetime Church of England, carried out a suicide pact in Athens." He recently wrote reflections for Vanity Fair on "the unfamiliar country" of people with cancer, described by Boston College professor Stephen Prothero as "the best writing I know on that sickness unto death." Watch a two-minute excerpt of Hitchens' interview with Charlie Rose. (4) We talk about thinking outside the box, but we don't do it because we don't recognize we are in one. [From a column by Bishop Paul] (5) FactCheck.org, holding politicians accountable, is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. (6) I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again. [Oscar Wilde] (7) AmericanRhetoric.com is a database of and index to 5000+ full text, audio and video versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events, and a declaration or two.
There is no Sabbath from mercy ... [Andrew Gerns' sermon on this past Sunday's gospel] The Leader of the Synagogue does three things wrong: he triangulates; he focuses on the wrong person; and, oh yeah, he stirs up everyone else in the process. All in all, he brings out the worst in everyone except maybe Jesus and the woman who was healed…who was apparently too busy praising God to notice all the grumbling. Read it here.
Students, welcome to college; parents, go home ... [NYTimes] As the latest wave of superinvolved parents delivers its children to college, institutions are building into the day, normally one of high emotion, activities meant to punctuate and speed the separation. It is part of an increasingly complex process, in the age of Skype and twice-daily texts home, in which colleges are urging “Velcro parents” to back off so students can develop independence. More here.
What is it about 20-somethings? ... [NYTimes Sunday Magazine] The 20s are a black box, and there is a lot of churning in there. One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch. Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married. And marriage occurs later than ever. The median age at first marriage in the early 1970s, when the baby boomers were young, was 21 for women and 23 for men; by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men, five years in a little more than a generation. We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Read more.
The compassion gap ... [NYTimes Sunday Magazine] For decades, surveys have shown that upper-income Americans don’t give away as much of their money as they might and are particularly undistinguished as givers when compared with the poor, who are strikingly generous ... Wealth seems to buffer people from attending to the needs of others. Empathy and compassion appeared to be the key ingredients in the greater generosity of those with lower incomes. And these two traits proved to be in increasingly short supply as people moved up the income spectrum. More here.Disaster at the top of the world ... [NYTimes] The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and this summer its sea ice is melting at a near-record pace. The sun is heating the newly open water, so it will take longer to refreeze this winter, and the resulting thinner ice will melt more easily next summer. More here.
Dangerous Religion ... Which religion has been the most violent and destructive in U.S. history? More here.The street scene on Obama's religion ... A new national survey by the Pew Research Center finds that nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. Only about one-third of adults (34%) say Obama is a Christian, down sharply from 48% in 2009. Fully 43% say they do not know what Obama’s religion is. The survey was completed in early August, before Obama’s recent comments about the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the former World Trade Center. More here.
FAQs on the recent Prop 8 Decision ... by Susan Russell.
Former Diocese of Allentown church properties sold for a variety of uses ... Eight former Catholic church properties in Schuylkill County owned by
the Diocese of Allentown have been sold, according to the county deeds
office, since a 2008 consolidation closed 32 churches in the county. More here.
ENS Weekly Bulletin Inserts .. [Episcopal News Service] For those who live on the Gulf Coast, it's not a question of whether a natural disaster will strike, but rather when the next one will come, says the Very Rev. James "Bo" Roberts, rector of St. Mark's Church in Gulfport, Mississippi, one of six churches in the Diocese of Mississippi that Hurricane Katrina destroyed on August 29, 2005. ENS Weekly bulletin inserts for Aug. 29, 2010 look at the situation in the Gulf Coast area five years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the area and as the aftermath of the massive BP oil spill continues to threaten recovery efforts. Full text here. Downloaded inserts here.
Recessions lead to more traffic tickets ... Is your local government running a deficit and looking for new sources of revenue? Then maybe you should lighten up on the gas pedal during your commute. More here.Find earlier issues of the newSpin newsletter here.
Send this to friends you think may be interested ... newSpin is an electronic newsletter that includes news, information and commentary related to the Diocese of Bethlehem, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion and the world of religion ... with some spin, of course, from the editor. It is edited by retired communication minister Bill Lewellis and ordinarily published twice weekly, on Monday and Thursday. To have it emailed to you, you may subscribe at the "Get Connected" box on the right column of www.diobeth.org. Select newSpin under the groups. You may find samples of the newSpin newsletter at the newSpin blog, www.diobeth.typepad.com.
About the newSpin newsletter ... Composed at least weekly (usually twice a week) by Bill Lewellis, the newSpin newsletter appears as a post within the newSpin blog, but newsletter and blog are not identical. The newsletter currently goes to some 1,000 email addresses on a separate list. The newsletter comes, of course, with some spin from the editor, but the views expressed, implied or inferred in items or links contained in the newsletter or the blog do not represent the official view of the Diocese of Bethlehem unless expressed by or forwarded from the Bishop or the Archdeacon as an official communication. Comments may be addressed to Bill.
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