DioBeth newSpin

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The newSpin Newsletter, May 28, 2012
By Bill Lewellis
Published Monday, occasionally also on Thursday 

Enjoy the start of summer but take time to recall the sacrifices of those who have been killed in service to our nation. Monday, May 28 is Memorial Day. Observe a minute of silence to pay tribute to men and women who've died in military service.  Find Memorial Day prayers here. Visit USA.gov's Memorial Day page to learn about the origins of this federal holiday. Also see A List and a Prayer, posted by Bishop Paul.

TopSpin     

• Faces of Poverty: A War Veteran ... [Odyssey Networks] After serving in Iraq, a young father returns to Reading, Pennsylvania and battles unemployment as he and his wife fight to get a leg up in a tough economy. Very well done video here.

• John Courtney Murray helped to replace the RC onetime self-serving church-state theology ... [Bill] As RC bishops advance a "religious freedom" argument to oppose the "imposition" of health insurance policies that cover contraception, I think of the pre-Vatican II position of the RC Church that advocated state-sponsored religion in countries where Catholics were in the majority (by numbers or power) –– an "error has no rights" theology –– while advocating secular pluralism or religious liberty in countries where Catholics were in the minority. Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray made crucial contributions to the Second Vatican Council, specifically to its declaration on religious liberty, Dignitas Humanae, which opposed this doublespeak. Thank God for Murray. It was no less the conservative Cardinal Spellman of New York who called Murray to Rome to be his peritus (expert) at the Council. Prominent American conservatives rallied around approval of the document. The vote to approve was 2,308 to 70. One of the most theologically reactionary websites I've read, Super Flumina Babylonis, refers now to the "the collective folly of 2,308 bishops gathered in the Vatican in 1965." An article on that website concludes: "The Church’s episcopacy erred in submitting themselves to the masonic agenda at the Second Vatican Council. Until the Pope exposes the falsity of the reasonings of John Courtney Murray on which the bishops relied, the ghost of that theologian manqué will continue to haunt the Catholic Church, and the rest of civilisation." Murray would be proud.

• The Politics of Religion ... [NYTimes editorial] Thirteen Roman Catholic dioceses and some Catholic-related groups scattered lawsuits across a dozen federal courts last week claiming that President Obama was violating their religious freedom by including contraceptives in basic health care coverage for female employees. It was a dramatic stunt, full of indignation but built on air. More here.

• A Time for Prophets ... When any person first has the apprehension that God is real everything changes. Bishop Paul Marshall's sermon at the ordination of Mary Lou Divis and Charles Warwick. Read it here. Warwick of Swoyersville is a volunteer firefighter and employee of PennDot, in the winter; plowing highways, summer; road construction crew  Currently he is also deacon-in-charge at St Mark's Episcopal Church, New Milford. He has been called to serve there as priest-in-charge. Divis of Tunkhannock is a Behavioral Specialist at Children's Service Center in Wilkes-Barre and serves as deacon-in charge to St Peter's Episcopal Church, Tunkhannock, where she will now serve as priest in charge.

• Faith is golden – Beliefs are overrated ... [Bill Lewellis, The Morning Call] Faith is golden. Beliefs are overrated, as are works. When one reduces religion to either beliefs or good works, both are overrated. Reductionism (think "nothing but") usually destroys anything it attempts to explain, as in: religion is nothing but belief or religion is nothing but morality. Morality itself has for many been reduced to nothing but sexual morality. It is so much more, embracing personal, business and community relationships. And faith is so much more than belief, as in "I set my heart on" God rather than purely intellectual acts of belief. Beliefs and good works are overrated especially when we think of them as prerequisites to being befriended by God. More at The Morning Call and the newSpin blog.

• What priests want you to know ... [Dirty Sexy Ministry] 1. Your minister has a personal life.  2. Sundays are long days for us.  3. Clergy have to flip switches in ways that are not good.  4. We miss the parishioners we bury.  5. We are not particularly good at disappointment.  6. Life happens at the church every day of the week.  7. Many clergy only get one day off a week.  8. Church life is often feast or famine.  9. We don't remember what you tell us on Sunday. 10. We make mistakes. Read expansions here. [h/t Canon Andrew Gerns]

A list and a prayer

[Bishop Paul posted the following note on Bakery, the interactive list of the Diocese of Behlehem]

Boalsburg, in Centre County, PA, saw the first "decoration day" to honor war dead in 1864. Lyndon Johnson chose Waterloo NY's 1966 celebration as the original date and purposes of establishing a centennial date.

I know most towns do not pause for a parade or patriotic exercise any more, but perhaps before the first brewsky is popped, the list that follows might be given a glance. Perhaps a word of prayer might silently escape our lips.

Mostly conscripted, but also substituted, enlisted and officers, here is a picture of the lives we remember today:

American Revolution (1775–1783)
Total servicemembers    217,000
Battle deaths    4,435
Nonmortal woundings    6,188
War of 1812 (1812–1815)
Total servicemembers    286,730
Battle deaths    2,260
Nonmortal woundings    4,505
Indian Wars (approx. 1817–1898)
Total servicemembers    106,0001
Battle deaths    1,0001
Mexican War (1846–1848)     
Total servicemembers    78,718
Battle deaths    1,733
Other deaths in service (nontheater)    11,550
Nonmortal woundings    4,152
Civil War (1861–1865)     
Total servicemembers (Union)    2,213,363
Battle deaths (Union)    140,414
Other deaths in service (nontheater) (Union)    224,097
Nonmortal woundings (Union)    281,881
Total servicemembers (Conf.)    1,050,000
Battle deaths (Conf.)    74,524
Other deaths in service (nontheater) (Conf.)    59,2972
Nonmortal woundings (Conf.)    unknown
Spanish-American War (1898–1902)     
Total servicemembers    306,760
Battle deaths    385
Other deaths in service (nontheater)    2,061
Nonmortal woundings    1,662
World War I (1917–1918)3
Total servicemembers    4,734,991
Battle deaths    53,402
Other deaths in service (nontheater)    63,114
Nonmortal woundings    204,002
Living veterans    fewer than 251
World War II (1940–1945)3
Total servicemembers    16,112,566
Battle deaths    291,557
Other deaths in service (nontheater)    113,842
Nonmortal woundings    671,846
Living veterans    3,242,0001
Korean War (1950–1953)
Total servicemembers    5,720,000
Serving in-theater    1,789,000
Battle deaths    33,741
Other deaths in service (theater)    2,833
Other deaths in service (nontheater)    17,672
Nonmortal woundings    103,284
Living veterans    3,086,4001
Vietnam War (1964–1975)
Total servicemembers    8,744,000
Serving in-theater    3,403,000
Battle deaths    47,424
Other deaths in service (theater)    10,785
Other deaths in service (nontheater)    32,000
Nonmortal woundings    153,303
Living veterans    7,286,5001
Gulf War (1990–1991)
Total servicemembers    2,225,000
Serving in-theater    665,476
Battle deaths    147
Other deaths in service (theater)    382
Other deaths in service (nontheater)    1,565
Nonmortal woundings    467
Living veterans    1,852,0001
America's Wars Total (1775–1991)
Military service during war    41,891,368
Battle deaths    651,030
Other deaths in service (theater)    308,800
Other deaths in service (nontheater)    230,279
Nonmortal woundings    1,431,290
Living war veterans    17,456,0004
Living veterans    23,442,000
Global War on Terror 5
Total Servicemembers (Worldwide) (as of Dec 31, 2010)    1,429,367
Deployed to Iraq (Operation New Dawn) (as of Dec. 31, 2010)    85,600
Deployed to Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom)(as of Dec. 31, 2010)    103,700
Battle Deaths (as of May 12, 2011)    4,724
Other Deaths (In Theater) (as of May 12, 2011)    1,294
Non-mortal Woundings (as of May 12, 2011)    43,399
1. Veterans Administration estimate as of Nov. 2008.


Read more: America's Wars: U.S. Casualties and Veterans — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004615.html#ixzz1wB8eUEnw

Faith is golden – Beliefs are overrated

By Bill Lewellis
The Morning Call, May 26, 2012

Faith is golden. Beliefs are overrated. As are works.

When one reduces religion to either beliefs or good works, both are overrated. Reductionism (think "nothing but") usually destroys anything it attempts to explain, as in religion is nothing but belief or religion is nothing but morality.

Morality itself has for many been reduced to nothing but sexual morality. It is so much more, embracing personal, business and community relationships. And faith is so much more than belief, as in “I set my heart on” God rather than purely intellectual acts of belief.
 
Belief and good works are overrated especially when we think of them as prerequisites to being befriended by God.
 
Some 50 years ago, I sat in a university classroom in Rome when a professor introduced his course on the theology of revelation –– what we know about God because God told us –– with this image.

In a large lecture hall, accommodating several hundred students from perhaps 50 countries, he paced, slowly, along a raised platform.

He pressed one white dot with chalk on an enormous blackboard. After a dramatic pause, he said, in French-accented Latin, “The white is what we know about God. The black is what we don’t. What we know is little. But the little God has given us to know is precious.”

Among that precious little are two biblical themes: Be not afraid and you are loved.

A few years ago, as Monica and I walked through a subway corridor in New York City’s Port Authority, we passed a woman hawking literature near a table laden with posters proclaiming that judgment was at hand. Bold strokes. “Be afraid.”

I was embarrassed that anyone might think she and I were colleagues. As we passed her, to allay my anger within, I smiled and slowly shook my head.

She screamed. Threats of God’s wrath. God would get me. She followed us, proclaiming her caricature of God to everyone within earshot along hundreds of feet of subway corridor. Thirty seconds seemed like five minutes.

The irony is that versions of “Be not afraid” and “You are loved” appear throughout the Bible, the same Bible the tormented woman had deconstructed because she thought people had to be frightened into repentance before an angry and vengeful God.

Our scriptures, Jewish and Christian, tell the story of God’s love in many ways… from the Exodus story of deliverance from slavery to freedom to the Paschal Mystery of God in Jesus Christ demonstrating his love on a cross to God raising Jesus. In between are many stories of God’s love and our freedom to respond.

Those stories abound, I think, because the single, most difficult Christian belief is not belief in God as Trinity, nor that God became one of us in Jesus Christ, nor that God raised Jesus from the dead, nor that God continues to live in us through the Holy Spirit, nor that we too will be raised. It’s none of those. It is that God forgives and loves us even before we repent.

God’s Good News, as I understand it, is threefold. First: we’re all sinners. We stand in a long biblical line of negative role models.

Second: we’re all forgiven and loved by God. “You can’t conceive, nor can I,” wrote Graham Greene, “the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.”

Third: we’re all forgiven and loved by God not because we’ve been repentant. We’re repentant and transformed because we’ve been forgiven and loved.

God’s relentless love will last. I promise you. I set my heart on God's incredible love. I do not rely on beliefs or works.

[Canon Bill Lewellis, blewellis@diobeth.org, a retired Episcopal priest, served on the Bishop’s staff of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem for 24 years and on the Bishop’s staff of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Allentown for 13 years before that.]

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The newSpin Newsletter, May 21, 2012
By Bill Lewellis
Published Monday, occasionally also on Thursday 

 Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past. [Often attributed to Lily Tomlin. Not certain.]

TopSpin     
• A Time for Prophets ... When any person first has the apprehension that God is real everything changes. Bishop Paul Marshall's sermon at the ordination of Mary Lou Divis and Charles Warwick. Read it here. Warwick of Swoyersville is a volunteer firefighter and employee of PennDot, in the winter; plowing highways, summer; road construction crew  Currently he is also deacon-in-charge at St Mark's Episcopal Church, New Milford. He has been called to serve there as priest-in-charge. Divis of Tunkhannock is a Behavioral Specialist at Children's Service Center in Wilkes-Barre and serves as deacon-in charge to St Peter's Episcopal Church, Tunkhannock, where she will now serve as priest in charge.

• RC Diocese of Allentown seeks involuntary laicization for three Diocese of Bethlehem priest ... [Episcopal Café, Andrew Gerns] The Roman Catholic Diocese of Allentown wants to declare that three Episcopal priests, who were received from the Catholic Church, are lay people. The Diocese of Allentown seeks to laicize the Rev. Canon Bill Lewellis, the Rev. Canon Michael Piovane, and the Rev. Donald Schaible. They were notified by letter in March that the Catholic diocese intends to use newer, simplified procedures that were designed in 2009 to remove sex offenders and child abusers from the clergy roles without an ecclesiastical trial. More on Episcopal Café and the newSpin blog.

• GLEE: Gays, Lesbians and Everyone Else ... [KXAN-NBC] On most Sundays, more than 800 people fill the pews at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin. St. David’s has welcomed gays and lesbians as part of its church family for many years. More here.

A Time for Prophets

Sermon, Bishop Paul V. Marshall
At the Ordination of
Mary Lou Divis and Charles Warwick
St. Stephen’s Wilkes-Barre – May 18, 2012

        When any person first has the apprehension that God is real everything changes.

What is different about this night is that two people have worked very hard and very faithfully to get here through unusual circumstances. Lou in particular has cheerfully walked a complicated road that I can only admire.

What is also different is that for the third time at St. Stephen’s I take my lead from the music, and want to say a few words about Isaiah’s vision in our first lesson, because you will hear it powerfully portrayed in the offertory anthem.

742, the year King Uzziah died, was not a good year. The good times were over. Uzziah’s reign was for years nearly as prosperous as Solomon’s. It had been a good time to be a Judean. And even when the king fell prey to the sin of pride and was smitten with leprosy, the material prosperity continued for a while under his son the co-regent. But it wasn’t the same anymore. The Assyrians were gearing up and rattling the newest military technology –– iron swords that cut through other weapons like butter –– and there were many in Judah who were frightened or wanted appeasement. The northern kingdom was already an Assyrian vassal state. Suddenly it wasn’t such a good time to be a Judean. Suddenly (increasingly shaky) material prosperity didn’t feel like enough, and come to think of it, the stronger Assyria got, the weaker the stock market was looking in Jerusalem. The pro-Assyrian party was growing in Judah, which meant that that worship of Yahweh was seen as irrelevant or useless by increasing numbers of people. Economic downturn and the seeming irrelevance of religion … is any of this starting to sound familiar? That’s where we start our story.

Isaiah may well have been a priest, but whether or not this is so, his experience of call was in the temple and has a good deal to say about what we do tonight, as we seek vision in an age of recession and violence, an age when we have made ourselves a tributary province of a number of Asian countries, and there is plenty of evidence that we have neither moral compass nor characterological GPS in public or private life..

Isaiah’s call is not a vision with lots of words and instructions –– that would come later. Isaiah’s call was a fundamental experience of who he was as a person and in relation to Almighty God.

Here Mary Lou and Charlie will understand particularly well. Isaiah was not possessed with any strong ambition to be a prophet: it was messy and dangerous work if you weren’t an official state prophet, a hired religious yes-man. No, Isaiah was called to be unpopular by the experience of God’s holiness and God’s mercy. The call came because he was about the business of a faithful person: he was praying.

I wonder how many who have been ordained for a while remember this. Isaiah’s call starts with a vision of God, a kind of intersection of parallel universes: he is in the temple but he is also standing in the heavenly council. He says those simple but devastating words, “I saw the Lord.”

When any person first has the apprehension that God is real everything changes.

After the angels sing what we call the Sanctus and the incense begins to clear, Isaiah makes the right choice.

He doesn’t feel special, privileged or entitled, nor does he feel entrepreneurial about this theophany as St Peter would. He certainly doesn’t Google Whipple’s website for a prophetic mantle. No, he is completely flattened by what he sees and hears. Awe and humility are the only authentic response to a vision of God. Any priest who believes he or she has domesticated God will lead many souls to perdition. Humility is one of the basic tools of our trade.

No, Isaiah’s response to a vision of the Lord of Hosts is the realization that he is quite unworthy to be in that presence, and that goes double for his culture. He is inclined to slink away and go say some penitential psalms.

We must acknowledge the reality of our unworthiness to stand before God’s people and proclaim the word and break the break, but if we stop there we will become useless, because there is more than masochism to ministry.

The “more” is the next moment in this story. Just as Isaiah is getting a good debilitating guilt going, a seraph, carefully covering its “feet” (whatever they were) with one set of wings, presses a glowing coal from the altar of incense against Isaiah’s lips. I would have preferred a cooling dab of holy water. But that’s the point. The sizzling, crackly, burning away of Isaiah’s sin is meant to be an unforgettable experience of God’s cleansing Grace. You stand here tonight because the cleansing Grace of God in Jesus Christ has touched you and changed your heart and lips, as searing as the experience may have been. Just so in Isaiah’s story: the man of unclean lips is both forgiven and cleansed.

Years of therapy are telescoped in this story for a reason. That is, Isaiah has been granted a vision of the divine not for his own spiritual fulfillment — it is not clear to me that our contemporary sense of personal spiritual fulfillment is a biblical concept — Isaiah has been granted a vision and experience of cleansing so that he can hear God asking the heavenly council, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

And this new person, this temple sight-seer become Tzadik, says …“Send me.” I think you know the rest. He went on to speak of wolves and lions, virgins conceiving; he said comfort my people; reminded then that though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow. Isaiah was not a pussycat, though. “What do you mean to beat the vineyard and grind the faces of the poor?” To all the ages he said, “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil.” The man, all three of him, could hardly speak without uttering a quotation.

Fast forward to 2012. To say that we are a people whose moral life is out of order is understatement. It is now a matter of law in this country that the legislative process may be owned by the highest bidders and there cannot be much doubt that democracy is in decay. Far worse, Christianity’s good name has been hijacked: an astonishing 91% of young people in a recent poll gave as their first association to the world Christianity, “anti-gay.” Christianity and religious freedom are having their names hijacked to oppress women in ways we thought were over decades ago. Who will in clear words and compassionate acts dare to say that the first word about Christianity is not “anti” anything, that its first word is not a word of corruption or oppression but the word that God loved the world and gave a Son; that the Son did not come into the world to condemn the world?” Who will say that word? I believe that God hopes it is you who will speak.

But you know, if you are faithful you will have the same problem Isaiah did — read his book: Calling for mutual accountability will always be sneered at as inciting class warfare. But the prophets called for it anyway. Preferring plowshares to swords will always be sneered at as weakness, but that is what Isaiah did. Suggesting that the poor themselves have responsibilities and teaching them to meet them may well be seen as patronizing or sometimes racist, but that’s what Ezra did. Resisting First-Amendment bullying by the much larger denominations is going to mean embracing some ecumenical embarrassment, and we will have to remember Paul confronting Peter. Urging a nation to repair its moral character rather than to look for quick fixes is the particular burden of your generation of clergy, just as it was repeatedly for the prophets of both covenants.

Now let me make that harder. The clergy who have been “occupying” various buildings have not brought much aid to the poor or repentance on the part of those they oppose. Banking laws are a little too complex to reform in an ashram — again the importance of restoring impartial government. The battle with sin is defined differently these days. By the year that the King of Rock and Roll died, the revolution of the 60s and 70s was over. We have to be smarter, wilier, sweeter than the merely confrontational. You might think of Desmond Tutu or Dorothy Day as effective models here. Our tools of incarnation, presence, integrity, and adamant dedication to justice all come straight out of the Bible. We just have to be wise as serpents as we attempt to follow Isaiah in transforming our culture.

The courage to do this comes from the presence and power of the Lord Jesus himself. It comes from your life of daily prayer and frequent feasting at the Eucharist. It comes from the examples of thousands of years of faithful predecessors in prayer and prophecy. Jesus’ faithfulness was vindicated, as yours shall be, and he has promised to be with his church for ever, including you and me.

Think this over during the Creed. If you still hear the voice calling, if you still can remember the seraphim flying, if you still want to say “send me,” I’ll meet you by that chair over there in a few minutes. I hope you will come.

 

RC Diocese of Allentown seeks Involuntary laicization of three Diocese of Bethlehem priests

RC Diocese of Allentown seeks Involuntary laicization of three Diocese of Bethlehem priests

[From Bishop Paul Marshall]

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

The documents below explain themselves. Briefly, they relate to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Allentown's desire to change the status of three of our clergy to the status of lay people.

I want to note here that the ordination of these three men was recognized by this church some years ago and their orders were received here. They are priests under the jurisdiction and protection of the Episcopal Church. Please be assured that nothing that might occur in the Roman church effects their identity, status, or work among us. I value each of them highly, as I am sure you know.

Faithfully,
+Paul Marshall
Bishop of Bethlehem

****************
[From Donald Schaible, Michael Piovane and Bill Lewellis]
Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Donald Schaible, Michael Piovane and Bill Lewellis, all priests in good standing in the Episcopal Church, received from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Allentown during late March letters similar to the attached regarding involuntary laicization.

Laicization, in the RC church, is literally the reduction of a cleric to the lay state. A priest who is laicized is technically still a priest, but may no longer act as one or put himself forward as one. Most frequently, over the past 50 years or so, priests who left the RC church applied to Rome to be laicized so they could get married and remain in good standing within the RC church. In order to receive this dispensation, however, the applicant had to make a reasonable case that, for one reason or another, he should not have been ordained to begin with.

Over the past 50 years, again, the dispensation was given relatively freely by one pope, but not by another.

Neither Donald nor Michael nor Bill applied for laicization, for our own reasons.

On occasion, the local bishop could take the initiative to have someone laicized because that person was causing "public scandal" of one kind or another. Often enough, what was named public scandal by the RC hierarchy was not so considered by the public. But even for the bishop, the process was not so straightforward, until 2009; and Rome gave the priest an opportunity to oppose involuntary laicization because the "involuntary" turned laicization into a penalty, i.e., defrocking.

In 2009, a Vatican decree made it possible for – in fact, seemed to encourage – local RC bishops to apply for involuntary laicization for former RC priests without having to jump through hoops. Reading between the lines of the piously worded decree, one recognizes that this gave local bishops a way to efficiently laicize priests accused of sexual abuse. That seems to have been its primary purpose. Beyond the letters we received from the Diocese of Allentown, we have been hard pressed to discover instances where such applications for involuntary laicization have been applied by other RC dioceses to priests who have not been accused of sexual abuse.

Some of you, we think, know strands of of this strangely serious and strangely timed initiative of the Diocese of Allentown. We want you to know the whole story. With that in mind, we have attached also our individual replies to the Diocese of Allentown.

So, you should find four pdf files attached: 1. From the Diocese of Allentown; 2. From Michael Piovane; 3. From Don Schaible; 4. From Bill Lewellis

Thank you,

The Rev. Donald Schaible
The Rev. Canon Michael Piovane
The Rev. Canon Vincent E. (Bill) Lewellis

Download 1203.Letter from DofA.pdf

Download From Bill Lewellis.pdf

Download From Michael Piovane.pdf

Download From Donald Schaible.pdf

newSpin 120514

The newSpin Newsletter, May 14, 2012
By Bill Lewellis
Published Monday, occasionally also on Thursday 

I received a good report from Fox Chase Cancer Center, and have been given another six-month reprieve. Thanks for your prayers.

TopSpin    
• Maryland church leaders offer forgiveness ... and funeral services for homeless shooter of priest and assistant. Episcopal Café and Baltimore Sun.  • Earlier: Canon Andrew Gerns did yeoman journalism work for Episcopal Café when this story was breaking, keeping us updated on the volatile events that began with the May 3 shooting. Find his account here. A May 5 Baltimore Sun story says the shooter was angry about being told to limit his visits to the church's food pantry.

• Dr. Paul Farmer at Yale Divinity ... [Bill] Those of us who read Tracy Kidder's 2003 book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, know something about Dr. Paul Farmer. The book came highly recommended to me by one of my sons and by a CREDO faculty member. Worth a read. The recent article about Dr. Paul Farmer's recent presentation at Yale Divinity School begins: It is an interesting commentary on the state of the church when the most well-attended event in Yale Divinity School's recent history is a lecture not by a minister or theologian, but by a physician. On April 26, Dr. Paul Farmer, chairman of Harvard Medical School's Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, addressed the Divinity School community on "The Corporal Works of Mercy and the 21st-century Struggle Against Poverty." More here. I've often used the Haitian peasants' proverb I read first in Mountains Beyond Mountains: "God gives but God doesn't share." It's a response to why God permits such misery. Farmer explains that “God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he’s not the one who’s supposed to divvy up the loot. That charge was laid upon us.” That's worth a few paragraphs in a stewardship sermon.

• President Obama says same-sex marriage should be legal ... [NYTimes] Long a proponent of civil unions, Mr. Obama said his views had changed in part because of prodding by friends who are gay and by conversations with his wife and daughters. “I had hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought that civil unions would be sufficient,” Mr. Obama said. “I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people, the word marriage was something that invokes very powerful traditions and religious beliefs.” Mr. Obama also invoked his Christian faith in explaining his decision. “The thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the golden rule — you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated,” he said. “And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids, and that’s what motivates me as president.” More here.  • NYTimes editorial. On the other hand, from the Charlotte Observer, evangelist Franklin Graham accused the president of having “shaken his fist” at God. “It grieves me that our president would now affirm same-sex marriage, though I believe it grieves God even more,” Graham said in a prepared statement. Finally, Andrew Sullivan has an excellent round up of reaction focusing on the religious aspects of President Obama's historic endorsement of marriage equality and a Newsweek cover story the First Gay President.

• The new normal ... [Gallup Politics] U.S. acceptance of gay/lesbian relations is the new normal. The slight majority of American adults, 54%, consider gay or lesbian relations morally acceptable. Public acceptance of gay/lesbian relations as morally acceptable grew slowly but steadily from 38% in 2002 to 56% in 2011 and is now holding at the majority level.

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The newSpin Newsletter, May 7, 2012
By Bill Lewellis
Published Monday, occasionally also on Thursday 

Attribute errors, typos or anything bizarre in this week's newSpin newsletter to my head having been occasionally elsewhere. I'm off to Fox Chase on Monday for my six-month "active surveillance" routine – lab work and CT-Scan – hoping to receive another reprieve.

TopSpin    
• Fatal shooting at Maryland Episcopal church ... Canon Andrew Gerns has done yeoman journalism work for Episcopal Café over the past few days in order to keep us updated on the volatile events that began with the Thursday shooting of a priest and an administrative assistant. Administrative assistant Brenda Brewington was shot dead, and Mary-Marguerite Kohn, a priest at St. Peter's Ellicott City MD, has been critically wounded and is on life support to assist her family's intentions to donate her organs. Find Andrew's updated account here. A Saturday Baltimore Sun story says the shooter was angry about being told to limit his visits to the church's food pantry.

• Requests now being accepted for New Hope Grants ... [Daniel Gunn] The New Hope Grants Committee is ready to receive and consider requests for disbursements from the New Hope Campaign. The total amount we are able to grant for the 2012-13 calendar year is $70,000. This is the last year of major grants. We are inviting Letters of Intent from parishes and Episcopal-related organizations within the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem. The Deadline for Letters of Intent is 2 July 2012. More here.

• Free online education at Harvard and MIT ... [NYTimes, David Brooks, summary from The Atlantic Wire] Online education has been around for years, but the recent announcement that Harvard and MIT would commit millions to free online education confirms for Brooks that the trend is becoming a "tsunami." "Many of us view the coming change with trepidation. Will online learning diminish the face-to-face community that is the heart of the college experience? ... The doubts are justified, but there are more reasons to feel optimistic," he writes. Online learning will give millions access to the best educational resources. And paradoxically, the concerns that it will diminish interaction and other important elements to learning may force universities who have been ignoring those things even in the real classroom to rethink how to provide them. "My guess is it will be easier to be a terrible university on the wide-open Web, but it will also be possible for the most committed schools and students to be better than ever," he writes. More here.

Churches remain relevant despite decline in membership

Bill Lewellis
The Morning Call
Your View column, May 4, 2012

Declining numbers in churches of whatever flavor have become a truism, probably since the halcyon I-Like-Ike 50s but especially over the past few decades. Wednesday's Page One story detailed the past decade's local decline.

Declining numbers often mean church closings. Witness the closing of Roman Catholic churches over the past few years. They received remarkable publicity because they were done wholesale and drew controversy. There have been many others, somewhat under the radar.

Is there positive spin we might give to this phenomenon of changing churches?

Decades ago, a wire service religion editor used to say that the Episcopal Church has an influence far beyond its numbers. (Did I say he was an Episcopalian?) The Episcopal Church has a lot of experience at being a small yet effective church. There are probably more Muslims in the U. S. than there are Episcopalians.

Some of our churches with an average Sunday attendance of 50 serve the poor, the homeless, the marginalized in ways far beyond what such numbers might suggest. Some of our large churches serve the poor better than the cities in which they are located. Not only Episcopal congregations. You may be a member of a congregation like that in another denomination. It's all about the members and the leadership.

Five fewer or five more people in a congregation of 50 make a significant difference for the mission of the congregation. For that reason, among others, every person is a treasure.

Hear me. If you are not now a member of a church, talk to your local priest or minister. Tell him or her why you are not. Hear what he or she has to say. Perhaps you can't get your head around or have an incredibly bizarre notion of what you'd have to believe. People have acted themselves into believing the basics by taking part in the mission of the church. "Come and see," Jesus said. Faith is not about doctrinal purity. It is so much more, including paying attention to the hope that is within you, attending intensely to what is within and beyond.

If you can't find someone to talk with or if you are not treated as a treasure, resort to me. I'd love to hear from you.

[Canon Bill Lewellis, a retired Episcopal priest, served on the bishop's staff of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem for 24 years and on the bishop's staff of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Allentown for 13 years before that. His email is blewellis@diobeth.org]