newSpin 110711

The newSpin newsletter, July 11, 2011
By Bill Lewellis
Published Monday, occasionally also on Thursday

Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees. - St. Gregory of Nyssa

TopSpin
• The New State of South Sudan ... [NYTimes Editorial] On Saturday, South Sudan became a free and independent country. It is a well-deserved victory for its people. Under a 2005 American-backed political accord that ended two decades of civil war, the people of the mainly Christian territory voted overwhelmingly in January to secede from the Arab Muslim north. Still, celebrations in the capital, Juba, cannot obscure a sobering truth: building a functional new country will take decades of hard work. Responsibility falls primarily on South Sudan, but also on the United States and the international community that shepherded it. More here and here and here and here. And an excellent article plus from the BBC, h/t/ Bishop Paul, and here. Episcopal News Service story here. More stories here.
• Known and unknown, things done and left undone ... [Andrew Gerns, Episcopal Café] Since the news came that the Rev. Bede Parry has resigned from All Saints Church in Las Vegas and from the Episcopal priesthood, we have had statements mainly from Bishop Daniel Edwards and the Diocese of Nevada (here, here) a description of the process used to receive Parry's orders, a news story from Episcopal News Service and timeline from the Office of Public Affairs. As the story has bubbled up a little on the main-stream media, and there is much discussion on the internet, it took over a week for the first substantive statements to come out. We appreciate the timeline and the detail offered by Bishop Edwards so far. As the Bede Parry case unfolds, here are some things we know, and some things we don't know and some things that just confuse us. More here.
• New Bethany Ministries celebrates 25 years of serving the poor in Bethlehem ... [Lynn Olanoff, The Express-Times, July 5, 2011] In the 1980s, a group of five South Side churches rotated opening their parishes to the homeless for food and shelter. Recognizing a need greater than they could serve, church officials in 1983 petitioned the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem for help. On Dec. 5, 1985, the diocese opened the door to its first family at the New Bethany Ministries transitional housing facility on Wyandotte Street in Bethlehem. New Bethany is still headquartered in the same Wyandotte Street building, where it's celebrating its 25th anniversary. Read here. [Comment by Libby House, senior warden, Grace Allentown] Highly deserved kudos to New Bethany Ministries and especially to the Diocese for its vision in founding the organization and supporting it through the years, and to Bob Wilkins, whose finance and management skills helped to save NBM when it was on the ropes, and Bill Kuntze, who along with Bob, provided stability and launched creative initiatives throughout the years. Their impact on the lives of the poor is beyond calculation.
• UK Ordinariate given start up funds by Anglican charity ... [Andrew Gerns, Episcopal Café] The bulk of the money Roman Catholic Church raised to start up the Ordinariate in the UK came from an charity created to promote Anglo-Catholic mission within the Church of England. According to the Church Times (and Ruth Gledhill in a Times story behind a paywall) the Charity Commission for England and Wales has been asked to investigate a grant of £1 million by the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament to the Ordinariate in the UK. Apparently leaders of the Confraternity, who were at the time Bishops and clergy of the Church of England but who are now Roman Catholic, decided to use funds set aside for work within the Church of England to help fund the start up of the Ordinariate--which by design is meant to help Anglicans become Roman Catholic. To do this they had get their trustees to agree to tweek their understanding of the mission of the group. More here.
• Father Albert's new daytime talk show premiers today  ... [NY Daily News] Father Alberto Cutié knows something about personal problems, and he figures that will come in handy when he hosts a new daytime talk show. It launches Monday at Noon on WNYW/Ch.5. Cutié was a Catholic priest who left the church in 2009 because he fell in love with a woman. Now married and an Episcopal priest in Florida. Cutié's show is getting a summer run. If it does well, the show will get a full run down the road. More here.
• Church Pension Group does right thing, hopes no one notices ... [Episcopal Café, Jim Naughton] The Church Pension Fund has done a good thing by extending benefit parity to same-gender spouses. But as is its wont, it has done so very quietly. Maybe too quietly. Here.

DioBethSpin
• Diocesan Life ... Read or download the July/August issue here.
• 20+1+1 ... The blog of Trinity Bethlehem. Deepening our faith in Christ and strengthening our community with 20 minutes of prayer a day, 1 hour of worship a week, and 1 day of service to others a month. Here.
• EfM groups will meet in Bethlehem and Reading ... Here.
• Cell phone tower, anyone? ... For the fall issue of Vestry Papers, Nancy Davide of the Episcopal Church Foundation is looking for someone to write about a congregation that receives income from having a cell phone tower on their property. Email Nancy at [email protected] to discuss it. I think she has a budget to pay for the article.
• Can you provide a mission opportunity? ... [Scott Allen] The Episcopal Church of St. Mary, Hampton Bays, NY (Diocese of L.I.) is looking into possible projects for summer of 2012. They would like to be within a day's drive of eastern L.I. and want to hear of the opportunities in the Diocese of Bethlehem.  If any of you can offer a mission activity for them, please send email to Diane Sherwood at St. Mary's, with cc to Gordon Brewer, executive coordinator of Episcopal Appalachian Ministries and Scott Allen, Bethlehem rep on the EAM board of governors. EAM runs a few work camps in the southern Appalachians but would like to get something going on a consistent basis in the northern tier.
• Episcopal News Weekly bulletin inserts ... Download inserts here.
• DioBeth Website and newSpin Blog
• Public news and info lists ... At the Diobeth website , enter your name and email in the "Get Connected" box on the right hand side. You are welcome to subscribe to any or all of these. "Bakery" is our diocesan interactive list.

TaleSpin  
• Father Albert's new daytime talk show  ... [NY Daily News] Father Alberto Cutié knows something about personal problems, and he figures that will come in handy when he hosts a new daytime talk show. It launches Monday at Noon on WNYW/Ch.5. Cutié was a Catholic priest who left the church in 2009 because he fell in love with a woman. Now married and an Episcopal priest in Florida. Cutié's show is getting a summer run. If it does well, the show will get a full run down the road. More here.
• St. Mark's in the Bowery ... [The Epoch Times] Set back from 10th Street at Second Avenue in the East Village at an angle that defies, or rather, predates the grid that the rest of Manhattan has conformed to is the oldest known site of continuous religious practice on the island of Manhattan—St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. More here.
• The habit of practice ... [Anne Lamott, Faith & Leadership] What do you do when perfectionism, vanity, self-loathing and projecting are wearing you down? The writer talks about what she has learned from tennis, faith and writing to deal with these “demons.” More here. Also, Anne Lamott's words to leaders.
• Episcopal, Lutheran churches share advocacy resourced ... [ENS] Sarah Kristin Dreier began July 5 in her new role as the legislative representative for international issues for both the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in an effort by both denominations to share resources. More here.
• An evolving view of natural family planning ... [NYTimes, Beliefs, Mark Oppenheimer] In August 1999, Bethany Patchin, an 18-year-old college sophomore from Wisconsin, wrote in an article for Boundless, an evangelical Web magazine, that Christians should not kiss before marriage. Sam Torode, a 23-year-old Chicagoan, replied in a letter to the editor that Ms. Patchin’s piece could not help but “drive young Christian men mad with desire.” The two began corresponding by e-mail, met in January 2000 and were married that November. Nine months later, Ms. Torode (she took her husband’s name) gave birth to a son, Gideon. Over the next six years, the Torodes had four more progeny: another son, two daughters and a book, “Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception.” In “Open Embrace,” the Torodes endorsed natural family planning — tracking a woman’s ovulation and limiting intercourse to days when she is not fertile — but rejected all forms of artificial contraception, including the pill and condoms. The book sold 7,000 copies after its publication in 2002 and was celebrated in the anticontraception movement, which remains largely Roman Catholic but has a growing conservative Protestant wing. As young Protestants who conceived their first child on their honeymoon, the Torodes made perfect evangelists. That was then, this is now. In 2006, the Torodes wrote on the Web that they no longer believed natural family planning was the best method of birth control. They divorced in 2009. Both now attend liberal churches. Ms. Patchin — that is her name once again — now says she uses birth control, and she even voted for Barack Obama for president. More here.
• Why do we give? ... [Alban Weekly, Adapted from Preaching and Stewardship:Proclaiming God's Invitation to Grow by Craig Satterlee] “Why do we give money to the church?” a child asks her mother, who is filling Sunday’s offering envelope. How will the mother answer her daughter’s question? How do we answer this question for our children? How does the preacher answer this question for us? More here.
• The Baby and the Denominational Bathwater ... [Patheos, Frederick Schmidt] It's popular to talk about life in a post-denominational world. In fact you run the risk of being described as clueless and out of touch to argue anything else—an anxious old codger holding onto the past (or the 1950s anyway). And—fair enough—as a sociological statement of fact, we do live in a post-denominational world. More here.

TailSpin
• Gay marriage, bishops and the crisis of leadership ... [NCR Editorial] The vote approving same-sex marriage in New York is the latest and most glaring confirmation of some gloomy news for the Catholic church in the United States, and it’s not that gays have achieved the right to marry. Rather, affirmed in the recent vote is the disturbing reality that the Catholic hierarchy has lost most of its credibility with the wider culture on matters of sexuality and personal morality, just as it has lost its authority within the Catholic community on the same issues. There are reasons -- and they have little to do with secularism, relativism or lingering influences of the wild 1960s -- why people are no longer listening to the bishops. More here.
• Cuomo Catholicism ... [Ken Briggs, National Catholic Reporter] The tensions between the two Cuomos and the archbishops of New York poignantly exemplify the growing disarray of the Catholic church in America. Mario, the father and former governor, incurred the wrath of Cardinal O'Connor by backing women's right to choose abortion (while rejecting it personally) and now his son and successor, Andrew, has irked Archbishop Dolan by managing to win approval for gay marriage. Dolan campaigned vigorously against passage of the measure by the state legislature and reacted bitterly to the end result, warning that gay marriage set New York on the path to moral calamity. Not many decades ago, New York politicians would have gone to the archbishop, hat in hand, eager to please and loathe to alientate the chancery over any such policy. As head of America's most prominent archdiocese, the archbishop bore the marks of traditional hierarch -- religious and secular -- that elevated him to a titular supremacy of the city's Christians. More here.
• The Bachmanns' lifelong anti-gay crusade ... [The Atlantic Wire] Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann told a Christian congregation in 2006 that she follows the teaching, "The Lord says: Be submissive, wives. You are to be submissive to your husbands." Bachmann's husband, Marcus, describes himself as her "strategist." Bachmann's former chief of staff, Ron Carey, tells The Washington Post's Jason Horowitz that "Philosophically, they are 100 percent aligned." So what Marcus thinks about policy is important. And what Marcus thinks about gay people is very interesting. More here.
• Schuller ousted from Crystal Cathedral board ... [Orange County Register, July 3] The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, who started his ministry in an Orange drive-in theater more than five decades ago, has been voted off the board of Crystal Cathedral Ministries, which has been torn apart by debt and familial disharmony for the last several years. The church has not released information about the board meeting where Schuller, 84, was ousted, but his son Robert A. Schuller, who was himself forced out of the cathedral by his sisters and brothers-in-law three years ago, confirmed it Sunday. More here.
• The Mother of All No-Brainers ... [NYTimes, David Brooks, July 5] The Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative. The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no. The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it. The members of this movement have no sense of moral decency. Read it here. After I posted this on Bakery, a reader suggested that I also read Richard Cohen, The Grand Old Cult.
• I was absent that day ... [NPR] Part of being an adult is finding out stuff you should have known for years but somehow didn't. More here.
• Reasoning with the mind in the heart ... [Episcopal Cafe, Donald Schell] Bicycling past a parked car, the bumper sticker caught my eye, ‘Don’t believe everything you think.’ I stopped to write it down. Someone got it right - The bumper sticker’s ‘believe’ resonated with faith, not because faith is irrational, but because faith (trust) is inherently relational. Not irrational, relational – our thinking alone will never get us to what our believing (especially believing formed in community) somehow senses and ultimately knows. ... What changes our mind is our heart, not argument. The experience of knowing people changes our mind. Have you noticed how our most compelling arguments on almost any subject seem to fall on deaf ears when we’re arguing (no matter how well we argue) with people who disagree with us? Why do our eminently reasonable arguments provoke half-truths and irrationality from those who disagree with us? Why does their disagreement exasperate and provoke us so? And why does it seem to them that we’re doing the same? ... In Patricia Cohen’s article “Reason seen more as weapon than as path to truth,” we learn that French cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber are developing observed argument and data to crack the old puzzle of why logic so rarely leads to change of heart. In fact arguments that are clear and satisfying to us will provoke resistance and skepticism in the listeners, even in sympathetic listeners, and certainly in people we think our arguments ‘should’ most appeal to. Mercier and Sperber’s science warns us (like the bumper sticker) that “Reasoning doesn’t have this function of helping us to get better beliefs and make better decisions. It was [i.e. it emerged in evolution as] a purely social phenomenon. It evolved to help us convince others and to be careful when others try to convince us.” In the summary of their research Times reporter Patricia Cohen says, “Truth and accuracy were beside the point.” More here.
• Ohio family-values politician arrested Family values lawmaker arrested full of alcohol and viagra in car with stripper ... [Jonathan Turley blog] Ohio state Rep. Robert Mecklenborg, a family values lawmaker, managed to keep his DUI charges out of the news until just days ago. Back in April, police found the Republican with a young woman who was not his wife (or daughter) in his car, and plenty of alcohol and Viagra in his system. He's contesting the charges. More here.
• One of Mother Angelica's TV stars says he's "not ready to be extinguished," even after having been accused by his superiors of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity of having lived with a former prostitute and repeatedly abused alcohol and drugs and sent sexually-charged text messages to a woman in Montana. They wrote also that "he holds legal title to over $1 million in real estate, numerous luxury vehicles, motorcycles, an ATV, a boat dock, and several motor boats, which is a serious violation of his promise of poverty as a perpetually professed member of the society." More here. You may recognize Father John Corapi from EWTN or from a visit to Mary Immaculate Center in Northampton before it closed. He had spoken to RC conservative groups there.

DaySpin     
• Diocese of Bethlehem Calendar ... Updated monthly, June 2. Download here. Find weekly updates on the DioBeth Facebook page. Also here.
• Ordination of Deacons ... Nov. 1, at St. Stephen's Wilkes-Barre.
• Diocesan Training Day is Saturday, March 24, 2012, at St. Stephen's Wilkes-Barre.
• St. Matthew's Society reception ... Sunday, May 20, 2012, Lehigh Country Club, 3:00 p.m.
• Episcopal Church Calendar ... Here.

WordSpin
• The Daily Office from MissionStClare.
• The Lectionary Page ...  Here. This is a new URL. Update your bookmarks or favorites.
• The Lectionary ... Here.
• Oremus Bible Browser ... Here.
• Revised Common Lectionary ... Vanderbilt.

TechSpin
• Power-Hungry Devices ... [NYTimes Editorial, July 5] The Energy Department chimed in at just the right time when it announced that it might issue energy conservation requirements for cable boxes, digital recorders and the like. A voluntary conservation program run by the Environmental Protection Agency may not be enough to generate a commitment to energy efficiency among the companies that provide these power-hungry boxes. More.

Follow
• The Diocese of Bethlehem on Twitter ... http://twitter.com/#!/Diobeth
• The Diocese of Bethlehem on Facebook ... https://www.facebook.com/DioceseOfBethlehem
• Kat Lehman on Twitter ... http://twitter.com/#!/KatLehman
• Episcopal News Service on Twitter ...  http://twitter.com/#!/episcopal_news

Pray  
• Paying attention to the presence of God ... [Episcpal Café] Prayer means paying attention to the presence of God. It means listening for God and responding to God, by our words, deeds, and silence. Prayer means giving thanks for God's many gifts, taking refuge in God's promises, and adoring God's goodness. It means seeking God's will and offering ourselves up for God's purposes. Petition and intercession are but one dimension of a relationship with God that is much broader and deeper--and far more meaningful. More here.
• The Daily Office ... with the Mission St. Clare .
• With The Book of Common Prayer ... Here .
• For our young men and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for their families. Check the newSpin blog for an update.

Read/Reel/Listen
• Constantine's Sword ... an historical documentyary film by Oren Jacoby, based on the book by James Carroll, concludes with panoramas of military cemeteries as Aaron Neville sings Bob Dylan's "With God On Our Side." Though the film itself received excellent reviews, these last few minutes are worth the rent or buy.
• Action! Romance! Social Justice! ... [NYTimes, Nicholas D. Kristof] Summer reading often consists of mindless page-turners, equally riveting and vacuous. So as a public service I’m delighted to offer a list of mindful page-turners — so full of chase scenes, romance and cliffhangers that you don’t mind the redeeming social value. More here.
• The Ledge = God for Dummies ... [Reuters Film Review] Can’t wait until Thanksgiving dinner to witness a pointless conversation between a pompous fundamentalist Christian and a sneering atheist? Then “The Ledge” is the movie for you. This shrill and pedantic exercise in speechifying gives us “deep” conversations about religion and the afterlife that wouldn’t pass muster in a freshman Philosophy 101 study group, delivered with all the earnestness and lack of subtlety of the old “Davey and Goliath” show. (If that Christian cartoon had featured Liv Tyler’s breasts, that is.) More here. [CNN Belief Blog] It’s a story of religion, love and revenge that pits a conservative Christian husband against an atheist who has seduced the religious man’s Christian wife. The film is written and directed by Matthew Chapman, an outspoken atheist  who says it's Hollywood’s first offering to feature an openly atheist hero in a story about religious conflict. His mission is to help create a more positive image for atheism, which he says is often misunderstood and maligned, for audiences who may otherwise not be exposed to it. “My hope was to make an emotional appeal,” says. He hopes it’s a “Brokeback Mountain” moment for nonbelievers. Nominated for best drama at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, "The Ledge" stars Terrence Howard, Liv Tyler, Charlie Hunnam and Patrick Wilson. Despite the all-star cast, one big question around the film is simply whether American audiences will go to an atheist-themed move. More here.
• Lisa Miller will write weekly religion column for WaPo ... [Washington Post] Renowned religion writer Lisa Miller will write a column on faith for The Post. It began this past Saturday and will run weekly in print and online. Miller’s column, which will appear in “On Faith,” The Post’s religion section featuring news and opinion, will be reported analysis and opinion on religion, politics and culture. It will cover the religious dimensions of the upcoming presidential race, the intersections between faith and personal values, international religious conflict, and culture-wars issues in the political sphere. The column will also take an unbiased approach to cover spirituality, belief and believers. More here.
• Articles on Religion and Belief ... [NYTimes] From 1980 to the present] Here.

Be Well
• Fight the bite ... [healthfinder.gov]  Is your family getting outdoors to enjoy the summer? Don't let bug bites ruin your fun. Mosquitoes and ticks carry serious diseases, so protect yourself and your family from bites. More here.
• Summer travel ... [National Institute of Health] Plan ahead to stay healthy. Here. [h/t Diana S. Marshall]

Episcopal/Anglican
• ABC has concerns about Kenyan clergy ordained for England ... [Episcopal Café] The Archbishop of Canterbury's office has released a statement on the proposed "Anglican Mission in England." The tone is calm but the concerns are evident. More here. [Thanks to Ann Fontaine at Episcopal Café who also noted that "for Anglican/Episcopalians in TEC - this sounds like "deja vu" all over again. Now that it is happening in England - maybe the Archbishop will understand our 'concerns.'"]
• Transforming Churches video series ... Here.
• When I receive a note from Neva early in the morning, I read it immediately. More here.
• Church Pension Group launches new website ... Dedicated sections for clergy, lay employees, administrators. More here.
• Bishop of Nevada Dan Edwards has issued a statement, July 6, on the history of how Bede Parry came to be a priest in the Diocese of Nevada during the tenure of his predecessor, the current Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church. More at Episcopal Café. And Episcopal Church provides fact sheet here. See also "Known and Unknown" above under TopSpin.
• The return of St. James ... [Episcopal Café] The breakaway faction that thought it controlled the property of St. James, Penn Hills, in the Diocese of Pittsburgh has left the building. Now begins the hard work of rebuilding the parish. Lionel Diemel visited St. James on Sunday and liked what he saw.
• National Cathedral dean resigns to return to Boston ... [ENS] The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III is resigning after six-and-a-half years as dean of Washington National Cathedral to return to Trinity Church, Copley Square in Boston as priest-in-charge. According to a July 8 press release from the cathedral, Diocese of Washington Bishop John Bryson Chane will serve as interim dean after Lloyd's departure on Sept. 18. More here.
• Episcopal Church Website and News Service.
• Follow Episcopal News Service on Twitter.
• Anglican Communion News Service ... on Facebook. And weekly review, posted July 1.

Moravian
• Moravian Church in North America website
• Moravian Church Northern Province website
• Moravian Theological Seminary website 

Evangelical Lutheran 
• NEPA Synod website ... Here. 
• Synod E-News ... July 8. Sign up to receive the weekly newsletter by email here.
• ELCA website ... Here. 
• ELCA News Service ... Here. 
• ELCA's blogs may be found here. See especially "Web and Multimedia Development."

United Methodist  
• UMC website ... Here.
• UMC News Service ... Here. 
• UMC Communication ... The United Methodist Church has long been a leader in providing useful resources for church communicators. Start here.
• Communication newsletter ... Here.
• Eastern PA Conference of the UMC website ... Here.
• Facebook ... Here.
• Bishop Peggy Johnson's blog ... Here.

Roman Catholic
• Cuomo Catholicism ... [National Catholic Reporter, Ken Briggs] See above, under TailSpin.
• Gay marriage, bishops and the crisis of leadership ... [NCR Editorial]  See above, under TailSpin.
• Diocese of Scranton ... Here.
• United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ... Here.
• Catholic News Service ... Here.
• Vatican website ... Here.
• Vatican Information Service blog ... Here.
• Vatican News/Info Portal ... Here.

Additional sources of news/info/commentary
• Religion News Service Daily Roundup ... here.
• Faith in Public Life ... here.
• Diocese of Bethlehem
(1) The DioBeth newSpin blog
(2) The DioBeth website
(3) Twitter.DioBeth
(4) Twitter.Kat Lehman
(5) Facebook.DioBeth
(6) Public news and info lists: At the Diobeth website, enter your name and email in the "Get Connected" box on the right hand side. You are welcome to subscribe to any or all of these. "Bakery" is our diocesan interactive list.
• Episcopal/Anglican
(1) NewsLine
(2) News & Notices
(3) Infoline
(4) Episcopal News Service
(5) Episcopal Church website
(6) Twitter
(7) Facebook
(8) YouTube
(9) The Lead, Episcopal Cafe
(10) Daily Episcopalian, Episcopal Cafe
(11) AngicansOnline.
(12) AnglicansOnline News Centre.
(13) Anglican Communion website.
(14) Anglican Communion News Service.

• Find earlier issues of the newSpin newsletter here and recent ones in the left column here.

*************

Composed at least weekly (usually on Monday and occasionally on Thursday) by Bill Lewellis, the newSpin newsletter appears as a post within the newSpin blog. Newsletter and blog are not identical. This notice that a new newsletter has been published currently goes to some 1,200 email addresses on a separate list. Many recipients forward it to many more. 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.

Bill Lewellis, Diocese of Bethlehem, retired
Communication Minister/Editor (1986-2010), Canon Theologian (1998)
Blog , Email (c)610-393-1833
Be attentive. Be intelligent. Be reasonable. Be responsible.
Be in Love. And, if necessary, change. [Bernard Lonergan]