Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
The controversial bishop is taking his message to Nova Southeastern University law school: While some Episcopal dioceses are discussing breaking away from the church, the controversial bishop is traveling around the world to spread a peaceful and inclusive message. His next stop -- South Florida, where a number of Episcopal leaders have shown their support …
Continue reading "Gene Robinson Travels to Sympathetic Territory"
Although I find much about our government's MO to be objectionable, I also find Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' characterisation of the US as the ‘worst’ imperialist amusing and not a little disingenuous. His idea that the US "wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday" shows a …
As my church's Finance Committee chairman, the article about The Backlash Against Tithing (also here) certainly hits home. It's something I deal with all the time, especially at budget season. At one time in evangelical churches, people tithed first and then gave offerings on top of that. Today people are more likely to mentally allocate …
One of my father's consistent gripes about the Episcopal Church--a gripe usually made specifically about our Rector at Bethesda--is that its ministers rode the fence too hard, never took a stand on anything, etc. That "strategy" (if it can be dignified by that name) lost TEC many members, but it also won it a few …
I've been presenting a series of baptismal certificate forms (the back of them) on this site; this is another, from the mid-1960's. It is very similar to the one from the 1920's except for the formatting. All three baptismal certificates can be downloaded in one pdf file by clicking here. Now that orthodox Anglicans can …
Abu Daoud is absolutely correct in his response concerning the impact of the falling US Dollar on American missions: The weakening dollar will have a bad effect on world missions, by the way. It will become more difficult for the US to send out as many missionaries as it does today. Working as I do …
Continue reading "On the Value of American Missions, Dollar and Otherwise"
One of the newer blessings (other than same-sex blessings for people) that Episcopalians can avail themselves of is the "blessing of the animals." Needless to say dear old Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach not only did this, but got a video of this in the online Shiny Sheet. (Who needs YouTube when you have the Palm …
Continue reading "Glad We Didn’t Have to Put Our Siamese Cat Through This"
One of the reasons why people join churches like Anglican, Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches (especially the last one) is to have a church which can have continuity with the "Fathers of the Church." For Roman Catholics, one of the four "Doctors of the Church" (the most important of the Fathers) is St. Jerome, the …
Continue reading "St. Jerome’s Idea of Bishops and Presbyters"
Last December, I posted the reverse of an Episcopal baptismal certificate from the time of the Civil War. I got some interest in this on Kendall Harmon's website, and so I'm doing it again, this time with the reverse of a certificate printed in 1924, and used in the Washington, DC area. It starts with …
In his piece Why Does Turkey Hate America? (an interesting subject in itself,) "Spengler" puts the central issue of Christianity (and Islam, for that matter) as succinctly as one could want: I have never believed that such a thing as "moderate Islam" exists, any more than I believe that "moderate Christianity" exists. Either Jesus Christ …
