Well – here’s an interesting bit of research into human beings and religion that I’d not heard of until today: Link: God and gorillas | Salon Books. Every human culture has believed in spirits, gods or some other divine being. That’s why human beings have often been called Homo religioso. Some people take this long history of belief in the otherworldly as evidence for God; doesn’t it explain why religion continues to be so pervasive? […]
I’m off this afternoon to take part in my first presbyter retreat here in the Diocese of Arizona. We’re staying at the Diocesan Camp and Retreat Center (Chapel Rock). It’s my first visit there and I’m looking forward to exploring. (I began ministry as a YMCA camp counselor years and years ago and I’ve tried to stay involved in these sorts of ministries ever since.) Howard Anderson, from the College of Preachers is coming out […]
I don’t know if this will get a lot of coverage today or not now that it seems that most of the mass media news is focussing on the US Presidential election that is 23 months away… “(AP) — Later this week in Paris, climate scientists will issue a dire forecast for the planet that warns of slowly rising sea levels and higher temperatures. But that may be the sugarcoated version.” What I find interesting […]
Interesting news this morning: “In 1993 Adobe published the full specifications for its Portable Document Format, or PDF, granting royalty free license to those who chose to build PDF tools into their applications, and helping PDF to become a de-facto standard for document creation. Tomorrow they will announce that they are relinquishing control over the PDF format to AIIM, the Enterprise Content Management Association, for the purpose of publication by the International Organization for Standardization […]
Check this out – it’s a web applet that takes a text and constructs the social relationships between the names mentioned in the text. Originally it was meant for mapping out novels, but someone has run the program on the text of the New Testament: Link: Many Eyes : Co-Occurrences of Names in the New Testament (more complete data): Everyone’s name is visible…. You can use the mouse well to zoom in and out. You […]
Link: Wot, no schism? Who let Lutherans off?. There is almost no reason at all for the ECLA to have avoided the ‘righteous’ hammering that has been dished out to the Episcopal Church in the USA. It has always surprised me. … The Lutherans in Canada and the U.S. have high and low. They have evangelicals, charismatics and woolly liberals within the same denomination – often within the same Synods and I assume that this […]
The blogsphere has been lit up overnight with the news that was posted on The Living Church’s website. Bishop Bob Duncan has been invited to be present at the Primates meeting in Tanzania next month. (Or, to be more accurate, he’s been invited to be present for the “pre-meeting” that Archbishop Williams has called for in immediately before the formal meeting.) Friends of mine in Pittsburgh have hinted rather broadly that the plan is (at […]
It’s getting to be time to start planning how I shall observe Lent. Usually I try to pick up an extra spiritual habit rather than put something aside – though I’ve made exceptions over the years. This year I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to focus on two books for the six weeks of Lent and make my way through them in a very careful and thoughtful way. The first is St. Paul’s Epistle […]
Jim Naughton has posted an article about an emerging British controversy over whether or not adoption agencies can legitimately discriminate against same-gender couples. Newly adopted British law says “no”. The Roman Catholic Church in Britain has said that if this law is enforced, they will close down their orphanages rather than let the children in their care be adopted by same-gender couples. The Anglican Archbishops of Britain have issued a letter asking Her Majesty’s government […]
This sermon was preached at Trinity Cathedral's 2007 Annual Meeting. It speaks about God's action of inclusion for all people into the Kingdom of God, our Cathedral's calling to bring the gospel to the people of our community and a call for the Cathedral community to focus on doing the work of the Gospel in the months ahead. http://www.hipcast.com/playweb?audioid=P0256efc47e7bc5f8ab851f7f5d298e56Z1t7R1REYmZ2&buffer=5&fc=FFFFFF&pc=99CCFF&kc=0033CC&bc=FFFFFF&brand=1&player=ap21MP3 File
