Every now and then a book comes along that offers a dramatic breakthrough into understanding this troubling disease. Prof. Kathryn Jamison's 1995 book An Unquiet Mind was one of them. Darkness is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness by Kathryn Greene-McCreight surpasses that one. The author chronicles her five hospitalizations, suicide temptations, and painful struggles with startling honesty.
Read moreWe can also say with reasonable certainty that what the Canadian Anglican Synod decides in July 07 with reference to The Windsor Report and what the American Presiding Bishop (with the Executive Council and House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church) continue to say and do on the same topic will have some general effect upon the Anglican Way globally, as well as in N.A.
Read moreConsidering the "best efforts" of those who have gone before him, Dr Freier noted that not much had changed.
"But even these best efforts have arguably left the suffering of the powerless in the world in much the same misery that they have known," he said.
There is an inescapable irony here. St Paul's Cathedral, historically a citadel to serving others, would appear to ignore the poor clustered around its steps each day.
Read moreThen I read in The Church of England Newspaper a report on John Pickering and he seemed to be being quite vigorously pilloried. It struck me that John had straightforward courage that was quite unusual and because I was in a theological minority in my own denomination, I immediately felt a kind of rapport with John Pickering; he seemed to be taking quite a stand that involved quite a bit of personal cost, so I dropped him a line and he responded very warmly. And I'm still coming here.
Read more"I could become a Roman Catholic in a heartbeat," said Zahl. "But the minute I say that, I stop and think about it and I know all the reasons that I am an Evangelical and why my spiritual home is in Anglicanism. ... But that doesn't mean that I don't understand why so many people - people I love and respect - have fled to Rome and why many more will follow them."
Read moreDoes this sketch still ring true? Only partly. The English way of religion is on the way out. Our traditional religious culture is being radically reshaped, and it's happening surprisingly fast. Every fresh story about veils or crosses is chip-chip-chipping away at the religious culture we have taken for granted for centuries, and creating something new, something far more American.
Read moreThe question of how the new document came to be, and who it actually represents, is an interesting one. I am not versed in the labyrinthine politics of current evangelical subgroupings.
Read moreThe appointment to the church's senior post of a woman with so little experience and qualification, over a slate of candidates who had clearly been honing their CVs since seminary in the hope of such preferment, demands explanation. And the explanation surely is that Jeffers Schori is Woman for the Hour.
Read moreThese events speak volumes about the difficult choices facing the nation, and they remind us that there's no easy solution.
For example, not even the harshest critics of the war believe we can simply pull our troops out of Iraq. As I have said before on "BreakPoint," this would only embolden and strengthen Iran and put the fate of Israel in grave peril.
Read moreThey could have found other ways less offensive to many fellow Episcopalians to address wrongs done to gays and lesbians while also understanding that their shrug of the shoulders about scripture could have serious, adverse consequences for Anglican brothers and sisters struggling for their very lives in Africa.
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