(1) On campaign trail, Clinton finds comfort zone at churches (AP)
…On a recent trip to the Holy Ghost Cathedral in Detroit, Bishop Corletta Vaughn referenced Clinton’s strength in dealing with husband Bill Clinton’s infidelities.
In response, Clinton spoke about the story of the prodigal son, alluding to, as she often does, a version written by Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest and writer. She said what the parable “teaches us is to practice the discipline of gratitude every day.”
According to Vaughn, Clinton’s remarks showed a “deep reservoir of faith.”
“I’ve been in the faith business for 42 years,” Vaughn said. “I know one who is authentic and genuine. Her language speaks of her faith. … When she started talking about the prodigal son, you didn’t learn that this morning.”
Strider, who emails with Clinton most days about Scripture and faith, said she has seemed more willing to talk about religion during this campaign than in the past. He said Clinton had “to recognize that she’s not using her faith for other means. That was really valuable for her to understand that she was actually showing her faith which could lead others to make more rational choices.”
(2) Whitman College Decides to Drop Missionary Mascots (AP)
…Campus officials said Missionaries’ mascot was considered non-inclusive, imperialistic and incorrectly implied that Whitman was a religious school.
It also was not terribly intimidating and often mocked. …Some alumni aren’t happy.
“If the sports teams and the school didn’t feel the name was fearsome enough, then change it,” said Graham G. Storey, class of 1995, who is now a high school teacher in Juneau, Alaska. “But the given justification for changing the mascot is a misguided act of atonement to make up for some perceived imperialistic stain that [Methodist missionary] Marcus Whitman engaged in 180 years ago.”
(3) Oprah Winfrey calls new mega-church TV drama ’a dream come true’ (Reuters)
Oprah: “My real role on earth is to lift the consciousness … It’s about showing people new ways of seeing themselves and seeing the problems and flaws and dysfunctions that we all have and being able to lift that just enough that you can see yourself in that,” she told the Tribeca audience.
“Greenleaf”…tells the story of a wealthy African-American family behind a mega-church, their rivalries, secrets and hypocrisies. Wright said the show takes religion, and its role in the black community, seriously, but also raises questions. “It is not a soap. It is not a sermon,” he said. “It is a story about a lost faith and an attempt to get it back by setting things right and all the challenges that come your way when you try to fix the system,” Wright added.
(4) Shortage of vocations leads to closure of 22 churches in Wales
***Some Roman Catholic Diocese in the UK are facing a decline of people, in the pew and in the priesthood.
Some 22 of the 62 churches across Wrexham Diocese will be closed in the next four years, Bishop Peter Brignall has announced in a pastoral letter to the diocese.
“On present calculations, by 2020 the number of under-retirement-age priests will be 22; therefore to achieve my intention there need be around only 40 churches, not the 62 there currently are,” he said in the letter read out to all parishioners.
(5) Mark Tooley: United Methodist Controversy & Future
…[progressive Methodist] Talbert embodies the old liberal Protestant social liberation paradigm that equates the Left’s every political cri de coeur as an urgent Gospel imperative while largely ignoring/disbelieving traditional Christian concepts of evangelism, discipleship and personal holiness. As president of the National Council of Churches in the 1990s he helped turn Holy Week and Easter into a mobilization against the new Republican Congress, as just one example of countless now mostly forgotten church political advocacies. That church council is now comatose, and so too is most of liberal Protestantism…
(6) The Authority and Purpose of Civil Magistrates
To put it as simply as possible: earthly rulers have authority over us, and have that authority delegated to them by God. Therefore, let us remember to pray for them, pay tribute, submit and obey their lawful commands.
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