Nepal Church Bombing

Two persons, including a minor, were killed and 15 other injured when a powerful bomb went off at the Roman Catholic Church of Assumption in Lalitpur (a town near Kathmandu) on Saturday morning. The bomb exploded with about 100 people praying inside the church. Investigations are under way to determine who planted the bomb. The deceased have been identified as Cilesi Joseph, 15, and Deepa Patrick, 30.

A statement from the Anglican Church of Nepal:

We are shocked and saddened by the violence used against Christians while worshipping in Nepal this morning. We deplore the use of terror and the targeting of innocent civilians in this atrocity. May God comfort the families of the deceased in their grief and may they sense the presence of Jesus Christ with them in their sorrow and loss. We will keep them and the injured in our prayers. We extend our condolences to them, to the Roman Catholic community of the Church of the Assumption and to the wider Catholic community in Nepal. We are also aware that this leaves many other Christian Churches in Nepal in an unsettled and anxious state. We extend to all our prayers for peace and for safety.

The Revd Norman Beale

Dean

Anglican Church of Nepal

Prayer for the Persecuted Church:
Almighty and everlasting God, hear the cries of your people as we call to you for your suffering church throughout the world. As you heard the cries of your ancient people in bondage in Egypt and came down to deliver them, so now hearken to the suffering of the persecuted church in our time. Give bread to those who are hungry, comfort to the imprisoned, strength to the tortured and all for the sake of Jesus who lived and died for us, who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Memorial Day As Seen By Stanley Hauerwas

A Pacifist's Look at Memorial Day

Dan Brown’s America

The NYT online has a nice Op-Ed piece on Religion in America and the Dan Brown business:
Dan Brown's America

A few nice excerpts:

"...if you want to understand the state of American religion, you need to understand why so many people love Dan Brown. "

"The polls that show more Americans abandoning organized religion don’t suggest a dramatic uptick in atheism: They reveal the growth of do-it-yourself spirituality, with traditional religion’s dogmas and moral requirements shorn away. The same trend is at work within organized faiths as well, where both liberal and conservative believers often encounter a God who’s too busy validating their particular version of the American Dream to raise a peep about, say, how much money they’re making or how many times they’ve been married.

These are Dan Brown’s kind of readers. Piggybacking on the fascination with lost gospels and alternative Christianities, he serves up a Jesus who’s a thoroughly modern sort of messiah — sexy, worldly, and Goddess-worshiping, with a wife and kids, a house in the Galilean suburbs, and no delusions about his own divinity.

But the success of this message — which also shows up in the work of Brown’s many thriller-writing imitators— can’t be separated from its dishonesty. The “secret” history of Christendom that unspools in “The Da Vinci Code” is false from start to finish. The lost gospels are real enough, but they neither confirm the portrait of Christ that Brown is peddling — they’re far, far weirder than that — nor provide a persuasive alternative to the New Testament account. The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — jealous, demanding, apocalyptic — may not be congenial to contemporary sensibilities, but he’s the only historically-plausible Jesus there is.

For millions of readers, Brown’s novels have helped smooth over the tension between ancient Christianity and modern American faith. But the tension endures. You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can’t have both."

The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner responds to ACC

The Wisdom of the Cross: Some Reflections on ACC-14 and the Anglican Covenant

My respect for this man continues to increase.

What Happened at ACC (for those who care)

At the Battle in Jamaica for the Anglican Covenant there was a strategic loss for the Anglican Covenant Design Group that anticipated the timeline to go from the ACC-14 to the churches.

815 won a strategic decision to delay the Anglican Covenant.

815 won a strategic decision in separating Section IV from the rest of the Covenant.

Lambeth won a strategic decision in not divorcing Section IV from the Covenant, but keeping the Covenant together as a whole.

Lambeth won a strategic decision to gain control over who "studies" Section IV. There's a split decision between 815 and Lambeth on the establishment of the Joint Standing Committee as the final arbiter (thereby lifting the JSC as a near equal "instrument of communion") on the Anglican Covenant before it's sent on for ratification.

There is a win for ACNA and the Communion Partners in that there are still no restrictions in place for them to vote on the Anglican Covenant.

There is a loss for the Communion Partners in the delay of the Anglican Covenant to go before General Convention 2009 and the possible pieces of legislation that could both delay the Anglican Covenant to years after they have all retired, as well as possible legislation that will isolate them from their province.

There is a win for Katharine Jefferts Schori in successfully delaying the Anglican Covenant as long as she remains in office.

There is a win/loss for Rowan Williams in that he was able to keep the Covenant together and not fragment, but he was isolated and unable to bridge the widening chasm that separates provinces in the Anglican Communion. In fact, we saw evidence of a widening gap between Canterbury and the Church of England as the CoE representative seemed to side with 815, along with Wales and Ireland and Scotland, while the New Zealand and Australian delegations seemed to be split.And there is a loss to the Global South in the realization that they are merely bit players in this larger power struggle between Lambeth and 815.

But there was a major win for the Global South for through it all they hung together, even as chaos broke out on the floor and in the backrooms, they hung together. This is a key point for ACNA and the Communion Partners and, God willing, the Archbishop of Canterbury himself.

Source: Baby Blue