Source: For years, master carpenter Greg Zanis has traveled across the country to create and deliver individualized memorial crosses, free of charge. Today, he’s been called upon to help the communities reeling from deadly mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Zanis, 68, says the message he aims to send with his memorials is simple: “Today it’s the first day they get to go to heaven… they’re not suffering anymore. We’re going to see them again.” He prepared 20 crosses... Read more

By Lucy Peppiatt: A new must-read! Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women I don’t recall whether I ever really wanted to write a book about women and the Bible and how and why I believed the Bible gives us a mutualist vision for men and women. I think maybe I did, but it was all rather vague. Then there was part of me that definitely didn’t want to write or be known as a person who speaks and writes about women.... Read more

In the final chapter (actually an epilogue) of The Bible in a Disenchanted Age: The Enduring Possibility of Christian Faith, Walter Moberly digs biblical literacy and a Christian privileging of the bible. In his discussion he uses the example of camels, harking back to news reports several years ago (2014) that camels provide a serious sticking point for Christians.  Moberly refers specifically to a blog at the Guardian: The Old Testament’s made-up camels are a problem for Zionism. Camels are... Read more

My contention is that the right to bear the kind of arms now legal to own and use in the American set of laws is not a moral good. Kris and I have decided not to support any candidate for office who is against serious gun reduction and sensible restrictions. Ask Australia about what is a moral good. From USAToday: Twenty-two years ago, just weeks after the deadliest and last fatal mass shooting in Australia’s history, the country’s then-Prime Minister John... Read more

One can infer from one’s actions one’s teachings. Better yet, one’s actions embody one’s teachings. And even better yet, one’s actions are one’s teachings — it’s called Lived Theology. Too often we assume the primary thing is one’s ideas or one’s theology or one’s teachings, and actions are but applications of one’s theology. That’s not right: one’s life is one’s teachings. What do you think Jesus’ actions (see below) say about Jesus’ beliefs about violence? Ron Sider, in If Jesus is... Read more

We pray for all of those caught up in the midst of tragedy or disaster: For those who have lost life and those working to save life For those who are worried for people they love For those who will see their loved ones no longer Lord Have Mercy. For those in need of the peace that passes all understanding For all who turn to you in the midst of turmoil For those who cry out to you in fear... Read more

Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. BCP Read more

My first MANT cohort completed its final summer week long intensive with lots of sorrow ending the last day. What a wonderful class of students — gifted, devoted, and visionary. We wrote a “collect” together. Excellent set of insights about Junia by my friend Claude Mariottini: Junia was the name of a Christian in Rome, a person whose name is mentioned in the letter to the Romans in connection with Andronicus, as being Paul’s relatives, who were in prison with... Read more

The book of Revelation also known as the Apocalypse of John can be rather hard to understand. It is, after all, apocalyptic literature – a form a bit ‘interesting’ in the Old Testament prophets and every bit as ‘interesting’ here. I don’t usually worry too much about the book, or try too hard to make sense of it. This isn’t to say it should be ignored or bypassed (I’ve listened to it several times through over the last couple of... Read more