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Thank you to all the priests who provide Holy Week services for us. It's a lot of work, night after night, and I want you to know how much it's appreciated. :purpleheart:

I just finished reading The Benedict Option, by Rod Dreher, and I wanted to get some thoughts written down before I forgot them all. Preliminary note: I disagree fiercely with Dreher on some issues related to gender, which means I also don't share some of his motivations for withdrawing from...

I can't find "Conversations" (i.e., private messages) in the new site. Do they still exist?

This question is for information-gathering only, to help me understand our Episcopal congregation better. I am on the vestry (lay leadership body) of an Episcopal parish. We are considering strongly encouraging the members of our congregation to begin tithing, partly to help fund a new...

Back in December 2021, @The Liturgist started a thread on "denominational outliers": congregations that deviated too far from their denominational guidelines, or that took too many risks in their artwork, or that engaged in psychologially damaging practices (Compiling a list of potentially...

This thread is branching off from a discussion that I was having with @The Liturgist about whether it is meaningful to speak of God having gender. We didn't want to derail the original thread (which was about the NT Apocrypha), so here is a separate place for the gender discussion. In the...

The PBS Newshour this evening had a report on an interesting new paper from the Pew Research Center that outlines 9 different political groups in the US, with the two major parties each being coalitions of four of these groups. Their groups are: Faith and Flag Conservatives Committed...

[ This is the WWMC forum. Non-liberals are welcome to join the discussion, especially if you have good book ideas, but please no snarky comments about social justice being a waste of time. ] I've been involved in a book club at my church for the last year. The group includes our parish priest...

I was visiting some friends in Vermont last week, and one of them mentioned a "cult" (her words) located in the nearby town of Marshfield, Vermont. I did some Googling after I got back home and discovered two disturbing facts: 1) The church did indeed have some uncomfortably controlling...

(I'm posting here because I think it's the most likely forum in which to find people well-versed in church history.) I was reflecting this morning on the oft-expressed idea that Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. Does anyone here know when this idea first started showing up in...

The oldest of my now-adult children is about to get married, and for the first time I'm facing the ancient and perplexing question: what should my children's spouses call me? (I had this same bafflement on the other end when I was a new daughter-in-law, years ago.) "Mom" isn't quite right...

This morning's lectionary reading was the Annunciation, and the sermon was about Mary and motherhood and the spiritual symbolism of motherhood and so on. Our priest talked about Mary's humanity and ordinariness, but then he took it in the direction of how mothers provide a warm, stable home...

I don't usually post videos, but this one had me laughing and weepy all at the same time. The Rev. Lonnie Lacy, priest at St Anne's Episcopal Church, Tifton, GA, sings about our eventual return to church, to the tune of Hamilton's "You'll Be Back". It's only 3 1/2 minutes long. "You'll be...

We've just passed February 1, which is a day that several religions pay attention to, as it occurs midway between the solstice and the equinox. Of all the seasonal holidays, I think I know the least about February 1. I can feel in my body that the light is starting to return -- at least, for...

In another thread in this forum, @Carl Emerson and I had an exchange about the role of pastors in a congregation. So as not to derail that earlier thread, I'm splitting off this conversation into its own thread. @Carl Emerson said this: I asked: I'd like to hear from Carl Emerson first...

A thread asking about spiritual directors just started in OBOB. I'm curious myself, but I didn't want to intrude on OBOB, so I'll start a separate thread here. If you've spent time with a spiritual director, or if you've been one yourself: What does a spiritual director do? How often do you...

To all for whom this day is sacred, I hope you had a blessed day! I included prayers for "those we love but see no longer" in the Noonday Prayers that I lead on my campus. In the evening, there was candy for trick-or-treaters. I rest easy in the knowledge that my neighborhood is protected by...

I went to a diocesan meeting last night, as a delegate from our parish. Clergy and lay representatives were there, representing about 20-30 churches, and the bishop was present as well. The theme of the meeting was envisioning our parishes as schools of discipleship. We did an exercise where...

For any of you who may have read her writings, Rachel Held Evans has died at 37. An article telling of her death and her life is here: Rachel Held Evans, the Hugely Popular Christian Writer Who Challenged the Evangelical Establishment, Is Dead at 37

The South Jersey university where I teach was the site yesterday of a protest by a truly obnoxious group of individuals. The protest occurred right next to the building where I teach; alas, I missed it, because I was busy inside helping some of my students debug their programs, but I've seen...