Ash Wednesday resources

I was talking to a friend about Ash Wednesday services. They’re not my favorite — the ashes can be ostentatious, and it reflects a particular Western Christian piety that I don’t care for — but the service has become more widely observed in the last couple of generations, so I’d like to revisit three blog… Continue reading Ash Wednesday resources

R&E Newsweekly: Expulsion of Iraqi Christians

It’s been a hard week in the news. Central American children in the borderlands. The deaths in Gaza. The Malaysian flight downing. Frightening news — let’s hope not all true — from ISIS/ISIL. You’d be forgiven for being overwhelmed. But please spare a prayer for the Christian minority of Iraq, and particularly of Mosul, an… Continue reading R&E Newsweekly: Expulsion of Iraqi Christians

Let’s review: the British Orthodox Church

Certain churches (as in denominations) attract my attention as an observer. What I suppose each of them has in common in marginality: being on the edge of culture, the edge of a theological spectrum, the edge of extinction or the like. But that’s not to treat them like playthings. Something can be learned from people… Continue reading Let’s review: the British Orthodox Church

NACCC yearbooks online

Here’s one way to end the year: to review yearbooks of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches, deposited at the Internet Archives. Why the NACCC, or “continuing Congregationalists,” here? Like the Unitarian Universalists, they are part of the New England Way of churches. Two UUA-member churches (First Parish, Plymouth and Universalist National Memorial Church)… Continue reading NACCC yearbooks online