the problem on the planet it's a lack of understanding the Art and Science of friendship like sacred friendship sacred humanism

Perhaps the most troubling possibility is that Kirill’s Church, with its canny blend of politics and faith, turns out to be better adapted to survival in our century than mainstream Churches are.

Orthodox priests are more vulnerable to bribery than their Roman Catholic peers, Gregorios explained, because they are allowed to marry, and many have large families to provide for.

In October 2018, just weeks after his tense meeting with Kirill in Istanbul, Bartholomew dissolved the 1686 edict that had given Moscow religious control over Ukraine.

That problem has its origins in the fourth century C.E., when Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and then imposed it on his subjects. For more than 1,000 years afterward, Church and state in Constantinople “were seen as parts of a single organism,” according to the historian Timothy Ware, under a doctrine called sinfonia, or “harmony.”

Putin’s decision to restore Orthodoxy to its old public role was a shrewd one, whatever his personal religious feelings. The Russian empire had collapsed, but its outlines could still be seen in the Russian Orthodox religious sphere, which extended beyond Russia’s borders and as far afield as Mount Athos and even Jerusalem. For a ruler seeking to revive his country’s lost status, the Church was a superb way to spread propaganda and influence.

Bartholomew’s most distinctive effort to “update” the Church is his commitment to environmentalism. In the press, he is sometimes called the Green Patriarch. When, in 1997, he declared that abusing the natural environment was a sin against God, he became the first major religious leader to articulate such a position.

a young man named Mykola Kosytskyy, a Ukrainian linguistics student and a frequent visitor to Athos. He had brought with him this time a group of 40 Ukrainian pilgrims. Kosytskyy talked about the war—the friends he’d lost, the shattered lives, the role of Russian propaganda. I asked him about the Moscow-linked Church that he’d known all his life, and he said something that surprised me: “The Ukrainian Orthodox Church”—meaning the Church of Kirill and Putin—“is the weapon in this war.”All through his childhood, he explained, he had heard priests speaking of Russia in language that mixed the sacred and the secular—“this concept of saint Russia, the saviors of this world.” He went on: “You hear this every Sunday from your priest—that this nation fights against evil, that it’s the third Rome, yes, the new Rome. They truly believe this.” That is why, Kosytskyy said, many Ukrainians have such difficulty detaching themselves from the message, even when they see Kirill speaking of their own national leaders as the anti-Christ. Kosytskyy told me it had taken years for him to separate the truth from the lies. His entire family joined the new Ukrainian Church right after Bartholomew recognized it, in 2018. So have millions of other Ukrainians.

According to Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, a scholar of Orthodoxy who teaches at Northeastern University, in Boston, the new converts tend to be right-wing and Russophile, and some speak freely of their admiration for Putin’s “kingly” role. In the U.S., converts are concentrated in the South and Midwest, and some have become ardent online evangelists for the idea that “Dixie,” with its beleaguered patriarchal traditions, is a natural home for Russian Orthodoxy. Some of them adorn their websites with a mash-up of Confederate nostalgia and icons of Russian saints.

But Bartholomew’s power is more limited than the pope’s. There are eight other Orthodox patriarchs, each of whom presides over a national or regional Church, and Bartholomew’s role is that of “first among equals.”

“All the desired inspiration in the world will not save our dead,” she declared. “We must also have information in order to consummate that noble work.”

the genealogy lessons were too difficult. They suggested that the lessons be “simplified” and “emphasis placed on the spiritual rather than on the educational side of this study.”

Susa and Elder Smith spoke together at genealogical meetings—she provided practical instruction in methodology, and he laid out the theological foundations of the work. Thanks to their efforts and those of several like-minded associates, thousands of Latter-day Saints received training and encouragement in performing family history and temple work.

In 1889 she founded the Young Woman’s Journal, the monthly magazine of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association, which she edited until 1900. She contributed to magazines and newspapers for the rest of her life, and in 1914 she became the first editor of the Relief Society Magazine. For Susa, writing was a beloved pursuit through which she could make a meaningful contribution to the community. “My whole soul is for the building up of this kingdom,” she wrote to one close confidante about her literary ambitions. “I would labor so hard to help my sisters in this same work.”

For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl.

scholastic learning

the Catholics are much more straightforward about these things they to everything so you know chimpanzees for instance according to Catholic dogma chimpanzees don't have souls when they die they 00:06:36 don't go to chimpanzee heaven or chimpanzee hell they just disappear now where are Neals in this scheme and if you think about this kid whose mother is a sapiens but whose father is a 00:06:49 neandertal so only his mother has a soul but his father doesn't have a soul and what does it mean about the kid does the kid have half a soul and if you say okay okay okay okay neander had Souls then 00:07:02 you go back a couple of million years and you have the same problem with the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees again you have a family a mother one child is the ancestor of 00:07:16 chimpanzees the other child is the an is our ancestor so one child has a soul and the other child doesn't have a soul

Maybe you were even taught this at school, that historically seen the church has stood in the way of scientific progress. 00:00:50 And with the coming of Christendom, the light of reason was taken away and a dark age fell over Europe. I'm here to tell you this is all 19th century propaganda of a number of guys fed up with the church and applying their personal grudges to the entire history of Christianity, And they totally succeeded.

family CBN

family CBN

“The purpose of our life should be to build up the Zion of our God, to gather the House of Israel, … store up treasures of knowledge and wisdom in our own understandings, purify our own hearts and prepare a people to meet the Lord when he comes. … “We have no business here other than to build up and establish the Zion of God. It must be done according to the will and law of God [see D&C 105:5], after that pattern and order by which Enoch built up and perfected the former-day Zion, which was taken away to heaven. … We, through our faithfulness, must prepare ourselves to meet Zion from above when it shall return to earth, and to abide the brightness and glory of its coming” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young [1997], 111–12).

The Lord explained in a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith ‘that when ye are assembled together ye shall instruct and edify each other, that ye may know … how to act upon the points of my law and commandment’ [D&C 43:8]. But knowing ‘how to act’ isn’t enough. The Lord in the next verse said, ‘Ye shall bind yourselves to act in all holiness before me’ [D&C 43:9]. This willingness to take action on what we have learned opens the doors for marvelous blessings” (“The Blessings of General Conference,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2005, 52).

“We must understand that we have got to act upon certain principles by which we can bind ourselves together as a people, to bind our feelings together that we may become one, and this never can be accomplished unless certain things are done, and things that require an exertion on our part. “How would you go to work to bind yourselves together? How would a man go to work to unite himself with his neighbor? If two men were associated together who had never been acquainted, how would they go to work to secure each other’s friendship, attachment and affection one towards another? Why something would have to be done, and that not by one party only, but would have to be done by one as well as by the other. It would not answer for one to do the business alone; it would not do for one to answer those feelings and do the work himself, but in order to become as one in their sentiments and affection—the action of both would be requisite” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Lorenzo Snow [2012] 198–99).

President James E. Faust (1920–2007) of the First Presidency summarized five fundamental truths relating to how God reveals truth in His Church: “First, the keys and the authority of God have been given by Him to Joseph Smith and each of his successors who have been called as Presidents of the Church. “Second, those keys and authority are never to be given to another people, and those who have such authority are ‘known to the Church’ [D&C 42:11]. “Third, continuing revelation and leadership for the Church come through the President of the Church, and he will never mislead the Saints. “Fourth, individual members of the Church may receive revelation for their own callings and areas of responsibility and for their own families. They may not receive spiritual instruction for those higher in authority. “Fifth, those who claim direct revelation from God for the Church outside the established order and channel of the priesthood are misguided. This also applies to any who follow them” (“The Prophetic Voice,” Ensign, May 1996, 7).

By AD 500, the Christian Church had drawn most of the talented men of theage into its service, in either missionary, organizational, doctrinal, or purelycontemplative activity.—Edward Grant, Physical Science in the Middle Ages

So it's the fifties and sixties, the stations, they're cutting the NBC coverage of the civil rights movement and it's not just, you know, morally dubious, it's actually against the policies of the FCC. Exactly, right. So civil rights activists decided to put that to the test and they ended up challenging Wlbt? S license for repeatedly denying them airtime. At first, the FCC dismissed the case, but then the activists sued the FCC and they won. And eventually, years later, a federal court decided that Wlbt could stay on the air, but their license would be transferred to a nonprofit, multiracial group of broadcasters.

This also made me think of church bulletin ads, which all look the exact same way, except maybe it’s just a Catholic thing2?

Weber left home and lived in poverty while working as a street-corner evangelist and social activist for two years with the evangelical Church Army Workers, an organization similar to the Salvation Army, preaching and singing hymns on street corners and singing and playing the organ in rescue missions in red-light districts in Pittsburgh and New York,[13][33] until the Church Army Workers disbanded in 1900.

“In my Irish American Massachusetts family, you were born a Democrat and baptized a Catholic,” Mr. Shields wrote in 2009. “If your luck held out, you were also brought up to be a Boston Red Sox fan.”

In addition to the practical advantages of thiswriterly inertia, in a work for Catholic consumption (such as the editions of theeighteenth century produced for the seminary in Padua) a traditional definitionfor “terra” was necessary to avoid potential censorship; it was in any case also anaccurate description of what “terra” meant to the ancient authors whose worksthe Calepino was designed to help elucidate.

An alternative kind of note-taking was encouraged in the late Middle Agesamong members of new lay spiritual movements, such as the Brethren of theCommon Life (fl. 1380s–1500s). Their rapiaria combined personal notes andspiritual reflections with readings copied from devotional texts.

Under the impact of the Carolingian Renaissance, flori-legia included classical authors as well, often arranged haphazardly in the order in which they were read.

One of the many reasons my wife and I want to plant a church is because it is the very place to foster such virtues and practices! The church gathers to announce that even in the midst of feeling disoriented, demotivated, discouraged, and disembodied, God has not abandoned us. In a season that is marked by so much death and distance, we confess our need for an in-breaking of the Spirit. My hope for the umms is that our love for and wonder of the triune God will not grow stagnant—and that in years to come, we will yet be able to testify, “Great is Thy faithfulness.”

Each Sunday I awake with a longing to gather around song, Scripture, and sacrament. Most of those mornings my wife and I walk to the nursing home to celebrate the Eucharist with a faithful but forgotten few. This year my wife and I want to plant a church in Chicagoland, but many weeks I am left wondering, Where do we fit in? Recently, I was lamenting this season with a friend. He echoed my sentiment, “I’m also floating without a church—it isn’t ideal, just the way it is.” Our exchange wasn’t significant, just two friends consoling each other through ecclesial purgatory. Later that week, I heard similar thoughts repeated by my neighbors who are new parents. Again, this sentiment was echoed by a friend who works at a large Christian nonprofit. Over text messages and phone calls, my old roommate and my denominational executive repeated a similar status. But what really caught my attention is when I heard my students and colleagues at Northern Seminary describe themselves and their congregants in much the same way. All expressed a strong commitment to Jesus and a desire to be part of the church, but they are not active in a local congregation. This growing segment of believers is what I am labeling the “umms.”

Bells, primarily handbells, have been a technology of school since their outset, well before "the factory" they were purportedly modeled on. They were used, as were the bells in churches, to summon students to ye old one room schoolhouse for the beginning of the day.

I had never heard of a Josephite marriage, a union inspired by the relationship between Joseph and the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus.

As Barbara Alice Mann suggests to us (in personalcommunication), bourgeois women may have especiallyappreciated the Jesuit Relations because it allowed them toread about discussions of women’s sexual freedom in a formthat was entirely acceptable to the Church

“southernization of the Church.” Some of the distinctive cultural forms present in the American South—masculinity and male dominance, tribal loyalties, obedience and intolerance, and even the ideology of white supremacism—have spread to other parts of the country, he said. These cultural attitudes are hardly shared by every southerner or dominant throughout the South, but they do exist and they need to be named. “Southern culture has had a profound impact upon religion,” Alexander told me, “particularly evangelical religion.”

“Evangelical militancy is often depicted as a response to fear,” she told me. “But it’s important to recognize that in many cases evangelical leaders actively stoked fear in the hearts of their followers in order to consolidate their own power and advance their own interests.”

In his intriguing book “The Rise Of Christianity,” sociologist Rodney Stark recalls the “Plague of Galun” which ravaged the Roman Empire in 164CE with a death toll of approximately 30% of the population.

Anne: And did your mom work too? Or just your dad?Ben: My mom, she worked quite a bit, but there was a period when my youngest sister was born, she ceased from working and she stayed home with her for a few years. And then once—I think my sister was about four years old—then she went back and started working again until we were doing good in the construction. When I jumped into the construction and started my own business, then my dad went to work for me. And when he went to work for me, then my mother didn't have to work any more. We were really doing pretty well, we did pretty well. Did a lot of construction projects all throughout the Midwest and eastern seaboard. Lot of government projects.Anne: Really?Ben: Yeah. A lot of low-income housing for the government.Anne: So, you moved around, it wasn't a local company that just stayed—Ben: I based my company in Indianapolis and the main reason that we ended up based in Indianapolis is that I had a project going on in Akron, Ohio, one in Indianapolis and then I had two coming up in the Kansas City—in both-- Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Kansas. And I knew it was going to be a lot of jumping around, and I figured well Indianapolis will be right in the center. So, I rented an apartment there for me and my wife and my son and my daughter; my son was a baby, but my daughter, she was like four years old, or three years old.Ben: And then right about after that, we bought a house. Well, no, my wife wanted to enroll my daughter in pre-K to get her going because her age. Her date of birth and the cut off with the school, they won't let her in for regular elementary school. So, she found this church and she told me, "There's this church that's got pre-K and we're going to get her started there.” And I go, "Well okay, go ahead.” So, we enrolled her there and we ended up getting involved with that church and we were the only Hispanics at the church at the time, whenever we did it. But they were good to us and they still attend there.Ben: That church, they started building one year on, every year they would add a year onto the school. And my daughter was one of the original students. So, she's one of the original students. The first original student to go all the way through the academy and graduate.Anne: What's it called?Ben: Cornerstone Baptist Academy in Indianapolis.Anne: That's great.Ben: Yeah.

Google’s headquarters, in Mountain View, California—the Googleplex—is the Internet’s high church, and the religion practiced inside its walls is Taylorism.

Disciple.Tools is designed by disciple makers for disciple makers to increase time you can spend with people.

That restructuring of societies in Western Europe in turn also benefited the church, notes Henrich. "In some sense, the church is killing off clans, and they're often getting the lands in wealth," he says. "So this is enriching the church. Meanwhile, Europeans are broken down into monogamous, nuclear families and they can't re-create the complex kinship structures that we [still] see elsewhere in the world."

The Swedish Royal Court has confirmed that it has been receiving abusive faxes from the fanatical Westboro Baptist Church sect.

Carl XVI Gustaf

"I know that this is happening all the time. There have been strange faxes containing all sorts of terms of abuse," court spokeswoman Nina Eldh told the newspaper.

An ungrounded, dangerous separation of joy from happiness has infiltrated the Christian community. The following is typical of the artificial distinctions made by modern Christians:

Parsonage

Parsonage

Nay if we may openly speak the Truth and as becomes one Man to another; neither Pagan, nor Mahumetan, [59] nor Jew, ought to be excluded from the Civil Rights of the Commonwealth, because of his Religion.158

This doctrine is the genuine fruit of the alliance between church and State

Cosby didn't want the movement to become institutional and frozen by inertia

After decades of bringing white, middle- and upper-class people into neighborhoods around Columbia Road and Adams Morgan to serve the poor and lecturing to seminarians and faith leaders, Cosby has concluded that societal change might go in the other direction.

"We've got to move from believing so deeply to doing," he preached. "We've got to keep in mind the discrepancy between belief and embodiment."

What is the difference between an energetic Sunday morning at church and the rapturous hours of dawn spent at the club? To him, they both aspire to the same physical and experiential ends.

“Speakin’ o’ creeds,” and here old Mrs. Sargent paused in her work, “Elder Ransom from Acreville stopped with us last night, an’ he tells me they recite the Euthanasian Creed every few Sundays in the Episcopal Church.  I didn’t want him to know how ignorant I was, but I looked up the word in the dictionary.  It means easy death, and I can’t see any sense in that, though it’s a terrible long creed, the Elder says, an’ if it’s any longer ’n ourn, I should think anybody might easy die learnin’ it!” “I think the word is Athanasian,” ventured the minister’s wife.

Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494