family life

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Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks offered modern arguments defending an ancient faith

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Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks offered modern arguments defending an ancient faith

A typical Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks speech would open with a self-deprecating jab at long-winded rabbis and then flow into a blend of Hebrew texts, science, law, literature, current events and the scriptures other faiths.

When the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom died on Nov. 7 at age 72, after battles with cancer that began in his 30s, the Prince of Wales said: "His immense learning spanned the secular and the sacred, and his prophetic voice spoke to our greatest challenges with unfailing insight and boundless compassion. His wise counsel was sought and appreciated by those of all faiths and none."

Most of all, Lord Sacks was known for using modern information and insights to defend ancient truths. One famous address, at a 2014 Vatican conference on marriage, began with fish mating in a Scottish lake 385 million years ago before charting humanity's rise from polygamy to monogamy, including some awkward biblical dramas.

Before this speech ended with a standing ovation, the rabbi explained that his goal was to defend the “most beautiful idea in the history of civilization," the concept of love as the origin of new life.

"What made the traditional family remarkable, a work of high religious art, is what it brought together: sexual drive, physical desire, friendship, companionship, emotional kinship and love, the begetting of children and their protection and care, their early education and induction into an identity and a history," he explained.

“Seldom has any institution woven together so many different drives and desires. … It made sense of the world and gave it a human face -- the face of love. For a whole variety of reasons, some to do with medical developments like birth control, in vitro fertilization and other genetic interventions, some to do with moral change like the idea that we are free to do whatever we like so long as it does not harm others, some to do with a transfer of responsibilities from the individual to the state … almost everything that marriage once brought together has now been split apart. Sex has been divorced from love, love from commitment, marriage from having children and having children from responsibility for their care."

Lord Sacks was part of the Modern Orthodox movement and wrote two dozen prayer books and works about science and spirituality, as well serving as a commentator on BBC Four's "Thought for the Day." He became chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth in 1991, holding that post until 2013, Queen Elizabeth knighted him in 2005 and he entered the House of Lords in 2009.

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Memory eternal: The passing of a charismatic bishop with a big voice and an extended family

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Memory eternal: The passing of a charismatic bishop with a big voice and an extended family

Episcopal bishops in the 1980s were already used to urgent calls from journalists seeking comments on issues ranging from gay priests to gun control, from female bishops to immigration laws, from gender-free liturgies to abortion rights.

But the pace quickened for Bishop William C. Frey in 1985 when he was one of four candidates to become presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. A former radio professional, Frey was known for his bass voice and quick one-liners. His Lutheran counterpart in Colorado once told him: "You look like a movie star, sound like God and wear cowboy boots."

Other Denver religious leaders sometimes asked, with some envy, why Episcopalians got so much ink.

"I can't understand why some people want the kind of media attention we get," he told me, during one media storm. "That's like coveting another man's root canal."

A Texas native, Frey died in San Antonio last Sunday (Oct. 11), after years out of the spotlight. In addition to his Colorado tenure, his ministry included missionary work in Central America during the "death squads" era and leading an alternative Episcopal seminary in a struggling Pennsylvania steel town.

While critics called him the "token evangelical" in the presiding bishop race, Frey was a complex figure during his Colorado tenure, where I covered him for the now-closed Rocky Mountain News. He called himself a "radical moderate," while also attacking "theology by opinion poll."

“We need a church that knows its own identity and proclaims it fearlessly," he said, in his 1990 farewell sermon. "No more stealth religion! … We need a church that knows how to answer the question, 'What think ye of Christ?', without forming a committee to weigh all possible options. We need a church that doesn't cross its fingers when it says the creed."

Nevertheless, a conservative priest called him a "Marxist-inspired heretic" for backing the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and the ordination of women. The bishop opposed capital punishment -- and abortion -- and welcomed stricter gun-control laws. He backed expanded work with the homeless and immigrants. Then gay-rights activists called him a "charismatic fundamentalist" because he opposed the ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians and preached that sex outside of marriage was sin.

Also, before the presiding bishop election, Frey fielded questions -- and heard old whispers -- about the informal charismatic Christian community he led with his wife, Barbara (who died in 2014).

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Culture wars are about demographics: Thus, fertility has become a controversial issue

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Culture wars are about demographics: Thus, fertility has become a controversial issue

It was one of those happy social-media pictures, only this time the pregnant mother was celebrating with her nine children.

Los Angeles comedian and actor Kai Choyce was not amused and tweeted the photo with this comment: "this is environmental terrorism. … In the year 2020 literally no one should have ten kids."

The result was a long chain of sweet or snarky comments, as well as photos of large families. One tweet quoted a Swedish study claiming that having "one fewer child per family" can save an average of 58.6 tons of "CO2-equivalent emissions per year."

Debates about fertility often veer into fights about religion and other ultimate questions, such as the fate of the planet.

Parents with two-plus children are often making a statement about the role of religious faith in their lives. People on the other side of this debate have frequently rejected traditional forms of religion.

"What we call 'culture wars' are wars about demographics, but we have trouble discussing that," said historian Philip Jenkins, who is best known for decades of research into global religious trends, while teaching at Pennsylvania State and Baylor University. His latest book is "Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions."

In the 1970s, researchers thought the link between secularization and falling birth rates was a "Protestant thing" in Europe, but then this trend spread into Catholic cultures in Europe and in Latin America, he said. Fertility rates are now collapsing in Iran and some Islamic cultures. Meanwhile, Orthodox Jews and traditional Catholics continue to have larger families than liberal believers in those ancient faiths.

America's 2019 birth rate fell to 1.71, its lowest level in three decades, and well under the replacement rate of 2.1. This took place before the coronavirus pandemic and the Brookings Institute recently predicted a "COVID baby bust" next year, resulting in up to half a million fewer births.

Researchers frequently argue about which comes first -- secularization or declining fertility.

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Philosophy, politics and money: What comes next for Liberty University?

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Philosophy, politics and money: What comes next for Liberty University?

Liberty University's decision to close its philosophy department didn't make big headlines in May 2020, at least not when compared with the its coronavirus policies and the latest comments from President Jerry Falwell, Jr.

After all, liberal arts programs were shrinking while Liberty's online education programs prospered, along with job-friendly undergraduate degrees. Christian colleges everywhere are wrestling with similar issues.

But the philosophy department was symbolic because it once was crucial to "what made Liberty unique" -- an emphasis on blending faith with core academic disciplines, said Karen Swallow Prior, who taught there for 20 years. This summer she moved to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., to teach English literature, as well as Christianity and culture.

"That department was top notch and produced students who went straight to the Ivy League and had great success," she said. "Philosophy was larger when I first got there, and it was clear this discipline was seen as part of Liberty's mission. Then things started changing."

Now, Liberty leaders are wrestling with the undeniable impact Falwell Jr. had as president, after the 2007 death of his father, the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Facing years of red ink, the founder's heir soon pushed for $500 million in campus updates and expansions, along with profitable online programs. The university now has 15,000 on-campus students and roughly 100,000 online. Liberty claims an endowment of $1.6 billion.

At the same time, Falwell Jr. developed a swashbuckling style that caused heat, especially when linked to race, guns, jets, politics, yachts and his specialty -- real estate. Controversies about his de facto partnership with President Donald Trump thrilled many Liberty donors, alumni, parents and students, while deeply troubling others.

Many Christian college presidents are super-pastors who provide ties that bind to denominations, churches and networks of believers. Falwell Jr. -- a lawyer -- turned into a dynamic entrepreneur who courted powerful conservative politicos.

On regular Christian campuses, there "are higher expectations for presidents than members of the faculty, and members of the faculty live with greater expectations than students," noted religious-liberty activist David French, writing at The Dispatch.

"Liberty flipped this script. The president lived life with greater freedom than his students or his faculty. The message sent was distinctly unbiblical -- that some Christian leaders can discard integrity provided their other qualifications, from family name to fund-raising prowess, provided sufficient additional benefit."

All of this led to a soap-opera collapse, after flashes of risqué social media.

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Autism and mysteries of the Mass: Holy Communion is different from food at home

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Autism and mysteries of the Mass: Holy Communion is different from food at home

Ever since the Last Supper, Catholics have pondered what happens during the Mass when they believe the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus.

"Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering … it has always been the conviction of the Church … that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood," proclaimed the Council of Trent, after the Protestant Reformation.

"This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation. The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist."

Believers approach this mystery with the greatest care and respect. This may be hard for children to grasp as they prepare for First Communion.

Now imagine trying to teach this core Catholic doctrine to persons -- young and old -- who have mental and physical disabilities that make it hard, or impossible, for them to acknowledge what is happening in the Mass.

"Because we believe Holy Communion is the Body and Blood or our Lord, we want to be very careful about this," said Father Matthew Schneider, who is known to his Twitter followers as @AutisticPriest.

"This isn't a theology test. No one needs a theology degree to take Holy Communion. We simply need to make sure that they know this is an act in a church rite -- that they are not eating ordinary food like at home. We're trying to find out if they have a basic understanding of what's happening."

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During times of plague and panic, priests do what priests need to do

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During times of plague and panic, priests do what priests need to do

The second wave of influenza in the fall of 1918 was the worst yet and, by the time Father Nicola Yanney reached Wichita, Kansas, a citywide quarantine was in effect.

A 16-year-old girl had already died, creating a sense of panic. The missionary priest -- his territory reached from Missouri to Colorado and from Oklahoma to North Dakota -- couldn't even hold her funeral in the city's new Orthodox sanctuary. As he traveled back to his home church in Kearney, Neb., he kept anointing the sick, hearing confessions and taking Holy Communion to those stricken by the infamous "Spanish flu."

After days of door-to-door ministry in the snow, Yanney collapsed and called his sons to his bedside. Struggling to breathe, he whispered: "Keep your hands and your heart clean." He was one of an estimated 50 million victims worldwide.

A century later, many Orthodox Christians in America -- especially those of Syrian and Lebanese descent -- believe Yanney should be recognized as a saint. And now, as churches face fears unleashed by the coronavirus, many details of his final days of his ministry are highly symbolic.

"Father Nicola got the flu because he insisted on ministering to people who had the flu," said Father Andrew Stephen Damick, creator of "The Equal of Martyrdom," an audio documentary about the man known as "The Apostle to the Plains."

"For priests, there are risks. But you cannot turn away when people are suffering and they need the sacraments of the church. You go to your people and minister to them. This is what priests do."

Few acts in ministry are as intimate as a priest huddled with a seriously ill believer, hearing what could be his or her final confession of sins. Honoring centuries of tradition, Christians in the ancient churches of the East also take Communion from a common chalice, with each person receiving consecrated bread and wine -- mixed together -- from a golden spoon.

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Volunteer Trey Smith fighting to keep his commitments -- in heaven and on Earth

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Volunteer Trey Smith fighting to keep his commitments -- in heaven and on Earth

As a teen-ager, Trey Smith kept praying that he would reach 6-foot-5 -- the right height for a blue-chip lineman coming out of high school and then a college star who would rise high in the National Football League draft.

His mother Dorsetta -- a preacher's daughter -- had dreams of her own, including that her son would honor his academic commitments and, after picking a good university, earn his degree. This was something they talked about while young Trey watched his mother wrestle with congestive heart failure and then die at age 51.

All of that was on Smith's mind when he won the Jason Witten Collegiate Man of the Year Award. The NCAA version of the NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year award, it goes to a student leader who has exhibited "exceptional courage, integrity and sportsmanship both on and off the field."

Smith apologized and asked the audience at the Dallas Cowboys practice facility in Frisco, Texas, to give him a moment as he wrestled with his emotions. Then he thanked God, his family, teammates, coaches, academic advisors and the medical specialists who -- literally -- have helped keep him alive, as well as in the University of Tennessee offensive line.

There was a moment last year, he said, when doctors treating him for blood clots in his lungs told him, "You know man, hang it up, hang it up. You're done playing football. This is it.' …

"Something you dream about as a kid. A promise you made to your mom on her deathbed. Hearing that it's done? You know, it's devastating … I kept thinking … it's not over yet. God put a vision inside of me that night and that whole week, saying, 'I don't care what they say, I've got more glory, I have more honor for you.' God had a bigger purpose for me."

The spotlight on Smith's fight to keep playing has allowed fans everywhere a chance to watch a dramatic case of the mental, physical, emotional and, often, spiritual challenges student athletes face season after season, said Chris Walker, a former Volunteer defensive end who is the UT campus director of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

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Trying to build healthy church families in the troubled age of #ChurchToo headlines

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Trying to build healthy church families in the troubled age of #ChurchToo headlines

The email was signed "Worried Wife" and contained a blunt version of a question Bronwyn Lea has heard many times while working with women in and around churches.

The writer said her husband had become friends with another woman his own age. There were no signs of trouble, but they traded messages about all kinds of things. This was creating a "jealous-wife space" in her mind.

"Worried Wife" concluded: "I need a biblical perspective. What is a godly view of cross-gender friendships, and how should they be approached within the context of marriage?"

That's a crucial question these days for clergy and leaders of other ministries and fellowships, said Lea, author of "Beyond Awkward Side Hugs: Living as Christian Brothers and Sisters in a Sex-Crazed World." All of those #ChurchToo reports about sexual abuse and inappropriate relationships have people on edge -- with good cause.

Lea, who has a seminary degree and law-school credentials, is convinced that it's time for churches to act more like extended families and less like companies that sort people into niches defined by age, gender and marital status.

"Many people are lonely and they truly long for some kind of connection with others," she said. "But they've also heard so many horror stories about what can go wrong that they're afraid to reach out. They think that everyone will think that they're creepy or weird if they open up. … Lots of people are giving up and checking out."

Everyone knows the church is "supposed to be a family that everyone can belong to. … That's the vision that we need to reclaim," said Lea, a staff member at the First Baptist Church in Davis, Calif. Thus, the New Testament says: "Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity."

The problem is making that work at the personal level, where pastors, teachers, parents and laypeople are trying to find realistic ways to handle social media, complex career pressures, tensions in modern families and constantly-changing gender roles.

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Hollywood declines to ponder the work of Mister Rogers -- as a pastor

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Hollywood declines to ponder the work of Mister Rogers -- as a pastor

During a dozen years of ministry, the Rev. Ted Giese estimates that he has performed 200 funerals and made 1,000 hospital visits to the sick and the dying. He also spends many hours in theaters, working on his movie reviews featured at The Canadian Lutheran website.

Thus, Giese knew exactly what was happening in a crucial scene in "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood." In it, PBS legend Fred Rogers -- played by Tom Hanks -- arrives with a pie for the family of a dying father who has been struggling to heal a bitter rift with his journalist son.

Leaning over the deathbed, Mister Rogers whispers into the man's ear. Moments later, the son asks what he said and Rogers replies: "I asked him to pray for me. Anyone who's going through what he's going through must be very close to God."

Anyone who has served as a pastor, said Giese, will immediately recognize what happened in this encounter.

"That was a pastoral call," he said. "I don't usually bring an apple pie with me when I make this kind of visit, but I know what that scene is all about. I know what that feels like as a pastor. It's like you're part of the family, but you are also there to provide the kind of care that people count on pastors to provide."

This scene may have seemed strange for many moviegoers. The film makes it clear that Rogers is a deeply spiritual, even saintly man. He reads scripture and begins his day on his knees, praying -- by name -- for people he has met while doing his work.

But here's the strange part. This movie never mentions that Mister Rogers was also the Rev. Fred Rogers, an ordained Presbyterian minister. It never notes that Rogers went to seminary seeking the theological depth that he believed he needed to address tough issues -- life, death, disease, divorce, war, poverty, racism, loneliness -- in child-friendly words and images.

For Rogers, "neighbor" for was not a random word that, for 33 years, he inserted into television scripts. He was, show after show, making a personal statement that affirmed a kind of love demonstrated in the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan and its haunting question, "Who is my neighbor?"