COVID Taught Me How to Get Married By Ben Christenson For the wisdom of the world is foolishness in God’s sight. —1 Corinthians 3:19 I got married last year at 22. In retrospect, I see that my approach to our pre-COVID wedding was something a... Read More...
How We Understand Ourselves By George Sumner As a member of the Communion Partners, I recognize and agree with recent essays by my friends Canon Jordan Hylden and Bishop Dan Martins. I mean this essay to be complementary to their refle... Read More...
Decline is a Choice By Jordan Hylden Like everyone else, I found the 2019 parochial report statistics very sobering reading. As David Goodhew summarized, TEC has lost about 40 percent of its membership since 1980, with 314,000 lost just from 2010 to 2019. Average Sunday Attend... Read More...
Podcast: Caring for Marriage in a Pressure Cooker Only recently in human history have we expected so much from marriage. The pressure (or temptation?) to rely totally on one's spouse for companionship, emotional support, etc., etc. is not so easily resisted wh... Read More...
Pray for the City How does a vision of a thick civic culture relate first to the policy of allowing for religious tax exemption, and then to the question of whether churches ought to allow their clergy to sign marriage licenses?
Perhaps The Time Has Come Should we cut the final Constantinian tether by which the priest serves simultaneously as civil agent?
Marriage: Gift and Vocation In all the conflicted debates over the past years regarding sexuality, churches have often forgotten the simple and privileged task of witnessing to and commending the married life. It’s something worth doing.
General Synod and A Word to the Church It could be argued that if we had all gone home after voting on these affirmations, much of the pain that resulted from General Synod’s other decisions could have been avoided and we may have been the better for it. But as it happened, we proceeded to the debate and vote on the marriage canon amendment, the failure of which unleashed an avalanche of protest, accusation, and ill will that in many ways will form the lasting characterization of General Synod 2019 for many of those who were present.
