Churches Reclaim Their Role in Healing – January 1, 2012

News
LeMarquand to Serve Region He Loves
The Rev. Grant LeMarquand was in Egypt last year, preparing for a retreat at a monastery, when the Most Rev. Mouneer D. Anis invited him out for coffee. The bishop asked his friend a life-changing question: Would he consider being appointed an assistant bishop serving the Horn of Africa?

Features
Churches Reclaim Their Role in Healing
by Lauren Anderson
As health care providers anticipate a massive expansion of coverage in 2014, charitable clinics are already feeling the effects of the Affordable Care Act. Since the act’s passage in 2010, donations to charity-funded clinics have declined.

Getting People Into the Story
by Joseph Mangina
The Bible does not want to be relevant to our concerns, but to make us relevant to its concerns.

Covenants and Fragments
by Ephraim Radner
The recently disclosed rupture in the relationship of the Rwandan House of Bishops and bishops of the Anglican Mission in the Americas illumines at least a couple of key elements about ecclesial existence, especially among Anglicans.

Cultures
Icons from an Urban Engineer
In his formal iconography Luiz Coelho mostly follows traditional Byzantine technique. He describes the work as a “constant struggle,” both in painting and the temptation to “turn the symbol into a simulacrum.”

Catholic Voices
Un-silent Nights in Bethlehem
By O.C. Edwards, Jr.
The residents of Bethlehem allowed to work in Jerusalem or to leave for other purposes start assembling at the security wall as early as 2:30 a.m. so they can have their IDs checked and be permitted by the Uzi-armed guards to go about their business.

Guest Column
Star Trek, or Couples’ Club?
By Lawrence N. Crumb
The late Bishop Donald H. Hallock of Milwaukee called it “the Star Trek liturgy,” but if he were alive today he might call it “the couples’ club liturgy.” I refer to Eucharistic Prayer C, as often expanded by adding the name of a Hebrew matriarch after that of each patriarch.

Books
From Midterms to Ministry
by Allan Hugh Cole, Jr.
Review by V.R.T. Heard

Lay Ecclesial Ministry
by Zeni Fox
Review by Charles Cassini

The Tale of Two Churches
by William Floyd Dopp
Review by Bruce Robison

On the Human Condition and On Social Justice
by St. Basil the Great
Review by Peter Eaton