God Help Us

It’s Kristallnacht 2007 9/11 again. The ninth of November for Europeans. The burning of the synagogue in Ober Ramstdt during Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938. The local fire-department prevented the fire from spreading to a nearby home, but made no attempt to intervene in the synagogue fire. Trudy Isenberg Collection, USHMM Archives The US Holocaust Museum…
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And You Visited Me

British Churches Gear Up for Prison Week As Jail Population Hits Record High By Ekklesia staff writers — 2 Nov 2007 Churches across the country are gearing up to mark ‘prisons week’ as the UK’s prison population hits a record high. The week kicks off on 18th November 2007, when churches across Britain are being…
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A Question

Women – Equal but Different? By Savi Hensman for Ekklesia,  22 Oct 2007 Men should have the greatest responsibility in the church and home, while women are ‘equal but different’, according to the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen. In an interview on ABC radio on 14 October 2007 with Monica Attard, he explained why…
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Bob Coolidge Remembers July 29, 1974

[The Rev. Robert Coolidge was a friend of Katrina and George Swanson at Harvard/Radcliffe in the early 1950’s, graduating with George in 1955. I’m grateful for his sharing these recollections with Katrina’s Dream. Until we got married Katrina was known by her nickname, Keppy. – George] I don’t clearly recall how Ellen and I got…
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Four Years Ago Bishop Katharine Wrote

The larger church seems to be in a time of some anxiety, but then we seem to live in especially anxious times. I spent a day in mid-June with a roomful of bishops who are enormously concerned about the election of Gene Robinson as bishop coadjutor in New Hampshire, and about the possibility that General…
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Deacons: Charge Ahead!

Deacons Told: Do What you see is needed. Apologize to the Bishop Later. Presiding Bishop offers keynote address at biennial conference of U.S. and Canadian deacons By Kim Forman, June 26, 2007 [Episcopal News Service] Deacons are called to be the “nags of the church,” Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the biennial Conference of…
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Come Light Our Fire

Pentecost 2007 By Tom Ehrich  Wednesday, May 23, 2007 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are…
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The Saints Go Marchin’ In

Two Bishops Not Invited to Lambeth The Associated Press Tuesday, May 22, 2007; 7:18 AM LONDON — Two bishops at the heart of the U.S. Episcopal Church’s divisions over sexuality and scripture will not be invited to next year’s global gathering of Anglican prelates, the archbishop of Canterbury’s office said Tuesday. Bishops V. Gene Robinson…
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Cancel the War for Mother

Mother’s Day Proclamation Thanks to Lydia Thayer for this Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have breasts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and…
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The First Mother Priest

Celebrating the First Woman Priest Li Tim-Oi By Mary Frances Schjonberg, May 04, 2007 The Rev. Li Tim-Oi met with then-Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie in 1984. [Episcopal News Service] Special services in the countries where the Rev. Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first woman ordained a priest in the Anglican Communion, began and ended her…
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UK Holocaust Curriculum

UK Treasury, Pears Foundation Pledge £1.5m. for Holocaust Education Article by Jonny Paul, In the Jerusalem Post Britain’s Treasury and the Pears Foundation, a major contributor to education and civil rights causes in the UK and abroad, will each contribute £250,000 a year for three years to the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) to train instructors…
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Joe Hill Would Be Proud

Unions for a Global Economy By Harold Meyerson, April 26, 2007; The Washington Post The business press has barely noticed and the usual champions of globalization have been mute, but an announcement last week in Ottawa signaled a radical new direction for the globalized economy. The United Steelworkers — that venerable, Depression-era creation of John…
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We Keep Doing It

Guernica — April 27, 1937   During the Spanish Civil War the Condor Legion of the German air force, supporting the Nationalists, bombed the Basque city of Guernica on April 27, 1937, an event memorialized in Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica. Source: Click Here  

Weep, John Adams, Weep

Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all Tuesday April 24, 2007 an article in  The Guardian Last autumn, there…
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This is Katrina’s Dream

Today is Equal Pay Day. The date—Tuesday, April 24th—symbolizes the fact that on average, a woman must work for a year and four months to earn the same wages as a man receives in a year. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 made it illegal to pay women less than men for work that is…
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A White New Orleans?

This May Be From Katrina Today, Congress has the opportunity to help thousands of New Orleans residents come back home.  The Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007 would re-open desperately needed public housing units and make sure there is no loss of affordable public housing in New Orleans. The bill quickly passed the…
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New Life

Christians Seek ‘Fresh Expressions’ of Church Life By Ekklesia Staff Writers 21 Apr 2007 According to the latest research, 39 per cent of Church of England parishes have started a ‘Fresh Expression’ of church since 2000 – a new initiative to connect with those who are currently outside church, and who may feel disconnected from…
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George is Cool

When the Saints Go Marching Out: Redefining St George for a New Era Paper by Ekklesia Staff Writers Abstract This paper proposes that the figure of St George should be reclaimed according to his true, hidden story – as a dissenter against the abuse of power, a contrast to religious crusades, a global figure we…
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Curse the Preacher

Dean’s Atonement Talk Resulted in Abuse and Obscenity By Ekklesia Staff Writers 18 Apr 2007 The Anglican Dean of St Albans, Jeffrey John, received many “abusive and obscene” letters from people who objected to his Holy Week talk saying that the cross of Christ was about God bearing suffering, not inflicting it – even though…
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Ineffable & Unspeakable

An Optimism Too Far for Palestine-Israel? By Timothy Seidel in Ekklesia 12 Apr 2007 United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently travelled through the Middle East, making visits with Israelis and Palestinians, bringing with her, many have speculated, little more than another round of optimism. This familiar aura of hard-to-pin-down optimism was also found…
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