Retreat for Clergy Spouses

Retreat for Clergy Spouses

March 19-21, 2010

Shrine Mont, Orkney Springs VA

The role of a clergy spouse is unique. You’re part of the church community, but in some ways you aren’t. It can be hard to claim and keep your own identity of being a separate person, spouse, parent perhaps, and all with a life outside of the church. And it is often hard to find a peer group for conversation, fellowship and support.

This weekend retreat is designed to provide you with just these three things:

* Conversation with other clergy spouses about your role and needs.
* Fellowship with food and fun.
* Support from worship and prayers, time to be on your own and do whatever you please, the outdoors and connecting with God.

Accommodations will be in the newly renovated Hillside Cottage at Shrine Mont. Each room has one double bed and one twin bed and a private bath. You may have a private room or choose to have a roommate. Because of the room layout of Hillside, this retreat is limited to women only.

Meals will not be available from the Shrine Mont kitchen, but great food will be provided! Together we will do simple preparations and clean up. Hillside has a beautiful great room with a gas fireplace and gorgeous view.

The retreat begins at 6 pm on Friday night, March 19 and ends at 1 pm on Sunday, March 21. The cost is $150.00/person for the weekend. This includes room, meals, program. No one-night stays, please.

To register please email me at: nelliesgarden16@gmail.com

From Susan Russell

More pictures here.

Economic growth and religion

A recent feature in the Boston Globe covered the economic effects of religion. It's a worthy review. I bring it up to draw attention to the work of Barro and McCleary. As described by the Globe:

The two collected data from 59 countries where a majority of the population followed one of the four major religions, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism. They ran this data - which covered slices of years from 1981 to 2000, measuring things like levels of belief in God, afterlife beliefs, and worship attendance - through statistical models. Their results show a strong correlation between economic growth and certain shifts in beliefs, though only in developing countries. Most strikingly, if belief in hell jumps up sharply while actual church attendance stays flat, it correlates with economic growth. Belief in heaven also has a similar effect, though less pronounced. Mere belief in God has no effect one way or the other. Meanwhile, if church attendance actually rises, it slows growth in developing economies.

McCleary says this makes sense from a strictly economic standpoint - as economies develop and people can earn more money, their time becomes more valuable. For economic growth, she says, “What you want is to have people have their children grow up in a faith, but then they should become productive members of society. They shouldn’t be spending all their time in religious services.”

I wonder if McCleary is aware that these policy recommendations are being taken seriously. From Ghana comes this news

The President of the Volta Region House of Chiefs and Paramount Chief of Asogli traditional area, Togbe Afede XIV has stressed the need for the church to educate its members on the need to work hard and blend their Christian and spiritual growth with work, and avoid spending productive hours on church activities.

He observed that some Christians were spending more of their productive hours at prayer camps and on church activities, than getting involved in socio economic activities, thereby worsening the existing poverty situation in the country.

Togbe Afede, who was addressing the 150th anniversary celebration of the Ho-Kpodzi Evangelical Presbyterian (EP) Church, said "it seems Africans are now worshiping God more than those who introduced the Christian religion to us", saying even though that was the current picture, most Christians in Ghana and Africa were suffering from high level of poverty.

Damian Thompson does not get it

Damian Thompson on the cover up of sexual abuse of children by the Irish Catholic Church:

The greatest scandal, of course, lies in the acts perpetrated by wicked clergy against the innocent. But it’s the secrecy and deceit of the Church authorities that resonates most with me. For, although I was educated by Irish brothers, I can honestly say that I’ve never experienced clerical paedophilia, or even met a priest or brother who was to my knowledge a classic paedophile. But I have encountered, many times, the arrogance of senior clergy who believe that almost anything can be kept secret from the laity if it might “damage the good name of the Church” (ie, inconvenience or embarrass them).

All well said. Except. The greatest scandal is not the individual acts, but the cover up. Without the impulse to protect the name of the church, wicked clergy would have been weeded out instead being passed on to another unsuspecting parish. Without the impulse to protect the name of the church, fewer pedophiles would have entered the priesthood. Without the impulse to present the church as unquestionable there would have been rules to protect children from situations where they could be abused.

The cover up is primary and symptomatic of the structure of the church. The individual acts are secondary.

Doctor calls it like he sees it

Asheville Citizen-Times:

An Asheville eye doctor said he is prepared to go to court against the N.C. Medical Board if it reprimands him for telling a patient she was fat.
...
The patient complained that Sunderhaus poked her thigh and told her she was fat, and scolded her as irresponsible for being unemployed and relying on taxpayers to pay for another pregnancy.
...
The Medical Board ordered Sunderhaus to undergo a psychological evaluation and meet with the board, he said, although he refused to have more extensive physiological tests performed. Sunderhaus said the Medical Board told him it would inform him by letter about any actions they may take against him.

Sunderhaus said he has not had any other complaints against him to the Medical Board and he has never been reprimanded by the board.

Markets in everything - Communion dispenser

Purity Communion Solutions - no irony here - offers a Pez-like dispenser for distribution of communion bread. See the video here.