Episcopal Life Online Newslink July 24, 2007
Episcopal Life Online is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife.
Today's ELO Newslink includes:
* TOP STORY - Accessibility is church's goal, must become 'the norm' ** TOP STORY - Media relations, public information resources launched at Episcopal Church Center * WORLD REPORT - ENGLAND: Vicar sees 'God's love, not wrath' in nation's floods * WORLD REPORT - ENGLAND: Aye Carumba: The Simpsons help liven up Christian teaching * WORLD REPORT - WALES: Llandaff Cathedral launches major fund for new organ * WORLD REPORT - WALES: Church leaders appeal for Guantanamo Bay prisoner * OPINION - Biblical Proportions: How the lessons of the Virginia Tech massacre parallel lessons of the Bible
(** correcting link from 07/23/07 Newslink)
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TOP STORIES
Accessibility is church's goal, must become 'the norm'
By Mary Frances Schjonberg
[Episcopal News Service] It has been 25 years since the Episcopal Church first urged its members to make their buildings and services accessible to those with disabilities and that goal has not yet been fully achieved.
In 1982, the 67th General Convention established (via Resolution D120) a task force to consider how the church could become more accessible and how to ensure that people with disabilities would be given equal standing in the church.
In 1985, the 68th General Convention (via Resolution A087) re-iterated the call for the church to be accessible at all levels and in all programs to persons with disabilities.
In the hope of putting the issue "more in the front seat at least in terms of consciousness," according to Canon Victoria Garvey of the Diocese of Chicago, the Executive Council, meeting in Parsippany, New Jersey June 11-14, passed a resolution again calling the church to be accessible to all.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_88441_ENG_HTM.htm
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Media relations, public information resources launched at Episcopal Church Center 'NewsLine,' 'InfoLine' initiatives offer online, telephone assistance; Episcopal News Service focuses on headline coverage
[Episcopal News Service] Two new avenues for public information and media relations are now in place in the Communication Office at the Episcopal Church Center.
The Episcopal Church "NewsLine" provides reporters and other representatives of public and church-based media with services ranging from interview scheduling and media credentialing to story "backgrounding" and answers to frequently asked questions.
"The NewsLine staff works proactively to offer story leads, and to help the Episcopal Church tell its full story locally, regionally and internationally," said Canon Robert Williams, the Episcopal Church's director of communication, in announcing the new service.
"Our story is the mission and vitality of the church, not the sort of conflict that has tended to grab headlines in recent years," Williams said. "It's time for a sea change in telling our story, and for Episcopalians churchwide to pull together in this effort. NewsLine will help us in this effort."
NewsLine is online at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/newsline.htm. It is coordinated by Neva Rae Fox, communication specialist at the Episcopal Church Center, who is also available by telephone at 212-716-6080 or toll-free at 800-334-7626, ext. 6080.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_88360_ENG_HTM.htm
More Top Stories: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife
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WORLD REPORT
ENGLAND: Vicar sees 'God's love, not wrath' in nation's floods http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_88439_ENG_HTM.htm
ENGLAND: Aye Carumba: The Simpsons help liven up Christian teaching http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_88426_ENG_HTM.htm
WALES: Llandaff Cathedral launches major fund for new organ http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_88446_ENG_HTM.htm
WALES: Church leaders appeal for Guantanamo Bay prisoner http://www.episcopalchurch.org/78650_88451_ENG_HTM.htm
More World news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_ENG_HTM.htm
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OPINION
Biblical Proportions: How the lessons of the Virginia Tech massacre parallel lessons of the Bible
By Jason Karpf
[Episcopal Life] "Biblical proportions."
The term is a punch line, a hyperbole for a misfortune or disaster so extreme that it should be in the Bible alongside the accounts of ancient plagues and wars. Scriptural scale, often manifested in five- and six-figure body counts, outstrips our daily frame of reference, fostering a detachment from the Bible. But when a mass killer sweeps a campus and claims 32 lives, our global village shudders and suffers. Biblical proportions, indeed.
We now have a case for the record books. Seung-Hui Cho's assault at Virginia Tech is the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. In writing the 1994 book, "Anatomy of a Massacre," I researched and chronicled what was then our country's worst single killing spree: October 16, 1991, Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas. During that attack, George Hennard fatally shot 23 people in five minutes, taking his own life in a restaurant hallway during an ensuing gunbattle with police.
In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, the media have recycled components of "the mass killer profile" and "the warning signs." We need the reinforcement, because the dire information is accurate and recurrent. The prelude to Hennard's crimes mirrors that of Cho. Like Cho, Hennard was a bitter, suicidal loner, a stalker, and an aficionado of past mass killings. People who were paying any attention to him believed he was mentally ill, including his physician father.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_88443_ENG_HTM.htm
More Opinion: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_ENG_HTM.htm
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