Episcopal Life Online Daybook -- Today is Tuesday, September 11, 2007.
* Today in Scripture: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm * Today in Prayer: Anglican Cycle of Prayer: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm * Today in History: On this day in 1976, the 65th General Convention of the Episcopal Church began in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
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TEACHING
Dream along with God, Presiding Bishop tells Union Theological Seminary convocation
By Mary Frances Schjonberg and Daniel Webster
[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the incoming class at Union Theological Seminary (http://www.utsnyc.edu) September 5 that they need to consider "how theological thinking is going to help to shape the rest of your life."
"The task of theological education really is to help us learn to do theology -- to relate our own stories, and the stories of those around us, to the great stories of our faith, so that we may be able to give an account of the faith that is within us," she said. "Theological education can bless us with the ability to see the need and hurt and injustice of the world, the ways in which God's dream is not yet being realized."
Jefferts Schori based her address, titled "Theological Education and the Dream of God," on Isaiah 61:1-9 (http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Isaiah+61%3A1-9+), saying that the verses sum up God's dream for humanity.
"This vision of a restored world, this dream of God, is what drives me," she said.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_89875_ENG_HTM.htm
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EDUCATION
St. John's Episcopal School in Rancho Santa Margarita earns preschool accreditation http://www.episcopalchurch.org/78650_89854_ENG_HTM.htm
Seminary of the Southwest's Visitors Weekend set for October 26-28 http://www.episcopalchurch.org/78650_89855_ENG_HTM.htm
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Catalyst: "Give God the Glory: Ancient Prayer and Worship in Cultural Prespective" from Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., by Jerome H. Neyrey, S.J., 273 pages, paperback, c. 2007, $20
[Source: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.] The New Testament, worship, prayer -- the list of books and articles on these topics is not a short one. Amid the cacophony of interpretive voices, Jerome Neyrey offers an intriguing descant as he aims to bring readers into an understanding and appreciation of the "otherness" of the culture in which the Christian scriptures and early church worship came to be.
In Give God the Glory, Neyrey reads select biblical texts in terms of social science models and the theory of communication. He examines New Testament passages in the context of both the Hebraic ethos and the Greco-Hellenistic culture in which these scriptures were conceived and written. Neyrey also looks at New Testament prayer and worship in relation to other ancient literature, particularly the writings of Philo, the Didache, and Justin's First Apology. Illuminating the New Testament texts in their original light, this book focuses on interpretation rather than history, supplementing and enhancing the existing wealth of scholarship.
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