http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/civil-religion/education/2009/04/living-the-resurrection-marks-new-term-for-episcopal-school-for-ministry/

Posted in Civil Religion, an ongoing forum at the St Louis Post-Dispatch’s BlogZone. Author Pamela Dolan is the Director of Formation for Children and Families at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Webster Groves.

We all know that ours is an age obsessed with the personal and the new. I have been fortunate enough to take several classes with Ralph McMichael, and one thing I admire about him is the disciplined way he focuses his intellect so that it serves the ancient and timeless teachings of the Church. I suspect that such an approach is one people across the spectrum of the Church are searching for and re-learning in a mostly haphazard but quite sincere way. When I talk to people in my own and other parishes, I find that there is a palpable desire in our churches for people who can reach back into our Christian past and pluck out those treasures that continue to speak to our current situations and personal perplexities and then offer them up in such a way that they enrich our awareness of both past and present. Thus the Gospel continues to be proclaimed as not only good but also as news–as something that is different than the ways of the world, that is deeply strange and yet intuitively resonant, and that is ultimately both infinitely new and truly eternal.

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The Post-Dispatch Civil Religion Blog Goes Live, Sunday, May 3, 2009, at 10:15 a.m. at Emmanuel

Panelists Tim Townsend, religion reporter for the Post-Dispatch and founder of the Civil Religion blog; Travis Scholl, an editor at Concordia Seminary and an ordained Lutheran minister; Khalid Shah, a small business owner and teacher who is active in a variety of interfaith activities as well as in the local Muslim communities; and Pamela Dolan, director of Formation for Children and Families at Emmanuel will talk about the intersection of faith and technology, and more specifically the pros and cons of writing about religion for an online audience.

• Emmanuel-Webster Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 9 S. Bompart, Webster Groves, MO 63119, ph 314-961-2393, www.emmanuelepiscopal.org