Seven whole days

This is one of my favorite posts to write, and it’s an annual tradition. Below you will find actual queries that people typed into Google to land on 7WD. I have not edited these. Because I care about the reading public, I have taken the trouble to answer these questions, which are a select few from thousands of queries which land people on my blog each year. If you look at the last two years’ questions (2009 or 2010), you’ll see that some things keep popping up.

What does God hate? God hates plenty of things. Shrimp, to name one. Also, bad typefaces, especially these.

How Christ overcame hell by descending into hell? Plenty of Christians think that everything about salvation can be expressed by the bumper-sticker saying, “Christ died for us.” That’s true, but it’s only a sliver of a great mystery and a profound truth. The New Testament itself has plenty to say about a more expansive view of salvation. For the best answer to this particular question, turn to St. John Chrysostom.

How do i know what God is saying? We don’t, really. Anyone who claims to know the mind of God with 100% certainty should not be trusted. But generally, we can test what we think God might be saying to us or to the church using the three-fold Anglican approach of scripture, tradition, and reason.

How to make a Lenten wreath? Don’t. Unless you are Satan. The Lent wreath (along with “Sarum blue” vestments) is an invention of ecclesiastical hucksters out to get your money.*

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In an annual tradition, and in keeping with year-end roundup stories in the media, here are the top blog posts of the year, based on page views. Enjoy a blast from the past on 7WD!

1. Hymn for Maundy Thursday: Brother, sister, let me serve you
2. Practicing our slogan
3. Of the 39 Articles of Religion
4. Holy women, holy men? Whatever.
5. Of the General Ordination Exam
6. Angels: setting the record straight
7. Killing in the name of Jesus
8. Death by grief
9. Article I: Of faith in the Holy Trinity
10. To reinvigorate the life of the Church

On this list, numbers one and seven were posted last year, but they continue to be popular thanks to Google. The next two posts if we limit ourselves to this year’s content would be Advice for the HoB: Don’t try this! and The seven deadly LOLcats. If you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, here is the roundup from oh-ten.

I was glad to see the new website of the Episcopal Church launch this week. It is a major improvement over the previous site, and in almost every respect I think it serves our church well. Kudos to the staff of the communication office at the Episcopal Church Center for a job well done. A few people have asked me what I think, so read on if you like.

Finally our church’s website is organized to present who we are and how we carry out our mission. This is a change from the previous few iterations of the website, which were organized around our org chart. Now it’s easy for a seeker to learn more about what we believe. It’s easier for a leader within the Episcopal Church to find out what we do and who’s doing it. My understanding is that in the future, there will be more content about various offices and departments.

I especially like the multimedia features, including videos of worship and other content too. The news section (Episcopal News Service) has been broken out into its own site now, which makes a great deal of sense. Now the corporate site and the news site can each carry out their work with more clarity. Ads, for example, can appear on the news site, and one wouldn’t want that on a corporate site.

The prayer section is nice too. Our prayer functions at Forward Movement get lots of viewer interest, so I know folks will find the online prayer features both edifying and inspiring. It’s good to see the collect of the day right on the front page Generally, the whole site looks fresh and professional — just as it should. Some might quibble with this or that, but that’s inevitable.

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Oops. Advent got away from me. Guess I wasn’t doing my job. I had thought I’d write a series on liturgy, but I never managed to get to that. So this post will compress several rants into one.

I’ll cut right to the chase. I have a problem with ad hoc “creative improvements” to the prayer book liturgies of our church. Quite often, these supposed improvements are based on the notion that our liturgy is somehow deficient. I’ve heard people describe it as “boring” or “out of touch”. And so people, usually clergy, attempt to rectify these perceived problems with ad hoc edits.

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