The Best and the Worst

Rabbi Myers and the Rev. Jensen

The church at its best: [bold added]

Much has changed since Oct. 27, 2018, when a gunman stormed the Tree of Life synagogue and killed 11 people from three congregations: Tree of Life, New Light and Dor Hadash. The massacre was the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history and left a deep scar in the Jewish community in Pittsburgh...

[Tree of Life] holds its High Holiday services of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur at [Calvary Episcopal] church and puts on a Purim show there where two priests participate—last year’s theme was the board game Clue.

The collaboration started shortly after the attack, when the Rev. Jonathon Jensen of Calvary sent a letter to Rabbi Myers to offer support, including providing space to worship. “Our home is your home,” he wrote.

Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill (Wikimedia)

The church at its worst:

President Vladimir Putin thanked the Russian Orthodox Church for backing his war in Ukraine as he marked the first Orthodox Christmas since he launched his armies on a full-scale invasion, a conflict he has cast as a kind of holy war against a decadent West...

Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, said in an interview aired on state TV Saturday that worshipers should see the war as a holy struggle against the West to preserve “the Russian world” and unite Slavic lands under Moscow’s spiritual and political control.

Note: see here and here for previous comments on the conflict within the Orthodox Church over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The church often exhibits the frailties and wanton desires of men. But it also reminds us of the means of grace and the hope of glory.