Alex Boye, member of the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Christian contemporary artist is giving a FREE stage presence workshop for artist of all styles of music.

The afternoon workshop  — 1:00p.m. to 3:00 p.m. – will be held Saturday July 19th at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 3905 McPherson Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63108 (Vandeventer and McPherson in the CWE). In the evening, — 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. — Boye will give a live concert at the In Spot, 5854a Delmar Blvd.

I wrote about Boye, a former European boyband phenomenon turned Christian artist in the St. Louis American, Religion section – click here for article. 

Learn more about Alex Boye at alexboye.com

National Right to Life News, June, 2008 reports that the United Methodist Church is continuing to move in the pro-life direction.

Back in 1972 the church, America’s second-largest Protestant denomination, officially endorsed legalized abortion, going so far at one point to state that legalized abortion was “in continuity with past Christian teaching.”

What a difference 36 years makes. While the church is still affiliated with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), the recent vote to maintain this alliance was by a margin of only 32 votes out of 800 cast. This was a closer vote than at any previous conference.

Meanwhile, the April 23-May 2 General Conference of the policymaking body decided to:

“Affirm and encourage the Church to assist the ministry of crisis pregnancy centers and pregnancy resource centers that compassionately help women find feasible alternatives to abortion.”

Delete from a previously adopted statement the assertion that supporting legalized abortion…

St. Louis is my hometown and always will be. For the last seven years I have pastored the most wonderful group of Christians at Providence Baptist in Rock Hill.

But when the sun rises tomorrow morning, a moving company crew will show up at my family’s house and pack up our belongings to move us into our new home in Louisville, Kentucky. The last six weeks have rushed by like a MetroLink train - acceptance of a job, beginning work, finding and buying and remodeling a home, and packing up a house - all of this has added up to a fast-paced June and July.

Although it is bittersweet to leave parents, friends, and family behind here in St. Louis, there is also an accompanying great amount of excitement in my new work as Director of Research for Dr. Albert Mohler, the President of my alma mater, The Southern Baptist…

The St. Louis Archdiocese is in a brawl with a national Catholic newspaper.

Earlier this week, the National Catholic Reporter posted an article on its website written by its executive editor, Tom Fox. The story cited anonymous sources who said an affidavit in the archdiocese’s file for Sr. Louise Lears suggested the archdiocese had sanctioned a secret video taping of a women’s ordination ceremony last fall.

NCR said the affidavit gave “permission to an individual to attend the ceremony in order to record it.” According to the story:

The archdiocese authorized someone to record the rite and then used the recording, along with photographs apparently taken from the video, as evidence to punish a Catholic nun who attended the liturgy, according to several people familiar with the case.

The paper subsequently updated its story with quotes from Rabbi Susan Talve, whose Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis was the site of the ordinations, and who…

I have a nice little plaque with the famous “Serenity Prayer” on it.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

I’ve always liked the prayer, its beautiful simplicity, its deep meanings packed into a few dense words.

And it has always seemed less Hallmark-y to me to know it was written by renowned 20th century theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.

Not so fast. The New York Times reports that his authorship of the “Serenity Prayer” is being called into question.

It is a fun little controversy that I think reflects more on the notion of authorship in western culture than either Professor Niebuhr or the prayer itself. Western literary culture is so dominated by the Romantic idea of a solitary, original “author” as being the only “true” source of a text that it becomes increasingly difficult…

Killing the Buddha, a great web magazine that was dormant for awhile, is back.

The magazine, which was founded by two talented religion reporters, Jeff Sharlet and Peter Manseau, has been resurrected, and is already offering some thought-provoking essays about belief.

Jeff is a friend, and the author of the recently published “The Family.” He also runs a great religion blog based at NYU called The Revealer.

KTB was notable in its heyday for being a place where writers could question belief - theirs and others’. Wrestling with one’s faith is a time-honored tradition and KTB is, as it says on its newly revamped site, “a place for brazen stories of belief — lost and found and lost again.”

Check it out. And make sure to check out the mag’s archives section.

(1) Pope Benedict XVI has been giving weekly talks on the early Church, including his June 25 discussion of St. Maximus the Confessor. Born in Palestine around 580, Maximus defied an imperial ruling — and incurred punishment — to insist that Jesus was both human and divine.

Maximus should be an example to contemporary Christians, the Pope said, and we, too, must not accept every thought proffered in the modern world:

“Tolerance that does not know how to distinguish between good and evil would become chaotic and self-destructive. Dialogue that does not know what to dialogue about becomes mere empty chatter.”

(2) Mark Shea, columnist for the National Catholic Register, wrote a thoughtful 6/1-7/08 column on Fake Courage, Real Cowardice. You will perhaps recognize the examples he provides, some from TV and some from right around the corner. Here’s an example:

Item: At the kickoff for the 40 Days for Life in…

I was quite touched reading Pamela Dolan’s post of June 30, Praying for others, known and unknown. Prayer is so important and personal, and hard to pin down, but Pamela does a wonderful job in letting us see the beauty and the simplicity of it.

Her column made me ask myself how much I pray for others, and I began to pay more attention to it. I am a Catholic priest. For the month of July, I am a chaplain at a motherhouse of Dominican sisters in Adrian, Michigan. More than a hundred retired sisters live here, as well as others who are just beginning their religious life and those who minister in the area. At mass each day, we have what are called “the prayers of the faithful” where we give voice to specific, individual prayers for the sister, the community, the church, and the world. As you might…

If you are running short on patience with what you see as various jackanapes who publicly criticize Archbishop Burke on his style rather than on his message — which is what really ticks them — you might be interested in veteran Vatican watcher John Allen’s recent column.

Allen writes:

“Since news of St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke’s appointment as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura was announced June 27, I’ve received numerous telephone calls and e-mails, from both sides of the Atlantic, posing some version of the following question: Was this a case of what the Italians call promuovere per rimuovere … promoting someone in order to get rid of him?

“…..The following … is not based on any insider insight. Nonetheless, my hunch is that this is not a case of promuovere per rimuovere, but what one might call “promotion for multiple motives.” In no particular order, I suspect that at least…

Heads up, ladies. Gentlemen, you’re welcome to eavesdrop.

Maureen Dowd — yes, Maureen Dowd! — introduces us to

“Father Pat Connor, a 79-year-old Catholic priest born in Australia and based in Bordentown, N.J., [who] has spent his celibate life - including nine years as a missionary in India - mulling connubial bliss. His decades of marriage counseling led him to distill some “mostly common sense” advice about how to dodge mates who would maul your happiness…..

Here’s an example of Fr. Connor’s wisdom:

‘Hollywood says you can be deeply in love with someone and then your marriage will work,” the twinkly eyed, white-haired priest says. “But you can be deeply in love with someone to whom you cannot be successfully married.’

If that statement has you nodding your head, read here for more.

Tyree Comment: Excellent article, a must-read, must-print, must-remember and must-give-to-every-single-woman-you-care-about. To Father’s insightful advice I would add, first, be the…