Episcopal Women's Ministries Responds to CT as Africans Respond t...

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Ted Olsen

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Episcopal Women's Ministries Responds to CT as Africans Respond to Windsor Report

In both cases, the question is what constitutes another religion.

Compiled by Ted Olsen

[ posted 10/1/2004 12:00AM ]

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Episcopal Church's Office of Women's Ministries removes pagan ritual from website

Episcopal Church's Office of Women's Ministries removes pagan ritual from website
"We have been astounded and grateful for the number of people who have taken an interest in The Office of Women's Ministries of the Episcopal Church through Christianity Today's recent weblog," begins a press release from that office today. "We profoundly regret that Christianity Today did not contact us before making claims such as, 'leaders of the Episcopal Church USA are promoting pagan rites to pagan deities.'"

Let's get one thing out of the way. Here's what we've repeatedly said, and this message is linked at the end of every Weblog posting: "Weblog is a compilation of articles, and therefore doesn't involve any original reporting, nor does it necessarily strive to separate hard news from opinion."

And Weblog stands by its "claim." Leaders is appropriate, since this appeared on the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) website, not some random priest's personal site or a message board somewhere. Promoting is accurate, since the Episcopal News Service sent out a dispatch Monday highlighting "worship resources that are currently available to be downloaded and used by all." This news release was on all three home pages of the ECUSA site. As for "pagan rites to pagan deities," see the Weblog.

It's all been a big misunderstanding, says the Women's Ministries release:

The material questioned in Olsen's article, "A Women's Eucharist: A Celebration of the Divine Feminine" was sent to us in good faith in response to our recent call for resources. We regret we did not realize that the material was copyright protected. Proper notifications were not included by mistake and so the ...

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Weblog

Launched in 1999, Christianity Today’s Weblog was not just one of the first religion-oriented weblogs, but one of the first published by a media organization. (Hence its rather bland title.) Mostly compiled by then-online editor Ted Olsen, Weblog rounded up religion news and opinion pieces from publications around the world. As Christianity Today’s website grew, it launched other blogs. Olsen took on management responsibilities, and the Weblog feature as such was mothballed. But CT’s efforts to round up important news and opinion from around the web continues, especially on our Gleanings feature.

Ted Olsen

Ted Olsen is Christianity Today's managing editor for news and online journalism. He wrote the magazine's Weblog—a collection of news and opinion articles from mainstream news sources around the world—from 1999 to 2006. In 2004, the magazine launched Weblog in Print, which looks for unexpected connections and trends in articles appearing in the mainstream press. The column was later renamed "Tidings" and ran until 2007.