Summary

Guideposts – 3 Questions: Rev. Pamela Conrad – The Episcopal priest and astrobiologist on how her faith and scientific work coexist and impact each other.

Religion News Service – Dilemma for houses of worship: Openness or safety? – Our hope as those who attend and lead religious institutions is to maintain our humaneness and treat others with compassion, while keeping ourselves and others safe.

Episcopal News Service – Transgender priests ask church to ‘live fully into’ LGBTQ+ inclusion during Executive Council plenary session – Transgender priests ask church to ‘live fully into’ LGBTQ+ inclusion during Executive Council plenary session

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3 Questions: Rev. Pamela Conrad

Guideposts – Glen Burnie, MD

Rev. Pamela Conrad is rector of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Glen Burnie, Maryland. She is also a research scientist at Washington, D.C.’s Carnegie Institution of Science, a member of the tactical operations team for the Mars Perseverance rover mission and a co-investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She takes us behind her two heavenly pursuits.

What inspired you to pursue the scientific and the spiritual?
One night in 1957, Dad, a scientist, pointed out this tiny speck in the sky—Sputnik, the first satellite. I was almost five. I kept looking up at the stars, delighted. He made a model of the U.S. launch rocket and satellite Explorer, and I ran all around the house with it, captivated by the idea of exploring something as big as the sky. I loved science and music and got my undergraduate and graduate degrees in the latter. I went back to graduate school 20 years later to study geology, focusing on geobiology.

Dilemma for houses of worship: Openness or safety?

Religion News Service

On a cold day, a stranger comes to the door of the sanctuary and asks for shelter. What should happen next?

The Bible’s Book of Deuteronomy says, “God loves the stranger, giving them food and garments.” The next verse goes on to tell us to do likewise: “Love therefore the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” The Christian New Testament, in Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews, says, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

Transgender priests ask church to ‘live fully into’ LGBTQ+ inclusion during Executive Council plenary session

Episcopal News Service

In an afternoon plenary session during Executive Council’s virtual meeting on Jan. 25, transgender and nonbinary Episcopal priests shared stories of the difficulties they face in a church where they are accepted on paper but often not in practice, telling council that the church’s work toward LGBTQ+ inclusion is not finished.

While much of The Episcopal Church feels comfortable with the “LGB” part of the LGBTQ+ community, the speakers said the situation is very different for the “TQ+” – people who are transgender, queer or otherwise outside the traditional gender binary.

“We’ve done an amazing job of beginning the process of inclusion at the churchwide level but it just isn’t translating to the diocesan and parish levels,” said the Rev. Gwen Fry, a former president of the Episcopal LGBTQ+ group Integrity and one of six speakers, five of whom were transgender clergy.

Presiding bishop nominating committee plans history-making presence at General Convention

For the first time in Episcopal Church history, the Joint Nominating Committee for the Election of the Presiding Bishop plans to be at General Convention in July to hear Episcopalians’ hopes and dreams for the church’s next presiding bishop, who will be elected in 2024.

The postponement of the 80th General Convention from 2021 to 2022 created the opportunity for the committee to attend convention to speak with bishops, deputies, and other participants. General Convention is scheduled for July 7-14 in Baltimore, Maryland.

“The committee members are committed to hearing from as many Episcopalians as possible as we prepare to write a profile and call for discernment for the 28th presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church,” said Canon Steven Nishibayashi, committee co-chair. “We feel blessed that we have this opportunity to visit with the part of the church that will be in Baltimore for convention this summer.”