Friendship and Fear: Seeking God in a Season of Anxiety
“The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes his covenant known to them.” Psalm 25:14 (NRSV) Interview with Bishop Angaelos Huffpo article Bishop Angaelos is a friend of God. This past week, perhaps coincidentally at the beginning of the Lenten season, a gruesome video circulated on the internet from a terrorist group that calls itself the “Islamic State.” I have not watched the video and refuse to. Apparently it shows the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians on a beach in Libya. The Copts are an ancient Egyptian Christian community that can date its roots back to the earliest history of Christianity. They have generally not involved themselves with the conflicts in the middle East, were not involved in the medieval crusades, but have been a persistent and quiet Christian presence in a troubled part of the world. Until recent years, Coptics were known in the US mostly among biblical scholars and church historians, because of the ancient manuscripts and