Current Diocesan News

January 7, 2008

Diocese to Honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – January 13

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Cathedral, located at 221 Front St.  in Harrisburg, will host a Choral Evensong to honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. on Sunday, January 13, 2008 at 4pm. Bishop Nathan D. Baxter will officiate. The service is open to all, and the Diocese has invited neighboring Episcopal, Lutheran, and Methodist congregations to participate.

The preacher for the service will be the Rev. Michael Thurman, pastor of the Dexter Ave Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where Dr. King was pastor during the early years of the civil rights movement. Rev. Thurman has written extensively about the history of the church and the pastors who guided the congregation and Dr. King’s movement.

December 27, 2007

Bishop Baxter Participates in Dialogues in Democracy – January 4 on PBS

Last fall, McNeil/Lehrer Productions, which produces The News Hour with Jim Lehrer for PBS, invited Bishop Baxter to participate in their latest project, Dialogues in Democracy.  The program is part of McNeil/Lehrer’s series By the People—a special project to bring the views of informed, "ordinary" citizens to a national discussion on the important issues of the day.

Bishop Baxter spent November 8-11 in Williamsburg, VA, with approximately 50 other citizens who have made unique contributions to American life and society. The final convocation, at which thoughts on the drafting of a "Declaration of Citizenship for the 21st Century" were debated, took place in Colonial Williamsburg's Capitol in the Hall of the House of Burgesses, where the founding generation produced the first comprehensive Declaration of Rights.

The one-hour broadcast program created from this event will air on Public Television’s HDTV digital stations on Friday, January 4, 2008 at 10pm. Stations carrying the program in Pennsylvania include WITF/Harrisburg, WQED/Pittsburgh, and WPSU/State College. The program will also be broadcast on Maryland Public Television.

More information on the By the People project is available at: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/btp/projects/did.html

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