[82.1] TERRORISM, GLOBAL CAPITALISM & THE FACE OF CHRIST
While immersed in a frantic schedule and facing abominable insults from self-apppointed guardians of 'right thought' in the church, Archbishop Rowan Williams still seems to make time for some stalwart contributions to public debate.
This via Jonathan Petre:
'The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, yesterday urged America to recognise that terrorists can "have serious moral goals".
'He said that while terrorism must always be condemned, it was wrong to assume its perpetrators were devoid of political rationality. "It is possible to use unspeakably wicked means to pursue an aim that is shared by those who would not dream of acting in the same way, an aim that is intelligible or desirable."
'He said that in ignoring this, in its criticism of al-Qa'eda, America "loses the power of self-criticism and becomes trapped in a self-referential morality." ' [Full article]
Meanwhile Williams has contributed to a series of discussions about governance, global capitalism, the environment and humanum studies through the St Paul's Institute. The conversations are available online on *pdf format.
As if that's not enough, there's the first of a series of lectures honouring a predecessor at Canterbury, Archbishop Michael Ramsey. It's called Theology in the Face of Christ. Just what's needed.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Monday, October 18, 2004
Sunday, October 17, 2004
[81.2] DERRIDA'S ENDURING LEGACY
Controversial French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who died on 8 October 2004, has been justifiably defended against his (often proudly un-knowledgeable) critics by literary theorist Terry Eagleton, writing in The Guardian.
The Daily Telegraph, not known for its natural sympathies towards left-leaning wordsmiths, also provided a reasonably accurate and balanced assessment - albeit confusing some of its structuralists and post-structuralists!
It commented: 'Derrida was the embodiment of the philosopher-rebel, admired for his explosive critique of the authoritarian values latent in orthodox approaches to literature and philosophy.
'The most popular misconception about him, Derrida said, was that he was "a sceptical nihilist who doesn't believe in anything, who thinks nothing has meaning, and text has no meaning. That's stupid," he protested, "and utterly wrong." '
In recent years Derrida turned increasingly towards God-talk and religion as sources of corrigibility pointing towards 'the impossible', and towards the lesions of thought and language which illustrate the failure of all human attempts at 'closure'. For him this was a profoundly ethical task. Desconstruction, the critical movement most strongly identified with him, is not about destruction - it is, rather, the antidote to totalitarianism.
Derrida's works on identity, death and forgiveness are among his most profound and persuasive. Particularly towards what turned out to be the end of his life (a script which, he would be the first to say, cannot finalised, let alone by his own account), he developed a creative dialogue with Christian and Jewish philosophers and theologians.
This from The Chronicle of Higher Education:
' "He acquired a whole new life in the academy in the last 15 years or so," said John D. Caputo, a professor of religion and humanities at Syracuse University, and the author of The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion (Indiana University Press, 1997). "He began to talk about what he called 'the undeconstructible.'
'When Derrida was in vogue among literary theorists, you would not have heard that expression. The idea that deconstruction could be carried out in the name of something undeconstructible -- you just didn't hear from literary folks. But in his later work, he began to talk about the undeconstructibility of justice, of democracy, of friendship, of hospitality."
'Some scholars have referred to "the ethico-political turn" in Derrida's work during the 1990s. Interest in his writings increased among philosophers, and also among those in religious studies.
In earlier years, some commentators on Derrida's work had wondered whether his exacting attention to texts might not make him, in effect, a secular practitioner of the reading skills cultivated by centuries of Talmudic scholars. (Indeed, Derrida had hinted as much himself: His book Writing and Difference closes with a quotation attributed to a rabbi named Derrisa.)
'In interviews and autobiographical texts from his final decade, he began to speak about growing up as a Jew in Algeria during the Vichy period. More and more of his writing began to take the form of an overt dialogue with the work of Emmanuel Levinas, a French Jewish thinker who worked at the intersection of Heideggerian philosophy, ethical reflection, and biblical commentary.
' "The idea of something of unconditional value begins to emerge in Derrida's work -- something that makes an unconditional claim on us," said Mr. Caputo. "So the deconstruction of this or that begins to look a little bit like the critique of idols in Jewish theology."
'In 2002 Derrida gave the keynote address at the convention of the American Academy of Religion, held in Toronto. Speaking to a crowded auditorium, the philosopher said, "I rightly pass for an atheist" -- a puzzling formulation, by any measure.
' Mr Caputo recalled that other scholars asked Derrida, "Why don't you just say, 'Je suis. I am an atheist'?" Derrida replied, "Because I don't know. Maybe I'm not an atheist."
' "He meant that, I think, the name of God was important for him," said Mr Caputo, "even if, by the standards of the local pastor or rabbi, he was an atheist. The name of God was tremendously important because it was one of the ways that we could name the unconditional, the undeconstructible." '
Jacques Derrida's work was a major boost for those who believe that linguistic and phenomenological philosophy takes us much further in our understanding of the ecstasy and rationality of faith than traditional metaphysics and epistemology.
He was undoubtedly one of the great public intellectuals of the twentieth century. I believe his legacy to theology, even to biblical theology, will turn out to be immense. See, for example, Caputo's extraordinary piece of the experience of God and the axiology of the impossible.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Controversial French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who died on 8 October 2004, has been justifiably defended against his (often proudly un-knowledgeable) critics by literary theorist Terry Eagleton, writing in The Guardian.
The Daily Telegraph, not known for its natural sympathies towards left-leaning wordsmiths, also provided a reasonably accurate and balanced assessment - albeit confusing some of its structuralists and post-structuralists!
It commented: 'Derrida was the embodiment of the philosopher-rebel, admired for his explosive critique of the authoritarian values latent in orthodox approaches to literature and philosophy.
'The most popular misconception about him, Derrida said, was that he was "a sceptical nihilist who doesn't believe in anything, who thinks nothing has meaning, and text has no meaning. That's stupid," he protested, "and utterly wrong." '
In recent years Derrida turned increasingly towards God-talk and religion as sources of corrigibility pointing towards 'the impossible', and towards the lesions of thought and language which illustrate the failure of all human attempts at 'closure'. For him this was a profoundly ethical task. Desconstruction, the critical movement most strongly identified with him, is not about destruction - it is, rather, the antidote to totalitarianism.
Derrida's works on identity, death and forgiveness are among his most profound and persuasive. Particularly towards what turned out to be the end of his life (a script which, he would be the first to say, cannot finalised, let alone by his own account), he developed a creative dialogue with Christian and Jewish philosophers and theologians.
This from The Chronicle of Higher Education:
' "He acquired a whole new life in the academy in the last 15 years or so," said John D. Caputo, a professor of religion and humanities at Syracuse University, and the author of The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion (Indiana University Press, 1997). "He began to talk about what he called 'the undeconstructible.'
'When Derrida was in vogue among literary theorists, you would not have heard that expression. The idea that deconstruction could be carried out in the name of something undeconstructible -- you just didn't hear from literary folks. But in his later work, he began to talk about the undeconstructibility of justice, of democracy, of friendship, of hospitality."
'Some scholars have referred to "the ethico-political turn" in Derrida's work during the 1990s. Interest in his writings increased among philosophers, and also among those in religious studies.
In earlier years, some commentators on Derrida's work had wondered whether his exacting attention to texts might not make him, in effect, a secular practitioner of the reading skills cultivated by centuries of Talmudic scholars. (Indeed, Derrida had hinted as much himself: His book Writing and Difference closes with a quotation attributed to a rabbi named Derrisa.)
'In interviews and autobiographical texts from his final decade, he began to speak about growing up as a Jew in Algeria during the Vichy period. More and more of his writing began to take the form of an overt dialogue with the work of Emmanuel Levinas, a French Jewish thinker who worked at the intersection of Heideggerian philosophy, ethical reflection, and biblical commentary.
' "The idea of something of unconditional value begins to emerge in Derrida's work -- something that makes an unconditional claim on us," said Mr. Caputo. "So the deconstruction of this or that begins to look a little bit like the critique of idols in Jewish theology."
'In 2002 Derrida gave the keynote address at the convention of the American Academy of Religion, held in Toronto. Speaking to a crowded auditorium, the philosopher said, "I rightly pass for an atheist" -- a puzzling formulation, by any measure.
' Mr Caputo recalled that other scholars asked Derrida, "Why don't you just say, 'Je suis. I am an atheist'?" Derrida replied, "Because I don't know. Maybe I'm not an atheist."
' "He meant that, I think, the name of God was important for him," said Mr Caputo, "even if, by the standards of the local pastor or rabbi, he was an atheist. The name of God was tremendously important because it was one of the ways that we could name the unconditional, the undeconstructible." '
Jacques Derrida's work was a major boost for those who believe that linguistic and phenomenological philosophy takes us much further in our understanding of the ecstasy and rationality of faith than traditional metaphysics and epistemology.
He was undoubtedly one of the great public intellectuals of the twentieth century. I believe his legacy to theology, even to biblical theology, will turn out to be immense. See, for example, Caputo's extraordinary piece of the experience of God and the axiology of the impossible.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[81.1] CONTINUING TRAGEDY IN IRAQ
As the local and global politics around the aftermath of the war in Iraq grow evermore difficult, five churches have been bombed in Baghdad. Before the conflict began, Christian communities with relationships to the historic churches inside the country warned the Bush-Blair alliance of the dire consequences of ill-considered intervention. Their concerns were politely pushed aside in the interests of what was believed to be realpolitik. Tragically the consequences of this mess are being visited on those with least power to influence events.
I am now contributing regular news pieces like this to Ekklesia, by the way. My site index of these is to be found here.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
As the local and global politics around the aftermath of the war in Iraq grow evermore difficult, five churches have been bombed in Baghdad. Before the conflict began, Christian communities with relationships to the historic churches inside the country warned the Bush-Blair alliance of the dire consequences of ill-considered intervention. Their concerns were politely pushed aside in the interests of what was believed to be realpolitik. Tragically the consequences of this mess are being visited on those with least power to influence events.
I am now contributing regular news pieces like this to Ekklesia, by the way. My site index of these is to be found here.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Saturday, October 16, 2004
[80.1] LONGING FOR THE LONGING
"The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God’s love; but if the soul cannot yet feel this longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God." - Meister Eckhart
And in this context, as Latin American theologian Leonardo Boff has eloquently pointed out, the refined biblical usage of 'soul' denotes the whole person -- what these days we call a psychosomatic unity -- re-oriented towards that fullness of life that is the gift of God, not some disembodied component of (or addendum to) a physical being.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
"The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God’s love; but if the soul cannot yet feel this longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God." - Meister Eckhart
And in this context, as Latin American theologian Leonardo Boff has eloquently pointed out, the refined biblical usage of 'soul' denotes the whole person -- what these days we call a psychosomatic unity -- re-oriented towards that fullness of life that is the gift of God, not some disembodied component of (or addendum to) a physical being.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
[79.1] DAMNING DANGEROUS TALK
Radical film-maker Ken Loach (whose Kes is one of my favourite movies) has a new picture out. Ae Fond Kiss is an account of a Muslim falling in love with a Catholic in Glasgow. The backdrop is one of racial and cultural tension, stoked both by the media and politicians on issues such as asylum.
This from Loach on the British Home Secretary, who is, perhaps surprisingly these days, still a member of the Christian Socialist Movement:
"You get people like David Blunkett saying that Asian families should speak English at home. I wonder if he says that to the Brits who buy second homes in Spain. Do they have to speak Spanish? How about his Labour friends in Tuscany? Do they speak Italian? The man has no sense of history and proportion. He's a political thug and people like that inadvertently end up promoting racism." (London Metro).
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Radical film-maker Ken Loach (whose Kes is one of my favourite movies) has a new picture out. Ae Fond Kiss is an account of a Muslim falling in love with a Catholic in Glasgow. The backdrop is one of racial and cultural tension, stoked both by the media and politicians on issues such as asylum.
This from Loach on the British Home Secretary, who is, perhaps surprisingly these days, still a member of the Christian Socialist Movement:
"You get people like David Blunkett saying that Asian families should speak English at home. I wonder if he says that to the Brits who buy second homes in Spain. Do they have to speak Spanish? How about his Labour friends in Tuscany? Do they speak Italian? The man has no sense of history and proportion. He's a political thug and people like that inadvertently end up promoting racism." (London Metro).
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
[78.1] SUFFERING MAY BE FACED, BUT NOT EFFACED
Once they told Rabbi Pinhas of the great misery among the needy. He listened, sunk in grief. Then he raised his head. “Let us draw God into the world,” he cried, “and all need will be quenched.” God’s grace consists precisely in this, that God wants to .. be won by humanity, placing Godself, so to speak, into human hands. God wants to come to the world, but to come to it through men and women. This is the mystery of our existence, the superhuman chance of humankind.
(Martin Buber).
Writing from the depths of Judaism, Buber and Pinhas remind us that the One who Christians meet in Christ is not a God whose incarnation begins and ends with the history of Jesus. This is the deep truth that traditional Christian language seeks to capture by picturing for us the 'pre-existence' of the logos and the gift of resurrection.
Rendered 'metaphysically', those concepts may cause us moderns no end of problems. Understood as encounter-beyond-words they call forth that God-with-usness which gazes right back at us in Jesus, even down to his demanding non-recognition (Matthew 25).
Picking up on this Jewish and Christian experience, theologian Ruth Page has suggested that 'pansyntheism' (God-with-all) may be a better descriptor for 'the incarnate God' than either stand-alone theism or panentheism (God-in-all, as favoured by process thinkers). The former is too aloof; the latter blurs the respective freedoms of God and creation while seeking their rightful congruence.
Meanwhile, what sticks out like a (very) sore thumb in Pinhas's prose is his near-suggestion that suffering itself may be quenched. I can't swallow that. The risen Christ is imaged with the wounds of crucifixion still impressed upon him. In a universe where love's possibility involves the lesions of contingency, suffering cannot be effaced. Nor, mostly, can the painful need it causes be satisfied. But even so, those who suffer can be faced, given worth and hope.
For this, as Bonhoeffer put it - and we shall have to live with the anthropomorphism - "only a suffering God will do." Not a God who denies, inflicts or disowns suffering, but a God who embraces it (and its victims) through unquenchable love.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Once they told Rabbi Pinhas of the great misery among the needy. He listened, sunk in grief. Then he raised his head. “Let us draw God into the world,” he cried, “and all need will be quenched.” God’s grace consists precisely in this, that God wants to .. be won by humanity, placing Godself, so to speak, into human hands. God wants to come to the world, but to come to it through men and women. This is the mystery of our existence, the superhuman chance of humankind.
(Martin Buber).
Writing from the depths of Judaism, Buber and Pinhas remind us that the One who Christians meet in Christ is not a God whose incarnation begins and ends with the history of Jesus. This is the deep truth that traditional Christian language seeks to capture by picturing for us the 'pre-existence' of the logos and the gift of resurrection.
Rendered 'metaphysically', those concepts may cause us moderns no end of problems. Understood as encounter-beyond-words they call forth that God-with-usness which gazes right back at us in Jesus, even down to his demanding non-recognition (Matthew 25).
Picking up on this Jewish and Christian experience, theologian Ruth Page has suggested that 'pansyntheism' (God-with-all) may be a better descriptor for 'the incarnate God' than either stand-alone theism or panentheism (God-in-all, as favoured by process thinkers). The former is too aloof; the latter blurs the respective freedoms of God and creation while seeking their rightful congruence.
Meanwhile, what sticks out like a (very) sore thumb in Pinhas's prose is his near-suggestion that suffering itself may be quenched. I can't swallow that. The risen Christ is imaged with the wounds of crucifixion still impressed upon him. In a universe where love's possibility involves the lesions of contingency, suffering cannot be effaced. Nor, mostly, can the painful need it causes be satisfied. But even so, those who suffer can be faced, given worth and hope.
For this, as Bonhoeffer put it - and we shall have to live with the anthropomorphism - "only a suffering God will do." Not a God who denies, inflicts or disowns suffering, but a God who embraces it (and its victims) through unquenchable love.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Monday, October 04, 2004
[77.1] ON TRUE TOGETHERNESS
Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?
Or by an agreement on paper?
Or by arms?
Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing will so cohere.
Only those who love each other shall become indivisible.
(Walt Whitman)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?
Or by an agreement on paper?
Or by arms?
Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing will so cohere.
Only those who love each other shall become indivisible.
(Walt Whitman)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
[76.2] LATEST CROSS CURRENTS
Charles Henderson writes in with news about CrossCurrents, one of the most interesting journals in the field of religion and applied theology across the spectrum:
'As we normally do, we reach beyond the news of the day to explore the currents that lie beneath the surface. For example, behind today's debate about the war in Iraq lies the long history of US foreign policy and how it has been influenced by various strains within American civil religion. Gary Dorrien's "Imperial Designs" traces that history up to the present, and lays out the options for the future.
'Likewise, beyond the present debate about gay marriage lies the under-reported story of polygyny. Debra Mubashshir Majeed explores the possible connections between the two. Similarly, ahead of politicized debate about strengthening education systems lies the untapped potential of service learning.
'Angela Leonard reports from the front lines of change and innovation. Many of the articles in the summer issue have been contributed by the scholars who attended our 20th anniversary research colloquium last year. Contributing editor, Stephanie Mitchem, frames the conversation in her Anniversary of Ideas.
'If you like what you find in this issue, but have not yet taken advantage of our offer of up to six complimentary back issues, why not subscribe now?'
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[76.1] CHURCHES BACK INTERNATIONAL PEACE DAY - TODAY
Christian leaders from across the world have supplied short, broadcast messages for a website (www.overcomingviolence.org/peace2004) to promote the International Day of Prayer for Peace, which takes place today.
Millions of Christians from all traditions – evangelical, ecumenical, Pentecostal and Catholic – will join in, says the World Council of Churches, which is coordinating the event.
"God weeps over God's world, aching because of conflict in Darfur, in Beslan, in Harare, in Colombia, in Jerusalem, in Belfast," says Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu in his personal message. He adds: "God - Emmanuel, God with us, with you - has no one but you to help God make this world hospitable to peace and justice."
The inspiring two-minute video messages are also an affirmation of the churches' and faith communities' work for change in the midst of the world’s current turmoil. They are in both webcast and broadcast quality.
This WCC initiative links to the International Day of Peace declared by the United Nations General Assembly, a world-wide effort intended as a day of global cease-fire and non-violence, and as an opportunity for education and raising public awareness on the issues involved. (From Ekklesia)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Christian leaders from across the world have supplied short, broadcast messages for a website (www.overcomingviolence.org/peace2004) to promote the International Day of Prayer for Peace, which takes place today.
Millions of Christians from all traditions – evangelical, ecumenical, Pentecostal and Catholic – will join in, says the World Council of Churches, which is coordinating the event.
"God weeps over God's world, aching because of conflict in Darfur, in Beslan, in Harare, in Colombia, in Jerusalem, in Belfast," says Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu in his personal message. He adds: "God - Emmanuel, God with us, with you - has no one but you to help God make this world hospitable to peace and justice."
The inspiring two-minute video messages are also an affirmation of the churches' and faith communities' work for change in the midst of the world’s current turmoil. They are in both webcast and broadcast quality.
This WCC initiative links to the International Day of Peace declared by the United Nations General Assembly, a world-wide effort intended as a day of global cease-fire and non-violence, and as an opportunity for education and raising public awareness on the issues involved. (From Ekklesia)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Saturday, September 18, 2004
[75.2] WOMEN AT THE ALTAR & BEYOND
Arriving home late from London last night, I found myself leafing through the September '04 newsletter of Catholic Womens Ordination. (Carla Roth - my wife - and I joined a few years ago, partly through personal contacts, and partly to express some Anglican/Mennonite support.)
And, lo and behold, we discovered from the 'members update' section that our immediate next door neighbours, Liz and Diana, are involved too! Looked at another way, it's alarming what you still don't dicover for almost a year...
It also reminds me to add CWO to my permanent links.
Catholic Womens Ordination is a movement campaigning within the Roman Catholic Church for inclusivity and for the radical transformation of kyriarchal institutional Church structures. It calls for women's perspectives to enrich the Church's thinking and for women's gifts to enrich its ministry and mission.
Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, the American biblical scholar, uses the word kyriarchy taken from the Greek kyros, denoting 'master', to express the interlocking of oppressions within a hierachical system (racism, sexism, classism, etc.) in contrast to the liberating dynamic of the Gospel.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Arriving home late from London last night, I found myself leafing through the September '04 newsletter of Catholic Womens Ordination. (Carla Roth - my wife - and I joined a few years ago, partly through personal contacts, and partly to express some Anglican/Mennonite support.)
And, lo and behold, we discovered from the 'members update' section that our immediate next door neighbours, Liz and Diana, are involved too! Looked at another way, it's alarming what you still don't dicover for almost a year...
It also reminds me to add CWO to my permanent links.
Catholic Womens Ordination is a movement campaigning within the Roman Catholic Church for inclusivity and for the radical transformation of kyriarchal institutional Church structures. It calls for women's perspectives to enrich the Church's thinking and for women's gifts to enrich its ministry and mission.
Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, the American biblical scholar, uses the word kyriarchy taken from the Greek kyros, denoting 'master', to express the interlocking of oppressions within a hierachical system (racism, sexism, classism, etc.) in contrast to the liberating dynamic of the Gospel.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[75.1] U.S. RIGHT'S ‘BIBLE BAN’ NONSENSE
US election campaign mail with a return address for the Republican National Committee in Washington DC has been issued in West Virginia warning voters that the Bible will be prohibited if liberal candidates win in November.
The Democrats are not named and there is no direct reference to Presidential candidate John Kerry, but the implication seems clear.
The literature shows a Bible with the word "banned" across it and a photo of a man, on his knees, placing a ring on the hand of another man with the word "allowed." The mailing tells West Virginians to "vote Republican to protect our families" and to defeat the "liberal agenda."
Republican National Committee chair Ed Gillespie would neither confirm nor deny the origins of the mailing when he was interviewed by the Associated Press agency which broke the story.
The tactic has been condemned as “scare mongering” by lobby groups and moderate church leaders.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
US election campaign mail with a return address for the Republican National Committee in Washington DC has been issued in West Virginia warning voters that the Bible will be prohibited if liberal candidates win in November.
The Democrats are not named and there is no direct reference to Presidential candidate John Kerry, but the implication seems clear.
The literature shows a Bible with the word "banned" across it and a photo of a man, on his knees, placing a ring on the hand of another man with the word "allowed." The mailing tells West Virginians to "vote Republican to protect our families" and to defeat the "liberal agenda."
Republican National Committee chair Ed Gillespie would neither confirm nor deny the origins of the mailing when he was interviewed by the Associated Press agency which broke the story.
The tactic has been condemned as “scare mongering” by lobby groups and moderate church leaders.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Friday, September 17, 2004
[74.2] GOD AFTER BESLAN
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, was interviewed by John Humphreys on the BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme recently, following the terrorist killing of around 350 people, mostly children, in Beslan.
He faced sharp questions on the meaning of belief in God in the light of such horrors. These excerpts were reproduced by the Church Times:
Where was God yesterday morning?
Where was God? Where was God in the Aberfan disaster? Where was God on 9/11? The short answer is that God is where God always is, that is, with those who are trying to comfort and bring light in any such situation. I would guess in such a situation - and how could one begin to imagine the nightmare in the school - there must have been older children putting arms around younger children. You might see God there.
But, in a world in which human decisions are free - even free for the most appalling evil like this - God does not dictate and intervene.
I suppose we all have the sense that some kind of line has been crossed here: that people can not only calculate that the death of children will serve their purpose, but actually sit with suffering children for days, watching in a calculating way. That is the kind of decision which, yes, you have to call evil.
[On the question of freedom of choice] Freedom is a word thrown around. It is a word that has big and dramatic resonances, but it often means very, very small things, a very small gesture.
But choice is denied to people who are victims?
That is what it is to be a victim: your choice is restricted; you are imprisoned.
That is what God allows; so he doesn't give us a choice, does he?
It is a fact that people exercise different levels of freedom. One person's freedom interferes with another's. That is why I do not believe that freedom is the essence of Christianity. It is one of those crucial aspects of it, but I would still come back to the question: what is it, in a situation of this dreadful captivity, that an ordinary child can still do with mind and heart?
Does the Church not preach that God is merciful?
Of course, this is nothing to do with God's mercy, it has to do with the kind of reality that the created world is in, which we make our futures in relation to God.
God calls us to co-operate with what he longs for; what he wishes to see, which is justice, which is love, and we are free to resist. Sometimes people resist violently and horribly, as in this case.
So what do you say to people who say: 'I simply can't believe any longer; this is not a good world.'
What I want to ask is: what is it that makes you find the torture and death of children so appalling? What is it that makes you value human beings?The faith that Christians hold, and other religious people, is that each person has that absolute value in the eyes of God, which means that it is impossible to treat them as a means to your own ends. It requires of us the most self-forgetful respect, the most generous, the most outgoing engagement with other persons.
If there is no eternal love focused on each and every individual, including the most vulnerable, including the most unimportant, then it is possible for persons to be used as tools, as objects. More.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, was interviewed by John Humphreys on the BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme recently, following the terrorist killing of around 350 people, mostly children, in Beslan.
He faced sharp questions on the meaning of belief in God in the light of such horrors. These excerpts were reproduced by the Church Times:
Where was God yesterday morning?
Where was God? Where was God in the Aberfan disaster? Where was God on 9/11? The short answer is that God is where God always is, that is, with those who are trying to comfort and bring light in any such situation. I would guess in such a situation - and how could one begin to imagine the nightmare in the school - there must have been older children putting arms around younger children. You might see God there.
But, in a world in which human decisions are free - even free for the most appalling evil like this - God does not dictate and intervene.
I suppose we all have the sense that some kind of line has been crossed here: that people can not only calculate that the death of children will serve their purpose, but actually sit with suffering children for days, watching in a calculating way. That is the kind of decision which, yes, you have to call evil.
[On the question of freedom of choice] Freedom is a word thrown around. It is a word that has big and dramatic resonances, but it often means very, very small things, a very small gesture.
But choice is denied to people who are victims?
That is what it is to be a victim: your choice is restricted; you are imprisoned.
That is what God allows; so he doesn't give us a choice, does he?
It is a fact that people exercise different levels of freedom. One person's freedom interferes with another's. That is why I do not believe that freedom is the essence of Christianity. It is one of those crucial aspects of it, but I would still come back to the question: what is it, in a situation of this dreadful captivity, that an ordinary child can still do with mind and heart?
Does the Church not preach that God is merciful?
Of course, this is nothing to do with God's mercy, it has to do with the kind of reality that the created world is in, which we make our futures in relation to God.
God calls us to co-operate with what he longs for; what he wishes to see, which is justice, which is love, and we are free to resist. Sometimes people resist violently and horribly, as in this case.
So what do you say to people who say: 'I simply can't believe any longer; this is not a good world.'
What I want to ask is: what is it that makes you find the torture and death of children so appalling? What is it that makes you value human beings?The faith that Christians hold, and other religious people, is that each person has that absolute value in the eyes of God, which means that it is impossible to treat them as a means to your own ends. It requires of us the most self-forgetful respect, the most generous, the most outgoing engagement with other persons.
If there is no eternal love focused on each and every individual, including the most vulnerable, including the most unimportant, then it is possible for persons to be used as tools, as objects. More.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[74.1] NO SCIENCE WITHOUT SENSIBILITY
There was a slightly odd discussion about science and public policy on BBC Radio 4 this morning. In the wake of public health panics over matters such as the MMR triple-vaccine, the 'Today' programme asked how the confidence of the general public could be regained by the scientific community, which was sometimes seen to be too influenced by corporate and commercial interests.
This, of course, is an important and valid question. The marketisation of society, and with it of scientific endeavour, raises profoundly problematic moral issues. How can control and accountability be maintained in an era of weakening states and boundary-defiant technology?
Unfortunately, the axis of the exchange between Kathy Sykes, Collier Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Bristol, and Tracey Brown, spokesperson for the lobbying organisation Sense About Science, turned on a naive fact-value distinction - not helped by the interviewer, who seemed to think people wanted scientists to be "desiccated fact machines". It was as if Kantian and (more importantly) post-Kantian theory had never really happened.
In fairness, Sykes was well aware of this. But Brown's advocacy of evidence-based science as 'opinion free' seemed monological. Empiricism is an important tool, and rightly used can help guard against extending ideas beyond the explanatory territory where they first emerged. But wrongly used (that is, when it denies non-empirical factors) it can do the opposite. Seeing it as the only form of rationality is therefore dangerous. What we 'find' when we investigate analytically is conditioned by a range of social, cultural and political factors. One does not have to be a raving philosophical anti-realist to recognize this.
As Kathy Sykes rightly said, in the debate about the application of science and technology we need to hear from scientists about the evidence they are weighing, and also about how they see that evidence shaping (or being shaped by) wider public concerns. And we also need to engage with other perspectives on the same issues.
Mary Midgely has some thought-provoking and trenchant observations to make about over-reductive approaches to the public role of science in her new book The Myths We Live By. She has also made some useful interventions in the discussion about the different languages of religion and the social and material sciences, of course.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
There was a slightly odd discussion about science and public policy on BBC Radio 4 this morning. In the wake of public health panics over matters such as the MMR triple-vaccine, the 'Today' programme asked how the confidence of the general public could be regained by the scientific community, which was sometimes seen to be too influenced by corporate and commercial interests.
This, of course, is an important and valid question. The marketisation of society, and with it of scientific endeavour, raises profoundly problematic moral issues. How can control and accountability be maintained in an era of weakening states and boundary-defiant technology?
Unfortunately, the axis of the exchange between Kathy Sykes, Collier Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Bristol, and Tracey Brown, spokesperson for the lobbying organisation Sense About Science, turned on a naive fact-value distinction - not helped by the interviewer, who seemed to think people wanted scientists to be "desiccated fact machines". It was as if Kantian and (more importantly) post-Kantian theory had never really happened.
In fairness, Sykes was well aware of this. But Brown's advocacy of evidence-based science as 'opinion free' seemed monological. Empiricism is an important tool, and rightly used can help guard against extending ideas beyond the explanatory territory where they first emerged. But wrongly used (that is, when it denies non-empirical factors) it can do the opposite. Seeing it as the only form of rationality is therefore dangerous. What we 'find' when we investigate analytically is conditioned by a range of social, cultural and political factors. One does not have to be a raving philosophical anti-realist to recognize this.
As Kathy Sykes rightly said, in the debate about the application of science and technology we need to hear from scientists about the evidence they are weighing, and also about how they see that evidence shaping (or being shaped by) wider public concerns. And we also need to engage with other perspectives on the same issues.
Mary Midgely has some thought-provoking and trenchant observations to make about over-reductive approaches to the public role of science in her new book The Myths We Live By. She has also made some useful interventions in the discussion about the different languages of religion and the social and material sciences, of course.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Thursday, September 16, 2004
[73.2] ACCEPTING EVANGELICALS
As the argument within the churches about human sexuality rages on, it is always good to see people who refuse to play 'the tribal game' and whose inclusivity is rooted in (no doubt painful) theological wrestling. I'm thinking of the recently formed Accepting Evangelicals who, along with Courage and the Evangelical Fellowship for Lesbian and Gay Christians, give the lie to the idea that this is some kind of simple war between 'liberals' and 'conservatives'.
Given the vituperative climate, AE are a brave bunch of people, too. But no-one who has worked with Benny Hazlehurst (as I was fortunate enough to do in Southwark Diocese in the mid-90s) could doubt his faith or integrity. Not being an evangelical I can't join. But I certainly send AE my best wishes and prayers. Their self-explanation is as follows:
Accepting Evangelicals is a new network of Evangelical Christians who believe that it is ok to be both Evangelical and open to accepting or affirming views on homosexuality.
It is both national and ecumenical and welcomes anyone who would call themselves an Evangelical. Among its founders are Benny Hazlehurst and Paul Roberts, both Anglican vicars & members of General Synod, and Jeremy & Bren Marks, founders of ‘Courage’.
"We want to create a space for Evangelicals to be able to sign up to an accepting or affirming position on the gay issue without having to stop being Evangelicals!” said Benny Hazlehurst. “We are passionate about the Gospel, and believe in the authority of Scripture, but are prepared to accept that there is more than one way to interpret the Bible on this issue.”
Accepting Evangelicals believe that many Evangelicals are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with some of the hard-line statements that are being issued on their behalf. The network also wants to engage constructively with those who are opposed to the acceptance of faithful, loving same-sex partnerships.
Membership of the network is free, and both people and churches can join up via the web site www.acceptingevangelicals.org/membership info.htm We need to break the myth that being a pro-gay Evangelical is a contradiction in terms so if you call yourself Evangelical, come and visit the web site, join up, and give us your feed back.”
My own musings on Christian faith and sexuality are here.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
As the argument within the churches about human sexuality rages on, it is always good to see people who refuse to play 'the tribal game' and whose inclusivity is rooted in (no doubt painful) theological wrestling. I'm thinking of the recently formed Accepting Evangelicals who, along with Courage and the Evangelical Fellowship for Lesbian and Gay Christians, give the lie to the idea that this is some kind of simple war between 'liberals' and 'conservatives'.
Given the vituperative climate, AE are a brave bunch of people, too. But no-one who has worked with Benny Hazlehurst (as I was fortunate enough to do in Southwark Diocese in the mid-90s) could doubt his faith or integrity. Not being an evangelical I can't join. But I certainly send AE my best wishes and prayers. Their self-explanation is as follows:
Accepting Evangelicals is a new network of Evangelical Christians who believe that it is ok to be both Evangelical and open to accepting or affirming views on homosexuality.
It is both national and ecumenical and welcomes anyone who would call themselves an Evangelical. Among its founders are Benny Hazlehurst and Paul Roberts, both Anglican vicars & members of General Synod, and Jeremy & Bren Marks, founders of ‘Courage’.
"We want to create a space for Evangelicals to be able to sign up to an accepting or affirming position on the gay issue without having to stop being Evangelicals!” said Benny Hazlehurst. “We are passionate about the Gospel, and believe in the authority of Scripture, but are prepared to accept that there is more than one way to interpret the Bible on this issue.”
Accepting Evangelicals believe that many Evangelicals are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with some of the hard-line statements that are being issued on their behalf. The network also wants to engage constructively with those who are opposed to the acceptance of faithful, loving same-sex partnerships.
Membership of the network is free, and both people and churches can join up via the web site www.acceptingevangelicals.org/membership info.htm We need to break the myth that being a pro-gay Evangelical is a contradiction in terms so if you call yourself Evangelical, come and visit the web site, join up, and give us your feed back.”
My own musings on Christian faith and sexuality are here.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[73.1] ON PROPERLY NOT FORGETTING
From Embodying Forgiveness, by L. Gregory Jones, published in 2002 by ECONI:
"Easter is not about un-crucifying Christ. It's not about forgetting the past. It's about redeeming the past. There is a crucial difference between worshipping Christ un-crucified and worshipping Christ crucified and risen. He comes bearing the mark of nails. The risen Christ returns with a judgment that does not condemn but offers grace, offers forgiveness, even to those who crucified him. And so it is that God's definitive word - even in the face of being rejected by humanity - is 'Yes'."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
From Embodying Forgiveness, by L. Gregory Jones, published in 2002 by ECONI:
"Easter is not about un-crucifying Christ. It's not about forgetting the past. It's about redeeming the past. There is a crucial difference between worshipping Christ un-crucified and worshipping Christ crucified and risen. He comes bearing the mark of nails. The risen Christ returns with a judgment that does not condemn but offers grace, offers forgiveness, even to those who crucified him. And so it is that God's definitive word - even in the face of being rejected by humanity - is 'Yes'."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[72.1] A VOICE FROM PORTLAND
It was a great pleasure to meet Johan Maurer earlier this year - both in Birmingham, where he was based at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre for a number of months, and briefly in Exeter, where I live. Johan has recently entered the blogosphere with Can you believe...?. I shall add him to my regular reads. His current research revolves around the important link between the Quaker testimonies and evangelism. We enjoyed some wonderful conversations about the state of the world, the nature of Christian belief and the centrality of peace witness to the Gospel.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
It was a great pleasure to meet Johan Maurer earlier this year - both in Birmingham, where he was based at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre for a number of months, and briefly in Exeter, where I live. Johan has recently entered the blogosphere with Can you believe...?. I shall add him to my regular reads. His current research revolves around the important link between the Quaker testimonies and evangelism. We enjoyed some wonderful conversations about the state of the world, the nature of Christian belief and the centrality of peace witness to the Gospel.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
[71.1] CHALLENGING FAITH
Rowan Williams delivered a remarkable speech at the al-Azhar al-Sharif Mosque in Cairo last week. The full text is here and my Ekklesia news item includes excerpts. First, the Archbishop issued an unambiguous statement of the incompatibility between acts of violence and terror on the one hand, and the practice of true faith on the other. Second, and with great humility, he drew attention to the differences as well as the convergences between Christian and Muslim understandings of God, seeking to explain the significance of Trinitarian thought and to expound its deeper meaning in the context of the offence it occasions. In a climate in which Christian leaders are tempted towards either intemperance or avoidance, Williams' explicit but contextually (and humanly) sensitive approach provides a useful model for the congruence between testimony and dialogue in an otherwise dangerously polarised environment.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Rowan Williams delivered a remarkable speech at the al-Azhar al-Sharif Mosque in Cairo last week. The full text is here and my Ekklesia news item includes excerpts. First, the Archbishop issued an unambiguous statement of the incompatibility between acts of violence and terror on the one hand, and the practice of true faith on the other. Second, and with great humility, he drew attention to the differences as well as the convergences between Christian and Muslim understandings of God, seeking to explain the significance of Trinitarian thought and to expound its deeper meaning in the context of the offence it occasions. In a climate in which Christian leaders are tempted towards either intemperance or avoidance, Williams' explicit but contextually (and humanly) sensitive approach provides a useful model for the congruence between testimony and dialogue in an otherwise dangerously polarised environment.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Monday, September 13, 2004
[70.1] THE MESSAGE OF BESLAN
This from Bill Wiser in 'For the sake of the children' on the Bruderhof site:
"Beslan is a call to America to remember the candles, the flowers, and the grief that united us in the aftermath of 9/11. On this day, if we turn down the volume, our ears will catch an echo of that still, small voice once again. We may not know where the road will take us, but we owe it to the world’s children to return to the starting point before we have gone so far that we can’t turn back."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
This from Bill Wiser in 'For the sake of the children' on the Bruderhof site:
"Beslan is a call to America to remember the candles, the flowers, and the grief that united us in the aftermath of 9/11. On this day, if we turn down the volume, our ears will catch an echo of that still, small voice once again. We may not know where the road will take us, but we owe it to the world’s children to return to the starting point before we have gone so far that we can’t turn back."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Sunday, September 12, 2004
[69.1] RACIAL JUSTICE SUNDAY
Hundreds of churches of all shapes and sizes have marked Racial Justice Sunday today, and initiative promoted and supported by the Churches' Commission for Racial Justice of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, the official ecumenical body.
The aim is to:
* raise awareness of each other's cultures and experiences
* understand ourselves, our own roots and identity
* understand the feelings of people from different cultures
* become more inclusive and outward-looking
* become more welcoming
* encourage all members to contribute to the service of the community
* remember that whatever our skin colour, ethnicity or culture we are all children of God
* deepen our understanding of being ‘one in Christ’
* face up to the challenge of living this out in practice
* tackle injustice, not ignore it
See also my news item about RJS on Ekklesia.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Hundreds of churches of all shapes and sizes have marked Racial Justice Sunday today, and initiative promoted and supported by the Churches' Commission for Racial Justice of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, the official ecumenical body.
The aim is to:
* raise awareness of each other's cultures and experiences
* understand ourselves, our own roots and identity
* understand the feelings of people from different cultures
* become more inclusive and outward-looking
* become more welcoming
* encourage all members to contribute to the service of the community
* remember that whatever our skin colour, ethnicity or culture we are all children of God
* deepen our understanding of being ‘one in Christ’
* face up to the challenge of living this out in practice
* tackle injustice, not ignore it
See also my news item about RJS on Ekklesia.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[68.2] 2004 FUTURE CHURCH CONFERENCE IN UK
20-21 October 2004
High Leigh Conference Centre
Hoddesdon Herts EN11 8SG, UK
THEME: "Sharing Christian Faith & Values in a Post-Christendom Context"
with Dr Stuart Murray-Williams
Conference Accompanier: Dr Helen Cameron
* How do we share Christian faith in a post-Christian climate?
* How do we share faith respectfully and with integrity?
* How do we share faith with people of different and no faith?
The Conference is inter-active with speakers, accompanier reflections, question time and some buzz groups. Expect an inter-generational, multi-cultural approach with British and Irish input.
Further details here. Book early, says organiser Terry Tennens.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
20-21 October 2004
High Leigh Conference Centre
Hoddesdon Herts EN11 8SG, UK
THEME: "Sharing Christian Faith & Values in a Post-Christendom Context"
with Dr Stuart Murray-Williams
Conference Accompanier: Dr Helen Cameron
* How do we share Christian faith in a post-Christian climate?
* How do we share faith respectfully and with integrity?
* How do we share faith with people of different and no faith?
The Conference is inter-active with speakers, accompanier reflections, question time and some buzz groups. Expect an inter-generational, multi-cultural approach with British and Irish input.
Further details here. Book early, says organiser Terry Tennens.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Saturday, September 11, 2004
[68.1] REMEMBERING 9/11
"Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer utters itself" remarks the poet Carol Ann Duffy. It's an echo of Paul's discourse in Romans 8, whereby the Spirit articulates the unarticulatable on our behalf. No doubt this is how many will be feeling today - both those effected by the terrible events in New York in 2001, and those throughout the world whose lives have been torn apart by the war and terror that has been its tragic continuation. Whatever the rhetoric of the White House and Downing Street to justify their actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the world most certainly does not feel a safer place. The questions about where we are and where we are going as global societies only deepen. But we can continue to strive for justice amidst the mess. And we can remember and pray.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
"Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer utters itself" remarks the poet Carol Ann Duffy. It's an echo of Paul's discourse in Romans 8, whereby the Spirit articulates the unarticulatable on our behalf. No doubt this is how many will be feeling today - both those effected by the terrible events in New York in 2001, and those throughout the world whose lives have been torn apart by the war and terror that has been its tragic continuation. Whatever the rhetoric of the White House and Downing Street to justify their actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the world most certainly does not feel a safer place. The questions about where we are and where we are going as global societies only deepen. But we can continue to strive for justice amidst the mess. And we can remember and pray.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
[67.2] MAKING PEACE ON TERRORISM?
In the wake of the horrors of Beslan prayer and silence feels the best course... But as the tragedy unfolded I was working on a long-overdue column for the Ekklesia site. It's called 'Making peace on terrorism?'...
' “To clutch at everything or to throw away everything is the reaction of those who [whether they know it or not] believe fanatically in death.”
'So declared Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor and theologian who faced the horrors of Nazism without ducking or diving – and who paid the price with his life.
'Sadly, ‘clutching’ and ‘throwing’ seems almost all we are habituated to do as the latest example of the awful logic of terrorism stares cruelly out of our TV screens in those unforgiving scenes of carnage from Beslan.
'When upwards of 350 people, many children, are killed through a school hostage stand-off in a once obscure border town, no-one knows quite what to think anymore.
'The numbing heartlessness of tactics like this also anaesthetises rational thought among politicians and sensible debate in the popular media.' More here.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
In the wake of the horrors of Beslan prayer and silence feels the best course... But as the tragedy unfolded I was working on a long-overdue column for the Ekklesia site. It's called 'Making peace on terrorism?'...
' “To clutch at everything or to throw away everything is the reaction of those who [whether they know it or not] believe fanatically in death.”
'So declared Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor and theologian who faced the horrors of Nazism without ducking or diving – and who paid the price with his life.
'Sadly, ‘clutching’ and ‘throwing’ seems almost all we are habituated to do as the latest example of the awful logic of terrorism stares cruelly out of our TV screens in those unforgiving scenes of carnage from Beslan.
'When upwards of 350 people, many children, are killed through a school hostage stand-off in a once obscure border town, no-one knows quite what to think anymore.
'The numbing heartlessness of tactics like this also anaesthetises rational thought among politicians and sensible debate in the popular media.' More here.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[67.1] TEXTS OF TERROR
I Came across Maggi Dawn's superb weblog recently. And I noticed, inter alia, this moving poem by Rosie Mills. Some of you will recognise 'Texts of Terror' as the title of a marvellous book by biblical scholar Phylis Trible - published in the US by Fortress Press in the Overtures to Biblical Theology series, at the end of the 1980s IIRC...
For all the Godawful Bits of the Bible
(For Sara Maitland)
For the texts of terror:
For the rape and the pillage and the shame
Of these sanctified words;
For the whatthefuckdowedowiththis verses
That make no sense at all
To us, now;
For their endurance in our lives;
For the utter brokenness
Of God's human words;
For knowing how these words have
Prevented love,
Stifled life,
Stunted growth;
For still somehow reading on.
And yet,
In spite, or even because of all this,
There are theologies
Or irreverence and mischief
Winking their way into our lives;
Playful theologies of craft
Weaving the weft against the warp,
Shuttling untold designs
Into new patterns;
Theologies of art and lies
Telling us stories we never knew.
These painful words will endure,
Or maybe be forgotten.
How we inhabit their shadowIs no longer a question
For those who think they know,
But for the loving potters,
the waiting poets,
the holy clowns.
(c) Rosie Miles
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
I Came across Maggi Dawn's superb weblog recently. And I noticed, inter alia, this moving poem by Rosie Mills. Some of you will recognise 'Texts of Terror' as the title of a marvellous book by biblical scholar Phylis Trible - published in the US by Fortress Press in the Overtures to Biblical Theology series, at the end of the 1980s IIRC...
For all the Godawful Bits of the Bible
(For Sara Maitland)
For the texts of terror:
For the rape and the pillage and the shame
Of these sanctified words;
For the whatthefuckdowedowiththis verses
That make no sense at all
To us, now;
For their endurance in our lives;
For the utter brokenness
Of God's human words;
For knowing how these words have
Prevented love,
Stifled life,
Stunted growth;
For still somehow reading on.
And yet,
In spite, or even because of all this,
There are theologies
Or irreverence and mischief
Winking their way into our lives;
Playful theologies of craft
Weaving the weft against the warp,
Shuttling untold designs
Into new patterns;
Theologies of art and lies
Telling us stories we never knew.
These painful words will endure,
Or maybe be forgotten.
How we inhabit their shadowIs no longer a question
For those who think they know,
But for the loving potters,
the waiting poets,
the holy clowns.
(c) Rosie Miles
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Monday, September 06, 2004
[66.1] A LONG HISTORY OF HORROR
The tragedy of Beslan is part of a long cycle of violence and horror. This from the London Free Press in an article yesterday:
'President Vladimir Putin faces the same dilemma that earlier led czars and Communist commissars to seek "solutions" to the Chechen problem that were as brutal as any in the annals of warfare. ...
'Gen. Mikhail Yermolov, who led Russian forces in a ruthless 30-year campaign to conquer the Caucasus region in the 19th century, called the Chechens "congenital rebels." ...
'Yermolov eventually subdued Chechnya by incinerating its forests to deny cover to the guerrillas, and by executing dozens of Chechen hostages for every Russian soldier he lost.
'In 1944 Soviet leader Joseph Stalin accused the Chechens of collaborating with the Nazis and had the entire nation -- half a million people -- deported to Central Asia. An estimated 150,000 Chechens died during the forced winter march.
' "Deportation and the exile that followed united the Chechens, in bitterness, sorrow and rage," says Vladimir Dimitryev, an expert with the Russian Institute of Ethnology. "We are reaping the harvest today." '
CTBI offers the following prayers from its new Remembrance material, Beyond Our Tears.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
The tragedy of Beslan is part of a long cycle of violence and horror. This from the London Free Press in an article yesterday:
'President Vladimir Putin faces the same dilemma that earlier led czars and Communist commissars to seek "solutions" to the Chechen problem that were as brutal as any in the annals of warfare. ...
'Gen. Mikhail Yermolov, who led Russian forces in a ruthless 30-year campaign to conquer the Caucasus region in the 19th century, called the Chechens "congenital rebels." ...
'Yermolov eventually subdued Chechnya by incinerating its forests to deny cover to the guerrillas, and by executing dozens of Chechen hostages for every Russian soldier he lost.
'In 1944 Soviet leader Joseph Stalin accused the Chechens of collaborating with the Nazis and had the entire nation -- half a million people -- deported to Central Asia. An estimated 150,000 Chechens died during the forced winter march.
' "Deportation and the exile that followed united the Chechens, in bitterness, sorrow and rage," says Vladimir Dimitryev, an expert with the Russian Institute of Ethnology. "We are reaping the harvest today." '
CTBI offers the following prayers from its new Remembrance material, Beyond Our Tears.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Saturday, September 04, 2004
[65.2] THE DEMANDS OF LOVE
"To love is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one…Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness…The only alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers, all the perturbations of love is hell." (C. S. Lewis)
I have a distinctly ambivalent relationship to C. S. Lewis. His children's novels passed me by, I confess. And his Christian writings mainly came upon me when I was working in adult theological education, trying gently to wean people off some of the faux apologetic strategies that seemed a by-product of their encounter with his brilliant but narrowly scholastic mind.
What is more remarkable about Lewis than his allegorical accounts of faith, in my fragile opinion, is the depth of insightful feeling that can emerge (in quotations like this) from one so evidently steeped in moralism. It's like a breaking free, much as Kierkegaard's disturbing inner repression gave rise to flights of hopeful imagination. God is no respecter of our constraints.
This quotation seems particularly apt in an age of obsessive consumption - the new moralism for the post-moral.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
"To love is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one…Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness…The only alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers, all the perturbations of love is hell." (C. S. Lewis)
I have a distinctly ambivalent relationship to C. S. Lewis. His children's novels passed me by, I confess. And his Christian writings mainly came upon me when I was working in adult theological education, trying gently to wean people off some of the faux apologetic strategies that seemed a by-product of their encounter with his brilliant but narrowly scholastic mind.
What is more remarkable about Lewis than his allegorical accounts of faith, in my fragile opinion, is the depth of insightful feeling that can emerge (in quotations like this) from one so evidently steeped in moralism. It's like a breaking free, much as Kierkegaard's disturbing inner repression gave rise to flights of hopeful imagination. God is no respecter of our constraints.
This quotation seems particularly apt in an age of obsessive consumption - the new moralism for the post-moral.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[65.1] AFTER THE HIATUS
Sorry to have been away for so long. Other issues, other priorities. I aim to update the blog a couple of times a week from herein. We'll see how it goes.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Sorry to have been away for so long. Other issues, other priorities. I aim to update the blog a couple of times a week from herein. We'll see how it goes.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
[64.1] TO DREAM AGAIN...
The National Council of Churches of Christ USA has forwarded copies of this flash movie to mark the anniversary of the birthday of the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr., and to recall his inspiring legacy at another time of global turmoil and division.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
The National Council of Churches of Christ USA has forwarded copies of this flash movie to mark the anniversary of the birthday of the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr., and to recall his inspiring legacy at another time of global turmoil and division.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
[63.1] WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY 2004
O God, Holy and Eternal Trinity,
We pray for your Church in all the world.
Sanctify its life;
Renew its worship;
Empower its witness;
Redeem its mission;
Heal its divisions;
Challenge its wrong doings;
Place it on the side of the excluded;
Make visible its true unity.
Through Christ, who was broken and restored. Amen.
Further daily resources here.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
O God, Holy and Eternal Trinity,
We pray for your Church in all the world.
Sanctify its life;
Renew its worship;
Empower its witness;
Redeem its mission;
Heal its divisions;
Challenge its wrong doings;
Place it on the side of the excluded;
Make visible its true unity.
Through Christ, who was broken and restored. Amen.
Further daily resources here.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Friday, January 16, 2004
[62.1] MAKING CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM CONVERSATION POSSIBLE
Post 9/11 there has been an unprecedented growth in interest in Islam among educated Westerners. But those sections of the church whose narrative is driven by fear and suspicion are growing in strength, too. Appalling (and woefully factually-deficient) books are emerging -- David Pawson's 'The Challenge of Islam to Christians', for example, has been selling in extraordinary numbers. Even mainstream religious publishers have put out titles perpetrating hugely simplistic theses on an unsuspecting public.
How refreshing then, to see a constructive and critical piece in the mainstream media from Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester: a Christian leader of orthodox and conservative temperament whose personal and episcopal background in Pakistan enhances the authority of his words. On the question of whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God, he says:
"The usual Muslim term for God, Allah, is pre-Islamic and related to both Jewish and Christian terms widely in use at the time. It is true that the Prophet Mohammed gave it a particular significance in his preaching of monotheism, but the term is still the ordinary word for God used by many Arab Christians.
"There is also social, as well as etymological, significance. In most parts of the Muslim world, language about God is common currency, used in greeting and thanking people, in praying for their welfare and so on. If Christians and Muslims were not referring to the same supreme being, daily conversation, let alone theological dialogue, would become impossible.
"[The Qur'an] claims continuity with the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and with the revelation given to the Hebrew prophets and to Jesus. If dialogue is even to begin, this claim must be taken at face value; the dialogue itself will reveal the extent of similarities and differences."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Post 9/11 there has been an unprecedented growth in interest in Islam among educated Westerners. But those sections of the church whose narrative is driven by fear and suspicion are growing in strength, too. Appalling (and woefully factually-deficient) books are emerging -- David Pawson's 'The Challenge of Islam to Christians', for example, has been selling in extraordinary numbers. Even mainstream religious publishers have put out titles perpetrating hugely simplistic theses on an unsuspecting public.
How refreshing then, to see a constructive and critical piece in the mainstream media from Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester: a Christian leader of orthodox and conservative temperament whose personal and episcopal background in Pakistan enhances the authority of his words. On the question of whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God, he says:
"The usual Muslim term for God, Allah, is pre-Islamic and related to both Jewish and Christian terms widely in use at the time. It is true that the Prophet Mohammed gave it a particular significance in his preaching of monotheism, but the term is still the ordinary word for God used by many Arab Christians.
"There is also social, as well as etymological, significance. In most parts of the Muslim world, language about God is common currency, used in greeting and thanking people, in praying for their welfare and so on. If Christians and Muslims were not referring to the same supreme being, daily conversation, let alone theological dialogue, would become impossible.
"[The Qur'an] claims continuity with the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and with the revelation given to the Hebrew prophets and to Jesus. If dialogue is even to begin, this claim must be taken at face value; the dialogue itself will reveal the extent of similarities and differences."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Thursday, January 15, 2004
[61.1] RESEARCHING FAITH AND SOCIETY IN EUROPE
The Centre for Multireligious Studies at the University of Aarhus in Denmark has applied for a European Union grant to link with 22 research institutions in different European countries examining the impact of the growth and development of religious affiliation (not least among Muslims) on attitudes in public life. Previous cross-national research has not analysed migration and its consequences for changes in the perception of religion, researchers at the University of Aarhus say.
Religion has become much more important in politics, declared the Centre's director, Viggo Mortensen. "It is not only about the three to seven per cent of Muslims living in Europe, but also about the majority's re-evaluation of their values regarding religion, due to the changes in society of which immigration is a part," he said recently. (Ecumenical News International)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
The Centre for Multireligious Studies at the University of Aarhus in Denmark has applied for a European Union grant to link with 22 research institutions in different European countries examining the impact of the growth and development of religious affiliation (not least among Muslims) on attitudes in public life. Previous cross-national research has not analysed migration and its consequences for changes in the perception of religion, researchers at the University of Aarhus say.
Religion has become much more important in politics, declared the Centre's director, Viggo Mortensen. "It is not only about the three to seven per cent of Muslims living in Europe, but also about the majority's re-evaluation of their values regarding religion, due to the changes in society of which immigration is a part," he said recently. (Ecumenical News International)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
[59.1] MIXING RELIGION AND POLITICS
The use of Godly rhetoric by politicians tends to send a chill down my spine, even if I have some sympathy for the politician in question. I've written elsewhere about keeping the wrong kind of religion out of politics and vice versa. This is not the same thing at all as seeking to keep the two categories apart: it's a question of who speaks for whom, how, why and on what basis.
For example, the Christian community may rightly choose to be deeply engaged in critiquing the assumptions of faith language in the political domain. A prime example is President Bush's application of hymns and biblical phrases to name America -- when they come from contexts intending to denote something quite different: a community of all nations, not a vested national interest.
Nevertheless, the entwining of discourses in the public arena is not something that can simply be wished away. And as Amy Sullivan ('Do the Democrats have a prayer?', Washington Monthly) has pointed out, if the forthcoming election in the US will not be determined by religious issues it shows every sign of being swayed by them. She notes:
"Bush and his political guru Karl Rove understand something very important about the religious vote. The President has solidified his standing among highly committed evangelicals, who, though originally wary of his conservative credentials, have been rewarded with the appointment of such religious conservatives as John Ashcroft to top administration jobs as well as through grants distributed under the faith-based initiative. But Bush has maxed out his support with conservative evangelicals; 84 percent voted for him in the 2000 election. To win reelection, he will need to hold onto the votes of another group which supported him in 2000: religious moderates--one of the least-appreciated swing constituencies in the country, and one whose allegiance is more up for grabs than most people realize. They include Muslims, most Catholics, and a growing number of suburban evangelicals, all of whom are devout, but many of whom are uncomfortable with Bush's ties to the religious right, whose agenda--from banning abortion to converting Muslims--is deeply disconcerting to them. Many of these "swing faithful" have also begun to wonder if Bush's rhetoric of compassion and justice will be matched by policy substance."
For this reason, she suggests, Howard Dean will need to grasp 'the religious agenda' for the Democrats. By way of inspiration, she says:
"When the Rt Rev John Chane, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, took to the pulpit this March [2003], his sermon sounded like a blueprint for the sort of religiously minded critique of the Bush administration that Democrats might want to study. Imploring parishioners to take seriously their baptismal vows to "strive for justice" in the world, Bishop Chane raised the example of the Bush administration budget and found it wanting. "We are embarking on a draconian program of social welfare," he declared, highlighting cuts in services to protect the poor, the sick, and the young. "This is not at all what Jesus Christ meant when he said, 'Suffer the little children.'" At the end of the sermon, the congregation spontaneously burst into applause in a very un-Episcopalian response to the bishop's political call to arms."
However, it is important to understand that Chane's address was not intended to endorse a particular party or programe. The critique he offered is as applicable to Democrats as Republicans (though they may be found wanting in different ways and to different degrees). It was, if anything, a comment on the fruits of a political duopoly which has predominantly served corporate interests and excluded the marginalised. It was also designed specifically to galvanise Christians to act on the vision of justice which is meant to characterise church, the ekklesia. For it is only out of the distinctive practices of a peculiar, all-embracing community (one demandingly critiqued by the Gospel it conveys) that a faith-speaking politics might look as if it had integrity. This could have significant ramifications on the way people behave when they enter the ballot box, but it is not prescribable by the interests that vie within the existing political system.
(Thanks to the Religious Left mailing list for drawing this article to my attention.)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
The use of Godly rhetoric by politicians tends to send a chill down my spine, even if I have some sympathy for the politician in question. I've written elsewhere about keeping the wrong kind of religion out of politics and vice versa. This is not the same thing at all as seeking to keep the two categories apart: it's a question of who speaks for whom, how, why and on what basis.
For example, the Christian community may rightly choose to be deeply engaged in critiquing the assumptions of faith language in the political domain. A prime example is President Bush's application of hymns and biblical phrases to name America -- when they come from contexts intending to denote something quite different: a community of all nations, not a vested national interest.
Nevertheless, the entwining of discourses in the public arena is not something that can simply be wished away. And as Amy Sullivan ('Do the Democrats have a prayer?', Washington Monthly) has pointed out, if the forthcoming election in the US will not be determined by religious issues it shows every sign of being swayed by them. She notes:
"Bush and his political guru Karl Rove understand something very important about the religious vote. The President has solidified his standing among highly committed evangelicals, who, though originally wary of his conservative credentials, have been rewarded with the appointment of such religious conservatives as John Ashcroft to top administration jobs as well as through grants distributed under the faith-based initiative. But Bush has maxed out his support with conservative evangelicals; 84 percent voted for him in the 2000 election. To win reelection, he will need to hold onto the votes of another group which supported him in 2000: religious moderates--one of the least-appreciated swing constituencies in the country, and one whose allegiance is more up for grabs than most people realize. They include Muslims, most Catholics, and a growing number of suburban evangelicals, all of whom are devout, but many of whom are uncomfortable with Bush's ties to the religious right, whose agenda--from banning abortion to converting Muslims--is deeply disconcerting to them. Many of these "swing faithful" have also begun to wonder if Bush's rhetoric of compassion and justice will be matched by policy substance."
For this reason, she suggests, Howard Dean will need to grasp 'the religious agenda' for the Democrats. By way of inspiration, she says:
"When the Rt Rev John Chane, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, took to the pulpit this March [2003], his sermon sounded like a blueprint for the sort of religiously minded critique of the Bush administration that Democrats might want to study. Imploring parishioners to take seriously their baptismal vows to "strive for justice" in the world, Bishop Chane raised the example of the Bush administration budget and found it wanting. "We are embarking on a draconian program of social welfare," he declared, highlighting cuts in services to protect the poor, the sick, and the young. "This is not at all what Jesus Christ meant when he said, 'Suffer the little children.'" At the end of the sermon, the congregation spontaneously burst into applause in a very un-Episcopalian response to the bishop's political call to arms."
However, it is important to understand that Chane's address was not intended to endorse a particular party or programe. The critique he offered is as applicable to Democrats as Republicans (though they may be found wanting in different ways and to different degrees). It was, if anything, a comment on the fruits of a political duopoly which has predominantly served corporate interests and excluded the marginalised. It was also designed specifically to galvanise Christians to act on the vision of justice which is meant to characterise church, the ekklesia. For it is only out of the distinctive practices of a peculiar, all-embracing community (one demandingly critiqued by the Gospel it conveys) that a faith-speaking politics might look as if it had integrity. This could have significant ramifications on the way people behave when they enter the ballot box, but it is not prescribable by the interests that vie within the existing political system.
(Thanks to the Religious Left mailing list for drawing this article to my attention.)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
[58.2] WE DO NOT OWN THE FUTURE
A prayer/poem that I return to again and again is one attributed to the late Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador, who was murdered while celebrating mass in the Chapel of the Hospital de la Divina Providencia on 24 March 1980.
In Prophets Of A Future Not Our Own, Romero writes:
"This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
"We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest."
(See full prayer here)
The Religious Task Force on Central America notes:
"Every year, in celebrations throughout El Salvador, among Christian communities animated by catechists in the countryside, in local churches, at Romero's tomb in the cathedral, people recite his words once again from the homilies that gathered up for them and reflected back to them the truth of their situation. This was a remarkable thing for the poor of El Salvador -- to hear someone pronounce their reality, to name the causes of their suffering, to denounce the injustice, to speak to their hopes and help them believe that it was right and good to believe that these hopes should be realized in this world -- that indeed this was at the heart of the meaning of the incarnation of Jesus Christ."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
A prayer/poem that I return to again and again is one attributed to the late Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador, who was murdered while celebrating mass in the Chapel of the Hospital de la Divina Providencia on 24 March 1980.
In Prophets Of A Future Not Our Own, Romero writes:
"This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
"We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest."
(See full prayer here)
The Religious Task Force on Central America notes:
"Every year, in celebrations throughout El Salvador, among Christian communities animated by catechists in the countryside, in local churches, at Romero's tomb in the cathedral, people recite his words once again from the homilies that gathered up for them and reflected back to them the truth of their situation. This was a remarkable thing for the poor of El Salvador -- to hear someone pronounce their reality, to name the causes of their suffering, to denounce the injustice, to speak to their hopes and help them believe that it was right and good to believe that these hopes should be realized in this world -- that indeed this was at the heart of the meaning of the incarnation of Jesus Christ."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Monday, January 12, 2004
[57.1] SHOPPING FOR SPIRITUALITY
An interesting Washington Post piece on the media's treatment of American politicians' religious beliefs. The article is by Steven Waldman, former reporter and editor for Newsweek and US News & World Report, now editor-in-chief of Beliefnet.
In The Candidates' Spiritual Path he points out that "[t]wenty to 30 percent of Americans now practice a faith different from the one in which they were raised, according to sociologist Robert Wuthnow. And a much higher percentage have switched houses of worship. For 20 years now, sociologists have documented how Americans have become 'consumers' of spirituality. Changing faiths or churches could mean someone is flighty, but more often it means that they take their spiritual journey seriously enough to reassess it constantly. This is what baby boomers do. They shop. And serious shoppers are often quite intense."
This is true. Whether consumerism is a good model for spirituality, is, of course, another matter entirely -- and one which should not simply be conflated with change and development of convictions in an open culture. (See also Shopping for God, A Sceptic's Search for Value in the Spiritual Market Place by Rowland Howard.)
One of the circumstances that has sparked this debate is the scrutiny applied to Democratic Presidential candidate Howard Dean, who was raised Catholic, switched to the Episcopal Church, then linked with Congregationalism and is raising his child in the Jewish faith in accordance with his wife's tradition.
Waldman goes on: "Another misconception that has crept into the media analysis of the candidates' religious statements is the idea that Americans approach religion with the mind-set of theologians. Thus, Dean and [Wesley] Clark were maligned not only because they shifted a lot but because they seemed to do so for superficial reasons. Dean, it's often been noted, switched churches because of a dispute over building a bike path. Clark left the Catholic Church in anger over the anti-military rhetoric of a priest. Such trivial matters!"
Well, recycling your spirituality is one thing, perhaps. But a Christian leader standing out against militarism in this world climate? That's seriously encouraging. And to anything other than the shopping-basket mentality, very far from trivial.
[Thanks to Atrios/Eschaton for drawing my attention to this story]
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
An interesting Washington Post piece on the media's treatment of American politicians' religious beliefs. The article is by Steven Waldman, former reporter and editor for Newsweek and US News & World Report, now editor-in-chief of Beliefnet.
In The Candidates' Spiritual Path he points out that "[t]wenty to 30 percent of Americans now practice a faith different from the one in which they were raised, according to sociologist Robert Wuthnow. And a much higher percentage have switched houses of worship. For 20 years now, sociologists have documented how Americans have become 'consumers' of spirituality. Changing faiths or churches could mean someone is flighty, but more often it means that they take their spiritual journey seriously enough to reassess it constantly. This is what baby boomers do. They shop. And serious shoppers are often quite intense."
This is true. Whether consumerism is a good model for spirituality, is, of course, another matter entirely -- and one which should not simply be conflated with change and development of convictions in an open culture. (See also Shopping for God, A Sceptic's Search for Value in the Spiritual Market Place by Rowland Howard.)
One of the circumstances that has sparked this debate is the scrutiny applied to Democratic Presidential candidate Howard Dean, who was raised Catholic, switched to the Episcopal Church, then linked with Congregationalism and is raising his child in the Jewish faith in accordance with his wife's tradition.
Waldman goes on: "Another misconception that has crept into the media analysis of the candidates' religious statements is the idea that Americans approach religion with the mind-set of theologians. Thus, Dean and [Wesley] Clark were maligned not only because they shifted a lot but because they seemed to do so for superficial reasons. Dean, it's often been noted, switched churches because of a dispute over building a bike path. Clark left the Catholic Church in anger over the anti-military rhetoric of a priest. Such trivial matters!"
Well, recycling your spirituality is one thing, perhaps. But a Christian leader standing out against militarism in this world climate? That's seriously encouraging. And to anything other than the shopping-basket mentality, very far from trivial.
[Thanks to Atrios/Eschaton for drawing my attention to this story]
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Sunday, January 11, 2004
[56.1] THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS
In a spare moment today (one of those occasions when you feel almost morally compelled to do something indisputably non-meaningful) I flicked through the style section of a well-known national newspaper. Usually I find this sort of thing depressing. For a start most of the ‘décor’ on display is invariably bereft of books. Not a good idea. This time, however, I was inspired to discover that mess is the new cool – the ‘busy, eclectic look’. Now I’ve never intended to be fashionable in my life. I just have loads of junk. Somewhere I have a self-help tape called How To Declutter Your Life, but it’s buried under a pile of papers and I can’t find it. Thankfully none of my family ever came out with that peculiar cliché about ‘cleanliness being next to Godliness’ (pretty much the opposite of Jesus’ famous observation about true purity, thankfully). But it does make me reflect that congenital untidiness obviously betokens a soul ill at ease with mere worldliness. That’ll be several steps closer to paradise for me then...
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In a spare moment today (one of those occasions when you feel almost morally compelled to do something indisputably non-meaningful) I flicked through the style section of a well-known national newspaper. Usually I find this sort of thing depressing. For a start most of the ‘décor’ on display is invariably bereft of books. Not a good idea. This time, however, I was inspired to discover that mess is the new cool – the ‘busy, eclectic look’. Now I’ve never intended to be fashionable in my life. I just have loads of junk. Somewhere I have a self-help tape called How To Declutter Your Life, but it’s buried under a pile of papers and I can’t find it. Thankfully none of my family ever came out with that peculiar cliché about ‘cleanliness being next to Godliness’ (pretty much the opposite of Jesus’ famous observation about true purity, thankfully). But it does make me reflect that congenital untidiness obviously betokens a soul ill at ease with mere worldliness. That’ll be several steps closer to paradise for me then...
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Saturday, January 10, 2004
[55.1] GIVING AND RECEIVING TRUST
"We talk about religious ‘faith’ – but what we mean in plain English is of course trust. A real person of faith isn’t necessarily a person full of a particular kind of religious certainty; it’s a person who has become trustworthy because they know that God is to be trusted and that God has trusted, loved and forgiven them.
"Each person’s life gives a message of one kind or another, a message about what kind of world this is. As the New Year starts, perhaps one of the biggest questions each of us could ask is - “what message does my life give”. Am I making the world a place where trust makes sense? And, deeper still, am I confident that even in my failings and my betrayals I am loved and trusted?" (Rowan Williams)
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"We talk about religious ‘faith’ – but what we mean in plain English is of course trust. A real person of faith isn’t necessarily a person full of a particular kind of religious certainty; it’s a person who has become trustworthy because they know that God is to be trusted and that God has trusted, loved and forgiven them.
"Each person’s life gives a message of one kind or another, a message about what kind of world this is. As the New Year starts, perhaps one of the biggest questions each of us could ask is - “what message does my life give”. Am I making the world a place where trust makes sense? And, deeper still, am I confident that even in my failings and my betrayals I am loved and trusted?" (Rowan Williams)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Friday, January 09, 2004
[54.1] INTERPRETING EACH OTHER DIFFERENTLY
Controversies over 'overt and public expression of faith through appearance' (a quaint description in a recent continental newspaper) continue to rage in Europe; particularly in France, Germany and Turkey, where, to differing degrees, there are prohibitions on what might be seen as flamboyant religious symbols in schools and some other public places.
In the UK the interpretation of secularity in public life is more towards permissive pluralism than restrictive anti-clericalism. This sensible Epiphany observation is from the consistently excellent and reliably thoughtful Thinking Anglican:
"The gospel is written for [people within Jewish communities] who are being awakened to the challenge of bringing the Christian faith to other cultures. Jewish dietary laws and distinctive dress would not be sustained within a faith which sought to be universal. Perhaps also the threat of persecution under the Roman Empire might have made it inadvisable for believers to parade their faith too publicly by sporting distinctive clothes.
One legacy is that there is no distinctive Christian dress code required by all, akin to the Sikh turban, or the Jewish skull cap. Within Britain we can also point to the fact that for those who want to retain a dress code which identifies their faith, this is accommodated to the extent of allowing Sikh men on motorcycles to wear a turban in place of a crash helmet. The law clearly shows that although the majority see no necessity for a religious dress code, the wishes of those who find this an essential expression of their faith are respected."
Which is surely as it should be. The writer might also have mentioned Jesus' frowning upon ostentatious religious behaviour and the earlier prohibitions on images. There is debate within as well as without faith communities on these matters, as over the veiling of Muslim women for instance. Is it oppressive or protective? No one answer is likely to suffice.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Controversies over 'overt and public expression of faith through appearance' (a quaint description in a recent continental newspaper) continue to rage in Europe; particularly in France, Germany and Turkey, where, to differing degrees, there are prohibitions on what might be seen as flamboyant religious symbols in schools and some other public places.
In the UK the interpretation of secularity in public life is more towards permissive pluralism than restrictive anti-clericalism. This sensible Epiphany observation is from the consistently excellent and reliably thoughtful Thinking Anglican:
"The gospel is written for [people within Jewish communities] who are being awakened to the challenge of bringing the Christian faith to other cultures. Jewish dietary laws and distinctive dress would not be sustained within a faith which sought to be universal. Perhaps also the threat of persecution under the Roman Empire might have made it inadvisable for believers to parade their faith too publicly by sporting distinctive clothes.
One legacy is that there is no distinctive Christian dress code required by all, akin to the Sikh turban, or the Jewish skull cap. Within Britain we can also point to the fact that for those who want to retain a dress code which identifies their faith, this is accommodated to the extent of allowing Sikh men on motorcycles to wear a turban in place of a crash helmet. The law clearly shows that although the majority see no necessity for a religious dress code, the wishes of those who find this an essential expression of their faith are respected."
Which is surely as it should be. The writer might also have mentioned Jesus' frowning upon ostentatious religious behaviour and the earlier prohibitions on images. There is debate within as well as without faith communities on these matters, as over the veiling of Muslim women for instance. Is it oppressive or protective? No one answer is likely to suffice.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Thursday, January 08, 2004
[53.1] BIBLICAL PLURALISM OR ABSOLUTISM?
Giles Fraser in this week's Church Times:
"The hopes and prayers of many of us for the New Year are focused on the work of the commission to explore the limits of diversity in the Anglican Communion.
"I suspect that, very quickly, the commission will have to face a question that is often at the heart of disagreements about value: is there some philosophical space between monism and relativism?
"The question is whether the Bible is capable of supporting different theological positions.
"I wonder whether the answer to our crisis lies in the unlikely work of Isaiah Berlin. Berlin argued for a value-pluralism that is neither absolutism nor relativism. The idea that giving up on the belief that there is one, and only one, way of reading the Bible leads to anything-goes relativism is irresponsible scaremongering."
See the full piece here.
It is good to see Berlin's voice being heard again in so many areas of public life. For too long he was written off as a derivative, anodyne pragmatist. But his 'agonistic' thought (often mis-translated by lazy sub-editors as 'agnostic') is vital for an age of pathos.
Incidentally, Giles Fraser has himself written an excellent theological account of Nietzche; a corrective both to religious romantics and anti-religious cynics.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Giles Fraser in this week's Church Times:
"The hopes and prayers of many of us for the New Year are focused on the work of the commission to explore the limits of diversity in the Anglican Communion.
"I suspect that, very quickly, the commission will have to face a question that is often at the heart of disagreements about value: is there some philosophical space between monism and relativism?
"The question is whether the Bible is capable of supporting different theological positions.
"I wonder whether the answer to our crisis lies in the unlikely work of Isaiah Berlin. Berlin argued for a value-pluralism that is neither absolutism nor relativism. The idea that giving up on the belief that there is one, and only one, way of reading the Bible leads to anything-goes relativism is irresponsible scaremongering."
See the full piece here.
It is good to see Berlin's voice being heard again in so many areas of public life. For too long he was written off as a derivative, anodyne pragmatist. But his 'agonistic' thought (often mis-translated by lazy sub-editors as 'agnostic') is vital for an age of pathos.
Incidentally, Giles Fraser has himself written an excellent theological account of Nietzche; a corrective both to religious romantics and anti-religious cynics.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Wednesday, January 07, 2004
[52.1] CHRISTIAN PEACEMAKERS HIGHLIGHT IRAQ ABUSES
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has presented the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq with a dossier of statistical data compiled from seventy-two case studies of the treatment -- and mistreatment -- of Iraqi detainees, reports Ekklesia. This news item also made it onto BBC Radio 4's flagship 'Today' programme this morning. The full details are here. The CPT campaign for justice for detainees is seeking to work with the authorities to ensure implementation of human rights for all.
CPT is an action network born out of the witness of the historic peace churches (Mennonites, Quakers and others) in the USA. It has been working on the ground in the Middle East and other conflict zones since the mid-1980s.
On Tuesday 30 December 2003, at 8am, a grenade exploded on Karrada Street in Baghdad, two blocks from the CPT Iraq apartment, killing one Iraqi man and wounding two others. Said a spokesperson, "Team members saw the dead man's body lying on the edge of the street, covered with a large piece of cardboard. They watched as Iraqi men put the body in a simple wooden coffin. The men carried the coffin into the nearby mosque, before taking it away in a pick-up truck. Broken glass from shop windows littered the street and sidewalks along both sides of the street. People standing around in the crowd expressed grief and anger directed at both soldiers and those who had detonated the bomb."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has presented the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq with a dossier of statistical data compiled from seventy-two case studies of the treatment -- and mistreatment -- of Iraqi detainees, reports Ekklesia. This news item also made it onto BBC Radio 4's flagship 'Today' programme this morning. The full details are here. The CPT campaign for justice for detainees is seeking to work with the authorities to ensure implementation of human rights for all.
CPT is an action network born out of the witness of the historic peace churches (Mennonites, Quakers and others) in the USA. It has been working on the ground in the Middle East and other conflict zones since the mid-1980s.
On Tuesday 30 December 2003, at 8am, a grenade exploded on Karrada Street in Baghdad, two blocks from the CPT Iraq apartment, killing one Iraqi man and wounding two others. Said a spokesperson, "Team members saw the dead man's body lying on the edge of the street, covered with a large piece of cardboard. They watched as Iraqi men put the body in a simple wooden coffin. The men carried the coffin into the nearby mosque, before taking it away in a pick-up truck. Broken glass from shop windows littered the street and sidewalks along both sides of the street. People standing around in the crowd expressed grief and anger directed at both soldiers and those who had detonated the bomb."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
[51.1] THE WORK OF CHRISTMAS
When the song of the angels is stilled
When the star in the sky is gone
When the kings and princes are home
When the shepherds are back with their flocks
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost
To heal the broken
To feed the hungry
To release the prisoner
To rebuild the nations
To bring peace among people
To make music in the heart.
© Howard Thurman, FoR USA.
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When the song of the angels is stilled
When the star in the sky is gone
When the kings and princes are home
When the shepherds are back with their flocks
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost
To heal the broken
To feed the hungry
To release the prisoner
To rebuild the nations
To bring peace among people
To make music in the heart.
© Howard Thurman, FoR USA.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Saturday, December 13, 2003
[50.1] DECLINE BUT NOT YET FALL
The Scottish writer, critic and historian William Dalrymple (whose latest book is White Mughals) has written pereceptively of the contradictions of religious life in modern Britain. Some of his data seems to have been drawn from Callum Brown's The Death of Christian Britain, but his judgements are more moderate. Not that they constitute grounds for complacency among firstline British church leaders, many of whom still seem not to have understood that the kind of faith that persists amidst the secularity of public life is not a likely antechamber for the return of their own verities. Dalrymple observes:
"It is usually assumed that Christianity in Britain was in decline from the mid-19th century on. In fact, church attendance figures reached an all-time high at the end of the 19th century, and dramatically revived again in the 1950s: this was the period, for example, when Billy Graham, the American evangelist, was able to draw crowds of more than 2 million to his open air services.
"The decline has taken place, at a quite startling rate, only since the mid-1960s. As late as the 1950s, nearly half the adult population went to church on a Sunday. By the 1990s the figure was down to 10%. During the 1960s, the decline was initially limited to the Anglican church, and both Roman Catholic and Jewish attendance figures held up well. But even there, decline set in towards the end of the 1970s and accelerated fast, so that by the late 1980s Catholicism and Judaism found themselves haemorrhaging faithful as Protestants had 20 years earlier.
"Today the decline is at its most severe in urban areas, and most severe of all in London: fewer than 3% of Londoners now attend church on Sundays. This is clearly a major change in the landscape, but it does not represent a universal decline. For while organised religion is ceasing to play a major role in the life of the white majority, there is no comparable decline in the religious life of Britain's ethnic minorities. Today in London, white Christians are already outnumbered by black ones. Black Pentecostal churches are flourishing and 51% of regular London churchgoers are now non-white.
"Likewise, the number of mosque-going Muslims is fast catching up with the number of church-going Christians, and Hindu temples and Sikh gurdwaras are also flourishing. Nor is there any obvious drop-off in the faith of second- or third-generation British Indians. The outlook remains uncertain, especially as regards mainstream white Christianity, but reports of the death of religion in these islands are premature."
See the full piece 'God in Peckham Rye' here.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
The Scottish writer, critic and historian William Dalrymple (whose latest book is White Mughals) has written pereceptively of the contradictions of religious life in modern Britain. Some of his data seems to have been drawn from Callum Brown's The Death of Christian Britain, but his judgements are more moderate. Not that they constitute grounds for complacency among firstline British church leaders, many of whom still seem not to have understood that the kind of faith that persists amidst the secularity of public life is not a likely antechamber for the return of their own verities. Dalrymple observes:
"It is usually assumed that Christianity in Britain was in decline from the mid-19th century on. In fact, church attendance figures reached an all-time high at the end of the 19th century, and dramatically revived again in the 1950s: this was the period, for example, when Billy Graham, the American evangelist, was able to draw crowds of more than 2 million to his open air services.
"The decline has taken place, at a quite startling rate, only since the mid-1960s. As late as the 1950s, nearly half the adult population went to church on a Sunday. By the 1990s the figure was down to 10%. During the 1960s, the decline was initially limited to the Anglican church, and both Roman Catholic and Jewish attendance figures held up well. But even there, decline set in towards the end of the 1970s and accelerated fast, so that by the late 1980s Catholicism and Judaism found themselves haemorrhaging faithful as Protestants had 20 years earlier.
"Today the decline is at its most severe in urban areas, and most severe of all in London: fewer than 3% of Londoners now attend church on Sundays. This is clearly a major change in the landscape, but it does not represent a universal decline. For while organised religion is ceasing to play a major role in the life of the white majority, there is no comparable decline in the religious life of Britain's ethnic minorities. Today in London, white Christians are already outnumbered by black ones. Black Pentecostal churches are flourishing and 51% of regular London churchgoers are now non-white.
"Likewise, the number of mosque-going Muslims is fast catching up with the number of church-going Christians, and Hindu temples and Sikh gurdwaras are also flourishing. Nor is there any obvious drop-off in the faith of second- or third-generation British Indians. The outlook remains uncertain, especially as regards mainstream white Christianity, but reports of the death of religion in these islands are premature."
See the full piece 'God in Peckham Rye' here.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Friday, December 12, 2003
[51.1] MANIA FOR MEDIA
From Daniel Berrigan (see these resources on his life and witness). And, yes, he said it twenty years ago!
"The hunger for news eats people up, makes newsprint out of them.... People can become so bewildered with the mass of information and news brought down upon them that they're unable to move; they're paralysed. So the question of selecting, meditating, having an interior life of one's own in the midst of all this becomes crucial."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
From Daniel Berrigan (see these resources on his life and witness). And, yes, he said it twenty years ago!
"The hunger for news eats people up, makes newsprint out of them.... People can become so bewildered with the mass of information and news brought down upon them that they're unable to move; they're paralysed. So the question of selecting, meditating, having an interior life of one's own in the midst of all this becomes crucial."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Thursday, December 11, 2003
[50.1] PAX EUROPA AND PAX CHRISTIANA
Earlier in the year I joined at Churches Together in Britain and Ireland staff visit to Brussels, home of the European institutions, to engage in exchanges with the CEC Church and Society Commission, COMECE - Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community, the EKD Brussels Office, the Orthodox, and an EU policy adviser on 'Dialogue with the religions, churches and humanisms'.
The churches continue to play a significant and constructive role in practical conversations about the evolution of European polity and society -- not least on issues of human rights, economic justice, religious / cultural freedom, bioethics and social dialogue.
Perhaps the most difficult discussions are about the function of religion itself in the new Europe. There are strong and divergent opinions over the extent to which churches and other faith communities should have anything approximating to an 'official role'.
My own view is that there should be a clear distinction between church and state, transparent and regular conversation about mutual rights and responsibilities, the vigorous participation of faith communities alongside others in the shared arenas of civil society, and space for the autonomy of different civic communities. But the co-extensivity of Christendom is (and should be) a thing of the past. It is incompatible with the plurality of modern societies and it is also enervating for faith communities.
One particular sticking point is the EU Constitution. Should religion (Christianity in particular) be mentioned in the pre-amble? Should God be mentioned? The Vatican has been advocating for both. Its approach is mediated by the statehood of the Holy See and its historic understanding of corpus Christianum.
My latest Ekklesia column, 'Should God get a name check?' offers a different perspective on this question, premmised on a post-Christendom viewpoint which says that Christian social and political praxis should be an orientation developed from the outwardly engaged community of faith, not from incorporation within the structures of governance.
Comment on this post:FaithInSociety
Earlier in the year I joined at Churches Together in Britain and Ireland staff visit to Brussels, home of the European institutions, to engage in exchanges with the CEC Church and Society Commission, COMECE - Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community, the EKD Brussels Office, the Orthodox, and an EU policy adviser on 'Dialogue with the religions, churches and humanisms'.
The churches continue to play a significant and constructive role in practical conversations about the evolution of European polity and society -- not least on issues of human rights, economic justice, religious / cultural freedom, bioethics and social dialogue.
Perhaps the most difficult discussions are about the function of religion itself in the new Europe. There are strong and divergent opinions over the extent to which churches and other faith communities should have anything approximating to an 'official role'.
My own view is that there should be a clear distinction between church and state, transparent and regular conversation about mutual rights and responsibilities, the vigorous participation of faith communities alongside others in the shared arenas of civil society, and space for the autonomy of different civic communities. But the co-extensivity of Christendom is (and should be) a thing of the past. It is incompatible with the plurality of modern societies and it is also enervating for faith communities.
One particular sticking point is the EU Constitution. Should religion (Christianity in particular) be mentioned in the pre-amble? Should God be mentioned? The Vatican has been advocating for both. Its approach is mediated by the statehood of the Holy See and its historic understanding of corpus Christianum.
My latest Ekklesia column, 'Should God get a name check?' offers a different perspective on this question, premmised on a post-Christendom viewpoint which says that Christian social and political praxis should be an orientation developed from the outwardly engaged community of faith, not from incorporation within the structures of governance.
Comment on this post:FaithInSociety
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
[49.1] WRITING BEYOND THE VEIL
For years The Guardian newspaper has been a robust organ of progressive opinion and critical reporting. It has also been avowedly sceptical, the home both of 'cultured despisers' and of secular commentators whose opinions about religion often (perhaps unbeknown to them) lack the rigour they expect in other fields. But there has been a sea change of late. In part the current editor's admiration for Archbishop Rowan Williams seems to have translated itself into a new willingness to treat the religious dimension of contemporary life more seriously. Correspondent Stephen Bates' hard and creative work has also played a significant role in realizing this aim -- at a time when religious reporting in Britain's national media is at its weakest for many years. The fruits can be seen in the religion index. Well worth trawling.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
For years The Guardian newspaper has been a robust organ of progressive opinion and critical reporting. It has also been avowedly sceptical, the home both of 'cultured despisers' and of secular commentators whose opinions about religion often (perhaps unbeknown to them) lack the rigour they expect in other fields. But there has been a sea change of late. In part the current editor's admiration for Archbishop Rowan Williams seems to have translated itself into a new willingness to treat the religious dimension of contemporary life more seriously. Correspondent Stephen Bates' hard and creative work has also played a significant role in realizing this aim -- at a time when religious reporting in Britain's national media is at its weakest for many years. The fruits can be seen in the religion index. Well worth trawling.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
[48.1] ON MORE THAN DIFFERING
Here's a thoughtful piece on the Fulcrum site from David Rucorn, on principles for discussing belief among those with whom we differ. Thanks to Simon Taylor for alerting me to this (not to mention the fabulously irrelevant church sign generator.) While on the argumentation business, Karen Johann has passed on this salutary quotation from Anne Lamott: "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Here's a thoughtful piece on the Fulcrum site from David Rucorn, on principles for discussing belief among those with whom we differ. Thanks to Simon Taylor for alerting me to this (not to mention the fabulously irrelevant church sign generator.) While on the argumentation business, Karen Johann has passed on this salutary quotation from Anne Lamott: "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Monday, December 08, 2003
[47.1] DANGEROUS FALLOUT, HOPEFUL WRITING
Christians are warning that tens of thousands of casualties may be the result of the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons by the USA. The details are in a report from the Ekklesia website -- the source of the news update column on the left-hand side of FaithInSociety. Ekklesia operates from an Anabaptist-style value base, but its reporting is from all quarters of the Christian community. Its hard-working director, Jonathan Bartley, has recently written The Subversive Manifesto: Lifting the Lid on God's Political Agenda, which partly charts his own journey from the religious right to a radical Christian commitment influenced by people such as Jim Wallis and the late John Howard Yoder.
For those long steeped in political theology this book may not contain a lot that's new, but it has three special merits. First it encapsulates the implications of the prophetic biblical tradition in direct and lively language. Second, it is media savvy. Third, it will reach into the evangelical and 'new church' constituency in a way that much of the literature in this field -- including the stuff I churn out -- never will. More strength to your elbow, Jonathan.
(I should declare an interest, by the way: I'm an Ekklesia columnist!)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Christians are warning that tens of thousands of casualties may be the result of the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons by the USA. The details are in a report from the Ekklesia website -- the source of the news update column on the left-hand side of FaithInSociety. Ekklesia operates from an Anabaptist-style value base, but its reporting is from all quarters of the Christian community. Its hard-working director, Jonathan Bartley, has recently written The Subversive Manifesto: Lifting the Lid on God's Political Agenda, which partly charts his own journey from the religious right to a radical Christian commitment influenced by people such as Jim Wallis and the late John Howard Yoder.
For those long steeped in political theology this book may not contain a lot that's new, but it has three special merits. First it encapsulates the implications of the prophetic biblical tradition in direct and lively language. Second, it is media savvy. Third, it will reach into the evangelical and 'new church' constituency in a way that much of the literature in this field -- including the stuff I churn out -- never will. More strength to your elbow, Jonathan.
(I should declare an interest, by the way: I'm an Ekklesia columnist!)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Sunday, December 07, 2003
[46.1] TWO WOUNDED PEOPLES
Abuna Elias Chacour: "Either we stop claiming we are children of Abraham, or we act as brothers and try to reconcile."
Dr Denis MacEoin of Newcastle, writing in The Guardian:
"For years the left, which once admired Israeli socialism, has swung towards an uncritical support of the Palestinian cause. This has led the leftwing press to the point where it will never call Palestinian suicide bombers 'terrorists'; and where to express sympathy for the plight of the Israelis, surrounded for over 50 years by an ocean of vehement anti-semitism and calls for the destruction of their country, is to be branded as a traitor to liberal values.
"As a lifelong liberal, I have always supported Israel, because I believe its foundation was the proper response to the Holocaust. As an Arabist and Islamicist, I also hope that a fair and workable resolution can be found for the problems faced by the Palestinians. I just don't happen to think the two things are incompatible."
Fair comment, though he doesn't mention either a two-state or secular state 'resolution', so I'm unclear whether he supports full statehood for Palestinians, or only for Israelis.
To go to the guts of the matter rather more theologically, in the paraphrased words of Fr Elias Chacour, a Palestinian (Melkite) Christian and a Jewish citizen: it is vital that Jews and Palestinians stop regarding each other as mortal enemies and begin, instead, to recognise themselves in the wounds of the other. Only in the presence of the kind of suffering-transformed-into-hope made visible on the Cross (he says) can we begin to discover a new way of handling each other, the crimes that have been committed against us, and the sins we have perpetuated through cycles of hatred, denial and revenge. That means working across religious, political, cultural and social barriers to help each other to reconstruct our identities and out of that process slowly to discover a shared one.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Abuna Elias Chacour: "Either we stop claiming we are children of Abraham, or we act as brothers and try to reconcile."
Dr Denis MacEoin of Newcastle, writing in The Guardian:
"For years the left, which once admired Israeli socialism, has swung towards an uncritical support of the Palestinian cause. This has led the leftwing press to the point where it will never call Palestinian suicide bombers 'terrorists'; and where to express sympathy for the plight of the Israelis, surrounded for over 50 years by an ocean of vehement anti-semitism and calls for the destruction of their country, is to be branded as a traitor to liberal values.
"As a lifelong liberal, I have always supported Israel, because I believe its foundation was the proper response to the Holocaust. As an Arabist and Islamicist, I also hope that a fair and workable resolution can be found for the problems faced by the Palestinians. I just don't happen to think the two things are incompatible."
Fair comment, though he doesn't mention either a two-state or secular state 'resolution', so I'm unclear whether he supports full statehood for Palestinians, or only for Israelis.
To go to the guts of the matter rather more theologically, in the paraphrased words of Fr Elias Chacour, a Palestinian (Melkite) Christian and a Jewish citizen: it is vital that Jews and Palestinians stop regarding each other as mortal enemies and begin, instead, to recognise themselves in the wounds of the other. Only in the presence of the kind of suffering-transformed-into-hope made visible on the Cross (he says) can we begin to discover a new way of handling each other, the crimes that have been committed against us, and the sins we have perpetuated through cycles of hatred, denial and revenge. That means working across religious, political, cultural and social barriers to help each other to reconstruct our identities and out of that process slowly to discover a shared one.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Saturday, December 06, 2003
[45.1] FRESH LIGHT ON PAUL -- AND OURSELVES
Over the years I've had many reasons to be thankful for Chris Rowland, Professor of New Testament at the University of Oxford. He's been a courageous advocate for (and practitioner of) radical contextual theology. He's worked with grassroots organisations and parishes as well as operating as a creative academic. He's collaborated with adult educators like me. He's a dissenting Anglican involved in the UK Anabaptist Network. We both contributed to the Jubilee Group symposium on disestablishment, Setting the Church of England Free. So Chris is no ivory tower theologian. He sticks his neck out. His excellent 'Face to Faith' piece on 'Paul's Letter of Tolerance' is but one example. Here's a brief excerpt:
"Thanks to Paul, Christianity has never really been a religion that used the Bible as a code of law. In his Second Letter To The Corinthians, he writes: "The letter kills, the Spirit gives life." Throughout his writings, he tries to get at what the Bible means, with the central criterion being conformity to Christ. He pioneered an approach to the Bible which also applies to his words in the New Testament. We should not concentrate on the letter of the text, but try to get at the underlying point of his words.
"So, basing one's attitudes towards gay and lesbian people merely on two verses from Romans and Corinthians I runs the risk of ending up with a form of religion which is based on the letter of the text -- something Paul empathically opposes -- rather than on what a loving God is doing in transforming lives in the present. On the Damascus road, Saul's world was turned upside down. He encountered Christ in the outsiders, the heretics, the misfits and aliens, the very people whom he had been commissioned to round up. It was this experience that transformed his life. Such a turnaround was not the result of minute attention to text and precedent."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Over the years I've had many reasons to be thankful for Chris Rowland, Professor of New Testament at the University of Oxford. He's been a courageous advocate for (and practitioner of) radical contextual theology. He's worked with grassroots organisations and parishes as well as operating as a creative academic. He's collaborated with adult educators like me. He's a dissenting Anglican involved in the UK Anabaptist Network. We both contributed to the Jubilee Group symposium on disestablishment, Setting the Church of England Free. So Chris is no ivory tower theologian. He sticks his neck out. His excellent 'Face to Faith' piece on 'Paul's Letter of Tolerance' is but one example. Here's a brief excerpt:
"Thanks to Paul, Christianity has never really been a religion that used the Bible as a code of law. In his Second Letter To The Corinthians, he writes: "The letter kills, the Spirit gives life." Throughout his writings, he tries to get at what the Bible means, with the central criterion being conformity to Christ. He pioneered an approach to the Bible which also applies to his words in the New Testament. We should not concentrate on the letter of the text, but try to get at the underlying point of his words.
"So, basing one's attitudes towards gay and lesbian people merely on two verses from Romans and Corinthians I runs the risk of ending up with a form of religion which is based on the letter of the text -- something Paul empathically opposes -- rather than on what a loving God is doing in transforming lives in the present. On the Damascus road, Saul's world was turned upside down. He encountered Christ in the outsiders, the heretics, the misfits and aliens, the very people whom he had been commissioned to round up. It was this experience that transformed his life. Such a turnaround was not the result of minute attention to text and precedent."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Friday, December 05, 2003
[44.1] INCLUSIVITY BEYOND LABELS
Charles Walmsley from InclusiveChurch.Net (for which I'm on the steering group) had this letter published in The Church Times -- the main Church of England newspaper -- on Friday 28 November 2003:
"[T]hank you for your warm review of our website (Web News, 21st November). In her review, Sarah Meyrick describes Inclusive Church as 'the liberal group'. It is an easy mistake to make, but it is far from accurate. The huge upsurge of concern following the forced withdrawl of Canon Jeffrey John was not confined to 'liberals', and of the nearly eight thousand individuals who have currently signed our declaration of belief, many would describe themselves as Catholic or Evangelical. More than 90 Parochial Church Councils have signed so far, as have many organisations, including Cathedrals, Fransiscan orders, and entire deanery synods.
"Inclusive Church is not a single-issue pressure group. Rather, it is concerned to work and pray for an inclusive Anglicanism that is founded on a just ordering of our common life that 'opens the ministries of deacon, priest and bishop to those so called to serve by God, regardless of their sex, race or sexual orientation'.
"There will be debate within the Church about how this is to be achieved, and there will be many different theologies. But all those who wish to see our church life founded on a just order will be welcomed to contribute within Inclusive Church.net regardless of the labels others give them. We are already developing a network of support for a number of specific pressure groups who have been working long and hard over the years and who have achieved a great deal already, as well as a network of diocesan coordinators.
"There is a profound sea-change occurring within Anglicanism at the moment, and it is focussed not on the specific issues of women or sexuality. Rather, it is about the soul of Anglicanism itself. Many of us within Inclusive Church.net wish to work and pray for an Anglicanism that is open, inclusive and just. We do not believe that Anglicanism should be forced by power plays into a narrow sectarian framework.
"It is not a matter of biblical theology versus liberal freedom, but of a working and praying together to enrich our common life with a deeper understanding of God's love for his creation expressed in scripture, tradition, reason, and the experience of our common life in Christ. It is not going to be an easy task."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Charles Walmsley from InclusiveChurch.Net (for which I'm on the steering group) had this letter published in The Church Times -- the main Church of England newspaper -- on Friday 28 November 2003:
"[T]hank you for your warm review of our website (Web News, 21st November). In her review, Sarah Meyrick describes Inclusive Church as 'the liberal group'. It is an easy mistake to make, but it is far from accurate. The huge upsurge of concern following the forced withdrawl of Canon Jeffrey John was not confined to 'liberals', and of the nearly eight thousand individuals who have currently signed our declaration of belief, many would describe themselves as Catholic or Evangelical. More than 90 Parochial Church Councils have signed so far, as have many organisations, including Cathedrals, Fransiscan orders, and entire deanery synods.
"Inclusive Church is not a single-issue pressure group. Rather, it is concerned to work and pray for an inclusive Anglicanism that is founded on a just ordering of our common life that 'opens the ministries of deacon, priest and bishop to those so called to serve by God, regardless of their sex, race or sexual orientation'.
"There will be debate within the Church about how this is to be achieved, and there will be many different theologies. But all those who wish to see our church life founded on a just order will be welcomed to contribute within Inclusive Church.net regardless of the labels others give them. We are already developing a network of support for a number of specific pressure groups who have been working long and hard over the years and who have achieved a great deal already, as well as a network of diocesan coordinators.
"There is a profound sea-change occurring within Anglicanism at the moment, and it is focussed not on the specific issues of women or sexuality. Rather, it is about the soul of Anglicanism itself. Many of us within Inclusive Church.net wish to work and pray for an Anglicanism that is open, inclusive and just. We do not believe that Anglicanism should be forced by power plays into a narrow sectarian framework.
"It is not a matter of biblical theology versus liberal freedom, but of a working and praying together to enrich our common life with a deeper understanding of God's love for his creation expressed in scripture, tradition, reason, and the experience of our common life in Christ. It is not going to be an easy task."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Thursday, December 04, 2003
[43.2] CHRISTMAS NOT BANNED SHOCK!
As usual the British national tabloids and some of the more gullible regional press in Britain have started their seasonal spreading of false or exaggerated rumours about evil secularist attempts to ban Christmas (or Easter, or whatever). Undoubtedly we live in a plural society where diplomacy to avoid offence often outweighs (rather inadvisedly, I suspect) the attempt actually to converse and communicate across communal and religious differences. Even so, there is no anti-religious plot. See this typical scare story relayed on Religious News Online -- to which I have replied, as you will see.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
As usual the British national tabloids and some of the more gullible regional press in Britain have started their seasonal spreading of false or exaggerated rumours about evil secularist attempts to ban Christmas (or Easter, or whatever). Undoubtedly we live in a plural society where diplomacy to avoid offence often outweighs (rather inadvisedly, I suspect) the attempt actually to converse and communicate across communal and religious differences. Even so, there is no anti-religious plot. See this typical scare story relayed on Religious News Online -- to which I have replied, as you will see.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[43.1] SEEKING 'THE AUTHENTIC JESUS'?
In her tough-minded book Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation, feminist scholar Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza astutely critiques various mainstream methodological approaches to 'the historical Jesus', and the intellectual hubris of much reconstruction per se. She scores some palpable points, but remains hopeful that the Spirit of the living Christ can break through our appropriations and conceits -- not least through the historical argument that is always part of faith: a reminder that God's in-breaking of human discourse is continually beyond our manipulation.
Fiorenza rightly says that it is those on the margins, those who do not have vested interests in the institutions that manage the narrative, who can best help us to re-discover it. For that reason -- and in spite of a title that will make her baulk yet again -- I am very much looking forward to reading the new book by Geza Vermes, Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford. The Authentic Gospel Of Jesus (Allen Lane) was published a few weeks ago. In a 'Face to Faith' article in The Guardian last Saturday ('What's sex got to do with it?'), Vermes says:
"The gospel of Jesus is still largely unperceived among church people: the message which the master from Nazareth -- not Paul, John or two millennia of Christianity -- formulated in his own language and teaching for his mostly uneducated Galilean Jewish audience."
Also worth a look: Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza's Jesus: Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet, Jack Nelson-Pellmayer's controversial Jesus Against Christianity and South African Albert Nolan's Jesus Before Christianity.
A useful non-technical introduction to the import of 'Jesus studies' debates is Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright's The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions. I enjoy a good deal of Borg's work (though his panentheism is now strained -- see the recent pole of post-metaphysics ranging from Jean Luc Marion to David Tracy). Wright is conservative, but in a thoughtful and creative way.
Bart Ehrman offers a different kind of salutary warning about current modern and post-modern renderings of Jesus in his Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, which I have just finished. He's right to point out how the apocalyptic dimension of the Gospels is underplayed (for obvious reasons) by modern interpreters. However, there are different theological possibilities arising from the text than those he deploys -- which tend towards 'unrecoverability'.
So the jury remains out. But the calling of the Christian community is to go on telling and retelling the Jesus story, in the conviction that the God who defies our categories and expectations continues will be met in and through it. Usually when we least expect or deserve it. Strangely enough, this is -- as Vermes the Jew points out -- something that the churches are notably bad at. often because they wish to control the text for their own ends. There is real fear in this. Too much of what now is in institutional Christianity is threatened by its founding figure (thankfully).
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
In her tough-minded book Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation, feminist scholar Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza astutely critiques various mainstream methodological approaches to 'the historical Jesus', and the intellectual hubris of much reconstruction per se. She scores some palpable points, but remains hopeful that the Spirit of the living Christ can break through our appropriations and conceits -- not least through the historical argument that is always part of faith: a reminder that God's in-breaking of human discourse is continually beyond our manipulation.
Fiorenza rightly says that it is those on the margins, those who do not have vested interests in the institutions that manage the narrative, who can best help us to re-discover it. For that reason -- and in spite of a title that will make her baulk yet again -- I am very much looking forward to reading the new book by Geza Vermes, Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford. The Authentic Gospel Of Jesus (Allen Lane) was published a few weeks ago. In a 'Face to Faith' article in The Guardian last Saturday ('What's sex got to do with it?'), Vermes says:
"The gospel of Jesus is still largely unperceived among church people: the message which the master from Nazareth -- not Paul, John or two millennia of Christianity -- formulated in his own language and teaching for his mostly uneducated Galilean Jewish audience."
Also worth a look: Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza's Jesus: Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet, Jack Nelson-Pellmayer's controversial Jesus Against Christianity and South African Albert Nolan's Jesus Before Christianity.
A useful non-technical introduction to the import of 'Jesus studies' debates is Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright's The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions. I enjoy a good deal of Borg's work (though his panentheism is now strained -- see the recent pole of post-metaphysics ranging from Jean Luc Marion to David Tracy). Wright is conservative, but in a thoughtful and creative way.
Bart Ehrman offers a different kind of salutary warning about current modern and post-modern renderings of Jesus in his Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, which I have just finished. He's right to point out how the apocalyptic dimension of the Gospels is underplayed (for obvious reasons) by modern interpreters. However, there are different theological possibilities arising from the text than those he deploys -- which tend towards 'unrecoverability'.
So the jury remains out. But the calling of the Christian community is to go on telling and retelling the Jesus story, in the conviction that the God who defies our categories and expectations continues will be met in and through it. Usually when we least expect or deserve it. Strangely enough, this is -- as Vermes the Jew points out -- something that the churches are notably bad at. often because they wish to control the text for their own ends. There is real fear in this. Too much of what now is in institutional Christianity is threatened by its founding figure (thankfully).
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
[42.1] CHRISTIANITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
The Centre for Christianity and Inter-Religious Dialogue at Heythrop College and Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (through the Middle East Forum of the Churches' Commission on Mission) are jointly organizing a major symposium exploring the dilemmas facing Christian communities in the Middle East today.
‘Christianity in the Middle East: contemporary explorations in politics and theology’ takes place on Thursday 11 December from 10:30 to 18:30pm at Heythrop, which is part of the University of London. Places are limited and admission is by ticket only, price £20, available from the college in Kensington Square, London W8 5HQ; phone [+44 1] [0]20 7795 6600.
Speakers will include Anthony O’Mahony (Heythrop College, University of London), Sebastian Brock (Oriental Institute, University of Oxford), Peter Riddell, (London Bible College, Brunel University), John H.Watson, William Taylor (St John’s, Notting Hill), Harry Hagopian (Jerusalem Inter-Church Committee), Leon Menzies Racionzer, Revd Leonard Marsh.
The gathering will explore the political and theological dimensions of Christian presence in the Middle East today, surveying the challenges that face Christian communities in the region, including Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. Speakers will focus on issues of ecumenism, Christian-Muslim relations, Christian-Jewish relations, and Jerusalem.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
The Centre for Christianity and Inter-Religious Dialogue at Heythrop College and Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (through the Middle East Forum of the Churches' Commission on Mission) are jointly organizing a major symposium exploring the dilemmas facing Christian communities in the Middle East today.
‘Christianity in the Middle East: contemporary explorations in politics and theology’ takes place on Thursday 11 December from 10:30 to 18:30pm at Heythrop, which is part of the University of London. Places are limited and admission is by ticket only, price £20, available from the college in Kensington Square, London W8 5HQ; phone [+44 1] [0]20 7795 6600.
Speakers will include Anthony O’Mahony (Heythrop College, University of London), Sebastian Brock (Oriental Institute, University of Oxford), Peter Riddell, (London Bible College, Brunel University), John H.Watson, William Taylor (St John’s, Notting Hill), Harry Hagopian (Jerusalem Inter-Church Committee), Leon Menzies Racionzer, Revd Leonard Marsh.
The gathering will explore the political and theological dimensions of Christian presence in the Middle East today, surveying the challenges that face Christian communities in the region, including Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. Speakers will focus on issues of ecumenism, Christian-Muslim relations, Christian-Jewish relations, and Jerusalem.
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Tuesday, December 02, 2003
[41.2] ENTERING THE MELEE
An Advent reflection from Liz Walz, who founded Martha House, a Catholic Worker house in the Germantown section of Philadelphia in 1998. Shortly before that, she worked at Philadelphia's Four Seasons luxury hotel. She was imprisoned in Towson, Maryland, for direct action against the US military use of depleted uranium. This excerpt (c) TheOtherSide magazine. Liz is now the coordinator of Word and World: A People's School.
"Most of us try to protect our loved ones from pain. Is this loving? Or are we robbing them of their education, of access to wisdom? How can we acquire the tools for bearing pain, for enduring suffering, if we run and hide? How can we know God's love if we don't allow ourselves to need it?
"We have become numb. It takes the deaths of not one, not a score, not a hundred, but hundreds of thousands, even millions, to awaken us from our stupor--because we haven't learned to grieve the death of the one, to feel the pain. Who will confront the oppressors and say, "No, for God's sake!" What meaning does the birth of Christ have if not hope for those most oppressed?
"Pain is not the end of the story, nor is suffering. But to witness the end of the story, we must have courage to look with clarity at our situation. As the powers develop and deploy ever more sophisticated weapons, as the empire continues to starve children, our silence reveals us as complicit in the crucifixion of our brothers and sisters. Despair overwhelms us, and we'll try almost anything to stop the pain. But nothing works until we have the courage to walk into the melee. We must step into the line of fire, and love the squalling child lying in the muck of the feed trough, announcing to those who would kill her, "No! This is a holy child of God."
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An Advent reflection from Liz Walz, who founded Martha House, a Catholic Worker house in the Germantown section of Philadelphia in 1998. Shortly before that, she worked at Philadelphia's Four Seasons luxury hotel. She was imprisoned in Towson, Maryland, for direct action against the US military use of depleted uranium. This excerpt (c) TheOtherSide magazine. Liz is now the coordinator of Word and World: A People's School.
"Most of us try to protect our loved ones from pain. Is this loving? Or are we robbing them of their education, of access to wisdom? How can we acquire the tools for bearing pain, for enduring suffering, if we run and hide? How can we know God's love if we don't allow ourselves to need it?
"We have become numb. It takes the deaths of not one, not a score, not a hundred, but hundreds of thousands, even millions, to awaken us from our stupor--because we haven't learned to grieve the death of the one, to feel the pain. Who will confront the oppressors and say, "No, for God's sake!" What meaning does the birth of Christ have if not hope for those most oppressed?
"Pain is not the end of the story, nor is suffering. But to witness the end of the story, we must have courage to look with clarity at our situation. As the powers develop and deploy ever more sophisticated weapons, as the empire continues to starve children, our silence reveals us as complicit in the crucifixion of our brothers and sisters. Despair overwhelms us, and we'll try almost anything to stop the pain. But nothing works until we have the courage to walk into the melee. We must step into the line of fire, and love the squalling child lying in the muck of the feed trough, announcing to those who would kill her, "No! This is a holy child of God."
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[41.1] BEYOND DEADLY ILLUSIONS
This from weblogger Alvarny Windrider:
My friend asked, "Do you want to be Jesus Christ?"
And I shook my head and thought to myself, "He had the easy way out, all He was required to do was to die. I am required to stay alive and live the consequences."
It is, of course, the superficiality of much Christian thinking -- not to mention twisted, forsensic doctrines of the meaning of this paradigmatic death (see, by contrast, J Denny Weaver's The Nonviolent Atonement) -- which have led to the popular caricature of "the man born to die." What crucified Jesus was not his avoidance of life or divine sadism, but deep-seated fear of unrestricted life (and the uncontrollable God of Life) on on the part of those bound to religious and political authorities. Similarly, risen life is not the magical resolution or reversal of death, but the capacity to live fully in the face of it -- which is the gift of God. But Alvarny is absolutely right: life is tough, and death-as-a-virtue is no answer. Nor is it what the Gospel proposes.
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This from weblogger Alvarny Windrider:
My friend asked, "Do you want to be Jesus Christ?"
And I shook my head and thought to myself, "He had the easy way out, all He was required to do was to die. I am required to stay alive and live the consequences."
It is, of course, the superficiality of much Christian thinking -- not to mention twisted, forsensic doctrines of the meaning of this paradigmatic death (see, by contrast, J Denny Weaver's The Nonviolent Atonement) -- which have led to the popular caricature of "the man born to die." What crucified Jesus was not his avoidance of life or divine sadism, but deep-seated fear of unrestricted life (and the uncontrollable God of Life) on on the part of those bound to religious and political authorities. Similarly, risen life is not the magical resolution or reversal of death, but the capacity to live fully in the face of it -- which is the gift of God. But Alvarny is absolutely right: life is tough, and death-as-a-virtue is no answer. Nor is it what the Gospel proposes.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Monday, December 01, 2003
[40.1] CALCULATED ACTS OF KINDNESS
Mike Yaconelli's death diminishes us all. I didn't know him, so I can't say anything personal. But this is from the Greenbelt festival blog:
"I can't remember everybody's name; I often can't remember where I am! You don't have to have my gifts or skills - and I don't have to have yours. The most seemingly unimportant thing can make all the difference in the world. A teeny weeny act of kindness can make all the difference... That's what spirituality is -- simple kindness, the significance of the insignificant. When's the last time you wrote a little note to [someone] telling them you think they're great? Really. That says more than all the religious and Bible talk, and will mean a great deal to them. It's an act of kindness any of us can do."
(From 'Jerk-Free Christianity' in Yak Yak Yak, Marshall Pickering, 1991)
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Mike Yaconelli's death diminishes us all. I didn't know him, so I can't say anything personal. But this is from the Greenbelt festival blog:
"I can't remember everybody's name; I often can't remember where I am! You don't have to have my gifts or skills - and I don't have to have yours. The most seemingly unimportant thing can make all the difference in the world. A teeny weeny act of kindness can make all the difference... That's what spirituality is -- simple kindness, the significance of the insignificant. When's the last time you wrote a little note to [someone] telling them you think they're great? Really. That says more than all the religious and Bible talk, and will mean a great deal to them. It's an act of kindness any of us can do."
(From 'Jerk-Free Christianity' in Yak Yak Yak, Marshall Pickering, 1991)
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Sunday, November 30, 2003
[39.1] BLOGGING WITH RELIGION
Perhaps the doyen of all godblogs has to be Kathy Shaidle's Relapsed Catholic ("Where the religious rubber meets the pop culture road... a daily blog about religion: in the news, in the media, on the web, in the world.") It was established in 2000 (anyone remember weblogging back that far?) and it still sets the standards the rest of us follow. Kathy's lastest book is called God Rides a Yamaha, incidentally.
In terms of theological learning, the best loggy thing I've come across is Disseminary, which deserves a write-up in its own right, and will get one. See also the online culture magazine Transition, which includes religion in its wide-angled take on life -- and the wonderful Utne, which sometimes does.
Then there are more personalised sites, like PostModern Pilgrim, or the thoughts of (allegedly) confused Lutheran Chris Halverson --or, indeed, Salt, "notes from a 30-something, salsa dancing, irish fiddling, Keynesian, suburban Anglican Epicurean vicar." Way to go...
Last but not least (for now), I appreciate Gutless Pacifist, "A Place for Dialogue about Faith, Politics and Peace." And the title is not quite what you think. It's author declares: "I agree with John Howard Yoder - 'The church is called to be now what the world is called to be ultimately.' "
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Perhaps the doyen of all godblogs has to be Kathy Shaidle's Relapsed Catholic ("Where the religious rubber meets the pop culture road... a daily blog about religion: in the news, in the media, on the web, in the world.") It was established in 2000 (anyone remember weblogging back that far?) and it still sets the standards the rest of us follow. Kathy's lastest book is called God Rides a Yamaha, incidentally.
In terms of theological learning, the best loggy thing I've come across is Disseminary, which deserves a write-up in its own right, and will get one. See also the online culture magazine Transition, which includes religion in its wide-angled take on life -- and the wonderful Utne, which sometimes does.
Then there are more personalised sites, like PostModern Pilgrim, or the thoughts of (allegedly) confused Lutheran Chris Halverson --or, indeed, Salt, "notes from a 30-something, salsa dancing, irish fiddling, Keynesian, suburban Anglican Epicurean vicar." Way to go...
Last but not least (for now), I appreciate Gutless Pacifist, "A Place for Dialogue about Faith, Politics and Peace." And the title is not quite what you think. It's author declares: "I agree with John Howard Yoder - 'The church is called to be now what the world is called to be ultimately.' "
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
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