Ground Zero Sum

An Old Old Story: Ground Zero Sum by An Old Old Story

[soundcloud link; via An Old Old Story; HT: Experimental Theology]

It's *So* Predictable...



[appropriately via Surviving the World, here]

Good Ideas, Good Books



[via Dwindling in Unbelief, in this post]

After Sending A "Christ" Mas(s) Letter:

To the religious right Christmas culture warriors{read more than the title...}

[via Bene Diction Blogs On]

Lying about Santa: The Irrelevance of Proof to the Holiday Spirit

[via Religion Dispatches]

Minority Report

How would you feel if I told you that a country was passing a law that would severely restrict the rights and freedoms of Christians? That the government of a country, which was entirely controlled by followers of another religion had decided to band together and do something about the “Christian threat”? What if they published the names of people they suspected to be Christians in the newspaper, and encouraged the public to harm them or refuse to associate with them? What if they passed a law so that if you were caught practicing your faith in your own home you could be thrown in jail for 7 years? What if they made it a law that if your neighbour found out you were a Christian they were forced to report it to the police or face 3 years in prison themselves? What if that law had a provision in it that if you were caught multiple times you could be put to death?

How would you feel? Angry? Sad? Would you be motivated to do something about it? Would you ask your member of parliament or senator to approve sanctions against the country treating your Christian brothers and sisters in such a way? What would you do?

Now stop. Because it IS really happening right now. In Uganda.

But there is one difference, which is why you probably haven’t heard about it.{continue...}

[via Bridging the Gap]

Star Trek: Science Fiction for Progressives

[via Levellers]

Our Own Kingdoms

We live in a world with political and economic systems that continue to crumble. We have religious and theological ideas and structures that are insufficient to make sense of it all. Jesus knew this over 2000 years ago. It is why he came to reveal and found a Kingdom that was not dependent on the Kingdoms of the World. Humanity rejected that message and rejected that Kingdom not because they first hated God, but because that Kingdom threatened the stability of their own Kingdoms and asked everyone to give up their own self-preservation in these Kingdoms in order to pursue a different one of God's creation. Clinging to their own Kingdoms, they killed Jesus - an act which is the ultimate expression of human sin and idolatry.

If we fuse and confuse our own Kingdoms with that which Jesus came to found, and if we cling to our own Kingdoms to maintain some kind of privilege status in the world, where we will go when they crumble either through human error, or by the very wrath of God that ripped open the Temple curtain on Good Friday? {full post}

[via Notes From Off-Center]

To An Impossible Situation That Shouldn't Last Forever

I'll give the pope some credit here. He's certainly right that getting men to stop cheating on their wives en masse - as is the custom in many African ethno-linguistic groups, especially those in which having sex with a nursing mother is a cultural taboo - would certainly abate the spread of HIV. As would ending the practices of polygamy, marrying off twelve-year-old girls, and the use of rape as a weapon of war.

But the pope doesn't know what he's talking about. Only someone who's never set foot in an African hospital would claim that condom use doesn't help fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Because it does. It works. When a country increases access to information about and reduces the cost of condoms, its HIV rate goes down. This is not in dispute. It works especially well when you hand out condoms in conjunction with campaigns that encourage teenagers to abstain and husbands to be faithful to their wives. But access to condoms is a key part of the strategy.

...The reality of the situation pushes aside ideals and pontifications from on high. It forces an immediate, imperfect response to an impossible situation.

It would be great if the pope's vision of fidelity replaced the need for condom distribution in much of sub-Saharan Africa. The cost-prohibitive nature of all forms of contraception and disease-prevention mean that these programs are almost completely dependent on donor financing. That money won't last forever. There will have to be long-term, local solutions to these problems. But those kinds of cultural changes take a lifetime to implement. Given that there is no evidence that condom distribution increases promiscuity - or the HIV/AIDS seropositive rate - in sub-Saharan Africa, it's ridiculous to claim that these programs do more harm than good. And the at-risk people of Cameroon and Angola and Kenya and the Congo can't wait for norms to shift. I wonder if the pope thought of that. {full post}

[via Texas in Africa]

Complexity of Valentine's Day

With all the attention given today to the bicentennial birthdays of Darwin and Lincoln, it's easy to forget that this is also Valentine's Weekend. In today's edition of Sightings Wendy Doniger of the University of Chicago writes about the complexities of Valentines Day in India -- and it's effect on women. Of course, western expressions of sexuality and religion have, over the years, effected views there. So, take a read: {continue...}

[via Ponderings on a Faith Journey]

Enriching the Future...

The reception of Darwin’s ideas has been mixed. On the one hand, almost the entire scientific world accepts the neo-Darwinian synthesis of evolutionary theory. Almost no field of modern science would be able to function in quite the same way without evolutionary thought. On the other, Darwin’s popularity among non-scientists, especially people of faith, has been mixed from the beginning. He had his defenders among Christian theologians from the outset, but also his critics. In earlier generations, most of those theological critics concentrated on the challenge of Darwinian thought to teleological and cosmological arguments for God’s existence, for the goodness of Creation, the uniqueness of humanity and of purpose to human existence. In recent decades, however, these larger questions have been downplayed in favor of biblical literalism and of pseudo-scientific attempts to justify that literalism via such oxymoronic schemes as “creation science,” and “intelligent design theory.”....

Ironically, it was Abraham Lincoln who, even in the midst of our nation’s greatest struggle for survival (both physical and as a nation of freedom and equality for ALL), created our National Academy of Sciences. He sought not only to preserve the Union physically, but to enrich its future through promotion of scientific inquiry. Origin of Species was only published in 1859 and The Descent of Man was not published until 1871, so it is unclear if Lincoln had ever heard of any of Darwin’s researches or theories. (Lincoln was self-taught, but widely read. He won his law license and admission to the Illinois Bar completely through self-study.) Yet, I think Lincoln would be disappointed that the United States today, though in many ways far more advanced than in Lincoln’s day, would take knowledge and scientific inquiry so lightly that only 39% of the public is completely convinced of biological evolution via natural selection.

Many Americans are reading more about Lincoln this year in honor of his bicentennial. It’s a good idea. But take some time out to read Darwin, too. {full post}

[via Levellers]

Church and State on Jan. 20: An Advent Reflection

[via ThinkChristian.NET]

Autonomy and Alienation

Editor's note: Thirty years ago this month, a minister who had affiliated his congregation with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) led his flock into a remote foreign jungle to escape nuclear conflagration, and then systematically murdered nearly 1,000 of them in what he chose to term “revolutionary suicide” — a deed for which he expected to be admired. Disciples minister Katherine Willis Pershey raises the key question, with a particular focus on her own denomination: “Could it happen again?”

Ask a dozen Disciples about any given theological or social issue, and you will receive a dozen different answers. For the most part, Disciples of Christ like it that way. They value their freedom. Church members do not want to be scolded by their pastors for what they believe. Disciples churches do not want their regional ministers to act as hierarchical bishops, interfering with call processes or showing up uninvited at board meetings to arbitrate congregational conflicts. No, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) proudly stands by its historical commitment to unity in essentials, liberty in non-essentials, and in all things charity.

Yet the freedom this denomination holds dear in part enabled Jim Jones to lead the Peoples Temple Christian Church, a Disciples of Christ congregation, into unfathomable tragedy in Guyana on November 18, 1978. {continue...}

[via DisciplesWorld, HT: Ponderings on a Faith Journey]

Chance To Prove, If Not Secure

I sat on an ottoman wedged in the corner of the wine bar. It was after hours and I was providing support to one of our directors as he shot a focus group for a local ad agency. The shoot pretty much ran itself so my support ended up being more of the moral variety. It was a multi-night job and I spent most of the time surfing the internet and writing on my laptop. The groups, which consisted of African-American women of different age ranges were interesting to listen to…at first. The uncomfortable ottoman mixed with my own natural predisposition for boredom set me off in search of websites that featured shiny new gadgets of the plug-in variety.

When the moderator asked the women what an Obama victory would mean to them, I looked up from my screen. I was curious to hear the opinion of the election from the perspective of a Southern middle-class African-American woman. Many of the answers I anticipated. Words like, “empowerment”, “hope”, and “affirmation” were said. One unexpected word I heard was “anxiety”. The moderator asked the woman to clarify her statement, she continued to say, “Barack Obama is our chance to prove ourselves. If he is elected and fails, it will be devastating for African-Americans and who knows when we will get another shot?”

I knew what I was getting into with this blog. I fully intended to be an example of someone who was living as an active member of the church, but I have a very uncomfortable, shifting-my-chair feeling when people look to me as a “poster boy” for gay Mormons. Because, quite simply:

What if I fail? {continue...}

[via Soy Made Me Gay]

Old-guard, New-guard

In the wake of the presidential election, who now speaks for American evangelicals? Will the generation of James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Chuck Colson be replaced with a new cohort? Does the Democratic victory signal the end of the Religious Right as we know it? Will the Obama presidency give credence to left-leaning evangelical leaders such as Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners, and megachurch pastors such as Joel Hunter, both of whom personally know the president-elect?

....Is the Obama presidency the final nail in the coffin for the Religious Right? Don’t count on it. For one thing, political movements like the Religious Right don’t need a “god” to succeed, but they do need a devil. Nothing builds allegiances among a coalition like a common enemy....

Whatever happens in the months ahead, three things are certain. A new cohort of public figures will emerge, each claiming to represent American evangelicals. President-elect Obama will appoint a few of them to his administration, but none to high office. Second, the public disdain for the evangelical “brand” will subside a good bit as Bush-era religious conservatives fade from attention. Finally, by next fall, the Religious Right will solidify its support behind two or three newer figures as they seek to remake the movement’s public image.

[via The Immanent Frame, HT: Notes From Off-Center]

Those Who Leave Christ and My Own Story (Of Why I Could Not)

[via adventures in mercy]

Is there too much faith put in faith?

[via Ponderings on a Faith Journey]

The Idolatry of America-- Martin E. Marty

[HT: Ponderings on a Faith Journey]

On Obama Quitting His Church

[via The Rambling Prophet 2]

Detecting Mysteries

Fictional Clergy Detectives
Fictional Clergy Detectives II
Fictional Detectives III

[via Levellers]