Henry Neufeld, at the Participatory Bible Blog,

I want to briefly point to something that we often miss in Bible study and theology in the western church–corporate identity. We are very individualistic, and that makes it hard to see when some form of corporate identity is in play.

This turns up in certain views of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Many view the baptism as a single event for the church on Pentecost, into which the individual believer is incorporated when he or she becomes a part of God’s people, normally through baptism. The separate baptism is a more individual idea. (I think there can be some accommodation between these views; I simply want to point out the corporate identity inherent in at least one of them.)

Paul says in Romans 6:3-4:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (NRSV, cf. 2 Corinthians 4:10-12)

Again, our baptism incorporates us into God’s people, and by this means we have a part in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Individualization of faith and church, as exemplified in the above or the notion of cafeteria Christianity is not a stranger to the American faith experience. I’d like to follow this notion of corporate connectedness and some consequences … below the fold. Read the rest of this entry

Dan Trabue (blogging here) and I had a discussion recently arguing a little about theological points. I’m going to return to some of those here, and hopefully both continue the discussion as well as draw some other into it.

Before I crack Mr Cone’s book, some quotes I found in the last few days:

It makes sense if you understand that Liberation Theology views history and social wrongs as the primary emphasis of Scripture. Liberation theology teaches that salvation history is the story of the oppressed vs. the oppressor. And God is on the side of the oppressed. Liberation theology teaches that capitalist countries such as the U.S. do what they do militarily to keep poor people poor, and the rich people rich.

This is, at the base, a theological error which may have actually technically be heresy (that is be rooted in incorrect ideas about God and Trinity). John Zizioulas (among others) in his writings has explained that in the first centuries of Christian development there was a struggle between three notions of Truth. Jewish thought held that truth was to be found in history (which sounds very similar to that cited above). Greek though viewed truth in a Platonic or more eternal sense. Christianity held that Jesus was truth, that truth was to be found in the incarnation (see John 1). In the fourth century the Cappadocians succeeded in synthesizing this in their ideas of hypostasis, trinity and so forth. This synthesis is central to Christian thought and doctrine, but is rejected in the first quoted section.A teaching from that patristic era (I think the source was John Chrysostom) that while the rich should aid the poor from their abundance, this is not a one way street. That is, while the rich should being charitable, aid the poor, the poor in turn, being charitable, should pray for and on behalf of the wealthy. And that does not mean that the poor should pray that the rich “come to their senses” and aid the poor, but that the poor should pray for the health, well being, and good things on behalf of the rich. Liberation theology teaches the opposite of that and because of that is very very wrong. Charity is a primary virtue of Christian life, and by denying charity from the poor to be given to the rich rejects that virtue to be held by the poor. All Christians are called to be charity not just “the oppressors.”

Furthermore the teaching that the US and other powers “do what they do to keep people poor and the rich rich”, is categorically false. Malthusian ideas that wealth and prosperity is a zero sum gain and that there is a fixed amount of “wealth” or resources to go around is old and more importantly wrong! It doesn’t even make anthropological sense. Henry Ford didn’t build cars and and industry to “keep the Black man down” and neither did Rockefeller, Carnegie or any 18th century capitalists, just as Bill Gates didn’t build Microsoft for that purpose. The number of people intentionally framing policy in a racial context is not as large as the racial theorists pretend, in fact it is much much smaller. The vast majority of the US and other powers consist of people getting up in the morning and working hard constructively to make and produce things for their family and clan. This production and constructive activity rarely if at all considers the “other” in a racial or ethnic context at all.

Worse is this from here:

If whiteness stands for all that is evil, blackness symbolizes all that is good. “Black theology,” says [black liberation theologian James] Cone, “refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community . . . Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.” Small wonder that some critics have condemned black liberation theology as “racist idolatry” and “Afro-Nazism.”

Before you can have a race war in America, you must first set forth an ideology that legitimizes race hatred and keeps that kind of hatred at a boiling point. The theology of Cone seems to be on this path, absolutizing “blackness,” which in turn gives the KKK, Aryans, and kindred spirits an excuse to absolutize “whiteness.”

The result? Two gods vying for supremacy, locked in mortal combat, with no possible resolution, even if by fire, as some groups seem to want.

What can be said positive about the quote from Mr Cone above. In a future post, I will develop further the notion that the ideas of Mr Cone that his theology can be viewed as similar to the prosperity Gospel but the gist of it is that if the Gospel means that God will help them “destroy their oppressors” then how different is that from the Gospel means “I will get rich” or that other earthly desires of mine be satisfied?

In the prior thread, I had suggested that the “resident alien” idea that Rowan Williams had proposed describing the early Christian church was the proper view of that a Christian should take in society and especially when confronted by oppressive situations. Mr Trabue responded that:

Considering one’s self a resident alien in a society with no rights or liberties – where one can’t vote to make changes – makes sense.

Considering one’s self a resident alien in a society where you are a minority voice – makes some sense, too.

Nonetheless, as resident aliens in a culture where we do have a voice and a vote, it also makes sense to work for positive change. And there’s certainly nothing unbiblical about doing so.

[…]

There certainly is not the first thing wrong biblically for voting one’s conscience in a democratic system where one has a voice and a vote, I’d hope that you’d agree. And, in fact, I’d find it shocking if a Christian said that, while they personally were OPPOSED to genocide (for instance), they wouldn’t want to push their personal religious beliefs off on their society when it engages in genocide.

There are three points to make in a response to this sentiment:

• There is, for a Christian living in a participatory democracy or republic, a tension between the notion of “in/not of”, a commitment to other things, and resident alien held against that of rendering unto Caesar. That there is some wide latitude of responses which all remain valid.
• At the same time, in Orthodox liturgy we profess just prior to participation in Eucharist that
  

  I believe and confess, Lord, that You are truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. I also believe that this is truly Your pure Body and that this is truly Your precious Blood. Therefore, I pray to You, have mercy upon me, and forgive my transgressions, voluntary and involuntary, in word and deed, known and unknown. And make me worthy without condemnation to partake of Your pure Mysteries for the forgiveness of sins and for life eternal. Amen.

  Note the emphasized part. We are first and foremost to work on our sins not those of our neighbor but our self. God gave man free-will. It is not necessarily our place to deny our neighbor his free will in turn.

• Your genocide example is telling. Some view abortion as genocide, especially as it is so prevalent in the Black community. Is that a plea to bomb or damage/close abortion centers I wonder? Or work politically to make them illegal? Again in this sense, I get no impression from the first centuries of Roman/Christian conflict and history that abortion was fought in any way but by example or for that matter the outworking of Roman political engines, including genocidal acts.

I have not tried anything remotely like this on this blog yet. Likely I won’t do it often. Let me know waddya think. So, with a little trepidation …

Once upon a time, a young man was selected from those in his parish to go on a mission. He was excited and had some nervousness in the months prior to leaving, and used every waking moment to prepare for his departure. He read some on the customs and languages of the place he was to go. But, as he was assured that he would have excellent guides he mostly worried about his studies and his faith. When he was at worship he tried to remember all of the parts of worship and liturgy. He tried to imagine for everything that he saw, did and observed, that if he was asked he might be called to remember why a thing was done and why it was so. Therefore he asked questions of everyone incessantly and constantly trying to make sure he had it all right. Then came the momentous day.

He was to leave. Departure and his journey passed in a confusing frantic blur, mixed with delay, and dark quiet airline seats and awareness that the sounds and smells and people around him were becoming less and less like those which he was familiar.

For the land in which he was going, people of his faith were rare and unknown. He would indeed be a stranger in a land of strange and unknown customs, patterns and practices. Accordingly, at all times he regarded himself as an ambassador of his faith. That his every fleeting contact, every action would be a chance to connect with these strangers, to show by his love, his charity, his presence what sort of faith and people he represented. At first every act he performed, he did somewhat self-consciously reflecting that each act would be observed, perhaps critically, by strange unloving, judgmental eyes. Those eyes, trying to discern by his actions what sort of man he was … and thereby what sort of a people those of his faith were. Eventually, the self-consciousness faded somewhat as many of his actions and responses became more habitual. But that didn’t help at all. For it really didn’t get easier, those things which became habit exposed all the other things which he was forgetting or didn’t learn as well as he should have during his prior frantic, inadequate, and continuing, but now more careful, study.

Then came the time to return.

How was he changed by his trip? Why did he even have to leave for that change to take place? Why don’t we all always treat our every action as if we are that man representing Christ and his Church here in this strange land here on the hard lonely side of the eschaton?

In Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, Meg Meeker, M.D., lays out her argument as to why a young girl’s father is the most important person in her life. Building on over twenty years of medical practice, including counseling girls, Meeker has come to the conclusion that the father is primarily the one who shapes the path of his female children. The subtitle for the book is, 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know, and Meeker outlines each secret in the book’s 10 chapters. Yet, in reading her book I discovered that, while some of Meeker’s claims may run counter to what our culture tells us, most of the methodologies she posits are very intuitive, demonstrating a common sense approach towards the task of fatherhood. Was it, then, a waste of time to read the book? Certainly not! While the points Meeker explains should be common knowledge, in my opinion, I fear that our culture has denigrated the decidedly male role of father to nothing more than that of breadwinner. I also fear that too many men have been derelict in their responsibility of being their children’s, and in this context, their daughter’s fathers. What Meeker does, so elegantly, is lay out the very real and very important influence that fathers have on their daughters.

That said, here is my review of Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters.

Read the rest of this entry

Henry Neufeld has been having a conversation, some of which is with me, on Healthcare and how being Christian touches on that. He has two more posts to draw attention to, one on a visit to emergency room, and another on fear. I’m going to comment on the first (and hope to on the second later), but before I do, I want to make two things clear. As Mr Neufeld also writes, I share the notion that I am thinking these things through “out loud” on the blog to elicit comments. All these ideas and notions I put forth are not fully thought out. What we’re seeing is more the process as I try to work out some of these issues, a process I’d enjoin others to join in.

The second and more important point, in discussing Mr Neufeld’s emergency post, I’m going to be critical. I want to make it clear I don’t mean this criticism personally, and that all the criticism I offer, applies equally to me, that is, I’d probably respond and fall prey to the things I’m criticizing at least as much if not more than Mr Neufeld. To re-iterate that last point, I offer these criticisms in a generic fashion more as a thing which all of us do, but they may seem as a criticism of Henry but that is only because I am using his example. Read the rest of this entry

Charlemagne spread his rule by a combination of military force and evangelism. The religious network of churches, monasteries, and ecclesiastic hierarchy served as a fundamental building block of the pacification and spread of his control.

Today’s multicultural sensitivities insist that we respect the religious practices of the Middle East and other countries as we interact with them. This might be wrong, or at the very least, not the best approach in the long run. We believe and practice religious freedom. Perhaps the best way to push religious freedom on those parts of the world that don’t think that is a good thing, is not to respect their religion but to push our religion into their region.

The proposal at hand is the following: We believe in our government in a separation of church and state. However, if we admit internally that the Middle East and other regions might be better off with more Christian influence, might it not be a bad secular idea to figure out what ‘denomination’ gets the most traction/success at conversion of Muslims and assist/push them into extensive evangelism in those troubled regions?

Two notes: See the prior post … and recall what “A Modest Proposal” means, i.e., that the suggestion is less than serious.

They’re turning to Jesus in droves, as noted by Chuck Colson.

According to the website Islam Watch, in Russia, some two million ethnic Muslims converted to Christianity last year. Ten thousand French Muslims converted, as did 35,000 Turkish Muslims. In India, approximately 10,000 people abandoned Islam for Christianity.

In his book Epicenter, author Joel Rosenberg details amazing stories of Muslims converting to Christianity. In Algeria, the birthplace of St. Augustine, more than 80,000 Muslims have turned to Christ in recent years. This, despite the stiff opposition from Islamic clerics who have passed laws banning evangelism.

In Morocco, newspaper articles openly worry that 25,000 to 40,000 Muslims have become followers of Christ in recent years.

The stories are even more amazing in the heart of the Middle East. In 1996, the Egyptian Bible Society sold just 3,000 video copies of the JESUS film. In the year 2000, they sold an incredible 600,000 copies.

In Sudan, as many as five million Muslims have accepted Christ since the early 1990s, despite horrific persecution of Christians by the Sudanese government. What is behind the mass conversions? According to a Sudanese evangelical leader, “People have seen real Islam, and they want Jesus instead.”

Some say that America is creating terrorists by fight Islam.  But it appears that many, many more Muslims, seeing the hate from their fellow Muslims, have decided "they want Jesus instead". 

[tags]Chuck Colson,Joel Rosenberg,Christianity,Islam,Jesus film[/tags]

Along the lines of Doug’s The Religious Left post, via Treaders, is Russell Moore’s editorial Alma’s Mater, from Touchstone Magazine (July/August 2007). From Moore,

“Peace and justice” Christians are insistent in telling us they do not wish to move away from the protection of unborn life when they point to other social issues. They simply seek to “expand” Christian social witness from the “Religious Right’s” narrow focus on abortion and marriage to the full range of life issues.

We’re not pro-abortion, they assure us. It’s just that we believe that life doesn’t begin at conception and end at birth. We believe, they say, that global warming and quality daycare and an increased minimum wage are pro-life issues too.

John Polkinghorne has an interesting new book out Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship, which I highly recommend even if I’ve only read the first chapter. Mr Polkinghorne has had a distinguished career in theoretical physics involved in the development of the Standard Model, and is now retired from that and has subsequently been ordained as a Anglican priest and has been thinking theology. His view is that Theology and Science, especially Physics are not opponents, but more like cousins. In his words:

The basic reason is simply that science and theology are both concerned with the search for truth. In consequence, they complement each other rather than contrast each other. Of course, the two disciplines focus on different dimensions of truth, but they share a common conviction that there is truth to be sought. Although in both kinds of enquiry this truth will never be grasped totally and exhaustively, it can be approximated to in an intellectually satisfying manner that deserves the adjective ‘versimilitundinous’, even if it does not qualify to be described in an absolute sense as complete.

[…]

… The thesis of underlying turth-seeking connection between science and theology appeals strongly to someone like myself, who spent half a lifetime working as a theoretical physicist and then, feeling that I had done my little bit for science, was ordained to the Anglican priesthood and so began a serious, if necessarily amateur, engagement with theology. I do not discern a sharp rational discontinuity between these two halves of my adult life. Rather, I believe that both ahve been concerned with searching for truth through the pursuit of well-motivated beliefs, carefully evaluated.

[note: emphasis mine]

Mr Polkinghorne notes that this stands in contrast to the post-modernist currents which hold that there is no truth to be sought, that truths are constructed things. And I for one, applaud that.

This book attempts to trace in detail 5 events in Physics and Chrsitian theology and seeks to find parallels and to compare and contrast them. These are:

1. A moment of enforced radical revision — for Physics, the photo-electric effect and the emergence of Quantum physics, for theology the realization that Jesus was God.
2. A period of unresolved confusion — for Physics again, the period of 1900 to 1925 had held a growing number of experiments which had no resolution in the theory of the day. Again, for theology the period in the first centuries after Jesus as they attempted to formulate ways of talking about it.
3. A new synthesis — 1925-1926 when Heisenberg and Schroedinger came up with a way to explain what was being seen and the Creedal periods of the 4th and 5th century when the Patristic fathers resolved the tensions between Jewish, Greek, and Christian ways of seeing the world and truth.
4. Continued wrestling with unresolved issues — The measurement problem in Physics and understanding the divine, e.g., terms which are unclear “begetting” and “procession”.
5. And deeper implications — the theories that resolve the problems (see above) have further implications which deepen our understaning of a wide variety of other matters.

This short book will as I mentioned investigate and explore similarities and differences of these matters in more depth. I look forward to reading on … and I encourage y’all to do so too.

For further reading of how science finds its meaning and its method of enquiry Mr Polkinghorne suggests this book: Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post- Critical Philosophy by Michael Polyani.

Joe Carter brings up a number of points, some of which I might return to, but this torture issue made me think of a question. Mr Carter writes:

Four — I can’t make excuses for us on this one anymore: Christians have to take a firm stand against torture. Yes, there is a debate about what exactly is meant by that term. Let’s have that debate. Let’s define the term in a way that consistent with our belief in human dignity. And then let’s hold every politician in the country to that standard. Our silence on this issue has become embarrassing.

Is the problem with torture about contravening will or is it about causing pain? That is if we had techniques to extract information that caused an individual to “talk” but were both pleasant (or not unpleasant) but forced one against one’s will to relay information. A suggestion of what that might be could be a drug cocktail, which might induce some euphoria as well as loosen the tongue. Other possibilities might be other “advanced” techniques which might become available as we learn more about how the brain works.

Oh and to make things clear, I’m against torture too and agree fully on that point.

To all you in the Western tradition. In the East, on Pascha/Easter the homily has been the same for over 1500 years. St. John Chrysostom preached this one Pascha morn and it was decided it couldn’t be improved upon. This is what he preached see what y’all think of it:

If any man be devout and loveth God,
Let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast!
If any man be a wise servant,
Let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord.

If any have laboured long in fasting,
Let him how receive his recompense.
If any have wrought from the first hour,
Let him today receive his just reward.
If any have come at the third hour,
Let him with thankfulness keep the feast.
If any have arrived at the sixth hour,
Let him have no misgivings;
Because he shall in nowise be deprived therefore.
If any have delayed until the ninth hour,
Let him draw near, fearing nothing.
And if any have tarried even until the eleventh hour,
Let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness.
For the Lord, who is jealous of his honour,
Will accept the last even as the first.
He giveth rest unto him who cometh at the eleventh hour,
Even as unto him who hath wrought from the first hour.
And He showeth mercy upon the last,
And careth for the first;
And to the one He giveth,
And upon the other He bestoweth gifts.
And He both accepteth the deeds,
And welcometh the intention,
And honoureth the acts and praises the offering.

Wherefore, enter ye all into the joy of your Lord;
Receive your reward,
Both the first, and likewise the second.
You rich and poor together, hold high festival!
You sober and you heedless, honour the day!
Rejoice today, both you who have fasted
And you who have disregarded the fast.
The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously.
The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Enjoy ye all the feast of faith:
Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness.

Let no one bewail his poverty,
For the universal Kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one weep for his iniquities,
For pardon has shown forth from the grave.
Let no one fear death,
For the Saviour’s death has set us free.
He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.
By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.
He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.
And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:
Hell, said he, was embittered
When it encountered Thee in the lower regions.

It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?
Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.
For Christ, being risen from the dead,
Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be glory and dominion
Unto ages of ages.

Amen.

Cross-posted at New Covenant

In writing about the phenomenon of the culturally feminized man, perhaps I have been amiss in my use of certain words. Not that I’ve changed my opinion, mind you, but I think I underestimated the manner in which my use of the word “feminized”, for example, would be taken. It seemed (and it still does) pretty clear to me, as it must to authors such as Mark Steyn and Nancy Pearcey, how the word should be taken. Yet, I think the negative aspects of this use of “feminization” is perhaps too easily linked up with the mere trait of being feminine (a wonderful trait, I might add, provided that one is female).

So… what word to use? Girlie-man? Nah. Too Terminator-esque. I had thought that “infantile” would be a valid substitute – but that wouldn’t be fair to all the infants in the world (given that they are not yet in a position to defend themselves). So, I’m pretty much left with the word – wimpification – to utilize in describing what I see as negative cultural influences within our society.

That said, first up in this series of posts highlighting evidence of our wimpified culture, is a tidbit from Mere Comments, titled Is Easter Too Scary for Preschoolers?.

The pastors at this church in Raleigh, North Carolina, were perplexed when they saw the Holy Week Sunday school lessons for preschoolers from “First Look,” the publisher of the one to five year-old Sunday school class materials. There wasn’t a mention of the resurrection of Jesus. Naturally, the pastors inquired about the oversight. It turns out it was no oversight.

…

“Easter is a special time in churches,” the letter from the publisher says. “It’s a time of celebration and thankfulness. But because of the graphic nature of the Easter story and the crucifixion specifically, we need to be careful as we choose what we tell preschoolers about Easter.”

…

The curriculum marketers must know how bad this sounds, so they reassure the church they believe that the Gospel is for all people. Leaving out the cross and the resurrection is actually to help children come to Christ. They write, “We’re using these formative preschool years to build a foundation for that eventual decision by focusing on God’s love and telling preschoolers that ‘Jesus wants to be my friend forever.'”

Not only do they think that the Easter Resurrection Day story is too graphic for preschoolers to handle, they also think we should be teaching those same preschoolers some anti-Biblical notion that Jesus wants to be my friend forever. One has to wonder if their curriculum has some benign “Jesus”, smiling, and clad in a sweater, asking the children, “Won’t you let me be your friend? Please? It would mean so much to me? Oh, please, let me be your friend?”

Consider, though, is the “Jesus wants to be my friend forever” message, to four year-olds, any different from the “Jesus wants to have a personal relationship with you” sermon, pitched to adults? For a wimpified culture, I fear that the answer is, no.

The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty has, as it’s quick mission statement:

The Mission of the Acton Institute is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.

Among their web site’s many features is the Acton PowerBlog, and a podcast of the various lectures and radio appearances of Acton staff as well as their recently-started "Radio Free Acton" with a bit more production value (hosted by an old blogging friend of mine, Marc VanderMaas). 

Recently in the podcast stream was a talk by Acton President Rev. Robert Sirico entitled "The Rise (And Eventual Downfall) of the New Religious Left".  It is a 35 minute speech in which Rev. Sirico covers the fallacies of the Religious Left by noting history, scripture, and church writings.  He particularly notes the Left’s penchant for increasing the power of government (which history shows never ends well) in the name of caring, when the role of the church in society is to change hearts and allow human society to come naturally along. 

I’d like to suggest this quick listen to all my SCO comrades, and those, both on the right and the left, who would like to hear a well-reasoned examination of the role of government in Christian charity.  (The page linked above has an embedded audio player.)

Senator Barack Obama gave a speech in Philadelphia yesterday on race issues.  The speech was precipitated by connections being drawn between Obama and his black liberation theology pastor of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Many people have been turning to the Internet to view statements by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who suggested in one sermon that the United States brought the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on itself and in another said blacks should damn America for continuing to mistreat them.

Obama rejected Wright’s divisive statements but still embraced the man who brought him to Christianity, officiated at his wedding, baptized his two daughters and inspired the title of his book "The Audacity of Hope."

Not disown, perhaps, but much of that association has been scrubbed from Obama’s website and elsewhere on the Internet.  And that’s begging the question; are Rev. Wright’s view extreme for black liberation theology?  See here for Mark Olsen’s look into this.  If they are extreme, what does it say about the candidate who supports that church by his attendance and, likely, his money?  If they aren’t extreme, what does it say about the theology, in addition to the candidate?  [UPDATE: James Taranto reports that they may be more mainstream than some would like to think.]

So then, are a candidate’s pastor’s views fair game for consideration on the campaign trail?  Before you answer, consider how the occasional words of Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell have been used to paint evangelical Christians with a broad brush, both in the media and in the blogs.  But Falwell wasn’t, and Robertson isn’t, the pastor of the vast majority of those people for whom the Left likes to suggest they speak for.  Obama, on the other hand, attends by personal choice.  If the Left wants to make Robertson the spokesman for millions who may have not heard him speak, doesn’t that standard then apply to someone with a 20-year, close association with a presidential candidate? 

Or is there one standard for the Religious Right, and another for the Religious Wright?

Please vote in the poll on the right; do you think it’s fair game?

[tags]Barack Obama,Rev. Jeremiah Wright,race issues,Jerry Falwell,Pat Robertson,Religious Right,Christianity[/tags]

For this months Carnival of Christian Reconciliation, the topic Mr Platypus suggests is:

All of this prompts me to propose “Reconciliation and Liturgical Time” as the special topic for this Carnival. How are divergent or competing understandings of the liturgical year an obstacle to reconciliation? Conversely, how does the idea of liturgical time open up possibilities for greater unity? In any event, how do we live out our Christian discipleship among fellow believers who approach liturgical time differently?

As I write this most of the readers of this entry will likely be entering their Holy week celebrations. Many will be looking forward to finally breaking their fast, to celebrating, “getting their alleluia’s back”, and in general filling their own traditional ways of celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord and our God.

In A Secular Age philosopher Charles Taylor begins by noting the secular comes from the Latin: saeculum which relates to an “age” a specified length of time. Secular consequently is bound up in time. The Sacred is not. And this is true of our worship. Sunday worship “connects” and is “closer” to other Sunday’s and specifically that first Easter Sunday, than it is to Monday even though “in time” it is not. Our liturgical calendar pierces our secular time lines as the tines of a fork pinning us to the Eternal. The Orthodox teaching is that there is no time in liturgy. That in the divine liturgy we participate in the eschaton, in the timelessness of God.

But it is true there is division and unity in our liturgical calendars. Having the same calendar does aid ecumenical union. Last week, on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, while traveling on business I visited and had a wonderful experience at a very small rural ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) parish in Northern Georgia (web site here). Orthodoxy does not precisely share the same calendar … but for Lent/Pascha/Pentacost we do. Orthodoxy is split between the Julian and Gregorian calendar for the rest of the year. But because we share the same calendar in this season, I heard the same readings, and the homily was preached on the same subject. There were some differences, no parade of Icons and a little over half of the service was in old Slavonic … which was something of a challenge to sing. But … enough about me (or alternatively … I digress). The point is ecumenical connections between myself as a new OCA (Orthodox Church of America) member were eased by our liturgical similarities including our calendar. I would have felt out of place, having just finished my first week of Lenten fasting in joining a Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic, or other Protestant church which was celebrating Palm Sunday … not “the Triumph of Orthodoxy” and the victory over iconoclasm.

But while, the non-shared liturgical calendar hurts the ecumenical meeting of Orthodox an non-Orthodox does it help for instance the meeting of main line Protestant churches and Catholic? And here, I must confess my ignorance of what praxis and calendars are followed by the non-liturgical Protestants. But it seems to me likely, in for the traveller or the visitor, the non-sharing of secular (set in time) of the Sacred events is a hindrance to the mixing of our sectarian splits.

And that is perhaps a most important point. For noting our ignorance we have an opportunity to fill that void. As we are widely ignorant of the “Others” calendar … we can try to share. So in the interests of informing the y’all, I’ll point to this program, a free download, provided by (yet another) Atlanta (this time OCA) church. It provides the hymns (troparia and kontakia) assigned for the day, the Scripture readings, and the Saints as well as the official record of those Saint’s life for each day.

If you could, leave as comments here, links or references to your liturgical year … so we can all share and by our differences find what we have in common.