Prof. Pam's Religion Blog

A prayer for the Gulf

Am inspired by this prayer for the Gulf. Here is an excerpt from this litany of “I am’s”: I am a fisherman and I worry about my livelihood. Vast areas of the ocean are closed to fishing, and now oil is creeping into the estuaries and marshlands that serve as fish and shrimp nurseries. Breath [...]

Opinion, scholarship and free speech

This case in San Jose, CA is interesting. Briefly, the instructor at the community college discussed the origins of homosexuality. The Mercury News reports: The student alleged that Sheldon said maternal stress caused male homosexuality, and that “there aren’t any real lesbians — that women just get tired of relationships with men.” Further, the student [...]

Minding your manners

When I taught World Religions and had a component that encouraged students to visit other places of worship outside of their own tradition, I made it a point to remind students to read up on the religious etiquette. This takes it to another level, though, with travelers acting badly. The daily almsgiving occupies a special [...]

Virtual preachers

Someone once asked me, “Does everything have to be a theological issue?” I’ll let you guess what my answer was. But this development in 21st century worship does raise some thorny issues. I understand both sides. I think the technology can be quite useful but I also take seriously the “embodiment” or incarnational issues it [...]

Church of England moves forward on women bishops

In my mind, the issue now seems to be how long it will take for the “traditionalists” to head for Rome. It is unclear how many people will leave the Church of England as a result of the July 12 vote, but some synod members said that defections are inevitable. Share/Bookmark

DC church splits over gay marriage

For some the central question is the biblical one, of course. But for others, the key question is the absence of equality. This is going to be an interesting discussion–at least I hope there is a discussion–within the African American church when, not if, when the Prop. 8 case arrives at SCOTUS-ville. The issue for [...]

Women’s ordination and the evils of sexual abuse

And I thought I’d had my little rant for the day with my prior post about the Church of England and the subjugation of women. But now this. Oy. The Vatican is preparing to update the 2001 norms that deal with priestly sex abuse of minors, in effect codifying practices that have been in place [...]

Teetering on the verge of schism

Lots of folks have been predicting a split between the traditionalist and the “mainstream” members of the Church of England. One certainly cannot call them “progressives” even though the “traditionalists” would argue that they are in the mainstream. From my perspective, though, calling the others “progressive” is just too hard a label to swallow. First [...]

Social costs of being an athesist

Very good blog post on outing oneself as an atheist by Lauri Lebo. This wasn’t surprising: 57 percent of U.S. respondents said they felt they would suffer at least minor social repercussions in the workplace if they came out as an atheist, compared to only 35 percent of respondents in Canada, 24 percent of Australians, [...]

Church signs

I must say that it requires skill to compose weekly church signs. This one (from the CNN website) had me scratching my head. It’s hard to know where to begin with this one. If man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? Share/Bookmark