All Things Religion

Cup or Chalice? The Large Implications of a Small Change

2012-05-22T19:32:00.000-04:00

Cup or Chalice? The Large Implications of a Small Change, by John R. Donahue (Commonweal, 1 June 2012)

Excerpt:

Six months after the imposition of the new English edition of the Roman Missal, the volume of dissatisfaction has moderated. People seem resigned to the wooden and literal translations (“people of good will,” “enter under my roof”), archaic vocabulary (“dewfall,” “consubstantial,” “oblation”), and inflated language of prayer (“holy and unblemished,” “graciously grant,” “paying their homage”). Such language, so different from the plainspoken words of Jesus in prayer and parable, is in contrast to the directive of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of Vatican II: “In this restoration [of the liturgy], both texts and rites should be drawn up so that they express more clearly the holy things which they signify; the Christian people, so far as possible, should be enabled to understand them with ease and to take part in them fully, actively, and as befits a community.” We have also become accustomed to hearing presiders stumble over the convoluted syntax of the prayers and watching them hurriedly turning pages as they wend their way through the labyrinthine new missals. Yet, there is one new expression that involves a significant translation error with serious implications for a proper understanding of the Last Supper as a Passover meal, along with implications for continued Jewish-Christian understanding. In the final analysis, it enshrines poor pastoral theology in the Sunday liturgy.

Link: Cup or Chalice? The Large Implications of a Small Change

Nuns on the Frontier

2012-05-17T01:16:00.000-04:00

Nuns on the Frontier, by Anne M. Butler (New York Times, 15 May 2012)

Excerpts:

The recent Vatican edict that reproached American nuns for their liberal views on social and political issues has put a spotlight on the practices of these Roman Catholic sisters. While the current debate has focused on the nuns’ progressive stances on birth control, abortion, homosexuality, the all-male priesthood and economic injustice, tension between American nuns and the church’s male hierarchy reaches much further back.

In the 19th century, Catholic nuns literally built the church in the American West, braving hardship and grueling circumstances to establish missions, set up classrooms and lead lives of calm in a chaotic world marked by corruption, criminality and illness. Their determination in the face of a male hierarchy that, then as now, frequently exploited and disdained them was a demonstration of their resilient faith in a church struggling to adapt itself to change.

Link: Nuns on the Frontier

Is the black church guilty of spiritual hypocrisy in same-sex marriage debate?

2012-05-14T19:34:00.000-04:00

Is the black church guilty of spiritual hypocrisy in same-sex marriage debate? By John Blake (CNN, 12 May 2012)

Excerpts:

Why would the black church cite scripture to exclude gays when a similar approach to the Bible was used to enslave their ancestors? “It’s so unfortunate,” says James Cone, one the nation’s most influential black theologians and author of “The Cross and the Lynching Tree.” “The literal approach to scripture was used to enslave black people,” he says. “I’ve said many times in black churches that the black church is on the wrong side of history on this. It’s so sad because they were on the right side of history in their own struggle.” Call it historical irony: Black church leaders arguing against same-sex marriage are making some of the same arguments that supporters of slavery made in the 18th and 19th centuries, some historians say. Both groups adopted a literal reading of the Bible to justify withholding basic rights from a particular group.

Link: Is the black church guilty of spiritual hypocrisy in same-sex marriage debate?

When A Medieval Knight Could Marry Another Medieval Knight

2012-05-14T19:26:00.004-04:00

When A Medieval Knight Could Marry Another Medieval Knight, by Eric Berkowitz (The AWL, 8 May 2012)

Excerpts:

Eric Berkowitz's new book Sex And Punishment, out today from Counterpoint, is a fascinating survey of how legal systems over the millenia have attempted to regulate and police sex. In this excerpt, a discussion of the once-wide acceptance of same-sex unions between men in Europe of the Middle Ages.

Despite the risks, devotional relationships between men were common in Europe at the time, at least among the literate, and many of these affairs must have included sex at some point. Knights, aristocrats, and especially clerics left expansive evidence of their intense passions for male lovers, relationships that often ended in side-by-side burials. A letter from a respected monk–scholar in Charlemagne’s court named Alcuin (circa 735–804) to a beloved bishop shows how thick those relations sometimes became:
I think of your love and friendship with such sweet memories, reverend bishop, that I long for that lovely time when I may be able to clutch the neck of your sweetness with the fingers of my desires. Alas, if only it were granted to me, as it was to Habakkuk, to be transported to you, how would I sink into your embraces . . . how would I cover, with tightly pressed lips, not only your eyes, ears, and mouth but also your every finger and your toes, not once but many a time.

Link: When A Medieval Knight Could Marry Another Medieval Knight

When Same Sex Marriage Was A Christian Rite

2012-05-14T19:15:00.003-04:00

When Same Sex Marriage Was A Christian Rite: Link 1 or Link 2

Excerpts:

A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai in Israel. It shows two robed Christian saints. Between them is a traditional Roman ‘pronubus’ (a best man), overseeing a wedding. The pronubus is Christ. The married couple are both men.

Is the icon suggesting that a gay "wedding" is being sanctified by Christ himself? The idea seems shocking. But the full answer comes from other early Christian sources about the two men featured in the icon, St. Sergius and St. Bacchus, two Roman soldiers who were Christian martyrs. These two officers in the Roman army incurred the anger of Emperor Maximian when they were exposed as ‘secret Christians’ by refusing to enter a pagan temple. Both were sent to Syria circa 303 CE where Bacchus is thought to have died while being flogged. Sergius survived torture but was later beheaded. Legend says that Bacchus appeared to the dying Sergius as an angel, telling him to be brave because they would soon be reunited in heaven.

While the pairing of saints, particularly in the early Christian church, was not unusual, the association of these two men was regarded as particularly intimate. Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch (512 - 518 CE) explained that, "we should not separate in speech they [Sergius and Bacchus] who were joined in life". This is not a case of simple "adelphopoiia." In the definitive 10th century account of their lives, St. Sergius is openly celebrated as the "sweet companion and lover" of St. Bacchus. Sergius and Bacchus's close relationship has led many modern scholars to believe they were lovers. But the most compelling evidence for this view is that the oldest text of their martyrology, written in New Testament Greek describes them as "erastai,” or "lovers". In other words, they were a male homosexual couple. Their orientation and relationship was not only acknowledged, but it was fully accepted and celebrated by the early Christian church, which was far more tolerant than it is today.

Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual.

Link 1 or Link 2

See also: Civil Partnership, Medieval Style (Daily Mail, 11 May 2012)

Erasure of an Aboriginal temple

2012-05-14T18:50:00.000-04:00

Erasure of an Aboriginal temple, by Patti Miller (Eureka Street, 2 May 2012)

Excerpts:

For thousands of years there was a sylvan temple on the banks of the river near where I was born. I have never seen the temple because most of it was destroyed before I was born, but I know what it looked like because it was described and sketched by an early ethnologist travelling in the area. It had a mile long avenue of trees carved with serpents, forked lightning, meteors and various hieroglyphs, leading to an earth-walled circular space where a giant human figure, also made of earth, reclined.

You might imagine from the temple that I was born in Greece, or Egypt, or perhaps India, but the fact is I was born and grew up near the Macquarie River in central west NSW. The sylvan temple, as described by the ethnologist, John Henderson, was the largest and most important sacred site for the Wiradjuri people along the river. Like all temples, it was used for protecting and conveying secret spiritual knowledge to the initiated and people came from hundreds of miles to be part of rituals and ceremonies.

Link: Erasure of an Aboriginal temple

How To Win A Culture War And Lose A Generation

2012-05-14T18:46:00.000-04:00

How To Win A Culture War And Lose A Generation, by Rachel Held Evans

Excerpts:

When asked by The Barna Group what words or phrases best describe Christianity, the top response among Americans ages 16-29 was “antihomosexual.” For a staggering 91 percent of non-Christians, this was the first word that came to their mind when asked about the Christian faith. The same was true for 80 percent of young churchgoers. (The next most common negative images? : “judgmental,” “hypocritical,” and “too involved in politics.”)

Link: How To Win A Culture War And Lose A Generation

Buddhism and a Sustainable World: Some reflections (Geoffrey Samuel)

2012-05-14T18:42:00.001-04:00

The Spirited Voices of Muslim Women in Islamic Reform Movements: Amina Wadud

2012-05-14T18:39:00.000-04:00

Women Imams - Amina Wadud

2012-05-11T03:25:00.001-04:00

Reza Aslan: God, Globalization & Ending the War on Terror (FORA.tv)

2012-05-07T21:46:00.000-04:00

Reza Aslan: God, Globalization & Ending the War on Terror from Berkeley Arts and Letters on FORA.tv

Reza Aslan: How to Win a Cosmic War (FORA.tv)

2012-05-07T21:42:00.001-04:00

Reza Aslan: How to Win a Cosmic War from Whole Earth Films on FORA.tv

America’s ‘angriest’ theologian faces lynching tree

2012-04-22T21:39:00.001-04:00

America’s ‘angriest’ theologian faces lynching tree, by John Blake (CNN, 21 April 2012)

Excerpt:

When he was boy growing up in rural Arkansas, James Cone would often stand at his window at night, looking for a sign that his father was still alive. Cone had reason to worry. He lived in a small, segregated town in the age of Jim Crow. And his father, Charlie Cone, was a marked man. Charlie Cone wouldn’t answer to any white man who called him “boy.” He only worked for himself, he told his sons, because a black man couldn’t work for a white man and keep his manhood at the same time. Once, when he was warned that a lynch mob was coming to run him out of his home, he grabbed a shotgun and waited, saying, “Let them come, because some of them will die with me.”

Link: America’s ‘angriest’ theologian faces lynching tree
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The Wisdom of Women Written Out of History

2012-04-12T22:18:00.006-04:00

The wisdom of women written out of history, by Bettany Hughes (The Guardian, 10 April 2012)

Excerpts:

The female of the species is more deadly than the male, cautioned Rudyard Kipling. Given Kipling's love of mythology and prehistoric studies, he should perhaps have added "and smarter". Because of all deities of wisdom across the globe and through known time, the massive majority – 97% – were (or are) female. Mankind, for the vast span of human experience, has worshipped at the shrine not of the god, but the goddess, of wisdom.

Flesh-and-blood women, it seems, have managed to draw strength from this fact. Women were often accepted as the prime educators in their communities, but individuals also exploited the currency of sacred wisdom with surprising results. Religion is an easy target for accusations of repression and misogyny, but achievement in the sacred and therefore socio-political sphere was often an option for women, thanks not to brawn, but to brain.

Link: The wisdom of women written out of history

Finch's Cultural Exchange

2012-04-03T22:15:00.003-04:00

Finch's Cultural Exchange, by Damien Hansen (Today Tonight, 26 March 2012)

Excerpts:

For many, suburban pockets like Bankstown in Sydney, or Coburg in Melbourne, are like countries within a country, with their own rules, their own dress code and their own language. But now one person has been welcomed in and granted access to seek out the truth of this culture, and dispel the urban myths. That person is former Miss Universe Australia, TV star and model, Rachael Finch.

Link: Finch's Cultural Exchange

Children in the Liturgy

2012-04-03T04:05:00.003-04:00

Children in the Liturgy, by Louis Weil

The Revd. Dr. Louis Weil is the James F. Hodges and Harold and Rita Haynes Professor Emeritus of Liturgics at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California.

Excerpts:

Children are startlingly direct in engaging signs. I knew one child, an extraordinary child named Sean, just two in his father's arms. His parents hadn't decided yet whether to let him have communion, but as I placed the sacrament in his father's hand, Sean reached out to me and said, "I want Jesus too." As a rule I don't give the sacrament to a child until the parents approve, so I blessed Sean and afterwards talked to his parents. When I had talked to them before they had said, "We need some sign that he knows what he's doing." This time I said, "Well, if you want a sign, I think you've been given a sign." The next Sunday, we made Sean a communicant.

Children experience something on a deep level, not heavy-handed or didactic but very direct, from observing adults. Adults' reactions are profoundly important. By their reactions adults share, subtly but directly, in the formation of the attitudes of the children. What I remember from my childhood experiences in the synagogue are the great dramatic acts in the liturgy, the carrying in of the Torah, for example, and the effect those acts had on others in the congregation.

I'm eager NOT to impose a liturgy basically designed for children on the adult community. Some special occasions may present reasons for offering children's liturgies, but in general I want us to create a liturgy which is inclusive in broader sense. In fact, we ought not to lose sight of the elderly at the other end; interestingly, they pose some of the same questions that children do. But for now, let's focus on the children.

Link: Children in the Liturgy

Children at the Table and Open Communion, or, the Agape Restaurant

2012-04-03T03:55:00.004-04:00

Children at the Table and Open Communion, or, the Agape Restaurant (All Things Necessary, 26 March 2012)

Excerpts:

One of the unexpected elements of moving from worshipping in the context of the Episcopal Church to the Church of England is a different approach to the Eucharist. This has been more a difference of emphasis than of importance, but I think it points up divergent ecclesiologies between the two churches.

This experience of difference is felt most strongly for me at the local parish church my family attends. Two things stand out for me (keeping in mind that I came to the Episcopal Church about 15 years after the introduction of the 1979 BCP). First, the Eucharist is not celebrated as the primary service every week. Rather, once a week there is a type of Morning Prayer that is labelled ‘All Ages Worship’ and includes ‘family’ oriented songs and prayers. In practice, this is geared for those ten and under. That there could be a primary service without Eucharist reveals the broader approach to worship in the Church of England where there is more need to encompass a wider set of worship practices than one finds in the Episcopal Church.

But why no Eucharist at the All Ages Worship? Because it is not normal practice in the Church of England to communicate children. The norm is for children only to receive communion after confirmation. In 2006 regulations were introduced to permit diocesan bishops to allow parishes to communicate baptized prior to confirmation. Now about 15% of parishes do this as a regular practice.

Link: Children at the Table and Open Communion, or, the Agape Restaurant

Christoph Schoenborn, Austrian Cardinal, OKs Gay Man For Parish Council

2012-04-03T03:45:00.004-04:00

Christoph Schoenborn, Austrian Cardinal, OKs Gay Man For Parish Council (Huffington Post, 3 April 2012)

Excerpts:

Austria's cardinal has overruled one of his priests and is allowing a gay Catholic to serve on a parish council. Florian Stangl lives in a registered domestic partnership. The 26-year-old was overwhelmingly elected to the council recently, but it was overruled by the priest – a decision initially backed by the archdiocese. Such councils include lay people and discuss local church and parish affairs. Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn changed his mind over the weekend after hosting Stangl and his partner for lunch, declaring Stangl to be "at the right place." Despite his close ties to his one-time professor, Pope Benedict XVI, Schoenborn has voiced an open mind to such taboo issues as priestly celibacy.

Link: Christoph Schoenborn, Austrian Cardinal, OKs Gay Man For Parish Council

Linsanity and Asian American Christianity

2012-02-16T00:01:00.002-05:00

Linsanity and Asian American Christianity, by Carl Park (The Gospel Coalition, 15 February 2012)

Excerpts:

By now, especially after his game-winning shot vs. Toronto on Tuesday night, many of us have seen or read about Jeremy Lin, the came-out-of-nowhere starting point guard of the New York Knicks. Some of the stories and blogs are about Lin the Asian American, and some are about Lin the Christian. Some, like my friend Michael Luo's very personal piece in The New York Times, are about both. In his article, Luo talks about a "species" of Christianity, Asian American Christianity, and wonders why he, a Christian and an Asian American, connects differently to Lin than he does to Tim Tebow. He asks, and starts to answer, What is Asian American Christianity?

Link: Linsanity and Asian American Christianity

Helping Pilgrims:The Smart Way to Mecca

2012-02-13T20:33:00.003-05:00

Helping Pilgrims:The Smart Way to Mecca (The Economist, 13 February 2012)

Excerpts:

The holy city is also notoriously tricky to get around: each year more than 2m Muslims converge on it and often have a hard time finding their tents in the giant camps whose alleys are not well marked. "Some people get lost for days before being able to rejoin their group," says Habiburrahman Dastageeri, a 31-year-old German-Afghan, who has yet to go on his own haj, but has already struggled with the umrah, a less complex, and less crowded, pilgrimage to Mecca that can be performed at any time of the year.

The experience inspired the computer scientist to develop a smartphone app which helps hajjis to avoid stress so they can focus on their religious duties. The app, currently available only for iPhone, though an Android version is in the works, is called Amir, which means "guide" in Arabic (among other things). It offers a check-list to ensure the pilgrim is fully prepared before setting off to Saudi Arabia. It also includes interactive tutorials, for instance on what to do while walking seven times counter-clockwise around the Kabah, the Black Stone, or how properly to stone the Devil. Once they arrive, pilgrims can use Amir to check where they are and to locate their tent. On top of that, the app has a buildt-in emergency button so people in need can easily be located by an ambulance or the police.

Link:Helping Pilgrims:The Smart Way to Mecca

The Faith and Fate of Jeremy Lin

2012-02-09T22:39:00.003-05:00

The Faith and Fate of Jeremy Lin: An Interview with Jeremy Lin (Patheos.com, 3 March 2010)

Excerpts:

As an Asian-American, this basketball phenom at Harvard is blazing a trail. As a Christian, he's striving to walk in faith.

Jeremy Lin was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and led his basketball team at Palo Alto High School to the state championships in his senior year. At Harvard University, Lin has built a national following, has been hailed as one of the finest point guards in the nation, and stands poised to enter the NBA as a high draft pick and the first Asian-American to achieve prominence in the NBA.

Lin is among those receiving the highest number of votes for the Bob Cousy award, given annually to the nation's most effective point guard. He has been profiled in Time, Sports Illustrated and ESPN: The Magazine, as well as countless basketball magazines and newspapers from the United States to China. He spoke with Timothy Dalrymple in his dorm room at Harvard University.

Link:The Faith and Fate of Jeremy Lin: An Interview with Jeremy Lin

Nag Hammadi codices: a new interpretive approach

2012-02-09T19:54:00.003-05:00

Nag Hammadi codices: a new interpretive approach (Past Horizons: Adventures in Archaeology, 9 February 2012)

Abstract:

The texts of the Nag Hammadi codices have commonly been treated as mere witnesses to Gnostic texts in Greek mainly from the second and third centuries. A new research project will now challenge this approach by interpreting the Coptic texts of these codices within the context of their probable production and use in fourth- and fifth-century Egyptian monasticism.

Link: Nag Hammadi codices: a new interpretive approach

Mindful Eating as Food for Thought

2012-02-08T17:22:00.004-05:00

Mindful Eating as Food for Thought, by Jeff Gordinier (New York Times, 7 February 2012)

Excerpts:

TRY this: place a forkful of food in your mouth. It doesn’t matter what the food is, but make it something you love — let’s say it’s that first nibble from three hot, fragrant, perfectly cooked ravioli. Now comes the hard part. Put the fork down. This could be a lot more challenging than you imagine, because that first bite was very good and another immediately beckons. You’re hungry.

...

Continue this way throughout the course of a meal, and you’ll experience the third-eye-opening pleasures and frustrations of a practice known as mindful eating. The concept has roots in Buddhist teachings. Just as there are forms of meditation that involve sitting, breathing, standing and walking, many Buddhist teachers encourage their students to meditate with food, expanding consciousness by paying close attention to the sensation and purpose of each morsel. In one common exercise, a student is given three raisins, or a tangerine, to spend 10 or 20 minutes gazing at, musing on, holding and patiently masticating.

Link: Mindful Eating as Food for Thought

Mr Daisey and the Apple Factory

2012-01-12T19:11:00.005-05:00

Mr Daisey and the Apple Factory (This American Life, 6 January 2012)

Abstract:

Mike Daisey was a self-described "worshipper in the cult of Mac." Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered: Who makes all my crap? He traveled to China to find out.

Link: Mr Daisey and the Apple Factory

Shit Christians Say To Jews (Youtube)

2012-01-10T20:42:00.000-05:00