The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops commissioned John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York to research the causes of clergy sexual abuse. The study concluded that homosexuality and celibacy were not to blame:
“The rise in abuse cases in the 1960s and 1970s was influenced by social factors in society generally. Factors that were invariant during the time period addressed, such as celibacy, were not responsible for the increase or decline in abuse cases over this time.”
This finding, if you were wishing to maintain the status quo of an all-male, celibate priesthood, was just about the best thing you could hope for. One wonders if an independent study, not paid for by the Catholic church, would reach the same conclusions.
It’s always good to air opposing viewpoints, right? Present different perspectives and let people soak them in and process for themselves. The first to take today’s stage is Stephen Hawking. When asked about the afterlife, he said that it was a “fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” Another quote from his book “The Grand Design”:
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to … set the Universe going.”
Our second speaker today is Alan John Miller. He and his partner, Mary Suzanne Luck, claim to be Jesus and Mary Magdalene and have set up shop in Australia. I think it best to let Mr. Miller present his viewpoint directly:
I was in the mood for something positive, something kind to share with everyone. I haven’t done an Act of Kindness (AOK) Thursday post in a while, so I started foraging for stories about people being kind to one another and came across this.
There’s this company called eFoods Global that has introduced Acts of Kindness (AoK) Currency, and the press release certainly sounds like people can get free “money” for food simply by being kind to their fellow humans. And I believe that they can. Awesome, right?! Except the only kindness that qualifies is referring other humans to eFoods Global’s products.
Go to their website and view the video on the Home page. They make storable food, the kind you put in your bunker, bomb shelter, or basement in case of crisis. Their business model relies on network marketing, meaning people referring people who refer people who refer people. It’s a powerful model, good business, and their video has all the polish of a Saturday afternoon infomercial.
How’s that for a combustible post title? Feeling a little feisty this morning, I thought I’d stir up the pot. I’m a little late to this piece from David Barash over at The Chronicle of Higher Education’s website. He did indeed publish it on April Fool’s Day, but he assures everyone there is at least some seriousness to his argument. Which is, devout people should be excluded from politics. There, the lightning is striking all over the place!
In response to a radio talk show caller who said “I don’t really care what religion [a presidential candidate] might be, I just want a president who prays,” Barash writes:
“But how about, instead, a president who reads: briefing papers, and maybe some detailed, complex, and even occasionally contradictory and nuanced analyses of alternative courses of action and their likely consequences? Someone whose views are reason and reality-based, founded on good, hard thought instead of theological doctrine? Instead of someone who prays, what about someone who thinks?”
I happen to be a big proponent of the separation of Church and State. Believe in whatever God/faith you wish, but please don’t impose your beliefs on me or others who don’t share those beliefs. Sounds pretty simple, and it’s worked pretty well here in the US for over 200 years.
Others disagree. Newt Gingrich for one. Newt, who has a long history of behavior inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ, feels there is currently a “crisis of secularism” in America:
“The American elites are guided by their desire to emulate the European elites and, as a result, anti-religious values and principles are coming to dominate the academic, news media and judicial class in America.”
And then there’s Vishal Mangalwadi, a Christian scholar in India, who thinks the Antichrist is going to come from the U.S.
“If America does not return to the Bible as the cultural authority – having influence over the Congress, over the courts, over the universities – if that does not happen, then the antichrist in the 21st century will come from America.”
And of course there’s Gary North’s Reconstructionism that seeks to institute Old Testament Biblical law throughout our system of government and schools (kind of like the Taliban does with the Koran). Adherents shoo away Jesus’ commands to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and heal the sick, and claim that the Bible is against any form of welfare. Capitalism is what it’s all about.
The Public Religion Research Institute released a study on April 21 where they investigated whether people thought capitalism was in conflict with Christianity. People who thought they were in competition beat out those who thought they were compatible by 44% to 36%. 53% of Democrats see capitalism and Christian values at odds, while only 37 % of Republicans have trouble with the combination.
I found out about Osama bin Laden when I turned on the TV this morning while getting breakfast for my son. I’ve been doing some behind-the-scenes mental processing ever since and wondering what will rise over the horizon.
1. Proverbs 24:17 “Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice.”
2. Psalm 138:8 “The LORD will make PERFECT the things that concern me”(KJV). (NIV: “The LORD will vindicate me; your love, LORD, endures forever–do not abandon the works of your hands.”) (Unrelated tweet by Rev Run.)
3. Proverbs 21:15 “When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.” (Rick Warren started this one.)
4. Ezekiel 33:11 “Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?”
5. Ezekiel 18:23 “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?”
I find it interesting that NONE of the top 10 tweets included verse from the Gospels. What would Jesus have said?
Oh, the irony. If you’ve been reading the Gospels along with us, you’ve seen countless accounts of Jesus healing those with demons, and leprosy, and paralysis, and withered hands, and the list goes on and on. Once you understand Jesus’ compassion for the sick and disabled, this story become all the more bewildering.
A Catholic church in Texas turned away an 8-year-old boy from his First Communion because the boy has cerebral palsy.
“When the Rev. Phil Henning of Sacred Heart Catholic Church denied Kevin his first reception of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, Henning said the boy had ‘the mental capacity of a 6-month old’ and didn’t have ‘sufficient knowledge of Christ’ to participate in the religious rite, even though Catholic doctrine doesn’t specify what level of knowledge is adequate.”
The boy, Kevin Castro, apparently had been preparing for months for the event, but instead was offered a ritual for the sick.
This year, the King James Version of the Bible turns 400 years old. It was commissioned by King James I in 1604 and seven years later, the work of 47 scholars and theologians was published. The new Bible was meant to establish the monarchy of James, who as a Scot, was viewed as a “foreigner” in England. He also wanted to form a bridge uniting the two Bible factions of the day: the “clunky” Bishops’ Bible that was used in churches and the Geneva Bible popular among the people. His motives were entirely self-serving. The Geneva Bible contained margin notes that were less than kind to the likes of kings, and James wanted them removed.
As we read through the Gospels together, we’ll find instances where the accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John don’t agree. One such instance is when the Last Supper occurred. Matthew, Mark, and Luke say it occurred at the start of Passover. John, however, states that it happened before Passover. This is actually significant as the holiday of Passover was/is a very big deal.
Professor Colin Humphreys from the University of Cambridge thinks that the discrepancy was caused by two different calendars. Humphreys believes that Jesus was using an old Jewish calendar (and thus Matthew, Mark, and Luke), while John was using the new (at the time) lunar calendar.
“This would put the Passover meal — and the Last Supper — on the Wednesday, explaining how such a large number of events took place between the meal and the crucifixion. It would follow that Jesus’ arrest, interrogation and separate trials did not all take place in the space of one night but in fact occurred over a longer period. Humphreys believes a date could therefore be ascribed to Easter in our modern solar calendar, and working on the basis that the crucifixion took place on April 3, Easter Day would be on April 5.”
What are you giving up for Lent this year? Chocolate? Swearing? Eating veal? How about your religion? The folks at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA are suggesting you do just that. They’re hosting a two-day conference called “Belief Beyond Religion: Giving Up Religion for Lent” which hopes to “bring together people from across faith boundaries and encourage dialogue, particularly among the three primary world beliefs of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.”
Resist the urge to take their message too literally. Rev. Abel Lopez, senior associate clergy at All Saints, clarifies:
“What we mean by the conference title is giving up bad religion, and that means religion that’s complicit with violence, that throughout centuries has been used to promote war, like an empire religion. We’re trying to be critical of ourselves and responsibility. We want to show what good religion looks like … With this event, we want to find healthy, forgiving, life-affirming ways of being a religious person in the 21st century. What we’re suggesting is to give up bad religion.”
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