One reason I don’t believe in “the Rapture” or “the Apocalypse” is the people who DO believe appear to me to be completely crazy and irrational… and their websites induce seizures. Funny how the dates they keep calculating (using special software, even) keep slipping too, kind of like the metaphysical side of scope creep. 25NOV10? No. 21DEC10? Maybe. 01FEB11? Rosh Hashanah, 2015? More time to convert unbelievers! I noted for David’s benefit the new Jewish holiday of “Yom Kipper,” The Feast of Smoked Fish. This must be why mom-in-law Leah has lox and bagels for family brunch? I’ve been reading…
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The Very Revd Colin Slee, Dean of Southwark Cathedral in London, died last week and his funeral service was today in the cathedral. The sermon was given by Dr Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans, who was formerly the Theologian at Southwark, was nominated as Bishop, and in a scandalous turn, the nomination was rescinded because conservatives objected to John’s homosexuality. He noted that Slee said to him in the weeks before his death how “surprisingly un-scared” he was. I wish I’d known him; on my recent visit to London with David we actually walked past his house, where I…
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I’ve met Bishop Scott at various meetings here in the Chicago area, and I think he’ll be a great “pastor to the pastors” and leader of the Utah Episcopalians. Video of the consecration service will be at the Diocese of Utah website. The first time the Rev. Scott Hayashi served Utah’s Episcopal Church, he was puzzled by some parishioners’ tendency to define themselves by what they weren’t: Mormons. He even remembers pointing out the silliness in a sermon at Ogden’s Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, where he was rector from 1989 to 1998. “I asked, ‘Does this mean if…
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Cathleen Falsani’s piece in Huffington Post on the recent kerfuffle concerning the religion of cartoon characters struck a chord with me.
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So: not messages like “love your neighbor, love the sinner” but more like “hate yourself, hate your sin.” Testing Express, an app for iPhone that is supposed to work n conjunction with the WooTumblog app. UPDATE: Works! Still not the link-grabber bookmarklet Press This used to be before a recent “security” update, but it’s not difficult to set up a lightly edited post from the iPhone now. It’s not that easy to do links with the official WordPress app, and blockquote? Fageddaboudit, you have to go through hell just to get angle brackets. All in all, a modified “w00t!”
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… hoping it’s an okay economy for mini-churches like St Nicholas where much of the work is done by volunteers. And hey! It’s Fannie May candy time! Good thing we don’t have to finance much but a small budget and extras for the food pantry. In addition, the 10,000-member church canceled this year’s Glory of Easter pageant, which attracts thousands of visitors and is a regional holiday staple. The church was founded in the 1950s at a drive-in theater and attracted congregants with its sermons on the power of positive thinking. Its worship hall features a soaring glass spire that…
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After letting my snarky inner twelve-year-old blog on Saturday, it seemed like it was time to make note of something worth repeating, and repeating again. For too long, the ideological (and idiot-illogical) divide in this country has kept the wrong stories in the news. We need to recall our own national character – the better one, not the one that sent Japanese-American families to internment camps, but the one that ensured freedom of religion, and cordial relations between people of different faiths. Like the story out of Murfreesboro – supposedly a story about intolerance and hatred of The Other. But…
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The unchurched in America are probably not buying what #Beckapalooza was flogging, either – A lot of them are conservative, but hurt by “The Church.” The Barna Group – Millions of Unchurched Adults Are Christians Hurt by Churches But Can Be Healed of the Pain Other interesting insights into the self-identified Christians who have distanced themselves from a conventional church relate to their beliefs. Two-thirds (68%) hold a biblical view of God – that is, He is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the universe and He still rules that universe today. However, only one-third (35%) agree to any extent that…
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Why @GlennBeck’s campchair revival meeting on the National Mall will probably turn out to be irrelevant, even with the Theocratic Right’s deep pockets. Barna: How Teenagers’ Faith Practices Are Changing The most striking change was the fact that teenagers today seem much less inclined to have spiritual conversations about their faith in Christ with non-believers. The survey question specifically asked if the survey respondent had “explained your religious beliefs to someone else who had different beliefs, in the hope that they might accept Jesus Christ as their savior.†Among born again Christian teenagers, the proportion who said they had explained…
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“Don’t make me come out there.” What the hell, I ended up live-blogging the whole damn thing. I took this photo a few years ago on a trip to Washington DC, with the “good camera” that’s been sent off to Canon for possible repair, or I’ll be in the market for a refurbished 30D. I Tweeted a lot of my Lincoln Memorial photos last night after getting irked at all the Beckamania co-opting of the imagery of Lincoln, Dr King, and all the hoo-ha about reclaiming the nation’s honor. It bugged me that the national honor so much in need…