Christianity

Spiritual Wisdom of the Week

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This week’s spiritual wisdom comes from Archbishop Oscar Romero, who urged along the nonviolent struggle for justice in El Salvador until his assassination in 1980:
It helps now and then to step back and take the long view. We can’t do everything and there is a sense of liberation in that. We can do something, and we need to do it well. We plant the seed that one day will grow; we may never see the end result.
We provide the yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities. (Photo courtesy of FlickrCC/Franco Folini.)

Christianity

Karen Armstrong Wants YOU to Teach Compassion

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We may look different, sound different, follow differing doctrines and dogmas, or none at all, but compassion is at the core of the major faiths and ethic systems of our world. The Golden Rule, or some form of it, is found in every major religion and in almost all if not every country on our planet. Karen Armstrong is counting on this unifying ideology to bring together individuals and communities this Friday for the launch of the Charter for Compassion. Here’s a short video about her campaign:
[youtube: video=”DCG4qryy1Dg”]
Last year Armstrong was awarded the TED Prize, which is awarded to three individuals annually — each of whom is chosen for being “a leader in his/her chosen field of work, with an unconventional viewpoint and a vision to transform the world.” Karen Armstrong is considered an authority on comparative religion, focusing on the monotheistic religions, and considers herself a freelance monotheist.

Christianity

Right-wing Christians Celebrate Anti-Abortion Add-on to Health Bill

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The Religious Right is cheering last night’s passage of the Stupak amendment, which threatens women’s reproductive rights by severely limiting insurance companies’ ability to cover the cost of abortions. “This is a huge pro-life victory for women, their unborn children, and families,” announced the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian public policy group that lobbied hard for the amendment. “We applaud this House vote.” The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops also played a major role in persuading lawmakers to adopt the amendment, which 64 House Democrats and 176 Republicans voted to attach in their last-minute wrangles over the Affordable Health Care for America Act. John Nichols raised serious concerns about the Catholic bishops’ involvement, writing this in his post for the Nation:
The tortured final negotiations put serious cracks in Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation” between church and state, as abortion foes such as Pennsylvania Democrat Jason Altmire openly acknowledged that they would not vote for health-care reform legislation unless they were told it was appropriate to do so by Catholic bishops in their home districts.

Buddhism

Interfaith Youth Conference: What a Thrill!

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In one room, young Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, secular humanists, and others cluster in a circle to learn strategies for facilitating constructive interfaith discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Down the hall, more young people — bareheaded or wearing headscarves or kippot — crowd together to discuss multifaith intentional living communities, learn about the Baha’i faith, create videos about youth-led interfaith activism, and train to volunteer as advocates for undocumented immigrants. Talk about a rich space for conversation. All this happened during one morning of the Interfaith Youth Core’s 2009 conference, which took place October 25-27 at Northwestern University, just north of Chicago. The conference brought high school and college students engaged in interfaith work together with religious leaders, politicians, and authors interested in interreligious cooperation.

Christianity

I Am Totally Martha!

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The worship committee at First Presbyterian Church Palo Alto wanted to try something new….. They asked four folks in the congregation to get together and plan one worship service each month for three months. This would help the staff by giving them a week when they could concentrate on other ministry work and could also add a bit of new spice to the Sunday worship experience. I’m on that little team (I’m a good Jewbyterian*) and last Sunday was our first crack at planning and carrying out worship. The theme for worship was being a servant.

Christianity

Bishop Robinson: Get the Churches Out of the Civil Marriage Business

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Has any bishop said a wiser thing about marriage and the separation of church and state than this? Bishop Gene Robinson very simply and clearly points out that marriage is a civil act that the state deputizes clergy to perform. But it doesn’t deputize them to end it: you have to go to the courts for that. And of course you don’t need clergy to perform the wedding in the first place. He is going to ask his clergy in Maine New Hampshire [edit thanks to the comment below] to stop performing the civil part of weddings.

Christianity

Rescuing the Catholic-Jewish Dialogue…from (some) Catholics

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Meredith Gould is always worth reading on Jewish-Catholic relations (I first blogged about her Jewish in identity, Christian in faith, and Catholic in religious practice). Today, she comments on an attempt by the U.S. Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to recover from their blunder earlier this year, but in ways that do not touch the core problem. Some quotes:
Despite artfully worded proclamations, anti-Judaism (i.e., hatred of the Jewish religion) and anti-Semitism (i.e., hatred of Jews as an ethnic group) are alive and sick. At least one disturbingly hefty segment of the Catholic population is clue-free about the debt of gratitude all Christians owe to Judaism and the Jewish people. I suppose I should, in some bizarre way, be grateful for validating proof of persistent ignorance about Jews and Judaism.

Christianity

Openness about brokenness … and joy

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I have been lucky this summer to be a partial witness to an upheaval at a church in Oakland. I have written here before about what this church has meant to me:
For some months this winter I was feeling more emotionally and spiritually depleted than I think at any time since my early twenties … I am an ex-Christian who does not enjoy Christian services. So it’s a great surprise to find myself saying that the experience that has most helped to revive me in recent weeks has been going to First Congregational Church in Oakland. There is an openness about our brokenness and failures at that church, combined with a warmth and joy, that is unlike anything I have experienced before.

Christianity

Religion for radicals: an interview with Terry Eagleton

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At The Immanent Frame, Nathan Schneider interviews Terry Eagleton, author of Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate, on the inextricability of religion and politics, and the possibility of constructing an iteration of Christianity relevant to contemporary radicals and humanists.