The following is a nice speech given by Barak Obama, Democratic Candidate for President, in 2006. It is called “Call to Renewal” and it has caused something of a stir in evangelical circles recently due to some comments by James Dobson.
Sen. Obama’s speech: HERE.
Article on controversy: HERE.
A website regarding this controversy: HERE.
Well, it is official. The pope does not wear prada. When asked if the pope’s new shoes were Prada, an official spokesman for the Vatican explained: “Such rumors are inconsistent with the simple and somber man who, on the day of his election to the papacy, showed to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square and to the whole world the sleeves of a modest black sweater.”
So it seems, Prada is for the Devil alone.
This document was recently produced by a collection of prominent evangelical Christians. It is a fien summary of the evangelical Christian witness, with a refreshing mea culpa for the politicizing of Christian beliefs in America over the last few decades. It is nicely inclusive, while avoiding a watering down of the strong witness of the evangelical tradition. Check it out if you are interested…
In John 8:2-11, Jesus famously is in the presence of a crowd of people who are about to kill a woman for adultery. It is worth mentioning that even though we feel in our present cultural circumstances that such a punishment is totally inappropriate, this was not the case in the first century (nor for many centuries after, as well). Adultery was considered a threat to stable clan-based and tribal communities. Even the Bible sanctioned death for adulterers in Leviticus 20:10.
Jesus does not allow the execution to take place, however. Not because she is innocent. She is not. Even Jesus admits it. He does not even stop the execution because he feels the Old Testament law is wrong. He does not mention it one way or another. He statement – “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” – implies that if a person came a long without sin then it might be permissible for them to cast a stone. So, in principal, he is not even abrogating the Law of God.
No, in the end, he seems to be enforcing the principal that servants of God should avoiding hypocrisy in practicing their faith, and most especially when they are doing something in the name of the God they serve. This principal arises several times in scripture (famously in Luke 12:1).
Perhaps it might be right to execute someone for some reason, but we are equally worthy of death for the great crimes we have undertaken. And so, if there is punishment to be met out, it ought to be met out by the One without sin – Jesus Christ alone. Not by me. Not you. Not any government.
In our culture, the death penalty is most often put forward for murderers. I think Jesus would remind us that we are all complicity in killing people or letting them die. Every day we do nothing while the innocent are slaughtered in Darfur; every day we gorge on food while millions starve; every day we buy the product of peoples working in sweat shops working themselves into early graves; every day we fail to pay for and send to those who need them, simple and cheap medicines that kill millions; every day . . . every day. And none of this is beginning touch on the bad that each and everyone of us has done in our own lives- our betrayals and hurts of others.
None of us ought to be condemning others to death. None of us are righteous enough for so awful a task.
NAHA, Japan (AFP) - Buddhists clasp their palms together to pray for enlightenment, but Conan, a chihuahua, appears to have more worldly motivations.
The dog has become a popular attraction at a Japanese temple after learning to imitate the worshippers around him.
“Conan started to pose in prayer like us whenever he wanted treats,” said Joei Yoshikuni, a priest at Jigenin temple on the southern island of Okinawa.
“Clasping hands is a basic action of Buddhist prayer to show appreciation. He may be showing his thanks for treats and walks,” he said.
Conan, a two-year-old male with long, black hair and a brown collar, sits next to Yoshikuni in front of the altar and looks right up at the statue of a Buddhist deity.
When the priest starts chanting and raises his clasped hands, Conan also raises his paws and joins them at the tip of his nose.
Visitors to the temple look on with curiosity.
“It’s so funny that he does it,” said Kazuko Oshiro, 71, who has frequented the temple for more than 25 years.
“He gets angry when somebody else sits on his favourite spot. He must be thinking that it’s his special place,” Oshiro said.
Conan, originally a temple pet, has become so popular that people come in to take pictures almost every week, the priest said.
Yoshikuni estimated that the temple receives 30 percent more visitors, especially young tourists, than it would otherwise.
“I’m glad that people feel more comfortable visiting the temple because of Conan,” he said as he jokingly joined his hands and bowed to the dog.
The above picture was taken during the South Carolina Democrat primary which, as I write this, it going on still. I have little to say about this primary. In my capacity as a pastor and minister of the United Methodist Church I have not endorsed anyone and I am unsure that I will.
What I wanted to comment on was this simple little picture. Martin Luther King’s birthday was celebrated this past week. How far we have come! I know it is fashionable sometimes to lament that we have not come farther. But it is nice to sometimes take stock on how far we as a nation have come.
This picture would not have been taken just a few decades ago. Half of South Carolina’s electorate is Black. The majority of poll workers are still White. And here we have a poll worker welcoming, greeting, and offering basic instructions to a voter. This in a state which only a few decades ago was considered an impregnable fortress of segregation and racist legislation.
We may need to do better, but we have also done well.
According to the Telegraphy, England is now making moves to abolish a law which criminalized blasphemy.
Personally, I oppose the abolition of such a law. In stead, I propose that the law get transferred to the United States – if the English do not want it. Perhaps then, we can end the practice of politicians ending every speech with “God bless America” Of “God bless you all” as if they meant it.
According to a new survey of U.S. adults who don’t go to church, even on holidays, 72% say “God, a higher or supreme being, actually exists.” But just as many (72%) also say the church is “full of hypocrites.” Furthermore, a full 44% agree with the statement “Christians get on my nerves.”
I have spend years hearing these sorts of comments from people and I have to say that I find them sadly disingenuous. I would like to be more affectionate and compassionate, but God simply has not given me this strength.
Let me be the first to burst the bubble here. The Church is in fact full of hypocrites. Many of them. Even I am a hypocrite. In fact, I may be one of the best of them. My hypocrisies are backed with seminary education and the authority of collar wearing and a good enough mind to concoct many reasons why my hypocrisies are in fact consistencies.
Let me burst a second bubble. Quite often, Christians get on my nerves as well. In fact, I know loads of annoying Christians. Furthermore, I have been an annoying Christians to many people. (Just ask my wife.)
But maybe this will be the most surprising truth of all: Jesus – by his own admission - came into the world for those who are sick, not those who are well. (Matthew 9:12) Who is more ill than a hypocrite? We need Jesus and that is why we all go to church. To offer our hypocrisies upon the altar of God and receive the healing grace of God. Many of us are still waiting for that healing, but I am sure it will come.
If one is waiting for the community where no one gets on your nerves, then it seems we are destined to live alone in our own little holes. And even then, well, I sometimes get on my own nerves. So, to avoid such company is futile and probably a little juvenile. But if you think you can manage that, well, more power to you then. Please send an invite when you get there.
As for those who stay away from church because of all us hypocrites, I do not understand why you would leave us all behind to wallow in our blindness. If you have figured it out - and clearly you must have if you have moved out of glass houses and into something more sturdy – then why not share with the rest of us. To do anything less, would be . . . well, hypocritical.
The whole human race was created by God and for God. In a sense, all our hungers, desires, and longings are pale reflections of our desire for God. And no less certain, we will never be satisfied with our petty thirsts until such time as we have allowed God to pour himself into us so that we will be full.
Paul says in Acts 17: God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’
And Augustine said it equally well, “Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.”
This longing is not less pressing in the quest and desire for justice. All true justice and righteousness comes from God and from God alone, who “judges the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.” (psalm 98)
So, in this time of elections and seeking out a greater fairness and perfection for our imperfect union, it is always worth taking a moment to realize that our elections, speeches, and positions are more important in that they point to our need for God who alone can bring justice. They point to our human brokenness in our inability to being about a just order of creation and society. They point to the fact that we lie to one another and to ourselves when we think that this or that party or candidate will somehow bring about the good commonwealth.
We do not need another Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, or Thomas Jefferson . . . We need God. We need God desperately.
Congregation Poile Zedek is an Orthodox Ashkenazic synagogue located in New Brunswick, NJ. About ten years ago their beautiful synagogue was placed on the historical registry of New Jersey. They have wonderful people and a kindly rabbi. Every year, the put on a wonderful dinner for the poor in the area at Thanksgiving. In fact, their synagogue was originally founded as a mutual aid society and grew into their present congregation over the last hundred years or so.
This week, someone vandalized their cemetery, with 499 stones overturned, of which more than 50 will need to be replaced.
The police initially said that they were not considering this to be an act of anti-Semitism – which to me can only mean that they fail to take this event seriously in any way.
I know that New Brunswick is the home of Rutgers University and sometimes college kids get bored and do dumb things, but no one could have been ignorant of the fact that they were at the very least desecrating the graves of people who were beloved by the living. This is already long past unconscionable.
Still more, it is hard to believe that anyone who has grown to the age of maturity necessary to topple a gravestone can be ignorant that Jews have had a long history of being labeled “undesirable” in almost any place they have called home. If this was college students, they certainly would have been knowledgeable about the legacy of the Shoah, gulags, and ghettoes which litter the history of Western civilization.
But if somehow the persons who did this act where ignorant, then I would argue anti-Semitism is still a root cause of this event. The fact that a child has been allowed to come to some level of maturity and not know the great and evil deeds of our forbearers means that they are destined to repeat it, as the old adage goes. And in this much, the failure to teach the legacies of hate which we inherit, it a commitment to repeat them in the future. In this way, the ignorance of the youth betrays the legacy of hate or - what may be worse – indifference of us all.
Please pray of Congregation Poile Zedek, for their honored dead, and for the people who did this awful thing to these good people.
