Rick Warren's confident appeal

Rick Warren obviously has confidence in the Saddleback Community Church congregation to whom he appealed, with sound expectation of success, for $900,000 to make up for a Christmas shortfall.

LBGT community mockery and progressive critiques both overlook the collective strength evident in the letter's frank appeal, with its notable lack of histrionics.

Warren is addressing a well-educated audience which, hard times and all, has members with wherewithal.

As he and they both know. The Orange County Register reports:

Members of Saddleback Church say they expect the congregation to respond with a big "Amen" and cash to Pastor Rick Warren's appeal for $900,000 by New Year's Eve.

"This is a great opportunity for God to express himself," said Jim Walls, from Trabuco Canyon, who received the news after coming home from a ski trip. "It's a great opportunity for the church to honor God. It's a great opportunity to raise the points of faith that our shepherd Rick Warren lives."

Warren's willingness to make a frank, public appeal into the face of what he knew would be a firestorm from his critics simply underlines his confidence in his parishioners. And the lack of push-back from the Saddleback pews demonstrates theirs in him.

Ssempa returns video fire at Rick Warren (hits self)

Repudiated Rick Warren friend Martin Ssempa, Pastor of the Makerere Community Church, has issued a video response [segments with analysis] which includes all of the errors and distortions of the earlier United National Task Force letter.

Scientology schism (over management)

Scientology blundered toward the new year with a pugilistic response to questions about why three of its top spiritual achievers publicly left the cult, er, church.

Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin of the St. Petersburg Times wrote that "Geir Isene of Norway and Americans Mary Jo Leavitt and Sherry Katz" announced their split with Scientology:

Isene left first, a decision that emboldened Leavitt, who inspired Katz. Such departures are rare among the church's elite group of OT VIIIs, who are held up as role models in Scientology. The three each told the St. Petersburg Times that they had spent decades and hundreds of thousands of dollars to reach the church's spiritual pinnacle.

All three stressed their ongoing belief in Scientology and say they remain grateful for how it helped them. Yet they took to the Internet — an act strongly discouraged by church leaders, who decry public airing of problems — to share their reasons for leaving. They said they hoped it would resonate within the Scientology community.

Scientology's response was similar in assaultive tone to the reaction to Catholic Online [here]. Tommy Davis of Scientology wrote in a letter to the Times:

Your biased approach to stories regarding my religion is by now well documented. You, Joe Childs in particular, actively seek out only those individuals who have something negative to say about the Church; if they do not fit your agenda then you attempt to coach them and coax them into doing so by "educating" them about Scientology until you have "adjusted" their viewpoint accordingly and when that does not work you simply put words in their mouth. This is your pattern, which was unknown to the Church until recently, and has been your modus operandi for the better part of two decades.

All this fists-up rhetoric from an organization whose evangelism is so slickly finished it puts most of the competition to shame. Consider this leaked, internal push for their Ideal Org program. Maybe it is a little too long. And doesn't mention the V-like Ideal Org uniforms. But consider:

Okey-dokey. You too can help convert your friends to a money-sucking program that promises mastery of immortality and if you or they try to leave, discipline may get a lot rougher than denial of communion.

Evangelism repositioned, de-acidified, sugar- and money-coated

Gone are the halcyon days of Jerry Falwell declaring 9/11 the result of "throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked." Evangelism, writes Sarah Posner in the Guardian, has been "rebranded:"

The re-branding was the product of evangelicalism's survival instinct in the face of the parody-ready Falwell prototype. One of America's leading evangelicals is now Rick Warren, whose mega-bestseller, The Purpose-Driven Life (2002), begins:

"This is more than a book; it is a guide to a 40-day spiritual journey that will enable you to discover the answer to life's most important question: What on earth am I here for?"

The new evangelicals write books not about how God will smite you, but how God loves you and wants nothing more than your greatest personal, spiritual, and material fulfillment. The middle of the decade saw the publication of televangelist Joel Osteen's Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential (2004) and TD Jakes' Reposition Yourself: Living Life Without Limits (2007). Joyce Meyer's Seven Things That Steal Your Joy: Overcoming the Obstacles to Your Happiness (2004) and Approval Addiction: Overcoming Your Need to Please Everyone (2005) are equally at home at Bible study and coffee klatch, in the church bookstore and at Wal-Mart.

Oh, my.

Two churchmen sentenced, one inadequately

An Argentine judge sentenced former Archbishop of Sante Fe Edgardo Storni to eight years incarceration for abuse of his power to sexually exploit a male seminary student. That sentence punctuated a long running scandal in which a book was published documenting the abuse, the Vatican launched and abandoned an investigation and a succession of victims saw their cases dismissed by various judges.

Not similarly concerned with the abuse of power in such relationships, a California judge sentenced "the youth group leader at Miracle Land Korean Baptist Church in Cypress was sentenced to 90 days for having sex with a 15-year-old girl."

Both abuses occurred in close association with church events, making obvious the link between clerical authority and the sexual incidents.

Both assailants enjoyed the public support and protection of their church communities, as though their were something acceptable about their crimes. That misguided view of clerical sex crime contributes to the isolation of and harm to victims.

Most ethicists agree that betraying the trust of and abusing the authority of the ministry to secure sexual favors does not and cannot result in mutual consent.

The result is instead a form of rape.

Punishment at every level should fit the crime, should it not?

[H/T: Christa Brown]

Beyond mud wrestling between science and religion

From Religion Dispatches, professional theological wrestling:

Rasslin' with Religion & Science from Religion Dispatches on Vimeo.

Narrowing to a Catholic/Batholic convergence

InsideCatholic.com director Deal Hudson's denigration of two progressive Catholic groups as "fake Catholic" provoked push-back from Bryan Cones, managing editor of U.S. Catholic magazine. Cones
wrote:

Well, I disagree with him, and if he wants to have a debate about whether I'm a Catholic, I say: Bring it, Deal. It's time for Catholics with actual knowledge of the breadth of the Catholic tradition to start speaking up for themselves before we all get read out the church.

This is no mere parochial quarrel. It is part of a conflict over how much the Catholic right will use church discipline to bend national policy to its will.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent interview with Eleanor Clift of Newsweek, and reaction to it, indicates what the right has in mind.

In the interview, Pelosi expressed concerns about the Catholic Church's position on abortion and gay rights and touched on the difference between pastoral care by her bishop and lobbying by bishops.

Patrick Archbold at the Catholic blog Creative Minority Report called this "text-book definition of scandal (a grave offense which incites others to sin). He argued that "it should, at this point, be dealt with in a direct and public way lest no one else think that you can hold these positions and consider yourself a 'practicing' Catholic."

"Direct and public" appears to imply something more than the 2007 letter Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., received from Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence, R.I., requesting that he not receive communion because of his stand on abortion. The letter was revealed in the wake of a conflict between Tobin and Kennedy after Kennedy criticized the U.S. bishops for threatening to oppose health reform unless the legislation banned the use of federal funds to cover abortion. Kennedy said their stance was "fanning the flames of dissent and discord." And Tobin demanded an apology.

Archbold's shaping and interpretation of Pelosi's studied answers into an assault on the Catholic Church is less important here than the coherence of his conclusions with Tobin's application of force and perhaps even Randall Terry's theatrical attempt to pressure bishops into denying communion to Catholic public officials who take positions like Pelosi's.

The emergent pattern is one of using the hammer of church discipline to direct the behavior of Catholic public officials and through them to shape public policies to a narrow view of Catholic theology.

Defining some as "fake Catholic" follows the pattern of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) fundamentalist takeover which among its effects made the SBC a mainstay of the right wing of the Republican Party. Those bidding for power tarred opponents as "liberal" (rather than "fake") in order to drive them out. That process of narrowing continues as the SBC shrinks.

The resulting SBC is more politically right-wing than the Catholic Church is currently.

Most recently, the Roman Catholic Church found ways to oppose Uganda's anti-gay legislation. Yet the SBC through its political arm -- the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission -- remains scandalously silent on that matter. One which has otherwise attracted sweeping opposition from religious leaders and human rights groups.

A part of what has been ironically dubbed Batholicism, there lies the future of a Roman Catholic Church whose members permit some to be defamed and either silenced or driven out because they dissent from ideological narrowness.

Dad (Aunt Lisabisa, Mommy Ruth, Grampoppy, Ma Ma, ... )

There is something about which we agree with PZ Myers. As he writes in a blog about the loss of his father (fill in, however, your own loss), "We tell ourselves that time heals all wounds, and it's not true."

No it isn't. This is the season of my grief, too.

Lullaby for a sleeping conscience

Christa wants to sing sleeping Southern Baptist Convention consciences awake to their neglect of trusting Baptist Children.

RNC deserts under fire in the war on 'Seasons' Greetings'

Click to Enlarge

U.S. Republicans did no better than British Tories in the war on "Seasons' Greetings."

The Tories surrendered and the Republican National Committee deserted under fire to "this blessed time." Truly. Enlarge the image at right, and weep for conservatism gone timid.

What's a mumbling old culture warrior to do when his natural allies run and hide?

[H/T: Political Carnival]

Focus on the Family opposes Ugandan anti-gay legislation

No LBGT advocate, Focus on the Family has at last drawn a line at Ugandan gay genocide. Colorado Springs Gazette blogger Mark Barna writes:

“As a Christian organization, Focus on the Family Action (the political arm of the family group) encourages pro-family policies. As such, we respect the desire of the Ugandan people to shield their nation from the promotion of homosexuality as a lifestyle morally equivalent to one-man, one-woman marriage. But it is not morally acceptable to enact the death penalty for homosexuals, as some versions of the bill are reported to require.”

“My reaction is to denounce this. It sets a horrible precedent and has a potential for developing hatred.”

Otherwise the Barna news story on the same topic isn't quite as rife with errors as a Richard Land exposition on health care reform. Nonetheless sweepingly erroneous, Barna writes:

Moreover, it’s unfair to single out American evangelical leaders and organizations for not condemning the bill when many world leaders, including President Barack Obama, and human rights groups have also been silent on it.

In fact:

• The White House issued a statement of opposition to the legislation on Dec. 11.
• Human Rights Watch opposition dates to the introduction of the legislation on Oct. 14.
• Amnesty International's opposition also dates to the inception of the legislation.
• Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper took a stand against the legislation in November.
• British Prime Minister Gordon Brown denounced the legislation in November.
• Sweden's stand against the legislation includes a threat to cut off aid and dates to November.
• The European Parliament adopted a denunciation of the legislation on Dec. 17.
• Australia's denunciation of the legislation dates to Dec. 21.

Barna is correct when he writes that "numerous Christian leaders and groups have weighed in." (For example: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

Focus on the Family is a welcome and unexpected late-comer to the family of opponents, not yet joined by the Southern Baptist Convevtion Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

Carl Jung and the spiritual meaning of holiday despair

A drawing from Carl Jung’s 205-page Red Book or Liber Novus, written between 1914 and 1930 but published only in 2009. Peay calls it "a Dante-esque narrative of how Jung rediscovers his soul" and compares it to the medieval Irish "Book of Kells," or William Blake's "Illuminated Manuscripts." While others regard it as the consequence of a psychotic episode.

Exploring holiday symbolism and Carl Jung's recently published "Red Book,", Pythia Peay refers us to Dr. Michael Conforti, a Jungian analyst and founder of the Assisi Institute. Conforti said Jung was "one of the first psychologists to look seriously at the role of spirituality in a person's life."
Conforti says of the Jungian view of the Christ Child:

With King Herod's efforts to kill all the male children, [Comforti] says, "This was no easy birth. Thus the archetypal roots of Christmas and the Christ child is the story of how something sacred emerges despite tremendous adversity." Those who suffer depression during the holidays, he explains, may in fact be closer to the "true spirit" of Christmas. For such individuals, he continues, the Nativity story validates their despair, while giving them "a glimpse of something in them that is struggling to come to fruition despite great odds."

How many sexually predatory Irish Catholic priests were exported to the U.S.? [Updated with video]

One clear example: Rev. Brendan Smyth, a sexually predatory Irish priest who, after questions about his behavior arose in Ireland, was assigned to Our Lady of Mercy in East Greenwich from 1965 to 1968. Where Jeffrey Thomas of Massachusetts and Helen McGonigle of Connecticut say he raped them.

As a result of that childhood experience, they want some answers, as do the others who joined them in news conferences on Monday in Providence, R.H., and Boston, Ma.

How many other sexually predatory Irish priests were exported to the United States and part of the decades-long Irish coverup? Where they re-offended?

Simple questions, for which bishopaccountability.org is seeking answers. According to The Providence Journal, "they sent letters to Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Boston archdiocese and Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Providence diocese, asking that they search their personnel files for information about accused Irish priests who had served in their areas."

They already have a short list, writes Meghan Irons of the Boston Globe. BishopAccountability.org:

. . . unveiled today the names of 60 to 70 accused priests it says were either born in Ireland or are of Irish descent who came to the United States and re-offended. [And] demanded that Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston and Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence to comb the records of their dioceses and make public the names of any credibly accused Irish priests who have worked there.

. . .

BishopAccountability.org. has compiled a database of 3,000 names of accused priests and said about one third of them have links to Ireland, which is reeling from revelations of a decades-long cover-up of abuse in the Dublin archdiocese. Four Irish priests resigned this month as news unfolded.

There is one simple, right response for the Roman Catholic Church: The cooperation required to secure reliable answers.

Norbertine Abbot acknowledges Smyth's abuse

From The Providence Journal:

In an extraordinary letter sent to a television station in Ulster, the Norbertine abbot who had been Father Smyth's religious superior for 25 years acknowledged that he and others had known for decades that Father Smyth had a "problem" with children, and thought they could deal with it by having him reassigned every two or three years to prevent him from forming "attachments to families and children."

Two of those assignments involved duty in the United States: three years as a parish priest at Our Lady of Mercy parish in East Greenwich in the 1960s, and an assignment years later in North Dakota. In both places, according to the superior, Father Smyth molested children.

Texas Baptist editor sings Huckabee, off-key

Marv Knox gave himself to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's Republican presidential aspirations in a well-phrased column which is flawed only by failures of documentation, overlooked facts and broken logic.

Knox is editor of the Texas Baptist Standard, whose Web presence is probably the most commanding among the state Southern Baptist newspapers and chief strategist of a four-publication [1, 2, 3, 4] online partnership.

Knox framed Huckabee's issue as the "tension between Christian compassion and the duties of citizenship." Yet Knox began by speaking directly to former Southern Baptist pastor Huckabee's motivations in granting clemency to Maurice Clemmons, who as a result, Knox writes, "was free to walk into a Lakewood, Wash., coffee shop and murder four police officers."

It's a vacant example, robbed of force by Huckabee himself. On Dec. 1, before Knox's piece was published on Dec. 5, Huckabee wrote about the Clemmons matter for Human Events, saying:

Religion had nothing to do with the commutation. It’s been erroneously expressed that my own personal faith or the claims of faith of the inmate factored into my decision. That is simply not true and nothing in the record even suggests it.

The overarching record of Huckabee's 1,033 (or 1,058 if you prefer the Arkansas Secretary of State's number) clemencies is itself a muddled mess of inconsistencies and so does nothing for Knox's argument. They are variously:

• Without useful explanation because none is apparent and Huckabee refuses to explain. In one case Huckabee is reported to have laughed aloud at a request for explanation.
• Fraught with contradictory, factually inaccurate accounts, like those Huckabee gave in the case of Arkansas rapist and murderer Wayne Dumond.
• Capricious: Huckabee pushed through a pardon for Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards' 1975 reckless driving conviction 31 years after the fact on the apparent basis of Richards' guitar playing skill.
• Fundamentally irrational albeit recommended by a fellow pastor. That was the case with Huckabee's offer of clemency to Glen Green, "a madman who beat an 18-year-old woman with Chinese martial-arts sticks, raped her as she barely clung to life, ran over her with his car, then dumped her in the bayou ... ." And Huckabee abandoned that one amid a firestorm of public pressure.
• Apparently driven by the recommendations of family and/or personal acquaintances as in the case of "Samuel W. Taylor, convicted on a drug charge. A prosecutor said the man had told him Taylor's sister had gone to school with Huckabee."
• Well-deserved, as Jeralyn wrote, "particularly for drug offenders serving excessive sentences. A Governor's use of clemency and pardon power is a good thing."

It is in light of that record a triumph of false comparison for Knox to suggest that Huckabee's record somehow parallels former President Jimmy Carter's often-noted Christian naivete.

Although Huckabee has busily tried to excuse himself and shift blame to others for variously motivated Arkansas gubernatorial decisions which resulted in rape and murder. While Carter appears to have been without similar blemishes on his record governor of Georgia, has been effective if controversial in diplomacy, won a Nobel Peace Prize for work after leaving the presidency and has at times been frank in accepting blame. Most recently, Carter issued an apology (Al Het) for any harm done the Israelis by his words or deeds. Thus Knox's is an apples to asteroids comparison. Strained.

Knox takes flight from that illogic, demolishing, resurrecting and abandoning a straw man argument that some people of faith should not permitted to hold "specific offices." He refutes unnamed, undocumented "extremists" and asserts without proof the views of "most citizens." Knox finally concludes that the role of faith in public policy decision-making will be a key issue in the next presidential election, and Baptists have much to offer.

They do, as Carter continues to demonstrate.

Xmas wasn't late or last

Other Mashable Christmas graphs.

'Church falls from grace' [Update: Resignations]

Reviewing the Irish Catholic Church's 2009 record, John Burke of the Dublin Post wrote:

Nobody can doubt the prevailing thesis which has emerged thus far - that the Church which purports to live the word of a loving Jesus has utterly failed to do so.

That isn't the "Irish anticlericalism" the Telegraph's Will Heaven fantasized while conjuring up a nightmare of St Mel’s Cathedral arson.

It's a straightforward editorial assessment of inquiries into sexual predation and abuse by Irish Catholic clergy:

Counting the two concluded inquiries and the extant Cloyne probe, the three judicial inquiries will have covered a period ranging from the pre Emergency Free State to this year.

For a factually sound view, please read on.

Irish priest resignation numbers grow

Radio Netherlands reports:

On Christmas Eve, auxiliary Bishops of Dublin Eamon Walsh and Raymond Field announced that they had offered their resignations to Pope Benedict XVI. Four Irish bishops have now resigned in the wake of the Murphy Report, commissioned by the government, which found that Roman Catholic authorities in Ireland covered up the sexual abuse of children by priests for decades.

Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan, the fifth named in the Murphy Report, is under growing pressure, Irish Central reports.

Longford, Ireland, cathedral burns: Paranoia flowers

A 150-year-old building burns and without logical reason some bloggers/commenters (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) insinuate arson, while others accurately explained how easily church fires result from Christmas bedecking, especially in old buildings.

The insinuations were directed at the victims of abuse. For example, a London Telegraph blogger wrote:

Given the recent resignation of a second Irish bishop after a report revealed the cover-up of child sex abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese, it could be that this was a deliberate attack on the Irish Catholic Church. If so, it marks a new chapter of anti-clericalism in Ireland.

The $14.4-million loss of St Mel's Cathedral, with its records and precious artifacts, may be mourned and without raising unmerited questions about the victims of decades of systematically concealed sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. Raising those questions in the absence of real cause, whether by vague implication or directly, is a libel of those already harmed.

If there is a history of arson resulting from clerical sexual abuse -- whether by Roman Catholic clergy, Southern Baptist pastors or other clergy -- those making the speculations do not refer to it (as was their obligation). We have tried, and cannot thus far find evidence of such a history.

Groundless allegations of that sort, especially those which tend to tar the victims of other crimes, are despicable.

Graph: Is religion the answer?

Religion cannot answer "most or all of today's problems" for a slowly but steadly growing minority of Americans.

In 1957, less than 10% said that religion "is largely old-fashioned and out of date."

Last week, it had grown to 29%.

Senate health reform impact graph

Generated using the Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator and explained by Paul Krugman.

SBC tracks salaries/benefits but not sexual predation

'Twas just before before Christmas and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Guidestone financial services arm released a compensation and benefits survey.

O.S. Hawkins, chief executive of Guidestone, explains:

The 2010 SBC Church Compensation Survey is another avenue by which we all can work together to serve our churches with information to help them adequately compensate their ministers and employees.

Christa Brown is unimpressed with the argument that the SBC can get that kind of detailed data out but can't keep churches informed about pastors and staff who are credibly accused of sexual predation. Nor, as you can see, are we.

2010: The U.K.'s first Anglican woman bishop?

The Rev Canon Dr Alison Peden is the first Scottish Anglican woman to make the shortlist for a bishopric since June of 2003, when the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church voted overwhelmingly in favor of the "Motion to Allow Women Bishops."

She is one of three shortlisted for the post of Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway and as a result the ordinary at St. Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow.

If selected, she will be the first woman bishop in the U.K.

The Scottish Episcopal Church Website explains:

The candidates have been selected by a Preparatory Committee (chaired by the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church) consisting of clergy and lay church members who represent the diocese and the wider Church. The next stage in the selection process is a meeting of each of the candidates with members of an Electoral Synod (representatives of clergy and lay church members from the Diocese of Glasgow & Galloway only). That meeting will take place on 9 January 2010, with the election of the new Bishop taking place on 16 January.

The first woman bishop in the entire Anglican Communion was Barbara Harris, ordained Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts on 11 February 1989. Harris, a black woman who as a civil rights activist marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, was nominated at one point by Mary Glasspool, the pioneering lesbian bishop-elect in Los Angeles selected this year and awaiting final approval.

Peden is married, mother of three and rector of Holy Trinity Church in Stirling and chaplain of Forth Valley College there and canon of St. Ninian's Cathedral, Perth.

Ruth Gledhill observes that you can read some of Peden's sermons here.

The other two candidates are:

• The Venerable Dr John Applegate, (born 1956), Course Principal, Southern North West Training Partnership, Diocese of Manchester and part-time lecturer at the University of Manchester.
• The Very Rev Dr Gregor Duncan, (born 1950), Rector of St Ninian’s Church, Pollokshields and Dean of the Diocese of Glasgow & Galloway.

Regardless of the selection, the times they are a changin'.

Contradictions in how we give and where it goes

For every thread woven into the American way of giving and assisting, there is a dissonant thread.

Gingerbread House Design Tour

While eating your own gingerbread house this morning (unless you got rid of gluttony), enjoy this tour of 32 extraordinarily varied designs.

What are you getting rid of for Christmas?

Mary Kenny says gluttony.

Even Jack Bauer doesn't want switches and coal

Interrogating Santa doesn't turn out well for Jack Bauer:

More, equally serious video at the Guardian's Digital Content Blog.

Archbishop of York condemns Ugandan anti-gay bill

Archbishop of York John Sentamu, a senior Anglican cleric who was born in Uganda, approached the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace by taking a stand against Uganda's gay genocide bill.

He told BBC:

I'm opposed to the death sentence. I'm also not happy when you describe people in the kind of language you find in this private member's bill. ... [It is] a diminishment of the individuals concerned.

About a third of the Ugandan population considers itself to be affiliated with the Church of Uganda (Anglican).

Sentamu's measured, authoritative voice is an important counter on this issue to the counterfactual, poorly written letter directed by the hastily organized Ugandan National Task Force Against Homosexuality at Saddleback Community Church pastor Rick Warren. The Task Force demanded an apology from Warren, who urged his "fellow pastors in Uganda" to oppose the measure.

About 40% of Uganda's population is Roman Catholic.

Joining Sentamu, Mark Silk writes, was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kampala, Uganda, Cyprian. K. Lwanga, who in his Christmas message said:

The recent tabled Anti-Homosexuality Bill does not pass a test of a Christian caring approach to this issue.

Video of Archbishop Lwanga's message:

Health reform

Robert Pear wrote

The Senate voted Thursday to reinvent the nation’s health care system, passing a bill to guarantee access to health insurance for tens of millions of Americans and to rein in health costs as proposed by President Obama.

The 60-to-39 party-line vote, on the 25th straight day of debate on the legislation, brings Democrats a step closer to a goal they have pursued for decades.

'Aristotle's Virtues and Homer's Doughnut'

The Vatican official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano on Tuesday congratulated The Simpsons on their 20th anniversary. It said that from the soporific sermons of the Rev. Lovejoy to Homer's face-to-face talks with God, religion appears so often on the show that one might devise a "Simpsonian theology."

The article "Aristotle's Virtues and Homer's Doughnut" specifically mentioned several religion-themed episodes (without reviewing the entire list documented by Wikipedia), including the one in which Homer calls for divine intervention by crying:

I'm not normally a religious man, but if you're up there, save me, Superman!

Homer's religious confusion is "a mirror of the indifference and the need that modern man feels toward faith," and the piece also says:

Homer finds in God his last refuge, even though he sometimes gets His name sensationally wrong.

As well as the parentage of the Son of God:

Never mind the 1998 New York Times interview with "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening. He was asked about his views of God and responded:

I was very disturbed when Jesus found a demon in a guy and He put the demon into a herd of pigs, then sent them off a cliff. What did the pigs do? I could never figure that out. It just seemed very un-Christian. Technically, I'm an agnostic, but I definitely believe in hell -- especially after watching the fall TV schedule.

Regarding Groening's view of hell: Amen.

On sidewalks below the office window

Written by Willie Nelson and released in 1963 by Roy Orbison, "Pretty Paper" speaks of people we see and any of us may become:

Gawkering at Scientology in hot pursuit

Ravi Somaiya writes:

A tipster in Texas flirted briefly with Scientology when college-age. Then, sensibly, she ran the hell away. Now people she's never met are sending her creepy hand-written notes trying to get her back into the cult.

Read the entire saga of a cult in hor pursuit, complete with images of hand-written notes and the like, here.

SSPX discussions on a years-long path

Begun with an explosion of controversy over the de-excommunication of holocaust denying SSPX Bishop Richard Willamson and three others, the discussions toward reconciliation of Rome and SSPX are proceeding with laborious care.

Jesuit journalist Austen Ivereigh writes:

The "conversations" follow a systematic method. First, the topic. Then, the SSPX sends a paper laying out its doubts. The Vatican representatives answer in writing. Then both sides meet to discuss the exchanges.

The meetings will be filmed and recorded by both sides, which may indicate a healthy mutual scepticism but will make for fascinating material for future historians. The conclusions of each discussion are then taken to the Pope and the Superior General of the SSPX.

The frequency of the meetings will depend on whether the topic is a new one or has already been discussed: if the first, the conversations will take place about every three months; if the second, every two. The next meeting is scheduled for mid January.

He estimates three years will be required just to cover topics currently known to be on the table and laments that the recorded proceedings are not being posted for general enlightment on YouTube.

Indeed. Could a pope who has become more Internet-aware as a part of this process not be persuaded to do exactly that?

Whither truth in 2009?

Truth came out last with only 18% of the claims examined by PolitiFact last year evaluating as simply"true."

Bishops are a staple from approving health reform

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says the Senate version of health reform does not go far enough in limiting abortion.

Howard M. Friedman explains why. He writes:

The Bishops' concern seems to be that under [the current version as amended], abortion coverage will still be in some policies that receive government subsidies, so long as a separate check is written for the part of the premium applicable to that coverage. Instead, according to a Dec. 14 letter from the Bishops, they want language in the House bill that was proposed as an amendment by Sen. Ben Nelson, but was defeated by the Senate. That language provides that no federal funds could be used "to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes abortion coverage." After that loss, Sen. Nelson negotiated the language in the Manager's Amendment and according to AP argued that the differences were "about a staple." By that he means that the disagreement is over whether abortion coverage -- which would be paid for separately in either case -- would be a part of the subsidized policy (not acceptable to the Bishops) or in a separate rider stapled to it (acceptable to the Bishops).

Huckabee endorses a candidate who was going to promise not to run

S.C. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer was going to promise not to run in return for being appointed governer if Gov. Mark Sanford resigned after his Appalachian Trail hike to Argentina.

The odd ploy failed and Bauer, who in a recent poll was tied with Attorney General Henry McMaster (both at 22%) and losing to "no answer" (28%) in the race for the S.C. Republican gubernatorial nomination, was endorsed yesterday by former Southern Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee.

That has attracted some attention of LGBT blogs for various reasons, a little from the mainstream press and not much notice from political blogs.

Huckabee's endorsement looks like payback since the Methodist former Irmo (S.C.) High School varsity cheerleader, then Lt. Gov., endorsed Huckabee for president in 2008.

Go, guys?

Sumptiousness at Southwestern Theological Seminary

Such seminary training prepares one to lead parishioners where? Recommended reading. Don't skip a word. Helps to know who Benajah Harvey Carroll, L. R. Scarborough, E.D. Head and Robert E. Naylor are and a little about what they did, before you start.

Disciples World logging off and closing down

After eight years of distinguished effort, Disciples World magazine has joined the slow parade of religious publications into oblivion. It has succumbed to "declining subscription and advertising revenue and charitable gifts." Not only has it ceased print publication but also the Web site will log off, forever.

It announced on Dec. 16:

By unanimous action of its board of directors, DisciplesWorld, Inc., is dissolving and winding down. The corporation will liquidate its assets to attempt to meet obligations to creditors. Any donations received will be used to pay those obligations.

The associated story said:

DisciplesWorld won numerous awards from the Associated Church Press, a trade association for religious publications. Following its first year, DisciplesWorld received second place in the “Acorn Award” category for best new publication. In 2006, 2007, and 2008, it placed second in the “Best in Class” category for denominational magazines, and in 2008 it won the top award for editorial courage for the January/February 2008 issue on the ordination of gays and lesbians.

The magazine’s subject matter included controversial issues such as war, gun control, and immigration. In November 2008, the editors devoted an entire issue to the survivors of the Jonestown mass suicide in Guyana, 30 years after the tragedy.

Faced with declining revenue from subscriptions, donations, and advertising, DisciplesWorld came close to shutting down in 2007 and again in 2008. In early 2009, the magazine received a major grant to formulate new strategies to adapt to the changing publishing landscape. DisciplesWorld had planned to re-launch its website in January 2010 with expanded features, including the ability for site users to post news articles and share content.

The Web site will remain in place during the wind-down period.

RIP.

Ugandan pastors shoot back (inaccurately) at Rick Warren (hit their own feet)

Monday the very new Ugandan National Task Force Against Homosexuality shot back at Rick Warren, demanding an apology for his letter to fellow pastors in Uganda condemning the proposed Uganda law that would imprison and in in some cases execute homosexuals.

A letter signed by the 20 members and published on Martin Ssempa's Web site said:

Your letter has caused great distress and the pastors are demanding that you issue a formal apology for insulting the people of Africa by your very inapropriate (sic) bully use of your church and purpose driven pulpits to coerse us into the 'evil' of Sodomy and Gaymorrah (sic).

It is a rewrite of a letter sent to Christianity Today last week by the group's chairman, Ssempa (a "former Bush Administration favorite"). Parts of Ssempa's letter are included verbatim in the Task Force letter.

For example, both letters say:

As you yourself say about evil, – “the Bible says evil has to be opposed. Evil has to be stopped. The Bible does not say negotiate with evil. It says stop it. Stop evil."

The task force letter shares errors and misleading language with Ssempa's original, whose claims are compared to the text of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill by Warren Throckmorton.

Both letters say that the purpose of the bill is to protect “the boy child” in the same that the law protects “the girl child.” As Throckmorton points out, that overlooks the opening section of the bill, "which states the purpose." The law is intended to eliminate homosexuality from Uganda by eliminating practice or speech intended to support homosexuals.

Ssempa's letter is properly castigated by GayUgand for "Lying," and the Task Force letter is vulnerable to essentially the same criticisms.

If factual accuracy were the principal issue, the debate would be over and the Ugandan pastors would have helped consign the anti-gay legislation to a permanent spot on the trash heap of history.

Mexico City

First in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage.

Irish plan sweeping action against Catholic clergy sex abuse

Child's shoe held aloft as a symbol of protest when more than 10,000 people took to the streets in Dublin in May to protest the Catholic Church child-abuse scandal.

The four bishops named in the Murphy report have been given an ultimatum by Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, says Irish Central: Resign or be fired by the Vatican in the New Year. The four are Bishop Raymond Field, Bishop Eamon Walsh, Bishop Martin Drennan and Bishop Jim Moriarty. Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick has already been forced out.

In response to public anger over the revelations of massive, systematically concealed Catholic clerical sexual abuse, the Government plans to order a nationwide investigation [earlier post] into child sex abuse in the Irish Catholic Church, The Irish Independent reports:

A massive investigation into clerical child abuse in all 26 Catholic dioceses is to begin shortly after every bishop in the State last week received an ultimatum to provide the Health Service Executive (HSE) with a complete list of hundreds of new complaints.

Scientology announces expansion(?)

Never mind the dramatic exits, legal reversals, impending movie, investigations and media takedowns: Scientology announces the "biggest expansion" in its history.

Via PR Newswire it proclaims:

The Church of Scientology completed a $40 million restoration of one of its oldest landmark buildings in 2009 and inaugurated five major new Scientology buildings in Malmo, Dallas, Nashville, Rome and Washington, DC. Today, the Church of Scientology has expanded to more than 8,000 Churches, Missions and affiliated groups in 165 nations, doubling the number in the last five years. Current demand for L. Ron Hubbard's books and lectures on Dianetics and Scientology has outstripped the last five decades combined, approaching 70 million distributed in the last two years. All the while, the Church's ever growing humanitarian programs in the fields of anti-drug, human rights, morals education and disaster relief have positively impacted hundreds of millions of lives.

"PR" = "Public Relations." As in "self-promotion/Not news."

Legion of Christ more cooperative than Women Religious? Really?

Catholic Culture's Jeffrey Mirus, seeking redemption for the Legion of Christ, indicts Women Religious. The takeaway:

For those who would swear that the Legion is fundamentally flawed at its very root and cannot be salvaged (and there are a good many in this camp), I would suggest they take careful note of the difference between the Legion and the women religious in the United States as to how each group has responded to their respective current apostolic visitations. A large number of communities of women religious are in open rebellion against Rome, resisting the visitation, and revealing their desire to do without the Petrine ministry, the male priesthood, and the “patriarchal” dogmatic theology of the Church, including the traditional definition of the Holy Trinity. In contrast, the Legion has turned confidently toward the See of Peter as to Our Lord Himself. It is not too much to say that the one thing necessary to fruitful ministry is an ongoing willingness to make the mind of the Church one’s own. If the Legion can do that—as a number of female religious congregations apparently cannot—then there are many, even among its just opponents, who would be well-advised to hold their fire.

Something about that comparison rankles.

Southern Babtoys Corporation

Southern Babtoys Corporation still offers their explodotoy stocking stuffer.
It's the worst gift that keeps on giving, for the rest of the recipient's life, no matter how vigorously those who get one try to throw it away. Details here.
No refunds. No responsibility accepted by the vendor (blame the store).
Abroad there is ever less toleration for manufacturers of similar products.
Executives are being required to resign in Ireland and a nationwide investigation is in the works.
Yet in Nasheville, the sleep of conscience is undisturbed.

SBC's Richard Land distraught that health reform is passing

His Nazi libels and "death panels" prevarications failed to stop health reform, so Richard Land is sad.

The Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) chief is so sad and so busy (like Mike Huckabee) lamenting legislator support for health reform that he still doesn't have time to say a word or two against Uganda's gay genocide legislation.

Five conservative Republican House members understand the importance of taking a stand on that. Where is the ethics in Land's silence?

Uganda President Yoweri Museveni urged by Republicans to stop anti-gay bill

Five House Republicans, all "men of faith," have igned letter urging the president of Uganda to oppose the gay death penalty legislation:

The letter was signed by Reps. Frank Wolf of Virginia, Chris Smith of New Jersey, Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania, Trent Franks of Arizona and Anh "Joseph" Cao of Louisiana.

They call the gay genocide legislation antithetical to the Christian belief in the "inherent dignity and worth" of all human beings, and there are reports that he agrees and has assured U.S. officials that he will block the bill.

Many top U.S. and British religious leaders have also taken clear stands against the legislation and the Vatican has stepped forward against anti-gay violence.

Thou shalt shoplift sometimes?

Not quite. Anglican Priest Tim Jones of St. Lawrence and St Hilda Church in York, England, told his congregation on Sunday that vulnerable people who are in extraordinary difficulty should shoplift in preference to robbery or prostitution.

The now widely quoted passage from his Sunday sermon was, however:

My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift. I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither.

Read the entire sermon here. You will see that he frames a living dilemma of the sort people around us are actually facing, now:

What advice should one give, for example, to an ex prisoner who was released in mid-November with a release grant of less than £50 and a crisis loan, also of less than £50, who applies immediately for benefits but is, with less than a week to go before Christmas, still to receive any financial support? This is just the situation that presents itself at the vicarage door. What would you advise? One might tell them to see their social worker, but they are on a waiting list for a social worker. Tell them to see their probation officer, perhaps, but the probation officer can only enquire of the benefits agency, and be told that benefits will eventually be forthcoming. One might tell them to get a job, but it is at the very best of times extremely difficult for an ex prisoner to find work, and these are not the best of times for anyone trying to find a job.

One might wish that they could be supported and cared for by their family, but many people's family life is altogether dysfunctional, and may be part of the story of how they came to be in prison in the first place. One might give them some money oneself, but when week after week after week goes by, and benefits still do not arrive, the hard reality is that a vicar's salary is not designed to meet the needs of everyone – or indeed anyone – whom the benefits agency has failed. What else might one advise? They cannot take out a loan, except from the kind of loan shark – and there are enough of them around – whose repayment schedule is so harsh that it constitutes indentured slavery to the criminal underworld. They could beg. But how many of us, good Christian people that we are, give constantly and generously to ex prisoners waiting for benefits? And the likelihood is that, found begging, they will quickly be in trouble with the police, and therefore in breach of their parole.

They could perhaps get cereal and toast every morning from a local charity. Then could perhaps apply, and see if they are eligible for some limited help from the Salvation Army or other such body. But in the meantime, having had only £100 in six weeks, what would you do, every legal avenue having been exhausted?

Or as Jones explained to BBC:

"When we, as a society, let our most vulnerable people down so terribly badly, I would rather that people take an 80p can of ravioli rather than turn to some of the most appalling things.

"Burglary causes untold harm and damage to people in a way that taking a can of spaghetti rings from a supermarket doesn't.

"That's not to say that shoplifting is good. Shoplifting is a dreadful thing but sometimes that's all we leave people with."

Your alternative to those in truly extreme circumstances is what, exactly? Starve? What of those with children who have somehow fallen through the public assistance cracks? Let the children go hungry while teaching them the Ten Commandments?

Morning graph: Religious Oppression by Country

From the Pew Forum's study, Global Restrictions on Religion:

This chart shows how the world's 25 most populous countries score in terms of both government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion. Countries in the upper right have the most restrictions and hostilities. Countries in the lower left have the least.

. . .

64 nations – about one-third of the countries in the world – have high or very high restrictions on religion. But because some of the most restrictive countries are very populous, nearly 70 percent of the world’s 6.8 billion people live in countries with high restrictions on religion, the brunt of which often falls on religious minorities.

You can [Download the report .pdf] or read it online.

Death panels lie of the year award recipients (Sarah Palin, Richard Land, ... )

Many are owed honorable mention below Sarah Palin on the PolitiFact Lie of the Year award trophy for elevating fictitious "death panels" to a topic of frenzied national debate.

Prominent among them is Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty chief Richard Land, who urged the self-destructive selection by the McCain presidential campaign of Ms. Palin as the vice presidential running mate.

Having helped give Ms. Palin prominence, Land promoted both the falsehood that health reform involves eugenics programs like those instituted in Nazi Germany and the "death panels" myth which is part of those claims.

After a Sept. 26 gathering of the Christian Coalition of Florida, at which he applied Nazi/Holocaust characterizations to Democratic leaders' health care reform efforts, Land issued a pseudoapology. In an Oct. 14 letter to Anti-Defamation League (ADL) President Abraham H. Foxman, Land wrote:

It was never my intention to equate the Obama administration’s healthcare reform proposals with anything related to the Holocaust.

. . .

I deeply regret the reference to Dr. Josef Mengele. I was using hyperbole for effect and never intended to actually equate anyone in the Obama administration with Dr. Mengele. I will certainly refrain from making such references in the future. I apologize to everyone who found such references hurtful. Given the pain and suffering of so many Jewish and other victims of the Nazi regime, I will certainly seek to exercise far more care in my use of language in future discussions of the issues at stake in the healthcare debate.

Yet Land subsequently claimed in a broadly counterfactual Oct. 6 speech that the "Senate bill authored by Max Baucus, D.-Mont., reinstates the so-called 'death panels,'"

Thus Land promoted "death panels" as a fact when a simple reference or two to PolitiFact.com would have permitted him to consign "death panels" to oblivion and with them his parade of other libels attributing to Democrats a move toward implementation of Nazi-like eugenics theories.

Straightforward self-correction appears to have escaped him and could be redemptive, without removing his name from any historian's list of award recipients.

The confused pardoner's health reform tale

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, distinguished by his killing pace of commutations and pardons, was telling tales about health reform yesterday as a rally leader. Still running for president, Huckabee had grabbed his anti-health reform platform and made a pilgrimage to an Omaha, Neb., rally in an attempt to unravel the filibuster-proof Senate majority for health reform by pushing Ben Nelson, D-Neb., back into the "no" column.

Of course it didn't work. Won't work. Who thought it would? Not for that purpose. As a stage for the pardoner's would-be presidential tale, however, it was a solid as the foundations of any number of well-known Gov. Huckabee commutations.

The capricious pardoner merely shape-shifted into the tea baggers' candidate for a day. And, poof, he was notorious again. How is the blame-shifting, self-pardoning pardoner is applauded for calling someone else "Judas"?

SBC: “among the most tightly-knit, hierarchically functioning denominations”

Explore the myth of Southern Baptist local church autonomy.

A Baptist woman in the pulpit

Put a Baptist woman in a pulpit this February for Martha Stearns Marshall Day of Preaching.

From the martyrdom Madelyn Wens to Lottie Moon censured [.pdf] by the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board and the disfellowshipping of First Baptist Church, Decatur, Ga., for calling Julie Pennington-Russell as senior pastor, Baptist women have been mistreated.

Southern Baptist "conservatives" throttled a growing and effective ministry by Southern Baptist women:

In 1964 Addie Davis became the first Southern Baptist woman ordained to the ministry. By the 1970's hundreds of women were enrolled in ministerial degree programs at SBC seminaries. By the early 1990's more than 1000 women had been ordained, more than 50 served as pastors in SBC churches, and others served as professors at Southern Baptist universities and seminaries.

Baptist Women In Ministry asks that Baptist churches devote one day with a women in the pulpit to correcting the accumulated damage and errors.

The N.C. silly season on office-holding atheists goes pandemic

When atheistic Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell took office without legal challenge or other untoward event, we thought the silly season had ended and with it talk of applying Article 6, section 8 of the North Carolina constitution (a bootless anachronism). It says:

The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.

Vain hope. The sensationalistic atheist-bashing virus which greeted Bothwell's election went national and then international.

Now apparently pandemic, the infection has boomeranged back to North Carolina, afflicting N.C. Christian Action League chief Mark Creech.

As Tony Cartledge explains:

Relying heavily on David Barton's The Myth of Separation, which argues against church-state separation, Creech holds that "the founders" intended only that there should be no denominational test (Anglican, Presbyterian, etc.), assuming that all potential office holders would be Christian. In addition, he suggests (with the late D. James Kennedy) that those who don't believe in God have no basis for life-affirming values.

Threatened with legal action, radio-interviewed and written about hither and yon, Bothwell is not unaware of the arguments being deployed. Bothwell answers them calmly via his own blog. For example, he writes:

Blind belief in the righteousness of our current wars is bankrupting this country while our economy has gone into a tailspin. And while our leaders often cloak their actions with prayer and religious posturing, it is the oil companies and defense contractors who reap profits while our young women and men sacrifice their lives.

And, in regard to death, it is my conclusion that those of us who believe that this is our one and only life are much more likely to value and protect the lives of our brave soldiers and our citizens than those who believe that they will live again in heaven.

Yet the nature atheists, who from here appear to be a varied lot indeed, isn't the issue here. Religious freedom is. One need not be a Bothwell supporter to note, as we did earlier, that the U.S. Constitution supersedes any and every state constitution where there are conflicts. Then there is both the First Amendment to consider and Article VI, which says: “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

Religious belief and/or the lack thereof have no bearing on the right to exercise the privileges of citizenship in this country. That's our way of keeping the state out of our religion (or lack thereof), and it works.