The Four Evangelists by Jakob Jordaens
Because evangelical Christianity is visibly breaking down, Internet Monk's widely discussed prediction of the movement's "collapse" a decade hence, resonates in the minds of all who are concerned.
The animating core of his prediction -- that identification of evangelicals with the culture wars and political conservatism at the expense of faith was a historic mistake -- is a long-simmering cause of general unhappiness (the New York Times wrote about it well last June.).
The political sellout by the Religious Right is especially important among evangelicals under 40, a Barna survey found, while other research says some "don't even want the label any more."
More broadly, in August 2008 a Pew Forum survey found that 52 percent of Americans agreed that houses of worship should keep out of politics.
Or when he predicts the money will dry up, whether you're a religious broadcaster or pastor of an average Southern Baptist Church, you're having that experience or probably fear it. Although catastrophic collapse of a going evangelical enterprise, is rare.
Each element he cites has some gut-level or analytical validity for those who are involved in or close to the movement.
Collapse is a powerful word. The concept of collapse may also sell well among people whose faith speaks of "the end times." Although we agree with, Tony Cartledge, associate professor of Old Testament at Campbell University Divinity School and contributing editor to Baptists Today, who isn't buying:
Spencer has clearly seen the spiritual hollowness that pervades much of evangelicalism, and I believe he is correct that elements of the movement will fade in influence as years go by. The idea that evangelicalism will collapse within ten years, however, appears clearly overstated. Methinks the monk has underestimated the power of inertia.
Like newspapers which are printed on paper, evangelicalism will persist and appear to be wonderfully influential during a long decline, while its eminent death is persistently forecast. And while saving reforms are persistently resisted.
The Quakers who first devised American penitentiaries tried (and failed) to create the conditions for criminal repentance, reform and restitution to society as good citizens.
Austria has similar goals and an entirely different approach, as the sentencing of Josef Fritzl revealed to us all this week.
The London Times reports:
“The Austrian penal system aims not only at enforcing punishment, but also attempts to bring the inmate back within the norms of society,” said a spokesman for Austrian prisons last week when asked whether it was right that Fritzl should enjoy such a lax regime.
The man who was jailed last week for murder, rape, enslavement, coercion and incest after locking his daughter in his cellar for 24 years and fathering seven children by her (six of whom survived):
. . . will be able to improve his English or study other foreign languages, as well as singing in the choir or training in a gym that is better-equipped than those of many hotels. As an inmate, he will be offered a wide variety of hobbies and entertainment, including tennis, darts and art classes.
Your thoughts?
Seriously. Are you upset because Merriam-Webster's lexicographers are doing their jobs?
Just askin'.
There is associated merrymaking, which includes a satiric Purim edition of the Jewish weekly, The Forward. It includes:
Well worth a rollicking visit, whatever your religious inclinations.
Seriously? United Methodist Church ethicist Kenneth Carder of Duke University Divinity School in Durham, N.C., said Thursday:
When apologies are deeply rooted in confession, contrition, a recognition of the damage that one has done and one’s implication in the hurt of others-- in the context of genuine repentance and confession with a goal of restoration of integrity, restoration of relationships and restitution for damage done, then apologies have depth.
That doesn't sound like a Republican functionary after a visit to I'm Sorry Rush, or whatever non-satiric equivalent Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele visited after speaking dismissively of conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh last week.
Republican political apologies were just part of a recent blizzard of recent, high-profile apologies.
Those included "Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez, who apologized for using steroids; Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Michael Phelps, who apologized for smoking marijuana; The New York Post, which apologized for but defended a cartoon with racist images; and former U.S. Senator Tom Daschle, who apologized for not paying taxes that he owed."
Carder told Linda Green of the United Methodist News Service that the church has “contributed" to the "superficiality” which is the distinguishing characteristic of most of those public apologies.
For at the heart of the Christian community is the practice of confession, assurance of forgiveness and reconciliation. A tradition that has been less well-practiced of late, Carder said. Prayers of confession have been eliminated from many worship services. That example has broader social consequences:
But, when we, as a church, no longer practice confession, forgiveness and accountability, we should not be surprised if the broader culture substitutes for genuine confession a political spin or superficial healing of wounds.
There are, then, three general requirements to meet if one is to make a sincere apology. Genuine apology requires an understanding of the harm done, a commitment to personal change so that one does not inflict that kind of harm again, and some kind of restitution, Methodist ethicists explained.
“A false apology is usually accompanied by bogus or insincere guilt, which is often confused with appropriate shame,” said Theodore Dalrymple, a physician and author of “Our Culture, What’s Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses.” In our current rush of public apologies, the understanding, commitment to personal change and any but superficial restitution all appear to be absent.
Clearly, the week was marked by a rush of false apologies and their well-earned ridicule. We are rich in bad behavior.
"Duck and Cover" survival of a nuclear attack was the improbable goal of this sweet cinema and many others. It was shown in public school classrooms in the sweeter, kinder, gentler, stress-free 1950s when atomic annihilation was offered as a constant companion:
Organizers said they want an intellectually rigorous conference on science, theology and philosophy to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species."
As a result, there is no place for intelligent design in the five-day conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University. The Rev. Marc Leclerc, the conference director and a professor of philosophy of nature at the Gregorian explained:
We think that it's not a scientific perspective, nor a theological or philosophical one. This makes a dialogue very difficult, maybe impossible.
The Discovery Institute complains mightily that it was shut out because the gathering is funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Although it was by all accounts a no-strings-attached grant.
But protest, contention and litigation are commonplaces of intelligent design advocacy in this country. Not, one might infer, the ingredients of constructive, multi-way dialog (even putting aside the philosophy/theology of the notion).
Brett McCracken says Christian hipsters don' like:
. . . megachurches, altar calls, and door-to-door evangelism. They don’t really like John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart or youth pastors who talk too much about Braveheart. In general, they tend not to like Mel Gibson and have come to really dislike The Passion for being overly bloody and maybe a little sadistic. They don’t like people like Pat Robertson, who on The 700 Club famously said that America should “take Hugo Chavez out”; and they don’t particularly like The 700 Club either, except to make fun of it. They don’t like evangelical leaders who get too involved in politics, such as James Dobson or Jerry Falwell, who once said of terrorists that America should “blow them all away in the name of the Lord.” They don’t like TBN, PAX, or Joel Osteen. They do have a wry fondness for Benny Hinn, however.There's a lot more.
[Thanks to dotCommonweal for this. ]
While watching U2 on Dave Letterman this week it may have occurred to you that No Line on the Horizon is "thoroughly Christian."
The album's March 2, 2009, Letterman premier:
So wrote Steven R. Harmon, associate professor of divinity at Samford University's Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala.
Theologically inclined? And perhaps better still, given the author's orientation, Baptist?
Drop by the Associated Baptist Press and give it a read.
Waiting for death alone and unafraid.
Thanks to GetReligion for this one.
London Times Religion Correspondent Ruth Gledhill tells us, "The Roman Catholic Church in Italy wants us to give up texting, Tweeting and other tecchie messaging services for Lent," and she says, er, no.
Exactly the wrong move.
Had the Vatican been online reading blogs, using Twitter and the like, there would have been no historic row over Bishop Williamson's past because "Italian blogs had been writing about it, The Catholic Herald in England had covered it and I had blogged and reported it extensively for The Times."
No, it, she says, " is not texting they should be giving up, but Luddism."
Amen?
Opera House of Paris, the Palais garnier\'s grand salon [Photo author: Eric Pouhier]. Considered one of Wikimedia Commons finest images.
Susan Jacoby -- responding to the beheading 37-year-old mother-of-two Aasiya Hassan by her husband -- issues a call to conscience:
Of course there is a general relationship between patriarchal religion and domestic violence, and the more rigid and traditional the form of patriarchal religion, the stronger the relationship. Whether this particular murder by beheading in Buffalo was an "ordinary" instance of domestic violence or whether the Pakistani-born Muslim husband was animated by a sense of entitlement derived from his interpretation of Islam, or by his upbringing in a society in which "honor killings" are often winked at by law enforcement authorities, I do not know. [ . . . ] But the official skittishness and media evasions surrounding this case are part of the grand American tradition of pretending that religion has only good effects on individuals and society.
Read her honest, complex and disturbing piece here.
Bible Belt is an often satirically intended term for the geographical concentration of Americans who tell pollsters religion is relatively important in their daily lives.
Unresolved competition among some 15 urban centers for "buckle" not withstanding, you might not want to wear this one for the same reasons that socially responsible habitation here is a problem-solving process.
Leading in poverty, AIDS infection rate, divorce rate, obesity, illiteracy, poverty, infant mortality, death penalty executions and some other unfortunate indexes of social wellbeing, the region calls those who can, and have a conscience. to help the others. Materially and toward the acquisition of revenue-generating skills.
Seen in worldwide perspective, the moniker takes on a different shading. USA Today reported, using Gallup data:
Baptists in Tuscaloosa and Muslims in Tehran might not seem to have much in common, but Alabama and Iran do agree on one thing: the importance of religion.
Nearly identical percentages of people in both locations — 82% of Alabamians and 83% of Iranians — say religion is an important part of their daily lives.
Yet no Bible Belt state matches the fervor of the most religious countries — those with 98% or more answering that religion is an important part of their daily lives: Egypt, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Congo.
Even the commonplace assumption that most of those questioned are fundamentalist Bible thumbers who echo the politics of Southern Baptist Convention Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission chief Richard Land are upon close examination false, assuming the recorded denominational diversity is real.
Bible Belt was always and remains a false generalization for a complex phenomenon, one too often used to mislead and manipulate us.
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