eChurch Christian Blog

4thought.tv is the new Channel 4 program described as:

A series of highly personal short films, broadcast 365 days a year, reflecting on a broad range of religious and ethical issues, and aspects of our spiritual lives. These 90 second films challenge some traditional views, providing a platform for both scepticism and devout religious beliefs.

Sounds interesting, so let’s have a quick look at the upcoming Christians to front the show:

First up on August 2nd, the virulently anti-homosexual director of Christian Voice Stephen Green, who was featured on this blog after Classic FM stopped its promotion of Eric Idle’s show ‘Not the Messiah’ due to complaints received from them.

Unsurprisingly Stephen will be addressing the subject of homosexuality.

Rev Rowland Jide Macaulay is due on the 3rd:

Rev Rowland Jide Macaulay believes that those who use the Bible to condemn homosexuality are hypocritical; surely they should also advocate the stoning of adulterers.

Next up on the 4th August is Rev Peter Ould, who believes that God has helped him to overcome his attraction to men. Peter wrote a piece for the Evangelical Alliance back in 2008 entitled; “Of course no one is really gay“:

……I was, therefore, convinced that there was no firm evidence that my same-sex attraction was hard-wired.

Finally on August 6th, Rev Wale Babatunde, of whom I know nothing about and can’t be bothered to dig. Channel 4 describe his views thusly:

Rev Wale Babatunde believes that the Bible is clear: God does not accept homosexuals in the same way that he does not accept thieves.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear, I haven’t spent time putting this post together to make any particular comment on Biblical, theological, moral or ethical stances surrounding the issue of homosexuality. You can make your own mind up.

What I’m heartily sick of is our faith being perpetually defined solely in  terms of sexuality.

As I scan hundreds of incoming feeds from Christian blogs and websites of all types and denominations, a disproportinate amount of the articles relate explicitly to sexuality, especially denouncement or vindication of differing types of sexuality.

If I knew nothing of Christianity I would presume sex is the most important facet.

It’s pathetic, boring, sad, judgemental and disheartening, and Channel 4 are simply exploiting this phenomenon.

Let’s be brutally honest for once. This preoccupation with all things sexual emanating from some quarters of the Christian community, makes us ALL look sex obsessed at best, and severely repressed at worst.

Interesting report on religious institutions and financial investments.

Coincidentally this report comes as the mining company Vedanta is back in the news today over at the Independent. The Church of England was a major shareholder in Vedanta which was accused of human rights and environmental abuses. This culminated in the Church of England being pressured by campaigners to disinvest last February.

Interestingly in the Independent article (Provocatively entitled; Vedanta Resources: The world’s most hated company – I think BP who have investments in Vedanta may have taken that mantle), Vedanta report a highly successful financial year and vigorously deny accusations against them.

New report: Faith institutions find responsible investment difficult

New research has revealed that religious institutions find it difficult to invest responsibly whilst maintaining a strategy that fits in with their beliefs.

Despite the fact that faith institutions are widely considered to be the pioneers of responsible investment and make up the third largest demographic of investors globally, it appears that the stock market presents difficulties when it comes to aligning the needs of the faith with a responsible investment strategy.

The research was published this month by the International Interfaith Investment Group (3iG) – which ARC helped create – along with ESADE Business School in Spain and Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School in Belgium.

Katinka van Cranenburgh of 3iG, who carried out the research along with Professor Celine Louche from Vlerick and Professor Daniel Arenas of ESADE, says that religious investors are not always looking to the bottom?line when deciding where to put their money.

“We found that faith institutions go beyond the financial aspects of investing. They are more driven by the impact they can have on company behaviour or society than by the financial returns. They tend to have a preference for investing in projects or companies that do good, rather than simply adopting “best in class approaches”.

However, this approach is made more difficult by the fact that banks often cannot provide the services required to be consistent with faith?conscious investing, “Faith institutions cannot implement faith?consistent investing alone; they depend on the offerings of financial institutions. The current investment market is not capable of providing all the tools and services that are required by religious investors” says Louche, “The great majority of religious institutions surveyed said that their religious beliefs are reflected in their investment practices, but 51% say they would invest more if there were reliable tools to do so in accordance with their beliefs.”

The research did conclude a possible solution for this; customised religious investment products.Continue

The full PDF press release may be found here.

Here’s part 2 of this excellent series by Derek Leman of Messianic Jewish Musings.

Part 1 can be found here.

Jewish Roots and non-Jews, Part 2 by Derek Leman

The problem a whole host of people face right now is a question of calling. What am I called to do?

Many people are paralyzed, incapable of moving forward defining who they are, or knowing what to do. Non-Jews in Messianic synagogues may periodically wonder, “What am I doing here?” Christians with a love for Jewish roots in churches may periodically wonder, “What am I doing here?” People too uncertain to be in community at either a church or a Messianic synagogue wonder, “Where do I belong?”

Who will play God and answer these questions for other people? Not I.

Each person has a relationship with the Living God. The details of that relationship, the influences and desires mediated by God’s Spirit in persons is a holy thing. Watching from the outside, we should be cautious about speaking into this relationship.

Of course, there are egregious cases of abuse of the idea of divine calling. “God led me to this extra-marital affair,” has a false ring to it to say the least.

In Part 2 of this series, I want to consider the intersection of the individual and the community as well as the intersection between certain principles and subjective senses of divine calling. As for the first, the relationship of individual and corporate identity, we think too much as individuals and realize too little that we are part of families, communities, and people groups. As for the second, between principles and subjectivity, we make discerning God’s will more difficult than it needs to be.

Who Am I: an Individual or Part of the Group?
This question is important for many reasons when considering what non-Jews ought to do about love for Jewish roots. People in different situations are asking their questions from different places:

–”I am a Christian, but I want to keep some Jewish observances, such as holidays, without communicating to others that somehow Christians have replaced Israel and without implying that I doubt the uniqueness of Jewish identity and calling.”

–”I am not Jewish, but have been involved for about five years in Messianic Judaism. I don’t know who I am.”

–”I am Jewish and I don’t know what to think about these non-Jews in our synagogue. I can’t imagine life without them. They are integral to my life, but should non-Jews be here?”

Our decisions about what to do as individuals affect our families, communities, and all circles of relationship. Decisions are never purely about “me and only me.”

If you are married, what effect does the identity of your spouse have on you? I speak with many intermarrieds I have met online and it seems to me that the non-Jewish spouses of intermarriage often fail to realize that their family is connected to the people of Israel. I’ve counseled many a non-Jewish spouse to work toward a more Jewish home or at least a Jewish-friendly home. Should a father of Jewish kids eat babybacks and shrimp? Can a family be divided over important covenantal commitments?

If you are married and both are non-Jewish, is belonging to a Messianic Jewish community the desire of both partners?

Another belonging we have is to congregational communities. When I first began hearing from colleagues that there should be more distinction between Jews and non-Jews, I was angry and upset. People whom I believe with all my heart God has placed in my life should not be pushed away. Our community is strong at my synagogue. And there are non-Jews whom I subjectively believe to be inseparable from the future destiny of our community.

I found that in discussions with other Messianic rabbis, most felt the same way. None were eager to start asking people to leave the synagogue, at least not the kind of people who were one with the community. The talk I have heard from colleagues is more about helping people who come for wrong reasons and who don’t belong in a Messianic Jewish community from making the mistake of false belonging.

We have a mess on our hands of individual and corporate proportions because we have been careless in our notions of identity and purpose. But if I have a point to make here, it is this: those who belong in our communities, who have established a home here in Messianic Judaism, and who believe in and work toward the goals of Jewish renewal in Yeshua — as far as I am concerned — belong to the community.

Clarifying our individual identities and purposes should not be about rupturing communities or asking people to leave. A strategy of vetting people for membership in the future or helping people not to make the mistake of joining a community for the wrong reasons is a good one. But playing God and dividing existing communities is not something I will engage in. It seems my colleagues will not either.

Principles and Subjective Senses of Calling
Another issue in the question, “What are non-Jews to do?” is the balance between principles and the subjective sense of calling.

I remember in Christian clergy circles thinking that a lot of people were confused about the difference between subjective and objective ways of knowing. Applications for ministry positions in various Christian groups would have a question like, “On what date and under what circumstances did you receive the calling?”

The calling. As if our path in life is laid out for us like some prophecy which God reveals in words. I suppose that kind of clarity has happened in some cases in history. But by encouraging an objectifying of something subjective, I noticed that pop-Christian thinking about calling was distorted.

The fact is, deny it if you like, God is largely absent, silent, hidden. Our sense of calling is subjective. There is a lot of room for free choice.

People sometimes tell me God has shown them what to do. They move from failure to failure and eventually blame God. If God told me to do this, why didn’t it produce fruit?

I think the balance between subjective calling and objective principles is not as hard as people make it out to be. Consider first the commandments and wisdom that bear on your decisions. After that, follow your desires which fit with the commandments and wisdom.

Commandments and wisdom are the most objective criteria in decisions. Desires are subjective, but should not be despised as a form of recognizing God’s will. Look up “desire” in a concordance. Wrong desires conflict with commandments and wisdom. Right desires agree with commandments and wisdom. And desire is a primary way God leads us.

Some will sense the danger here. “Derek, are you saying that the desire people have to adopt Jewish customs or to belong to Messianic Jewish communities could be from God?” Am I simply rubber-stamping all forms of desire? Yes, if.

Yes, if these desires are consonant with wisdom and commandments.

The following is a list of principles which I think should inform people as they think about calling and purpose in their lives specifically with regard to Jewish roots or belonging to Messianic Jewish communities:

–God does not love Jews more than people from the nations. No one needs to be Jewish to find greater favor, blessing, or role in life. If there was any uncertainty about this before Yeshua came and the apostles carried on his work, that uncertainty has been removed completely.

–The Torah covenant is not between non-Jews and God, but between God and the people of Israel. As a non-Jew, you do not need to take on Jewish identity markers. It is not wrong for you to eat pork. It is not wrong for you to work on Shabbat. Any sense of guilt you have over these issues is not from God but from false teaching.

–The Church is God’s multi-national institution for non-Jews and being human is as corrupt as anything human will be. Israel is God’s national people set apart for a purpose in history. The people of Israel show the same failings as the Church and vice-versa. There is no room for comparing the Church or Israel unfavorably. Both are a mixture of blessing and curse, hope and failure, light and darkness.

–Supersessionism (replacement theology) is wrong, but does not disqualify the Church any more than rampant sin disqualifies Israel or the Church. There is no righteous community you can join. God will not judge you because your corporate community is imperfect. We are called to be a light to those around us, in the Church or amongst the people of Israel.

–The people of Israel is not a refuge from “Babylon,” as some people put it, or a righteous place for people to run to get away from the alleged paganism of Christianity. Do not seek out a Messianic synagogue because you see no option between church practices that bother you and becoming Jewish. If you think for a minute, people seeking a community free from uncomfortable practices could and perhaps should start Christian community based on those principles before retreating to Israel and giving up on the Church.

–Do not try to change Messianic Judaism into a universal Torah movement so you can have a home. If you cannot see in the Bible that God has a remnant of Yeshua-faith in Israel and that this remnant has a purpose in the plan of God in history, I have doubts about your ability to read the Bible. Any attempt to dilute the remnant of Israel with sloppy theology denies that God has a plan for the remnant of Israel. This point gets me in trouble with my friends in the universal Torah movements. Too often, this is what I think they are doing — redefining Israel to include gentiles with faith in Yeshua. If that is true, then why did God bother to choose Israel at all and why are there continuing statements of Israel’s unique election and calling in the New Testament?

–It is not necessary to come to Judaism or Messianic Judaism to practice a faith more in line with the whole Bible. It is possible to have Christian communities which celebrate Passover. Though I am not in favor of Shabbat observance for Christians, if you believe this is God’s will, you can do it in a Christian group. You don’t have to take over a Messianic synagogue to be a Sabbath-keeping Christian.

–It is possible to be a member of a church and to have periodic fellowship, such as at holidays, with Jewish and/or Messianic Jewish groups. You don’t have to join Israel to have a relationship with Jewish people.

–There certainly are non-Jews who have Jewish souls. Conversion has always been an option through intermarriage and also through other forms of joining the Jewish people. If you look at websites about conversion, you will find that the reasons most Jewish teachers list for conversion are similar to the desires many non-Jews in Messianic Judaism have. Some of my colleagues might criticize me for saying this, but I invite them to dialogue. Why should Messianic Judaism be more dissuasive of potential converts than mainstream Judaism? As long as people have healthy senses of their own identity and worth in God’s eyes, I don’t think we should deny persistent desires to become one with the people of Israel. (NOTE: I do not think “Paul’s rule in all the churches” disagrees with what I am saying here — more on that in the Paul’s rule series of blog posts I will continue here on Messianic Jewish Musings).

Upcoming
So far, we have discussed (in Part 1) the reasons for a wide interest among non-Jews in Jewish roots and Messianic Judaism. We have considered the importance of communal identity as opposed to thoughtless individualism. And we have considered the balance between the subjective and objective in finding God’s will for our calling.

In further installments in this series, we will look at options and issues for non-Jews. We will consider questions like, “How would Christianity have looked if it had not been for supersessionism (replacement theology) and anti-nomianism (a rejection of commandments)?” We will discuss the situations of people in different places, all with a love for Israel, for the Hebrew Bible, and for various parts or the whole of Jewish tradition.

Fr Stephen Smuts has the low-down here.

Marc Cortez highlights a website which features a gallery of the the 20 greatest Jesus products of all time. Marc rightly warns us of the disturbing nature of these products and yet if you’re anything like me, this will only encourage you to rubberneck.

These truly are awful, you have been warned, and if you do view them, do let us know your fav

The 20 greatest Jesus products of all time

ps the worst one for me was the coat hanger, what is it about coat hangers and Jesus?

Tim Kimberley over at the Parchment and Pen blog, is featuring a series based on the top ten Biblical discoveries in archaeology.

As promised, I intend to link to them from here, and so here is the fifth offering, at number six on the list:

Top Ten Biblical Discoveries in Archaeology – #6 Pontius Pilate Inscription

To be honest with you I’m not big on poems in general and I came across this John Donne sonnet in Tom Wright’s book ‘Surprised by Hope‘.

Wright introduces this as “That well known piece“, which aptly demonstrates how ignorant I am of poems as I’d never heard of it, but I certainly appreciated this one.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou’rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ;  why swell’st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ;  Death, thou shalt die.

I was tickled by the reference to Papaver Somniferum poppies, but hey, t’was the 16^th century.

For me the victorious culmination of the poem is the most potent and gripping aspect. The timely reminder of that most wondrous Christian hope, namely, death is defeated and will itself be subject to a final death…..wonderful.

Ugh, don’t know if you saw all of the ridiculous headlines about a church minister planning to conduct the first communion service on Twitter. Here’s a taster:

In a modern spin on Christianity’s most sacred rite, worshippers are being invited to break bread and drink wine or juice in front of their computers as they follow the service online.

Churches usually require a priest to take the Eucharist, but the Rev Tim Ross, a Methodist minister, will send out a prayer in a series of Tweets – messages of up to 140 characters – to users of Twitter.

Continue

Anyway, I think Joel sums up my sentiments rather nicely:

No. You absolutely cannot do Communion over Twitter

Ah, Jim has just posted on this and he’s even more scathing, and I mean seriously scathing….

Total Depravity: Holy Communion via Twitter…

2011 marks the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible and it’s really heartening to see this being commemorated outside of the church, with the announcement today of a special set of Royal Mail stamps.

My personal fav is the New King James version for no other good reason than I’m most familiar with it. I’ve been involved in more pointless discussions than I care to remember with folks who hold to the view that the original King James version is the ONLY true infallible rendering we should read, as if Jesus himself penned it. Having said this, who can deny the sheer beauty of the poetic nature of the King James Bible.

The Church have also begun celebrating with the single most terrifying sculpture I’ve ever seen. In fact, I’m not even going to post a piccy here as I don’t want nightmares, but will guide you over to Biblicus Semitae.

I feel like I should issue a certificate 18 from the Censors Office, something like:

Contains terrifying imagery

Go and view if you dare.

This is a cross-post by Derek Leman of Messianic Jewish Musings and just to let you know that I’ll also be featuring the follow up posts to this one:

Jewish Roots and non-Jews, Part 1 by Derek Leman

A great thing has happened in the past few decades in the lives of numerous thousands of Jesus-followers. The yearnings of people who love God and who read the sacred texts of scripture with eyes of faith has broken through centuries of error, misanthropy, and the tragedy of anti-Semitism.

Hundreds of thousands of Jesus-followers have become philo-Semites in various ways and at various levels.

Common issues have included:

(1) The rejection of supersessionism (replacement theology), which was the idea that Christianity had replaced Judaism in the promises and plan of God. The fullest definition of supersessionism is given in R. Kendall Soulen’s The God of Israel and Christian Theology. Supersessionism has varying types and levels as well and some people manage to shed the most egregious levels while retaining others.

(2) The rejection of anti-nomian reactions to God’s commandments. The explanation many heard about why Christians do not keep the Sabbath is so obviously false, it has been a continual problem. Note the glut of Christian writing attempting to spiritualize the Sabbath (including even recent major books by popular authors). The same arguments used against the Sabbath would call for a commandment-free Christianity. It occurred to practically no Christian authors that Sabbath was and still is God’s commandment for Israel (including Messianic Jews) and that Paul’s freedom-from-Sabbath statements were about non-Jewish disciples only.

(3) A discovery of and deep love for the Biblical holidays. Christians began hearing missionaries to the Jews (such as Jews for Jesus) give Passover presentations in churches starting in the 1970?s. The growth of the early Messianic Jewish movement began to include many non-Jews and the idea of Jesus-followers celebrating Passover, Tabernacles, Hanukkah, and other Biblical holidays spilled over and spread. Hundreds of thousands of Jesus-followers have taken hold of the holidays to one level or another. And the joy of God’s calendar is as evident to these lovers of God as it should always have been and always should be for Jewish people.

(4) The growth of teaching organizations and the proliferation of literature with various names including Hebraic and Jewish roots. Some of this material was poorly thought out, lacking in depth, and so on, but it was new for these Christians who soaked it up. And the beauty of it for many people was bringing the whole Bible back into view, so that study of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) became popular again in this subset of people.

(5) The realization that Jesus is Jewish hit many people with force. The essential denial of the Jewishness of Jesus throughout church history is a scandal. The realization that Jesus did not start a new religion rightfully caused many a non-Jew to repent and seek a deeper way of viewing his identity and purpose.

(6) Related to the second point (above), many found that the old arguments about grace versus law were distorted and that the Torah is full of grace. A new view of Paul was developing in scholarly circles. Many in the Jewish roots movement sought alternative ways to interpret Paul. Sadly, the well-thought-out New Perspective on Paul by scholars proliferated a bit late for many in the Jewish roots movement who had already developed less helpful ways of reading Paul. A common Jewish roots reading was to deny any Torah-free statement by Paul using scriptural gymnastics. The realization that Paul’s letters are directed at a non-Jewish audience which is not obligated to Torah missed the Jewish roots movement just as it has missed church theology for thousands of years. To this date the Jewish roots and universal Torah (One Law, Two House) movements have not absorbed the benefits of the New Perspective on Paul literature.

(7) The growth of non-Jews in Messianic Judaism started fairly early and quickly Messianic Judaism became a movement not about Jewish faith and practice in Yeshua, but about non-Jews discovering their Jewish roots. Messianic Jewish leaders welcomed the people and money this brought to their work. The goals of establishing a Jewish movement for Yeshua were sacrificed to popularity.

The Present Situation
Something beautiful and potentially world-changing is at peril due to confusion and the demanding of rights and privileges.

First, the growth of philo-Semitic Christianity is harmed by the adoption in the Jewish roots and universal Torah movements’ disdain for Christianity and the church. Instead of reforming church structures and bringing many of the joyful realizations of Jewish roots into churches, many of these people left, joined Messianic groups, and developed a line of literature denouncing Christianity as pagan.

So now, you are either a Christian pagan or a Messianic. And Messianic to these people means that you keep the holidays, the Sabbath, and various aspects of the Torah (but almost always reject the rabbis, Judaism, and Jewish tradition).

Second, the goals of Messianic Judaism were co-opted by well-meaning non-Jews who simply wanted to live out their Jewish roots. It was easier to do this in a Messianic congregation. The beleaguered leaders of small Messianic synagogues were happy to welcome an influx of people and funding. Meanwhile, the churches people fled from were not willing to take on Passover or Tabernacles. These Jewish roots people were not welcome to express themselves within church structures.

When you have a church in denial of its Jewish origins, a church which does not understand the Pentateuch, a church which promotes unhealthy views of Judaism, can you blame people for leaving?

Even at this moment, churches are largely blind to these issues. Progress has been made. Christians are far more aware today of the Jewishness of Jesus than a decade ago.

But the pressing problems of church life still cause the repair between Judaism and Christianity to be a back-burner issue. Struggling to remain strong in the post-modern world, the church pays only minor attention to its history of anti-Semitism, the new and better views of Paul and Torah, and so on.

It is all too easy for philo-Semitic followers of Jesus to drop out of such church contexts. And there is no home, other than Messianic Judaism, for these disaffected people. So variant forms of Messianic Judaism have developed which are not Judaism, per se, but universal Torah movements.

Looking Ahead to Practical Solutions
Commenters and friends have recently asked me to suggest a way forward for them and people like them.

On the one hand, I have friends in the universal Torah movements who are not at all happy with me. I have been insisting that the Torah was given to Israel on Mt. Sinai, that it is a covenant between Israel and God, that non-Jews are not part of the Torah covenant, that the New Testament affirms the freedom of non-Jews from Torah obligation, and that the relationship of Torah commandments to non-Jews is complex.

I have insisted that Torah does not mean merely the biblical commandments but the whole tradition of Israel that goes with it. There is no such thing as Torah without tradition. The Torah is designed to be filled in by the community of Israel with traditions. So Torah without Judaism is bankrupt. In fact, the word Torah includes tradition inherently (so that the universal Torah movements are not really practicing Torah, but a sort of neo-Karaitism).

I have insisted that the Church is God’s community on earth for bringing Yeshua to the nations. The supersessionism and anti-nomianism of the Church do not mean God has abandoned Christianity. If God abandoned Israel for waywardness and errors we would have ceased to exist long before there ever was a church.

But what are non-Jews who realize all these things to do? How can people stuck between a church indifferent to Jewish roots and a Messianic Judaism that is trying to regain its purpose as a Jewish movement to do?

There are a number of related questions people want answered:

(1) How should Christianity have developed if it had not been supersessionistic and anti-nomian?

(2) What should non-Jews presently in community in Messianic synagogues do?

(3) What should Jesus-believers who love Jewish roots do?

In a series of posts I want to focus first on issues 2 and 3, the more practical ones. If I don’t forget (remind me), I will come back to issue 1. It is less practical, but for many it would form the theoretical base for the kind of community they would like to see.

A few links I found interesting for one reason or another:

Ekklesia – The changing landscape of religion and the media

Daphne Anson – The Gaza Kiddies’ Roadshow – turning Britons against Israel, one whistlestop at a time

Clerical Whispers – Sinéad O’Connor: An Unlikely Prophet for a Scandalized Church

Richard Bartholomew – Documentary Shows Child-Witch Stigmatisation Still Occurring in UK Churches

Bible and Interpretation – Not in the Theater: Challenging Josephus’s Location for the Place of Herod Agrippa’s Death (HT)

Kineti L’Tziyon (Judah Gabriel) -  Some things we agree on – We’ve all seen the disagreements Messianics have on various issues – Torah, gentiles, Israel, you name it.

Psychology Today – Who Have More Out-of-Body Near-Death Experiences—Atheists, Catholics, or Muslims?

Catholic Online – Jubilee year brings over 100,000 pilgrims to shrine of St. James

BBC – Full face transplant man reveals his new look on TV

Biologos – How Could God Create Through Evolution?: A Look at Theodicy, Part 1 – Part 2

Biblicus Semitae – Mega-church Rebuilding Solomon’s Temple

Belfast Telegraph – Continuing a tradition that dates back to 441, some 20,000 Irish Catholics ascended Croagh Patrick, the mountain where St. Patrick fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.

Ah, another NHS “infection control” issue, this time in relation to Gideon International Bibles in hospitals.

I strongly suspect that if the Trust wishes to use this as the primary reason to remove Gideon Bibles from patients bed-side lockers, then we will witness a swift resurgence of consternation relating to:

Muslim doctors and nurses are to be allowed for religious reasons to opt out of strict NHS dress codes introduced to prevent the spread of deadly hospital superbugs.

The Department of Health has announced that female Muslim staff will be permitted to cover their arms on hospital wards to preserve their modesty.

This is despite earlier guidance that all staff should be ‘bare below the elbow’ after long sleeves were blamed for spreading bacteria, leading to superbug deaths.

Continue reading

I’ve always supported first and foremost the fight against infection control and the issue of manual handling in relation to Christians and controversies surrounding jewellery and clothing. However, the Department of Health and individual NHS Trusts must be seen to adopt an equable and even-handed approach, toward all religions.

Original Article:

Express – Bashing For Hospitals Over Ban On The Bible

I’m not sure if it’s me or if most Christian stuff out there on the Interweb is a little negative today.

Anyway, Seismic Shock takes our first cursory gander at the the new Palestinian President of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), who is most certainly not very Zionist friendly, to say the least:

Recently Bishop Younan was interviewed by a Danish newspaper. He was asked for his opinion of Christian Zionism and the bishop said, “I hereby declare that Christian Zionism is not only a sick theology but it is a heresy, right along with Arianism and Nestorianism and others. I believe it is time we named this misinterpretation of Christ and the gospel for what it is.”

Continue Reading

Richard Bartholomew informs us of a Channel 4 Dispatches programme to be aired tonight, on the traumatic and sickening subject of child-witch accusations in churches in the UK!

Dispatches goes undercover in some African churches in the UK, where evangelical pastors perpetuate a strong belief in witchcraft. They preach that some people are possessed by evil spirits, and that these spirits bring bad luck into the lives of others.

The only way to rid the possessed from the witchcraft spell and lift their curse is to ‘deliver’ them: a kind of exorcism that can be very traumatic. Some pastors charge significant sums of money to perform these deliverances.

Often it is children who are denounced as witches by these pastors, and this labelling can lead to the physical and emotional abuse of those children at the hands of their families. In extreme cases it has led to the deaths of some children.

In parts of Africa, branding a child a witch is now outlawed, but in Britain this practise is perfectly legal, despite the fact it can have horrific consequences.

Dispatches reveals just what goes on behind closed doors in these African churches, exposing the pastors who exploit the religious beliefs of the most vulnerable.

Continue

Over at the Problem with Religion blog, the topic of religion in overseas development and corruption is discussed:

Corruption is perhaps one of those fears we all have concerning overseas aid. The research presented involved two projects, one in India and the other in Nigeria and the aim of the research was to examine if religious belief had effect on people attitudes to corruption. In Indian the researchers found that although people talked freely about corruption, religion was rarely mentioned as something that would modify behaviour – though some subjects were aware of Hinduism’s condemnation of corruption (here it must be remembered that Hinduism does not have one sacred text, as is found in Christianity or Islam, but has a body of writing (mainly much older than the Bible or Qur’an)). Whereas in Nigeria, many subjects, both Christian and Muslim, made reference to sacred texts and religious ideas and ideals. The general belief was that if people were more religious then there would be less corruption. Of course in reality it is both the religious and none religious who engage in corruption. Indeed, it is one of the sad truths of modern day life, that, in general, the more overtly religious a country the more incidents of corruption. China is an exception to this rule, in that it is not an overtly religious nation, yet has high rates of corruption; however I ventured to suggest that perhaps what could explain this anomaly is the notion of ideology – in China there is the ideology of Communism, in Nigeria there is religion, yet it seems (to me at least) that both fulfil the same role: a solution in consciousness to that which is insoluble in actuality. Individuals can believe they are good Party Members or good Christians, while at the same time paying and taking bribes.

Read All (ps this is a very well written, engaging and interesting piece and well worth popping over to read the whole thing…)

And as if all of this wasn’t bad enough, J John laments the all too oft poor quality of coffee in our churches:

Not all church coffee is bad, but the issue that poor church coffee raises is deeper and more troubling. It is that much of what we do as churches can often be described as substandard, second best, mediocre or weak.

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Why does the coffee always taste so bloomin’ awful in church? Can anyone tell me?

Hat-tip Biblicus Semitae

The Voice of Russia:

Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill has urged the clergy to use Internet blogs for missionary work. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church warned against idle talk or passing one’s own thoughts for the postulates of the church. The Patriarch  was speaking ahead of his second pastoral visit to Ukraine.

This recent appeal by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, aimed at enhancing the church’s influence through blogging and networking, made the headlines throughout the Runet. IT-analyst Alexander Mitrofanov believes that the Internet is a good vehicle to carry the live language of the church to the people.

“Many priests and church hierarchs have their own blogs in the global network,” he says. “It helps people seeking their paths in life. Jesus Christ taught His apostles to attract people by the word. High technology and the Internet should serve the same purpose.”

Patriarch Kirill sees social networking as an opportunity for dialogue and revival of the epistolary genre. IT expert Alexander Kuzin says the patriarch wants to establish a dialogue with the Internet community in a user-friendly language.

“The Church wants to make itself understood to most readers,” he says. “This does not mean that church bloggers should use a primitive or false language. Unlike former Internet resources, social networks and blogs make it possible to talk and listen. Communication is crucial. A contemporary user wants two-way communication, so that they could ask questions and receive the answers, and could enter discussions with the others.”

The Vatican has been making an effective use of the Internet for years. According to expert Alexander Kuzin, expanding influence is common in church activity.

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Justin Topp of the Science and Theology blog (Subtitled; A biologist’s view of science & religion), a quite fascinating blogger, has posed a seemingly simple question:

….How do you personally define the word “I”?

I imagine there could be a plethora of different approaches to answering this question and I ventured the obscure statement:

I find the very concept of hell entwined with that very small word…

Justin responded:

Stuart… interesting stuff. Care to expand and make me feel even more condemned?

This was my rather brutally honest answer:

A sign of the times.

Jerusalem Post:

The site where tradition holds Jesus was baptized is in danger of being declared offlimits to pilgrims because of pollution in the Jordan River.

Qasar al-Yahud, a few kilometers from where the river spills into the Dead Sea and just south of the Allenby Bridge, has drawn over 100,000 tourists a year, most of them Christian pilgrims who want to undergo baptism there. It is venerated as the most likely candidate for the place where John the Baptist baptized Jesus and declared him the messiah.

But drought and diversion for irrigation have turned the lower Jordan River into a stagnant stream as it makes its way from the Sea of Galilee. The brook then swells with raw sewage as it passes Jericho.

Israeli health officials are reportedly considering erecting signs warning: “Polluted Waters. Entry Forbidden.”

The baptism site is smack in the middle of the border with Jordan. The IDF has designated the location a “closed military zone” and visitors from Israel are required to coordinate their entry with the army.

“Tourists are still able to baptize themselves, but authorities are examining the makeup of the water,” a spokeswoman from the Ministry of Tourism said. “At the moment, the ministry is working with the Ministry of Health and the Nature and Parks Authority to ensure that tourists can continue to visit the site.

“It is a very important site,” she continued. “We will do everything we can to ensure that the water quality allows tourists to visit the site in the manner that they so wish and to enter the waters.”

Neglected for decades, the name of the site is Arabic for “Castle of the Jews,” which is also the name of the 5th-century Eastern Orthodox monastery ther

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Intriguing piece of research which seems to indicate that those who pray consume less alcohol and are less likely to have alcohol related problems.

Of course this could be a chicken and egg situation, however, those randomly assigned to regular prayer also reported less alcohol consumption.

US National Library of Medicine

Lambert, N. et al., “Invocations and Intoxication: Does Prayer Decrease Alcohol Consumption?” Psychology of Addictive Behaviors (June 2010).

Abstract

Four methodologically diverse studies (N = 1,758) show that prayer frequency and alcohol consumption are negatively related. In Study 1 (n = 824), we used a cross-sectional design and found that higher prayer frequency was related to lower alcohol consumption and problematic drinking behavior. Study 2 (n = 702) used a longitudinal design and found that more frequent prayer at Time 1 predicted less alcohol consumption and problematic drinking behavior at Time 2, and this relationship held when controlling for baseline levels of drinking and prayer. In Study 3 (n = 117), we used an experimental design to test for a causal relationship between prayer frequency and alcohol consumption. Participants assigned to pray every day (either an undirected prayer or a prayer for a relationship partner) for 4 weeks drank about half as much alcohol at the conclusion of the study as control participants. Study 4 (n = 115) replicated the findings of Study 3, as prayer again reduced drinking by about half. These findings are discussed in terms of prayer as reducing drinking motives.

Previous posts; here, here,  here, here and here.

Another snippet from Diarmaid MacCulloch’s book: A History of Christianity – The First Three Thousand Years.

Pages 381 -382

When Cluny Abbey fostered European pilgrimage to St James in Compostela, it was offering ordinary people the chance of access to holiness, like so much of the Gregorian Revolution. After all, the great attraction of pilgrimage was that it opened up the possibility of spiritual benefit to anyone who was capable of walking, hobbling, crawling or finding friends to carry them. But Cluney was also annexing to that thought another new and potent idea. St James had become the symbol of the fight-back of Christians in Spain against Islamic power. It is still possible in Hispanic cultures as far away as Central or South America to watch Santiago’s image triumphantly processed on horseback, with a second image, the corpse of a Muslim, pitched over his saddle.

The Cluniacs’ investment in the pilgrimage routes to Compostela was a major influence in the balance of power between Christians and Islam in Spain. Thanks to the effective collapse of the Muslim caliphate of Cordoba in 1031, the Christian cause was becoming increasingly successful, and that was one reason why the crowds swelled across the pilgrimage trails to Spain. The order allied itself closely with the Christian Kings of Leon-Castile and Aragon-Navarre who were winning victories against the Muslims. A network of Cluniac houses grew in Christian Spain, and among the Cluniac monks who came to lead the Church in Spain was one who rose to be primate of the Spanish Church as Archbishop of Toledo as well as papal legate (representative) in Spain: Bernard, abbot of the chief Spanish model of Cluney, the monastery at Sahagun. The Cluniacs became familiar with the idea that God might wish Christians to initiate was against his enemies, and under Pope Gregory VII and Urban II, the Western Church took a dramatic new direction in its attitude war.

While Christian leaders had once simply tried to stop Christians from being soldiers, now the Church came to see warfare as something it might use for its own purposes. The notion of a holy war, crusade, entered Christianity in the eleventh century, and was directed against the religion which from its earliest days had spoken of holy war, Islam. The Carolingians had done their dubious best to present their campaigns in Northern Europe as wars for Christianity, but the difference now was that Christian warfare could actually be seen as the means to win salvation…..

Joseph Weissman recently wrote a solid and insightful piece entitled; Paul, Gamaliel & The Jews, which I featured here.

Joseph has now penned part-two, focusing on the Jewishness of the Apostle Paul and his [at times] rather fraught relationship with his own community:

With the thoughts of Howard Jacobson and Geza Vermes reaching wider audiences, reclaiming the Jewish Jesus is becoming increasingly popular. In late 2007, Time Magazine identified the “re-Judaising” of Jesus as one of the top ten ideas that will change the world. Yet whilst the “Jewish Jesus” is widely broadcast throughout the world, the “Jewish Paul” remains more low-key.

Having last left Paul before the Sanhedrin, we rejoin Paul in Jerusalem before Felix in Acts 24.

Paul has made reference to his former teacher Gamaliel in the Sanhedrin, and boasted of his Pharisaic belief in the resurrection of the dead, in order to avoid the judgement of the religious court.

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Gordon has just blogged on the phenomenon of Christian Fundamentalism within the contemporary church. He details its facets and the challenges this presents to  mainstream Christianity.

Well worth a read:

This is a sensitive subject because the mainstream churches want to be tolerant and accepting of difference, but at the same time the activities of Christian fundamentalists impact negatively on mainstream Christianity.

In many ways interaction with fundamentalist Christians is like interfaith dialogue because what they believe is very far from the historical beliefs of the Christian church. For example, fundamentalism tends to be unjust and confrontational which is quite different to most Christian’s understanding of the teachings and example of Jesus.

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