Wow, check this out, 1.5 million!
We’d feel it was a good turnout if 17 people turned up in the UK. 
Reminds me of the scripture from Matthew:
“For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”
What about one and a half million?
Previous related Posts:-
Breaking news: Yaakov Teitel arrested in Ami Ortiz case
Potential breakthrough in Ami Ortiz case
This is a cross-post from Yeze over at the Rosh Pina Project. Please ensure to have a look at the additional links at the bottom of this article, for more analysis and Internet links from Yeze.
After you’ve read Judah’s excellent post on the significance of the arrest of Yaakov Teitel, there are a few more points we may to consider.
Why did Teitel act the way he did towards believers in Yeshua?
Firstly, this is no ordinary person. Teitel committed his first murder in 1997.
Teitel was seemingly motivated by hollow religious zeal.
From The Guardian:
Teitel’s lawyer, Adi Keidar, said his client “in the best-case scenario is mentally unstable”. He described him as “a man that is motivated by false thoughts, that see himself as an emissary of the lord”.
Teitel thought he was fighting a noble cause.
Secondly, this goes beyond Teitel’s attitude towards the Ortiz family, or even Messianic Jews. Teitel was an ideologue of the most simplistic variety. He was bigoted towards all believers in Jesus, swallowing the vilest of lies about what motivates Christians.
Haaretz reports:
Tytell told the police that on April 20, 2007, he placed a bomb bear the monastery at Beit Jimal near Beit Shemesh, which injured a Palestinian tractor driver because he “heard that the monks there were enticing Jewish children with candy.”
And why attack the Ortiz family?
On March 20, 2008, Tytell allegedly put an explosive charge in Purim candy he placed near the home of the Ortiz family in Ariel. A 15-year-old boy was seriously injured in the attack. Tytell reportedly said the family were “missionaries who intended to entrap weak Jews.”
Fearing that Christians were overtaking Israel and manipulating Jews, Teitel decided to take matters into his own hands.
His actions were the product of a worldview of despair, in which rational debate is cast aside in favour of brashness and combat.
Treating Messianic Jews as deceivers and tricksters, Teitel became the ultimate deceiver.
Teitel deceived Ami Ortiz with a gift disguised as a Purim package.
Teitel deceived Israel’s authorities, living for years in freedom as past victims lay dead.
Teitel deceived his own family, and ultimately I suspect, Teitel deceived himself into thinking that he was in some way doing God’s will.
The case of Yaakov Teitel should serve as a warning as to how far people can take their prejudices. In this case, violent words have bred violent actions – a fact acknowledged by Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. And there are surely more Yaakov Teitels out there, plotting domestic terrorism.
May the Israeli public heed Netanyahu’s words, may Ami continue to heal from his wounds, and may such violence never rear its ugly head again.
Further links and analysis from Yeze – Rosh Pina Project:-
Tablet on Teitel – A helpful summary of articles.
Ten Unanswered Questions about Yaakov Teitel and the Ami Ortiz case
Issues faced by Messianic Jews – We are not monsters, demons or frauds! We are human beings:
Absolutely first class observations from Cranmer, on the upcoming big-screen biopic of the prophet Muhammad….that…..err….won’t actually feature Mohammed?
‘Mohammed’ – The Second Greatest Story Ever Told
It is reported that there is to be a $150m Hollywood blockbuster biopic about the life of Mohammed.
About time.
Barrie Osborne, part of the Oscar-winning team behind The Matrix and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, says the new production is ‘an international epic production aimed at bridging cultures. The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam’.
But no actor will be in line for an Oscar, because no actor will be playing the Prophet. The film is financially backed by the Qatar-based production company Alnoor Holdings, ‘who have installed the Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi (not a joke) to oversee all aspects of the shoot’. So, in accordance with Islamic law, Mohammed will not actually be depicted on screen. They will ‘shoot around’ him (so to speak).
Talk about Hamlet without the Prince.
The film purports to ‘shed light on the Prophet’s life since before his birth to his death’ and aspires to ‘highlight the humanity of Prophet Muhammad’, but it will exclude the protagonist from his own life story and thereby keep his humanity in the darkness. This will not educate people about ‘the true meaning of Islam’, for all that does not accord with Al-Qaradawi’s personal beliefs and quranic interpretation will be vetoed. He already appears to have set aside the historical Shi’a tradition that Mohammed may indeed be portrayed, and that such a portrayal does not amount to the graven image of idolatry. One wonders how he will handle Mohammed’s sexual proclivities, his betrothal to the six-year-old Aisha, his ‘war crimes‘, his exhortation to murder Christians and Jews, or his generous offer to the vanquished of conversion to Islam or death – all of which have historical quranic authority or a long heritage of hadith validity.
How on earth can a biopic exclude the bios?
At least Jesus is always portrayed as being fully human, even though he is fully God. But then Cecil B DeMille and Franco Zeffirelli had no fear of death threats and no expectation of fatal sieges.
Although there is no chalcedonian dispute going on about the divinity of Mohammed, the reverence and respect accorded to him by the western media constitutes elevation to that status: the Christian blasphemy laws may have been abolished, but there has emerged an unwritten blasphemy law to fill the spiritual void which protects Allah, Mohammed and the Qur’an. The Hadith of Al-Qaradawi will be of no assistance at all in helping people to understand either Islam or the mortal prophet revered by a billion followers. Only an Enlightenment perspective could illuminate the kuffar.
‘Mohammed Superstar’ this will not be.
Further Internet Links:-
This is a lovely little article, lifted from Mere Comments and sums up the man-made global warming hysteria for me personally. Hat-tip Stand Firm.
Related post on global warming from this morning:-
Since the “fixes” for man-made global warming are rather costly and desperate, if there is any question about the reality of man-made global warming, it would seem wise to slow down and have more investigation and debate. But not so in Great Britain, according to Christopher Booker in the Daily Telegraph: (Thanks to David Mills for the link).
We have “less than 50 days” to save the planet, declared Gordon Brown last week, in yet another desperate bid to save the successor to the Kyoto treaty, which is due to be agreed in Copenhagen in six weeks’ time. But no one has put the reality of the situation more succinctly than Prof Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technolgy, one of the most distinguished climatologists in the world, who has done as much as anyone in the past 20 years to expose the emptiness of the IPCC’s claim that its reports represent a “consensus” of the views of “the world’s top climate scientists”.
In words quoted on the cover of my new book, Prof Lindzen wrote: “Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly exaggerated computer predictions combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a rollback of the industrial age.”
The article linked above goes into more details about why there are (growing) serious questions about alleged global warming.
Why is it that radical legislation is preceded with pleas and warnings that we have to act before it’s too late? For example, our American Congress’s profligate spending earlier this year to “save” our economy in the nick of time. (We’re still waiting for a sign of salvation.) The power-brokers write bills hundreds even more than a thousand pages thick, with fine print and all sorts of additions and caveats and regulatory sleights of hand, bills that legislators do not even read let alone understand before they vote on them. But without delay!–This must be done and there is no time to debate or read the bills–you must “trust us” with this mission or we die!
Well, there are times when there is no time to lose, as when firemen show up in a haze of smoke to show you the way out of a burning building “Now”. You have to trust them to get you down or lead you through the house to safety. But we have some level of confidence in them because they, after all, have a track record we know about. (Congress has a track record, too.)
God the Savior doesn’t operate in haste. He’s been very patient with the human race. God took a long time preparing a people, instilling in them a sense of what the real dangers are, slowly teaching and revealing a pattern of death and life, sin and holiness, then writ large at the right time in the Person of His Son. The legislation of sin overturned in the Cross is not hard for average Joe’s to understand–one of them signed on while Jesus was still on the Cross. He gives us time, sometimes a full lifetime of many years to figure it all out and vote, finally, Yea, on the Fix of the Cross and the Resurrection. To be sure, Today is the Day of Salvation, and it is the acceptable hour. Best to act now. But tomorrow and tomorrow, as long as you are around, the invitation stands. It has no expiration date earlier than your own.
As to the fear of global warming, we should accept it in a way, but not Al Gore’s global warming but The Global Warming: “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!” What does that mean? Well, I trust Him on that one, and that’s the one to worry about, and Kyoto won’t be able to touch it.
Well here is a rather negative take on the emergence of the ‘virtual church’ written by Todd Matocha for Evangelicals Now
I don’t agree with most of his comments frankly (but I do accept some), and recently wrote a short piece on this blog relating to the rise of the ‘virtual church’, which I will regurgitate, as I am feeling rather lazy at the moment.
[.....] If we as Christians are to ‘go’ to where folks ‘are at’, then it would seem prudent to go online. I saw a recent study (can’t remember the source) that stated that our younger generation is more likely to go online than switch on the TV now.
Christian forums seem to me to be the fasted growing ‘virtual churches’ and the irony is that you can end up knowing the folks on the forum better than the folks in your own ‘brick n mortar’ church, largely because you spend more conversation time with the folks online. There is something to be said for the mystery of Christians being together in spirit, even though not physically together. The written word has always traditionally been a major means of communication between Christians (geographically and through time) and let’s face it, even God Himself works through the written word.
I’m not saying that Christians should ‘forsake the gathering together of themselves’, but I believe that for good or for bad, the virtual church is on the up and up. I personally spent time with lovely Christians that I met on a Christian forum and I pretty much knew them even before I met them physically.
There is of course dangers in the virtual church. Internet trolls being one and of course other ‘Christians’. In the virtual world folks can be emboldened to be nastier than they otherwise would be in the flesh, but on the flip side, the anonymity can also give rise to an opportunity for honesty and dispense with the need for the ‘holier than thou’ mask that seems so necessary at times in the physical church.
I know some Christians that run a website for Christians with mental health issues, which is something usually very misunderstood and badly handled in the physical church. As part of the website they have a forum for Christian folks to gather together with others for whom mental health impacts their lives. This has provided a welcome sanctuary for these folks to meet with and chat to others who understand. The virtual church can indeed provide a welcome relief for those who do have problems attending church, or are generally misunderstood and sidelined by the church.
Like most things in this world, new developments can be a blessing or a curse, depending on who uses them and how they are used.
Here is the article from Evangelicals Now
There is a rapidly growing movement promoting the idea of an exclusively online church. This movement is becoming more organised and influential. In March of this year a group committed to the development of online churches met in London. The Church of England and the Methodist Church have already launched versions of online church. However, the push is especially strong within the world of Christian bloggers.
A blog is a website that operates like a journal. The host of the site posts short articles and online visitors can add comments. Blogs encourage conversation and engage participants in dialogue.
In his provocatively-titled work, We know more than our pastors: Why bloggers are the vanguard of the participatory church1, Tim Bednar sees the increasing popularity of blogging as ‘an impending sea change for pastors and the church’. He continues, ‘We are a new kind of preacher, theologian, pundit, apologist and churchgoer. The phenomenon of blogging is transforming our expectations of church’.
Bednar and bloggers who share his convictions want a church shaped by the technology of our age. According to Bednar, it is a ‘new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the internet. Their so-called virtual life is changing them and, in turn, they will change the church.’
Behind demand for change
Bednar argues that the invention of the internet necessitates a rethinking of how we ‘do’ church. Is this really the case?
Sure, we have greater resources to spread the Christian message, but the basic forms of communication known to mankind are the same now as they were in any given age: oral, sign and written. These forms of communication were available to Moses, Paul and Calvin. What has changed is the means of communication. Moses communicated the written word on stone tablets, Paul used scrolls and Calvin promoted reform with printed books. Now we use electronic means, communicating instantaneously and globally. We communicate better, but not differently.
What is it about electronic communication that demands a change in the way we think about the church? The invention of the printing press did not lead the Reformers to rethink the church. Instead, it drove them back to the origins of the church. They were not interested in the emergence of a new church, but in repentance and reformation in an existing one. The great need of our day is a return to apostolic ecclesiology. Ignorance of the biblical doctrine of the church, not advancements in technology, it seems, is driving the demand for change.
Desiring a sub-human church
Apart from leaving out people who are not, and perhaps never could be, computer literate, one characteristic of online church is that it restricts physical communion and fellowship. By its very nature it is devoid of people getting together physically in one location and having real face-to-face contact. This is a great weakness.
God created us body and soul. According to the Dutch theologian, Herman Bavinck: ‘Man has a “spirit”, but that spirit is psychically organised and must, by virtue of its nature, inhabit a body. Hence, man’s body is first (if not temporally, then logically) formed from the dust of the earth and then the breath of life is breathed into him. He is called “Adam” after the ground from which he is formed.’2 This is basic to the Christian understanding of humanity. Many of those promoting cyberchurch tend to emphasise the spiritual aspect to the neglect of the physical.
What implications does this doctrine have on the church? Primarily, it dictates how we are to worship God. Worship involves the whole man, not just the spiritual part. Thus, true worship must be offered to God in body and soul (Mark 12.29-30).
Further, online church restricts us helping and serving one another in a real, physical way. Jesus could not have washed the disciples’ feet or served them at table over the internet (John 13.5, Luke 22.27).
Sensual in the sacraments
Christian worship involves the whole man, body and soul. It also appeals to the physical senses. The worshipper hears the word sung, prayed and preached. In addition, Christ gave the church a visible and tangible word. In the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the senses of touch, smell and sight are engaged. The whole man is fully participating in worship.
In The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin wrote: ‘Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists’ (Book iv, ch.1. Sect.9). Does cyberchurch offer this?
It would not be surprising to hear of an online church offering virtual communion, but is that a sacrament administered according to Christ’s institution? The very purpose of the sacraments is that they are physical, tangible and concrete. They are sensual signs that confirm, support and nurture our faith.
Authority of the local church
Another common feature of the online Christian community is the emphasis on the universal church to the neglect of the local church. Cyberchurches boast of having members from all over the world. The local church is marginalised; it is all about globalisation.
Closely connected to the denial of the local church is an aversion to church authority structures. Bednar wrote: ‘The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures or even doctrinal impurity. We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers’. He seems to think bloggers value being able to say what they want to whom they want without accountability. This may be the biggest problem facing Christian bloggers.
New Testament writers speak highly of the local church and local church elders. According to apostolic practice recorded in Acts, churches were set up in cities and towns throughout the Roman world. These local churches were in some way ‘lacking’ until elders were appointed (see Acts 14.21-23; Titus 1.5). Paul speaks of elders as gifts sent to the church by Jesus to protect the church from error and bring the church to spiritual maturity (Ephesians 4.11-16).
Also, the local church is unique in that it creates an environment for spiritual nurture designed for a specific people living in a specific cultural context. The universal church is unable to provide such an intensely personal environment for discipleship. For example, Christ addressed the seven churches in Asia Minor (Revelation 2-3) according to their unique strengths and weaknesses. He spoke to them individually, not generally. He spoke to them as unique local churches.
Things to consider
Opportunities for the church abound in the online world. We should not minimise this. However, we should not allow technological progress to lead to ecclesiological regress. We must learn how to embrace new means of communication in a God-honouring way. How can this be done?
Many of the problems we face in the online Christian community arise because we are not clear in our own minds about the biblical doctrine of the church. Pastors need to teach on the church. Individual Christians need to study the church. Read through Acts and the apostolic epistles looking for information about the church. You may be surprised how important the church was to early Christians.
If you have a blog, then make it a priority to communicate the glorious doctrine of the church. Let people who visit your site know where you stand. Also, communicate the importance of the local church and the necessity for all Christians to belong to a local church.
Lack of accountability
One of the greatest dangers facing Christian bloggers is the lack of accountability. Remember, blogging is a public forum, not a private conversation. If you blog, inform your elders and welcome their oversight. This is especially relevant for young, technologically-savvy Christians. ‘Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders’ (1 Peter 5.5).
If you are a pastor, consider starting a blog. Why? Many Christians, possibly even some from your congregation, are being spiritually nurtured by non-ordained men. Shouldn’t those who are appointed by the Holy Spirit to teach and preach be involved in Christian discipleship wherever it is taking place?
As we grapple with how to make the most of modern technology, let us learn to use modern tools of communication to the benefit and strengthening of Christ’s church.
Todd Matocha,
pastor, Bethel Presbyterian Church, Cardiff
1 Tim Bednar, We know more than our pastors: Why bloggers are the vanguard of the participatory church, April 22 2004, (accessed August 4 2009).
2 Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol.2, Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, Michigan, p.559.
As I rather enjoy dipping into the atheist worldview from time to time, I have come to relish this activity more and more lately, as I note their growing internal divisions. It would certainly seem that all is not rosy in the belief systems of; ‘there is no God’.
Maybe there will be an atheist ‘reformation’, or perhaps they will simply schism into different denominations, as some atheist ‘believers’ seem unable to accept the doctrine of Dawkin’s (pbuh) infallibility?
A couple of previous related Posts:-
Here are some excerpts from a rather enjoyable article in the Guardian today, written by a ‘believer’ in atheism, Michael Ruse:-
As a professional philosopher my first question naturally is: “What or who is an atheist?” If you mean someone who absolutely and utterly does not believe there is any God or meaning then I doubt there are many in this group. Richard Dawkins denies being such a person. If you mean someone who agrees that logically there could be a god, but who doesn’t think that the logical possibility is terribly likely, or at least not something that should keep us awake at night, then I guess a lot of us are atheists. But there is certainly a split, a schism, in our ranks. I am not whining (in fact I am rather proud) when I point out that a rather loud group of my fellow atheists, generally today known as the “new atheists”, loathe and detest my thinking. Richard Dawkins has likened me to the pusillanimous appeaser at Munich, Neville Chamberlain. Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True, says (echoing Orwell) that only someone with pretensions to the intelligentsia could believe the silly things I believe. And energetic blogger PZ Myers refers to me as a “clueless gobshite” because I confessed to seeing why true believers might find the Kentucky Creationist Museum convincing. I will spare you what my fellow philosopher Dan Dennett has to say about me.
There are several reasons why we atheists are squabbling – I will speak only for myself but I doubt I am atypical. First, non-believer though I may be, I do not think (as do the new atheists) that all religion is necessarily evil and corrupting. This claim is on a par with golden plates in upstate New York. The Quakers and the Evangelicals were inspired and driven by their religion to oppose slavery, and a good thing too.
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Second, unlike the new atheists, I take scholarship seriously. I have written that The God Delusion made me ashamed to be an atheist and I meant it. Trying to understand how God could need no cause, Christians claim that God exists necessarily. I have taken the effort to try to understand what that means. Dawkins and company are ignorant of such claims and positively contemptuous of those who even try to understand them, let alone believe them. Thus, like a first-year undergraduate, he can happily go around asking loudly, “What caused God?” as though he had made some momentous philosophical discovery. Dawkins was indignant when, on the grounds that inanimate objects cannot have emotions, philosophers like Mary Midgley criticised his metaphorical notion of a selfish gene. Sauce for the biological goose is sauce for the atheist gander. There are a lot of very bright and well informed Christian theologians. We atheists should demand no less.
Third, how dare we be so condescending? I don’t have faith. I really don’t. Rowan Williams does as do many of my fellow philosophers like Alvin Plantinga (a Protestant) and Ernan McMullin (a Catholic). I think they are wrong; they think I am wrong. But they are not stupid or bad or whatever. If I needed advice about everyday matters, I would turn without hesitation to these men. We are caught in opposing Kuhnian paradigms. I can explain their faith claims in terms of psychology; they can explain my lack of faith claims also probably partly through psychology and probably theology also. (Plantinga, a Calvinist, would refer to original sin.) I just keep hearing Cromwell to the Scots. “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” I don’t think I am wrong, but the worth and integrity of so many believers makes me modest in my unbelief.
Fourth and finally, I live in the American South, surrounded by ardent Christians. I want evolution taught in the schools and I can think of no way better designed to make that impossible than to spout on about religion, from ignorance and with contempt. And especially to make unsubstantiated arguments that science refutes religion. I never conceal my nonbelief. I defend to the death the right of the new atheists to their views and to their right to propagate them. But that is no excuse for political stupidity. If, as the new atheists think, Darwinian evolutionary biology is incompatible with Christianity, then will they give me a good argument as to why the science should be taught in schools if it implies the falsity of religion? The first amendment to the constitution of the United States of America separates church and state. Why are their beliefs exempt?
Uh oh, get your bullet proof vest on, I have just noticed that P Z Myers has come out fighting against Michael Ruse (The author of the above piece). That’s it lads, keep biting chunks out of each other and I’ll get the popcorn. 
This is an important court case for Christians and the outcome of this appeal will greatly impact on the Christian world, one way or the other.
It’s nice to watch Mike Judge from the Christian institute trouncing the opposition. The homosexual community always seem to operate by a policy of, ‘if in doubt, roll out the race card’. Listen up folks, equality on racial grounds is NOT comparable to equality on grounds of sexual lifestyle choices! This is a flawed argument and comparison and offensive frankly.
Controversial claims that Christians should not have to condone homosexuality will be made in the court of appeal today, as a registrar says she suffered discrimination by being required to conduct same-sex civil partnership ceremonies.
Lillian Ladele, 48, has said she was treated unfairly in her role as a registrar for Islington council, which expected her to carry out the ceremonies despite her beliefs that they were “contrary to God’s law”.
“If this decision is allowed to stand it will help squeeze Christians from the public sphere because of their religious beliefs on ethical issues,” said Mike Judge, a spokesman for the Christian Institute, which is backing Ladele’s appeal.
“The rights of Muslims and homosexuals are protected, but the rights of Christians always seem to be on a lower level,” he added.
Today’s hearing comes two years after Ladele was disciplined for refusing to perform the ceremonies, following complaints from two gay colleagues that her actions were contrary to the council’s dignity for all policy.
Two other registrars at the council, one Muslim and one Christian, also objected to the ceremonies on religious grounds after the Civil Partnership Act came into force in 2005.
Ladele, who brought a discrimination claim in 2007, is appealing a ruling by the employment appeal tribunal last December that Islington council had been entitled to view her conduct as amounting to “unacceptable discrimination”.
“[Ladele's actions] offended some gay employees and involved discriminating against third parties making use of the services of the council,” the tribunal said.
Although Ladele’s lawyers will argue that religious views should be allowed to co-exist alongside the rights of gay people, campaigners said the case was part of an increasing pattern of homophobia based on religion.
“This case is part of a homophobic fight-back by Christian fundamentalists who resent the removal in law of their right to discriminate against lesbian and gay people,” said human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.
“Faith can never be a legitimate reason to seek exemption from the law and the moral obligation to treat other people with respect and equality,” Tatchell added.
“The issue is very simple. Gay people have no right to discriminate against religious people, and religious people have no right to discriminate against gay people.”
The case comes after Pauline Howe, a grandmother who wrote a letter complaining about a local Gay Pride march, attracted widespread media coverage after she received a warning from police.
Howe, 67, whose case has also been taken up by the Christian Institute, received a warning letter from Norwich City council and a visit from Norwich police stating she could have committed a hate crime.
“When people express robust beliefs, it doesn’t mean that they hate other individuals, just that they are concerned about the behaviour,” Judge said.
“People can express strong views without any expression of hatred. I’m just concerned that the police are beginning to apply policies which do confuse these two things.”
Although gay rights group Stonewall have said they agree the police acted “disproportionately” in Howe’s case, human rights groups say that the rights of homosexual people must be protected from religious views.
“Liberty fiercely defends freedom of conscience and religion, including its reasonable expression in the workplace. But other people have rights and freedoms too,” said Corinna Ferguson, legal officer at Liberty, which is intervening in the case.
“Ms Ladele is entitled to her views but not to pick and choose who is worthy of public services.”
Further Internet Links
Christian registrar takes civil partnerships complaint to court of appeal
I really enjoyed this from Stuff Christians Like and yes I have experienced this personally. Where else in society do you go where you have to constantly stand up and sit down? It drives me bananas and frankly it’s just weird when you think about it.
A few weeks ago I went to a worship event. Midway through, one of the speakers got up and told the crowd to get on their feet. The crowd obliged and for a few minutes the speaker talked while we all stood listening.
Unfortunately, he forgot to release us from our foot bondage.
The “go ahead and sit down” never came. We waited patiently and it just didn’t happen. Have you ever experienced that? If not, I want you to be prepared. I want you to be ready. So let’s break down what goes through your head when you find yourself marooned on your feet in the middle of church …
“Awesome, we’re standing up. Time to get the blood flowing again and wake up.” That’s what you think the first minute after someone asks you to stand up at church. The world is really hopeful and bright and new at that moment. Will you be asked to greet the person next to you? Maybe clap or wave your arms in some sort of pew Pilates? Who knows. Anything is possible at this point.
“I think the stand up part is officially over, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we’re about to do something else that requires me to be up and out of my seat. Maybe I need to stay standing. I’ll give this another minute or two.”
“I think this guy just launched into his sermon without letting us know we can sit down now. Doesn’t he notice us? I mean, there are hundreds of us standing up. He sees that, right? Is he already in his sermon? Is it possible he wants us to stand the entire time? No way, there is no way that is happening.”
“I want to sit down, but I don’t want to be the weird guy who sits while everyone else stands. You always look like you love God about 11% less than everyone else who is standing when you do that. I’m not going to be that guy, I won’t.
“What if I sat down slowly? Would that be so bad? What if instead of sitting down at normal speed I just gently lowered myself to the chair over a period of 30 seconds? If I go too fast he might actually see me and call me out from the pulpit. That would stink. He’d probably say, ‘Can you not stand in the presence of the triune God?’ And then I would yell back, ‘The triune God toldeth me to sitteth.’ I don’t know why I’d say it that way, I think I get all King Jamesy when I’m nervous.”
“Would God smite me with a lightning bolt of disappointment if I pretended to be slain in the spirit so that I could sit in my chair? He would probably frown on that.”
“Sweet release! Some bold member sat down and started a tidal wave of derrieres crashing into seats. That, my friend, is a true next generation leader.”
Maybe this won’t ever happen to you, but if it does and we’re sitting near each other at church, let’s make a pact. We’ll hold hands and do it together. And if we get any guff, we’ll sing friends are friends forever and have a sit in just like they used to do in the 60s.
Freedom reins in the place my friend. Freedom reigns.
I found this article about British attitudes towards climate change fascinating. I think these results reflect the fact that many of us believe that climate change is a load of hogwash, whipped up by the media, to serve political purposes, with no scientific credibility and of course we live in a fairly cold country.
I mean, have look at the following link and see where this climate change mantra gets us, it really is the height of frustrating madness:-
The annual Climate Confidence Monitor found the number of people worrying about global warming worldwide has fallen by eight per cent to just over a third in the last year as the economic downturn kicked in.
Just fifteen per cent of people in Britain worry about climate change and how the world responds to the problem, the lowest figure for any of the 12 countries surveyed. The figure is down from 26 per cent last year. In the US 18 per cent of people said global warming was one of their biggest concerns followed by 22 per cent in Australia.
In general people in developing countries are more concerned about climate change, with more than half of people in Mexico citing the issue as a major problem and 42 per cent in Brazil and India.
Britain was also the most pessimistic about the world’s ability to tackle climate change, with almost half believing nothing can be done compared to 38 per cent worldwide.
However, people still believe that action should be taken. On average, almost half of people say they are taking some action to reduce their carbon footprint such as switching off lights, walking rather than driving or recycling. This is a rise of seven per cent since 2007.
In the run up the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December, nearly two thirds of people in the world think a global deal to cut emissions is important. The US, the world’s second largest emitter, was the only country where less than half the population thought world needed to take action compared to 86 per cent in Brazil and 75 per cent in China – the world’s biggest emitter.
I thought this to be an unusually balanced and sober look at the conflict between religion and science that is raging currently.
By Philip Clayton – Religion Dispatches
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Of course, there were always scientists who claimed that there is no room for God after Darwin. But the religicide option in the evolution wars really gained momentum over the last decade or so in response to the widespread popular support of the “intelligent design” (ID) movement. Massive numbers of Americans now endorse the ID claim that cellular structures such as hemoglobin are “irreducibly complex,” which means that evolutionary biology cannot explain them, even in principle.
Such assertions represent a double attack on science: they attempt to remove core biological phenomena from the reach of biology, and they claim that theories about an Intelligent Designer represent better science than the natural sciences can ever offer. Several polls show that over 50% of Americans affirm ID in this sense.
Scientists, sensing that the very institution of science was at stake, fired back with everything they had. Dawkins’ massively successful The God Delusion has sold over 1.5 million copies; some are claiming that it has “mainstreamed atheism” for the first time in American history.
For the contenders, the stakes are ultimate: the very existence of God on the one side, the very existence of science on the other. Is it any wonder that reasoned debates— discussions that acknowledge common ground—are almost non-existent? When we ran the global “Science and the Spiritual Quest” program just a decade ago, many leading scientists took moderate views. Religion did not need to be destroyed, they told us, as long as the basic conditions for doing science were not undercut. Theologians and religious leaders responded in kind: religionists have every reason to support scientific research and to learn from its results.
You’ll have to look long and hard in the public-square discussion today to find similar bilateral calls for complementarity and partnership. Yet why should the relations between evolution and creation constitute a zero-sum game?
A moment’s reflection reveals multiple ways in which these two great products of the human spirit can be distinguished: religion asks about the why, science explains the how; science researches matters of empirical fact, while religion is concerned with matters of ultimate values; scientists use empirical techniques and theories to accout for the physical and natural world, whereas religionists are concerned with the metaphysical and the supernatural; science studies how the heavens go, religion how to go to heaven.
One does not need to find all these formulations adequate—I for one do not—in order to doubt that science demands the death of religion or religion the death of science. Here’s the point: only when one affirms some sort of “live and let live” policy is it possible even to begin a serious discussion about evolutionary biology and (say) belief in God.
When evolutionary and religious explanations are construed as fighting for the same territory, they will unleash their weapons upon each other—as today’s religion wars show. When we recognize and acknowledge their different strengths, a far more interesting discussion emerges.
This new debate is challenging because it requires both sides to give up certain hegemonic claims: scientists, the claim that science provides the answer to all metaphysical questions; and religionists, the claim that they know better than science how nature works. Yet a whole series of fascinating questions arises when hegemony is off the table: is there a directionality to evolution or is it, as Stephen Jay Gould thought, a “drunkard’s walk”? Do the emergent worlds of culture, ideas, philosophy, art, and even religion make any irreducible contributions to explaining what it is to be human? How (if at all) could a divine influence on cosmic history be compatible with the scientific study of the cosmos? What kind of influence would it have it be? Will humans respond more appropriately to the global climate crisis when scientific data are combined with religious values and motivations for action?
Both theists and evolutionary theorists have much at stake in these questions.
Interestingly, though, in this inquiry they’re not necessarily opponents. What emerges from the ashes, then, after the New Atheists and the intelligent design theorists have employed their weapons of mass destruction? The deeper questions still call for attention. We still ask what it means to be human, who we are, and how we should act in the world. What stories will we tell about ourselves and the universe? Which of those stories are true and which are false? How should we tell them differently in light of the best empirical data and theories?
This new discussion does not entail a different kind of science, though it does call for science without ideology. It does however call for a broader view of religion. John Haught puts it brilliantly in his forthcoming book, Making Sense of Evolution: Darwin, God, and the Drama of Life: “If we measure the movement of life in terms of a narrow human preoccupation with design, evolution seems blind and aimless.” Haught offers a vision of what this religion might look like in his own (Christian) context:
A properly biblical theology of nature will view divine wisdom, providence and compassion less as a guarantee of the world’s safety—as the idea of design encourages—than as an unbounded self-emptying graciousness that grants the world an open space and generous amount of time to become more, and in doing so ample opportunity to participate in its own creative self-transformation.
