eChurch Blog

Found this one interesting:

TheUnderGround

With an iPod Touch, one can download a number of faith based apps including the St. James Bible (or other translations), a prayer list request organizer, or Questions to God, according to appolicious.

Some people have their iPod or iPhone in hand even before getting out of bed, so they can pray or look up Saint A Day. Other times they may read Psalms, Catholic News Service says.

Software developers are making hundreds of applications available that can translate in different languages or even decode ancient texts, or sound the alarm to remind one to pray, KansasCity.com says.

Industry observers see potential growth in this niche projecting some $25 billion by 2015, KansasCity.com says. Overall, users of handhelds are expected to reach one billion worldwide by 2014, Catholic News Service says.

Surely they don’t mean the specific spiritual application of this technology could potentially be worth some $25bn!

Nuns and devout Catholics can now say the rosary on their own, anywhere, with a handheld–tapping an audio by the Daughters of St. Paul and with some 18 pictures to depict the mysteries of the rosary, Catholic News Service says.

A theology professor uses apps to translate ancient biblical writings. It can also be used to study the Hebrew language. There are also apps for academic lectures and scholarly work, KansasCity.com says.

Daniel Johnson, president of Wisconsin Lutheran College says, “There’s not been a time in the history of man when it’s been as convenient to focus on one’s relationship with the Lord,” KansasCity.com says.

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This is the way things are heading whether we like it or not, and I personally know of fellow Christian bloggers starting to utilise iPhone and iPod Touch technologies.

For background reading see here and here.

The below link will take you to a PDF file which is the official response from The Board of Deputies to an upcoming Methodist conference paper entitled; Justice for Palestine and Israel .

The Board of Deputies represent a broad cross-section of the Jewish community throughout Britain, and are the chief voice of British Jewry:

The Board of Deputies – On Wednesday, 30 June 2010, the Methodist Conference will consider the paper, “Justice for Palestine and Israel” and debate its resolutions. Our serious concerns about the paper and its potential impact include:

BioLogos are having a spat with Richard Dawkins over an essay written by Daniel Harrell entitled; Adam and Eve: Literal or Literary, and it looks as if all prominent atheists have joined in the ruckus.

Meanwhile, some Christian YEC‘s from the Grace to You ministry (specifically Phil Johnson of Pyromaniacs), have also been fighting it out with BioLogos, in relation to geological history.

Biologos:

On Living in the Middle

This has been an interesting week for The BioLogos Forum. From the atheist camp, Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, and P.Z. Myers noticed Daniel Harrell’s essay, “Adam and Eve: Literal or Literary”, and had a few choice words for us. From the young earth creationist camp, Pastor John MacArthur’s team (see here and here) at Grace to You responded critically to our series on geological history.

When you’re trying to speak to both of two groups on opposite ends of the spectrum and trying to help each see there is middle ground, the forces tugging from opposite sides can be a little painful. Here are some of the responses we got this week:

From Richard Dawkins:

The Biologos Foundation was founded by Francis Collins, who was also its first President until he was nominated by President Obama to head the National Institutes of Health. It would be nice to think that, when Dr Collins was President of Biologos, an article as ridiculous as this could not have been published. Let us hope at least that, if he sees it and has time to read it, he will be profoundly embarrassed.

Jerry Coyne wrote something similar:

…If you accept apparent age to save the Bible, where does it stop?

More important: isn’t BioLogos embarrassed to have this kind of stuff on its website, which purports to accept the findings of science?

On the other side, Philip R. Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You had the following to say in reference to our critique of some of their young earth propositions:

If BioLogos is willing to throw away so much at the very foundations of our faith and at the very beginning of God’s revelation, I can’t imagine why they would want to keep up the pretense of being Christians at all. Selectively admiring the Bible’s moral teachings is not the same thing as actually believing the Bible.

And Travis Allen, Director of Internet Ministry at Grace to You, offered this:

It’s time for Christians to return to the self-attesting authority of God’s Word and forsake the “vain babblings and oppositions of science, falsely so called.”

At times like this, I think of Kermit the Frog’s song: “It’s not that easy being green…When I think it could be nicer being red or yellow or gold / Or something much more colorful like that.”

The problem with being in the middle is that both sides think they understand you, when neither does at all. Take Daniel Harrell’s outstanding essay for example. Those who are regulars at the BioLogos site all know what Harrell was doing in this essay. There are Christians whose very sense of purpose and meaning in life depend upon the historicity of Adam and Eve. For such persons, the non-historical approach of Pete Enns or Alister McGrath simply will not do. And when it comes to a historical Adam and Eve, Harrell lays out our only two options. Option #1 is that Adam and Eve were created with apparent age; Option #2 is (in Harrell’s words) “Adam and Eve exist as first among Homo sapiens, specially chosen by God as representatives for a relationship with him.”

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It is so refreshing to read a positive and encouraging article about the church, we desperately need more like this:

Challies – The Bride of Christ

During a webchat with users of Mumsnet, Richard Dawkins was asked to set up a “secular school” or an “atheist free school” as an antidote to faith schools, by women who believe they are divisive and anti-scientific.

Telegraph:

[.....]

Under plans disclosed by the Coalition last week, parents, charities and voluntary groups will be able to set up “free schools” funded by public money but independent from state control.

He replied: “Thank you for suggesting that I should start an atheist free school. I like the idea very much, although I would prefer to call it a free-thinking free school.

“I would never want to indoctrinate children in atheism, any more than in religion. Instead, children should be taught to ask for evidence, to be sceptical, critical, open-minded.

“If children understand that beliefs should be substantiated with evidence, as opposed to tradition, authority, revelation or faith, they will automatically work out for themselves that they are atheists.

Read All

It’s notable that Dawkins should bring up the issue of evidence in relation to belief systems, as yesterday Derek Leman posted an interesting article focusing on the issue of “rationality” and “evidence” in faith.

Derek’s post is in response to another blogger who states:

…..all arguments for faith are invalid. Then he says, I believe anyway.

[.....]

Belief is irrational, he says. He can’t help believing and doesn’t want to stop. But all arguments bolstering belief are invalid from the start. He relates this to some ideas from Hume.

Is faith irrational? Is it something other than faith if it has a reason?

[.....]

we have personal and interior reasons for certainty which are not based purely on reason. Lewis discussed this in an essay called “On Obstinacy in Belief” which is included in the volume The World’s Last Night.

I loved this following phrase which neatly sums up the problem we have in communicating our beliefs with atheists, who are dogmatically evidential in their approach:

Saying it simply: religious believers have reasons “reason knows not of.”

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So, would you send your child to a “free thinking” atheist school, or is Dawkins mistaken in his approach?

Michael over at Parchment & Pen has put together an observational tongue-in-cheek “beginners” list for the uninitiated in modern Christian phraseology and practice. Here’s a few of my favorites, but do hop across and let me know yours.

3. Backslidden: This has no reference to the past event of sliding down a hill on your back. It is used to refer to those Christians who are now suspect in their original confession due to their current participation in a particular sin.

4. “Ask Jesus into your heart”: Although there is nowhere in Scripture that people are commanded to ask Jesus into their heart, this has become the primary means by which Evangelicals believe a person becomes a Christian. Don’t be scared here. Heart surgery, high cholesterol, and cardiovascular exercise (or lack thereof) have no bearing on Christ’s presence in your heart. He does not actually live there.

11. The Water that Jesus Turned into Wine was Diluted to a Watery Grape juice: Although there is no biblical, historic, or cultural evidence to suggest it, you must believe that Christ did not turn the water into wine, but into watery grape juice. This is a cardinal doctrine.

13. Public Prayer: You will often find yourself in a situation where others are praying and you don’t know what to do. As a general rule, you should remain quiet and attempt to pray with them. If your mind drifts just try to make a quiet, yet slightly audible, sounds like “um” (not “ummmm”), “yes Lord,” and “amen.” They may be completely out of context, but you will still be better off. This is very well accepted.

18. Raising hands during worship: Be very careful with this. The first thing you need to know is that this is not the way to ask a question during church service, but a way to worship. Churches are not in agreement about its validity. Some churches allow the “Full throttle” (raising hands above your head either with hands spread or index finger pointed), but some places only allow the “Governor” (hands raised to chest high position). Some churches will see any extension of hands as a sign of self-promotion and you will be asked to leave. The best approach is to ask the usher while being seated.

24. “Hedge of protection”: This is the way to pray for the protection of a loved one. Its the primary Christian defense against demonic forces. No one really knows what a “hedge of protection” is, but everyone knows that Satan does not fair well when its presence is evoked.

30. “Anti-Christ”: Obama

35. “If it be God’s Will”: A spiritual sounding addition to prayer. It indicates that you don’t really think God is going to answer your prayer. Use this phrase a lot, it’ll save you a lot of disappointment.

Read them all….

T’is time for our weekly dose of psychobabble.

Physorg:

In two studies led by Assistant Psychology Professor Michael Inzlicht, participants performed a Stroop task – a well-known test of cognitive control – while hooked up to electrodes that measured their brain activity.

Compared to non-believers, the religious participants showed significantly less activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a portion of the brain that helps modify behavior by signaling when attention and control are needed, usually as a result of some anxiety-producing event like making a mistake. The stronger their religious zeal and the more they believed in God, the less their ACC fired in response to their own errors, and the fewer errors they made.

“You could think of this part of the brain like a cortical alarm bell that rings when an individual has just made a mistake or experiences uncertainty,” says lead author Inzlicht, who teaches and conducts research at the University of Toronto Scarborough. “We found that religious people or even people who simply believe in the existence of God show significantly less brain activity in relation to their own errors. They’re much less anxious and feel less stressed when they have made an error.”

These correlations remained strong even after controlling for personality and cognitive ability, says Inzlicht, who also found that religious participants made fewer errors on the Stroop task than their non-believing counterparts.

Their findings show religious belief has a calming effect on its devotees, which makes them less likely to feel anxious about making errors or facing the unknown. But Inzlicht cautions that anxiety is a “double-edged sword” which is at times necessary and helpful.

“Obviously, anxiety can be negative because if you have too much, you’re paralyzed with fear,” he says. “However, it also serves a very useful function in that it alerts us when we’re making mistakes. If you don’t experience anxiety when you make an error, what impetus do you have to change or improve your behaviour so you don’t make the same mistakes again and again?”

Further link:

Pew Forum – Study: Devout are less stressed than non-believers

From One Law for All and previous post here:

Several hundred people joined One Law for All on 20 June at Downing Street to show their opposition to Sharia and religious-based laws in Britain and elsewhere and to demand universal rights and secularism.

A new report “Sharia Law in Britain: A Threat to One Law for All and Equal Rights” was published on the day to coincide with the rally. Human rights activist Gita Sahgal said of the report: “I think it is highly significant that in Britain there has been silence where there should have been condemnation. There is active support for ‘Sharia laws’ precisely because it is limited to denying women rights in the family. No hands are being cut off, so there can’t be a problem. Unfortunately for us, senior law officers will find that human rights expert bodies often have a similar attitude. They have done little research on the impact of family laws and the denial of justice caused by parallel systems of justice. That is why the findings of this report are so important. It is such dedicated work that changes the thinking of the experts.”

She went on to say: “This campaign stands at the heart of a debate over the future of Britain. It also stands at the heart of global attempts to destroy the most basic rights, to invade liberty and to crush equality and to do this in the name of upholding and promoting human rights. We stand here today facing down forces of racism and fundamentalism as we struggle for secularism.”

The pro-Sharia Al-Muhajiroun organised a counter-demonstration to the One Law for All rally. One of their members said: “We find many of these people who call for human rights and one law. They come and they say that they want equality. But what equality do you get when one man legislates over another?” In response, One Law for All Spokesperson, Maryam Namazie, said: “The fight against Sharia law is a fight against Islamism not Muslims, immigrants and people living under Sharia here or elsewhere. So it is very apt for the Islamists to hold a counter-demonstration against our rally. This is where the real battleground lies. With a few members of the far Right English Defence League also there to showcase their bigotry, it became abundantly clear to everyone why our Campaign is fast becoming the banner carrier for universal rights, equality, and one secular law for all in this country and beyond.”

MC Fariborz Pooya of the Iranian Secular Society said: “The One Law for All Campaign has brought to centre stage an important debate about the kind of society we want to live in whilst defending the rights of everyone irrespective of religion, race, nationality…; this Campaign is truly the voice of the voiceless.”

Women’s rights campaigner Yasmin Rehman said: “We Muslims have been a part of the UK for many, many years but the generations before me did not feel the need for or call for segregation in the way that is being demanded now. At the beginning of my career as a women’s rights advocate there was no need to apply for a certificate of Khula in divorce cases. Muslim women are now being told that divorces under the English legal system are not valued or recognised without a certificate of Khula – and should they remarry without this they will be committing Zina – a ‘crime’ punishable by death in many Muslim countries. This is not a view shared by all Islamic scholars but a view that is being pushed through the Islamic councils and tribunals across the UK.”

Anna Waters of One Law for All’s Legal Team said: “Any reasonable interpretation of the Human Rights Act shows us that there are certain things that it doesn’t allow – and one of the things it doesn’t allow is for a woman to have an inferior or second class status when she stands before a judge in a court of law. This is exactly what is happening…”

Sue Robson of the Gay And Lesbian Humanist Association said: “This is a human rights issue. Here in the UK, it’s an egalitarian issue; it’s a feminist issue. Elsewhere in our world, the issue is life – and death.”

Gerard Phillips of the National Secular Society said that Sharia Law was “nothing less than an attack on human rights and on equality.” He went on to say: “It undermines our democracy. It must be opposed.”

The rally also heard from others including Naomi Phillips of the British Humanist Association, poets from the Anti-Injustice Movement and singer Adam Barnett.

Protestors then joined a march organised by Iran Solidarity to the embassy of the Islamic regime of Iran. Patty Debonitas of Iran Solidarity UK said: “By coming today you are showing your solidarity with the people here who are victimised under Sharia law and people in Iran who are being victimised under the state power of Sharia.” The rally was held on 20 June to mark the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan at a protest in Tehran last year and link the fight against Sharia here with that in Iran and elsewhere.

On the day, Maryam Namazie was interviewed on BBC 1 TV’s Breakfast Programme, and some other media outlets. They will be posted on the media coverage section of the website.

Further Link:

Harry’s Place – Sharia Shenanigans

Even though this incident took place in the US, I’m cross-posting this from Christian over at HomeBrewedTheolgy, as this has exploded across the blogosphere, and even penetrated Christian forums here in the UK, with cries of persecution most foul.

Is It Persecution When You Break The Law?

Seems that the Christian blogs are abuzz today over the arrest of 3 people at an Arab-American festival in Dearborn, Michigan.  If you were to take these blogs at face value, then you’d have to believe that they were arrested, or persecuted as some say, simply for “sharing their faith with Muslims”.  But, like most things, there’s much more than meets the eye.

It seems that a judge in Dearborn issued a ban on any group distributing materials on the sidewalk within 5 blocks of the festival.  It’s not as if George Saieg, the man behind the evangelistic operation, didn’t know about this because he was the one that originally challenged the ban…….and lost.

As a show of good faith, the festival organizers offered him a free booth for his evangelism.  He didn’t take them up on the offer.

So, when the festival came, he willfully disregarded the law (seems there’s a Romans 13 reference in here somewhere), and was arrested.  Then all hell broke loose.

Cries of persecution rang from every Christian blog.  One of those arrested even said “There are certain elements of Sharia law being adhered to in Dearborn.”

Please, in the name of all that is Holy, stop.

Proclaiming the gospel is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card or even a ‘disregard laws we don’t like’ card.  Scripture is abundantly clear on this issue.  These sort of hysterics do more to damage the cause of Christ than all the positive they do.

If you chose to break the law, claiming persecution, especially in this country, is disingenuous at best and utter nonsense at worst.

Polycarp has also just blogged on this:

Polycarp – Dearborn, Michigan, Islam and the Gospel of John – Overreaction from both sides

I’ve got a few links which I found interesting, so thought I’d share them:

Wycliffe – Why translate the Bible?

Guardian – Did Moishe Rosen die a Jew or a Christian?

BeliefNet – The Future of Denominations

Christianity Today – The Risks God Takes

Maggi Dawn – BP and the Bible – I also blogged on this here.

Telegraph – ITV will broadcast just one hour of religious programming this year while Five will not show any, the channels have admitted to the Church of England.

Parchment & Pen – Is the Bible That Big of a Mystery?

Telegraph – On two occasions last week my dog was barred from London buses on religious grounds, writes Judith Woods.

The Church Mouse – CofE based sitcom to start on BBC2 next week

The Church of Jesus Christ – Wormwood and Bitterness – The 3rd Trumpet

Phil’s Treehouse – It’s alright everyone, it was only a nightmare. As this video clearly shows, Robert Green didn’t make a massive error for England against the USA and we actually won the game 1-0!

Near Emmaus – The Verb “Love”

Independent – Don’t be shy of evangelising, archbishops tell Anglicans

Bish Nick Baines – Good news for Rochester + To lead or be led? (Winnipeg 3)