eChurch Blog

Marc notifies us of the fact that Augustine of Hippo died on this date in A.D. 430, as the Vandals were just about to sack his hometown. Today is also his feast day.

Interestingly, RAS over at the Orthodox Christian Faith blog has a couple of blog posts looking at whether Augustine held to a literal historical reading of Genesis, or allegorical.

This makes for very interesting reading, especially if – like me – you bought into the idea that Augustine held to a non-literalistic, allegorical stance.

I’d like to highlight a quote from Augustine that I think is pertinent and demonstrates that Augustine would have allowed himself to reconsider the Scriptural text in light of modern science.

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

The Prague Daily Monitor and Czech Position both report on the agreement reached on Aug. 24 between a Czech government commission and church representatives on compensating churches for property seized by the former Communist regime of Czechoslovakia. The agreement, which must now be approved by the Czech parliament, caps some 20 years of negotiations. Opposition parties have come out against the agreement, and the smallest party in the government coalition has expressed reservations about it. Under the agreement, the government will return 56% of the property to the churches, and will compensate them the equivalent of $(US)3.49 billion over 30 years for the remainder of the property. The final piece of the agreement, reached Thursday, calls for the government to continue for a 17-year transition period to pay clergy salaries and modest amounts for the upkeep of churches. The Catholic Church will receive 80% of the land and compensation, with the remainder divided among a number of other religious communities (Protestant, Orthodox, and Jewish). (See prior related posting.)

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If you’re the praying type, then please do remember our brothers and sisters in Libya, who are in a particularly precarious position currently.

The historic church of St. George located in Libya, in Tripoli, dating back to 1647 was ransacked. The church is the oldest Orthodox church in North Africa.

The president of the Greek community, Dimitris Anastassiou transferred the news to the Metropolitan of Tripoli Mr. Theophylaktos, who has been in Greece since late June.

“I am feeling heartbroken for what is happening in Libya, this beautiful country which was destroyed and whose people are noted for their hospitality,” stated Metropolitan of Tripoli, who settled in Libya in 1991.

”I was sad to hear the news from Mr. Anastassiou. The thieves stole the shrine of our patron saint which I had brought from Mount Athos. Old Gospels, chalices, cherubim, censers, one of which we had been given by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Those who stole the holy objects contacted the president of the community and asked for money in order to return them. Mr. Anastassiou reported the incident to the police, but as things are at the moment, noone will deal with this matter,” he said.

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Stacy has a piece up entitiled: Self-Injury and the Sacraments, which concludes thusly:

Our bodies are temples and we are sanctified if we receive the sacraments – the very indwelling of God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in us. That holiness makes us fully human and protects us from taunting demons. The Catechism says that Christ came to “heal the whole person, soul and body.” (CCC 1503) Sanctifying grace, I believe with all my happy heart, is the only way to completely conquer the urge to injure yourself.

I’d like to add that self-harm is making visible the invisible pain. Blood becomes liquid emotion.

Strange as it sounds, in one of the great ironies of modern times, there are just two segments of society that rely on the ready availablilty of super-thin paper: Bible readers and cigarette smokers. And guess which ones are in the majority? Apparently those of us who purchase Bibles really need the cigarette smokers to stick around. As Cambridge’s Bob Groser shared with me last month, if it weren’t for the demand for cigarette paper, there’s a good chance the mills producing Bible paper would go out of business. At the very least, costs would go up substantially.

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I must say that it was heartening to read an account of a chaplains work in a psychiatric ward in the US. I do wish chaplains had a similar role here in the UK, especially given the benefits of religion and spirituality on mental health.

The following is a brief outline of a recent longitudinal study, looking at the benefits of religion and spirituality specifically in relation to depression:

Objective: Previously the authors found that personal importance of religion or spirituality was associated with a lower risk for major depression in a study of adults with and without a history of depression. Here the authors examine the association of personal importance of religion or spirituality with major depression in the adult offspring of the original sample using a 10-year prospective longitudinal design.

Method: Participants were 114 adult offspring of depressed and non-depressed parents, followed longitudinally. The analysis covers the period from the 10-year to the 20-year follow-up assessments. Diagnosis was assessed with the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia-Lifetime Version. Religiosity measures included personal importance of religion or spirituality, frequency of attendance at religious services, and denomination (all participants were Catholic or Protestant). In a logistic regression analysis, major depression at 20 years was used as the outcome measure and the three religiosity variables at 10 years as predictors.

Results: Offspring who reported at year 10 that religion or spirituality was highly important to them had about one-fourth the risk of experiencing major depression between years 10 and 20 compared with other participants. Religious attendance and denomination did not significantly predict this outcome. The effect was most pronounced among offspring at high risk for depression by virtue of having a depressed parent; in this group, those who reported a high importance of religion or spirituality had about one-tenth the risk of experiencing major depression between years 10 and 20 compared with those who did not. The protective effect was found primarily against recurrence rather than onset of depression.

Conclusions: A high self-report rating of the importance of religion or spirituality may have a protective effect against recurrence of depression, particularly in adults with a history of parental depression.

Against the backdrop of the news that the creationist Everyday Champions Church in Newark are pursuing an application to found a free school – Everyday Champions School – Michael Roberts - M.A. (Oxon), Vicar in the Diocese of Blackburn – agreed to put a few words together for me.

You can find the essay on the below PDF link:

Everyday Champions – of what? (Should schools teach creationism?) The proposed Free School in Newark, Nottinghamshire.

I would encourage everyone to give a little time to read this, irrespective of your views on creationism.

Michael looks at the teaching of creationism within our schools and the dangers of “creeping creationism” within the education system. He covers the development of creationism, why it is wrong, and the challenge this presents to churches.

Michael’s writing has played no small part in my own development and understanding and it’s with this in my mind that I urge you to give this a read.

Hat-tip: James McGrath

Research at Bath shows how advertising can lead some Christians to feel they are justified in ignoring core beliefs.

The study found that although many Christians believed it was wrong to be materialistic, they were still willing to acquire material wealth if they were convinced of a product’s functional value.

The researchers surveyed more than 400 people living in the UK who were shown an advertisement for a watch that was either advertised as being an item of desire and public recognition, or as an item of functional value.

Half of the people surveyed identified themselves as being Christian and believing that materialism was wrong. The results showed that non-religious consumers did not prefer one advert over the other. However, the religious consumers were 25 per cent more likely to purchase the watch if they saw the advert that didn’t portray it as a materialistic item.

Dr Avi Shankar from our School of Management and his colleague Dr Ekant Veer from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, say the results of the study help to explain how many Christians acquire and store materialistic items for themselves and their family, despite many Biblical teachings that discourage hoarding wealth.

Dr Avi Shankar said: “It’s a really interesting case of being torn between the consumer-driven world that encourages material wealth and one’s religious beliefs.

“We found that expensive luxury watches that were advertised as being showy or an item of envy were frowned upon by religious consumers. However, when the same item was advertised as being high quality and enduring, rather than having materialistic value, the religious consumers were significantly more willing to purchase the product.”

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Hat-tip: BRIN

This is absolutely fascinating:

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. The scientists, who are members of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) at Rensselaer, used computational and analytical methods to discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the majority opinion. The finding has implications for the study and influence of societal interactions ranging from the spread of innovations to the movement of political ideals.

“When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority,” said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer. “Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame.”

As an example, the ongoing events in Tunisia and Egypt appear to exhibit a similar process, according to Szymanski. “In those countries, dictators who were in power for decades were suddenly overthrown in just a few weeks.”

The findings were published in the July 22, 2011, early online edition of the journal Physical Review E in an article titled “Social consensus through the influence of committed minorities.”

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