eChurch Blog

Nick Donnelly has the details.

On this topic the Get Religion blog have an interesting post on BBC bias.

And who could blame him? It’s an impossible job, in which one ends up derided and disparaged by both the evangelical and liberal wings of the church; or at least, that’s what I’ve witnessed happen to Williams. He seems to please nobody with the via media approach.

I reckon Williams watched his good friend, the ex-bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, quit to take up an academic life of bliss at the University of St Andrews in Fife, and thought: I’ll have some of that!

Dr Rowan Williams is understood to have told friends he is ready to quit the highest office in the Church of England to pursue a life in academia.

[....]

Lambeth Palace would not be drawn into confirming or denying whether the archbishop will be leaving next year.

[....]

It is understood that Trinity College, Cambridge, is preparing to create a professorship for Dr Williams, who studied theology and was a chaplain at the university.

….read all

’The end of the world’ signifies not the annihilation of the world, but its transformation. Everything will be transformed suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye…. And the Lord will appear in glory on the clouds. Trumpets will sound, and loud, with power! They will sound in the soul and conscience! All will become clear to the human conscience. The Prophet Daniel, speaking of the Last Judgment, relates how the Ancient of Days, the Judge, sits on His throne, and before Him is a fiery stream (Dan. 7:9-10). Fire is a purifying element; it burns sins. Woe to a man if sin has become a part of his nature: then the fire will burn the man himself. This fire will be kindled within a man; seeing the Cross, some will rejoice, but others will fall into confusion, terror, and despair. Thus will men be divided instantly. The very state of a man’s soul casts him to one side or the other, to right or to left.

SOURCE

Courtesy of the Orthodox Christianity blog, I discovered another blog called Early Christians on Abortion, which features just one post majoring on Jewish and early Christian thought relating to abortion.

In terms of Jewish thought, I was particularly interested to note that 1 Enoch 68:18 avers that an evil angel taught humans how to perform abortions:

The stroke of the embryo in the womb, to diminish [it]; (69) the stroke of the spirit [by] the bite of the serpent, and the stroke which is [given] in the mid-day [by] the offspring of the serpent, the name of which is Tabaet. (70)

(69) The stroke…to diminish it. Or, “the blows (which attack) the embryo in the womb so that it miscarries” (Knibb, p. 162).
(70) Tabaet. Literally, “male” or “strong” (Knibb, p. 162).

I’d strongly recommend hopping over and reading this blog post, which must surely be the definitive online resource on Jewish and early Christian thought on abortion.

Here’s a few quotes from the Church Fathers:

Letter of Barnabas

“The way of light, then, is as follows. If anyone desires to travel to the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works. The knowledge, therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of walking in this way, is the following…Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born.” (19:5; ca. 75-100 A.D.).

Didache (i.e., the so-called “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”)

“And the second commandment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born.” (Didache 2:2; ca. 100 A.D.?)

Clement of Alexandria

“Our whole life can go on in observation of the laws of nature, if we gain dominion over our desires from the beginning and if we do not kill, by various means of a perverse art, the human offspring, born according to the designs of divine providence; for these women who, in order to hide their immorality, use abortive drugs which expel the matter completely dead, abort at the same time their human feelings…Abortion is killing human life that is under God’s care, design and providence.” (Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 2.10, ca. 190-200 A.D.)

Tertullian

“In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed” (Apology 9:8; ca. 200).

Basil the Great (329-379 A.D.)

“She who has deliberately destroyed a fetus has to pay the penalty of murder. The hairsplitting difference between formed and unformed makes no difference to us….Here it is not only the child to be born that is vindicated, but also the woman herself who made an attempt against her own life, because usually the women die in such attempts. Furthermore, added to this is the destruction of the child, another murder… Moreover, those, too, who give drugs causing abortion are deliberate murderers themselves, as well as those receiving the poison which kills the fetus.” (Letter 188:2)

Ambrose of Milan (339 to 397 A.D.)

“The poor expose their children, the rich kill the fruit of their own bodies in the womb, lest their property be divided up, and they destroy their own children in the womb with murderous poisons. and before life has been passed on, it is annihilated.”

I’ll leave it there. Powerful stuff I’m sure you’ll agree.

It really is a world gone mad at times:

Postal workers refused to deliver CDs of Bible readings after deciding they were ‘offensive material’. Several churches had paid for discs with recordings of St Mark’s Gospel to be produced to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible.

They were due to be delivered to all households on the Channel Island of Jersey, but church leaders were stunned when they were told postal workers would not handle the 45,000 CDs.

Rev Liz Hunter of St Helier Methodist Centre said: Initially Jersey Post seemed quite positive about helping us deliver the CDs. But then a couple of weeks ago somebody from their marketing department phoned to say they would be unable to deliver them on the grounds that they could be deemed offensive.

They said there were guidelines about mass material that is sent out across the island and that religious recordings could offend people.

To be fair, Jersey Post they have now said this:

Jersey Post apologised for the incident, saying staff had misinterpreted guidelines. Chief Executive Kevin Keen, said: I understand that one of my colleagues did say the material was offensive.

I just clicked a link on the Rosh Pina Project to a Jewish website called Chabad.

The time now is 20:31 GMT and I was immediately forwarded to the Saturday Guard, which currently states:

This Website is protected with SaturdayGuard and closed during Saturday and Jewish holidays.  Saturday is out in 23 Hours and 32 minutes. According to your computer’s time at 20:04

I found this fascinating.

I used to work in e-commerce and I knew of a Christian owned online shop that used to shut down and make their website inaccessible on a Sunday. I used to think this was a brave – if not foolhardy – move, but you know what, they were incredibly successful.

So there you go….

I don’t think I can put this any better than Lori – Random Ramblings of a Stay at Home Mum – who fairly recently lost her husband to suicide:

[.....] My husband suffered from no diagnosed mental illness at the time of his death. However, when he was younger, he was, from what I was told by him, diagnosed with severe depression.

A pre-existing mental illness is a factor in most, but not all, attempted or completed suicides.

Personally, I think that just the act that you put a rope around your neck and jumped – not even once but twice – indicated that there is something very mentally wrong there. You don’t do that in a normal state of mind. You don’t do that just because you’re angry. That’s not a mentally ‘normal’ or healthy reaction, no matter what state your mental health was in up until that point.

Tony was stressed and worried and had a lot playing on his mind. Maybe he did have depression. Maybe not. The police and staff in the ICU agreed that Tony probably suffered from a violent psychosis.

I guess what all this comes back to is… why is mental illness such a dirty word? Why is it so shameful, so terrible, if he did have a mental illness? What difference does it make? Does it make what he did any better, any worse?

For pity’s sake. This is half the problem.

There is no more shame in being mentally ill then there is in having a cold, or a broken ankle, or cancer. It’s an illness. It doesn’t make you any less of a person.

Tomorrow is World Suicide Prevention Day. For the sake of family’s grieving all over the world…. talk about it. Speak.

I’m sorry, I know it’s a trivial story, but who in their right mind could resist a headline like this?

I thoroughly enjoyed the testimony of Brad Schilling, a Protestant convert to Catholicism, which echos my own journey, home to Rome.

It’s always satisfying to chart the growth of the Kingdom of God, and Russia’s where it’s happening right now.

69% of the Russians define themselves as Orthodox Christians, and 5% say they are Muslims. No more than 1% are Catholics, Protestants, Judaists or followers of other religions, the Yury Levada analytical center told Interfax on Thursday.

The center polled 1,600 people in August.

The number of Orthodox Christians in the country has grown by 13%, while the number of Muslims has enlarged by 2% since 2007, the center said.

The number of non-believers reduced from 33% to 22%.

SOURCE

As a small caveat, I will say that the numbers actually attending church seem a little low.

Also a priest has thrown his hat in the ring and challenged Putin and Medvedev for the Presidency. Not sure if he has much chance of success, but still heartening to read:

The initiative has provoked surprise and smiles in Russia: the extravagant character, a priest since 2001 and suspended on his own request in 2010, he proposes to give the country a “philosophical and ideological strategy, which Russia needs to become a nation.”