eChurch Blog

Two quotes from two different sources peering through the metaphorical lens at the deification of the beast that must be obeyed; namely, The Market.

The governments of the world, of course, bow down to the  Market. It is said you can’t buck it. You must prove yourself strong to be trusted. For if you cannot feed the Market with the debt repayments it deserves, it will not pour out its bounty upon you with lower bond rates. If you cannot impress the Market with your country’s virtue, your currency will decline or – if you are in the Euro – you will be required to cut the size of your state. Democracy is no defence – if you cannot meet the Market’s ravenous demands then it will install a new leader for you – one who understands the ways of the Market.

SOURCE

And:

The old God sanctioned the king to act as Christ, and suffer for the benefit of his people before bouncing back; the market-god and its plebeian rival expected the same from government with bourgeois liberty and social justice vying for the role of the holy spirit. Today, worshippers of the omnipotent market and of the masses seem ready to dispense with the services of any government-as-Christ. Salvation will come through the will “of the market” or of the “people” directly materialising itself.

SOURCE

Both of these rather ominous pieces are worth your time to read in full.

Continuing in prayerful reading of Scripture, we move into the 2nd Sunday, it is still a time of waiting and wonder, but now we hear the call to the Wilderness, to prepare and make straight our paths, so we may see the saving presence of God.

Having visited the Sahara Desert, apart from the vast expanse, the harshness of the rough of the terrain, the obvious barrenness, what stuck me most was how could anything (me included) actually cope in such an environment?

The wilderness is a place of such unfamiliarity, immediately we are out of our comfort zone. Luckily for me, we were in a 4 x 4, with excellent guides who knew exactly where they were, and how to get to the nearest Oasis. I simply would not have been there otherwise.

Yet this is where we are called to go. It is in the Wilderness that the Gospel, the new message of consolation is proclaimed, it is here that the knowledge of our Lord’s saving power is brought to mankind.  It is in the wilderness we find God’s saving Presence and Help.

Spiritually it is an unnerving place to go. If left to our own devices perhaps we are all too acutely aware that we will not survive. We need our survival kits, we need certain things to make us feel secure, which we can pull out of the hat when necessary – when the going gets tough. Outside of our comfort zone, we are not perfectly safe, especially if we are called to leave behind our little luxuries and our securities, as they alleviate our fears, and stop us from worrying. Having to trust Another to save us is scary. Surely we could keep back something, or continue doing the things that we have always been doing, which make our journey easier?

John the Baptist is in the Wilderness shouting “Prepare a way for the Lord”. How can we prepare a way? Perhaps one way is to look again at what we are taking with us, what ‘security blankets’ we have, and perhaps we may begin to start letting go of things that hold us back from entering more fully into His Love.

“Lord, Help to make straight our paths, so we may enter into your Love, Peace and Joy.”

First Reading  Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11

Second Reading 2 Peter 3:8-14

Gospel Acclamation Luke 3:4,6

Gospel Mark 1:1-8

Readings for 2nd week of Advent

Monday 

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

It’s not often I find myself in the position whereby I’m forced to ‘call’ another blogger out publicly, but I’m sure you’ll agree, in this instance, my hand has been forced.

Archdruid Eileen is propagating the spurious myth that’s doing the rounds currently, relating to the allegation that a genuine protester has been discovered at the ‘Occupy the Cathedral’ protest.

Here’s what she says:

Apparently among the tent sales people, flash-mob choristers, unemployed canons, plain-clothes police and undercover reporters, they’ve found a genuine protester. Everyone’s livid.

After strenuous, time consuming and costly investigative operations on my part, I can confirm (exclusively) that this is not the case.

The ‘protestor’ is in fact a method actor, deep undercover and preparing for his role in the upcoming movie: The Good, the Bad and the Occupier.

I will say that this is only a working film title and other proposed titles are:

Nightmare on St. Paul’s Street

Alice in Occupyland

Occupier on a hot tin roof

Close encounters of the occupier kind

Clueless

Da Occupier Code

Dazed and Confused

The Day the Occupier Stood Still

Despicable Occupier

Diary of an Occupier Kid

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Dumb and Occupier

Gangs of St Paul’s

The Hunchback of St Paul’s

The Neverending Story

Nightmare Before Christmas

One who flew over the Occupiers nest

Yeah, you’re right; I really need to stop.

Anyway, I hope that I’ve put this malicious and damaging rumour to bed once and for all.

And if you’ve heard of any other proposed film titles, do let me know.

This post comes off the back of Chris’ blog post – Religion and More – entitled: Atheist Aesthetics.

By way of introduction, Chris is one of those thoroughly interesting chaps with a brain the size of a small planet and is a little difficult to pin labels on. I asked him how he’d self-identify and he replied on Twitter:

If you take atheist to mean ‘without god’ then sure, but I hate the term and it actually seems to mean a lot more than that. If it means anti-religious, Darwinian, scientistic… Not me. Agnostic fits better, but not in the sense that I ‘don’t know’ or am ‘seeking’, I more ‘just don’t care much about my own personal beliefs’ and prefer to spend my time studying others’, so I think best just say ‘nonreligious’… But if you have to use terms then atheistic-agnostic?

See what I mean? I get the distinct impression that Chris hates labels as much as I do; for the simple reason that we no longer know what these labels actually mean to other folks. The label ‘Evangelical’ is a prime example from the Christian world. This term now seems to come complete with anti-science and political connotations.

It’s worth noting that Chris is a scholar in Religious Studies and a fine one at that.

Anyway.

Chris begins his blog post with a notable observation:

…..a couple of academics and I were talking in the pub yesterday about how atheism is largely responsible for the apparent resurgence of religion these days, and how humanism is basically religion devoid of the belief but attempting to maintain the ritual.

This alone is worth a blog post, but it’s the phenomenon of atheists hijacking Christian symbolism for their own ends, which is of import to this blog post.

Here is a classic and well known example:

The parody of the Ichthys symbol.

Did you know that some atheists go as far as to plop a representation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster atop their Christimas Tree? Neither did I. The question is why and that is what Chris’ blog post explores.

It could of course all just be a joke, but there may be more too it. I’m sure Chris won’t mind if I reproduce some most of his intriguing blog post here:

Katie Aston, a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths University in London researching atheist aesthetics and material cultures, suggests that such non-religious symbols, taken at face value as a joke, may serve similar purposes to explicitly religious images.

“The visual in a non-religious worldview, is of great importance,” Aston said, “it forms a vehicle for a number of ideas which either express or support the practice of a non-religious life and on occasion outwardly reject the religious images offered.”

[.....]

It might be said that the symbol’s strength is found in its resemblance to a common Christian sign.

[.....]

So why do atheists convert otherwise religious icons into secular symbols? Often times for impact.

“The use of a simple symbol in a film, a book or an advertisement says far more than any wordy explanation ever could” wrote Adele Nozedar in The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols, “Signs and symbols, our invention of them and understanding of them, transcend the barriers of written language and are the very heart of our existence as human beings.”

And so, these secular symbols and icons of the non-religious communicate what it means to be an atheist or agnostic. They are defiant and often juxtaposed to classic religious symbols. But this only tells half the story, it only establishes what atheists and agnostics do not believe or who they are not.

[.....]

Whether the symbols tell us what atheists think or what they don’t believe, whether they be “negative” or “positive,” they provide a window into a non-religious identity culture that is continuously emerging in modern Western society.

On the back of vehicles, tee shirts, billboards or even atop Christmas trees these images are intimations of what it means to be atheist in a world full of religious signs and symbols. They provide identity, meaning and comfort to the world’s non-religious.

As Aston concluded, “images used in ‘non-religious’ realms, can produce a similar sense of awe, a sense of the enormity of which we cannot know and a material, shared reference point for members of a community with similar world views.”

Fascinating.

I’ve left out some of the blog post which looked at ‘positive symbols’ atheists use and so I’d encourage you to read the whole blog post for yourself for the sake of balance.

I’ve often wondered at the atheist motivation to co-opt religious symbols.

Why do you think they employ such tactics?

UPDATE: The original source for ‘Atheist Aesthetics’ was a blog post written by Ken Chitwood and can be found here.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has expressed concern over an upsurge of violence against Christian minorities in the Middle East and North Africa.

“One of the most symbolic tendencies of our time is a mass exodus of Christians from the Middle East and North Africa, caused by an unprecedented increase in violence against religious minorities in the region,” Patriarch Kirill said at a meeting with international conference participants in Moscow.

The Middle East is the cradle of the world’s three key religions, which “historically explains the presence of followers of each there,” he said.

However, ongoing events make the possibility of Christians being squeezed out of this region “quite realistic,” he added.

Christians have become “hostages of big politics”, and their situation is growing much worse as a result of foreign intervention in the affairs of the region’s states, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said.

“The term christianophobia has been present in the political vocabulary only for the past few years. It is not accidental because, as observers have noted, it is the Christians who are becoming the most persecuted religious group in the world today,” he said.

Driving Christian minorities out of the region will open the door to “extremism preachers, who will create an unknown enemy’s image quite successfully,” Patriarch Kirill said.

“We again call for the creation of a viable mechanism to protect the rights of Christians and Christian communities, which could be developed through open dialogue involving representatives of other religious communities,” he said.

SOURCE

British Religion in Numbers have all the stats.

Today I thought along with using the Jesuit method for praying Scripture, I would post a brief commentary for the Gospel, from Ireland’s Dominicans Goodnews.ie  as it was challenging yet edifying.

First Reading Isaiah 30: 19-21, 23-26

Thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:

Gospel Acclamation Isaiah 55:6

Alleluia, alleluia!

Seek the Lord while he is still to be found,

call to him while he is still near.

Gospel  Matthew 9:35-10:1,5,6-8

Jesus made a tour through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom and curing all kinds of diseases and sickness.

Commentary – Donagh O’Shea

“Praise is cheap today,” wrote Thomas Merton.  “Everything is praised.  Soap, beer, toothpaste, clothing, mouthwash, movie stars, all the latest gadgets which are supposed to make life more comfortable – everything is constantly being ‘praised’.  Praise is now so overdone that everybody is sick of it, and since everything is ‘praised’ with the official hollow enthusiasm of the radio announcers, it turns out in the end that nothing is praised.  Praise has become empty.”

People were “harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.”  Today it has a different twist; it’s not that we have no shepherds to direct us; it’s that we have too many of them, all trying to lead us in different directions.  We have millions of them in the advertising industry, for example, who don’t care what happens to us so long as we buy their products.  Advertisers (but not only they) exploit our dissatisfaction with life as it is.  We are at their mercy when we believe that fulfilment is not to be had in the present but only in the future.  Christian preaching is sometimes a kind of persuasion, using the same methods as the advertising industry.  But it is meant to be proclamation: “As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’”  The good news is that the Kingdom (the Presence) of God is among us.  It is news, not ads.

Great news folks, to my astonishment I have been featured alongside the greatly esteemed Ben Trovato on the Catholic Internet Watch blog which seeks to:

Expose Catholic lunacy, prejudice and hypocrisy on the web.

I’m honoured and thrilled to win this accolade and this represents my crowning blogging achievement to date.

The fact that I hadn’t been featured previously, had given rise to secret consternation that I wasn’t Catholic enough; or that I was too liberal. In one fell swoop all of these fears and worries have been alleviated.

My thanks go to everybody that has helped me along the way to achieve this glory.

Here’s a snippet from the award ceremony:

Gloucester County Council has halted the practice of saying prayers at council meetings and Bideford Town Council in Devon is being taken to the High Court over its continuation of the practice. Catholic bloggers Stuart James of the eChurchBlog and Ben Trovato are predictably in a huff about this. For many Christians, council meeting prayers seem to have become emblematic of their religious privileges. If council prayers are allowed, then they feel better. If they are taken away, then they start worrying about becoming victims of the impending Great Persecution of Christians by those evil secularists and atheists.

Here’s a quote from the National Secular Society today:

The Christian Legal Centre is becoming a nuisance and an irritant. Trying to re-write the equality law to its own tastes and benefit will always fail, and in the process make Christianity look like a weak and whiney — not to say unpleasant — religion.

Here’s how it should have read:

The National Secular Society is becoming a nuisance and an irritant. Trying to re-write the equality law to its own tastes and benefit will always fail, and in the process make Secularism look like a weak and whiney — not to say unpleasant — religion.

On a serious note, antipodal organisations have a symbiotic relationship and if they do not have each other to declaim and harangue, then they lose their impetus and raison d’etre.

They should thank one another once in a while.

PS – “Whiney” is spelt “Whiny”.

I don’t usually highlight these all too frequent prayer bans and controversies at council meetings, but as I live in Gloucestershire, I will make an exception:

PRAYERS have been banned from full council meetings at Shire Hall – causing fury from Gloucester’s Sheriff.

For years, Gloucestershire County Council has observed a one-minute prayer at the start of all full council meetings.

The time of quiet reflection has allowed politicians to take a moment, steady their thoughts and prepare for debate.

But the current chairman of the authority, Councillor Brian Thornton (Con, Tidenham), said he believes the historic practice “excludes” some of them.

To a shocked council chamber before a meeting at Shire Hall on Wednesday, he said: “This is not a religious setting, it is a council one. As such, I have decided I do not wish to cause exclusion in any way, so we will do without the prayers.”

He added that some politicians might feel “embarrassed” about taking part.

The stance caused fury, with the deputy Mayor of Gloucester and Sheriff, Councillor Pam Tracey calling it “disgusting”.

….continue

Sad.

As you might imagine the National Secular Society are delighted.

Whilst on the subject of the NSS and prayers at council meetings, the NSS legal challenge against Bideford Town Council in Devon has reached the High Court. Apparently this action was taken after a complaint was made by councillor Clive Bone, in which he claimed he was disadvantaged and embarrassed as a non-believer by the saying of prayers as part of council business.

It’s worth hopping over to Ben’s blog at this point as he raises some very interesting observations on the matter.