Latest Articles
Breakaway Anglicans told to return property
A Virginia judge has ordered seven congregations that broke from the
Episcopal Church to return all property to the local diocese—from...
Paul's sneer
Paul has a way with a sneer. Nineteen times in 1 Corinthians 1, Paul mentions wisdom, and each time we hear a growing sneer in his voice, until he nominates Christ as the wisdom of God. The word "wisdom" is distasteful to him because it is wooing the Corinthians to pursue a dead wisdom when they might turn to a wisdom he calls the "source of life"--and come alive.
When Paul writes that Christ is the wisdom of God, he's tapping into an ancient way of speaking about God. He's drilling down into proverbs, where wisdom plays the part of the creative spirit of God. Wisdom is begotten of God, the firstborn of all creation, the very spirit alive in Creation, a feminine expression of God. This isn't just some hocus pocus stuff from the Old Testament, either. The New Testament writers are so influenced by this thinking that they pay homage to Lady Wisdom everywhere.
My cat hides dead mice. What else is he hiding?
My wife and I have been joking with our neighbors lately about TV ads that a Super PAC supporting their cat, Kobie, might run against our cat, Owl. Now Scott Simon's reporting on an ad someone actually made.
Monday digest
New today from the Century: the editors on the Qur'an burning, Carol Howard Merritt on social media and spirituality, more.
Albert Nobbs
Albert Nobbs's journey from page to stage to screen has been long
and bumpy. Simone Benmussa adapted a short story by Irish writer George
Moore into the play The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs; this was
then nearly made into a film by the celebrated Hungarian director Istvan
Szabo. The fact that the project was still alive and kicking in 2011 is
due, in large part, to the determination of Glenn Close.
The spiritual nature of social media
What have you gained from on-line worship and community? How has it impacted your life? What are the negative aspects of it?
High anxiety: The terror of the dark unknown
Anxiety has a way of turning otherwise faithful Christians into foxhole atheists. I'm too busy worrying to pray.
William Hamilton, who said 'God is Dead,' dies at 87
c. 2012 Religion News Service
PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) William Hamilton, the retired theologian who declared
in the 1960s that God was dead, died Tuesday (Feb. 28) in his downtown...
Senate rejects conscience clause change to contraception rule
c. 2012 Religion News Service
(RNS) The Senate on Thursday (March 1) defeated a Republican-led bid to...
Minnesota church learns price of supporting gays
A small Minnesota church is finding out the high cost of standing up
for same-sex equality—while also receiving an unexpected lifeline from...
We are who God says we are
In the incarnation, life,
death and resurrection of Christ we see that God is so for us and with us that
we can no longer be defined according to death, a religion-based worthiness
system or even the categories of late-stage capitalism.
Do grain subsidies make Americans consume more calories?
Christopher Shea highlights a new study that analyzes the effect of U.S. grain and soy subsidies on the American diet. The study's abstract leads with its contrarian, we're-taking-on-Michael-Pollan angle:
Many commentators have speculated that agricultural policies have
contributed to increased obesity rates in the United States, yet such
claims are often made without any analysis of the complex links between
real-world farm commodity support programs, prices and consumption of
foods, and caloric intake.
Friday digest
New today from the Century: Katherine Willis Pershey on anxiety, Nadia Bolz-Weber's seven-word gospel, more.
Links? Links.
Here are some things I read recently but didn't get around to blogging about.
The Forgotten Affairs of Youth, by Alexander McCall Smith
Isabel Dalhousie, the Edinburgh-based philosopher who edits the Journal of Applied Ethics, is not everyone's cup of tea. Her niece, Cat, is usually irritated with her....
It is about the money: Against docetic offertory prayers
Docetic offertory prayers imply that the money inside the envelopes in the offering plates is unimportant, even embarrassing.
John Hick, influential philosopher of religion
John H. Hick, a prolific author renowned on British and U.S....
Reading the Magnificat during Lent
I’m taking a class on the Gospel of Luke this semester, and one of my assignments is to engage in an ongoing spiritual practice related to that particular Gospel. So for the entire semester I am reading the Magnificat daily. It’s a passage that I’ve been drawn to in recent years, but it has been particularly illuminating to be dwelling on it during Lent this year, since it is typically confined to the Advent season. Somehow the triumphal language of the justice that God has already accomplished fits with the modern treatment of Advent as a celebratory season. But Lent is a season of penance, which puts an entirely different spin on the text.
Forty-eight senators voted for this?
So, the Blunt amendment got killed in the Senate. And good riddance: you wouldn't know it from the L.A. Times's writeup, but the measure was a good bit broader than a reversal of the Obama administration's contraception mandate (which itself would have been nothing to celebrate). From the amendment text (pdf):
A health plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the
essential health benefits package...on the basis that it declines to
provide coverage of specific items or services because...providing
coverage (or, in the case of a sponsor of a group health plan, paying
for coverage) of such specific items or services is contrary to the
religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other
entity offering the plan.
In other words, essentially a line-item veto of whatever the boss is morally opposed to, based on church teaching or otherwise.
Thursday digest
New today from the Century: docetic offertory prayers, Lillian Daniel reviews James Howell, more.