Dr. Timothy George, dean of Samford University, speaks at press conference Friday, photo courtesy Christian Post

A coalition of 152  Evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox leaders have issued a 4,700 word statement addressing the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious liberty.  The Manhattan Declaration: A Call to Christian Conscience is more than a list of convictions.   The document is a pledge to engage in civil disobedience in defense of the outlined principles, if necessary:

“We will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriage or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family.”

Signatories include nine Catholic archbishops, by my count,…

Doors represent both the barriers to entry and the high levels of commitment common to strict churches

Saturday morning I was cleaning the house in my pajamas when the doorbell rang. Two young Jehovah’s Witnesses stood amid the leaves on my porch, and after excusing myself to change clothes I invited them in for a moment, as I try to do when they appear from time to time.  Perched side by side on my couch with Bible in hand, the pair brought to mind my own experiences as a young Mormon missionary in Portugal, and I was happy to read a verse of scripture with them.

Something about this young man and woman prompted me to put the conversation on a more personal tack, and I asked them to tell me how they came to be affiliated with the Witnesses. Despite the friendly front-room visits I’ve shared with Jehovah’s Witnesses over the…

Vaclav Havel, center in red scarf, placing a candle at a Prague commemoration of the Velvet Revolution (Petr David Josek/AP)

The New York Times did a nice retrospective yesterday on Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution on its 20th anniversary. I was 15 years old when the Berlin Wall fell along with all the other Eastern European dominoes that fell in its wake. Just old enough to have a global consciousness, but not quite old enough to have a sense of what it all meant and what it still means today. I’m still learning.

Of course, the Times didn’t mention the role religion played in the Czech Republic’s peaceful move toward a free democracy and society. That doesn’t bother me; that’s what we’re here for. And by sheer coincidence I ran across this passage last week by Stanley Hauerwas, written in his book After Christendom, not long after the monumental events of 1989.

These questions [about the “awkward” role of…

As a father with three boys in the Rockwood School District, it was with great interest that I read Tim Townsend’s recent STLtoday.com article on the issue of the school district’s stance of using B.C.E. and C.E. instead of the more traditional B.C. and A.D. when referencing the dates of historical events.

For those new to the controversy, a quick refresher:

B.C. is the abbreviation for Before Christ while A.D. is the abbreviation for Anno Domini (Latin, “in the year of the Lord”). The new designations allegedly remove the Christian implications and stand for Common Era and Before Common Era.

Does it matter whether we use B.C. or B.C.E?

Some comments from Rockwood Superintendent Craig Larson, from Townsend’s article:

“There’s no agenda here,” he said. “We’re just teaching kids how to understand dates.”

Last week, Larson reacted to the debate on his blog.

“Within the last 10-15 years, CE/BCE has started to appear in student textbooks, usually along with AD/BC and…

Jim and Betty, myparentswereawesome.com

Several months back a Facebook friend sent me a link to the website People of Walmart and I quickly became addicted to it.  People of Walmart is crowdsourced, meaning that it is dependent on contributions from the masses for its content.  The format is simple:  contributors submit photos taken at any WalMart   The photos are accompanied by captions; some clever, others just vicious.  What will you find at the site?  Many large people in tiny clothes, people in almost no clothes, lots of mullets and other eccentric hairstyles, semi-committed cross dressers, shockingly obscene t-shirts, creepy clowns and disturbing tattoos.  None of it is pretty.  Study some paintings by Bruegel the Elder and you’ll wind up with a similar sensation.  Humanity as displayed on People of Walmart is nasty, brutish and extremely overweight.    The site is funny, and wildly popular.  You can now purchase People of Walmart t-shirts and hoodies to…

Authors note: This is probably not the kind of post your used to reading.  This is not the kind of post I ever envisioned writing.  But the muse struck.  Please excuse me, while I honor the muses.  Think of this as a one act, one scene play.  Please don’t take the characters seriously.  I used them to present a problem, not be an answer.  I consider none superior to the other two.

Fundie, Libby, and Abbie are resting on a park bench, musing about the nature of Truth and God.  The conversation is hours old and the three are at that philosophical place where all are making their final claims.  Fundie starts…

Truth must be absolute.  Why do you think they call it the Truth?  God gave me the ability to conceptualize absolute truth and it is absurd to suggest that God’s gift be for nothing.  Plato was right, if absolute truth…

Recently the annual IUCN Red List of Threatened Species was published. It shows that 70 percent of identified plants, 35 percent of invertebrates, 37 percent of freshwater fish, 30 percent of amphibians, 28 percent of reptiles, and 12 percent of birds are under threat. The survival of a total of 17,921 species is in jeopardy. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

We humans are causing the sixth mass extinction, with more than a hundred species becoming extinct per day. We have created the global problematique, with population explosion (a 50 percent increase is expected worldwide in several decades), habitat devastation, environmental pollution, resource exhaustion, climate change, desertification, and wars all intertwined. We face ecological and economic collapse, twin human-centered devastations that have become the ego-logical problematique of our age.

This is due to our karma. Most advanced in selfishness, societies, statuses, symbolism, and sciences, humankind is acting as a cancer, causing…

“Search the depths of your own heart and you will find the Torah; Search the depths of the Torah and you will find your own heart!” Reb Zalman Schachter-ShalomiAs one who toils daily in the “retail end” of the “Lord’s Vineyard”, I have come to feel a special resonance with the 18th Chapter of the Book of Exodus which records an encounter between Moses, the somewhat beleaguered, overwhelmed leader of the nascent Israelite Nation and his wise, experienced father-in-law, the venerated philo-semitic Sheik of Midian, Jethro.

I am deeply moved by so many elements of our Torah’s depiction of this reunion. How wonderful it is to see a seasoned “manager of human resources” who is so willing to share - freely - of his vast knowledge! How refreshing to come across a powerful and accomplished “Chief Spiritual Officer” of a nation who is both humble and open enough to hear constructive criticism…

photo courtesy buynothingchristmas.org

The first Christmas after we married my husband and I had almost no money at all but still wanted to be able to give each other something special.  We each made a list of ten things that we’d like for Christmas and then exchanged the lists to take the guess work out of shopping.  One might argue that we’d also taken the thought out of the process, but that didn’t occur to us at the time.  And so we took our lists and carried out our “plan” to buy each other a few gifts.  When Christmas morning came - surprise!  It turned out that my husband had purchased everything on my list, and I had purchased everything on his.  But how, when we had no money?  Credit, of course!

I look back on that first Christmas as a demented consumerist version of “The Gift of the Magi”.  That was…

I was talking with a Baptist friend of mine the other day and we were good-naturedly bemoaning the fact that every time a church makes it into the news for some ridiculous reason, it usually has “Baptist” in its name, even if it doesn’t remotely resemble a typical Baptist church with typical Baptist beliefs (See: Westboro Baptist Church and Amazing Grace Baptist Church).

I mentioned that it would be really nice to write a positive story about an organization with “Baptist” in the title, and he reminded me of the Missouri Baptist Children’s Home in Bridgeton, Missouri.

Lowe-Frillman Campus in Bridgeton, Missouri

Missouri Baptist Children’s Home (MBCH) has been around since 1886 and is very good at what it does, providing such crucial services as emergency and transitional shelter, case management, foster and adoptive services, counseling and vocational training.

Every year around this time, a Christmas wish list gets published on the MBCH website, along with…

Last week I attended the yearly banquet for the local chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a group that lobbies for keeping religions out of government and government out of religions. The speaker, national AU executive director Rev. Barry Lynn, gave an update on the federal government’s financial support for religious organizations’ social-service projects.

I don’t support giving my tax money to religious organizations, even if they’re doing good work.  Having churches as government contractors raises too many red flags for me.  The money is not supposed to be spent on proselytizing, but how could that possibly be enforced?  And apparently religious organizations that accept government money are still allowed to discriminate in their hiring practices–discrimination that would be illegal if practiced by secular institutions.

Are you comfortable with your tax money going to religious institutions’ social-service programs? What if the money were going to a religious group…

Dorothy Day facing her last arrest, photo by Bob Fitch

Dorothy Day was an anarchist and a pacifist who was arrested multiple times throughout her life (the last time when she was in her 70s).  The FBI had a 500 page file on her, and Herbert Hoover J. Edgar Hoover hoped to see her arrested for sedition.  She’s also been called “the most significant, interesting and influential person in the history of American Catholicism” (by historian David O’Brien in “Commonweal” magazine), and the Vatican has approved considering her cause for canonization.

That’s my kind of saint.  I love Dorothy Day.  In the great communion of saints, there are a handful of people that I look to as my heroes and role models, my “household saints”.  Dorothy Day is one of them, and today is her birthday.  She  was a “sign of contradiction”, “holiness not easily domesticated”, to quote Robert Ellsberg.  She managed to…

In our western culture, the word mythology has overtones of some other religion, or a religion of the past.  I have no problem calling my own religion a mythology.

As a school age child of the 60’s and 70’s, I was taught that mythology was used to explain the world before the real sciences were developed.  I take issue with this explanation of mythology because it is an interpretation based from a purely rational epistemology.  Does mythology/religion attempt to explain the workings of our environment and/or the whole Cosmos?  Yes it does, but seen properly, only as a component of our relationship with the environment.   Rational interpretations (with an emphasis on cause/effect, subject/object experience) neglect the psychological, existential ramifications of our “being” in relation to environment.  Unfortunately, I think rationalism has crept into our religious thought, weakening our ability to transcend our egocentric tendencies.

Another contemporary problem with the use of the…

"The Risen Lord" by He Qi

When the artist He Qi visited the Concordia Seminary campus recently, he told the following story about the artwork above, “The Risen Lord.”

A church in China commissioned the work from He Qi for their sanctuary without any strings attached. He Qi went to work with a “blank canvas,” so to speak. When he showed the pastor what he had made, the pastor was speechless.

Two minutes of frozen silence passed. He finally spoke.

“Its too Chinese,” the pastor said.

He then asked He Qi if he could make a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”

One of the interesting things about Dr. He Qi, though, is that he is also an art scholar. And he then proceeded to remind us that Leonardo’s models for “The Last Supper” were all his fellow citizens of Milan. We could just as easily say about it, “Its too Italian.”

Needless to say,…

Again, again, and again!

When does it stop?

Never, never, and never!

Unless you stop it.

   Soldiers and horses entered Mt. Yun-ju. The master (Yun-ju) sat upright and    motionless.

   The commander,  without bowing, sat facing him and asked, “When does the world    attain peace?”

   The master said, “Waiting for the commander’s mind to become satisfied.”

   The commander then bowed and made him his teacher.

So long as everyone thinks “that’s none of my business,” it never stops. It is the karma of thinking so and acting so. Isn’t it karma of the people here?

   Men of great power, why can’t you lift your legs?

Even though great, one cannot lift even one’s own legs. Why? Because: one is bound by karma.

   Men of great strength, you row so hard! But, your boat is moored.

However hard one may try, one cannot advance. Why? Because: one is bound by ego.

   Seeing a fire…

photo courtesy of Fred's wife Saundra

My friend Fred died last Friday evening.   We had gone to high school together and gotten reacquainted through Facebook.  I always enjoyed reading Fred’s updates; he was funny, had wide-ranging interests, and was a family man in the best sense of the phrase.   He was a cyclist, runner, competitive triathlete, a husband and the father of two children.   On the last night of his life he went out for a run and died of cardiac arrest, at 43 years of age.

In the face of death I feel like a child.  I cannot understand it.   It is huge, and confusing and awful.  Over the course of the last week my mind has returned again and again to the suddenness of Fred’s death.   I imagine he thought that night would be like any night.  His wife thought he would come home from his run, like…

Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand

With the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (which fellow blogger Sharon Autenrieth wrote about here) coming up on November 9th, I thought it would be a good time to let people know about an amazingly moving book that you can receive absolutely free from The Voice of the Martyrs, a non-profit organization founded by Richard Wurmbrand that aids the persecuted church around the world.

The book is Wurmbrand’s Tortured for Christ. It is a personal account of the persecution he faced as a result of preaching the gospel of Christ in Communist Romania.

(Not too long ago I wrote about Wurmbrand and the book on my blog, echad. Rather than reprinting that here, If you’re so inclined you can read that post here.)

For more about Wurmbrand, or to sign up online to receive your free copy of Tortured for Christ, you can visit www.TorturedforChrist.com.

(For what…

We have just passed All Souls Day and All Saints Day on the traditional Christian calendar,  days which emphasize our belief that we are bound together in the communion of saints.  Given this belief, it is fitting that those two days of remembrance should be followed so closely by the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, November 8.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues to speak out against the proposed U.N. resolution on religious defamation believing it would limit freedom of speech.  Meanwhile, many advocates of religious liberty have expressed concerns that the Obama administration has not sent strong enough signals on its commitment to religious freedom, particularly to countries like China which have a history of human rights abuses.   But while the debates continue and advocacy groups seek policy solutions, the persecution of people of faith continues, in dozens of countries including India, North Korea and Iran.

The International Day of…

On my way to China, I stopped over in Spain for some meetings. Having a few extra days, I went to Manresa, Spain where we Dominicans have a monastery of nuns. What an incredible experience!

In the archives of a medieval monastery.

This monastery has been open since the 13th century. It is just above the cave where Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, wrote his famous “Spiritual Exercises.” Ignatius used to sit outside the door of this monastery and listen to the prayers of the nuns as they sang their evening office. Their prayers are still quite inspiring, as I can attest.

On the right is a photo of some books in the monastery archives. Top left is a bundle of contracts the monastery entered into in the year 1344. Every contract they have ever signed is still preserved on these shelves. The sense of history is deep, as is…

Fred Phelps came to town yesterday afternoon.

Fred Phelps

(For a quick primer on the infamous pastor you can check out his Wikipedia page here.)

Phelps was in town with members of his Westboro Baptist Church to protest at Hazelwood Central High School because of its Gay/Straight Alliance club.

It should be noted that Westboro Baptist church — much like the book burning Amazing Grace Baptist Church — is an independent Baptist church that bears little to no resemblance to a typical Baptist church and is not affiliated with any of the major Baptist associations or conventions.

But I don’t want to talk about Fred Phelps or his Topeka, Kansas based church.

I want to talk about the counter protest that took place with the intent of disarming Phelps’ nausea-inducing message of hate with a message of love.

Organized by Ed Reggi, the counter protest consisted of upwards of 60-70 people, about 10 times as many…