February 2009 Archives

Bishop B. Penrose Hoover of the Lower Susquehanna Synod has issued a letter in response to last week's proposal from a task force of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Among other things, the task force suggested that individual congregations in the ELCA would choose whether to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as pastors.

Hoover includes this prayer: "Gracious Father, we pray for your holy catholic Church. Fill it with all truth and peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it; where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in need, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ, your Son our Savior. Amen."

He gives no hint of his thoughts on the proposals:

What was the biggest grossing independent film in 2008? If you guessed "Slumdog Millionaire," you're wrong.

It's a Christian film that's been playing at several local churches recently -- "Fireproof," starring Kirk Cameron. According to this NPR story, it was all the talk of some 2,000 Christian movie fans gathering at the San Antonio (Texas) Independent Christian Film Festival in January.

Frugalism is part of religion scholar Martin Marty's focus in his latest Sightings column.

What remains to be seen is whether the collapse of everything -- of global markets, shopaholicism, et cetera -- are replaced by culture-wide adjustments to a changed world, to fresh thought that can inspire more than bragging.

Sightings monitors media on fronts like these, and will report when reporters give accounts about trends that go deeper, adjustments in the soul and the visions of life that everyone has to come up with in these days of drastic and sudden change.

Read the whole column at the jump.

For many Christians, the trying test of the 40-day Lenten season is resisting temptation -- reflecting Jesus' 40-day fast in the wilderness. Abstaining from Facebook was popular among college students last year, but the WSJ has a story about a number of adults trying to tear themselves away from the digital addiction this year.

"If I give up clams, which I hate, I'm not really doing anything," says Kevin Shine, a 39-year-old electrical contractor from Philadelphia. But abstain from posting "status updates" on his every move? That's a worthy struggle. "It's my candy," he explains, noting that he logs on as much as 20 times a day. "That's pathological."

I've also heard of more folks planning to observe a carbon fast for Lent this year in an effort to reduce their carbon footprint for 40 days. What are you planning to give up?

If you missed the news this morning ... Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan was named archbishop of New York. The Vatican said Dolan would succeed Cardinal Edward Egan, 76, who is retiring as archbishop after nearly nine years. Dolan, 59, will be installed April 15, according to the AP.

Dolan told reporters one of his major challenges would be to keep Catholics from leaving the church. He vowed to work to keep Catholic schools open and to be an active pastor in the community.

The Archdiocese of New York is comprised of the boroughs of New York City with the exception of Brooklyn (Kings County).

Today's word comes courtesy of Wordsmith.org.

God's acre

noun

A cemetery, especially one next to a church

Valentinus was a common enough name in the Roman Empire that no fewer than seven, distinct saints bearing this name can be found on various Christian saints and martyrs rolls, according to Louis A. Ruprecht Jr., religion scholar at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

Via Religion Dispatches, read more about these Sts. Valentinus from Ruprecht, who asks, "How have we gone from a beheaded priest to a giddy worldwide day of romantic love? In a word: the widespread conviction that love is a dizzying sacrifice."

From the Scranton Times:

Churches in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton once were places where prayers were whispered in Polish, sins were confessed in German and hymns were sung in Lithuanian.

The diocese will soon have fewer spaces that echoed the sounds of those tongues.

The diocese-wide restructuring plan recently announced by Bishop Joseph F. Martino will leave only a fraction of the ethnic, or national, parishes that were established in the 11-county regional church.

Sarah Pulliam at Christianity Today has an interesting piece about resistance to the ever-present catchphrase Religious Right. Some think it creates a negative impression.

Several politically conservative evangelicals said in interviews that they do not want to be identified with the "Religious Right," "Christian Right," "Moral Majority," or other phrases thrown around in journalism and academia.

"There is an ongoing battle for the vocabulary of our debate," said Gary Bauer, president of American Values. "It amazes me how often in public discourse really pejorative phrases are used, like the 'American Taliban,' 'fundamentalists,' 'Christian fascists,' and 'extreme Religious Right.' "

The NOVA special "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" will be shown 8 p.m. tonight on WITF-TV. It first aired last year.

You can watch all 12 chapters of the two-hour program online.

Episcopal Bishop Nathan Baxter of the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania and Samia Malik, a member of the regional chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, are among the panelists for an interfaith discussion called "Faith, Politics & Society:
Muslims in America" at 7 p.m. tonight on WITF television.

The keynote speaker is Imam Yahya Hendi, the Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University. Other panelists include Homer C. Floyd, executive director of the state Human Relations Commission; and Rabbi Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, director of the Religious Studies Department at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia.

Some local Catholics are participating in a coordinated, national postcard campaign asking the new Congress not to expand access to abortion. The cards urge legislators to oppose the Freedom of Choice Act, among other measures.

"Our voice is needed now more than ever," a flier reads.

The flier implies that FOCA is something new; however, the bill has languished in Congress for 20 years and gotten out of committee once in that time. In fact, FOCA died with the last Congress and has not been reintroduced. Political observers say passage doesn't appear to be a priority for either abortion-rights groups or the economy-focused Obama administration right now.

More than 300 birthday celebrations are planned in Britain alone to mark Darwin's 200th birthday this week (Feb. 12). There, Darwin's face graces the 10-pound bill along with that of Queen Elizabeth II.

The AP reports that Shrewsbury, the central England town where Darwin was born and raised, is holding a month-long festival for its most famous son. And a permanent exhibition re-creating some of his most famous experiments is opening at Down House, his former home near London. Read more.

The latest Sightings column from the University of Chicago Divinity School discusses the late John Updike as a "writer both evident and unabashed in his willingness to engage God as narrative presence in the midst of contemporary despair."

Courtesy of Wordsmith.org, our word today is interdict.

noun

A prohibition, especially a formal one, as by a court, church, etc.

transitive verb

To prohibit or stop.

Two Lutheran congregations in Punxsutawney served soup, sandwiches and sweets as the crowd returned from Gobbler's Knob, the hill where the celebrity groundhog makes his annual prediction.

"Phil is fun, but our faith is in Christ," said Bud Dunkel, 78, a Lutheran and past president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.

Read the story from the ELCA News Service.

Read update.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel today praised the Vatican's "unequivocal" demand that British-born Bishop Richard Williamson recant his denial of the Holocaust before he can be rehabilitated.

Also this week, the president of the U.S. bishops' conference condemned Williamson's remarks as "deeply offensive and utterly false." And the head of the ultra-traditionalist Catholic group to which Williamson belongs said, "Anti-Semitism has no place in our ranks."

Hmmm. It's hard to miss the antagonistic view of Catholic-Jewish relations contained in the official literature of Williamson's group, the Society of St. Pius X, and in past statements by the society's leaders. Religion News Service has an article.

Police in Nashville say two young burglars were covering their intent to steal by talking religion, the AP reports.

Police arrested a 19-year-old and a 17-year-old, charging them with aggravated burglary. The Tennessean reported the teens were going through a neighborhood, knocking on doors while carrying church bulletins. Police said if someone answered the door, one of the youths would talk about religion.

But police said three homes in the area were burglarized, with electronic equipment stolen. Authorities said they recovered stolen goods from a car the suspects were driving.

If you've tuned into the show "Lost" on ABC, you know it deals with some heavy questions of faith, predestination, redemption, existentialism and philosophical queries that I don't have time to explain today. But check out this study on the show's spiritual themes from the Jesuit weekly America.

An atheist group has placed a billboard honoring "Darwin Day" along Route 74 in Dover Township near Blackberry Road.

Southbound travelers can read the poster, which reads "Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief." It features an image of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin.

The billboard was paid for by area members of the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation and PA Nonbelievers, a group of atheists, agnostics and humanists that meets in York.

An announcementfrom the foundation says a similar billboard was also placed in Dayton, Tenn. The towns were chosen because they were "sites of the 20th century's and 21st century's most significant evolution court battles," according to the foundation's Web site.

Religion scholar Martin Marty's most recent Sightings column looks at the recent flap over the pope's decision to remit the excommunications of four ultra-traditionalist bishops.

Is Benedict XVI, such a learned and informed and open-intentioned scholar, too much the German with his historian-fed memories of Martin Luther and other 16th-century "schismatics" and an inordinate fear of repetition? We'll wait and see.

Read the whole column at the jump.

A task force of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has concluded its work on a human sexuality statement and on its report, which should include recommendations about possible changes to church policy that doesn't allow ministers to be in a same-sex relationship.

The documents are expected to be released publicly Feb. 19. Here's the full story from the ELCA News Service.

Carroll Township resident Carol Hendrix, a former bishop of the Lower Susquehanna Synod, sat on the task force.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a great faith and the Super-Bowl story. Religion reporter Ann Rodgers says the Steel City has one of the nation's highest concentrations of Eastern Orthodox Christians, and many of them are devout fans of fellow-believer Troy Polamalu:

Most NFL fans are familiar with the sight of Steelers safety Troy Polamalu crossing himself during games, but one subset of fans is gleefully aware that he crosses himself from right to left, rather than left to right.

From the Associated Press:

A central Pennsylvania pastor is accused of offering to pay one of his parishioners for sex.