Category: English

Creeds

When I was reading blogs from Iceland this morning it struck me that there was a person with an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and a graduate degree in teaching, an individual that had been through confirmation in ELCI and has been active in writing about religion that did not know that the Apostolic Creed is universal creed of most Christians, and he even claimed that it is not used by the Roman Catholic Church. To be excact, it sounded like he considered the Apostolic Creed to be some specific Lutheran thing.

One must ask what is the use of teaching Christianity in elementary school, like is mandatory in Iceland if this does not make it through. The second thing is of course how one can study philosophy on an undergraduate level in Western Europe without learning a thing or two about Christianity. The third is then the confirmation studies in Iceland, are they good for anything?

Child of God

My name is not “Those People.”
I am a loving woman, a mother in pain,
giving birth to the future, where my babies
have the same chance to thrive as anyone.

My name is not “Inadequate.”
I did not make my husband leave –
he chose to, and chooses not to pay child support.
Truth is though, there isn’t a job base
for all fathers to support their families.
While society turns its head, my children pay the price.

My name is not “Problem and Case to Be Managed.”
I am a capable human being and citizen, not a client.
The social service system can never replace the
compassion and concern of loving grandparents,
aunts, uncles, fathers, cousins, community –
all the bonded people who need to be
but are not present to bring children forward to their potential.

My name is not “Lazy, Dependent Welfare Mother.”
If the unwaged work of parenting,
homemaking and community building were factored
into the Gross National Product,
My work would have untold value. And why is it that mothers whose
Husbands support them to stay home and raise children
Are glorified – and why don’t they get called lazy and dependent?

This is a beginning of a poem by Julia K. Dinsmore. Her book took me back to my short experience in Detroit. The injustice, the lie called the American Dream, the difference between neighborhoods, the blatant racism, the systematic violence, the corrupt system, and the working poor stuck in a cycle of poverty, all is there in Mrs Dinsmore’s poetic memoirs or at least I sense it there.

Thoughts after reading the book My Name is Child of God … Not “Those People.”

Icelandic Unitarians

From its beginnings in 1886 until its gradual decline following World War II, nearly thirty Icelandic Unitarian congregations were organized in Western Canada, the Upper Midwest and Washington state. At its peak in the 1930s, there were eighteen active churches and preaching stations.

via Icelandic Unitarians.

The influence Unitarians had in Iceland and the number of Icelanders in North America that became Unitarians is not well known. Here is an attempt to give some overview.

Annals of Religion: Project Trinity : The New Yorker

‘It was the riots in Detroit, in Newark, both in ’67—that was what shook me,” he recounted. “I said to myself, ‘I have to have a theology that speaks to the hurt in my community. I want a theology that would empower people to be more creative. To be just as aggressive as they are in the riots, but more constructive.’

via Annals of Religion: Project Trinity : The New Yorker.

An important article about Black Theology, Wright and Obama.

A Helpful Counter Narrative

David Murrow offers a valuable and perhaps helpful narrative to counteract the niceness in the mainline churches, at least in the US, in his book Why Men Hate Going to Church. What he uses to encounter the “be nice” and “be irrelevant” theology of the mainline churches, is the boyish theology (isl. strákaguðfræðin), which I learned in Vatnaskogur Summer Camp in Iceland. Theology of action and fun, lay driven, running thru puddles, getting dirty and wet, competing for the price like Paul, solution based, focused on results rather than community “goody-goody” feeling. Its contains an “Onward Christian Soldiers” worship style, with stories of heroic adventures.

In his writing it is clear that Mr Murrow is surely not a theologian, his glorified thoughts about the early church is way off base, and John Gray’s pop-psychology, Mr. Murrow quotes, is not worth the paper its written on.

However, Mr Murrow is right that there is more to Christianity than kumbaya-ish be good to some, singing about our love to Jesus, and helping out in the nursery. If we are to live Christlike, we have to stop being polite and nice, become risk takers, step up and out, and be ready to get dirty and wet as we run for the price. Or as they say in Vatnaskogur: “Press on towards the goal.” (Phil 3:14)

LaTeX for Theology

Working with LATEX involves writing in one application (TeXShop, TextMate, etc.) and viewing your document in a pdf reader (Acrobat Reader, Skim, etc.). To see the result of your work, to correct or improve it, it is often practical to quickly go back and forth between the working text and the resulting pdf.

via Using SyncTeX with LaTeX | FourSenses.net. (link is currently broken 01/31/2014)

A part of a blog, written by a theologian, which uses LaTeX as a text processor.

Statistics on Religion in America Report

An extensive new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life details statistics on religion in America and explores the shifts taking place in the U.S. religious landscape. Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey finds that religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid.

via Statistics on Religion in America Report — Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Pastor and Congregation Evaluation

Evaluation of the ministry and the leadership of a congregation is natural and inevitable. Evaluation happens and a carefully designed evaluation process is vital for the health and growth of both pastor and congregation.

This packet is designed to provide an orientation to the delicate art of congregational leadership evaluation. It provides several evaluation tools designed for specific kinds of congregational situations.

via Pastor and Congregation Evaluation Packet.

This is a material from the Mennonite Church in Canada. I have not been able to take a close look at it, but it seems to be worth mentioning here. The “weakness” of this material seems to be the same as with most evaluation models for churches, it focuses mainly on the Leadership and the pastor in particular.

Human Development Reports (HDR)

Human Development is a development paradigm that is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests. People are the real wealth of nations. Development is thus about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value. And it is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means —if a very important one —of enlarging people’s choices.

via Human Development | Human Development Reports (HDR) | United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

In recent years Iceland has constantly been considered one of the best places in world to life, according to HDR. No report has been published based on information gathered after the Economic Collapse in the country in October 2008.

Death with dignity: the ultimate human right?

The medical establishment’s narrow view of there being only one way to handle the dying patient–by using every last resource available to try to save her or him–has greatly hindered the quality of our deaths. Physicians are trained to believe that they have done their job only if every last measure is taken, regardless of what value this saps from the patient’s quality of life. This is the model by which the medical establishment measures its success.

What is needed is a paradigm shift in the educational curriculum of medical schools. No one can place value on what any individual considers to be “quality of life” because we all have different bodily functions that we consider more important than others. What one person considers an extraordinary means of intervention, another may see as typical. Furthermore, what is extraordinary at one point in history isn’t necessarily extraordinary at another time.

via Death with dignity: the ultimate human right? – The Popular Condition – Brief Article – Editorial | Humanist | Find Articles at BNET.

ELCA’s Social Statement on Health and Healthcare

Health is central to our well-being, vital to relationships, and helps us live out our vocations in family, work, and community. Caring for one’s own health is a matter of human necessity and good stewardship. Caring for the health of others expresses both love for our neighbors and responsibility for a just society. As a personal and social responsibility, health care is a shared endeavor.

via Health and Healthcare – Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The Alban Institute

If you want to move the world, move a congregation. The Alban Institute was founded in 1974 as a major resource for American congregations facing the challenges of a changing society. While today’s challenges are even more pressing than they were three decades ago, the opportunities have never been clearer for congregations to be vital communities of faith, health, and leadership. Alban stands at the forefront of knowledge and experience regarding congregational vitality and positive trends across denominations and faith traditions. Our work is helping shape the strong congregations of tomorrow.

via The Alban Institute – About Alban.

Beyond Strategic Control: Applying the BSC to a Religious Organization

Kaplan and Norton have provided a framework to link control to an organization’s vision-the balanced scorecard. This approach provides measures in four areas: (1) Customer, (2) Internal Business, (3) Innovation and Learning and (4) Financial. This article provides a starting point in adapting this method to a church by looking at four measurement perspectives: (1) Members/Attenders, (2) Internal Ministry Processes, (3) Ministering, and (4) Innovation and Learning. An example is then developed using a church’s mission and vision.

via Beyond Strategic Control: Applying the Balanced Scorecard to a Religious Organization – Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing.

The Church of the Non-Believers

It’s a question you may prefer not to be asked. But I’m afraid I have no choice. We find ourselves, this very autumn, three and a half centuries after the intellectual martyrdom of Galileo, caught up in a struggle of ultimate importance, when each one of us must make a commitment. It is time to declare our position.

This is the challenge posed by the New Atheists. We are called upon, we lax agnostics, we noncommittal nonbelievers, we vague deists who would be embarrassed to defend antique absurdities like the Virgin Birth or the notion that Mary rose into heaven without dying, or any other blatant myth; we are called out, we fence-sitters, and told to help exorcise this debilitating curse: the curse of faith.

The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it’s evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there’s no excuse for shirking.

via Wired 14.11: The Church of the Non-Believers.

Hans Kung: happy to stay in the church

Why do I remain in the church? Because of the just foundations of the church. I am inspired by Jesus Christ himself, his Spirit. I do not live as a solitary individual. I stay in a community, my community of faith. Wherever I go–Japan, Pakistan–I always find people of my community. This is the community in which I was born and baptized, in which I have had so many positive experiences, a community of 2,000 years. Why should I be alienated from this? As a Canadian you may have some problems with your government but you will not go away seeking a better country. I shall remain in the Catholic Church and in Christianity.

via Hans Kung: happy to stay in the church; happy to change it – page 2 | Catholic New Times.

—

Few years ago I wrote a short presentation about the theologian Hans Kung for a class in Systematic Theology. I decided to focus on his connection to the RCC, and his connection to the current pope. Here are few links on articles.