Daníelsbók 6. kafli

Nýr konungur tók við völdum í Babýlon. Að þessu sinni Daríus frá Medíu. Hann setti upp kerfi héraðshöfðingja og af þeim bar Daníel af. Þetta leiddi til afbrýðissemi og öfundar, enda er óþolandi að vinna með fólki sem er öflugt og duglegt og lætur alla aðra líta illa út. Veikleiki Daníels var átrúnaðurinn, hann neitaði að biðja til konungsins.  Continue reading Daníelsbók 6. kafli

Fast Five

Freedom without responsibility, is not a real freedom. To be free does not take away our responsibility for each other. The message is clear in the movie about the Fast Folks. We are responsible for our own kin, our people, our family. We are called to care for the community we belong to, are part of. Continue reading Fast Five

It is personal: About The Quest for Celtic Christianity by D.E. Meek

Donald E. Meek takes it personally. Celtophiles (59) and plastic surgeons (190) are stealing his cultural heritage and religion. The elements that make him what he is. Meek’s account of the events are scholarly based, witty, ironic, and at times his anger is quite visible. His humor is wonderful, and from time to time, I laughed out loud, as I read through his description of contemporary Celtic Christianity. At one time I put the library book aside, grabbed my computer and ordered my own copy from amazon.com, thinking that this was one of the text books I had to own.

Yes, I liked Meek’s book, his meekness in the introductory chapter, his way of confronting the contemporary Celtic Christianity and the way he stands up against what he considers to be a theft of his own personal identity. Continue reading It is personal: About The Quest for Celtic Christianity by D.E. Meek

Thoughts about the “Tribal Church” by Carol Howard Merritt

When a young person walks into a church, it’s a significant moment, because no one expects her to go and nothing pressures her to attend; instead, she enters the church looking for something. (16)

Tribal Church is one person’s attempt to put it out there; her thoughts and feelings about being a parent, a spouse, a seeker, a rostered church leader, a young adult, a person-in-debt, all while living in a world of constant changes and uncertainty. She addresses the struggle of being a follower of Christ in a world were young people outside the church walls “seem much more gracious, loving, and responsible, more consistent with Christ-like behavior.” (2) Continue reading Thoughts about the “Tribal Church” by Carol Howard Merritt

When I Say, “I am a Christian”

When I say, “I am a Christian” I don’t speak with human pride I’m confessing that I stumble – needing God to be my guide

This is a part of a poem by Carol Wimmer. I came across it on Pastor DJ Dent’s wall on Facebook and thought it was worth quoting here. The whole poem can be found on  Carol Wimmer’s website.

Why I Hang in There

I hang in there for several reasons. First, if I want to be affiliated with any group of human beings, sooner or later I will be associated with bigotry, intolerance, violence, stupidity, and pride. In fact, even if I stand alone, distancing myself from every other group, I know that within me there are the seeds of all these things. So there’s no escaping the human condition.

Second, if I were to leave to join some new religion that claims to have – at last! – perfected the way of being pristine and genuine through and through, we all know where that’s going to lead. There’s one thing worse than a failed old religion: a naïve and arrogant new one. In that light, maybe only religions that have acknowledged and learned from their failures have much to offer.

From My Take: Why I support Anne Rice but am still a Christian – Religion – CNN.com Blogs.

Leaving ELCA (or not)

Out of 10.230 congregations in ELCA, 199 have already taken two votes and decided to leave ELCA due to its decision at Church Wide Assembly 2009. When this is written 136 are in the process of making the second vote to leave after having passed the first. This means that in case all of the 136 decide to leave, ELCA has decreased in number of congregations by 3.2%.

What would be an interesting statistics in comparison with this number, is the number of members that have left. My assumption is that congregations that are most likely to leave are on average larger than those that stay. This is of course only a feeling, based on only one example (UALC) and a gut feeling about the nature of congregations. Of course I might be wrong.

based on pretty good lutherans » Blog Archive » ELCA by-the-numbers and numbers from the ELCA site.

Gospel as a threat

As I looked through my stuff, there are lot of interesting things that might as well go here on ispeculate.net. When taking a class about Urban Ministry in Detroit, I attended few lectures by Dr. James W. (Jim) Perkinson. Dr. Perkinson was in his lectures focused on the reading of the Bible as a response to the Empire. Continue reading Gospel as a threat

The Religious Landscape in America

Here, I will look at few issues addressed in the book After the Baby Boomers and/or the US Religious Landscape Survey. Those issues caught my attention when I read those originally two years ago, but it is not an attempt to represent either reading, far from it. I decided to write them down randomly as an invitation to further speculations rather than trying grasp them in any fullness. Continue reading The Religious Landscape in America

Finding our way into the future

Unless we are able, as Christians, to discover ways of conducting our life and our mission that differ radically from the Christendom form of the church that has dominated throughout most of Christian history, we shall be doomed in the future to be part of our world’s problem, and not its solution.

Perhaps if ecumenism was less concerned about the union of tired, old institutions and more concerned about the calling of the Christian movement in the world as a whole, ecumenicity itself would be more vital to all who take this faith with some degree of seriousness.

We Christians, who have imposed ourselves and our faith on so many, for so long, must now earn the right to explain the reason for our hope.

Finding Our Way into the Future by Douglas John Hall.

Righteous living or Hierarchy

Concerning those who call themselves Cathari, if they come over to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the great and holy Synod decrees that they who are ordained shall continue as they are in the clergy. But it is before all things necessary that they should profess in writing that they will observe and follow the dogmas of the Catholic and Apostolic Church; in particular that they will communicate with persons who have been twice married, and with those who having lapsed in persecution have had a period [of penance] laid upon them, and a time [of restoration] fixed so that in all things they will follow the dogmas of the Catholic Church.

via CHURCH FATHERS: First Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325).

When reading through The Canons of Nicaea from 325, it is surely interesting how structures and hierarchy take over and questions of righteous and holy living become secondary. As part of that the Canons address very thoroughly the right way of the clergy, reminds us that:

Let all such practices be utterly done away, and let the deacons remain within their own bounds, knowing that they are the ministers of the bishop and the inferiors of the presbyters. Let them receive the Eucharist according to their order, after the presbyters, and let either the bishop or the presbyter administer to them. Furthermore, let not the deacons sit among the presbyters, for that is contrary to canon and order. And if, after this decree, any one shall refuse to obey, let him be deposed from the diaconate.

One wonders how the word “inferiors” made it to a Christian document in 4th Century, and how this rule of sitting in groups fits with Paul.

Benedictine Women of Madison

The welcoming reception, uncluttered space and natural environment offer you a place to discover more about yourself, God’s place in your life and your connection with the world.

Our ecumenical community also invites single Christian women of any denomination to visit the monastery and explore a call to monastic life.

It is our privilege to share our life of prayer, hospitality, justice and care for the earth with people of diverse views and cultures. We invite you to join those who say, “When I come in the door, it feels like coming home.”

via Benedictine Women of Madison.

The Real Reason for Decline

The mainline denominations do seem to be weak in the sense of being unable to generate and maintain high levels of commitment among a substantial portion of their adherents. Although we are skeptical of Kelley’s argument about the relation between strictness and church growth, he is right that weak churches are in a precarious position as organizations because further weakening may diminish their members’ commitments to the point of noninvolvement.

via Mainline Churches: The Real Reason for Decline.

Benton Johnson, Dean R. Hoge, and Donald A Luidens look at the mainline decline, and come to the conclusion that people don’t show up because it does not matter.

Liberalism as the Root of Decline

In the article Death of Protestant America: A Political Theory of the Protestant Mainline (subscription needed), Joseph Bottum seems to come to the conclusion that well educated liberals in charge of the mainline denominations headquarters are to blame not only for the church’s decline but for rising division in God’s chosen country it self.

Many Americans are profoundly patriotic, no doubt, and many Americans are profoundly critical of their country. We are left, however, with a great problem in combining the two, and that problem was bequeathed to us by the death of Protestant America – by the collapse of the churches that were once both the accommodating help and criticizing prophet of the American experiment.

Mr. Bottum is right when he brings attention to the new unity in the religious spectrum.

The horizontal unity of Mere Religion cuts across denominations. Serious, believing Presbyterians, for example, now typically feel that they have more in common with serious, believing Catholics and evangelicals – with serious believing Jew, for that matter – than they do, vertically, with the unserious, unorthodox members of their own denomination.

However, I would not use words like serious and unserious believer, implying that those that don’t belong to the conservative, orthodox, “right-wingishy,” world that Mr. Bottum seems to lean towards are somehow not taking their faith seriously. It is actually possible to claim the oposite as a fact.

Avery Dulles on JDDJ*

The heart of the Joint Declaration is surely paragraph 15, and more particularly the sentence: “Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.” This consensus does not go beyond the clear conclusions of the dialogues. While it is in perfect accord both with the Augsburg Confession and with the Decree on Justification of the Council of Trent, it dispels some false stereotypes inherited from the past. Lutherans have often accused Catholics of holding that justification is a human achievement rather than a divine gift received in faith, while Catholics have accused Lutherans of holding that justification by faith does not involve inner renewal or good works. By mentioning both faith and works, both acceptance by God and the gift of the Holy Spirit, this sentence strikes an even–handed balance calculated to satisfy both sides.

via Two Languanges of Salvation: The Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration.

Avery Dulles addresses critically the difference in languages used by Lutheran Churches and The Roman Catholic Church when it comes to interpreting what JDDJ really says.

* Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.

Ecumenism – Ecumenical Work in USA

It is worth looking at how Consultation on Church Union (COCU), became Churches Uniting in Christ (CUIC) and how ecumenical bodies like Christian Churches Together in the USA (CCT-USA) interact with each other.

It is important in this context to look at how different bodies focus on different aspects of ecumenism. Is it about working together or doing theology together?

The Association of Religion Data Archives

The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) strives to democratize access to the best data on religion. Founded as the American Religion Data Archive in 1997 and going online in 1998, the initial archive was targeted at researchers interested in American religion. The targeted audience and the data collection have both greatly expanded since 1998, now including American and international collections and developing features for educators, journalists, religious congregations, and researchers. Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world.

via The Association of Religion Data Archives.

The Seven Dimensions of Ninian Smart

Ninian Smart (1927 – 2001), Professor of Comparative Religions at the University of California and Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of Lancaster, England, suggested that there are certain aspects or dimensions of religion. In ‘The World’s Religions’ (Cambridge 1989), Smart suggested that there were seven dimensions:

  • The Practical and Ritual Dimension
  • The Experiential and Emotional Dimension
  • The Narrative or Mythic Dimension
  • The Doctrinal and Philosophical Dimension
  • The Ethical and Legal Dimension
  • The Social and Institutional Dimension
  • The Material Dimension

via BBC – h2g2 – Religion – An Introduction.

Nostra Aetate

The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.

via Declaration on the Relation of the Church to non-christian religions – Nostra Aetate.

In the context of the Second Vatican Council, His Holiness Pope Paul VI made the proclaimation “Nostra Aetate” on October 28, 1965. It ends with those words:

No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man and man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned.

The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion. On the contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred synod ardently implores the Christian faithful to “maintain good fellowship among the nations” (1 Peter 2:12), and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men, so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven.