Tag: injustice

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.

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?

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.

Various Religious Views about Organ Donations

One common concern people have regarding organ and tissue donation is how their individual religion feels about donation and transplantation. Most religions support donation as an act of giving and caring. Outlined below are brief descriptions of the viewpoints from various denominations.

via Lifeline of Ohio » Religious Views.

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.”

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.

Rapture Ready

I remember when I heard first about the rapture from a TV-evangelist five or six years ago. I immediately thought it was some kind of a joke having never seen anything in the Bible referring to anything like what he described. However, the believe in the rapture is real, and some incorrectly think that believing in a hateful God, that is out to destroy all Creation has something to do with Christianity.

American Dispensationalism’s Perpetually Imminent End Times* by Jonathan R. Baer is a good article that addresses this hateful religion.

Short Overview of the Law Codes

There are at least three main strands of law codes found in the Torah.

Book of Covenant: Exodus 21-23

Here we have texts that are connected strongly to the Code of Hammurabi, with code intertwined that is related to the protection of those on the margin.

Deuteronomic Law: Deut. 12-26

The Deuteronomic Law Code legislates a one central place of worship. It assumes that the people under the law are living in the land God gave. It is probably from the time of Josiah (621 BCE) and is perhaps part of the law reclaimed/found by the prophetess Huldah. It is a Yahweh and Jerusalem focused law.

Holiness Code: Leviticus (some of it anyway)

It is likely written later than the other. It is seen as part of the priestly source of the OT. Some of the laws might have been older than the written form it appears in.

Baby Spared Mother’s Fate By Genetic Tests as Embryo – NYTimes.com

A 30-year-old woman who is very likely to develop a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease before she turns 40 has had a baby girl who will be spared that fate because she was genetically screened as an embryo before being implanted in her mother’s womb, doctors are reporting.

via Baby Spared Mother’s Fate By Genetic Tests as Embryo – NYTimes.com.

Pewless by Martin E. Marty

This spring a certain Christian layperson has been criticized for not exiting his local church when he disagreed with something his pastor preached.

The experts on the subject have been, as far as I can tell, media personnel who never go to church, do not know what sermons are for, and have not experienced lively congregational participation; people who value fidelity very little and church hopping and sermon shopping very highly; those who have political stakes in their judgment; and people who pay no attention to the contexts of messages.

via The Christian Century.

Restructuring UMC

The United Methodist Church or, more specifically, its U.S. component, often continues to be entangled in U.S. political and economic ideologies and desires. … we must clearly grasp that the so-called “American Way of Life” requires critique. Capitalism and consumerism are not practices taken straight from the gospel.

Elaine A Robinson has an interesting article about the need to restructure UMC in an Age of Empire (PDF). Asking questions about the unbalanced relationship between north and south.

The cost of short-term missions

While on the phone, I asked her what she thought of those groups. Her answer might surprise you: “Everyone knows,” she said, “That short term missions benefit the people who come, not the people here.”

Is that true? If so, then thousands of people are raising millions of dollars each year to do something not for others, but for themselves. Are we fooling ourselves by pretending these trips help people when they are really just an excuse to see a foreign country? If our good works are not doing good, why do them?

via catapult magazine The cost of short-term missions. The original article is to be found on pdf at www.ajshonduras.org/joannsarticle.pdf.

The Theology of the Crumbs

The second symptom of the illness of man’s faith stems from relationship among fellow human beings: The Politics of Marginalization; more forcefully, Ang Politika ng Pagkamanhid.   The Rich Man did not mind Lazarus, covered with wounds and praying for mere crumbs that fall from his table.  There was a great chasm between them, even,though Lazarus was just at the Rich Man’s door.  Because the Rich Man was already comfortable, his world no longer accounted for Lazarus.  Farther and farther, every single day, araw-araw, until every single day reached forever at death, and the chasm became permanently unbridgeable.  Man responds to a similar situation every single day; a tap on the car window for every street children begging for coins; an absent nodding of the head for a lola on the umpteenth retelling of the story of her life; bribing for one’s convenience.  In a sense, this politics of marginalization is necessary to the economics of affluence.  Once man starts serving mammon, one can no longer be present to the people around him.

via THE THEOLOGY OF THE CRUMBS.