Kaflinn byrjar á stefi sem við höfum séð fyrr. Flóðið markar nýtt upphaf. Ritstjórar 1. Mósebókar endurtaka blessun Guðs úr 1. kaflanum. “Verið frjósamir, fjölgið ykkur og fyllið jörðina.” Það er reyndar áhugavert að hér í 9. kaflanum er blessunin í karlkyni en hvorugkyni í 1. kaflanum (alla vega í íslensku þýðingunni frá 2007). Continue reading 1. Mósebók 9. kafli
Tag: racism
1. Mósebók 5. kafli
Nú er komið að fyrstu ættartölu Biblíunnar og það vekur athygli að allir urðu þeir fremur gamlir sem nefndir eru. Ég hef alltaf verið skotinn í hugmyndinni að talan sem nefnd sé, eigi við mánuði (tungl) en ekki ár (sól). Það hins vegar gengur vart upp þegar haft er í huga að þá var Kenan um 6,5 árs þegar hann átti sitt fyrsta barn. Continue reading 1. Mósebók 5. kafli
Rutarbók 4. kafli
Ekki aðeins gátu tengdamæðgurnar leitað hjálpar fjölskyldunnar í 3. kafla. Í 4. kaflanum heyrum við að þær áttu jarðskika sem þær höfðu ekki aðgang að, líklega vegna stöðu sinnar sem ekkjur. Til að gefa þeim kost á lífi og réttindum fer því Bóas þá leið að taka sér Rut sem eiginkonu og gefa þeim, Naomi og Rut, tækifæri til að njóta réttar síns og nýta skikann sem með réttu var þeirra. Continue reading Rutarbók 4. kafli
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
Death of British Christianity
Britain is now the most irreligious country on earth. This island has shed superstition faster and more completely than anywhere else. Some 63 percent of us are non-believers, according to an ICM study, while 82 percent say religion is a cause of harmful division.
through orvitinn.com from The slow, whiny death of British Christianity : Johann Hari.
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.
(in)Justice System
Part of my studies at Trinity Lutheran Seminary was a course held in Detroit, MI about Urban Ministry. One of the lectures we attended was by Regina D. Jemison, PLLC.
What was probably most shocking were the numbers she introduced to us. I looked few of them up tonight at “Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics.”
Why Anne Rice Has Never Been More of a Christian
Whatever backlash Anne Rice might eventually receive from her Christian readers, or from the Evangelical establishment itself, the undeniable fact is that the decision of this sensitive, passionate, and devout woman to leave Christianity is one that Christ himself would likely understand, even applaud, even as He would likely weep at the holocaust of hatred, bigotry, and collateral carnage that has devolved from the grimy, shopworn religion to which His glorious name has been affixed.
via Michael Rowe: Why Anne Rice Has Never Been More of a Christian.
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
RACE – The Power of an Illusion
A web companion to Documentary about race.
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
Religious Life
In her article “Creating a Spiritual World for Children to Inhabit,” Karen-Marie Yust talks about children’s formation and the role of practices, rituals, and ideas. She addresses especially how repetition enforces learning. She takes a helpful example.
An African American toddler boy who repeatedly watches cartoon videos in which the “good guys” with light-colored skin always beat the “bad guys” with dark-colored skin concludes from this observation that light-skinned people are good and dark-skinned people are bad. (A Caucasian child comes to a similar conclusion.) When he is four or five and becomes aware of his own skin color, he will likely experience a tension between his sense of himself as good and his cultural observation that dark-colored skin belongs to bad guys. His white peers will also be more likely to label him as bad when trouble erupts on the playground.
This also applies to gender-images. As part of the childhood culture those experiences that they see in “the adult world” are then “played out” or “tried on.” And here comes the connection to the Religious Life.
When adults act as if religious education is mainly a tool for children’s moral development, children quickly catch on to the irrelevance of religious culture for the grown-up world. They have no incentive for committing themselves to a particular spiritual identity on adolescence if faith is portrayed by adults as something one shed with childhood.
(The Article appeared in Family Ministry, Vol. 18, No. 4, Winter 2004)
Acts in Common
Acts In Common is an organization of Christian believers who seek to renew, resource and empower Lutheran congregations and ministries in African American neighborhoods in the Detroit metropolitan area. Acts In Common (AIC) seeks to assist these congregations and ministries to find creative and public ways to invite others to know God’s love through Jesus Christ. Membership in Acts In Common is open to all Lutheran congregations in the territory of the Southeast Michigan Synod who subscribe to the purpose and goals of the organization.
Marginalized people, liberating perspectives
This means that a people’s sovereignty is diminished inasmuch as that people lack any one valued human characteristic, namely whiteness or maleness. For instance, to be both white and male affords one the highest level of political, social, economic and ecclesiastical privilege and dominance. To be white and female eliminates the claim to gender (i.e., male) privilege but preserves the right to race (i.e., white) privilege. To be black and male portends a “racialized” male privilege. Specifically, black men are able to exercise sovereignty only in relation to black women. To be black and female is to have virtually no claim to the privileges accorded in a white patriarchal society and/or Church. …
The underside are better situated to see the radical and revolutionary change required to ensure that all human beings have access to what is needed to live and to fulfill our full human potential.
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.”
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.
Race Relations in America – links to articles
In January 2008 I took a course about Urban Ministry in Detroit, MI. An eye opening class for many unpleasant reasons, and few pleasant too. Here are few articles I read in connection to the class.
The Fire Last Time – washingtonpost.com.
THEOLOGY AND THE CITY: LEARNING TO CRY, STRUGGLING TO SEE by Jim Perkinson
Religious Cancer of racism by James H. Cone
Voices of Liberation and Struggle: Conversation with Dwight Hopkins
Like a thief in the night: Black Theology and White Church in the Third Millenium by James Perkinson
Martin, Malcolm and Black Theology by James H. Cone
Prayer
Part of my studies in Transformational Leadership at The Methodist Theological School in Ohio is writing prayers dealing with our life, happiness, success as well as frustrations. In April, having seen a bit to much of the other America, in New Orleans, Detroit and in a Food Pantry in mid-Ohio, this was my prayer.
Lord, where are you,
When I watch an abusive husband shout at his wife
in the waiting room at the food pantry.
Lord, where are you,
When I tell the old woman which recently lost her job,
that the application for food stamps we just compiled
will most likely be rejected.
Lord God, our creator,
where are you when I sit down with a young fella
who lost his future, his house, his girlfriend in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Almighty God,
I know you have called me to be your hands,
your mouth piece, your feet.
But God,
are you sure you called the right person.
I have immigration papers to fill out,
IRS complications to solve.
I have a daughter who needs time with me,
I have a son that is calling me too.
I have a wife that deserves my time.
God,
where are you,
why are you calling me
to deal with your mess.
Why don’t you leave me
to deal with mine.
Amen.
Olympíueldurinn
Er það almenn vitneskja að þessi hefð að hlaupa með eldinn í gegnum borgir á leiðinni frá Grikklandi til mótsstaðar, var hönnuð af áróðursmaskínu Nasista í þriðja ríkinu í tengslum við leikanna 1936?
Kynþáttahyggja
Eitt af því sem ég hef glímt við hér í náminu mínu er kynþáttahyggja og ýmsar birtingarmyndir þess, m.a. í kirkjuþátttöku. Hugtakið “white privilege” er mér mjög ofarlega í huga í flestu því sem ég tek mér fyrir hendur þessa dagana. Dr. Cheryl Peterson benti mér og fleirum nýlega á áhugaverða grein eftir Juan Cole þar sem hann notar dæmi frá Detroit.
Rétt er að taka fram að ég þekki ekki annað til Juan Cole og hans verka en þessi skrif sem eru mikilvæg. Með því að vísa til þessara skrifa með velþóknun er ég ekki að taka undir önnur skrif hans.