Category: Religion

Went to the organization meeting for the facilitators of the Alpha class next month. One of the major points: we facilitators are not there to give the answers, we’re there to make sure everyone gets heard, gets a chance to speak, express, progress along their spiritual journey. But we’re not the Font of Wisdom, the Folks with the Answers, the People Who Know Everything.

That’s going to be the biggest challenge for me. Because while I am well-aware that I don’t Know Everything (and am not even certain that I really Know Anything), I certainly … have strong opinions.

This is going to be a challenge. And probably good for me.

So I got up in church today and talked.

No, I didn’t speak in tongues, or roll around or exhort folks to tear off their clothes, or anything interesting like that.

I was up there talking about Alpha.

Alpha is a course of Christian education classes designed by the Rev. Nicky Gumble in the UK. It consists (at least in our local rendition of it) of 11 weekly classes, plus a retreat weekend. Each weekly class consists of dinner and a “movie” (a lecture by Nicky on some element of Christian thought, largely derived, frankly, from C.S. Lewis), and then a small group discussion. It’s designed to be non-denominational, and it’s not even required that you be Christian, just interested in learning about it from a source somewhat more sophisticated than the “700 Club.” There’s even child care.

Margie and I did the Alpha course at Good Shepherd last spring. It was the fifth time it had been done there, and enough folks had talked about how great it was that we independently decided it was something worth going to. It also seemed like a good way to get to know fellow parishioners.

So we did that thing, and it was fun, and educational, and we did get to know folks better, and, by the bye, Margie did the cooking, two, dinners for seventy in a kitchen that is not much more hefty than the average home kitchen.

And now, with the new year coming up, we’ve a new class starting, and Margie’s going to be cooking again (though not attending), and I’m going to be one of the small group facilitators. And this was my week to get up during the Announcements and encourage those in the congregation interested in attending to do so.

Okay, I’m not a proselytizing kind of guy. I am a big believer in folks finding their own spiritual paths, that the responsibility is on each individual to seek out the truth. And good things like that. While I’ve not kept secret in this blog about what I believe, and what I do about it, I’ve never expected that would lead to folks joining our church any more than I’d expect my mentioning that I’m a big fan of Old Vine Zinfandel to lead anyone to start drinking wine if they didn’t like it. Though you really should …

That having been said, if anyone who’s reading this is actually in the Denver area, and has any interest in learning more about this thing, let me know. I know there are perhaps better ways you could spend a Monday evening — but that’s what VCRs are for, right?

Anyway, end of post. Just a slice o’ life.

As InstaPundit puts it about this story, “Let’s see: we’re at war against religious fanatics who want to create a theocracy. What’s an appropriate response? Hey, how about government-sponsored prayer! Yeah, that’ makes perfect sense.”

West Covina trustees were careful to emphasize that they intend the moment [of silence] to be secular, though individual students may pray if they wish. But parents at the meeting were delighted and said they were sure their children would use the time to pray.

Of course they will. I mean, kids usually fall all over themselves to take a moment to pray. Oh, wait, no, they need a moment of silence to be mandated in order to remember to pray. No, wait …

[…] “I think our children are hurting and I think they are afraid,” said Kathy Smith, a member of the Anaheim Union High School District Board of Education who is leading the petition drive. “Our children need and deserve to live in a country of renewed spirit which will help bind us as one.”

And this has to do with mandating school silence how?

I mean, are you praying with your kids at home? If not, why not? And if so, then how is adding a moment of silent prayer — er, silence — going to help “bind us as one.”

And why do I hear the voice of Landru in the background?

I don’t have a lot of problem with a moment of silence, to be honest. Hell, when I was teaching I would have killed to have a mandated moment of silence. Maybe stretch that into several minutes to an hour. What worries me, though, is the automatic leap that is made from moments of silence to moments of prayer. To my mind, as soon as we cross that line, we’re into the realm of state-sponsored religion, a bit no-no as far as the Constitution goes, and bad public policy (in my opinion) to boot.

The leader of the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran church is in hot water over — gasp! — praying with others at an ecumenical prayer meeting at Ground Zero, and also for supporting someone else guilty of this heinous crime. I mean, Good Lord, there were other Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs present!

The Rev. David Oberdieck, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Lebanon, Mo., is one of those who filed charges. He argued such ecumenical events promote syncretism — the mingling of Christianity with other religions in the belief they are all equal. “St. Paul said that we should flee idolatry but (Benke) did not flee idolatry,” Oberdieck said. Benke “participated in idolatry, by participating with non-Christians,” Oberdieck said.
The other pastor who brought the charges, the Rev. Stephen Bohler, pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church in Crookston, Minn., said the reason for the meetings was not the point. “Our church position is that the word of God forbids us from doing this,” he said. “The word of God is not set aside because of emergencies.”

“Jesus wept.” — John 11:35

(Via JillMatrix)

An interesting piece at BeliefNet on Buddhism and the morality of fighting against terrorism.

“You are entering the koan of ‘Stop Harm’,” observes Myotai Treace Sensei, abbot of the Zen Center of New York, referring to the insoluble meditation riddles Zen masters give their students. “‘Don’t do harm, but stop harm.”
Zen Samurai. Dharma warriors of Tibet. Wrathful Buddhas. These represent powerful Buddhist traditions that acknowledge violence as a tool of the Dharma. Followers of these paths take a series of bodhisattva vows, voluntary oaths to relieve the suffering of all beings. “One of those vows is that, basically, you have to kill if it will be of benefit to others,” explains Nicholas Ribush, a former monk who heads the Lama Yeshe Archive. “If you don’t, you are breaking your vows.”
But to be justified, the teachers agree, the violence must be highly targeted and taken to prevent further violence, not to exact revenge. “When necessary, kill, but only out of wisdom and compassion,” counsels John Daido Loori Roshi, Abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery. “We need to see each situation in terms of time, place and position of the individual. What’s okay at one place may not be acceptable in another.”
[…] Scholar Andrew Olendzki, Ph.D., of the Barre Center for Buddhist studies cites numerous stories to illustrate the point. In one past life, the Buddha is said to have killed a man who was about to murder 500 others. In another, the Buddha said that if, in order to save a choking boy, he had to cause injury he would do so. “My sense is the Buddha accepted that a certain amount of violence is built into the world situations,” Olendzki says.

Seems like an even-handed way of looking at the problem. It lends itself to abuse, of course, since it relies in enlightenment and self-judgment … but that’s much of what Buddhism is about, and that’s not a bad thing.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

An Anglican vicar in the UK has banned yoga classes at the parish hall.

“I fully appreciate that for some people yoga is just exercise, but I am also aware that yoga is often a gateway to others things, such as Eastern mysticism,” the Rev. Dick Farr told Reuters Wednesday. “We are here to promote Jesus and don’t want to offer a platform to anybody who is going to undermine that.”

The ban, Farr says, has the backing of the church council and most local residents.

Of course, given the dwindling numbers in the Anglican church, one has to wonder the point. Heck, even if the yoga instructors were busy “recruiting,” one would think anything that got folks down the local church would offer an opportunity for the Rev. Farr to do the same. At least it seems to me that’s sort of how Jesus worked ….

Still smarting from the flak he caught from all directions during his post-9-11 diatribe, Jerry’s trying to come across kinder and gentler.

“I do not believe that any mortal knows when God is judging or not judging someone or a nation.”

Can we quote you on that?

Of course, his critics are vastly outnumbered by his supporters, he says.

“As a matter of fact, most of the heat I’ve taken has not been because of the statement. It’s from people who are upset that I apologized. Thousands of people of faith in America unfortunately agreed with the first statement…. They were incensed that I apologized.”

(Via Matt Welch)

Woman participating in a Wiccan ceremony to cure her hernia ends up with her house burned down. Of course, the same thing could have happend with votive candles, but the woman has decided to stick with Christian prayer from now on.

(Via NextDraft)

Carlton Vogt in the InfoWorld “Ethics Matters” column discusses job hopping. While the idea of cradle-to-grave feudal loyalty between employer and employee is long gone (and, to be honest, I’m not sure it was ever really there in the sort of Golden Age hazy way that people not paint it), he raises an interesting question.

If you’ve accepted a job with Company X, but, before you start, you hear back from Company Y that they’ll pay you 10% more if you join them … what’s the right thing to do?

Vogt vacillates a bit. Because companies (to generalize) would not hesitate to lay off workers if it was to their financial benefit, he thinks a case can be made that workers should not hesitate to similarly “lay off” their employers.

You should be free to make a “business decision” without compunction, just as the company would.
Some employees might, out of a heightened sense of responsibility, decide not to jump ship, but it’s not clear that those who do jump have done anything ethically wrong. People are always free to exceed ethical standards. That doesn’t, in itself, create a new standard that other people must now meet or be unethical. Just because you or I wouldn’t do it doesn’t mean that no one else should.
If companies find themselves inconvenienced when employees move on quickly — even within days or weeks — they need to realize that this stems from a climate the companies themselves have created. Loyalty is a two-way street. When employees are seen as nothing more than expense items to be eliminated at will — despite management’s feel-good euphemisms — then employers make themselves nothing more than revenue sources to be changed whenever a better opportunity presents itself.

To some degree, I agree with Vogt, but with a couple of provisos.

First, in the hypothetical I mentioned above with Companies X and Y, I do not think it is ethically sound to jump ship in that way. Once I’ve made the commitment, I have an ethical responsibility to keep my word. While keeping one’s word seems to be a quaint ideal these days, I think it is still important.

(And for the ultra-pragmatists, consider it this way: You never know when the job at Company Y might end and you might find yourself applying again at Company X. It might be embarrassing if you blew Company X off the last time they offered you a job.)

If I feel I can’t commit to Company X because I am still hoping for an offer from Company Y, then I have a responsibility to so qualify my acceptance to Company X. That’s a calculated gamble on my part, but that’s the way behaving ethically often plays out. I may end out losing both job opportunities. That’s the gamble. If I want a sure thing, then I should commit to Company X when they offer. If the job at Company X isn’t good enough, then I shouldn’t accept it.

Does that mean I’m tied to Company X body and soul? Of course not. It does mean I’ve committed to work for them for a reasonable time — “reason” in this case being more an emotional sense of “I’ve given it my best shot.” Depending on how horrible the experience at Company X is, that might be a month, it might be a year, it might be ten years. If it’s just a matter of money, I’d also consider that I have a responsibility to first go to my new managers and say, “Hey, by the way, I did receive another offer ….” How they take that will tell me a lot about how they value my services.

The other aspect of the hypothetical above is that it treats all companies the same. If I blow off Company X for Company Y, I have no idea if I’ve done Company X a disservice. Maybe they are trying to break the mold. Maybe they make a much greater effort to retain employees, to offer some employer loyalty, than Company Y, or than the average company. But by assuming they are as “guilty” as the rest, I disincent them from that course of action — with repercussions to other employees. I become part of the problem, by refusing to accept a possible solution.

After touching on moral absolutists vs. moral relativists over the past few weeks — in dealing with things like the war and when (or whether) it’s acceptible to do certain things like kill people.

Carlton Vogt who does the InfoWorld “Ethics Matters” column, has some thoughts on this subject where it relates to telling the truth on résumés. His questions are, how absolute a rule is that, and does anybody actually do it?

Most of us are encouraged to include on our résumés all our accomplishments, but none of us are ever advised to include details on our missteps and failures. But isn’t omitting those a form of deception because it gives an incomplete picture of our abilities? We may have completed a project that saved the company $5 million. We’d mention that in an instant, but we’d never mention that, in a moment of confusion, we recommended a software package that was dead on arrival. It would seem to me that hard-liners, who would never lie, would be compelled to be as honest as possible and mention both. Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Interesting reading, for that and other examples. And, perhaps, it has some lessons applicable to other such questions.

Vatican scholars are looking to release a new edition of the Bible, incorporating information from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The influence of radical Jewish groups who wanted to overthrow Roman rule is likely to feature in the new Bible, bolstering those who interpret Christ as a revolutionary who fought political oppression.

This story is from the Guardian, datelined 11 September. Not sure why it didn’t get more attention at the time …

It’s all being painted as an effort to “rewrite” the Bible. It’s not clear exactly what that means, since the Bible is hardly a seamless storyline that could be tweaked. Are we talking a additional book? Some footnotes or sidebars (annotated Bibles are hardly new), or what? Anyway, I haven’t been able to find anything else after that (including any reference to the predicted 26 September official announcement).

(Actually, I’m absolutely certain that somebody’s going to note the coincidence in dates as a basis for condeming this effort. Probably the same sorts who are convinced that the King James Version is the only valid rendition of the Bible, in any translation.)