I’m not sure this school board in Louisiana has thought this through.

Benton said that under provisions of the Science Education Act enacted last year by the Louisiana Legislature, schools can present what she termed “critical thinking and creationism” in science classes.

Board Member David Tate quickly responded: “We let them teach evolution to our children, but I think all of us sitting up here on this School Board believe in creationism. Why can’t we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?”

Fellow board member Clint Mitchell responded, “I agree … you don’t have to be afraid to point out some of the fallacies with the theory of evolution. Teachers should have the freedom to look at creationism and find a way to get it into the classroom.”

Even though creationism in the minds of these school board members may not be the same thing as intelligent design, a Federal court already weighed in on this with a resounding verdict on the side of science, which in that instance fell on the side of evolution.

From The New York Times (Dec. 20, 2005):

A federal judge ruled today that a Pennsylvania school board’s policy of teaching intelligent design in high school biology class is unconstitutional because intelligent design is clearly a religious idea that advances “a particular version of Christianity.”

In the nation’s first case to test the legal merits of intelligent design, Judge John E. Jones III dealt a stinging rebuke to advocates of teaching intelligent design as a scientific alternative to evolution in public schools.

The judge found that intelligent design is not science, and that the only way its proponents can claim it is, is by changing the very definition of science to include supernatural explanations.

On p. 64 of the Court’s decision (pdf), the Court held that Intelligent Design (ID) was not science:

We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980′s; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is
additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the
subject of testing and research.

It also seem apparent that the Livingston School Board has not passed the “Lemon” test. (No. Not that kind of “Lemon Law”.) Quoting again from the Dover case:

As articulated by the Supreme Court, under the Lemon test, a government-sponsored message violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment if: (1) it does not have a secular purpose; (2) its principal or primary effect advances or inhibits religion; or (3) it creates an excessive entanglement of the government with religion. Lemon, 403 U.S. at 612-13. As the Lemon test is disjunctive, either an improper purpose or an improper effect renders the ID Policy invalid under the Establishment Clause.

The bigger catch here is that the there is something governmental that “inhibits” religion, namely, the First Amendment and the court cases that restrict religious education in public schools. But it’s not much of a snag. If the schools in question are parochial schools there’d be no issue at all. The smaller catch might be that if the school board does not encourage the teaching of other “scientific” views, they are harming their students. This is a clear secular purpose. But one would think the Dover case closed that avenue.

Doesn’t Louisiana have enough on its plate?

Lots of folks have been predicting a split between the traditionalist and the “mainstream” members of the Church of England. One certainly cannot call them “progressives” even though the “traditionalists” would argue that they are in the mainstream. From my perspective, though, calling the others “progressive” is just too hard a label to swallow. First it was gay clergy. It’s hard to knock the CoE because of their “gay wars” when the Episcopal Church is fracturing over homosexuality, too.

But women clergy? Especially women bishops? I never imagined “the end” of the worldwide Anglican communion would come over that issue. (Yes, this clearly shows what a sheltered life I’ve led I’m afraid.) Apparently a third of the clergy in the UK are women. I’m sure it’s much, much higher in the US. But the Anglican communion is comprised of more than dear old “Britain”. The ultra-conservative Southern hemisphere is an increasingly powerful force and they don’t mind throwing their weight around. The combined forces of the traditionalist “South” and “West” are formidable indeed.

The NY Times reports that the compromise on women bishops Archbishop Williams offered the conservative wing, in part, was this:

But the votes on Saturday appeared to have blocked, perhaps conclusively, a settlement under which hard-line traditionalists might have accepted the appointment of women bishops. The proposals would have provided for a “complementary” male bishop with independent powers, working alongside a woman bishop, to minister to traditionalists unwilling to accept a woman as the head of their diocese.

Talk about “separate but unequal”. Yikes.

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So many links! So little time! This is from December, 2009, but still relevant.

Where are the King’s? The Gandhi’s? The St. Francis’? St. Francis? Yes. I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s on my list, Paul Moses’ book, The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, and Francis of Assisi’s Mission of Peace. In his article on CNN, Paul Moses discusses how St. Francis “engaged Christendom’s enemy, Egypt’s Sultan Malik al-Kamil, by approaching him unarmed in the midst of the Fifth Crusade in 1219.” The encounter was interesting, to say the least, and a powerful witness to the tradition of compassion and respect in both religions.

[Francis'] goal was to convert Sultan al-Kamil to Christianity through peaceful persuasion. He didn’t succeed in that, but, amazingly, the two men found common ground and appear to have genuinely appreciated each other.

The sultan, who no doubt viewed Francis in light of an ancient Muslim tradition of reverence for holy Christian monks, permitted him to stay in his camp for several days, preaching the enemy’s faith in the midst of the Crusade.

The short article is well worth reading. I especially was intrigued by an new organization, Charter for Compassion. Moses explains the group’s purpose. He even bring Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize into the discussion and the criticism Obama has faced from some US evangelicals on his peaceful overtures to Muslim nations.

Well, I’d rather have them do this than be guilty of the intense Christian proselytizing they were doing.

I just answered a Twitter poll about religious identity. It’s no secret that I’m a Christian. And many of you know I’m an Episcopalian.

I’ve found recently that when I get worked up over an issue, it’s best to “write it out” rather than attempt to “sleep on it” since I just wind up tossing and turning anyway. So welcome to my “nightmare”.

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I want to say this is “stunning” news, but given the state of things in the world, sadly, it was to be expected.

There were protests in Malaysia yesterday and four arson attacks on Christian churches, apparently provoked by a court decision to allow Christians to use the word Allah.

[Photo from afp]

Police at Kuala Lumpur church torched in arson attack

Anthony Gottlieb,writing in the online journal More Intelligent Life takes a look back at philosopher John Wisdom’s parable and an examination of the meaningfulness of statements about God.

The parable went like this. “Two people return to their long neglected garden and find, among the weeds, that a few of the old plants are surprisingly vigorous. One says to the other, ‘It must be that a gardener has been coming and doing something about these weeds.’ The other disagrees…They pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. The believer wonders if there is an invisible gardener, so they patrol with bloodhounds but the bloodhounds never give a cry. Yet the believer…insists that the gardener is invisible, has no scent and gives no sound. The sceptic doesn’t agree, and asks how a so-called invisible, intangible, elusive gardener differs from an imaginary gardener, or even no gardener at all.”

Gottleib does a smashing job surveying the battleground: we’ve got the “New Atheists”, e.g., Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, on one side and the “New Apologists” (my term, not his), e.g., Karen Armstrong, on the other. Where’s Wittgenstein’s philosopher of religion who relates what he sees but leaves things as they are? Or do we throw our hands up in the air and give up? Maybe Gottlieb takes up the latter as the last sentence below suggests to me anyway.

One trenchant critic of the New Atheists is Terry Eagleton, a leading literary critic (and Catholic), who defines God as “what sustains all things in being by his love, and…is the reason why there is something instead of nothing, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever.” Some find it comforting or inspiring to utter such statements. But unless they can explain what those ideas mean and how one might tell whether they are right (which Eagleton never does), this is a self-deluding comfort. A wiser response to the apparent inexpressibility of statements about God may be simply not to express them, and just get on with the gardening.

Forget about 2012.

“That date has not one stitch of biblical authority,” Camping says from the Oakland office where he runs Family Radio, an evangelical station that reaches listeners around the world. “It’s like a fairy tale.”

The real date for the end of times, he says, is in 2011.

The math is (apparently) clear:

The number 5, Camping concluded, equals “atonement.” Ten is “completeness.” Seventeen means “heaven.” Camping patiently explained how he reached his conclusion for May 21, 2011.

“Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D.,” he began. “Now go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., and that’s 1,978 years.”

Camping then multiplied 1,978 by 365.2422 days – the number of days in each solar year, not to be confused with a calendar year.

Next, Camping noted that April 1 to May 21 encompasses 51 days. Add 51 to the sum of previous multiplication total, and it equals 722,500.

Camping realized that (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722,500.

Or put into words: (Atonement x Completeness x Heaven), squared.

The Washington Post’s George Will has an op-ed today entitled “Rome’s call: ‘Come on over‘”. In it he warns us with far more subtle terms than he usually. I should take back the “us” since I’m not a Roman Catholic. But I am an Episcopalian and the topic of the op-ed is about Rome’s recent outreach to disaffected Anglicans.

Rome is saying to individuals, and perhaps to entire parishes and even dioceses: “Come on over.” It is trolling with rules, recently written, that will enable Anglicans-become-Catholics to retain some of their liturgy. The church will accept some already married priests, and perhaps married seminarians, but not bishops.

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I heard this segment on Public Radio International’sThe World this afternoon. Mexico is the last place I think of when I hear the word “Mennonite”. You can read more about the religion here.

We do have a Gator connection, though. Years ago the house that’s across the street from campus (on 19th and Holloway) was called the “Ec House”, which was short for “Ecumenical House”. There was a small cafe downstairs and faculty and students would often meet there. It was especially handy because the old Humanities building was where HSS is now. So it was a quick dash across the street. The manager of the cafe was, if I recall correctly, a Mennonite.

The segment highlights the plight (or perhaps they might say “opportunity”) facing the Mennonites of Chihuahua, Mexico. Listen to the podcast here.