Could Francis make a Middle East comeback?
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.
Air Force adds paganism to the list
Well, I’d rather have them do this than be guilty of the intense Christian proselytizing they were doing.
Other Christians
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”.
What’s in a name?
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
Where’s the gardener?
Anthony Gottlieb
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
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.
The end is near
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 law of unintended consequences
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.
Mennonites in Mexico
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.
