Photo by Ted Trautman/OaklandNorth.net

I had to read this from sfgate.com a few times to figure out if this was an actual church or not. If one criterion is whether fellowship happens, then it’s one for the “Yes” column.

A full article on the Bike Church is on OaklandNorth.net. Neat video over there as well.

Share/Bookmark

Young is part of a new generation of pastors who can be in two places at one time. They are using technology — high-def videos, and even holograms — to beam their Sunday morning sermons to remote “satellite” churches that belong to their congregation.

It’s no doubt the “Trekkie” in me that sees no problem with holograms. Holodeck vacations anyone? If NASA, Buzz Lightyear, or anyone else manages to go to Mars or beyond, it might be nice to have a friendly worship service, say for healing, for death, for any number of events, while separated from home base. A more down to Earth example would be services beamed into remote military posts in Afghanistan or scientific posts in the Arctic.

On the other hand, the disembodiment, de-incarnational charge is legitimate, I think. Hermits and solitaries aside, most religions do factor in some corporate, communal elements. The question really is whether virtual community adequately fills this need. What’s the beer commercial? Great taste? Less filling? Perhaps the holo-vangelist experiment warrants a “yes” and a “no” to each of the two questions.

My concern here isn’t solely on the religious side of things. What I’m most interested in are the educational, or rather, the pedagogical issues this raises. Online learning. Can there really be such a thing? Once that question is asked, seriously asked, and even more seriously considered, one soon realizes that the answer is elusive. Social scientists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, education experts, and conflicting data notwithstanding, the matter may very well come down to where one stands on the nature, and thus, the purpose, of a human being.

See? And you didn’t think that everything had to be a theological issue.

Share/Bookmark

It is unclear how many people will leave the Church of England as a result of the July 12 vote, but some synod members said that defections are inevitable.

Share/Bookmark

For some the central question is the biblical one, of course. But for others, the key question is the absence of equality. This is going to be an interesting discussion–at least I hope there is a discussion–within the African American church when, not if, when the Prop. 8 case arrives at SCOTUS-ville. The issue for the Church is one’s understanding of “biblical truth” and how it informs one’s vision of social justice. If that’s the paradigm, then there’s going to be some serious mental gymnastics one does on this issue. And as the pastor mentions, thinking that one has a lock on interpreting scripture can lead to an extreme case of hubris. There’s part of the rub, at least. One is sure that the Gospels, for instance, demand a certain action or attitude. A case of hubris or not?

Share/Bookmark

The Vatican is preparing to update the 2001 norms that deal with priestly sex abuse of minors, in effect codifying practices that have been in place for several years.
At the same time, it will include the “attempted ordination of women” among the list of most serious crimes against church law, or “delicta graviora,” sources said.

It doesn’t make for happy reading.

Share/Bookmark

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.

There is an inherent freedom one feels when writing on one’s own blog. I feel it now. It’s an immense privilege and it comes with an equal responsibility. That’s how I feel about it, anyway. I’m sure lots of other bloggers give not a nanosecond of thought about being restrained and toning down the hyperbole.

OK. Nanosecond’s up.

Actually, I’ve given it several minutes of thought. Here goes.

In my view, the Archbishop’s proposal itself undermines the dignity of women. It exemplifies the continued subjugation of women that occurs worldwide. I couldn’t help but link this proposal and its rejection to the adultery case in Iran. She still is under the threat of being stoned to death. Or the South African soccer player who happened to be a lesbian who was brutally murdered simply for being gay.

Remember “driving while black” or “walking while gay”? Now it’s “breathing while being a woman”.

It may seem extreme to compare the Church of England’s internal squabbles to the above cases. That might be true if it were not the case that as a religious institution the Church has an obligation to be a sign of God’s grace and love in the world. The Church’s “compromise” is just that: a compromise made on the backs of women. In this instance these women represent the least of these, they are the oppressed, on the one hand (see Isaiah 58), and on the other hand are some of the last in a long line of followers of Jesus who have been belittled and worse (see Matthew 25). Thus, they are the very ones who deserve more, not less, justice. And yes, I’m very much aware that it is precisely because it is a religious institution we’re dealing with that discrimination and ignorance tend to be intractable and therefore tend to reign supreme. But one can dream, can’t one?

In a way it is quite painful to see that the conservatives wouldn’t even go along with the ridiculous compromise. What are these people? The Taliban of the Thames? But let’s be realistic. They are hardliners and, hey, that’s just how they roll. However, I mostly believe the conservatives have given the rest of us a great gift by rejecting the compromise. They have helped a draw nice, broad, neon line that articulates the positions of the two sides. Take your pick of metaphors, my friends. The fissures are increasing. I think it’s about time to say “hasta la bye-bye” to this communion.

Share/Bookmark

[F]aced with dwindling membership and blows to their church’s reputation caused by its intransigence concerning medical treatment, even for children with grave illnesses, Christian Science leaders have recently found a new tolerance for medical care. For more than a year, leaders say, they have been encouraging members to see a physician if they feel it is necessary.

The church generally believes that “sickness is the manifestation of a conflict between “correct” and “incorrect” thinking.” And the national spokesperson “does not believe in germs or the existence of illness”. Christian Science generally “forbids mixing medical care with Christian Science healing, which is a form of transcendental prayer intended to realign a patient’s soul with God.”

William James always comes to mind when I hear about the Church of Christian Science. He was a strong proponent of “healthy mindedness” and used its techniques himself.

Here’s an excerpt from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on James:

James sets out a central distinction of the book in early chapters on “The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness” and “The Sick Soul.” The healthy-minded religious person — Walt Whitman is one of James’s main examples — has a deep sense of “the goodness of life,” (V, 79) and a soul of “sky-blue tint” (V, 80). Healthy-mindedness can be involuntary, just natural to someone, but often comes in more willful forms. Liberal Christianity, for example, represents the triumph of a resolute devotion to healthy-mindedness over a morbid “old hell-fire theology” (V, 91). James also cites the “mind-cure movement” of Mary Baker Eddy, for whom “evil is simply a lie, and any one who mentions it is a liar” (V, 107). For “The Sick Soul,” in contrast, “radical evil gets its innings” (V, 163). No matter how secure one may feel, the sick soul finds that “[u]nsuspectedly from the bottom of every fountain of pleasure, as the old poet said, something bitter rises up: a touch of nausea, a falling dead of the delight, a whiff of melancholy….” These states are not simply unpleasant sensations, for they bring “a feeling of coming from a deeper region and often have an appalling convincingness” (V, 136).  James’s main examples are Leo Tolstoy’s “My Confession,” John Bunyan’s autobiography, and a report of terrifying “dread” — allegedly from a French correspondent but actually from James himself. Some sick souls never get well, while others recover or even triumph: these are the “twice-born.” In chapters on “The Divided Self, and the Process of Its Unification” and on “Conversion,” James discusses St. Augustine, Henry Alline, Bunyan, Tolstoy, and a range of popular evangelists, focusing on what he calls “the state of assurance” (V, 247) they achieve. Central to this state is “the loss of all the worry, the sense that all is ultimately well with one, the peace, the harmony, the willingness to be, even though the outer conditions should remain the same” (V, 248).

Share/Bookmark

Someone told me that they were in town. They were protesting at the Twitter HQ. Glad to see the Bay Area respond with an “in kind” protest.  Apparently they were going to protest in front of the theater where Fiddler on the Roof was being performed. Sometimes I wish I could get inside their twisted theology, but I’d rather not go there. Laughing Squid posted the details:

Westboro Baptist Church showed up to protest in front of Twitter’s San Francisco office on Thursday, but found themselves severely outnumbered by a crowd of absurdist pranksters, including guest blogger EDW Lynch above.

Share/Bookmark

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”.

I haven’t taught our World Religions survey course in many years. I honestly can say that I don’t miss it. I much prefer the Philosophy of Religion course and the Nature of Religious Experience course just because they lend themselves to more philosophical content. However, I did feel that I was doing a service to my country (and to God, frankly) when I taught the World Religions course. I fought back bigotry (yes! at SF State). The ignorance busting was not a happy chore, but someone had to do it.

Things somewhat devolved into only teaching the most basic elements of the religions. I only had time to do “The Big 5″ – Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Predictably, a few Christian students would have the view that the history of Christianity went something like this:

God–>Adam–>David–>Jesus–>Pastor Bob’s teachers in seminary–>Pastor Bob

Some students failed to grasp the fact that Martin Luther had anything to do with “Protestantism”. But I digress.

This Twitter poll has a lot of people answering “other Christian” 12%. Protestants are 5%, Catholics are 13% and Orthodox are 1%. I immediately flashed back to the bigot who said that Catholics weren’t Christians. (sigh) Maybe the high percentage of “others” were “Evangelicals”. Since many aren’t credal or in any other respect denominational, I imagine they think they aren’t Protestants. But then I calmed down a bit and realized that some of the “others” might be Mormons.

I think I would actually break down into a puddle of tears if after inviting me to speak to their college group’s Bible study, this hypothetical student would go on to declare adamantly that she was not a Protestant. (Catholics don’t have this problem that I’m aware of. They seem very clear that they’re Catholic and not “other”!) Again, I think the difficulty is that they have little knowledge of Christian history. That, or simply a pernicious, deliberate, anti-intellectualism. For my part, I’m confident that either Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, or the Wesley brothers’ tag team, could smack down a thousand Pastor Bob’s with no problem.  (It wouldn’t be a fair fight, of course. Not very charitable of me, I grant you. But I calls them as I sees them.)

So as not to be guilty of the same kind of deliberate ignorance, I invite any reader to engage with me on this issue of Christian identity with respect to one’s identifying (or not) as a Protestant. I really want to understand this phenomenon.

Share/Bookmark

But in some churches, the racial divide is beginning to erode, and it is fading fastest in one of American religion’s most conservative precincts: Evangelical Christianity. According to Michael Emerson, a specialist on race and faith at Rice University, the proportion of American churches with 20% or more minority participation has languished at about 7.5% for the past nine years. But among Evangelical churches with attendance of 1,000 people or more, the slice has more than quadrupled, from 6% in 1998 to 25% in 2007.

Share/Bookmark