Context is key!
Thanks Jason!
Ash Wednesday Foot in Mouth
You may have read my essay about anti-intellectualism. Well, here is the flip side: religious ignorance. Or rather, ignorance about religious traditions. UK broadcasters pondering over that nasty looking smudge on Joe Biden’s head.
Hello! It’s called Ash Wednesday! Hello! Joe’s a Roman Catholic. Pretty good chance he’s gonna get some ashes.
But here’s where there may be some excuse: Since they were in the UK they may have been dealing with the time zone difference. Yes? Maybe? Or just clueless?
It gets “worse”. Fully story here.
Oy.
Roger Ebert on God
Just received a Tweet with this link. Really great to hear from non-theologians what they think about God.
How I believe in God by Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times
When I was in first or second grade and had just been introduced by the nuns to the concept of a limitless God, I lay awake at night driving myself nuts by repeating over and over, But how could God have no beginning? And how could he have no end? …
When Sociologists Get Religion
As my students know, Durkheim, the “father of sociology”, had a great deal to say about religion. Some of it, from my point of view, helpful.
Sherkat, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, no longer has to worry about arguing for the key role of religion as a social force. As a new study has found, there has been a significant increase over the last 25 or so years not only in the quantity of work done by sociologists on religion, but also in how religion is treated in those studies. No longer is it assumed to be only a reflection of some other socioeconomic trend, but increasingly it is treated as the factor that may be central to understanding a given group of people.
When Sherkat published a paper in the 1990’s this was the response he received:
He remembers one telling him “this is garbage” for citing Weber’s views on the significance of religious values. “It can’t be religion” driving human behavior, the scholar told the then un-tenured Sherkat. “It’s got to be something else that caused the religion.”
Big change! Read the article from Inside Higher Ed here.
Oprah gets schooled
I awoke this afternoon just in time to see the Oprah show on Tues. Geishas and Dominican nuns. The list of what Oprah claimed she didn’t know makes me wonder, no, makes me worried about the general religious knowledge Americans have (or don’t have). For instance, the notion of being a “bride of Christ” and the habit as a kind of wedding gown was news.
I don’t mention this to bash Oprah. I only mention it because if Oprah doesn’t have a basic conceptual grasp of the life of Christian religious, i.e., the life of Christian nuns and monks, sisters and brothers, one can barely expect more “ordinary” lay persons to have half a clue. Why? Read more
Haiti and faith
CNN has a segment on the faith of Haitian parishioners at a Georgia church and Haitians in general.
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”.
Jesus the invisible babysitter
Here’s another video from “Big Think”. This one features actor Ricky Gervais explaining why he’s an atheist.
Copts killed in Egypt
Sad. Sad. From CNN.
Shooters opened fire at a gathering outside an eastern Egyptian church, killing six during the celebration of a Christian sect’s Christmas Eve, Egypt’s Interior Ministry reported.
The situation for Copts has been deteriorating. This story about Egyptian ID cards and the difficulties Copts (or Christians generally) face reminded me of a case of “reverse” branding. The Nazis forced Jews to wear a Star of David as a purely discriminatory sign. Here the Copts tattoo themselves as a sign of their faith. From the BBC website:
Ayman Raafat Zaki, 22, also bears a cross.
He has been a member of St Michael’s church in Cairo for nine years and he is now an altar boy.
Every Sunday, dressed in his white robes, he helps lead a large Christian congregation.
He chants readings from the Bible, as the young boys circle the church, spreading thick plumes of fragrant incense.
And yet Ayman’s overt spirituality – and his tattoo – are not enough to convince the state he is a Christian.
The importance of unbelief
I just watched this video interview of Stephen Fry. He’s a British actor whom I first watched as the butler “Jeeves” to Hugh Laurie’s “Bertie Wooster”. (A still photo of the pair is here.)
The video is about 15 minutes and delves into non-belief in “God”, especially any monotheistic deity, morality without religion, and more. There’s even a whiff of Schleiermacher in there.