A friend asked me to comment on why I found the Beck’s connection with Martin Luther’s King speech offensive, I had to take time to explain. I mean to be sure, the “Returning Honor” rally itself was fine and by the accounts I’ve skimmed, was pretty nice and a tamping down of the hatred of the recent past and hopefully a sign of a return to civil discourse. But I found Beck’s connection offensive and below is my explanation.
Archive for the ‘Religion’ Category
Returning Honor
Sunday, August 29th, 2010On Rooting for The Gays
Monday, August 23rd, 2010UPDATE: Fixed a couple of typos and clarifying text to avoid giving the impression I was critical of the confessed Protestant faith.
Recently, I was taken to task about the morality of homosexuality and how the Bible “clearly” teaches it’s practice is a sin. Frankly, I never believed that and having other priorities chose not to bother examining the issue other than cataloguing some verses. Other things are important to me in my faith journey. But given all the proud bigotry surrounding so-called “gay marriage” and the civil rights of LGBT persons I’m seeing, I decided to give it a look see.
You Just Think You’re Excited
Thursday, August 5th, 2010Today I got into a heated, though thankfully not acrimonious, religious discussion with a good friend which had to end abruptly for the sake of our friendship. Afterward, I was reflecting and was surprised by my emotional reaction. Heart pumping, adrenaline flowing, voices tense. What the hell? We are both very committed Christians and in the heat of the moment we were more talking at each other than conversing with each other. I was taken at how angry I had become. And for no intellectual reason really. It wasn’t that deep. The world would not end, but here I was upset.
It finally occurred to me that as my friend spoke he used words and phrases and believed things that triggered visceral emotional reactions to experiences I’ve had in the past. But not recognizing that is a fundamental mistake. It is very hard to think when you are excited and full of emotion. I reacted rather than acted with intention. My friend was gone replaced by the bogeymen of my past humiliations and righteous anger. I failed to get outside myself and acknowledge him and, most importantly, that he might be feeling precisely the same way. In truth, things I said challenged his deeply held beliefs and that is rarely welcome.
It was an object lesson in compassion. It takes a lot of humility and hard work to “feel with” others. If I had taken the time to do so, we might have turned a sharp disagreement into a teachable moment rather than a clash of ego, belief, and emotion.
Doing the God Thing Right
Monday, July 12th, 2010Finished The Case for God by Karen Armstrong. Brilliant book. Though the title is an unfortunate victim of marketing-speak. It’s not an apologetic to convince you of anything except that being convinced means your are doing the God thing wrong. As usual the history she breaks down for the reader is immensely illuminating.
At the end of the day to quest for that Reality some of us call God is quintessentially human with all the attendant good and evil. Faith is more like marriage than some intellectual exercise (or surrender). Religion is work. Some are good at it and some aren’t.
Read it if you dare.
On Female Clergy
Friday, April 30th, 2010Rom 16:7 Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.
If a woman can be a prominent apostle before Paul and, by Catholic tradition, was made one in a church founded by Peter himself, then women can be priests. The hierarchy hiding behind Jesus’ choice of 12 male apostles, one of whom saw fit for women in the apostalate, to justify patriarchy in our Church is sophistry at best. Full stop.
Magically Fundamental
Sunday, April 18th, 2010Jon Meachem in the NY Times breaks it down:
Then, significantly, MacCulloch adds, “I live with the puzzle of wondering how something so apparently crazy can be so captivating to millions of other members of my species.” That puzzle confronts anyone who approaches Christianity with a measure of detachment. The faith, MacCulloch notes, is “a perpetual argument about meaning and reality.”
This is not a widely popular view, for it transforms the “Jesus loves me! This I know / For the Bible tells me so” ethos of Sunday schools and vacation Bible camps into something more complicated and challenging: what was magical is now mysterious. Magic means there is a spell, a formula, to work wonders. Mystery means there is no spell, no formula — only shadow and impenetrability and hope that one day, to borrow a phrase T. S. Eliot borrowed from Julian of Norwich, all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
And that’s why fundamentalism, which tries to put God in a box, is problematic from the get go for me.
Credibility gap: Pope needs to answer questions | National Catholic Reporter
Friday, April 2nd, 2010We urge this not primarily as journalists seeking a story, but as Catholics who appreciate that extraordinary circumstances require an extraordinary response. Nothing less than a full, personal and public accounting will begin to address the crisis that is engulfing the worldwide church. It is that serious.
via Credibility gap: Pope needs to answer questions | National Catholic Reporter.
This is why I am still a Catholic. Our Church is more than the Magesterium and hierarchy.
BBC News – Pope accused of failing to act on sex abuse case
Monday, March 29th, 2010A canonical trial authorised by Cardinal Ratzinger’s deputy was halted after Fr. Murphy wrote to the future pope asking that proceedings be stopped, despite objections from a second archbishop.
The accused priest said in the letter that he was ill and wanted to live out the remainder of his time in the “dignity of my priesthood”.
Victims say Fr Murphy – who died in 1998 – assaulted boys while hearing their confessions, in his office, his car, at his mother’s house and in their dormitory beds.
He was quietly moved to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin in 1974, where he spent his last 24 years working freely with children in parishes and schools, according to one lawsuit.
via BBC News – Pope accused of failing to act on sex abuse case.
What bothers me is the Vatican’s response to this. Instead of quiet dignity, we find defiance: it’s about the pope and not about the children who were abused under his watch. Directly or not, you are responsible Pope Benedict. Take responsibility. Accusing the media and critics of “petty gossip” about really serious matters only serves to paint you as petty and seeking to deflect attention from those sins you may have committed. Focus on what matters. Further, you are the Vicar of Christ; so much for blessing those who curse you.
Putting Away My Sword
Sunday, March 28th, 2010Today’s homily centered on the Passion of Christ and how we read it today during Mass. The passion in Luke’s Gospel was read like a play with different parts read by different people. The folks in the pews read parts where groups of people speak, e.g. the crowds or the High Priests. So Father focused his homily on the parts for us folks in the pews and highlighted how they were all parts that spoke ill of the speakers themselves. “Crucify him!” etc. One section really spoke to me and my sins, Anger and Pride in particular.
Luk 22:49 When those who were around him saw what was coming, they asked, “Lord, should we strike with the sword?”
I really love to draw my sword. It happens when I lord over someone in a debate. It happens when I turn righteous anger into scornful rebuke and feel pride in my self-righteousness. Thank God for the sacrament of Reconciliation and the grace from God of friends who challenge me with love.
