Religious links
Getting Easter imagery a little wrong.
Exploring the rich religious life of India.
Thousands of Iranians celebrate ancient Zoroastrian fire festival.
The head of St John Chrysostom will be visiting New York so people can venerate this queer-hating, Jew-hating, misogynist patron saint of preachers of the gospel of love.
Visiting Qom:
Despite their conservatism, Qom’s pilgrims seemed motivated not by passion for Ahmadinejad-I never heard anyone say his name, though the “Leader” Ali Khamenei was mentioned repeatedly over outdoor loudspeakers-but by a total denial of politics, and a preference for something much simpler. In Tehran the previous week, I’d heard many rumors about protests, violence, provocation. Here I saw no sign of disloyalty to the government (save one: on a campaign bumper sticker with a picture of Ahmadinejad next to the slogan MAN OF THE PEOPLE, someone had scraped out his eyes and cheeks). Instead, I felt the opposite of the idealistic flurries of this summer’s protests-the happy docility of a one-party state.
Iranian regime is keen on having Islamic studies departments in British Universities. France denies a man citizenship for allegedly forcing his wife to wear a veil.
A 1977 lecture by one Margaret Thatcher on Christianity and Conservatism: how many contemporary politicians could sound anywhere near as informed and intelligent on politics and religion? (Apart from Obama and Abbott--except, of course, when T.Abb is telling women that their sexuality belongs to their future husband: nice takedown here.)
A series of thoughtful posts on the philosophical issues of trinitarianism and the Incarnation.
Pat Robertson blames Haiti’s problems on a pact with the devil. Dealing with the myth of a Haitian pact with the devil here, here and here.
About Catholicism and masturbation:
So we continue to live in the late Soviet period of Catholicism. They pretend to make sense; we pretend to believe them.
About why sexual strictness helps preserve church membership:
How did sex, of all subjects, come to occupy such a prominent place in the division of Christendom? In a sense, the potential was always there. From the first believers on up, the stern stuff of the Christian moral code has been cause for commentary-to say nothing of complaint. …
Thus does the Anglican attempt to lighten up the Christian moral code over the specific issue of divorce exhibit a clear pattern that appears over and over in the history of the experiment of Christianity Lite: First, limited exceptions are made to a rule; next, those exceptions are no longer limited and become the unremarkable norm; finally, that new norm is itself sanctified as theologically acceptable.
Exactly that pattern emerges in another example of the historical attempt to disentangle a thread of moral teaching out of the whole: the dissent about artificial contraception. Here, too, Anglicans took the historical lead. Throughout most of its history, all of Christianity-even divided Christianity-upheld the teaching that artificial contraception was wrong. Not until the Lambeth Conference of 1930 was that unity shattered by the subsequently famous Resolution 15, in which the Anglicans called for exceptions to the rule in certain difficult, carefully delineated marital (and only marital) circumstances. …
In all, it has been an about-face that certainly would have shocked the Lutherans of yesteryear-beginning with Martin Luther himself, who once called contraception “far more atrocious than incest or adultery.” …
… cites Christianity’s surprisingly strong combination of flexibility and inclusivity on the one hand and “uncompromising adherence to its basic convictions” on the other. “In striking contrast with the easy-going syncretism” of the time, he emphasizes, “Christianity was adamant on what it regarded as basic principles.”
And right from the beginning, those principles were understood to include matters of sexual morality- especially matters of sexual morality. The pagans, the early Christians were instructed, could have it all: their idols, their infanticide, their contraception, their abortion, their homosexuality; the Christians couldn’t. The Jews could have their divorce; the Christians couldn’t. And on the list of forbidden practices went. Of course, these were not the only features that distinguished Christianity from other sects. But from the beginning, they were not only fundamental features of Christianity, and not only features that put many people off. They were also, and are still, features that drew other people in.
The power of priests rests on them being “gatekeepers of righteousness”. Having the authority to declare and enforce taboos is the classic manifestation of that. If one loosens longstanding taboos (such as sexual taboos) one is doing three things:
(1) Undermining one’s claim to have a special conduit to moral truth;
(2) Lessening distinguishing markers of membership of the religiously correct;
(3) Lessening the ability to sell effortless virtue against those who “do not cut it”.
No wonder it has a negative effect on church membership, even without fertility effects.
About the seeking the presence of the infinite:
Those who believe that such religions are ultimately a regression, and a refusal to stare the joys and terrors of human freedom square in the face, need to better understand the reason why such a bizarre process as canonisation can re-enter the world as a rational activity, and the degree to which the self-defeating neo-atheist movement of people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins - the most shatteringly empty creed to come along for many a year - has been of God's party without knowing it.
Atheist Convention in Melbourne sells out (the complaint about not getting government support is a bit twee).
Exploring the rich religious life of India.
Thousands of Iranians celebrate ancient Zoroastrian fire festival.
The head of St John Chrysostom will be visiting New York so people can venerate this queer-hating, Jew-hating, misogynist patron saint of preachers of the gospel of love.
Visiting Qom:
Despite their conservatism, Qom’s pilgrims seemed motivated not by passion for Ahmadinejad-I never heard anyone say his name, though the “Leader” Ali Khamenei was mentioned repeatedly over outdoor loudspeakers-but by a total denial of politics, and a preference for something much simpler. In Tehran the previous week, I’d heard many rumors about protests, violence, provocation. Here I saw no sign of disloyalty to the government (save one: on a campaign bumper sticker with a picture of Ahmadinejad next to the slogan MAN OF THE PEOPLE, someone had scraped out his eyes and cheeks). Instead, I felt the opposite of the idealistic flurries of this summer’s protests-the happy docility of a one-party state.
Iranian regime is keen on having Islamic studies departments in British Universities. France denies a man citizenship for allegedly forcing his wife to wear a veil.
A 1977 lecture by one Margaret Thatcher on Christianity and Conservatism: how many contemporary politicians could sound anywhere near as informed and intelligent on politics and religion? (Apart from Obama and Abbott--except, of course, when T.Abb is telling women that their sexuality belongs to their future husband: nice takedown here.)
A series of thoughtful posts on the philosophical issues of trinitarianism and the Incarnation.
Pat Robertson blames Haiti’s problems on a pact with the devil. Dealing with the myth of a Haitian pact with the devil here, here and here.
About Catholicism and masturbation:
So we continue to live in the late Soviet period of Catholicism. They pretend to make sense; we pretend to believe them.
About why sexual strictness helps preserve church membership:
How did sex, of all subjects, come to occupy such a prominent place in the division of Christendom? In a sense, the potential was always there. From the first believers on up, the stern stuff of the Christian moral code has been cause for commentary-to say nothing of complaint. …
Thus does the Anglican attempt to lighten up the Christian moral code over the specific issue of divorce exhibit a clear pattern that appears over and over in the history of the experiment of Christianity Lite: First, limited exceptions are made to a rule; next, those exceptions are no longer limited and become the unremarkable norm; finally, that new norm is itself sanctified as theologically acceptable.
Exactly that pattern emerges in another example of the historical attempt to disentangle a thread of moral teaching out of the whole: the dissent about artificial contraception. Here, too, Anglicans took the historical lead. Throughout most of its history, all of Christianity-even divided Christianity-upheld the teaching that artificial contraception was wrong. Not until the Lambeth Conference of 1930 was that unity shattered by the subsequently famous Resolution 15, in which the Anglicans called for exceptions to the rule in certain difficult, carefully delineated marital (and only marital) circumstances. …
In all, it has been an about-face that certainly would have shocked the Lutherans of yesteryear-beginning with Martin Luther himself, who once called contraception “far more atrocious than incest or adultery.” …
… cites Christianity’s surprisingly strong combination of flexibility and inclusivity on the one hand and “uncompromising adherence to its basic convictions” on the other. “In striking contrast with the easy-going syncretism” of the time, he emphasizes, “Christianity was adamant on what it regarded as basic principles.”
And right from the beginning, those principles were understood to include matters of sexual morality- especially matters of sexual morality. The pagans, the early Christians were instructed, could have it all: their idols, their infanticide, their contraception, their abortion, their homosexuality; the Christians couldn’t. The Jews could have their divorce; the Christians couldn’t. And on the list of forbidden practices went. Of course, these were not the only features that distinguished Christianity from other sects. But from the beginning, they were not only fundamental features of Christianity, and not only features that put many people off. They were also, and are still, features that drew other people in.
The power of priests rests on them being “gatekeepers of righteousness”. Having the authority to declare and enforce taboos is the classic manifestation of that. If one loosens longstanding taboos (such as sexual taboos) one is doing three things:
(1) Undermining one’s claim to have a special conduit to moral truth;
(2) Lessening distinguishing markers of membership of the religiously correct;
(3) Lessening the ability to sell effortless virtue against those who “do not cut it”.
No wonder it has a negative effect on church membership, even without fertility effects.
About the seeking the presence of the infinite:
Those who believe that such religions are ultimately a regression, and a refusal to stare the joys and terrors of human freedom square in the face, need to better understand the reason why such a bizarre process as canonisation can re-enter the world as a rational activity, and the degree to which the self-defeating neo-atheist movement of people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins - the most shatteringly empty creed to come along for many a year - has been of God's party without knowing it.
Atheist Convention in Melbourne sells out (the complaint about not getting government support is a bit twee).