Tuesday 28 March 2006 at 9:17 pm
Voices provided some good links, one of which was to some blogging done by some Calvin Sem profs at http://www.crconnect.org and the CRC Synodical report on War and Peace and John Bolt's response.
My first response to the War and Peace thread was "is this worth the effort?" Not that the issue isn't vitally important, but will anyone really pay attention. The occasion of this thing is the Iraq war and the discussion will surround it. It seems the intent of the administration to keep the general public as insulated from this war as possible. No new taxes to fund it, no conscription to boost enlistment, griping about the news service reporting on the war, etc. People who pay attention to politics or who have a connection to someone serving in Iraq will pay some attention, but it won't be an issue of felt urgency for many. It was interesting watching the fast response in the streets over immigration. There have been anti-war protests but it seems that for most response to the war might hit the annoyance mark but not visceral reaction.
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Thursday 23 March 2006 at 10:07 pm
This is the second draft of something I've been trying to write. Here is a PDF link.
What is a "Culture Wars"?
We hear the term all the time in the media. Today some hot issues in the "culture war" are same-sex-marriage, abortion, teaching of evolution in public schools, exhibition of religious texts in public buildings, etc. How does this play out? There is a perceived conflict that tends to polarize the population into factions and alliances regarding certain key issues. The conflict takes on a variety of dimensions: political, religious, economic, etc. It impacts people broadly in terms of how they view history, how they evaluate the current state of affairs, their expectations of the future, and what they see their purpose in this world to be.
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Tuesday 21 March 2006 at 8:30 pm
Luke 11:1-3 (NRSV)
He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread.
Luke 15:31-32 (NRSV)
Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ”
Jesus tells us to call the God of Israel “Father”. For some of us this is so familiar and comfortable they never even give it a thought. For others, this command is fraught with complications. A Muslim would never call Allah “Father”. Their protest would be that this is painting a metaphorical picture of Allah which is forbidden. We saw the violence produced by some cartoons of Muhammad, one imagines they would protest this command even more violently.
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Tuesday 21 March 2006 at 8:29 pm
I've been writing daily devotionals for Living Stones. I've been posting them on the church's website as we as sending them out via the church e-mail loop and a new yahoo group called "Stone by Stone". If you would be interested in receiving them you can sign up for the postings at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stone_by_stone. You can also find there all the past posts. I'm also trying to foment discussion of these posts at http://livingstonescrc.com .
Tuesday 14 March 2006 at 8:55 pm
A terrific piece by George Marsden:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2006/002/3.10.html
