Metacentricities

Of the many perspectives on the issue of gays and lesbians in the modern Christian church, this one is one of the more interesting ones. His perspective is that it’s a lot about biblical authority:

"the weight of textual evidence said nothing about how those texts should be received - that just because Paul or his disciples had condemned homosexual acts, we were under no obligation to do so."

The issue of biblical inerrancy has been intriguing to me. Even as a fundamentalist, I never completely bought the biblical inerrancy thing. For a while, I ignored the bible entirely. Now, I think the bible is a book, like most old scriptures of varied religious traditions, that was written by many authors, with many perspectives, with some really great stories and wonderful wisdom, some of it is worth paying attention to, and some of it is completely irrelevant to our present condition. The more I learn about the bible, the more I think that the strength with which those who are theologically conservative hold the bible in reverence is scary. It’s almost as if they worship the bible, and not God.

Anyway, his blog, Guanilo’s Island, is pretty interesting, too.

Thanks to Jesus Politics for this one, as usual.

… here comes Rita. Rita was a tropical storm when I last looked, but now, upon entering the Gulf of Mexico, it’s become a category 4 hurricane, heading for Texas. I can’t wait to find out what those conservative preachers who were so quick to blame Katrina on the "decadence" of New Orleans are going to say when Rita hits Galveston. And, of course, Bush has to look like he’s doing something.

And how many more hurricanes do we need this year to teach us the lesson that we’re screwing with the environment in ways that are going to have really bad effects on us? It reminds me of Mother of Storms - a science fiction novel I read a while ago. It’s a good novel, mostly (with a really bad subplot that I hated, though.) The basic premise of the novel is that global warming causes hurricanes to increase in intensity, until there is one, really big, really devastating storm. I hope that one never comes.

Update: Rita is now a category 5 hurricane. The strongest there are category 3 (thankfully).

As I was travelling across country, I had heard about Brother Roger, who was stabbed at an evening service in the Taizé community in France. I didn’t know much about the community, or the form of worship, but I’m learning more. Since I’ve arrived in Berkeley, I have had the wonderful gift of attending four Taizé worship services, that are done by the New Spirit Community Church. I’m making it a regular part of my life.
 

Taizé worship is deeply contemplative, and was designed to be open, and ecumenical. The basics of worship that they developed in Taizé has found its way on this side of the Atlantic. The services that I’ve experienced are a combination of slow, chanting songs that are short, repeated a few times, candles, silent meditation, and prayers. It’s a profoundly quieting and heart-opening experience.

If you are in the Boston area, Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church is doing a Taizé service on October 5th in memory of Brother Roger. If you ever get a chance to go to a Taizé service, it’s really worth it.

Well, I’m into week 3, and I don’t feel quite so at sea as I did last week, or the week before. I’ve finished 3 papers (yes, I’ve had 3 papers to write so far, fairly minor) and am working on the 4th. My major computer is in the shop, which is annoying, to say the least (no movies, probably a good thing given the amount of reading and writing I have to do: 6+ more papers in the next 3 weeks!) It should be back in my hands by the end of the week.

The courses are just fascinating, and I’m really digging them. Here are some highlights:

Bible class: I’m digging learning some amazing stuff about the Hebrew Bible - in terms of what archeological evidence there is for what. We’ve learned that the accounts in Exodus, Joshua and Judges really don’t have any archeology to back them up, and have enough internal inconsistencies that it’s pretty likely that they are fairly fictional. And, it was interesting to read, and think about, some of the truly horrific things that it is said that the Israelites did, supposedly in God’s name - like slaughter everyone in Jericho. So my question is, if you are going to make it up, why make it up that way?

Spiritual Disciplines for Leadership: John Wesley and Martin Luther don’t float my boat. But, we did learn a really interesting form of Lectio Divina, which came from Luther, which I really like. Take a particular passage, like, for instance a Psalm, and read it 4 times, slowly. And then contemplate varied things (for instruction, thankfulness, confession and just listening) while they are being read. It’s really interesting what comes to mind, and what your mind does with it - and just watching that.

Christian Contemplation and Action: I’m working on a post in my ministry blog on Ignatius of Loyola, so you’ll hear more about that - hopefully tomorrow or Thursday.

Art and Religion: This course is the hardest. I know, I hear you laughing now. I love art, really, I do, but to be completely honest, I have never wanted to either read much criticism about a particular piece of art, or write any art criticism, and I have to. For me, art has always been about the experience. Writing about it is like pulling teeth. I love that we have to spend an hour with each peice of art we choose. But I hate having to read about it, and generate a paper on it. I know I’ll be better for the effort, but the class that everyone else is feeling like is a breeze, is giving me ulcers. But the prof is great, and he provides wine, cheese, bread and chocolate at the break (the class is 3 hours) for 45 people!! I kid you not! Too bad I can’t drink the wine.

And, I’ve rediscovered the joy of libraries. Not that I’ve forgotten - it’s just that in the last few years, I’ve had little reason to visit them. But parking myself at a carrel, with my books scattered about me, hearing almost nothing, or small library sounds - brings me back to college and grad school days. Plus the GTU library is really nice.

So, I guess one could say I’m having a blast again.

You’d never know it, but I’m an online quiz junkie. One blogroll I generally read everyday (and am on) is the linuxchix blogroll. Several people regularly post quizzes they’ve taken, and the results. I take the quizzes, but never post the results… until now.

So here is the completely unsurprising result to a quiz about political philosopy:

You are a Social Liberal (78% permissive) and an… Economic Liberal (5% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test  on Ok Cupid

This is fun, and interesting. Someone printed up a bunch of speech bubble stickers (see below) and put them on posters all over NY - then took pictures of the results. There is humor, political commentary, etc. Here’s one example:

Via Boing Boing

This is a hard one. I hate giving these prizes to liberals. Donna Brazile, who was the African-American lesbian manager of Al Gore’s 2000 campaign, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post today. I can’t quite believe it. America Blog’s Rob thinks she suffers from Stockholm Syndrome. Whatever. I understand the sentiment - let’s all band together to rebuild New Orleans. But band together behind the person who is responsible for hundreds of unnecessary deaths, and who is well on his way to using Katrina to line the pockets of his cronies? Not hardly.

I’m taking the red one.

This is bad, really bad.

Quick summary: Last summer, the more Artic sea ice melted than has ever melted before. It has gotten past the point of no return - we likely can never put things back the way we found them.

The Artic is an especially critical area for two reasons. One - polar sea ice reflects the suns energy - the more ice, the more reflection, the less ice, the less reflection, thus more warming. It is a positive feedback loop - ice melting will accelerate - leading to even more warming.

The second thing is that the Artic Tundra ecosystem is a net carbon sink for our planet (one of the most important ones - one third of the soil-bound carbon on the planet is found here.) because of the permafrost. Plants that accumulate carbon (in the form of growth) don’t decompose when they die because of the frozen ground - they just accumulate. But as the permafrost melts, this ecosystem ceases to serve as the carbon sink that it is, and becomes a net carbon source, as the plants decompose.

Non-scientific summary: we’re screwed.

This is hilarious. As well as poigniant.

Thanks to Jesus Politics.