Another Author Who "Gets It"

Amazing. the second article in a row that is positive! I'm so glad to be able to post something like this.

Sci-fi author Ray Bradbury is another artist who understands "flow" in the sense that I do. That, when looking back on the creations one makes, it can be declared: "It was not I who did that - I didn't do that." It is a gift attached to the Creator's hand more than an artist's own. 

I love that he focuses on LOVE in knowing God.

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Sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury on God, 'monsters and angels'

By John Blake, CNN - August 2, 2010

(CNN) -- Ray Bradbury lives in a rambling Los Angeles home full of stuffed dinosaurs, a tin robot pushing an ice cream cart, and a life-sized Bullwinkle the Moose doll lounging in a cushioned chair. The 89-year-old science fiction author watches Fox News Channel by day, Turner Classic Movies by night. He spends the rest of his time summoning "the monsters and angels" of his imagination for his enchanting tales. Bradbury's imagination has yielded classic books such as "Fahrenheit 451," "The Martian Chronicles" and 600 short stories that predicted everything from the emergence of ATMs to live broadcasts of fugitive car chases. Bradbury, who turns 90 this month, says he will sometimes open one of his books late at night and cry out thanks to God. "I sit there and cry because I haven't done any of this," he told Sam Weller, his biographer and friend. "It's a God-given thing, and I'm so grateful, so, so grateful. The best description of my career as a writer is, 'At play in the fields of the Lord.' " Bradbury's stories are filled with references to God and faith, but he's rarely talked at length about his religious beliefs, until now. 'Joy is the grace we say to God' He describes himself as a "delicatessen religionist." He's inspired by Eastern and Western religions. The center of his faith, though, is love. Everything -- the reason he decided to write his first short story at 12; his 56-year marriage to his muse and late wife, Maggie; his friendships with everyone from Walt Disney to Alfred Hitchcock -- is based on love. Bradbury is in love with love. Once, when he saw Walt Disney, architect of the Magic Kingdom, Christmas shopping in Los Angeles, Bradbury approached him and said: "Mr. Disney, my name is Ray Bradbury and I love you." Bradbury's favorite book in the Bible is the Gospel of John, which is filled with references to love. "At the center of religion is love," Bradbury says from his home, which is painted dandelion yellow in honor of his favorite book, "Dandelion Wine." "I love you and I forgive you. I am like you and you are like me. I love all people. I love the world. I love creating. ... Everything in our life should be based on love." Bradbury's voice booms with enthusiasm over the phone. He now uses a wheelchair. His hearing has deteriorated. But he talks like an excitable kid with an old man's voice. (Each Christmas, Bradbury asked his wife to give him toys in place of any other gifts.) Weller, author of "Listen to The Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews," says Bradbury ends many conversations with "God bless." Weller's book devotes an entire chapter to Bradbury's faith. "I once asked him if he prayed, and he said, 'Joy is the grace we say to God,' '' Weller says. Bradbury was raised as a Baptist in Waukegan, Illinois, by his father, a utility lineman, and his mother, a housewife. Both were infrequent churchgoers. His family moved to Los Angeles during the Great Depression to look for work. When he turned 14, Bradbury began visiting Catholic churches, synagogues and charismatic churches on his own to figure out his faith. Bradbury has been called a Unitarian, but he rejects that term. He dislikes labels of any kind. "I'm a Zen Buddhist if I would describe myself," he says. "I don't think about what I do. I do it. That's Buddhism. I jump off the cliff and build my wings on the way down." Bradbury started writing for pulp magazines like "Weird Tales" and "Thrilling Wonder Stories" at the beginning of his career. But even then, faith was an important theme. In his 1949 story "The Man," Bradbury tells the story of a rocket crew landing on Mars, only to see their thunder taken by a Christ-like figure who had arrived only hours earlier. In subsequent stories such as "Bless Me, Father, For I Have Sinned," priests and other ordinary people search and find redemption. Allusions to Christianity are common in his stories, but Bradbury doesn't define himself as a Christian. He considers Jesus a wise prophet, like Buddha and Confucius. "Jesus is a remarkable person," Bradbury says. "He was on his way to becoming Christ, and he made it." Weller, also author of "The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury," says Bradbury's religious antenna is most attuned to Christianity. "The guy keeps writing about Jesus, but he doesn't consider himself a Christian," Weller says. "He says faith is necessary but that we should accept the fact that when it comes to God, none of us know anything." The Rev. Calvin Miller, author of the New Testament novels "The Singer Trilogy," sees an optimism in Bradbury's stories that's reflected in the Judeo-Christian belief that there will be a "new heaven and a new Earth" one day. Miller once wrote an essay about Bradbury's "Christian positivism," titled "Hope in a Doubtful Age," that was published in "Christianity Today," an evangelical magazine. After the essay appeared, Miller says, he was sorting through mail at home when he noticed two thank-you letters from Bradbury -- one written when the author was headed to Paris for vacation and another when he arrived. The following Christmas, Miller says, he received something else from Bradbury. "Every Christmas afterward, he sent me a card," Miller says. "I guess the religious implications of the article meant a lot to him." Will space travel destroy our belief in God? The religious implications of space travel also mean much to Bradbury. Bradbury has been a relentless supporter of space exploration. Ascending to the heavens won't destroy God; it'll reinforce belief, he says. "We're moving more toward God," he says. "We're moving toward more proofs of his creation in other worlds he's created in other parts of the universe. Space travel will increase our belief in God. As he approaches the end of his journey, Bradbury is still conjuring his monsters and angels. His next book, "Summer Morning, Summer Night," was just released last month. Many of his best friends, though, are not around to read him anymore. "My personal telephone book is a book of the dead now," Bradbury told Weller in his book of interviews. "I'm so old. Almost all of my friends have died, and I don't have the guts to take their names out of the book." Bradbury is also concerned about something beyond his own mortality: humanity's survival. Space travel and religion seek the same goal -- immortality, Bradbury says. If humanity remains on Earth, it is doomed because someday the sun will either explode or flame out. Everyone -- not just the characters in his story -- must eventually explore the stars, he says. "We must move into the universe. Mankind must save itself. We must escape the danger of war and politics. We must become astronauts and go out into the universe and discover the God in ourselves."

Anne Rice Sees the Light

Well said, Anne, well said.

From her last quote (which I totally agree with), it sounds like she's not technically *quitting* the realm of belief in Christ. I 100% understand why she has made this decision and give her kudos for being vocal about it.

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Legendary author Anne Rice has announced that she’s quitting Christianity.
Source: Marquee Blog - July 30, 2010

The “Interview with a Vampire” author, who wrote a book about her spirituality titled "Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession" in 2008, said Wednesday that she refuses to be “anti-gay,” “anti-feminist," “anti-science” and “anti-Democrat.”

Rice wrote, “For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian ... It's simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”

Rice then added another post explaining her decision on Thursday:

“My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me," Rice wrote. "But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been or might become.”

Grave Errors

The raping of children by pedophile priests is not on par WHATSOEVER with the ordination of women and should not be subject to the same scrutiny. It is illogical and a fundamentally immoral view.

No Christian bible says the absence of a penis negates the ability to inspire the grace of God. Jesus was a man. It is not indicated anywhere in scripture -meaning THE BIBLE - not Vatican law - that all Catholic priests should be men, nor is there any citation of the issuing of penalties should a woman be ordained. Someone point this out to me. Point it out so I can deconstruct it.

No Vatican boys club has a right to invoke the name of God in a sick declaration that lumps the ordination of women into the same bucket of criminality or "grave"ness as child rape.

Excerpt from article:

"One new element included lists the attempted ordination of women as a "grave crime" subject to the same set of procedures and punishments meted out for sex abuse. That drew immediate criticism from women's ordination groups, who said making a moral equivalent between women priests and child rapists was offensive."

I'm not the submissive, non-questioning type so I don't see or understand how Catholic women (in 2010) can honestly reconcile this statement between their spirituality with God and Vatican doctrine. That chasm between universal truth and institutional policy appears to be widening at an alarming rate.

My blood boils. I thank Christ every day that I was able to see clearly and leave this female-subjugating institution.

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Vatican: Ordination Of Women A 'Grave Crime'

NICOLE WINFIELD -07/15/10 11:05 AM

Source - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/15/vatican-ordination-of-wom_n_647296.html

 

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican issued a revised set of in-house rules Thursday to respond to clerical sex abuse, targeting priests who molest the mentally disabled as well as children and priests who use child pornography, but making few substantive changes to existing practice. The new rules make no mention of the need for bishops to report clerical sex abuse to police, provide no canonical sanctions for bishops who cover up for abusers and do not include any "one-strike and you're out" policy for pedophile priests as demanded by some victims. As a result, they failed to satisfy victims' advocates, who said the revised rules amounted to little more than "administrative housekeeping" of existing practice when what was needed were bold new rules threatening bishops who fail to report molester priests. The rules cover the canonical penalties and procedures used for the most grave crimes in the church, both sacramental and moral, and double the statute of limitations applied to them. One new element included lists the attempted ordination of women as a "grave crime" subject to the same set of procedures and punishments meted out for sex abuse. That drew immediate criticism from women's ordination groups, who said making a moral equivalent between women priests and child rapists was offensive. The Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor acknowledged it was "only a document," and didn't solve the problem of clerical abuse. He defended the lack of any mention of the need to report abuse to police, saying all Christians were required to obey civil laws that would already demand sex crimes be reported. "If civil law requires you report, you must obey civil law," Monsignor Charles Scicluna told reporters. But "it's not for canonical legislation to get itself involved with civil law." Victims' groups have accused the church's internal justice system of failing to deal with abuse allegations and allowing bishops to ignore complaints in order to protect the church. "The first thing the church should be doing is reporting crimes to civil authorities," said Andrew Madden, a former Dublin altar boy who took the first public lawsuit against the church in Ireland in 1995.

BACKFIRE!!

Wow. I mean... wow.

I've been crazy with grad school so I have not had the time to post, but I had to take a few minutes to comment on the following article.

Those in the Catholic church who are trying to vie and argue against abortions are oblivious to the fact that their twisted logic is turning against them. Observe the following graphic that metaphors perfectly with this situation:

Talk about a backfiring statement.

Focusing on the verbal diarrhea by John Ehrich (I refuse to include "Reverend" as his title), I must say it is a sorry state in 2010 that the woman, the human carrier of said human fetus, is forgotten; relegated as a mere function without feeling, without history, without an opinion or reason, even in the case of life threatening instances or sexual victimization. The misogyny of the Catholic church continues in obvious frustrated desperation to form that "sputtling", "befrazzled"  sentence in red-faced attempts to vilify the woman in an abortion situation. However, the only thing that yapping lapdogs of the Church like this manage to do is embody the mind-fogged incoherent logic of a drunk-uncouth-fool-stumbling-and-falling-into-a-plate-glass-window-hitting-rock-bottom-with-bottle-still-in-hand, yelling "Oh, and other thing...!!"

(Sigh) And I keep saying it: the church places the living 2nd to the unborn. The Vatican Boys' Club in the U.S. certainly does not scream this loud or passionately when babies are blown up in the theater of unjust wars.

The compassion of Christ has gotten trampled underfoot in the aisles of the Church. The understanding of Jesus was drowned in the Baptismal font. The love of God has been burned and disintegrated in the ashes of ritual. Spirituality has become taboo as these men put on the stoles of a guilt-centered religion, which fits neatly in the coffers. The agape of the Holy Spirit has been replaced with the Catholic Church 2.0., an institution which is growing ever more unrecognizable as being "Christ-centered".

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Catholic Leader Says Woman Should Die With Her Fetus -- When Did Woman-Hating Go Mainstream?

By Carole Joffe, RH Reality Check - Posted on May 24, 2010, Printed on May 25, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146991/


"She consented in the murder of an unborn child. There are some situations where the mother may in fact die along with her child."

With this brief quote, the speaker, the Rev. John Ehrich, medical ethics director for the Diocese of Phoenix, deserves credit for achieving a twofer in a recently revived (if not formally declared) misogyny competition that is now sweeping the anti-choice world. He is not only stating that a gravely ill woman (the mother of four children) should have been left to die, rather than being permitted an abortion; he is also explaining why Sister Mary Margaret McBride, the nun-administrator of a Catholic hospital who authorized the abortion (thereby saving the woman’s life) deserves to be excommunicated.

This case, which has received wide coverage in RH Reality Check and other media, has predictably stunned many people, across the abortion divide. Some have pointed out that the Phoenix diocese misinterpreted Catholic health care directives, and that abortion is permissible under these rules when a woman’s life is at stake. Others have made the common sense observation that if the woman had died, not only would her four children remain motherless, but the 11-week old fetus would not have survived either. Inevitably, some commented on the disparity between the nun’s swift excommunication and the fact that none of the identified pedophile priests have received such punishment.

But while the Phoenix case may cause the most jaw-dropping, with its undisguised preference for a woman’s death over an abortion, there are other recent instances that similarly suggest an upsurge of blatant woman-hating in the antiabortion world. Take the notorious Utah law passed earlier this year in response to the deeply sad case of a pregnant teenager who paid a stranger to beat her in the hope of inducing a miscarriage. (In spite of the severe beating that occurred, the pregnancy resulted in a live birth). Outraged that the male in question received a jail sentence but that there was no legal mechanism with which to charge the teen, a Utah legislator pushed through legislation that criminalizes the seeking of an illegal abortion, and which many observers believe has the practical effect of making all miscarriages in the state theoretically suspect. Had this law been in effect at the time of the incident described above, and had the fetus not survived, the desperate young woman could have received fifteen years to life. As the untroubled sponsor of the bill told a reporter, the young woman “has to face the consequences of her barbaric actions.” No one stopped to ask under what conditions she had gotten pregnant nor why she took such drastic measures.

Then there are the mandatory ultrasound laws. These are occurring in a number of state legislatures, but nowhere to date with such viciousness as the one recently passed in Oklahoma. There the new law stipulates that one hour before her abortion, the patient must receive an ultrasound, with the monitor positioned so that she can see it, and the doctor must point to and describe the heart, limbs and organs of the fetus. There are no exceptions for victims of rape or incest.

The current Supreme Court has also shown an unprecedented and disturbing hostility to women with respect to abortion. In its most recent decision on the subject, the 2007 Gonzales v Carhart case which upheld a ban on a certain abortion technique (intact dilation and extraction, or so-called “partial birth abortion”), the Court, shockingly, for the first time upheld an abortion restriction which did not allow any exception for a woman’s health.

Do these examples of misogyny represent anything new? To be sure, in some extremist anti-choice circles, full throated woman-hating never went away. (See, for example, this video from several years ago of Flip Benham screeching at women entering a N. Carolina clinic that “Satan will drink the blood of your child!”) But in other, more mainstream quarters of the movement, the heated, and hateful rhetoric of the period immediately after Roe—where women seeking abortion were routinely called “sluts” and “baby killers” —gradually became replaced by a new frame: abortion hurts women. Given that by the early 1980s, about 40 percent of American women were estimated to have an abortion during their reproductive years (the number now is about 33 percent), arguably such hate speech was counterproductive for the opponents of abortion: too many Americans either themselves had had an abortion or knew someone who did. Thus, antiabortion rhetoric shifted to professed sympathy for women, and abortion providers—those doing the hurting—became the main objects of demonization.

The nature of laws restricting abortions has also undergone changes in the recent past, reflecting a heightened mean-spiritedness. While all such laws have as their goal the objective of making the procedure more difficult to obtain, earlier laws—for example, the waiting periods, or the TRAP laws governing minute, arguably irrelevant physical features of freestanding clinics-- these measures did not have quite the same blatant cruelty as current measures do, given the mandates to force a woman to hear a description of her ultrasound or to be told terrifying lies about supposed links between abortion and breast cancer, suicide and infertility, as is required in a number of states.

Why has this increase in undisguised misogyny occurred? Certainly part of the answer is the election of Barack Obama. Like other sectors of the rightwing, the antichoice movement has been both enraged and energized by the Obama presidency. There not only has been a change in rhetoric and in the quantity and quality of abortion legislation since the 2008 election, but also an upsurge in aggression and violence at the site of clinics themselves (though most of this violence to date has been directed at providers, rather than patients, as we saw with the tragic murder of Dr. Tiller one year ago).

Another explanation lies in the considerable success the antichoice movement has had in stigmatizing abortion, and therefore those who both receive abortions and provide them. As the overall number of abortion patients drop, and as poor women of color disproportionately comprise the population of abortion patients, it has become far easier for mainstream actors in the antichoice movement to see a split world, in which good women do the “right thing” when faced with an unwanted pregnancy and bad women don’t. This deeply stigmatized view of abortion recipients enables the “respectable” opponents of abortion—the legislators, the Church officials and so on—to go a rhetorical place where their extremist colleagues have always been.

Let's Talk Heaven

Happy (upcoming) Easter! I came across this article below that brings up some interesting questions with regards to how people think "Heaven" will be. Or if it will be at all. Or if it is simply metaphorical.

I would like to address a couple of points that this author touches upon:

1) "Cremation, once viewed as the ultimate desecration of the human body, an insult to God who makes the resurrection happen, will soon surpass burial as Americans' preferred way to dispose of a corpse."

I think that it is enivronmentally responsible of a believer to choose the cremation route. If one believes God will resurrect the body, then God (who is all powerful) can construct your body back into its original state from a scattered pile of ashes in the blink of an eye. To think that one's body needs to be preserved for it to be resurrected in "original form" needs to rethink their view of God's power.

2) They quote that great theological cop-out: "We cannot know what God has in store for us."

To admit we don't know sh*t about sh*t is not a cop-out. It is being honest. It is assuming humility as a human of limited intelligence. Who can know God's mind for sure? Find me someone who has 100% of all the theological answers. I would more readily accept this "cop-out" than an absolutist idea.

Aside from being concerned with finding the answers about Heaven, I really like the questions that it brings up and I have a great book I would like to tout that deals with this precise question.

In C.S. Lewis' wonderful book The Great Divorce, a man gets to heaven to find that he can essentially no longer do what he loved to do on earth - research and writing - because all of the answers, an angel tells the man, "are all laid out before you. You need to search no more." This perplexes the man who found the pursuit of truth to be his passion and love. Upset that he no longer can write and research for answers in Heaven, he goes down to check out Hell.

I am also reminded that being good for the reward of Heaven alone is not...all good. Being good for goodness' sake is better. It is truer. Love motivating love is pure. I think of this parable:

Saint Teresa of Avila, the 16th century Spanish mystic, saw an angel rushing towards her, carrying a torch and a bucket of water. “Where are you going with that torch and bucket?” she asked. "What will you do with them?" “With the water,” the angel answered, “I will put out the fires of hell, and with the fire I will burn down the mansions of heaven; then we will see who really loves God.”


Many philosophers have debated the intent of being good. If there is no reward, will one still be inclined to be good?


Even Aristotle had a matrix of intent in Nichomachean Ethics:


Virtuous - those that truly enjoy doing what is right and do so without moral dilemma
Continent - does the virtuous thing most of the time, but must overcome conflict
Incontinent - faces the same moral conflict, but usually chooses the vicious ("full of vice") thing
Vicious - sees little value in virtue and doesn't attempt it
 
Highest Good is...

• desirable for its own sake
• not desirable for the sake of some other good
• all other ‘goods’ desirable for its sake

This is very similar to the oft-used saying from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7


"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves."


While I would love to be able to draw and strive to better myself in the afterlife like the man in The Great Divorce, I think in the end what matters is not the reward we get in the form of Heaven, but how many lives we have touched in betterment and in Love in our time on this earth. I think that while each person will be judged on their individual actions and character, so perhaps is Heaven customized to our individual dreams of it.

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Far From Heaven

By Lisa Miller - NEWSWEEK - Published Mar 25, 2010 - From the magazine issue dated Apr 5, 2010

Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/235418

It's Easter—that most pleasant of springtime holidays—when children stuff themselves with marshmallows and stain their fingers with pastel dyes. In reality, of course, Easter is about something darker and more fantastic. It's a celebration of the final act of the Passion, in which Jesus rose from his tomb in his body three days after his execution, to reside in heaven with God. The Gospels insist on the veracity of this supernatural event. The risen Lord "ate barbecued fish [Luke] and walked through doors [John]," is how a friend of mine, an Episcopalian priest, puts it. This rising—the Resurrection—remains at the center of the Christian faith, the narrative climax of every creed. Jesus died and rose again so that all his followers could, eventually, do the same. This story has strained the credulity of even the most devoted believer. For, truly, it's unbelievable.

Resurrection—the physical reality, not the metaphorical interpretation—puts everything we imagine about heaven to the test. My new book, Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination With the Afterlife, argues that while 80 percent of Americans say they believe in heaven, few of us have the slightest clue about what we mean. Heaven, everyone agrees, is the good place you go after death, a reward for struggle and faithfulness on earth. In most of our popular conceptions, we have bodies in heaven: selves, consciousness, identity. We do things. People yearn for reunions in heaven with friends and relatives—and even with their pets. "I want to lay my head on Grandma Lucy's lap," the Christian memoirist Barbara Brown Taylor wrote in an essay. "I want to shell field peas with Fannie Belle and listen to Schubert with Earl." Some people imagine heaven as the place where their most material yearnings are fulfilled. The evangelist Billy Graham once spoke of driving a yellow Cadillac in heaven; the heroine of Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones eats peppermint ice cream; suicide bombers in the Middle East fantasize about the sexual ministrations of 72 dark-eyed virgins. In all these visions, embodiment is the crux of the matter. If you don't have a body in heaven, then what kind of heaven are you hoping for?

Despite the insistence of the most conservative branches of all three Western religions on resurrection as an incontrovertible fact, most of us are circumspect. The number of Americans who say they believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ has dropped 10 points since 2003 to 70 percent, according to the most recent Harris poll; only 26 percent of Americans think that they'll have bodies in heaven, according to a 1997 Time/CNN poll. Thanks to the growth here of Eastern religions, reincarnation—the belief that after death a soul returns to earth in another body—is gaining adherents. Nearly 30 percent of 2003 Harris poll respondents said they believed in reincarnation; of self-professed Christians, that number was 21 percent. Reincarnation and resurrection have, traditionally, been mutually exclusive. Among Christian conservatives, a private hope of reincarnation would be seen as not just illogical but heretical.

Cremation, once viewed as the ultimate desecration of the human body, an insult to God who makes the resurrection happen, will soon surpass burial as Americans' preferred way to dispose of a corpse. Already, a third of Americans are cremated, not buried, and that trend line is headed straight up. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University and author of the forthcoming God Is Not One, believes that the rise in cremation is linked to a growing disregard for the doctrine of resurrection. "It seems fantastic and irrational that we're going to have a body in heaven," he says. Even the Roman Catholic Church has softened its stance on cremation: bodies are better, it said in 1997, but ashes will do in a pinch.

Resurrection presented credibility problems from the outset. Who, the Sadducees taunted Jesus, does the man who married seven wives in succession reside with in heaven? The subtext of their teasing is obvious: if the resurrection is true, as Jesus promised, then in heaven you must have your wife, and all the things that go along with wives: sex, arguments, dinner. Jesus responds in a typically cranky way: "You just don't get it," he says (my paraphrase). "You are wrong," he said in Matthew's Gospel, "because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God."

Even in biblical times, resurrection deniers who hoped for an afterlife took an alternative route. This is what scholars call "the immortality of the soul." Embraced by Plato and popular today especially among progressive believers (Reform Jews and liberal Protestants, for example) and people who call themselves "spiritual but not religious," the immortality of the soul is easier to swallow than resurrection. After death, the soul—unique and indestructible—ascends to heaven to be with God while the corpse, the locus of our senses and all our low human desires, stays behind to rot. This more reasonable view, perhaps, has a serious defect: a disembodied soul attaching itself to God in heaven offers no more comfort or inspiration than an escaped balloon. Consolation was not the goal of Plato's afterlife. Without sight or hearing, taste or touch, a soul in heaven can no more enjoy the "green, green pastures" of the Muslim paradise, or the God light of Dante's cantos, than it can play a Bach cello suite or hit a home run. Rationalistic visions of heaven fail to satisfy.

Another popular way out of the Easter conundrum—"I want to believe in heaven but can't get my head around the revivification of human flesh"—is to imagine "resurrection" as a metaphor for something else: an inexplicable event, a new kind of life, the birth of the Christian community on earth, the renewal of a people, an individual's spiritual rebirth, a bodiless ascension to God. Progressives frequently fall back on resurrection-as-metaphor, for it allows them to celebrate Easter while also expressing a reasonable agnosticism. They quote that great theological cop-out: "We cannot know what God has in store for us.

The intellectual flabbiness of this approach causes agonies for such orthodox Christians as N. T. Wright, the Anglican bishop of Durham, England. "People have been told so often that resurrection is just a metaphor," he once told my editor Jon Meacham and me in an interview for this magazine. "In other words, [Jesus] went to heaven, whatever that means. And they've never realized that the word 'resurrection' simply didn't mean that. If people [in the first century] had wanted to say that he died and went to heaven, they had perfectly good ways of saying that." The whole point of the Christian story is that the Resurrection really happened, Wright insists. The disciples rolled back the rock on the third day, and Jesus' body was gone. This insistence on the veracity of resurrection is no less sure in Judaism, where the Orthodox pray thrice a day to a God "who causes the dead to come to life," or in Islam. "I swear by the day of resurrection!" proclaims the Quran. "Yes, Indeed!

And so, the paradox. Resurrection may be unbelievable, but belief in a traditional heaven requires it. I think often of Jon D. Levenson, a Jewish scholar at Harvard Divinity School who hopes to bring the idea of resurrection back to mainstream Judaism, where it has been lost in practice for generations. I visited him one cold November afternoon because, as a literal-minded skeptic, I wanted him to explain to me how it works. How does God put bodies—burned in fire or pulverized in war—back together again? Levenson looked at me, eyes twinkling, and said, "It's no use to ask, 'If I had a lab at MIT, how would I try to resurrect a body?' The belief in resurrection is more radical. It's a supernatural event. It's a special act of grace or of kindness on God's part." For my part, I don't buy it. I do, however, leave the door open a crack for radical acts of grace and kindness—and for humbling ourselves before all that we don't understand.

Double Wham-tastic!

I'm writing about the following articles a little late to their actually being "breaking news" but better late than never.

First up is Glenn Beck. One of my least favorite people who I lump into the same group with such hatemongers as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. Beck urges people to leave churches that preach social justice. Now, when this news was technically "new" I posted it on Facebook and it accrued nearly 20 comments in 2 days, 2 of which were in favor and could not argue with any sense of aptitude, clarity or depth the reasons why they agreed with Beck on this other than something about separating politics from the church teachings. Sorry, anything that has to do with social justice and economic justice is going to be mentioned in the basic New Testament scripts. Because Jesus did not practice his love in a vaccuum to everyone on the same social or economic spectrum.

Now, I fancy myself pretty familiar with the Bible and while the actual modern terms of 'social justice' or 'economic justice' may not have been included verbatim in the Biblical texts of olde, the example and actions that Jesus portrayed scream it from the mountaintops. Jesus instructed people to care for the poor, give to the needy, clothe those who have none, feed those who are hungry, visit those in prison...and if you are asked for your shoes, take off your cloak and give it as well, expecting nothing in return (to summarize). That, Mr. Beck, is social justice. By giving to those who are in dire need, that is the fulfillment of economic justice on the most fundamental level. The ill-formed logic of this nutter is that Communism / Socialism will break out if enough people are cared for and given enough, apparently. The Bible and the Constitution can be misconstrued to fulfill your foaming-mouth hatemongering agenda, Mr. Beck. And God watches.

And in the article below, Beck channels the lingo of typical conspiracy quacks: _____ is really code for _____. It smacks of backward extremism to look into an ancient text so full of love and the basic tenets of "Love thy neighbor" that you can pull something out like that, twist it up and present it in the interest of his own f***ed up divisive agenda. And while I personally am not a member of an institutional religion, I think the (lack of) reason he presents to people to actually leave their churches, of which I imagine are a rock for many of them, is utterly errorsome and I loathe to think that any of his blind sheep would heed that misleading and harmfully polarizing blight. Shame on him for spreading the disease of lies  - around the Bible, no less.

This Christian Universalist will now quote a brilliant atheist, Voltaire: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

The second part of this post focuses on the Gay Sex Scandal of the Catholic Church, which can be seen in the article below the Glenn Beck BS.

I'm only going to say this: Anything done in the dark will eventually come to light. That is all.

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Glenn Beck Urges Listeners to Leave Churches That Preach Social Justice

PoliticsDaily.com - 3-8-10

On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that "social justice," the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a "code word" for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice.

"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

Later, Beck held up cards, one with a hammer and sickle and other with a swastika. "Communists are on the left, and the Nazis are on the right. That's what people say. But they both subscribe to one philosophy, and they flew one banner. . . . But on each banner, read the words, here in America: 'social justice.' They talked about economic justice, rights of the workers, redistribution of wealth, and surprisingly, democracy."

AND

Vatican Hit By Gay Sex Scandal

Huffington Post - Adam Taylor First Posted: 03- 5-10 07:28 AM  Updated: 03- 5-10 12:50 PM

The Vatican has been thrown into chaos by reports that one of the Pope's ceremonial ushers, as well as a member of the elite Vatican choir, were involved in a homosexual prostitution ring.

The allegations came to light after Italian newspapers published transcripts of phone calls recorded by police, who had been conducting an unrelated corruption investigation.

The tapes appear to record Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29-year-old Nigerian Vatican chorister, about men he wanted brought to him for sexual purposes. Balducci was allegedly paying 2,000 euros ($2,714) for each man he met, according to the Irish Times.

Balducci is recorded describing precise physical details of the men he wanted. The transcripts record that during five months in 2008, Ehiem procured for Balducci at least 10 contacts with, among others, "two black Cuban lads," a former male model from Naples, and a rugby player from Rome.

A report by the Italian Carabinieri on the case said: "In order to organize casual encounters of a sexual nature, he availed himself of the intercession of two individuals who, it is maintained, may form part of an organized network, especially active in [Rome], of exploiters or at least facilitators of male prostitution."

The police probe into corruption resulted in Balducci and 4 others being arrested. Allegations of prostitution were only revealed later, and have resulted in Ehiem's dismissal from the Vatican choir.

Balducci held a high position within the Vatican and carried the coffin of Pope John Paul at his 2005 funeral. He has now lost his position as a Gentleman of the Holiness. His trial for corruption is still pending.

The Catholic Church has weathered a storm of controversy in recent years over allegations of sexual abuse by its members. Whilst homosexuality is not outright condemned within the Church, it is taught that homosexual acts are "are intrinsically disordered."


And as a follow up to this article, this piece came out on Friday, March 19, 2010

The Bernie Madoffs of the Catholic Church

As someone TRYING to be spiritually and mature and respectful to the Catholics during this their time of Lent, a time that reminds me of ridiculous Catholic church law not found in the Bible, I can't help but post the following article and document that reinforces the politics, criminality, secrecy, and violation of the law of God as well as human rights within the Catholic Church institution.

You may give up meat on Fridays, but you don't give up the truth? Unbelievable. Unbelievably hypocritical.

I have a hard time thinking these abusive priests actually believe in God and their own dogma at all. If they did, they would know that God knows all and you reap what you sow. Somehow they can still sleep at night and obviously think themselves righteous enough to hold the positions of power they do, performing their crimes in secrecy upon their prey -- the worst of all -- innocent children, for whom my heart weeps.

They are like the Bernie Madoffs of the Catholic Church (but worse).

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Vatican told bishops to cover up sex abuse
Expulsion threat in secret documents

Read the 1962 Vatican document (PDF file)

Antony Barnett, public affairs editor The Observer, Sunday 17 August 2003 01.27 BST Article historyThe Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church.

The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a 'blueprint for deception and concealment'. One British lawyer acting for Church child abuse victims has described it as 'explosive'.

The 69-page Latin document bearing the seal of Pope John XXIII was sent to every bishop in the world. The instructions outline a policy of 'strictest' secrecy in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse and threatens those who speak out with excommunication.

They also call for the victim to take an oath of secrecy at the time of making a complaint to Church officials. It states that the instructions are to 'be diligently stored in the secret archives of the Curia [Vatican] as strictly confidential. Nor is it to be published nor added to with any commentaries.'

The document, which has been confirmed as genuine by the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, is called 'Crimine solicitationies', which translates as 'instruction on proceeding in cases of solicitation'.

It focuses on sexual abuse initiated as part of the confessional relationship between a priest and a member of his congregation. But the instructions also cover what it calls the 'worst crime', described as an obscene act perpetrated by a cleric with 'youths of either sex or with brute animals (bestiality)'.

Bishops are instructed to pursue these cases 'in the most secretive way... restrained by a perpetual silence... and everyone... is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office... under the penalty of excommunication'.

Texan lawyer Daniel Shea uncovered the document as part of his work for victims of abuse from Catholic priests in the US. He has handed it over to US authorities, urging them to launch a federal investigation into the clergy's alleged cover-up of sexual abuse.

He said: 'These instructions went out to every bishop around the globe and would certainly have applied in Britain. It proves there was an international conspiracy by the Church to hush up sexual abuse issues. It is a devious attempt to conceal criminal conduct and is a blueprint for deception and concealment.'

British lawyer Richard Scorer, who acts for children abused by Catholic priests in the UK, echoes this view and has described the document as 'explosive'.

He said: 'We always suspected that the Catholic Church systematically covered up abuse and tried to silence victims. This document appears to prove it. Threatening excommunication to anybody who speaks out shows the lengths the most senior figures in the Vatican were prepared to go to prevent the information getting out to the public domain.'

Scorer pointed out that as the documents dates back to 1962 it rides roughshod over the Catholic Church's claim that the issue of sexual abuse was a modern phenomenon.

He claims the discovery of the document will raise fresh questions about the actions of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.

Murphy-O'Connor has been accused of covering up allegations of child abuse when he was Bishop of Arundel and Brighton. Instead of reporting to the police allegations of abuse against Michael Hill, a priest in his charge, he moved him to another position where he was later convicted for abusing nine children.

Although Murphy-O'Connor has apologised publicly for his mistake, Scorer claims the secret Vatican document raises the question about whether his failure to report Hill was due to him following this instruction from Rome.

Scorer, who acts for some of Hill's victims, said: 'I want to know whether Murphy-O'Connor knew of these Vatican instructions and, if so, did he apply it. If not, can he tell us why not?'

A spokesman for the Catholic Church denied that the secret Vatican orders were part of any organised cover-up and claims lawyers are taking the document 'out of context' and 'distorting it'.

He said: 'This document is about the Church's internal disciplinary procedures should a priest be accused of using confession to solicit sex. It does not forbid victims to report civil crimes. The confidentiality talked about is aimed to protect the accused as applies in court procedures today. It also takes into consideration the special nature of the secrecy involved in the act of confession.' He also said that in 1983 the Catholic Church in England and Wales introduced its own code dealing with sexual abuse, which would have superseded the 1962 instructions. Asked whether Murphy-O'Connor was aware of the Vatican edict, he replied: 'He's never mentioned it to me.'

Lawyers point to a letter the Vatican sent to bishops in May 2001 clearly stating the 1962 instruction was in force until then. The letter is signed by Cardinal Ratzinger, the most powerful man in Rome beside the Pope and who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the office which ran the Inquisition in the Middle Ages.

Rev Thomas Doyle, a US Air Force chaplain in Germany and a specialist in Church law, has studied the document. He told The Observer: 'It is certainly an indication of the pathological obsession with secrecy in the Catholic Church, but in itself it is not a smoking gun.

'If, however, this document actually has been the foundation of a continuous policy to cover clergy crimes at all costs, then we have quite another issue. There are too many authenticated reports of victims having been seriously intimidated into silence by Church authorities to assert that such intimidation is the exception and not the norm.
 

'If this document has been used as a justification for this intimidation then we possibly have what some commentators have alleged, namely, a blueprint for a cover-up. This is obviously a big "if" which requires concrete proof.'

Additional research by Jason Rodrigues

Links to Spirituality Found in the Brain

My friend Tom sent the following article to me. And I find it extremely interesting -- and even comforting -- to think that:

 A) people are naturally neurologically equipped to feel self-transcendence and that this study allegedly was able to indicate this. This hard-wire programming tells me that

       1) Evolution found this important enough to keep it through the ages.
       2) Since I believe God is responsible for evolution, this is His way to keep us (or some of us, at least) more in tune (like reception bars on a phone) to the recognition of their placement in the whole of His universe.

B) As damage occurs to the brain this study's report that the feeling of self-transcendence increases is perhaps the body's way of readying itself to die, after all, the body doesn't know that surgery is for the benefit of its life, it views surgery as a red flag: "warning, warning, body being cut open, damage, prepare to exit!" Perhaps this can be likened to the shock that takes place when one gets a limb severed and is still conscious, yet cannot feel pain. A rather merciful event if you ask me. Combine the self-transcendence with shock and you have a very peaceful pre-exiting preparation.

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Links to Spirituality Found in the Brain

LiveScience Staff
Source: Yahoo News - Original Post
Thu Feb 11, 10:10 pm ET

Scientists have identified areas of the brain that, when damaged, lead to greater spirituality. The findings hint at the roots of spiritual and religious attitudes, the researchers say.

The study, published in the Feb. 11 issue of the journal Neuron, involves a personality trait called self-transcendence, which is a somewhat vague measure of spiritual feeling, thinking, and behaviors. Self-transcendence "reflects a decreased sense of self and an ability to identify one's self as an integral part of the universe as a whole," the researchers explain.

 

Before and after surgery, the scientists surveyed patients who had brain tumors removed. The surveys generate self-transcendence scores.

 

Selective damage to the left and right posterior parietal regions of the brain induced a specific increase in self-transcendence, or ST, the surveys showed.

"Our symptom-lesion mapping study is the first demonstration of a causative link between brain functioning and ST," said Dr. Cosimo Urgesi from the University of Udine in Italy. "Damage to posterior parietal areas induced unusually fast changes of a stable personality dimension related to transcendental self-referential awareness. Thus, dysfunctional parietal neural activity may underpin altered spiritual and religious attitudes and behaviors."

Previous neuroimaging studies had linked activity within a large network in the brain that connects the frontal, parietal, and temporal cortexes with spiritual experiences, "but information on the causative link between such a network and spirituality is lacking," explains lead study author, Urgesi said.

One study, reported in 2008, suggested that the brain's right parietal lobe defines "Me," and people with less active Me-Definers are more likely to lead spiritual lives.

The finding could lead to new strategies for treating some forms of mental illness.

"If a stable personality trait like ST can undergo fast changes as a consequence of brain lesions, it would indicate that at least some personality dimensions may be modified by influencing neural activity in specific areas," said Dr. Salvatore M. Aglioti from Sapienza University of Rome. "Perhaps novel approaches aimed at modulating neural activity might ultimately pave the way to new treatments of personality disorders."

Commercial Religion

The other day I was thinking that the Catholic church really parallels a publicly traded company (stock symbol: GLT?) with a board of (men only) directors (Vatican) and an executive CEO (Pope). And the shareholders are those congregants who have bought into the dogma, hoping for a stock split into an elitist idea of heaven.

If you've ever owned stock in a company or had an account with a broker, you've probably received in the mail privacy policies and forms to nominate new board members. Unfortunately, democracy does not exist in a papacy...but commercialism does, and the cost of the commercials are passed onto the shareholders despite what they think.

Recently TV commercials have been aired calling to the public as the church attempts to increase market share. The website of the "media firm" responsible for the marketing: CatholicsComeHome.org

I'm not entirely sure where God fits into this marketing. They seem to really focus on giving those who have left the church the thumbs up to "come back to the family". Ya know, the dysfunctional one that screwed them up in the first place.

I'm not sure how well this will work out for the church's business plan, but I'm sure their accountants are watching the books and their stock closely.

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I'm not even going to mention the comments that Pat Robertson, a faux Christian, said about Haiti and their alleged "pact with Satan", resulting in the recent earthquake which he insinuates they deserved. He is a ridiculous antiChrist asshole.

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The other item I wanted to mention today was in this article. Apparently, Pope John Paul II had been whipping himself (a la Opus Dei?) as well as sleeping on the floor and depriving himself of food to the extreme during Lent to try and attain "Christian perfection". Hmm. I am pretty sure NO ONE (meaning no human) can attain Christian perfection (or any perfection) unless Christ grants it. It is not something attained so much as it is something given as a gift, just as one does not have the ability to save their own soul through belief. Jesus did that for us by dying on the cross. If people are able to save themselves through belief, then God's only son, Jesus, dying on the cross was not 100% successful as it did not save *the world* from its sins as stated in the Bible. Also, you are supposed to love your neighbor as yourself. Was Pope John Paul II whipping his neighbors, too? Also, Lent is not in the Bible, Jesus and Lent are totally different. It was a man-made season the Church came up with to help spur the economy of yore. Look it up.

Also in this article it is stated:

"The Vatican must now confirm that a miracle attributed to John Paul's intercession occurred in order for him to be beatified - a step which many Vatican watchers have suggested may come as early as October."

Wait. So they can SCHEDULE "miracles" to occur in order to canonize someone? Am I reading this wrong? And how, exactly, do they define a miracle? The convenience that Pope Benedict is moving Pope John Paul up on the beatification ladder is a bold move for the head of the board of directors. Maybe Pope Benedict is bullish on the market; maybe the miracle will occur if their valuation soars from their marketing efforts and they see their stock rise.

Sigh. Where is God's place here? God's message to love one another is lost in 2 minute Catholic Churchianity TV ads. It is simply spreading the message of business. Cha-ching!

Too Judgey

2010 is here and I'm grateful to see it. Happy New Year, everyone! And, we're off...

All I can do is shake my head at this pundit. Is someone this irrational honestly taken seriously? Really? How do they not get sacked by their network after making this type of statement? Oh, I forgot, it is on Fox News. They never fail to disappoint the rest of us. Tsk, tsk. And I'm in a graduate class right now that covers the very idea of media reporters NOT sticking to the news and issues, but rather continue to market their own station/show. STICK WITH THE NEWS.

Yes, Mr. Hume, show the world that you will use Tiger Woods' failing to make yourself appear so high and mighty...and "judgey". Sell your show. SELL IT! Just like you try to sell the Christian faith here. Because Christian husbands don't cheat on their wives...and if they do they are immediately or more easily forgiven than cheating Buddhist husbands. And because switching faiths is as easy as switching cable stations.

HUME-TO-TIGER ADVICE FAIL.


This video is from Fox's Fox News Sunday, broadcast Jan. 3, 2010.

Buddhism is inferior to Christianity when it comes to forgiveness of sins, according to Fox News pundit Brit Hume. Tiger Woods should turn his back on Buddhism and become a Christian to be forgiven for cheating on his wife, Hume told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday.

"The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith," said Hume. "He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of redemption and forgiveness offered by the Christian faith. My message to Tiger is, 'Tiger turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."

Woods is the most famous among several American celebrity Buddhists. Richard Gere, Herbie Hancock, Steven Seagal, Leonard Cohen, Tina Turner and Orlando Bloom were recently called the most famous Buddhists in the world. The list goes so far as to argue Tiger Woods is more famous than the Dalai Lama himself.

Hume's statements are particularly ironic given the recent sex scandals encountered by an assortment of Christian politicians.

Two noted journalists criticized Hume's remarks.

At his Daily Dish blog, The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan wrote, "The pure sectarianism of this comment - its adoption of the once-secular stage of political journalism to insert a call for apostasy - is striking. It even seemed to catch Bill Kristol off-guard a little." MSNBC anchor David Shuster left a number of Tweets at his Twitter account.
Agreed... it was inappropriate
I respect everybody's faith, different from mine or not. But don't use a Sunday news show to preach your faith. Analyze the news.

In the interest of fairness, that sunday show should make time for a member of Bhuddism given Brit's criticism of that religion.

Think Progress also notes, "Hume’s colleagues on the Fox Business network decided to do a little digging into his claims. The Don Imus show crew reported that Hume doesn’t quite have his facts straight on Buddhism."

According to Imus, "Well, we checked this morning and unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately if you are a Buddhist, there is a path to recovery and redemption. Right? Well yes there is. The idea of redemption — nirvana under Buddhism — is achieving the state of being freed from greed, hate, and delusion."

Think Progress adds, Imus’ co-host Charles McCord tried to defend Hume by arguing that he was merely stating that Buddhism didn’t offer “the kind of path to redemption”; rather, it’s a different path. Imus responded, “But wouldn’t one infer from what he said…is that there was no path to redemption?” “You could,” agreed McCord.

Happy Holidays Part II

My parents recently took the train into Chicago to visit my husband and I and we took them to the Christmas at DePaul Concert in Lincoln Park. It was a wonderful production, a wonderful experience. For the song O Holy Night, a male tenor (DePaul alumni) sang and it was amazing. More than one tear slipped out of my eye. My nostalgic side was glad to be in a church again with the beautiful architecture; the sculptures, columns and somber lighting.

Afterwards, my mom told me about a spiritual book she was reading and that hearing the chorus and orchestra culminated for her the message of her book. Basically, someone asks "Why are there so many faiths?" And the answer is analogized with the orchestra comparison: it takes many differently crafted, differently sounding instruments to contribute to the masterpiece of the symphony."

This made me smile and so I thought I would share.

Happy Holidays

It has been a long time between posts but I have to say that I am grateful for being busy – new home, graduate school, a job I like, etc. – and it is this time of year when people tend to outline those things they are grateful for. That is a long list for me. I am grateful for everything. Every. Thing. I can only feel the overwhelming gratitude in my heart and have it swell up and out to touch others who don’t feel that heart-swell in their lives. In lieu of holiday gift-giving, I am going to make a nice donation to the Chicago Food Depository. There are others who need extra care at this time of the year – and all year-round!

And while I don't attend mass, this is the time of year when I get a little nostalgic about it. I miss the ambience, candles and incense and music, but I know it is all theatrics. Those giant stone cathedrals are like the tomb. All the important witnessing, miracles and message of Christ play out OUTSIDE of these Municipal City Halls.

Mark 16: 1-8 - "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here."

Happy Holidays and Blessings to all!

Hello...ANGLICANS!

A very nice way of saying you are low on funds is to not say anything at all. And invite others in under the guise that all intentions are of good will.

The one sentence that sticks out at me in the article below is the following:

"The process will enable groups of Anglicans to become Catholic and recognize the pope as their leader."

A) A true non-elitist Christian church should always recognize Jesus Christ as their leader. Not the pope.

B) The Catholic Church's rules are made up and agreed upon by a Board of Directors (The Holy See). The Board of Directors wanted a broader range of shareholders. My, how mergers and acquisitions can produce great media PR opportunities.

C) Matthew 15:8-9 "All of you praise me with your words, but you never really think about me. It is useless to worship me, when you teach rules made up by humans."

D) The Catholic Church's obsession with social issues such as gay rights and married / women priests get put on the back burner at the prospect of Anglicans making the coffers fuller, don't they?

E) While I think an alliance between these two groups will produce some good things, it should be done for one reason and one reason only: because they all share in the true Love of Christ and for others. I wish full transparency was the case here, but, as it goes with any institutional bureacracy, I'm afraid it is not.

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Vatican welcomes Anglicans into Catholic Church

ROME, Italy (CNN) -- The Vatican said Tuesday it has worked out a way for groups of Anglicans who are dissatisfied with their faith to join the Catholic Church. The process will enable groups of Anglicans to become Catholic and recognize the pope as their leader, yet have parishes that retain Anglican rites, Vatican officials said. The move comes some 450 years after King Henry VIII broke from Rome and created the Church of England, forerunner of the Anglican Communion. The parishes would be led by former Anglican clergy -- including those who are married -- who would be ordained as Catholic priests, said the Rev. James Massa, ecumenical director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. "This sets up a process for whole groups of Anglicans -- clergy and laity -- to enter in to the Catholic Church while retaining their forms of worship and other Anglican traditions," Massa said. The number of Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church has increased in recent years as the Anglican Church has welcomed the ordination of women and openly gay clergy and blessed homosexual partnerships, said Cardinal William Joseph Levada, the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Their talks with the Vatican recently began speeding up, Vatican officials said, leading to Tuesday's announcement. "The Catholic Church is responding to the many requests that have been submitted to the Holy See from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in different parts of the world who wish to enter into full visible communion," Levada said. Levada said "hundreds" of Anglicans around the world have expressed their desire to join the Catholic Church. Among them are 50 Anglican bishops, said Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia of the Congregation for Divine Worship. While married Anglican priests may be ordained as Catholic priests, the same does not apply to married Anglican bishops, Levada said. "We've been praying for this unity for 40 years and we've not anticipated it happening now," Di Noia said. "The Holy Spirit is at work here." One interested group is the Traditional Anglican Communion, an association of churches that is separate from the Anglican Communion and has hundreds of thousands of members worldwide. The TAC in 2007 petitioned the Vatican for unity with the Catholic Church with the stipulation that the group retain its Anglican rites. The TAC's primate, Archbishop John Hepworth of Australia, said in a statement Tuesday that the Vatican's announcement "more than matches the dreams we dared to include in our petition two years ago." That is because the Vatican's move involves not only the TAC but other Anglican groups that want to unite with the Catholic Church, said the Right Rev. Daren K. Williams, bishop ordinary of the western diocese of the Anglican Church of America, which is part of the TAC. The Vatican has yet to release all details of the offer, and the TAC's leaders will meet and discuss how to respond when it does, Williams said. But Williams said he believes much of TAC will respond favorably. Williams, who also is rector of All Saints Anglican Church in Fountain Valley, California, said his parishioners have generally been "very warmly receiving" Tuesday's announcement. "It is encouraging for them to know their worship experience wouldn't be turned upside down by the Roman Catholic Church," Williams said. "The person in the pew should see very little difference in the way we pray. We might be asked to pray aloud for any pope who happens to be in office, in addition to praying for our primate. "Really, there'd be very little other difference." The parishes retaining the Anglican rites would answer not to Catholic bishops but to regional or nationwide "personal ordinariates" who would report to the pope, Massa said. Those officials often will be former Anglican clergy, Vatican officials said. The Church of England said the move ends a "period of uncertainty" for Anglican groups who wanted more unity with the Catholic Church. Both groups have a "substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality" and will continue to hold official dialogues, the archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster said in a joint statement. "Those Anglicans who have approached the Holy See have made clear their desire for full, visible unity in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church," Levada said. "At the same time, they have told us of the importance of their Anglican traditions of spirituality and worship for their faith journey." Preserving Anglican traditions, such as mass rites, adds to the diversity of the Catholic Church, he said. "The unity of the church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows," he said. "Moreover, the many diverse traditions present in the Catholic Church today are all rooted in the principle articulated by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: 'There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.' "

God Is Within

This article speaks for itself. It is not surprising that faith and spirituality are evolving and taking on individually organic forms in peoples' lives. I think we've come full circle into an era where "God is within".

I attribute this in part to the age in which we live where ANY AND ALL questions CAN be asked without being socially shunned. Nothing is taboo and many atrocities of organized religions have been exposed over the past decade. The truth always surfaces. Information and exploration into religious questions can be accessed through many different sources (the Internet being one of these sources) and I think people are becoming more reliant on their own internal interpretation of God and the Bible and are acknowledging and abandoning the flawed religious institutions that all seem to be wrought with abuse and politics.

"The Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands..."-- Acts 7:48
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Where Have All the Christians Gone?
Bruce Feiler - AP / FOXNews.com - September 25, 2009

The number of people who claim no religious affiliation, meanwhile, has doubled since 1990 to fifteen percent, its highest point in history. Christianity is plummeting in America, while the number of non-believers is skyrocketing. A shocking new study of Americans’ religious beliefs shows the beginnings of a major realignment in Americans’ relationship with God. The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) reveals that Protestants now represent half of all Americans, down almost 20 percent in the last twenty years. In the coming months, America will become a minority Protestant nation for the first time since the pilgrims. The number of people who claim no religious affiliation, meanwhile, has doubled since 1990 to fifteen percent, its highest point in history. Non-believers now represent the third-highest group of Americans, after Catholics and Baptists.Other headlines:

1) The number of Christians has declined 12% since 1990, and is now 76%, the lowest percentage in American history.

2) The growth of non-believers has come largely from men. Twenty percent of men express no religious affiliation; 12% of women.

3) Young people are fleeing faith. Nearly a quarter of Americans in their 20’s profess no organized religion.

4) But these non-believers are not particularly atheist. That number hasn’t budged and stands at less than 1 percent. (Agnostics are similarly less than 1 percent.) Instead, these individuals have a belief in God but no interest in organized religion, or they believe in a personal God but not in a formal faith tradition.

The implications for American society are profound. Americans’ relationship with God, which drove many of the country’s great transformations from the pilgrims to the founding fathers, the Civil War to the civil rights movement, is still intact. Eighty-two percent of Americans believe in God or a higher power. But at the same time, the study offers yet another wake-up call for religious institutions. First, catering to older believers is a recipe for failure; younger Americans are tuning out. Second, Americans are interested in God, but they don’t think existing institutions are helping them draw closer to God. Finally, Americans’ interest in religion has not always been stable. It dipped following the Revolution and again following Civil War. In both cases it rebounded because religious institutions adapted and found new ways of relating to everyday Americans. Today, the rise of disaffection is so powerful that different denominations needs to band together to find a shared language of God that can move beyond the fading divisions of the past and begin moving toward a partnership of different-but-equal traditions. Or risk becoming Europe, where religion is fast becoming an afterthought.