the exorcizer bunny

Check this out and tell me.
Am I being made fun of?

the united church of whatever

As recorded in a previous post, on the fourth of July the United Church of Christ (UCC) boldly went where no mainstream Christian church had gone before. The General Synod corageously, boldly, heroically encouraged all its congregations to embrace and perform same sex marriages.

But its work was not done.

Other, less pressing considerations littered the agenda of the Synod for the remaining days after the momentous fourth of July announcement. Among these other issues was the motion to include a profession of faith in the rite of ordination of UCC ministers. It was proposed that candidates to the ministry affirm their personal "faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour" as is stated in the church's doctrinal platform.

The motion was handily defeated by the Synod on the grounds that it would stipulate an unfair litmus test for candidates to the ministry.

One UCC pastor remarked that he was a little surprised by the Synod's rejection of the resolution. "Surely, this is one thing we can all agree on? ", he mused.

Well, I'm just your friendly neighborhood exorcist, but if you ask me, Mr. UCC Preacherman, sir, I reckon you darn near hit the nail on the head...

When the content of our faith is reduced to 'that which we can all agree upon' it is no longer faith. It's what we call consensus.

the Gollum syndrome

In Tolkein's masterpiece, the inherent bundle of contradictions that is man comes graphically to life in the character of Smeagol.

Or is that Gollum?

It is Smeagol and it is Gollum. The depth of the conflict between 'the two', oddly enough, does not diminish the identity of the one character. It merely puts everything he is on the table. Therein lies the art of Tolkein's creation. Smeagol is not less Smeagol because he is Gollum. Gollum is only truly Gollum as long as he remains Smeagol.

This is the defining essence of humankind. We are many things at once, and it is no single element that defines us. We are Red Riding Hood and the wolf. We are Snow White and the jealous Queen. We are the nameless protagonist and Tyler Durden.

If this is true on an individual level, how could it not define us as society? Is there any reason to think that, all together, we become somehow less antonymous? More coherent?

Americans are the most rampant consumers in the world, yet we are a very religious society. We impose our political and economic will on other countries with almost missionary zeal, yet we receive more immigrants and donate more money and aid to foreign causes than any other nation. All human groups are complex and contradictory. We're all a little bit Gollum and a little bit Smeagol.


Perhaps it is worth reflecting in this vein when trying to understand the judgment of the Muslim world on the terrorism of Muslim extremists.

First, we should recall that there is no central Islamic authority and, therefore, no unified Muslim voice. What is orthodox to one Muslim is, often, heretical to another. All refer to the Qur'an as their guiding principle. When final authority is attributed to a text, inspired or not, chaos ensues. Any text can be made to say any number of things if there is no superior point of reference to authoritatively interpret it. That's exactly what happens to fundamentalists in the Christian world who cite Scripture as the bottom line for doctrine and morality.

But internal divergences aside, why the sense in the west that there is no real, unequivocal condemnation of terrorist violence by the Islamic world, even when its victims are civilians?

Thomas Friedman goes there in his OpEd in today's NY Times. He points out that the only lasting way to curb the 'jihadist death cult' that thrives in Islam's midst is for Islam itself to come to grips with it and root it out. That has not happened. It does not look like it will happen in the short term. Friedman marvels that no Muslim cleric of note has yet issued a fatwa condemning Usama Bin Laden, when author Salman Rushdie, for what was an infinitely lesser offense in western eyes, received a virtual death sentence from a shiite iman.

But that is a constant in the Muslim world. Was anyone surprised by the totally underwhelming reprimand given by the Egyptian government to the Iraqui Al Quaeda cell that kidnapped and offed its leading diplomat in the war torn country? The uproar was notably stronger when Newsweek reported that the Qur'an had been mishandled in Gitmo...


The west asks, how can Muslims not be horrified by acts of planned terror that take innocent lives? I venture that they are. Even when they strike nations perceived as aggressors, like the US and the UK. They are human, they have families, they are not unaffected by the suffering of others.

I also venture that they are not. Muslim nations feel they have been historically mistreated, shut out and left behind by the west. They bear the brunt of a campaign against Islam born of fear and distrust. They know that, if not for the oil reserves under their soil, the west would care little for the advancement of their culture or the resolution of their conflicts.

The Qur'an sanctions retaliation against the enemies of Islam. Today's mujaheddin fight back the only way they can: innocent lives for innocent lives. That is how they see it.

When the west is hit by terror the Muslim world deplores it and doesn't. With equal sincerity.

No one should have to suffer the effects of a suicide bomb.
Yet, somehow, didn't they have it coming?

the madness continues

"Whosoever should slay an innocent man, it is as if he had slain all men. And who ever saves an innocent man has saved all men." (Qur'an 5,32)


Today my thoughts and prayers are for the victims of the London attack. The dead in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine benefit nothing from the mindless slaughter of civilians. The reactions on the muslim blogs I follow regularly have been eloquent: islamicate, veiled4allah, degrouchyowl, muslimwakeup and sajshirazi.

Any idea how many muslims were riding the subway and the bus lines when the attack was launched? Does it even matter anymore who kills who? How do you stop the madness when neither side is capable of understanding the other's fears?

Maybe some day we'll all just get so tired of living in a state of constant terror that we'll resort to more humane ways of settling our differences. Insha' Allah...

eternal sunshine

My sister is in town, staying with my Mom for a couple of days. We got together for dinner last night. She is a bit of an enigma for me. I hope she's happy.

In her honor:

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot;
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind,
Each prayer accepted and each wish resigned."
(Eloisa to Abelard, Alexander Pope, 1717)

is Angelina for real?

I probably express a fairly common sentiment when I say that celebrities who cast themselves as experts on the deepest problems facing humanity make me throw up a little bit.

That's why Angelina Jolie has me in a quandry.

She has just adopted an Ethiopian AIDS orphan of less than a year old. She went to Addis Ababa, paid $20G, did the paperwork and took home a baby girl who otherwise would still languish among the other 5 million hopeless Ethiopian orphans. Ms. Jolie already has an adopted three year old Cambodian son. Maddox.

Adopting babies is serious business. More serious than giving millions to charity, which, apparently, Ms. Jolie also does. Definitely more serious than playing a rock concert whose logo is the African continent in the shape of a guitar. Music is cheap. Talk is cheap. Adopting babies is anything but.

I am perplexed by Angelina Jolie. Could it be that, beneath the lunacy and shallowness of Hollywood for which she has often been the covergirl, a caring heart beats in the Tomb Raider?

Two orphans. What are two adopted babies out of the millions of discarded children that wander the earth? The plight of children abandoned through war, famine, Aids and poverty is numbing.

One thing I do know, however. If this world is to be saved, it will be done one soul at a time.

Just maybe Angelina has done the math.

come as you are...

The Congregational Churches were the fourth religious body to arrive in the North American colonies after the French Reformed, the Roman Catholic, and the Anglican churches. Congregationalism was the established church of the New England colonies until the revolution. It was the church of Connecticut until 1818 and of Massachusetts until 1833. Both Harvard (1636) and Yale (1701) were founded by Congregationalist communities dedicated to higher education.

I guess it is not surprising then, that a church so steeped in US history should choose the fourth of July to announce what it calls a "corageous declaration of freedom". Freedom is, after all, what we celebrate on Independence Day.

The Congregational Churches are, since 1957, part of a larger body that includes the remains of the 'Christian Churches' born of Methodism in the early 19th century, the German speaking Reformed Church, originally invited by William Penn to the state that bears his name, and the surviving communities of the Evangelical Synod of North America.

The whole conglomerate is today known as the United Church of Christ, one of the more socially liberal and theologically fuzzy components of the Protestant mainstream. The UCC has roughly 1.4 million members, over 6 thousand churches and about 10 thousand clergy.

On Monday, while many of us were gathered around the grill and the cooler, the 25th General Synod of the UCC, its chief policymaking authority, gathered in Atlanta and voted overwhelmingly to support equal marriage rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons. The vote constituted not only a protest against social discrimination but, in the Synod's own words, a theological statement.

"In the Gospel we find ground for a definition of marriage and family relationships based on the affirmation of the full humanity of each partner, lived out in mutual care and respect for one another."

I wonder if the UCC honestly feels that the New Testament provides a scriptural basis for same-sex marriages.

It's one thing to throw around social and legal arguments to justify our moral confusion and there will always be experts and analysts who can make even the most aberrant behaviour seem fashionable. But to reference the Gospel when making a case for allowing gay marriage hardly seems advantageous.

The UCC insists that the Jesus of the Gospel would not exclude or close the door on anyone. So, the alternative to exclusion is same-sex marriage? Not great logic.

The Gospel is generally not too useful for promoting social or political agendas. Jesus was not a social reformer. He did not embrace a political platform. He was about one thing only: revealing God to man. Even his preference for the poor and oppressed can only be completely understood in the context of his one mission: revelation.

The UCC has done Christianity a huge disservice by invoking the Gospel in its muddled capitulation to a harmful, though popular, stance on a purely political issue. But again, what could be expected from a church body whose most profound 'theological' concepts are hospitality and tolerance?