QotD for 4 Feb., 2010

"You can talk about Jesus all day, but if you are not doing what Jesus would have you do, then it matters not. God save us from admirers of Jesus.” ---the Rt. Rev'd. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

QotD for 3 Feb., 2010

One of the chief reasons I have little respect for the so-called "traditional Anglican" movement in TEC is the hypocrisy illuminated by this quote:

Reactionaries continually accuse liberals of individualism yet they are the first to cite individual liberties when the community decide to go in a direction the reactionary, personally, doesn't like. ---the Rev'd. Jonathan Hagger

QotD for 29 Jan., 2010

"I was regretting the past and fearing the future. Suddenly my Lord was speaking. 'My name is I AM.' He paused. I waited. He continued. 'When you live in the past with its mistakes and regrets it is hard. I am not there. My name is not I WAS. "'When you live in the future with its problems and fears, it is hard. My name is not I WILL BE. When you live in this moment it is not hard. I am here. My name is I AM.'" ---Helen Mallicoat

[shamelessly stolen from Lisa Edwards]

No hands but ours

If you're wondering where God is during catastrophes like the earthquake in Haiti, remember this:

Lord Christ, You have no body on earth but ours, no hands but ours, no feet but ours. Ours are the eyes through which Your compassion must look out on the world. Ours are the feet by which You may still go about doing good. Ours are the hands with which You bless people now. Bless our minds and bodies, that we may be a blessing to others. ---Saint Teresa of Ávila

[hat tip to the Rev. Ann Fontaine]

Why We Are Here

A great, Lovecraftian parody of the infamous "Chick tract," a kind of booklet which way-out-there sorts of Christians used to hand off to unsuspecting normals, can be found in the Cthulhu Tract.

Bwahaha! Come on, monkey-boy! Admit you're a semi-evolved ape thing that is mercifully ignorant of the soul-blasting truths of the Cosmos! Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!

QotD for 8 Dec., 2009

With all the furor from the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning the recent election of a certain suffragan bishop in the Dio. of Los Angeles fresh on our minds, I couldn't help but recall a famous quotation:

"I wouldn't go to Lambeth if Jesus himself was there handing out $1,000 bills. I went once before, and if assholes had wings Lambeth would be an airport!" --- the Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris, first female bishop in the Anglican Communion

QotD for 13 Nov., 2009

The megachurches are mall-like villages or gated communities with Wednesday nite karaoke and movies and Sunday 'prosperity gospel'. Faith is not between you and God, it's 'your team' and flag and get out of jail free card; virtue is a concept, not practice; sacrifice is for chumps and "I'm a special case, with extenuating circumstances, but I'm still a good person cuz I say the right things about God and Country and you don't." ---Mark Brady, in a comment on Bob Carlton's Facebook

Lord 'o mercy, but I do love a good, righteous rant. Amen.

QotD for 21 Oct., 2009

Anglicanism: Offering personal ordinariates for disaffected Roman Catholics since 1549. ---the Rev. Jan Nunley

A Franciscan Blessing

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart...

It would be well worth your time to read the rest over on the Monastic Mumblings blog.

Zombie Conservatives

Interesting piece in the Sunday Dallas Morning News by, surprise, conservative columnist Rod Dreher:

Last week, the president delivered an education speech that fell somewhat short of the standard set by Lenin in his address at the Finland Station, launching the Bolshevik Revolution. In fact, Barack Obama told America's schoolchildren to work hard, respect their teachers and take responsibility for their own success. Which, in the language of the tinfoil-hatters, reads: Allahu akbar, comrades. ---Rod Dreher, Zombie Conservatives at the schoolhouse door

Lately, Dreher seems to be "getting it" when it comes to the dissolution of the GOP. But there's one more Rubicon for him to cross if he really takes his Libertarian-ish conservatism seriously. That being, no matter how much of a social/religious conservative you are (and Dreher identifies himself that way), you need to be willing to keep a lot of that to yourself and not be willing to use the power of government to force it on others.

That's where Dreher and many like-minded thinkers still fall flat.

QotD for 10 Sept., 2009

Stinginess creates a hard knot deep within the soul. Beware of hardness of heart: you can suffer from it without any awareness that you do until caught in the grips of spiritual thrombosis. ---Louie Crew

[thanks to JCF who, over at Mad Priest's, linked to the entry by Dr. Crew which contained this gem]

QotD for 20 Aug., 2009

This debate over health care goes to the heart of who we are as a people. I believe that nobody in America should be denied basic health care because he or she lacks health insurance. --- Pres. Barack Obama

Further in his appeal to faith-based groups to spread the truth about health care reform, the President urged listeners to reject misinformation about his plans, noting, "There are some folks out there who are, frankly, bearing false witness."

And yet self-professed Christians continue to lie about "death panels" and other outrageous nonsense. To say nothing about ignoring our Lord's injunction to care for the sick (and the hungry, and the orphans, and the needy,...).

Hey conservatives, news flash - "I got mine, screw you" can in no way be justified as a Biblical stance.

Update: When confronted by yet another ridiculous claim at a townhall meeting from a right-wing shill, Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Florida) responded, "When someone sends you something on the Internet that sounds crazy, how about just checking it a little bit?" Golly, ya think ?!

CNN's Health Care Fact Check site.

QotD for 19 Aug., 2009

Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me. --- Frederick Buechner

[shamelessly stolen from the charming Stephy of Stuff Christian Culture Likes fame]

Wallis and a Christian Mistake

The Religious Right was a Christian mistake. It was a movement that sought to implement a “Christian agenda” by tying the faithful to one political option—the right-wing of the Republican Party. The politicizing of faith in such a partisan way is always a theological mistake. But the rapid decline of the Religious Right now offers us a new opportunity to re-think the role of faith in American public life. ---Jim Wallis, in his Newsweek blog A Christian Nation

Whither the Evangelicals ?

Michael Spencer predicts the the coming evangelical collapse in an article yesterday on the Christian Science Monitor website:

Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

Now I'll admit that Spencer goes off the rails when he additionally suggests that wide-spread intolerance of Christians will also result, but the conservative evangelicals have always had a bit of persecution complex. However, the article is well worth your while and is overall a pretty thoughtful piece of self-examination. You'll want to check out the commentary in Rod Dreher's section of Beliefnet as well. Another conservative Christian who, even though I have plenty to argue with him about, has lately been taking a hard look at their role in the culture wars.

QotD for 7 Jan., 2009

On the fate of the Church in the West, Counterlight writes in a comment thread over on Preludium:

I think that as goes Spain these days, so goes the rest of the West (including the USA); a greatly shrunken church dominated by fanatics who accelerate shrinking church attendance by alienating the rest of the population; a church that wears a heavy millstone of rightwing and reactionary politics around its neck in an increasingly cosmopolitan country.

Pretty much sums it up as far as I'm concerned. And although I'm quite certain TEC will stand as a thoughtful and liberal-minded counterpoint to that, I fear that thoughtful and liberal-minded Christianity will remain a smaller sect within a small sect.

QotD for 27 Dec., 2008

There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation. ---Madeleine L'Engle

[from Ellie via the Mad Priest]

Someone Over There Finally Gets it

Great Googly-Moogly! there's finally a Republican willing to talk publicly about the elephant in the room:

[T]he evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that. ---Kathleen Parker, conservative columnist for the Washington Post, in Giving Up on God

QotD for 13 Nov., 2008

There's a post over on the Friends of Jake which mentions a reaction the Marriott Corp. had to the possible threat of a boycott over the Mormon Church's backing of the anti-gay Proposition 8 in the Calif. election last week (the Marriott family are Mormons).

The comment thread veered off onto a discussion about a situation "that led to the artistic director of the California Musical Theatre in Sacramento resigning because he, as a personal choice, gave money to the Prop8 campaign."

For the guy in [Sacramento], of course the community and actors can decline to participate. But you may be unaware that there has been a media witch hut out here on this guy, which I find is WRONG.

I find your argument about behavior vs. belief to be semantics. Gays firing conservative = conservative firing gays. Neither is right. Individuals can decide how they want to behave, but witch hunts are ugly and unjustified. WE ARE BIGGER THAN THIS.

I am not unaware of the irony that I am lecturing Christians about this. ---commenter and blog admin "IT"

(emphasis mine) Indeed, a layer of irony thick enough to insulate an iceberg... :/

I wonder why it's not more obvious to the average American how "Christianity" has become the elephant in the room of our culture wars ? How supposed followers of the Jesus of the Gospels are the primary obstructions to peace, justice, and civil rights in modern, Western culture.

QotD for 24 Oct., 2008

When I became a Christian, I was naive enough to believe that if I worked hard enough on spiritual practices and worshiped God with all my heart, all my mind, all my soul and all my strength, I would miraculously get a personality transplant and become a sweeter, nicer, and better person than ever before. That didn’t happen...I’m still ornery, angry, impatient and judgmental. God hasn’t taken that from me. It seems that God takes me as I am, and invites me to accept that I am loved as I am. This is called my particular struggle; to accept grace. Well, I don’t like grace, because I can’t control grace; it is freely given. So I wrestle with God over this. “Give me a personality transplant! I say, as I wrestle. “Change me!” And God flips me over and pins me there and says, “Change yourself if you want. But whether you will or not, I will love you and I will call you my child.” ---the Rev. Victoria Weinstein (a.k.a. "Peacebang") in a sermon to Church Hill United Methodist Church, Aug. 3, 2008