Brilliance:
"I am confident and serene." (DW, 7.31.09)
"Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you." (Is. 60.1)
Mei Meditatio:
As children of the God that is Love Itself we have within us the brilliant light of Spirit ready to shine forth in divine splendor. In the light and love of Christ, we illuminate the world with compassionate service to each other.
Being a child of God I recognize divine Love within me and reach out to others to dispel notions of separation and affirm the togetherness of all life in Christ.
In the name and through the power of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. Amen.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Daily Word (7.30.09)
Healing:
"I am whole and well in mind and body." (DW, 7.30.09)
"Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body." (Prov. 16.24)
Mei Meditatio:
Thinking, speaking, and acting positivity with a Christ-like mind leads me into greater experience of wholeness, healthiness, and well-being in body, mind, and spirit.
As I focus my intentions on God, Christ brings my awareness into divine expression and I realize that, beyond this relative and fleeting existence, I am completely as I should be as a child of the Living God.
In the name and through the power of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. Amen.
"I am whole and well in mind and body." (DW, 7.30.09)
"Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body." (Prov. 16.24)
Mei Meditatio:
Thinking, speaking, and acting positivity with a Christ-like mind leads me into greater experience of wholeness, healthiness, and well-being in body, mind, and spirit.
As I focus my intentions on God, Christ brings my awareness into divine expression and I realize that, beyond this relative and fleeting existence, I am completely as I should be as a child of the Living God.
In the name and through the power of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. Amen.
Airport chapels offer haven to more faiths
It seems that across the U.S. chapels that have been designed to offer passengers refuge and reflection in bustling airports are making changes. They are removing denomination-specific decor, adding special accommodations and hosting services geared to accommodate an increasingly diverse group of travelers flying with faith. While public chapels like those in airports used to be more Christian (and even denomination) oriented, now they are deliberately being made into more inclusive places for rest, contemplation, prayer, etc.
While I'm glad to see more inclusivity and openness being explicitly practiced as an adjustment to the great amount of religious plurality and diversity we have in the U.S., there's a part of me that enjoys the religious specificity of places of worship or prayer. I understand that the airports are attempting to be non-discriminatory and accommodating to the variety of people from many different faiths, it can turn a place of reflection and respite into a watered-down, rather generic, place to be. I think it can take away some of the spiritual uniqueness of a particular chapel if it is stripped of it's original religious affliliation. This is a different story if various religious relics, statues, pictures, and symbols from different traditions are being added to a chapel. This could serve to heighten the religious richness and depth to a sacred space. But I'm more concerned about displacing the "religiosity" and "sacredness" of a chapel by taking away specific religious things so as to make the place less "offensive" to other faiths and more "universal" in nature. But what's the meaning and use of a room that looks and thus feels just like any other room except that it says "chapel" on the doorway?
I know of a certain space at a school that used to be employed specifically for Buddhist meditation and ritual. But recently decisions were made to make this space more accommodating and appealing (non-offensive) for non-Buddhist students and most of the Buddhist paraphanalia were removed, leaving the room looking empty and feeling desolate and spiritually deserted. As a Christian, I would've rather prayed in a room that had Buddhist statues, paintings, and altars than in one that is totally devoid of any religious symbology.
Though this stripping away of religious symbols and texts is not what chapels are said to be doing (rather adding materials from different traditions), it's still an acute tendency in an effort towards openness and inclusivity. Let's celebrate plurality and diversity rather than take away all religious uniqueness and dilute spiritual expression to a "universal religion" or none.
Anyway, the Atlanta Journal Constitution has the story at Faith in Public Life.
While I'm glad to see more inclusivity and openness being explicitly practiced as an adjustment to the great amount of religious plurality and diversity we have in the U.S., there's a part of me that enjoys the religious specificity of places of worship or prayer. I understand that the airports are attempting to be non-discriminatory and accommodating to the variety of people from many different faiths, it can turn a place of reflection and respite into a watered-down, rather generic, place to be. I think it can take away some of the spiritual uniqueness of a particular chapel if it is stripped of it's original religious affliliation. This is a different story if various religious relics, statues, pictures, and symbols from different traditions are being added to a chapel. This could serve to heighten the religious richness and depth to a sacred space. But I'm more concerned about displacing the "religiosity" and "sacredness" of a chapel by taking away specific religious things so as to make the place less "offensive" to other faiths and more "universal" in nature. But what's the meaning and use of a room that looks and thus feels just like any other room except that it says "chapel" on the doorway?
I know of a certain space at a school that used to be employed specifically for Buddhist meditation and ritual. But recently decisions were made to make this space more accommodating and appealing (non-offensive) for non-Buddhist students and most of the Buddhist paraphanalia were removed, leaving the room looking empty and feeling desolate and spiritually deserted. As a Christian, I would've rather prayed in a room that had Buddhist statues, paintings, and altars than in one that is totally devoid of any religious symbology.
Though this stripping away of religious symbols and texts is not what chapels are said to be doing (rather adding materials from different traditions), it's still an acute tendency in an effort towards openness and inclusivity. Let's celebrate plurality and diversity rather than take away all religious uniqueness and dilute spiritual expression to a "universal religion" or none.
Anyway, the Atlanta Journal Constitution has the story at Faith in Public Life.
Institute of Conflict Management holds ecumenical Reconciler's Summit to teach clergy how to diffuse conflict
"NASHVILLE (July 29, 2009) -- Faith leaders from across the Christian theological spectrum gathered at Lipscomb University's Institute for Conflict Management in Nashville, Tenn., this week to learn professional techniques necessary to tackle a challenge common to all faith traditions: conflict."
Conflict management is an integral part of pastoral care duties, so this program will support and further ministerial leadership. The more programs such like this that are enacted by faith communities the better people will be able to deal with disputes, disagreements, and anger. Programs like this serve to bring people together in reconciliation and reunion rather than live with resentment and division. I would even suggest putting into place a center or institute such as this that focuses distinctly on interfaith conflict resolution from a multi-faith perspective.
Lipscomb University's Institute for Conflict Management (ICM) is the Mid-South region's foremost authority and purveyor of academic and business specific resources to equip students, organizations and professionals with skills to minimize the costs of unresolved conflict.
Learn more about this at the Religion News Service.
Conflict management is an integral part of pastoral care duties, so this program will support and further ministerial leadership. The more programs such like this that are enacted by faith communities the better people will be able to deal with disputes, disagreements, and anger. Programs like this serve to bring people together in reconciliation and reunion rather than live with resentment and division. I would even suggest putting into place a center or institute such as this that focuses distinctly on interfaith conflict resolution from a multi-faith perspective.
Lipscomb University's Institute for Conflict Management (ICM) is the Mid-South region's foremost authority and purveyor of academic and business specific resources to equip students, organizations and professionals with skills to minimize the costs of unresolved conflict.
Learn more about this at the Religion News Service.
New Book: Evolution of God
In his most recent book, The Evolution of God (Little, Brown, and Company, 2009), Robert Wright (American journalist, scholar, author) paves a path between atheism and belief, smashing religious misunderstandings as he goes: Jesus didn't only preach universal love; Jews didn't start out as monotheists; and the origin of religion had nothing to do with morality but connection to the earth.Read an interview with Wright at Religion Dispatches about his latest book.
(Picture from Religion Dispatches)
The Christian Roots of the New Age: The Aquarian Gospel
Louis A. Ruprecht writes a fascinating article at Religion Dispatches about the reissue of a 1908 book by Levi Dowling, The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, which is a retelling of the gospels. In this book, like similar esoteric accounts of Jesus' life, Jesus travels to India, Persia, and Greece, preaching of a “cord of love” that binds all humanity together. Ruprecht asks what The Aquarian Gospel has to teach us about Christianity and New Age religion.This article presents an interesting critique of New Age versions of understanding Jesus. He emphasizes the importance Christianity has always placed on not only the non-physical side but also the physical side of Jesus' personhood. Creation is not simply immaterial but also material. He also brings out that the New Age movements that were born out of the Christian strands of Western spiritual culture didn't start in the 1960's with the "hippies," but can be traced back to 19th century Romanicism, theosophy, and Liberal Protestantism in general.
It's a good read for those interested in The Aquarian Gospel and the connection between New Age spirituality and Christianity. Read it at Religion Dispatches.
(Image from Religion Dispatches)
"Ethics of Being a Theologian" Article in Chronicle of Higher Ed.
My good friend and colleague Danny Fisher over at his blog has mentioned an important article in the Chronicle of Higher Education delineating the relationship between the academic disciplines of of theology and religious studies. Danny quotes a significant part of the article that hones in on the important distinction:
The best theologians are scholars who have immersed themselves in many of the same academic disciplines favored by religion researchers. Like good religion research, good theology is generated by the application of sound reasoning to empirical evidence. But there is a crucial difference. The religion researcher evaluates that evidence from within a tradition of secular, academic "wisdom." The theologian evaluates the same evidence from within a tradition of sacred, esoteric "wisdom."
The import of this differentiation between the religion scholar and the theologian is that they are both employing the same methodology of using critical thinking to evaluate evidence that can be observed, discerned, and understood by the senses and the mind. However, their contexts are very disparate. The religion scholar is attempting to place her/his self within the traditions of the secular sciences, especially the "softer" sciences like history, sociology, anthropology, as well as the discipline of philosophy. Theologians draw from all of these secular disciplines, but are seeking answers from within a particular religious tradition, doing their work within and for the advancement of the tradition with which they are affiliated.
This distinction between theology and religious studies should not be glossed over and ought to be a more present aspect of public discourse. (Even though critical discussion of religious issues is largely absent from the public sphere in the U.S. I refer those interested to Stephen Prothero's book Religious Literacy).
I did find the article to be a bit overly critical of theologians and the purpose of theological endeavor. The author, K.L. Noll, tends to view theology as less sound and more wishy-washy than religious studies. Nonetheless, it's certainly an essay worth reading for it's insighful distinction between these two important areas of study.
Check out Danny's post.
The best theologians are scholars who have immersed themselves in many of the same academic disciplines favored by religion researchers. Like good religion research, good theology is generated by the application of sound reasoning to empirical evidence. But there is a crucial difference. The religion researcher evaluates that evidence from within a tradition of secular, academic "wisdom." The theologian evaluates the same evidence from within a tradition of sacred, esoteric "wisdom."
The import of this differentiation between the religion scholar and the theologian is that they are both employing the same methodology of using critical thinking to evaluate evidence that can be observed, discerned, and understood by the senses and the mind. However, their contexts are very disparate. The religion scholar is attempting to place her/his self within the traditions of the secular sciences, especially the "softer" sciences like history, sociology, anthropology, as well as the discipline of philosophy. Theologians draw from all of these secular disciplines, but are seeking answers from within a particular religious tradition, doing their work within and for the advancement of the tradition with which they are affiliated.
This distinction between theology and religious studies should not be glossed over and ought to be a more present aspect of public discourse. (Even though critical discussion of religious issues is largely absent from the public sphere in the U.S. I refer those interested to Stephen Prothero's book Religious Literacy).
I did find the article to be a bit overly critical of theologians and the purpose of theological endeavor. The author, K.L. Noll, tends to view theology as less sound and more wishy-washy than religious studies. Nonetheless, it's certainly an essay worth reading for it's insighful distinction between these two important areas of study.
Check out Danny's post.
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