A Christian Ramadan?

It seemss that a number of evangelical Christians have "rediscovered" fasting by observing the Muslim fast of Ramadan, Notes from a Common-place Book: A Christian Ramadan?:

I find it interesting that these evangelicals are fasting not as a Christian discipline, but rather to show respect and solidarity with Islam. I have several Muslim friends. Were I to announce I would be participating in Ramadan with them, they would see it as the obvious gimmick that it is. Others seem to agree.

I noticed something similar back in the 1980s, when it became fashionable in some Christian circles to hold Christian Passover meals. I did so myself on a couple of occasions, when I was an Angl;ican, and even invited some Jewish friends to join us at one of them. It was in a small town where there was no Jewish community and the Jews who came were generally non-observant, and seemed to appreciate both the invitation and the meal itself, though perhaps they were too polite to say what they thought of the Christianised bits (If he had sent the prophets, but had not become man for us, we would have thought it enough; if he had become man for us and not performed miracles of healing, we would have thought it enough, etc). But my observant Jewish friends were rather horrified when I told them about it, and clearly saw it as the obvious gimmick that it was.

In some ways it was a useful educational exercise, to learn something of the Jewish roots of Christian worship. But it also became clear that it didn't fit.

In our Anglican parish we discussed when we should have it. Some said Maundy Thursday, on the assumption that the last supper was a passover meal. We did that one year, but it didn't feel right to eat meat in Holy Week. So the next time we did it, we did it on Easter Monday. And looking back on it, I can see that St John Chrysostom's criticisms of Judaising Christians were right on the money. The "Christian Passover meal" was a chimera.

And then this year, having just completed the Dormition Fast, I read various blogs where people were urging Christians to observe the fast of Ramadan. I suspect that most of them had never even heard of the Dormition Fast. Though they were Christians, they were more familiar with Muslim traditions than with Christian ones.

So I recommend the whole article Notes from a Common-place Book: A Christian Ramadan?, and the comments are worth reading too. Another thing I discovered a couple of years ago was that some evangelicals were beginning to realise that there was quite a lot in the Bible about fasting, but they were suspicious of the practice because they associated it with asceticism, which they regarded as a Bad Thing. For such people I wrote Christian asceticism: Khanya.

There's also another interesting take on this at The Ochlophobist: ramadan and closet lesbian evangelical zionist dancers; usual ochlophobic topics...

Three Pigs story ruled ‘offensive to Muslims’ review | Children's Books - Times Online

Three Pigs story ruled ‘offensive to Muslims’ review | Children's Books - Times Online

A children’s story based on the tale of the Three Little Pigs was rejected for an award after judges became concerned that it would offend Muslims.

The animated virtual book for primary school children, The Three Little Cowboy Builders, was also criticised for its potential to offend builders.

The row centred on the Bett awards, which were supported by Becta, the Government’s technology agency for schools. The judges’ remarks, reported on the education technology website Merlin John Online, included: “Is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down, and builders are like pigs?

When my daughter was in Grade II (she's now just handed in her Masters dissertation, so it was quite a long time ago) her class and the Grade I class put on a nativity play (it was a church school).

One of the girls in the class was a Muslim, and the teacher asked her if her parents would mind if she took part in the play. She replied, "If they complain, I'll just tell them that they can be glad I'm not the pig". Her part was s a cow in the stable, but what a pig was doing there in a good Jewish setting it is perhaps best not to ask.

In the event, her parents came to the play and enjoyed it.

Green Hannukia campaign sparks ire

There is a campaign to persuade Jewish families to light fewer Hanukka candles in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

I wonder if that will spread to Orthodox Churches, which burn large numbers of candles at every service.

But the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from those is probably infinitesimal compared with what is emitted in cremations. Save the environment -- close the crematoria!

clipped from www.jpost.com In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment. The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere. "The campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won't need another miracle," said Liad Ortar, the campaign's cofounder, who runs the Arkada environmental consulting firm and the Ynet Web site's environmental forum. "Global warming is a milestone in human evolution that requires us to rethink how we live our lives, and one of the main paradigms of that is religion and how it fits into the current situation."