Obscenity

A new breed of South Africans is emerging, a new subculture, perhaps. It is composed of those who do not merely want to be rich, but who want be filthy, stinking rich; obscenely rich.

One of the things that one often hears is that crime is caused by poverty. But that is not strictly true. Criminologists who have researched the matter report that in societies where people are very poor, there is often relatively little crime. What causes the crime rate to rise is the income gap between the rich and the poor.

My blogging friend Dion Forster notes another effect of the income gap between rich and poor -- it can lead to genocide -- Wishes of youth and the winds of war - I was a soldier once - BLOG - Dion Forster - An uncommon path:

In Fiennes' book he notes, among other things, that the conditions that are necessary for genocide to occur include:

• An impoverished population
• A large gap between those who 'have' and those who 'do not have'
• A clearly identifiable minority grouping that has access to wealth and power
• The development of a racial or ethnic ideology that places groups of persons in opposition to one another
• Corrupt, power hungry and irresponsible politicians

I wondered how many of these elements could be ticked off a list of criteria in South African society? We have much work to do in order to bring equality, overcome animosity, and combat false and harmful racial and ethnic ideologies.

A few days ago I noted in another blog post Black and white perceptions of South Africa’s problems | Khanya:

People sometimes like to talk about poverty as the cause of crime. But it is much less common for people to talk about it the other way round — of crime as the cause of poverty. Yet much of the poverty in places like Mamelodi is caused by crime — white crime.

Two of the ways in which people achieve their ambition to become filthy stinking rich are politics and crime. Criminologists who have noted that the crime rate increases where the gap between rich and poor increases have also noticed that criminals do not generally rob and steal to feed their starving families. They steal because they want to be filthy stinking rich. Their ill-gotten gains are used for conspicuous consumption.

As for politics, we all know about tenderpreneurs. Thabo Mbeki, the former president of the ANC and South Africa, spoke on this phenomenon at the very conference where the ANC voted him out as leader -- that unscrupulous businessmen tried to take over ANC branches, and get themselves or their favoured candidates elected at the branches in areas that controlled municipalitries, and used their position to get lucrative contracts and tenders.

This is not unique to South Africa, it is found all over the world.

There are those who still say that the ANC has not made the mental transition from liberation movement to a political party. But the problerm is the other way round. Those who remember what it was to be a liberation movement are a diminishing minority, and are being swamped by those who see politics as a means of becoming filthy stinking rich.

In writing this, I'm not being an investigative journalist. I'm not trying to dig up the dirt on corrupt politicians and businessmen. I haven't named names nor cited instances of these things in footnotes. I've written about perceptions, about gossip, about impressions. And the purpose is not to find and condemn the guilty.

Our struggle, as St Paul says, is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, against spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies (Eph 6:10-12).

The problem is not individual sinners, but sin itself.

And the problem is not merely individual sins, but rather the inversion of values.

As Isaiah says:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Isa 5:20)

Those who desire to be filthy stinking rich do so because of greed.

Christians in the past have seen greed and lust as passions that we should seek to control. But there are new ideologies abroad in the world that seek to invert this, and say that passions like greed and lust are good.

And so we find people, even people who claim to be Christians, saying that it's OK to help the poor, but not by taking money from the rich "at gunpoint". The "at gunpoint" is a peculiar code word among such people for "taxes". What they mean is that money from taxes paid by the rich should not be used to help the poor. That, they say, is "theft".

And so they invert Christian values; they call evil good and good evil.

St John Chrysostom says precisely the opposite:

"See the man," He says, "and his works: indeed, this also is theft, not to share one's possessions." Perhaps this statement seems surprising to you, but do not be surprised. I shall bring you testimony from the divine Scriptures, saying that not only the theft of others' goods but the failure to share one's own goods with others is theft and swindle and defraudation. What is this testimony? Accusing the Jews by the prophet, God says, "The earth has brought forth her increase, and you have not brought forth your tithes; but the theft of the poor is in your houses." Since you have not given the accustomed offerings, he says, you have stolen the goods of the poor. He says this to show the rich that they hold the goods of the poor even if they have inherited them from their fathers or no matter how they have gathered their wealth. And elsewhere the Scripture says, "Deprive not the poor of his living." To deprive is to take what belongs to another, for it is called deprivation when we take and keep what belongs to others.

Thus if the government uses the taxes paid by the rich to provide basic necessities for the poor, such as housing or health services, it is not theft, but rather the recovery of stolen property. To call taxes used in such a way "theft" is to invert Christian values, and to call good evil and evil good.

Adulterers may repent. Thieves may repent. Murderers may repent. And when we experience lust or greed or other passions we may repent and struggle against them.

But those who call greed and lust good cannot repent.

This ideological inversion was propounded by Ayn Rand in the 1940s and 1950s, and spread to the institutions of state and society in the West, especially in the 1980s, until it has now permeated much of society and people's values as the insidious propaganda for it continues and increases.

We may never be able to remove inequalities of wealth; we may never be able to eliminate the gap between the rich and the poor. But we can and ought to resist the ideology that says that it is a good thing, and that the passions that maintain it are to be encouraged.

__________

This post is part of the February 2012 Synchroblog – Extreme Economic Inequality | synchroblog in which different bloggers write blog posts on the same theme, and provide a list of the other posts so that people can follow the theme by surfing from one post to another.

Other posts in this month's Synchroblog are:

• Marta Layton - Fear Leads to Anger. Anger Leads to hate …
• Kathy Escobar - Pawn Shops, Empty Refrigerators, The Long Hill Up
• Carol Kuniholm - Wondering About Wealth
• Glenn Hager - Shrinking The Gap
• Jeremy Myers - Wealth Distribution
• Liz Dyer - The First Step Is Admitting There Is A Problem
• Ellen Haroutunian - Economic Inequality: Coming Back To Our Senses
• K.W. Leslie – Wealth, Christians, and Justice
• Abbie Watters – My Confession

Anatomy of exile

This month's synchroblog, in the week in which Lent begins, is on Experiences in the wilderness. March Synchroblog – Experiences In The Wilderness – 3/9/2011 | synchroblog:

During the season of Lent we are reminded that all of us experience wilderness times in our lives – times of searching, of mourning, of anticipating, of waiting, of watching, of unknowing, of struggling, of preparation. Join us during the season of Lent for this month’s synchroblog as we reflect and share insights and thoughts about “Experiences In The Wilderness”.

As I look back on my life I can recall several experiences that could be said to be experiences of the wilderness, some literal, some figurative.

• Flight into exile in the UK
• Being fired by the Anglican bishop of Natal
• Being deported from Namibia
• Churchlessness

I won't go into all the details of all these now; for the sake of those who might be interested, I've linked a couple of them to other posts that give some more details.

The first, flight into exile in the UK, was not a real wilderness experience, though it felt like it at the time. I had finished my BA degree at the University of Natal, and was working as a bus driver in Johannesburg to try to raise money for postgraduate study in the UK. I needed to be in the UK at the end of September, but in January a man from the Security Police phoned me and wanted to see me. I thought he was either going to give me a banning order, or confiscate my passport, so I scarpered the same night, driving to Bulawayo and catching a plane to London from there. When I got back two-and-a-half years later they came and confiscated my passport. It wasn't really exile, but it felt like it because of the sudden and unexpected parting from friends and family and arriving in a strange country with no money and no job. I felt, in a very mild way, what refugees must feel like.

The last, churchlessness, was when we left the Anglican Church in 1985, and asked to join the Orthodox Church, which entailed writing a letter to the bishop. The bishop referred the letter to the Pope, who said he must refer it to the Holy Synod, but then died before the Holy Synod could consider it. The Anglican Church sent a lawyer after me, who unfairly and unjustly accused me of stealing church property, and was extremely nasty about it. So we were left in a kind of ecclesiastical wilderness, and at times both Val and I entertained thoughts of going up to the railway line that runs over the road from us and throwing ourselves under a passing train. Neither of us told the other about these thoughts until long afterwards; it was definitely a spiritual wilderness experience.

After being deported from Namibia I read a book called The anatomy of exile: a semantic and historical study, and though I can now remember very little of what it said, it made me reflect on the experience of exile, and to realise that what I missed most was not so much places, as people.

But in Lent, and especially in the first week of Lent, we are reminded that all our earthly experiences of exile are actually pointers to a larger exile, and the hymns of the church focus on the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise.

In Western theology there is the idea of dwelling in the Land of Unlikeness, where we have lost the likeness of God in which we were created.

In the Orthodox Church we have the picture of of Adam weeping at the gates of Paradise and lamenting:

The Word of God the Father,
begotten before the ages,
in the latter times willed to be incarnate of the Virgin
and endured crucifixion unto death.
He has saved mortal man//
by His Resurrection.

v. (6) If You, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You.

Tone 6 (from the Lenten Triodion)

The Lord took a handful of dust from the earth.
He breathed into it, and created me, a living man.
He made me lord and master of all things on earth;
truly I enjoyed the life of the Angels.
But Satan the deceiver tempted me in the guise of a serpent;
I ate the forbidden fruit and forfeited the glory of God.
Now I have been delivered to the earth through death.//
O my compassionate Lord, call me back to Eden!

v. (5) For Your name's sake I have waited for You, O Lord, my soul has waited for Your word; my soul has hoped on the Lord.

When the Enemy tempted me,
I disobeyed Your command, O Lord.
I exchanged the glory of my mortal body for shame and nakedness.
Now I must wear garments of skins and fig-leaves;
I am condemned to eat the bread of bitter hardship in the sweat of my
brow.
The earth is cursed and brings forth thorns and husks for me.
O Lord, You took on flesh from the Virgin in the fullness of time;//
call me back and restore me to Eden!

v. (4) From the morning watch until night, from the morning watch, let Israel hope on the Lord!

O Paradise, garden of delight and beauty,
dwelling-place made perfect by God,
unending gladness and eternal joy,
the hope of the Prophets and the home of the saints,
by the music of your rustling leaves beseech the Creator of all
to open the gates which my sins have closed,
that I may partake of the Tree of Life and Grace,//
which was given to me in the beginning!

v. (3) For with the Lord there is mercy and with Him is plenteous redemption, and He will deliver Israel from all his iniquities.
____
This post is part of a Synchroblog, in which several bloggers post articles on the same general theme. This month's theme is "Experiences in the Wilderness", and here are some other blog posts on the theme.

• Patrick (at Dual Ravens) was prolific with a four part series called “Musings” and they can be found here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four
• Katherine Gunn at A Voice in the Desert writes What is Wilderness?
• Wendy McCaig giving us a View from the Bridge brings A Voice Calling in the Wilderness
• EmmaNadine who describes Life By List wonders about Life in the Wilderness
• Tammy Carter of Blessing the Beloved is taking a rest as she Puts down the axe
• Jeremy Myers writing at Til He Comes ponders The Gaping Chasm of Suicide
• kathy escobar shares the carnival in my head and writes about belonging
• Steve Hayes of Notes from underground describes Anatomy of exile
• Marta Layton at Marta’s Mathoms writes On Sabbaths, Mountain-Tops… and Brothers’ Keepers
• Liz Dyer at Grace Rules discovers Beauty In The Wilderness

Synchroblog on immigration

Yesterday some bloggers had a synchroblog on immigration.

A synchroblog is when a group of bloggers decide to post articles on the same topic at about the same time, with links to each other's posts, so that you can surf through the posts and get a variety of views on the topic. Thanks to Sonja Andrews for coordinating this month's synchroblog, and for reviving it.

• Jonathan Brink – Immigration Synchroblog
• Mike Victorino at Still A Night Owl – Being the Flag
• Liz Dyer at Grace Rules – Together We Can Make Dreams Come True
• Sonnie Swentson-Forbes at Hey Sonnie – Immigration Stories
• Matt Stone at Glocal Christianity – Is Xenophobia Ever Christlike?
• Kathy Escobar at the carnival in my head – it’s a lot easier to be against immigration when you have papers
• Steve Hayes at Khanya – Christians and the Immigration Issue
• Ellen Haroutunian - Give Me Your Tired
• Bethany Stedman – Choosing Love Instead of Fear
• Pete Houston at Peter’s Progress – Of Rape and Refuge and Eyes Wide Shut
• Joshua Seek – Loving Our Immigrant Brother
• Amanda MacInnis at Cheese Wearing Theology – Christians and Immigration
• Sonja Andrews at Calacirian – You’re Absolutely Right
• Peter Walker – Synchroblog – Immigration Reform
• Steven Calascione at Eirenikos – The Jealousy of Migration
• George Elerick at The Love Revolution – We’re Not Kings or Gods
• Beth Patterson at Virtual Tea House – What we resist not only persists but will eventually become our landlord
• K. W. Leslie at The Evening of Kent - On American Immigration

This synchroblog was specifically on Christians and the immigration issue. Why just Christians? Aren't others concerned about it?

Well part of the answer is to be found in a blog post that isn't part of the synchroblog, but perhaps ought to be:The New Litmus Test | Solomon Hezekiah:

All of my friends (and yes, I have a few) who used to go on and on about abortion now go on and on about immigration. The level of perjorative that used to be reserved for those favouring abortion rights or, at worst, abortion providers, are now reserved for those favouring leniency toward undocumented immigrants. In fact, if anything, it is worse. In reading around the conservative blogosphere and even in talking to individuals face-to-face (because people tend to be much less restrained in the pseudonyminous detachment of the internet), opposing views are treated with anger, aggression, and a remarkable lack of civility.

That was written by an American living in the UK, which shows that the problem is international. In South Africa immigration has been linked to xenophobia, and some South African newspapers, notably The Sun, have published articles calculated sto stir up hostility to "illegal aliens". I've been told that in Australia "asylum seekers" is a dirty word.

But the dirtiest thing of all is that in America it appears that the "new litmus test" is being applied by people who like to call themselves Christians.

Synchroblogging Is Back

A synchroblog is when a group of bloggers wrote about the same general topic on the same day, and post links to each other's posts, so that people can easily surf from post to post and see the same general topic from different points of view.

The theme of September's synchroblog is Christians and the immigration issue and you can read more about it on Synchroblogging Is Back | Grace Rules Weblog:

CHRISTIANS AND THE IMMIGRATION ISSUE – 9/8/2010 (second Wednesday of the month) As Congress debates how to handle illegal immigrants already within U.S. borders and how to more effectively handle hopeful immigrants in the future, Christians will need to consider what it means to love these new neighbors in our midst.

Please email your name, name of blog, title of post and link to: Sonja Andrews at synchroblog@gmail.com by close of business CST on 9/7/2010 if you would like to be included in this synchroblog.

Please ignore the US-centric blurb, and feel free to write about it even if you don't live in the USA and don't want to emigrate there.

Oh yes, and there is still time to participate, as the synchroblog is to be on 8 September, and you need to send in the details of your post by Tuesday 7 September (and not 9 July!)

Illegal aliens

In September there is to be a synchroblog on Christians and the immigration issue, and here's a foretaste, so you can start thinking about it in advance.

Teflon Christians, Refugees and an Invitation to a Christ-like Humanity | Peter's Progress:

Let me introduce you to “Warren” (not his real name). Warren has a wife and three children. Before coming here he helped bury a friend’s wife, who had died of cholera (and was eight months pregnant). Warren slept outside for three weeks near Musina. The first day in Polokwane he approached me because he had heard that the Anglican Church helps refugees.

I said we weren’t much use, but we could give him some food. I know that people sleep down by the train station or the taxi rank and pointed him in the right direction. Warren arrived the next day having been mugged and stripped of everything except his trousers and shirt. Luckily he’d put his asylum papers (legal documents) in his pants.

“Chris” and “Fred” teamed up with Warren the next night and slept at a local garage, because it is well lit. The three of them fear the police. When they walk around town or wait on the side of the road for work, they get harassed or moved on. They’ve heard stories of our police tearing up asylum papers so they can be deported back across the border as illegals.

And its not only the police who are xenophobic, as the mob violence of a couple of years ago should remind us.

If you'd like to participate in the synchroblog, which is on 8 September 2010, there's more information at Synchroblogging Is Back | Grace Rules Weblog.

Synchroblog on Syncretism

There is a synchroblog on syncretism this month. Syncretism is mixing up two (or more) religions to make another religion that is different from those that went to make it up. It is not quite the same as borrowing elements from other religions, and nor is it quite the same as what the Russians call dvoeverie -- practising two or more religions side-by-side. But actually the synchroblog posts deal with all three.

You may find the posts here:

• How to Cook Up a Personal Jesus by Matt Stone
• How to be a Syncretist by Ellen Haroutunian
• Synching on Syncing by Phil Wyman
• Does interfaith dialogue lead to syncretism? by Liz Dyer
• The man in the moss by Steve Hayes
• Our uncomforatable God by Susan Barnes

And then there is this post The Deacon's Bench: Buying into the "Prosperity Gospel", which seems not unrelated.

Upcoming Synchroblog: Bridging the Gap - The Musings of a Confused Man

I came across this announcement of a synchroblog on faith and sexuality: Upcoming Synchroblog: Bridging the Gap - The Musings of a Confused Man:

New Direction has been seeking to foster safe and generous space for authentic conversation about faith and sexuality. We have committed ourselves to building bridges. But we cannot do it alone. We need other Christ-followers: gay and straight and everything in between, to speak up and join the conversation, to share the heart of the gospel in the midst of this conflict. We need those beyond the walls of the church: gay and straight and everything in between, to speak up and join the conversation, to share their thoughts on how the church can reach across the divide and build bridges.

See the press release on the event here.

Synchroblog for International Women's Day

Today, 8 March, is International Women's Day, and it has captured the imagination of a group of Christians, many of them in the USA, enough to inspire them to have a synchroblog to mark the occasion. So people who participated have blogged on women of the Bible, or Christian women in history.

Here are links to some of the blog posts that are already up, and you should find more links at the end of each post to follow them.

• Julie Clawson on The God Who Sees
• Steve Hayes on St. Theodora the Iconodule
• Sonja Andrews on Aunt Jemima
• Sensuous Wife on A Single Mom in the Bible
• Minnowspeaks on Celebrating Women
• Michelle Van Loon on The Persistent Widow
• Lyn Hallawell on International Women’s Day
  
• Heather on The Strength of Biblical Women
• Shawna Atteberry on The Daughter of Mary Magdalene
• Christine Sine on women who impacted her life
• Susan Barnes on International Women’s Day
• Ellen Haroutunian on Out from Under the Veil
• Liz Dyer on Mary and Martha: A Story about God’s Radical Hospitality
• Bethany Stedman on Shiprah and Puah
  
• Dan Brennan on Mary Magdalene

I had never paid much attention to International Women's Day before, partly because we have a national Women's Day on 9th August, which is a public holiday. So I looked up Internatonal Women's Day, and discovered a little about its history. It seems that is very much a socialist festival, and I found it quite interesting that many of the women who are participating in this synchroblog are Americans of evangelical Christian background. According to the news media, American evangelicals are almost synonymous with the "religious right", and so the very fact of this synchroblog breaks stereotypes, not only about women, but also about the "religious right" and the American aversion to "socialism".

I thought the easiest way to write it was to look up saints commemorated on 8 March, and to blog about any women saints commemorated on that day. It turned out that it was the first Sunday in Lent, the Sunday of Orthodoxy, and so it seemed logical to write about St Theodora the Iconodule, who established the practice of observing the First Sunday of Lent in this way -- a shrewd move, because it has probably protected the Orthodox Church from iconoclasm to this day.

Reality isn't what it used to be

In considering the general topic of "Religion and science" the first question that occurs to me is "What religion? What science?"

Both "religion" and "science" are cultural constructs based on Western modernity. By "modernity" I mean the Western worldview (or "paradigm") shaped by the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment.

Concerning religion, Peter Harrison says in his book "Religion" and the religions in the English enlightenment:

One of the effects of the Reformation was the exchange of an institutionally based understanding of exclusive salvation to a propositionally based understanding. Formerly it had been "no salvation outside the Church", now it had become "No salvation without profession of the 'true religion'" - but
which religion was the true religion? The proliferation of Protestant sects made the question exceedingly complex, and led to the production of innumerable abstracts, summaries and the like of the Christian religion, with confessions and statements of faith, in attempts to arrive at a solution. Thus there was a concern for 'fundamentals', which could therefore bring Christianity into a closer relation with other faiths, if the 'fundamentals' were broad enough to include them. Religions, in the new conception, were sets of beliefs rather
than integrated ways of life. The legacy of this view of "the religions" is the modern problem of conflicting truth claims (Harrison 1990:63-64).

The very term "interfaith" is thus a product of this conception, which is in turn a product of Western history -- the idea of religions as "faiths", that is sets of beliefs.

Harrison (1990:5-6) also points out that, in the West, there were three different understandings of 'nature', which led to three different understandings of 'religion' and 'the religions'.

1. The natural order is opposed to the supernatural. 'Natural' religion is the result of human sin and stands in opposition to 'revealed' religion. This dichotomy was largely shaped by the Protestant reformers.
2. An instinct, or the light of conscience (also Bacon, and Kant's 'practical reason'). This view is derived from Renaissance thought and ultimately from Stoic philosophy. In this view the natural is not opposed to the supernatural but complements it.
3. The light of nature is that which springs from reason, sense, induction and argument (Bacon), which Kant later called 'pure reason'. It was this view that developed as the Enlightenment progressed, and led to 'religion' being investigated in the same way as phenomena of the physical universe.

There were such radical changes in religious orientation in post-Reformation England that there was in effect a diachronic religious pluralism, which led to secularization, and "the comparison of the various forms of Christianity with one another, and shaped to a significant extent the way in which the English were to see other 'religions'. The whole comparative approach to religion was directly related to confessional disputes within Christianity"(Harrison 1990:3).

In other words, the frame of reference for the understanding of "religion" has been shaped by the history of Christianity in Western Europe since 1500. To this extent "religion" is a modern Western social and cultural construct.

For more on the differences between premodern and modern Western Christianity, see my post on The ikon in an age of neo-tribalism.

Like religion, "science" is also a social construct.

In English, more than in other languages, "science" has come to refer primarily to the "hard sciences":, those that use empirical methods of verification, though even in English there is a wider meaning. In premodern times, for example, theology was called "the queen of the sciences". In that sense, "sciences" meant "branches of knowledge". And even today non-English speakers sometimes refer to people writing "scientific articles" and reading "scientific papers" on theology, whereas native English speakers would probably say the articles and papers were "academic" or "scholarly", and reserve "scientific" for the "hard" sciences, like physics, chemistry, botany and zoology. Even social scientists would be thought of as reading academic papers rather than scientific ones.

I am particularly conscious of the language difficulty from the time that I worked in the editorial department at the University of South Africa, which was bilingual in Afrikaans and English. It was a distance-education university, and all study material was prepared in both languages. Some subjects, however, were uniquely bound up with Afrikaans culture, and with white Afrikaner nationalism. One such was Fundamental Pedagogics, which claimed to be the science of education. It was not, its proponents claimed, a philosophy of education, because there can be many different philosophies. It was scientific, and there can only be one science, and so from its lofty scientific pedestal it could sit in judgement on all mere philosophies of education.

In the original Afrikaans the word was "wetenskap" and "wetenskaplike", which are usually translated as "science" and "scientific" respectively. It is the equivalent of the German Wissenschaft or the Russian nauka. Though "wetenskap" can also mean knowledge, Afrikaans also has another word, "kennis", which corresponds more closely to the English term "knowledge". To English-speaking people, however, or at least to English editors, Fundamental Pedagogics did not seems so much like a science as an ideology, and the fundamental pedagogicians, in their claims for their discipline, seemed to be including it among the natural sciences. One could never be sure whether this was a linguistic or cultural misunderstanding, or whether the fundamental pedagogicians were simply snake oil salesmen.

In English, more than in many other languages, "science" has come to be used primarily of the natural sciences. This in itself shows that the term "science" has a meaning that varies from culture to culture. Thomas Kuhn, with his concept of paradigm shifts, emphasised this even more.

Both "religion" and "science", therefore, are cultural constructs, and need to be seen in the context of the culture in which they originated.

Can one say more?

Can one bring religion and science together, and see how religion sees science or how science sees religion?

Harrison (1990:2) says of this

It is evident from the philosophy of science that objects of study are shaped to a large degree by the techniques which are used to investigate them. If we apply this principle to the history of 'religion', it can be said that the very methods of the embryonic science of religion determined to a large extent what 'religion' was to be. It would be expected that 'religion' and the strategies for its elucidation would
develop in tandem. For this reason 'religion' was constructed essentially along rationalist lines, for it was created in the image of the prevailing rationalist methods of investigation: 'religion' was cut to fit the new and much-vaunted scientific method. In this manner, 'religion' entered the realm of the intelligible.

That brings us back to the question I asked at the beginning. Which religion? Which science?

One way in which I saw them brought together was a science fiction story. It introduced me to the concept of scientific paradigm shifts some years before Thomas Kuhn's book on the subject was published. I've sometimes wondered if Kuhn read the story, and whether it perhaps gave him the germ of an idea. Or perhaps both his thesis and the story grew out of the same Zeitgeist.

The story was The new reality by Charles L. Harness, first published in 1950 (ie 12 years before Kuhn's The structure of scientific revolutions).

The story concerns a group of scientist who are investigating a theory that paradigm shifts were not just changes in human consciousness, but that the world itself actually changed each time there was a paradigm shift. When the paradigm was that the sun revolved around the earth, the sun really had revolved around the earth, and when the paradigm changed, the earth began to orbit the sun.

To test this thesis, they want to break down the current paradigm, the Einsteinian one, which is based on the speed of light. They construct an apparatus (remember the Large Hadron Collider?) that will let through exactly one photon of light and direct it at a prism set at exactly 45 degrees. When a rat in a laboratory maze is faced with a fork in the path, so that it doesn't know whether to go left or right, it hesitates. So the photon, on encountering the prism, would hesitate for a split second before deciding whether to reflect or refract. That would slow down the speed of light on which the Einsteinian paradigm is based.

The apparatus was constructed, and the machine was switched on. One of the male laboratory staff suddenly found himself naked in a garden. The laboratory and everything in it had vanished. A female colleague, likewise naked, approached him through the trees, offering him an apple.

______

Bibliography

Anderson, Walter Truett. 1990. Reality isn't what it used to be. San Francisco: Harper.
Harness, Charles L. 1998. An ornament to his profession. NESFA Press.
Harrison, Peter. 1990. "Religion" and the religions in the English Enlightenment. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The structure of scientific revolutions.
_____

This post is part of an interfaith synchroblog on "Religion and science".

Here are links to other synchronised blog posts on this general topic:

• Liz Dyer (Christian) of Grace Rules on Dreaming Quantum
  Dreams


• K.W. Leslie (Christian/Pentecostal/Assemblies of God) of The Evening of Kent on How I taught science instead of "Christian" science.


• Matt Stone (evangelical Christian) of Glocal Christianity on Is Evolution Atheistic?


• Fr Ted (Orthodox Christian) of Fr Ted's blog on
  Post-modernism: A Challenge to Science?


• Steve Hayes (Orthodox Christian) of Notes from underground on Reality isn't what it used to be


• Jarred Harris (Pagan/Vanic Witch) of The Musings of a Confused Man on Faith, Reason, and Unreason

Synchroblog on light and dark

Phil Wyman has issued a reminder that we are doing the next SynchroBlog this coming
Wednesday on the theme of "Light and Dark as Motifs of Spirituality."

Posts should be up by December 10th (the evening of the 9th is always a good time for North Americans to post, since the rest of the world is ahead)

How to get Involved

E-mail Phil Wyman with an affirmative letting him know that you are participating.

Also as soon as you have your blog posted send him the direct link to the post, and we will get you hooked up.

How to get the most out of it

Phil will send out list of links, and they can be added to the bottom of your own post. By having the list on your site, you ensure that you are networked together with all your fellow Synchies, and people who are following the synchroblog can just surf from one post to the next. As they finish reading one post they just click the next one on the list.

So, let Phil know if you are in, and send him your title and direct URL as soon as possible. Some won't know their URL until the day of posting, but that's cool, as long as you let Phil know that you are in, and let him have have your blog URL ahead of time.

This synchroblog also marks the beginning of the third year of synchroblogging.

Here are links to some of the posts already up:

• Kathy Escobar at The carnival in my head on Light: I'll take a sliver any day.
• Beth Patterson of Virtual Tea House on Advent: awaiting the ancient and ever new.
• J.R. Miller of More than cake on Discover light in the darkness.
• Steve Hayes at Khanya on Lord of the Dark.
• Adam Gonnerman of Igneous Quill on In darkness.
• Julie Clawson of One hand clapping on Darkness and light.
• Susan Barnes: and here's a photo of one I made earlier.
• Liz Dyer of Grace Rules says What the heck.
• Erin Word of Decompressing faith on Fire and Sacrifice.
• Joshua Jinno at the Ante-Church on Practice Round: Light and Dark as spiritual motifs.
• Phil Wyman at Square no more on Darkness: a thin place for my soul.
• Lainie Peterson at Headspace on What the mirror doesn't tell me.
• Ellen Harountun on Holy Darkness.
• Jeff Goins at Pilgrimage of the heart on Walking in the light:walking with Jesus.
• Beth Stedman at Coffee Klatch on Light is coming.
• KW Leslie at The Daily Christian Show on Darkness versus Blackness.
  

Synchroblog on leadership

Today we are having a Synchroblog on leadership -- a group of (mostly) Christian bloggers around the world are blogging on their thoughts on leadership, and what leadership means.

• Jonathan Brink - Letter To The President
• Adam Gonnerman - Aspiring to the Episcopate
• Kai - Leadership - Is Servant Leadership a Broken Model?
• Sally Coleman - In the world but not of it- servant leadership for the 21st Century Church
• Alan Knox - Submission is given not taken
• Joe Miller - Elders Lead a Healthy Family: The Future
• Cobus van Wyngaard - Empowering leadership
• Steve Hayes - Servant leadership
• Geoff Matheson - Leadership
• John Smulo - Australian Leadership Lessons
• Helen Mildenhall - Leadership
• Tyler Savage - Moral Leadership - Is it what we need?
• Bryan Riley - Leading is to Listen and Obey
• Susan Barnes - Give someone else a turn!
• Liz Dyer - A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Polls…
• Lionel Woods - Why Diverse Leadership is Good for America
• Julie Clawson - Leadership Expectations
• Ellen Haroutunian - A New Kind Of Leadership
• Matt Stone - Converting Leadership

There is quite a variety among the posts, but also some common points. Some have focused on political leaders (it is the American general election today), and others have focused on church leaders, and some have compared and contrasted them.

My own contribution is on Servant leadership.

One of the most interesting ones, in the light of the US general election, is John Smulo's blog. In his actual synchroblog post he compares Australian and American styles of leadership, but immediately preceding it is a poll, in which he asks readers to indicate which way they will vote in the US general election.

He has two polls, one for Americans, and one for non-Americans -- the latter are asked to say which way they would vote if they were Americans.

Since John Smulo's blog is a Christian one, and most of his readers are presumably Christian, it shows an interesting difference between American Christians and Christians in the rest of the world, at least at the time of writing.

American Christians are split equally between the two main parties - 32% say they will vote for the Democrats, 32% for the Republicans, a few Libertarians and a few more "other".

Non-Americans show a very different pattern. None (so far) support the Republicans. It's 72.7 Democrat and 27.3% Green.

Perhaps that pattern will change as more people vote, but it seems to have important missional implications. American missionaries often travel to other parts of the world, but often do not realise quite how much the culture of other people, including that of other Christians, differs from theirs.

People in other countries, however, often have a better perception of American thinking, because American news media are all pervasive, and propagate the American worldview to most parts of the world. But even if people are aware of that worldview, they don't always accept it, as John's poll seems to show. Of course it's still a very small sample, but it will be interesting to see how it changes as more people vote.

Interreligious dialogue

This post is part of a synchoblog (synchronised blog) from people of different religious backgroounds on the topic of Interreligious Dialogue.

Like many others, I've blogged on this topic before, and so I won't repeat everything I've said in previous posts here, but will rather provide links to the other posts, with some commentary, and apologies to those who have read them before, especially since two of them were posted as part of Christian synchroblogs.

Taken together, they are quite long, so I hope people won't find them too boring.

In many ways they are a response to the views of some Christian theologians, whose views on interreligious dialogue I disagree with.

Notes from underground: Christianity: inclusive or exclusive? (Synchroblog)

Notes from underground: Theology of religions

Notes from underground: Theology of religion and interreligious dialogue

Notes from underground: Christianity, paganism and literature (synchroblog)

Notes from underground: Towards a theology of religions

As far as I can see there are three ways in which one can approach interreligious dialogue.

1. Avoidance
2. Finding common ground
3. Discovering similarities and differences

There can be many reasons for avoiding interreligious dialogue, including the idea that since all others are wrong, dialogue is not needed. All that is needed is a monologue from us to tell "them" the error of their ways, because we have the truth.

The "finding common ground" approach is usually based on an attempt to find something that everyone can agree on, such as "tolerance", and that the only thing we will not tolerate is intolerance. Unfortunately this means that we often overlook areas of real disagreement.

I'm an Orthodox Christian, and I believe what an Orthodox theologian, Fr Thomas Hopko, had to say about tolerance:

Tolerance is always in order when it means that we coexist peacefully with people whose ideas and manners differ from our own, even when to do so is to risk the impression that truth is relative and all customs and mores are equally acceptable (as happens in North America).

Tolerance is never in order when it means that we remain idle before wickedness which harms human beings and destroys God's creation.

To be tolerant is to be neither indifferent nor relativistic. Neither is it to sanction injustice or to be permissive of evil. Injustice is intolerable and evil has no rights. But the only weapons which Christians may use against injustice and evil are personal persuasion and political legislation, both of which are to be enacted in an atmosphere of respect. While Christians are permitted under certain conditions to participate in police and military actions to enforce civil laws and to oppose criminality, we may not obey evil laws nor resort to evil actions in defence of the good. This means that Christians are inevitably called to suffer in this age, and perhaps even to die. This is our gospel, our witness and our defence.

To me tolerance means co-existing peacefully with people whose ideas and manners differ from my own. If it means no more than that, it means at least that.

If I discuss religion with people whose ideas differ from my own, then I want to be sure that if I disagree, then I disagree with their actual beliefs and not a caricature of them, and if I agree, then I agree with their actual beliefs, and not a caricature of them. This approach does sometimes, however, cause clashes with exponents of the Baha'i faith, who believe that all religions are fundamentally the same, and that theirs is a harmonisation of all of them. That can lead them to overlook areas of real disagreement.

In interreligious dialogue then, there are four elements:

1. Your religion
2. My religion
3. Your interpretation of my religion
4. My interpretation of your religion

Unless all four are present, we don't have dialogue, but two monologues.

_______

List of participants

Here are links to the other participants in this synchroblog

• J. R. Miller (Christian) of More Than Cake on A Christian Approach to Interfaith Dialogue"


• Liz Dyer (Christian) of Grace Rules on Interreligious Dialogue: Risky Business


• Matt Stone (Christian) of Glocal Christianity on Is
  Interfaith Interfaith enough?


• Steve Hayes (Christian Orthodox) of Notes from underground on Interreligious dialogue


• K.W. Leslie (Christian / Pentecostal / Assemblies of God) of The Evening of Kent on Gathering with the pagans.


• Phil Wyman (Christian) of Square No More on A Christian Presenter at Pagan Pride!?


• Beth Patterson (Liberal Christian w/ Celtic undertones) of Virtual Tea House on Same Stove, Different Teapots


• Jarred Harris (Pagan/Vanic Witch) of The Musings of a Confused Man on Interfaith relationships


• Yvonne Aburrow (Wiccan Unitarian) of the dance of the elements on Only connect


• Andii Bowsher (Christian) of nouslife on More Tea Wicca?

And here's a link for some matters arising from this synchroblog.

Interfaith synchroblog and forum

A group of us are planning to have a synchroblog on 8 October on the general topic "Interreligious dialogue".

If you would like to take part, just write a blog post on that day with your thoughts on interreligious dialogue, and, as soon as you have posted it, send me information about your post (see below) and add the list of other participants in the synchroblog to your post when the list is available. You should also tag your post with "metareligionrap" and a tag for your own religious (or irreligious) background, and post it to del.icio.us with those tags too. They will then appear on the Metareligion blog aggregator at http://religionrap.blogspot.com

I suggest that we post as follows:

People in North and South America post in the early morning
People in Europe and Africa post about noon
People in the Middle East, India etc post midafternoon
People in eastern Asia, Australia, New Zealand etc post in the evening

As soon as you have posted your contribution, copy the URL for your post from your browser and send it to me in an e-mail message in the following format

NA Poster's name
BL Poster's blog name
TI Title of your post
URL Url of your post
REL Your religious background
EM Your e-mail address

If you use that format -- with the preceding tags in capital letters followed by a single space, and each piece of information on a separate line (it can word-wrap), I will be able to import it straight into a database without re-typing, and produce a report with the HTML code for the links which can then be appended to your post. I will post them on my contribution, and the easiest thing will be to copy and paste them from there. But I will also send it by e-mail to all the registered contributors (to the e-mail address you provide, so don't munge it).

If you send it to me by e-mail at

shayes (at) dunelm.org.uk


it will avoid cluttering up the mailing lists with lots of messages about addresses and titles of blog posts.

We will discuss the Synchroblog post on the interfaith forum Religionrap

For what it's worth the membership of the interfaith list (Religionrap) is as follows (so far):

Pagan 53%
Christian 23%
Jewish 7%
Buddhist 7%
Other 7%

No Muslims or Hindus yet, it seems.

If you want to know more about the Religionrap discussion forum see Notes from underground: Interfaith dialogue and Religionrap.

Interfaith dialogue and Religionrap

About 10-15 years ago I belonged to the RELIGION conference on the RIME BBS network. It was an interesting forum where people of different religious backgrounds and traditions discussed various topics and learnt about each other's beliefs and practices.

BBS networks and forums began to die after 2000, partly because much of the software that made them so useful was not Y2K compatible, and there were bugs in the date format, and partly because Windows 95 and later versions hid the software one needed to access BBS networks.

But I still miss that forum.

There were interesting people there, like Deke Barker, Soonand Myosurus, John Eveland and many more.

Recently there has been a proposal for an interfaith synchroblog. That is OK, but it is not really the best medium for interfaith dialogue. In a blog individuals express their views, and people can respond to each individual by way of comments. But there is no real back-and-forth discussion.

A couple of us have therefore started an interfaith discussion forum, called Religionrap. I hope that if any of the people from the old RIME religion conference are around and see this, they may join in. I hope that the people who want an interfaith synchroblog will also join in -- after all, there has to be somewhere where one can discuss the topic for the next synchroblog, and some of the points raised in the synchroblog.

For anyone interested, the people who started it are me, Steve Hayes, an Orthodox Christian from South Africa, and Yvonne Aburrow, a Wiccan Unitarian from England. For the time being we are the moderators, to try to keep discussion civil.

Group Email Addresses

Post message:	religionrap@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:	religionrap-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe:	religionrap-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
List owner:	religionrap-owner@yahoogroups.com

Or got to the web site at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/religionrap/

Holy Poverty

In 1920 R.H. Tawney published his book The acquisitive society, in which he criticised capitalist morality and values. Fifty years later Lawrence Lipton, the chronicler of the Beat Generation, wrote:

The New Poverty is the disaffiliate's answer to the New Prosperity. It is important to make a living. It is even more important to make a life. Poverty. The very word is taboo in a society where success is equated with virtue and poverty is a sin. Yet it has an honourable ancestry. St. Francis of Assisi revered poverty as his bride, with holy fervor and pious rapture. The poverty of the disaffiliate is not to be confused
with the poverty of indigence, intemperance, improvidence or failure. It is simply that the goods and services he has to offer are not valued at a high price in our society. As one beat generation writer said to the square who offered him an
advertising job: 'I'll scrub your floors and carry out your slops to make a living, but I will not lie for you, pimp for you, stool for you or rat for you.' It is not the poverty of the ill-tempered and embittered, those who wooed the bitch goddess Success with panting breath and came away rebuffed. It is an independent, voluntary poverty.

In the 1970s Western Christian theologians wrote a lot about "contextualisation", to such an extent that it became an almost meaningless piece of theological jargon. But the main idea is quite simple. It is an image taken from the weaving of cloth. The warp threads are stretched out along the length of the cloth, and the weft threads are woven in crosswise, so that in the finished piece of cloth the warp and the weft are inseparably woven together. So, the contextual theologians said, the gospel must we woven into society. Christianity must be a part of the society in which it finds itself.

For some contextual theologians, especially in South America, this meant a "preferential option for the poor". If the gospel of Christ could not speak to the poor and become part of their lives, it would never be heard. In North America, on the other hand, a movement arose to contextualise the gospel for the acquisitive society. And this led to what is called the "prosperity gospel". And so we discover that "contextualisation" doesn't solve the problem, it just shows it. Do Christian values shape and inform society, or are they shaped by it?

That, in North America, often leads on to debates about "separation between church and state", but I don't want to go into that now. The more important question, the prior question, remains: what are my values? Are they shaped by the gospel, or by the world, by the acquisitive society?

The other side of the contextualisation coin is that in many ways the Church is called to be countercultural. St Paul said "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind" (Romans 12:2).

Perhaps one of the unintended consequences of contextual theology is that it sometimes leads to a conformity to the world's values. In traditional Christian morality we recognise that we have to struggle against sinful behaviour. This spiritual struggle, spiritual warfare, is called podvig in Russian and ascesis in Greek. But contextualisation can sometimes lead to a different way.

Instead of struggling against sins like lust and greed, one simply redefines them as virtues. So for some in the West fornication is no longer a sin to be repented of or stuggled against, but rather extolled as a virtue, in the name of "inclusion". For others, lust remains a sin to be denounced (sometimes self-righteously, especially in others), but it is greed that has been transformed into a virtue in the new "prosperity gospel". And very often the pro-lust group and the pro-greed groups find themselves opposed to one another. The secular world has no such problems. Lust and greed go hand in hand in a symbiotic relationship, and the porn industry flourishes as never before. People from poor countries and regions are traded as sex slaves, and make their pimps very, very rich.

But this article is not about lust -- that was just to show that the unintended consequences of contextualisation can take different forms. Whatever form it takes it means that one no longer even needs to pay lip-service to Christian values. But sometimes even lip service is better than nothing, and leads, however imperfectly, to an attempt to shape society by Christian values. St Constantine is often vilified nowadays since his introduction of religious toleration opened the way for the Christianisation of the Roman Empire. One result of the Christianisation of the Roman Empire was the attempt, at least to some extent, to manifest Christian values in public life.

The emperors participated personally in the care of the needy, e.g. by anointing lepers or sharing meals with the hungry. This must have provided them with political public relations benefits, but it also represents a crucial emphasis in Orthodox spirituality. To be complete, a charitable work cannot deal only with structures and institutions but must involve a direct relation between persons, who bear the divine
image. Thus Romanus not only funds the feeding of the masses but also invites a few at a time to his own table. Whether he does this out of genuine compassion or only from a desire to appear compassionate, he shows his respect for a spiritual and ethical principle which his society values highly (Harrison 1990:24).

The difference is that the acquisitive society does not value that spiritual and ethical principle.

Let St Ambrose of Milan have the last word

How far, ye rich, will you carry your insane cupidity? ... why do you reject nature's partnership of goods, and claim possession of nature for yourselves? The earth was established to be in common for all, rich and poor; why do ye rich alone arrogate it to yourselves as your rightful property? Nature knows no rich, since she brings forth all men poor. For we are born without clothes and are brought forth without silver or gold. Naked she brings us to the light of day, and in want of food and covering and drink; and naked the earth receives back what she has brought forth, nor can she stretch men's tombs to cover their possessions. A narrow mound of turf is enough for rich and poor alike; and a bit of land of which the rich man when alive took no heed now takes in the whole of him. Nature makes no distinctions among us at our birth, and none at our death. All alike she creates us, all alike she seals us in the tomb. Who can tell the dead apart? Open up the graves, and, if you can, tell which was a rich man. . . .

But why do you think that, even while you live, you have abundance of all things? Rich man, you know not how poor you are, how destitute you would seem even to yourself, who call yourself wealthy. The more you have, the more you want; and whatever you may acquire, you nevertheless remain as needy as before. Avarice is inflamed by gain, not diminished by it...

You crave possessions not so much for their utility to yourself, as because you want to exclude others from them. You are more concerned with despoiling the poor than with your own advantage. You think yourself injured if a poor man possesses anything which you consider a suitable belonging for a rich man; whatever belongs to others you look upon as something of which you are deprived. Why do you delight in what to nature are losses? The world, which you few rich men try to keep for yourselves, was created for all men. For not alone the soil, but the very heaven, the air, the sea, are claimed for the use of the few rich. . . . Do the angels in heaven, think you, have their separate regions of space, as you divide up the earth by fixed boundaries?

How many men are killed to procure the means of your enjoyment! A deadly thing is your greed, and deadly your luxury. One man falls to death from a roof, in order that you may have your big granaries. Another tumbles from the top of a high tree while seeking for certain kinds of grapes, so that you may have the right sort of wine for your banquet. Another is drowned in the sea while making sure that fish or oysters shall not be lacking on your table. Another is frozen to death while tracking hares or trying to catch birds with traps. Another is beaten to death before your eyes, if he chances to have displeased you, and your very viands are bespattered with his blood...

-----

Bibliography

Harrison, Verna, 1990. Poverty in the Orthodox tradition, in St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly, Vol. 34(1). Page 15-47.

Synchroblog

This post is part of a synchroblog "Poverty, as seen from God's perspective".

Here are links to others blogging on this topic this month:

Phil Wyman: A theology of poverty and our personal biases
Adam Gonnerman: Echoes of Judas
Cobus van Wyngaard: Luke: The Gospel for the Rich
Lainie Petersen at Headspace
Steve Hayes: Holy Poverty
Jonathan Brink: Spiritual Poverty
Dan Stone at The Tense Before
Jeremiah: Blessed are the poor... churches...
Alan Knox: Boasting in Humiliation
Miss Eagle: Poverty and the hospitable heart
Jimmie: Feeding the poor
Calacirian: Fully known and fully loved

God's politics - synchroblog

The theme of this month's Synchroblog is "The politics of God". A bit awkward, that. I could write quite a bit about God and human politics, but the subject seems quite clearly limited to God's politics.

It would be easy to think that God's politics must be monarchist. After all, the synoptic gospels have a great deal to say about the "Kingdom" of God, in which God is the king.

In church services we have the same thing. At the beginning of the Divine Liturgy the priest announces "Blessed be the kingdom of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit."

In baptism we are asked if we believe in Jesus Christ as king and God.

So the evidence is pretty strong: God's politics are monarchist.

St Matthew's Gospel has a variation. He talks about the "Kingdom of Heaven" rather than the "Kingdom of God", but the effect is much the same, though. Heaven, we are told, was a euphemism for "God" in the first century.

And concerning that, St Paul urges the Philippians not to set their hearts on earthly things, but says that "our politics is in heaven" (Philippians 4:20). Actually the word he uses, politevma, is translated in many varying ways -- "commonwealth", "citizenship" and even (KJV) "conversation". I can't help thinking that "conversation" must have meant something very different in Jacobean English to what it means today. But whatever it meant back then, I understand it today to mean that our politics should be God's politics.

And to the Colossians he says (Colossians 3:1-4)

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Whatever else that means, it means we should not take earthly politics too seriously. Christians can never say, "My country, right or wrong", because our country is heaven, and our citizenship is primarily in the Kingdom of Heaven and not in any earthly republic or monarchy or dictatorship. Our politics is in heaven, and so we cannot take earthly political parties and movements too seriously.

And the Kingdom of heaven is not like earthly kingdoms and republics and dictatorships. As Jesus told his disciples, it would be difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God (Mark 10:26) and he went on to say

You know that those who are supposed to rule over the nations lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be the slave of all (Mark 10:42-43)

So Jesus represents a kingdom that is radically different from the kingdoms of this world, from the rulers of the nations. And this radical difference is shown by St Paul in I Cor 15:24, when Christ delivers the kingdom to God the Father, having put down all rule, all authority, all power. What kind of kingdom is without rule (arche), without authority (exousia), without power (dynamis)?

An anarchic kingdom, that's what.

The Kingdom of God is without rule (an-archy), without authority, without power.

That is the politics of God, and that is our politics as Christians; we are citizens of an anarchic kingdom, a royal anarchy.

____________

This post is part of a synchroblog, in which a number of bloggers blog on the same general theme on about the same day. The theme of this synchroblog is "God's politics", and other synchrobloggers blogging on this theme are listed below. Please visit their blogs to to see what others have to say on the topic

Phil Wyman at Phil Wyman's Square No More
Lainie Petersen at Headspace
Jonathan Brink enters The Political Fray
Adam Gonnerman explains The Living Christ's Present Reign
Sonja Andrews at Calacirian
Mike Bursell at Mike's Musings
Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes
Steve Hayes on God's Politics
Matthew Stone at Matt Stone Journeys in Between
Steve Hollinghurst at On Earth as in Heaven
KW Leslie tells us about God's Politics
Julie Clawson at One Hand Clapping
Dan Stone at The Tense Before
Alan Knox asks Is God Red, Blue, or Purple?
Beth Patterson at The Virtual Teahouse
Erin Word at Decompressing Faith

Blogging for human rights

This month's synchroblog is on Human rights, and we are also joining a much larger number of bloggers who are blogging for human rights today.

Here are the links to the posts that are up so far. More will be added later:

• Adam Gonnerman on Guantanamo Bay in the eyes of God.


• Julie Clawson on Human rights and Christian comfort.


• Steve Hayes on Human rights and Christian faith.


• Steve Hayes (again!) on Human Rights and Amnesty International.


• Alan Knox on My charade is the event of the season.


• Sally Coleman on If.


• Sonja Andrews on Human wrongs.


• Cobus van Wyngaard on Christianization and Humanization and our task in Zimbabwe.


• Janice Fowler on "Voice overs needed" (oe "Wake up -- speak up").


• Bryan Riley on Bloggers unite for human rights.


• Prof Carlos Z on A new examination of human rights.


• KW Leslie on For those who say Christians have no rights.


• Mike Bursell on Human rights (and Christian responsibilities).

Another synchroblog - Emerging heresy

There's yet another synchroblog -- this time on "Emerging heresy". Here are the contributions:

• Aratus - The Gender of the Creator and Face forward
• Cobusvw - Conversing with the heretics
• FakeExpressionsOfTheUnknown Who's Heresy
• Liquid Light - Coming out a heretic emerges
• Mike Smith - Emerging Heresy
• Nic Paton - The Lif Cycle of Heresy and The Blessings of Heresy
• Roger Saner Towards a heretical orthodoxy
• Ryan Peters - Calling the "H" word and dropping the "H" bomb
• Steve Hayes Cult
• Tim Victor - Confessions of a heretic

For the rationale behind it see Emerging Africa -- emerging heresy.

And, though not part of the synchroblog, this post is about a related topic, which may be of interest too: open source research: A New Kind of Christian is a New Kind of Atheist: Truth and A/theistic Orthodoxy in the Emerging Church Milieu - part one

Synchroblog on Christianity and social justice

This month's synchroblog is on Christianity and social justice, and the links to the various articles on the topic are below:

• Phil Wyman at Square No More - Salem: No Place for Hating Witches
• Mike Bursell at Mike's Musings
• Bryan Riley at at Charis Shalom
• Steve Hayes writes about Khanya: Christianity and social justice
• Reba Baskett at In Reba's World
• Prof Carlos Z. with Ramblings from a Sociologist
• Cobus van Wyngaard at My Contemplations: David Bosch, Public Theology, Social Justic
• Cindy Harvey at Tracking the Edge
• Alan Knox at The Assembling of the Church
• Matthew Stone at Matt Stone Journeys in Between
• John Smulo at JohnSmulo.com
• Sonja Andrews at Calacirian
• Lainie Petersen at Headspace
• KW Leslie: Shine: not let it shine
• Stephanie Moulton at Faith and the Environment Collide
• Julie Clawson at One Hand Clapping
• Steve Hollinghurst at On Earth as in Heaven
• Sam Norton at Elizaphanian: Tesco is a Big Red Herring

Call for Papers - Sergii Bulgakov Blog Conference, September 2008

At the Land of Unlikeness we could think of no better way to break into Bulgakov’s Sophia thesis than to join forces with the rest of you and throw a Sergei Bulgakov Blog Conference to be held in September later this year. The details are still sketchy, but we already have a few participants and many others are pondering. More participation is welcome, both in the form of a 1500 word contribution or in the form of a response to a post. Please send your contribution ideas to The Land of Unlikeness.

This looks as though it might be similar to a synchroblog, and on an interesting topic.

Call for Papers - Sergii Bulgakov Blog Conference, September 2008 - Updated at The Land of Unlikeness:

In his aptly titled essay, “On the Holy Grail,” Sergei Bulgakov meditates on the meaning of the verse in John where Christ’s side is pierced with a spear and “blood and water flow out.” Bulgakov’s thesis is straightforward: It is not the legendary grail of Western mythos that is interesting or vital, but rather the fact that when Jesus spills his blood upon the earth, the earth is charged and changed and maintains the seeds of its own transfiguration even when Christ dies, descends, and ascends to heaven. Clearly, the church has always maintained that Christ is present in the Eucharist and in the Spirit which he bequeaths, but Bulgakov thinks that the fact that this presence resides also in the earth itself, which is the holy grail, needs to be thought about much more seriously.