We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’
A: I’m not so holy, but yes I do pray everyday; if I did not, I would barely manage to be human - I would be some sort of feral creature rolling about in the teeming muck. All I can tell you is that prayer is a force; it has real power to transform, beginning with oneself, and then externally. Whether praying liturgically or devotionally, scripturally or privately, it moves and shifts our own psychological and spiritual plate tectonics. Deep below our consciousness, it turns our muck into magma and drives us toward constant change, constant growth and even renewal, even if things don’t always look hopeful or promising as it does so.
So, don’t fear the earthquakes or the volcanos, either external or internal. Yes, they’re destructive, yes, they’re alarmingly powerful and they change everything in their path. But they are mere moments in eternity, and after they rattle and scorch, things get quiet, and then life begins again - new growth, new structure, new maps.
Without the great, seemingly catastrophic events, the earth would stagnate, and so would we.
And then we’d have nothing but Sarah Jessica Parker movies in our lives.
2When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ 13But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’
14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
17“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. 19And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 20The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. 21Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is, so to speak, His name written in us…It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.
When man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing, but worships everything.
Contrary to a widespread impression, G.K. Chesterton apparently never said that.
Still, it's a fine statement, and relevant to the modern form of Paganism which views the lives of the unborn, ready-to-be-born, or born-damaged as insignificant, but the social lives of Goldfish - and now the souls of asparagus - as sacred.
"What is clear, however, is that Switzerland's enshrining of "plant dignity" is a symptom of a cultural disease that has infected Western civilization, causing us to lose the ability to think critically and distinguish serious from frivolous ethical concerns. It also reflects the triumph of a radical anthropomorphism that views elements of the natural world as morally equivalent to people.
Why is this happening? Our accelerating rejection of the Judeo-Christian world view, which upholds the unique dignity and moral worth of human beings, is driving us crazy. Once we knocked our species off its pedestal, it was only logical that we would come to see fauna and flora as entitled to rights."
Regular readers know that all of creation is precious to us here at Magggie's Farm. We love plants, trees, birds, butterflies, rocks, mountains, meadows, rivers, intensely. Love them, love to be amongst them, and learn all we can about them. But we still hold that there is a big difference between "precious" and "sacred."
These folks have taken the Pathetic Fallacy to a psychotic extreme. One is forced to wonder whether the only dining acceptable to Greenie Gaia-worshippers would now involve cannibalism, since they want us to worry about the souls of asparagus and lobsters, and view human life as an obnoxious intrusion on an otherwise beautiful Eden (except that most animals eat plants and/or other animals).
Still, I must confess that the shrill scream of asparagus when it hits that steam always whets my pre-post-Christian appetite.
‘If you love me, you will keepmy commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. 17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be inyou.
18 ‘I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’
42They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
From an essay by Richard Wolin in Chronicle of Higher Ed, titled Jurgen Habermas and Post Secular Societies. It begins:
Among 19th-century thinkers it was an uncontestable commonplace that religion's cultural centrality was a thing of the past. For Georg Hegel, following in the footsteps of the Enlightenment, religion had been surpassed by reason's superior conceptual precision. In The Essence of Christianity (1841), Ludwig Feuerbach depicted the relationship between man and divinity as a zero-sum game. In his view, the stress on godliness merely detracted from the sublimity of human ends. In one of his youthful writings, Karl Marx, Feuerbach's most influential disciple, famously dismissed religion as "the opium of the people." Its abolition, Marx believed, was a sine qua non for human betterment. Friedrich Nietzsche got to the heart of the matter by having his literary alter ego, the brooding prophet Zarathustra, brusquely declaim, "God is dead," thereby pithily summarizing what many educated Europeans were thinking but few had the courage actually to say. And who can forget Nietzsche's searing characterization of Christianity as a "slave morality," a plebeian belief system appropriate for timorous conformists but unsuited to the creation of a future race of domineering Übermenschen? True to character, the only representatives of Christianity Nietzsche saw fit to praise were those who could revel in a good auto-da-fé -- Inquisition stalwarts like Ignatius Loyola.
Twentieth-century characterizations of belief were hardly more generous. Here, one need look no further than the title of Freud's 1927 treatise on religion: The Future of an Illusion.
Today, however, there are omnipresent signs of a radical change in mentality.
Religious belief is thriving in America today, even though it seems under assault as seldom before--attacked by secularists, scientists, and increasingly vocal atheists; constrained by judges and civil libertarians; mocked by contemporary artists; and treated pragmatically, if not cynically, by politicians seeking votes. This book explores the enduring strength of religion in American life. Faith and religious observance are not obsolete or incompatible with modern society; on the contrary, the religious principles that guided the Founders continue to bind the nation and justify human endeavor.
In Religion and the American Future, a distinguished group of scholars examine the future of religion in America. Michael Novak, John C. Green, Leon R. Kass, Douglas W. Kmiec, Roger Kimball, and Marcello Pera contemplate in turn the relationship of religion to the dominant secular realms of politics, science, law, and art. They argue that the religious and the secular realms should construct a mutual and productive understanding; that faith-based voting is not the threat it often seems; that science cannot answer humanity's deepest moral inquiries; and that the United States Constitution presupposes the existence of God. The volume concludes with an instructive look at Europe and the troubling implications of turning away from religious belief altogether.
There is one secret ingredient to make prayer work: trust. Gotta have it. Can God work without your trust? Sure — the rain falls on the just and the unjust, as the proverb says. Our problem is we want to understand God before we trust Him. We want Him to strut His stuff, lightning bolts and miracles and the like, before we’ll acquiesce and maybe give Him a break. Sorry, that’s not trust — just the opposite. But God cannot be understood — even in a limited way with our most enfeebled minds — until we first trust Him. Sounds like a bum deal, a Catch-22, but that’s just the way it works. Get over it — you won’t regret it.
And one last thought in this long-winded essay: If you’re new to this prayer thing (or even not so new), start small. Praying for world peace or a cure for your cancer is fine, but a bit grandiose for starters. Pray about your misplaced car keys, finding a parking spot, the wisdom to deal with that difficult patient, or co-worker, or child, or situation. Then open your eyes, your ears, your heart for the response. You won’t hear it every time — but I bet you’ll be surprised how often you do, and you’ll learn something about God, about yourself, and in some small way about how this spiritual world works.
No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. (25) Therefore I say to you, Do not be anxious for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? (26) Behold the birds of the air; for they sow not, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them; are you not much better than they are? (27) Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature? (28) And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not toil, nor do they spin, (29) but I say to you that even Solomon in his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (30) Therefore if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much rather clothe you, of little faith? (31) Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, With what shall we be clothed? (32) For the nations seek after all these things. Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. (33) But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you. (34) Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow; for tomorrow shall be anxious for its own things. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Although a vocal minority continues to attack the Christian faith, for most Americans, faith is a large part of their lives: 86 percent of Americans refer to themselves as religious, and 75 percent of all Americans consider themselves Christians. So how should they respond to these passionate, learned, and persuasive books that promote science and secularism over religion and faith? For years, Tim Keller has compiled a list of the most frequently voiced “doubts” skeptics bring to his Manhattan church. And in The Reason for God, he single-handedly dismantles each of them. Written with atheists, agnostics, and skeptics in mind, Keller also provides an intelligent platform on which true believers can stand their ground when bombarded by the backlash. The Reason for God challenges such ideology at its core and points to the true path and purpose of Christianity.
Why is there suffering in the world? How could a loving God send people to Hell? Why isn’t Christianity more inclusive? Shouldn’t the Christian God be a god of love? How can one religion be “right” and the rest “wrong”? Why have so many wars been fought in the name of God? These are just a few of the questions even ardent believers wrestle with today. In this book, Tim Keller uses literature, philosophy, real-life conversations and reasoning, and even pop culture to explain how faith in a Christian God is a soundly rational belief, held by thoughtful people of intellectual integrity with a deep compassion for those who truly want to know the truth.
Tim is the pastor of New York's booming Redeemer Presbyterian Church, but he is also well-known through his Thursday Men's Breakfast talks at The Harvard Club, which focus on the application of Christianity to daily life and especially to business life. Either or both are worth attending when visiting NYC.
Recordings of these excellent and routinely sold-out talks can be gotten here by subscription, or here on recordings (most are $5.)
It's the best short piece I have seen on the religious and faith aspectsof atheism and secular humanism. As he says, "Secularisation is in retreat, and the result is the appearance of an evangelical type of atheism not seen since Victorian times... As in the past, this is a type of atheism that mirrors the faith it rejects." A quote:
...the belief that history is a directional process is as faith-based as anything in the Christian catechism. Secular thinkers such as Grayling reject the idea of providence, but they continue to think humankind is moving towards a universal goal - a civilisation based on science that will eventually encompass the entire species. In pre-Christian Europe, human life was understood as a series of cycles; history was seen as tragic or comic rather than redemptive. With the arrival of Christianity, it came to be believed that history had a predetermined goal, which was human salvation. Though they suppress their religious content, secular humanists continue to cling to similar beliefs. One does not want to deny anyone the consolations of a faith, but it is obvious that the idea of progress in history is a myth created by the need for meaning.
Read the whole thing. I think I would like to read Gray's book too.
Re the excellent post below about Rev. Wright, here's a truth about America, quoted via Attack Machine:
Q. Are Americans more or less charitable than citizens of other countries? A. No developed country approaches American giving. For example, in 1995 (the most recent year for which data are available), Americans gave, per capita, three and a half times as much to causes and charities as the French, seven times as much as the Germans, and 14 times as much as the Italians. Similarly, in 1998, Americans were 15 percent more likely to volunteer their time than the Dutch, 21 percent more likely than the Swiss, and 32 percent more likely than the Germans. These differences are not attributable to demographic characteristics such as education, income, age, sex, or marital status. On the contrary, if we look at two people who are identical in all these ways except that one is European and the other American, the probability is still far lower that the European will volunteer than the American.
Best essay I have read on the subject, and it goes far beyond the story of the day. A quote:
One can argue (unconvincingly, in my view) that Christian morality and teaching mandate government and political efforts to aid the poor and oppressed — as opposed to our individual responsibilities along such lines, or those facilitated collectively through the church. What one can not do is square such a constricted, monotone theology with Christianity’s vast octaves of orthodox teaching and history. If Christianity is nothing more than do-good government social programs which require no personal moral transformation, which frequently cause more harm than good to their intended beneficiaries, and require no personal sanctification or sacrifice — then who needs Christianity at all? Wrapping social programs in Scripture verses and Jesus-talk does not make them “Christian” any more than putting mascara on a pig makes her Miss Universe.
and another:
The problem with ministers like Reverend Wright and others, who wrap their political and social agendas in Christian facades and Bible-talk, is that they are partly right. That social justice, concern for the poor and the underprivileged, and the mitigation of hatred and racism are — and have always been — emphatic teachings and priorities for Christianity is indisputable. But Christian opposition to injustice and oppression is not its sole and central doctrine, but rather a manifestation of the personal deliverance of the individual from the slavery and oppression of sin which Christianity offers. The half-righters have interchanged cause and effect — and thereby have guaranteed that the results of such efforts will be harmful rather than healing. For to be partly right is to be totally wrong — when the part in error is core truth about the nature of man and his relationship to God. Good deeds arising out of the darkness of the unredeemed heart invariably foster repression and dependency rather than deliverance and liberty. As Ratzinger points out, speaking of the natural evolution and outcome of liberation theology as a solution to oppression:
… the overthrow by means of revolutionary violence of structures which generate violence is not ipso facto the beginning of a just regime. A major fact of our time ought to evoke the reflection of all those who would sincerely work for the true liberation of their brothers: millions of our own contemporaries legitimately yearn to recover those basic freedoms of which they were deprived by totalitarian and atheistic regimes which came to power by violent and revolutionary means, precisely in the name of the liberation of the people.
That's what my check-out gal said to me today at Home Depot. I inquired "How do you know to say that to me?" She said "Honey, I can just tell."
"God bless you too," I said, although He obviously already did. She found a hole in a manure bag, and ran off to get some tape to cover it, even though I didn't care.
I spent $120 on cow manure, but I can get the bull's stuff "free" from the politicians which will cost me much more in the end...but it won't grow the stuff She Who Must Be Obeyed wants to grow. The BS from bulls - or cows - is far more useful to us, and smells better. I am mixing up a wholesome soil stew for boxes and planters.
Pansies first, then the really good stuff in a while, after frost season if global cooling gives us a break.
We think it's terribly unfair to single out Barack Obama for calumny for associating himself with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright Junior's rather tame opinions. After all, I'm sure all right thinking Americans are still angry at the Roman Empire for killing black Jesus. Of course I'm terribly old school, and I'm still pissed at the Etruscans. One of them peed behind our pagan altar once and it left a stain. I demand multi-generational reparations, or at least they could make a modest gesture of remorse and buy us some Febreze for the tapestry we had back there. But I digress.
It's a sign of our corrupt and contemptible culture that we point out that shouting "We hate everybody that doesn't look like us and a lot of people that do, too." from the pulpit might be a somewhat less than generous worldview for a preacher, but only for the brown candidates' churches. What's Lily-White Clinton, doyenne of the Roman Empire (hell, she married Caligula) listening to in church? We've scoured the Intertunnels for evidence of the cackling cankled one's Sunday Service, and let me tell you brothers and sisters... It's explosive stuff. I give you: Hillary's Preacher.
We re-post this 2006 Dr. Bliss piece on the UCC because Obama's church, much in the news today, is UCC
Reasons to Quit the UCC
Bird Dog just faxed me an info sheet on the United Church of Christ, which his church, like mine in New Hampshire, is considering abandoning. If you aren't familiar with this organization, the UCC is an umbrella organization, created in 1957, which includes many Congregational, Dutch Reform, and German Reform churches. Because of American history, many of these churches are in the Northeast.
The Pilgrims were Congregationalists, and had been welcomed by like-minded Dutch churches when they fled Anglican (now called "Episcopalian" in the US) persecution by the English government in the late 1500s and early 1600s - a very trivial piece of history which resulted in a major consequence - our Constitution included the forbidding of a State-enforced sect. Of Christianity, of course, at the time. (Jews, in England, were tolerated and not subject to persecution, on the whole. Freud, genius that he was, happily termed that kind of thing "the narcissism of small differences" - we are more likely to make a fight with those with whom we have small differences than those with major differences.)
These churches have a unique history - they are bottom-up churches without hierarchy, in which the individual congregation itself choses, by vote, its clergy, its beliefs, its mission, the organizations they support, and its mode of worship. God is the only Boss, and understanding His will is a matter for individual prayer. That makes for a powerful individualistic tradition, and for the direct mankind-God link that we aspire to.
However, like many innocent and well-meaning non-profits, the UCC has been "captured" by theologically "liberal" and politically activist state and national HQs - and that is a very bad thing for many of the congregations that contribute money to the organization. The HQ people appear to have walked away from their theological support mission and done two things I do not like: 1. They have begun constructing dogma and, 2. They have become political operatives with political agendas. In other words, they are seeking power - theological authority and worldly power. That's fine for churches and denominations that wish to do so, but we don't.
For example, believe it or not, the Connecticut UCC actually has a lobbyist in Hartford taking all sorts of radical positions of which most contributing congregations are probably totally unaware, including opposing Charter Schools in alliance with the CT Teacher's Union! You can't find this on the website, nor will it be found in church bulletins. These activities are done in the name of the UCC congregations, on the nickel of God-seeking folk who dutifully, and often sacrificially, put their hard-earned dollars in the basket. (We have tithers in our church - always the old joke - "Before or after taxes?".) It reminds me of what unions do with their dues.
What happens when unwanted leaders try to lead, but no-one follows? Congregations are rebelling, or simply voting with their feet because of the political or just strange positions the HQs have been taking. It seems likely that many will vote with their feet, and form or find another umbrella organization to help with pensions, insurance, and publications.
As you can tell, I am strongly in favor of old family Congregational church's abandoning the UCC's leaky bucket, and it looks like we will. We will pray and vote! And it will not be Left vs. Right - it will be about what the role of a religious support organization is. Which, I believe, is to help mankind connect with God by helping churches with practical problems. The mission of saving souls is plenty big enough! D'ya think? (as my daughter would say).
2008 update: Both Bird Dog's and Dr. Bliss' Congregational churches voted to leave the UCC and to regain their independence.
Mine has not gone so well. As our Editor Bird Dog also says, it's usually the high point of my year with God, but this year it has not gelled the way it has in the past, and I have been continually distracted - or, more accurately, permitted myself to be distracted.
This leaves me feeling disappointed with myself, and thus more in need of Lent and of God's grace, and thus the thing snowballs in the wrong direction down the wrong hill. I know that I have only so many Lents, and so many Easters, in my life. Still, I cannot get in the groove this year and fear that Easter will therefore be a hollow celebration followed by just one more unnecessary high-calorie brunch, followed by an undeserved nap.
Something is in my way, but I do not know what it is. It's nothing obvious, or I would be able to identify it.
Lent has been for me a daily movement through shadows and light; so many to pray for, so much to pray about and the comprehension of all of my limitations and deficiencies. I begin to know all I do not know and have never felt so little. Sometimes, as the psalmist says, “my sin is ever before me,” and the shadows feel very heavy; other times the silence and contemplation thrust me into dizzying light, where there is warmth but then I know even less. I realize I am almost wholly unschooled in love, unacquainted with decency. What I have learned most whole-heartedly this Lent is that my instinct throughout my life have been pretty-much right on: that I am an uncultured, untutored, self-concerned and barely conscious rough beast, and I have been slouching unaware through humanity for almost 5 decades; I am only finally evolving just a little - a very little - for the better.
I do not need much more self-flagellation, but there is something maybe short of that...
6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
Acts 2: 1-21
From Thomas Merton, 
When man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing, but worships everything.
A quote from Dr. Bob's post, 
Matthew 6: 24-64
That's what my check-out gal said to me today at Home Depot. I inquired "How do you know to say that to me?" She said "Honey, I can just tell." 
Reasons to Quit the UCC
Mine has not gone so well. As our Editor Bird Dog also says, it's usually the high point of my year with God, but this year it has not gelled the way it has in the past, and I have been continually distracted - or, more accurately, permitted myself to be distracted.