Hunger, health care, and urban violence are the usual subjects of concern when the Religious Leaders Council of Greater Philadelphia gathers for its semiannual meetings.
But at the spring 2011 session, a new topic was cast into the mix: real estate.
A member noted that he was grappling with a growing stock of vacant churches. Hoping for a solution from his high-placed peers at the conference table, he got instead a chorus of me-toos.
The idea behind the veil of ignorance is relatively simple: to force us to think outside of our parochial personal concerns in order that we consider others. What Rawls saw clearly is that it is not easy for us to put ourselves in the position of others. We tend to think about others always from our own personal vantage; we tend to equate another person’s predicament with our own. Imagining what it must be like to be poor, for instance, we import presumptions about available resources, talents and opportunities ”” encouraging, say, the homeless to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and to just get a job, any job, as if getting a job is as simple as filling out an application. Meanwhile, we give little thought to how challenging this can be for those who suffer from chronic illnesses or disabling conditions. What Rawls also saw clearly was that other classic principles of justice, like the golden rule or mutual benevolence, are subject to distortion precisely because we tend to do this.
Nowadays, the veil of ignorance is challenged by a powerful but ancient contender: the veil of opulence. While no serious political philosopher actually defends such a device ”” the term is my own ”” the veil of opulence runs thick in our political discourse. Where the veil of ignorance offers a test for fairness from an impersonal, universal point of view ”” “What system would I want if I had no idea who I was going to be, or what talents and resources I was going to have?” ”” the veil of opulence offers a test for fairness from the first-person, partial point of view: “What system would I want if I were so-and-so?” These two doctrines of fairness ”” the universal view and the first-person view ”” are both compelling in their own way, but only one of them offers moral clarity impartial enough to guide our policy decisions.
Many families of miners caught up in violence at a platinum mine in South Africa are unaware of their fate, two days after 34 people were killed when police opened fire at striking workers.
Angry relatives say the authorities have not produced a list of the dead.
At least 78 people were also injured and more than 200 people arrested.
Meanwhile, thousands of the miners have cheered on controversial youth leader Julius Malema who called for the president to resign over the clashes.
You can read something about him here and you can see ballot results there. You may also find his profile page there.
The Koforidua Diocese of the Anglican Church has called on the government to partner the private sector to solve the housing shortage facing the country….
The other day I was visiting another parish and they used the liturgy of the Anglican Church of Kenya, and it made me think of posting this resource. Check it out.
Egypt’s new Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, has made sweeping promises to the Egyptian people, saying he’ll improve the quality of their lives during his first 100 days in office.
Morsi has been busy on several fronts, but he has only a few weeks left to fulfill those big pledges.
His promises have come in nightly radio broadcasts during the holy month of Ramadan. A decent loaf of bread is a demand for us all, he declared in one of those broadcasts, saying subsidized bread will be more widely available and of better quality.
But in Sayed Abdel Moneim’s ramshackle, one-room home in Cairo’s working-class district of Shubra el Kheima, bread, he says, is just one small issue.
The disciplinary processes for dealing with rogue priests in almost every Anglican diocese in Australia are in doubt because of a landmark court challenge to their validity.
The head of the Anglican Church in Australia, Dr Phillip Aspinall, has asked to be heard in the legal action, which could open the floodgates for civil claims against the Church by priests who have been sacked or disciplined.
The application filed on behalf of Dr Aspinall warns that if the challenge to the standards ordinance succeeds, “it may have widespread and adverse consequences for all of the dioceses that make up the Anglican Church of Australia”.
Since the presumptive Republican nominee for president is a Mormon, St. Jude the Apostle Episcopal Church in Cupertino sees that as a hot topic among both liberal and conservative voters this election year.
In an effort to educate the community on the subject, The Rev. Maly Carswell Hughes is hosting a forum on Aug. 26 to discuss Christianity and Mormonism as part of its adult education series. Church organizers already see an intense interest in Mitt Romney’s religion. The interest is drawing comparison to John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, and his election in 1960.
Hughes is looking to talk with church members and guests about Mormonism and discuss the religion’s similarities to, and differences from, Christianity. The forum will not be a critique of either religion nor will it be political, but instead focus on the many similarities and differences between the two faiths.
In the tidal pool off the coast of Hawaii, a young girl diving was nothing unusual. Even the brightly colored fish probably didn’t take any notice as she and her family spent another afternoon exploring the cool, crystal blue. Neither could have predicted she would one day grow up to be a seaside priest on another faraway island.
At 5 p.m. Sunday, the Rev. Meredith Holt will be installed as the 26th rector of Galveston’s Grace Episcopal Church, 1115 36th St. She might work at church, but the sea still remains a second home to her.
“I am thrilled to call the island of Galveston my home,” she said. “Coming from a family of Navy seaman, oceanographers and scuba divers, a part of me will always belong near the water.”
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called Israel “an insult to humankind”. It follows a week in which Israel has been carrying out an increasingly public debate about whether to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Some people have suggested that an attack is more likely to happen before America’s presidential election in November, because it would be harder for President Obama to stop it.
A U.S.-military dominated peacekeeping force of 1,650 troops in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is finding itself caught between restive Bedouin tribesmen and an escalating Egyptian army offensive against insurgents.
At least one of the extremist groups operating in the Sinai has called for the expulsion of U.S. troops from the desert peninsula, raising the prospect that a military task force created three decades ago as a buffer between Egypt and Israel could become a target as tensions increase.
“We’re now confronted by a population that was once passive and peaceful and has now turned belligerent,” said Agustin Espinosa, the Uruguayan ambassador in Cairo, whose country has the fourth-largest contingent in the little-known Multinational Force and Observers. “For a force that has not been used to these type of external pressures and that is not configured as a strike force, this has created a new set of challenges.”
Of all the organisations that serve America’s poor, few do more good work than the Catholic church: its schools and hospitals provide a lifeline for millions. Yet even taking these virtues into account, the finances of the Catholic church in America are an unholy mess. The sins involved in its book-keeping are not as vivid or grotesque as those on display in the various sexual-abuse cases that have cost the American church more than $3 billion so far; but the financial mismanagement and questionable business practices would have seen widespread resignations at the top of any other public institution.
The sexual-abuse scandals of the past 20 years have brought shame to the church around the world. In America they have also brought financial strains. By studying court documents in bankruptcy cases, examining public records, requesting documents from local, state and federal governments, as well as talking to priests and bishops confidentially, The Economist has sought to quantify the damage.
The picture that emerges is not flattering.
Almighty God, who didst give to thy servant William Porcher DuBose special gifts of grace to understand the Scriptures and to teach the truth as it is in Christ Jesus: Grant, we beseech thee, that by this teaching we may know thee, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Grant, Almighty God, that since the rule of thy true and lawful worship is sufficiently known to us, and thou continues to exhort us to persevere in our course, and to abide in that pure and simple worship which thou hast fully approved, – O grant, that we may, in true obedience of faith, respond to thee: and though we now see the whole world carried here and there, and all places full of the awful examples of apostasy, and so much madness everywhere prevailing, that men become more and more hardened daily, – O grant, that, being fortified by invincible faith against these so many temptations, we may persevere in true religion, and never at any time turn aside from the teaching of thy word, until we be at length gathered to Christ our King, under whom, as our head, thou hast promised that we shall ever be safe, and until we attain that happy life which is laid up for us in heaven, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
–John Calvin (1509–1564)
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Beth-za’tha, which has five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed. One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked. Now that day was the sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, it is not lawful for you to carry your pallet.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me said to me, ‘Take up your pallet, and walk.'” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your pallet, and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working still, and I am working.” This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God.
–John 5:1-18
There were no red carpets, no paparazzi, no celebrities and definitely no God at the recent annual Atheist Film Festival.
Instead, there were more than a dozen films, long and short, about separation of church and state, freedom of religion (and no religion), the conflict between science and religion in public schools and a couple hundred people eager to see them.
“If we don’t do this, who will? said festival organizer Dave Fitzgerald, as people picked up atheist-themed books and T-shirts at the Aug. 10-11 festival. “Atheists are not well-represented by Hollywood, and a lot of people don’t get any exposure to real atheist thought except through things like this.”
Unemployment rates rose in 44 U.S. states in July, the most states to show a monthly increase in more than three years and a reflection of weak hiring nationwide.
The Labor Department said Friday that unemployment rates fell in only two states and were unchanged in four.
Soldiers killed themselves at a rate faster than one per day in July, the Army announced Thursday. There were 38 deaths either confirmed or suspected as suicides, the highest one-month tally in recent Army history, the service said.
The Army suicide pace this year is surpassing last year, particularly among active-duty soldiers where there is a 22% increase ”” 116 deaths so far this year vs. 95 during the same seven months last year, according to Army data.
The current Army suicide rate seven months into this year is 29 deaths-per-100,000, far surpassing last year’s rate of about 23 deaths-per-100,000, says Bruce Shahbaz, an Army analyst. Those rates compare with a 2009 civilian rate ”” the latest available data ”” of 18.5 for a demographically similar population.
A 35-year-old Tibetan nun named Palden Choetso set herself on fire on a street corner in southwest China last November. The final moments of her life were captured by an amateur video camera. As bright orange flames engulfed her body, Choetso stood impossibly still until finally she dropped to her knees and toppled over.
Choetso is one of 49 Tibetans, ages 17 to 44, who have set themselves on fire since 2009 to protest repression in Tibet by Chinese authorities. The latest was on Monday, when two young men in their early 20s””one a monk””did so in a Tibetan region of China’s Sichuan province. This spate of self-immolations among Tibetans is unprecedented.
With China not changing its policies denying true religious freedom and civil liberties to Tibetans, the self-immolations are likely to continue. This presents an uneasy quandary for Buddhists, who consider the taking of life, including suicide, taboo.
Click here to see a pictorial representation of some of the statistics for the parish where the diocese of Upper South Carolina is holding its diocesan convention this fall. You may also be interested to examine the parish website here.
“O, worship the Lord, in the beauty of holiness.” The theme of the text is CONSECRATED BEAUTY. It is the beauty which was consummated, in the full perfection of its kind, and set apart for sacred uses, that the Psalmist speaks of. This was a household and familiar theme, to Jewish ears and hearts. The tabernacle, with its gold and silver, its blue, and purple, and scarlet; the mercy-seat, of pure gold; the very candlesticks, with their almonds, and knops, and branches, and flowers, one beaten work of pure gold; all made after the pattern which was showed to Moses, in the Mount. The priest’s robes, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, ouches of gold, and chains of wreathen work in gold, and settings of onyx-stone. The sacred breast-plate, radiant with ruby, and sapphire, and amethyst, and diamond. Every thing, in all the holy service of God’s appointment, like that vision of Himself; when, “there was under His feet, as it were, a paved-work of a sapphire stone, and as it were, the body of heaven, in his clearness.” And, then, in its time, the Temple, of hewn stone, and cedar beams, and olive, and palm, enriched with carving, and overlaid with gold, and splendid with jewels; the very bowls, and basins, and spoons, and snuffers, of purest gold. The sea and land all compassed, the stores of nature ravished, art in its utmost consummation; that the house, builded for the Lord, in David’s own expressive phrase, might be “exceeding magnifical.” These leave no doubt of his conception of the use of consecrated beauty. Nor was it only for the Jews, to know, and feel, its power, and make it bear upon the instincts of the nature; which He gave to us, Who first make us like Himself. The holy Jerusalem, the Church of Christ, is revealed to the beloved John, as it comes out of heaven, from God: her light, like a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; the foundations, sapphire, and emerald, and chrysolite, and chrysoprase, and amethyst; the gates, twelve pears; the streets, pure gold, as of transparent glass. Who wonders, that, with models such as these, before them, Christians, in other years, when all the aid, that science lent to art, in the comparison with us, was, as the twilight to the noon, reared the Cathedrals, and the Chapels, and the Chantries, whose mere ruins mock at our magnificence? Why, even the heathen show the instinct of the heart, to lay its powers all out, and work them to the last perfection, in results of consecrated beauty. Look at the Parthenon. Look at the Coliseum. Look at the Pantheon. What is the Venus, “that enchants the world?” What is the Belvidere Apollo? What are the Dians, and the Hebes, and the Graces? What is the majesty of Jupiter? What the magnificence of Juno? What is the “Niobe, all tears?” What are the writhings of Laocoon? What is the utmost reach and range of ancient architecture, sculpture, poetry, in all its forms of grace, and dignity, and power, but still the working out of the instinctive and inwrought idea of consecrated beauty? See it, in Raphael, and Michael Angelo, and Rubens. Feel it, in the serene and holy beauty of the Blessed Mother; and in the infant loveliness and purity of that God-child. Hear it, in all that music has achieved, of tenderest, sweetest, most subduing, yet most elevating, to the soul; till even Milton loses all the Puritan, while he brings more than all the Poet, to the praise of consecrated beauty, in its blended forms of sacred structure, and of sacred song:
“Let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister’s pale;
And love the high embowed roof,
With antique pillars massy proof:
And storied windows, richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There, let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced choir below,
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may, with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstacies,
And bring all heaven before mine eyes.”
Read it all but do guess the year before you do.
Prostitutes have been using a Woodville Gardens church garage to solicit men.
Father Graham Head said the St Augustine of Canterbury Anglican Church was aware for some time that women had been using the grounds surrounding the church for the illegal activity.
Father Head said the tenant, who is now being evicted, denied all knowledge of the activity. He did not suggest she was involved but said she was given an eviction notice in April so the house can be used by the church.
“I had a lady come up to me and say, you know a lot of people are looking forward to seeing you get hit.”
–Peyton Manning, new Denver Bronco’s quarterback, as heard on ESPN Sportscenter
Like so many South Africans, I have been watching with growing alarm the escalating violence at Lonmin’s Marikana Mine over the last week, and am now stunned and appalled by yesterday’s events which left so many more dead or injured. It is a terrible, heart-breaking, tragedy, for the individuals concerned and for our nation. Our fervent prayers are with all the bereaved, and the hurt and wounded.
Whatever the merits of the various disputes ”“ whether between employees and employers, between unions, between workers and union leaders, between miners and police ”“ whatever the legality of the strikes or the responses to them, this death toll is unacceptable. Even one death is one too many, and there must be an end to this senseless loss of life.
Nearly half a million people in the UK have a problem with gambling. This is about the same number as are addicted to Class A drugs, and the problem is growing at an alarming rate. Since the Gambling Act 2005 was fully implemented, the number of people classed as problem gamblers has risen by about 50 per cent.
There is no single factor that has prompted this rise. The Act changed so many things: it brought advertising for gambling into our living rooms, and opened the doors of casinos to non-members – quite apart from attempting to address the increasing availability of online gambling. But there is one culprit that appears to have contributed significantly to the problem: the gambling machines that have been set up in betting shops across the country; because of their profitability, they have led bookmakers to open more branches…..
In a bid to forestall untoward incident during this weekend’s Eid-el-fitri celebrations marking the end of the Ramadan fast by Muslim faithful, the Federal Government has put all security agencies on red alert to contain any threat to the nation’s security before, during and after the festive period.
The move came on the heels of threat by employees of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to throw the nation into total darkness, following their deadlocked talks with government, as well as fresh plans by members of the Boko Haram sect to unleash mayhem in the nation.
Nigerian Tribune authoritatively learnt in Abuja, on Thursday, that officials of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) had been placed on high security watch nationwide as a result of unfavourable security report at the disposal of the Federal Government that the union might carry out its threat in spite of ongoing negotiations.
As I look back over the last ten years, it is clear that our relationship as Christians and Muslims has grown and deepened. It has not been an easy time, and there are huge challenges that we still face together. Nevertheless, we have learned how to quarry together the resources we have of a vision of human beings honoured before God. The word honour, I believe, is one we should learn to use more freely, and even extravagantly, when we talk about our human world. We honour human beings because God in his creation and in his dealings with human beings honours them.
In practical terms this honouring has meant that Muslims and Christians have been working as never before in international development to serve the world’s poorest people, and I want to recognise the huge amount of financial giving that the Muslim community pours out during Ramadan especially. It has also meant at a local level that Muslims have shared with Christians and others during Ramadan in service to their communities through the ”˜A Year of Service’ initiative, in the ”˜Near Neighbours’ programme and in many other ways.
The Bishop of Chelmsford the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell has praised the vital legacy of the London Games saying in his own diocese – home to the Olympic Park and Village – and beyond, the Games are having an important impact on community life.
Commenting on the last day of the Olympics and looking forward to the Paralympics Bishop Stephen said that along with regeneration he believed the games could bring a further change – a legacy of good will….