What do we value most?

A friend just sent me this link to a blog posting about a church and a whole community that got the boot in Germany to allow strip mining. What this says about the state of the world is really distressing. He suggests some interesting things about the connections between technology and individualism too.

The Silence of God

I've been thinking about this a lot lately:

The experience of God's silence changes all such hopes and casts apologetics into a new framework. What it forces on modernity is a recognition that although Christendom may have died politically in almost every modern Western nation, it continues culturally. The silence of God is not to be equated with his absence by either Christians or their cultural despisers; if God were truly dead, one could not speak of or rage against his silence - there would be no silent one to designate. In the modern West, even anti-Christian rhetoric is forced to build its new edifices with or within the collapsed remnants of cathedrals. God is remembered in the remains of the Christian day, sometimes clearly enunciated in acts and institutions, sometimes barely recalled, always present in words, but silent to the times. The purpose of his body, the Church, remains evident in the post-1984 world, defended by some and rejected by others; its meaning, however, increasingly cannot be grasped.

from Peter Erb's Murder, Manners, Mystery: Reflections on Faith in Contemporary Detective Fiction

Review of Dawkins

A friend just sent me this review from the London Review of Books and I thought it was brilliant:

Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching
Terry Eagleton
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be. If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could. When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster. These days, theology is the queen of the sciences in a rather less august sense of the word than in its medieval heyday.

Read the rest here.

Praise Bands in Worship

I think I've read this before somewhere but I just read it again on the "Praise Bands Annoy God" group wall on Facebook. Thanks to Sean for posting it. It and some other funnies can be found here.

The Contemporary Worship Song vs. The Traditional Hymn

An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended the big city church.
He came home and his wife asked him how it was. "Well", said the farmer, "It
was good. They did something different, however. They sung praise choruses
instead of hymns".

"Praise choruses?", asked the wife. "What are those?"

"Oh they're okay. They're sort of like hymns, only different", said the
farmer.

"Well, what's the difference?", asked the wife.

The farmer said "Well it¹s like this if I were to say to you "Martha, the
cows are in the corn" well that would be a hymn. If, on the other hand, I
were to say to you,

Martha, Martha, Martha,
Oh Martha, MARTHA, MARTHA!!!!
The cows, the big cows, the brown cows,
The black cows, the white cows, the black and white cows
The Cows, the COWS, the COWS are in the corn
Are in the corn
Are in the corn
In the corn, CORN, COOOOOOORRRRRNNNNNNN!

Then if I was to repeat the whole thing two or three times, well that would
be a praise chorus"!"

As luck would have it, the exact same Sunday a young, new Christian from the
city church attended the small town church. He came home and his wife asked
him how it was.

"Well", said the young man, "It was good. They did something different,
however. They sung hymns instead of regular songs".

"Hymns?", asked the wife. "What are those?"

"Oh they're okay. They're sort of like regular songs, only different", said
the farmer.

"Well, what's the difference?", asked the wife.

The Young man said "Well, it¹s like this if I were to say to you "Martha,
the cows are in the corn", well that would be a regular song. If, on the
other hand, I were to say to you,

Oh Martha, dear Martha, hear thou my cry
Inclinest thine ear to the words of my mouth.
Turn thou thy whole wondrous ear by and by
To the righteous, glorious truth.

For the way of the animals who can explain
There in their head is no shadow of sense
Hearkenest they in Gods sun or His rain
Unless from the mild tempting corn they are fenced.

Yea those cows in glad bovine, rebellious delight,
Have broken free their shackles, their warm pens eschewed.
Then goaded by minions of darkness and night
They all my mild Chilliwack sweet corn chewed.

So look to that bright shining day by and by,
Where all foul corruptions of earth and reborn
Where no vicious animal makes me soul cry
And I no longer see those foul cows in the corn.

Then if I were to do only verses one, three and four and change keys on the
last verse, well that would be a hymn.!"

It could have gone either way

Eucharistic theology created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Orthodox You are Orthodox, worshiping the mystery of the Holy Trinity in the great liturgy whereby Jesus is present through the Spirit in a real yet mysterious way, a meal that is also a sacrifice. Orthodox 100% Catholic 100% Luther 69% Calvin 56% Zwingli 25% Unitarian 0%

Eucharistic theology created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Catholic You are a Catholic. You believe that the bread and wine are transformed by the priest and become the Body and Blood of Christ. Though the accidents, or appearance, of bread and wine remain, the substance has been changed. The Eucharist remains the Body and Blood of Christ after the celebration, and is reserved in the Tabernacle; Eucharistic devotions are proper. As the whole Christ is present under either species, you partake fully of the Eucharist even if you receive only one. Orthodox 100% Catholic 100% Luther 69% Calvin 56% Zwingli 25% Unitarian 0%

My mother will be so jealous

Because of a misunderstanding my friends in the counseling area thought tomorrow was my birthday. It isn't. I'm a summer baby. But what a delight to have a little surprise party this morning complete with muffins from the Round St. Cafe!

Some people celebrate birth days, some birth weeks, some even birth months, but I celebrate birth quarters!!

Dumbledore is gay

From the CBC website:

J.K. Rowling reveals Dumbledore is gay
Last Updated: Saturday, October 20, 2007 | 11:04 AM ET CBC News

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has revealed that she conceived of one of the major characters, Hogwarts school headmaster Albus Dumbledore, as gay. She drew a round of applause from a packed house in New York's Carnegie Hall on Friday after making the revelation in response to an audience question.

Read the rest here.