Archbishop Raymond Burke, in a homily given in Phoenix, Arizona:

In our culture, “the law more and more dares to force those with the sacred trust of caring for the health of their brothers and sisters to violate the most sacred tenets of their consciences, and to force individuals and institutions to cooperate in egregious violations of the natural moral law,” he said. “In such a society, the administration of justice is no longer a participation in the justice of God, an obedient response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, but a façade cloaking our own selfishness and refusal to give our lives for the sake of the good of all our brothers and sisters. It is a society which is abandoning its Judeo-Christian foundations, the fundamental obedience to God’s law which safeguards the common good, and is embracing a totalitarianism which masks itself as the ‘hope,’ the ‘future,’ of our nation. Reason and faith teaches us that such a society can only produce violence and death and in the end destroy itself,” Archbishop Burke warned.

Read the entire story, as reported by CNA.

It is time once again for me to make my annual comments about Martin Luther King day. Sadly, every year when I do this I get the same sort of responses, no matter how hard I try to be clear on why this day is so important to so many of our African-American brothers and sisters, and, why it is so important for all of us in this nation.

Sure enough there are those quite happy to entirely ignore the point of my post and gas on about how Martin Luther King was this, that, or another thing, about how his theology was bad, or how he was ‘liberal’ and on and on. I’ve even had a Lutheran pastor opine, on this day, about the nature of the Civil War and if owning slaves is a Biblically justified practice. I kid you not.

I will again however say that such comments display an astounding lack of sensitivity and concern about the feelings of our fellow Americans who look to Martin Luther King as a significant figure in advancing civil rights in this nation. And please do not, please, do not say, “Some of my best friends are Black.” Oh, really? Then try to be a bit more sensitive, please. Some of my best friends are left handed, but I don’t go out of my way to offend left-handed people by denigrating honoring a left-handed person for whom they have high regard. But, seriously, some of my best friends are left-handed. I even married a left-handed person. See how hollow that sounds?

I do wonder how many of us with pale skin have ever shared a meal with a Black person, in their home, actually spoken at length with them as people, not as “Blacks.” Similarly, how many Blacks have had Whites into their homes and hosted them for a meal and spoke to them as people, not White? I know the problem cuts both directions, but on MLK day, this is not the appropriate time for White folk to go on and one about their gripes with Black folks.

And then, I hear from people telling me how terrible the civil rights movement has been for African-Americans, and how it has only led to what is now a permanent underclass in this country, etc. etc. There is plenty to talk about here. But that the Civil Rights movement was a good thing in many ways is undeniable.

Would you have preferred the continuation of Jim Crow laws, lynchings and telling people they can’t drink from certain water fountains, use certain bathrooms or ride only in the back of the bus or not be served a meal just because their skin is dark? Would you feel the same if the laws were in reverse and it was the white-skinned who could not do these things? “Good Christians” are not immune are they? I still have a vivid memory of angst being expressed by some members of my home congregation when Black folks showed up once for Holy Communion, from the common cup! And that was only in the late 1960s, not that too far long ago.

After the Civil War and well into the 1960s many, many African-Americans were still treated nearly like slaves in so many places. Despite the Civil War, many states made it impossible for blacks to vote and via indentured servanthood [aka sharecropping] created a serfdom across the South. Can we be a bit sensitive to the bitter, hard and long struggle of a people brought to this country as slaves?” [Yes, yes, I know blacks sold other blacks into slavery in Africa...and yes, African-Americans can be as prejudiced against others because of race as anyone else].

So, I apologize for what appears to be a gloomy post, but it is always sad that whenever anyone tries to say anything about Civil Rights, particularly on MLK day, we have to have a litany from white folks criticizing, whining and complaining, thus quite entirely missing the point of MLK and his meaning for our nation and for so many of our fellow citizens.

I’m actually seeing signs that the times they are a changing. When I was a child it was inevitable that we would refer to African-American children as “that black kid” and no doubt they would refer to us “as that white kid.” My own children have delighted me in that they have spoken of friends by name and never once have referred to them as “that black kid” or “you know, my Chinese friend.” They’ve had friends over to the house that we have heard about from school for weeks and I’ve been delighted to find they are African or Chinese, and not once did our kids refer to them by race, but by their qualities as persons. A good sign indeed and this is where we need to be. No, it is unrealistic to believe we will ever be “color blind.” That’s not what I’m suggesting, but it would be great if we would not always jump to race as the first way to describe a person.

Recently in an interview on 60 minutes one of my favorite actors, Morgan Freeman, laid it out in a blunt way. He just wants to be referred to as a person, not a black man, but as a man. And he thought the notion of a “black history” month to be absurd, and even insulting, trying to suggest his “history” could be reduced to a month on the calendar.

I believe it is a necessary and good thing in the kingdom of the left, to work for that day when across this great nation people will be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. And I suspect that if people’s skin tone was a bit more dark than it may be now they might have some better sense of why this is a dream worthy of our full support, and sympathy. So, I say, “Happy MLK day.”

Ken O. sent this blog post link to me, and with it some perceptive remarks and a question. Here’s the link and here are Ken’s observations:

How do we maintain the richness of our Lutheran heritage and the power of God’s Word in a society where people are “paralyzed by choice?” The rational side of me says it’s all by the power of the Holy Spirit and in God’s hands. The more emotional (marketing) side of me says…there’s got to be something else we can do…but, what?

What do you say?

My colleague at Concordia Publishing House, Laura Lane, shared this Barna Survey with a number of us. If you have not seen it, you may find it interesting and helpful. I would say there is nothing terribly earth-shatteringly new in it, but it is always helpful to have this kind of “take” on the situation in which we find ourselves. Here is the link to the full story, but here is an excerpt:

Some of the related survey results Barna cited from this year’s studies included:

o Just 50% of adults contend that Christianity is still the automatic faith of choice in the US

o Nearly nine out of every ten adults (88%) agreed either strongly or somewhat that their religious faith is very important in their life

o 74% said their faith is becoming more important in their life

o Substantive awareness of other faith groups is minimal; even simple name awareness of some groups, such as Wicca, is tiny (only 45% have heard of Wicca)

o Most self-identified Christians are comfortable with the idea that the Bible and the sacred books from non-Christian religions all teach the same truths and principles

o Half of all adults (50%) argue that a growing number of people they know are tired of having the same church experience

I can’t think of a more foolish attitude I harbor at times than when I look back on previous generations and assume they were ignorant, unenlightened, unaware and totally outside of what I’m thinking and experiencing today. I was reminded of something the British writer G.K. Chesterton wrote in his book Orthodoxy (Chapter 4):

“Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.” Chesterton goes on to say: “Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.”

And here’s the rub. While it is absolutely true that previous generations did not have the same technologies or understanding of “how things work” in their world, but is there such a vast difference between 21st century people and those of previous centuries? Are we so far removed we think we can not possibly learn anything from our fathers, grandfathers and ancestors in the past. I’m particularly struck by this when I consider, as I grow older, how my own parents appear ever increasingly wise. The tradition in Asian culture of revering their elders has much to commend it. Today, we regard those older than us as people who, obviously, are not as “in touch” with “reality” as we are. And even more so do we view our ancestors as hopeless irrelevant.

Here’s some concrete examples of where I see the arrogant oligarchy in action over against those who have come before. Christian worship: Why is it that in the past twenty-five years the worship forms that have been used for thousands of years, have come to be regarded as wholly inadequate and must be replaced with forms that have little in common with the historic worship forms of the past? Why do I sometimes assume that nobody can possibly understand how I’m feeling when faced with a difficult situation who is a member of a generation far removed from mine? Why did I, for example, the other day when looking at Starck’s Prayer Book, smile at the fact that there were prayers there to be prayed as a thunderstorm approached and to be prayed after it was over? “Oh, how quaint,” I thought. Then I felt shame, as I considered the fact that dangerous thunderstorms back when there were no safe buildings, or emergency services, or advanced warning, were devastating.

Do you have some examples from your life where you see yourself as part of the arrogant oligarchy? Would you share some by way of comments?

Dr. Gene Edward Veith who runs a “must read” blog site, had this to say about the Tiger Woods mess, and I have not read anything better.

Our culture pretends to be free and easy about sex, but we really aren’t. I was kind of astonished that all of Tiger Woods’ multitudinous endorsement ads have been pulled from prime time TV after his auto accident provoked some nine women (at last count) to admit committing adultery with the golf superstar. Our culture remains capable of moral disapproval over sexual sins! On the other hand, our culture remains pruriently interested in hearing the salacious details of those sexual sins, as evidenced by the current media frenzy over the matter. We are repelled and compelled at the very same time!

A significant statement, titled The Manhattan Declaration, has been signed by over 148 prominent leaders across the Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical Churches. Now is the time for Christians, and all people of good will, to oppose the embrace of abortion and homosexuality, and consequently a full frontal assault against marriage. While we can quibble over nuance and method and approach of The Manhattan Declaration, how can we not join with others in expressing our opposition to such profound public errors? I urge you to read The Manhattan Declaration and if you feel you are able, to sign it. I have. I hope you do too. In so doing, you commit yourself to acts of civil disobedience. Lutherans, traditionally, have been pacifistic in the face of government actions that run contrary to the will and Word of God. Need we mention but one example? Nazi Germany? I appreciated Dr. Albert Mohler’s blog post explaining why he signed The Manhattan Declaration, perhaps you will too. Here is the conclusion of his explanation, which echo my own reasons for signing The Manhattan Declaration. And, with all due respect, if you think that we are not at a point of cultural crisis over these issues, I would urge you to wake up. Dr. Mohler cites but a couple examples of where, precisely, things are headed for the Church.

I signed The Manhattan Declaration because I believe it is an historic statement of conviction and courage that is both timely and urgent. Over the course of the next few months and years, these issues will be reset in our culture and its laws. These are matters on which the Christian conscience cannot be silent. There are, of course, other issues that demand Christian attention as well. The focus on these three issues is forced by the circumstances of current threats as well as the awareness that the time of decision on these questions has come. Though Christians struggle to understand the extent to which our convictions should be incorporated in the law, we must now recognize that the very respect for these convictions — and the freedom to follow and obey these convictions in our own lives, families, and ministries is now at stake.

I signed The Manhattan Declaration because I lead a theological seminary and college, serve as a teaching pastor in a church, and am engaged in Christian leadership in the public square. Thus I see the threats to Christian liberties that now stare us in the face. The freedom not to perform a same-sex marriage is one thing, but what about the freedom to hire employees according to our Christian convictions? What about the right of Christian ministries to conduct their work according to Christian beliefs? What about the freedom to preach and teach against the grain of the nations laws (for example, after the legalization of same-sex marriage)? When to hate crimes laws slide into definitions of “hate speech?” The threats to our religious liberties are immediate and urgent.

I signed The Manhattan Declaration because it is a limited statement of Christian conviction on these three crucial issues, and not a wide-ranging theological document that subverts confessional integrity. I cannot and do not sign documents such as Evangelicals and Catholics Together that attempt to establish common ground on vast theological terrain. I could not sign a statement that purports, for example, to bridge the divide between Roman Catholics and evangelicals on the doctrine of justification. The Manhattan Declaration is not a manifesto for united action. It is a statement of urgent concern and common conscience on these three issues — the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage, and the defense of religious liberty.

My beliefs concerning the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches have not changed. The Roman Catholic Church teaches doctrines that I find both unbiblical and abhorrent — and these doctrines define nothing less than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But The Manhattan Declaration does not attempt to establish common ground on these doctrines. We remain who we are, and we concede no doctrinal ground.

But when Catholic Charities in Massachusetts must choose to end its historic ministry of placing orphaned children in good homes because the State of Massachusetts required it to place children with same-sex couples, this is not just a Catholic issue. The orphanage could have easily been Baptist. When Belmont Abbey college in North Carolina is told by federal authorities that it must offer abortion services in its insurance plans for employees, this is no longer just a Catholic issue. The next institution to be under attack might well be Presbyterian. We are in this together, and we had better be thankful that, in this case, we are not alone.

Finally, I signed The Manhattan Declaration because I want to put my name on its final pledge — that we will not bend the knee to Caesar. We will not participate in any subversion of life. We will not be forced to accept any other relationship as equal in status or rights to heterosexual marriage. We will not refrain from proclaiming the truth — and we will order our churches and institutions and ministries by Christian conviction.

There will be Christian leaders, pastors, seminaries, colleges, universities, denominations, churches, and organizations that will abandon the faith on these issues. They will bend the knee to Caesar. Far too many already have. The signatories to The Manhattan Declaration pledge that we will not be among them.

I want my name on that list. I surrendered no conviction or confessional integrity to sign that statement. No one asked me to compromise in any manner. I was encouraged that we could stand together to make clear that to come for one of us on these issues is to come for all. At the end of the day, I did not want my name missing from that list when folks look to see just who was willing to be listed.

Just picked this up over e-mail. If you actually notice an increase in the already high level of blasphemy all around, well, now you’ll know why: it’s blasphemy day! I’d like to suggest that the organizers of this event arrange to celebrate it in a Muslim nation in the Middle East and they shall soon gain a greater appreciation for their rights in the USA, if they live to tell of it.

Amherst, New York (Sept. 25, 2009)–The Center for Inquiry will draw attention in several major cities across the continent this Wednesday with its robust participation in International Blasphemy Day. Events are scheduled for Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Indianapolis, Washington, D.C., Austin, Tucson, Tampa Bay, and Amherst, N.Y.Sept. 30 is the anniversary of the original 2005 publication of the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. The fury which arose within the Islamic community following this publication led to massive riots, attacks on foreign embassies and deaths. Four of the cartoons were reprinted in Free Inquiry magazine in support of the public’s right to free expression and criticism.

Participation in Blasphemy Day is part of the Center for Inquiry’s larger Campaign for Free Expression, an effort to focus attention on one of the most crucial components of freethought: the right of individuals to express their viewpoints, opinions, and beliefs about all subjects–especially religion. “Placing religion off limits in social discourse is just another, gentler way of prohibiting examination and criticism of religion,” CFI President and CEO Ronald A. Lindsay said. “In my view, all subjects of human interest should be open to examination and criticism by humans.”

Other elements of the Campaign for Free Expression include:

• A Blasphemy contest to create a phrase, poem, or statement that considered blasphemous–deadline Oct. 1.
• A Free Expression essay contest open to all students currently enrolled in accredited colleges and universities, with the winner receiving a $2,000 award–deadline, Jan. 5, 2010.
• A cartoon contest, judged by professional cartoonists, in which the theme will be the doctrines of humanity’s many and various religions (CFI aims to be as ecumenical as possible)–deadline to be announced.
• The launching of a new Web site, Please Block Us, featuring reports on recent censorship attempts and controversies as well as original material that would be suppressed under the laws of some countries. It’s an open invitation to oppressive governments to block its material from their citizens’ access, thus highlighting their opposition to free expression. Offending nations’ names will be listed on the site.
• Public discussions and writings devoted to the contemporary champions of free expression.
• A petition drive urging relevant United Nations bodies not to limit speech critical of religion.
• Special events with prominent guest speakers; and much more.

The motivation behind Blasphemy Day is not simply to come up with ways to offend the religious. It’s meant to call attention to human rights–especially the right to free expression and the right to openly criticize unreasonably shielded ideas.

The Center for Inquiry/Transnational, a nonprofit, educational, advocacy, and scientific-research think tank based in Amherst, New York, is also home to the Council for Secular Humanism, founded in 1980; and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP), founded in 1976. The Center for Inquiry’s research and educational projects focus on three broad areas: religion, ethics, and society; paranormal and fringe-science claims; and sound public policy. The Center’s Web site is www.centerforinquiry.net .

Just so you know…..

No marriage. Homosexual marriage. What’s next? Multiple coupling: polyamory. It’s coming and we need to be aware of it. Do note all the latest buzz words and redefinition of terms. Dr. Al Mohler speaks to this issue:

Once a sexual revolution is set loose, it inevitably runs its course through the culture.  While the current flashpoints of cultural conflict are focused on same-sex marriage and gender issues, others are biding their time.  As Newsweek magazine makes clear, some new flashpoints are getting restless.

Polyamory, reports Newsweek, is having a “coming-out-party.”  Polyamory is the current “term of art” applied to “families” or “clusters” comprised of multiple sexual partners. As Newsweek explains, this is not exactly polygamy, because marriage is not the issue. Advocates of polyamory argue that their lifestyle is not “open marriage.” Indeed, they define their movement in terms of the moral principle of “ethical nonmonogamy,” defined as “engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person — based upon the knowledge and consent of everyone involved.”

Legal theorists and opponents of same-sex marriage routinely (and rightly) make the argument that the legalization of homosexual marriage will, inevitably, lead to the legalization of polygamy. Once marriage is redefined to allow for same-sex unions, any determination to maintain legal prohibitions against polygamy will be seen as merely arbitrary. At the same time, once strictures against adultery were eliminated in the culture and in the law, something essentially like polygamy was inevitable.

The article in Newsweek, written by Jessica Bennett, presents polyamory as a growing movement that now involves persons in the cultural mainstream. As the magazine reports: “Researchers are just beginning to study the phenomenon, but the few who do estimate that openly polyamorous families in the United States number more than half a million, with thriving contingents in nearly every major city.”

The movement now claims a number of recognized books, blogs, podcasts, and even an online magazine entitled “Loving More.” According to Newsweek, actress Tilda Swinton and Carla Bruni, the First Lady of France, have emerged as prominent spokespersons for nonmonogamy. As should be expected, the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University now features a “polyamory library.”

Jessica Bennett suggests that the contemporary polyamory movement has roots in utopian movements of the 19th century:

The notion of multiple-partner relationships is as old as the human race itself. But polyamorists trace the foundation of their movement to the utopian Oneida commune of upstate New York, founded in 1848 by Yale theologian John Humphrey Noyes. Noyes believed in a kind of communalism he hoped would fix relations between men and women; both genders had equal voice in community governance, and every man was considered to be married to every woman. But it wasn’t until the late-1960s and 1970s “free love” movement that polyamory truly came into vogue; when books like Open Marriage topped best-seller lists and groups like the North American Swingers Club began experimenting with the concept. The term “polyamory,” coined in the 1990s, popped up in both the Merriam-Webster and Oxford English dictionaries in 2006.

In one sense, the polyamorous defy easy categorization. The movement includes couples who openly and with full knowledge of each other engage in sexual relationships with others. Some are involved in group sex and others experiment with bisexuality. The Newsweek article introduces readers to a new vocabulary. The most revealing word is “polyfidelitous” –  which means that the multiple partners keep sexual activity within their own self-identified cluster.

Interestingly, Bennett observes that the movement “has a decidedly feminist bent.” If men can have multiple wives or female partners, then, the logic goes, women must have the same in order to achieve “gender equality.” Bennett quotes Allena Gabosch, director of an organization known as the “Center for Sex Positive Culture,” suggesting that polyamory sounds scary to people because “it shakes up their worldview.” But, she insists, polyamory might well be “more natural than we think.”

Perhaps the best way to understand this new movement is to understand it as a natural consequence of subverting marriage. We have largely normalized adultery, serialized marriage, separated marriage from reproduction and childbearing, and accepted divorce as a mechanism for liberation. Once this happens, boundary after boundary falls as sexual regulation virtually disappears among those defined as “consenting adults.”

The ultimate sign of our moral confusion becomes evident when virtually no one appears ready to condemn polyamory as immoral. The only arguments mustered against this new movement focus on matters of practicality. Polyamory is certainly not new, but this new movement is yet another reminder that virtually all the fences are now down when it comes to sex and sexual relationships.  What comes next?

Here is a story I found very interesting, and perhaps you will to. How does a nation come to terms with its history?

Russian archbishop’s censure of Stalin as ‘a monster’, makes waves – Feature
By Sophia Kishkovsky

Moscow, 4 August (ENI)–Comments by a senior official of the Russian Orthodox Church condemning Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, accusing him of genocide, shortly before a European security forum equated the crimes of Stalin and Hitler, have stirred heated debate in the Russian media and blogosphere.

“I think that Stalin was a spiritually-deformed monster, who created a horrific, inhuman system of ruling the country,” Archbishop Hilarion had said in a June interview with the news magazine Ekspert. “He unleashed a genocide against the people of his own country and bears personal responsibility for the death of millions of innocent people. In this respect Stalin is completely comparable to Hitler.”

Hilarion is head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, a post Patriarch Kirill I held before he was elected leader of the Russian Orthodox Church in January.

Hilarion’s comments came shortly before a session of the parliamentary assembly of the 56-member, Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Lithuania. At its 3 July meeting, the organization in a resolution stated that both Nazism and Stalinism “brought about genocide, violations of humans rights and freedoms, war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

The resolution called on member states to mark each 23 August, the day of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which divided Eastern Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union, as “a Europe-wide Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism”.

The Russian foreign ministry denounced the resolution as “an attempt to distort history for political purposes”.

The Second World War is considered a sacred topic in Russia, where it is called the Great Patriotic War. In May, President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the creation of a commission to fight the “falsification of history” and defend the official account of the Soviet past.

Stalin is portrayed by top officials, and also in a study guide for high school teachers approved by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin when he was president, as an effective manager, comparable to the Russian tsars or to Bismarck, who united Germany in the 19th century. Putin has also continued his efforts to unite the pre-revolutionary and Bolshevik strands of Russian history into a seamless narrative.

Shortly before Victory Day celebrations on 9 May to mark the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, Patriarch Kirill indicated an interpretation of events that might diverge with that of the Kremlin. The Soviet victory in the war was “a miracle,” Kirill said, and the suffering of the Soviet people during the war is atonement for its rejection of Christianity during the Bolshevik era after the Russian Revolution in 1917.

At the end of July, during his first official visit in Ukraine, Kirill laid a wreath at a monument to victims of a Stalin-era famine that Ukrainians regard as genocide, and which President Medvedev refused to visit in 2008. The Patriarch spoke of how his family, and the entire Soviet people, had suffered under Stalinism.

Read more…

Christians outraged after Bible defaced at Scottish art exhibit
ENI-09-0603

By Trevor Grundy
Edinburgh, 30 July (ENI)–Organizers of an exhibition in Glasgow which encouraged society’s marginalised to write comments in the margins of a Bible have now placed the sacred book behind a transparent screen to prevent offensive messages being written on it.

The exhibition, “Made in God’s Image”, at the city’s Gallery of Modern Art opened on 25 June and is scheduled to end on 22 August.

On show, as part of series of exhibitions focusing on human rights, was a Bible and a container of pens and a notice saying: “If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible, please write your way back into it.”

Comments written in the margins of the sacred text included, “f…k the Bible”, “Jesus is a bisexual”, “This is all sexist pish”, “I am bi[sexual], female and proud. I want no God who is disappointed in this.”

The controversy over the exhibit came days after the release of a report by Durham University which found that knowledge of the Bible is in decline in Britain, with fewer than one in 20 people able to name all Ten Commandments and youngsters viewing the Holy Book as “old fashioned”.

“It is the first recognition of something which we all knew in our gut,” said the Rev. Brian D. Brown, a visiting fellow at St John’s College in Durham University. “We knew it was there but we weren’t exactly willing to face it,” he was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency

In Glasgow, a group of about 100 Christians gathered outside the art gallery on 28 July to protest against the exhibition. After the protests, organizers placed the Bible in a transparent container so it can be seen, but not touched.

Visitors are now given pieces of blank paper where they can register their names, their feelings about religion and the Bible and their comments.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported an unnamed advisor to Pope Benedict XVI as describing the project as “disgusting and offensive”, and saying, “They would not think of doing it to the Quran.”

The exhibit was meant to enable people who feel marginalised by society and the churches to express themselves, said artist Jane Clarke, a minister of the Metropolitan Community Church, which caters mainly for the spiritual needs of gay men and lesbian women.

“I am saddened that some people have chosen to write offensive messages,” she said in a statement. “Writing our names in the margins of a Bible was to show how we have been marginalised by many Christian churches, and also our desire to be included in God’s love.”

Two artists, Anthony Schrag and David Malone, created the exhibition in association with organizations representing Gay Christians and Muslims. Schrag, the gallery’s artist in residence, was born in Zimbabwe but was brought up in the Middle East and Canada. [484 words]
ENI News Headlines and Featured Articles are now available by RSS feed.
See http://www.eni.ch/rss/
All articles (c) Ecumenical News International
Reproduction permitted only by media subscribers and
provided ENI is acknowledged as the source.

Once more, as we approach Memorial Day, I’m already beginning to read notes on the Internet reflecting the complete confusion out there over what Memorial Day is, and what it is not.

Memorial Day commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in military service. It is not a day to honor living veterans or those presently serving in the military. It is unfortunate that we have allowed Memorial Day to turn into a day for honoring those living, and serving, rather than those who died in war. Let’s do our part to distinguish between Memorial Day and Veterans’ Day and Armed Services Day.

The other confusion is that Memorial Day somehow became observed as “Decoration Day” and people visit the graves of their deceased loved ones, regardless of their military affiliation. I noticed this was particularly popular in Iowa when I served there as a pastor.

I would prefer we reserve Memorial Day for what it is supposed to be and not let it be confused with Veterans’ Day or Armed Forces Day.

I think you will find this debate interesting. 70% of Americans say he does, but who is he? There’s the question. If he does not exist, how do we account for pain and suffering in the world today.

So, we all know that mayonnaise is not health food, yet how many of us have slathered it on our sandwiches. I was shocked in Germany to be asked at the McDonalds by the person at the counter, after ordering "pommes" (fries), "Mit mayo?" And I blurted out, "Was?" She said, again, "Mit mayo?" and then immediately added, in English, "Would you like mayo with your fries?" Sure, sounded interesting. I hated it. On the other hand….if they had offered this. I tried to visit the baconnaise web site, and obviously they are being flooded by hits, due, no doubt, to Amazon mentioning this product.

America: land of the free, and home of the brave, and Baconnaise!