Sunday Sermon: Hype, Heresy, and the Osteens

For La Parisienne and Dr. Doolittle, as we have long been saying exactly this.  Oh, sure, I'm a mean, nasty person for calling out such an inoffensive, smiling nice guy as Joel Osteen, right?  Whatever.  He and his Prosperity Gospel bandwagon are factually wrong in terms of orthodox doctrine, and no number of toothy grins and amazing hairdos is going to turn his pulpit-based motivational speaking into the actual gospel.  

It's marketing genius that tells a bunch of people exactly what they want to hear, but its popularity doesn't mean that it's not a pile of unbiblical hooey. You don't have to be a Christian to see that.  You don't have to adhere to any religion at all. You only have to be a person with neurons and a basic ability to compare one set of statements with another and see that the two don't match.

On a related note: It doesn't matter if Osteen's shallow, happy-slappy, brain-dead, self-centered, "God is my cheerleader" pablum makes you feel good.  "Feeling good about yourself" and "getting stuff" and refusing to talk honestly about sin and human failing are not the point of Christianity.  There, I said it.  

Faith, Hope, Love, and FLAMENCO

Check out Spain's dancing priest Father Pepe.

Supreme Court Rules For Hobby Lobby's Religious Exemption to Obamacare, and People LOSE THEIR FREAKING MINDS

Instead of focusing much more on the amazingly unhinged and hateful responses of some angry folk on social media, let us try to look at the decision.  I give you initial thoughts by law profs Ann Althouse and Jonathan Adler.

UPDATE 1: OK, I laughed:

.@BarackObama is now googling “Can an Executive Order override Supreme Court?” #HobbyLobby
— Gov. Bobby Jindal (@BobbyJindal) June 30, 2014

UPDATE 2:  Thoughts?

The Fleeing Christians of Iraq

It's one of the world's oldest Christian communities, and it's on the verge of extinction.  Many are fleeing to Iraqi Kurdistan, which seems to be one of the only (relatively) safe spots in the region.

A Christian Convert in Afghanistan

On the run.

Satire Alert: "Budget Woes Force Heaven To Reduce Eternal Life To 500 Billion Years"

Oh, Onion. Still making me laugh after all these years.

Nerd News: Harvard Headline of the Year

"Black Mass Cancelled Amid Uproar As Cultural Studies Club Withdraws Sponsorship." Seriously, this is the real headline!  Then again, some of us have always known that Hahvahd was of the Devil, hahaha!

By the way, here is the statement from Hahvahd President Drew Faust - FAUST!  Folks, I can't make this stuff up if I tried.  

Here's a piece of it (issued before the club withdrew its sponsorship):

"The decision by a student club to sponsor an enactment of this ritual is abhorrent; it represents a fundamental affront to the values of inclusion, belonging and mutual respect that must define our community. It is deeply regrettable that the organizers of this event, well aware of the offense they are causing so many others, have chosen to proceed with a form of expression that is so flagrantly disrespectful and inflammatory.

Nevertheless, consistent with the University’s commitment to free expression, including expression that may deeply offend us, the decision to proceed is and will remain theirs. At the same time, we will vigorously protect the right of others to respond—and to address offensive expression with expression of their own. 

I plan to attend a Eucharistic Holy Hour and Benediction at St. Paul's Church on our campus on Monday evening in order to join others in reaffirming our respect for the Catholic faith at Harvard and to demonstrate that the most powerful response to offensive speech is not censorship, but reasoned discourse and robust dissent."

Quote of the Day: Remembering the Persecuted Christians of the Middle East

OK, I've mocked Prince Charles plenty in the past (and will continue to do so in the future, I'm sure) for some of the silly things he's said. But sometimes he gets it right. Like right now, as he offers up this reminder about the ongoing persecution of Christians in the Middle East, the atrocity that almost nobody in the media ever mentions. Here's a bit of it:

“I have for some time now been deeply troubled by the growing difficulties faced by Christian communities in various parts of the Middle East.  It seems to me that we cannot ignore the fact that Christians in the Middle East are increasingly being deliberately targeted by fundamentalist Islamist militants.”

The Ongoing Persecution of Christians in the Middle East

Alas even as there is almost no voice raised in their defense by Western politicians:

" ... in a vast belt of land from Morocco to Pakistan there is scarcely a single country in which Christians can worship entirely without harassment."

Government Shutdown, Sunday Edition

Seriously?  Ugh.  

The Christian Exodus From The Middle East

It's Sunday.  Spare a thought for those being persecuted in the Middle East.  The assaults on Christians in Egypt and Syria recently have been horrific.  Here's a piece of the article in Foreign Affairs:

At the start of World War I, the Christian population of the Middle East may have been as high as 20 percent. Today, it is roughly four percent. Although it is difficult to be exact, there are perhaps 13 million Christians left in the region, and that number has likely fallen further, given the continued destabilization of Syria and Egypt, two nations with historically large Christian populations. At the present rate of decline, there may very well be no significant Christian presence in the Middle East in another generation or two.  

This would be a profoundly important loss. Christianity was born in the Middle East and had a deep, penetrating presence in the region for hundreds of years before the rise of Islam.  

. . . But it is important to note that the removal of the region’s Christians is a disaster for Muslims as well. They are the ones who will be left with the task of building decent societies in the aftermath of these atrocities. And that task will be made immeasurably harder by the removal of Christians from their midst. It is not just that the memory of these brutal actions will taint these societies -- perpetrators and victims alike -- for the indefinite future; it is also that Muslims are removing the sort of pluralism that is the foundation for any truly democratic public life. One of the refrains of the Arab Spring has been that Muslims want to put an end to tyranny. But the only lasting guarantor of political rights is the sort of social and religious diversity that Muslims in the region are in the process of extinguishing. If nothing is done to reverse the situation, the hope for peace and prosperity in the Middle East may vanish along with the region’s Christian population. 

Nerd News: Indian University Bars American Academic

Blurb:

An American academic, who argues for gender equality in Islam, was prevented from addressing students at a university in India after an intervention by police, according to the organizer of the event.  

Chennai police asked the University of Madras in the southeastern state of Tamil Nadu to cancel the talk by Amina Wadud on feminist reforms in Islam and refused to provide security for the event, said P. K. Abdul Rahiman, assistant professor at the department for Islamic Studies at the university. 

*Sigh*

800 New Saints in Otranto, Italy

I missed this story when it first appeared, but it's remarkable.  Do read.

Religious Freedom Around the World: the 2013 Report

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s annual report is out (in PDF).   I'm just going to quote part of its assessment of China:

The Chinese government continues to perpetrate particularly severe violations of the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief. Religious groups and individuals considered to threaten national security or social harmony, or whose practices are deemed beyond the vague legal definition of “normal religious activities,” are illegal and face severe restrictions, harassment, detention, imprisonment, and other abuses. Religious freedom conditions for Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims remain particularly acute, as the government broadened its efforts to discredit and imprison religious leaders, control the selection of clergy, ban certain religious gatherings, and control the distribution of religious literature by members of these groups. The government also detained over a thousand unregistered Protestants in the past year, closed “illegal” meeting points, and prohibited public worship activities. Unregistered Catholic clergy remain in detention or disappeared.

Cultural Illiteracy at "the Newspaper of Record"

This is why I don't take "serious" newspapers seriously.  Besides, here is a quotable observation: "It’s difficult to take the Times' copious critiques of Catholicism and religion in general seriously when it is as illiterate as this on the most fundamental of Christian doctrines."  Well, DUH.  

Starting Off on the Right Foot

Apparently some traditionalists were scandalized by Pope Francis's inclusive take on an old ritual.  Well, good for the Pope if he did it to lead by example!  I seem to recall that some establishmentarian religious traditionalists were scandalized by the behavior of one Jesus of Nazareth, back in the day.  (Who did he think he was, hanging out with tax collectors and prostitutes?)

Your Snarky Headline for St. Patrick's Day

"Patrick Wasn’t Irish: He Was British. Deal with It."

Perhaps you might find this write-up of St. Patrick to be useful.

That Was Fast: Beijing Bullies New Pope Francis Over Taiwan

According to this, Beijing said that the Vatican must sever ties with Taiwan before its relations with China could improve.  *Sigh*  

"Free China: The Courage to Believe": The Documentary China Tried to Quash

Here's something fitting for a Sunday, my darlings.  Read this and spare a thought for the prisoners of conscience in China, both Falun Gong and not.  I remind you that China is ruled by, in the words of a friend of mine, "a criminal regime." 

This isn't, by the way, me endorsing Falun Gong as a belief system, but you don't have to adhere to it in order to understand that the Chinese government's persecution of its practitioners is a gross human rights abuse.

"Free China" is the winner of four international film festivals.  Take a look here:

Meet St. Kateri Tekakwitha, aka "Lily of the Mohawks"

The 17th-century convert from upstate New York is the first Native American canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.  The Pope also called her the "protectress of Canada."