JonLowder.com

What Should the Kids Do?

Last night the youth leader at our church asked us, the parents, for some ideas for activities for the kids.  This was a good idea for a couple of reasons; first, I'm a firm believer that you get better ideas from muliple people than from one, and second when people offer their own ideas they're more likely to get involved themselves.  That said, we were all pretty fragged last night and it was tough getting the creative juices flowing so I thought I'd put out an RFP for ideas for our church's youth group.  Here are the basics about the group:

• Small, but powerful.  There are about 15 kids in the group and they range in age from 6th graders to 12th graders.
• The activities should have some kind of tie to what you'd expect a church youth group to be involved with, but it need not be overtly spiritual.  For instance one of the most powerful things they do every year is a week at mission camp in Laurel Ridge.  While there they spend their days doing projects in the local community that are geared to helping people: fixing a shut-in's deck, painting a fence at a local school that doesn't have the budget for it, building a wheel chair ramp at a local home, etc.  At night they do a lot of singing and church related activities, but the main purpose of the week is to teach them service to others.  You can see where I'm going with this. 
• The group gets together almost every Sunday night for two hours during the school year.  Many of the activities will need to fit this time frame, but they do sometimes step out and do longer activities at different times. 
• One activity already planned is the Souper Bowl of Caring on Feb. 1, but outside of that we're pretty open over the next couple of months. 

Please feel free to share any ideas you might have, or activities you've seen other groups engage in.   

From Voting Booth to Confessional?

According to this news story a Catholic priest in Greenville, SC sent a letter to his parishioners saying that those who voted for Barack Obama should seek penance for their vote before taking Communion.  This is just another in a list of reasons that I've become disillusioned with the church.  For some background, here's my life journey with religion:

1. Mormon until age 9.  Don't remember much other than being at church for what seemed like 12 hours every Sunday and a Sunday School teacher who told us about how dangerous it was to be a missionary and illustrated her point by telling us about a missionary in Africa who accepted a ride and had his head cut off.  I think I decided that day that I would not be a missionary when my time came.  Once my parents got divorced we left the church and so I never had to make that decision.
2. My Mom took us to Presbyterian and Unitarian churches when I was in middle school. Didn't like either, the former because they seemed too uptight (I hated wearing ties) and the latter because they couldn't seem to make up their minds about what they were exactly.
3. Went to Lutheran High School. Daily religious studies there for three years. My principal used to tell me he considered it his job to make sure I didn't have any of the Mormon "cult" left in me. He was a nut-job, but I liked the pastor at the host church and I liked the church too.  I even went to a Lutheran teacher's college for a year.
4. Converted to Catholicism in my twenties when Celeste and I were engaged.  Really liked the Franciscan brothers who taught our RCIA class and the young Franciscan priest who married us.
5. Joined the Moravian Church two years ago and it had nothing to do with the cookies or chicken pies, although that didn't hurt.

I'm very comfortable being Moravian.  I've found it to be much more inclusive than Catholicism and quite honestly the church's general outlook seems to fit my world view much better.  I'm not going to sit here and condemn Catholicism because I do feel there's a lot right about it, but in the end I think religion is a very personal journey and it's very important to find what's right for you.  I just couldn't come to grips with the Catholic church's handling of the priest sex scandal and its outlook on women among other things.  In the end the negatives outweighed the positives.

Oh, and as far as I'm concerned the parish in Greenville should have it's non-profit status yanked.  Denying parishioners the sacrament unless they repent for freely exercising their right to vote is tantamount to actively stumping for a candidate or party, and my understanding is that the IRS sees that as a verboten activity.

The Mirical Worker

Available today, hot off the presses is my first e-book.  Actually it's more like an e-booklet.  Whatever, it's the compilation of the comments that I've gotten on a short piece I did on telepreacher Ernest Angley over two years ago.  I titled the book "The Mirical Worker" based on the spelling of "miracle" used in one of the earliest comments to the post.  Following is the introduction and a link to download the PDF file if you're interested.

Download The Mirical Worker.pdf

Introduction

On April 10, 2006 I posted a short item about televangelist Ernest Angley on my blog.  Little did I know that of the 1,440 posts on my blog (to date) that this would be consistently among the most popular.  I also had no way of knowing that the post would also draw the most interesting and strange comments I've received on any post. Since this post is buried in the archives of my blog and is generally found only by people who are actively searching Google for things about Angley I thought I'd re-produce the post and comments in a handy little booklet.

On the following pages you will find the text of my original post and the text of every comment that I've received on that post.  I have not edited or altered the comments in any way and simply copied and pasted them from the blog.  You'll notice that Angley's supporters have a tendency to misspell and over-use upper case text. In fact you'll note that the title of this booklet comes from one of the early commenters who misspelled “miracle”.  With patience I think you'll find yourself entertained as you scroll through them. 

For your information the original post can be found here:

http://www.jonlowder.com/2006/04/ernest_angley_s.html

I'll be updating this booklet as more comments come in.  Believe me, more will be coming.

Enjoy!

One Way Street

I was catching up on my reading, going through the pile of Winston-Salem Journals that had stacked up during our week in Myrtle when I came across a "Letter to the Editor" that caused me to pause.  I should point out that I consider the "Letters" a vital piece of my daily reading since they combine with my cup of coffee to really get my blood flowing in the morning.  Let's just say that I often find myself in strong disagreement with my fellow Journal readers. 

Anyway, the letter that caught my attention ran on April and was submitted by Mr. Chuck Hemrick of Germanton.  He wrote:

While reading the Journal on March 30 and 31, I was appalled that little was said about the recent rains being a huge factor in helping to put out the fires on Sauratown Mountain...

But Sunday and Monday mornings’ rain were God-sent and an answer to prayers from all around this community. My wife and I woke up each morning singing the old church hymn, “Showers of Blessings,” thankful to God for sending the rain!

In between those two paragraphs he points out that he also is appreciative of the efforts of local firefighters, but thinks the paper did not give God the credit he (she, it?) was due.  My question for Mr. Hemrick is this, "If God is responsible for sending the rains that stopped this wildfire then wasn't he also responsible for sending the severe drought that provided the tinder for the wildfire?"

You see this logic all the time in stories about natural events.  A volcano explodes and the lava flow miraculously diverts around a church in its path.  Of course that's seen as a miracle delivered by God, but somehow God had nothing to do with the volcano exploding in the first place.

Now Mr. Hemrick does say that God answered prayers of the local community, but I imagine that lots of people who lost their houses to the wildfires in Southern California last year were also praying quite hard for rains to save their homes as they watched them burn to cinders.  Were the prayers in North Carolina simply better than those in San Diego so God heard the former and not the latter?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a Christian and believe in God, but my faith does not include the belief that God directly intervenes in matters like saving property from wildfires.  And I think that if I did believe that then I would also have to believe that God intended the wildfire to be there in the first place, and that God intended for New Orleans to flood, and for the homes in San Diego to burn, and for every other "bad" thing that's ever happened.  I don't believe that because I tend to think of God as a kind of hands off manager that put all of this stuff that we call life in motion and then let those of us living the life to muddle through with the tools God provided us. 

I don't think I have the right to expect others to share my understanding of faith, so I think that folks who have a faith system like Mr. Hemrick's, one that sees God as actively involved in all aspects of life, are just as entitled to that belief as I am to mine.  My question is how can they see God as being active in providing miracles, but not active in creating the situations that necessitate those miracles?  How can they see God's intervention as a one way street?

Being a Mormon-Catholic-Moravian Doesn't Make Me that Weird

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has released results from a recent survey that include some interesting numbers.  Among them:

• "More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion - or no religion at all."
• "If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether."
• "The number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children."
• "Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion."
• Protestants are almost a minority in the country at just 51% of the population.
• Within the ranks of protestants, 23% are evangelical, 18.1% are mainline protestant and 6.9% are affiliated with historically black churches.
• There are now as many Mormons as Jews at 1.7% of the population each.
• "While nearly one-in-three Americans (31%) were raised in the Catholic faith, today fewer than one-in-four (24%) describe themselves as Catholic. These losses would have been even more pronounced were it not for the offsetting impact of immigration."

I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of people taking issue with this report.  For instance there will be lots of Christians who will take exception to Mormons being included in their ranks.  I know this from personal experience since I've had a bunch of evangelical and mainstream Christians tell me that I was lucky to escape the "cult" of Mormonism.  FYI, I was Mormon until around age 10, went to a Lutheran H.S., converted to Catholicism when I got married and now am a member of the Moravian church.  I think if they'd polled me I would have been responsible for the +/- skew you see in all surveys.

I'm also fairly certain that a bunch of Catholic bishops will say that the numbers are wrong and they really aren't losing a bunch of their members.  They seem to excel at denying reality despite the ready evidence of parishes being closed and land sold off, and the ripple effect from their incredibly bad handling of the abusive priests controversy.

My final thought on this is that when you really think this through it's amazing that during my parents' adult life we had a presidential candidate who had to overcome the obstacle of being a Catholic to get elected.  He had to assure the people that he wouldn't be answering to the Pope, and just short of 50 years later no one would think twice about a Catholic running for president.  On the other hand we just had a Mormon candidate drop out of the race and his religious affiliation was seen as a contributing factor to his failed candidacy, and just today I saw an item about Hillary Clinton's campaign possibly being involved in leaking a picture of Barack Obama that would seem to imply that he's Muslim (he's Christian).  As much as things seem to change, they ultimately remain the same.  We always seem to find a way to separate ourselves by our differences rather than celebrating our commonalities while enjoying our diversity. 

All this and people still debate the value of secular government.

Interesting Development in Religious Education

Unless you've lived in a cave for 20 years you've no doubt heard much about the sex abuse scandals involving lots of US priests and various diocese across the country.  As part of its efforts to deal with the issue the New York Archdiocese is publishing a coloring book called "Being Friends, Being Safe, Being Catholic" that has some pretty direct cartoons about how to avoid being in dangerous situations (see image to the left for one of the pictures in the book).  From the Newsday article about the book:

That's an unusual approach, says David Clohessy, the national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, but not necessarily a bad one. "We welcome any innovation," he says, "especially from an institution that has such a horrific track record." The coloring book is intended as a supplement to the prevention curriculum mandated by a 2002 U.S. bishops charter—a way for adults to broach a topic that is "not the most pleasant to talk about," says Edward Mechmann, the director of the New York Archdiocese's Safe Environment Program. He says the book (along with comics about molestation, for older kids) has been shipped to about 700 schools. Administrators are then given the option of distributing them. "Teachers love it," Mechmann says. "It's a nice little vehicle for speaking to kids about [abuse]." Talk about alternative education.

Personally I think it's a smart move by the Archdiocese, but definitely falls into the "too late" category.  Had the church dealt with this issue decades ago and listened to the victims when they first came forward then maybe we'd have seen efforts like this in the 70s or 80s rather than 2007.  Then maybe we wouldn't dealing with the incredible number of abuse victims over the last 50 years, or looking at a church selling off assets to pay the victims' damages and a church that lost who knows how many members who felt alienated by the church's handling of the situation and who were sickened by a cancerous cell of spiritual leaders who sickened the entire church body.  A tragedy on so many levels.

History of Religion

I came across this very cool site called Maps of War (via Boing Boing) and found the map you see below.  It depicts the spread of various religions throughout recorded history.  This is a fantastic tool to grasp both the historical relevance of religions and their scope.  You'll notice that in the grand scheme of things Christianity and Islam are "johnny come lately" and their spread has largely occurred in the recent past. 

Ernest Angley King of the Televangelist Toupee Crowd

Believe it or not one of the most popular posts on this blog, out of over 1,000 posts I've made, is this one I did on Ernest Angley back in April, 2006.  It gets a lot of traffic from people who search the term "Ernest Angley" on Google (six people just this morning) and as you can see from the comments on my post he still has his share of supporters.

Today the folks at Boing Boing pointed to a blog called Televangelists with Toupees and that site ranked good ol' Ernest's mop as the number one televangelist toupee. The site claims that Ernest once offered locks of his dead wife's hair in exchange for a donation and it also has a Youtube video of one of Ernest's 80s era promos, but I wanted to find a video that would give you an idea of what made him the finest in unintentional late night comedy in the days before cable.  Here it is:

Lourdes Help Us

I'm not sure what I find weirdest about this story:

• The Vatican has started an air service, right now just one 737 painted in "yellow-and-white papal livery", offering flights to Lourdes from Rome. They hope to expand service to "Fatima in Portugal, Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and possibly even Jerusalem."  Too bad "Virgin Air" was already taken, huh?
• The in flight refreshment was swordfish  canapes.  What, no peanuts?
• French officials wouldn't let some of the holy flyers keep their holy water for the return trip, forcing them to abandon their "plastic containers in the shape of the Madonna."  Apparently the plastic Madonna's held more than the allowable 100ml. One man decided to drink his holy water rather than leave it with security.
• The water from the Lourdes spring is so valuable that it will cost you £64 for a litre.

I wonder how Catholics around the world are feeling about their contributions to the collection plate these days?

More on that Prayer Thing

As you may recall the esteemed leaders of Forsyth County, NC have decided to fight the ACLU on sectarian prayers being used to open county meetings. Our county leaders say they don't want to tell anyone how to pray or be told by the ACLU that they have to tell people how to pray and they argue that they invite people of all denominations to pray.  Well, after a little digging I found that their idea of religious diversity is a bit wanting, but they've enacted a very technical system called "thumbing through the phonebook" that might lead to a more diverse set of religious leaders giving the opening invocation.  (BTW, a similar system was recently upheld in Georgia).

So what will happen when the first Muslim or Hindu is invited to give the invocation?  Well, if what happened in the US Senate is any indication we might be in for an interesting ride. From TPM:

Today was a historic first for religion in America's civic life: For the very first time, a Hindu delivered the morning invocation in the Senate chamber — only to find the ceremony disrupted by three Christian right activists...

The three protesters, who all belong to the Christian Right anti-abortion group Operation Save America, and who apparently traveled to Washington all the way from North Carolina, interrupted by loudly asking for God's forgiveness for allowing the false prayer of a Hindu in the Senate chamber. (Emphasis added)

Think of how much fun these yokels will have in their home state when they don't even have to travel!  Here's the video of the happenings from YouTube: