What will become of our blogs?

I’m grateful to Michael Halcomb for putting me on to this hilarious video. But it does give one occasion to pause. In 50 years, will my son be able to “check out” a copy of my most recent posting? If our blogs are so ephemeral, and if our reading skills are so elusive, where does that leave us?

Evening Prayer

God our Guardian and our Guide
(An Evening Prayer)

God our Guardian and our Guide
Shatter all our selfish pride.
Pray, redeem us, recreate us
For the coming day.

Rule of Justice, Christ - our Life
Heal our warfare, quiet our strife.
Pray, redeem us, recreate us
For the coming day.

Sign of Mercy, Christ - our Way
Cleanse our hearts, our fears allay.
Pray, redeem us, recreate us
For the coming day.

Source of Wisdom, Christ - our Light
Lead us through the darkest night.
Pray, redeem us, recreate us
For the coming day.

God our Guardian and our Guide
Shatter all our selfish pride
Pray, redeem us, recreate us
For the coming day.

Hymn Words: John Montgomery

7.7.8.5

© October 2004

Photo by Andrew Penner
Used by Permission: Imagine Golf

Noun or Adjective? That is the Question!

The late Wilfred Cantwell Smith suggested that to talk about someone as a Buddhist, rather than as Buddhist misconstrues what faith is about. It flunks English grammar as well. Christian is not a noun (i.e. a Christian), but an adjective (i.e. a Christian person). In that context, I could perhaps be both Buddhist and Christian. So does that get me into heaven and kicked out at the same time? My Evangelical colleagues want to know.

John Cobb suggested that perhaps the great religious traditions were not different answers to the same questions, but different answers to different questions.

I like to think that I am both Christian and Buddhist - maybe with a little Jewishness added as well. I wish both Agape and Compassion to you and yours!

John

Photo Used With Permission: blindelinse

Hindu in the House

Tom, (Freidman) I don't know whether the world is flat, but I do know we live in an interfaith world.

Actually, it was not the house, but the Senate! Chaplain Rajan Zed, North Nevada Hindu Association led a prayer that was supposed to be a testament to inclusiveness in America, not intolerance from narrow minded believers. Three fundamentalist adherents were arrested after disrupting the session repeatedly shouting

“Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight,” the first protester began.

“This is an abomination,” he continued. “We shall have no other gods before You.”

Of course, the abomination is the sheer hatred masquerading as genuine faith. Now interfaith relations are tricky - we need a lot of dialogue and as Methodist theologian, John B. Cobb Jr. suggests an openness to mutual transformation. We are still making baby steps here - Thomas Thangaraj, professor at Emory, suggests that we need to still draw distinctions between "praying together" as in sharing together in one prayer, and "being "together for prayer" where we all join together to pray according to our own faith traditions.

What is most troubling to me about the narrow-minded Christians who are convinced that only through Jesus can anyone be saved, and therefore they are ready to condemn even righteous folks in other traditions. They are also proponents within Christianity of a narrow-minded perspective where only by believing their fundamentalist or evangelical theological persuasion fellow Christians might be saved as well.

In the "What Others are Saying" section on the left column of this blog, you can find two pertinent reports.

Aaron Krager's post from Faithfully Liberal - "Christian Fundamentalists Disrupt Hindu Prayer"

Don Byrd's post from Talk to Action - "US Senate Opens with Hindu Prayer, Confuses David Barton"


Speaking of prayer....

God, you who created life with all of its diversity (and said that it it good!) - save us from religious bigotry.

Amen,

John

Photo Note: http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200706/CUL20070626a.html

The Religious Landscape is Changing!

Tom, (Friedman) - I don't know whether the "world is flat," but I do know that we live in an interfaith age. Our urban landscapes are changing. Here in Atlanta (yes, I did say Atlanta, not in the suburbs!) the place to be is the new multi-use high rise development called Atlantic Station. Stores, offices, restaurants, dog walking paths, apartments, homes, condos - and oh yes, parking. It's all there - built over the last few years on the abandoned Atlanta Steel site just north of Georgia Tech.

If your penthouse faces south toward 14th Street, you get a picture window view of the latest change in American urban religious architecture. It's a steeple...oops, no - it's a minaret. Copper domes and arabesque walls built in octagonal fashion so the mosque can both face the East and align with the mid-town city streets.

Friends, welcome to the neighborhood!

Photo Note: Atlanta Journal Constitution - July 5, 2007