Tebowing to Tebow: A Decalogue nightmare



(Photo:  Public Domain)

There’s an old (ancient, actually) story about Abraham’s childhood. 

Abraham’s father, Terach, was said to be a manufacturer of idols.  Once when Terach had to travel, he left his son in charge of the shop.  Abraham seized this opportunity to smash all the idols but one with a hammer - and then put the hammer in the remaining idol’s hand. When

Terach returned, he was devastated.  “Who could have done this?” he shouted to the heavens.

“I cannot tell a lie,” Abraham (or was that George Washington?) admitted.  “I witnessed it all with my own two eyes.”  He then pointed to the remaining idol.  “This one over here grabbed a hammer, went

berserk, and killed the rest before they even knew what hit them.”  “Why that’s impossible!” Terach fumed.  “Why, Father?” his sly son asked.  Terach then admitted that idols can’t think at all, let alone

orchestrate a mass murder, and the jig was up.  Abraham had forever proven his point that non-thinking idols were not worthy of worship.

Moses (no slouch himself) followed this up by reiterating that idols were never to be worshipped.  The First (and/or) Second Commandments of the Decalogue make this perfectly clear:  You shall have no other gods in My presence…  Do not make an image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above…  Not to mention the “Tebowing” clincher:  Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them…

Tebowing to God as Tebow does may be scripturally sound (although this is debatable) – but Tebowing to

Tebow could burst the bubble of even a mellow god, let alone that of a jealous God whose wrath extends from generation to generation.  If Tebow is as in with God as his fans think he is, then he’d better speak up soon in their defense.  Otherwise – instead of Tebowing from the Top of the German Alps in a Blizzard, they might be Tebowing from the Bottom of God Knows Where in a Heat Wave.

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments

http://www.azamra.org/Earth/mount-03.html

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/tim-tebow-sees-tebowing-phenomenon-as-a-blessing-102911

http://tebowing.com/

Copyright January 3, 2012 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved 

Margaret Thatcher: Religious conviction



(Margaret Thatcher in 1975)

When Margaret Thatcher assumed leadership of the Conservative Party, she announced that hers was a politics of conviction rather than of consensus.  She might as well have specified “religious conviction” for it was her religious beliefs that often determined her political ones.

Wikipedia reports that Thatcher’s “devout Methodist” background (her father was a Methodist local preacher who raised his daughter according to strict religious principles) greatly influenced her political ideology. Heritage.org reports that during the 1979 election, Thatcher campaigned against Socialist Prime Minister James Callaghan with these words:  The Old Testament prophets did not say ‘Brothers, I want a consensus.’ 

They said, ‘This is my faith; this is what I passionately believe; if you believe it too, then come with me.  

During a 1978 “exclusive interview” with Richard Dowden of the Catholic Herald, Thatcher revealed the religious nature of her political conviction quite clearly.  According to Dowden, Thatcher’s “defence of the individual against the State is in her eyes founded on a Christian concept of man.”  In Thatcher’s own words: 

The basis of democracy is morality, not majority voting.  It is the belief that the majority of people are good and decent and that there are moral standards which come not from the State but from elsewhere.

After researching “previously unseen sermon notes” of Thatcher’s father, as well as “the text of three religious

sermons Thatcher delivered during her political career and numerous interviews she gave speaking on her

faith” – Antonio Weiss wrote a paper titled The Religious Mind of Mrs Thatcher.  In this paper, Weiss contends that “Thatcher was a deeply religious politican” and that she had “a genuine belief in social justice, derived from her religious convictions.”  In this same June 2011 paper, Weiss concludes that “historians have been far too willing to accept” that religion no longer matters “in either politics or society.”

Resources

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103793

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodist_local_preacher

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_politics

http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/what-we-can-learn-from-margaret-thatcher

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/2193F2214D8E4842A573084E7DFCEB16.pdf

Copyright January 2, 2012 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved 

January 1: Circumcision of Jesus



Circumcision of Christ (by Luca Signorelli)

According to the Halakha (defined by Wikipedia as “the collective body of Jewish law”), males of the Jewish faith should be named and circumcised eight days from birth.  Jesus, who was born into a Jewish family, would have therefore been named

and circumcised on January 1^st  had his birthday been on December 25^th.

Luke 2:21 (NIV) tells of this event:  On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.  This passage harkens back to Luke 1:31 (NIV) where the angel Gabriel tells Mary:  You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.  Joseph receives this explanation

from “an angel of the Lord” in Matthew 1:21:  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save people from their sins.

Wikipedia reports that the name “Jesus” (aka Iesus in Latin, Iesous in Greek, Joshua in Hebrew, and Yesua  in Hebrew-Aramaic) means “Yahweh delivers” or “Yahweh rescues.”  “Jesus” also came to mean “Yahweh saves,” “Yahweh is salvation,” and sometimes “Jehovah is salvation.”  (“Christ” is derived from the Greek word Khristos, meaning “the anointed one” – and is a title rather than a name.  This Greek word Khristos was also used as a translation for the Hebrew word Mashiach, meaning “Messiah.”)

The Syriac Infancy Gospel, part of the New Testament apochrypha, “contains the first reference to the survival of Christ’s severed foreskin.”  An elderly Hebrew woman is said to have taken the foreskin and “preserved it in an alabaster box of old oil of spikenard.”  The second chapter of this apochryphal story goes

on to assert that “this is that alabaster-box which Mary the sinner procured, and poured forth the ointment out of it upon the head and feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, and wiped it off with the hairs of her head.”

According to Wikipedia, some philosophers have instead contended that during the Ascension of Jesus,

his body parts (including those that were no longer attached) ascended also.  Leo Allatius, a one-time

keeper of the Vatican library, theorized that the foreskin then became the rings of Saturn.         

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision_of_Jesus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_the_Circumcision

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_the_Holy_Name_of_Jesus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halakha

http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Names_of_G-d/Messiah/messiah.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Allatius

Copyright January 1, 2012 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved

New Year's Eve: Watch Night for many



John Wesley (Painting by George Romney)

Just as Advent evokes images of a pivotal “Coming” – so, too, does New Year’s Eve.

The turning of the calendar year reminds many of the need for spiritual attentiveness.  Back in 1733, the Moravians (a Protestant denomination that Wikipedia claims “places a high premium on Christian unity, personal piety, missions, and music”) held what is believed to be the first Watch Night gathering.  The African American Lectionary reports that John Wesley, “founder of the Methodist movement,” was so taken

with this Watch Night idea that he “incorporated it into Methodism as a time for Methodists to renew their covenant with God and to contemplate their state of grace in light of the second coming of Christ.”  

Believing that “all Christians should reaffirm their covenant with God annually,” Wesley began holding Watch Night Services every New Year’s Eve.  To keep the momentum going, he also held monthly, four-hour Watch Night services on the Fridays nearest the times of the full-moon.  According to Wikipedia, these Watch Night Services (aka “Covenant Renewal Services”) also “provided Methodist Christians with a godly alternative to times of drunken revelry…”  They remain part of The United Methodist Book of Worship - and today include

“singing, spontaneous prayers and testimonials, as well as scripture readings…”

Snopes.com reports that the first such United States service took place “in 1770 at Old St. George’s Church

in Philadelphia.”  Rev. P. Kimberleigh Jordan writes in The Huffington Post that Richard Allen (who later

founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church denomination) and Absalom Jones (who later founded

the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas) were both members of that Old St. George’s congregation.

Jordan also reports on two, especially-prominent, African American Watch Night themes.  On New Year’s Eve of 1862, “enslaved Africans gathered to await the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation…”  Since then, Watch Night has been particularly equated with “an act of God resonant with the biblical Exodus.”  An equally-strong African American Watch Night tradition has its roots in the traumatic uncertainty of living in bondage.  Since it was believed that slave owners would want to settle their debts by selling slaves on New Year’s Day, slaves were unsure whether they would fellowship with their loved ones ever again.  Jordan therefore emphasizes that Watch Night “was an opportunity to step faithfully into the unknown…”  as expressed by the well-known spiritual, This May Be the Last Time.    

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchnight_service

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/newyears/watchnight.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravian_Church

http://www.theafricanamericanlectionary.org/PopupCulturalAid.asp?LRID=184

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-p-kimberleigh-jordan/why-i-love-watchnight_b_1173079.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1jGF-6bFpI

Copyright December 31, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved

Seventh Day in Samoa: Sabbath times two



Samoa on the Globe (by TUBS)

If you had plans for December 30^th in Samoa this year, you’re out of luck.  The Associated Press reports that “at the stroke of midnight” on December 29, 2011, time in Samoa and neighboring Tokelau will “leap forward to Dec. 31 – New Year’s Eve.”   This is being done in order to better align International Date Line calendar dates with those of Australia

and New Zealand since these countries are now “increasingly important trading partners.”

Although this time shift will be marked by prayer services and the ringing of church bells throughout the “devoutly Christian nation” of Samoa, not all churches are in favor of skipping a Friday.  The Seventh Day Adventist Church in Samatu “has

indicated a major problem for its congregation” because Friday night is when its Sabbath begins.  If Friday were to suddenly become Saturday, then Saturday would just as suddenly become Sunday.  The Sabbath would therefore be observed on a Sunday rather than on a Saturday.

The “Fundamental Beliefs” section of Adventist.org, the “official website of the Seventh-day Adventist Church,” states this:  The beneficent Creator, after the six days of Creation, rested on the seventh day and instituted the Sabbath for all people as a memorial of Creation.  The fourth commandment of God’s unchangeable law requires the observance of this seventh-day Sabbath as the day of rest, worship, and ministry in harmony with the teaching and practice of Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath.    

No mention of “Saturday” here…

However, the “What Adventists Believe” section of the same website had this to say:  God loves you, and

wants to spend time with you personally, one on one, as two close friends…  The seventh day (Saturday) is an extra-special part of the relationship.  The Bible, from Genesis through Revelation, describes the seventh day as the one day God has set aside for focused fellowship with His people.  God has named that day “Sabbath” and asked us to spend it with Him.  

Note that God has named that day “Sabbath” rather than “Saturday”…   

Nevertheless, a controversy exists amongst churches (as well as amongst denominations and religions) as to which day is the “real” Sabbath.  After this latest calendar adjustment, Seventh-day Adventists in Samoa

will be divided as to when the Sabbath will be honored.  Some will adhere to their traditional Saturdays, whereas many will change over to Sundays.

Resources

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/29/samoa-and-tokelau-to-skip-december-30/

http://www.samoanews.com/?q=content/seventh-day-adventists-samoa-will-have-two-sabbaths-dateline-change

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Date_Line

http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/

http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental/index.html

Copyright December 30, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved

The Overview Effect: A Declaration of Interdependence



Edgar Dean Mitchell (an Overviewer)

“On Earth as it is in Heaven” takes on a whole different meaning

after glimpsing the Earth from the heavens.  Some of the 500 or so people who have thus far journeyed through space utilize this quote from Socrates to help describe their experience:  Humanity must rise above the earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond. 

For only then will we understand the world in which we live.

This new type of understanding is now being called the “Overview

Effect” - a term coined by Frank White, whose book, The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution, was first published in 1987.  This effect “refers to the experience of seeing firsthand the reality of the Earth in space” – from which perspective “national boundaries vanish, the conflicts that divide us become less important and the need to create a planetary society with the united will to protect this ‘pale blue dot’ becomes both obvious and imperative.”

The Overview Effect is therefore not an intellectual exercise, but

rather a raising of consciousness that is powerful enough to create

a direct awareness of cosmic interdependence.  White calls it “a

message from the universe to humanity” – and adds that those who have heard it “must now become Overviewers… and manifest its implications in our own lives.”

Short of booking a Virgin Galactic flight (or attaining nirvana, whichever comes first), how can everyday folks zap into this borderless state of cosmic consciousness?  The answer lies right in front of a multitude of computer-glazed eyeballs – it’s the Internet that will provide glimpses of what Earth looks like through high-speed galactic Windows.

MSNBC’s Photoblog presents a 2011 Holiday calendar: Peace over Earth in order to provide ordinary earthlings with such glimpses.  Included in these offerings are Santa’s flight path, the Solstice tilt, Hanukkah above Jerusalem, Santa Lucia above Sicily, a psychedelic storm, a lunar eclipse, and the Hajj masses in Mecca.

There now – is all the holiday stress shrinking into a blip on the cosmic screen?  If so – you, too, may soon be an Overviewer…

Resources

http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/2011-holiday-calendar

http://www.overviewinstitute.org/declaration.htm

http://www.virgingalactic.com/

Copyright December 29, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved

Gluttony: The latest damning evidence



Depiction of Gluttony (by Hieronymus Bosch)

Throughout history, many have warned against the

practice of stuffing one’s body with food.  Science is

now proving that gluttony is deadly, but religionists

have known that right along.

Gluttony (gastrimargia) was right up there on the list

of eight evil thoughts that was composed (in Greek,

no less) by the 4^th-century Desert Father monk,

Evagrius Ponticus.  Mostly thanks to the writings of another Desert Father, John Cassian - gluttony not only retained its primary spot on the “what not to do” list, but also received a new Latin name (gula - later grouped with “fornication” and “avarice” and collectively renamed “lustful appetite” in English).

Almost two centuries passed before Pope Gregory I came up with his own list of Seven Deadly Sins (which

was very much like the previous lists, but no one minded since plagiarism was apparently not nearly as deadly).  On his list, luxuria (which isn’t as luxurious as it sounds) leads gula by a hair.  Dante, in turn, was so inspired by this latest list that he morphed it into a Divine Comedy – gula and all.  According to both Pope Gregory I and St. Thomas Aquinas, gluttony can be committed in “five ways to Sunday” – these being laute (eating exotic food), nimis (eating excessive quantitites), studiose (making elaborate food preparations), praepropere (eating at inappropriate times), and ardenter (eating too eagerly).

Over seven more centuries passed before scientists came out with this supportive research.  The AFP reports that “a strict diet may save the brain from the ravages of age.”  This statement is based upon “a study of mice that were fed a diet of about 70 percent of the food they normally consumed.”  Italian scientists discovered that this “calorie-restricted diet triggered a protein molecule, CREB1, that activates a host of genes linked to longevity and good brain function.”  Previous researchers had also discovered that non-gluttonous (and possibly ascetic) mice “showed better cognitive abilities and memory, less aggression, and tended to avoid or delay Alzheimer’s disease.”

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluttony

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins

http://news.yahoo.com/strict-diet-could-save-brain-aging-study-202148422.html

Copyright December 28, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved