Shot In The Dark

Those Gatekeepers At Work

I've read this Lori Sturdevant column a few times. I'm still trying to figure it out. Is it a shot at the Strib's "Church and State" story about Michele Bachmann's appearance at Mac Hammond's Living Word Christian Center?At a church...

Blaming The Ember For Not Blazing

In my various spiritual journeys, the depression that dared not speak its name was the one I felt in the most intensely "spiritual" churches - the ones where God the Father (the authoritative aspects of faith) and God the Son...

With God On Our Side, Part III

A friend of mine emailed me the ">NYTimes piece about the Reverend Gregory Boyd, the Maplewood minister who rankled his congregation by removing overtly-"Republican" references from his services and church. I wasn't quite sure how to react. On the one...

With God On Our Side, Part II

Commenter "Scott" left an excellent summation of the dilemma I, along with many other people of faith of both political stripes, face:The problem with religion and politics is that both reside in some essential aspect of our being. The more...

With God On Our Side, Part I

Faith and Politics are strange bedfellows to me. I was a Christian back when I was still a liberal. My faith informed many of the reasons my politics shifted; Christianity is a faith that ennobles the life of the individual...

Presbyterians: Back from the Brink of Madness

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA (PCUSA) voted overwhelmingly to abandon their two year old stated goal of divestment from Israel - a move that had been calculated to help label Israel as the new apartheid...

Stabbing John Knox's Corpse, Part II

Two years ago, the General Assembly (GA) of the Presbyterian Church of the USA (PCUSA) started the process of trying to divest the church's investiments in Israel. The effort was met with condemnation by the majority of mainstream Presbyterians, big...

Hope

Nick Coleman writes about Easter on Rice Street. Rice Street, for non-Saint Paulites, is a toilet; from University Avenue all the way up to the border with Roseville, Rice Street is a morass of skeezy bars and junkyards and blight...

Ironies of the Reformation

Martin Luther, John Knox and Jean Calvin, March 17, at the end of the Reformation. They have happened into a Saint Patrick's Celebration to relax. LUTHER: "Yo, it's Saint Paddy's day!" KNOX: "Aw, maaan - after a hundred years of...

Faith Is The New Gates

Dominos Pizza founder Tom Monaghan is starting a Catholic city:For Tom Monaghan, the devout Catholic who founded Domino's Pizza and is now bankrolling most of the initial $400 million cost of the project, Ave Maria is the culmination of a...

Ash Wednesday Observances

I'm not Catholic (although I went to a Catholic school for six months, sort of - it's a long story), but my aescetic, pleasure-abjuring, guilt-seeking Scandinavian heritage appreciates the notion of Ash Wednesday and the Catholic Lenten tradition of giving...

Stuck In The Middle

Today's Strib interviews Minnesota Moslems about The Satanic Cartoons. I feel for them, in a lot of ways, at least for the Moslems that are genuinely trying to assimilate into American and Minnesotan political, economic and (as far as Islam...

It's All Simple, Really

Perhaps you've heard; Moslems are upset at a group of Danish cartoonists who violated Islamic law by drawing pictures of Mohammed:The Islamic World has shown no signs of giving up hope that “Actions Speak Louder Than Words” calling for a...

If Pat Robertson Didn't Exist

...then the media and the left would have to invent him. Any way we can give him away?Television evangelist Pat Robertson and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran may not agree on much, but both suggested yesterday that the severe illness...

Merry Christmas

I'd just like to take a moment this Christmas Eve to wish everyone, everywhere, a Merry Christmas, full of love, the whole joy and meaning of the season. Pray for (and help) the refugees from the Gulf Coast, that they...

Fundamentally Wrong

Gotta give props to Mr. "Clever Sponge" of the local snarkblog "Clever Peasantry"; he knows his Korean food. Beyond that? Feh. He wrote last week about my post on the ugly relationship between "fundamentalists" and the media, academy, and the...

Questions For Mirecki

Mike Adams tries to interview Paul Mirecki, the Kansas University religion professor known for his bigotry against "fundies". This is from an email Adams sent to Mirecki after his alleged beating at the hands of "fundies", and shortly before his...

Deep In The Heart Of Ugly

Some of my best friends don't believe in God. I personally find atheism utterly intellectually untenable - but with those friends of mine who are atheist, there's usually an unstated foundation of respect and tolerance behind the disagreement. I've known...

There Is No Dog

I've had a post brewing for quite some time about the upcoming legal wrangling over "Intelligent Design". As I said earlier, I personally find the debate moot; not only are religion and science utterly different, but there's nothing about the...

Who Knew?

Catholic churches have cantors. Go figure....

Open Letter to Pat Robertson

To: Pat Robertson From: Mitch Berg Re: Dumb, Dumb, Dumb Pat, I'm not one of those shrinking violet Christians who think that we should keep our faith safely tucked away on Sunday mornings. I don't, can't, won't believe that ones'...

Evolved

The squabble is eternal; Evolution, or Creationism? Like, apparently, Lileks, I've always wondered what the problem was:I have never found religion and cosmology to be in conflict, which is why the [Intelligent Design] debate is boring. It’s like a debate...

Divesting

Last year, when the Presbyterian Church first started talking about divesting from Israel, I reacted with a bit of ill-concealed but justified ire. Now they've gone through with it:A Presbyterian committee accused five companies Friday of contributing to "ongoing violence...

Blowing With The Prevailing Wind

The biggest problem I had with Congressman Tancredo's ill-advised remarks last week was that they were a whack in the face of the Moslems in this world that are working - explicitly or implicitly - to rebuke the terrorists among...

Hmm...

Via Red and Beth, I took this quiz on...worldview, I think. You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion...

Hadn't Noticed This...

...but then, noticing this sort of thing is why Moxie makes the big bucks....

Habemas Papam

It's Ratzinger, reputedly an orthodox Catholic and very much one to follow in John Paul's footsteps. (Or as those paragons of cultural sensitivity and historical literacy at New Patriot refer to him, "Panzer Pope"). In related news, King County (Washington)...

Karol Wojtyla and the Jews

Karol Wojtyla, who later became the late Pope John Paul II, grew up in prewar Poland. People today forget - or perhaps neve rknew - the anti-semitism that was ingrained in the Catholic faith for many centuries. During the middle...

Schiavo

Terri Schiavo passed away within the past hour or so:Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman whose 15 years connected to a feeding tube sparked an epic legal battle that went all the way to the White House and Congress, died...

Blessings Of The Reformation, Part I

Nihilist in Golf Pants is running for Pope [1]. More power to him; I'm a Presbyterian, and I'm likely to stay that way - partly because we had a Reformation for damned (oops) good reasons, and partly because I've heard...

Faith

Mark Gisleson is a local leftyblogger... ...no. That does a disservice to the good local leftybloggers, the Centrisities and even some of the less intensely whiny folks from New Patriot that do the Minnesota left some semblance of justice online....

Stabbing John Knox's Corpse

I'm a Christian, and I worship with the Presbyterian Church. I do it for theological reasons that I stand by.

Unfortunately, the PCUSA's General Assembly has been hijacked by idiots. I address them in this open letter.

Tips For Churches

I've been casting about for a new congregation for the past year or so. I've gone to a bunch of different congregations, and compiled quite a picture of the types of churches that would seem to be available these days....

The Scolding Aunt

The Scolding Aunt - In nearly every Presbyterian church or Lutheran church I've ever attended - and I'm going to assume it's the same in most mainline churches - there's always one old woman who serves as the congregation's professional...