Father Matthew on that old saying "Hate the sin, love the sinner."

Fr. Matthew offers a valuable lesson.

Road honors educator's journey toward equality

A story about Episcopalian Austin Merry. The Reverend Sean Ferrell dedicated the new Austin Merry Boulevard in celebration of his service to God and the church. Original story here.



By NICHOLAS BEADLE
nbeadle@jacksonsun.com
• February 27, 2009

Local leaders and dozens of Jackson Central-Merry High School students and Merry High School alumni gathered on Royal Street Thursday morning to watch descendants of Austin Merry unveil markers dedicating the road in the pioneering black educator's honor.

After concerns about an initial proposal to outright rename Royal Street's five-mile stretch for Merry, the Jackson City Council approved a plan last year to place dedication markers along the road and a plaque explaining Merry's accomplishments. That plaque was unveiled Thursday at the intersection of South Highland Avenue and South Royal Street.

Merry is credited with formalizing black education in Jackson and Madison County around the turn of the 20th century.

Last fall, city leaders closed a street named after him a few blocks northwest from the new plaque, but not without the City Council promising Merry's descendants that they would find another road to honor him on.

City leaders praised Merry for his work. Jackson Mayor Jerry Gist said Merry was "instrumental to getting us where we are today, especially in our education system."

In attendance was a mixed-race crowd of students from JCM, the modern-day descendant of the high school originally named for Merry.

Councilman Harvey Buchanan, who worked to get the markers approved, asked those students to "have a yearnin' and a burnin' for learnin'" so they could become the city and county's next generation of leaders.

"Education is not black and white. We are proud of that fact today," Buchanan said after the ceremony about the students who attended. "... If it hadn't been for the vision of Austin Merry, though, I don't know where African Americans would be in the education system in Jackson now."

Merry's descendants talked about how his passion for education has echoed through the family for generations. His great-granddaughter Shayla Merry, a 26-year-old medical student, recalled how as a child her parents checked her homework assignments and asked her to make revisions before turning the work in.

Gwendolyn Merry- Coleman, who asked the council to find another street to bear her grandfather's name, said the markers unveiled Thursday highlight the accomplishments previous generations made against segregation, intolerance and racial strife.

"This is bigger than Jackson and bigger than West Tennessee - it's even bigger than black or white," Coleman said. "It is a global accomplishment. ... That is what we call change."

Visit jacksonsun.com and share your thoughts.

- Nicholas Beadle, 425-9763

God's House - Daily Reading for February 27 • George Herbert, Priest, 1633

From the Speaking to the Soul section of episcopalcafe.com

What doth this noise of thoughts within my heart
As if they had a part?
What do these loud complaints and pulling fears,
As if there were no rule or ears?

But, Lord, the house and family are thine,
Though some of them repine.
Turn out these wranglers, which defile thy seat:
For where thou dwellest all is neat.

First Peace and Silence all disputes control,
Then Order plays the soul;
And giving all things their set forms and hours,
Makes of wild woods sweet walks and bowers.

Humble Obedience near the door doth stand,
Expecting a command:
Than whom in waiting nothing seems more slow,
Nothing more quick when she doth go.

Joys oft are there, and griefs as oft as joys;
But griefs without a noise;
Yet speak they louder, than distemper’d fears.
What is so shrill as silent tears?

This is thy house, with these it doth abound:
And where these are not found,
Perhaps thou com’st sometimes, and for a day;
But not to make a constant stay.

“The Family” by George Herbert, from The Church, quoted in George Herbert: The Country Parson, The Temple, edited by John N. Wall, Jr., The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1981).

George Herbert's Church is Bemerton, England

The March edition of The Parish Life

Our parish newsletter, The Parish Life is now available online.

Here's a preview...

What happens next...

The Rev. Paul Zahl, former Dean of Trinity School for Ministry (formerly Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry - yeah they dropped it on purpose) and also former Dean of the cathedral in Birmingham, AL,and currently rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Chevy Chase, Maryland, shares his thoughts on grace, and coming to a post 2003, post-conservative and post-liberal place in the Episcopal Church. His latest book, Grace in Practice: A Theology of Everyday Life, at an April 4 book signing at the Catalyst Café and Books in New York City.

Ash Wednesday at Saint Luke's Episcopal Church, Jackson, Tennessee

Congregants begin season of sacrifice By TRACIE SIMER

tsimer@jacksonsun.com
• February 26, 2009

The bells of St. Luke's Episcopal Church rang at noon, declaring the beginning of the church's first Ash Wednesday service. About 30 people listened to Father Sean Ferrell, rector of St. Luke's, deliver an Ash Wednesday sermon. Then everyone came forward, and Ferrell marked everyone's foreheads with a small ash cross.

The ritual of placing an ash cross on the forehead is where the name Ash Wednesday comes from, Ferrell said.

"While the ashes are placed on each person, I recite, 'Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,'" he said.

Gary and Linda Wood attended the noon service at St. Luke's. Gary said one reason they come to the service is because it is a tradition.

"This reminds us that this is a solemn season," he said. "Which will culminate in a great service for Easter."

Linda, who's giving up chocolate for Lent, said the ashes are special. The ashes come from the same palm leaves they used last year during Palm Sunday. Those leaves are burned and saved for next year, she said.

Ferrell said Palm Sunday is the week before Easter, and references Christ's triumphal entry to Jerusalem on a donkey, a few days before his crucifixion. The people, who were happy to see him at the time, greeted him by waving Palm branches.

Gary Wood said both services then are tied together.

"That makes it a continuation from year to year," he said.

Ferrell said Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a 40-day period of fasting and remembrance. "It's a season where we give up things and are reminded of our sinfulness and mortality," he said. "It prepares us for Easter. You can't understand the resurrection without it."

The 40 days roughly parallel the 40 days Christ spent in the wilderness, where he was tempted by Satan. Christians in the early church used this time to prepare by performing acts of repentance, Farrell said.

For many Christians, this is a time for folks to make a lifestyle change.

"They take on a personal discipline," he said. "They use this as a spring board for giving something up."

Traditionally, Christians fasted during Lent. Catholics give up meat on Fridays, eating only fish or vegetables. Eastern Orthodox Christians give up oil, nuts, eggs and other items, Ferrell said.

"With us, it's up to the individual what they give up," he said. "It can be a good time. For example, when you feel a craving for caffeine, it's a reminder to pray."

Visit jacksonsun.com and share your thoughts.

- Tracie Simer, 425-9629

Original article

Daily Reading for February 26 from episcopalcafe.com

Daily Reading for February 26

For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.

Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.

From The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming by Henri J. M. Nouwen (New York: Image Books, 1992).

The Geranium Farm - Almost Daily eMo

By Barbara Crafton

...Another Lent begins in austere weariness, ready for a season of spareness, a little more quiet. Forty plainer days are just what we need. It is seven on the morning here; our first liturgy is at eight. Remember that you are dust, we will say repeatedly today. Remember that you are tired, that you need to slow down, that you need to think. Remember that what you say and do has eternal significance, so you'd best consider it closely before you say or do it. Remember what you long ago forgot. Remember that it is never too lage to begin again to make it right, and that we don't have to make it right all by ourselves.
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And remember, this Lent, those less fortunate than yourself. Even now, when we are all feeling a little unfortunate ourselves.

You can read more at http://geraniumfarm.org/dailyemo.cfm?Emo=1082

The Archbishop of Canterbury's Reflections on Lent

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, reflects on Lent as a time to: "Sweep and clean the room of our own minds and hearts so that the new life really may have room to come in and take over and transform us at Easter".



As always, Dr. Williams does fabulous job explaining the season.

Evangelism and the Episcopal Church - Fr. Matthew Moretz

Fr. Matthew's video work is fabulous sharing of our faith. He understands evangelism. Check out the video for more!

Ashes and Wine - Sam Candler

By Sam Candler

About 350 miles west of Morocco and about 550 miles southwest of Lisbon, there lies a verdant island, lush with greenery and life. Scientists now recognize the island as having been formed by an ancient volcanic explosion. The island was discovered in the year 1418 by one Captain Joao Zarco, sailing under orders from Prince Henry the Navigator. He found it virtually impenetrable, so thick was the forest and growth.

Because the forest was so dense, Captain Zarco named the island for the Portuguese word for "wood." That word is "madeira." Then, Captain Zarco set about clearing the land. It was hard work. Deciding that the only way to clear the entire island was to use fire, he and his men burned the whole island.

The island of Madeira burned for seven years. When the fire was out, the entire place was covered with a fine wood ash. That ash dissolved into the volcanic ground, combined with the clay and calcium already there, and an incredibly rich soil resulted, even more fertile than the previous soil. In fact, this became the same sort of soil which was conducive to fine wine.

So, people began to grow grapes in the soil! Thus was the beginning of a fine wine named Madeira. By 1495, it was being produced. It became, in Europe, the after-dinner drink of choice. George Washington is said to have drunk a pint a day. Thomas Jefferson toasted the Declaration of Independence with madeira.

Madeira -- a fine wine, born of burnt ashes in the soil.

On Ash Wednesday, Christians put ashes on our foreheads. In doing so, we are following one of the oldest of Christian customs. At one time, not everyone in the Christian congregation placed ashes on their head, but only those who were acknowledging and confessing egregious sins. They made public their confession with these ashes. But in the Middle Ages, it became the practice for every Christian to submit to the ashes. The season of Lent became a time of public penitence for the entire church.

Today, the ashes mean these things, but many more. The ashes are a reminder of our origin from the earth. “Remember,” we say, “that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We are not the self-assured, comfortable, live-forever people that we try so often to look like. We are going to die, all of us; we know that. Ashes are a sign of that ultimate reality.

The ashes are also, of course, a sign of sin. We are tainted, stained, by our constant falsehoods and wrong actions. We are a people who know better, but who make wrong choices. It was not someone else who made us do it. It was not the fault of Satan. We were not possessed by demons. It was not the fault of our parents. It was not the fault of society. It was not our peer group or the culture around us.

It was us. We are responsible. We have sinned by our own fault in thought, word, and deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

Continue reading....

The Very Rev. Sam Candler is dean of St. Philip's Cathedral in Atlanta. He helped start that city’s interfaith group, and leads regular community bible studies. He is also inspired by playing jazz piano, hunting, astronomy, and poetry. His sermons and reflections on “Good Faith and Common Good” can be found on the Cathedral web site.

Global issues a priority for General Convention

Archbishop of Canterbury to attend first two days

By Matthew Davies, February 23, 2009

[Episcopal News Service] Global concerns and Anglican Communion issues will be a major focus of the Episcopal Church's 76th General Convention when it meets July 8-17 in Anaheim, California.

The church's main legislative gathering, which meets every three years, also will welcome many international guests from various Anglican Communion provinces. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will attend General Convention for the first time July 8-9. He will participate in Bible study and be a keynote speaker at a global economic forum on the evening of July 8.

Convention will devote extensive conversation to global issues through its Committee on International Concerns, which will prepare legislation to be addressed by convention's House of Bishops and House of Deputies.

Some of the key issues will focus on the crises and peacemaking efforts in conflict areas such as the Middle East, Sudan, Sri Lanka and the Great Lakes region of Africa.

Convention addresses global concerns for two reasons, said the Rev. Canon Brian Grieves, the Episcopal Church's senior director of mission and director of the Advocacy Center.

"One is in response to God's mission to reconcile all things to Christ. We join in Christ's work of salvation of the world. Secondly, we undertake this work as an expression of our partnership with other provinces of the Anglican Communion. These are life-and-death matters."

The legislative process, Grieves said, "may seem pedantic and ineffective to some, but, in fact, the resolutions adopted become the work of the church, especially through our Office of Government Relations [in Washington, D.C.]"

Alexander Baumgarten, international policy analyst in the government relations office, said that "Episcopalians frequently ask where the Office of Government Relations gets direction for its advocacy work, and the answer is from the resolutions of the General Convention.

"Any Episcopalian who wishes to influence the voice of our church in the public square can work with his or her deputies and bishops to bring a resolution to convention, which, if adopted, shapes the advocacy work of our church in the years to come," he said. "Each of the global issues for which the Episcopal Church has become noted in Washington in recent years -- whether the Millennium Development Goals, the Jubilee 2000 campaign for debt relief or the struggle for peace and human rights in the Sudan -- has begun as a result of resolutions brought to the convention by Episcopalians from around the country."

Continue reading....

-- Matthew Davies is editor of Episcopal Life Online and international correspondent of Episcopal News Service.

DON'T TRADE HONOR FOR SURVIVAL

By The Rev. Dr. Gene L. Davenport, Theologian in Residence
Saint Luke's Episcopal Church, Jackson, TN

President Obama is discovering what every other president has discovered. The job is different from the way it appears on the outside. Moreover, anyone who interpreted "change" to mean "revolution" is discovering that they read more into the word than they should have read.

The president has been criticized by some for relying on veterans of the Clinton administration. Basically, however, he had only two options - selecting people with no experience in government and starting from scratch or selecting people with experience who are willing to work in harmony with him and with each other.

The first option would have risked four years of trial and error. Like it or not, government is not merely the sum of all the individuals who work in it or of all the parts that make it up, but is an institution with an identity and personality all its own. It does not change overnight in accord with the intentions of any individual or any group.

The second option, the one the president has chosen, will be effective only if those selected work in harmony with each other and use their knowledge and understanding to help the president.

There are, however, some bothersome aspects to the Obama presidency. For one thing, the power exercised by presidents since Lyndon Johnson has led to the expression "the imperial presidency." The Constitutional Convention debated at length the role and even the number of the executive branch, wanting to be certain that the executive office or offices would not be simply another form of kingship. Most presidents for almost half a century, however, have strong-armed Congress, while Congress frequently has simply handed the president its own responsibilities.

The recent political campaigns seemed at times to assume that the president is the heart of government, and the expectations of some as to what President Obama can do to change the government reflect the same view. Moreover, as long as Congress concentrates on party power and prestige rather than on the well-being of the nation, the office of president will continue to assume royal garb.

For another thing, in his testimony before a Senate committee, Leon Panetta, nominated to head the CIA, said that "in extreme cases," if interrogators were unable to extract critical information from a prisoner, he would not hesitate to request from the president authority to employ methods not permitted under the new rules of the Obama administration. In other words, humane methods of questioning will be used only as long as they "work," and President Obama frequently is said to be a pragmatist. Moreover, the Bush administration could not have said it better.

Also, although Panetta said that the CIA will refuse to hand suspects over to a country known for torture or for other actions that violate human values, he also said that the agency will continue the practice of "rendition," the code name for sending prisoners to other countries for interrogation. What possible purpose for "rendition" could there be other than keeping the agency's (and, by implication, the nation's) hands technically clean? You will recall that President Bush avowed, "We do not torture!"

The question is whether security and survival are to be purchased at the cost of our humanity. Is survival the highest value? Conduct tends to become habitual. When habitually repeated, actions that were abnormal become, normal. A person not accustomed to acting cruelly but who begins to act cruelly for a period of time will either suffer emotional crises on the basis of guilt or become a habitually cruel person. The psychological studies of war veterans can teach us much on this point.

It is commonly said that the nation's honor is worth dying for. Honor was a major value in the early church as well as in the Roman Empire. But is survival purchased by cruelty really an honorable survival?

Dr. Gene Davenport is Professor Emeritus of Religion at Lambuth University and Theologian in Residence at St. Luke's Episcopal Church. Readers can send e-mail to him at genedavenport@yahoo.com.

ACCOUNTABILITY

by Tom Ehrich

How do the sayings go? "If you make a mess, clean it up." "You made your bed. Now lie in it." "The captain goes down with the ship."

The simple aphorisms of accountability. Actions have consequences. The one taking the action should bear the consequences. The captain who steered into disaster can't be first into a lifeboat.

It all seems so simple, if somewhat counter-intuitive to a child, and yet so absent in today's cultural, political and economic climate. The art of managing nowadays seems to focus on getting someone else to pay the price. Enjoy rewards on the way up, but protect your flank on the way down.

If the business goes sour, lay off lower-level employees, even though they had no hand in messing up product design, market analysis, financial stability, research and development, or capital spending. If the bank's foolhardy risks go sour, don't fire the chief executive who steered the ship. Acquire another bank, and fire its CEO.

Thus far not one of the eight bankers who testified before Congress about the financial meltdown happening on their watch seems in danger of losing his job.

Even as they put entire towns out of business, industrial executives continue their comfortable lives and, evading all mention of their failure as leaders, insist that only they can save the enterprise.

The message isn't lost on underlings. Protect your flank. Deflect blame. Don't be the one left holding the bag. Pump up the numbers. Discourage true measurements of performance. Blame the workers for being lazy, blame the customer for being stupid, blame the Chinese, blame immigrants. Soon, no one knows the truth, and telling the truth becomes known as "whistle-blowing" and must be protected like an endangered species.

It was odd, if refreshing, when President Obama said he messed up in not vetting some appointments. What President in recent memory has accepted accountability for failed policies, improper behavior, or bad management? In an election, no one admits to being an "insider" responsible for consequences.

In my son's school, a hovering parent made sure his daughter didn't bear the consequences for cheating; the teacher who caught her got reprimanded for embarrassing the child. Local jails are filled with black boys who got caught, but not with white boys who stole from their classmates.

In religion, mainline Protestant denominations have been in steep decline since 1964. Partisans have used that slide to blame women, gays, liberals, whoever stokes their ire. But no one looks at the generation running churches in 1964 and asks how they misread a changing culture, failed to retain their members, ignored questions people were asking, planted congregations in poor locations, and squandered centuries of accumulated respect. Failure is a great teacher -- the best teacher -- but only if you see it and own it.

It's a fool's game, of course. Reality inevitably prevails. Ships that hit icebergs do sink. Wars waged on fraudulent information and unexamined ideology become quagmires.

Someone needs to stop the dance of denial. I vote for faith communities. Let's start by teaching right and wrong. Let's accept our diminished state as something we brought about. Let's stop hiding from reality by maintaining facilities we can't afford. Let's stop the precious internal feuds that have nothing to do with recessions, wars, rampant dishonesty and greed. Let's close under-performing congregations and furlough under-performing clergy and lay leaders.

If we who claim Messiah's mantle don't teach and accept accountability, who will?

Do Evolution & Faith Have to Fight?

Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin and 2009 is 150th anniversary of the publication of his Origin of the Species. The debate between evolution and religious faith appears to be as American as apple pie.

Religion Dispatches has three interesting articles reflecting on the religious consequences of evolution, focusing on the ongoing debate often framed as a fight between science and religion.

Lauri Lebo takes a look at American attitudes toward Darwin while attending a British conference on science and the public interest:

I am standing at a podium in England, invited to speak by of the British Council, because I am American. To be even more specific, because I resided at Ground Zero of my country’s cultural battle over science and religion, in an event that took place four years ago in Dover, Pa. when the local school board tried to force religion into science class.

I have been aware of this British fascination with us ever since the BBC came to my town in the fall of 2004, right after the Dover Area School Board inserted the phrase intelligent design for the first time in the US into a public school biology curriculum....I remember the BBC crew looked at me much the same way that these people are looking at me now. Trying to determine on which side of the cultural divide I stand. The British don’t understand, I’ve been told, why Americans are so divided.

They find this issue fascinating. And they watch me curiously. In a way, I suspect, they find our fundamentalism kind of cute. Just like the meerkats.

I know they’re thinking: What is it with you Americans? Why are you so hung up on this religion vs. science thing?

It can be said that Darwin and the theory of evolution begat American Christian fundamentalism. Lebo points out that through much of the 19th century, Biblical literalism was on the decline. Science was accepted, even in the churches, and the idea that the earth is very old was widely accepted. "A typical interpretation of the Genesis account," she says, "viewed the six days not as literal 24-hour periods, but as separate, lengthy spans of time."

This is an interpretation that probably feels familiar to many Episcopalians. The rector of St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in northwest Atlanta, The Rev. Patricia Templeton, says in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution that "the problem begins with those questions, the pairing of religion and science as polar opposites."

Although I believe that the Bible contains the words of the living God, I also think that looking to the Bible for modern scientific knowledge requires denying the use of one of God’s greatest gifts, our minds.

“I will pray with the spirit, but I will pray with the mind also,” the apostle Paul says. “I will sing praise with the spirit, but I will sing praise with the mind also.”

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” Jesus says. “This is the greatest and first commandment.”

A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all.

The Bible was never meant to be a science textbook.

Instead, it tells the story of the relationship between God and human beings, between the Creator and creation.

By the early 20th century, there arose a theological response to the liberal trends in theology of day, in particular as a reaction to the Social Gospel, higher Biblical criticism, Catholicism, and Darwinism. A series of tracts called "The Fundamentals" were issued calling for a literal interpretation of the Bible, proclaiming for the first time the doctrine of inerrancy, and thus pitting the Bible against evolution in a stark and popular way. To be opposed to evolution was not so much being opposed to science as to what evolution symbolized for these groups.

Since then there has been a major clash between what we now call creationists and those who teach evolution in the schools.

Nathan Schnieder says that even with the ongoing controversies, there are five things we can learn from creationists:

With court case after court case, in this country at least, the creationists put on a good show. The occasional monkey trial has become a national pastime, and we average about one big one per decade. It's too bad they're so completely wrong. Year after year, more evidence piles up pointing to the truth of your theory. It has served as the fundamental basis of modern biology, paleontology, and anthropology, through which we understand life on earth more completely than ever before. To science, creationism since your time has offered mainly obfuscation. There's more to them than science.

As your birthday present, I'd like to offer a list. It's not about you, exactly, but about what 150 years of creationism can teach us about your accomplishment. I hope you like it.

5 Things We Can Learn from the Creationists:

1) They show us that there is more at stake in science than science itself. People have other concerns at heart, religious, political, or otherwise.

2) They never tire of pointing out how scientific ideas can be misused by dangerous ideologies, from reckless capitalism, to vanguard communism, to Nazism. We will always need the reminder.

3) They demonstrate that, when you really stretch it, the same data can be interpreted in very different ways.

4) They encourage fuller scientific demonstrations of evolution by playing the devil's advocate. After Michael Behe made his case about the bacterial flagellum's intelligent design, for instance, researchers figured out how it evolved.

5) In their desire for a faith-based science, they remind us that faith and science are part of a common human urge.

David Westmoreland, a professor and evolutionary biologist and a Christian feels the pinch all the time, but offers a cogent way through the divide:

Why the discord? Is there no middle ground between religion and Darwin, or is the only solution a partitioning of intellectual turf? Stephen Jay Gould suggested a truce of the latter sort in proposing the notion of Nonoverlapping Magisteria (NOMA): evolutionists should focus their efforts on the ages of rocks, theologians on the rock of ages, and neither should tread on the other’s domain. This approach brokers a tentative peace between Park Place and Boardwalk, but avoids the uncomfortable conflict that Darwin likely feared for Emma—can religion and evolution occupy the same home?

I would argue that they can, and do, coexist—and even complement each other. However, as a scientist I am in the minority. Polls indicate that very small percentage of biologists believe that a deity exists, the rest falling into the community of philosophical naturalists. At church, I am the misguided evolutionist; at work, the inexplicable Christian. I wonder if Emma understands.

Church friends ask how I could possibly “believe in” evolution, and how my evolutionist thinking cannot be in conflict with scripture. The answer to the first is easy—overwhelming evidence. Evolution explains a vast number of facts that, in its absence, would be mere curiosities: the pattern of change in the fossil record, the presence of identical, functionless pseudogenes in all primates, the subtle infidelity of songbirds. To the second question, I point out that all conflict with scripture evaporates when Genesis is taken as allegory. The point of the Garden is not that two humans started our species from a perfect environment, but that two people given an ideal home and a single rule will not be able to resist sweet disobedience.

At work, naturalist colleagues have diagnosed my condition as a cognitive variety of split personality, applying Occam’s razor to scientific matters and a theological butter knife to issues of faith. But I contend that distinctively different ways of thinking are justified for distinctively different ideas. First, on what basis does one conclude that science is the only method of inquiry that yields truth? Second, do my ersatz therapists deny that science is limited in scope to questions that can be addressed by quantification, statements that can be potentially falsified by data? Theological concepts are outside that realm. Faith is not a product of data, but an amalgamation of intuition, personal experience, and tradition that is unique to every person. Any attempt to transform that complex brew into a scientific line of inquiry is hopelessly doomed.

Lauri Lebo: Denying Darwin.

Nathan Schieder: Five Things We Can Learn from Creationists.

Arri Eisen, an RD columnist and biologist asked a poet, a public health expert, and an evolutionary biologist how Darwin affects their beliefs. Read it here.

Posted by Andrew Gerns on February 12, 2009

Presiding Bishop joins call for review of U.S. policy on landmines and cluster munitions

By Joe Bjordal February 10, 2009 [Episcopal News Service]

Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has joined with leaders of 67 national organizations in calling on President Barack Obama to reconsider United States opposition to global treaties prohibiting the use, transfer and production of landmines and cluster munitions.

In a letter, delivered on February 10, the leaders called on the president to launch a review of the past administration's decisions to "stand outside of" two international treaties: the Convention on Cluster Munitions, completed and signed by 95 countries in December 2008, and the Mine Ban Treaty, signed by all but 39 countries in the world in March 1999.

"The closest allies of the United States negotiated the Convention on Cluster Munitions based on their conclusion that these indiscriminate and unreliable weapons post an unacceptable threat to civilian populations during and long after combat operations have ceased—in much the same way as do landmines," say the leaders in the letter.

"Reconsidering these two treaties—and eliminating the threat that U.S. forces might use weapons that most of the world had condemned—would greatly aid efforts to reassert our nation's moral leadership."

The letter was organized by the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines (USCBL), a coalition of religious, veterans, medical, peace, humanitarian, and human rights organizations and thousands of individual members who support U.S. participation in the Mine Ban Treaty. The campaign also encourages the government to increase U.S. funding for mine clearance and landmine victim assistance programs. The USCBL, a member of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines, is coordinated by and based at the Friends Committee on National Legislation in Washington, DC.

Joining Jefferts Schori in signing the letter were heads of communion of six other major U. S. church bodies including Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson. Robert Radtke, president of Episcopal Relief and Development, was also a signer.

Other signers represent the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Friends Service Committee, Amnesty International, CARE, Oxfam America, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and Veterans for Peace.

The Episcopal Church passed a resolution calling for a ban on the use of landmines at the 71st General Convention, meeting in Indianapolis in 1994. The resolution also called for the establishment of an international fund to promote and finance landmine awareness, clearance, and eradication programs.

Following release of the letter, Unites States senators Patrick Leahy and Dianne Feinstein and Representative James McGovern will reintroduce the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act, legislation that would prohibit the use by U.S. troops of highly unreliable cluster munitions that leave behind large numbers of landmine-like cluster submunitions on the ground, as well as any use of cluster munitions in civilian-populated areas.

Leahy and McGovern have also been leaders in congressional efforts over the past 15 years to restrict U.S. use and export of antipersonnel landmines.

-- Joe Bjordal is Episcopal Life Media correspondent in the dioceses of Provinces V and VI. He is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.