ERD blog
November 24, 2008
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Episcopal Relief and Development has launched a new blog kept by ERD president Rob Radtke.
The Archive
Year: 2008
Ascetical Theology 101
November 24, 2008
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Ascetical theology isn’t fundamentally about thinking and while deeds are involved it’s not fundamentally about specific acts either—it’s about our habits: how we think, how we feel, and ultimately how we behave towards all of the players in the relationship—God and our neighbors, which includes the whole of creation.
All shall be well
November 24, 2008
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Julian lived in a time of great upheaval. The Black Death swept through Europe several times, killing millions and almost certainly touching Julian’s family and neighbors. The Catholic Church was in schism, and the theology of the day was that God was angry with a world of sinners and inflicted these ills as punishment.
I’m Not One Of Those ‘Love Thy Neighbor’ Christians
November 23, 2008
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My faith in the Lord is about the pure, simple values: raising children right, saying grace at the table, strictly forbidding those who are Methodists or Presbyterians from receiving communion because their beliefs are heresies, and curing homosexuals. That’s all. Just the core beliefs. You won’t see me going on some frothy-mouthed tirade about being a comfort to the downtrodden.
The Bible’s Buried Secrets
November 23, 2008
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Last Tuesday, the PBS program NOVA featured The Bible’s Buried Secrets, which focused on what both biblical scholarship and archeology tell us about the events described in the Hebrew Bible. It is safe to say that biblical literalists will hate the program. Most prominent biblical scholars, however, had only praise for the program. It broke no new ground, but fairly described the state of the scholarship.
Herod’s Lost Tomb
November 23, 2008
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The precise location of Herod’s tomb remained a mystery for nearly two millennia, until April 2007, when Netzer and his colleagues at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem unearthed it on the upper slopes of Herodium. The discovery provided new insights into one of the most enigmatic minds of the ancient world—and fresh evidence of the hatred that Herod excited among his contemporaries.
Multiverse: alternative to a creator?
November 23, 2008
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Physicists don’t like coincidences. They like even less the notion that life is somehow central to the universe, and yet recent discoveries are forcing them to confront that very idea. Life, it seems, is not an incidental component of the universe, burped up out of a random chemical brew on a lonely planet to endure for a few fleeting ticks of the cosmic clock. In some strange sense, it appears that we are not adapted to the universe; the universe is adapted to us.
Inherit the kingdom
November 23, 2008
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The whole point of Jesus giving us the final exam in the middle of the course is not to frighten us into failure, but to inspire us to recognize and begin to actualize our true identities. The purpose of this parable is not to scare us into contriving a lot of humanitarian acts in order selfishly to acquire salvation.
It’s not easy being green
November 22, 2008
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General Theological Seminary in New York has successfully installed seven geothermal wells, with 15 more slated for installation. These wells will replace the fuel oil heating system and reduce the seminary’s carbon footprint significantly. But the red tape surrounding the green project has been a nightmare.
“Online religion” becoming more common
November 22, 2008
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Facebook and other online platforms are becoming more prevalent in American religious culture. Religion and Ethics Newsweekly (complete with a shiny new web design) looks at the phenomenon with a particular focus on a Boston pastor’s challenge to his congregation to live by the rules of Leviticus for a month and then blog about it at their Facebook group and then looks at the pluses and minuses of online religion.
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