Last May, we reported on Karen Armstrong’s winning wish for a Charter for Compassion. TED now has the project under way, and reports that it is seeking translators to help get the word about this shared ideal. They have created a video, directed by the same fellow who created “Yes We Can,” the short film that put music to Obama’s stump speech.
A bit more from the United Nations Interfaith Conference on Dialogue of Civilizations that we mentioned yesterday: While there has been some controversy about the event, spearheaded by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, it’s mostly been about irony and the tension between freedom of religion and freedom of the press (remember that Danish cartoon?). Also, President Bush spoke on Thursday.
The four dioceses that have voted to leave the Episcopal Church have received an incredible amount of attention from the media, including front page stories in major newspapers. Lost is all this is the fact that these four dioceses account for a tiny portion of the Church. (Updated.)
The Diocese of Fort Worth is expected to be the fourth diocese to announce its departure from the Episcopal Church today. With its stance against ordaining women priests, to say nothing of certain developments in other dioceses and in church leadership in recent years, Bishop Jack Iker’s diocese will vote on its secession today. The Dallas Morning News takes a long look at Iker’s actions, putting them up against those of his neighboring bishop, James Stanton of the Diocese of Dallas, who has stated that they will remain with the church.
The exit polls from last week’s presidential election are starting to show us who voted for whom. One of the most interesting facts that’s being noticed is that the “God Gap”, the way religious voters tend to vote for Republican candidates, is still present in American politics.
The AP is reporting that the Mount Calvary Retreat Center in Santa Barbara was destroyed by the wildfires burning in the city region. “Santa Barbara
There have a been a number of news reports over the past day or so about the ongoing conference at the United Nations where leaders of the worlds religions are meeting with one another. What’s particularly interesting to many is that this conference has the King of Saudi Arabia as a full participant, a first for this sort of conference since the rise of the House of Saud in holy land of Islam.
The Roman Catholic bishops of the US have come out pretty clearly against supporting any candidate they deem to be “pro-choice”. The problem has been though that many Roman Catholic voters have ignored that advice. Now a priest is suggesting a way for wayward RC’s to repair the damage to their souls for voting for Obama last week.
Christopher Jamison, the Abbot of Worth, in the Inaugural “Noah Lecture” has spoken about ways that people of faith might act to lead society out of the present financial and global climate crises. He points the finger of blame at our willingness to start believing that “greed is good” and says that we need to return to the basics of moral theology.
Bishop Trevor Mwamba of Botswana spoke of “delusions of grandeur” among some of the African primates and noted that many church members throughout the continent had not been consulted about issues of human sexuality, and were “frankly not bothered with the debate.”