NPR’s new essay project on belief seems worth mentioning… WGBH just ran the first essay by Brian Greene, and there was a lot to like in his essay. Find the homepage for the project (with links to the essays) at NPR : This I Believe
A worthy excerpt:
None of these scientific achievements have told us why we’re here or given us the answer to life’s meaning — questions science may never address. But just as our experience playing baseball is enormously richer if we know the rules of the game, the better we understand the universe’s rules — the laws of physics — the more deeply we can appreciate our lives within it.
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I believe the process of going from confusion to understanding is a precious, even emotional, experience that can be the foundation of self-confidence. I believe that through its rational evaluation of truth and indifference to personal belief, science transcends religious and political divisions and so does bind us into a greater, more resilient whole.
Enjoy. –JA
Sunday, 22 May is Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost. Read on to hear a Muslim Perspective. –JA
SLCL’ers (and others): Angela and I will be attending the Compline services at Glastonbury Abbey Tuesday and Thursday evening this week. The service is at 7:45pm and it typically lasts about 25 minutes. You are encouraged to join us at the Abbey or beforehand at our home in Quincy. Directions to the Abbey are available here on their website. [Oh, if you are interested in the goings-on in the Oblates program I mentioned earlier, see the Oblates page] –JA
A conversation is going on over at Ship of Fools on the topic of Papal (priestly, etc…) celibacy in the RC Church. –JA
Lauren Winner reviews Debra Rienstra’s So Much More : An Invitation to Christian Spirituality in Books & Culture, in an article titled Tell Me the Old, Old Story - and Make It New - Books & Culture. A tasty tidbit from her review…
Her discussion of universalism strikes me as balanced and honest, though it may rub some evangelical readers the wrong way. “Christianity maintains that salvation comes through Jesus Christ,” she writes, “but different strains of Christianity mean different things by that.” She suggests that Scripture has universalistic impulses (such as Paul’s assurance to the Corinthians that God will reconcile himself through Jesus to “all things”), but that many other passages of Scripture point to something starker, fiercer—the separation of the wheat from the chaff, the outer darkness and gnashing of teeth. Rienstra says that “The universalist strand and the outer darkness strand are in the Bible for good reason”: one strand reminds us that God extends an invitation to everyone (TULIP Calvinists, gird your loins), the other strand works against a lazy arrogance about salvation. “Some confusion about who’s in and who’s out is probably quite healthy.”
Hear, hear. –JA
Thanks to Thinking Anglicans, I had something sane from Church Times: “How science supports faith” to pass off to a co-worker asking me about Scopes Trial Part Deux down in Kansas. From the article…
The modern scientific view of the universe will set this problem in a different light — one, perhaps, for which the laws of the universe have to operate as they do in order for life-forms like us to exist at all. Perhaps the universe can be seen to be both beautiful and dangerous — but never pointless. Perhaps it can be seen as the basis for a transformation into new and greater forms of life, as Romans 8 implies.
Alas, since Christopher Lydon left WBUR’s The Connection in a furor several years ago, I have listened only half-heartedly. But I figured I should empty out my queue from the last few months… the following shows were, if of uneven quality, at least on interesting topics relevant to my community… (more…)
I just posted my “Reflections on Early Service at Bethel“, a document I wrote last year when joining the Bethel Worship Committee. Several have asked for this, and here it is in all its WWW glory. Thanks to those of you whose critique helped shape this essay. –JA
Our good friend in Portland, OR shows his stripes as an optimist on school funding. Who is Ben Cannon? Well, he doesn’t have a homepage, but there is the perhaps embarassingly laudatory Rhodes site. (Hey, Ben…) JA
The Pentagon today announced their plans for the 2005 round of Base Reallocation and Closure (BRAC), the details of which have been anxiously anticipated in the communities around Hanscom Air Force Base (HAFB) and around the continental US. The Boston Globe coverage… (more…)