“Black” Churches Destroyed By Fire In The Past Week

The Huffington Post  |  By Nick Visser

Posted: 06/28/2015 2:07 pm EDT Updated: 06/29/2015 1:59 pm EDT

At least five predominantly black churches have caught fire in the last week, including at least three that have been the subject of arson, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports.

The string of blazes, which have occurred in four Southern states and Ohio, comes a week after nine people were gunned down at a Charleston, South Carolina, church. Dylann Roof, 21, has been charged with nine counts of homicide and possession of a firearm during commission of a violent crime.

An arsonist set fire to the College Hills Seventh Day Adventist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Monday. The following day, God’s Power Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia, was gutted by flames. And on Wednesday, Briar Creek Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, was deliberately set ablaze, causing more than $250,000 in damage.

Briar Creek Pastor Mannix Kinsey told a local news station he hopes the event turns out not to be a hate crime, and the culprit is "already forgiven," but he's worried about "the climate."

“We are still talking about this same issue and this is 2015,” he said. “We all have to consider what else do we need to do to actually be able to work together.”

Sent with Power

June 26, 2015
Written by Kathryn Matthews (Huey)

Sunday, July 5
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Focus Theme
Sent with Power
Weekly Prayer
God of grace and powerful weakness, at times your prophets were ignored, rejected, belittled, and unwelcome. Trusting that we, too, are called to be prophets, we ask you to fill us with your Spirit, and support us by your gentle hands, that we may persevere in speaking your word and living our faith. Amen.

Focus Reading
Mark 6:1-13
He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, "Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house." And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.
Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them." So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
All Readings For This Sunday
2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 with Psalm 48 or
Ezekiel 2:1-5 with Psalm 123
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6: 1-13
Focus Questions
1. How do these two stories shed light for you on leadership and call?
2. What does it mean to you to be a "steward of the gospel"?
3. How is an SUV a good image for evangelism?
4. Upon what do you depend in your ministry?
5. Is the good news something you find and share only in church, or do you take it on the road?
Reflection by Kate Matthews (Huey)
We're presented in this week's Old and New Testament texts with an opportunity to think about leadership and the way God calls and works through specific individuals. In the Hebrew Scripture text and the Gospel reading, we have, one might say, a "Tale of Two Crowds," the people who accept David as their king, and the folks in Nazareth who couldn't take Jesus seriously as a great spiritual leader.
The Second Samuel reading may suggest that David was the overwhelming, unquestioned choice of all the people, in the North and the South, and his rise to the throne may seem like a straight line from the time of his anointing by Samuel many years before. That would be a misunderstanding caused by our lectionary which by necessity takes small pieces of the larger story of the Bible and presents them as "snapshots" of a narrative instead of a long-running television series or thick novels rich in detail and context. In a lectionary reading, we often miss helpful background material and the larger story.
In fact, the story has not been a pretty one, and blood has been shed repeatedly along the way. There has been division, betrayal, war, and not everyone agrees that there should even be a king over all Israel. In the end, David is acknowledged as God's choice and is remembered as having led Israel effectively even while Saul was still alive. Perhaps the most important line is the last, in which David grows "greater and greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him." Whatever path brought David to power, and whatever mistakes he would make as king, it is the power of God that gave him charisma, intelligence, and grace, and made him the enduring symbol of Israel's deep hopes in every generation.
How can this be?
On the other hand, the power of God at work in Jesus, in the Gospel reading from Mark, is not something the people of his hometown of Nazareth could wrap their minds around. He's just returned from a road trip, a fairly successful tour in the area surrounding his hometown, and they've undoubtedly heard about the spectacular things he's been doing. That sort of news travels fast. We wonder, however, if word of the healings and the demons driven out and the life of a little girl restored traveled better than the Word that Jesus preached. Of course, everyone wants to see miracles, but does everyone want to hear about the life-changing but perhaps unsettling good news that those miracles illustrate and announce?
We might also ask whether anyone really want to listen to a hometown boy, especially one whose parentage is questionable ("son of Mary" instead of "son of Joseph"), and "just" an artisan at that (how could he possibly have the learning needed to preach to us?). And yet he does what men did in those days, in the synagogue on the sabbath, opening the Scriptures and teaching those gathered, and he does so with great authority. Richard Swanson sees their reaction in a slightly different light than pure disapproval, after all, we should expect some pushback, some questioning from a people named after Israel, that is, Jacob, "the one who wrestles with God." Swanson actually sees both respect and faithfulness in the synagogue crowd's response: "The congregants honor Jesus with an argument." Honor or not, the respectful wrestling quickly turns to offended rejection, and more than one writer observes that this is the last time Mark reports a visit by Jesus to the synagogue. Jesus takes his ministry of proclamation out to the people, on the road, so it's no surprise that he instructs his disciples to do the same. (The Reverend Otis Moss III calls this approach "iPod theology"--mobile and more effective than waiting for the people to "come to us.")
What would we have said?
Jesus is as offended by the people's lack of faith, their closed minds and hearts, as they are offended by his teachings. While we can look back on their refusal to hear or on the disciples' painfully slow progress toward understanding, it might be more helpful to put ourselves in their place. Beverly Link-Sawyer, for example, asks how quickly we'd accept our next-door neighbor as "a miraculous teacher, let alone the reputed Son of God?" Would that be something we could wrap our minds, and hearts, around?
Perhaps we could spend some time examining our preconceptions about whom we consider "worthy" of leading or teaching us. How do we even begin to look at one another with the eyes of God, to see in the most unexpected of people those whom God has chosen to lead? Would we really have chosen the youngest one, the one out with the flocks, to be anointed as the next king? Would we really open our hearts and minds to a hometown, homegrown boy, someone we've known all of his life? Could anyone of importance really come from here, from us? Megan McKenna describes Nazareth as "a backwater village where perhaps 120 to 150 people lived at the time of Jesus," with many of them members of Jesus' extended birth family. In the face of this kind of rejection, is it any wonder that Jesus redefines family for his followers? Now Jesus has been rejected not only by the high and mighty but even by the humblest of his connections, the people who should have known him, and loved him, best. In our own turn, what (and whom) are failing to see? What (and whom) are we missing?
Familiarity surely breeds contempt
So the townsfolk of Nazareth fail to acknowledge or recognize God at work in a hometown boy, and recite his family history as proof that he is just one of them, and that his teaching is a sign of over-reaching and perhaps even arrogance. Many writers quote the saying, "Familiarity breeds contempt," which might be a title for this section of Mark's Gospel. This crowd, rather than acclaiming Jesus as their spiritual leader, misses out on the amazing things God is doing in their midst, "the fullness of blessings," Matthew Skinner says, "that God might have poured out in Nazareth." Jesus responds with an observation rooted in convention wisdom; Skinner, for example, provides a proverb from "the moral philosopher Plutarch: 'The most sensible and wisest people are little cared for in their own hometown.'"
Reading that Jesus' power was somehow limited by the people's unbelief may raise questions in our minds. Barbara Brown Taylor employs a wonderful metaphor to illustrate why Jesus couldn't work the same miracles in his hometown, where the people refused to respond to him. Jesus was still Jesus, she says, but the people--then and now--have to be open to him and his transformative power. She compares it to the frustrating experience of trying to light a match to a pile of wet sticks: "Jesus held the match until it burned out in his hand, while his family and friends sat shaking their heads a safe distance away." Instead of working great wonders, Jesus had to walk away from his own hometown that day, and went on "to go shine his light somewhere else."
Taylor then compares us to those folks in the synagogue, and to Jesus' own family--after all, we are the church and claim Jesus as our own, but how faithful, how open, are we to his transformative power in our lives? Taylor challenges us to consider our discomfort with being challenged, especially by the unexpected, unlikely people sent by God to do just that. Like the United Church of Christ, Taylor believes that God is still speaking, often "through the most unlikely people." Sure it might be the stranger or even the enemy who preoccupies our thoughts, but sometimes--surprise!--it's the people who are right around us, every day. Who's to say that Jesus can't and won't work through those most everyday people?
Disciples on a mission to transform lives
Speaking of leaving to go shine one's light somewhere else: Jesus then sends out his disciples to continue and expand his ministry and to be God's agents at work in the world, traveling light and depending on God to provide all that they would need. The followers of Jesus do this not by their own power or authority, but by the authority and power Jesus has placed in them, "sent out," Dianne Bergant writes, as "delegates or envoys" to preach Jesus' message, in Jesus' name. And they are enabled, through the power of Jesus, to do amazing things. The images of a wandering prophet or a spiritual seeker do not fit this sending. "This is no rootless wandering," Richard Swanson writes, and "the disciples do not look like itinerant preachers. They are sent out to attack demons and heal." Like Jesus and John the Baptist before him, their ministry is one of transforming lives. Our call, as followers of Jesus, as those sent with power and authority (that derive from him) is to do the same: to heal, to attack the demons that plague our society and the world that God loves, to share the good news. We are called to transform lives.
Jesus knows that the journey and the work will be hard, but he sends his "agents" out with very little besides the good news and each other, and a stick, perhaps for safety, perhaps for support. We so often practice evangelism as a ministry to bring people to church that it's an exercise to picture ourselves taking the good news out on the road, out into our lives, out into the world that hungers for it. (I'm reminded of the "Faith In" project of the United Church of Christ, through which we are sent out into our communities to proclaim our faith in a God who is at work right where we live and work, and then we participate in that great mission as well; that's good news to share!) If we focus too much of our time and energy and resources on the physical plant of our church, for example, then we might grow dependent upon it, a material resource, a possession, in a sense, a security blanket, perhaps.
It's what we humans do when we feel insecure, after all: depend on things instead of God. Our intentions are good, but we depend on the medium more than the message, the right equipment and the most beautiful sacred objects. Jesus knows this about us, understanding that "Provisions for the journey can substitute for faith if we're not careful," Peter W. Marty writes; Jesus knows that the gospel is more precious, more important, than anything else in the life of the church. Eugene Peterson translates Jesus' words this way in The Message: "Don't think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment." These are challenging words for us in the church. Often, we think of ourselves as heirs in the church: of building, of the church name or endowment or even the history of the congregation. But do we think of ourselves as heirs, or better, stewards, of the gospel?
"SUV spirituality"
Henry G. Brinton provides the delightfully contemporary image of "SUV spirituality" for the daunting task of evangelism in a world hungry for good news but often hostile to it, for we need "to serve Jesus by doing something tough, and by performing the Lord's work in some hard-to-reach regions." Disciples in any age, he writes, have "to leave the comfortable road of conventional wisdom and to face the rocks and logs and other barriers that society throws in our way."
Mainline Protestants are recovering our passion for evangelism, reclaiming our call to share the good news in both word and deed, and making sure that neither contradicts the other. With sorrow we recognize the considerable number of people who shut out our message because it doesn't match our attitudes and our deeds, or because it seems to be aimed more at saving our churches from closing than at simply saving souls. Is the gospel such good news in our own lives that we can't help sharing it, even with people who will never fill our pews or our offering plates?
Humble shepherds, leaders who listen
The work of God, even through gifted and called leaders, happens best, it seems, when the people hear God still speaking to them in their place and time, in their own situation, and listen for where God is leading them and whom God is sending to lead them. Openness is called for on the part of the people to listen and accept God's gifts. Of course, leaders also need to be open to God's voice, to be humble and led even as they lead. Is it surprising, then, that the humble image of a shepherd is used to describe both David and Jesus?
How does the word "covenant" strike you in the story about David? Do you feel that you are living in covenant in your local church, that you are called there, that your leaders are empowered by God? As a leader and an evangelist, do you feel empowered by God? Do you believe that you have everything that you will need along the way?
The Rev. Kathryn Matthews (Huey) serves as dean of Amistad Chapel at the national offices of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio

How White Christians Used The Bible -- And Confederate Flag -- To Oppress Black People

The Huffington Post  |  By Carol Kuruvilla

On Jan. 4, 1861, a Catholic bishop named Rev. A. Verot ascended a pulpit in The Church of St. Augustine, Florida, and defended the right of white people to own slaves.

The apostle Paul, Verot claimed in his sermon, instructs slaves to obey their masters as a “necessary means of salvation.” Quoting Colossians 3:22, he said, “Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not serving to the eye, as pleasing men, but in simplicity of heart, fearing God.”

It's no secret that hundreds of Christian pastors like Verot used the Bible during the Civil War to justify slavery. But the massacre last week of nine black people inside Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, has once again forced white Christians in America to re-examine the white church’s historical ties to racism -- and how hateful rhetoric like Verot's had more power because it came from the pulpit.

White Christians in the South didn't just support slavery -- the Southern church was the backbone of the Confederacy and its attempts to keep African Americans in bondage, according to Harry Stout, Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Religious History at Yale University.

"If you pull the church out of the whole equation, it’s highly likely that there never would have been a Civil War,” Stout told The Huffington Post. “Southern clergy had no doubt that slavery was not a sin.”

After they lost the war, white Southerners and their religious leaders tried to recast it by observing the “religion of the lost cause” -- arguing that the South fought righteously not to keep slaves in chains, but to fight for states’ rights or to protect themselves from Northern aggression. As part of this “lost cause” religion, they began to idolize fallen Confederate war heroes and celebrate the Confederate flag.

But the Confederate flag -- which is still flying over South Carolina’s Capitol grounds -- continues to be a racially charged symbol.

Black activists and many others consider it a symbol of oppression, and a reminder of a government that longed to keep black people in chains forever. In a piece for The Atlantic, writer Ta-Nehisi Coates calls the Confederate flag a "symbol of white supremacists."

"The Confederate flag’s defenders often claim it represents 'heritage not hate.' I agree -- the heritage of White Supremacy was not so much birthed by hate as by the impulse toward plunder."

This rhetoric of supremacy sanctioned by God was repeated in churches across the South.

While God was left out of the preamble to the United States Constitution, the leaders of the Confederate States of America made sure to invoke the power of the divine in their own constitution -- making it clear from the start they saw Christianity as an integral part of their new union of slaveholders.

Christian leaders in the South would refer to the presence of slavery in the Old Testament and to verses from the Apostle Paul that instruct slaves to be obedient to their masters. While some pastors thought of slavery as a “necessary evil,” others went so far as to claim that black people would continue to be slaves in heaven, Stout said. They traced their theology back to the story of Noah and his son Ham, who is believed to have mocked his father and been condemned to walk the earth as a servant as a result.

The church was slow to speak out against racism in the years following the Civil War, and it wasn’t until after the civil rights movement that this type of overt racism began to fade from Southern pulpits.

In 1845, the Southern Baptist Convention split away from the church after northern Baptists refused to allow slave owners to become missionaries. Now the largest Protestant denomination in the country, the SBC has in recent years spent a considerable amount of time trying to confront its past. In 1995, the church passed a resolution formally apologizing for “condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime.”

In light of the attacks in Charleston, Russell Moore, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, is calling for Christians in the South to forsake their cultural ties to the Confederate flag.

“The Confederate Battle Flag was the emblem of Jim Crow defiance to the civil rights movement, of the Dixiecrat opposition to integration, and of the domestic terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens’ Councils of our all too recent, all too awful history,” Moore wrote last week in an op-ed. “White Christians ought to think about what that flag says to our African-American brothers and sisters in Christ, especially in the aftermath of yet another act of white supremacist terrorism against them.

Faith and the Confederate Flag

By Rob Lee; Seminarian, Assistant Minister

My family bloodline is bound up in a dark part of American history. With a name like Robert Lee the question I undoubtedly receive most about my name is, "Are you related to him?" and the answer is yes, yes I am. I am a descendent of the Lees of Virginia, whenever I visit the Arlington House at Arlington National Cemetery I see where my family lived and played, and yes, owned people. I see where Robert Edward Lee, my ancestor, spent probably sleepless nights deciding what to do about the problem our nation faced.

Naturally, when I was younger, I wanted to know everything about where I came from. I wanted to know all about this general in the Army of Northern Virginia, but as I grew in knowledge and stature, I found myself incredibly conflicted and riddled with guilt. I had a small confederate flag, given to me by a friend to remind me of my heritage. I don't know where that flag is anymore, and frankly that's for the best.

You see white Christians cannot sit by while our brothers and sisters are echoing the words of Psalm 13, "How Long, O Lord?" we cannot be the white moderate that Dr. King spoke of when he said, "Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

As a Lee, I am sorry for my history. I am sorry that people were viewed and treated as property by my family. But more importantly I'm sorry that most of us have been shallow in our understanding. It's time for the people of South Carolina to take the flag down, because for all of us, it should be a faith issue.

The Jesus we follow beckons us to a greater understanding of human dignity. For in human dignity we see the incarnation of God. God loved us to the point that he came to 1st century Palestine in a time of misunderstanding much like our own. He challenged the comfortable and overturned tables that needed to be overturned. Now is our opportunity to challenge and overturn what is wrong in the eyes of sensibility and human dignity.

Please hear me when I say we can't ignore our heritage and where we come from. It is impossible. I cannot escape my history of being a descendant of someone who fought to divide this nation. But I can have a response to my history that is healthy and beautiful. I'm reminded of what one of my favorite preachers once said, "If it can't be happy, make it beautiful." Nothing we can do about the history of racism and prejudice in the south can be happy. It is a sad reality we are called to face. But our response, how we live into the future can be really beautiful and something to celebrate; it can be more freeing than we could ever possibly imagine for everyone.

God is somewhere in the midst of this, working to make things beautiful. But God cannot simply rid us of our history. We must work to make true the love of Jesus, we must work to make true the words of the saints who fought and are fighting for civil rights. So as a Lee, whose history is dark, and as a Lee with whatever privilege that provides me, it's time to take down the flag and begin the long road to reconciliation that God offers us.

Laudato Si: The Cheers and the Challenges

Laudato Si: The Cheers and the Challenges (9136)

NEWS ANALYSIS

by FATHER RAYMOND J. DE SOUZA 06/18/2015 Comments (53)

Below, from left, Greek Orthodox Metropoilitan of Pergamon John Zizioulas, Cardinal Peter Turkson and Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi present Pope Francis' environment encyclical, 'Laudato Si,' at a press conference at the Vatican on June 18.

– AP photo/Andrew Medichini

Laudato Si (The Care for Our Common Home) is more than an ecological encyclical. Pope Francis has given the Church and the world a document that addresses the full range of Catholic social teaching on economics, politics, culture, employment, technology, migration, poverty, peace, architecture, urban planning, education, human rights and the environment.

The secular headline will be that the Holy Father accepts that a “very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system” (23). This conforms to his explicit hope for Laudato Si, which is to support the establishment of “enforceable international agreements [that] are urgently needed” (173).

Specifically, the Holy Father laments that “with regard to climate change, the advances have been regrettably few,” noting that “reducing greenhouse gases requires honesty, courage and responsibility, above all on the part of those countries which are more powerful and pollute the most” (169). In regard to the United Nations conference on climate change later this year, Francis writes that “we believers cannot fail to ask God for a positive outcome to the present discussions, so that future generations will not have to suffer the effects of our ill-advised delays” (169).

Laudato Si, therefore, explicitly is aimed at a comprehensive, global climate-change treaty. That’s very significant, as its endorsement of climate policies meshes with the priorities of the global progressive elite. This means that when Pope Francis arrives in Washington, President Barack Obama will claim that no recent U.S. administration has had policies more in line with the priorities of the Holy See. To be sure, the Holy Father notes that natural ecology cannot be separated from human ecology, and therefore authentic care for the environment is incompatible with abortion (120) or approval of homosexual unions (155).

A Franciscan Approach

Nearly 200 pages, Laudato Si takes its name from the opening lines of the “Canticle of the Creatures” of St. Francis of Assisi. The song begins, “Praised be my Lord” and goes on to hymn the glory of God revealed in the work of his creation. It’s a green Christianity that reaches back to the first pages of Genesis, in a manner than is distinctively Franciscan — meaning both the saint and the Pope. The environment has to be understood above all in terms of the “intimate relation between the poor and the fragility of the planet” and “the conviction that the whole world is intimately connected” (16).

The intimate connection at the heart of the draft is that offered by the biblical wisdom open to Jews, Christians and Muslims — namely, that there is threefold harmony that includes God, mankind and the natural world. Notes of “disharmony” in one relationship bring disharmony in others. Thus, a world that forgets God is soon to degrade nature; a degraded nature disrupts the relationships between people.

It is these broken relationships that drive the analysis in Francis’ encyclical. Since the beginning of his pontificate, Francis has denounced what he calls a “throwaway culture,” where the poor, the elderly, the unborn, the unemployed, the migrant and the disabled are cast to the margins because they lack economic utility. Two examples indicate how Francis’ environmentalism is as much about preference for the poor as it is about protection of nature.

Francis speaks of access to potable water as an issue of “primary” importance, though it is one rarely thought about in rich countries (28). If the political impact of Laudato Si concerns climate treaties for 2030 and not clean water for next year, it will not reflect the Pope’s priorities.

A second illuminating example is that of urban living. Many sprawling cities, surrounded by slums in the poor world, have become nearly unlivable, as residents literally choke on pollution. The poor are often excluded from green spaces that have been privatized by the wealthy (45). That’s a different way to think about the harmony between nature and human relationships — and leads to surprising conclusions.

For example, the poor in the world’s financial centers, New York and London, have ready access to vast parks on an equal basis with the rich, while in Beijing the rich pay to breathe different air than the poor do.

Structure and Scope

Laudato Si begins with an unusual indication that it was drafted so that “each chapter will have its own subject and specific approach” (16). The six chapters are quite different — possibly drafted by different teams — and may be addressed to different audiences. There is a serious treatment of theological (Chapter 2) and spiritual themes (Chapter 6) after beginning with a survey of the current situation (Chapter 1). Chapters 3 and 4 outline the human causes of environmental degradation and the need to build human ecology — the right to life, health of the family and access to education — with natural ecology.

Chapter 5, on practical policy choices, will likely engender the greatest debate. While Francis writes that “there are certain environmental issues where it is not easy to achieve a broad consensus” and that “I would state once more that the Church does not presume to settle scientific questions or to replace politics” (188), he does for example, come out against carbon trading schemes (171), which is a rather specific political position.

Even more boldly, the Holy Father writes, “The time has come to accept decreased growth in some parts of the world, in order to provide resources for other places to experience healthy growth” (193). The number of political voices that share that view is, to be generous, miniscule, which is why Francis insists that “a strategy for real change calls for rethinking processes in their entirety, for it is not enough to include a few superficial ecological considerations while failing to question the logic which underlies present-day culture” (197).

Rethinking the necessity of economic growth, or that economic growth in one part of the world constrains economic growth elsewhere, allies the Holy Father with a tiny minority of specialists in economic development.

The Impact of Laudato Si

The encyclical, already the subject of fevered interest before its release, will generate immense attention. There are those who will cheer and those who will be challenged. A quick survey of how that might look:

At least four groups will most heartily cheer Laudato Si.

• International climate-change activists will be giddy. They have the support of an immensely popular pope for a climate-change treaty to be concluded his year. When the Holy Father reiterates that appeal at the U.N. in New York this September, it will represent a clear victory for the international environmental movement, heretofore always received coolly by the Vatican, given its preference for population control and socially libertine policies.
• Critics of the market economy will be heartened. When the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) was released in November 2013, the trenchant critiques of the free-market economy garnered the most attention. Pope Francis takes nothing of that back here, in a document of greater magisterial authority. In fact, against those who complained that no one actually supported the unfettered free market Francis criticized, the Holy Father responds directly: “They may not affirm such theories with words, but nonetheless support them with their deeds by showing no interest in more balanced levels of production, a better distribution of wealth, concern for the environment and the rights of future generations. Their behavior shows that, for them, maximizing profits is enough. Yet by itself the market cannot guarantee integral human development and social inclusion” (109). It is as fulsome an attack on the free economy in papal social teaching since Pope Pius XI. In its more passionate passages, Laudato Si sometimes seems an anti-market economic encyclical delivered in environmental rhetoric. Indeed, if the priority was solely on environmental matters, Laudato Si would note that state-directed economies (Soviet Union, China) have far worse environmental records than liberal democratic market economies.
• Also cheered will be those who think that effective evangelization begins with highlighting areas of common concern, rather than areas of conflict, with the ambient culture. Benedict XVI advanced a similar argument in his 2011 address in the German federal parliament, where he spoke approvingly of ecological awareness as an invitation to consider human ecology.
• Theologians will welcome a deeper and richer account of the environment in Catholic thinking. The encyclical does not limit itself to Genesis and the command to steward the Earth; it speaks of all creation anticipating its definitive Sabbath rest in the Eucharist.

Likewise, there are four groups that will be challenged by Laudato Si.

• Those who have policy disagreements with the many specific proposals contained in the encyclical. For example, there may be Catholic politicians of a green bent who favor carbon trading as a way to reduce greenhouse gases. They will now have to explain why they oppose the Pope. So, too, will political leaders who have different climate-change policies. In the United States, Laudato Si constitutes a significant realignment of the Holy See with Democratic Party priorities.
• International progressive elites tend to favor a sort of “rich-country environmentalism,” which is preoccupied with state regulation of the economy and alternative-energy schemes. Francis’ call for humbler lifestyles, lower economic growth and a preferential option for the poor will not sit well with the global jet set.
• For generations, the consensus in economic development thinking has been that global economic growth is the only path to real development for the poor countries, which, by international trade, benefit from global growth. The Holy Father’s idea that lower economic growth in rich countries will favor development in poor ones is against the scientific consensus in that field. It would be hard to find a political leader, Catholic or otherwise, anywhere in the world who would advocate lower economic growth for his country as part of his platform.
• Theologians will have some work to do in reconciling Laudato Si with St. John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus. That difficulty should not be exaggerated, as social encyclicals can seem at odds with preceding ones, as for example the differences between Leo XIII and Pius XI. There are points of overlap too, as John Paul wrote that “worrying is the ecological question which accompanies the problem of consumerism and which is closely connected to it. In his desire to have and to enjoy rather than to be and to grow, man consumes the resources of the Earth and his own life in an excessive and disordered way” (Centesimus Annus, 37). Yet it is true that John Paul had a significantly different assessment of the market, or what he preferred to call “human freedom in the economic sphere.” At first glance, John Paul’s assessment that “on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs” (34) is difficult to reconcile with Francis writing that “we need to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals. Is it realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with maximizing profits will stop to reflect on the environmental damage that they will leave behind for future generations?” (Laudato Si, 190). This reconciliation can be done, but it remains a theological task to classify these statements of the magisterium.

That, among many other discussions, will occupy the Church as she receives a major contribution to her social doctrine.

Father Raymond J. de Souza is the editor in chief of Convivium magazine.

He was the Register’s Rome correspondent from 1998-2003.

Gaining Contentment Through Graditude

Ramadan Reflection Day 3: On Surat al'Adiyat -- Qu'ranic Advice on Gaining Contentment Through Graditude

Posted: 06/20/2015 3:08 pm EDT Updated: 06/20/2015 3:59 pm EDT

Imam Khalid Latif is blogging his reflections during the month of Ramadan for the fifth year in a row, featured daily on HuffPost Religion. For a complete record of his previous posts, visit his author page, and to follow along with the rest of his reflections, sign up for an author email alert above, visit his Facebook page or follow him on Twitter.

One of my favorite chapters of the Qu'ran is the 100th chapter called Al-'Adiyat. I can still remember reading it about seven years ago while I was yearning for some answers, despite not knowing what actual questions I was wrestling with. I was looking for purpose and meaning and found a connection through this small chapter that made me then see the entire Qu'ran in a different way.

It opened up for me insight into the human condition, particularly my own and more generically those of people all around me, helped me to see the Qu'ran and in turn Islam through more than the legalistic framework I often was taught about it in, and served as a starting point in my continued spiritual quest to understand God through His own words, rather than the words of those who claim to speak on His behalf.

Like many other chapters of the Qu'ran, the initial verses of Al-'Adiyat start with an oath. In Islam, a person can only take an oath, if ever, by God. God, however, can take oath by any of His creation. The chapter title takes its name from the oath as God is swearing by Al-'Adiyat, a group of horses that He describes quite vividly.

Horses in a Meccan Arabia were considered to have great worth and to conceptualize the impact these verses have, its important to recognize their dissemination was not in a book form that we have today, but rather as the verses were revealed they were told to the people. The description given of these horses is quite captivating and it's key to understand this to get the point of the chapter.

In the first five verses of the chapter, they are described as a group of horses, pushing themselves to their limits as they run forward, breathing heavily and nostrils flaring. Their feet move at such a speed that they leave a trail of sparks behind them caused by their hooves striking the ground. They come upon the people they have been charging against in the morning, having no fear of it being known that they are coming. Their hastened arrival causes clouds of dust to arise with them, and as they reach their destination, they go head on and penetrate into the middle of the group, essentially surrounded. If you've ever seen any movie with a battle, from the Lord of the Rings to Braveheart, you can picture the scene in your head. A smaller group going against a larger one -- what will the end result be?

At this climactic point, when everyone is waiting to hear what happens next, the listener is given a most important message:

Inna-al insaana li rabbihi la kanood
Indeed, mankind, to its Lord, is ungrateful.

I had read this verse over and over throughout my life, but when I read it that day, it felt like I was reading it for the first time. I didn't know how to be appreciative, and the impact it was having on me was quite severe. I saw a lot of the world in terms of what I was missing and not what I actually had. I was quite focused on my wants at the expense of the fulfillment of my needs. But when I read it this time, I realized I needed some positive emotion in my life, and being purposeful and deliberate in the acquisition of appreciation was the key to it.

The word kanood in this verse can denote a few things:

1.      A person who always looks at the hardships, but never looks at the blessings . Our blessings come in so many different shapes and forms, but we become those people who focus on the negative always rather than the positive.

2.      A person who misuses the blessing in a way that the one who gave it to us did not intend for us to use it.

3.      A person who acknowledges the presence of a blessing, but fails to recognize the one who gave it to them in the first place.

Being any of those things wasn't bringing me anything other than short-term satisfaction, if that. More often than not, it was bringing me a lot of despair. But in being open to taking advice from God that He was offering not for His benefit, but for mine, I found in this verse insight not just on what not to be, but also on what to actively be. If the absence of gratitude was yielding pain, then the presence of gratitude would quite possibly yield the contentment I was seeking, or at least help me in my pursuit of obtaining it.

Umar ibn Al-Khattab, the second caliph of Islam, once heard a man saying, "Oh God, make me from amongst the few." Umar said, "What is this supplication?" The man said, "I refer to the saying of God the Exalted: And few of My servants are grateful." (Qu'ran, 34:13) Umar said, "All of the people know better than you, Oh Umar!"

In the work that I do, I find a lot of people who are very hurt, and that hurt puts a blanket over their hearts that makes the world that much more of a heavier place.

I also find a lot of people who then fail to recognize the goodness inside themselves. The pain has become so consuming that they believe there is nothing good about them and they have nothing good to offer to anyone, including themselves. I would be the first to tell you that is the farthest thing from the truth. Where the world has failed to help you recognize the value inside of you, don't fail to recognize it yourself. Confidence can be built by affirming with appreciation the God-given talents that we have been endowed with uniquely and through that affirmation finding the strength needed to acknowledge and take on areas where we can improve. Arrogance causes us to only see weakness in the world around us -- they are two very different things.

I firmly believe that active pursuits of gratitude can help to ease hurt. Where there in pain, anger, bitterness, jealousy, envy, hatred, or negativity of any kind, its removal can be sustained and actualized through the interjection of gratitude and Ramadan creates ample opportunity to start bringing some of that positivity into our hearts. The water we drink tastes that much more refreshing, the food we eat that much sweeter. Build into your routine, whether it is daily or a few times a week, moments where you sit and just reflect. Be around people who are positive and can uplift your insides. Two actionable items that are suggested by psychologists:

1.      Keeping a gratitude journal -- something in which you document regularly things that are blessings and bring benefit in your life. We see that this is built into the Islamic tradition as there are numerous advices from the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, to take time after our daily prayers and perform certain litanies that praise God, glorify God, and proclaim God's Greatness, subhanallah, alhamdulillah, Allahu Akbar. Rather than just rattling them off your tongue, take a moment to attach reason and meaning to them from your heart by thinking of specific occurrences and instances to tie to each remembrance.

2.      Writing thank you letters to someone you might not have ever properly thanked before and, if possible, as a second step sharing that letter with the person you wrote it to. I ask my students and community members to do this often and the experience is always moving and remarkable. Hearts tremble as they recognize what someone has done for them as much as they tremble when someone hears that we are appreciative for all that they have done for us. And as the prophet Muhammad has said, "He who has not thanked people has not thanked God."

Tomorrow I will probably write more on the concluding verses of the chapter Al-'Adiyat as it speaks about a second aspect of human condition that is important to reflect upon.

Charleston Church Holds First Service Since Shootings

Four days after a gunman killed nine inside the basement of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, the doors were once again open to welcome congregants.
"We ask that everything be done with dignity. There will be no backpacks, fanny packs or cameras. This is for security purposes," a man doing crowd control at the church told the swarm of people assembled near the door.
Charleston police stood in the vestibule.
Church members were given priority among a crowd that included mostly visitors and press. Women were allowed in first in a show of chivalry but also for security. "We will be checking pocketbooks," announced one usher.
Like on so many Sundays before tragedy struck the historic church, they started with Sunday school at 8:30 a.m. Service began at 9:30 a.m.
There were no programs to detail the order of the service.

Emanuel is a large church with a beautiful white edifice. The summer sun reflected off the building. Inside is just as beautiful. The wood of the pews and woodwork throughout the sanctuary is deep brown. The carpet is a vibrant red, as is the upholstery on the pews. A balcony lines the sanctuary. There, media gathered. Cameras looked down over the service.
Behind the altar was a large, ornate stained glass window. On either side are frescos. The one of the left depicts Jesus suffering on the cross. On the right, Christ is shown risen from death.
In the earliest moments, there was little activity in the room. The musicians assembled with light chatter. Visitors, mostly journalists, also made small talk. Members of the church, however, sat quietly in the middle pews. They waved handheld fans.

Before long, the pastoral staff took to the pulpit. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and her family joined the service, taking a seat in the front row along with Congresswoman Maxine waters, NAACP President Cornell Brooks and other dignitaries.
Before long, the organist began playing "Amazing Grace" followed by "What a Friend We Have in Jesus". The choir, dressed in all white began the service, by singing "Total Praise", a gospel song that brought the crowd to its feet.
Ministers used the invocation to pray for Wednesday's victims, naming each of them.
"We are reminded this morning of the freshness of death. It comes like a thief in the night," said Norvel Goff, reverend and presiding elder of the African Methodist Episcopal district that includes Emanuel. Goff called congregants to the altar to pray. "Many of our hearts are still broken. Many of us are still shedding tears. But we must take our burdens to the Lord and leave them there."
One by one, worshippers gathered at the pulpit, many weeping but all kneeling to offer prayers.
Goff continued, "As we try to make sense of nonsense, pray for our children. We pray that God will give us the clarity of thought to share with them what God has shared with us."
One man erupted in tears on the way back to his seat repeating over and over, "This is just an unthinkable tragedy. Help us, God."
This is a breaking news entry. More to come.

A Prayer for Historic Emanuel AME Church of Charleston, SC

A Prayer for Historic Emanuel AME Church of Charleston, SC
Nancy Taylor

Dear Mother Emanuel: 

You, who authored courageous slave rebellions, who suffered and survived wretched bigotry, burnings and earthquake, 

You, you who worshipped underground when black churches were outlawed … 

Dear Mother Emanuel, in this day of grievous heartache we wrap you in bands of prayer.
We pour out upon your broken hearts the healing balm of Gilead. 

You, whose shepherd has been taken from you,
   whose building has become a tomb,
   whose children are terrified:
We stand with you.
   We weep with you.
We rage for you.
   We keep vigil with you for your beloved dead. 

May the God of Moses and Miriam, of Jesus and the Mary’s,
anoint you with healing, furnish you with hope and,
one day, some day, mend your torn hearts and wipe the tears from your swollen eyes. 
God help us. 

Amen.

No Sanctuary: Why Black Churches Are Still Under Attack

By Matt Drayton

Posted: 06/18/2015 10:20 pm EDT Updated: 06/18/2015 10:59 pm EDT

Like most Americans I woke up this morning to the news of another attack on a Black Church. Nine people were shot to death during Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina. This time the alleged shooter is a 21 year old white male who looks like he wouldn't harm a fly.

While the motives for the attacks are still unclear, and under investigation, early reports indicate that this was another hate crime. FBI statistics from 2013 show of 3407 single biased hate crime incidents; 66 percent were motivated by anti-black or African American bias.

Black Churches have been under attack for hundreds of years, dating back to slavery. Be it bombings during the civil rights movement, or Black Churches being set on fire, the Black Church has been under perpetual attack since its inception. Why is a place that is supposed to be a sanctuary constantly under attack by people who want to exercise their racial hatred? How can people be that evil to go to a house of worship to murder and vandalize?

Do those who attack and vandalize churches do it because they feel churchgoers are peaceful, non-violent, and weak, or do they do it because of the symbolism, and to break their victim's spirit? Since as early as 1758 the Black Church has played a major role in the black community, at times being the only place where black people could get a break from oppression, and express themselves.

What would make a 21 year old shoot and kill nine people in a Black Church in 2015? Trained hatred is likely the cause of this attack. A person born in 1994 cannot possibly hate persons of another race enough to murder them in cold blood, unless they were taught that hatred from the time they were a child. Babies don't come into this world hating anyone!

It is clear the Black Church is still viewed as the foundation of the black community; it's also still a prime target for those who want to hurt the black community, and make a strong statement while doing so. The difference now is black churches can do more to prevent these attacks, than they could during slavery and the civil rights movement. Intimidation didn't work then, and it won't work now.

The time has come for Black Churches to implement security measures to protect themselves. I realize locked doors, metal detectors, and armed security doesn't look good at a house of worship, but black churches have been victimized too long. I truly believe no one would think twice if security measures were put in place at black churches. Churchgoers should be allowed to worship without the fear of being attacked.

How many senseless hate crimes must we witness before we realize we are all in this together? I have spent the majority of my adult life working with people of all races and ethnicities; I have learned that if you invest a little time in getting to know, and understand those who are different you become more tolerant. Unless we stop teaching hate to our children, there will always be hatred in America.

If the alleged shooter in the Charleston murders is found guilty, his life and his family's lives will change forever. The people who are responsible for his views and behavior will have to live with that. The nine victims of this tragedy have already paid the ultimate price, and their families lives will never be the same.

My heart goes out to the victims, their families, and the people of Charleston. The time has come for the Black Church leaders to protect their parishioners, and adapt to the times we live in. That is the only way the Black Church will become the sanctuary it is intended to be.

Holy Communion: A Practice of Faith in the United Church of Christ

Holy Communion: A Practice of Faith in the United Church of Christ

"Communion" is one of 11 introductory brochures from "Practices of Faith in United Church of Christ" published by Local Church Ministries. Other brochures in the series cover Holy Communion, confirmation, gifts of ministry, healing and reconciliation, marriage, mission, prayer, scripture, stewardship, and working for justice. To order the complete set for your congregation, ask for EP128 from United Church of Christ Resources at 800-537-3394.

Foundation

"In accordance with the teaching of our Lord and the practice prevailing among evangelical Christians, the United Church of Christ recognizes two sacraments: Baptism and the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion." - From the Preamble to the Constitution of the United Church of Christ
"The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body that is for you Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.'"
- 1 Corinthians 11:23-25
"When Jesus was at table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him."
- Luke 24;30-31
"Here, O my Lord, I see you face to face; here would I touch and handle things unseen. Here grasp with firmer hand the eternal grace, and all my weariness upon you lean."
- Horatius Bonar, 1855, alt., The New Century Hymnal

What is a Sacrament in the United Church of Christ?

Sacraments are ritual actions in worship which, according to Scripture, were instituted by Jesus. In the sacraments of baptism and communion we ask the Holy Spirit to use water, bread, and wine to make visible the grace, forgiveness, and presence of God in Christ.

The origin of Communion

The communion meal recalls the table fellowship Jesus shared with his disciples, and in particular the Last Supper on the night before his death as well as his appearances to the disciples during meals following his resurrection. Throughout its history these Biblical events have been central to the Church's worship life.

The meaning of Communion

In the sacrament of Holy Communion, also called the Lord's Supper or Eucharist, meaning "thanksgiving," Christians hear, taste, touch and receive the grace of God revealed through Jesus Christ in a unique way. Communion is: a joyous act of thanksgiving for all God has done, is doing, and will do for the redeeming of creation;
a sacred memorial of the crucified and risen Christ, a living and effective sign of Christ's sacrifice in which Christ is truly and rightly present to those who eat and drink;
an earnest prayer for the presence of the Holy Spirit to unite those who partake with the Risen Christ and with each other, and to restore creation, making all things new;
an intimate experience of fellowship in which the whole church in every time and place is present and divisions are overcome;
a hopeful sign of the promised Realm of God marked by justice, love and peace.
The United Church of Christ Book of Worship reminds us that "the invitation and the call [to the supper] celebrate not only the memory of a meal that is past, but an actual meal with the risen Christ that is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet at which Christ wi11 preside at the end of history."

What elements are used? What do they mean?

The broken bread and poured wine represent—present anew—the crucified and risen Christ. The wheat gathered to bake one loaf and the grapes pressed to make one cup remind participants that they are one body in Christ, while the breaking and pouring announce the costliness of Christ's sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin. Some churches provide non-alcoholic and gluten-free elements. As we grow increasingly aware of the rich cultural diversity of the church, the use of elements other than bread and wine is becoming an issue for global ecumenical reflection.

What words are used?

The Book of Worship and The New Century Hymnal contain several liturgies for the celebration of Holy Communion. In addition, many liturgies from ecumenical and global sources are frequently used. At the heart of the service are Jesus' words about the bread and the cup from the Biblical account of the Last Supper.

How is Communion served?

A variety of practices are found in the United Church of Christ, including the sharing of a common loaf or the use of individual wafers or cubes of bread and the sharing of a common cup or of individual cups either at the Table or in the pews. Intinction (dipping the bread in the wine) is also an acceptable practice. Care should be taken to ensure that the full meaning of the sacrament is communicated by the way the elements are used and served. The pastor presides at the Table, normally assisted by elders or deacons.

Who may receive Communion?

In most United Church of Christ local churches, the Communion Table is "open to all Christians who wish to know the presence of Christ and to share in the community of God's people." (Book of Worship). Some visitors from churches which believe communion should only be celebrated among Christians who are in full doctrinal agreement might not choose to participate. Their decision should be respected.

What about children?

In many Christian churches baptized children and even infants are able to receive communion. Practice in the United Church of Christ varies, but increasingly children are welcomed to the Table at their parents' discretion following a period of instruction about the sacrament's meaning.

How often is Communion served?

In the early church Communion was served weekly, a practice continued and encouraged by the Protestant Reformers. Gradually the frequency of communion decreased in many Protestant churches. This trend is now being reversed. While no one pattern prevails in the United Church of Christ, many congregations are moving toward monthly or weekly communion.

Baptism: A Practice of Faith in the United Church of Christ

Baptism: A Practice of Faith in the United Church of Christ

"Baptism" is one of 11 introductory brochures from "Practices of Faith in United Church of Christ" published by Local Church Ministries. Other brochures in the series cover Holy Communion, confirmation, gifts of ministry, healing and reconciliation, marriage, mission, prayer, scripture, stewardship, and working for justice. To order the complete set for your congregation, ask for EP128 from United Church of Christ Resources at 800-537-3394.

Foundation

"In accordance with the teaching of our Lord and practice prevailing among evangelical Christians, the United Church of Christ recognises two sacraments: Baptism and the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion." —From the Preamble to the Constitution of the United Church of Christ
"Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ...."
—Acts 2:38
"For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ Jesus have clothed yourself with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."
—Galatians 3:26-28

What does Baptism signify?

The sacrament of baptism is an outward and visible sign of the grace of God. Through baptism a person is joined with the universal church, the body of Christ. In baptism, God works in us the power of forgiveness, the renewal of the spirit, and the knowledge of the call to be God's people always.

How does Baptism take place?

Baptism with water and the Holy Spirit is the sign and seal of our common discipleship. Since baptism is God's gift, the Holy Spirit is called to be upon the water and those being baptized. The act of baptism also marks the beginning of new life of discipleship with Christ, the human response to that gift.

Why is water used?

Water is an essential element of baptism. Water is a prominent symbol of cleansing and life in the Bible—the water of creation, the great flood, the liberation of Israel through the sea, the water of Mary's womb, the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, the woman at the well, and Jesus' washing of the feet of the disciples. That is why water is visibly present in the service. In the United Church of Christ, the mode of baptism is a matter of choice. Some traditions use sprinkling, some pouring, and some immersion.

Who is baptized in the UCC?

Infants, children, youth and adults. For infants and children, as well as for youth and adults who have never been baptized before, baptism marks their acceptance into the care of Christ's church, the sign and seal of God's grace and forgiveness, and the beginning of their Christian faith and life.

Is Re-baptism necessary?

The United Church of Christ recognizes the validity of all baptisms, therefore there is no need for re-baptism. If there is a question about whether baptism has taken place, a conditional phrase may be added as a person is baptized, such as "if you are not already baptized." It is a well-accepted practice, however, for people to renew their baptismal vows in a service of baptismal renewal, such as the Order for Renewal of Baptism in the UCC Book of Worship.

Is there a special time for Baptism?

Baptism is a personal celebration in the lives of the individual candidates and their families. It is also a celebration within the local church family and a recognition of its commitment. For this reason, baptism is celebrated in the presence of the community gathered for worship. If circumstances require baptism to take place outside of corporate worship, members of the local church, if possible, may participate in the ceremony with the pastor. In urgent circumstances, such as imminent death, any Christian may perform the baptism.

When should a person be baptized?

Baptism may take place at any worship service where the community is gathered. In the early Christian church, the season of Lent was used as the final period for the preparation of candidates. In the scriptures that are read during the seasons from Advent up to Easter, there are many texts that teach the faith and point toward baptism. In the early church, the candidates were baptized together at the Vigil of Easter (the pre-dawn Easter service). Some local churches still perform baptisms at this service, or on Pentecost Sunday, and also baptize throughout the year.

Are sponsors present?

Parents, in consultation with the pastor, may choose sponsors or Godparents for infants and young children who are to be baptized. Other candidates for baptism may also be given this opportunity to have sponsors. At the time of the baptismal service, the sponsors, who accompany the candidates and present them for baptism, may make promises identical to the promises of the parents concerning their role.

What words are used?

The Book of Worship of the United Church of Christ provides an Order for Baptism and orders for Affirmation of Baptism. The recognition of our baptism by the ecumenical church is important to us, and the Book of Worship encourages the use of language recognized in most Christian churches: "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." Feminine images for God may surround these words to enrich understandings and offer balance.

Daily Meditation: A Vision Of Peace

The Huffington Post  |  By Antonia Blumberg

We all need help maintaining our personal spiritual practice. We hope that these Daily Meditations, prayers and mindful awareness exercises can be part of bringing spirituality alive in your life.

Today's meditation features a performance by Brooklyn-based Sufi musician Arooj Aftab. The 2010 performance was part of Aftab's initiative "Rebuild Pakistan" to use music and art to promote a vision of peace and healing for her native country. What is your vision of peace and how will you go about realizing it?

The Problem With Becoming a 'Professional' Christian

Posted: 06/16/2015 5:10 pm EDT Updated: 06/16/2015 5:59 pm EDT

When we look at church history, as well as the modern church, it seems to me that many of the problems have grown out of believers receiving a salary from other believers. The concept of being paid to be a believer, a 'professional believer' of sorts, has historically resulted in church leaders not only failing to understand the gospel, but, instead, subtly or overtly enforcing a mixed gospel (one that causes no conflict to either the congregation's religious comfort nor the preacher's job security) upon the very people who are paying them.

It is a problematic circle. For if the 'paid believer' is to grow in his understanding of the gospel, it will result in his theology evolving and changing, sometimes quite dramatically, and this will inevitably challenge those who he shares it with, and in doing so they will most likely remove their financial support, for fear they are financially supporting a heretic (for everything people can not immediately understand is considered heresy).

More than this, the notion of 'full-time paid ministers' creates the illusion that these people must know more than the average believer because they have more time to study. But, again, what does history show us? It shows us that the only preachers who even came close to the truth of the gospel were persecuted and, in many cases, violently murdered by the paid church leaders. Those who spent all their days studying the Scriptures could not see the gospel even if it was right in front of their face. More than that, they aggressively persecuted those who could see it, those who dared to share it with the greater body of Christ.

We are all the same when it comes to protecting our jobs and income streams. We all need to look after our families. We all need to make sure the money is there to pay the rent and feed the family. But, in my opinion, when your income is connected directly to your faith a serious problem arises, for the protection instinct we all have within us, regardless of how we make a financial living, directly interferes with and overpowers the journey to come into the full freedom of the gospel.

Personally, I don't think it is possible to enter into the full freedom Christ gave us while within a religious system; the reason being, that your freedom will challenge the very structure itself. While the people within may very well welcome the change, those being paid to administer/manage the system will not (and they are the ones setting the tone for the whole community), for they will be out of a job, and also out of a position of authority and respect.

I think that Jesus came to break us free from this very concept of relating to God and one another via an institution. Jesus made the way to come directly to both God and others without the need for an external mediator, without clergymen and pulpits. Jesus made a way for us to have faith in God without the structure of religion hedging us in.

It sometimes makes me wonder if following Jesus didn't turn into a profitable empire -- where entrepreneurial types could so easily make a healthy living out of controlling pockets of the empire and receiving endless donations to build the Jesus-empire in the name of their chosen ministry -- I wonder how the average Christian would live like in society today. I wonder if the whole world would be a healthier place. More than that, I wonder how much freer Christians would be?

It seems that, as a Christ-follower, after we get out of organized religion, we spend years, maybe our whole lives even, trying to get that religion out of us. Physically stepping out of the walls of the institutional-Christian-empire is relatively easy compared to emotionally uprooting those walls and getting them out of our own hearts and minds.

But what if there were no walls to begin with? Would we have entered into Christ and have been free from the start, and have stayed free? For the past 2,000 years, would we have made a greater impact in the world by not trying to rule it and obsess over empire-building, but rather by truly living it with the fullness of love God has deposited within us? Would we have let love be our guiding light instead of another man's religious vision for institutional construction of one religious building after the next?

Article by Mick Mooney. You can connect with Mick on his facebook page.

Jeb Bush Among Conservatives Criticizing Pope For Climate Change Encyclical

The Huffington Post  |  By Paige Lavender

GOP presidential hopeful Jeb Bush criticized Pope Francis on Tuesday after a draft of his encyclical on climate change was leaked by an Italian newspaper.

In the leaked draft, the pope attributes "the majority of the global warming in recent decades" to human activity.

During a town hall event in New Hampshire, Bush said he thinks religion "ought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting into the political realm."

“I hope I’m not going to get castigated for saying this by my priest back home, but I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope,” Bush said, according to the New York Times. “And I'd like to see what he says as it relates to climate change and how that connects to these broader, deeper issues before I pass judgment."

Other Republicans came out against the pope after he first spoke on climate change in January.

"I don't know if it is all [man's fault] but the majority is, for the most part, it is man who continuously slaps down nature," the pope said, according to Reuters.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) told a radio station earlier this month the church shouldn't weigh in on scientific matters.

“The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists and focusing on what we’re good at, which is theology and morality," he said.

While many haven't yet spoken out about the pope's views, several Republican presidential hopefuls have question climate change and its origin. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has said “humans are not responsible for climate change in the way some of these people out there are trying to make us believe.” Business mogul Donald Trump has called global warming a "hoax." Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has compared climate change activists to "flat-Earthers."

"Oh, My God:" The Laments of Jesus Echo Throughout All Religions

Posted: 06/15/2015 10:33 am EDT Updated: 06/15/2015 1:59 pm EDT

Jesus Laments by Hugh Colmer

I've always wondered what Jesus would have said about acts perpetrated in His name. On the one hand, Christians called Jesus the Lamb of God, the Prince of Peace, and the Embodiment of Love. On the other hand, from its inception, Christian leaders initiated hateful policies and murderous acts -- even genocidal acts and wars -- in the name of Jesus. These perpetrators could not query Jesus on His views of their actions, nor did they even bother to examine their behaviors in the context of Jesus' teachings. While Christians have largely gotten over their misuse of Jesus' name, remnants of this practice persist. Politicians and others are relentless in putting their self-serving ideologies into Jesus' mouth.

In related fashion, Medieval and Renaissance artists reinforced the notion of a Christian Jesus that showed no connection to his Jewish heritage and to what theologians have recognized: that Jesus was born, lived, and died dedicated to Judaism. I think Jesus would have a lot to say about that. For example: "Why are they picturing me holding a cross? We loathed the cross. It reminded us of the tens of thousands of my fellow Jews who were slaughtered by the Romans. The only cross I ever held was the one the Romans brutally nailed me to."

The exclusion of Jesus' Jewish identity in these powerful art renditions contributed to a sharp divide between Christians and Jews.

I addressed the question of what would Jesus say about the abuse of his name in my book Jesus Uncensored: Restoring the Authentic Jew, in a chapter titled "How Dare You in My Name." In a mock trial Jesus testifies against church leaders, monarchs, and others, from the fourth century to modern times, who hijacked his name for their pursuit of power and wealth. I've also organized an art exhibit that counters the Medieval and Renaissance distortions in artworks by providing new images that put Judaism back in the picture. The artworks in this exhibit tell the two sides of the Jesus story: Jesus the dedicated Jew and Jesus whose life and teachings inspired a new religion. I hope these projects will help close the historic rift between Christians and Jews.

Now, Hugh Colmer, one of the participating artists in the "Jewish Jesus Art Exhibit," has produced a series of powerful images that instantly convey larger stories about the abuse of the core spiritual teachings of world religions. Although raised in the Church of England, Hugh Colmer champions the universality of the ancient roots and foundations of all religions.

The following two Colmer images of Jesus convey what Jesus might have been thinking:

Jesus Laments: "In my name?" By Hugh Colmer

Indeed, what would the perpetrators say to Jesus about the Crusades, the Inquisition, the expulsion of his fellow Jews from Spain, and other brutal persecutions of Jews spanning centuries of European history? How would Martin Luther explain to Jesus the incitement of Luther's followers to burn synagogues, when he surely knew that the synagogue was Jesus' spiritual home, where he prayed every Sabbath (Luke 4:16, Matthew 4:23)? What about the charge that the Jews killed Jesus, when all of his followers were Jews? Is it conceivable that Jesus would be anything but horrified by the persecution and slaughter of Jews in His name? In modern times is it possible that Jesus favored one athlete, one performer, one candidate over all the others and wanted all but one to lose?

Here Colmer pictures the Buddha and his lament:

Buddha by Hugh Colmer

"If the Buddha is not a god, then why do people worship him? There are different types of worship. When someone worships a god, they praise him or her, making offerings and asking for favors, believing that the god will hear their praise, receive their offerings, and answer their prayers. Buddhists do not indulge in this kind of worship."

Colmer's image and comments about interconnectedness of religions:

Yahweh by Hugh Colmer

"The Old Testament (Torah) commands against graven images and particularly any visual representations of God: And the LORD spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude (Deuteronomy 4:12)."

Colmer offers a mythological image that includes some of the attributes of Yahweh, the "God" of the Bible, described in Psalm 18:8: "Smoke rose from His nostrils, and consuming fire came from His mouth; coals were set ablaze by it;" and also in Samuel 22:9: "There went up a smoke out of His [Yahweh] nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it." In another section of Genesis the God concept, according to Colmer, "is clearly derived from much earlier notions of a connection to dragons-- and 'Lord' translates to Yehovah over 6,400 times in the Old Testament. Yehovah was originally conceived of as a local storm God like Enlil, Siva, Zeus and Indra."

In the next image, Krishna explains the "all is one" spiritual principle:

Krishna--Brahman by Hugh Colmer

"The pantheon of Hindu gods has led many to think that Hinduism is polytheistic. But in polytheism various gods have independent existences. In contrast, the Hindu gods are all manifestations of the supreme God Brahman. Each represents aspects of Brahman which may suit the temperaments of different devotees."

This image and commentary traces a familiar religious practice to ancient sources:

Amon Ra by Hugh Colmer

"In ancient Egyptian astronomy, Aries was associated with the god Amon-Ra, who was depicted as a man with a ram's head and represented fertility and creativity. During the 2160 BCE year period when Aries ruled the sun, priests built Ram sphinxes at Karnak and called Amon Ra 'Lord of the Head.' Amon is also the origin of Amen, which is often spoken at the end of a prayer or hymn."

Hugh Colmer is currently planning a book that will include over a hundred images. They will address a wide range of religions and the abuses, misunderstandings, and loss of the interconnectedness of religions when traced to their common ancient archetypal roots. It should be an important contribution to interfaith understanding and tolerance.

Bernard Starr, Ph.D., is a psychologist, journalist, and professor emeritus at the City University of New York, Brooklyn College.