Today is Monday, January 10, 2005: there's a new moon tonight...and...not much else going on. If you're in Monroe, Wisconsin tomorrow, you can stop by St. John's UCC
Mississipi Shrimp Boil:
Cost is $10 for adults and $7 for children 10 and under. The meal will be served family style. All proceeds from the dinner will benefit the programs of Back Bay Mission in Biloxi, Miss.
RNR's dad served this church very briefly as an interim minister of visitation. We are given to understand that the eats down Monroe way are pretty good, and the beer second-to-none.
Today's categories:
Tsunami
Chuck Currie (and other sources)
report that the Dalit caste is being denied relief aid in hard-hit areas.
The Philly Inquirer picks up on a story we noticed on Friday: some Christian aid groups are using the relief drive to proselytize.
Christianity Today is back with another hyper-inclusive list of links to stories about the tsunami, including the unfortunate news that some orphans have indeed been kidnapped in the wake of the disaster.
Torture, etc.
Salon has a story on an under-reported part of Alberto Gonzalez's record:
When Alberto Gonzales briefed George W. Bush on the cases of Texas death row inmates up for clemency, his memos were so shabby they seemed intended solely to make it easy for Bush to send prisoners to their deaths.
Newsweek has a truly disturbing look at the "Salvador Option." Jesus' General expands on the story here. How any person possessed of common decency, much less moral judgment, could consider such an operation is beyond us.
Catholic News
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (via Amy Welborn) offers a fascinating summary of a long-brewing dispute between a Polish Catholic congregation and the local archdiocese. The church members have transferred control of its assets to a lay board to prevent it from being shut down. This may be precedent-setting. Developing, as Drudge says.
The Pope has released his annual New Year's message, weighing in on a variety of topics. His attack on same-sex marriage is no big surprise, but apparently part of the message is a warning that poverty undermines global security. There seems to be an emerging consensus that this is a major issue, but it remains to be seen if the Bush administration will do anything about it.
We're not holding our breath, particularly after reading a story like this. Gee, the Bush administration lied about its Iraq policy? Who woulda thunkit?
Church & State
This item from Bartholomew's Notes on Religion isn't strictly a Church/State issue, but interesting nonetheless.
The Philly Inquirer tracks John Street preaching in local prisons.
A Michigan school board will considertonight adding a class on the Bible to the curriculum. Some local parents are worried that the course goes too far in promoting religion.
Atheists/Secular Humanists/Freethinkers
The school board hearing seems as good a transition as any into passing on some stories on our, er, ah, well, our friends?
In any case, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is considering an appeal to a recent court decision upholding a move by LaCrosse, Wisconsin to avoid church-state issues by donating land around a Ten Commandments monument to a private group.
As well they should: first of all, FFRF is based in Madison, as we've noted before. While they pursue cases around the country, this is their backyard, so to speak. And how could they resist, frankly, when Jerry Falwell is crowing about the decision:
I, for one, am praying that common sense also holds sway at the Supreme Court regarding the critical Ten Commandments case. The annals of our nation's history are bursting with a host of examples showing that religion was a central focus of our Founders. Please join me in praying that the High Court will once and for all demonstrate to the radical secularists that public religious expression has a fundamental place in our society, just as it has through our history.
Al Mohler goes off on a similar rant here.
But not all is grim: the NYT notes an uptick in the "faithless" here (and demonstrates that they have a hard time with what to call themselves, too), and Reuters sees some similar raising of the humanist/atheist profile around the globe.
On the other hand, Newt Gingrich is touring Washington in search of God markers, and may be considering a run for president in 2008. That's enough to give even the staunchest of believers pause. As if we didn't have enough southern panderers with Roy Moore.
Religion & Homosexuality
Speaking of Al Mohler, he rides the rant-pony again here, this time on the subject of the Christian school in Dallas that ejected a student for hosting a website for gay teens. Uh, Al? You might want to take your head out of the gutter and take another look at those posts?
Better news: a coalition of Religious Right groups has dropped a lawsuit against a lesbian couple seeking to marry in Florida; Mel White and Soulforce are going to Colorado Springs at the end of April to confront James Dobson; and the CoE bishop of Lincoln, England has commissioned a service to recognize "same-sex friendships." As the article notes, it isn't a marriage ceremony, and it's still going to cause quite a bit of controversy, but it is a step in the right direction.
On Thursday, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will release the results "of a three-year study on sexuality that examined whether their denomination should change its stance on the ordination of homosexuals and blessing of same-sex unions." Stay tuned.
Tales of the Shut-Ins
Being somewhat desperate for filler and not having any suitable "This 'n' That" material, the staff at RNR has decided to revive its occasional series "Tales of the Shut-Ins".
Today's installment concerns one Irene Bauer, a member of RNR's first congregation who died a couple of years back at the age of 107 or 109 (we can never remember which).
Mrs. Bauer was almost an eighth wonder of the world: she worked fulltime until she was 75, pushed her MS-afflicted daughter around in a wheelchair well past her 100th birthday, and lived alone until a few months before her death.
She was also the source of more great stories than anyone we ever met. A few examples: during World War II, she worked at a local munitions plant, and somehow got caught on a runaway train that looped around and around the factory. And by "caught," we really mean "was hanging on to the top of for dear life."
She was well into her 90s before her neighbors convinced her to stop hanging out her second- and third-story windows to clean them. They may have been influenced by the time she drank a little too much of her "medicine" before bedtime and fell down the stairs. One member of the congregation gave this blunt advice when we first went to visit her: "Don't drink the iced tea!" When we knew her, she could still keep track of all the cards played in a bridge game, and tucked into slices of pizza--crust first--with gusto.
Our personal favorite, however, comes from when Mrs. Bauer was about 105 or so. She would take the bus down to Lancaster's Central Market, and then take a cab home. One day the cab didn't show up, and we offered to give her a lift. Our firm instructions were for her to wait until we could help her up into the cab of our pickup truck. But by the time we could get around to that side to give her an arm, she was already up and in.
So we took her home, and once again told her to wait for help before she got out. (We were not going to be responsible for the death of the congregation's oldest and best-loved member.)
But before we even got to the door, she was out of the truck and three steps up her front porch, instructing us to carry her bag of bananas and sweet buns from the market. Lord have mercy, we thought: she's going to bury us.
So here's to you, Mrs. Bauer. Hope you're in a place where the iced tea is as strong as you like it, the bridge is played all day, and the pizza is good and chewy.