The Catholic League is warning parents against the film The Golden Compass, based on the first book in Phillip Pullman's brilliant "His Dark Materials" trilogy, and Mark Mordford of the San Francisco Chronicle thinks he knows why--and it has less to do with defending the faith, than defending itself:

While the books have as their evil antagonist a sinister cabal called the Magisterium (obvious parallel: Catholic Church), they also have a slew of dark characters in service of the Magisterium, various assassins and double-agents and robot drones running around trying to annihilate the children's spirit and destroy magic and lock down faith forever. Let us call these robotic drones, oh, say, the Catholic League. Or Focus on the Family. Gosh, no wonder they're a little peeved.

Read it all.

Then have a look at Maev Kennedy's profile of Pullman in the Guardian, which includes this:

His editor of 25 years, David Fickling, says: "He is one of the greatest storytellers of all time, and he's right here among us, writing now. It's like having Thomas Hardy about to write Far From the Madding Crowd. It's just thrilling to be around."

Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service surveys the religious landscape and discerns recent developments.

History books are full of dates that mark seminal events: 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door and launched the Protestant Reformation; or 1973, when the Supreme Court legalized abortion.

Those boldface dates are preceded by less prominent but nonetheless decisive times: 1516, when a Dominican named Johann Tetzel led the sale of indulgences that deeply angered Luther; and 1970, when a young Texas woman named Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe) filed suit to obtain an abortion.

2007 may be recorded as such a pivotal year for religion and politics -- relatively quiet, unremarkable at first glance, but nonetheless significant as a harbinger of things to come.

"There are a lot of discrete things, but if you put them all together, you get the sense that change is in the air," said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The realignment of the religious right is perhaps the biggest religion story of 2007 and the one most likely to affect 2008. The religious right is far from dead, but leaves the year significantly altered.

Read it all.

Mark Silva of The Baltimore Sun writes:

For a presidential contest in which religion – and indeed the religious faith of at least one candidate – will play a certain role in the choices which many voters make, two questions loom large here: Is every word in the Bible true, and “what would Jesus do’’ about capital punishment.

Mitt Romney, Rudolph Giuliani and Mike Huckabee all took a crack at responding. Read the rest.

Manya Brachear of The Chicago Tribune has written a story that should be read by everyone who thinks about church growth, whether in numerical or spiritual terms.

For more than three decades, Willow Creek Community Church has defined its success by tallying the throngs who walk through its doors.

But a survey recently revealed something the South Barrington mega-church hadn't realized: Some of its members had become unsatisfied, saying they felt abandoned on their spiritual journeys.

The research yielding this uncomfortable revelation came from the business world. Using a model originally designed to find what emotionally drives consumers to buy perfume, running shoes and insurance, each of Willow's members was placed on a spectrum of belief, ranging from curious about Christ to seeing Christ at the center of their lives.

Read it all.

Brachear keeps a SAS (short and simple) blog, as well.

This video is the first in a series of eight videos that Father Matthew Moritz, the Curate at Christ's Church in Rye, New York plans to do on the sacraments. Each of the seven sacraments will be featured in a video, with a wrap-up video at rhe end. This first video is on Baptism.

Father Matthew has over forty videos at YouTube, which can be found here,

Father Matthew, by the way, is not the only young Episcopal clergy on YouTube. Rev, Peter Carey, a transitional deacon who will be ordained as a priest later this month, and who is the Chaplain at St. Catherine's School, Richmond, Virginia, has started his own series of videos, the most recent of which can be found here.

On Friday, Pope Benedict XVI released his second encyclical, Spe Salvi, or “Saved in Hope.” The bibical reference is to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans 8:24, “For in hope we were saved.”

John Allen offers an analysis in the National Catholic Reporter:

If one were to compile a list of the core concerns of Joseph Ratzinger, his idees fixes over almost sixty years now of theological reflection, it might look something like this:

• Truth is not a limit upon freedom, but the condition of freedom reaching its true potential;
• Reason and faith need one another – faith without reason becomes extremism, while reason without faith leads to despair;
• The dangers of the modern myth of progress, born in the new science of the 16th century and applied to politics through the French Revolution and Marxism;
• The impossibility of constructing a just social order without reference to God;
• The urgency of separating eschatology, the longing for a “new Heaven and a new earth,” from this-worldly politics;
• Objective truth as the only real limit to ideology and the blind will to power.

All those themes take center stage once again in the encyclical Spe Salvi, released today in Rome. In that sense, one could argue that the text represents a sort of “Greatest Hits” collection of Ratzinger’s most important ideas, developed over a lifetime, and now presented in the form of an encyclical in his role as Pope Benedict XVI.

. . .

In essence, the message of Spe Salvi can be expressed this way: If human beings place their hopes for justice, redemption and a better life exclusively in this-worldly forces, whether it’s science, politics, or anything else, they’re lost. The carnage of the 20th century, the pope suggests, illustrates the folly of investing human ideology and technology with messianic expectations.

Instead, ultimate hope – what the pope describes as “the great hope” – lies only in God, because only through the moral and spiritual wisdom acquired through faith can technology and political structures be directed towards ends which are truly human.

Read it all here. The text of Spe Salvi can be found here.

Chris Comer, the Texas director of science curriculum claims that she was forced to resign from her position because of she had expressed views contrary to Intelligent Design:

The Texas Education Agency put the director, Chris Comer, on 30 days’ paid administrative leave in late October, resulting in what Ms. Comer called a forced resignation.

The move came shortly after she forwarded an e-mail message announcing a presentation by Barbara Forrest, an author of “Creationism’s Trojan Horse.” The book argues that creationist politics are behind the movement to get intelligent design theory taught in public schools. Ms. Comer sent the message to several people and a few online communities.

Ms. Comer, who held her position for nine years, said she believed evolution politics were behind her ousting. “None of the other reasons they gave are, in and of themselves, firing offenses,” she said.

Education agency officials declined to comment Wednesday on the matter. But they explained their recommendation to fire Ms. Comer in documents obtained by The Austin American-Statesman through the Texas Public Information Act.

“Ms. Comer’s e-mail implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that T.E.A. endorses the speaker’s position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral,” the officials said.

Read it all here.

Here is the question for all of you: Is it really the case that the Texas Department of Education should remain neutral on whether Intelligent Design is science?

Last year the National Geographic announced a new second century manuscript, Gospel of Judas Iscariot, that reportedly claimed that Judas didn’t betray Jesus. Instead, Jesus asked Judas, his most trusted and beloved disciple, to hand him over to be killed.

In yesterday's New York Times, April D. DeConick, a professor of Biblical studies at Rice University, and the author of The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says, has an op-ed that argues that the translation of the Gospel was wrong:

Unfortunately, after re-translating the society’s transcription of the Coptic text, I have found that the actual meaning is vastly different. While National Geographic’s translation supported the provocative interpretation of Judas as a hero, a more careful reading makes clear that Judas is not only no hero, he is a demon.

Several of the translation choices made by the society’s scholars fall well outside the commonly accepted practices in the field. For example, in one instance the National Geographic transcription refers to Judas as a “daimon,” which the society’s experts have translated as “spirit.” Actually, the universally accepted word for “spirit” is “pneuma ” — in Gnostic literature “daimon” is always taken to mean “demon.”

Likewise, Judas is not set apart “for” the holy generation, as the National Geographic translation says, he is separated “from” it. He does not receive the mysteries of the kingdom because “it is possible for him to go there.” He receives them because Jesus tells him that he can’t go there, and Jesus doesn’t want Judas to betray him out of ignorance. Jesus wants him informed, so that the demonic Judas can suffer all that he deserves.

Perhaps the most egregious mistake I found was a single alteration made to the original Coptic. According to the National Geographic translation, Judas’s ascent to the holy generation would be cursed. But it’s clear from the transcription that the scholars altered the Coptic original, which eliminated a negative from the original sentence. In fact, the original states that Judas will “not ascend to the holy generation.” To its credit, National Geographic has acknowledged this mistake, albeit far too late to change the public misconception.

So what does the Gospel of Judas really say? It says that Judas is a specific demon called the “Thirteenth.” In certain Gnostic traditions, this is the given name of the king of demons — an entity known as Ialdabaoth who lives in the 13th realm above the earth. Judas is his human alter ego, his undercover agent in the world. These Gnostics equated Ialdabaoth with the Hebrew Yahweh, whom they saw as a jealous and wrathful deity and an opponent of the supreme God whom Jesus came to earth to reveal.

Whoever wrote the Gospel of Judas was a harsh critic of mainstream Christianity and its rituals. Because Judas is a demon working for Ialdabaoth, the author believed, when Judas sacrifices Jesus he does so to the demons, not to the supreme God. This mocks mainstream Christians’ belief in the atoning value of Jesus’ death and in the effectiveness of the Eucharist.

How could these serious mistakes have been made? Were they genuine errors or was something more deliberate going on? This is the question of the hour, and I do not have a satisfactory answer.

Read it all here. Dr. DeConink's website has a great deal of material on the issue here.
The National Geographic materials on the Gospel of Judas can be found here.

The Church of England has created free virtual greeting cards which can be sent on with a personalized message to any of the seven million active users in the UK registered on Facebook. Recipients will be able to follow web links from the ‘application’ homepage to find information about their local churches and explore more about the Christian faith.

Created by a leading London web design company, the "designs feature colorful animations representing key elements of the nativity story, including the journey of the wise men to see the ‘new born King’."

The Rt Revd Pete Broadbent, Bishop of Willesden, comments: “I think this is a brilliant idea. Like a number of my clergy and hundreds of their parishioners, I’ve got a page on Facebook. It’s a quick and easy way for people to stay in touch and the Church needs to use websites like this to reach out to as many people as possible.

“Christmas gives us the perfect opportunity to get the Christian message across even to those who think religion is scary, outmoded or pointless. These virtual cards are a simple idea but I hope they capture the imaginations of Christians across the country who want to spread the life-changing message of their faith among their friends.”

The idea for the Facebook application follows last year’s Church of England online Advent calendar, which received wide media coverage and around 1,000 unique visitors each day during December. The virtual calendar, also developed by Rechord, shared real life stories behind each window of what Christmas means to people across the country - from a paramedic in Carlisle, to an expectant mum in Wigan, to an estate agent in Tunbridge Wells.

Dave Walker over at Cartoon Church says:

The good thing about this is that Facebook is a good place for the church to be, as it is where a lot of the people are. It will also provide a means by which people can find out about going to their local church via the A Church Near You site, which is a splendid idea (by the way, if your church isn’t on there it is worth adding it if you can).

The slightly not so good thing is that receivers of cards will need to add the application, which they may not wish to do. Adding Facebook applications is of course a bit of a privacy risk as you are giving your information to a third party (the creator of the application) about whom you know nothing. I am of course willing to give the Church of England my information, but not everyone will be.

The result is that not all of the people you send these Christmas cards to will get them, whereas if you send them a wall post or a message they will get them. Of course if you are a real luddite you could send them an actual card made out of card in the style of yesteryear.

Facebook users can access the application (when logged in to the site) here or can search for 'Real Christmas Cards' within the Facebook website.

Read: The Church of England: Church hands out virtual cards for Facebook friends to share Christmas message

Hat tip to Cartoon Church.

Here is another cool on-line Advent calendar. The Ecumenical Advisory Alliance, a worldwide ecumenical network of denominations, church relief agencies and ecumenical organizations, have developed a web-based Advent calendar featuring daily meditations, readings and photographs. Many of the reflections are written by people living with AIDS.

Todays meditation is found here. It is written by Kay Warren, Executive Director of the HIV/AIDS Initiative at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. Here is a sample:

People whose lives have been touched by HIV and AIDS are desperately in need of hope. Hope for access to good medical treatment and life-saving medication. Hope for being surrounded by a caring community who will offer support. But most of all, hope that this life is not all there is - that there is a better world waiting for all who have put their trust in God's gift of salvation.

Each day that passes brings us one step closer to finally receiving all that has been promised to us. Even in our brokenness, we know that one day all sorrow, sadness, and sickness will be over. These bodies that are so weak now will be restored to full health, and joy will return. That's a hope to hold onto!
God of all hope, help us to hold on to the promise of your salvation. Amen.

The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance describes itself as "a broad ecumenical network for international cooperation in advocacy on global trade and HIV and AIDS."

More than 100 churches and church-related organizations have joined the Alliance by committing themselves to "speak out with one voice against injustice, to confront structures of power, practices and attitudes which deprive human beings of dignity and to offer alternative visions based on the Gospel." This commitment to joint action brings with it enormous strength and responsibility.

The Alliance has identified the HIV and AIDS pandemic as one of the gravest challenges to health and also to the prospects of social and economic development and global security. The campaign, "Keep the Promise." holds individuals, religious leaders, faith organizations, governments and intergovernmental organizations accountable for the commitments they have made and advocates for further efforts and resources to fight HIV and AIDS. The campaign works to protect the rights of people living with HIV and AIDS, promote an attitude of care and solidarity which rejects all forms of stigmatization and discrimination, and advocates for access to necessary forms of treatment as well as expand efforts for education and prevention.

Here is a PDF list of the organizations that make up the Alliance and here is their home page.

In September 2007, Gillian Gibbons, a teacher at Unity High School in Khartoum, Sudan, was teaching her class about animals and their habitats so allowed her class of primary school pupils to choose the name of the class teddy bear. The class of seven year olds chose "Muhammad" and for that Ms. Gibbons spent 15 days in jail and was deported.

Ms. Gibbons was arrested for insulting Islam, after another school staffmember complained to the Ministry of Education.

According to the New York Times:

Under Sudanese law, the teacher, Gillian Gibbons, could have spent six months in jail and been lashed 40 times.

“She got a very light punishment,” said Rabie A. Atti, a government spokesman. “Actually, it’s not much of a punishment at all. It should be considered a warning that such acts should not be repeated.”

Gibbons, a British subject, who teaches at a private school, began a project on animals and asked her class to suggest a name for a teddy bear. The class voted resoundingly for Muhammad, one of the most common names in the Muslim world and the name of Islam’s holy prophet.

As part of the exercise, Ms. Gibbons told her students to take the bear home, photograph it and write a diary entry about it. The entries were collected in a book called “My Name Is Muhammad.” Most of her students were Muslim children from wealthy Sudanese families.

The government said that when some parents saw the book, they complained to the authorities. In Islam, insulting the Prophet Muhammad is a grave offense, and in northern Sudan, where Khartoum is, it is a crime. The government said it was insulting to name an animal or toy Muhammad.

Hard-line Muslim groups picked up on the incident and responded with protests. Several thousand Muslims marched in Sudan's capital Khartoum on Sunday, calling for a rough sentence.

According to news agencies, some of the protesters chanted: "Shame, shame on the UK", "No tolerance - execution" and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad".

The hardline Khartoum protesters gathered in Martyrs Square, outside the presidential palace in the capital, many of them carrying knives and sticks.

But, Ekklesia reports, other Muslim groups were horrified at the calls for violence.

But Muslims elsewhere expressed horror and sadness at the treatment of Ms Gibbons, condemning also some sensationalist reporting in the tabloids.

The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (Fosis), which represents more than 90,000 Muslim students in Britain and Ireland, had said it was "deeply concerned" at what was a "gravely disproportionate" verdict.

The federation's president, Ali Alhadithi, said: "What we have here is a case of cultural misunderstandings, and the delicacies of the matter demonstrate that it was not the intention of Gillian Gibbons to imply any offence against Islam or Muslims. We hope that the Sudanese authorities will take immediate action to secure a safe release for Gillian Gibbons."

Not many Sudanese, though, took part in the protests outside of those mobilized by the groups, according to the Times:

Despite the attempts by Islamic clerics to mobilize the masses against Ms. Gibbons, many Sudanese did not take to the streets.

Najla Hussein, who works at a mobile phone company in Khartoum, said she thought Ms. Gibbons should have been set free.

“Our government creates such problems to divert the eyes of the world community from our domestic problems,” Ms. Hussein said. “I am sure that the case of the British teacher is politically motivated and has got nothing to do with our prophet.”

The Times says that the arrest may have been in response to criticism of Sudanese government by British representatives to the United Nations.

Sudan’s relations with the West — especially Britain — are as strained as ever. Many developed countries are increasingly frustrated with what they consider stalling tactics by the Sudanese to delay the deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur, the troubled region of western Sudan.

Sudan, meanwhile, has accused the West of being anti-Islamic.

Beyond that, on Tuesday, Sir John Sawers, the British representative to the United Nations, criticized the Sudanese government on a number of issues, including the languishing international arrest warrants for a Sudanese official and a militia leader in Darfur.

The next day, the Sudanese government decided to press charges against Ms. Gibbons.

Read the Eklessia story here , the New York Times coverage here, and other press coverage here and here.

(Updated) A movie based on the first book of a trilogy whose author says "My books are about killing God" is about to hit the big screen. In the His Dark Materials series, author Philip Pullman sets out a complex treatise against organized religion in the context of a textured and believable alternative universe.

The Atlantic Monthly and the New York Times both say that Pullman disdains "The Lord of the Rings" and detests "The Chronicles of Narnia."

The Pullman trilogy is, among other things, a carefully argued brief against organized religion, and aims at nothing less than to reimagine the story of the Fall in a way that does away with the notion of original sin. God eventually turns out to be a pathetic imposter, not unlike the Wizard of Oz.

Pullman says, when his work is compared to C.S. Lewis', that "Narnia" is the Christian one and "mine is the non-Christian."

So a funny thing happened on the way to the silver screen, Hollywood couldn't commit. They softened the edges. Previously, marketers worried that The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, with its overtly Christian message would "drive away moviegoers who preferred to see wicked witches and talking lions." Now, they are worried about marketing a movie with a sham, weakling God.

Writes Hanna Rosin in the Atlantic Monthly:

In the end, the religious meaning of the book was obscured so thoroughly as to be essentially indecipherable. The studio settled on villains that, as Emmerich put it, “feel vaguely kind of like a fascistic, totalitarian dictatorship, Russian/KGB/SS” stew. The movie’s main theme became, in one producer’s summary, “One small child can save the world.” With $180 million at stake, the studio opted to kidnap the book’s body and leave behind its soul.

Pullman response to these changes has been relatively placid. He has had some control over portions of the production, yet his controversial writings and anti-religious beliefs has made the producers and other in Hollywood nervous.

In the past, Pullman has defended the “good faith of the film-makers” and denied any “betrayal.” On the surface, his relationship with the studio has remained “cordial,” as he put it. The director, Chris Weitz, has made several pilgrimages to Oxford, and the two men exchange e-mails. Pullman got to review a video of the final 50 candidates for the part of Lyra, and he has made script suggestions. Still, the studio publicist seemed nervous when she heard I was going to visit him. All things being equal, Pullman told me, New Line would prefer he were, well, the late author of The Golden Compass. Dead? “Yes! Absolutely!” If something happened to him, there “would be expressions of the most heartfelt regrets, yet privately they would be saying, ‘Thank God.’”

Pullman writes in the Times of London that he had no interest in micro-managing the production, believing that the story could survive the transformation into a film.

There were fans of the book – many of them – who let me know they expected me to watch over the process with a beady eye and pounce at once to correct any errors, omissions or general backsliding on the part of the film makers. But I wasn’t interested in doing that. In the first place, I judged that the people in charge of making the film were men and women of integrity and intelligence and I was happy to let them get on with it without my interference. In the second place I had plenty of other things to do. And in the third place it’s neither productive nor interesting to nag, fret and fuss over something that you haven’t got very much influence over anyway.

Besides, I thought the story was robust enough to survive its transfer from book to screen. It ought to be robust: it has been told many times already, starting with chapter three of the Book of Genesis and continuing with Paradise Lost. And although my version of it started as a novel, and it was as good a novel as I could make it, I’ve never regarded it as being so precious and exquisite that it would shatter at a touch.

At the same time, Pullman is aware that if he discusses his theology too much, he might "talk the next two films of the trilogy out of existence."

But in his writing, Pullman tries to use the grandeur of religious imagery and spiritual themes to re-frame religious belief from he thinks is fundamentally destructive into something essentially creative, but non-theistic.

Pullman has expressed admiration for Richard Dawkins, a fellow British atheist. Like him, Pullman views the prevailing forms of religion as destructive and oppressive forces in history. “Every single religion that has a monotheistic god ends up by persecuting other people and killing them because they don’t accept him,” he once said. But his views are not as coldly antiseptic as Dawkins’s. He grew up going to Sunday school and has only fond memories of serving as a choirboy in his grandfather’s rural Anglican parish. One of Pullman’s favorite subjects is the moral power of stories, and he can sound preacher-like when he addresses it. “‘Thou shalt not’ might reach the head, but it takes ‘Once upon a time’ to reach the heart,” he once wrote. Pullman’s own books are full of the mysticism and grandeur often associated with religion, which is no doubt part of their appeal. “We need joy, we need a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives, we need a connection with the universe, we need all the things the Kingdom of Heaven used to promise us but failed to deliver,” he said in a 2000 speech.

When pressed, Pullman grants that he’s not really trying to kill God, but rather the outdated idea of God as an old guy with a beard in the sky. In his novels, he replaces the idea of God with “Dust,” made up of invisible particles that begin to cluster around people when they hit puberty. The Church believes Dust to be the physical evidence of original sin and hopes to eradicate it. But over the course of the series, Pullman reveals it to be the opposite: evidence of human consciousness, a kind of godlike energy that surrounds everyone. People accumulate Dust by “thinking and feeling and reflecting, by gaining wisdom and passing it on.” It starts to build up around puberty because, for Pullman, sexual awakening triggers the beginning of self-knowledge and intellectual curiosity. To him, the loss of sexual innocence is not a tragedy; it’s the springboard to a productive and virtuous adulthood.

The question for Christians is how to at once respond to and understand the films. The "Dark Materials" trilogy is not as well known in the United States and it is in Great Britain, so the films will be the first introduction to Pullman's writings and thinking. To boycott the films sight unseen, something that the Catholic League has already organized, seems to draw attention to the films. Besides, a boycott will not engage the content of the film.

The task may be for Christians to at once acknowledge the historic symptoms of abuse and violence that has plagued organized religion, while moving the conversation into the deeper points of contact.

What do you think?

Read more:
Times OnLine: My Golden Compass sets a true course

The Atlantic.com: How Hollywood Saved God.

The New York Times: The Golden Compass-Unholy Production With a Fairy-Tale Ending

Episcopal Life Online reports that the Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has written to The Rt. Rev. John David Schofield asking that he withdraw from his quest to remove the Diocese of San Joaquin from The Episcopal Church. The Diocese meets this weekend to take a second vote and final changing their diocesan canons.

The Rev. Jan Nunley writes for Episcopal Life:

Expressing concern for his health and "evident sense of isolation," Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori urged Bishop John-David M. Schofield of the Diocese of San Joaquin to "reconsider and draw back" from efforts to withdraw his diocese from the Episcopal Church.

As with previous letters to other disaffected bishops, the correspondence with Schofield notified him that such a step would force Jefferts Schori to act to bring the diocese and its leadership into line with the mandates of the national Church.

"You have been clear that you feel your views are dismissed or ignored within the Episcopal Church, yet you have ceased to participate in the councils of the Church. It is difficult to have dialogue with one who is absent," Jefferts Schori wrote. "…The Church will never change if dissenters withdraw from the table. There is an ancient and honored tradition of loyal opposition, and many would welcome your participation."

Read it all here

The letter from the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori follows:

Read more »

As the Intergovernmental Conference on Climate Change is being held Dec. 3-14 in Bali, Indonesia, The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of the Church of Sweden and the Bishop of the Evangelical Church in Germany are calling for climate justice in a joint letter according to The Christian Post.

In the letter, the church heads claim that “[s]ubstantially reducing global emissions of greenhouse gasses will not avoid the serious impacts of climate change already experienced by many of the world’s most vulnerable communities."

The church leaders called on world governments and the European Commission to “strengthen their commitment to addressing the challenge of climate change.”

Reiterating the concerns of numerous Christian humanitarian agencies including World Vision, Tearfund and Christian Aid, the leaders noted that the impact of climate change is being felt most severely by those who have done the least to cause it.

The letter was sent to the president of the European Commission and the president of the Council of the European Union ahead of the Intergovernmental Conference on Climate Change being held Dec. 3-14 in Bali, Indonesia.

Read the article here.

Dave Walker comments here

In an age of "sex buddies," "friends with benefits" and "sexual friendships," father-daughter purity balls have become an increasingly popular trend among conservative Christians in the campaign for abstinence instead of condoms. Since the first event was held in Colorado Springs in 1998, the concept -- that holding on to one's virginity until marriage is ordered by God -- has spread to 48 states according to the Chicago Tribune.

The debate about this movement is whether it promotes abstinence or gives girls the message that they are property belonging to the male head of household until turned over to a husband. Is this a positive or negative image of female sexuality?

A report commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services and released this year found that four federally funded abstinence-education programs offered in public schools and by faith-based community groups have had no effect on sexual activity. The study found that youth in the programs were no more likely to abstain from sex in four to six years after they began participating than those who were not in the programs.

But on the other hand,

Studies by sociologists have shown that girls who spend more time with their fathers are more likely to have higher self-esteem, go to college and get better jobs than those who do not. According to Wilson, if a young woman can go to her father to get answers for core questions, such as "Am I beautiful?" she won't need to seek confirmation of her worth from other males.

During some purity balls, fathers present their daughters with gold purity bands. In Peoria, the daughters presented their fathers with gold keys and the fathers signed forms pledging to live a pure life and protect their daughters' purity.

*This is a suggested vow for the girls to say as they hand over a key to their fathers:

Dad, this is the key to my heart. Please hold it for me until my wedding day and give it to my husband.

*Fathers are asked to sign a Purity Covering and Covenant that states:

I (daughter's name) father (or mentor) choose before God to cover her as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and Father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over her and my family as the High priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.

(The daughter then signs it as a witness)

Read the article here.

The DallasNews Religion Blog brings our attention to Fox Entertainment Group's successful acquisition of Beliefnet.com, which is generally regarded as providing "interesting, multi-faith religion content," as DallasNews blogger Jeffrey Weiss puts it. From the blog:

Fox Entertainment Group (FEG) today announced its acquisition of Beliefnet, a Web site that enables consumers to better understand their faith and build diverse spiritual communities by providing content and tools for a broad range of religions and spiritual approaches. Beliefnet, the largest online faith and spirituality destination, will become part of Fox Digital Media, spearheaded by President Dan Fawcett, which takes on an expanded role to support FEG’s vast cable, TV and film brands online, and drive FEG’s continued growth in the online market.

Though we weren't able to locate this press release on the Beliefnet.com site, it bears noting that they have not made any press releases available on their site since early 2006. They may just be behind? But you can read what they sent to Weiss here. Be sure to read the comments, as well, which include an observation that Fox Entertainment Group has a wide tent that includes both the Fox News channel as well as the Simpsons.

P.S. Don't forget to sign your comments with your full name, folks! (Here's the official word on that.)

Phyllis Tickle is featured in this week's article from syndicated columnist Terry Mattingly. Citing the "500 year wall," he summarizes Tickle's recent discussion of all the capital-letter, civilization-rearranging events in history and their tendency to happen about every half-millennium or so: The Reformation, the Great Schism, the Fall of the Roman Empire.

And, she continues, we're on the verge of another: The Great Emergence.

Church leaders who can do the math should be looking over their shoulders about now, argued Tickle, speaking to clergy, educators and lay leaders at the recent National Youth Workers Convention in Atlanta.

After all, seismic changes have been rolling through Western culture for a century or more -- from Charles Darwin to the World Wide Web and all points in between. The result is a whirlwind of spiritual trends and blends, with churches splintering into a dizzying variety of networks and affinity groups to create what scholars call the post-denominational age.

Tickle is ready to call this the "Great Emergence," with a tip of her hat to the edgy flocks in the postmodern "emerging church movement."

"Emerging or emergent Christianity is the new form of Christianity that will serve the whole of the Great Emergence in the same way that Protestantism served the Great Reformation," she said, in a speech that mixed doses of academic content with the wit of a proud Episcopalian from the deeply Southern culture of Western Tennessee.

Read his entire column here.

A Jewish record label (JDub Records) is putting on a multi-city music festival featuring acts performing "klezmer-punk, hip-hop in Arabic and folk-rock tunes" this weekend for Hanukkah, which starts today at sundown. The event is expected to draw some 7,000 people in nine cities, according to a Washington Post article about the event:

The Jewish music industry has flourished over the past decade and uses Hanukkah, a minor religious holiday that begins tonight at sundown, as a time to party.

While still tiny in the grand scheme of the overall music business, the movement that some call "new Jewish music" is seen by musicians and fans as thriving. It uses sounds and lyrics and language from the Jewish world present and past. Three labels have started since 1995, including JDub, which opened in 2002 and produced Hasidic reggae star Matisyahu as well as the rock band LeeVees, which is made up of Jewish members of better-known bands and has sold over 10,000 copies of its 2006 album, "Hannukah Rocks."

While the industry and shows go on all year for such bands, the Hanukkah is a key time in the United States because of the Christmas-driven party season. Last year, XM Radio launched a Hannukah station (which runs for the holiday's eight days), and with the increase in contemporary Jewish bands, more concert halls and bars are hosting Hannukah music parties each year.

The proliferation of music has raised a broader question: What is Jewish music? Unlike the Christian music world, most of what's coming out is not God-worshiping. Some bands have Jewish members. In other cases, musicians may be non-Jews, but the words, sounds or performance styles are inspired by Jewish history. Much of it is a blend.

Read the whole thing here.

Garrison Keillor writing in Salon:

I got to teach Episcopal Sunday school last week, a rare privilege, and it was in a New York church so the kids had plenty to say. Teenagers, and if you expect them to sit in rapt silence as you tick off points of theology, you're in the wrong place.
,,,
They let me say my piece -- God prefers honest doubt to false piety -- and then they said their pieces, and what shone through was a sensible anxiety about the future and the fact that they care a lot about each other. You could imagine a confirmed agnostic hanging out here just for the warmth and conversation.

As was noted in The Lead back in August, there's an ironically named image on the homepage of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

It's been there since the image of the TIME magazine cover of the archbishop went up on his homepage. Follow the link to the homepage above and hover your mouse over the image. Or, if that doesn't work for you, follow this link to a static popup image of the homepage.

The subliminal message? It could be that the Archbishop of Canterbury is cross with his flock. Or it could be that his homepage needs some sprucing up and updating; notice that if you follow the link titled "Archbishop Williams and current events" you get information from events in 2004, 2003, and 2002 but nothing more recent.

And is anyone else bothered by the way the left margin on some of the pages follows you as scroll down? I find it a distracting gadget. Here's an example:
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/releases/index.html.
Click and scroll to see the dizzying effect.

The Telegraph today has a pair of stories about what some view as blasphemous commercialism:

Red Bull withdraws 'blasphemous' advert in Italy of all places.

'Saints by phone' service condemned by Vatican

The Italian bishops' conference last night accused McKay & Sisters, a Milan-based communications company, of offending Catholics by "exploiting" their faith. "This is a poor show and has nothing to do with faith."

Meanwhile, as The Lead noted on Monday, the Church of England is offering Facebook Christmas cards.

Updated Washington Times religion correspondent, Julia Duin, joins the field of religion journalists with blogs. Here's how she describes her Belief Blog:

I plan to make this stand out amongst many of the current faith blogs, many of which are little more than daily religion digests with uplinks. Not here. I'm aiming at something closer to Ruth Gledhill's Articles of Faith blog in the London Times that has juicy details not in the dead tree version. I plan to go behind the scenes, add more details and do some original reporting. I hope to spread a wide net and touch on a non-Christian religion at least once a week.

Clarification: The blog "BabyBlueOnline" says that Ms. Duin is a member of The Falls Church which is part of CANA, a church in a property dispute with the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. In an earlier version of this post, we repeated that she was a member of The Falls Church. Ms. Duin herself has written to us to tell us: "I am not a member of the Falls Church. Nor am I a member of Truro. I don't belong to any church at present." We regret the error.

Remarks of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams at the opening session of the 6th Building Bridges Seminar in Singapore, National University of Singapore, 4th December 2007

One of the most distinctive things about these seminars has been the experience of sharing the study of each other’s sacred text. Because when that happens, I meet the other person not as a scholar, not as the representative of some alien set of commitments, but as someone seeking to open their mind and their heart to the self communication of God. And to meet another person in that light and in that way is to meet them at a very deep level. That is how we have sought to approach our business and that has been, I am sure participants in the seminar would agree, a distinctive aspect of how we work together. We’ve not sought to issue communiqués or come to conclusions but to inform ourselves and to ask God to help us grow through the experience of meeting, in trust – and perhaps a very ambitious trust – that as we seek to grow and to learn and to open our minds and hearts to God then something around us will begin to shift and develop as well in the various contexts in which we work.

YouTube video is expected later.

See, also, the transcript of his press conference. An excerpt:

Reporter: I personally don’t see the link; how does religion come in with the environment? What are you expecting to hear?

Archbishop Oh, very much so; religious people believe that our physical environment is created by God and therefore deserves respect. The question is ‘how do we relate to our material environment in such a way that we display justice and reverence towards it?’ That’s a profoundly religious issue and without that dimension then our dealing with the ecological crisis will be thinner and much less adequate.

Last Friday the Church Times reported the latest in the mendacious antics of the former bishop of Harare:

The disgraced former Bishop of Harare, the Rt Revd Nolbert Kunonga, reportedly resorted to forgery last week, in an attempt to block the appointment of Dr Sebastian Bakare as the diocese’s interim Bishop, and to blacken his name.
...
The disgraced former Bishop of Harare, the Rt Revd Nolbert Kunonga, reportedly resorted to forgery last week, in an attempt to block the appointment of Dr Sebastian Bakare as the diocese’s interim Bishop, and to blacken his name.

Bishop Kunonga, whose attempts to withdraw Harare from the Province of Central Africa resulted in his own dismissal from the province, told the Harare Herald, a Mugabe-friendly newspaper, that Dr Bakare, retired Bishop of Manicaland, had turned down the appointment because the money was not good enough.
...
It went on to quote “correspondence” between Bishop Albert Chama, Dean of the Province of Central Africa, and the “Anglican Church Harare Diocese”, allegedly sent to all the clergy and laity in the diocese.
...
The Bishop of Botswana, the Rt Revd Trevor Mwamba, said that the letter, supposedly signed by Bishop Chama, was a forgery. “It is a propaganda warfare. Kunonga realises his time is finished, and is using the system because he is part of the system. It is lies upon lies — it is amazing how they have spun it out,” he said. “We wait to see what he will dream up next.”

Dr Bakare dismissed the report as a “complete fabrication and blatantly mischievous and misleading”.
...
Bishop Kunonga travelled last week to Kampala, reportedly in at attempt to ally his breakaway group with the Church of Uganda.

Meanwhile, truly important news: Zimbabwean orphans of AIDS have made a recording of Christmas song available for download beginning December 10. Ekklesia reports

The single - Makandifira/Silent Night - features a 30-strong Zimbabwean children's choir, all of them residents of Makumbi Children's Home and either orphaned by AIDS or HIV positive, singing with the London Oratory School Schola (choir).
...
Many of the children have come to stay at the Home having been found abandoned by the side of the road, left there by grandparents or other members of their extended family no longer able to cope with the burden of caring for these young orphans.

The New York Times reports:

“I just feel a tremendous loyalty to this church, and I am confused about this situation,” said Frances R. Maclean, 85, a member of Christ Church for 55 years who saw her children baptized and then married in its century-old chapel. “What is this business about Uganda?”
...
“As a state body we have to abstain from any involvement in religious disputes,” said John Witte Jr., director of the study of law and religion at Emory University in Atlanta, and “every property dispute has a doctrinal dimension that a court can’t touch.”

Judges must decide if individual parishes own the buildings where the members worship, or if those parishes are holding their property in trust for the larger church hierarchy, an arrangement many denominations have codified in their canons.

At Christ Church, the split has created two congregations, both of which are claiming the name and assets of the parish.

The Lead recently reported on a letter from the Presiding Bishop to the Bishop of San Joaquin asking him to draw back from his attempts to remove the Diocese of San Joaquin from the Episcopal Church. His reply has now been published by Episcopal Life Online.

Responding to a letter from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Bishop John-David Schofield of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin said the House of Bishops has "ignored my views for nearly twenty years" and blamed the wider Episcopal Church for any decision by the diocese to sever its ties and attempt affiliation with another province of the Anglican Communion.

"The decision to be made by our Annual Convention [December 8] is the culmination of The Episcopal Church's failure to heed the repeated calls for repentance issued by the Primates of the Anglican Communion and for the cessation of false teaching and sacramental actions explicitly contrary to Scripture," Schofield wrote in a December 5 letter responding to a letter Jefferts Schori sent him earlier in the week.

St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church in Leesburg, Virginia earns some attention from the Washington Post

The church's annual alternative gift fair opened last weekend with two days of shopping at the Founders Building in downtown Leesburg, and the campaign will continue by phone and on the Internet through Dec. 31. Since its inception in 2004, the event has raised more than $47,000 for Loudoun County charities.

The concept is simple. Shoppers browse a list of 13 local charities and the services each one can provide for a donation of $10, $25 or $50. Then the shopper makes a donation in the name of a friend or family member, either for one of those amounts or an amount of their choosing.

Details about the donation are written on small certificates printed on card stock. The gift-giver tucks the certificate into a holiday card, and the alternative gift is ready for giving.

Leesburg resident Christine Andary and her husband, John, came across the alternative gift fair by chance.

"We had gone down to the [Leesburg holiday] parade and weren't even aware of the gift fair beforehand," Christine Andary said Saturday. "We're really big on trying to do business locally and to try to do donations locally . . . so we thought it was great."
...
The fair generated more than $14,000 over the weekend, and organizers hope to reach $30,000 by the end of the month.

Read more about the concept at the St. Gabriel's homepage.

Saint Nicholas died on this day in 343 A.D. His biography is told here. There are many legends surrounding the saint. If you leave your shoes outside your bedroom door you'll a find treat in them in the morning.

Saint Nicholas, AKA Rev. Canon James M. Rosenthal II, long-time director of communication for the Anglican Communion, made an appearance in New York City yesterday. He said,

It is important to bring St. Nicholas' Christmas cheer to New York because of the saint's historic significance in the city -- the first church in Fort Washington was called St. Nicholas and St. Nicholas Avenue is a main thoroughfare. "One of New York's great hotels was St. Nicholas on Broadway and the Russian Orthodox has its glorious St Nicholas Cathedral on 97th," he said. "St. Nicholas, of course, is the name of the church destroyed at 9/11, and whose return as a church many eagerly await."

Press release from Canterbury. An excerpt:

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has given a wide-ranging lecture today in Singapore, at the Building Bridges Conference. In his lecture Dr Williams discusses the position of the “absolute truths” of faith over and above political power, and how this plays out in a society where several faiths co-exist.... Dr Williams argues strongly against the idea that religious diversity is at odds with social cohesion, but conversely, that it can help strengthen social harmony – if governments are willing to listen to the views of the faith communities....

The full text of the lecture can be found here.

For some excerpts from his address