Monthly Archives: May 2012

An unusual anti-global warming advertisement

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From here:

“Charles Manson Still Believes in Global Warming. Do You?”
That’s the essence of a thoughtful and nuanced new billboard campaign put together by the Heartland Institute, the nation’s top climate change-doubting think tank. The billboards feature portraits of figures like Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, Charles Manson, and Fidel Castro, alongside giant lettering that reads “I Still Believe in Global Warming. Do You?”

If I had designed the ad, it would have been much more subtle. Something like this:

Same-sex marriage showdown at All Saints, Sanderstead

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Read it all here:

Peter Gowlland, 78, was accused of sowing discord among worshippers at the liberal-leaning All Saints Church in Sanderstead, Surrey, by inviting them to sign a petition against the Government plans to introduce same-sex weddings.

Despite being told by his Archdeacon to “withdraw” from ministry for two months as a result, Church authorities continued to insist last night that he had “not been suspended”.

The retired science teacher says he was told “we don’t do that here” by a fellow lay reader when he set out a pile of leaflets promoting the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey’s Coalition For Marriage before a Sunday service last month.

Matters came to a head shortly during the service when he urged parishioners in his sermon to be “bold like the apostles” and register their opposition to the redefinition of marriage.

It prompted what might pass in the Church of England for a public showdown: a brief and polite disagreement with two other lay readers in front of the congregation, a retired bishop and the visiting Worldwide President of the Mothers’ Union.

It goes to show that there are ways to have fun in a liberal Church of England parish.

All Saints proudly proclaims:

Whoever you are, and wherever you find yourself on your journey of faith, there is a place for you at All Saints’.

But if, on your journey of faith, you find yourself at a spot where you disagree with same-sex marriage, keep it to yourself.

 

“Life is wasted without Jesus” causes offence

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From the CBC:

A Christian student suspended from a high school in Nova Scotia for sporting a T-shirt with the slogan “Life is wasted without Jesus” vows to wear it when he returns to class next week.

William Swinimer, who’s in Grade 12, was suspended from Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin in Lunenburg County for five days. He’s due to return to class on Monday.

The devout Christian says the T-shirt is an expression of his beliefs, and he won’t stop wearing it.

[….]

Nancy Pynch-Worthylake, board superintendent, said some students and teachers found the T-shirt offensive.

“When one is able or others are able to interpret it as, ‘If you don’t share my belief then your life is wasted,’ that can be interpreted by some as being inappropriate,” she said.

I wonder how the delicate students, whose fragile sensibilities were offended by a slogan they were free to ignore, will cope when they enter the big bad world of business with all its slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Perhaps they will all become teachers and retain the luxury of being easily offended.

I also wonder what the reaction would have been to this t-shirt:

The end of the world – again

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From here:

Doris Rosado watches her teenage daughters, Ninette and Kiara Mongrut, get the numbers “666” tattooed on their wrists, beaming with pride. The number typically conjures up biblical symbolism tied to the Antichrist, but this St. Catharines, Ont., family belongs to a obscure Christian sect for which “666” is a positive symbol of their group’s messianic leader.

“They wanted to do it,” Ms. Rosado, 45, said at the St. Catharines tattoo parlour where her daughters were inked. “But now it’s more important because we’re counting down… I’m so proud.”

For this family, and other members of Growing in Grace International, these tattoos are a way of demonstrating their faith as true believers of Jose de Luis de Jesus — who they fervently believe is the second coming of Jesus Christ — before a day of reckoning they believe will wipe out most of humanity.

[…..]

To spread the word, Growing in Grace put up billboards in Toronto this week featuring Mr. de Jesus.

“That day, the body of Jose de Luis de Jesus, who is a human like you and me, his flesh is going to be immortal…. He’s going to be living forever. And that will happen to him, but also his followers.”

But, said Mr. Poessy: “All those that are not believers are going to be destroyed.”

Growing in Grace International is not the first to prognosticate that the so-called end of the world will come this year. The Mayan calendar famously picks Dec. 21, 2012.

But Mr. de Jesus also predicts that the “transformation” will endow him, and his loyal followers, with superpowers, such as the ability to fly and walk through walls, said Axel Cooley, the bishop’s daughter.

This is, to use a tired cliché, a win-win situation: if Mr. de Jesus is wrong – and I can’t see how a man careless enough to glue two of his fingers to his forehead could be right about the end of the world – we’ll all still be around on July 1st and his followers will be lined up to have their tattoos removed. If he is right, destruction is a more appetising prospect than seeing Mr. de Jesus flying and walking through walls.

The added benefit to his being wrong is that, on July 1st, we can all enjoy watching him try out his newly acquired superpowers.

The Diocese of New Westminster does Godspell

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And, surprise, surprise, when the production opens in Christ Church Cathedral in May, the diocese will “dare the audience to consider Christ anew” by having a female Jesus and portraying the crucifixion as a regrettable episode of school bullying taken a step too far. This article goes on to speculate that the “production of Godspell will instigate fresh thinking in those who come to see it.” Not really, it’s entirely predictable.

Was the crucifixion of Christ a supreme act of bullying? Godspell Director, Rev. Andrew Halladay and Director of Music, Rev. David Taylor believe that Jesus was bullied. Bullying is a hot topic — not just in Canada — but also around the world. In March, both the Liberals and the Conservatives introduced bills meant to influence the way that Canadian educators deal with bullies in our schools.

What does it mean to have the role of Jesus played by a woman? By casting theological student Clare Morgan as Jesus, Halladay and Taylor break from the typical Godspell formula. The role of the typical Godspell Jesus is difficult to fill. The role requires a male soprano. When Halladay and Taylor began casting their Godspell, they already considered inviting a woman to play Jesus — to honor the talent that confronted them and to dare the audience to consider Christ anew.