Okay, maybe it is British humor. Really though the use of a Dalek to promote women Bishops in the Anglican Church? Instead of “Exterminate” they have “Con-se-crate.” Though maybe a Dalek is appropriate. It is easy to imagine the raspy electronic voice of the Dalek as to how these women talk. The Daleks had every emotion removed except hate and the tone of the Women’s ordination movement reminds me of this.

Though I don’t know what they are worried about. The Anglican Church always caves and unlike the Catholic Church it really is only a matter of time since the governing General Synod has already decided this was to be allowed. I guess their chant is “We want women bishops now and not just in the next year.”

Via Father Z

The president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the second-largest church in America, announced today that come next year, they might not be the Southern Baptist Convention anymore.

President Bryant Wright said the “Southern” part of their name might need to go since it implies a regional focus, and he’s launched a task force to consider new options for the 166-year-old body, Baptist News reported.

Their findings will be shared with SBC leaders in February, and any change would have to be approved by delegates at its annual meetings.

Across the Baptist blogosphere, Southern Baptists seem to be thinking that Wright may be right, supporting his claim that without the regional modifier, Southern Baptists may have further reach across the continent.

Interesting, but it does seem to me that outside of the Catholic Church all forms of Christianity are geographical in nature.

For example the Protestant fathers all created competing forms of Christianity and adherence pretty much formed regionally or in areas where their regions projected spheres of influence. Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, King Henry VIII all established churches which largely became national churches. After the Protestant revolt you did not see countries with roughly equal amounts of Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Anglicans, etc; you see pretty much geographical dominance. Colonization plays a role in projecting regional Christianity, but eventually as is always the case with Protestantism geographical fracture occurs. For example no one would compare Anglicanism as practiced in England with Anglicanism as practiced in Africa. For now African Anglicanism is more like historic Anglicanism in belief. Really geographical fracture becomes so extreme that the local non-denominational denominations are tied to neighborhoods and not regions.

This is also certainly so in the Orthodox Churches in that they are pretty much tied to national versions of Orthodoxy and their spread to other countries is pretty much confounded to expatriates. Being that the Orthodox have valid Holy Orders and have retained the sacraments their geographic fracturing is largely kept in check as compared to Protestant churches.

The latter half of the first century use of the word Catholic to describe a particular and universal Church is an escape from being tied to the geographical. This is one of the reasons I dislike and don’t use the term “Roman Catholic” a term which rose from Anglican quarters. Being a Catholic of the Roman or Latin Rite is more accurate terminology and I dislike prefixes that would limit the word Catholic. Besides in the 1300s we didn’t suddenly become “Avignon Catholics.” Certainly there is much to appreciate in the historic association of the Catholic Church and the city of Rome. The reality though is that the Catholic Church is the Church established by Christ and geography does not limit its universality.

That is part of the beauty of the Catholic Church is that we can be a universal Church and at the same time have some geographical and cultural distinctions. These distinctions mainly occur with the different rites where you have different emphasis on theology and liturgical expression. These distinctions don’t resolve into totally different theology as we find in the myriad Protestant churches.

Though to be more accurate there is geographical fracturing that does occur within the members of the Church. These fractures occur whenever there is departure from the Magisterium of the Church. The Dutch Bishops and their infamous Dutch Catechism did not bring about a more universal church, but regional dissent from the Church. In the United States the heresy of Americanism was and is a departure from the universality of the Church. The Church is universal because the truth she teaches is universal and the Church’s teaching authority maintains that universality. That authority from Christ and protected from the gates of hell will keep the Church universal despite the ebb and flow of the adherence of her members. Dissent from that authority results in individualism and geographical fracturing.

Getting back to the renaming of the Southern Baptist Convention they will have a difficult time coming up with a name devoid of both geographical associations and having a form of Baptist specificity. Maybe they can do what Prince did and change their name to a symbol. The ecclesial community formerly known as the Souther Baptist Convention. Joking aside I really should be joining Jesus in his high priestly prayer to the Father.

“I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee; and these know that thou hast sent me. I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17:20-26

The Inaugural Saint Paul University Pride Centre Event: Queer and Christian, A Conversation with Jan Braun.

A group of students at St. Paul and SPUSA are collaborating to create the Saint Paul University Pride Centre a welcoming place for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Two Spirit, Queer, Questing and Asexual students and staff at Saint Paul University and their allies.

I bet welcoming to everybody but orthodox Catholics.  It is also hard to keep up with all the politically correct terms they throw in. First it was LQBT and each week they seem to throw in another letter of the alphabet.  Plus do the asexual students bud?

We are excited to launch our centre with a conversation with Jan Braun who has walked the balance between her faith and her sexuality as a Queen Mennonite. She is coming to share parts of her book Somewhere Else, and her experiences with us.

Anytime you see the word balance used with faith it means that the faith is actually in what ever it is being balanced with. Somebody with some level of same-sex attraction can live the faith just as anybody else can by answering the same call to holiness without a balancing act. Now did they mean “Queen Mennonite” or “Queer Mennonite”? Or is it a difference without a distinction?

Jan Braun wrote a novel called “Somewhere Else”

Jess is sixteen and aware that she is in an impossible position—being the homosexual daughter of the president of the Mennonite college. She hits the road in search of a language and the freedom to speak it. On the train to Winnipeg she is found by Freya, the Icelandic princess of her dreams. Halfsteinn, fisherman and expert in the fine art of hand-rolling cigarettes, enters Jess’ life, helping her escape emotional captivity. Jess embraces pothead, videogame—playing housemates in the world away from her Mennonite being. Then, she meets Shea. Jess can barely utter the name—afraid of the word, the woman, the possibility, and her own past.

Please tell me the novel is a comedy because the description is really cracking me up.

Aren’t you glad to know that Saint Paul University is one of the only two pontifical universities in North America?

Let’s play “Guess the University Mission”

A. We embrace the teachings of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium with a spirit of Christian humanism that relates all learning to Jesus Christ. At …, you’ll grow in mind, body, and spirit through the integration of faith and reason.

B. As a Catholic institution, … is dedicated primarily to an understanding and integration of Christian faith and life. It intends to pursue this task in a spirit of ecumenical openness and with a critical awareness of the forms of Christian life already existing or now emerging within modern cultures and societies.

I know this is a hard one – but jus try to guess which Mission statement is for the University of St Paul located in Ottawa, Ca. Well they do both have the word “integration” in them.

At a rally on the campus of North Carolina State in Raleigh, N.C. Wednesday where President Obama went to drum up support for his jobs bill, this happened.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I love you, Barack!

THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. (Applause.) But first — but if you love me — if you love me, you got to help me pass this bill. (Applause.) If you love me, you got to help me pass this bill.

Here’s John 21:15, the New International Version, describing a scene between Jesus and his disciples:

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter,”Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” [Source]

Hmm, not sure if NPR is mocking Obama’s MESSiah-like status or just noting the comparison. Though this is not the verse I would have chosen to make a comparison with – but hey with NPR it is amazing they would have any verse in mind. Much more fitting I think is:

“If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15)

Surely this idea is more what the President has in mind. Though I think the cruelest thing that could be done to the President was to pass his jobs bill, not to mention the American people. It won’t be passed and the President can then blame the Congress for the worsening economy. The effects of passing the “More of the same – American Jobs Bill” would not give him this out. Though like most politicians he is quite apt at blaming someone else as usual.

I find the whole idea of this type of appeal to love for political reasons rather odd. For one the response for love is not always to acquiesce to what somebody wants. If an alcoholic tells you “If you love me, bye me a bottle”, giving him a bottle is not love. To love is to will the good for the other and there a prudential considerations to be dealt with when considering this. The only demands love can make is for love. To use it as a coercive demand is not love.

The prudential merits of the Presidents economic plans has nothing to do with supporting his plan. I would consider the President to be an enemy for his culture of death policies, yet I can still love him and will the good for him without supporting his plans.