The Wing-Beat

What about Pentecostal Scientology? It was in the news this morning. I’ll bet L. Ron Hubbard never anticipated that combination, but he and his ilk shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Scientology is but one of the synthetic, or to use a term Catherine Albanese has used (A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A History of American Metaphysical Religion) to describe popular religious habits, combinative groups or cults that take their cues from various metaphysical teaching traditions and teachings. Read more…

From the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia we learn of three historical Saints Valentine, martyrs all in the second century; a bishop, a priest of Rome, and a Christian, possibly a priest, in North Africa. Medieval folk associated the Feast Day of St. Valentine, February 14, with the pairing of birds and from there with lovers or loved ones exchanging notes and gifts. So the 13th Century literature includes references to Valentine’s letters.

As with most traditions we have choices for celebration here, both of them worthwhile and affirming. Leaving aside the scattershot patterns of giving Valentine’s cards as children (though one might reserve a special card for some One), the feast (festival) day celebration recognizes the sacrifices of ancients willing to die for a glory far greater than themselves yet a glory in which they had been given a non-negotiable part; or Valentine’s Day recognizes the glory of men and women held together in a commitment far greater than the bonds achieved through their own (or society’s) strength and resolve. Of course at best I do mean Christ-ian marriage, and if we may not celebrate it on Valentine’s Day, then how could we be satisfied, or inspired, by anything less? How better to picture sacrificial love than in service to one’s beloved? Paul the Sent said no less about it when he described Christ as laying down his life for his bride the church.

You married men must love your wives, just as Christ love the church and gave Himself for her, to consecrate her, after cleansing her through His word, as pictured in the water bath, that He might present the church to Himself as a splendid bride without a blot or wrinkle or anything like it, but to be consecrated and faultless. This is the way married men ought to love their wives, as they do their own bodies. The married man who loves his wife is really loving himself, for no one ever hates his own physical person, but he feeds and fosters it, just as Christ does the church, because we are parts of His body. Ephesians 5:25-30, Williams Translation

On a previous post from December 3 I mentioned the conception of “god” or “God” in the Chinese tradition. The emperor could be seen as a god of sorts. I have visited all too briefly with my Chinese academic friends about this, but one comment resonates with my growing understanding of the ages-old “secularity” of Chinese society and belief: even without the modern, naturalistic, atheistic world view of most educated Chinese today, to have “God” is something very difficult. In traditional China, the emperor–Son of Heaven or tianzi–dominated over the people, and together they constituted the main reality of the world. There has been no “emperor” since at least 1912, but there has been no lack of authoritarian government. Beyond mundane boundaries, though, and subordinate to the world itself, is the traditional Chinese conception of a god or God, and it is well-nigh inconsequential: “It’s hard to be a god in China,” said one friend. And I must say it can be hard to accept the idea of a loving, redeeming God and along with that idea, the concept that a Chinese person would need such a god. Read more…

Filling in for Alex in the Faith Bible class this morning, I read from C. S. Lewis’ The Four Loves on the way to thinking through the Incarnation with the class members. I love doing this stuff! Lewis wrote a beautiful treatment about the distinctions between Need-love and Gift-love, among other things, and in his discussion of Charity asserted that God is love, insisting that we can understand any of this at all only by starting with God: Read more…

The biggest story of the early “holi-day” season? No, not at all. chicagotribune.com — nativity story It is a story relating to an increasingly familiar theme, actually: No, says the Chicago mayor’s special events office, New Line Media cannot advertise their film Nativity Story at the Christkindlmarket in Chicago. Risks being preferential to one “faith,” offensive to non-Christians. Hmmm. Could be! Read more…