I stole that title from a PowerBlog! entry. I just couldn’t do any better. I had
the giggles for some time after reading this.
😀
“…I consider myself an evangelical Christian, really a Christian conservative…”
Riiiiiiiight.*giggle*
This one one irks me. An
archbishop in Brisbane, Australian has spoken out against what he calls “spying
in church”. He wants people to stop taking notes of liturgical abuses.
To a certain extent, I understand where he’s coming from. Sacrifice and worship
should be the focus of the mass, not keeping track of every little thing done not
quite right. However, I can’t agree with his insistence that all note-taking stop.
If their weren’t abuses to report, people wouldn’t need to take notes. If nobody
takes notes, abuses go unreported. If abuses go unreported, the Eucharist may continue
to be desecrated and the Church disobeyed.
It’s ironic that this archbishop would squelch note-taking in order to restore focus
to the Eucharist, but that very squelching could lead to the improper handling of
that same Eucharistic worship. Redemptionis Sacramentum was written for a
reason – there were abuses to be corrected. I’ve witnessed first-hand the apparent
ignorance of, or perhaps apathy towards, that document in parishes. In those places,
it’s up to the faithful remnant of the laity to report abuses to the Church. How
else will they be corrected?
The growth area in unsolicited e-mail is now messages that contain religious themes. And the bad news is that unlike commercial spam, it’s not illegal. E-mail recipients are increasingly being offered religious salvation through the power of spam, according to security company MessageLabs. The antispam company has intercepted a large number of spiritual e-mails in the last month. The company says the e-mails are legal because they don’t plug products, just religious ideals.
Oh yeah, I’m sure that’ll endear Christianity to the world. Grrr…
Recently, the proprietor of this blogspace, Mr. Funky Dung, commented
about the "nice things" I say here from time to time. Though I am reasonably
certain that Mr. Dung intended it as a compliment, perhaps in the vein of "nice
arse kicking" or "nice proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem," part
of me was quite taken aback [I meant it in the sense of "nice reasoning"
or "well thought out response" or "good points". – Funky]
You see, "nice" has been registered as a complaint leveled against
Evangelicaldom in recent years. And as one of the token Evangelicals in these blogparts,
I must confess that I take the criticism to be all too often valid. I am therefore
probably more sensitive to occurrences of this word that most folks, not having
been accused of the sin of nice, use in a completely innocent, even complimentary,
way. Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up…
I can’t stand the popular depictions of angels in art, classy or kitchy. Whenever angels appear in Scripture, unless they’re in the form of a man, they’re terribly frightening. They nearly always had to introduce themselves with, "Be not afraid" or something similar. They are not beautiful women or hunky men with wings. Nor are they Cupid look-alikes. Got that?!?
Here endeth the lesson.