Don’t forget St. Bede!

 

Saint Bede's monastery church at St. Paul's, Jarrow

 It’s easy to lose Mr. Venerable himself in all the challenging hoopla of those rising, dusty feet and the clamor and chaos of the rapidly approaching Pentecostal drama, but he’s there! 

Sunday, May 24, aka The Eve of Bede, at 5pm, consider joining the choir,the organist, and the clergy for a Choral Evensong in celebration of our very own St. Bede – scholar extraordinaire, pious Anglo-Saxon monk, and determined historian.

Move To Edible City!

Visit Edible City where Bay Area folks are digging in the dirt to create a  sustainable village feast.

Wedged between buildings, across networks of backyards and elementary school lawns, springing up in empty lots and city centers, a grassroots movement is thriving in the Bay Area.

Edible City, a new feature-length documentary from East Bay Pictures follows the stories of folks who are digging their hands into the dirt, working for sustainability, and fighting for equality by doing something truly revolutionary: growing food.

-Judy Werner-Hall

The Theology of Battlestar Galactica – RESCHEDULED

Here’s a question: What modern sci-fi (or if you prefer, psy-fi) television show offers a multi-layered commentary upon the Biblical Exodus story, the 4th century Roman empire (when the powers that be were Christianizing the empire at the point of a sword), as well as the United States post-September 11?

That’s right: Battlestar Galactica. And no, not the version from the 1970’s–the one of the past 5 years. And yes, it really does have that much on its mind. We’re not making it up.

A bunch of BSG obsessives from St. Bede’s will offer a presentation on the subject tomorrow evening, May 14 next Thursday evening, May 21 (along with dinner), from 6:30 – 9 pm. We hope to win some converts to the show along the way. So please join us!

Why Is The Bible Such a Big Deal?

This is what I love about our Seekers Dinners.

Tomorrow night, we will be discussing The Holy Bible. Specifically we will be attempting to address the following questions, as raised by one of our young adults in an email to me earlier this week:

One thing I’m interested in is what the Bible should mean (and how it should be used) by modern, rational, serious Christians (or agnostics). Knowing what modern scholarship says about the history of how the Bible was written, compiled, interpreted, etc., why (and how) should we give it any mind? Why preference the bible over other religious/spiritual sources as a focus of study or inspiration? I doubt most people want to turn this thing into a Bible Study, but it’s something I’m interested in… So what’s the justification for being so focused on the Hebrew and Christian Bible?

Great questions! I’m not sure we’ll settle on any definitive answers tomorrow night, but it’ll be fun to try. Which reminds me of a quip I heard yesterday from a Bay Area Episcopal priest I’d just met:

“The Episcopal Church: You’ve got questions… We’ve got questions.”

- Jamie McElroy

The Mysterious “Unaffiliated”

The Pew Forum has released the results of a complex and fascinating survey of American adults about whether, why and how they switch or stick with the religious affiliation of their childhood.

Most interesting to me, as someone raised unaffiliated, is the finding that a majority of those who were raised unaffiliated (54 percent) have since become affiliated with Evangelical Protestantism, Mainline Protestantism, Catholicism or some other non-Christian faith as adults. Meanwhile, only about 14 percent of those raised Christian, either Catholic or Protestant, have become altogether unaffiliated with an organized religion. And most (68 percent of those raised Catholic and 52 percent of those raised Protestant) have continued as adults with the particular denomination in which they were raised.

What does this mean? Well… I don’t know…

At first blush, it seems to contradict some of the recent assertions that religiosity is steadfastly declining in America. But this column in the New York Times went further and asserted that the survey results indicate humans must naturally crave ways for experiencing the divine and/or the group identity that comes from affiliation with one faith or another. That column, in turn, inspired this blog post which led to a torrent of comments theorizing about the extent to which the religiosity of human beings is (1) a product of culture or (2) a product of our neural wiring.

Here’s one interesting comment…

The United States of Sin

Geographers from Kansas State University recently studied “the spatial distribution of the seven deadly sins” within the continental United States. The Bay Area rated high in Envy, Greed, Wrath and the mother of all sins, Pride. And the health-conscious community was predictably deemed not that sinful when it comes to Sloth and Gluttony. Although in a finding that might surprise some, our area was also deemed less than sinful when it comes to Lust.

Here’s how the relative sinfulness was calculated:

Greed was calculated by comparing average incomes with the total number of inhabitants living beneath the poverty line…

Envy was calculated using the total number of thefts — robbery, burglary, larceny and stolen cars…

Wrath was calculated by comparing the total number of violent crimes — murder, assault and rape — reported to the FBI per capita…

Lust was calculated by compiling the number of sexually transmitted diseases — HIV, AIDS, syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea — reported per capita…

Gluttony was calculated by counting the number of fast food restaurants per capita…

Sloth was calculated by comparing expenditures on arts, entertainment and recreation with the rate of employment…

And pride, lastly, is most important. The root of all sins, in this study, is the aggregate of all data. Vought and his Kansas colleagues combined all data from the six other sins and averaged it into an overview of all evil.

Click here to see the color coded maps with hot-spots of sin.

- Jamie McElroy

The Soul of Capitalism

Yesterday, during Soulwork (our weekly Sunday adult ed series), we discussed how capitalism can be compatible with Christian charity and service. Stay tuned for more about that discussion, but for now, check out this image produced by artist Scott Campbell:

Teens Preach: Loving Truth & Action

Next Sunday, when the Bishop visits St. Bede’s, four members of our Youth Group will go through the rite we call “Confirmation.” They will vow to follow the teachings of Christ and to participate in the life of the church. Then they will kneel before the Bishop, and the Bishop will lay hands on them and bless them.

Over the course of this past year, the kids preparing for confirmation have discussed many different aspects of what it means to be a Christian. During all those Confirmation classes, there have been a lot of words and a lot of speech. And I hope that some of all that word and speech was fruitful.

But I think what was and is most important about what these kids have done over the course of year in their preparations for confirmation is that they have truthfully and actively engaged with the question of what it means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, what it means to be a Christian.

I have heard stories—particularly from some of our young adults—about how and why they came to be confirmed that served as cautionary tales for me, as someone leading a confirmation class. Two different people have told me that their parents made a kind of Faustian deal with them: “If you get confirmed,” their parents told them, “then you don’t have to come to church.”

Talk about word and speech trumping truth and action.

So, during our first confirmation class in September, we discussed how confirmation was about taking the reigns of one’s faith for one’s self. We discussed how their parents had made certain vows when they were babies to raise them in a church community. And that now, if they wished to dedicate themselves to living as Christians on into adulthood and throughout their lives, they could make those same vows for themselves.

But we also discussed the fact that there was and is no rush, that if they were not sure they wanted to commit themselves to the Christian life, they could wait; that what is most important is that they do what they truly and actively believe is right for themselves as they stand before God.

Learning about their beliefs and their various ways of wrestling with the major questions of faith has been a wonderful experience for me. These teenagers have taught me that being a Christian and committing to the Christian life is not about assenting to a set of edicts that may or may not ring true in one’s heart.

It is about being honest and loving before God, struggling mightily to live out our lives in the way God has lovingly called us to live it—which may or may not involve practicing the Christian faith and attending church services.

- Jamie McElroy

[Click below for the complete sermon, including Youth Group reflections.]

From Pastafarian to Episcopalian

I’m a little late to this, but St. Bede’s parishioner Michael Chen has totally redesigned his blog and it is very much worth checking out. Also he recently posted an interesting response to our last Seekers Dinner. Here’s an excerpt:

The Seeker’s dinner on Thursday was a fascinating look at the composition of St. Bedes. Technically, the topic was “organized religion,” which turned into a somewhat one-sided debate about how bad organized religion is. Which is ironic since the debate took place at a dinner in our church.

I’m honestly not a fan of organized religion. I think it’s potential for being psychologically damaging (see: fundamentalist) is not outweighed by its social good. Especially nowadays, I think it detracts too much from rational knowledge (see: intelligent design). Its community organizational purpose is still valid, but organized religion has lost some of its poise as a governmental check (in a typically American paradox).

Still, there are some good aspects, mainly related to community building I feel. But I think St. Bede’s is rare…

Even the services Christina and I attend on Sundays are not 100% comfortable to me–reciting things sounds, at best, droning and, at worst, cult-ish. I enjoy the singing, mainly because when else could I sing? I enjoy the food and gathering with other intelligent individuals. But that actual “organized” part? Meh. Still, I understand the merits of all these aspects, just as I understand that historical precedence is often what drives these arcane rituals that I dislike so much. I am still uncomfortable identifying with a wider religious community, precisely because I do not want to be associated with the ignorance and bigotry that often discolors faith. It took me a lot of willpower to change my Facebook identification from “Pastafarian” to “Episcopalian.”

- Jamie McElroy

A Religious Response To Climate Change

The Rev. Canon Sally Bingham spoke to a rapt audience last night at St. Bede’s, as part of Bede’s Greening Sustainability Initiative. Sally is founder and president of California Interfaith Power and Light, an expanding network of over 4000 congregations in 26 states and the District of Columbia. Because of IPL work, more than 500,000 Christians, Jews, and Muslims are now connected in their commitment to take action to heal the earth. Sally is also founder and director of The Regeneration Project. She has just launched a book, Love God, Heal Earth: 21 Leading Religious Voices Speak Out on Our Sacred Duty to Protect the Environment (St. Lynn’s Press, 2009). Kitty Lehman, Rector of St. Bede’s, observes,

I’d call Sally the best kind of prophet, someone motivated by the love of God, people and creation. She persistently recalls us to our first and best identity and purpose as earth-stewards, as our fundamental expression of gratitude for life itself, understood as planetary viability. Because of Sally’s tireless efforts, congregations are becoming  more effective witnesses through eco-evangelism and environmentally sustainable practices.

-Judy Werner-Hall