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Christians should abandon Christianity

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000

"The Idolatry of God: Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty and Satisfaction" by Peter Rollins
Howard Books, 2013

For Peter Rollins, Belfast native and leading writer and thinker in the Emergent Christian movement, “God” has fallen prey to our grasping, market-driven existence — just another shiny thing we acquire to make ourselves feel OK.

Alfred Hitchcock called this (in another context entirely) the “MacGuffin,” or as Rollins explains it: “that X for which some or all of the main characters are willing to sacrifice everything, something that people want in some excessive way — the object that seems to promise fulfillment, satisfaction and lasting pleasure.”

And yet when we get our hands on the longed-for MacGuffin, it doesn’t do away with our feelings of emptiness or brokenness, and may well deepen them. Instead, Rollins argues, there is no cure for our brokenness, other than the full and complete acceptance of it.

Weird news: Priest dials 9-1-1 because he is “stuck in a pair of handcuffs”

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 22:44:00 +0000

The Illinois Times has published a strange 9-1-1 call placed by Illinois pastor Father Tom Donovan on Nov. 28, who was apparently tied up in a pair of handcuffs at St. Aloysius Church.

This is how the call begins:

Donovan: Hi there, I am stuck in a pair of handcuffs. I’m going to need help getting out before this becomes a medical emergency.

Dispatcher: What's the problem?

Donovan: I'm stuck. In a pair. Of handcuffs.

Dispatcher: You’re stuck in a pair of handcuffs?

Donovan: Yes.

Should churches be used as polling spots?

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 18:00:00 +0000

In South Saint Paul, Minn., on Election Day, residents showed up at St. John Vianney Catholic Church to vote and were greeted with a banner outside the polling place entrance that read, “Strengthen Marriage, Don’t Redefine It.”

Minnesota was voting on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, and the Catholic Church had been the most vocal proponent of the ballot measure.

Voters snapped photos of the banner, which quickly gained attention on Twitter and Facebook.

Ivan Kowalenko took one of those photos. He told Minnesota Public Radio, “I was shocked, I didn’t think that would be allowed. I was hearing that you’re not allowed to wear any political slogan of your own, so it doesn’t seem entirely appropriate that a voting venue would be allowed to express an opinion.”

At a separate polling place at St. Joseph’s Church in West St. Paul, Stephanie Weiss was waiting in line to vote, and she noticed a sign posted to the wall. It was a prayer, written by Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt, that urged Catholics to defend God’s plan for marriage — between one man and one woman.

Why have Democrats abandoned non-religious voters?

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:41:00 +0000

  For the better part of the decade that followed its bitter loss to George W. Bush in 2000, soul-searching by the Democratic Party led some of its leaders to a natural conclusion: the future of the party lay in the hands of church-going voters, and the party had better win them back. The only problem with that was that it was wrong.

Not only was it a wrong conclusion, but it was one that saw Democrats ignoring a key constituency: the growing numbers of voters with no religious affiliation -- voters whose values tend to fall naturally in line with the party’s professed goals.

Today, a new survey released on Monday by the Public Religion Research Institute confirms just what a mistake that was: Nearly one-fifth -- 19 percent -- of Americans now say they are unaffiliated with any religion, and 63 percent of them lean Democratic. But the survey also shows they’re significantly less likely to turn up at the polls than religious voters. Perhaps that’s because they feel left out of the dialogue, as leaders of the Democratic spent the last eight years trying to show the public that they love Jesus as much as anybody.