Tag Archives: Integration

News

Woman offended by seeing-eye dog ejects blind man from bus

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Note: My opinion is that the woman in the story is probably a Muslim because Muslims have an aversion to dogs, but the news article is not conclusive on this point.

ECM likes dogs, while I like birds. He sent me this story from the Reading Post in the UK.

Excerpt:

A driver told a blind cancer sufferer to get off his bus when a woman and her children became hysterical at the sight of his guide dog.

George Herridge, 71, told how the mum flew into a rage and shouted at him in a foreign language. A passenger explained she wanted him to get off the bus during the incident on May 20.

ECM also sent me this story from the UK Telegraph, linked by David Thompson, about the death of initiative and outrage.

Excerpt:

Few people now dare to challenge just simple, inconsiderate behaviour in others – behaviour which flies well under the criminality radar but which manages to alienate and intimidate. It’s this which is the most worrying, though understandable, aspect to it all. There is a section of our society that remains awfully polite about such issues, and prefers to see such non-reaction as part of a British desire not to make a fuss or cause embarrassment. It’s a nice, quaint idea but it no longer plays: they simply don’t get the fact that now, it’s all about fear.

And alongside this fear is the sense that the order of things has become so inverted that one will be on shaky ground if one does indeed speak up. Most people now register some degree of outrage at being asked to desist, no matter how politely you do it. You are the rude troublemaker in their eyes. For some kind of order to be restored, back-up is crucial. And formal authority has more or less left the scene. You are on your own.

I actually blame secularism for eroding the objective morality that was, until recently, dominant in the West. The moral relativism that emerged as objective morality declined does not allow people to rationally oppose injustice. Instead, people just keep quiet. If moral relativism is true, you can’t make moral judgments against anyone.

News

Has the Episcopal church gone completely crazy?

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Story from the Associate Press via the American Spectator. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church called the evangelical notion that individuals can be right with God a “great Western heresy” that is behind many problems facing the church and the wider society.

Describing a United States church in crisis, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told delegates to the group’s triennial meeting July 8 in Anaheim, Calif., that the overarching connection to problems facing Episcopalians has to do with “the great Western heresy — that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.”

“It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus,” Jefferts Schori, the first woman to be elected as a primate in the worldwide Anglican Communion three years ago, said. “That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being.”

…Jefferts Schori said “heretical and individualistic understanding” contributes to problems like neglect for the environment and the current worldwide economic recession.

I wonder if the Bishop has ever encountered this passage:

32“Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.

33But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.

34“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

35 For I have come to turn
” ‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law –

36a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’

37“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

38and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

That statement is also in Luke. So it originates in Q, the source of Matthew and Luke, and it is therefore very, very early, and very, very reliable. And it’s worse than that – you can find something similar in the earliest gospel, Mark. So it is pretty clear that what is required to be saved is the individual decision to acknowledge Jesus and follow Jesus.

Here’s one more story from OneNewsNow about the Episcopalian church.

Episcopalians are moving toward affirming an open role for homosexual clergy in their church despite pressure from fellow Anglicans not to do so.

Episcopal bishops voted at a national meeting yesterday for a statement that says “God has called and may call” homosexual men and women to ministry. Delegates to the meeting already approved a nearly identical statement. This latest version is likely to be approved by Friday.

Episcopalians caused an uproar in 2003 by consecrating the first openly homosexual bishop, Vicki Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. That decision has nearly split the world Anglican Communion, which includes Episcopalians.

To calm tensions, Episcopal leaders three years ago had urged restraint by dioceses considering homosexual candidates for bishop. No openly homosexual bishops have been consecrated since then.

And don’t forget my previous post about the Rev. Ragsdale, another Episcopalian, who thinks that abortion should be made into a sacrament. She is the new Dean of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Mentoring

Robert P. Murphy explains why he is public about his faith

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I am always appreciative of Christian scholars who are can rise to the top of their professions without hiding their faith. One top economist is Robert P. Murphy, author of the best entry-level economics textbook out there, called “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism“. Rob also has a new book out called “The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal“.

Recently, Rob posted about why he is public about his faith, especially given the discomfort felt by the many famous economists that he works with.

Excerpt:

I remember when I was an atheist, I was extremely uncomfortable one time when a guy’s wife asked me if I knew Jesus….

In contrast, what I do is make my views known on this blog (or in public forums if it is appropriate), and I have even restricted the Jesus talk to Sundays. I absolutely love it when a bunch of you regular readers say things like, “Jeez Bob, you’re a good economist and very logical on a lot of things, but you went off the deep end with this God stuff.” So that’s part of my point in doing it, is to show that I think the doctrines of Christianity make sense and are logical. I utterly reject the idea–which many simple Christian folk have advanced–that you shouldn’t think too much about Biblical matters, or that you shouldn’t use your reason when contemplating God.

This is exactly my view as well. I like to tell people what I believe and why as I get to know them, then leave it up to them to come back to me with questions.For me this serves two purposes: 1) That person will know that at least one smart person (me) still believes in Christianity and 2) That person will have a resource in case they decide to try to respond to God’s seeking after them.

Further study

For more about integrating your vocation and your faith, and being a public Christian where you work, check out these posts from my index of apologetics.

Mentoring

Apologetics advocacy