Evolutionary Christianity

Since the beginning of December an interesting series of interviews has been taking place on the internet regarding a shift in thinking due to the story of the universe as explained by Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme and many others:

http://evolutionarychristianity.com/  I direct you here because it is best to get a sense of the project as a whole before going to the download page. Nevertheless, the specific interviews can be found at
audio-downloads/

 I draw your attention particularly to the intervention of Thomas Morewood. While you are there you might want to listen to some of the others as well. They include people like Diarmuid O'Murchu, Bishop Spong, Matthew Fox,  and many others: Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical.

This shift in thinking is breaking out throughout the world and not just among Christians. While religion may have played a negative role in many moments of history -- and that story is far from over -- it must be noted that that role has been a failure of religion in its deepest sense rather than an expression if its role. There is an important job ahead to challenge religion to accept task of building a more human world by rethinking its whole set of traditions and finding for itself a very largely transformed role in our world.

Hope: hiding round the corner

    Among the songs and prayers leading up to Christmas, we find this one from Germany in the 14th century:
     Behold a rose of Judah
     From tender branch has sprung,
     From Jesse’s lineage coming,
     As those of old have sung.
     It came a flower bright
     Amid the cold of winter,
     When half spent was the night.

     In a very beautiful poetic way it describes the flowering of hope for our world, “when half spent was the night.” They are words that we can read today, centuries later, and still find deep meaning.
     One of the important struggles many people have today is not just keeping hope alive but of searching for hope itself, for something that will make hope flower in the heart.
     I would like to believe that the flowering of hope is always just around the corner, present but not always evident to our line of vision. It will never come forward unless we keep journeying and struggling. Nevertheless, it is there and it is waiting for us and reaching out to us.

Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year !!

Omar Khadr: Child Soldier

Omar Khadr is a young man who was captured by Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan during a confrontation in 2002. He was 15 at the time and badly wounded; medics had to work hard to save his life. It turned out he was the son of a close collaborator with Bin Laden and, surprise, a Canadian citizen. His father had taken him to Pakistan and enlisted him in the struggle when he was 10 years old. After a period of “robust” interrogation, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay where, after 8 years, he remains the only Western prisoner there. The US government recently put him through a military trial at the end of which he confessed to all the crimes he was accused of as part of a “deal” that would limit his further incarceration to another 8 years with the possibility of transfer to a Canadian prison after one year.

“Public” and “private” in the debate about “laicity" in Quebec

The Quebec Group on Contextual Theology--See my link--has begun reflecting on what “laicity” means in Quebec.  It is not a discussion we hear about much in the English-speaking world and it is often confused by English-speaking peoples with a discussion about secularity.  However, in point of fact, the two are not the same. Secularity has to do with the distinction between the sacred and the profane.  Laicity has to do very specifically with the way religion functions in the public (especially State) sphere. The debate has been long and heated in Quebec and some trace it back to the reaction to Catholic ecclesiastical influence prior to the Quiet Revolution in Quebec in the 1960s.