LiturgicalCredo.com’s Blog

“Christianity is going south very rapidly in terms of numbers. I’ve give you a quick overview, and I’m going to talk about Africa a lot. Simple reason: back in 1900, Africa had 10 million Christians representing 10 percent of the population; by 2000, that was up 360 million, to 46 percent of the population. That is the largest quantitative change that has ever occurred in the history of religion. A rising tide lifts all boats, and all denominations have been booming. The Anglicans have done very well, and the Anglican Church is going to be overwhelmingly an African body in the near future….

“Another important thing to remember is that most Global North categories do not work in the Global South. A classic example: if you talk to a Nigerian Anglican and you try to pin him down, saying, ‘I cannot figure you out, are you evangelical, are you Catholic, are you charismatic?’ The immediate answer is yes. And they mean it.”

These comments were made by Philip Jenkins, distinguished professor of religious studies and history at Pennsylvania State University, during the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life, held earlier this month in Key West, Fla.

The full transcript, well worth reading, is available at: http://pewforum.org/events/index.php?EventID=145 .

The book Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads is due out in September, published by Ten Speed Press (www.tenspeed.com).

Reinhart, a nationally recognized bread expert and author, is the Eastern Orthodox Christian whose meditations on spirituality and bread-baking appeared in the first edition of LiturgicalCredo.com.

If you have not yet read those meditations, click here: http://www.liturgicalcredo.com/PeterReinhartExcerpts.html .

-Colin Burch

“It is in liturgy that all aspects of Church faith and spirituality, of Church life and practice, of pastoral ministry and canon law, derive their essential source and find their ultimate significance.”

-Ecumenical Patriarch and Archbishop of Constantinople Bartholomew, speaking at the opening session of the Second Orientale Lumen EuroEast Conference, last week in Istanbul. (Source: Orientale Lumen Conference press release, via Religion News Service.)

“In a private audience with one leading traditionalist, Alice von Hildebrand, Pope Benedict said that he intended to publish the permission to celebrate the 16th-century [Latin Mass] rite this month,” reports the Times of London.

Here’s the full story: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article1784779.ece .

The folks at GetReligion.org, a group of veteran journalists who monitor media coverage of religion, have diced Lisa Miller’s incompetent Newsweek review of Jesus of Nazareth, the new book by Pope Benedict XVI.

It’s well worth reading. Click here: http://www.getreligion.org/?p=2418 .

Three poems by D.S. Martin will appear in the June/July edition of LiturgicalCredo.com. Martin’s poems and other writings have appeared in First Things, The Cresset, Canadian Literature, Mars Hill Review, Christianity & Literature, Queen’s Quarterly, and Rock & Sling. The poems are part of Martin’s new chapbook, So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press), which is about his grandparents who were missionaries in China between 1923 and 1951. The chapbook is available at www.dsmartin.ca.

From Towers Online, the news service of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky:

“The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary this week added prominent church historian Michael A.G. Haykin to its faculty, appointing him as professor of biblical spirituality and church history.

“A prolific author and noted scholar in areas of early church history, Baptist history and Christian spirituality, Haykin will pioneer Southern’s innovative new Ph.D. and D.Min. programs in biblical spirituality, will teach and supervise doctoral students in patristic history, and will head the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at Southern, which will host events and publish materials related to Baptist history. …

“It is important for Christians to study the writings of the church fathers [patristics] because they were the first interpreters of Scripture, Haykin noted.

“’For that reason their witness cannot be ignored,’ he said. ‘The doctrine of the Trinity, for example, was hammered out by them–from its New Testament witness–and the resultant creedal statement, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, stands as a landmark theologically.

“’On the other hand, they cannot be placed on the level of Scripture–Holy Scripture stands above them, and their thought must be measured by the Word of God.’”  (Read the full article on Haykin at http://www.towersonline.net/story.php?grp=news&id=429 .)

However, here are some thoughts related to the two closing quotes above.

Can Holy Scripture stand outside of interpretations of Scripture, and if not, aren’t the patristics and the creeds operating hand-in-glove with Scripture? If the New Testament witness was the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity, yet the doctrine of the Trinity wasn’t explicit in Scripture, what is more valuable — Scripture or the interpretive method by which we hammer out Scriptural doctrines? Cannot tradition and church doctrines be considered equally valuable to, and as necessary as, Scripture when Scripture promises the Holy Spirit’s continued work in God’s people? Consider that people interpreting Scripture independently of tradition come up with some wild ideas.

For example, Jaroslav Pelikan, in Reformation of Church and Dogma, wrote that Reformer Heinrich Bullinger “warned that it was not enough to declare loyalty to the sole authority of Scripture, which even the Arians had done; one was obliged as well to set forth an interpretation of Scripture that was simultaneously ‘native’ to the text and ‘congruous with the articles of faith.’”

-Colin Burch

I do not know much about the man, but I am thrilled to see the release of Hank Hanegraaff’s new book, The Apocalypse Code, which claims to dispatch the pre-tribulation rapture and Christian Zionism of the Left Behind series, Hal Lindsay, John Hagee, and others. If you click the following link and scroll down the page, you’ll see the laundry list of the book’s endorsements from scholars and authors: http://www.equip.org/site/c.muI1LaMNJrE/b.2616277/k.CB28/Apocalypse_Code_Endorsements.htm .

 Some unrelated notes:

If you haven’t read Byron Harris’ essay on ancient creeds or Rhett Iseman Trull’s poem “Counting Miracles at the State Asylum,” be sure to visit http://www.liturgicalcredo.com . You’ll find the links for the two pieces, and more, on the homepage.

Also, book lovers might be interested in reading about the National Book Critics Circle’s “Campaign to Save Book Reviewing.” Several NBCC blog entries have addressed the campaign recently: http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com . (Full disclosure: I am a member of the NBCC.)

-Colin Burch

Greg Garrison, at ReligionNews.com, reports:

“Harvard University biologist Edward O. Wilson, perhaps the world’s most famous insect expert, was baptized by immersion as a Southern Baptist long ago. ‘I went under the water,’ Wilson said. ‘I’m respectful. That’s one reason I can talk about it. I know the faith; I respect it.’
Wilson wants Baptists and other evangelicals to join with scientists in taking action to preserve the environment. ‘This feeling of respect I have has been missing from the secularists,’ Wilson said. ‘It’s high time the secularists made an effort to approach the huge majority of Americans who do belong to a religious faith. Let’s find out what we can work together on.’” 

Source: http://www.religionnews.com/ . 

Frederica Mathewes-Green says “Spider-Man 3” is full of powerful moral truths and religious themes – the only problem is that this article apparently gives away some of the plot, so be advised.

Her review is here: