- Evangelists, Episcopals and Journalizers.
- What’s the cost of discipleship in 2011?
- Looking Presidential.
- Texas Camel sticks nose under tent flap.
- Another vignette of Archbishop Dmitri.
- What the Bishop Confided to the Atar Boy.
- 10 (Deceptively Difficult) Steps Toward Peace.
1
Did you hear the one about the reporter who thought the two major parties should be referred to, in news stories, as Democrasites and Republicoids?
No?
How ’bout the one who thought Sen. Mark Hatfield was an “Evangelist,” or the one who in 2003 set forth to see what “Episcopals” thought of their new gay Bishop?
The Richmond (VA) Times Dispatch referred in headline to “Mark Hatfield: Evangelist,” apparently not having a clue that Evangelist and Evangelical are not synonyms. (See how considerate I am: I hyperlink to definitions just in case you, gentle reader, are as ignorant as a journalist.)
Sociologist Christian Smith writes in a Religion & Culture piece titled Religiously Ignorant Journalists:
Today I received a phone message from a journalist from a major Dallas newspaper who wanted to talk to me about a story he was writing about “Episcopals,” about how the controversy over the 2003 General Convention’s approval of the homosexual bishop, Gene Robinson, would affect “Episcopals.” …
(The dictionary actually lists Episcopals as “informal”for Episcopalians. I was previously unaware that “informal” and “idiotic” were now synonyms.)
It is appalling when media send out people on religion stories who haven’t even got a clue about what to call those they’re ever-so-perceptively covering.
And that, friends, is why Get Religion is a blog that, sadly, will never in the foreseeable future go out of business. Having subscribed to it again, I must resist the temptation to fill my Tidbits with anti-Journalizer Jeremiads daily.
2
Hearing a Mars Hill Audio Journal item on another Dietrich Bonhoeffer biography, I began wondering what the cost of discipleship (quite high for the book, it appears, but that’s not what I meant) is today.
We are in troubled times. Worse likely is coming. There clearly is an atavistic impulse afoot to blame Muslims, or immigrants, or someone (other than the politicians who truly are to blame — with our own connivance). Is 2011 then new 1933, America the new pre-War Germany? What’s afoot that the Gospel obliges us as disciples to resist?
Having been a Republican not long ago at all, and still considering myself “conservative” in one of many meanings of that elastic word, it nevertheless seems to me that the most dangerous and demagogic rhetoric is coming from that side.
Perhaps I’m unduly influenced by press coverage, as this CatholicVote.org piece (on Debating the Culture War) tacitly hints (contrasting Newsweek coverage of “radical” Michelle Bachman with things Obama said in 2008 that got a free pass from press).
What I ardently believe, and have believed so long I can’t remember when it began, is that America is not so exceptional that “it can’t happen here,” no matter how ghastly the “it” is.
Because it seems to me that The Right is uniquely oblivious to our vulnerability to evil — not from subversion but from hypertrophy of our own national tendencies, including hubris — I’m particularly concerned about that wing of our politics.
But then, I’ve also long thought of myself as ballast. If the ship of state is tilting Left, I shift Right, and vice-versa.
3
Always remember, as you walk the dusty road of life, and especially as you approach the voting booth, that slender, regal Neville Chamberlain looked way more Presidential than tubby, bald Winston Churchill. Other examples abound.
This is not, repeat not, an endorsement of Chris Christie over Mitt Romney.
4
I can’t figure out if my leg is being pulled and, if so, by whom: Rick Perry or the Wall Street Journal?
It seems that pro-business Texas Governor Rick Perry has an anti-business skeleton in his closet. He taxes businesses that serve beverage alcohol as nubile lasses, uh, er, engage in free expression, just like the Boss tells ’em to.
5
There’s a remarkable surge of hagiographic stories about Archbishop Dmitri. Here’s a delightful mini-bio.
6
All true Christianity will disappear in the course of your life from the West. True Christianity will come from the East and this will be very important for you.
(Herman Tristram Engelhardt: How I Became Orthodox) The course of Engelhardt’s life is pretty well progressed. How’s that prophecy proceeding?
7
From the The Center for Nonviolent Communication
- Spend some time each day quietly reflecting on how we would like to relate to ourselves and others.
- Remember that all human beings have the same needs.
- Check our intention to see if we are as interested in others getting their needs met as our own.
- When asking someone to do something, check first to see if we are making a request or a demand.
- Instead of saying what we DON’T want someone to do, say what we DO want the person to do.
- Instead of saying what we want someone to BE, say what action we’d like the person to take that we hope will help the person be that way.
- Before agreeing or disagreeing with anyone’s opinions, try to tune in to what the person is feeling and needing.
- Instead of saying “No,” say what need of ours prevents us from saying “Yes.”
- If we are feeling upset, think about what need of ours is not being met, and what we could do to meet it, instead of thinking about what’s wrong with others or ourselves.
- Instead of praising someone who did something we like, express our gratitude by telling the person what need of ours that action met.
The Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) would like there to be a critical mass of people using Nonviolent Communication language so all people will get their needs met and resolve their conflicts peacefully.
© 2001, revised 2004 Gary Baran & CNVC
“The right to freely duplicate this document is hereby granted.”
Bon appetit!
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 