Hey, Ma - I made the front page! Of Religion Dispatches, that is.

Just to tease you without giving anything away, Jacques Berlinblau agrees with me in general, but also in the particulars of seeing certain Episcopal-like tendencies among the authors of the Manifesto:

I encounter many of the types of people who composed the Manifesto at scholarly conferences and assorted college campuses. What are they like? Generally, quite a lot of fun. Many come from thoroughly respectable drinking cultures and welcome into alcoholic fellowship believers and non-believers alike.

In private conversation, they tend to be fiercely critical of the demagogues whose simplifications they view as an embarrassment to, and degradation of, their theological tradition. Far less doctrinaire than prevailing Blue-State stereotypes may suggest, they tend to be very open to discussing alternative viewpoints.

In any case, what I think we are seeing in the Manifesto is a coming-out party of sorts. A more professorial and thoughtful strain of Evangelicalism is finding its public voice (Please note that “professorial” and “thoughtful” are not necessarily synonyms for “liberal”).

Really. Go read the whole thing. Heh.

Please join our community in prayer.  Just leave your prayer requests and pray for the requests of the community. I welcome all people to join in as the power of prayer/good energy is undeniable.

If you have any favorite prayers or passages or quotes or meditations, please send them to me to share, meeshka1@msn dot com

Please do not argue about the requests of others--you may do that elsewhere!!! If you wish to offer comments of support--please do so! If you choose to rate prayer requests, I like to use a "4" as an AMEN! If you disagree with a request, please just refrain from rating--this is a place where people need to feel they can reveal and unburden their hearts without being criticized. Should any trolls come our way, just surround them with prayer.

Prayer requests remain on the list based upon my judgment.  Removing requests is my decision.  I have no hard and fast rules--I simply act when the list seems to get too long or it seems the request no longer applies.  If I take one off which you would like to remain, please simply request it again.  If the request can be removed earlier, please let me know.  I'm sure we all would appreciate an update.

Thank you!

There's more:

Women perhaps, but I'm not so sure about the churchgoer part:

Female voters...were particularly generous to Clinton with their ballots on Tuesday. According to CNN exit polls, 71 percent of female voters backed Clinton, with a healthy 59 percent of men also supporting her.

Cultural issues also loomed large on voters’ minds. Thirty percent of those surveyed said Obama shared the views of his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, at least “somewhat,” according to the exit surveys. Exit pools also had Clinton winning the support of 66 percent of those who said they attend church “more than weekly” and 60 percent who go to services weekly.

I never was a math whiz, but it seems to me that if Clinton won the state by roughly two-thirds to one-third, and she won churchgoers by the same ratio, that proves pretty much nothing, right? They weren't a particular strength or weakness for her - she just won them like she won everybody else. Somebody who understands statistics, straighten me out.

But there are other problems here:

Barely one-third of Clinton supporters said they would vote for the Illinois senator over McCain in the general election, according to exit polling conducted for the Associated Press and television networks. Just as many said they would vote for the Republican over Obama, while about 25 percent said they would not cast presidential ballots.

More than anything else, economic factors influenced voters in West Virginia, where the median family income is roughly $12,500 below the national median of about $58,500.

If economic factors influence voters "more than anything else," how can women and churchgoers "fuel" Clinton's victory?

More important than sloppy headline writing, what's the elephant in the room here? Race? Culture? Seems to me that such a stunning lack of support for an Obama candidacy among Clinton voters fairly cries out for more interpretation.

But then I'm just a pinhead pastor.

As many as 128,000 dead, with 2.5 million more at risk. It actually makes the Chinese government look downright compassionate.

It's a beautiful spring afternoon. In a few minutes, I'll have to scoot over to school to pick up Sissy, and then we're off to gymnastics.

Earlier this afternoon, I set up the tent Aunt Becky bought the little boy for his birthday. He's out there now, alternately playing with his toys and shrieking whenever a bug comes anywhere near him.

It's going to be a long summer if this keeps up.

'Sup?

In a monumental victory for the gay rights movement, the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage Thursday in a ruling that would allow same-sex couples in the nation's biggest state to tie the knot.

Domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage, the justices ruled 4-3 in striking down the ban.

Outside the courthouse, gay marriage supporters cried and cheered as the news spread.

Jeanie Rizzo, one of the plaintiffs, called Pali Cooper, her partner of 19 years, and asked, "Pali, will you marry me?"

"This is a very historic day. This is just such freedom for us," Rizzo said. "This is a message that says all of us are entitled to human dignity."

Amen and amen - and before anybody asks, I'm not available to travel.

The good Congressman puts the situation plainly.

This is the vote from January 16 on war funding.  Since that time, according to Democrats.com, these Congressmembers have said they will vote against further funding of the war (which they did not do on the earlier vote):

As someone who works for a living on campaigns I know first hand of the value of volunteers and the hours that they put in on behalf of the candidate.  They are the gears that make a campaign move forward.  The more you have the faster your campaign is going to move and progress towards an Election Day victory.  

That’s why I am thoroughly impressed with the new campaign initiative from Tom Perriello’s bid for Congress.  They just launched a 10% tithe of volunteer hours to go back towards the community and service projects around the district (Devilstower beat me to it).  The campaign kick started the idea with 42 volunteer hours over the past weekend by constructing a house for Habitat for Humanity in Charlottesville, participated in a food drive and serving food to the hungry at a church.

In the interview that I had with Tom a few weeks back I was struck by this:

Q: How has your faith tradition helped shaped your political and social views?

A: I grew up in a church that preached the social justice message of the Gospels and called me to the teaching of Mathew 25. Sunday was a time that we heard about poverty, torture, and war and our moral obligation to care for and love our neighbor. My political views and my efforts to live a life of service were shaped by the prophetic call in Micah to serve the least among us and to "do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." As a Catholic, I know I will always fall short of this aspiration, but it remains my guiding light.

With this new initiative it seems that Tom and his campaign are further practicing what they preach.  They are actually taking time away from campaigning to help out in the community.  Granted the community service is good publicity for the campaign and is in a way campaigning the overall effects are moving towards the common good in Virginia’s fifth district.  I think it's a testament to the kind of representative that he would be in D.C.

Seriously, what the hell is he talking about? Neural Buddhists?

Over the past decade, a new group of assertive atheists has done battle with defenders of faith. The two sides have argued about whether it is reasonable to conceive of a soul that survives the death of the body and about whether understanding the brain explains away or merely adds to our appreciation of the entity that created it.

The atheism debate is a textbook example of how a scientific revolution can change public culture. Just as “The Origin of Species reshaped social thinking, just as Einstein’s theory of relativity affected art, so the revolution in neuroscience is having an effect on how people see the world.

And yet my guess is that the atheism debate is going to be a sideshow. The cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going end up challenging faith in the Bible.

...

If you survey the literature (and I’d recommend books by Newberg, Daniel J. Siegel, Michael S. Gazzaniga, Jonathan Haidt, Antonio Damasio and Marc D. Hauser if you want to get up to speed), you can see that certain beliefs will spread into the wider discussion.

First, the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships. Second, underneath the patina of different religions, people around the world have common moral intuitions. Third, people are equipped to experience the sacred, to have moments of elevated experience when they transcend boundaries and overflow with love. Fourth, God can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is.

Does any of this make any sense whatsoever? Does any of it make sense being on perhaps the most valuable real estate in all journalism? Do any of those four propositions contradict anything in the Bible?

My brain hurts. I'd go meditate, but according to Brooks, that would make me an apostate.

Please join our community in prayer.  Just leave your prayer requests and pray for the requests of the community. I welcome all people to join in as the power of prayer/good energy is undeniable.

If you have any favorite prayers or passages or quotes or meditations, please send them to me to share, meeshka1@msn dot com

Please do not argue about the requests of others--you may do that elsewhere!!! If you wish to offer comments of support--please do so! If you choose to rate prayer requests, I like to use a "4" as an AMEN! If you disagree with a request, please just refrain from rating--this is a place where people need to feel they can reveal and unburden their hearts without being criticized. Should any trolls come our way, just surround them with prayer.

Prayer requests remain on the list based upon my judgment.  Removing requests is my decision.  I have no hard and fast rules--I simply act when the list seems to get too long or it seems the request no longer applies.  If I take one off which you would like to remain, please simply request it again.  If the request can be removed earlier, please let me know.  I'm sure we all would appreciate an update.

Thank you!

There's more:

1. John Hagee is weally, weally sowwy:

John Hagee, the controversial evangelical pastor who endorsed John McCain, will issue a letter of apology to Catholics today for inflammatory remarks he has made, including accusing the Roman Catholic Church of supporting Adolf Hitler and calling it “The Great Whore.”

“Out of a desire to advance greater unity among Catholics and Evangelicals in promoting the common good, I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful,” Hagee wrote, according to an advanced copy of the letter reviewed by Washington Wire. “After engaging in constructive dialogue with Catholic friends and leaders, I now have an improved understanding of the Catholic Church, its relation to the Jewish faith, and the history of anti-Catholicism.”

2. Bill Donohue, unlike every other lay member of the Catholic Church, is empowered both to speak for every other lay member of the Catholic Church and absolve sins:

“The tone of Hagee’s letter is sincere. He wants reconciliation and he has achieved it. Indeed, the Catholic League welcomes his apology. What Hagee has done takes courage and quite frankly I never expected him to demonstrate such sensitivity to our concerns. But he has done just that. Now Catholics, along with Jews, can work with Pastor Hagee in making interfaith relations stronger than ever. Whatever problems we had before are now history. This case is closed.”

3. The Bible is literally and factually true and requires no interpretation - except when it does:

Who says modern events can't be brought to bear on biblical exegesis?

Writes Hagee ...

I better understand that reference to the Roman Catholic Church as the "apostate church" and the "great whore" described in the Book of Revelation is a rhetorical device long employed in anti-Catholic literature and commentary. I hope you recognize that I have repeatedly stated that my interpretation of Revelation leads me to conclude that the "apostate church" and the "great whore" appear only during the seven years of tribulation after all true believers - Catholic and Protestant - have been taken up to heaven. Therefore, neither of these phrases can be synonymous with the Catholic Church.

4. John McCain is a clueless idiot (I may have heard this somewhere else first):

“So was it a mistake to solicit and accept his endorsement?” asked host George Stephanopoulos.

“Oh, probably, sure. But I admire and respect Dr. Hagee’s leadership of the — of his church,” McCain said, later adding: “I’m glad to have his endorsement. I condemn remarks that are, in any way, viewed as anti-anything.”

5. Rod Parsley is still out there.

Meaning, of course, that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim black radical. Or was that John Edwards?

It's so hard to keep things straight these days.