I’ve set a couple of these aside to see if they would go anywhere, and seeing that they did not I decided to consolidate them into one post of Odds and Ends…
Football on Sunday: No this is not a continuation of the watching the NFL on Sunday discussion, but this is about what we Americans call soccer. It turns out that for the first time a professional football match was played in Northern Ireland on Sunday. So, as the home team Glentoran struggled to a one-nil victory over Bangor in East Belfast, there were about fifty members of the Free Presbyterian Church outside the stadium peacefully protesting the match. According to the BBC article this was not a sectarian dispute but rather found the Protestants on both sides of the turnstile. The BBC also says that Glentoran striker Michael Halliday is “not comfortable” with the idea of playing on Sunday, but that for this mid-afternoon game he was able to attend worship in the morning. The article also mentions that at least one fan passing the Free Church members questioned them if protesting was a violation of the Lord’s Day.
You have to believe in something: Mollie Ziegler Hemingway has a very interesting op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal today available on their web site. Titled “Look Who’s Irrational Now” she looks at a new study from the Baylor University Institute for the Studies of Religion, What Americans Really Believe by Rodney Stark. She reports that the study found an inverse relationship between Christian faith and believing in the paranormal.
things [paranormal events], only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once
a week did.
And they broke it down by denomination:
belonging to the United Church of Christ, Sen. Barack Obama’s former
denomination, expressed strong beliefs in the paranormal, only 14% of
those belonging to the Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin’s former
denomination, did. In fact, the more traditional and evangelical the
respondent, the less likely he was to believe in, for instance, the
possibility of communicating with people who are dead.
And finally, at least to an academaniac like me, Ms. Hemingway throws in this is particularly interesting tidbit:
conservative denomination has a powerful negative effect on paranormal
beliefs, higher education doesn’t. Two years ago two professors
published another study in Skeptical Inquirer showing that, while less
than one-quarter of college freshmen surveyed expressed a general
belief in such superstitions as ghosts, psychic healing, haunted
houses, demonic possession, clairvoyance and witches, the figure jumped
to 31% of college seniors and 34% of graduate students.
(It may be important to note that among the paranormal beliefs listed, demonic possession can be compatible with Christian beliefs.)
So for those who consider “religion is the opiate of the masses” and that atheists are the rational ones, better look a bit more deeply. People want to believe in something.
The clock is ticking: PC(USA) leaders who have not started fortifying themselves already had better start now — In four to six years a new Presbyterian hymnal is going to be ready and your church will have to figure out 1) if your members can accept it and 2) if you can afford it. OK, seriously, the Hymnal Project took another step forward this week with the naming of the committee to compile it. Best wishes to Presbyterian blogger Adam Copeland who landed on the committee. But I figure this won’t be taking much time if a Presbyterian Seminary President can make room in her schedule to serve on the committee. (Or maybe that says something about how much time it takes to be a seminary president?)
Congratulations: Finally, congratulations and best wishes to the Truckee Lutheran Presbyterian Church as they look forward to their chartering celebration service next Sunday, September 28. While any new church chartering is a cause for celebration, this one caught my attention since the approval of this joint ELCA/PC(USA) union church was one of the items of business at the 218th General Assembly of the PC(USA). May God richly bless your ministry.