{"id":729,"date":"2008-09-19T19:35:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-20T02:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=729"},"modified":"2008-09-19T19:35:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-20T02:35:00","slug":"some-odds-and-ends-september-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=729","title":{"rendered":"Some Odds and Ends &#8211; September 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;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&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Football on Sunday<\/span>:&nbsp; No this is not a continuation of the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/2008\/09\/08\/keeping-the-lords-day--revisited.aspx\">watching the NFL on Sunday discussion<\/a>, but this is about what we Americans call soccer.&nbsp; It turns out that for the first time a professional football match was played in Northern Ireland on Sunday.&nbsp; So, as the home team <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.glentoran.com\/\">Glentoran<\/a> struggled to a one-nil victory over <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bangorfc.com\/\">Bangor<\/a> in East Belfast, there were about fifty members of the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.freepres.org\/\">Free Presbyterian Church<\/a> outside the stadium peacefully protesting the match.&nbsp; According to the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/uk_news\/northern_ireland\/7603230.stm\">BBC article<\/a> this was not a sectarian dispute but rather found the Protestants on both sides of the turnstile.&nbsp; The BBC also says that Glentoran striker Michael Halliday is &#8220;not comfortable&#8221; with the idea of playing on Sunday, but that for this mid-afternoon game he was able to attend worship in the morning.&nbsp; The article also mentions that at least one fan passing the Free Church members questioned them if protesting was a violation of the Lord&#8217;s Day.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">You have to believe in something<\/span>:&nbsp; Mollie Ziegler Hemingway has a very interesting op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal today available on their web site.&nbsp; Titled &#8220;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB122178219865054585.html\">Look Who&#8217;s Irrational Now<\/a>&#8221; she looks at a new study from the Baylor University <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.isreligion.org\/\">Institute for the Studies of Religion<\/a>, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">What Americans Really Believe<\/span> by Rodney Stark.&nbsp; She reports that the study found an inverse relationship between Christian faith and believing in the paranormal.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 40px;\">While 31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in these<br \/>\nthings [paranormal events], only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once<br \/>\na week did.<\/div>\n<p>And they broke it down by denomination:<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 40px;\">Even among Christians, there were disparities. While 36% of those<br \/>\nbelonging to the United Church of Christ, Sen. Barack Obama&#8217;s former<br \/>\ndenomination, expressed strong beliefs in the paranormal, only 14% of<br \/>\nthose belonging to the Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin&#8217;s former<br \/>\ndenomination, did. In fact, the more traditional and evangelical the<br \/>\nrespondent, the less likely he was to believe in, for instance, the<br \/>\npossibility of communicating with people who are dead.<\/div>\n<p>And finally, at least to an academaniac like me, Ms. Hemingway throws in this is particularly interesting tidbit:<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 40px;\">Surprisingly, while increased church attendance and membership in a<br \/>\nconservative denomination has a powerful negative effect on paranormal<br \/>\nbeliefs, higher education doesn&#8217;t. Two years ago two professors<br \/>\npublished another study in Skeptical Inquirer showing that, while less<br \/>\nthan one-quarter of college freshmen surveyed expressed a general<br \/>\nbelief in such superstitions as ghosts, psychic healing, haunted<br \/>\nhouses, demonic possession, clairvoyance and witches, the figure jumped<br \/>\nto 31% of college seniors and 34% of graduate students.<\/div>\n<p>(It may be important to note that among the paranormal beliefs listed, demonic possession can be compatible with Christian beliefs.)<\/p>\n<p>So for those who consider &#8220;religion is the opiate of the masses&#8221; and that atheists are the rational ones, better look a bit more deeply.&nbsp; People want to believe in something.<br \/><br style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The clock is ticking<\/span>: PC(USA) leaders who have not started fortifying themselves already had better start now &#8212; 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.&nbsp; OK, seriously, the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.presbyterianhymnal.org\">Hymnal Project<\/a> took another step forward this week with the naming of the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.presbyterianhymnal.org\/Home1.asp\">committee<\/a> to compile it.&nbsp; Best wishes to Presbyterian blogger <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/adamjcopeland.com\/\">Adam Copeland<\/a> who landed on the committee.&nbsp; But I figure this won&#8217;t be taking much time if a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.auburnsem.org\/about\/bios.asp?nsectionid=1&amp;pageid=5&amp;biosid=1\">Presbyterian Seminary President<\/a> can make room in her schedule to serve on the committee.&nbsp; (Or maybe that says something about how much time it takes to be a seminary president?)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Congratulations<\/span>:&nbsp; Finally, congratulations and best wishes to the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/tlpc.org\">Truckee Lutheran Presbyterian Church<\/a> as they look forward to their <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/tlpc.org\/archives\/190\">chartering celebration service<\/a> next Sunday, September 28.&nbsp; 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 <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pc-biz.org\/Explorer.aspx?id=1591\">items of business<\/a> at the 218th General Assembly of the PC(USA).&nbsp; May God richly bless your ministry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Some Odds and Ends - September 2008 - The GA Junkie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=729\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Some Odds and Ends - September 2008 - The GA Junkie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;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 [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=729\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The GA Junkie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-20T02:35:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Steve Salyards\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Steve Salyards\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=729#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=729\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Steve Salyards\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/#\/schema\/person\/e30c1b854f165e0423ea436d3961c1c0\"},\"headline\":\"Some Odds and Ends &#8211; 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