Compiling the canonical gospels

Getting ready to teach a course on "Jesus" and I thought this was just excellent (from the MadPriest)

From the "madpriest" - A liberationist sermon for Ascension Day, May Day, and International Worker's Day

Thursday, May 01, 2008

a liberationist sermon for
Ascension day, May day and
international workers' day

I love the Church Calendar. The high days and holy days, and especially the seasons of the Church year. They make me feel comfortable and part of something very ancient and which will continue, hopefully, long after I’m gone. Every year the liturgy, attached, as it is, to the calendar of the Church, leads me on a journey which is paradoxically, both, always the same and, if you are open to the Spirit of God, always full of novelty and new experiences.

There was a time, during the Middle Ages, when the Church Calendar dictated the social life of the nation. There were an incredible number of holy days and people regarded them as holidays, days on which they did not work. We tend to think that back then life was just ceaseless toil, but that is not true - we work far harder and for longer hours nowadays than our ancestors did 600 years ago. Unfortunately, Oliver Cromwell and his fellow puritans put a stop to most of these enjoyments and then the nail was finally put in the coffin of civilised working practices during the industrial revolution when working people in our country became little more than slaves.

During the early part of the 20th. Century there was a move in England to give some time back to the working classes. We began to be given bank holidays and some of these holidays were holy days or followed holy days. Unfortunately, that was a short lived era and, as our country becomes more and more unchristianised, the link between bank holidays and religion becomes ever weaker. Even the concept of national holidays is pretty much out the window now. Business would have every commercial enterprise open 365 days of the year if they could and it won’t be long before they achieve that. As usual, it is the poorer people of our land who suffer most - shopworkers, cleaners, call-centre staff, lorry drivers even.

The problem is that nobody wants to stop. Both as a nation and as individuals, we have an overwhelming fear of not being busy and also an overwhelming urge to rush on to the next thing.

Read the rest HERE.

the MadPriest on Yalewarts

The MadPriest is at it again, and has me laughing so hard at his recent postings that I can hardly breathe....so, here is just one of his many many wise, funny and downright MAD postings (and it seems as though most of it is actually from CNN!)

From CNN:

J.K. Rowling has retired Harry Potter, but the fictional boy wizard lives in on college classes across the country where the children's books are embraced as literary and academic texts. Her books are often analyzed in the context of other relevant texts. Drawing on their expertise in theology, children's literature, globalization studies and even the history of witchcraft, professors have been able to use Harry Potter to attract crowds of students eager to take on a disciplined study of the books.

Danielle Tumminio, a Yale Divinity School (photo - left) graduate student and the instructor for Yale's Harry Potter course "Christian Theology and Harry Potter," said her academic background in literature and theology, combined with her personal interest in the books, inspired her to design the course. The course uses all seven Potter books and the students examine Christian themes such as sin, evil and resurrection.

Although Yale's course is its first Harry Potter-themed offering, other universities, including Georgetown University, Liberty University, Pepperdine University, Stanford University, Lawrence University, Swarthmore and Kansas State University, also have integrated the series into their curricula.

Cat Terrell, a student in Tumminio's course at Yale, said regardless of whether the books are worthy as literary texts, they have helped enhance her understanding of other academic disciplines, including theology.

"If somebody says this isn't worth a Yale class, I would say if we were just reading the Harry Potter books for their literary merit ... I would probably agree with them. [But] the lens of the Harry Potter books actually makes theology ... easier to understand," she said. "It's amazing how many connections you can draw between the theology that we're reading outside of class and the Harry Potter that we've known for 10 years."

In later modules the students will learn how to do joined up writing and tie their own shoe laces.