The Masai Creed, Jaroslav Pelikan's favorite

I was listening to a Speaking of Faith interview with the late scholar, Jaroslav Pelikan on "The Need for Creeds," and was reminded just how wonderful he was, and just how wonderful this interview is as well. If you might have followed some of the blog-land discussion of creeds and such after the Presiding Bishop offered her comments on the strengths and pitfalls of creeds, you might really enjoy this interview. It is archived at NPR.org and you can click HERE to listen, or read the transcript.

One of the best parts of the piece is when Dr. Pelikan discusses his favorite creed of the several hundred that he and a team of scholars found and analyzed for a book on creeds.

Here are his words, describing the creed of the Masai people from the 1960s:

"Among all the hundreds of creeds and confessions in our collection, my favorite illustration of such acculturation is The Masai Creed from East Africa in the 1960s:

We believe in the one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created man and wanted man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the earth. We have known this High God in the darkness, and now we know him in the light. God promised in the book of his word, the Bible, that he would save the world and all the nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good his promise by sending his Son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always on safari, doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing that the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross and died. He lay buried in the grave, but they hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, he rose from the grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through him. All who have faith in him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love, and share the bread together in love, to announce the good news to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen."

Peter Gomes on the Colbert Report: (newsflash) Churches Protect the Status Quo

One of my heroes, and a fellow Bates College grad, is the Chaplain of Harvard University, Rev. Dr. Peter Gomes. He is a great preacher and has written some wonderful books about scripture and about preaching. He was recently on the Colbert Report to talk about his new book, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus.

"He says Jesus came to turn things upside down, but churches have turned out to be defenders of the status quo." (hat tip goes to The Episcopal Cafe for this one!)

He is also interviewed on NPR, here, in a longer, more in-depth discussion...

~Rev. Peter M. Carey

Cookie Monster interview on NPR

I just loved the interview with Cookie Monster on National Public Radio last week ... I am a big fan of Cookie Monster..., my only quibble is that now, the "new and improved," "nutritionally correct" Cookie Monster eats all kids of good food, not just cookies ... some of that 1970's aura around the "All Cookies - Cookie Monster" is gone, but I guess we all probably need to eat fewer cookies.


The Cookie Monster Rocks!


Check out the interview HERE or by clicking on the image above.

"This Republic of Suffering" book by Harvard's President

Harvard's president, Drew Gilpin Faust, has written a book that looks at how American's dealt with death in the Civil War and its aftermath. I heard a great interview with the author on NPR, and am really looking forward to reading the book...the book is reviewed in the Sunday New York Times this week.

You can listen to the interview on National Public Radio, (NPR) HERE.

THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING: Death and the American Civil War.

By Drew Gilpin Faust Illustrated. 346 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $27.95.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Death's Army

By GEOFFREY C. WARD

Published: January 27, 2008

During the Civil War, my great-great-grandfather, a Presbyterian clergyman, served as chaplain to the 104th New York Infantry Regiment. He was a man of stern moral conviction and in weekly letters to his parishioners back home allowed little to escape his censorious eye. President Lincoln’s erratic church attendance irritated him. So did mud and heat and the “intemperance” and “profanity” that he believed were the “great sins of our army,” and he was infuriated by the proximity of his quarters to the “tents of several of the most blasphemous, immoral persons I ever heard.” But in the aftermath of Gettysburg, words failed him. “Sad scenes!” was all he could write after two days spent officiating at the trench burials of Union and Confederate boys. “I have no time, strength nor heart to recall and narrate what I have seen!”

THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING
Death and the American Civil War.
By Drew Gilpin Faust.
Illustrated. 346 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $27.95.

Little wonder. Some 7,000 corpses lay scattered across the Pennsylvania countryside, alongside more than 3,000 dead horses and mules — an estimated six million pounds of human and animal flesh, swollen and blackening in the July heat. For weeks afterward, townspeople carried bottles of peppermint oil to neutralize the smell.

Americans had never endured anything like the losses they suffered between 1861 and 1865 and have experienced nothing like them since. Two percent of the United States population died in uniform — 620,000 men, North and South, roughly the same number as those lost in all of America’s other wars from the Revolution through Korea combined. The equivalent toll today would be six million.

Read the rest HERE.