An Ecumenical Ministry in the Parish of St Patrick's Catholic Church In San Diego USA

米国サンディエゴの聖パトリックカトリック教会教区におけるエキュメニカル宣教

Friday, April 10, 2015

THE GALLI REPORT - Friday, April 10, 2015

The Galli Report newsletter

Friday, April 10, 2015


Preventing Christian Murders
Like many I was shocked, numbed, and dumbfounded when I heard of the murder of 147 Christians by Muslim extremists in Kenya last week. Some Christian leaders responded, mostly with calls to prayer . There is no better place to start responding to something so horrific. But genuine prayer is usually accompanied by or encourages concrete action. The action needed to save lives in the future ranges from diplomatic conversations to military intervention. But it also must include honest talk by government leaders as to what exactly is happening. As one pundit put it,
In his statement, President Obama said that "innocent men and women were brazenly and brutally massacred." True enough, but he couldn't bring himself to say who had been shot by whom. He vowed to stand with the Kenyan government and people "in their efforts to bring communities together," the closest he dared step to the unmistakable religious dimension of the murders.
 
The Other 'Resurrections'
Jesus's resurrection from the dead isn't the only one we know of in history. To begin with, Jesus brought people back from the dead in his own ministry. But credible stories can also be found outside the Bible. What are we to make of them? And what's so special about Jesus resurrection? Ted Olsen explains in the latest issue of The Behemoth.
 
Demolishing Child-Centered Communities
The causes of social collapse are many, varied, and complex. But the consequences of social collapse—extreme poverty, drug addiction, homelessness, sexual trafficking, and so forth—make the effort to understand both urgent and worthwhile. And sometimes, studies of social collapse in other countries can help us understand better the dynamics of our own. As this week's long read explains, in 1940s and 1950s England, in dozens of cities
working-class districts—some horrendous slums but many others vibrant, intricate communities—were demolished wholesale in a process that would engulf over 10.5 million people. The child-centered kinship networks and neighborly connections that had enriched and stabilized their lives were ripped apart. Owing to the complex, bureaucratic mechanisms and ruthless procedures inherent in so vast a national effort, their households were scattered piecemeal, without regard for their long-established associations, into outlying, isolated housing estates, where they were increasingly stacked into forbidding, often egregiously built, crime-ridden tower blocks.

In this way, the inevitable waning of a good and comely life was quickened and made appalling. The conditions were created for the birth of a new underclass.
 
Life is like a Knuckleball
Another baseball season has dawned, and for many it's like the beginning of a new day, full of promise and hope. For those so inclined, here's some light reading on the history of the knuckleball, a pitch that comes at a batter with no predictable pattern or direction. What life feels like some days, no? Then again, both still have an ultimate purpose and destination.
 
Grace and peace,
 
Mark Galli
Mark Galli
Editor, Christianity Today

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