If only there were another weekend day, on which many people have religious services but not an obligation to avoid work all day long

A Jewish academy's basketball team may have to forfeit a playoff game because it's scheduled for Saturday, and the state high school sports governing body won't reschedule it. The state senate is trying to intervene.

Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier

According to the Vatican, these gender-neutral names for the members of the trinity don't have the power to effect a proper baptism.

No harm if you did it the wrong way--you just have to go back and do it again, with the proper boy Gods.

Hagee and McCain

John Hagee endorsed McCain yesterday, praising the senator with an enthusiasm normally reserved for zionists and fellow Catholic haters. Here's a surprise: Bill Donohue's not happy about this.

No word yet as to whether McCain will reject Hagee, or at least DENOUNCE him...

Obama and Santos

All the historic and unusually exciting parts aside, have you been feeling like this Democratic primary is a bit of a rerun?

Brian Schweitzer? John Podesta?!

The American Prospect plays the oh-who-will-be-running-mate? game for you, so you (and your roommate Dan) don't have to spend most of your time playing it yourself.

Okay, fine--confidential to Dan: despite Harold Meyerson's good points here, I'm still w/ the conventional wisdom on this one--neither Obama nor Clinton is a serious choice for the other's running mate.

Ted Strickland, on the other hand, makes a ton of sense.

Pew on people leaving or switching churches

New Pew Forum survey finds, among other things, that 10 percent of Americans are ex-Catholics.

That surprised me at first. Then I stopped and thought about just how many ex-Catholics I know. Of course, I also know several Catholics who converted from evangelicalism.

Once again, for all you theocrats: why separation of church and state is good for everyone involved

Ron Grossman gives a nice overview of the less-discussed side of separation--how it protects religion from politics.

Who are you calling emergent?

Here's a good quiz for all you theology nerds--more useful than the last one, by the same guy, which just lined us up with a bunch of Protestant theologians and a couple church fathers. (I was reminded that I like much of Calvin, even though I don't usually like Calvinists. [And don't even get me started on this guy.])

I'm apparently neo-orthodox, which I could have guessed. But I also scored high on the emergent church conversation meter, which surprised me at first--I'm a real liturgical loyalist, and I've never even been to church in a bar! But then I remembered that many emergent folks are essentially neo-orthodox believers with hipper music.

Via Heather.

A gathering of the goodie-two-shoes...in Gotham?

I don't know which part of this David Segal feature on King's College bothers me more: its wide-eyed-yet-condescending look at young evangelicals or its suggestion that all NORMAL, less-Jesus-loving college students in crazy, godless New York ever do is take ecstasy and have random sex. (I have it on the best of authority that some college students in New York--even Catholics and atheists and Jews!--spend most of their time studying and sitting around.)

Check out this lede:

Saturday night in midtown Manhattan, and 25 college students are packed into the living room of a small apartment. The festivities are about to get underway, and in this demographic, in this town, that typically means mind-altering substances, which segue to deafening music, which ultimately leads to nudity.

That's not happening here. There isn't a bong in sight, or a drop of liquor. Just 7Up and Edy's ice cream. And when the student in charge of this shindig says it's time for the evening to begin, he doesn't bust out a cooler of Smirnoff Ice. He asks everyone to bow their heads and pray.

7Up, ice cream, and prayer. How precious.

"The legal battle over same-sex marriage in California is also a clash of religions."

That's the lede of this reported piece in the SF Chronicle. I knew the UCC and the NAE differed on politics and theological particulars, but I wasn't aware they were different religions. I bet it's news to these people, too.

Three steps YOU can take in your daily life to BUILD a HEALTHIER PLANET and prevent global CATASTROPHE

1. LOBBY your senators and representative to support policy that will seriously address climate change, pollution, wilderness preservation, etc. If necessary, do this on your cell phone by incandescent light while eating individually wrapped imported beef jerky snacks on a short-haul flight for which you did not purchase a carbon indulgence.

2. LOBBY your state legislators, too.

3. JUDGE anyone who uses a vehicle powered by fossil fuels, including cars, buses, and even electric trains in cities that don't have 100% renewable electric utilities available. While you're judging them for being inadequately Green®, if it's too far to walk or bike, take a ride on the horsubway:


marriedtothesea.com

(Sorry; didn't intend to rant so--just wanted to show you this comic...)

Well, at least they're pro-life

Christianity Today reports that white evangelical support for capital punishment is down--all the way down to 74 percent. In 1996, it was at 82 percent--meaning that, at this rate, it should only take another third of a century or so to convince a majority of white evangelicals not to condone the killing of people their theology insists are made in God's image, utterly redeemable, and--this is the kicker, as it's a specifically Protestant and classically evangelical contribution--fundamentally no better or worse before God than anyone else.

Also: CT has long been an evangelical thought leader, and the conventional wisdom is that it's only been over the last several years that they've positioned themselves (some of the time) as a moderate agitator of the religious right line. But check out this unsigned editorial from 1996.

This just in: Missouri House supports enforcing current law

Let's take it to the people! Oh, convenient--there's already an election this November. That'll save the taxpayers money.

My earlier post.

Bloggers suck at math

Well, at least I do.

Here's the always-great xkcd on gender typing:

"Let religion compete in the marketplace for ideas"

Despite the predictable Free Markets!! language, the Economist's leader calling for disestablishment in England is a good read.

Via Thinking Anglicans.

Manipulating the bellwether

Another red-meat-to-the-religious-right referendum for the Missouri ballot? Weird coincidence. Not that it'll affect turnout--McCain's already pretty popular w/ these folks.

But at least this new amendment--unlike the same-sex marriage stuff--is a pointless and redundant re-affirmation of existing law an important step to inform principals and teachers about students' religious freedoms.

Similar tricks at work in Florida. (You remember Florida. Made the news a bit eight years ago.) This is important stuff--we might well have a President Kerry right now (a situation that I would, reluctantly, celebrate) were it not for the success the 2004 Ohio referendum had in turning out voters.

Okay, that's enough self-linking and sarcastic-talking for one post.

Bishops to ICE: Get your face out of our faces

The Catholic bishops sent a letter last week to DHS about Immigration and Customs Enforcement's aggressive enforcement activities.

Via RNS blog.

Oh, did we forget to mention that these folks were excommunicated long ago?

A high school affiliated with the traditionalist (i.e., anti-Vatican II and then some) Society of St. Pius X recently refused to let a female referee work a boys basketball game. (As long as they were being legalistic, couldn't they have let her ref provided she didn't say anything or TEACH the players anything? Maybe I'm thinking too biblicist-Protestant-fundamentalist... No teaching!)

Anyway, pretty crazy stuff. And it would have been nice if the wire story noted how utterly fringe this particular Catholic group is somewhere before the most-people-have-stopped-reading-now ninth paragraph. Just saying.

Maryland considers same-sex marriage

Sounds like a lively time Thursday at the state senate.

Washington Post, Baltimore Sun.

You can't do that! It's blasphemous! etc.

Actually, we Christians have been doing things like this all along--e.g., the pagan elements of Christmas and Easter.

This does, however, say something about the nature of contemporary European religion.

Via Get Religion.