For the empiricists in the church, today is the Feast day of William of Ockham, one of the latter giants of the scholastic movement, most famous for a dictum known as Ockham's Razor. In the spirit of the love of learning and zeal for clarity we will continue our own spiritual development through one of four offerings for the adults in the congregation.
How many children did Abraham have? If you guessed two you need to come to the class on Genesis. We are moving out of the realm of prehistory into those formative stories of the origins of peoples, including those family stories such as Jacob and Esau that characterize the tribes we belong to, by adoption at least.
The Wired Word will take up a question of personal responsibility. In late March, Gainesville pastor Terry Jones burned a copy of the Quran and posted a video on the Internet. Most of us know by now that that resulted in riots and deaths in Afghanistan. Jones has refused to take any responsibility for the reaction and the deaths, and insists that it proves his point that Muslims are violent. On the other hand, it was Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s public denunciation of Jones nearly two weeks after the March 20 Quran burning that inflamed the mobs. Imam Muhammad Musri, director of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, said that while Jones is "a nut job," Karzai is a politician who knew he could score points with his Islamic constituency by elevating the obscure actions of a publicity-seeking fringe preacher. "I blame [Karzai’s] irresponsible speech," Musri said. "He knows his people."
To what degree are any of us responsible for how someone behaves in response to something we have said or done?
The Modern Spiritual Masters Class will consider OSCAR ROMERO, the Archbishop of San Salvador, who became the voice of voiceless. He became the embodiment of the prophetic church or as one theologian called him, “a gospel for El Salvador.” He was denounced by his fellow bishops, earned the hatred of the rich and powerful of El Salvador and generated such enmity that he was targeted for assassination—the first bishop slain at the altar since Thomas Becket in the twelfth century.
Finally, we will have the second part of the “All about Peace” class welcoming you to Peace Presbyterian Church. This week we will deal with this congregation and your place in this particular mission of the people of God.
See you Sunday,
Bill
