God absent from Russian church’s new spiritual guide
God is absent from a new spiritual guide the Russian Orthodox Church is drafting in tandem with Russia’s ruling party, a newspaper said on Thursday. Instead justice, patriotism and solidarity top the list of the guideline, dubbed “Eternal Values: The Foundation of Russian Identity,” which the Church is to publish with the dominant United Russia party, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The moral guide lists the values in order of their importance in the eyes of the church and the party, as reported by the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta:
1. justice
2. freedom
3. solidarity
4. unity
5. self-restraint and sacrifice
Merkel: Germany doesn’t have “too much Islam” but “too little Christianity”
Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans debating Muslim integration to stand up more for Christian values, saying Monday the country suffered not from “too much Islam” but “too little Christianity.”
Addressing her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, she said she took the current public debate in Germany on Islam and immigration very seriously. As part of this debate, she said last month that multiculturalism there had utterly failed.
Some of her conservative allies have gone further, calling for an end to immigration from “foreign cultures” — a reference to Muslim countries like Turkey — and more pressure on immigrants to integrate into German society.
Merkel told the CDU annual conference in Karlsruhe that the debate about immigration “especially by those of the Muslim faith” was an opportunity for the ruling party to stand up confidently for its convictions.
“We don’t have too much Islam, we have too little Christianity. We have too few discussions about the Christian view of mankind,” she said to applause from the hall.
Germany needs more public discussion “about the values that guide us (and) about our Judeo-Christian tradition,” she said. “We have to stress this again with confidence, then we will also be able to bring about cohesion in our society.”
How about that? A politician that says something that makes sense. With an attitude like that she will not be around long. Especially with the attitude of the press that is scared out of their pants about the response of the Islamic terrorists that call themselves Muslims these days. The press will find countless reasons why she should not offend them like that to protect their butts but it will not alter the truth of what she says.
Brazil “values voters” go YouTube against prez hopeful Rousseff
The YouTube video that helped push Brazil’s presidential election to a second round begins with Paschoal Piragine solemnly telling his flock: “In 30 years as a pastor, I’ve never done this before.” He then warns them that the ruling Workers’ Party wants not only to legalize abortion, but would make divorce easier, permit the spread of pornography, and continue to allow tribes in the Amazon to bury alive “thousands of children.”
The video, which includes disturbing images and has received nearly 3 million views, concludes with the Baptist preacher telling his followers not to vote for the Workers’ Party in upcoming elections. “Otherwise, God will judge our land,” Piragine says.
The last-minute doubts of many evangelical Christian and Catholic voters probably cost Workers’ Party presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff an outright first-round victory in last Sunday’s election, polls suggest. The shift is unlikely to keep Rousseff from winning an October 31 runoff vote against her nearest contender, opposition leader Jose Serra.
Yet the twice-divorced former Marxist guerrilla, who in past interviews has questioned the existence of God and supported greater abortion rights, will face enduring scrutiny from an increasingly powerful bloc of “values voters” that could prove a major source of opposition if she takes office.
The election could signal a sea change in Brazil’s politics in which social issues begin to trump economic ones for some voters as the country enjoys an unprecedented run of growth. Rousseff could also face constant resistance to her agenda from a faith-based movement or party in the same way that Democratic Party presidents have in the United States since the 1990s.
“I just don’t trust her, and I’m not sure I ever will,” Piragine told Reuters by telephone. “There are a lot of us who will continue to oppose her agenda if she’s president.”
Obama’s Nobel citation speaks of shared values – is hope on top?
The statement announcing the Nobel Peace Prize for U.S. President Barack Obama says that “his diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population”.
Is there actually a set of values and attitudes shared by most people around the world? It would be interesting to know exactly what the Norwegian Nobel Committee meant by this. Are they talking about some vague form of world political consensus or even global ethics? The citation text mentions Obama’s “vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons” and his preference multilateral diplomacy, dialogue and negotiations. But none of these efforts has yet borne much fruit.
The citation also mentioned the “hope for the future” it said Obama has given the world. Hope is a powerful force, both in personal and political life. In the Christian tradition, it’s a theological virtue as important as faith and love. And it is a key element of the Obama “yes we can” message.
Do you think this is what they gave him the Peace Prize for?
Personally I think that he was given this so that we wouldn’t try to impeach him for being the idiot that he is and worse of all for the majority of our nation being bigger idiots. Not sure who is worse him or Hilary, but if we don’t wise up and do something about both of these and his czars, the America that so many thousands have died for, won’t be here for our future generations. And I can in all honestly say, I voted against both of them!!!!
Can the EU promote ethical values in the economic crisis?
Controversy overshadowed events this month when European Union officials invited Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders from 13 member states and Russia to a meeting on economic governance. Most of the Jewish leaders invited refused to attend, saying they considered some of the Muslim organisations taking part to be radical and anti-Semitic. The Universal Society of Hinduism issued a statement complaining it had not been invited and declaring: “It was clearly an insult.”
A spokesman for European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who initiated the annual gathering with religious leaders five years ago, said the reason no Hindu representatives were invited was largely to keep the meeting focused. “This meeting also has to be sort of conclusive and lead to real debate — it’s not that we can invite 100 or 1,000 persons to have a huge conference on these issues,” the spokesman said.
The 20 high-level participants in the end included four representatives of Islam, a single Jewish organisation which did not join the boycott, and 13 Christian groups.
The controversy deflected attention from the particularly timely subject of ethical values and the global economic crisis. ‘Our society is bearing the full brunt of the consequences of the turbulence that has affected our financial system in the last few months, and the resulting economic crisis; these affect not only markets and investors, but also all of our fellow citizens on a daily basis,” Barroso said.
“In fact, as the crisis progresses, it becomes clearer and clearer that the time has come to reconcile economic governance with the fundamental ethical values on which the European project has been based for the last 50 years.”
Participants at the meeting encouraged the EU in its efforts to combat the economic crisis but also set out some demands.
“They also underlined the need to ensure that social justice remains at the forefront of policy making and in a moment when unemployment and poverty keep rising to very worrying levels, our societies should be able to act together in developing and implementing concrete measures to contain the effects of the crisis on citizens,” the European Commission said.
While it is a laudable step in the right direction, more is probably gleaned from who wasn’t in attendance than what was actually decided upon. It is a shame that attention was detracted from dealing with the economic crisis. But the controversy also highlights that inter-group relations is another important topic, one that will continue to surface in more and less subtle ways. We cannot expect societies to work together motivated by shared ethical values if we cannot even get them into the same room. Real, broad impact begins with the invitation list and the RSVP.
Berlin campaign for religion lessons unites faiths
Berliners on Sunday voted against introducing compulsory religion lessons in schools. Social Democrat Mayor Klaus Wowereit has welcomed the result as a victory for “togetherness” and common values for Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim or aetheist children.
For details on the result, look at the Reuters story.
However, as Pro Reli leader Christoph Lehmann said, the campaign to boost the status of faith-based lessons in the German capital — a city with a long secular tradition — has put the subject firmly on the agenda and made it a talking point.
Celebrities and politicians, even conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel,have joined the call for religion lessons. Perhaps she was trying to make amends with members of her predominantly Catholic Christian Democrats (CDU) who were angry with her for criticising the Pope in the row over a Holocaust-denying bishop.
Even the pope has weighed in.
The argument in Berlin, which is home to Germany’s biggest Muslim community, centred on whether children who have a deep knowledge of their own faith are more tolerant of people who have a different religion than those who receive a broader education in ethics which touches on several religions. Does an in-depth grounding in one religion equip children with a stronger moral compass?
For more detail on the arguments, you can see last week’s post and story.
This is a sad moment. Europe, which includes Germany is indeed turning away from its Catholic Christian heritage. I do fear that Europe, from being a Christian Continent will become a Masonic Continent. Instead of teaching the younger generation of the Universal teachings of Christ, they will now be taught of the Masonic teachings of Satan through arts, philosophy and other social sciences. Germany will now be accommodating all kind of ideas including evil ones for the sake of “togetherness”. They have sacrificed their heritage for the sake of the apostates, heretics, and the enemies of the Christian faith. Germans will now be taught not to offend members of any religion such as Islam, Judaism, including the atheists except Christianity. And And I do fear that one day, Germany will be legislating policies which are contrary to public morals and Christian faith claiming that they are not a Christian country. The serpent once again succeeded in deceiving Adam and Eve. Such indeed, is another triumph of the enemies of the Church. But I still do hope that God will not allow Satan to dominate the world.
Religion versus ethics in Berlin
Berlin’s referendum on religion lessons in schools poses fundamental questions about how to foster inter-faith tolerance and the relationship between church and state in Germany, as Reuters reported.
The Pro Reli campaign wants to change the capital’s law to allow pupils to choose between faith-based religion lessons and an ethics course. Berlin, with its long secular tradition, is one of the only German states not to have compulsory religion lessons but a wider ethics course instead.
The main argument is whether children who spend hours at school learning about their own faith have a stronger moral foundation and end up being more tolerant of other religions than children who have a broader education in ethics.
The Pro Ethik campaign says it is wrong to split people up according to their faith at school as it can breed divisions. They say ethics classes should instil children with a strong set of values and a good understanding of other religions. Some people also warn that religion lessons in Berlin’s schools would result in a predominantly Christian agenda.
However, one professor of religion, Harmut Zinser, argues that by learning about several beliefs, pupils can get confused as they are not presented with a single, coherent set of norms.
“It puts ethics on the market and in that respect it achieves the opposite of what it sets out to achieve,” he said.
Then there is the cultural argument. Christianity is part of German history, literature and culture. Students who have no knowledge of the bible will find it hard to understand their heritage — take Goethe’s Faust, for one.
Ethics and religious education should be solely the responsibility of parents and religous authorities, unless the parents want to enroll their children in church schools. Public schools have enough on their plate. I’d much rather see schools adding more arts, music, and physical education to their curriculum. Is there any evidence that ethics courses have created a more ethical or moral culture than not? I live in a highly Catholic part of Louisiana (one of the only places in the U.S. where they are actually building church schools), and I can’t see any evidence that all of the church going and moral education has done anything to increase religious tolerance or honesty (mostly it has bred ignorance about other religions, superstition, and stereotyping).
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