two and two make 3

Think about this...

Provocation from Halden has posted this little gem from Stanley Hauerwas – some questions which he asked a group of trainee youth pastors in Princeton:

• How many of you worship in a church with an American flag? I am sorry to tell you that your salvation is in doubt.
• How many of you worship in a church in which the fourth of July is celebrated? I am sorry to tell you that your salvation is in doubt.
• How many of you worship in a church that recognizes Thanksgiving? I am sorry to tell you that your salvation is in doubt.
• How many of you worship in a church that celebrates January 1 as the "New Year"? I am sorry to tell you that your salvation is in doubt.
• How many of you worship in a church that recognizes "Mother's Day"? I am sorry to tell you that your salvation is in doubt.

From Halden
I seem to keep returning to Douglas Knight's The Eschatological Economy.  I certainly think that it deserves to be counted among the best theological books in recent years.  One suggestive claim offered in the book involves, in a sense, a heightening, or a radicalization of what in recent years has come to be called a relational ontology.  However, Knight moves beyond the tired (though true and necessary) assertions that "to be is to be related."  Rather he looks more closely at the relationship of being and action in the context of an ontology of communion, or what he refers to as a doxological ontology.  Here he claims, rightly in my view that "Being and doing are one and the same thing.  The work of each creature is the being of all other creatures." 

All of this of course is ultimately from God.  It is God whose action constitutes our being and sustains us as creatures.  "The freedom of humankind is the task of God, and very subordinately it is the task into which God introduces human beings.  Under God we bring one another into being."  This notion, of our action bringing on another into being and freedom is quite radical.  It reorients our notions of growth and holiness, and their relation to our own disciplines and practices.

From The Guardian

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

"Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises," said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. "It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat."

Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as "the first real economic crisis of globalisation".

President Bush has linked higher food prices to higher demand from India and China, but the leaked World Bank study disputes that: "Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases."