Archive for February, 2007

Over the last couple of days, much has been made in some parts of the media about the possibility that Jesus’ family tomb has been found in Jerusalem. The reports that I have heard in the media have not been particularly helpful, but there is a lot of information out on the web in biblioblogs (ie weblogs provided by biblical scholars about biblical issues). While I am not suggesting that simply having tertiary qualifications makes you an immediate expert, this information is more reliable than that circulating in the secular press because the authors are operating in areas where they’ve done considerable work, rather than scrambling frantically to get up to speed as the journalists are.

If you are interested in following the discussion in an informed way, I would recommend the following:
First, the official material that goes with the book and documentary that have cause the interest can be found in two places:

• There is information about it on the Discovery Channel website.
• The website for the actual film is very slick, very professional, very commercial.

If you are interested in some more information, you might also like to visit James Tabor’s “The Jesus Dynasty” blog Tabor is one of the scholars involved in the discovery. You can also read an excerpt from his book The Jesus Dynasty on the Biblical Archaeology Society website. This excerpt deals with the discovery of a tomb, but not the tomb under discussion, which was found in the 1980s.

Tyler Williams’ Codex Blogspot has several postings that provide links to a range of other blogs whose authors have made assessments of the information in circulation. Today’s post and yesterday’s post contain good coverages of who is saying what. See also the post on Paleojudaica which contains some updated comment from Richard Bauckham from St Andrew’s University.

I must admit to being somewhat skeptical. It seems to me that claims that can stand on their own two feet do not need the full “Hollywood treatment” that this is getting, but maybe this is because I am Australian and therefore much more into understatement.

World Council of Churches - News Release

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has endorsed a groundbreaking climate change statement, fruit of an unprecedented consensus among high-level representatives of the corporate world as well as civil, religious and educational institutions.
This statement is “carefully drafted and urgently needed”, wrote WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia in a letter endorsing “The Path to Climate Sustainability: A Joint Statement by the Global Roundtable on Climate Change” on behalf of the WCC. The Council “will continue to participate in the process of bringing the concerns this statement addresses to the world”, he added.

Endorsed by an unprecedented group of companies and organisations from around the world, the statement calls on governments to set scientifically informed targets for greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It also urges them to place a price on carbon emissions and to set forth policies aimed at addressing energy efficiency and de-carbonisation in all sectors.

Calling climate change “an urgent problem,” the statement lays out a bold, proactive framework for global action to mitigate risks and impacts while also meeting the global need for energy, economic growth and sustainable development. It outlines cost-effective technologies that exist today and others that could be developed and deployed to improve energy efficiency and help reduce CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases.

“The Path to Climate Sustainability” statement has been released today at a press conference in New York chaired by Jeffrey D. Sachs, head of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change (GROCC) and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Endorsements come from critical stakeholders, including leading corporations from all economic sectors to smaller firms with very different perspectives and concerns; they also include an array of civil, religious, environmental, research and educational institutions as well as a distinguished list of world-leading experts from the fields of climate science, engineering, economics and policy studies. [See a list here]

“The WCC is anxious to encourage large companies like those included in the Global Roundtable to take action in their own businesses and provide leadership in the private sector that will result in limiting the polluting emissions that are causing climate change”, said Dr. David G. Hallman, advisor of the WCC Climate Change Programme.

Media Contact:Clare Oh +1-212-854-5479 coh@ei.columbia.edu

The Global Roundtable on Climate Change
The Global Roundtable on Climate Change is an initiative of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and brings together more than 100 high-level, critical stakeholders from all regions of the world - including senior executives from the private sector and leaders of international governmental and non-governmental organizations - to discuss and explore areas of potential consensus regarding core scientific, technological, and economic issues critical to shaping sound public policies on climate change.

The full text of the statement is available on the GROCC website:
http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/grocc

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363media@wcc-coe.org

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 348 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.

An invitation from Alan Jones:

Armidale *TEAR Support Group

Our first meeting for 2007 will be on Friday March 2 at 7.30pm in the Uniting Church Hall Youth Centre Lounge, 114 Rusden St (opposite Civic Video - the Youth Centre Lounge is most easily found from the car park which is entered via a drive-way next to Grant McCarroll Kia) . We hope as many of you as possible can come along to be involved in supporting TEAR in its advocacy campaigns. particularly in a federal election year. If you know of others who might be interested please bring them along. Some of the items to be covered include:

1. Information update and action on the Micah Challenge and Millennium Development Goals (Make Poverty History Action in Australia in 2006). Introducing the Stop the Traffic Campaign and a very short DVD clip on the campaign. Action to be taken this year see Make Poverty History website
2. I hope someone might be interested in compiling a list of web resources - we could discuss the value of this.
3. View TEAR DVD - Seechange - this would be available if people wanted to borrow it for their own groups or churches.
4. Future plans - involving other churches, lobbying (Federal election later this year), etc.

Hoping to see you a week Friday at 7.30pm,
Alan Jones

* TEAR is a non-denominational Christian organisation devoted to transformation, empowerment, advocacy and relief for people in the world’s poorest nations. For further information , see their website

God’s Politics - a blog by Jim Wallis and friends - a very interesting set of postings by a group of evangelicals in the ‘radical discipleship’ stream. Wallis is one of the founders of the Sojouners’ Community which describes its mission as:

“… to articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world.

“In response to this call, we offer a vision for faith in public life by:

• publishing Sojourners magazine, SojoMail and other resources that address issues of faith, politics, and culture from a biblical perspective;
• preaching, teaching, organizing, and public witness;
• nurturing community by bringing together people from the various traditions and streams of the church;
• hosting an annual program of voluntary service for education, ministry, and discipleship.

“In our lives and in our work, we seek to be guided by the biblical principles of justice, mercy, and humility.”

Today’s posting by Tony Campolo asks “Are Evangelicals Fixated on Homosexuality?“. In it, he talks about “red letter Christians” - a name being adopted by younger evangelicals who want to take the Bible very seriously but don’t want to be tied down by the name “evangelical”, which they see as having a lot of unfortunate baggage.

This arrived in my inbox today from Make Poverty History Australia. You might also like to visit the Micah Challenge website which provides information on Make Poverty History activities with a Christian focus.

MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY

How did you help Make Poverty History in 2006? Take 90 seconds out of your day to watch this inspiring clip of the campaign achievements in 2006 and find out why it’s so important to keep campaigning

2007 - Keep your eye on the goal!2007 marks the half-way point to the Millennium Development Goals, an 8 point plan for halving extreme poverty by 2015. Australia signed on to a global agreement to give 0.7% of our national income to help the world achieve this, but so far we have not delivered. We need YOU to keep up the pressure on our leaders to meet this promise. It’s an election year, and every voice counts. What can you do? Send an e-card to the Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer and your local MP. Let them know you want them to do more to address global poverty in 2007 by allocating additional funding to overseas aid in the Federal budget. Write a letter to your local MP or Senator urging them to take action to increase aid to 0.7% by 2015. We’ve formulated a letter-writing guide to give you some handy facts and help make it easy for you. This kind of letter can have a powerful impact on politicians and really works - so get writing! Join one of our existing Make Poverty History volunteer groups and get involved in organising campaign activities. If you live outside of a capital city start up your own group and help regional Australians get active. Contact your local coordinator.

Climate Change: It affects everyone Make Poverty History Australia has made the need to tackle climate change part of our campaign platform. Climate change will affect the poorest people in the poorest countries the most, even though they have done the least to cause the problem. If we are to Make Poverty History, and keep it that way, we need to take urgent action now. (See the UN Secretary-General’s Statement here) Goal 7 of the Millennium Development Goals is all about environmental sustainability. Without a sustainable environment, we cannot Make Poverty History. Ask our leaders for: more and better aid debts relief fair trade good governance climate change action To Make Poverty History we need everyone’s support. If you’re concerned about these issues, pass this email and tell your friends to join the campaign.

If you would like to see and hear how some people are getting involved in Lent Event and what the money raised is going to do, you can watch the Lent Event video. It’s available from

http://media.une.edu.au/lm/13/13941.mp4 in MP4 format and from http://media.une.edu.au/lm/13/13942.flv in Flash format. You will need a UNE username and password to access these files.

For those who are not familiar with the leadership of the Uniting Church, this is a list of those who appear:

• James Haire is the immediate past president of the Uniting Church
• Sarah White is the person whose inspiration and energy founded the Lent Event and I assume that Hugh White is her son
• Elenie Poulos is the Director of Uniting Justice Australia
• Bill Crews heads the Exodus Foundation which works with disadvantaged people out of Ashfield Parish Mission in Sydney
• Marjorie Lewis-Jones is editor of Insights, the monthly magazine of the Uniting Church in NSW (free copies available from me - email jredman@une.edu.au)
• Keith Garner is Superintendent of Wesley Mission in Sydney

A new web-based publication called The Transit Lounge The Transit Lounge was launched today, amid much excitement at Assembly (national) office.

The Transit Lounge is a fortnightly e-zine, and was conceived in response to the growing need within the Uniting Church to show a broader vision of the work of the Uniting Church, encourage faith development and have a mission focus.

The Transit Lounge will offer stories in wide range of news and feature categories; from culture and arts to news and current affairs as well as regular blogs (opinion pieces) and an internet-based discussion forum where readers can discuss issues raised in each edition. Its focus is on offering new ways to connect with people on the margins of the church or those inside the church who want to reflect on the nature of faith and life from a contemporary Christian perspective

Subscription is free. To subscribe visit www.thetransitlounge.com.au.

The Transit Lounge is a joint venture between the Synod of WA and the National Assembly.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Earth Project is collating information to do
with our care of the earth. This page, JPC - Ecumenical Earth, links to the Climate Change section, but in a sidebar and at the top of the page are links to resources on

• water
• biotechnology
• economic globalization & ecology
• caring for life
• bibliography on creation concerns

This is what they say in the introduction to the climate change page:

The World Council of Churches has been working on climate change ever since 1990. when climate change was identified by the scientific community as one of the most threatening social and ecological issues of our times, affecting Creation as a whole.

At the UN Rio Earth Summit in 1992, a WCC working group on climate change was formed with participation of representatives from each region. This group has been the facilitator of the WCC’s climate change programme ever since.

In the ecumenical understanding, human-induced climate change is being precipitated primarily by the high consumption lifestyles of the richer industrialized nations and wealthy elites throughout the world while the consequences will be experienced disproportionately by impoverished nations, low-lying island states, and future generations. Climate change is thus a matter of international and inter-generational justice.

Despite the achievements of the international negotiation process (the Kyoto Protocol), we confront a situation where the process must prove its viability or face collapse. That is why the work on climate change continues to be of the utmost importance.

Ecological debt: who owes whom? This article on the World Council of Churches (WCC) website summarises presentations made at an ecological debt workshop at the WCC’s January 20-25 World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya. The idea of ecological debt is that industrialized Northern countries - their institutions and corporations – have a debt towards Southern countries because of the manner in which they have used these countries’ natural resources, often devastating and contaminating natural environments.

The WCC website has some really interesting articles about putting faith into practice in a variety of ways.

The latest edition of Solidarity, Sustainability, and Non-Violence ~ V3 N2 February 2007, edited by Luiz Gutierrez, is now available on line. The theme of this issue is Revisiting the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, with focus on MGD2: Universal Primary Education.

Gutierrez is a long-time member of the movement for gender equality in the Catholic church, so most editions of this newsletter contain something that relates to this.

This issue includes:

• Analysis of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals
• o Focus on Goal 2: Universal Primary Education
• Review of UNICEF’s “State of the World’s Children 2007″
• Web site review of “Facing the Future” (K-K16 educational materials)
• Knowledge organization model for our growing links directory
• Another view of the prayer-study-action model of human development
• Reflection on approaching the 40th anniversary of “Humanae vitae”
• Brief meditation (poem) on tolerance by John T. Baker

See also the “invited article” by John Wijngaards “Will women ever govern the Roman Catholic Church?”

The presentation of this  newsletter isn’t particularly reader-friendly, but the information is often interesting.