May 21st, 2012
London, May 20 (ANI): An ancient stone that was discovered by chance on the Isle of Canna is Scotland‘s first known example of a bullaun “cursing stone”, according to experts.
Dating from about 800 AD, the stones are associated with early Christian crosses – of which there is one on the isle.
It was found in an old graveyard by a National Trust for Scotland (NTS) farm manager.
The stone about 25cm in diameter and engraved with an early Christian cross fits exactly into a large rectangular stone with a worn hole, which was located at the base of the Canna cross.
NTS manager of Canna, Stewart Connor, said the importance of the stone became clear after he was notified of the discovery.
“We knew of the importance of bullaun stones and that it could be a really significant find,” the BBC quoted him as saying.
“Our head of archaeology confirmed a possible link to the stone at the cross and I was so excited that I went back out at 9pm that night to check whether it fitted the stone with the hole and it did,” he said.
Katherine Forsyth, an expert in the history and culture of early Celtic-speaking peoples, based at the University of Glasgow, described it as an “amazing find”.
“Stones like this are found in Ireland, where they are known as ‘cursing stones’, but this is the first to be discovered in Scotland,” she said.
“They date from the early Christian period but have continued to be used by pilgrims up to modern times.
“Traditionally, the pilgrim would recite a prayer while turning the stone clockwise, wearing a depression or hole in the stone underneath,” she said.
Dr Forsyth said bowl-shaped lower stones had been found elsewhere in Scotland, including on Canna, but this was the first discovery of a top stone.
“This exciting find provides important new insight into religious art and practice in early Scotland and demonstrates just how much there is still to be discovered out there,” she added. (ANI)
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May 21st, 2012
Editor’s Note: Names have been changed to protect anonymity
Last year, one of the world’s largest online dating sites released results of a survey they took of 5,200 singles. Said to be the most comprehensive poll of its type ever taken, the survey of 21- to 65-year-olds (and older) reported that (i):
• 72% of singles would live with someone in the future without marrying.
• 36% of singles are open to a casual “hook-up” in the near future, and 54% reported they have had a one-night stand.
• 76% of single men and 77% of women ages 21–34 were no longer virgins.
The results plainly portray the challenging cultural terrain today’s Christian singles navigate when dating. Carolyn was one such sojourner. Hurting and confused, she called me on “Hope in the Night” a few months ago, explaining that she was involved with a man who was in the “process of getting a divorce.” In other words, she was dating a married man.
As our conversation progressed, it became clear that Carolyn, like so many Christian singles, didn’t understand the true meaning of love. In fact, her concept was completely backward.
While the English language has only one word for love, the Greek language features multiple words with multiple meanings (ii). Understanding what love truly means is critical in order to enjoy a healthy, Christ-centered dating relationship. Let’s look more closely at three types of love expressed in the Greek language.
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1) Eros is passionate, romantic love, but it can also represent the feeling of strong emotion without a romantic focus. Eros within marriage is designed by God for physical and emotional pleasure. Eros within a dating relationship is designed to be morally pure and without passionate lust. You can have passion for a person without passionate lust, aware that physical purity is necessary for spiritual purity.
2) Phileo is affectionate love, brotherly love, and mutual enjoyment. Phileo is true friendship—the love of “liking.” When Jesus wept following the death of His dear friend Lazarus, the onlookers remarked, “See how he loved (phileo) him!” (John 11:36). It can also refer to love for another that is as deep as the love for oneself. For example, I Samuel 18:1 says, “After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.”
3) Agape is unselfish love, unconditional love—a commitment to seek the best and highest good for another person, regardless of any response. Agape love originates with God. First John 4:10–11 says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Here’s the problem. Most dating starts with eros. In fact, many couples never move beyond this phase. Those who do move past “romantic” love typically move to phileo, the affectionate love of genuinely liking. This route, however, rarely leads to agape—unconditional love that seeks what is in the best interest of the other person—because it’s hijacked along the way by selfishness, lust, or any number of other relational roadblocks.
The eros-phileo-agape progression of most dating relationships is not only ineffective . . . it’s unbiblical. All relationships, dating and otherwise, should begin with a love that seeks the highest good for the other person . . . agape love.
God’s plan for dating relationships is just the opposite, progressing from the inside out—from agape love to phileo and then, possibly, to eros. Following this “inside out” progression helps keep a couple from being consumed by erotic emotion.
Carolyn and I talked at length that night about the real meaning of love and the need to back out of her bond with her boyfriend. I readily acknowledged that taking this difficult route would be painful. But, in reality, Carolyn would face pain either way—whether she left the relationship or didn’t. Only by departing, however, could she later experience God’s lasting inner peace and position herself for His guidance in relationships that would be healthy and pleasing in His sight.
If a country were populated solely with America’s single adults, it would be the world’s 14th largest nation (iii). This explains why we all have “Carolyns” in our lives—single friends and family members looking for love, but in all the wrong places. To minister to this great need, it’s important to:
• Hold fast to Biblical standards. Though we no longer live in a society where purity is revered—and, in fact, is often mocked, especially for “consenting adults”—we must proclaim Scriptural principles, regardless of their popularity.
• Model lives of authentic love, sexual purity, and integrity. Loving “from the inside out” is something God calls all of His children to do—not just those who are in dating relationships. Opportunities to practice this kind of love present themselves daily in each of our lives…in our homes, churches, workplaces and with our clients.
• Help the singles in your world embrace the hope that they, too, can begin “loving well”—despite their past. Our culture overflows with hurting people who have “blown it” in the areas of dating and purity. It’s easy to for them to lose hope and feel like damaged goods. We have the extraordinary privilege of reminding them that, “with God, all things are possible” . . . including a fresh, new beginning of “dating with Christ at the center.”
Single years are the ideal time to focus on becoming the person God intends you to be. For many, this journey will someday end in marriage. For others, it will not. But, when done God’s way, dating will help singles grow in Christ-like character—confident the Lord will meet all their needs “according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus (iv).
Learn more about June and Hope for the Heart by visiting hopefortheheart.org/CP. Here you can connect with June on Facebook and Twitter, listen to her radio broadcasts, or find much-needed resources.
Endnotes
i. http://blog.match.com/2011/02/04/everything-you-think-you-know-about-singles-is-wrong-we-separate-fact-from-fiction-with-the-first-comprehensive-study-of-singles-in-america/
ii. For this section see Diane Eble, The Campus Life Guide to Dating (Grand Rapids: CampusLife, 1990), 105–10.
iii. http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/200903/200903_022_Unmarried_Am.cfm
iv. Philippians 4:19
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May 19th, 2012
ROCKFORD — Justin Christiansen has the highest jump (6-foot-4) in the area this year.
His girlfriend has tied for the second-highest jump of any area girl (5-2).
What more could Christian Life’s first couple of high jumping want?
How about his and her state berths?
Christiansen and Abby Compton both went to state last year, but that was two months before the longtime high-jumping friends began dating.
Compton qualified again for this year’s girls state meet, which runs today through Saturday at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. Christiansen is seeded first with a jump of 6-foot-4 for Friday’s Class 1A boys sectional at Winnebago.
“He has to get to state now that I’m going down,” Compton said Tuesday.
“Yeah, I’ve got to keep up,” Christiansen said. “Definitely. There’s some competition between us.”
“There’s always competition,” Compton said.
So much so that rooting for each other can be hard unless it means both doing well.
“There are days when I just will not talk to him,” Compton said. “It makes me so mad when he has a good day and I have a bad day.”
“I agree. I get mad too,” Christiansen said.
The competition continues even when they help each other out with advice.
“The coach can’t always be there,” Compton said, “so with Justin, I always have someone who knows what he’s talking about, telling me what I am doing right or what I am doing wrong.”
That’s easy to admit now, but not so easy while she is jumping.
“When he gives me a tip,” Compton said, “I’m always, ‘I’ve got it! Don’t say anything more.’ But in my head, it’s, ‘Yeah, I’ve got to do that.’ But to him, I don’t give him the credit.”
The two say it feels as if they have been dating for two years, not just 10 months. That’s because Abby met Justin when she first began high jumping in seventh grade.
“The first time we ever talked was while we were high jumping,” Compton said.
Both are all around track stars; Christiansen also runs the hurdles and does the pole vault, while Compton runs on a relay team and in the 200 meters. And both are all-around athletes. Christiansen also played on the basketball team and went to state in golf, while Compton starts on the volleyball and girls basketball teams.
Christiansen, a senior, said the two will always be a sporting couple even when they no longer share high jumping.
“Abby is very athletic, so we can always share whatever sport,” Christiansen said.
But sharing the high jump has been special.
“We are always talking about it,” Compton, a junior, said. “I share with him if I’m nervous about something or excited, and he does the same.
“Even if we’re out on the track and we’re not together, I can always see him and he can always see me. We wave to each other. It’s nice just that he’s in the same place. Track really brings us together.”
“We are out there all the time,” Christiansen said.
“It’s going to be really hard,” Compton said, “next year when he leaves.”
For now, they still have state. Hopefully together. A second state trip for her. And a second state trip for him.
Assistant sports editor Matt Trowbridge can be reached at: 815-987-1383 or mtrowbridge@rrstar.com.
State girls track meet
Where: O’Brien Stadium at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston
Today: Class 1A preliminaries, with field events beginning at 10:30 a.m. and running events starting at 11 a.m.
Friday: Class 2A preliminaries begin at 8:30 a.m. for field events and 9 a.m. for running events; Class 3A preliminaries begin at 10:45 a.m. in the field events; 12:45 p.m. on the track.
Saturday: Finals in both field and running events begin at 10 a.m. for Class 1A, followed by Class 2A and then by Class 3A. The awards ceremony is scheduled for 5 p.m.
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May 19th, 2012
Family rescues tiny puppy after it falls from bird’s talons….
Texas voters now head to the polls to vote in the primary election. Starting Monday, you can cast your early ballot….
NBC stars discuss their shows outside of the “Up Front.”…
A Texoma man is killed in a car crash last night outside Iowa Park. …
The League of Women Voters of Texas has published the Voters Guide for the May 29 Texas Primary Election….
An overnight wreck near Front Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard sends one person to jail….
Officials say alcohol played a factor in rollover crash in Clay County….
Results from May 12, 2012 city and school elections….
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is in Wichita Falls to speak at Saturday’s M.S.U. graduation ceremony, but earlier Friday, he was at KFDX to talk about several topics, including ObamaCare….
Students at Bowie Eementary have something new to smile about while reading their books and it’s all thanks to the high school’s Interior Design Class….
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May 17th, 2012
And the Marilyn is… Smash will finally be answering the season-long question of who will be playing Marilyn Monroe—Ivy (Megan Hilty) or Karen (Katharine McPhee)—in the NBC…
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May 17th, 2012
ROCKFORD — Justin Christiansen has the highest jump (6-foot-4) in the area this year.
His girlfriend has tied for the second-highest jump of any area girl (5-2).
What more could Christian Life’s first couple of high jumping want?
How about his and her state berths?
Christiansen and Abby Compton both went to state last year, but that was two months before the longtime high-jumping friends began dating.
Compton qualified again for this year’s girls state meet, which runs today through Saturday at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. Christiansen is seeded first with a jump of 6-foot-4 for Friday’s Class 1A boys sectional at Winnebago.
“He has to get to state now that I’m going down,” Compton said Tuesday.
“Yeah, I’ve got to keep up,” Christiansen said. “Definitely. There’s some competition between us.”
“There’s always competition,” Compton said.
So much so that rooting for each other can be hard unless it means both doing well.
“There are days when I just will not talk to him,” Compton said. “It makes me so mad when he has a good day and I have a bad day.”
“I agree. I get mad too,” Christiansen said.
The competition continues even when they help each other out with advice.
“The coach can’t always be there,” Compton said, “so with Justin, I always have someone who knows what he’s talking about, telling me what I am doing right or what I am doing wrong.”
That’s easy to admit now, but not so easy while she is jumping.
“When he gives me a tip,” Compton said, “I’m always, ‘I’ve got it! Don’t say anything more.’ But in my head, it’s, ‘Yeah, I’ve got to do that.’ But to him, I don’t give him the credit.”
The two say it feels as if they have been dating for two years, not just 10 months. That’s because Abby met Justin when she first began high jumping in seventh grade.
“The first time we ever talked was while we were high jumping,” Compton said.
Both are all around track stars; Christiansen also runs the hurdles and does the pole vault, while Compton runs on a relay team and in the 200 meters. And both are all-around athletes. Christiansen also played on the basketball team and went to state in golf, while Compton starts on the volleyball and girls basketball teams.
Christiansen, a senior, said the two will always be a sporting couple even when they no longer share high jumping.
“Abby is very athletic, so we can always share whatever sport,” Christiansen said.
But sharing the high jump has been special.
“We are always talking about it,” Compton, a junior, said. “I share with him if I’m nervous about something or excited, and he does the same.
“Even if we’re out on the track and we’re not together, I can always see him and he can always see me. We wave to each other. It’s nice just that he’s in the same place. Track really brings us together.”
“We are out there all the time,” Christiansen said.
“It’s going to be really hard,” Compton said, “next year when he leaves.”
For now, they still have state. Hopefully together. A second state trip for her. And a second state trip for him.
Assistant sports editor Matt Trowbridge can be reached at: 815-987-1383 or mtrowbridge@rrstar.com.
State girls track meet
Where: O’Brien Stadium at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston
Today: Class 1A preliminaries, with field events beginning at 10:30 a.m. and running events starting at 11 a.m.
Friday: Class 2A preliminaries begin at 8:30 a.m. for field events and 9 a.m. for running events; Class 3A preliminaries begin at 10:45 a.m. in the field events; 12:45 p.m. on the track.
Saturday: Finals in both field and running events begin at 10 a.m. for Class 1A, followed by Class 2A and then by Class 3A. The awards ceremony is scheduled for 5 p.m.
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May 15th, 2012
A dating site has begun a major in-depth survey into Christian singles in an effort to understand their experiences within the church.
Christian Connection has already had responses from more than a thousand Christians in the week since the survey was launched.
The questions explore issues such as whether Christian singles feel accepted in church, how being single has impacted their faith, and how helpful they have found church advice on relationships and issues of singleness.
“Single people in churches of all traditions want – and need – to share their experiences,” said Christian Connection founder Jackie Elton.
“We hope churches will understand and learn from the findings. Single people often feel marginalised in churches which concentrate on the needs of families.
“However, as the number of single people grows in society, it is more important than ever that churches identify ways to make them feel welcome and and fully included.
“Single Christians have already shared experiences and stories – positive and negative – of attending church. We would ask and encourage people to let their single friends know about the survey and encourage them to complete it.”
She added: “Armed with this important information we hope to work with other groups to bring about positive and practical change and development within churches, as well as helping single Christians find a voice.”
The survey, which can be completed by going to www.christianconnection.co.uk/survey closes at the end of June.
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May 15th, 2012
And the Marilyn is… Smash will finally be answering the season-long question of who will be playing Marilyn Monroe—Ivy (Megan Hilty) or Karen (Katharine McPhee)—in the NBC…
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May 12th, 2012
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” So runs the celebrated line in Hebrews 11:1, the rationale that underpins so much of the Judeo-Christian tradition. According to that rationale, as the writer of the Epistle puts it, faith is a summation of hope and evidence apparently lies in “things not seen” — in the invisible and ineffable.
Considering the importance of the line in Hebrews as an anchor to Judeo-Christian belief and faith, it’s worth noting — as websites detailing various editions of the Bible underscore — that even minor changes in translation have dramatic implications for the way people view and understand their faith. The line I quoted was from the King James version of the Bible, dating from the 17th century and treated as current at least until the end of the 19th. But when the English Revised Version appeared between 1881 and 1885 (with the New Testament appearing before the Old), after an army of scholars labored to render the Hebrew, Greek and Latin Vulgate more reliable than before, the celebrated line in Hebrews appeared quite differently: Faith became “the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen.” This upped the stakes in empirical terms, in seeming to make “the evidence of things not seen” unequivocal and unambiguous, even if such things were by definition invisible to the human eye. Hope and assurance, evidence and proof, were similarly rendered more tightly bound than before — a largely defensive response to exacting debates on these subjects that had aired throughout the 1860s and ’70s.
In the 1901 American Standard Version, by contrast, the emphasis shifted from “substance” and “assurance” to “things” as a whole: “Faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.” In 1973, the New International Version decided to render that idea even more conspicuously: “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see,” a statement that thoroughly transforms the meaning of the King James Version, equating faith with the certainty of hope as if the two were identical. In the space of seven decades, in sum, the stress had changed from conviction to being certain, a dramatic change in emphasis and stance.
Websites that reproduce different versions of the Bible along side each other are especially effective (even if they don’t intend to be) in demonstrating how much of its meaning hinges on translation decisions. Such differences do not bother every religious denomination, many of which welcome more colloquial renderings, but the differences do bother denominations, including evangelical ones, that continue to represent the Bible as infallible, as the literal Word of God.
The translators of the English Revised Version saw their task as one of “adapt[ing] King James’ version to the present state of the English language without changing the idiom and vocabulary,” an assumption that’s informed most updated versions of the Bible, but the above renderings of Hebrews 11 underscore how impossible it is to adjust vocabulary without affecting idiom and meaning. The translators also saw their task as one of “adapt[ing the Bible] to the present standard of Biblical scholarship,” much of which, stemming from the German Higher Criticism of the early 1800s, stressed precisely the unreliability of the manuscripts comprising the Bible, including that the version of Genesis relayed in each of the above editions of the Bible is likely just a fraction of a much-longer creation story.
Given the advances that occurred in 19th-century science and textual studies, as well as the ongoing reliance that many Victorians continued to place on biblical literalism, it’s worth noting that the doubt and skepticism that came to define so much of 19th-century society also focused intensively on the very lines that Hebrews 11:1 tried to render unambiguously. To no avail. As I show in “The Age of Doubt” by focusing on the number of Victorians who began with that Epistle as their starting-point, their doubt quickly expanded in focus from the Creation story, the Flood, and the existence of miracles to the virgin birth, the resurrection of Christ and, ultimately, the very existence of God.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for” became a psychological proposition, as William James made clear in “The Will to Believe” (1896), even as he defended that stance and worried about faith trying to express itself “in the language of the gaming-table.” As James well-knew, the devout understandably want to view their faith as inevitable — as existing beyond chance, contingency and debate. Close examination of key passages in the Bible underscores, by contrast, that the book they worship is far from reliable, its meaning altered by successive generations of translators, each hoping to put their indelible stamp on it, to cast its ever-changing message as fixed and eternal.
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May 12th, 2012
By
Jamie Mcginnes
PUBLISHED:
09:09 EST, 11 May 2012
|
UPDATED:
09:09 EST, 11 May 2012
Same-sex unions in Christian churches were held as long ago as the Middle Ages, research shows.
Historians say the ceremonies included many of the acts involved in heterosexual marriages, with the whole community gathering in a church, the blessing of the couple before an altar and an exchange of holy vows.
A priest officiated in the
taking of the Eucharist and there was a wedding feast for guests afterwards.
Nothing new: Historians say same-sex unions took place as long ago as the Middle Ages
All of these elements are depicted in contemporary
illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil
the First (867-886 AD) and his companion John, an article published on the I Heart Chaos blog this week says.
And Prof John Boswell, the late chairman of
Yale University’s history department, found there were ceremonies called the Office of Same-Sex Union and the Order for Uniting Two Men in the 10th to 12th centuries.
The medievalist published Christianity, Social Tolerance, and
Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the
Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century in 1980.
According to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies section of Yale University’s website, the controversial book argued that the modern Catholic Church’s stance on homosexuality ‘departed from the tolerance and even celebration of homosexual love that had characterized the first millennium of the Church’s teachings’.
The research brings into perspective the debate raging in America over same-sex marriage after President Barack Obama announced that
he now supports it.
The chronicler Gerald of Wales (‘Geraldus Cambrensis’) recorded same-gender Christian unions taking place in Ireland in the late 12th and early 13th centuries.
Historic precedent?: An icon in a Kiev art museum shows two robed Christian martyrs, St Sergius and St Bacchus who some modern scholars believe were gay
An icon in a Kiev art museum (pictured above) shows two
robed Christian martyrs, St
Sergius and St Bacchus who some modern scholars believe were gay.
The
image of the two men has a traditional Roman ‘pronubus’ (best man), in
the image of Christ between them, apparently overseeing their
wedding.
Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch (512 – 518 AD)
explained that, ‘we should not separate in speech they [Sergius and
Bacchus] who were joined in life.’
One Greek 13th century rite called the Order for Solemn Same-Sex Union, invoked St Serge and St Bacchus and called on God to ‘vouchsafe unto these, Thy servants [N and N], the grace to love one another and to abide without hate and not be the cause of scandal all the days of their lives, with the help of the Holy Mother of God, and all Thy saints’.
And the ceremony concluded with the words: ‘And they shall kiss the Holy Gospel and each other, and it shall be concluded.’
A 14th century Serbian Slavonic Office of the Same Sex Union involved the couple laying their right hands on a Bible while they had a crucifix placed in their left hands.
After kissing the Bible, they were then required to kiss each other and the priest gave them communion.
Records of Christian same-sex unions dating back to medieval times have been found around the world in places as far flung as the Vatican, St Petersburg and Istanbul.
The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.
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It is amazing how British history and Christianity are suddenly relevant again when they can serve some politically correct agenda
- sandy, outer space – thank God!, 11/5/2012 16:27
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