Churches, open up your doors!

Question: Why do we still have homeless folks everywhere across this affluent nation?

Answer: Corrupt politicians at all levels, who are in bed with greedy corporations, who love to make obscene war profits, and who ignore their own citizens in need.

Solution: Forget about government. Separate church from state, and give sanctuary to the homeless. Open church doors, 24-7.

Churches in Washington and Oregon states have built tent cities for the homeless – right on church property!  First United in Vancouver actually allows the homeless to sleep in the pews of their sanctuary. Imagine that!

So many church buildings sit empty – except for an hour or two on Sundays! What would Jesus do? The answer is obvious.

What are you waiting for? Open your doors.  

Lee Hamer,
Victoria

More thoughts on Golden Compass

‘Golden Compass inspires spirited debate about God’ (Readers’ Forum, January) raises a few questions.

I can understand the reluctance of some people viewing it, based on their beliefs and what they choose to spend their money on. That is wholly their right, and I would never argue against it. However, I do take issue with statements in some of the letters.

First of all, “spirit guides are strongly condemned in the Christian world.” What does that mean? Is there a scripture that addresses the idea of spirit guides? It is not a new age concept, as was stated, but is a belief held by many indigenous groups; a way for them to explain the unseen world they knew was there but could not touch.

Given Christianity’s predilection for belief in attending angels and such concepts, we should be a little more magnanimous in our criticism of other beliefs.  

Regarding the pointed observation that “no true Christian should see this film”:  Well, thank you for showing me the shallowness of my own faith and its attendant spiritual deficiency.  I had no idea that my faith was so bound up in the engagement of ideas in conflict with my own, and will in the future be certain to avoid any contact with any unbelievers and their insidious ideas.

Finally: “you are either for God or against him” may be true in a very narrow sense, but smacks of fundamentalism at it’s worst.

The same attitude pervades radical Islam, and other extremist groups, be they political or religious.

While the jihadist may call for judgment and volunteer his hands to be bloodied, the Christian fundamentalists seem content to let the blood be on God’s hands, having already passed sentence on any who might disagree with their worldview.

Grace calls for us to invite those we disagree with, even those who hate us, to sit and break bread at our table. Those who hate God need that grace more than any, and those of us who have already tasted of it, have a duty to impart it.

Do not see the movie if it offends you. You have that privilege. But leave the ‘them and us’ rhetoric for others to engage in. It has no place in Christian dialogue.

Jon Ochsendorf,
Surrey

Writer defends anti-Christmas view

 I would like to respond to those who took issue with my anti-Christmas letter (‘Bible clearly celebrates Christmas,’ January).

Cam Ludwig writes, “Where did Jesus ever tell his disciples . . . to celebrate his death?”

It’s called communion. In Luke 22:19, Jesus says: “Do this in remembrance of me.”

In 1 Corinthians 11:25, Paul calls us to “proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes.” Sounds like a celebration to me.  

Cherryl Katnich quotes Matthew 2:11 and says, “Those sound like birthday presents.”

Continue article >>

It was the custom in the Middle East of that day, that when you came before a king, you brought gifts and bowed down to him. I don’t know of anyone who receives birthday presents and has the giver bow down to them. No, these were not ‘birthday presents.’

Also, the wise men didn’t enter the manger on the exact day Jesus was born. The narrative suggests Jesus was a few weeks old.

Stephen Treller writes, “But his approach – throwing out the baby with the bath water – doesn’t present Christmas in historical, traditional or theological fairness.”  ‘

I am not throwing out the baby with the bath water – because there is no bath water to begin with. There is no historical or theological basis for this ‘tradition.’  

Earl Banks,
North Vancouver

Real roots of the Anglican schism

Re: ‘Anglicans in ‘full-blown schism’ (December):

Is it really a dispute between ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ that is at the root of the Anglicans’ travails? 

Rather, do not the threats to Anglican unity point to the troubled and troubling birth and infancy of the Church of England? 

When Henry VIII repudiated the universal Church and by an act of state replaced it with a national church, that same national church found itself at the mercy of the Tudor monarchs.  

There must be by now a significant number of us who, like recent convert and former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, felt compelled to leave Canterbury in favour of Rome. 

Surely a deciding factor for many of us was the heroic example of Thomas More and John Fisher. 

The latter, who was Chancellor of Cambridge University, spoke to the crowd at the Tower of London:

“Christian people, I am come hither to die for the faith of Christ’s Catholic Church . . . God save the king and the realm and hold His holy hand over it.” 

Similarly, More asked those present “to pray for him, and to bear witness with him that he should now there suffer death, in  and for the faith of the Holy Catholic Church.”

I’ll close with a quote from the letter of resignation submitted by U.S. Episcopal Bishop Jeffrey Steenson in September 2007: 

“Many of you already know of my love for the Catholic Church and of my conviction that it is the true home of Anglicanism.”  

Arnold Shives,
North Vancouver

Jesus seen through Jewish sources

In the December 22 Vancouver Sun feature, ‘Who Was Jesus?,’ Douglas Todd reports that Rabbi Robert Daum “made it clear that Jesus is absent from thousands of years of Jewish tradition and theology.”  

A compilation of 5th century Jewish writings, called the Toledoth Jeshu, acknowledges that the tomb – where Yeshua [Jesus] was laid to rest – was empty.

Author and professor of ancient history Paul L. Maier calls this “positive evidence from a hostile source, the strongest kind of historical evidence. In essence, if a source admits a fact that is decidedly not in its favour, the fact is genuine.”  

That’s the case with the empty tomb.  

Another example of positive evidence from a hostile source, also cited by Maier, is Yeshua’s arrest notice in the Jewish Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a).

If Yeshua wasn’t really performing miracles, why does the arrest notice say he “has practiced sorcery?”

The answer seems obvious – some Jews attributed his miracles to Satan rather than God. The key point, as Maier points out, is that “the supernatural is conceded” by the Talmud.  

According to today’s Jewish rabbis and scholars, who is the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 – the silent “man of sorrows” who was “pierced for our transgressions,” “led like a lamb to the slaughter,” “assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death,” who “bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors”?  

David Buckna,
Kelowna

February 2008