As I was walking home from Occupy Moncton, I passed a building surrounded by a very medieval looking iron fence - and I wondered...

If this were the home of a cruel baron who tied women to the fence, and whipped one every day, leaving her overnight tied to the iron railing, would sneaking up at night and applying some appointment be considered an adequate Christian response?

we live in a world very much like that "baron's" railing, only worse with mass murder, plundering, greed, imposed starvation...

I know we send aid.

Obama has been providing military  aid to countries that use children fifteen and under as soldiers. For now, it is Yemen and Congo. The list is due to be expandded soon. The law it breaks is Child Protection Act, 2006).

Canadian bombers are doing mass killing of civilians in Libya.

But I guess neither of these is a religious issue. I've checked. There[s nowhere Jesus says we should have child soldiers or shouldn't bomb people.

The lectionary readings (with links) for 24th January, 2010 are:

Secular law is better than God’s law. How did that happen?

You do not have to b e a rocket scientist to recognize that Secular law has bested Religious laws.

This may be why even Muslims and Christians are choosing Secular laws when available.

Why?

Because Secular law is more forgiving and logical as opposed to Religious law.

Secular law demands and allows equality of women, Gays and slaves. Religious laws do not yet do not give a good logic trail for discriminating against these sub groups of our societies.

Most of the discussion about Israel and Palestine has been nothing more than fuss and bluster. That's because most people who post have little knowledge of the nature of war, and so become suckers for the propaganda of both sides. We get windy statements about international law when, in fact, there is almost no effective international law dealing with this. We get tales of how the "other side" hides behind civilians when, in fact, all urban fighting leads to high civilian casualities, and always has done so.

I didn't know that this was even being contemplated and thought it might be of interest...  I wonder if private vehicles might be next?  Excerpts from a Gowling letter follow:

I have been pondering this lately: How much of what we call conscience, or our "moral compass" is learned? How much is hereditary or even genetic? How much is spiritual?

Every so often I am astonished by how theologically minded individuals can perform radical surgery on the Bible to cop out of adherence to moral depravities. What further amuses me is the blatantly ignorant “there are no Biblical contradictions” statement. Biblical depravity and contradiction always rears its head whenever criticism of the Old Testament is at hand.

The Archbishop of Canterbury recently published an article (in The Economist, I think), in which he compared those who had faith in the free market to solve all economic ills - as well as those of other ideologies - to idolators.

His reasoning is that an idol like the golden calf is the creation of man, and the great error is to ascribe god-like qualities to anything man made. It is an error because anything that man makes is not perfect and will, therefore, eventually fail you.