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from Conciliar Post
There’s been plenty of chatter in the theological blogosphere over David Bentley Hart’s provocative new book That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation, which argues forcefully that for God to be truly God, all things must ultimately be reconciled to Him. Much can be—and has been—said already about the merits of Hart’s argument (my own review is coming out in Ad Fontes in a few weeks). But as I’ve reflected on the book over the last couple of months, what keeps coming to mind isn’t the overarching argument as such, but rather the pastoral dimension of the issue—what it would really mean, in practical terms, if the Church as a whole followed Gregory of Nyssa rather than Augustine of Hippo.
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from HumanProgress.org Education Website
Excessive regulations suppress medical and environmental benefits of new technology.
With tariffs announced against Brazil and Argentina, and a threat against France, Donald Trump is dragging the world deeper into a damaging trade war. Largely unnoticed, the European Union is also in trouble at the World Trade Organisation for its continuing and worsening record as a protectionist bloc. Last month, at the WTO meeting in Geneva, India joined a list of countries including Canada, Australia, Argentina, Brazil and Malaysia that have lodged formal complaints against the EU over barriers to agricultural imports. Not only does the EU raise hefty tariffs against crops such as rice and oranges to protect subsidised European farmers; it also uses health and safety rules to block imports. The irony is that these are often dressed up as precautionary measures against health and environmental threats, when in fact they are sometimes preventing Europeans from gaining health and environmental benefits. The WTO complaints accuse the EU of “unnecessarily and inappropriately” restricting trade through regulatory barriers on pesticide residues that violate international scientific standards and the “principle of evidence”. Worse, they say, “it appears that the EU is unilaterally attempting to impose its own domestic regulatory approach on to its trading partners”, disproportionately harming farmers in the developing nations whose livelihoods depend on agriculture. The problem is that the EU, unlike the rest of the world, bases its regulations on “hazard”, the possibility that a chemical could conceivably cause, say, cancer, even if only at impossibly high doses. WTO rules by contrast require a full “risk” analysis that takes into account likely exposure. Coffee, apples, pears, lettuce, bread and many other common foods that are part of a healthy diet contain entirely natural molecules that at high enough doses would be carcinogenic. Alcohol, for instance, is a known carcinogen at very high doses, though perfectly safe in moderation. The absurdity of the EU approach can be seen in the fact that if wine were sprayed on vineyards as a pesticide, it would have to be banned under a hazard-based approach.
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from The Living Church
Magazine of The Living Church Foundation (Anglican)
But what if heaven is not primarily a place of peace, but instead a community, created by communal participation in the divine life?
Then-churchwarden George Washington settled its construction contract. The Declaration of Independence was read to locals from the south porch in 1776. A Union military hospital during the Civil War, Walt Whitman may have served in it as a volunteer nurse. More recently, it was the setting for the most high-profile legal battle in the Episcopal Church’s post-2003 divisions. The Falls Church Episcopal, which gives its name to the surrounding Northern Virginia city of 14,000 is historic by any measure. The congregation celebrated a remarkable milestone yesterday, the 250th anniversary of the dedication of its historic church, which is still used weekly for worship. The red-brick Georgian building was designed by vestryman James Wren, who also served as architect for nearby Pohick Church in Lorton and Christ Church in Alexandria. The 1769 church replaced a simple wooden building constructed on the site in 1734, and received its name for being sited along the road which led to the Little Falls of the Potomac.
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from Orthodox Christianity – orthochristian.com
Religious Organization in Moscow, Russia
Bend, Oregon, 160 miles southeast of Portland, is home to about 97,000 people, as well as the St. Jacob of Alaska Orthodox Church of the Orthodox Church in America. Now the residents and visitors of Bend will be able to learn more about holy Orthodoxy while enjoying some high quality coffee, with the opening of the Agia Sophia Coffeehouse and Bookstore.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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