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Theology made simple

11 Jan 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

One of theology's purposes is to "make known" God's deeds among the nations, as the responsorial from Isaiah puts it this Sunday. A group of Asian Christian leaders is asking for a new theology that will help nations address current global crises. The group is pushing for a "theology of simplicity and caring" to bring hope to a "prodigal world" staggering under the burden of widespread economic crisis and undergoing climate change that could submerge small islands in the Pacific Ocean. "It is time to challenge the growth-is-success myth, which also has contaminated the church, and shift to a more transformative way of thinking and lifestyle in tune with God's creative order and purpose," said the Rev. Daniel Kim Dong-Sung of the Saemoonan Presbyterian Church in Seoul, which is said to be the oldest Protestant congregation in South Korea. Source: An article by Ecumenical News International

Success saemoonan presbyterian church daniel kim dong-sung climaye change crisis pacific asia theology

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Iceland's government meltdown

01 Feb 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Moses struggled at times to lead the people of Israel who gathered in assemblies such as those described in this Sunday's first reading, but his problems pale in comparison to those of Iceland's political leaders. On Monday Iceland's coalition government collapsed, leaving the island nation in political turmoil amid a financial crisis that has pummeled its economy and required an international bailout to keep the country afloat. Prime Minister Geir Haarde said he was unwilling to meet demands from his coalition partners in the Social Democratic Alliance Party, which insisted upon the post of prime minister in order to keep the coalition intact. "It was an unreasonable demand for the smaller party to demand the premiership over the larger party," Haarde said. Iceland has been mired in crisis since the country's banks collapsed under the weight of debts amassed during years of rapid expansion. Inflation and unemployment have soared, and the krona, Iceland's currency, has plummeted. Thousands have joined noisy daily protests in the past week over soaring unemployment and rising prices. Source: An article by David Stringer for the Associated Press

crisis social democratic alliance party geir haarde iceland

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Drowning in red ink

01 Mar 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In this Sunday's reading from the Book of Genesis, God establishes a covenant with Noah and his offspring after the Flood. Perhaps thinking of the fiscal covenant the current generation has with its descendants, President Obama this week vowed to cut the federal budget deficit in half by the end of his first term. Tuesday evening he offered a grim portrait of the nation's plight in an address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, but he promised to lead an economic renewal. Striking an optimistic tone that has been less visible in recent speeches, the president said his stimulus plan, bank bailout proposal, housing programs, and health-care overhaul would help turn around the nation's struggling economy. While he bluntly described a country facing historic economic challenges and continued threats abroad, the president said the solution lies in directly confronting-not ignoring-those problems. "The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation," he said. "The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth." Obama did seek to temper expectations in his address, acknowledging that he cannot "solve every problem or address every issue." But he promised to deliver a budget Thursday that will serve as a new "vision for America-as a blueprint for our future." Administration officials said Obama sought to strike a balance between hope and realism in an era of serious problems. He sought to juxtapose those ideas repeatedly, saying at one point: "While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before." Source: Articles by Michael D. Shear, Anne E. Kornblut, and Steven Pearlstein for the Washington Post

barack obama crisis economic stimulus budget deficit

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Hunger pains more than 1 billion people

28 Jun 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

After restoring Jairus' daughter to life, Jesus instructs astonished onlookers in this Sunday's gospel to give the girl something to eat. There are more than 1 billion people in the world in need of the same, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a United Nations food agency. The number of hungry in the world has reached a "historic high," the FAO said in a statement last Friday, blaming the global financial crisis for the surge. The agency reported that one sixth of humanity, or 1.02 billion people, do not get enough to eat. "The most recent increase in hunger is not the consequence of poor global harvests but is caused by the world economic crisis that has resulted in lower incomes and increased unemployment," the FAO statement said. "A dangerous mix of the global economic slowdown combined with stubbornly high food prices in many countries has pushed some 100 million more people than last year into chronic hunger and poverty," said FAO Director General Jacques Diouf. "Whereas good progress was made in reducing chronic hunger in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, hunger has been slowly but steadily on the rise for the past decade," the FAO said. "The silent hunger crisis . . . poses a serious risk for world peace and security," the FAO warned. "We urgently need to forge a broad consensus on the total and rapid eradication of hunger in the world and to take the necessary actions." During a Rome summit a year ago, FAO member states reaffirmed their commitment to halve world hunger by 2015, a Millennium Development Goal set in 2000 by the United Nations. Diouf said last year that "with current trends, that goal will be attained in 2150, rather than 2015." Source: An article by Agence France Presse

Hunger united nations food food and agriculture organization fao financial crisis jacques diouf millennium development goal

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Woe to the euro

28 Feb 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday's reading from the Letter to the Philippians criticizes those who are "occupied with earthly things." The European Union (EU) finds itself occupied with the eroding value of its currency this week and criticized for lack of leadership in a time of crisis. A critical debt situation in Greece triggered the crisis, and the Greek government recently announced a freeze on civil-service wages, cuts in public-sector entitlements, the closing of tax loopholes, and a fuel-tax increase. The moves--unpopular at home--were aimed at reducing Greece's growing budget deficit, currently near 13 percent of gross domestic product and well over the EU's 3-percent limit. On Wednesday protesters clashed with riot police in Athens during a one-day general strike protesting the austerity policies. Greece claims the EU has made matters worse by failing to calm market fears that the country might default on its massive debt load. Greek Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos said EU leaders were "not up to the scale of the task" in dealing with the crisis. At the end of last year a Euro cost $1.50 US. This week it is trading near $1.35 US and further erosion is expected. Some say the euro could reach parity with the dollar, something not seen since it was launched as a currency in 2002. "Investors have already started to think about the next likely phase of the present crisis, and it appears that all they are finding are new reasons to sell the euro," said David Woo, global head of foreign-exchange strategy at Barclays Plc in London. The economies in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland are also on shaky footing. "This is a very deep crisis for the euro and all of Europe because what we have is a terrible debt and deficit problem that virtually all European nations share and no collective structures to deal with any of it," said Philippe Moreau Defarge, a European affairs expert at the French Institute on International Relations. "Europe is being forced to recognize it isn't as rich or as well-organized as it thought, and faces several long, hard years of finding its way back to solid ground." Source: Articles by Sebastian Moffett and Costas Parish for the Wall Street Journal, Bruce Crumley for TIME, Liz Capo McCormick and Oliver Biggadike for Bloomberg.com, Derek Gatopoulos for the Associated Press, and Reuters

greece european union euro debt crisis theodoros pangalos david woo philippe moreau defarge

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Irish eye financial rescue with reluctance

21 Nov 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

God makes us “fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones,” and in Christ, “all things hold together,” this Sunday’s reading from the Letter to the Colossians informs us. In Europe, it is the European Central Bank that is being commissioned to hold things together and make Ireland financially fit. Investors urged the European Central Bank to act quickly--and Ireland to accept help--to avoid plunging the Eurozone into crisis and panicking world markets. European officials responded midweek by laying the groundwork for a bailout of Ireland that could reach $136 billion, but Ireland’s Finance Minister Brian Lenihan insisted that his country wasn’t ready to seek help despite a huge budget deficit and sky-high interest rates on its government debt. European Union President Herman Van Rompuy on Tuesday cast the Irish crisis as a decisive moment for Europe and its common currency: “We all have to work together in order to survive with the Eurozone, because if we don’t survive with the Eurozone, we will not survive with the European Union.” U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Europe learned painful lessons from its slow response to the crisis that convulsed Greece earlier this year. “The lessons of that experience . . . is you want to do this quickly and decisively and not wait,” Geithner said, though he declined to offer specific views about Ireland’s predicament. Source: Articles by Marcus Walker, Patrick McGroarty, and Charles Forelle for the Wall Street Journal,Rick Newman for US News & World Report, James Kanter and Steven Erlanger for the New York Times,and Adrian Croft and Nigel Davies for Reuters

timothy geithner ireland financial crisis european union european central bank eurozone brian lenihan herman van rompuy

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Recalling a crisis that nearly blew up

21 Oct 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday’s reading from Letter to the Hebrews points out that Jesus is sympathetic to human weaknesses because he has “similarly been tested in every way.” On the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, newly released papers of Robert F. Kennedy reveal the true extent to which the crisis tested his brother, President John F. Kennedy, and how near the world may have been to a catastrophic nuclear war.Papers from Robert F. Kennedy’s personal files made public last week at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library reveal how close the president came to announcing what could have been the start of World War III. A draft speech penned in October, 1962 contained this language: “My fellow Americans, with a heavy heart, and in necessary fulfillment of my oath of office, I have ordered—and the United States Air Force has now carried out—military operations with conventional weapons only, to remove a major nuclear weapons build-up from the soil of Cuba.”Robert Kennedy had no doubt that his brother would have chosen an air strike against the missile sites, followed by an invasion, if need be. As he wrote in his notes while discussing this option, “If we go in, we go in hard.”Had the United States launched an airstrike and invaded Cuba, the Soviet commander on the scene would almost certainly have responded with about 100 tactical nuclear weapons under his control. The U.S. would have felt compelled to respond in kind, triggering an escalation to nuclear Armageddon, some analysts say.That was the moment when U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, by his own account, uttered the most memorable line of the missile crisis: “We’re eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked.” But researcher Michael Dobbs called “the eyeball to eyeball” image a myth, pointing out that ships from the Soviet Union had already turned around and were at least 750 miles from the island when a U.S. naval blockade went into effect. The skillful give and take of negotiations, not brinksmanship, won the day during the crisis, he argued.Homily hint: The threat of nuclear war has not disappeared in the past 50 years, even if the bomb shelters and air-raid drills of the Cold-War era have. Tensions over Iran’s nuclear program remind us that praying for peace is always essential as is backing our prayers with concerted action for mutual disarmament and peaceful resolution of international disagreements. Preaching on peace is never outdated. Sources: Articles by Graham Allison for Christian Science Monitor and Michael Dobbs for the New York Times

nuclear weapons michael dobbs dean rusk soviet union cuban missile crisis robert f kennedy john f kennedy

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Idolizing money idles workers

29 Sep 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The prophet Amos quoted in this Sunday’s first reading has no patience for the complacent rich, who "shall be the first to go into exile.” Pope Francis warned business leaders against the idolatry of money as he traveled last Sunday to one of Italy's poorest regions to offer hope to the unemployed and entrepreneurs struggling to hang on."Where there is no work, there is no dignity," Francis said, leaving aside his prepared remarks to speak spontaneously to thousands of people in Cagliari, the capital of the island of Sardinia, telling them he knew well what it was like to suffer from financial crisis and retelling the story of his young Italian immigrant parents’ struggle in Argentina in the 1930s. “They lost everything. There was no work."Francis said while it was easy for a priest to come and tell the poor to have courage, he really meant it. Amid shouts of, "Lavoro! Lavoro! [Work! Work!]," he called for dignified work for all.Sardinia, known for its pristine beaches and swank vacation homes, has been particularly hard hit by Italy's economic crisis, with businesses closing and more and more of the island's families forced to seek charity. Unemployment is nearing 20 percent, with youth unemployment at 50 percent.Francis told the Sardinians, some of whom wore hardhats from their defunct factory jobs, that the economic problems were the result of a global economic system "that has at its center an idol called money."Homily hint: Most folks are struggling to get by in a rugged economic climate they didn’t create but have to cope with. It takes a visionary leader such as Pope Francis to shine the light of the gospel on the situation. Encourage your community to bring gospel values into the workplace so that the system may serve humanity instead of the other way around. Source: An article by Gianfranco Stara and Nicole Winfield for the Associated Press

Poor Pope Francis work sardinia economic crisis

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High time to abide by company drug policy

14 Sep 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“Hearken, my people, to my teaching,” announces the psalmist this Sunday. Companies want employees to pay attention to their policies with regard to marijuana use on or off the job. Few organizations with zero-tolerance policies are changing them, regardless of whether or not marijuana has been legalized or permitted for medical purposes in their state.Even as 23 states allow medical or recreational marijuana, employment experts say that most businesses are keeping their drug-free policies. The result is a clash between a culture that increasingly accepts marijuana and companies that will fire employees who use it.Even in Colorado and Washington, the country’s most marijuana-friendly states, online classified ads lay out an unwelcome landscape for marijuana smokers. “Please do not apply if you are NOT drug free or carry a medical marijuana card,” warns one job listing for a mechanic in Denver. A Chevrolet dealership in the suburb of Aurora tells applicants, “We do screen for medical or recreational marijuana.” In Seattle, a recycling company looking for a welder cautions that they are a “zero-tolerance company including marijuana!!”Employers and business groups say the screenings identify drug-abusing workers, create a safer workplace, lower their insurance costs, and, in some cases, are required by law. But marijuana advocates say the prohibitions amount to discrimination, either against people using marijuana to treat a medical condition or against people who smoke it because they simply have the legal right to do so, off the clock and away from the office.After Colorado voted in 2012 to allow adults to buy, sell, and grow their own recreational marijuana, scarcely any businesses relaxed their own rules, according to a survey by the Mountain States Employers Council, which represents 3,500 companies. Seventy-one percent left their drug-testing policies in place, and 21 percent actually imposed stricter rules.“People were scared they were going to have a stoned work force,” said Curtis Graves, a staff lawyer for the group. A survey by Quest Diagnostics, which conducts millions of drug tests across the country, found that positive results for marijuana rose in both Colorado and Washington in the year after legalization measures passed.Homily hint: Why do people seek escape through drug and alcohol abuse? Many answers are given but ultimately habitual drug use is an indication of a spiritual crisis, a loss of meaning and purpose in life. If someone in your own life is struggling with habitual use of marijuana or other intoxicants, reach out to them with an offer to help them find their way. Source: An article by Jack Healy for The New York Times

marijuana drugs spiritual crisis

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For December 28: Ebola outbreak agonizes west Africa

28 Dec 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

After the Holy Family traveled to Jerusalem to present young Jesus at the temple, this Sunday’s gospel tells us, they returned to their town Nazareth where “the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.” Families in towns and villages across western Africa have grown weak instead of strong this year in the face of the worst outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus ever documented. As of December 22, 19,374 suspected cases and 7,533 deaths had been reported; however, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said that these numbers may be vastly underestimated. Aside from the human cost, the outbreak has severely eroded the economies of the affected countries. A Financial Times report suggested the economic impact of the outbreak could kill more people than the virus itself.As of September 23, in the three hardest hit countries, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, only 893 treatment beds were available even though the current need was 2,122 beds. In a September 26 statement, the WHO said, "The Ebola epidemic ravaging parts of West Africa is the most severe acute public health emergency seen in modern times. Never before in recorded history has a biosafety level four pathogen infected so many people so quickly, over such a broad geographical area, for so long."The WHO reported that by August 25 more than 216 healthcare workers were among the dead, partly due to the lack of equipment and long hours. There have also been isolated cases of infected healthcare workers returning to the U.S. and Spain since the outbreak began to accelerate last spring. It could take several more months before the Ebola outbreak is under control, the U.N.’s Ebola envoy, David Nabarro, said last Thursday. There has been a “massive shift” in the past four months as communities have heightened efforts and the international community has pitched in, Nabarro said, but greater efforts are still needed, particularly in western Sierra Leone. Homily hint: An honest assessment demonstrates that only when Ebola hit our own shores did most of us start paying attention. True, we can’t be everywhere doing everything, but as Christians who care about the suffering of others, we can commit to staying informed on crises such as Ebola whether or not they are “hot topics” in the media. Dig deeper for information. Source: Articles by Ebola Deeply, Wikipedia, WHO Update

Compassion ebola healthcare crisis

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