Entries from December 1, 2006 - January 1, 2007
R.I.P. Lohachara
Marshall Massey
in Relating to Creation, Blogwitness, Environmental Politics
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In case you haven’t already noticed, here’s a little landmark in the unfolding drama of greenhouse warming.
Lohachara, an island in the Sundarban island chain, located in the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers — an island where 10,000 people once lived — has sunk completely beneath the rising Indian Ocean.
The island’s final disappearance was noted two months ago by researchers at Jadavpur University. The researchers attributed the disappearance to a rising sea level, mostly caused by global warming.
This would make Lohachara the first inhabited island to have disappeared completely for this reason.
But naturally, this news has provoked controversy….
The First Friends and Slavery -- Part Three
Marshall Massey
in Discernment, Slavery, Equality, Quaker History
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2 Comments
Ultimately, the need to draw ever-clearer-and-more-rigid distinctions between slaves and free, in order to keep the black slaves in subjection, impelled the Virginia assembly not only to close off virtually all avenues to black freedom, but also to deny the blacks their essential humanity. And this was, from a Quaker standpoint, the most disturbing development of all.
Polar Bears Reprise
Marshall Massey
in Relating to Creation, Blogwitness, Practical Efforts, Environmental Politics
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4 Comments
According to an anonymous official in the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Bush regime has caved in under the pressure of a lawsuit from three environmental organizations, and is about to propose that polar bears be listed as “threatened” under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
A listing of polar bears under the Act — if it indeed happens — will constitute a formal written admission from the Bush regime that global warming is real and is threatening at least one well-known and beloved species.
Not a Christmas Carol You're Likely to Know --
Marshall Massey
in Relating to Creation, Prayer, Righteousness, Christmas
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2 Comments
These were the original words sung to the tune we now call “Adeste fidelis” —
The First Friends and Slavery -- Part Two
Marshall Massey
in Discernment, Slavery, Equality, Quaker History
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4 Comments
The first reaction that Friends had, on learning that slaveholders in the British West Indies were converting to Quakerism, was a reaction informed by Christ’s Gospel idea of discipleship as a “slavery” that graduated into free “friendship”, and by Paul’s idea that worldly slavery can be justified and ended by convincement and discipleship.
And it was a reaction that, gestalt-fashion, played against the background of the English experience of serfdom (“villeinage”) and servanthood, and was infused with the popular conviction that “servanthood” could be ennobling.
The First Friends and Slavery
Marshall Massey
in Discernment, Slavery, Equality, Quaker History
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11 Comments
Should early Friends be condemned for the way they handled the challenge of slavery?
Liberal critics say that they should. Early Friends, they say, embraced, participated in, sponsored and strengthened an evil institution.
That’s a serious charge. But how justified is it?