Beset By Early Waking?
Finished your prayers? Done some reading? Still don’t want to get out of your toasty bed?
Religion and Ethics News Weekly might not be the best way to start the day.......

I flipped on the TV and came in on a discussion of embryonic stem cell research and cloning. I want to read the whole transcript of the segment and see if I missed something. There was a poignant plea by an ailing clergyman and his woman-of-the-cloth wife (Reverends Abernethy.... both are United Church of Christ pastors) to see embryonic stem cell as a gift from a God of love, compassion and healing. I didn’t hear too much discussion of the role of suffering in our lives except for a quick nod to Professor Gilbert Meilaender (Theology Department, Valparaiso University) who compares the vulnerability of an embryo to that of Christ on the cross. He believes those among us who are suffering, such as Reverend Abernethy, deserve help, but not if the moral cost is too high.

I don’t want to carp at any one denomination here, but wasn’t it a United Church of Christ pastor who was pleading the case of a ‘pro-choice Jesus’ on the O’Reilly factor?

I missed the segment on the bankruptcy implications for the Archdiocese of Boston, but did catch the piece about the trend towards Cineplex Churches. Interesting concept. Sort of like eating at the food court at the mall - each family member can find what he is craving and then everyone can meet up later. Weird.