Episcopal Life Online Daybook -- Today is Tuesday, October 9, 2007. The Church calendar remembers Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln (1175-1253).
* Today in Scripture:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm * Today in Prayer: Anglican Cycle of Prayer: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm) * Today in History: On this day in 1845, English churchman John Henry Newman, leader of the Oxford Movement, made his celebrated conversion from Anglicanism to the Roman Catholic Church.
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TEACHING
Asian Episcopalians plan forum on reconciliation
[Episcopal News Service] An Asia-America Theological Exchange Forum, the first in the history of the Episcopal Church, is set for October 23-25 at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) in Berkeley, California.
The theme of the forum asks the question "The Church as Agent of Reconciliation?"
The event is co-sponsored by Episcopal Asiamerica Ministries; the Anglican Global Relations' Partnership in Asia; CDSP's Center for Anglican Learning and Leadership (CALL); the China Friendship Committee of the Diocese of California; and Province VIII's (http://www.provinceviii.org) Asian Commission.
Among the Asian theologians who will make presentations are: the Rev. Deng FuCun and the Rev. Kan Bao-Ping from China; the Rev. Rhee Min-Soo, the Rev. Ajuko Ueda and the Rev. Shintaro Ichihara from Japan; the Rev. Dr. Guen Seok Yang, the Rev. Yong Sil Choi, the Rev. Dr. KiSeuk Kim from Korea; the Rev. Chun Wai Lam from Hong Kong; and the Rt. Rev. David Lai from Taiwan.
Various theologians from North America were invited to make responses.
The Rev. Dr. Winfred Vergara, missioner for Episcopal Asiamerica Ministry and director of ethnic congregational development of the Episcopal Church Center, said in a news release that the forum is the first part of the series of Asia-America theological exchanges designed to "know what Asian Christians (especially Anglicans and Episcopalians) are thinking and how these thoughts can contribute to the mosaic of our theological experience in North America and the world."
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_90822_ENG_HTM.htm
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Catalyst: "Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and The Nature of Society" from The University of Chicago Press, by David Sloan Wilson, 268 pages, paperback, c. 2003, $14
[Source: The University of Chicago Press] One of the great intellectual battles of modern times is between evolution and religion. Until now, they have been considered completely irreconcilable theories of origin and existence. David Sloan Wilson's Darwin's Cathedral takes the radical step of joining the two, in the process proposing an evolutionary theory of religion that shakes both evolutionary biology and social theory at their foundations.
The key, argues Wilson, is to think of society as an organism, an old idea that has received new life based on recent developments in evolutionary biology. If society is an organism, can we then think of morality and religion as biologically and culturally evolved adaptations that enable human groups to function as single units rather than mere collections of individuals? Wilson brings a variety of evidence to bear on this question, from both the biological and social sciences. From Calvinism in sixteenth-century Geneva to Balinese water temples, from hunter-gatherer societies to urban America, Wilson demonstrates how religions have enabled people to achieve by collective action what they never could do alone. He also includes a chapter considering forgiveness from an evolutionary perspective and concludes by discussing how all social organizations, including science, could benefit by incorporating elements of religion.
Religious believers often compare their communities to single organisms and even to insect colonies. Astoundingly, Wilson shows that they might be literally correct. Intended for any educated reader, Darwin's Cathedral will change forever the way we view the relations among evolution, religion, and human society.
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