Speech in a Vacuum

Saw this on the blog of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (you know, the people led by UCC pastor Barry Lynn who apparently have no problems with UCC pastor Jeremiah Wright essentially campaigning for UCC member Barack Obama from his UCC pulpit in violation of IRS regulations):

Paul Carpenter, a columnist for the Allentown Morning Call, reported recently that state Sen. Lisa Boscola of Northampton has indicated that she will invite an atheist to the Senate chambers. Boscola’s offer came in response to a Carpenter column in which he proposed that real diversity would mean including a non-religious speaker every now and then.

Carl Silverman of Pennsylvania Nonbelievers has sent Boscola a list of three non-theists in the state who are willing to come to Harrisburg and offer an invocation. Carpenter reports that Boscola’s office has the list and sent it to an aide to Sen. Terry Punt, who arranges invocations.

Wrote the blunt-spoken Carpenter, “This idea may distress the Senate’s more extreme Bible-thumpers, but history may be made soon – an atheist giving the invocation to open a legislative session in Pennsylvania.”

I can’t help but ask: what, exactly, is an atheist going to, you know, invoke?

When Vestments Attack…

…you get a look like that of Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori on her visit to Jerusalem this week:

According to Christopher Johnson at Midwest Conservative Journal, this is the “oven mitt and lederhosen” look. Me, I think it was her attempt to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by scaring all the residents of the Holy Land into decamping to Mauritania or somewhere else that doesn’t have battery-powered clergy apparel. But that’s just a guess.

Preparing For Holy Communion for Maundy Thursday

“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”

–1 Corinthians 11:27-28

“Paul teaches that one should come to Communion with a reverent mind and with fear, so that the mind will understand that it must revere the One whose body it is coming to consume.”

–Ambrosiaster (anonymous 4th century biblical commentator, Commentary on Paul’s Epistles)

A Text for Maundy Thursday

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

–1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (English Standard Version)