Important Brethren Position Paper

A host of Brethren leaders (as the Brethren Revival Fellowship would put it, a ‘who’s who’ of lefty Brethren) have submitted a statement to the Annual Conference Standing Committee. This statement is a crucial step in our history as a church. These brave souls go outside normal procedure to raise concerns about the direction of the church: how we are addressing controversial issues, and how the bullying of certain districts, congregations, groups, and individuals is threatening to tear us apart as a denomination.

Unfortunately, the only online version of the statement we have found is at the BRF website, so please do read it there, but forgive us for the commentary from the web hosts. This year’s Annual Conference will surely be an exciting time!

Gay Flamingo Child-Rearing Practices

Carlos and Fernando, two MALE flamingos, have adopted a baby chick over in the UK. The BBC tells more.

Apparently, the zoo staff forgot to remind these chicky daddies that the best family to raise a baby has a mom flamingo and a dad flamingo. But they seem to be doing just fine, anyway. Maybe being flaming-o doesn’t make you unfit to parent.

Mourning the Loss of Lee Eshleman

by Audrey deCoursey

Lee Eshleman, of the Mennonite comedy duo Ted & Lee, recently died by way of suicide, after a life-long struggle with depression. The comedy team performed at NYC and toured across the country. CoB Newsline tells more about this loss to our peace church community.

At a time when many in our nation are mourning the death of Jerry Falwell, or NOT mourning it, it strikes me that we should instead take this chance to remember the untimely deaths of those in our own communities, people who didn’t receive as much national attention in life or in death. We would do well to devote our grief-empowered action to work against the causes of unfortunate deaths, from suicide, depression, and mental illness, instead of giving any more attention to someone like Falwell who didn’t deserve it in the first place.

Eshleman brought joy to the people he met. We have many ways to honor his life among us. One way could be to remember the lessons from his comedy performances: that the glory of our God’s Incarnation among us means that our Christ is always with us, in hard times, in pious moments, in dull times – and is even with us when we laugh in delight at the lives we have been blessed with, one day at a time.

Women in Politics – and it’s still about the fashion

Cheers to Segolene Royal for getting to this stage in the French presidential election, regardless of which candidate voters decide on. Maybe France and the US will finally catch up to Pakistan, Indonesia, Chile, and Germany in electing a female head of state?

But if they do, we will no doubt see political commentary continue to muddle along in the dull realm of fashion, which seems to be inevitable when women are involved in elections, either as wives or as candidates. The BBC covers the latest debates between French presidential candidates, and I have to wonder if the remarks about the candidates clothing would be at the top of their comments if both contenders were male?

But we did see an example of political cross dressing in the big debate. I don’t mean that Nicolas Sarkozy turned up in a white dress or that Madame Royal wore a tie – although she did wear a dark suit for the first time during this campaign rather than what a colleague calls her “nurse’s outfit”.

Every politician is judged somewhat by his or her appearance, but the centrality of a female candidate’s clothing choices seems more pronounced, as if to emphasize that this person is – wow! – different than the male candidates!

Change the Denominational Name, Already! Please.

Audrey’s reason # 49274 to change the name ‘Church of the Brethren:’

If the wish to end patriarchy isn’t enough to convince you, take note of what other groups use the same name of ‘Brethren‘ (as told by the foremost source of knowledge for young adults today, Wikipedia) – then consider how we want to spend our time introducing our faith to folks from outside our church: do we want to be talking about the work and love of Jesus Christ, or do we want to be explaining how we aren’t a cult like Aleister Crowley was in? The latter was a real conversation I had today. It reminds me that even if people’s associations are misguided, that’s still what is influencing their first impressions of us.

Just a thought. (I’m still pushing for Dunkard Church or Church of the Beatitudes.)