Updates from Lawrence of Arabia RSS
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10:17:05 pm on July 16, 2008 |
I would really like to see the whole letter, which is not posted. But in any case, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the midst of all the other problems he is having, bravely continues to try stimulate a dialogue(?)/ build bridges between Christianity and Islam in order to combat secularism.
Meanwhile, whole congregations of the Anglican communion are in negotiations with Rome to become Catholic, and a whole different group boycotted the Lambeth Conference.
You couldn’t pay me enough to take his job!
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06:39:19 am on June 4, 2008 |
Coptic monks building a wall on disputed land near the Abu Fana monastery led to an exchange of gunfire.
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06:44:21 am on May 29, 2008 |
For those of you near an academic or seminary library, Thomas F O’Meara, O.P. has published a short article on William of Tripoli, O.P.. In William he finds someone in the Crusader States who was actually interested in encountering Islam on its own terms and attempting to provide a sympathetic account. William, according to O’Meara, saw Xty and Islam as convergent and part of a common via salvationis (way of salvation). See Thomas F. O’Meara, “The Theology and Times of William of Tripoli, O.P.: A Different View of Islam”, Theological Studies 69.1 (March 2008).
An introductory version of the same material can be found in a 2005 talk by O’Meara at Ohio Dominican, and can be seen here (see pp. 4 and 5 of the .pdf file).
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02:00:23 pm on May 27, 2008 |
it seems to me that those in the u.s. who wish to secure energy independence from the middle east have put little thought into what the world is going to look like when the great oil producing countries are no longer receiving revenues from that source. when the wells finally run dry, the collapse of several national economies cannot possibly be a pretty picture, it seems to me.
saudi arabia, et al., should squeeze every dollar and euro out of their wells that they possibly can while they can because they could be looking at a very bleak economic future.
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09:16:53 am on May 25, 2008 |
over at In the Making, Ayesha explores, in a personal way, the issue of employing foreign workers in her home country of Saudi. A fairly lengthy conversation continued in the comments.
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12:10:02 pm on May 24, 2008 |
toleration: the studied and practiced indifference on the part of the community to discovering a form of life that is Good, Beautiful and True
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11:15:47 am on May 12, 2008 |
This is not one of my favorites, but it is related to the first, and helps to clarify the story-line of the first, even if you aren’t able to read Farsi.
You are what you wear.
It is the longer, thin noses of the two westernized women that fascinate me about this particular cartoon.
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06:34:24 am on May 12, 2008 |
Because these propaganda cartoons from the Iranian Police never fail to crack me up…
Choose the wrong friend, and the next thing you know…SHE’S FIXING YOUR HAIR!!!
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09:28:11 am on May 11, 2008 |
So I have been working on the portrayal of Islam in early Franciscan documents (especially the various lives of St.Francis), and ran across this little tidbit, in David Burr’s Spiritual Franciscans, about two of my favorite Franciscans: Peter John Olivi and Ubertino da Casale (of Name of the Rose fame). Olivi argues, for instance, in his commentary on the Apocalypse of John (1298) that
Continued decay of the Church will lead to rule by a pseudopope who, with the aid of a secular authority, will support a carnal version of Christianity, persecuting those who observe evangelical poverty. These carnal leaders and the carnal church which they represent (Babylon) will eventually be destroyed by a non-Christian (presumably Muslim) army. Thus will end the persecution of the mystical Antichrist, but that of the great Antichrist will then begin. Another king/pseudopope combination will join in a persecution aimed more explicitly at Christianity itself. Here, too, Olivi seems to anticipate an important role for Islam. Finally, with Christ’s aid, this second persecution will end and the seventh period will begin.
All this of course so that the renewal of Christian life initiated by Francis could reach its consummation.
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10:38:45 am on May 9, 2008 |
Pakistan seems to have said “No, thanks!” to the appointment of the former commander of Gitmo to the top U.S. military post in Pakistan. And one has to ask, what was the Pentagon thinking?
