Welcome from
Eric O. Ledermann
Hey! Thanks for stopping by. Pour yourself a cup o' jo, take a load off your feet, and check out what's here. You are looking at my ramblings about issues of faith, life and culture—they are my own and are not necessarily shared by those with whom I work, live or otherwise engage.
Heck, a week from now I may not even agree with what I write here! The Spirit of God is always moving; always shaping and reshaping, transforming and re-forming, each of us according to God's hope and vision for humanity. I hope we may be able to listen, pay attention, and respond faithfully. To steal a phrase from our UCC sisters and brothers: "God is still speaking."
Feel free to share your comments and engage in any conversation that may be happening here, but just know that I do reserve the right to delete any spam or anything I deem inappropriate or offensive. I look forward to dialoguing with anyone who cares to dialogue!
Peace and blessings,
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I received an email the other day from Faithful America, a progressive online community motivated by faith to take action on the pressing moral issues of our time (from their website)—you can read the article and plea for signatures here. Normally, I can appreciate what Faithful America has to say…normally. But I struggled with this email. The subject was: “URGENT: Church arresting Occupiers!”
Immediately, I thought, What? As I read it my heart began to sink, and not for reasons one might immediately think. Evidently Occupy Wall Street protesters are looking for a new place to “occupy”. The occupiers have their eye on a vacant lot called Duarte Square owned by Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church. But the church has been reluctant to allow it because they don’t feel the space is adequate (no bathroom facilities, for starters) and because it is leased to another organization [...]
I have had the rare opportunity in the past several weeks to have several conversations with different people about the concept of “witness” within the Christian context, none of which were initiated by me. In the Christian tradition we give witness to the reality of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, though the language may differ among Christians in exactly how we do that. In legal terms a witness is someone who observes an event and is then called upon to give testimony about what they saw—which brings up another word with some baggage around it: ”testimony.”
In some traditionally liberal churches “giving witness” is not part of our regular vocabulary, and in fact the term can provoke an at least somewhat distressing response. Why is that? Are we not called to give witness, to share our experiences of the risen Christ? Are we not called upon to share with the world the gift of God’s grace revealed [...]
Today is another sad day in the life of our nation. Today six people were killed and several others were injured in Tucson, AZ, by a disturbed and potentially demented young man named Jared Loughner. It is presumed the intended target was Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords (see recent article about charges against Loughner in the Los Angeles Times, Jan. 9, 2011 at 1:22pm). While Congresswoman Giffords remains in a drug-induced coma following emergency brain surgery, already the finger pointing has begun. While I, and most people including most gun enthusiasts, abhor gun violence committed against people, this not the time to point fingers. Sarah Palin listed Rep. Gifford on “target list” of congressional seats to be overturned by Republicans. Some are saying Loughner took the campaign language literally. There doesn’t seem to be any proof [...]
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