Afternoon Links — 10.8.10

The North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation has issued their latest statement, Steps Towards a Reunited Church . They begin by noting that “the most divisive element in our traditions has been a growing diversity, since the late patristic centuries, in the ways we understand the structure of the Church itself, particularly our understanding of the forms of headship that seem essential to the Church’s being at the local, regional and worldwide levels.”

The number of Christians in Israel has risen from 34,000 in 1949 to 150,000 in 2008, though they have dropped from 3% of the population to 2%, reports Sandro Magister in In Israel, Jewish Christians Are Sprouting . The article focuses on the Hebrew-speaking Catholics.

The Vatican is hosting a special synod on The Catholic Church in the Middle East ,”  starting on Sunday. The synod is titled “Communion and Witness.”

“There could be no better illustration of the extent to which modern-day liberals and humanists have lost their way than their current clamouring for more state intervention into religious affairs,” Brendon O’Neill writes in There’s nothing Enlightened about the new equality law . The partisans of the Enlightenment have forgotten what its first partisans actually said.

“The disturbing truth is that our culture is doing what it is meant to do: prepare children for their future roles as adults,” writes Zac Alstin works at the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute in Defending Children Against Eroticized Adult Culture . “The problem is that in the context of sex, these roles require nothing more than achieving some semblance of the sexual ideals promoted within our culture.” People in England are making a similar point .

Robert George, a long-time member of the First Things board, and his Princeton colleague Cornell West discuss what it means to be a Christian .

And Mitch Kalpakgian of Wyoming Catholic College explains that John Henry Newman illuminates ” the critical distinction between ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ Christianity , between the perfunctory fulfillment of moral laws for the sake of outward form and joyful obedience to a God of love to whom one owes an unrepayable debt.  .  .  .  ”[R]eal” Christians never lower moral standards for the sake of comfort or popularity.” (The article is only temporarily available, I think.)

On the other side of things, an advice columnist for the English newspaper The Independent (a rough equivalent of the New York Times here) says on television that she would smother a deeply suffering child , because “any good mother would.” She also believes aborting a severely handicapped child “the act of a loving mother.”

In case you find yourself caught having to say nothing in impressive ways, here is the Corporate [Jargon] Generator . I tried it several times and never got a phrase someone in business might not use, and with the straight face born of conviction that you’re saying something meaningful.

Finally, for the foodies among you,  what mechanically separated chicken looks like and the geometry of pasta . Kind of related to food: the patent medicine that helped kill Oliver Goldsmith .

Thanks to Kevin Staley-Joyce for some of the links.