A Subsidy for Pilgrimages to the Holy Land!

What?! Where?

The government of India’s southern Tamil Nadu state has announced a gift to state’s Christians: a subsidy for pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

The government will provide Christians with 20,000 rupees—nearly $400—toward the cost of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The full cost of such a pilgrimage is about $1,000.

“This is a welcome move,” Father Vincent Chinnadurai, chairman of the autonomous Minorities Commission of Tamil Nadu state told CWN. His commission had proposed the subsidy. Several of India’s states provide subsidies to Muslims who travel to Mecca for the haj.

Well then I suppose that would be fair.

Any hope of the South African government following suit? Hardly likely…

Where you are!

Occasionally, I enjoy looking at the stats just to see where in the world people are from when they visit the blog.

Here are some of the most recent visits (as of 21:00 South African time):

• Taipei, TW
• Cartersville, Georgia, US
• Council Bluffs, Iowa, US
• Phoenix, Arizona, US
• Pinehurst, North Carolina, US
• Denver, Colorado, US
• Pretoria, ZA
• Nashville, Tennessee, US
• Timisoara, RO
• Korea, Republic of, KR
• Road Town, VG
• Neath, GB
• Cape Town, ZA
• Johannesburg, ZA
• Riyadh, SA
• Tallahassee, Florida, US
• Marietta, Georgia, US
• Gulfport, Mississippi, US
• Tacoma, Washington, US

Hello all!

And thanks for stopping by…

 

Western Wall Plaza Excavation Results

Writes Todd Bolen over at the Bible Places Blog:

Over the yearsI’ve mentionedthe excavation at the “back” of the Western Wall prayer plaza. The latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review has a report by the excavators on their discoveries at the site from 2005 to 2010. Since I expect some curious student to ask me in a couple of days about the big hole in the ground, the article arrived at a good time for me. I made a few notes as I read the article that I thought I’d share here.

The earliest remains at this spot indicate that it was used as an Iron Age quarry.

Later in the Iron Age, a four-room house was constructed here. This was a Jerusalemite’s home sometime after Hezekiah fortified the Western Hill with a new wall (part of which is known today as the “Broad Wall.”) The house may have been destroyed by the Babylonian assault in 586, but this is not certain. Several personal seals were found in the building, including one depicting an Assyrian-style archer.

Curiously, there is no evidence of occupation at the site in the Babylonian, Persian, or Hasmonean periods (586-50 BC).

In the New Testament period, the Lower Aqueduct ran through this area, bringing water from “Solomon’s Pools” to the Temple Mount. The only other discovery from the 1st century was a ritual bath (mikveh).

The most impressive remains at the site are that of a monumental street. This cardo is similar in size and design to its counterpart to the west, located today in the heart of the Jewish Quarter, but the archaeologists say that the eastern cardo was constructed in the Roman period by Hadrian (whereas the southern extension of the western was built by Justinian c. 530).

All the details are presented in a much more interesting style in the January/February 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. The article, with all of its illustrations, is currently available online, no subscription required.

Nigerian Christians Warn of Religious War

Another Sudan?

(Reuters) – Northern Nigerian Christians said on Tuesday they feared that a spate of Christmas Day bombings by Islamist militants that killed over two dozen people could lead to a religious war in Africa’s most populous country.

The warning was made in a statement by the northern branch of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), an umbrella organization comprising various denominations including Catholics, Protestant and Pentecostal churches.

But a powerful Muslim traditional ruler, the Sultan of Sokoto Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar said after meeting the Nigerian president in Abuja on Tuesday that it was not a conflict between Muslims and Christians or between Islam and Christianity.

The Boko Haram Islamist sect, which aims to impose sharia Islamic law across Nigeria, claimed responsibility for the blasts, the second Christmas in a row it has caused carnage at Christian churches.

Saidu Dogo, secretary general for the CAN in Nigeria’s 19 northern provinces called on Muslim leaders to control their faithful, saying Christians will be forced to defend themselves against further attacks.

“We fear that the situation may degenerate to a religious war and Nigeria may not be able to survive one. Once again, ‘enough is enough!’,” Dogo said.

The attacks risk reviving tit-for-tat sectarian violence between the mostly Muslim north and the largely Christian south, which has claimed thousands of lives in the past decade.

Dogo said the CAN was calling on all Christians to continue respecting the law but to defend themselves when needed.

“We shall henceforth in the midst of these provocations and wanton destruction of innocent lives and property be compelled to make our own efforts and arrangements to protect the lives of innocent Christians and peace-loving citizens of this country,” Dogo said.

CHRISTIANS VS MUSLIMS

The most deadly attack killed at least 27 people in the St Theresa Catholic church in Madalla, a town on the edge of the capital Abuja, and devastated surrounding buildings and cars as faithful poured out of the church after Christmas mass…

More here.

What Do Archaeologists Do With the Bible?

“What do archaeologists do with evidence from both archaeology and the Bible?” asks columnist Fredric Brandfon. While today’s scholars often use similar archaeology methods, their use and interpretations of the evidence can often be quite different…

Find out more here.

 

This Is Almost Unbelievable…

Exiting pastor saddles Church with an odd worship leader:

Fresno — After repeated conflicts with his church board about the direction of Family Life Center, pastor Dave Chandler decided to leave the church. But on his way out he used a little-known clause in the bylaws to singlehandedly hire a new worship leader: Bill MacNerny who specializes in “alien folk music” and “tunes for chickens and other intelligent beings.” MacNerny was last employed as a street performer in Key West, Fla., and has made several albums of himself playing the ukelele and making barnyard sounds.

“We’re in a true bind,” says board member Jeff Garrety. “We couldn’t believe when this bozo showed up to lead worship.”

The quirk in the bylaws gave Chandler sole authority to hire and fire the worship leader and to define contract terms. The contract includes a severability clause of $150,000 if MacNerny is fired before two years. It also specifies that he must lead worship on Sunday mornings and any other time the church meets. Lawyers informed the board that the contract is legitimate and must be respected.

On a recent Sunday morning, MacNerny opened the service with a rendition of “Amazing Grace” in which he encouraged audience members to make “Martian noises.” Few people joined in. He then segued into “This Old Man, he played one, he played knick-knack on my thumb” and seemed unfazed by people’s non-participation.

The church has tried to work around MacNerny by cranking the volume of everyone else on stage and having other musicians wear brightly colored clothing. Still, it’s hard to look past his signature look which he describes on his web page as “Where exactly am I?”

“It saps part of your soul to show up Sunday morning and see Bill in his undersized cowboy hat, strumming the ukelele,” says one man. “A lot of people are trying out other churches.”

Some want the church to pay $150,000 just to get rid of MacNerny. Others want to make the best of it for two years and say it could bolster small group participation.

After making a series of weird noises he describes as “me entering the room,” MacNerny says in a phone interview that he is happy to be at Family Life Center because it offers a built-in audience and less reliance on tips. Street performing taught him to hold people’s attention, a skill he hopes to employ at the church, along with “making sure people get their proper amounts of of gamma rays, and also consider poultry ownership,” he says.

Chandler, in between ministry assignments and living in Alabama, says he thinks MacNerny makes a good fit for the church, and for the board members.

I just have to shake my head…

Oldest Known Mattress Found

Right here in South Africa! And apparently, it slept the whole family:

The world’s oldest known mattress has been unearthed in South Africa, archaeologists have announced.

The mattress—which consists of layers of reeds and rushes—was discovered at the bottom of a pile of bedding made from compacted grasses and leafy plants. The bedding had accumulated at the Sibudu Cave site in KwaZulu-Natal over a period of 39,000 years, with the oldest mats dating to 77,000 years ago.

“What we have is evidence of plant bedding that is 50,000 years older than any previous site anywhere in the world,” said study leader Lyn Wadley of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

The compacted layers of fossil plants—excavated from sediments 9.8 feet (3 meters) deep—show that the bedding was periodically burned, possibly to limit pests and garbage.

What’s more, researchers believe the ancient people added a “top sheet” to the bedding made of insect-repelling greenery, possibly to ward off biting bugs such as mosquitoes and flies.

This fine covering of leaves may also represent the earliest known use of medicinal plants by humans…

 

Churches left with ‘Trauma’ from Metal Thefts

More than 1,000 metal thefts occur every week across the country as the   spiralling crime blights almost every aspect of British life, particulary   churches. Here a senior figure in the Church of England describes the “trauma”.

Writes the Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Rev John Pritchard, in The Telegraph:

“Imagine you are a faithful churchwarden in a church in a small   industrial town. You come in to church early one morning only to find that   for the third time that week lead had been stolen from your church roof.

Imagine it’s Christmas morning in a village church in Buckinghamshire. The   priest arrives for the early service to find water dripping relentlessly   through the roof at several points.

Instead of ‘Happy Christmas’, worshippers are greeted with an urgent request   that they go and find a bucket.

Imagine another village church where a large amount of money has been raised   at considerable effort to preserve priceless medieval wall paintings. Lead   theft from the roof has meant water damaging those wonderful wall paintings   and yet more money having to be raised.

Nationally, around ten churches every day experience this kind of trauma. My   experience is that the congregations are wonderfully resilient. They declare   business as usual and get on with repairing the roof and worshipping God.   But the frustration is enormous.

Metal has been watermarked, cameras installed, alarms put are in place,   churchwardens have spent the night in churches to protect them – but still   it goes on. A whole church bell is stolen from a village near Reading, a war   memorial is removed from another church, somewhere else the thieves have   returned yet again – now they know the way on to the roof…

More here.

We’ve touched on this matter before: The stripping of British Churches. Sad.