Blessing the backpacks

Weekend Event—Rita Nakashima Brock

September 24-25, 2010

Fri. 7:30-9pm - Sat. 9 am-2:30pm

Saving Paradise:

How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire

A riddle: why are images of the crucified Christ absent from early Christian art? After visiting Mediterranean and European sites sacred to early Christians a provocative answer comes forth—the dying Christ never appears in early Christian art because early Christians did not believe Christ’s redemptive death had opened a heavenly afterlife for the faithful. Rather, early Christians looked to Jesus as the exemplar who showed how to defy injustice by creating paradise on Earth in a loving community. In this theory, images of Christ’s passion and death invaded Christian art only when the Church started using a theology of otherworldly salvation to recruit the forces necessary to build a Christian empire.
Rita Nakashima Brock

Upcoming Weekend Events

Friday & Saturday, 10/22/10 & 10/23/10 - BISHOP JOHN SPONG, Retired Episcopal Bishop

Friday & Saturday, 2/25/11 & 2/26/11 - JOHN DOMINIC CROSSAN, Professor, Speaker, Author

Friday & Saturday, 4/15/11 & 4/16/11 - PAUL KNITTER, Professor, Speaker, Author


Blessing the backpacks


A church in the Kansas City area is having a ‘Blessing of the Backpacks.’ At first, the idea startled me, but then I thought of other blessing ceremonies surrounding human activities. Certainly there are the traditional blessings of birth (baptism), coming of age (confirmation), marriage and death. Then there is the annual blessing of the shrimp boats in Galveston (and similar blessings of boats in other parts of the world). There is a time of the blessing of animals in some churches.

It may be all human activities deserve a blessing: the pencils a composer of music uses, as well as the writer’s computer.  Then there is the automobile of the realtor, the gun of the police officer and the pulpit of the preacher. Such blessings might invest a deeper significance in the tools with which we practice our trades, earn our livelihoods and provide services to others.

So, let’s hear it for backpacks.

One Response to “Blessing the backpacks”

  1. You just say so many things that come from nowhere that Im pretty sure Id have a fair shot. Your blog is great visually, I mean people wont be bored. But others who can see past the videos and the layout wont be so impressed with your generic understanding of this topic.

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