Roman Catholic reform?

13 Oct 2006

An illustrated conversation with Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, exploring his penetrating insights on the Church’s role in a post modern, multicultural and secular Britain.

For broadcast on Compass: Pilgrim Cormac. Sunday 15 October at 22:15 on ABC TV, Fridays at 9.05am, 4.30pm, 7.30pm and 9.45pm on ABC2 (Digital only, IIRC)

I heard a radio promo for this last night and it sounds really interesting/bizarre. One of the things Murphy-O’Connor is reputedly arguing is that the “Parish” concept is too large/impersonal for the unchurched (they didn’t use that word, I wouldn’t normally either, but I’ve been reading too many reformed missional blogs/websites of late and it’s starting to become a part of my vocabulary, for better or worse), postmodern-influenced, secularised British person. Accordingly, he is (apparently, again without having seen the programme) advocating a new approach/structure of fellowship centred around meeting in people’s homes/more casually. One (presumably significant) part of this is for prayer and bible study.

Which is exciting, to say the least.

Apparently there are only 4 million people who call themselves Roman Catholics that Cormac Murphy-O’Connor has the responsibility of serving (this is in England and Wales: 50- and 3-million population respectively), which has probably contributed some impetus to reform. This idea that smaller groups are better for fellowship (jargon for meeting together and talking) than larger bodies is in interesting contrast with large (chiefly Pentacostal) churches that don’t seem to have (publicly) popped up in the UK particularly lots. British cultural thing? Roman-Catholic church thing? It’s hard to tell.

Certainly it would seem that there are senses in which belonging to a larger community can be of equal value to small groups… and in which small groups prevent the potential detachment of larger ‘community’. But it’s especially interesting that a church defined by its centrality of leadership and centuries-old adherence to structure defined by Tradition (capital T as in defined by Roman church, not tradition as derived from the bible) over Scripture is apparently moving back to meeting privately, possibly (probably, given clergy shortages and so forth) consisting wholly of lay people, reading God’s word and praying together. One can only wonder what this means for tradition-bound non-Biblical practices such as confession.

Maybe I’m just thinking wishfully. It’s been a week of Roman Catholic outreach-ish stuff at Uni and there are some really bizarre things that keep cropping up. The ‘problem’ (it is a problem, I’m just hesitant to call it that because I know people are going to be offended… as though the rest of this post were completely innocuous) of Roman Catholicism isn’t going away any more than liberal Christianity and false teachers.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
–2 Peter 2:1

Keep praying.

Python is so cool

13 Oct 2006

Or maybe I’m just getting excited about programming again. I just discovered django, and have decided that Python is a seriously underrated language. It’s probably as high-level as Rails, only all the cool and successful kids (that is to say, the ones that have been around a little longer than Basecamp. Not to fling mud at Basecamp, but I just don’t think I’d want to fully embrace a framework that’s so-much-more-than-a-framework — because, let’s face it, who had heard of Ruby before Rails?) are using it.

Part of the appeal is possibly the name. Di-jang-go. Di-jun-go. Say it with me (either way). *yells “jumanji” and hopes no-one notices*

It looks unfortunately web 2.0 but no matter, hopefully it’s useful. I remain by no stretch of the imagination a programmer. It’s been too bloody long since I even pretended. Maybe it’s time to start again (only after next Thursday, after writing and researching three large-ish asssessments).

Zimbra kicks some butt by abandoning Web 2.0

12 Oct 2006

I was sure I’d blogged about this open-source AJAX email platform thingy in the past, but apparently not. No matter. They used to be all about their AJAXy web interface (my impression, as is always the case here) but now seem to have dropped that and are running along the open-source-for-corporates track that seems to work so well these days. Checking out their key customers and technology partners would suggest they’re definitely doing something right, and it’s beyond the shininess of their website.

Modest gradients, no shadows, occasional (even rare) curves (logo excepted, but I think the logo sucks/is childish so whatever), and tables for layout.

Oh, wait…

One person, one keyboard, one website

12 Oct 2006

WordPress is about writing on the web. It’s about publishing. It’s not about editing video, it’s not necessarily about content management, it’s not, you know, about building communities of tens of thousands of people. It’s really one person, one keyboard, one website.

– Matt Mullenweg at BlogTalk in Vienna

And he reckons this was with him struggling to stay awake. I didn’t actually think I’d ever end up quoting this guy on my blog, but whatever. It’s a really helpful statement. It’s an uncomfortable statement for me, personally, because I’d love to use WordPress as a CMS for loads of stuff (even though, deep down, I know it would never really scale at all) and WordPress MU for loads more stuff (if it didn’t kinda suck)… but at the same time it’s easier hearing it from the horse’s mouth. There is a certain sense in which this gives an emancipation from product loyalty in certain senses, and another sense in which it gives me a kick to develop/find a decent CMS (framework) from which to launch other things.

I spend half a day looking at forward edges of the avalanch that is the web and want to quit uni and go freelance. (But I’m biased until next Thursday…)

Note for summer

12 Oct 2006

Pineapples explode.

I just got it all over my keyboard, far out. It was good and all (in an I-really-need-to-floss-my-teeth-right-now-even-though-I never-do-that kind of way) but far too juicy for inside consumption.