the religious services page

[calimac]

I spent last night and part of this morning using the many resources of the web to undertake one of my more delicate tasks for Mythcon this weekend: compiling a list of local religious services.

It's been customary at Mythcons for one or another enthusiastic Protestant to lead a "mere Christian" non-denominational service in some quiet corner on Sunday morning. The problem is that, though the authors we celebrate in the Mythopoeic Society were Christian, the Society itself is emphatically non-sectarian and neutral on religious issues, so it gets up some people's noses if we list it in the program book. It looks as if we're sponsoring it.

So here's what we do. First, we ask our Scholar Guest of Honor, who happens to be a Jesuit priest, if he'll conduct a mass. I know offhand of four seriously practicing Catholics who'll attend Mythcon - I've driven most of them to masses off-site from Mythcons in various cities in past years, as I am 1) geographically enabled, 2) usually in possession of a car, 3) married to one of the Catholics - and they'll go (if they wake up in time, because this is going to be early).

Second, we list these two events, not in the program book, but on a separate sheet to be included in the membership packet.

Third, we fill out the sheet with a list of religious services off-site. I volunteer to compile this. Our chairman (active in his Presbyterian church, and a big fan of the Jesuit's scholarship) tells me to be as inclusive and wide-ranging as possible. Include the Buddhists, he says.

Oh boy, do I. Berkeley is a thriving religious city. By the time I'm done, I have four varieties of Buddhist, two Hindu, one Muslim (yes, there's a mosque in Berkeley: it's only three blocks away from our site), five Jewish (including both my own variety and one I wouldn't walk into on a bet), and an uncountable number (all right, 26) and variety of Christians, including such outliers as the Mormons and the Quakers as well as the 7th-day Adventists and the Christian Scientists. I don't even know what all these things are. What does "Methodist Episcopal" mean, anyway? Is it Methodist or is it Episcopal? It doesn't matter; we also have both Methodist and Episcopal each straight-up. And every one of these is within the city limits, though I've been selective: usually only one per denomination, and focusing on those nearby.

Some of these churches have straightforward web sites. Others list everything except the time of their services. Some don't have services. The Buddhist temple (that's a fifth Buddhist group) and the campus Hillel (sixth Jewish) are closed for the summer. One church's website has been hijacked by Russian spammers; I don't list it. The LDS is highly centralized: individual stakes don't have their own websites, and though you can get a list of temples on the Church's main website, because they're tourist attractions, you have to get an account and sign in to access the list of stakes. I get its information from a general online church directory instead.

And if all this riot of variety gets up the noses of any devouts who favor listing religious services so long as it's not, you know, Those People, then so be it.

Comments

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

That's hilarious and delightful!

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

Agree completely. Curious about the different varieties of Jewish. I know and like Kehillah and Sha'ar Zahav of the local synagogues, am completely in the dark about the others, most likely.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I think Methodist Episcopal is a name that reflects the history. The Methodists started out as a dissident movement within the Church of England, or, as it's called hereabouts, the Episcopalian Church. So they were the Methodist (branch of the) Episcopal Church. That is, historically, all Methodists are Methodist Episcopal. But when they parted ways with the C of E, some kept the word "episcopal" and some didn't.

Wikipedia says that the Methodist Episcopal Church is the largest Methodist denomination in the United States and is part of the United Methodist Church.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Judaism has as many varieties and sects as Christianity, probably; it's just that non-Jews don't know about them because there aren't a lot of Jews. Some are so obscure that even most Jews don't know about them. A few years ago I visited the local Karaite temple; until then I hadn't even known the Karaites were still around. They were quite touched to have friendly visitors from mainstream Judaism: historically, relations were not good.

Many non-Jews, when they think of Jews, think of men with long dark coats and dark hats and bushy black beards and payot (sidelocks) and all. Those are Hasids (of which there are many specific sects, some as rigidly centralized as the Catholic Church). Chabad, which you'll see on college campuses, is run by the Lubavitcher Hasidim, the largest sect. Despite their distinctive appearance, Hasids are not all or even most Jews, or even all or even most Orthodox Jews. A typical Modern Orthodox (as they specify themselves to distinguish from the Hasids) man would be someone like Joe Lieberman. He's observant, he keeps Shabbat and Kosher, but he doesn't feel obliged to dress or act like he lives in 17th century Eastern Europe. (How typical his politics are of Orthodoxim is a separate issue.)

Probably the majority of practicing Jews are one variety or other of Liberal Judaism, of which there are three main types, Reform, Conservative (yes, that's a type of Liberal), and Reconstructionist. Most of these are loose federations of independent congregations of roughly compatible views. Their observance is freer to a wide variety of degrees from Orthodoxism; I was raised classical Reform, sort of the Unitarians of Judaism: we belonged to a synagogue, but were only lightly observant.

Then there's things like Jewish Renewal, an attempt to blend Liberal Judaism with Hasidic spirit.

Kehillah and Sha'ar Zahav sound like names of individual congregations, rather than titles of varieties of Judaism. There's a congregation in San Francisco called Sha'ar Zahav, which I suppose is the one you're thinking of: they're progressive (i.e. very liberal) Reform, and they are a member of the URJ, the main umbrella organization of US Reform groups.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

Silly me - I should have said what I meant. I know about different varieties of Judaism other than Karaite (I'm Jewish) and was curious which congregations you listed, assuming that is what you meant.

Yes, Kehillah and Sha'ar Zahav are individual congregations. I was a member of Sha'ar Zahav for a few years in the 80s and have been to different services at Kehillah a few times in the last 20 or so years. They had the most boring rabbi in the universe in olden times but David Cooper, the current rabbi, is interesting. (Huh - I see that Burt Jacobson, the previous rabbi, is still listed among the staff.)

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

There is also a traditionally-African American denomination known as the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME).

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

There are large Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform congregations in Berkeley, so I listed those, along with a Jewish Renewal group and the campus Chabad.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

That's the one. Fortunately I put "African" in the listing, because I didn't realize it was part of the denominational name. The other Methodist church says it's United Methodist. This stuff can be tricky if you don't know it, and a lot of the depths of Christian sect distinction are a mystery to me. Terms like "Presbyterian" and "Episcopalian" sound to me like exotic foreign words.

[(Anonymous)]

Makes sense. I think a friend & co-worker of mine is a member of the Jewish renewal group.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

That was me saying "Makes sense." Sorry! Reboot for a software update killed my login.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I can tell the Anglican Communion churches, including the Episcopal church, and the Lutherans from the others, but I would have to do some research to say anything intelligent about the differences among the various Protestant churches, and I have to stop and think about the meaning of evangelical in that context, as well. Oh wait - I'd have to look up evangelical. I have a vague sense of the degree of liberalness among them - the United Church of Christ is typically quite liberal, for example.

[margdean56.livejournal.com]

At least some of the Protestant denominations are named after their form of government. Episcopalians have bishops (as do Methodists IIRC, not surprising given their relationship), Presbyterians have elders (which is what "presbyter" means -- I know because I are one :)), Congregationalists IIRC made decisions by consulting the whole congregation ... etc.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Bless you for being willing to be so thorough, on behalf of people who actually give a damn. I'm not religious, but I'm happy that others are.

(Remembering conversations with Ross Pavlac about definitions of Christian; and then there was the sweetie who knew Ross from church....)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I doubt that more than two or three of these entries will be of any actual use, and I could make a fair guess as to which ones. It's the principle of the thing.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I know what the words mean - it's just that they still seem exotic. Even "Methodist" sounded exotic until I noticed that it had "method" in it. But then, I could never parse "Roverandom" until I read the book and found out what it meant. I used to misspell it "Roverandum," thinking it was some sort of Latin.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I do not have that sense of the social connotations of particular denominations at all, and I find it very hard to pick up, because everyone assumes you already know it. I was particularly started the first time I heard Episcopalians described as liberal, because when I hear the word Episcopalian, I think of Poppy Bush, not the world's foremost liberal.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I ran into this when I worked for Sociological Abstracts, decades ago. Sociologists used to talk about the "EPC" churches—Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Congregationalist—and contrast them, especially, with the Baptists. The difference is not one of "liberalism" in the ordinary political sense: It's about, at root, how literally the denomination takes its scriptures. There is, at present, a statistical association between scriptural literalism and political conservatism in the United States, but "liberal" means something more about intellectual interpretation.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It was clear from context that the Episcopalians were deemed as being liberal in ways that Mr Bush is probably not, even if they weren't political in the narrow sense, though many of them were - ordaining women, pro same-sex marriage, liberal sense of economic and social justice.

[margdean56.livejournal.com]

Even "Methodist" sounded exotic until I noticed that it had "method" in it.

I've known Methodists to jokingly complain that even after joining the church, no one would tell them what the Method was. :)