Christianity Now

In the early days of Christianity confessions very a public affair which meant that they were done in the in front of the whole congregation. Liturgically the private confessions - which are the ones with which we are most familiar with today - are of a later date.

But with the emerge of the internet the public confessions now have a new revival. Or have they?

The evangelical network "Life Church" now makes it possible to confess your sins online. On the website www.mysecret.tv you can not alone confess your sins, but also make them available to the whole internet.

On the site you can browse sins by category. Choose between "addictions", "adultery", "lying" and a lot of other vices. In line with good American political correctness you also get parental warnings: These sins may contain adult material and are only for person above 18 years of age.

But wait a minute! Have the evangelicals become afraid of using the word "sin"?! The site is called "my secrets", and what I have termed sins above are indeed only called "secrets".

But the users of the site have no doubt: their actions are sins. This one can read from the many testimonials on the site.

The site itself does not label all these secrets as sins and indeed the site does not seem to be very religious. Except for the users?

Is the site just a place for voyeurs and exhibitionists or is it a place of confession?

What to think of this kind of public confessions?

How Did I Celebrate the End of the World
All the people who experienced communism in no matter what form will be very happy to see this film.

The director, Catalin Mitulescu, reached with this fourth film the maturity of his creation. Being a part in the new wave of Romanian directors, Mitulescu managed in this movie to bring people almost twenty years back for a reminder of their former days under communism.

Romania experienced one of the most oppressive communist regimes in Europe, first because in the '50ies and 60ies, the state was a political police state, ruled by the fear of being imprisoned and never heard of again. After the 70ies, when a more relaxed regime was put to work by Ceausescu, it came the period of "historical and greatly changes" in the life of the Romanian people. This meant a great programmed and forced migration from villages to cities, who were subjects of a great "systematization", meaning demolishing all houses and building mamoth blocks, containing sometimes 200-300 small apartments (40-50 square meters).

Mitulescu chose to film this movie in a suburb of communist Bucharest, where people lived in fear of being demolished (they are saying exactly this: "we will be demolished", not "our houses will be demolished"), with poor jobs, forced to be commuters, working in dirty needless factories, with their kids exposed to polution and bad education provided in schools.

Eva, a 16 years-old, is attending the courses of one of the best high-schools, together with her boyfriend. They are developing the same questions as everybody on this planet at their age: sexuality, the lack of freedom, the uncertainty of their future life. Their families are completely different, Eva's being hard-workers, honest people, but their neighbors, the parents of Florin, they are the proteges of the communist regime, with the father being an informer for Securitate (coomunist secret service, with a great role of controlling Romanian society). After a dramatic incident, Eva breaks up with Florin, producing great dispair to her parents. She's moved to another highscool and begins to think of leaving the country. In the last moments, she gives up this plan, goes back to her former life and gets back with Florin.

Although the plot might be descibed as not so satisfactory, it is planned to be that, because in this movie the atmosphere is of great importance. It manages to depict with great accuracy the feelings, thoughts and hopes of the Romanian people in this period, bringing new light to a dark segment of Romanian social history.

Dorotheea Petre is excellent in the role of Eva, convincing and with a great depth in every scene. Mircea Diaconu and Jean Constantin are already sacred monsters of Romanian cinema, with great feeling for great roles. With a cast formed in majority by student actors, "How did I Celebrated the End of the World" casts a bad shade on Romanian acting school, some of the actors declaring they did not pass the exams. They did pass it at TIFF and in the eyes of the public.

Lucian Dragos

Interview With Taizé Founder's Successor

TAIZÉ, France, AUG. 16, 2006 (Zenit.org).- "A year of mourning but also a year of grace," is how Brother Alois Loeser describes the year since the death of Brother Roger Schutz, founder of the ecumenical Taizé Community.

Brother Roger was stabbed to death Aug. 16, 2005, by an apparently mentally-disturbed woman at an evening prayer service attended by 2,500 people in the Burgundy region in France. He was 90.

Brother Alois, 52, who succeeded Brother Roger as prior of the community, is a native of Bavaria.

In this translation of an interview given to the Italian newspaper Avvenire, Brother Alois describes Taizé's journey during the first year after losing its founder.

Read the interview at Zenit

New archaeological evidence is raising more questions about the conventional interpretation linking the desolate ruins of an ancient settlement known as Qumran with the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were found in nearby caves in one of the sensational discoveries of the last century.

After early excavations at the site, on a promontory above the western shore of the Dead Sea, scholars concluded that members of a strict Jewish sect, the Essenes, had lived there in a monastery and presumably wrote the scrolls in the first centuries B.C. and A.D.

Many of the texts describe religious practices and doctrine in ancient Israel.

But two Israeli archaeologists who have excavated the site on and off for more than 10 years now assert that Qumran had nothing to do with the Essenes or a monastery or the scrolls. It had been a pottery factory.

Read the full story at New York Times

Is Bush influenced by 'end times' theology?

All anyone can know about Bush’s religiosity is the pattern and implications of his statements, writes Prof. Ira Chernus of the University of Colorado. ‘What he “really believes” is something we can never know.’

By Ira Chernus

Q. Joel C. Rosenberg, who writes Christian apocalyptic fiction, was invited to meet with aides in the White House. How highly placed were these aides and do they have any real influence on U.S. foreign policy, especially Middle East policy?

Q. What do President Bush and his most influential advisors on foreign policy really think about apocalyptic “end times” theology? Is there any convincing evidence that Bush or any influential policymakers are influenced by such theological views?

Q. How much influence do fundamentalist Christians who espouse apocalyptic “end times” theology have in the White House? In particular, how influential is Rev. John Hagee’s Christians United For Israel? Do Republican strategists think these fundamentalists are so politically crucial that the administration shapes its Middle East policy to please them?

Q. What do the leading neoconservatives think about apocalyptic “end times” theology? Does that, or any other aspect of Christian theology, influence their foreign policy views at all?

Religion is an important component of the Bush administration, at least in its public face. But the subject has to be addressed carefully. The conservative Christian world is a very complicated place. Most Christian conservatives are evangelicals (though many evangelicals are not politically conservative). They say they use the Bible as a guide for life, but they don’t necessarily take it literally. Those who do take it literally are fundamentalists. They’re a distinct minority among evangelicals. In Christian circles, that distinction is crucial. Even fundamentalists have to interpret the text of the Bible (though they may deny it). So they hold a wide variety of views about the end of history and the second coming of Christ. Evangelicals have an even wider variety of views.

Read the full article at Nieman Watchdog