Those bells are hangin' kiiinda low.
Posted on 12/03/2004 10:50:17 PM PST by ChristianDefender
In Battle Creek, Mich., 14 women of St. Thomas Episcopal Church – between ages 55 and 82 – actually bared their breasts to raise money for breast cancer research.
Calling themselves The Belles of St. Mary's, the women bared nearly all in an in-pew photo op at St. Thomas church for a calendar they hope will raise money for research.
But a mother of four, Helen Cook, who attends the parish, was outraged. Cook said she wrote to her rector, the Rev. Joy Rogers, and the parish's assistant, the Rev. Chris Yaw, saying they would not be returning to St. Thomas, and explaining why:
"I told them both that I found the calendar objectionable, inappropriate and that it ran counter to the morals I am attempting to instill into my children. 'Mother Joy', whose name takes on a whole new meaning to me now, never even bothered to answer me. No e-mail, no phone call, nothing. Father Chris answered very briefly, with the argument that there are two sides to everything and that if I reconsidered, to get in touch with him."
The national Episcopal Church magazine, Episcopal Life, reports religion writer David Virtue features this Playboy-style parish under the headline BARING (ALMOST ALL) FOR THE FAITH.
Additionally hilarious and comic nonsense news is in Baltimore.
Here, lawyers for the Tribune Company in Chicago, which own the Baltimore Sun, have charged the Republican governor of Maryland, Robert Ehrlich, with violating what they termed "free speech protections that guarantee equal treatment for members of the news media."
This was occasioned because Gov. Ehrlich, after two years of what he recalled as repeatedly hostile, inaccurate or made-up writing by Sun political reporter David Nitkin and columnist Michael Olesker, took action. He directed all of his administration's press officers to cut off all relations with Nitkin and Olesker (though not with other Sun reporters).
Ehrlich's press secretary, Greg Massoni, explained:
"This action in no way denies Olesker and Nitkin any freedom to write what they please. But there is no constitutional requirement that we help them!"
If the Tribune Company is so asinine as to sue the governor – and such lawsuit is not immediately hurled out of court in summary judgment – I believe that I should surely go to that same court and file suit against President George W. Bush. For four years he has only once recognized me for a question. (His answer evoked ridicule in Newsweek).
Moreover, when I attended last December's White House Christmas Party for White House correspondents, Mr. Bush welcomed me by saying:
"Here comes the troublemaker!"
The fact that I was secretly delighted, and the fact that his press secretary, Scott McClellan, always recognizes me for questions at his daily news briefings, I confess, would inhibit me from suing the president.
There is also my great desire not to resemble in any way this latest legal idiocy of the Tribune Company and its property in Baltimore.
Both the Sun and its fellow left-wing daily, the Washington Post, published furiously self-serving editorials "SHOOTING MESSENGERS" and "MR. EHRLICH'S GAG ORDER."
But Gov. Ehrlich admits, enthusiastically, that he no longer reads either of these papers – like a growing number of his constituents, as evidenced in their current circulation losses.
Instead, the governor regularly appears on talk radio, which, with the Internet, are the New Media, as distinct from the Old Big Media – which gives one 1 percent of its product to public expression, while we give 40 percent.
If God had wanted people to be naked, He would've made us be born that way.
The article said that this group's pastor is "Mother Joy"...that explains the problem.
its udder insanity
easy pops.....I can see it from here
Simply awful.
We are in a building program in my Southern Baptist church I wonder...........Naaaahhhhhhhhhh!
Those bells are hangin' kiiinda low.
Thank God they're not trying to raise awareness about rectal cancer.
My eyeballs are bleeding.... That is so wrong to have to see before 0600, well actually there would be no good time to see that again...
SledgeCS
You know, I really don't see what's wrong with this *shrugs*
Breasts are functional. They make milk for babies. Men walk around topless. The picture doesn't even SHOW anything.
Come on people, get a grip. Instead of criticizing, look at what they are doing -- helping a cause. No I'm not a liberal, but I just don't consider breasts sexual. Probably because I did breastfeeding peer counseling for five years. Either way tho, I hope that when I'm their ages I have that kind of gutsiness!
Don't even get me started on mommas being told to nurse their babies in the bathroom.
And please, be nice. These are moms and grandmas -- criticizing their appearance is just plain mean. A church is just a building. Doesn't the Bible say something about wherever two or more are gathered (forgetting the verse right now) -- *shrugs*
I was baptised in that church 54 years ago. Just yesterday my husband and I made the painful decision to leave our Episcopal church here in Texas. And now I see that my first church has allowed this photo to be taken. My family has been either Episcopal or Church of England for generations. I can't tell you how sad I am.
As bad as that photo is, your comment is worse.
You know what to do...
;-)
Moral Relativism strikes again. Man keeps changing the standards: what was wrong yesterday is ok today. Pretty unstable fondation there, don't you think?
I'll still with God's standards myself. Thankfully, they don't change.
I am with you on everything... I see breast more like jars of Gerber, and I get really miffed when people make fun of older women. And what they did was for a great cause.
With that being said, having the pictures taken in the church was direspectful to the church community as a whole.
While I quit going to church years ago, I still see a church as a sacred place to be treated with reverence.
If they had the calendar pictures taken somewhere else, I would have been one of the first to buy it.
Hehehe ironically -- I'm usually very very black and white about things. It's been one of the biggest struggles in my life to see things in shades of gray.
I still maintain tho that a church is just a building. These women are trying to bring attention to a cause. It's not like they are standing up showing it ALL. Is the earth itself not God's house?
*shrugs* I guess I just don't see the big deal. People are beautiful in all their shapes and forms. Cancer is ugly. And the picture honestly made me giggle. Maybe that was their point?
"Man keeps changing the standards: what was wrong yesterday is ok today." Sorry to quote you -- but I have to comment on this. In the time of Jesus -- the average age a child was breastfed until was somewhere in the neighborhood of age 5. So what was right yesterday is wrong today? *ponders* Times change, yes. The standards you are referring to tho, ie breasts being bared -- in much of the rest of the world womens breasts just aren't a big deal. Religious countries or not.
Tell me though, would you have a problem with a new mom breastfeeding her baby during a service?
At first glance...it's a "bit" humorous..then I get sad....sad that these ladies with a good cause may have been hoodwinked by people with ulterior motives.....
heheh thank you :) Agree to disagree on this one? If they had taken the picture during a service maybe then I'd have balked. But it wasn't *shrugs*
But geez. . . breasts are just. . .skin! *laughs*
*smiles*
Altho, I do see your point. I think I need to think some more.
They did this at church? My God. The good Episcopalians must be in agony.
Could this be the ancient wonder of Babylon?
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