Bridge of Reason

  The above title comes from a jw.org article as an answer to one of their Frequently Asked Questions .   This is of particular interest around this time as they have just celebrated their annual memorial of Christ’s death.   I have to say, for full disclosure, that I have never attended one of these memorial meals despite having been invited several times.   I just don’t think I could manage to bite my tongue hard enough not to respond to the talks being made.   However, I have read and listened to a number of accounts from non-Jehovah’s Witnesses who have attended, some repeatedly over many years.   The Memorial Meal , as Jehovah’s Witnesses refer to their version of communion, only takes place once a year and is always regarded as a very special event.   As they do not celebrate any other event, such as Easter, Christmas, birthdays, Pentecost, and so forth, they do make a big thing of it. Potentially millions of invites are handed out around the...

Pompey   The first permanent stone theatre in Rome was built by the Republican general and political leader Pompey in 55 BC. The Theatrum Pompeii was the biggest of three theatres built in the Campus Martius . It was described as wanton, licentious, the stronghold of every vice. The censors of the day, concerned for the moral welfare of the public, often sought to close down shows, even close the theatres. Pompey, concerned for his legacy, attempted to get around the censors by building a temple to Venus over his theatre, ‘under which,’ he said, ‘we have put rows of seats for the shows.’ A newly converted Tertullian wrote: ‘Thus did he cloak this damned and damnable work under the name of a temple, and by the aid of superstition eluded the rule.’ (From De Spectaculis , or Treatise on Public Shows ) It seems to me that many churches today have followed the example of Pompey. The sense of the sacred has been replaced by the call of the carnal as clowns and jesters roam the court...