New Covenant Group News Blog / Feed

Techno savvy Small Group Ministry & Covenant Group fans - by popular demand I've establishing a "blog version" of the popular Covenant Group News e-newsletter. This blog will be a place for me and other UU Small Group Ministry collaborators to post news as we find it. The edited contents of this blog will be shared via the CGNews e-newsletter.

Get the new CGNews feed if you want to keep posted on new resources, events and other news related to Unitarian Universalist small group ministry and the happenings of the UU SGM Network.

You can subscribe to the blog feed here
http://feeds.feedburner.com/CovenantGroupNews

You can view the CGNews blog on the UU SGM Network Site at
http://www.smallgroupministry.net/cgnews

Subscribe to the email form of CGNews
http://www.smallgroupministry.net/cgnews/about.html

Christian right to dismantle America’s open society

Interesting article on truthdig.com by Chris Hedges, former NYTImes Mideast Bureau chief. He writes that the radical Christian right is making great progress toward its goal of "co-opting the country’s military and law enforcement."

The drive by the Christian right to take control of military chaplaincies, which now sees radical Christians holding roughly 50 percent of chaplaincy appointments in the armed services and service academies, is part of a much larger effort to politicize the military and law enforcement. This effort signals the final and perhaps most deadly stage in the long campaign by the radical Christian right to dismantle America’s open society and build a theocratic state. A successful politicization of the military would signal the end of our democracy.

Chris Hedges is the author of American Fascists:The Christian Right and the War On America. Those of you opposed to the idea of America becoming a theocracy would do well to check out the Interfaith Alliance's FIRST FREEDOM FIRST campaign.

The interdependent web of all CLONED existence

We know its ALL connected. Everything. We are what we eat. So how does taking meat from cloned animals to market impact our health? What does cloning the best looking produce do to the genetic strength of our food supply?

I have no idea. But neither does the US government. I'm of the mind that it is better for us to know which foods are genetically engineered, cloned, and/or irradiated. How about we maintain the integrity of our food'gene pool, minimize the gamma radiation bombarding the meat in the US school lunch program. UUJERRI sent me an email with a link to the Center for Food Safety. They seem to have good information and offer a number of "Take Action" email campaigns you can use to let congress know what you think.

Check out the Organic Consumers Association's 2006 Genetic Engineering News.

Church Geek Heaven

To my fellow UU church geeks, I just set up a new bookstore. Check it out and please, recommend titles to me.

http://shop.uuplanet.com/books.html



As for book recommendations I am particularly interested in titles that are necessarily about church, but make you go AHA! that's what we should do... For me the book PURPLE COW is a great example of this.

Purple Alien "Save the Planet" video stats

For those of you interested in the Purple Alien "Save the Planet"video on Youtube.com, I've been tracking of the stats.

Date - Time Online - # Views
October 14, 2006 - New on YouTube.com
October 16, 2006 - 2 days - 200 views
October 28, 2006 - 2 weeks - 1,500 views
November 1,2006 - 2 1/2 weeks - 2,701 views
December 14, 2006 - 2 months - 5,025 views