Presentación del GEM 2016 Panamá

IV Congreso Estudiantil de Química

Conferencia Uso de la Tecnología en los Recursos Hídricos, para el manejo de los humedales

Foro Internacional sobre Regulación Farmaceútica en Centroamérica y el Caribe

Desafíos y Oportunidades para America Latina a Asia Pacifico y China

Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer. 20 July 1848

Four American Pioneers of Black Rights and Women's Rights

The Episcopal Church has tentatively added to its Calendar four American women who were pioneers in the struggle for black emancipation and for women's votes. The date chosen for commemorating them is the anniversary of the Women's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, 19-20 July 1848.

Sojourner Truth (26 November 1883)

Sojourner Truth, originally known as Isabella, was born a slave in New York in about 1798. In 1826 she escaped with the aid of Quaker Abolitionists, and became a street-corner evangelist and the founder of a shelter for homeless women. When she was travelling, and someone asked her name, she said "Sojourner," meaning that she was a citizen of heaven, and a wanderer on earth. She then gave her surname as "Truth," on the grounds that God was her Father, and His name was Truth. She spoke at numerous church gatherings, both black and white, quoting the Bible extensively from memory, and speaking against slavery and for an improved legal status for women. The speech for which she is best known is called, "Ain't I a Woman?" It was delivered in response to a male speaker who had been arguing that the refusal of votes for women was grounded in a wish to shelter women from the harsh realities of political life. She replied, with great effect, that she was a woman, and that society had not sheltered her. She became known as "the Miriam of the Latter Exodus."

Harriet Ross Tubman (10 March 1913)

Harriet Ross was born in 1820 in Maryland. She was deeply impressed by the Bible narrative of God's deliverance of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and it became the basis of her belief that it was God's will to deliver slaves in America out of their bondage, and that it was her duty to help accomplish this. In 1844, she escaped to Canada, but returned to help others escape. Working with other Abolitionists, chiefly white Quakers, she made at least nineteen excursions into Maryland in the 1850's, leading more than 300 slaves to freedom. During the War of 1861-5, she joined the Northern Army as a cook and a nurse and a spy, and on one occasion led a raid that freed over 750 slaves. After the war, she worked to shelter orphans and elderly poor persons, and to advance the status of women and blacks. She became known as "the Moses of her People."

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (26 October 1902)

Mrs. Stanton was born in 1815 and reared in the Presbyterian Church. She found the Calvinist doctrine of predestination dismaying, and rebelled against it. She denounced the clergy of her day for not upholding women's rights, but as she travelled giving speeches on the subject, she found no lack of pulpits available to her. She undertook to write what she called a Women's Bible. It never got beyond a series of notes on selected Biblical passages. For example, she quotes the passage in Genesis where we are told that Noah's Ark had only one window, and remarks that if a woman had been consulted, the Ark would have been better designed.

Reading Mrs. Stanton's life and works, I have an uncomfortable feeling that she was interested in "religion" only as a potential ally or opponent in her campaign for women's political equality. I once spent some time in a congregation where the preacher never mentioned God or Christ except when they could be quoted in support of the preacher's political agenda. It was not a good experience. For me, reading about Mrs Stanton moves me, not to say, "Lord, give me the grace to follow you, as you did to Mrs. Stanton," but rather, "Lord do I do that? Do I think of you as there to carry out my agenda? If so, then help me to recognize it and to stop it." Meanwhile, if we think that the abolition of slavery and the recognition of women's right to own property are in accordance with justice, and are accordingly good things, then we can thank God for accomplishing good through Mrs Stanton and others. "It is enough to be sure of the deed. Our courteous Lord will deign to redeem the motive." (Julian of Norwich)

Amelia Jenks Bloomer (30 December 1894)

Amelia Jenks was born in New York in 1818, reared as a Presbyterian, and as a young woman became an activist for the anti-slavery, anti-alcohol, and women's votes movements. One of her concerns has made her name a part of the language. In her day, women's fashions encouraged tightly laced waists, involving severe health problems. (The fashions were denounced in 1728 by William Law (9 April).) The fashion also called for skirts trailing the ground, an arrangement that made it difficult to keep the skirts reasonably clean, especially since the streets were full of horses. Mrs. Bloomer designed a women's costume featuring what are known as Turkish pants, or harem pants (remember the television show I Dream of Jeannie), loose baggy trousers gathered into tight bands at the ankles and waist. Over these she wore a mid-calf-length skirt. It seems a thoroughly modest garb, but it excited indignation and ridicule. (At least well into the 1940's, women's underpants, and women's baggy outer pants worn for athletics, were known as "bloomers.")

Mrs. Bloomer and her husband eventually settled in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where she worked to promote churches, schools, libraries, and progressive and reform movements. On one occasion she said:

"The same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of women, and make her the equal in power and dominion that she was in the beginning."

Macrina the Younger, Monastic and Teacher 19 July 379

Basil the Great is remembered as the founder of Eastern monasticism. All Eastern Orthodox monks are Basilian monks and follow a variation of the monastic rule that he outlined. However, it is often overlooked that the community of monks organized by Basil was preceded and inspired by a community of nuns organized by his sister, Macrina.

Macrina the Elder lived in the days of the Emperor Diocletian, who made a determined effort to destroy the Christian faith. She and her husband fled into hiding, and survived into the time of Constantine. One of their sons, Basil the Elder, and his wife Emmelia, had several distinguished sons, including Basil the Great (14 June), Gregory of Nyssa (9 March), Peter of Sebastea, Naucratios, and (according to one ambiguously worded communication) Dios of Antioch.

Their oldest offspring, however, was their daughter Macrina (called Macrina the Younger to distinguish her from her grandmother). She was betrothed at the age of twelve, after the custom of the day, but when her fiance died, she determined to devote her life to prayer and contemplation and to works of charity. After the death of her father, she and her mother formed a community of women who shared her goals. She often brought poor and hungry women home to be fed, clothed, nursed, or otherwise taken care of, and many eventually joined the community, as did many women of means.

After the death of their parents, Macrina was chiefly responsible for the upbringing of her ten younger brothers. When they were disposed to be conceited about their intellectual accomplishments, she deflated them with affectionate but pointed jibes. Her example encouraged some of them to pursue the monastic ideal, and to found monastic communities for men. (Dios founded one of the most celebrated monasteries in Constantinople.) Three of them (Basil, Gregory, Peter) became bishops, and all of them were leading contenders for the faith of Nicea against the Arians.

Gregory, in his Life of Macrina, records his last visit with her, and her farewell speech and her prayers and teachings about the resurrection.

LinK:  http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/home.html
The biographies were written by James Kiefer.

Launch of the new Oxford History of Anglicanism

Posted on: July 17, 2017 1:45 PM

The official launch has taken place of the first ever multi-volume history of worldwide Anglicanism to be published by a major university press.  The Oxford History of Anglicanism, in five volumes,  covers the growth of worldwide Anglicanism with more than 100 international scholars contributing. Three volumes have appeared already and a further two are due later this year. 

The person who had the idea for these volumes is Professor Rowan Strong, who oversaw the whole ten year process and worked with the individual editors, as well as being the editor of the third volume.  He comes from Anglican Church of Australia, and teaches at Murdoch University in Perth. 

The study looks at how Anglican identity was constructed and contested at various periods from the sixteenth century and what has been its historical influence during the past six centuries. It explores not just the ecclesiastical and theological aspects of global Anglicanism, but also the political, social, economic, and cultural influences of this form of Christianity that has been historically significant in western culture, and a burgeoning force in non-western societies today. The chapters are written by international experts in their various historical fields which includes the most recent research in their areas, as well as original research.

Speaking at the official launch, the Director for Unity, Faith and Order at the Anglican Communion Office,  Canon John Gibaut, described the five volumes as a timely gift: “There has been a flourishing of scholarly reflection on various elements of the Anglican tradition in recent decades: our history, ecclesiology, theology, theological methodology, canon law, liturgy, the quest for holiness and so much more.  The most comprehensive contributions are in these three—soon to be five—volumes of The Oxford History of Anglicanism.”

Canon John reflected that the context for the volume, as well as for many other recent publications, “is one of crisis that goes to the core of what it means to be Anglican, what it means to be Church and a communion of churches in the Anglican tradition.  The strains that signal new limits to diversity are indicators of a crisis of Anglican identity, both within provincial churches, and between them” he said. He described the volumes as a challenge to the Anglican Communion, and also a sign of hope.

At approximately 135 US dollars (£95) per volume, Canon John also appealed for assistance so that the books can be supplied to theological libraries in the global south: “From the perspective of the Anglican Communion, I would urge that arrangements be made that these volumes find their way into our theological libraries - so that as they disclose our common past, they might nourish the seeds of our global destiny.”

Ver más aquí: http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2017/07/launch-of-the-new-oxford-history-of-anglicanism.aspx 

ACTUEMOS …

Por: Miguel Antonio Bernal

“Los que aseguran que es imposible no deberían estorbar 

a los que estamos intentándolo”

La ausencia en la sociedad panameña, de un mínimo común denominador que nos motive y anime, hace que para todos los que actuamos como ciudadanos militantes, es decir, preocupados y motivados del diario acontecer, para que las cosas vayan realmente (y no demagógicamente) mejor, no es para nada fácil lo cotidiano.

Así las cosas, los factores reales de poder, que más poder tienen, más pueden. Son los que se encargan de arrebatarnos el ayer, no quieren que tengamos mañana y no nos dejan que tengamos el hoy.  Mahatma Gandhi, nos dejó un legado poco conocido en nuestro medio y muy repudiado por el ‘establishment’ local’ y quienes controlan los órganos del Estado.

Al ser preguntado Gandhi, ¿cuáles son los factores que destruyen al ser humano?, no vaciló en responder: “La Política sin principios; el placer sin compromiso; la Riqueza sin trabajo; la sabiduría sin carácter;los negocios sin moral; la Ciencia sin humanidad y la oración sin caridad".

Acto seguido compartió: “La vida me ha enseñado que: la gente es amable si yo soy amable; las personas están tristes si yo estoy triste; todos me quieren si yo los quiero; todos son malos si yo los odio; hay caras sonrientes si les sonrío; hay caras amargadas si estoy amargado; el mundo está feliz si yo estoy feliz; la gente se enoja si yo estoy enojado; las personas son agradecidas si yo soy agradecido. La vida es como un espejo. Si sonrío el espejo me devuelve la sonrisa. La actitud que tome frente a la vida es la misma que la vida tomará ante mi”.

 Gandhi nos dejó, además de sus principios, sus valores y sus ejemplos, un verdadero tesoro: una actitud de vida. Tal vez podamos aprender, ahora más que nunca, a ser mejores ciudadanos.

Una mirada, en su bicentenario, a Don Justo Arosemena y sus escritos, resultaría altamente beneficiosa en estos tiempos…

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Panamá 2016