All Things Beautiful

Sunday's On It's Way

'The Resurrection' (detail) by El Greco 1596-1600, Museo del Prado, Madrid

 

Written for ATB by my dear friend Kenny Pierce

On Easter, Christians celebrate what C. S. Lewis called, The Grand Miracle, the one single event in human history that changes the meaning of the entire human story in general and our own personal story as well. A lifetime isn't enough to exhaust the contemplation of Easter. All you can do each year is contemplate what Easter will have to teach you this time around.

I think it a particularly great challenge to attempt to explain to people who aren't Christians, what it is that Christians see in Easter particularly since the Christian response to Easter is so highly individual, given the richness of the Myth That Really Happened. So I thought that I would take a shot at explaining to an imaginary audience composed of interested and intelligent, but unbelieving, imaginary friends one of the odd ways in which I think Easter looks different when you're seeing it from the other side, as it were. This is very far from the most important thing to understand about Easter. But it's interesting, I think, in its own quirky way, and it's almost certainly something that hasn't occurred to you if you are not yourself a Christian.

God is, of course, the Author of the human story, the Dramatist who created this world that famously is all a stage. Most monotheists would agree with that, at least in some sense. Now, Easter tells us what kind of story God is writing it is a mystery novel and a thriller and a romance all rolled into one, but most especially it's the kind of novel where you can't tell what's going to happen next. It turns out that the infinite God is not unlike M. Night Shyamalan the moment when the Resurrection happened is exactly like the moment the audience realizes that Malcolm is himself dead, only more so. The second time through The Sixth Sense the entire story is different from the first time you watched it, because you know the great central secret: Malcolm is dead. And for Christians, the second time through the story, as it were whether it is the story of one's own life and apparently pointless sufferings, or the New Testament story of the disciples cluelessly tagging along behind Jesus without ever figuring out what he was talking about, or even the second time through the Old Testament the second time through, the entire story is transformed, because you know the great central secret: Jesus is alive.

Nuclear Communist Islamofascism

'Winter Landscape with Church' by Caspar David Friedrich 1811, Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Dortmund

 

'Nuclear Communist Islamofascism' -- you think I am joking, just wait...

During his recent trip to Iran, the German head of the opposition Green party faction, Fritz Kuhn, confirmed how the leading thugs of the Mullahcracy had been caught by surprise after Russia and China supported UNSC Resolution 1737.

On the contrary, they had hoped to isolate the U.S. by splitting away Russia and China, and, with a bit of luck, even most of Europe. What they didn't expect, was the unanimous vote against them.

I don't share many convictions with Fritz Kuhn of the Green party -- bloody champagne communists, the lot of them, if you ask me -- but because the Mullahs know the Green party to be thoroughbred appeasers, because they trust them not to interfere, they'll drop their guard on occasions lower, thus revealing more, than intended. And the likes of Kuhn, or John-America-is-a-"pariah"-Kerry, never seem to disappoint. Kuhn goes out of his way to explain to his Iranian counterparts, all that is needed is to tone down the rhetoric; that they should understand, eventually Israel will connect such rhetoric with the 'Atomfrage' ('atomic question' - some question, yeah right...), "...you know, what would happen, if someone who talks so aggressively, has the atomic bomb at his disposal...That's the thing, you guys in Iran have to understand, that there is a connection...". Wow, really? Now that you are telling me.... My word!

On the other hand, we have the Supreme Thug-In-Chief Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei blinding us with breathtaking logic: American forces plant the bombs in order to create the appearance of sectarian violence. "They are well familiar with the secrets of their seditious job. They know how to provoke Sunnis against Shiites and how to incite Shiites against Sunnis. After the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran the colonialists intensified their efforts."

Shari'a And Human Rights

 

So, what do the Muslims have to say about that?

Emran Qureshi is a journalist and an expert on Islam and human rights. He is currently a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. Emran ought to know, and it seems he does:

The Sharia law, as is practiced in many Muslim countries today, is clearly incompatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today Sharia is a source of injustice that profanes Islam and shames Muslims who adhere to a compassionate and merciful interpretation of their faith. [...]

Khaled Abou El Fadl, a prominent Islamic intellectual reformer in the United States, has observed of contemporary Islamist intellectuals "Instead of Islam being a moral vision given to humanity, it becomes constructed into the antithesis of the West. In the world constructed by these groups, there is no Islam; there is only opposition to the West." This is sadly true.

These corrosive ideas do not spring from a vacuum. They arise instead from impoverished Salafi and Wahhabi discourses, which are corroding Islam from within. There is a straight line between the Salafi/Wahhabi interpretations - a puritanical, anti-rationalist, misogynistic Islam with a punitive, intolerant Sharia - and the violence, which now bloodstains our faith.

Those who challenge this moral and ethical perversion of our faith are instead attacked as heretics as we can witness in Saudi-Arabia.

These are excerpts from Emran's opening letter, starting a discourse in June and August 2004 (note, this is pre-Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad, who since Summer 2005 kindly revealed to the West, what a carefully orchestrated 'moderate' Mullahcracy had been thinking and planning all along) between Emran and a lady in Cairo by the name of Heba Raouf Ezzat. Heba teaches political theory at the Department of Political Science, Cairo University and is co-ordinator of the Civil Society Program at the Center for Political Research and Studies at Cairo University as well as editor of the Global Civil Society Yearbook. She also works as womens' rights activist.

And what do we get? Nothing but empty rhetoric and platitudes from our 'womens' rights activist' in Cairo. Am I glad, that dear Heba hasn't been speaking out for my rights of late.

I find this exchange interesting, because only two and a half years later, we have learned, that Emran is unfortunately incorrect to limit all of Islam's ills to Salafi and Wahhabi Muslims; that Iran's Shia Mullahs are just as passionately murdering in the name of Allah and Shari'a laws.

He is however correct in his assessment, when he says: "I sadly think that a gentler Sharia is unlikely to emerge since today we are presented with the anti-intellectualism, authoritarianism, and moral depravity of these self-appointed Salafi guardians of Sharia."

Read the correspondence in its entirety.

Demonizing Christmas....Has Anything Changed?

 

I wrote this post at this time last year, and I am curious my gentle readers...has anything changed? My friend Francis Porretto, whose blood pressure rises at the mention of the subject, doesn't seem to think so. The inimitable Ann Althouse points to war on Christmas Chinese style. Meanwhile, see for yourselves...

This is an outrage.

Let me say this out loud and clear: "I am a devout Christian", and whilst I am at it let me proclaim that "I am fiercely pro-Israel". So there you have it. Put that in your pipe and smoke it you rabid anti-Semites, you fanatical Islamofascists, and you militant Jew hating Holocaust deniers.

Now we have that out of the way, we can continue...

A World Apart

 

Dave Bailey over at FaithFreedom shares with us today his gradual path to the realization, that "despite oft-repeated claims to the contrary, the Koran was definitely not a book of peace".

One week before Christmas, surrounded by the lovely sights and sounds of the Advent season, Bailey's reminder of why most Muslims hate us, seems particularly far removed. But our boys and girls in Iraq face this bigoted hatred every day as they miss their families and loved ones especially badly at this time of the year. So let us 'tune-in', as it were, before we send our prayer and thoughts:

The Race For Souls (Weekend Thread)

'The Adoration of the Name of Jesus' by El Greco 1578-80, National Gallery, London

 

The term, 'Southern Christians' needs our attention and Spengler's reminder of Philip Jenkins' fascinating book, 'The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South' is indeed timely. (You must read the entire article, and in particular the second page)

It is timely, because in these foreboding times, clarity of vision is of supreme importance, not least so as to overcome any feeling of despair, but instead, to refocus on how each and everyone of us can do his or her best to forge a better world for our children.

Programs, like the series at the Carnegie Council called 'The Resurgence of Religion in Politics', help us recapture the all important strategic overview, especially, when we are granted a rare understanding of the grand motivator, which is driving key strategic decisions of foe and friend alike:

The fact is, that the race for souls in the most populous parts of the world is won by Christianity.

'Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid'....Eh?

The 1922 portrait of Dr. Stadelmann [mustache removed] by the famous Otto Dix, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, W.Landmann Collection

 

Absolutely furious, and quite rightly so, Mac Brachman kindly sends me the link to Jeffrey Goldberg's WaPo review today of President Jimmy Carter's "despicable book", sending me into a spin of unprecedented proportions on this seemingly peaceful Sunday morning.

President Jimmy 'Cowardly Appeasement Policy' Carter is a disgrace. This we know. We also know that he is a rabid anti-Semite, a coward, and acknowledge the fact that the agreement signed 25 years ago with Iran releasing the 52 American hostages was negotiated and signed by President Jimmy "Cowardly Appeasement Policy" Carter, on January 20th 1981, the day of President Reagan's inauguration, as his last glorious act as President of the U.S. just before he handed the sullied reigns over to Ronald Reagan.

As I have written before, almost all the trouble with the Iranian Mullahcracy and their murderous activities throughout the Middle East are deeply rooted in Carter's ignorance which in no small part resulted in the diplomatic obligations set out in the Algiers Accords Agreement, which codified the January 1981 deal between the United States and Iran under which the hostages were released, approx. 8 billion dollars in Iranian assets were unfrozen, and an arbitration tribunal was established in the Netherlands to settle claims between the two countries. In the first part of the document, the United States pledged that it "will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs." Elsewhere, the United States pledged to "bar and preclude" any claims filed by the hostages against Iran.

Under the Agreement, the United States is obligated "to terminate all legal proceedings in United States courts involving claims of United States persons and institutions against Iran and its state enterprises, to nullify all attachments and judgments obtained therein, to prohibit all further litigation based on such claims, and to bring about the termination of such claims through binding arbitration...."

The Nativity Story

"The Holy Family with the infant St. John the Baptist (the Doni tondo)" by Michelangelo c.1506, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

 

Whilst I am still picking up the pieces from my technical issues here on ATB, I am posting an article I know you will find interesting, written by Brent Bozell, my inimitable publisher over @ NewsBusters.  Difficult to cut as every word is brilliant, I give you the whole thing, in sincere hope that Brent will not object to ATB's presumptuous indulgence:

Islam vs. Christianity

 

Apologies for my posting being a little hap hazard lately, but life has an uncanny way of interfering with blogging, making it difficult to produce the goods the way that I like to. I prefer to skip a day rather than to deliver something you may find disappointing. That's just me, and unfortunately that will never change....

I received this video from a dear Jewish friend of mine, who has been my closest friend for some twenty years, and who I treasure as a brother I never had.

A little something to make you laugh whilst we wait for life to take a back seat....

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Just Another Monday

"Last Judgment Triptych" by Hans Memling 1467-71, Muzeum Narodowe, Gdansk

 

Whilst our kids look forward to a new iPod or mobile phone at this time of the year, schoolchildren and their parents in Iran received less joyful news on Saturday:

Tehran, Iran, Sep. 17 – A new security organ has been set up to aid police inside schools in Tehran beginning from the start of the new academic year, the chief of police in the Iranian capital announced. Brigadier General Morteza Tala’i announced the formation of a new “Youth Police” which will be present in schools across the Iranian capital.

The announcement appeared in the Saturday edition of the semi-official daily Kayhan. The new security organ will include youths of various ages. “This initiative was taken to help prevent any possible crimes [inside schools]” Tala’i said.

The State Security Forces (SSF) commander in Tehran said that the organ would operate both inside and in the vicinity of the schools. The SSF are already assisted by the Bassij force, affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards, in cracking down on social dissent.

To all who think the West, America and the current Administration in particular, are to blame for the actions of the Islamofascists, I say, poppycock! If anything, American ideals of freedom is what they are attacking in classrooms and in the schoolyard.

Once you understand that, it is clear for instance why Charles Johnson @ LGF doesn't believe the Islamist thugs will accept the Pope's expression of deep sorrow over "the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims".

The Vatican (this is no longer just the Pope talking) is trying to get away with a non-apology apology, to appease the Islamic world’s violent temper tantrums. [...]

This is exactly the wrong way to go, for one simple reason. It won’t work. Islamists can tell the difference between diplomatic words and true surrender, and they want the Pope to utterly abase himself.

It would be far better to stand up, and speak truth about the Muslim world’s insane reaction to his speech. The Pope actually has a golden opportunity right now to bring these issues to the forefront of the public dialog, but it looks like he’s not going to use it.

Personally, I love the Pope's nuance in his reference to the 'reaction' not the content. Translated, it means, 'look in the mirror, you fools. You've just confirmed the accuracy of the quote, which is the reason why you need help.' According to the UK Telegraph, the Holy Father most of all voiced his deep sorrow in the way his lecture  "has been exacerbated by the deliberate manipulation of his words by Islamic firebrands and their slick media operation".

The combination of grievance-nurturing multiculturalism and instant headlines is having a disastrous effect on the worldwide Muslim community. There seems to be no limit to its spokesmen's willingness to voice outrage; and their messages are then picked up by fanatics who mount appalling attacks on Christians in Muslim countries. When was the last time a Muslim leader apologised for such atrocities?

The truth is that barbaric attacks happen weekly. No wonder that Benedict favours an urgent dialogue with Muslims on the subject of religious violence, rather than the usual touchy-feely exchange of compliments.

Well, he has started a dialogue now, albeit not quite in the way that he intended. And it is essential that it continue. A self-abasing apology from the Pope would have postponed that discussion yet again.

We suspect that Western public opinion is not displeased that Benedict has said the unsayable. Now it is time for other churchmen to tell their Muslim counterparts that, in addition to dishing out criticism, they must learn how to take it.

Meanwhile, welcome fodder for the rabid Liberals, who are desperately hoping to extend their 'Bush lied People died' smear campaign from Iraq to Iran, comes from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), run by El Baradei, its General Director:

The Holy Father And The Unholy Truth Of Islam

I combined Francis Bacon's famous "Screaming Pope" with the original "Portrait of Innocent X" by Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez ca. 1650, Galleria Doria-Pamphilj, Rome, which inspired Bacon's iconic but churlish rendition of a Pope who "tenderly loved his subjects and was scrupulously just". Such is the curse of all who dare to speak the truth.

 

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Amen.

During Tuesday's lecture in Germany, Pope Benedict XVI quoted these penetrating words, which originated some 700 years ago from an exchange between the erudite Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.

How appropriate for the Holy Father to reflect on the cause, why the religion of Islam has always stood out from all other major religions on this Earth throughout its 1,500 year history:

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God," he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats."

And there it is. The apoplectic reaction of the Muslim world, which is barely in first gear of course, couldn't be a better testament to the continuing verity of the Byzantine Emperor's observations; no matter whether 1,500 years ago, 700 years ago or at the present day. Lost is the Pope's powerful call for an urgently needed dialogue between the religions of peace and Islam.

The darling Anchoress justly chastises the MSM for failing to "seriously reflect his thoughtful and deep words without sensationalizing them - the very idea!"

Don't miss reading the Pope's lecture in its entirety!

Whilst I am not able to write something myself on this at present, I must take a moment to pay tribute to one of my greatest heroines, and one of the most renowned journalists of our modern era, Oriana Fallaci, who died of cancer today aged 77. Relentlessly opposing Islamic extremists until her dying breath, she lived a life of passion and died a courageous death, always fighting for what she believed in.

An inspiration to us all, I loved her deeply not only for everything she bravely stood for, but for having the magnificent courage to say it. I am greatly saddened by her departure form a world which needs her now more than ever. Constantly forewarning us of the inevitabilities of an “Islamic colony” formerly known as Europe, she predicted much of the decay we see all too evident today.

Michelle Malkin has the most extensive write up, and don't miss reading Jeremayakovka's brilliant and deeply moving tribute here. To those of you who still need an introduction, read Daniel Pipes, who quotes one of my favorite poignant reminders from Fallaci:

To die a little less when I die. To leave the children I did not have... . To make people think a little more, outside the dogmas that this society has nourished us with through centuries. To give stories and ideas that help people to see better, to think better, to know a little more.

 

The Elephant In The Room

 

Wearing my libertarian hat, I reach out to my fellow Republican, evangelical friends, for it seems necessary to re-unite:

This week, New York Post columnist Ryan Sager, one of the most thoughtful young conservatives writing today, publishes an important new book, "The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party."

The gist of the book is that the coalition of religious conservatives and libertarian free-marketeers is breaking apart. The basic principle that held them together throughout the postwar era -- the idea that morality and virtue need to be freely chosen to have meaning -- is breaking down. The traditionalists have gotten the upper hand and increasingly reject the idea of freedom when it comes to things like same-sex "marriage," pornography, drugs and abortion.

The traditionalists, infused by evangelical religious fervor, have taken that wing of the party far beyond its historical roots. In the past, traditionalists were religious and pro-religion, but highly tolerant of those nonreligious conservatives who derived their ideology from natural law or free-market economic principles. Thus traditionalists like William F. Buckley and Russell Kirk could coexist with atheists like Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises. They respected each other's views even if they disagreed with their foundation.

Before moving on, I would like you to find out how your particular political persuasion compares with your fellow Republicans and the opposition. Just tick a few questions and your typology group is identified and mapped out. But even more interesting are the comparison charts, once you follow the link "See what others like you think..." - fascinating.

Now that we are armed with a 'better' understanding of our political pigeonhole, let's take a step back before attempting to build bridges.

In particular, I sense, that the following statement could hold the key for a better understanding, thus creating unifying common ground: "The basic principle that held them together throughout the postwar era -- the idea that morality and virtue need to be freely chosen to have meaning -- is breaking down."

I respectfully suggest, the premise that 'morality and virtue need to be freely chosen to have meaning', if that is indeed Sager's and not that of the reviewer, reveals a deep misconception, which, if rectified, could help alleviate libertarians' despondency and prevent them to "disengage from politics and just sit out the next election".

If morality and virtue were indeed perceived to be subject to 'choice', we'd have left the entire conservative base, traditionalists, evangelicals, libertarians and all other strands included, and joined the quintessentially Liberal set of beliefs and ideals. And that clearly didn't happen.

Instead, it may help to demonstrate, that as a result of decades long, relentless attacks on all things Christian and Religious from the Left in ever increasing frequency and ferocity, traditionalists/evangelicals gradually hardened under the never ending siege. I again respectfully suggest, that a rift in this respect is much more imaginary than real, and that over time, the increasingly vocal resistance against the atheistic onslaught may well have contributed to a perception of alienation between traditionalists/evangelicals and libertarians.

None of this resolves the much more serious dissatisfaction over vastly expanded government spending coupled with the dreaded but inevitable tax increases. But this dissatisfaction is not reserved to libertarians nor do traditionalists/evangelicals somehow stay aloof from such basic conservative concerns.

Welcome to Saudi America

For avoidance of any doubt, the above is the famous 1495 painting by Hieronymus Bosch called 'The Fourth King', depicting Muhammad (now photoshopped to be Bill Maher instead) standing in the background looking visibly deranged.

 

What is the problem the Democrats have with Religion in general, Christians in particular....umh Jews too come to think of it....obviously Conservatives....but NOT Islamofascists, who are after all in their eyes innocent of all...er....trumped up charges relating to non-existent terrorist crimes dreamed up by the Administration, the great Satan of the West. As I have said before of their pernicious view in my post Converting To Islam Is Harmless:

The liberals have replaced religion with politics, it's hardly surprising that they don't feel threatened by converting to Islam, after all politics is so all-defining and of such paramount importance to them that it defines who they are. Faithless is in, it's cool, it's liberating....into the abyss they go. But it is important for us to know that they are not afraid, that they are brave, that there is no imminent threat and that we are simply fear-mongering at best and bellicose at worst.

So how does the Godless party end up supporting the most theistic religion of them all? Just asking....

One of my editors @ NewsBusters, Noel Sheppard, points the finger at another bright spark of liberal comedy, Bill Maher, who goes on an anti-theistic rant on HBO's Real Time

[...]Maher suggested that, “If converting to Islam is all it takes to get the terrorists off our backs, then all I have to say is, ‘Lalalalalalala!’” He referred to Americans as “Christians in name only,” asserting that "the best part is that nothing that really matters to you will be different. It’s not like we’re asking you to change your e-mail address." And, he stated that converting to Islam would make conservative Christians happy: “You mean we can stone homosexuals instead of just bitching about them on talk-radio? Thank you Jesus…I mean, Allah.”

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Wasn't the atheist Maher the one who said: "The Christian right are now the party of paranoia, and if you’re going to be that paranoid all the time, just get high” Have I lost all sense of humor you might ask yourself, no, I simply know Maher's views are embedded in that shallow grave he calls comedy

We’re a nation enthralled to religious fanatics anyway. Does it really matter which fanatics we’re enthralled to? They’re both filled with moral pieties and codes of conduct nobody follows anyway. So, let’s pick the one that let’s us take hair gel on the plane. Because, no matter what happens, we’ll always be Americans. Nothing can ever change that. Because even if women here had to start wearing burkas, believe me, they would find a way to write the word “Juicy” on their ass!

For the full mind blowing transcript, courtesy of Noel Sheppard, click below:

The Nest Of Impotent Islamic Vipers

 

My friend Michael van der Galien has a new co-blogger over @ Liberty & Justice, called Muslihoon who we should be paying a lot of attention to. He is very knowledgeable on Islamic issues, and more importantly bats for our team whilst giving us that all important 'other' perspective we may have been lacking.

The Muslim world (hereinafter "the Ummah") is quite fond of whining and complaining. For decades now, the Ummah has been whining incessantly (and quite stupidly) of the West imposing itself upon and perpetrating inhuman injustices upon the Ummah. They accuse Israel with such stinging words that one must either doubt the existence of their heart or of their mind. Such strong words, such emotion, such vehemence - it does not make sense. But here is where one will fall: there is no sense or reason or civility with, in, or by the Ummah. Holding itself inviolate, it flings accusations and engages in conspiracy at will and whim.

The Ummah fell as a world power when it, full of arrogance, ignored the West. Europe emerged from the Dark Ages and began developing like never before, with a speed and with such momentum as never before was seen in the history of humanity. If the Ummah swallowed their pride and kept a watch on Europe and adopted their changes, perhaps they could have stood against them once Europe began flowing over her banks. But instead, the Ummah ignored the ignorant and uncivilized Europeans, and so the Ummah began to become more and more obsolete and outdated. Once Europe reached the bounds of the Ummah, it easily overpowered it.

This fall was and is difficult for Muslims to accept. According to their mindset, God promised them success, victory, and survival, for He was their God and they His people. If God permitted them to lose, surely something must be amiss. Muslims blamed Europe's ascendancy on Muslim impiety, God's punishment for the Ummah, and other such reasons. But the Ummah never then considered that perhaps, God aside, the Europeans were simply more technologically advanced. And when key Muslims realized this, it was too late.

The fall of the Ummah has been complete. Not one Muslim nation, state, or entity can assert its sovereign will and survive. All are subject to the control and bounds of the West, upon whom they depend. They hate the West and love the West both for the same reasons, mainly the West's advancement and resources and abilities. Jealousy runs through their veins, even though they may not admit or realize it.

The Sordid Godless World Of Shari'a Law

'St Michael and the Satan' by Raffaello Sanzio ca.1518, The Louvre, Paris

 

This is a moving story of a sixteen year old girl, who was executed in Iran for 'crimes against chastity'. Told in a BBC documentary in great detail here, we get introduced to what is perceived to be the ignominious life of young innocent girls in Iran who are subjected to the most degrading acts, in return for which they receive the punishment of imprisonment and one hundred lashes at a time at best, and execution by hanging at worst.

As we speak, there are as many as fourteen or more young girls waiting to be executed under the misogynistic barbarism of Shari'a law for 'the crime' of being raped considered a 'crime against chastity'. And where are the men charged along with these girls? Nowhere to be seen....

Iran, the country proclaiming to advocate the 'religion of peace' where the law of Shari'a rules that the age of sexual consent is to be NINE. Well if the 'holy book' of Qur'an written by the pedophile Muhammad says it's nine, it must be so. I mean why not legitimize the Prophet's own marriage to a child if it was in his power to do so.

Who is this God of theirs who would put its innocent children through such horrors, only to have the so called 'moral police' be the biggest offenders of any morality left in that sordid Godless world, more akin to Satan's hell in life than anything we look forward to in our death. Shame on you, and shame on us for not fighting this evil with all we've got to give.

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Watch it all, and pray very hard that our children's children and our future generations will not be subjected to this hell when we are gone...

I was moved to tears of desperation, anger and sadness; tell me what you thought and felt, I'd like to know....

(h/t Charles Johnson via Michael van der Galien)

Converting To Islam At Gunpoint Is Harmless

"Martyrdom of St Erasmus" by Dieric Bouts the Elder ca.1458, Sankt Peterskerk, Louvain

 

Omri Ceren is one of my favorite bloggers. His own blog Mere Rhetoric is a must read, and he also co-bloggs @ Joe Katzman's estimable Winds Of Change. Today he sent me an e-mail, as usual hitting at the core and hitting hard with his brilliant post "Just Because You Were Forced at Gunpoint to Convert To Islam Doesn't Mean You Were Harmed In Any Way". Watch out for Omri, he is the new shining star of the Blogosphere 

We know we said we were done for today, but really, these people have just lost it:

Two journalists kidnapped in Gaza were released unharmed today after being forced at gunpoint to say on a videotape that they had converted to Islam. The two journalists from Fox News - Steve Centanni, 60, an American reporter based in Washington, and Olaf Wiig, 36, a freelance cameraman from New Zealand - were held for 13 days in an abandoned garage in the Gaza Strip as hostages of a previously unknown group calling itself the Holy Jihad Brigades.

You idiot! You total blistering idiot! Being forced to convert is a harm. It might be the oldest harm short of death - being forced to renounce your faith and your god. Millions of people - literally millions - have died rather than deign to utter words that would force them to give up their faith. No wonder liberal journalists are utterly baffled by fully half of the United States - they don't think having to give up your religion is harmful. We are beyond certain that if Muslim prisoners at Gitmo were forced to convert away from Islam as a condition of their release, the New York Times would not be putting the phrase "released unharmed" into their lede. Way beyond certain. There's a deeper explanation for how paragraphs like this can get written. It's not really bias, as much as it is the blind spots imposed by any ideology. And within that dynamic are questions about the degree of myopia and the room for self-reflection that particular ideologies allow. But don't worry about that right now. Just bask in the beauty of the phrase "forced at gunpoint to say... that they had converted to Islam... were released unharmed"

The liberals have replaced religion with politics, it's hardly surprising that they don't feel threatened by converting to Islam, after all politics is so all-defining and of such paramount importance to them that it defines who they are. Faithless is in, it's cool, it's liberating....into the abyss they go. But it is important for us to know that they are not afraid, that they are brave, that there is no imminent threat and that we are simply fear-mongering at best and bellicose at worst. Do we "need to return to the Iberian peninsula of the 14th and 15th century when the Inquisition forced conversion or the Herodian forced conversions that rent apart society for no purpose" to prove it? I sincerely hope not.

As I have now joined the elite ranks of anti-idiotarian bloggers who have been labeled "Nazis" for having the temerity to identify Islamofascists as the true heirs of the Third Reich, and a racist, a xenophobe, as well as of course an Islamophobe, for daring to be in favor of preserving our sovereignty, free of Shari'a oppression, and a bellicose Christian for having the audacity to advocate it vociferously, whilst still confirming my Christian beliefs, I feel the Democrats have now been uplifted to new dizzying heights of verbal lunacy as the elections approach and they desperately rummage around for scraps of policy to cling on to.

So now even keeping English as a unified language is racist. It seems like this verbal disease is spreading through the Democratic party, down from the very highest ranks, who have proven constitutionally incapable of reining in their superciliousness, and spreading the hyperbolic invectives through the ranks to the Democratic foot-soldiers, like a deadly virus. Have these people gone completely mad? According to my friend the gracious Neo-neocon, some time ago, anger is still in style on the left side of the world.

Who Is Émile Lahoud

 

A buffoon of the highest order, totally corrupt and a puppet figure for Assad's Syria, that's who he is.

This biographical quote is priceless:

According to The New York Times, Lahoud has a reputation for "lounging through most afternoons in his Speedos by the pool at the Yarze country club, reading Paris-Match magazine and holding a tanning mirror." The newspaper reported that Lahoud denied allegations that he went swimming on the day of Hariri's funeral. He told a group of journalists: "I swim every day — it's my workout — but on that specific day, I did not swim."

Well, not surprising, considering that he was the reason Rafik Hariri, the Prime Minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 until his resignation on 20 October 2004, was assassinated:

Hariri and others in the anti-Syrian opposition had questioned the plan to extend the term of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, emboldened by popular anger and civic action now being called Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution".

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a recent recruit of the anti-Syrian opposition, alleged in the wake of the assassination that in August 2004 Syrian President Bashar al-Assad threatened Hariri, saying "Lahoud is me. ... If you and Chirac want me out of Lebanon, I will break Lebanon." He was quoted as saying "When I heard him telling us those words, I knew that it was his condemnation of death." [...]

Mr. Hariri reminded Mr. Assad of his pledge not to seek an extension for Mr. Lahoud’s term, and Mr. Assad replied that there was a policy shift and that the decision was already taken. He added that Mr. Lahoud should be viewed as his personal representative in Lebanon and that “opposing him is tantamount to opposing Assad himself”. He then added that he (Mr. Assad) “would rather break Lebanon over the heads of [Mr.] Hariri and [Druze leader] Walid Jumblatt than see his word in Lebanon broken”.

Irish journalist Lara Marlowe with whom Hariri talked reported similar allegations. According to the testimonies, Mr. Assad then threatened both Mr. Hariri and Mr. Jumblatt with physical harm if they opposed the extension for Mr. Lahoud. The meeting reportedly lasted for ten minutes, and was the last time Mr. Hariri met with Mr. Assad. After that meeting, Mr. Hariri told his supporters that they had no other option but to support the extension for Mr. Lahoud. The Mission has also received accounts of further threats made to Mr. Hariri by security officials in case he abstained from voting in favor of the extension or “even thought of leaving the country”.

The Curse Of Success

"Moses and the Golden Calf" by Domenico Beccafumi 1536-37, Duomo, Pisa

 

My reader Mac Brachman points me to an interesting essay from Daniel Pipes, "How war is perceived has as much importance as how it actually is fought".

If Hezbollah manage to get away with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reportedly reaching a deal allowing Hezbollah to keep its weapons but refrain from exhibiting them in public, it may still be their biggest PR coup yet. Kofi Annan for his part is simply laying down playing his usual lame anti-Israel self, with the now additional self imposed amnesia taking hold, claiming that "dismantling Hizbullah is not the direct mandate of the UN." Israel may beg to differ.

Pipes says that Western Governments "need to see public relations as part of their strategy"; that Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations like Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood clearly do.

This is undoubtedly true. But the part that struck me is that it shouldn't be so.

Pipes tackles this issue indirectly by suggesting that "when West fights non-West, the outcome on the battlefield is a given. That settled in advance, the fighting is seen more like a police raid than traditional warfare. As in a police raid, modern wars are judged by their legality, the duration of hostilities, the proportionality of force, the severity of casualties, and the extent of economic and environmental damage." He cites Paul Kennedy's timeless essay "The Greates Superpower Ever", which portrays the US military as the "only one player on the field that counts."

We comprise slightly less than 5 percent of the world's population; but we imbibe 27 percent of the world's annual oil production, create and consume nearly 30 percent of its Gross World Product and spend a full 40 percent of ALL the world's defense expenditures. As I have noted, the Pentagon's budget is nowadays roughly equal to the defense expenditures of the next nine or 10 highest defense-spending nations-which has never before happened in history.

Again, undoubtedly true. But in order to understand why our leaders and those, who still know right from wrong, should not have to sell basic moral principals to large segments of the population, we need to dig deeper, past the symptoms to the cause.

Does Society Set The Standard For God's Law (BUMPED UP)

"Le Christ de Gala" by Salvador Dali 1978

 

Society does not set standard for God's law. God does not obligate nor encourage us to fulfill all our desires. Those desires that violate his laws must be controlled; and yet, where does that leave the question of homosexuality, which is considered an acceptable practice by many in our world today.

"Will gay debate tear the Church apart?" was the screaming headline on CNN's Larry King Live, featuring the first openly gay Episcopal Bishop in U.S. history, The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church, who appointed him, the clergy that oppose him, and....our own journalist/blogger Andrew Sullivan, who is Catholic and gay.

The ensuing debate was interesting as it centered around the premise that the truth is still unfolding:

"In the Gospels, Jesus says, 'I have many more things to say to you but you cannot bear them now,' which suggests to me that God's truth is always unfolding," Bishop Griswold said. "If we can accept that there are new truths that science brings us, or new discoveries in medicine, why is it when it comes to sexuality, there is no new truth?"

Bishop Griswold added: "A number of those most upset about our seemingly ignoring Scripture, though they are solidly heterosexual, have enjoyed the mercy of the church in the case of their own divorce and remarriage, which is something Jesus commented on."

Disingenuous Or Simply Ignorant

"St Jerome" by Caravaggio c. 1606, Galleria Borghese, Rome

 

Whether you want it or not, as a Muslim (secular and otherwise) you are automatically pulled into the debate on terrorism. Not that I don't want to discuss it, I do. But I want to discuss it as a citizen, not just a Muslim.

This statement struck me because it epitomizes the mindset of a vast majority of moderate Muslims (I am suspect of the term 'secular' for Islam expressly prohibits and excludes any notion thereof; it is in fact a contradiction in terms), both rich and poor, the world over. This time it is voiced by Anar Ali, a Canadian Muslim, who wrote a personal account in the NYT about her experiences growing up in a mixed cultural environment in Canada and how life changed post 911.

It struck me, because it is this demand from moderate Muslims to divorce their personal faith and religious practice from Islamic doctrine at large, it is this demand, which absolves the moderate Muslim from confronting the thorny issue of exploring whether or not it is in fact possible to reform Islam so that it may conform with their moderated beliefs and religious practices. 

As it stands, the separation is of course necessary for the moderate Muslim to both remain faithful and at the same time keep, should I say, inconvenient Islamic doctrines at arm's length; it allows the moderate Muslim to sit on the fence, as it were.

Anar Ali continues:

As a Muslim, people expect you to be an expert, to have special inside knowledge on the topic. They want your opinion on the issue, your help in explaining and analyzing complex political issues, the history of Islam, the psychology of suicide bombers.

And the moderate Muslim is happy to oblige, providing the distinction between individual faith and religious practice and Islamic doctrine as a whole is not only acknowledged, but furthermore it is established that the latter is discussed from the same perspective as the detached enquirer, looking in from the outside. And voilà, no responsibility, no obligation, just another bystander, and in the event of being singled out, just another victim of xenophobic bigotry.

It struck me because it seems to me that the moderate Muslim is in fact reducing the teachings of their holy Qur'an in large parts to no more than those of a history book or a collection of anecdotal tales.

Belief vs. Unbelief

"Saturn, Conquered by Amor, Venus and Hope" by Simon Vouet 1645-46, Musée du Berry, Bourges

 

"Peter Kreeft and those who agree with him are right: the gulf between belief and unbelief is more significant than any divisions between believers."

My dear friend Patrick O'Hannigan @ the The Paragraph Farmer couldn't have found a better quote to introduce me to his important rebuttal called "Thrust and parry: rebutting the professor"; a rebuttal of yet another uncouth drivel by our notoriously unhinged Law Professor (read 'Malkin Update' in that link), who this time is attempting to calumniate the Pope's visit to Auschwitz in Poland some days ago. 

USC law professor and blogger Eric Muller took strong exception to what the pope said at Auschwitz on May 28. Muller's argument, which earned a collegial link from InstaPundit, is interesting if not always informed, so I thought I'd present its salient points, together with my own observations and the more astute comments from people who visited his essay and took time to observe what he did not.

Muller starts with an ad hominem gambit, which to a guy like me is tantamount to shouting "en garde!"

His jibe: When the white smoke told the world that Josef Ratzinger had been elected pope, it took some of us a moment or two to get our minds around the idea that the College of Cardinals had elevated a childhood member of the Hitler Youth to one of the world's leading positions of moral leadership.

That Muller in the next sentence acknowledges that Ratzinger had been "no teenaged Nazi" does not dilute the weapons-grade disdain of that opening salvo. You'd never know from Muller’s essay that young Ratzinger had been an unwilling Hitler Youth, or that he later deserted from the German army into which he had been conscripted.

Muller's main disappointment with the pope's Auschwitz statement is that for him (and, to be fair, for a few others as well), it implies that Benedict's understanding of the Nazi chapter of modern German history “does not even rise to the level of the ordinary,” and this because (Muller says) “Ratzinger is out at the self-absolving fringes of his generation on the question of German responsibility for the crimes of the Third Reich.”

Ignorant fecklessness is an especially provocative charge to level at a moral and spiritual leader whom more than a billion people esteem as a shepherd of souls and successor to Peter, but there's more. Muller also claims that the pope “proved himself incapable of understanding the Holocaust as a crime against the Jews.”

The Constitution Promises Freedom Of Religion Not Freedom From Religion

Photo by the talented Shane J Montgomery

 

The Memorial Weekend is a time to remember....

Emily Zanotti @ American Princess has been waging a relentless war around the clock on behalf of The Thomas More Law Center, to keep the Mt. Soledad 43 foot tall stone Cross Monument up. Erected  in San Diego, California in 1954, it today honors veterans of World War I and II and the Korean War.

“In bitter irony, the very freedoms Captain Martino and Major Jerry Bloomfield died to protect are being perverted by the ACLU and atheists to deprive them and their grieving families the honor and solace they deserve,” said Richard Thompson, President of the Thomas More Law Center.

Emily, who is a fellow member of The Cotillion group of brilliant girl bloggers, tells me: "Last summer, after the city had voted to just tear down the cross and keep the land, the people of San Diego voted to hand over the land to the federal government, which would put the cross out of the reach of the ACLU (thanks to some quick thinking by Congress, the feds declared it a national monument), but the city still didn't want to give it up, and 76% voted to save the cross."

The 17-year vicious battle over whether religious symbols can be displayed on public land, has of course been fought against the dreaded ACLU, who have finally on May 3rd (how dare they spoil my Birthday) won an order against the City of San Diego to have the mountain top cross removed within 90 days or face a daily fine of $5, 000.

Now the fight picks up the pace, and Emily's concern grows stronger, as time is not on their side. The petition which hopes to achieve 100, 000 signatures this week, can be found here, together with a letter to be sent to the President, asking him to take the land under the federal government's powers of eminent domain:

Standing With Israel - The Birth Pangs Of An Important Alliance

 

IMPORTANT UPDATE AMIR TAHERI ISSUES A PRESS RELEASE

Marc Hess points me to a very interesting question and answer between KLo @ NRO and David Brog who is the author of "Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State". A former chief of staff to Pennsylvania Republican senator Arlen Specter, Brog explains that “the evangelical Christians who support Israel today are nothing less than the theological heirs of the righteous Gentiles who sought to save Jews from the Holocaust.”

As all of you who have been reading my blog know, I am a devout Christian and a staunch supporter of Israel, and obviously this subject interests me a great deal. I have always been fascinated why anti-Semitism is rife and there is so much global resentment directed at the Jewish population for rising from the ashes and making an incredible success of their lives. Or are we still harboring the centuries old gripe? Can we get over it already? Now if they could just get their land back...

It is inconceivable to me, that we are still debating whether we should have diplomatic relations with the Palestinian authority, when we are fully aware that they are a front for the Liberation of "Palestine".

Charles Moore asked a pertinent question not so long ago: "All I want to ask my fellow Europeans is this: are you happy to help direct the world's fury at the only country in the Middle East whose civilization even remotely resembles yours? And are you sure that the fate of Israel has no bearing on your own? In Iran, the new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes the link. The battle over Palestine, he says, is "the prelude of the battle of Islam with the world of arrogance", the world of the West. He is busy building his country's nuclear bomb."

I firmly believe that our resolve not to allow Islam and the law of Shari'a to bully its way into our haven of liberties, will play an integral role in strengthening the unity between Christians and Jews in this climate of apocalytptic uncertainty.

As Professor Bostom said: "A perverse, depressingly real-life scene from the “Wizard of Oz” fantasy is now unfolding in Western Europe. EU bureaucrats—playing the well-known aquiline-nosed, broomstick-riding character from movie version—have cast a spell (“Sleep…Sleep”) on their non-Muslim constituent Dorothys, Scarecrows, Tin Men and Cowardly Lions, hoping to keep them slumbering in fields of poisonous poppies. Regardless of whether they awaken, it may already be too late."

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Which Christians in the U.S. are most Zionist and why?

David Brog: The evangelicals. No contest. Their Zionism comes directly from their theology. But, as opposed to what most people think, this theology is driven by the biblical promises of the Book of Genesis, not the biblical prophecies of the Book of Revelations.

Lopez: Was there an event that made this alliance stronger? Has it always been under the radar?

Brog: Evangelical Christians largely shunned politics until the late 1970s, when Jerry Falwell created the Moral Majority and led them back onto the political playing field. Israel was among the priorities of the Christian Right from the start. In fact, when Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority he made support for Israel one of the group’s four organizing principles along with the issue of abortion, traditional marriage, and a strong U.S. defense.

While Israel was always important to evangelicals, a recent event did make Israel even more of a priority. On September 11, 2001, evangelicals recognized along with many other Americans that radical Islam was the greatest threat facing our country and that we were in a war with its proponents. And in this war, Israel is seen as an ally and as the first line of defense of Judeo-Christian civilization. Support for this embattled ally has moved to center stage.

The Christian Virtue Of Hope

"The Resurrection" by El Greco 1577-79, Church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo, Toledo

 

Today, as we Christians celebrate the Resurrection of our beloved Christ, I share with you all an essay written by my dear friend Kenny Pierce  specially for Easter Sunday at All Things Beautiful:

"The thing about Easter is that Gethsemane is part and parcel of it. The New Testament ties Christ’s glory directly to His suffering...and then it goes on to tie our glory to suffering.

...he humbled himself and became obedient, even to death on a cross. For this reason God has exalted him and given him the name that is above every name...
...I consider that our present sufferings are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us...
...we will share in his glory, if so be that we share in his sufferings...
...I fill up in my body what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ...
...they rejoiced that they had been counted worthy to share in the sufferings of Christ...

Alexandra and I have a Jewish friend whose value is above rubies; he has a deeper and more sympathetic understanding of Christianity than I can ever hope to have of Judaism, along with a generosity of spirit and humility that I find admirable in the highest degree. It is fascinating to me to see how the teachings of Christianity are reflected in the prism of my friend’s emotional reactions, which of course are quite different from my own in many respects – under ordinary circumstances the emotional reactions you get from non-Christians have actually very little to do with Christian doctrine because they are usually emotional reactions to something that your non-Christian friend thinks is Christian doctrine but in fact is not. To know a person of high character and good will who is not a Christian but whose emotional reactions to Christian doctrine are genuinely reactions to the actual doctrines themselves...well, if you are yourself a Christian then I hope that in your life you find even a single such friend, so that you can see yourself and religion from the outside, with both clarity and charity.

Our friend (the “Guest at the Feast”) and I both comment frequently over at Alexandra's salon of a blog, and some time ago he said in passing something along the lines of how he thought God was merciful enough not to require "the awful sacrifice of himself," or "the abhorrent sacrifice of himself," or something along those lines -- I don't remember the exact words but clearly the Guest feels revulsion toward the idea of the crucifixion as sacrificial atonement. I started to write up a refutation but refutation doesn’t often do either party much good and instead I decided to live, if I could, in his emotions for a while, to try to bring into focus what was the emotional disagreement rather than the factual one. Of course I doubt I really felt what our friend felt, but I could at least do him the honor of trying.

(Let me emphasize here that this is the first the Guest has heard about this -- I have a long list of things I'd love to hear the Guest talk about and this was pretty far down the list, and I hadn't gotten around to raising this particular subject with him. So you certainly ought not hold the Guest responsible for the feelings I attribute to him; they are the product of my imagination and probably he doesn't really feel that way at all. His casual remark was my point de depart, that's all; and this meditation is about Easter and suffering and hope, not really about the Guest.)

As I settled in, I found my thoughts running in familiar channels, for of course this is hardly the first time a non-Christian friend has expressed the opinion that the God of Christianity is an insufficiently merciful God, as a truly merciful God would not exact such a horrific revenge before agreeing to overlook sin. I have never known how to communicate effectively that the Christian God is simply a more extreme God than the God my non-Christian friends seem to imagine. The God of Christianity (biblical Christianity, I mean, not Jack Spong’s God of Ultimate Political Correctness) is a terrible, terrifying God: He is a God Who wipes out practically the whole human race at a stroke in a flood, Who swallows the evil in earthquakes, Who orders the Israelites to commit genocide because of the detestable practices of the doomed culture, Who strikes a man dead simply because he puts his hand on the Ark of the Covenant to steady it or simply because he claims to be donating the entire price of a field when he’s only donating most of it, Who curses the entire human race for the choices of a single man and a single woman, Whose Angel of Death kills the firstborn of all Egypt, Who rains fire and brimstone upon Sodom, Who hands His own people over to conquest and oppression because they defy His Law, Whose holiness is so intolerable that even Moses and Elijah must hide their faces from His glory lest they be consumed, and that Isaiah finds that a burning coal on his theretofore unclean lips is less torment than the sight of the Lord, the King of Glory.

The Guest, as well as most of my casually semi-religious Gentile friends who say things like “I believe in the New Testament God of love, not the Old Testament God of wrath,” seems to me not so much to underestimate how evil the human race is, as to underestimate how blazing and all-consuming is God’s holiness – and that His holiness is intrinsic to His nature and not something He can choose to set aside. The Passion and the Atonement make no sense unless you see that God Himself faced an intolerable dilemma because He cannot choose to be other than He is; and His holiness (for reasons beyond my understanding) requires atonement on the scale of His holiness; any atonement we could offer falls as far short of the atonement His holiness requires as our own holiness falls below His. Our God is a consuming fire, and dreadful it is to fall into His hands.

God’s Love Knows No Bounds

"Washing of Feet" by Giotto di Bondone 1304-06 Fresco, Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua, Italy

 

God’s love knows no bounds but can be refused as did Judas who valued Jesus in terms of power and success and for whom only power and success were real and love did not count.

Yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI performed the washing of the feet on 12 men. The deed that Jesus carried out is, in the Pontiff’s words, a gesture of love that knows no bounds, one that can be refused according to the Gospel’s tradition. “It is pride that fails to confess and acknowledge that we need purification. In Judas we see the nature of this refusal.”

Judas “values Jesus in terms of power and success. For him only power and success are real; love does not count. His greed for money is more important than communion with Jesus, more important than God and His love. And so he lies, double-crosses and breaks away from the truth. He lives in lies and loses the sense of the supreme truth of God. This way he becomes hardened, incapable of conversion and going back as a prodigal son, and throws away his destroyed life.”

In the gesture of “washing the feet” we see the “God’s holiness, which is not only an incandescent power before which we must pull back terrified, but is also the power of love and because of this is a purifying and healing power. God descends becoming slave; he washes our feet so that we can be at the table. The mystery of Jesus Christ is in all this. In this, what redemption is becomes clear. The bath in which we cleanse ourselves is his love readied to face death. Only love has this purifying strength that wipes away filth end elevates us to God’s heights. The bath that purifies us is He himself who gives Himself totally to us, as far as the depth of His suffering and death. He is continually this love that cleanses. In the Sacraments of purification—baptism and the sacrament of penitence—He is continually kneeling before our feet and serving us as a slave, [performing] the service of purification that makes us capable of God. His love is inexhaustible; it really goes on till the end.”

But today, “what does ‘washing of the feet, concretely mean? Every deed of goodness for our fellows, especially for the suffering and those held in low regard, is like the service of the washing of the feet. The Lord calls us to do this, step down [from our pedestal], learn to be humble, have the courage to be good and available to accept refusal, and yet trust goodness and persevere in it. But there is also a deeper dimension. The Lord wipes away our filth with the purifying force of his goodness. Washing one another’s feet means above all forgiving one another other tirelessly, always ready to start together anew even when it seems pointless. It means purifying one another by helping each other and accepting that others help us; [it means] purifying one another by giving each other the hallow strength of God’s word and introducing  ourselves to the Sacrament of Divine Love.”

Do You Fear Christian Theocracy In America?

"Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane" by Sebastiano Conca 1746, Pinacoteca, Vatican

 

Today is the day when we as Christians think of Christ our Lord, the fast approaching night of his betrayal, and The Passion that follows. Today is the day when our friends the Jews celebrate Passover, and are deep in prayer until sundown. David Bernstein @ The Volokh Conspiracy is running his first Passover Seder and introducing The Passover Bag.

Patrick O’Hannigan, one of my favorite bloggers and a dear friend, has written an excellent essay making a playful rendition of the idea of a Christian Theocracy in America, and how it might affect our every day life. I have always respected Patrick’s opinion and admired his vast Theological knowledge and his amazing ability to explore that knowledge in an ever thought provoking dialogue:

"[...] Some people fear George W. Bush not because his policies keep them up at night, but because the Christianity he brings without guile or apology to an under-dressed public square marks him as the chief scout for what they imagine is a theocracy coming soon to the United States. Anyone trying to confront this fear must come at it on two fronts, the personal and the political. [...]

George W. Bush has been refreshingly blunt about naming evil when he sees it, but he joins past presidents in standing foursquare for religious freedom, and his penchant for “reading people’s hearts” (as he said he’d done with erstwhile Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers) suggests that his administration’s policies are informed more by liberal pabulum than by rigid orthodoxy, even of the so-called “compassionate conservative” variety. Moreover, the president belongs to a Christian denomination that stresses personal rather than communal aspects of worship. Apart from these uniquely Bushian checks on megalomania, the idea of an American Christian theocracy must also be dismissed for political reasons, because American Christians are a fractious bunch. We can and do find common ground on many issues, but we might also thank the Founders for having spared us the drudgery of parliamentary forms that put a premium on coalition-building.

Were America to renounce secular mores in favor of some kind of constitutional theocracy, we Christians would have more work to do than linking hands to sing “what a friend we have in Jesus.” And a sizable number of us would warn anyone who cared to listen about the arrogance of trying to build the kingdom of heaven on earth. In other words, if hippies gave therapy a jump start by growing old enough to sell out to “the Man” and feel guilty about it, wait’ll you see what happens when people who belong to Christ realize that Uncle Sam demands more of their time.[...]

Is it any wonder that “godly government” ranks as one of those areas where, as Robert Browning famously put it, “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” All that said, it’s fun to speculate about what an American Christian theocracy might act like, in the extremely unlikely event that it ever came to pass.

The Gospel Of Judas

"The Holy Family with the infant St. John the Baptist (the Doni tondo)" by Michelangelo c.1506, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

 

An early Christian manuscript, including the only known text of what is known as the Gospel of Judas, has surfaced after 1,700 years. The text gives new insights into the relationship of Jesus and the disciple who betrayed him, scholars reported today. In this version, Jesus asked Judas, as a close friend, to sell him out to the authorities, telling Judas he will "exceed" the other disciples by doing so.

Though some theologians have hypothesized this, scholars who have studied the new-found text said, this is the first time an ancient document defends the idea.

The discovery in the desert of Egypt of the leather-bound papyrus manuscript, and now its translation, was announced by the National Geographic Society at a news conference in Washington. The 26-page Judas text is said to be a copy in Coptic, made around A. D. 300, of the original Gospel of Judas, written in Greek the century before.[...]

Unlike the accounts in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the anonymous author of the Gospel of Judas believed that Judas Iscariot alone among the 12 disciples understood the meaning of Jesus' teachings and acceded to his will. In the diversity of early Christian thought, a group known as Gnostics believed in a secret knowledge of how people could escape the prisons of their material bodies and return to the spiritual realm from which they came.

Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton who specializes in studies of the Gnostics, said in a statement, "These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion, and demonstrating how diverse — and fascinating — the early Christian movement really was."

Who Is Eligible For Salvation

The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio ca. 1601-02, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

 

This is a discussion I posted on New Year's Eve last year, which Stefan reminded me of the other day. It's an interesting subject, and one which is often whispered rather than spoken out loud. It sort of carries on from our popular debate  'Are Atheists America's Most Distrusted Minority'.

If you think about it for a moment, the most serious problems plaguing our world revolve around this very question: "Who is eligible for salvation".

Bob Wright, leads the charge:

According to the New Testament, Jesus was born as a sign of God's love for humanity--sent to Earth so that "whoever believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life," as the gospel of John puts it.

Over the years, this prerequisite for admission to heaven--believing that Christ died for your sins--has been a strong incentive to become or remain a Christian. But if God really loves humankind, shouldn't He let, say, a good Buddhist or Jew through the pearly gates?

God goes further than that, says Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete [formerly a physicist, a professor of theology at St. Joseph's Seminary in New York, and president of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico] in this clip from his meaningoflife.tv interview: even atheists are eligible for salvation.

This radical reinterpretation of scripture, Albacete notes later in the interview, has now become official Catholic doctrine (unbeknownst even to many Catholics). And it raises a question: Can the world's major religions coexist harmoniously without amending core beliefs--such as the belief that they've been blessed with a uniquely enlightening revelation?

CLICK BELOW FOR THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW

May the spark of knowledge and education, light the fire of reason and reasonableness, and root out the fanaticism all round. I love this man. Listen to this incredibly visionary priest, who is a very close friend of Pope Benedict XVI, and has amazing insight into the highest levels of the Catholic Church today. His open views may surprise many of you.

Are Atheists America's Most Distrusted Minority?

Magritte said in 1943 in reference to the occupying Nazis: "I am not very inclined to show "the pipe", which might be used as a pretext for shutting me up in a lunatic asylum." The painting represents his idea that "everything tends to suggest that there is little connection between an object and what it represents". The writing translated: "This is not a pipe"
"The Treachery of Images" by René Magritte 1929, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

 

I came across this strange study, which is due to come out in the April issue of the American Sociological review. It explores Americans' increasing acceptance of religious diversity as long as it does not extend to those who don’t believe in a God, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology.

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.

Edgell also argues that today’s atheists play the role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past—they offer a symbolic moral boundary to membership in American society. “It seems most Americans believe that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common ‘core’ of values that make them trustworthy—and in America, that ‘core’ has historically been religious,” says Edgell. Many of the study’s respondents associated atheism with an array of moral indiscretions ranging from criminal behavior to rampant materialism and cultural elitism.

Edgell believes a fear of moral decline and resulting social disorder is behind the findings. “Americans believe they share more than rules and procedures with their fellow citizens—they share an understanding of right and wrong,” she said. “Our findings seem to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good.”

The researchers also found acceptance or rejection of atheists is related not only to personal religiosity, but also to one’s exposure to diversity, education and political orientation—with more educated, East and West Coast Americans more accepting of atheists than their Midwestern counterparts.

It made me think of a subject we have not discussed here often - the subject of Atheists. We have of course had various religious and spiritual discussions, and have touched on it at various times, within those realms, but rarely as a subject on it's own.

"Thomas Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog") is said to have come up with the most famous defense of the atheist belief that life was created by chance, not God. In a debate at Oxford, he is reported to have stated that if enough monkeys randomly pressed typewriter keys for a long enough time, sooner or later Psalm 23 would emerge."

What Do The Democrats Believe?

 

Religion and the Democrats. Two words which have taken a beating when uttered simultaneously in recent times. In this post, I am going to break a few ATB ground rules, least of which is linking to Duncan 'Open Post' Atrios Black, and tell you an amusing story about a fight involving Democrats and Religion which has ensued, spreading like bushfire (to coin a phrase) and involving some of the biggest names in the liberal Blogosphere.

It all began, a couple of weeks ago, with an Amy Sullivan article in the Washington Monthly.

Followed by some "Knee Jerk God Baiting" by Digby.

I wonder who all the religious candidates we've unfairly scorned in the past would be? Jimmy Carter? Bill Clinton? (and no, having affairs does not mean you are not religious, just a sinner.) Al Gore? John Kerry? They all go to church and profess to be believers. Are they just not religious enough? Now, it's true that the knee-jerk left doesn't much care for Joe Lieberman but that's not because he's a religious man. It's because he is disloyal and enables the right wing. (We knee-jerk left wingers do tend to be dismissive of right wingers, that's true.)

I recall scorning both Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and neither one of them were particularly religious. Bobby Kennedy was a youthful hero and he was as catholic as they come. In fact, I'm having a hard time coming up with any consistent views on either side toward religious politicians at all. It would seem to me that this entire argument is nothing but a political football used to shut down criticism and advance a particular agenda without having to debate the issues on their own merits.

I hesitate to call this kind of lazy observation "religious correctness" because that gives the impression of an objection to rude derisive language about religion. This is something else. It's "God-baiting" designed to put any critic on the defensive if the person they are criticizing is religious. (The right, interestingly enough, is using this and its close cousin, race-baiting, very effectively these days. Nice to see people on "our side" helping them out --- again.)

Every secular "knee jerk liberal" has voted for religious candidates their whole lives. Indeed, it is impossible not to. You cannot get elected in this country if you do not profess religious belief. We have enthusiastically backed candidates who are from every religious tradition and from every region. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were both born again, southern evangelicals. We do not scorn religious candidates, period.

Many of us knee-jerk leftists are hostile to those who want to use the state to dictate the proper social attitudes of its citizens and interfere in their most personal, private decisions, that's true. I would scorn Pat Robertson and Sam Brownback's ideas no less if they were secular. It's the lack of respect for the division of influence between the private and public sphere's that is causing the problem.[...]

Who scorns who again? Perhaps some of these religious politicans could speak to the flock about giving some respect to the non-faithful. It's the Christian thing to do.

Pope John Paul II's Secret Files

"Portrait of Pope Paul III" by Titian ca. 1543, Cathedral Museum, Toledo

 

"There are over 50 miles of secret police files at the Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej -- IPN) in Warsaw and its branches throughout Poland. Among other things, one can find there US army counterintelligence manuals, accounts on American leftists cozying up to the Communists, surveillance records of US diplomats and visitors, including compromising pornographic material, files of CIA spies captured by the Communists, and numerous reports on “The Main Enemy”: the United States of America. Most of the files, however, concern Poland and the Poles. They show how, for half a century, the Communist secret police endeavored to control and terrorize an overwhelmingly Christian population. No one was immune, not even the most prominent son of Poland, Pope John Paul II.

Here’s a story about a single case of the secret police active measures against Karol Wojtyla. The agent involved was Father Konrad Stanisław Hejmo, a Dominican priest. His code name during the initial courting period was “Dominik”. After his recruitment his secret police pseudonym was “Hejnał” (Signal). It appears that, technically, Hejmo never signed an affidavit formalizing his status as a secret collaborator (tajny współpracownik -- TW). Instead, he was classified as “operational contact” (kontakt operacyjny). Hejmo’s recruiter and case officer was Colonel Wacław Głowacki of the Security Service (Służba Bezpieczeństwa SB). The Colonel was with the 5th Section of the IV (anti-Church) Department of the Ministry of Interior (MSW). Later, after 1982, the agent was transferred to the civilian intelligence at the II Department of the MSW.

Over 700 pages of documents and several magnetic tape spools of recordings reflect the volume and quality of Father Hejmo’s work. The contacts between the agent and the secret police date most likely to 1973. At that time, the priest worked to launch a Dominican periodical On the Way (W drodze). By approaching the SB, Hejmo intended to ease oppressive Communist censorship regulations and paper distribution limitations for his publication. The relationship became more formal in November 1975. At the end of the following year, the SB opened up his file of a “candidate for a secret collaborator.” Next, they registered him as a full fledged TW but strangely enough, in violation of their own rules, never asked him to fill out the appropriate paperwork.

Father Hejmo informed his secret police handlers not only about Karol Wojtyła, both before and after his elevation to the Throne of St. Peter, but also about Radio Free Europe, anti-Communist intellectuals, and dissident Catholic priests, including Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, who was subsequently murdered by the SB. Further, Father Hejmo wrote pro-Communist articles in the Church publication On the Way. He condemned the anti-regime activities of his fellow Dominicans, for instance during the 1977 hunger strike in solidarity with the Czech dissidents. Hejmo’s reports were supposedly made available to Colonel Tadeusz Grunwald of the so-called “D” Group (Disintegration -- Dezintegracja) of the IV Department of the MSW to implement active measures against Christian faith in general and dissident priests and lay activists in particular. Grunwald’s men specialized in black propaganda, malicious gossip, and forgeries. The objective of the Group was to destroy the Faith by creating and exacerbating conflict within the Church.

God vs. Allah

Abdullah Al Araby

Both Christians and Muslims share belief in a sovereign Deity who is one, heavenly, spiritual, the creator of heaven and earth and the judge of all mankind. Christians call Him "God" and Muslims call Him "Allah". One may thus presume that the attributes of God and Allah are the same.  A careful examination of the matter, however, will prove that it is not exactly so.

Muslim activists in the West have been using the tactic of claiming that they worship the same god as the Christians in order to gain legitimacy and acceptance. They have been using the name "God" in place of "Allah" in many translations of the Qur'an.

There is nothing new under the sun! This reminds us of what happened 14 centuries ago. When Mohammed started preaching his new religion in Mecca he was conciliatory and appeasing to Christians. He told them: "We believe in What has been sent down to us and sent down to you, our God is the same as your God." Surah 29:46. Compare this with what happened later, in Medina, after Mohammed gained strength. Allah then tells him to "Fight those who believe not in God nor the last day...Nor acknowledge the religion of truth (Islam), (even if they are) of the people of the Book, until they pay Jizya (tribute tax) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued". Surah 9:29

However, the attributes of "God of Christianity" and "Allah of Islam" are quite different. God of the Bible is loving and personal, Allah, on the other hand, is wrathful and non-personal.

THE GOD OF CHRISTIANITY

Christianity believes in a one triune God, while Islam rejects this concept as blasphemous.

"They do blaspheme who say Allah is one of three in a Trinity, for there is no god except One Allah". Surah 5:73

The reason behind Islam's rejection of the concept of the triune God is a misunderstanding of the real meaning behind it. It seems that Islam's understanding of the Trinity was derived from a Christian heresy which existed in Arabia at the time of Mohammed.

This heresy taught a trinity consisting of God the Father, God the Mother (the Virgin Mary), and God the Son (Jesus). The Qur'an says:

"And behold! God will say: O Jesus the son of Mary didst thou say unto men, worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of Allah? He (Jesus) will say: Glory to thee, never could I say what I had no right (to say)". Surah 5:116

Christians, in fact, believe in one God who has made Himself manifest in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus declared this doctrine when He instructed His disciples, saying:

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost".Matthew 28:19 & 20

The Father

Islam doesn't know the loving Fatherhood of God. That intimate relationship with God is foreign to Islam and condemned by the Qur'an.

"(Both) the Jews and the Christians say, 'We are sons of Allah and His beloved'. Say: why then doth He punish you for your sins? Nay, you are but men of the men He has created". Surah 5:18

God Will Be My Judge

Daily Kos 'The Evil Puppeteer'

 

What are we supposed to do when we hear Daily Kos sullying Tony Blair when completing the distortion begun in this article published by The Independent today, which reports that:

Tony Blair has proclaimed that God will judge whether he was right to send British troops to Iraq, echoing statements from his ally George Bush.

Contradicting warnings from advisers not to mix politics and religion, the Prime Minister said that his interest in politics sprang from his Christianity and its "values and philosophy" had guided him in public life.

And what does the chief marketing officer of John Kerry's campaign have to say, linking to the identical article?

Tony Blair proclaims God led him to invade Iraq.

Is it my turn now to say: "Lies, lies, lies"? Finally it turns into "blasphemy"

The Daily Kos carries on with the mud slinging, taking a wider shot:

Too much wingnuttery for one day. Via Atrios, we learn Missouri is considering a bill making Christianity the state's official religion. Mississippi is set to follow in South Dakota's footsteps and ban almost all abortions.
[The abovementioned Tony Blair comment]
In Kentucky, state legislators are asked to go on record as to whether they've "accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior."  Separation of church and what again?

You are a poor excuse for a blogger Markos, and should be joining the ranks of The New York and LA Times, as a prime story spinner.

Some good blogging from my friend Tom Maguire: "God Lied, People Died", quoting amongst others the NYT who take the Blair criticism to a higher level.

Michelle Malkin notices our deconstruction of the new demagoguery.

The BBC have a transcript from the Blair - Parkinson interview. scheduled to be aired tonight.

Ann Althouse as usual cuts to the chase: "Worrying about Blair's slight reference to religious belief shows either an aversion to religion or the usual pointless grasping for political arguments."

As I have said before the left hates the President more than it fears al-Qaeda, or loves liberty, and when it comes to the UK's Prime Minister Tony Blair, he may be Labour, but supporting President Bush makes him an immediate enemy.

FromThe Daily Kos:

The fact that the Republicans, like All Things Beautiful, have gotten to the point where they get hysterical at the slightest sign of dissent shows how desperate they have become. The fact that Tony Blair claims that he has a hotline to God shows how desperate and insecure he and the rest of the Bush apologists have become as the failure of the War in Iraq is becoming more and more obvious to all.

The above was also cross posted at TPM Cafe.

The Sin Of Racism

 

It all started with going over to Baron Bodissey's great blog Gates Of Vienna, a favorite of mine, to research my previous post of the day about Islamberg In New York. I glanced over at the comments in the 'Dhimmocracy In America' and laughed, because I realized that the accusation of racism and Islamophobia is a commonly detonated gratuitous attack on the right leaning bloggers, and that far from being an exception, my blog's liberal commenters have become the cry for recognition of what has become the liberal norm.

Through reading this exchange, I came across a post written by the talented wife and blogging partner of Bodissey's, Dymphna, on her own blog, giving plenty of food for thought and discussion:

"The downward spiral of the Episcopal Church in its rush to irrelevance can nowhere be seen more clearly than in the enormous amount of leadership energy now spent on 1970's-style consciousness raising. Periodically, congregations are subjected to yet more hortatory about the need for right thinking. Once again, congregations are shown to be lagging behind the bureaucracy: whether it be race or gender or Palestine, Episcopalians have to be in line with whatever the politically correct thinking is at the moment.

Surely there is not a white Episcopalian left who has not discovered with great personal dismay his own covert racist thinking? Right? As a racism workshop facilitator once said, "if you're white, you're wrong." This facilitator also told his audience that it's inherently impossible, given the racist culture in America, for a black person to be racist. How's that for the ultimate in condescension?

My bona fides: I am white, but I live in a black community. I was married in a black church. Back when it was authentically cross-cultural, I was a member of the NAACP. In fact, we have some black people in our family.

Those who would condemn others for their failures to think correctly simply don't understand the hard-wiring in the human soul. We are born with a capacity to prefer our own kind. Watch any child encounter a stranger and you can experience the primitive startle effect that leads to a preference to be with one's own. This inclination toward the known is neither sinful nor wrong; it is human.

Game theory has shown that when members of a community are left to their own devices, groups of similars will collect or 'bunch' together. It is not deliberate segregation, it is congregation. Ask the black students on any campus who they prefer to hang with. And then ask them if this preference is racist.

In the continuing rush to right thinking, it is the children who lose out. The Law of Unintended Consequences is easily seen in the effects on children of both no-fault divorce and mandated diversity. The idea that culture can be sorted out and regulated is surely one of the most pernicious legacies from the 20th century. It is past time to move beyond this dated, statist thinking.

I'll be the first in line when a commission is formed to investigate the harm which accrues to children from illegitimacy and illiteracy. With all the oxygen in the room being consumed by correct thinking, though, it seems there isn't any left over for the kids. Bill Cosby had it right when he said the main problems facing black children have nothing to do with racism and everything to do with poor decisions. Now whose fault is that?

We are Christ's people. We need to be about our Father's business and we already have a Creed to tell us what that business is. The statements of Fr. Kelly's Creed - the ones that begin with an individual examination of guilty conscience and ends with a call for a permanent national Episcopal committee on racism - are jarringly wrong-headed. How about a national committee to make illiteracy uncool? That would be both Christian and cogent. How about a church which devotes its energy to strengthening the good rather than a church which is compelled to wallow in its own sinfulness? If I wanted to be a Calvinist, I would not have chosen to be an Episcopalian.

Once upon a time, the Episcopal Church was at the forefront of educating children to the fact of their individual free will and their membership, via Baptism, in the City of God. Now it seems that we stand only for the further balkanization by race which has so grievously retarded our culture.

Race and ethnicity are accidental. They are not instrumental in our salvation."

On a funnier note my good friend Kenny Pierce (check him out in the comments bellow), just reminded me of a post I wrote a long while back called 'You Just Need To Walk Away', which was about an accusation of racism, an accusation directed at my two blogging friends, Ed Morrissey and Jeff Goldstein, in the days when I was still a freshman blogger thinking that this was a grave accusation and rare. I have since come to realize that the word is brandished in the Blogosphere at every given opportunity and used as an excuse to accuse rather than an argument.

Raptured Away

 

I would like to invite you to debate the so called "special political relationship between the Israeli right and the Evangelicals in the US" in context of the dispensational model, which proposes that a time of turmoil is lying ahead, but that born again Christians will be "raptured" away before it begins. I am particularly interested to know what impact in your opinion, if any, contemporary dispensational thinking might have on foreign policies concerning the Middle East at large and Jerusalem in particular in the coming years.

The alliance between the Israeli right and the Evangelicals is said to have really taken off in 1977, when, after three decades of Labor rule in Israel, Menachem Begin became the first Prime Minister from the conservative Likud Party. But first some more detailed background:

The establishment of Israel in 1948 gave dispensationalism new momentum. The restoration of a Jewish nation was taken as a sign that the clock of biblical prophecy was ticking and we were rapidly approaching the final events leading to the return of Jesus. During the cold war, dispensationalists readily interpreted the Soviet Union and its allies as the Antichrist. Passages such as Ezekiel 38-39 were read as predictions of an impending Soviet attack on Israel. A ten-member confederation--often interpreted as the European Union--was expected to join the Soviet Union in this attack.

When Israel captured Jerusalem in the 1967 war; dispensationalists were certain that the end was near. L. Nelson Bell, Billy Graham's father-in-law and editor of Christianity Today, wrote in July 1967: "That for the first time in more than 2,000 years Jerusalem is now completely in the hands of the Jews gives the student of the Bible a thrill and a renewed faith in the accuracy and validity of the Bible."

By the early 1970s numerous books, films and television specials publicized the premillennial dispensationalist perspective. Hal Lindsay made a virtual industry out of his book The Late Great Planet Earth: it sold more than 25 million copies and led to two films, as well as a consulting business with a clientele that has included several members of Congress, the Pentagon, and Ronald Reagan.

In the mid 1970s at least five trends converged that accelerated the rise of Christian Zionism. First, evangelical and charismatic movements became the fastest-growing branch of North American Christianity. Mainline Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church were declining both in budgets and attendance.

The election of Jimmy Carter; a Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher; to the presidency in 1976 increased the visibility and legitimacy of the once-marginalized evangelical movement. Time magazine declared 1976 "the year of the evangelical." Still, the mainstream media seemed confused by the various traditions and polarities within the complex evangelical movement, failing to distinguish between the diverse political and theological voices clamoring to claim the term "evangelical" for their particular viewpoint.

Israel's occupation of Arab lands after 1967 created tension between many Jewish organizations and the mainline Protestant, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic communities. Many Jewish organizations, particularly lobbying groups such as the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), turned to the growing evangelical community for support. As Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum of the American Jewish Committee stated, "The evangelical community is the largest and fastest-growing bloc of pro-Jewish sentiment in this country." AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) added staff to focus on relationships with evangelicals and fundamentalists. The Israeli ministry of tourism eyed evangelicals as a major new market for Holy Land tours and thus a source of revenue.

The fourth factor that stimulated the emerging evangelical Christian Zionist movement's political agenda was the election of Menachem Begin as Israel's prime minister in May 1977. Prior to Begin's election, Israeli politics had been dominated by the secular Labor Party. Begin's Likud Party was dominated by hard-line military figures such as Raphael Eitan and Ariel Sharon, and supported by the increasingly powerful settler movement and by small Orthodox religious parties. Likud constituencies used the biblical names "Judea and Samaria" for the West Bank and employed a religious argument to justify Israel's confiscation of Arab land for settlements: since God gave the land exclusively to Jews, they have a divine right to settle anywhere in Eretz Israel. Evangelicals welcomed the Likud leaders and endorsed their political and religious agendas.

The final development that accelerated the alliance between Likud and the Religious Right was Carter's March 1977 statement that he supported Palestinian human rights, including the "right to a homeland." Likud, when it came to power just two months later; immediately reached out to Christian evangelicals. Likud's strategy was simple: split evangelical and fundamentalist Christians from Carter's political base and rally support among conservative Christians for Israel's opposition to the United Nations' proposed Middle East Peace Conference.

Within weeks, full-page advertisements appeared in major U.S. newspapers stating, "The time has come for evangelical Christians to affirm their belief in biblical prophecy and Israel's divine right to the land." Targeting Soviet involvement in the UN conference, the ad went on to say: "We affirm as evangelicals our belief in the promised land to the Jewish people . . . . We would view with grave concern any effort to carve out of the Jewish homeland another nation or political entity."

And to increase your bloodpressure (reach for those pills before you read), Vanity Fair published in its December issue a sensationalist article by Carig Unger under the heading American "Rapture". You know Unger of course, Daily Kos' and Micheal Moore's hero, who penned the controversial book House of Bush, House of Saud, which was also featured in Fahrenheit 9/11.

Deconstructing Pope Benedict XVI

Second Version Of  'Study For The Red Pope 1962' by Francis Bacon 1971

 

Previously on ATB:

"Now Pope Benedict XVI has let it be known that he does not believe Islam can reform. This we learn from the transcript of a radio interview with [Hugh Hewitt and] one of Pope Benedict's students and friends, Father Joseph Fessio, SJ, the provost of Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida, posted on the Asia Times Online forum by a sharp-eyed reader. For the Pope to refute the fundamental premise of US policy is news of inestimable strategic importance, yet a Google News scan reveals that not a single media outlet has taken notice of what Fessio told his interviewer Hugh Hewitt last week. No matter: still and small as Pope Benedict's voice might be, it carries further than earthquake and whirlwind.

Father Fessio described a private seminar on the subject of Islam last year at Castel Gandolfo, the Papal summer residence:

The main presentation by this Father [Christian] Troll was very interesting. He based it on a Pakistani Muslim scholar [named] Rashan, who was at the University of Chicago for many years, and Rashan's position was Islam can enter into dialogue with modernity, but only if it radically reinterprets the Koran, and takes the specific legislation of the Koran, like cutting off your hand if you're a thief, or being able to have four wives, or whatever, and takes the principles behind those specific pieces of legislation for the 7th century of Arabia, and now applies them, and modifies them, for a new society [in] which women are now respected for their full dignity, where democracy's important, religious freedom's important, and so on. And if Islam does that, then it will be able to enter into real dialogue and live together with other religions and other kinds of cultures.

And immediately the holy father, in his beautiful calm but clear way, said, well, there's a fundamental problem with that because, he said, in the Islamic tradition, God has given His word to Mohammed, but it's an eternal word. It's not Mohammed's word. It's there for eternity the way it is. There's no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it, whereas in Christianity, and Judaism, the dynamism's completely different, that God has worked through his creatures [emphasis added]. And so it is not just the word of God, it's the word of Isaiah, not just the word of God, but the word of Mark. He's used his human creatures, and inspired them to speak his word to the world, and therefore by establishing a church in which he gives authority to his followers to carry on the tradition and interpret it, there's an inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted and applied to new situations.

Hugh Hewitt then asked Father Fessio, "And so the Pope is a pessimist about that changing, because it would require a radical reinterpretation of what the Qur'an is?" Fessio replied, "Yeah, which is it's impossible, because it's against the very nature of the Qur'an as it's understood by Muslims.""

We now discover via Hugh Hewitt, the letter written by Father Joseph Fessio to the Washington Times, which more or less serves as a partial retraction of the previous statement he made on Hugh's show, which for obvious reasons caused a huge amount of controversy in some circles. In others, like this blog, it was a welcome sign of recognition and a surprising admission of the true feelings of Pope Benedict on the hot button subject of Islam being "incapable of reformation".

Jesus Christ On Trial In Italy

'The Incredulity of St.Thomas' by Caravaggio ca.1601, at the Neues Palais, Potsdam

Atheist Luigi Cascioli alleges Jesus never existed in his book, 'The Fable of Christ'

A small Italian town is expected to be the epicenter of worldwide focus this week as legal proceedings begin in a lawsuit over the existence of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Viterbo, Italy, north of Rome, is the venue where Rev. Enrico Righi is being sued by his childhood friend, atheist Luigi Cascioli, for deceiving people into thinking Jesus was an actual historical figure.

"This complaint does not wish to contest the freedom of Christians to profess their faith, sanctioned by [article] 19 of the Italian Constitution," says Cascioli, "but wishes to denounce the abuse that the Catholic Church commits by availing itself of its prestige in order to inculcate – as if being real and historical – facts that are really just inventions."

The author of "The Fable of Christ" claims the priest violated local laws against deception when he stated in a 2002 parish gazette "that the historic figure of Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary (two totally imaginary characters and therefore historically non existing); of having the same Jesus been born in the village of Bethlehem and of having grown up in Nazareth."

Lawyers for Righi are slated to appear in court Friday to discuss preliminary motions on evidence proving the historicity of the man who is now worshipped as God by millions of Christians across the globe.

On his website, Cascioli alleges the person as Jesus is "for the most part based on the figure of John of Gamala, son of Judas, downright descendant of the Asmoneian stock."

Rev. Righi says the existence of Jesus is "unmistakable" due to a wealth of both pagan and Christian evidence pointing to his reality.

"Cascioli maintains that Christ never existed. If he doesn't see the sun at midday, he can't denounce me just because I do. He should denounce all believers!" Righi told the London Times recently.

Among his examples are the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, thought by scholars to be the most important non-Christian source on the issue. In one of his passages of "Jewish Antiquities," a work completed in A.D. 93, mentions the execution in A.D. 62 of "the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, James by name."

Cascioli declares he is not intent on having the matter be decided by a court of law, saying, "I wrote to [Righi] an open letter, stating that I would withdraw the lawsuit if he were capable of supplying proof, just one proof, of the historical existence of Jesus."

Cascioli has since turned to Archbishop Giacomo Biffi of Bologna, Italy, to avoid the appearance of picking on a poor, local cleric.

In an open letter to the archbishop, Cascioli writes: "In the certainty that you are fully aware of how much more damaging any further silence, the silence of a bishop would be for the Church, than that of a lowly country parish priest, I have nothing else to do, but wait for your proof of the existence of Jesus, called The Christ. Proof that, besides satisfying your two diocesan followers and relieving don Enrico Righi of his legal obligations, would spare the Church a probable catastrophe."

The Virus Of Faith?

Richard Dawkins is the world's most famous out-of-the-closet living atheist. He is also the world's most controversial evolutionary biologist. Publication of his 1976 book, "The Selfish Gene," thrust Dawkins into the limelight as the handsome, irascible, human face of scientific reductionism. The book provoked everything from outrage to glee by arguing that natural selection worked its creative powers only through genes, not species or individuals. Humans are merely "gene survival machines," he asserted in the book.

Dawkins stuck to his theme but expanded his territory in such subsequent books as "The Blind Watchmaker," "Unweaving the Rainbow," and "Climbing Mount Improbable." His recent work, "The Ancestor's Tale," traces human lineage back through time, stopping to ponder important forks in the evolutionary road.

Once again, evolution is under attack. Are there any questions at all about its validity?

It's often said that because evolution happened in the past, and we didn't see it happen, there is no direct evidence for it. That of course is nonsense, in the story of evolution, the clues are a billion-fold.

In his latest work, which made me reach for my blood pressure medicine, the dubbed "Darwin's Rottweiler" Dawkins, calls religion a "virus" and faith-based education "child abuse" in a two-part series he wrote and appears in that begins airing on the UK's Channel 4, beginning tomorrow evening. Dawkins explains why God is a delusion, religion is a virus, and America has slipped back into the  Dark Ages.

Who Is Eligible For Salvation

The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio ca. 1601-02, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

If you think about it for a moment, the most serious problems plaguing our world revolve around this very question: "Who is eligible for salvation".

Bob Wright, leads the charge:

According to the New Testament, Jesus was born as a sign of God's love for humanity--sent to Earth so that "whoever believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life," as the gospel of John puts it.

Over the years, this prerequisite for admission to heaven--believing that Christ died for your sins--has been a strong incentive to become or remain a Christian. But if God really loves humankind, shouldn't He let, say, a good Buddhist or Jew through the pearly gates?

God goes further than that, says Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete [formerly a physicist, a professor of theology at St. Joseph's Seminary in New York, and president of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico] in this clip from his meaningoflife.tv interview: even atheists are eligible for salvation.

This radical reinterpretation of scripture, Albacete notes later in the interview, has now become official Catholic doctrine (unbeknownst even to many Catholics). And it raises a question: Can the world's major religions coexist harmoniously without amending core beliefs--such as the belief that they've been blessed with a uniquely enlightening revelation?

Here is the complete interview:

Given the events of this year past, I feel it is a befitting subject for the last day of the year. Even more so, in an utopian sort of way, it certainly sets the tone for the New Year.

With that I wish you all a very Happy New Year. May the spark of knowledge and education, light the fire of reason and reasonability and root out the fanaticism all round.

God Bless.

Merry Christmas To The Blogosphere (OPEN THREAD)

'My Christmas Tree', photograph taken at my home on December 23rd 2005

 

There is much for me to do today, as my family celebrates Christmas eve, and so there will be very light  blogging this weekend. However please feel free to drop in and post comments any time, I shall be here to welcome you whatever time you pop by and to discuss whatever pleases you.

I wish you all, my wonderful faithful readers, and all the Bloggers in the Blogosphere, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Hannukah.

To those of you that do not celebrate, I simply wish you all a very Merry and Joyous Christmas.

With all my love and the biggest and warmest Christmas hug,

God Bless You All, and keep you safe,

Alexandra,
The Author of the Politically Incorrect Blog 'All Things Beautiful'

As promised, I am sharing with you, the breathtaking Bach-Gounod's 'Ave Maria' performed by Leontyne Price, which I am listening to right now:

The President's Christmas Address

Related links from my blog: The Power And Privilege Of Prayer  Theology Matters  Is The Holy Trinity A Doctrine Of Monotheism

Sign a Christmas card to our troops @ Ed Morrissey's Captain's Quarters, Hugh Hewitt gives us a late Christmas present, and Mary Katherine Ham does some interesting post Christmas catching up, Michelle Malkin has a Christmas round up,  our darling Anchoress is reading from the scriptures, Siggy has a wonderful and extremely profound 'mystery of life' post, California Conservative, Joe @ The Heretik reminds us of a Blue Christmas,  La Shawn Barber, David @ Third World County here and here with some lovely Christmas music,  Bill @ Daily Pundit is cooking, Beth has a great Christmas card for the servicemen, The Right Nation, The Real Ugly American reminds us of our soldiers, Kevin @ Wizbang has the cutest photo of his boys 'The Three Musketeers', Jeff H. @ Think Sink has a soldier's tale, George @ Alamo Nation, The Glittering Eye has great Christmas links, Basil's Blog, Adam's Blog has an extensive Christmas round-up, Jay @ Stop the ACLU  Marcus @ Blogger Beer has Week XVI NFL Predictions Riehl World View Neo-neocon has a delicious Lebkuchen recipe  

The Power And Privilege Of Prayer

One of my favorite Old Master drawings of all time by Albrecht Dürer ' Study of an Apostle's Hands (Praying Hands)' ca. 1508

This post is dedicated to my dear friend @ Media Lies.

I am angry. I fell hatred in my heart. My stomach is knotted, and my throat is choked with fury...

But I am not yet as blinded by my rage so as to shut out a quiet voice deep within, reminding me of what I must do.

Go somewhere where I am alone and out of sight; close my eyes and fold my hands and begin to pray:

                    " Our Father which art in heaven,
                          Hallowed be thy name.
                            Thy kingdom come.
                         Thy will be done in earth,
                             as it is in heaven.
                       Give us this day our daily bread
                        And forgive us our trespasses,
                              as we forgive those
                           who trespass against us.
                       And lead us not into temptation,
                            but deliver us from evil:
                           For thine is the kingdom,
                         and the power, and the glory,
                                forever and ever.
                                       Amen."

As I am whispering the words, I immediately feel the easing calm restoring my peace and inner equilibrium. It feels like millions of sun-rays warming my skin after sitting for hours in a damp shady place, body and limbs frozen stiff.

I continue to pray for guidance and reaffirming my surrender to His Will. My pulse is back to normal, stomach soft and throat cleared. I breathe deeply once or twice, stand just a bit taller, and smile.

Ah, what a power it is, what an awesome effect the power of prayer has.

May God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

The Victory Of 'Lost Innocence'

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Today I have had the best news ever!

For those of you who may not have followed my ardent support for my hero Professor Larry Lessig, in his quest to fight for the justice of the abused alumni of The American Boychoir School, in my two articles 'Run Silent Run Deep' back in August, and the latest 'Lost Innocence', I will attempt to give you some background, but if you have time, I would suggets you read at least the latter of the two articles above.

As head boy at this legendary choir school, Professor Lawrence Lessig was repeatedly molested by Donald Hanson, the charismatic choir director, part of a horrific pattern of child abuse at The American Boychoir School. Now, as one of America’s most famous lawyers, he has put his own past on trial to make sure such a thing never happens again.

The Declaration of War on Christmas

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My feelings about this outrage are best expressed in this image.

Let me say this out loud and clear: "I am a devout Christian".

"...Attacks on Christmas dominate today's headlines – judges banning nativity scenes, retailers renaming Christmas trees "Holiday trees," schools forbidding children from singing Christmas carols and even banning the colors red and green!

It almost sounds funny, but only if you're not aware of the powerful, malevolent currents beneath the "grinch-who-stole-Christmas" stories. As WND's monthly Whistleblower reveals in its spine-straightening December issue, a lot more than Christmas is at stake – Christianity itself is being undermined and attacked with increasing frequency and venom.

In the book "Criminalizing Christianity", Whistleblower reveals the length, width and breadth of attacks on Christianity – those happening now, and those just around the corner – and not just in Communist and Islamic nations where religious persecution is rampant, but right here in the U.S.

"This has become more than a seasonal witch hunt by the ACLU," said WND Editor and founder Joseph Farah. "The attacks on Christianity in America are alarming. We are witnessing more than religious bigotry now. We are entering the early stages of what could become persecution and outright criminalization of Christianity if it is not exposed and fought vigorously by all freedom-loving people."
Perhaps the most stunning revelation in this issue of Whistleblower is the extent of the attacks on Christianity in the U.S.

"It's chillling," said WND Managing Editor David Kupelian. "Our nation's founding religion is being attacked as never before. The Constitution is being twisted out of all recognition, history is being rewritten, and Christian teachings and observances are being shut out and shut up. And while we sit around watching this helplessly, we're bequeathing a different America to our children. It's time for people to wake up."

Now, the December edition of Whistleblower gives Americans the information they need, not only to understand the problem, but to effectively fight back.

RightMarch asks: "...So what exactly is going on? As Bill O'Reilly noted on FoxNews, "There is an anti-Christian bias in this country, and it is more on display at Christmas season than any other time." It's the same attitude toward Christianity as that held by Michael Newdow, who wants to ban "In God We Trust" from our currency and "under God" from our Pledge of Allegiance.

There IS a War On Christmas. Take a look at a few of the most blatant examples:

Is The Holy Trinity A Doctrine Of Monotheism (OPEN THREAD UPDATED)

OPEN THREAD GUYS....WEIGH IN....

UPDATE DEC. 3RD: Well when I said that on Tuesday little did I know that we would all be utterly consumed by this for four days now, going into the fifth.

UPDATE DEC 5TH: Make that seven days and going strong!

UPDATE DEC 8TH: Onto the tenth day now...

UPDATE DEC 17TH: Comments are still trickling in.....nineteenth day....

As Kenny Pierce who has been in the very throes of it said: "You could spend a month trying to recruit a panel of people of wildly diverse views, high brainpower, and deep mutual respect and courtesy, and not come close to what you've got in that comments section right now."

Sigmund Carl & Alfred has written already two whole posts inspired by this subject (check the TrackBacks below) having personally participated in the comments section, whilst I have not even managed to get my head out of there the entire time, neglecting my readers terribly.

Media Lies who has been very much involved in the discussion having been the rock of reason throughout said: "Of all the remarkable things that have come from this conversation, the most remarkable of all has been its gentle progress. I've been in many trinitarian discussions over the years, many of them quite contentious, but I've never been in one like this one. I've so thoroughly enjoyed the back and forth, the musings, the many points of view. I applaud Alexandra for having birthed the most unique of things - a civil conversation about a controversial subject.
[...]
Life goes on, as does blogging, but I will never forget this experience. It's been incredible."

The Anchoress who has also weighed in on the rousing debate, calls the comment thread "excellent".

Another reader graciously weighed in via email: "...Like finding a book that you can't wait to take home and read."

And written by my readers, how thrilling.

SO DIG IN.....AND ENJOY.....

The Lost Innocence

Donald Hanson directing the American Boychoir at the Whitehouse, for the President and Mrs. Reagan

As head boy at a legendary choir school, Professor Lawrence Lessig was repeatedly molested by Donald Hanson, the charismatic choir director, part of a horrific pattern of child abuse at The American Boychoir School. Now, as one of America’s most famous lawyers, he has put his own past on trial to make sure such a thing never happens again.

Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig is a personal hero of mine, and someone I have long admired, not only because he has been championing for the freedom of speech on the internet, but because he had the courage to stand up and make his experience known. This is not the sort of case for which Lessig is famous. At 43, Lessig has built a reputation as the king of Internet law and as the most important next-wave thinker on intellectual property. The author of three influential books on the intersection of law, politics, and digital technology, he’s the founder of Creative Commons, an ambitious attempt to forge an alternative to the current copyright regime. According to his mentor, the federal appellate judge Richard Posner, Lessig is “the most distinguished law professor of his generation.” He’s also a celebrity. On a West Wing episode last year, he was featured as a character. “The Elvis of cyberlaw” is how Wired has described him.

Read the story first, which was written by John Heilemann, published in the New York Magazine and edited by me back in August, in a simple attempt to reduce length, but very much respectful of the author and the delicate subject, and named by me  'Run Silent run Deep'. It made me cry like the litle girl I once was, tears for my own child whose entire school life still lies ahead.

The sad story of innocence lost, the story of The American Boychoir and the boys who were entrusted in their care, and who were so brutally betrayed. A subject which has laid buried for some thirty odd years, and which by sheer virtue of the lawsuit instigated by Professor Lessig's client, has been brought out into the open. And Lessig, litigating with passion on behalf of the abused child he once was, having to re-live the same gruesome memories as his client, memories which at the time seemed possibly easier to explain to himself as a twelve year old than they are now.

Commemorating the Beginning of the Reformation

Portrait of Martin Luther by Cranach, Lucas the Elder (1543) Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg

Four hundred and eighty eight years ago after Martin Luther nailed his thesis to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church in Germany - the very moment in time and the very spot in history where the Reformation was born.

For the sake of clarity, I am neither celebrating nor mourning the occasion, just noting its significance, and remembering what Luther said: "Out of The Darkness Light".

I have just transcribed a small part of a podcast from Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., who is the President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (the full podcast here, including commentary on both the nomination of Judge Alito, and some other news not relevant to the subject at hand):

We now look back and see this as the spark that really lit what we now know as the great Reformation of the 16th C and we today, at least many of us those who are evangelical Christians, are its heirs. [...] But more than that we need to be reminded that Reformation Day is an opportunity for the Church to remember what this is all really about: Why the Reformation happened, why it is significant and why that Reformation of the Church by the Word of God must continue.

Luther's call to the Church to return to the teachings of the Bible led to the formation of new traditions within Christianity. It is important that we remember Luther's contributions to Western civilization went beyond the life of the Christian Church. Luther's translations of the Bible was a revolution in itself. It opened the door for Christians to read for the first time the Word of God for themselves!

Just imagine, for 1,500 years Christians had to rely on the clergy to reveal the Word of God bit by bit during sermons and official rites. Not only was the Bible only written in Latin, which only a precious few could read, the Bible was more importantly reserved exclusively for members of the Catholic clergy, jealously protecting it from the common people. The view was, that only ordained clergymen could be considered worthy to have access to the Word of God directly.

'One True God Blog'

Caravaggio's  'Inspiration of St.Matthew' ca.1602, Contarelli Chapel, Church of San Luigi dei Francesi Rome

I would like to start the week with a post which provokes comments relating to the excellent One True God Blog, and the latest question posed by Hugh Hewitt, which is: 'Do I want my MTV?  Is there a way in which watching MTV could be useful to the formation of the soul?'

Todd Hertz over at ChristianityToday.com tackles this issue in his recent article "MTV: The Good, the Bam, and the Ugly", providing a good and I believe necessary starting point by demystifying what he calls the 'realities' in MTV land and then putting those into Biblical context.

Not surprisingly, MTV's chief components ensuring popularity  are based on our fascination for (1) Wealth, (2) Fame, (3) Sex and (4) Fun. Not exactly the most fertile mix of human desires when it comes to aiding the formation of our soul. But widespread, as you and I will no doubt readily admit.

What does in fact aide the formation of our soul most? Surely at the core lies the quest to know ourselves honestly and openly before God and one another in truth, to cultivate intimacy with, growth in, and obedience to Christ, and to help mend souls by the loving power of the Spirit and Word with believers of various cultural backgrounds.

How can MTV help? Well, sometimes the observation of a stark antithesis can be quite a powerful instruction:

Todd poses some very intriguing questions directed at the teenager so as to help him/her to put MTV programming into its proper perspective with regards to its significance and impact on their lives, or the lack thereof:

Reality Check

By thinking about the messages MTV is sending us, we can better understand what is true in the real world and what is true only in MTV land. Here are some questions to keep in mind if watching MTV:

Theology Matters

Creation of Adam, by Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel

Hugh Hewitt has created a new blog called 'One True God Blog', with a five strong mix of well respected theologians, authors, a pastor-author, a Philosophy Professor, and a Professor of World Literature, covering the political spectrum, and promising to provide what the Bloggosphere has been craving for; some good old theology discussions. Looking forward to joining in the discussions Hugh. Well done!

"The content of the participants' posts is everything I had hoped for and expected, and we are working out the format." he said this weekend on his own blog.

Hugh introduces the Blog:

" The first question should be: Why? The answer is because theology matters. A lot. I have asked these five excellent minds to ponder occasional questions from a layman that the layman thinks would be of interest to many more layman. I have discovered after 15 years in broadcast journalism that such questions and the answers they elicit are of great interest to the general public.

You should read this blog more like a discussion board than a traditional blog. The questions are listed below, and over in the Categories section under "Hugh's Questions." Each question is its own category, with the responses listed in the order they were posted, like a discussion board. "

'The New Jersey Wall' between Church and State

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The May story of Olivia Turton, an 8 year old Frenchtown NJ resident who was denied the ability to sing "Awesome God" for her school's talent show, was brought back into the news today with the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) joining the lawsuit filed by her parents, and bringing forth a motion on Monday to participate in the case. It is not often that the ADF (Alliance Defence Fund) and the ACLU, agree on anything. About time I say....

'Run Silent run Deep'

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UPDATE HAS BEEN PUBLISHED ON NOVEMBER 5TH 'THE LOST INNOCENCE', WITH THE VERDICT PUBLISHED ON DECEMBER 18TH 'THE VICTORY OF LOST INNOCENCE'

I don't think I have been touched so deeply by a story for a very long time. Touched profoundly and outraged at a level not experienced before.
I thought long and hard about whether I wished to bring it all up again, least of all because Professor Lessig is a personal hero of mine, and the whole story must inflict enormous pain on him, whenever the subject is revisited. But then I realized it is because I have so much respect for him and what he has sacrifized to put his own past on trial in order to make sure that such an abuse never happens again, that I feel I would like more people to be aware, and talk about the outrageous subject more freely. A subject which has lay burried for some thirty odd years, and which by sheer virtue of the lawsuit instigated by Professor Lessig's client, has been brought out into the open. And Lessig, litigating with passion on behalf of the abused child he once was, having to re-live the same gruesome memories as his client, memories which at the time seemed possibly easier to explain to himself as a twelve year old than they do now. Our young innocence gives us the protective shield  which is all too often used to hurt us on a level deeper than anyone can imagine. I cried long and hard, tears of sadness and disgust, reading the story I would like to share with you....