Funmurphys: the Blog

An Unforgiving God

Eamon Fitzgerald reflects on the Pope's visit to America :

Yes, of course, many crimes have been committed in the name of God, but no Christian leader was ever as barbaric as Hitler, or Stalin, or Mao, or Pol Pot or Saddam. Those monsters were not constrained by a moral order based on the dominion of a forgiving God. They were God. They were unforgiving.

Three Words for My Singing in Church

1. Awful
2. Offkey
3. Sprechstimme

A more succinct definition from the Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary: A vocal style in which the melody is spoken at approximate pitches rather than sung on exact pitches.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Why have a merry Christmas? God loves you. No matter what, God loves you.

Merry Christmas!

Edwards on Evolution

Just because a Democrat says it, doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.

There are ongoing debates among the Presidential candidates; so far it has been the Democrats and the Republicans separately, among themselves. As the field winnows down the two parties will debate each other and any viable third-party candidates. In the wake of those debates some short interviews have appeared as video on CNN.com and other news sites. CNN.com hosted an exchange between reporter Soledad O'Brien and North Carolina Senator John Edwards (Democrat) on the topic of evolution. With great difficulty I have transcribed the conversation from the video feed, just one of the public services we provide to you here at FunMurphys.com.

Soledad O'Brien: There was quite a little dust-up that the Republicans had in their debate over the question of evolution. So I'll put the same question to you. Do you believe in evolution or do you believe in creationism?

John Edwards: I believe in evolution.

O'Brien: What do you say to all the people - and there are millions of people - who go to church every Sunday, and who are told very clearly by their pastors, that in fact - the earth was created in six days that - that it's about creationism. Are those people wrong? Are their pastors wrong?

Edwards: First of all, I grew up in the church, and - I grew up as a Southern Baptist, was baptized in the Baptist Church when I was very young - teenager at the time - and I was taught many of the same things. And I think it's perfectly possible to make our faith, my faith belief system, consistent with a recognition that there is real science out there, and scientific evidence of evolution. I don't think those things are inconsistent. And I think that a belief in God, and a belief in Christ in my case, is not in any way inconsistent with that.

O'Brien: There are people who say, well it's actually - isn't it mutually exclusive? I mean, either man was created by, you know, Adam's rib, or in fact, that man came, evolution-wise, from apes. Aren't the two mutually exclusive?

Edwards: No, I don't think they are. Because the hand of God was in every step of what's happened with man. The hand of God today is in every step of what happens with me, and every human being that exists on this planet.

Transcribed from CNN.com: June 5, 2007.

I like the answer that John Edwards gave. Despite being limited to only a few seconds, he gave a coherent answer affirming that God can and does work His will through processes that we can investigate using the scientific method. Edwards could have elaborated further on how he came to that belief, how he understands the accounts in Genesis 1 and 2, but in a forum like this he has to sum it all up in a few sentences. He politely and firmly rejected the false choice that Soledad O'Brien presented; that one has to choose between either creation by God or biological descent from apes. Nicely done, John!

Soledad O'Brien made two major mistakes in the short exchange. The first mistake was her apparent ignorance of the fact that there are other millions of people who believe in God and accept the scientific theory of evolution. For example, on April 6, 2007 Dr. Francis Collins recently published a commentary on CNN.com entitled "Why this scientist believes in God":

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/index.html

Collins is the director of the Human Genome Project. He believes in Jesus Christ and in evolution, and his head does not explode. There are many others, and it's odd that O'Brien seems to be unaware of them. Maybe she's simply doing her job as a journalist by asking provocative questions.

O'Brien's second mistake was in asserting that man was created from Adam' rib. According to Genesis 2:21-23, it was Eve alone who was created from Adam's rib. Adam and all the animals in Genesis 2 were created from dirt, from the "dust of the ground" if you prefer the poetic phrasing. O'Brien's garbled statement of creationism there can only be attributed to confusion within young-earth creationism itself; Genesis 1 states in verses 11, 20, and 24 that the earth produced life in response to God's spoken command; the plain reading of Genesis 2:7 implies that God collected a lump of clay in His hands, formed it into the shape of a bipedal hominid, and breathed into the mouth opening. The original clay was then transformed miraculously into Adam's heart, lungs, liver, bones, muscles, and so on. So which is it - indirect creation by the earth at God's command, or direct creation by animating clay? O'Brien evidently did not know.

The account in Genesis 1 is consistent with a theistic understanding of evolution, and with Edwards' final statement. God directs "natural" processes in ways that we do not understand. More creation detail is given in Genesis 2, but the ultimate source of living material is dirt, and that is also what the theory of evolution states. Sure, it would have saved lots of confusion if Genesis had mentioned a few intermediate steps between the "soupy seas" and human beings. It would have save lots of confusion if Genesis had stated that the earth is a sphere, and that it orbits around the sun. I believe the Author of Genesis has concentrated on the spiritual message, and has let us figure out the scientific details later.

O'Brien mentioned the six days of creation, from Genesis 1. Although young-earth creationists insist that that the Hebrew word "yom" must be interpreted as a 24-hour day, that meaning is not the only meaning in either ancient Hebrew or modern English. Genesis 2:4 uses "yom" to refer to the entire creation week. Modern people who say "Back in my day..." are not referring to a single 24-hour day. The sun does not even appear to mark the "days" until day 4 (Genesis 1:14); is there some angel carefully marking the cosmic time to be sure that God's marvelous acts of creation do not overlap 24 earth hours? (No!) Furthermore, the six "days" of creation, so important in Genesis 1, are not even mentioned in Genesis 2 after verse 3. If the "days" of Genesis 1 are so important, then why doesn't Gensis 2 state that most of it happened on day 6? There is no Biblical requirement for the "yoms" in Genesis 1 to be strictly 24-hour days.

Soledad O'Brien was quite correct in asserting that some Christian pastors are teaching quite clearly that the earth was created in 6 24-hour days; or much worse, that belief in creationISM is a requirement of Christianity. One of those pastors is Dr. Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In the August 15, 2005 issue of TIME Magazine he stated on page 35, "For one thing, there's the issue of human 'descent'. Evangelicals must absolutely affirm the special creation of humans in God's image, with no physical evolution from any nonhuman species." (And don't bother quibbling about the term "Evangelicals"; he obviously means the right kind of Christians. On today's blog he further states: "To be human is to be a limited creature -- and Christians understand that those limitations are not the accidental byproducts of evolution. To the contrary, these limitations represent the intentional will of the Creator.")

Christianity is defined by the Bible, not by extra-biblical pronouncements from theologians. John 3:16 states the formula for salvation: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Romans 10:9 further states: "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." It's a lot about Jesus and nothing about biology!

Attempting to change the definition of the Christian faith is a grave sin. God anticipated this situation 1,900 years ago, when He directed St. Paul to write in Galations 1:6-9: "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!" NIV

Dr. Mohler is wrong, and so is any other pastor or priest who tries to make rejection of evolution a requirement of the Christian faith. It's not all about creationism. It's all about Jesus! Jesus Christ the Son of God, crucified for our sins and miraculously risen from the dead. That's what John 3:16 says. That is the Christian Gospel.

Breaking Up Is Easy; Dividing Up Is Hard

As a learned laywer once told me: Divorce is simple; the property settlement is hard. The Episcopalians seems to be learning that truth now as the jockying for property ownership is starting to turn ugly.

I'll offer just one bit of advice for those who are leaving the ECUSA for its abandonment of biblical teaching: The church is not the building the congregation meets in, the church is the congregation (and in a larger sense, all of us Christians). New buildings can easily be built by vital congregations; moribund congregations can't support oversized buildings and a mostly empty building provides mute testimony for those who have ears for such things.

I understand the desire to continue to worship and fellowship in the same place you always have, but what is the witness that you stood firmer on the property than the teaching? If it comes to it, let the building be a millstone around the ECUSAs neck. What is the market for old church buildings? What will the witness be if the ECUSA keeps you out but sells the property either to another congregation or to a developer? If you really want it badly enough, you might be able to buy it back from the ECUSA rump in a couple of years. A few years of exile in the desert might even do your congregation some good as it helps you focus on Jesus and not the distractions of this world.

Merry Christmas!

I'm wishing you a Merry Christmas!

And if you celebrate something different this time of year, then may you find the joy and satisfaction in that celebration.

And if you don't celebrate anything this time of year, then Merry Christmas!

Hark the herald angels sing "Glory to the newborn King! Peace on earth and mercy mild God and sinners reconciled" Joyful, all ye nations rise Join the triumph of the skies With the angelic host proclaim: "Christ is born in Bethlehem" Hark! The herald angels sing "Glory to the newborn King!"

Christ by highest heav'n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin's womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

---- Charles Wesley

Dobson, Seipp, and HPV Vaccination

Cathy Seipp is a smart person, so why does she her analysis of the response to an HPV vaccine stumble so badly?

First off, she claims that certain religious fanatics are attacking the new vaccine for HPV:

One of the first things I had my 17-year-old daughter do when she began college this fall was make an appointment to get the new anti-HPV (for “Human Papillomavirus”) vaccine at the university’s student health center. HPV is the sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer, and the new vaccine (which in my view should only be celebrated, as should all medical progress) has been attacked by religious fanatics almost as soon as it was introduced. ‘Why, this will only encourage young girls to have sex!’ Or so that kind of thinking goes — if you can even call it “thinking.”

OK, what is Focus on the Family's position? Oddly enough, they have a .pdf position statement on their web site:

Recognizing the worldwide detriment to individuals and families resulting from HPV, Focus on the Family supports and encourages the development of safe, effective and ethical vaccines against HPV, as well as other viruses. The use of these vaccines may prevent many cases of cervical cancer, thus saving the lives of millions of women across the globe. Therefore, Focus on the Family supports widespread (universal) availability of HPV vaccines but opposes mandatory HPV vaccinations for entry to public school. The decision of whether to vaccinate a minor against this or other sexually transmitted infections should remain with the child’s parent or guardian. As in all areas of sexual health and education, Focus on the Family upholds parents’ right to be the primary decision maker and educator for their children. The use of these vaccines should involve informed consent for parents as well as education for both parents and youth regarding the potential benefits and risks of the vaccine. In making this decision, parents should consider the following:
• No vaccine is 100% effective against disease;
• There are more than one hundred sub-types of HPV and the current vaccines being tested are effective against, at most, four of these;
• The sub-types of the virus that these vaccines protect against are the cause of most but not all cases of cervical cancer;
• The possibility of HPV infection resulting from sexual assault, including date rape;
• The possibility that young persons may marry someone previously exposed to and still carrying the virus;
• The HPV vaccines do not protect against other STIs or prevent pregnancy;
• The HPV vaccines do not, in any circumstance, negate or substitute the best health message of sexual abstinence until marriage and sexual faithfulness after marriage.

Hmm, how about Family Research Council:

The Family Research Council welcomes the news that vaccines are in development for preventing infection with certain strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV). We also welcome the reports, like those we've heard this morning, of promising clinical trials for such a vaccine. Forms of primary prevention and medical advances in this area hold potential for helping to protect the health of millions of Americans and helping to preserve the lives of thousands of American women who currently die of cervical cancer each year as a result of HPV infection. Media reports suggesting that the Family Research Council opposes all development or distribution of such vaccines are false.

...

We will also continue to take an interest in the activities of the pharmaceutical companies, the federal and state governments, and of the medical community, as vaccines for HPV are approved, recommendations for their use are developed, and their use is implemented. In particular, we encourage follow-up studies to determine whether use of the vaccine has any impact on sexual behavior and its correlates, such as rates of other sexually transmitted diseases or rates of pregnancy.

We are particularly concerned with insuring that medically accurate information regarding the benefits and limitations of an HPV vaccine is distributed to public health officials, physicians, patients, and the parents of minor patients. It is especially important for those parties to understand that such a vaccine:

* will not prevent transmission of HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases, of which there are many;

* will not prevent infection with other strains of HPV, of which there are also many;

* will not prevent infection with all of the strains of HPV that cause cervical cancer;

* and lastly, will not eliminate the need for regular screening.

We recognize that the most current immunological studies suggest that these vaccines would be most effective in pre-adolescents. Our primary concern is with the message that would be delivered to nine- to twelve-year-olds with the administration of the vaccines. Care must be taken not to communicate that such an intervention makes all sex "safe." We strongly encourage the health care community to clearly communicate the medically accurate fact that only abstaining from sexual contact with infected individuals can fully protect someone from the wide range of sexually transmitted diseases.

However, we also recognize that HPV infection can result from sexual abuse or assault, and that a person may marry someone still carrying the virus. These provide strong reasons why even someone practicing abstinence and fidelity may benefit from HPV vaccines.

Because parents have an inherent right to be the primary educator and decision maker regarding their children's health, we would oppose any measures to legally require vaccination or to coerce parents into authorizing it. Because the cancer-causing strains of HPV are not transmitted through casual contact, there is no justification for any vaccination mandate as a condition of public school attendance. However, we do support the widespread distribution and use of vaccines against HPV.

Vaccination at the beginning of adolescence may provide a unique opportunity for both health care providers and parents to discuss with young people the full range of issues related to sexual health. We would encourage this committee to recommend that policy-making bodies, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, should develop and formalize clinical counseling interventions directed toward sexual risk elimination strategies for pre-adolescents. Such strategies could be incorporated into anticipatory guidance protocols. Such a strategy would also mirror the risk elimination messages presented to adolescents regarding tobacco, alcohol, and drug usage, and youth violence prevention. This risk elimination message is the best form of primary prevention youth can receive.

Both health care providers and parents should reinforce the fact that limiting sexual activity to the context of one faithful and monogamous long-term relationship is the single most effective method of preventing all sexually transmitted diseases, unplanned pregnancies, and the whole range of negative psychological and social consequences that can result from sexual activity outside marriage.

OK, how about Jerry Falwell? Silent on the issue.

National Abstinence Clearinghouse? OK, I admit I'm not a member and don't want to join so I can't actually see what's in their resource library, but here are some titles:

07.05.2006 More on HPV and Condoms…
06.29.2006 HPV Vaccine: How Much Will it Cost?
06.21.2006 HPV Vaccine: Progress, But the Battle’s Not Over Against HPV
05.24.2006 HPV Vaccine Clears FDA Hurdle
04.26.2006 Data from Eight Collected Studies Shows Enormous Risk of Cervical Cancer from HPV
04.07.2006 New Way to Encourage Someone to Test for STD
04.05.2006 Teens and STDs: A New Message for a Healthy Millennium

Call me crazy, but it strikes me that they are in line with Focus on the Family, not opposed, and I'm assuming their position is best summed up by "HPV Vaccine: Progress, But the Battle’s Not Over Against HPV".

Now perhaps these organizations have all moderated their opposition after the FDA approved it and I'm (admittedly) late to the party. But that isn't what is claimed. Now to be sure there may be some people out there actually flat out opposed to the HPV vaccine who are Christians, but I'm sure not seeing some movement by any influential organization.

But it doesn't end there. Ms. Seipp continues:

This naturally brought out all the true believers in hordes -- many of whom insisted that my comparison of vaccines that prevent disease to locked doors that prevent burglars is wrong, wrong, wrong. I don't see why. Some of these people insist the analogy is flawed because airbags and seatbelts encourage people to drive more recklessly, not less.

But while it's true there are some studies that indicate improved safety features in cars do make some people feel inoculated against road hazards and so more likely to speed, what about people like me? I never speed and haven't had a traffic ticket in 26 years -- pretty much what you'd expect from a typical Volvo-driving fuddy-duddy...whose seatbelts always fastened, and whose car has airbags.

It's true my analogy about burglars and disease may be imperfect, but it's nevertheless essentially true. One person, for instance, said I should have used the example of theft insurance instead of locked doors. But I don't see why. Vaccinating against disease and locking your doors against burglars both recognize that we live in a world where bad things can happen even if we don't deserve them. Recognizing that fact no more encourages promiscuity than locked doors encourages burglary; both are simply precautions.

Now let's take up the question of whether or not reducing the risk associated with a behavior increases the incidence of said behavior. That is the what is claimed again by Ms. Seipp as the religious fanatic's objection to this vaccine.

So her analogy is that since locking your doors at night doesn't encourage burglars, making sex less risky won't encourage sex. There are two problems that make her analogy a non-sequitor. The original is about how your ability to lower the risk of your behavior to yourself encourages you to do more of that behavior. The analogy is about how your ability to (1) increase the risk of (2) someone else's behavior doesn't encourage them. Gee, when you get to stand the other person's points on their heads, you can easily refute them.

Now a reader tries to rescue her "One person, for instance, said I should have used the example of theft insurance instead of locked doors. But I don't see why." Here's why: the analogy becomes just because you have theft insurance [lower the risk] you don't stop locking your doors at night [risky behavior]. The reason you should use it is that it actually conforms to the logic of the objection. I have to admit I don't have data, but I'd say there are more people who would take less precautions with their property knowing they would be paid for a loss than there are who would take more.

But I don' have to think too hard about this, because we already have data about this very effect, and Ms. Seipp cites it - anti-lock brakes and airbags have made people feel safer, so we have engaged in riskier driving behavior to the point we are no safer, and even less safe than before. So we have valid evidence that low and behold, if you lower the risk of a certain behavior, people will do more of it.

And how does Ms. Seipp respond to actual real hard data? Anecdote. Hey I own a safe car and I don't engage in risky behavior. OK, what does that have to do with the measurement of real behavior by real people? Yep, none.

As far as Ms. Seipp's analogy, how about we ask the question, if burglars were given a "get out of jail free" card that really worked, even if only once, would they commit more or less burglary? I don't have to think too hard about that one.

But one has to ask, so what? As far as I can tell, what Focus on the Family and Family Research Council are warning against is a false sense of security - that is they don't want the message to be that because of this vaccine, sex has been rendered safe and complication free. Kind of like, just because you lock the front door everynight, don't think you can't be burglarized.

A better response would be that given all of the factors that go into becoming sexually active, the risk of HPV is pretty far down the list and is just not very significant, and that the risk that young girls would misjudge and take this vaccine as a license for risk free sex could be overcome through the proper education -- which sound a lot like the positions take by those religious fanatics at FOTF and FRC.

So what did I learn from reading Ms. Seipp in this case? Nothing about so called religious fanatics. But I did learn that even smart, reliable people goof: they don't accurately represent other people's positions, they don't reason well, they dismiss data if it disagrees with their opinion, and in general can just go off half-cocked. And yes, I'm sure if you were a glutton for punishment and went through my archives you could find similar problems from time to time.

Pope Benedict and Islam

Isn't it amazing? The way mobs across Dar al Islam seem to hang on the Pope's every word, even scrutinizing obscure addresses that get zero press in nominally Christian countries, unless Dar al Islam expresses its displeasure and the Western Press is forced to cover it. Considering what a wonderful address it is, I suppose I should thank them for raising such a stink that I got to read it.

Before we get to the meat of the address, I'm going to tackle the so-called offensive part of the address, which is being labled as a call for inter-faith dialogue. Well, Benedict calls it a cultural dialogue, and from his remarks he's going way beyond churchman from Christianity and Islam having their own hootenanny. It's a call for everybody to dialogue within a framework of reason, and he tells the story that got the the Moslem world so riled up to make this point: "not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature."

Now, did he have to include

"Show me just what Mohammed 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"?

Good question, and let me bounce that right back at you, since Mohammed claimed that the Bible was garbled and he was just straightening out Jews and Christians, what did Mohammed bring that was new? What is your opinion of Mohammed's changes?

I'd also like to point out that the press doesn't seem to be able to quote properly, as this article on CNN has trouble:

The pope enraged Muslims in a speech a week ago in Germany quoting 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything the Prophet Mohammed brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

They seemed to have missed the whole "that was new" part. I suppose I should chalk it up to them having very little understanding of either Christianity or Islam. The emporer's point is that Mohammed didn't add anything to the Bible that wasn't inhuman and evil. A fine distinction you might claim, but an important one since it's saying not that everything Mohammed preached was evil, only those places where he made changes. And even more oddly, isn't that exactly what you would expect a Christian to believe? I do, and if I didn't, I'd be a Muslim, not a Christian.

I'm not Catholic, and I have some theological bones to pick with Catholicism, but I have to say that at least the last two popes have been extraordinary leaders, each in their own way. I'm going to have to start reading the pope more since he's the only guy out there defending Western thought, practice,and culture these days.

I've excerpted the introduction and the conclusion to Pope Benedict's address and urge you to read the whole thing:

It is a moving experience for me to be back again in the university and to be able once again to give a lecture at this podium. I think back to those years when, after a pleasant period at the Freisinger Hochschule, I began teaching at the University of Bonn. That was in 1959, in the days of the old university made up of ordinary professors. The various chairs had neither assistants nor secretaries, but in recompense there was much direct contact with students and in particular among the professors themselves. We would meet before and after lessons in the rooms of the teaching staff. There was a lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists and, naturally, between the two theological faculties. Once a semester there was a dies academicus, when professors from every faculty appeared before the students of the entire university, making possible a genuine experience of universitas - something that you too, Magnificent Rector, just mentioned - the experience, in other words, of the fact that despite our specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other, we made up a whole, working in everything on the basis of a single rationality with its various aspects and sharing responsibility for the right use of reason - this reality became a lived experience. The university was also very proud of its two theological faculties. It was clear that, by inquiring about the reasonableness of faith, they too carried out a work which is necessarily part of the "whole" of the universitas scientiarum, even if not everyone could share the faith which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole. This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when it was once reported that a colleague had said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God. That even in the face of such radical scepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.
I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.

In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. 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, a brusqueness which leaves us astounded, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed 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 (σὺν λόγω) 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... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the λόγος". This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω, with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" (cf. Acts 16:6-10) - this vision can be interpreted as a "distillation" of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.

...

And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is - as you yourself mentioned, Magnificent Rector - the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.

Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology. Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought - to philosophy and theology. For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding. Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss". The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.

What more can I say?

Blessed Easter

For me Easter is the most important rememberence of Jesus. I do play favorites when it comes to Bible passages (most of Leviticus ranks pretty low with me), but this is one of my favorites:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

It's all about me, and it's all about Jesus.

Christmas is about God sending his very best, and Easter is about the fulfillment of Christian life. He came, He died, and He lived again so that we too may know God and live with Him, now and forever. Thank you Jesus.

Happy Easter

I noticed it on Saturday when about the 4th working person told me "Happy Easter" in establishments where they only go so far as "Happy Holidays" at Christmas time. Isn't there supposed to be a War on Christians? Did we win and nobody tell me? Or is this just a truce for Easter? Maybe they figured I wouldn't be out and about on Passover if I were Jewish. Of course, I'm sensitive enough to worry that when clerks were wishing me Happy New Year on or about January 1st they were upsetting the Chinese and Moslems who celebrate New Years at a different time. Oddly enough, nobody told me "Have a good Good Friday" on Friday.

I'm taking my cue from Joshua:

But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."

So (belatedly) Happy Easter, Happy Passover, Happy Days, or even Happy Cranky Atheist Day to you, as the case may be.

Blasphemy Against Judaism, Christianity, And Islam

Anderson Cooper has a story about the so-called “Lord's Resistance Army”. This bunch of psychopaths is under the leadership of one Joseph Kony, and they operate out of northern Uganda. The column is titled “Old horrors, young victims”, dated February 23, 2006:

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2006/02/old-horrors-young-victims.html

Unfortunately, this is rather an old story. The horror in Uganda has been going on for many years. The “Lord's Resistance Army” kidnaps children for their use, and so the fleeing children become “night commuters” to secure areas in order to avoid being taken and enslaved. It's sickening to read Jeff Koinange's post from CNN, but I'm glad he reported the story.

Joseph Kony and the LRA claim “to base its principles on the Ten Commandments”. Perhaps they can't read, or perhaps they are operating under a different version of the Ten Commandments than the ones you and I can find in Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21.

If you want to see blasphemy against a religious faith, don't look at a few Danish cartoons. Look at Joseph Kony, the “Lord's Resistance Army”, and the despicable things going on in northern Uganda. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all revere and try to follow the Ten Commandments. That's our Lord they're talking about. That is the ultimate blasphemy – doing monstrously evil things and claiming to be acting for God.

Northern Uganda is not on our list of strategic places, so don't expect the U.S. Marines to drop in there any time soon. But how about an allied force of Jews, Christians, and Muslims? Surround Kony's base of operations in Uganda and take him out! If by some mistake we happen to capture him alive, we can drop him off in a nice comfy cell in The Hague next to Slobodan Milosevic and let him deal with Carla del Ponte.

Book Of Daniel Closes

I never watched the show The Book of Daniel. And now I won't get the chance. The reason I didn't watch it is simple - what little TV I watch regularly these days I watch with the family and the ads didn't depict it as a family kind of show. It's not a deliberate choice BTW - it's simply a fact that if the rest of the family doesn't make it a point to watch a TV show regularly with me, then between my schedule and my memory it doesn't get watched regularly. I was able to watch the first three episodes of Lost and then was I missed a few and then I couldn't follow when I did so that was the end of that.

I'm one of those crazy people who actually watch TV ads. My wife gives me the funniest look if she switches the channel and I protest because "I was watching that ad". Not all of them mind you, just those I think have something I want to see. So the information I got about the show was from the ads, which did make it sound like The Book of Daniel was inspired far more by Desperate Housewives than God. Now, that assessment may not have been the correct one, but quite frankly the ads just screemed I was going to see what a left winger thought was a non-stop laugh riot about some wimpy post-modern pastor. I understand that we are all sinners and we are deeply comprimised. The question is, do we resign ourselves or do we try to rise above. The ads looked like a resigned wallow in the mud to me.

Out Of The Mouth From The Heart

What's the difference between Ray Nagin and Pat Robertson?
Pat's incompetence hasn't killed any one yet.

What's the difference between Republicans and Democrats?

Republicans aren't crazy enought to elect either one, while Democrats elected Ray "Tantrum" Nagin, who brings whole new meaning to the phrase "The politics of personal destruction".

My advice on what God's thinking -- James 1:26-27:

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Words that I try to live by and fail to, but I still keep trying.

Narnia at the Movies

The Murphy Family saw The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe friday night in a full house. I have mixed feelings about the movie: it is simply superb in every way - writing, casting, plot, dialogue effects, and all the small touches that go into a first rate movie, yet in the end I was unsatisfied (unlike the rest of the family who all just adored it). The dissatisfaction arouse with the scenes of Aslan's death and resurrection. I discovered I'm not a big fan of allegory, and especially when it comes to something so important, so central as the death and resurrection of Jesus, and when it is presented in such a way as to make it less comprehensible and comprehensive. I wasn't offended, just let down.

Empty Churches

The latest controversy to roil evangelicalism is the decision of several megachurches to not hold services on Christmas Day this year because it falls on a Sunday. We actually discussed this yesterday during my Adult Bible Fellowship Class (otherwise known as Sunday School) because we have two teachers and they got off track about who was teaching what. So one of the teachers through this is out as a topic of discussion. Personally, I'm of two minds here, because yes it is crazy to cancel Christmas services because they fall on Christmas Sunday, but why not since everybody was just in Church the evening/night before for a Christmas Eve service. OK, the Murphy Family at this point is planning to be in the pew at our church on Christmas morning following being in the pew at my Father-in-Law's church the night before (just as we have for the past 17 years).

While I'm not going to fault the churches that decided to skip a Sunday, I'm going to agree with the position of a pastor who appeared on a TV show to discuss as relayed by my ADF teacher: "We made the decision a long time ago to hold services every Sunday of the year regardless of circumstance - whether it was Christmas, we lost power, whatever". I think that's the right position - it doesn't matter how many show up, the doors will be open. I know, easy for me to say, since I all I have to do is show up and maybe help serve communion.

The Internet Monk has big roundup on this subject and is also spot on in his analysis.

A Third Way?

The Evangelical Outpost linked to a interesting article on the proper interpretation of the beginning of Genesis. I offer it to stimulate your own thoughts and thus without comment.

Impermissible Expression of Beliefs

David Harsanyi makes sense on the perception of religious intolerance at the Air Force Academy:

At the AFA, some cadets pray. Others had the temerity to mention Jesus in conversation. One cadet called another an "(expletive) Jew." This, we should deduce, means that there is institutional religious intolerance?

I've been called an "(expletive) Jew" plenty of times. Perhaps I should call for an investigation of Denver? Colorado?

But more distressing than being called an (expletive) Jew was an e-mail I received from a big shot at the Colorado ACLU the last time I wrote on the AFA.

This person offered to give me a lesson on the First Amendment - which, I suspect, would have been as constructive as a tutorial on marriage from Bill Clinton.

We'll see if the ACLU, which selectively fights for freedom, has a problem with the concept of "impermissible expression of beliefs."

No Wonder It's A Small Church

In the just plain wrong department file this story: A Baptist church in North Carolina kicked nine members out for voting for John Kerry. Protestant churches have a bad habit of making all kinds of stupid stuff (i.e. unbiblical) tests of faith or fellowship and this is just another. Making political affiliation a test of fellowship is wrong. I'm not a big fan of the milquetoast Jesus, nor of the political Jesus. He was neither, although some try to portray Him that way now.

The Prodigal Returns

John Zimmer at Letters from Babylon has a great post, The Prodigal Brother contemplating my favorite parable of Jesus: the prodigal son. There are a couple of major lessons in the parable, one for the son and one for the brother. The son's lesson is about receiving God's love and forgiveness, and the brother's lesson is about extending God's love and forgiveness to others. They are both hard lessons to really learn and understand.

Christian Law Making

Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost has announced a a new blog symposium -- Judeo-Christian Morality in an Ethically Pluralistic Society. I wrote something vaguely near that topic last summer, so I'm slightly tweaking it and presenting it here for my entry in the symposium. I'm specifically addressing how Christians should approach law making, in any human society.

Christian Libertarian - that's how Josh Claybourn describes himself. I don't know if I'd go that far, but I think that Christianity with its emphasis on faith is more libertarian than works (following the law) based religions.

What are the beliefs of Christianity (at least from my point of view) on law? Well, God does have laws. There are laws you have no choice about -- the physical laws that govern the universe. They are the same everywhere and universally obeyed by all of creation without any possible choice.

But there are also other laws, where we do have choice. Let's call them moral laws, and we can keep them, or we can break them. Up to this point, some other faiths would be agreeing with me. But here's where Christianity comes in -- nobody follows moral laws perfectly. We are all sinners is a basic Christian teaching. And what is the penalty for sin? Death. Now I happen to think that there are immediate consequences for vice and virtue, and there are defered consequences. But what's clear is, under God's law, every person on the planet has transgressed against God's moral laws, and the penalty for doing so is death. I see dead people, and they don't even realize they are dead.

So if we were to institute God's law as our own civic laws, we'd have to execute everybody on the planet. So really, what would be the point? And quite frankly, it seems awfully presumptious to pre-empt God. Since no man is saved by the law, why then should we try? And what would our plan of salvation be?

What then should our laws be based upon? Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is a good start. Human laws should be for our own use, not our own goodness. If God does not compel good, how and why should we, especially since our means are so much less. And as our means are so much less, so too should our laws be.

To be sure, there is overlap between God's moral law and what should be human laws - thou shalt not murder comes to mind. But who's going to enforce thou shalt not covet your neighbor's spouse or stuff? Or love God with all your heart, or love your neighbor as yourself? Jesus called out the last two as the wellsprings of all the commandments, and is there any real way to humanly enforce these laws?

Now don't take this to mean that I don't think following God's laws isn't important -- I just think that is between ourselves and God, with the help of our fellow children in Christ, not the local constable and magistrate. The law doesn't save. Repeat that after me: the law doesn't save -- Jesus saves. It's okay if humans don't outlaw everything that God does. By all means we should never shirk declaring what's right and what's wrong nor should we lose sight of the power of our example.

The Pope is Dead, Long Live the Pope

Unless you read the New York Times, you can't have escaped the fact that Pope John Paul II died. Here in St. Louis, the local paper has treated us to wall to wall coverage, seemingly the only other thing that comes close was that the final four (as in College Basketball) was played here as well. The cable news people have wall to wall coverage, pushing even Michael Jackson's legal difficulties into the background. I'm not sure what I can add, but I'll try anyway.

I'm not Catholic, and this isn't the time to go into my theological differences with Catholicism (of which I have a few). And as an institution that has been around so long, it's made it's share of mistakes. But this isn't the time to go into them. Now is the time to remember Pope John Paul II and celebrate his life. And there is much to celebrate. But I'm not going to give a laundry list, instead I'm just going to say that this Pope had moral authority, and he excercised it well. I think one of the differences between left and right is that the left looks more to institutions, such as the UN, for moral authority, while the right looks more to people for moral authority (or at least for it's expression). And one of interesting quirks of people, this one included, is how we love to have a moral authority on our side, but seek to undermine it when it is arrayed against us.

The next pope may end up with as much or more such moral authority as Pope John Paul II, though I doubt it, but he won't have it to start with. It takes a lifetime of moral action, of consistantly standing up for what you believe to be right despite all the slings and arrows that come your way. Now I don't think the Pope was always right, but I do think that because of who he was you needed to pay attention to what he was saying. I will miss his voice.

Holy Saturday

To go with your Good Friday post, here is a painting:

"Christ on the Cross", by Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez.

Oil painting on canvas from 1632, now in the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain.

Good Friday

In honor of Good Friday, some Christian links:

Eric from In The Agora meditates on the meaning of Jesus's words on the cross: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.

Kim at the Upward Call considers suffering by design: "Not only was it suffering by design, but also by obedience. Jesus embraced the pain. He chose it – “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). " Kim explains the design and its importance.

Coffee Swirls surveys the wondrous cross and Isaiah: "In the spirit of just how simple the gospel message truly is, I will let this post speak for me today, as Christians observe Good Friday to commemorate the passion (the suffering) of Jesus Christ."

Rebecca at Rebecca Writes talks about what the resurrection proves to the world: "The Christ we take to the world is not just another prophet or teacher, and not just a humble servant, but the one whom God has shown to be the very Lord of All--the Son-of-God-in-power--by his resurrection from the dead."

Tulip Girl notes "At this stage in my life, so much of my reading and studying is filtered through the perspective of mothering. This includes my studying of the Bible and theology. I find the deeper I dig into God’s Word, the more light it shines on my life--and how I ought to mother." I feel the same way about fatherhood. While I stop there, Tulip Girl doesn't and describes her thoughts on how to restore gently and carry burdens.

Mark Byron's Edifier du Jour is from John 17. Mark's take:

We too often look at salvation as the end of the process; our ticket's punched for Heaven and all's right with the world. It is the end of one process but the beginning of yet another, the process of taking that worldly soul and re-manufacturing it for godly uses. That process will sand off some of the hooks that the less-savory things of the world like to attach themselves to; the world will start to she-dog about the removal of those hooks, but let it.

Oddly enough, my Sunday School teacher said pretty much the same thing this past Sunday -- too often all we seemed concerned about is salvation, for ourselves and others as if that is the finish line, when we should be just as concerned about sanctification, our spiritual growth in Christ.

And if that isn't enough for you, then the Christian Carnival should help.

Fake or Real?

Stromata Blog has a great post about the Shroud of Turin (hat tip Cronaca). Nathan Wilson, described as a conservative Protestant, has developed an extremely easy way to make a 3-D negative image on cloth -- just like the Shroud. Put a positive image (on glass or other transparent material) above a cloth in sunshine, wait days, and viola, a 3-D negative image appears as the portion under the clear portion is bleached lighter.

Tom Veal and David Nishimura struggle with the two possible scenarios:

The shroud could have been created by someone, say a crusader, taking an ancient burial cloth (and therefore having the correct age, pollen, and weaving) to a painter who then created an image on a very large piece of transparent material that depicted crucifixion images at variance with the accepted iconography of how Christ was crucified, leaving them out in the sun for days, then deciding that that wasn't good enough, turning the shroud and the transparent image over, lining up the image on the underside of the cloth with the flipped image and repeating the process.

On the other hand, the shroud was real yet somehow escaped notice by Christians until 1354 when the de Charnay family could no longer contain themselves, or it was discovered by a Crusader in the Jerusalem area who took it home to France and only then was it discovered to be a relic.

As Tom Veal says: "It seems to me that all theories about the Shroud are quite improbable." Which is pretty much what a friend who was a Shroud lore fan told me years ago -- it confounds believer and unbeliever alike. And yet it exists, which I suppose is its own miracle.

What happens to aborted babies?

For many years a Dr. Warren Hern has been operating an abortion clinic in Boulder, Colorado, right across from the hospital in North Boulder. He and the clinic have been protested on and off for many years, but the abortion clinic is still in operation.

Hern gives the discarded babies (fetuses, tissue, or whatever you want to call them) to Crist Mortuary, who cremates them. Hern and Crist have had this arrangement for 6 years. That part was public but not very well known. However, other news came out this weekend . . .

Crist Mortuary, for 6 years, has been giving the remaining ashes to Sacred Heart of Mary Catholic church, a church in the open space along South Boulder Road (without Hern's knowledge). Sacred Heart has been giving the ashes a proper Christian burial, and they have a "Memorial Wall" stating that the ashes buried here are from aborted babies. Sacred Heart is not really a public place, but any visitor can drive in and look around. That's where local residents vote.

Anyway, Sacred Heart "went public" this weekend with the information that they are burying the aborted fetuses from Hern's clinic after Crist cremates them. Going public may have been a mistake. Of course there was an uproar, and Dr. Hern denounced the "cynical exploitation of private grief for political purposes." I don't know why Sacred Heart went public after 6 years, but they did. There was also a report in the Boulder Daily Camera saying that Sacred Heart's practice had been described in the Daily Camera about 4 years ago. I don't know if the connection to Hern's clinic through Crist Mortuary was made clear, though.

Here is the story on CNN.com (January 24, 2005):
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/24/abortion.ap/index.html

Dr. Hern will probably stop sending the aborted babies to Crist Mortuary at this point. I don't know what he will do with them.

The CNN article states that Hern had a contract with Crist, which contradicts the story that I heard saying that Crist was doing the cremations free of charge. A legally valid contract specifies that both parties contribute something. If Crist was doing the cremations free of charge, then Hern is without a valid contract and has no reason to complain.

I fail to see why Dr. Hern is complaining, anyway. According to him, the aborted babies are "just tissue", right? If somebody wants to bury them a certain way, what is that to him? He doesn't own every landfill in Colorado. Sacred Heart is not a grave robber, they're a landfill robber if anything. If some flake wanted to give my empty milk cartons a "proper burial", I would go on record as saying they're stupid and wasting their time. Then I would set out the milk cartons for collection. I might even rinse them out!

Lots of things to think about.

A lot of people like to dump on Boulder as this immoral town full of decadent hippies and evil oppression and strange cults and so on, but the picture on CNN.com shows 250 parishioners gathering to pray for the aborted babies. At least 250 people in Boulder County care very much what happens to what they believe is a very young human being, even in death. 250 people revere what they believe to be human life, and go to a lot of effort to respect that life. Maybe Boulder is somewhat weird and fitness-crazed, but some Boulderites also believe in things eternal.

We Have Nothing To Fear From Pat Robertson

In January 2004 Pat Robertson of the "700 Club" predicted that George Bush would win re-election by a landslide. Predictions come and predictions go, but this one was notable because Robertson said God told him so! If you search Google for

"Pat Robertson" blowout landslide

You will get a few news stories like these:

http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/pat_quotes/pat_god.htm
http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/newswire/news2004/0104/010504-robertson.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/2004-01-02-god-bush_x.htm
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=65520&ran=236535

Robertson, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for president in 1988 against former President George H. W. Bush, told viewers of the nationally-syndicated "700 Club" that there are "things that I believe the Lord was showing me as I spent several days in prayer at the end of 2003."

The long-time televangelist told his Christian Broadcasting Network audience that God said Bush will win in a landslide in 2004.

"I think George Bush is going to win in a walk," Robertson said, explaining that the Lord has been speaking to him a lot recently about the upcoming presidential election.

He added, "I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. It's shaping up that way."

Robertson was clearly not offering his personal judgment here; he is obviously claiming to speak for the Lord. In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer in February, Robertson confirmed his prediction. Although Howard Dean was mentioned in the original story, Robertson did not qualify his prediction that way: "Robertson offered no prediction on who will get the Democratic nomination. 'I don't have a clue,' he said with a laugh."

Robertson was wrong. Bush indeed defeated Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Election, but it was no landslide, and no commentator is calling it a blowout:

Bush: 59,459,765 popular votes (51%) and 286 electoral votes.
Kerry: 55,949,407 popular votes (48%) and 252 electoral votes.

So - Pat Robertson issued a prophecy in God's name, and it turned out to be wrong. What does the Bible say about this situation?

Deuteronomy 18:20-22: "But the prophet who presumes to say in my name a thing I have not commanded him to say, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. You may say in your heart, 'How are we to know what word was not spoken by Yahweh?' When a prophet speaks in the name of Yahweh and the thing does not happen and the word is not fulfilled, then it has not been spoken by Yahweh. The prophet has spoken with presumption. You have nothing to fear from him."

Pat Robertson is a false prophet. There is no other reasonable conclusion.

In the context of Deuteronomy, the phrase "that prophet shall die" implies "...and you shall carry out the execution by stoning him to death." False prophecy is very serious! False prophets discourage people from believing in God, and those people may end up going to hell. God doesn't like that. See Matthew 18:14: "Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish."; and Luke 17:2: "It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble."

Let me state clearly here that I am not advocating the Old Testament's death penalty for Pat Robertson. The New Testament provides another way to deal with the situation. 2 Peter 2 reads in the NIV:

1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. 4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)-- 9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.

My understanding of that passage is that we should have nothing more to do with the false prophets. God will deal with them in His own way and in His own time.

"But be doers of the Word, and not only hearers" - James 1:22

Christian Libertarian

Christian Libertarian - that's how Josh Claybourn describes himself. I don't know if I'd go that far, but I think that Christianity with its emphasis on faith is more libertarian than works (following the law) based religions.

What are the beliefs of Christianity (at least from my point of view) on law? Well, God does have laws. There are laws you have no choice about -- the physical laws that govern the universe. They are the same everywhere and universally obeyed by all of creation without any possible choice.

But there are also other laws, where we do have choice. Let's call them moral laws, and we can keep them, or we can break them. Up to this point, some other faiths would be agreeing with me. But here's where Christianity comes in -- nobody follows moral laws perfectly. We are all sinners is a basic Christian teaching. And what is the penalty for sin? Death. Now I happen to think that there are immediate consequences for vice and virtue, and there are defered consequences. But what's clear is, under God's law, every person on the planet has transgressed against God's moral laws, and the penalty for doing so is death. I see dead people, and they don't even realize they are dead.

So if we were to institute God's law as our own, we'd have to execute everybody on the planet. So really, what would be the point? And quite frankly, it seems awfully presumptious to pre-empt God. Since no man is saved by the law, why then should we try? And what would our plan of salvation be?

What then should our laws be based upon? Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is a good start. Human laws should be for our own use, not our own good. If God does not compel good, how and why should we, especially since our means are so much less. And as our means are so much less, so too should our laws be.

To be sure, there is overlap between God's moral law and what should be human laws - thou shalt not murder comes to mind. But who's going to enforce thou shalt not covet your neighbor's spouse or stuff? Or love God with all your heart, or love your neighbor as yourself? Jesus called out the last two as the wellsprings of all the commandments, and is there any real way to humanly enforce these laws?

Now don't take this to mean that I don't think following God's laws isn't important -- I just think that is between ourselves and God, with the help of our fellow children in Christ, not the local constable and magistrate. The law doesn't save. Repeat that after me: the law doesn't save -- Jesus saves. It's okay if humans don't outlaw everything that God does. By all means we should never shirk declaring what's right and what's wrong nor should we lose sight of the power of our example.

Another Thing I Don't Get

In Andrew Sullivan's continuing gay marriage cavalcade, he thinks Dan Savage did something really significant. And he's waiting for an answer from the religious right. I think it's persumptious of me to speak for such a large group of people, but here goes.

Dan Savage married a woman despite the points that "Amy and I don't live together, we don't love each other, we don't plan to have kids together, and we're going to go on living and sleeping with our same-sex partners after we get married." Dan then reflects "I don't know what a guy has to do around here to get the marriage license. But I guess it's some consolation that I can get a meaningless one anytime I like, just so long as I bring along a woman I don't love and my $54."

And that proves what, exactly? I don't get it.

Does this mean Andrew supports the government doing a rigorous vetting process on prospective married couples? Yeah, right.

Let's posit that this is a real problem with marriage as it currently exists. Now let's add gay marriage. Now what do we have? We're in exactly the same boat as before as anybody can marry anybody they don't love as long as they have the fee, only we've made it more possible because now you can marry anybody you don't love, not just members of the opposite sex. Whoo hoo! Thats a big help.

If this is supposed to show the pointlessnes of marriage, or state licensing, then what's the big deal about not giving same sex couples marriage licenses? It's meaningless, after all.

It seems to me that the thrust of Andrew's continuing posts on the subject is that since marriage has been debased over the years so much, why not let gays get married?

One Simple Question

If you replaced "the Jews" every time Andrew Sullivan says "the religious right" do you think he'd be anti-semetic? It sure seems that way to me lately.

Really The Penultimate Passion Post

The final post (I hope) will be after I see the movie (don't make me tell you how busy I am). But I can't resist commenting anyway.

First, Robert Musil passes along a great comment: "If you didn't like the movie, you probably didn't like the book.". I bet that accounts for the skew between viewers and critics he reports - 99% positive for movie goers, 54% rotten for critics.

OK, can we officially close the Jew-hating aspect of the movie? All those religious fanatics have seen it, and yet no Jew-hating incidents -- although the other fearless leader heard a claim by someone from the ADL during a panel discussion that a nice Jewish person was distressed at seeing a poster for the movie posted at a school and the person who posted it didn't promptly remove it despite the distress. If that's the complaint, time to move on to real outrages.

And now we have pundits (like Page and Safire - they don't agree to often) going on record that the problem with Jew-hatred and the movie will be overseas, and not here. OK, in Europe and the Middle East there is already a lot of Jew-hatred, and the materials that float around in those locals are far more inflammatory -- and unambigously filled with Jew-hatred -- than the movie The Passion. And it's not like either of those two places are very Christian anymore, although I grant that they once were. But it's odd that the thrust should be The Passion, and not the existing Jew-hatred in those places, like so called art, literature, or entertainment. I mean, if we're going to talk about Jew-hatred overseas, lets be honest about it, and let's talk about the virulent home grown stuff over there that really is far, far worse than anything Mel or his movie have even been accused of. Try Little Green Footballs if you want to find links to some real live breathing Jew-hatred.

And how about Hollywood. After giving Mel and his movie the cold shoulder, they gave a nice big wet smootchie to Leni Riefenstahl, Nazi filmaker extraordinaire. Nice to know principle still counts for something.

When Bill O'Reilly asked him what he learned from all this, Gibson joked "have another Bible script handy because the studios are all going to want to do it now." After the weekend the The Passion just had, they aren't laughing at that remark in Hollywood - they're too busy looking for Bible scripts to shoot. But not just any Bible scripts after the box office failures of Dogma and Last Temptation of Christ, but ones that ordinary Christians can identify with.

Penultimate Passion (I hope)

While there's a natural tendency to defend what you believe in, I don't have a problem with people not liking The Passion. It's a powerful movie about a powerful subject, so it's to be expected that the reaction to it varies. People are entitled to the reactions and emotions. A movie shouldn't and can't be a test of your faith.

But I have come across some stupid stuff. The review in the Post-Dispatch about its accuracy was particulary stupid - ignoring real instances of inaccuracy it nevertheless lambasted the movie as generally inaccurate while only citing an error in the press guide.

The review also had this doozy: "One problem with filming the Gospels is that they all contain many ambiguous statements, statements that can be interpreted in more than one way. But the act of committing them to film commits the viewer to understanding them as the director does." I've seen a similar sentiment expressed in several other reviews, including Leon Wieseltier's. The problem is that the Gospels don't contain many ambiguous statements -- it's the rest of the New Testament that does. The Gospels consist of descriptions and dialogue of the form: Jesus went here and the following statements were made. It isn't ambiguous about what happened or what was said. The ambiguities come from what does it mean. For instance, we have the parable of the sower -- there is no ambiguity about what Jesus said, but until He explained it, not even the disciples (they had to ask) understood it. Now I understand that Gibson didn't include only what was written in the Gospels (hey it's a movie, not the Bible), but its not like the movie consists of Gibson sitting on a stool telling you what he thinks the Gospels mean.

Wieseltier outdoes himself: "The ending is happy, which has the effect of making the viewer, or at least this viewer, feel like he has been duped." I know Leon's not a Christian and all, but if you're surprised by the resurrection, you know absolutely nothing of Christianity. Leon has no trouble speaking about the history of Christianity, yet oddly misses it's central tenet. I don't expect him to believe in it, I just expect an expert like him to know that Christians do.

Still More Passion

Who knew that a movie about Christ's death would be a murder mystery. A lot more gory than my favorite, Miss Marple or her Americanization, Jessica Fletcher, but a murder mystery nevertheless. I suppose the whole "Who Shot J.R.?" thing was so unpopular, certain Jewish groups figured turning The Passion into "Who Killed Christ?" would hurt it at the box office. Based on the press, it reminds me of The Jagged Edge, in that even when the killer is revealed, my wife and I couldn't tell if it was Jeff Bridges or not. What these groups failed to realize is that I, along with nearly all other Christians, already had an answer to that particular mystery from around the time of my acceptance of Jesus as Lord, and the answer is we all did.

Reviews are all over the map - some were intellectually engaged,more than one thought it profound, some some moved by it, some hated it, and some don't want to see it at all. Oddly enough, none of them saw it as a murder mystery.

One of the interesting things about the movie is how people describe Gibson's take on Pontius Pilate. Andrew Sullivan proclaims "Pilate, the Saint". Others are more nuanced in that they say Pilate stands in for us - if he were a brute, we couldn't identify with him. When Mel Gibson talked about Pilate in his interview with Bill O'Reilly, this is what he said:

"He actually condemned a man to death who he had proclaimed he thought was innocent. ... He's a monster."

I'm both looking forward to seeing it, and dreading it at the same time.

More Passion

I think Michael Medved has a great take on the controversy (including some important history) surrounding Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ:

"If nothing else, the bitter disputes and free-floating anxiety over The Passion of The Christ should help enlighten the Jewish community to the identity of our true enemies today—and our truest friends. A sane perspective on the public reaction to the movie's artistry and message may yet help Gibson achieve his original goal of promoting unity, rather than division, among Christians, Jews, and the rest of humanity."

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I think two groups are going to be proven wrong - Jews who are worried about it causing anti-Semitism, and Christians who are hoping it will help with outreach.

I think anti-Semitism (which we ought to just call Jew-Hatred which is both clearer and more correct) is the mark of stupidity, ignorance, and malice all rolled into one. It has no place in Christianity, and isn't taught by the Bible. The people who are going to be moved by The Passion are not going to be turned to anti-Semitism. And by the same token, the people who are going to be moved by The Passion I think will be people who are already believers. I see the upside of the movie to be that it will help foster Christian (and Jewish) unity, and that it will deepen and strengthen current believers' faith. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think it's going to pack the pews.

The Passion

I got a good laugh at Andrew Sullivan's blog this morning (yes Virginia, he's required reading):

"Gibson is not in the mainstream of Catholic thought; his emphasis on the Jewish priests in the Gospel narrative violates official Catholic concern about fomenting anti-Semitism. And his focus on the physical suffering of Christ may be excessive. ... But I don't trust Gibson an iota."

Um, Andrew, near as I can tell, you yourself are not in the mainstream of Catholic thought, and when did you start to take notice of official Catholic concern? Andrew's remarks are in response (support?) of sometimes contributor to National Review, Ed Kilgore, whose statements about Evangelical Christians bear little resemblence to the reality I know. Somehow, I don't think he considers himself one. But he's down right loopy in this sentance:

"And third, I'm a bit concerned, though not surprised, by the sort of Popular Front thinking that has so many conservatives from every religious background expressing total solidarity with Gibson's faith, which is by any standard a bit eccentric, and by Catholic standards specifically, heretical or at least schismatic. "

I don't think any conservative are expressing total solidarity with Gibson's faith - what I've heard is an expression of solidarity with his movie in so far as and so long as it is a faithful rendering of the Gospels. And perhaps Protestantism isn't too woried about schisms - having been born in schism from the Catholic church, and further subdividing almost beyond counting subsequently. I think what heartens Christians, leaders and rank and file, is that here is a movie which unites all Christians, liberal and conservative; Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox: all Christians. Apparently though, not all we Christians are happy about that.

But then I hit Chris Johnson's blog and had my perspective restored by his take on The Passion:

"Two thousand years on, many of us shake our heads in disgust at the fear and cowardice of Jesus' inner circle who left Him alone at the end of His earthly life. We would be brave, we think; we would never desert our Lord. In a very small and indirect way, Mel Gibson is giving us a chance to stay with our Savior during His most terrible hours. And it's interesting that lots of alleged Christians still prefer to run away."

Thanks Chris.

Merry Christmas!

Yes, I've been busy during this Holiday Season, and I'm not afraid to say the C word (no, not cancer, but Christmas). Somehow we've gotten nervous about using the word Christmas; when we went to buy a Christmas tree, at a church run Christmas tree lot, the extra-helpful young ladies wished us a happy holiday instead of a Merry Christmas. If you can't mention Christmas in that situation, when can you?

One quick word of advice - be prepared for crowds if you go grocery shopping the day before Christmas Eve. Normally it takes the threat of snow to bring out crowds like I experienced yesterday, but at least the store was ready with plenty of checkers and baggers.

I hope you find the true meaning of Christmas, and not that sappy Hollywood stuff about generalized giving - but the bedrock underneath. Christmas is a celebration that God loves us enough to send the very best -- his Son, not to condemn us, but to save us. Jesus did not come in glory, but as a baby wrapped in rags asleep in a horse trough. So yes, Christmas is about giving, but it's about a particular gift, a great big gift for every one of us.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I'm thankful for my wife and children, for family and friends, and for living in such a wonderful country. I'm thankful that God has granted me so much, not just the enormous quantities of food I expect to consume today, not just all the material riches I have, but above all His love which has seen me through good times and bad.

Biblical Burial Box?

An archeologist may have discovered the burial box of James, brother of Jesus, according to this AP story. An anonymous person bought it from an Arab antiquities dealer in Jerusalem 15 years ago, so not everyone's convinced its authentic, let alone being the burial box of James, brother of Jesus of Biblical fame. I think the market for fake relics would have dried up these days, but I'm told by a Jewish friend you can still buy fragments of the True Cross (and similar items) in Jerusalem, so what do I know.