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June 28
2004 | Catholic
author claims the bishops' opposition to abortion is not biblical
It's interesting
that this fatuous piece is labeled "op ed." Since when was the New York
Times prolife or antiabortion? I call Wills'
arguments fatuous because they are based on straw men, like the "biological
fact" that his fingernails, hair, and semen are alive or teeming with life,
and human, therefore human life, but not sacred. And the claim that "when
does the fetus become a person" is not pivotal to any reasoned argument against
abortion. The question of whether the life in the womb is a person is, incontrovertibly,
biblical, with Scriptures affirming that from conception God knows his children.
Furthermore, "children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb
is a reward." God, not the parent or parents, are the owner of that life,
not just because He is the creator of all, but because Him claims it as His own.
If there is no biblical evidence about the personhood of fetuses, what is the
intention of this from Job, probably the oldest book in the Bible: "Did not
He who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same One fashion us in the womb?" Nowhere does
Wills take up the fact that the sacred tradition of the church, since pre-Constantinian
times, has condemned abortion as a sin against humanity. The Eastern Church, no
less than the Roman, has always condemned abortion, though unlike the Western
church it has never considered Augustine a major theologian, and doesn't consider
Aquinas other than an extra-church figure, having come on the scene after the
schism of Rome with the Orthodox Church. It's true that
the church has never recommended as severe penalty for abortion as for other forms
of murder, nor does it baptize infants who've died before birth, but that doesn't
mitigate the toll the abortion holocaust exacts on the human community, especially
on the mothers who will the killing of their own gifts from God. June 27
2004 | Pope
speaks out on a secular society turning more hostile to Christianity
It seems the
"secular/religious" chasm has never been wider or more clearly defined in recent
history. The Pope's pronouncements here seem prophetic. June 26
2004 | Beheaded
Korean man called devout Christian, wanted to be a minister
The blood of
the martyrs is the seed of the church. June 25
2004 | Author
succinctly explains RC bishops' stance on politicians and communion
Today's linked
article provides an excellent answer to scores of sophomoric columns and letters
to editors about the "rights" and responsibilities of religious leaders of any
kind, and Roman Catholics in particular, in democratic societies. At the worst,
and not infrequently, these assays (yes, that's the word I mean) imply that by
virtue of being religious, these "leaders" have less freedom of thought, expression,
and...religion...than their "secular" counterparts. And I'm assuming they really
believe that. Isn't that what the Constitution means when it guarantees freedom
from religion and separates religion from the real world? June 24
2004 | If Kerry doesn't
soon 'get it,' he will lose Democrats who think faith matters
My take is that
Kerry's not "getting it" is part and parcel of his not getting Christianity or
any relationship with God in any meaningful sense, other than how it can help
him politically. And any scramble to make it look like he does get it before the
November elections will be nothing more than that. I am not, of course, hoping
that he will get it, or pretend to get it, or get any Democrats' or voters votes
from people who think faith matters. I think the fringe radical secularism and
proabortion "religion" Kerry believes in is antithetical to all that Christians
have always held, and stands to be antithetical to the best interests of American
Christians and any viable form of pluralism that can survive and thrive here:
that which is based on Christ's "Love your neighbor as yourself" and "do unto
others what you would have others do to you." But God is in
control and as difficult as it would be to endure a Kerry administration, it may
be His way of teaching us more profound lessons we have to learn and a cross we
will be blessed and strengthened to bear. Here's
a similar article from a Houston
Chronicle writer. This article, though insightful, seems to describe all
of President Bush's allusions to God and godliness as a play for votes. The President's
deliverance from alcoholism strongly argues against any such facile conclusion.
The article also quotes a sociologist "who specializes in the religious right"
as saying that President Reagan was no evangelical, which is a strange observation
inasmuch as he was a member of an evangelical Presbyterian congregation (Bel Air Presbyterian)
and often described his relationship with Christ. So it's a flawed article, but
substantive enough to be offered as another exhibit in the case that the Democrats
have cloaked themselves as the secular party, the proabortion party, the party
against organized religion in general while wanting the gullible among the country's
churchgoers to think otherwise. June 23
2004 | New
group launched to get out more conservative Christian voters
This is the first
time I've seen the estimate that seven percent of the population is evangelical.
I would have considered it higher (Baptists alone, for example, should account
for at least double this percentage, though not all Baptists are evangelical by
any means). On the other hand, evangelicals probably have more accurate counting
and reporting practices than some other religious groups. A recently published
estimate of the number of adherents to the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese (the
communion in which I'm a member) in North America reports 350,000, which would
put the median membership per parish well over 1500 people each, a figure which,
based on my having visited parishes around the country, I would be inclined to
guess is highly inflated (possibly more than 10-fold). I'd also guess that many
evangelical churches have higher attendance than their membership roles reflect,
which seems to be the opposite of groups like Orthodox, Catholic, and liberal
("Mainline") Protestant ones. Interesting factoid
on this: The Southern Baptist Convention has almost as many ordained ministers
(40,000) in this country as the Catholic church has priests (50,000), though the
latter is routinely estimated as having a membership over three times larger than
the Southern Baptists (SBC-16 million; RCC 56 million). For more information,
check our most recent resource link, Adherents. June 22
2004 | Conference
draws a large cross-section of 'religious liberals' to Washington
Narrow is the
gate that leads to the Kingdom; broad is the mind that leads to destruction (cf.
Matt.
7:13). Of course it's
not true that conservative religious leaders try to dictate legslation, public
policy from their particular set of religious beliefs. For decades a conservative religious
think tank has been advocating true pluralism in American politics, representation
for all rather than the current liberal-imposed "winner take all" approach. The liberals
have been turning a deaf ear all these years and will continue to do so long as
they're "liberal" as they understand that term. June 21
2004 | Christian
dinosaur hunters dig for evidence of biblical dragons
I've never seen
absolute proof of either theory, but certainly have seen enough holes in "evolution"
to doubt its motivations. Such a dig certainly has appeal and I empathize with
the teenagers who wanted it for a Christmas gift. June 20
2004 | Authoritative
web site tracks data on 42,667 religious groups worldwide
This should be
helpful for any kind of religious research. I have long been looking for such
a website, and have now linked it on the Xnmp Front Page resources, under "Eclectic." June 19
2004 | Priest
advises Kerry to 'cool it' on talk of being barred from communion
The "communion
thing"? The conservatives are 20 years ahead on "this religious stuff"? No, not
20 years; worlds apart. Is it strange
that "separation of church and state" champion John Kerry is being advised by
a priest who is a former congressman (who was a priest at the time)? And if the
priests are ambivalent about "this religious stuff," how can their politicians
be expected to have a better understanding? June 18
2004 | Independent
study says evangelical Protestant men make better fathers
Two thoughts
about anecdotal evidence. This study confirms the anecdotal evidence I've seen
my whole life. And why does USAToday consider it appropriate to pit anecdotal
opinions (albeit the opinions of a "scientific thinker," sociologist Scott Coltrane)
against scientifically obtained research? Are they that desperate to discredit
or at least cast doubt on evangelicalism? One wonders. On the other
hand, let's thank them for not getting a quote from "the Rev." Barry
Lynn, the liberals' default critic of the "Christian right." A recent article
(Touchstone magazine, May; not online) "Salt of the Empire, The Role of
the Christian Family in Evangelization" by Catholic writer Mike Aquilina correlates
to this finding beautifully. In it, Aquilina presents considerable evidence, gathered
by an agnostic researcher, that one of the strongest contributors to the rapid
growth of Christianity in the patristic period was the Christian teaching and
(more importantly) practice on what today are called family values. (Though Aquilina's article is not online, more information
and some articles from Touchstone magazine are linked here.) June 17
2004 | Southern
Baptists promote voter registration and voting your values
A slow-news day
provides an opportunity to introduce a website that can help all Christians, not
only Southern Baptists, sort through the issues of American politics, government,
and justice. It also gives
me entree to discuss two other Southern Baptist-related issues and the media.
Secular media
like the Associated Press and many of its member organizations have played up
the SBC's withdrawal from the World Baptist Alliance. Though this would merit
a paragraph in any denominational magazine, it should hardly merit the attention
of the secular media, unless they see it as a chance to embarrass the SBC for
its right leanings, and apparently they want to do so. The World Baptist Alliance
has been taking positions antithetical to orthodox Christianity for as long as
I've been editing reports about it, since the mid-1960s, and probably long before
that. To me, the Convention's withdrawal seems long overdue for what is America's
major conservative Christian body. The AP's reporting
on the SBC is either intentionally slanted or rooted in ignorance or, more likely,
both. A lead statement like "Twenty-five years after its rightward shift began,
the Southern Baptist Convention...," in this
article, has no place in any report purporting to be fair, balanced, and objective
(which latter value I consider to be based on faulty presuppositions, but giving
the secularists their point for discussion's sake...). Obviously the reporter
here, hiding behind anonymity while boldly expressing his or her strong personal
biases, considers her/his knowledge and insight more valid than 16-plus million
Southern Baptists. Can you say "elitist"? To say that the
Southern Baptist Convention started leaning to the right 25 years ago is fatuous,
ignorant of the history of the denomination, and false. If it is the calling of
all Christians to enter as sheep on the righthand of Christ (Mt. 25:32-33) the
denomination like any communion attempting to be faithful to its Lord and His
revelation, started out intending to be on the right and in the right. Like all
major denominations tempted to focus on their own importance, through the years
it drifted to the left, and closer the goats, not the right and the sheep. If
anything began 25 years ago, it was a correction of that leftward drift, not the
beginning of a rightward one. Though I've been
at some time ago a Baptist, I've never been a Southern one, so this is my humble
opinion based on outside observation, for what it's worth. June 16
2004 | Report:
religious themes will replace reality as TV's latest bid for ratings
Despite their
devotion to mammon and themselves, entertainment moguls occasionally stumble into
truth because, if truth is out there—as I
belive it is—it's
inevitable. For example, The Waltons and Touched By An Angel were,
to my lights, two of the most realistic shows ever run on major network TV (certainly
more true to life than any so-called "reality TV"). Both captured real people
with at least approximate representation of their lives in dimensions more fulsome
than flat adventure, peril, or relational dysfunction. Not that most
people have personal highly lucid meetings with angels (that aspect of that show
being its creative license) but because in their human crises they survive by
being able to find higher power that transcends their crises, their vulnerablity,
and their egos. Though my first
thought on reading this industry-centric cynical report about what's in store
this fall was, "God spare us," human creativity is such that some good and even
Good News will spread over the cesspool eventually, and that makes tuning in occasionally
an erstwhile worthwhile game. June 15
2004 | CNN
trumpets the latest best-seller new-age cult: 'Meet the new God'
Sounds to me
that "Tomorrow's God" is Hinduism's long-running "nirvana gods" mixed in with
a dollup of old fashioned enlightenment humanism and a big splash of new age hogwash.
Such balderdash along with presenting John Shelby Spong as some sort of expert
tells us more about CNNTimeWarnerAOL and its view of the journalistic integrity
than anything remotely godly. On the other
hand, anyone whose idea of God is circumscribed as a man, bearded or otherwise,
may be interested in a toll bridge I have for sale. But on the other other hand,
mankind is made in God's image, so that does suggest a resemblance. And even more
important, Jesus Christ, who was bearded, is a fully human incarnation of the
eternal Creator God, so if you like that image, hold onto it. Maybe Michelangelo
knew something that has escaped the wannabe founder of the latest new age/evolution
cult. June 14
2004 | Democrat
group rips Texas Republicans' claim the US is Christian nation
Who would you
trust to govern us? Secularists? Humanists? Fascists/Communists? Democrats who
believe that any of the above and their systems of philosophies and laws would
be preferable than Christians and theirs? Methinks the
Texas GOP has a better idea. June 13
2004 | Group
contemplates possibility of making South Carolina a 'Christian' state
Of course secession
is unconstitutional, but the movement poses some fundamental ponderables. The movement
makes me wonder whatever came of the "gay exodus" from San Francisco to Elk County,
northern California, a county the leaders of that movement claimed could be dominated
with only about 800 migrants. June 12
2004 | Evangelical
works to avert Christian-Muslim 'clash of biblical proportions'
Godspeed, Richard
Cizik. June 11
2004 | After
assassination attempt, Reagan 'devoted the rest of his life to God'
I first heard
reports about Reagan's spirituality from a personal acquaintance, a minister who
visited him in the Sacramento governor's mansion. He was of the "old school,"
apparently, who preferred to keep his piety largely private and internal. An anecdote
related by a biographer Thursday on the MSNBC Scarborough Country illustrates:
When a member of his White House cabinet suggested that the cabinet meetings be
opened with prayer, the President replied, "I always do," though no one present
realized it till then. June 10
2004 | In
hindsight, Reagan is credited for saving, transforming Republican Party
Though it's beyond
my expertise to even guess how much credit for the conservative ascendency goes
to the late President Reagan, it's not much of a risk to guess that his role was
vital. And an often overlooked benefit of this change is that we have regained
a two-party system in the Unted States. I was one of the many observers who was
saying, before Reagan, that there wasn't a dimes' worth of difference between
Republican and Democratic Parties. And though I
was among those who considered Mr. Reagan's commitment to the pro-life cause soft,
in retrospective it may have been his gentle support that kept it alive and nourished
it to survive until it has grown a formidable campaign issue again. Even if the
blue and red states, as they're being called these days, seem separated by a chasm
of Grand Canyon proportions, there are real worldviews in play today. June 9
2004 | Cable
news audiences are increasingly politicized, Pew study finds
In general, this
trend is encouraging to any who would prefer that the public realize that no news
medium or reporter is religiously neutral. Even if Fox News' claim of "fair and
balanced" coverage is an exaggeration, it helps educate the public about what
the news should provide. The Pew study
also, incidentally, confirms my long-standing contention that at best Bill O'Reilly
is a phony conservative spinner of the news, a Catholic of the John Kerry order,
and undeserving of the audience he summons. June 8
2004 | Late
President Reagan's wisdom on the role of religion in political life
Although we hear
a lot about the current campaign being the first of its kind for hardened left-right
opposition, the late President's remarks indicate that it's not new or unique.
RIP Ronald Reagan,
1911-2004 June 7
2004 | Judge
who put down partial-birth law okayed public school Muslim prayers
With the liberals
it seems that anything that might help push the nation into chaos and heat up
the culture wars is worth a try. June 6
2004 | 'Christophobia'
is one social pathology the left will never condemn
Think Giles is
a bit over the top? Think he's entitled? If not, I'd say you haven't been paying
attention. June 5
2004 | Pope
enjoins US bishops to stand firm for Christian social moral principles
Let's hope his
congregation of hierarch's takes his teaching to heart. June 4
2004 | School
sued for denying religious, speech rights of Christian student
Those who want
to believe there is no link between Stalinism, Maoism, Nazism, and 2000s American
liberalism need look no farther. Anyone who disagrees with Mao—make that the liberals'
politically correct positions—will be re-educated. Anyone who dares speak bilical truth in the face
of liberals' lies will be silenced even if the force of the state is required.
This is, of course,
this week's showcase example of U.S. liberals' attack on the First Amendment.
Romans 1:27:
"Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their
lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving
in themselves the penalty of their error which was due." June 3
2004 | LA
County removing tiny cross from county seal after ACLU challenge
While they're
at it, why not work on that obviously "religious" official name? Maybe "The Angles"
would be more appropritate, though many
might prefer Lalaland. Santa Cruz (Holy Cross) could become Holy Moly, and San
Franciscans have been itching forever to have their city by the bay known as Frisco.
And...Sandy Eggo? Too commercial. Sandy Yeggo! June 2
2004 | Is
the Catholic Church playing politics in its talk of communion bans?
This is a fresh
and resonant response to a deluge of sophomoric essays, columns,
and letters to editors that have been railing against the Catholic bishops' "meddling
in politics" by raising the question if politicians who stand against the Christian
community's consistent, biblical, and ancient doctrine that abortion violates
the commandment: "Thou shalt not kill" are thereby disqualified to receive the
church's communion. Obviously, such writers look at Christianity as something
tolerable in America as civil religion, but not something to be taken seriously
as the way to the living Creator-Redeemer God and our only true King and our Salvation. Thousands, tens
of thousands, died before the Caesars for refusing to make less compromise of
the Christian faith than Senators Kerry, and Kennedy, and governors like Schwarzenegger
and their co-civil-religionists make every day in our time. Anyone who has read
the Old Testament knows that one of the highest callings of God's priests and
prophets is calling the polis, the nation, and its leaders to reformation, return
to the faith of the Fathers. When Israel wasn't
receptive to the prophets' messages, God sent the nation His judgment in the form
of wicked and apostate rulers. God have mercy
on our generation and the generations to come. June 1
2004 | Now
they're even trying to ban baptisms in God's own free-flowing river
Haven't the Democrats
ever heard of something called the First Amendment? What's next?
Signs that say "no swimming by Christians"? "This river reserved for use by secularists
and atheists only"? It's time the state of Virginia gets up with the
rest of the nation and understands that segregation is no longer tolerated. |
