Please
let us know how the service can be improved. July 31
2004 | Two takes on US
Muslims' move toward the Democrats: Islamic;
Jewish
It will be
interesting to see if the Democrats become the party of both the Jewish and Islamic
Americans. But the conventional wisdom is that as it becomes more that of the
latter, it will be less so that of the former. Meanwhile
supporters of the President trumpet the slogan, 10
out of 10 Terrorists Agree Anyone But Bush. July 30
2004 | Democrats'
refusal to act against 'gay marriage' could cost them election
Apparently
Mr. Spruill has an inside track on the President's program for faith-based iniatives,
because the general assessment of the liberal establishment is quite different
from his, frequently claiming that it's one of the things he's delivered on that
is detrimental to their view of separation of church (i.e. God, religion)
and state (i.e., anyone in any place other than their "upper story" or
fantasy life). Even the evangelical organizations that supported it generally
seem satisfied with Mr. Bush's only partially successful efforts, considering
Congress' apathy on the issue. And
to call Mr. Bush mean-spirited is, well, mean-spirited and tantamount to bearing
false witness against him, in the view of even liberal critics like Bob
Woodward...and how he has lied about Iraq is not supported by any evidence. However,
he is right about making sodomy a civil right and its advocates a legitimate minority
under civil rights legislation, and we can only hope he continues making that
point. July 29
2004 | Pennsylvania
home school families sue against fascistic, anti-Christian law
If, as it seems
obvious from this report, the state of Pennsylvania, at least its education department,
considers children the property of the state, that makes its home schooling rules
fascistic. Of course those who believe their children are property of God and
their parents' primary responsibility, not the state's, will be rightly offended,
if not outraged. It
would seem that, in a democracy, everyone would be equal to the education officials,
but not in the Communist or National Socialist context whose precepts seem to
infect Pennsylvania, New York, and some other so-called "progressive"
domains. July 28
2004 | Ministers
group wants to have 'political' issues raised in the nation's pulpits
For providing
a camouflage for the left's defense of the great evils of our time, the real name
of Americans United for Separation of Church and State should be Americans United
for Separation of Church and Reality. July 27
2004 | What
religious characteristics do Americans want in their Presidents?
Also of interest
on the same site is a survey of local opinion on the rise of political conservatism
among American Catholics since the Kennedy administration. The reporting is
not brilliant (did the Catholic bishop actually say we are "partly" spiritual
beings?; "misled" is misspelled, which I find off-putting) but the questions and
some answers are good discussion starters. Most importantly, the perspective seems
to come from where the "real people" live. An
extra: Planned
Parenthood selling 'I had an abortion' T-shirts on Yahoo July 26
2004 | Yet
another take on how the candidates are handling the religious divide
Rightfully, let's
hope they play a very major role in the outcome of this year's campaigns
indeed. July 25
2004 | CBS's
new sister gay network—Logo—set for February '05 launch
Of course it's
purely coincidental that one of the Greek names for the Messiah is Logos, I'm
sure. What
other cross-section of the population with such a small demographic (under 10
percent of the general population by all serious accounts) attracts so much fawning
attention? What could account for this disproportionate fascination? I
think it could be that "gay" is about sex, all sex, all the time, and
the networks have just been frothing at their collective mouths to get a way to
exploit that, the most universal of all human vulnerabilities. July 24
2004 | Bible
is fading from the culture, so rabbi plans to translate NEW Testament
The Guardian
reports states that this may be the first attempt to render a new translation
of the New Testament by a Jewish rabbi. July 23
2004 | Britons
considering proposed law prohibiting criticism of religions
"Hate crimes
legislation" of any kind is always a mistake. That's because crimes of any kind
are always rooted in hate—hatred of God's and man's laws, hatred for neighbors
and their well being—and the "progressive" hate crimes legislation is just
an attempt to woo another voter bloc or allay criticism that the government isn't
doing enough. We can legislate only against crimes, not their motivations (though
good laws well enforced can teach higher standards; there can be no doubt that
civil rights laws have lessened the hatred in many parts of the United States,
years after their passage).
July 22
2004 | 'People
are seeing each other not as political partisans, but as enemies'
Much worth considering
here.
July 21
2004 | Jewish
writer accuses liberal Presbyterian church of defaming Christianity
Of course in
its support of "abortion rights," declining to condemn the slaughter of the innocents
in the cause of sexual liberation and other leftist wrongs, the General Assembly
of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has been committing evil for many years, in my
humble opinion. But for Jewish writers to have noticed (and Prager is not alone
in this) is noteworthy.
July 20
2004 | Some of
what's now politically correct—and is not—on some U.S. campuses
This is just
one of a collection of such shorts in this Fox News feature. The incident cited
reminds me that the only Ph.D. program I was inclined to enter was well known
for being controlled by a Marxist department head at the nearby campus of the
University of California. I was informed of this before applying, and I decided
I was capable and willing to work with a Marxist if I could get in and if he was
willing to abide my Christian affiliations and explications of the material we
had in common. Despite my master's from a sister campus and my years of running
an independent study center at Stanford at the time, my application wasn't even
acknowledged. But neither did
it seem to me appropriate to fight the discrimination. How times have changed!
July 19
2004 | NY Times writer
puts fans of 'Left Behind' books in league with militant Islam
We
have quite properly linked the fundamentalist religious tracts of Islam with the
intolerance they nurture, and it's time to remove the motes from our own eyes.
Nicholas
D. Kristoff would have
a point worth making here if there were any evidence that the "fundamentalists"
who believe that God will one day obliterate all those who refuse to follow Him
are plotting to punish the enemies they perceive as anti-God, or even that the
so-called fundamentalists are even intolerant of them—but he cites not a
scintilla of evidence to demonstrate that. I don't like the novel theology (novel
in the sense that it has been found in some denominations—not most—for
only about the past two centuries and the "pretribulation rapture" aspect
of it has been labeled a heresy by the universal church from ancient times. Because
of my Orthodox disavowal of that doctrine, I haven't had the least bit of interest
in reading the Left Behind series, even if 60 million people worldwide have found
it fascinating stuff. However,
the parts of the latest book that Kristoff takes to task are basic to any traditional
reading of Scripture: mainline Protestant (discounting the liberals), Catholic,
and Orthodox. Christ will return, and He will judge the world, and
that part of the world that doesn't worship Him will be eternally banished from
His presence (or, as many Orthodox theologians prefer to express it, they'll be
consigned to experience His presence as "heat," rather than light, and
that won't be comfortable for them). This is Christianity 101. It's right there
in the Nicene Creed, the basic "symbol" of trinitarian faith. The Left
Behind authors (I'm assuming) have taken creative license in imagining what that
judgment may be like. But nowhere does Kristoff offer any evidence that it is
any body of evangelicals, fundamentalists, or any other stripe of Christian believers
who make this happen; it will happen when the Lord takes charge and not under
the command of any human force. Mr.
Kristoff omits any consideration of the proposition that any Christian, including
the "heretics" who believe in the pretribulation rapture of the church—any
"Christian" who hates his or her enemies will be just as "fried"
as the ethnic groups that Mr. Kristoff imagines fundamentalists despise. But those
who hate their neighbors are not Christians, fundamentally or any other wise,
so they won't be in any position to gloat when the deeds described occur. I've
known scores of fundamentalists in the past 45 years (even been called one myself
more than once) and never have known one who would dispute this proposition. For
the New York Times to be ignorant of anything this basic regarding the
largest religious group in the world and the largest culture grouping in the United
States is appalling and unacceptable. It makes anything Jayson Blair, the publisher's
favorite scapegoat, ever got away with seem trivial in comparison with what they
encourage their regular writers to foist on the public every day. July 18
2004 | Passion
movie didn't launch a great awakening, but it changed millions
We'd read about
a criminal confessing
a long-hidden crime after seeing The Passion of the Christ, and we'd read
about a hardened teenager's conversion in the lobby, having become too overcome
to sit in the theater. So our expectations may have been artificially raised.
But still, 13 million adults changing their religious practice because of the
movie would be considerably larger than the second-largest Protestant church in
the United States. That's
not small potatoes. July 17
2004 | National Council of
Churches issues 'liberal' tool for judging politicians
This is such
a transparent gloss for the leftwing one-world, one-church platform, and an attempt
to provide a churchly alternative to what its framers call the Christian right
that I doubt anyone other than the dwindling numbers of the NCC denominations—those
who believe Christian dorma can only be derived from "conversation in the
pews" and which conversation must be guided by doggeral such as this—only
such will pay it any heed. To say that "the churches" can't unite around
issues like abortion and gay marriage while they can pontificate against the U.S.
war on terrorism has the ring of "apostasy" in my ears. Fifty
years of "ecumenical agreements" are cited up one side and down the
other of this "politician screening tool," but not a scripture text,
not one father of the church is called in its support. Any guesses why? "Come
out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean,
and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be my sons and
daughters, says the LORD Almighty," 1 Corinthinas 6:17-18.
July 16
2004 | Organizations digging
in for 10-year campaign to ban same-sex marriages
Some journeys
are more important than their destinations. July 15
2004 | Left's
crusade against 'miniscule cross' is attack on our history and identity
The issue of
the ACLU's threat to sue Los Angeles County over the "miniscule cross" on the
county's official seal has been in the news for several months, but this is the
first article I've seen on the topic worth calling "significant." Though I'm guessing
the writer is more left-leaning on the rights of Christians than I am, her thinking
is sound enough to tweak perhaps even liberals' consciences. And the background
on how any representation of a cross is superstitiously avoided among Arab Muslims
is a revelation worth knowing. In reality, the
fight aginst the county seal's cross is a denial of the history and the identity
of the most noticeable group of contributors to the creation of the county, the
state, and nation. It was never put there to represent a governmental confession
of faith or favoritism to any group, but to recognize a contribution of a people
to the county's creation. Its prohibition is an attempt to undermine the pluralistic
foundations of our society and to enforce a monopolistic, fascistic, totalitarian
secularism on us. And it seems
to be winning. Battle by battle. Day by day. County by county. Miniscule cross
by miniscule cross. July 14
2004 | First
of the San Francisco 'gay marriages' is headed to divorce court
I avoid most
of the flood of articles appearing on this topic because as I've said before,
if society accepts the proposition that homosexuals are a minority class entitled
to the same civil rights considerations as, for example, racial "minorities,"
this battle in the culture war has already been lost. Even those advocating a
Constitutional Amendment to limit marriage are generally accepting of this proposition
(saying "civil unions, not marriage" are acceptable), tantamount to saying they're
on the same track to the same destination as the liberals and gays, but want to
get there more slowly. And the slowing
of the pace of change, to the extent that it slows the decline of civilization,
is itself desirable, even if it's hardly moral high ground. The Marriage Amendment
is worth supporting just to foster debate, even if the debate is already lost.
I don't believe in fatalism, I'm not a pessimist, I believe in miracles, but I've
been following this issue too closely too long to reach any other conclusion.
Having resaid
all that, this article is not big news. Already in the European countries in which
"gay marriages" have been legal for some years, there have already been divorces.
And there's no margin in comparing the "commitment" of "gay" and "straight" married
couples, for it's not possible to do so objectively. It seems patently unkind
to accuse gays of marrying for self-gratification; they already have access to
that. In fact, the only thing that makes this article worth discussing is this: [Homosexual
activist Michelangelo] Signorile also states he and others like him want same-sex
marriage in order to "redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand
the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society's moral codes but rather
to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution."
There may be
more truth to this statement of objectives than even many of the gay activists
realize. But I'm willing to take on face value the claim that most of those who
attest to having "innocent motives" and the best of intentions in pressing for
a right to marry same-sex partners are sincere. They're morally derailed, but
to the extent that they're products of their time and their cultures and our shared
media and educational establishments, they're not solely to blame even for that.
They're ultimately
responsible for not seeking higher truth, as we all are, and even if they're sincerely
wrong, they are, nonetheless, sincere. July 13
2004 | Editorial
defending public schools against S. Baptist critics gets it all wrong
Interestingly,
the anonymous writer of the Cape Cod Times' editorial missed the only argument
that might hold water for keeping kids in state schools, the same one many Southern
Baptists cited in their arguments against the anti-public schools resolution:
There are still many Christian teachers and administrators in the U.S. public
schools, many Christian students, too, and to abandon the schools leaves behind
those who need support in their often-thankless task. The
editor is not paying attention to the news of our times if he wants to press his
point that there is no persecution of Christians, both in staff and student bodies,
in many public schools in all quarters of our republic. We cite examples of it
here routinely, and the ones we get hold of are those about which lawsuits have
been mounted; without doubt there are many more than those that get to the courts.
He
also missed the point that not only do public schools teach "religions," (teaching
that all "organized religions are equal and therefore none is true), the
public schools are based upon and dedicated to one established religion, which
should be unconstitutional in the United States but goes unopposed by any significant
campaign. That religion is the religion of the French Revolution, of the historic
movement called the Enlightenment, the religion called Modernism, Humanism, Secularism.
It's because the secularists already have their religion established, in the schools
as their churches and Sunday schools, that they are so fierce in their opposition
to any other religion, disparaginly called "organized" getting a leg
up. Some
ignorant Christians no doubt do represent the editor's position, that they want
religion taught in the public schools but only if it's their religion. But those
Christians who have given a moment's thought to what it means to love your neighbor
as yourself, want pluralized schools, where their religion can be taught, from
their perspective (not the secularlists') along with all
the other religious groupings and even anti-religious groupings represented in
the schools. I
didn't expect the Southern Baptists to adopt a resolution opposing public schools
and am not even sure that's the right tactic. (I once began a project to organize
the Christians in the nation's public schools, called CAPS--Christian Action in
the Public Schools, which died with the cessation of my study center/publications
ministry at Stanford University.) But the proposal to the SBC was a bold movement
and it would have had widespread social and political ramifications if passed,
even as an advisory rather than anything conscience-binding. For the largest religious
group in the United States without a noticeable Christian alternative to the secularist
public schools to move in the direction of correcting that fact is definitely
worth the moral support of all people of religious commitment and good will. Of
course there's a single word that can birth such a happy state of events over
time, but it's the "baddest" word in the secularists' lexicon, to their
thinking, so I'll just whisper it: vouchers. July 12
2004 | Mormonism
said poised to become the first new world religion since Islam
The Age
calls it a new-world religion, but since Islam is not new-world but, compared
to all the other "world" religions it's new..."new-world"
doesn't work. New world does, so I've taken the liberty of editing. At the least,
this development holds out the long-hoped-for abandonment of claims by Mormonism
to being Christian. As their own spokesman says: "Mormons believe in a God
and Jesus who are...outside the Trinitarian conception." Yea, verily. And
to call the Nicene Creed (finalized in 381 A.D., the confession of the churches'
setting forth the trinity) a product of "middle ages" tradition is clearly
a lie. And since anyone with a liberal education would know this, and anyone educated
in journalism would know the ethical necessity for "fact checking" any
such claim The Age has to be called more than complicit in the lie. The
New York Times Jayson Blair School of Journalism is apparently alive and well
down under. July 11
2004 | At last,
an authoritative look at 'what would the founding fathers do?'
Well, since this
is a reprised history piece, maybe the "at last" is a stretch. But it's
new to me and that's what matters. But seriously, this is chockablock with "new"
information about our founding fathers and their day. July 10
2004 | Duke
prof makes a surprisingly conservative case for orthodox teaching
Surprising because
this originated at Duke University and was published by Knight-Ridder. We could
only hope that Prof. Steinmetz would also recognize the "vote of the dead" (the
testimony of the church fathers and preceding generations) which is also one of
the Orthodox/orthodox criteria used in judging soundness of Christian doctrine. July 9
2004 | Professor
sues community college, says it denied his First Amendment rights
This week's Exhibit
One of so-called liberal intolerance of any meaningful—or meaning-filled—diversity. July 8
2004 | Robert
Reich calls those who put God first greater danger than terrorists
Except for the
bogus claim that
Christians "believe that human life is mere preparation for an existence
beyond life," this is the liberal manifesto in all its naked diabolical unveiling.
Contra the bogus claim just cited, it is the God-fearers—most accurately
exemplified by the Christians, but all who fear and seek God—who, alone,
have a real purpose in this life and who have a real claim on this world as the
creation and the gift, to those who believe, from God the all-beneficent
Father and Lord. The greatest purpose in life is to become ready
for the life to come, but there is nothing "mere" about that, and there
is no negation of true living and true giving about it.It is from this affirmation
of life worth living that all Judeo-Christian civilization has arisen. Here is a cabinet
member in the Clinton Administration* and a spokesman for the Democratic Party
not only admitting but boasting of the claims we've been pressing for years about
the liberal platform, about the real and not insignificant differences between
the sides in the culture war they're waging against us. We, of course, not they,
created this culture, under God and by His grace, and it is they who, in their
18th Century "enlightenment" declared war against us and have given
no quarter since the storming of the Bastille. Yes, this is where
the battle is joined. But it's being waged by those promoting the new holocaust,
whom Reich aptly calls by inference the "modernists"—epitomized
by their love of abortion, euthanasia, marriages based on sodomy—against
those who love and have purpose for life and living to the fullest. Yes, we are
anti-modernists if satan is the prince of modernism. And he is. *Before joining
Brandeis University, Reich served as the Secretary of Labor during President Clinton's
first term. July 7
2004 | Both
Kerry, Edwards, consistently vote against 'religious' judge nominees
Kerry's holding
that life begins with conception and that yet that life is not deserving of protection
under law must rank with the most inhuman philosophies of the Nazis who denied
the same basic human right (to life) to Jews, homosexuals, and Christians who
spoke out against their atrocities. But let me call
on a better articulator of today's Vice Presidential choice developments from
Crisis editor Deal Hudson in an email: I know, I know...
The big story today is Senator John Edwards. But I want to call your attention
to something else. It passed quickly through the news cycle, so you may have missed
it. On Sunday, John
Kerry told Iowa's Telegraph Herald that he personally opposes abortion and believes
that life begins at conception. The exact quote is as follows: "I oppose abortion,
personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception." Amazing. You may recall
the e-letter I sent you in February that covered this very issue. In it, I had
assembled several past Kerry comments that seemed to show that Senator Kerry does
NOT really oppose abortion -- publicly or personally. For example,
compare his recent statement with the remarks he made at last year's NARAL Pro-Choice
America Dinner: "I think that
tonight we have to make it clear that we are not going to turn back the clock.
There is no overturning of Roe v. Wade... There is no outlawing of a procedure
necessary to save a woman's life or health and there are no more cutbacks on population
control efforts around the world. We need to take on this President and all of
the forces of intolerance on this issue. We need to honestly and confidently and
candidly take this issue out to the country and we need to speak up and be proud
of what we stand for." Did you catch
that? Not only should abortion be available to all American women, all the time,
but it should be used as a population control valve around the world. And this
is something we should "be proud of." Not what you'd expect from someone who claims
he doesn't like abortion. And this isn't
an isolated comment... >From the Boston
Herald on January 23, 2001: "I will not back away from my conviction that international
family planning programs are in America's best interests. We should resist pressures
in this country for heavy-handed Washington mandates that ignore basic choices
that should belong to free people around the globe." Kerry's support
for "international family planning programs" -- a standard euphemism for "abortion"
-- is an issue he's advocated for some time. If Kerry is telling the truth about
being "personally opposed" to abortion, why is he trying to spread it worldwide?
But perhaps the
most outrageous quote comes from the 1994 Congressional record: "The right thing
to do is to treat abortions as exactly what they are -- a medical procedure that
any doctor is free to provide and any pregnant woman free to obtain. Consequently,
abortions should not have to be performed in tightly guarded clinics on the edge
of town; they should be performed and obtained in the same locations as any other
medical procedure... [A]bortions need to be moved out of the fringes of medicine
and into the mainstream of medical practice. And by the same token, if our children
are to be safe from the danger of fanaticism, tolerance needs to spread out of
the mainstream churches, mosques, and synagogues, and into the religious fringes."
Abortion is simply
"a medical procedure"? If that were true, then on what grounds could he possibly
be personally opposed to it? He certainly doesn't seem to be struggling with the
issue here. And how exactly does he propose to "spread tolerance" to the "religious
fringes"? Presumably, he's referring to the people who, as an article of faith,
believe abortion to be immoral. But didn't he just claim to be one of those very
people? John Kerry says
he believes that abortion is wrong and that life begins at conception. And yet
he vows to do everything he can to make sure that women have the freedom and right
to end that life. You can say a
lot of things about a position like that. But you certainly can't say it's Catholic.
July 6
2004 | The
Vatican calls for education that teaches 'being,' not 'having'
I consider this
a major contribution to the discussion of the role of religion, and that of education,
in this time, of turning us from materialism and carnality to resolute character
and spirituality. The emphasis on fasting (more than half of the days of the year)
by Eastern Orthodoxy, and its widespread observance of this practice in this communion,
teaches the divorce between the carnal fleshly preoccupation of materialism from
self-effacing godly pursuit through praxis. I consider this the reason that the
former Soviet Union, where for centuries such fasting was practiced, did not come
unglued (as materialistic westerners wide predicted) because its part of the world
was so much poorer, after the fall of Communism, than most of the rest of the
First and Second worlds. Just to mention
the possibility of transcending the flesh and materialistic lifestyle makes a
major contribution to strengthening Christian-based civilization.If it can be
made to work for the Catholic world, it will be imitated in the evangelical world
and other religious communities and contribute to making it possible to withstand
the lusts of the world, the flesh, and the devil in these last days. ON
VACATION - JUNE 28 - JULY 6
|
