Please
let us know any ideas you have for how
to improve the service. March 31 2005 | Missionaries
of the Gospel of Life organizing to lead the war on abortion Would
it be picking nits to point out that the LA Times considers Terri Shiavo's "being
without " her feeding tube more worth mentioning than what the tube had been
invented to convey? I think not.
March 30 2005 | College
faculties much more liberal than general population, and listing left Maybe
the biggest surprise is that 31 percent of these faculty liberals say they are
regular church attenders. If memory serves, that's higher than the percentage
of regular church goers among young adults in Western Europe's most-churched country,
Ireland.
March 29 2005 | Chuck
Colson / Anne Morse: 'Darwinism is a verdict in need of evidence' Writing
in the New York Times, Garry Wills asked: ""Can a nation which believes
more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an enlightened
nation?" To which Colson and Morse begin this excellent essay by saying: "It's
an interesting question, considering the iron grip evolutionists have had over
our educational institutions for a century." Indeed.
March 28 2005 | Marxism
may have been a kind of 'John the Baptist' for new converts in China With
its unique doctrines of creation, fall, and redemption, Marxism has long been
called a heresy on Christianity. And if there is a God-shaped vacuum in every
soul needing filling, Kristoff may be onto something. His
larger thesis that Christianity thrives most where it is most difficult seems
to match mine that faiths thrive when they feel the necessity to compete.
March 27 2005 | British
schools' religion guidelines define atheism as a belief system We
have always maintained that secular humanism (which rightly understood is another
name for atheism) is a religion and therefore has no claim to neutrality in the
public square. I doubt that we will have a public policy statement about the teaching
of religion in American "public" schools, but if we did I agree that
atheism aka secualr humanism should be included as one of the options.
March 26 2005 | Liberal Jewish group
lectures Christian candidate about her religion stance Few
things are nicer than having someone tell you what and how you should believe
and behave; generally mind your business for you. Thank you, ADL! I
grew up in a city where a lot of people actually thought the ADL spoke for the
Jewish community. That's comparable to thinking that the National Council of Churches
speaks for Christians. Or that Americans United for Separation of Church and State
speaks for anyone.
March 25 2005 | Sublime
spirituality, human and earthly nonsense mix at pilgrimage shrines British
journalist-turned-author and specialist on Eastern Christendom, whose Why Angels
Fall I much appreciated, seems to have migrated from approving observer fostering
understanding to shrill and cynical would-be iconoclast, sowing discord.
March 24 2005 | Landmark study
reveals regional differences in coverage of faith issues The
news here is about as old as Babel.
Faith issues get less attention the more urbanized the population is. But occasional
studies to reconfirm our long-held assumptions can be helpful.
March 23 2005 | Finding:
'most American moviegoers don't want much sex in their movies' The
biblical word on sex—and talk about it, how seriously or lightly we consider
it—is unequivocal. Outside its sacred mandated expressions it is playing
with fire. Personally I prefer the "R-rated" relationship treatments
to the vulgar comedies that may slip by with a PG-13. The former usually confirm
the biblical testimony about the wages of sin; the latter encourage profaning
something God created for holy enjoyment.
March 22 2005 | US Conference
of Catholic Bishops redoubles crusade on death penalty I'm
going to side with C. S. Lewis who opposed elimination of the death penalty when
England was considering it. Classic Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant teaching
has held that the death penalty is not condemned in any passage of Scipture and
is within the justice role of government to carry out. Even the current catechism
of the Catholic Church says as much. I agree that government can and should be
lenient and inclined to give the benefit of doubt to the accused when exacting
the ultimate penalty. But how can it be "just" to grant to someone who
has carried out a personal death penalty against another innocent person a lifetime
of residency in a state sponsored facility? How can we say murder is the ultimate
crime and sin against fellow human beings, and not exact the ultimate penalty
for it? The Catholic church rightly appeals to the governments of the world to
defend the most defenseless on the issue of abortion, but when it comes to murder
it seems the bishops are ignoring a class of people even more defenseless than
the unborn: the victims of capital murder. Government's biblical mandate is to
insure justice, not to provide lifetime room and board for people who slay their
neighbors.
March 21 2005 | Proposal
in Congress would allow Boy Scouts to use government facilities As
I've said here on the Boy Scout issue before, the only reason anyone would want
to "come out" or make sexuality of any kind an issue in Scouting is
to foster youthful experimentation and make "converts" or "nonvirgins"
out of sexual innocents. Thank goodness the Congress is finally starting to act
to restore justice to this worthwhile social service agency.
March 20 2005 | Jewish
scientist calls faithful Americans to 'confront secular fundamentalism' Dr.
Goldfinger's assessment of how educational justice can be achieved strikes me
as right on target.
March 19 2005 | Legislators
attempting to pass a law making New Jersey a kinder place Can
you legislate kindness? Civility? Maybe not, but the thousands who once opposed
civil rights laws by saying "you can't legislate love" have been proven
wrong. Certainly there is much more acceptance, respect, civility, and neighborliness
among racially diverse populations now than there was before the major civil rights
laws were passed. Of course it's not direct cause and effect, but a combination
of factors led by the legislative branch making a good example. And of course
in this case that is all the supporters of this bill are hoping.
Elsewhere
in today's news: in my opinion, the best article on the
Terri
Schiavo case is the inimitable Peggy Noonan's one, here. March 18 2005 | Evangelical
Call to Civic Responsibility: don't make this about global warming It
would seem the New York Times was either up to its old
tricks or it was itself misled about this conference. As
for the conference, this is the kind of engagement I've always sought. If God
is real, if the world is His, if all our lives are to glorify Him, then no sphere
can be left unattended. For a totally different and, dare
I say—wrong-headed— assessment of this evangelical movement, see Cal
Thomas' column of March 14.
March 17 2005 | Conference
calls Christians to take dominion in 'every sphere of our world' Any
who see such discourse and study as a threat to our pluralistic society are denying
a place in that society for Christians, and this will not do. It was Bible-believing
Reformed/Presbyterian Christians who originated the concept of cultural pluralism
based on Jesus' golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
No other cultural ideal has as firm a foundation for its professed but seldom
practiced "pluralism," which is more frequently and more aptly characterized as
"multiculturalism," a totalitarian (uinitary) alternative to true pluralism. Their
humanist-based cultural ideal (aka, "religion") is a racial and ethnic "pluralism"
that allows every race and ethnicity to think and believe just as they do, denying
any differences of opinion or vision for life.
March 16 2005 | Key
Roman Catholic cardinal speaks out against The DaVinci Code; calls it 'cheap
lies' One has to compare
the thousands of martyrs
of old with the economically qualified (money-grubbing?) "Catholic" bookstore
managers who purvey such obscene blasphemies.
March 15 2005 | One
of the latest fronts in 'science's' war on religion: neurotheology The
Bible points to the heart rather than the brain as the locus of the soul, but
regardless of where the soul resides, there's no reasonable doubt that it's interdependent
with the body's whole mechanism of cogitative and emotive faculties. So for there
to be apparatus that respond both to genuine religious experience and artificial
stimuli proves nothing. But less has been pressed into use to "disprove"
the spiritual realm.
March 14 2005 | Brian
'Head' Welch, Stephen Baldwin team to market 'Christian' youth line Evangelicals
love their celebrities (I want to say, "with a Passion," but
that wd too corny). This sounds like a good idea with mutual good potentials.
I hope it works out.
March 13 2005 | Articles
in The Nation, National Review, debate 'the religion of the founders' I
would like to see a serious treatment of the Enlightenment (humanist; liberal)
vs. Christian influences on our nation's founders and its founding. This is not
that article, which is more likely to appear in First Things or Touchstone
than National Review or The Nation. Humanism, at its foundation,
makes man his own God, and this is why the French Revolution, to which some of
our own founders made strong theoretical contributions, declared the French Republic
entirely and intractably secular. The Catholic Church has long promoted "Christian
humanism," and I agree that it is not an oxymoron when properly understood. Christian
humanity is truly liberated humanity, over against the humanity that enslaves
its own race when it elevates itself into the divine role (as does radical
humanism). Over against the French Revolution, the American liberationists clearly
taught and exampled "Christian humanism" and established a state that epitomized
that. Having said all this, this article is a corrective
to scores of columns and letters to editors that have been perpetuating The
Nation's incorrect thesis/hypothesis in recent months. As far as it goes,
it is an invaluable essay.
March 12 2005 | Global
gay pride event plans to descend on 'Holy City' Jerusalem in August "Love
without borders" says it all.
March 11 2005 | Republicans'
strong evangelical bloc mobilizing against global warming This
is an encouraging move within the largest bloc of religious Americans. My
only quibble is with the Rev. Ted Haggard's claim, "We do represent 30 million
people, and we can mobilize them if we have to." My experience tells me that people
resent little more than being claimed they're "represented" by spokespersons they
never voted for or, for that matter, against. And I suspect that this kind of
claim is a major factor in the disestablishment of the National Council of Churches.
Pride goeth before a fall.
March 10 2005 | University
of Colorado forces out professor for his political, religious views Liberal?
Radical left? Of course I've often and again defended classical liberalism and
admit that liberals often occupied the high ground in American socio-political
thinking and action. Nor is "conservative" in general synonymous with
holiness. But these days liberal and radical left seem to be on an uninterrupted
continuum.
March 9 2005 | News
survey finds that center stage in culture wars is shifting to campuses I
would question the claim that the culture war has only recently come to campuses,
having chosen campus ministry mainly for the (spiritual) warfare opportunity there
in my youth. The shift took place during the Vietnam War and was in the making
for even some years before that. Obviously, if humanism is the enemy of theism,
the humanist campus (which has long been in the great majority in the United States)
is the church of the religion known as liberalism (a synonym for humanism). The
focus of that war hasn't shifted away, but certainly the news attention and the
number of lawsuits the left's totalitarian tactics have been fostering have been
growing rapidly in recent years. Even though during my 11 years at Stanford University
the liberal majority was well established, I suspect the "memory" of fairness
was still stronger, and projects like my Kuyper Institute were not only tolerated
but in some liberal quarters, sanctioned, welcomed. From what I've been reading,
I doubt that there's that much openness or diversity of worldviews there or other
campuses like Stanford's today.
March 8 2005 | Wisconsin
school will cater to students who feel harrassed, abused...or gay I
have to wonder if, before starting schools that are student driven, we should
try some that are parent driven. Of course if your objective is to drive wedges
between the generations, which the public schools in general are suspected of
being all about, empowering students against their parents is likely to work toward
that end. Obviously, a voucher school would work even better
for these "misfits." But to be fair, if memory serves, Wisconsin is already way
ahead of the national curve in providing voucher school possibilities. And—a
big "and"—this project gets kudos for being much smarter in its self-designation
than its New York City equivalent, which is just known as the gay high school,
a bad idea all around. But...but...but tell me again. If
the school is "open to all" how is it going to determine who is abused
and who wants to go there to escalate abusive ways?
March 7 2005 | Irish
rocker Bono said to be under consideration for World Bank presidency The
"significance" angle here on another slow news day is not that Bono
may become World Bank President (which I think is higly unlikely), much less that
we want two successive days of rockers in our leads, but that anyone of his stature
in the entertainment world could have so much "cred" in a high-level
circle of the world of economics and politics. My not very educated guess is that
the Bush Administration would have a harder time getting his assent to take the
job than they would be inclined to offer it.
March 6 2005 | Former
Korn guitarist Brian Welch baptized in Jordan River; 'angry no more' Many
years, Brian. (Well, at least this celebrity
news signifies more—to me—than today's top-played celebrity piece, the
rehabilitation of Martha Stewart.)
March 5 2005 | Public
opposition cancels public school appearance by gay porn author
"Erotic"
is the humanist (liberal) euphemism for "pornorgraphic."
Though there's no reason to believe the "erotic author" is lying about
his intentions regarding bringing his pornoraphy to the public school, and it's
understandable that he thinks people like him should have a platform, too, it's
also likely that teenagers just hearing that he has produced books "banned"
in the legitimate marketplace would seek them out and be influenced by them.
Again,
children should not be sexualized and the approval of a sexual club (Gay-Straight
Alliance) in a public high school is sexualizing both directly and indirectly.
Nature and the kids themselves are sexualizing enough without adding tax-supported
fuel to the fire. Click here
for another, evangelical Christian, "take" on this story.
March 4 2005 | Despite
secular triumphs in the West, atheism seen as in decline worldwide
So
even though secularism is trumpeting its triumph
over Europe and the (blue) United states, it is actually in the first stages of
its sharp decline?
Hope springs
eternal.
March 3 2005 | Nuanced
liberal assessment calls 'beefed-up evangelical electorate' alarming
A
sober, balanced, and nuanced report for a liberal writer and publication....
But
such "studies" by and in such media generally overlook several fundamentals. 1.
"Liberalism," as the main product of the Enlightenment and as the socio-political
face of "modernism," is inherently anti-God, anti-spirit, to the extent that it
is pro-humanism and pro-carnality and, though we can quibble, both of these "antis"
are basic to the fabric of modernism. Furthermore, evangelical Christians and
all other thinking Christians (even serious Jews, Muslims, Hindus..).know it.
Ironically, the liberal god—education— works against its creator when
this is revealed, as it inevitably is whenever anyone gets a smattering of modern
higher education. The Democrats / Republicans self-definitions are being more
clearly defined by their platforms and their pronouncements (bless the big mouth
of Howard Dean) these days than ever before, so this awareness is going to grow.
2. Though social justice entails
programs to alleviate poverty and provide more just access to medical care, the
preservation of the environment, and other so-called "humanistic" issues do concern
all Christians, including the anti-modernists, no one approach to improving the
lot of all people in these regards has proven failsafe. And the preponderance
of the evidence (can you say "Bolsheviks"?) does not weigh heavy on the side of
government interference. 3.
A similar two-sided theory and praxis regarding war also pertains. 4. Any educated
intelligent adult can discern that a "minority" that coalesces around a main platform-plank
of "sodomy is a human right" is not a legitimate social minority and the liberal-humanist
attempt to claim otherwise can only be perceived as trying to deceive the rest
of us and engaging in politically motivated machinations.
March 2 2005 | Guess
which side Howard Dean thinks he's on in battle of good vs. evil
Wouldn't
you hope that Howard Dean, of all people, would have learned that "pride
goeth before a fall"?
I wonder if encouraging
women torn by an unwanted pregnancy to disregard the counsel of their pastors
or other spiritual leaders, on the basis that anyone who sides with their baby
is "right-wing," is the better part of wisdom. If
only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere committing
evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and
destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every
human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? | —Alexander
Solzhenitsyn
(The Gulag Archi-pelago) |
March 1 2005 | Once
stronghold-of-Protestantism Scotland has UK's lowest religion stats
I
have a theory: Northern Ireland's much larger population
of professing Christians demonstrates the power in competition. Nowhere in the
world is the competition between Protestant and Catholic parties stronger. Scotland,
by contrast, has virtually no competition for spiritual superiority. But the hope
for a revival of Christianity may lie in that strongest youthful rising tide in
the land of heather and lochs: the adolescent Muslims.
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