I have not tried anything remotely like this on this blog yet. Likely I won’t do it often. Let me know waddya think. So, with a little trepidation …

Once upon a time, a young man was selected from those in his parish to go on a mission. He was excited and had some nervousness in the months prior to leaving, and used every waking moment to prepare for his departure. He read some on the customs and languages of the place he was to go. But, as he was assured that he would have excellent guides he mostly worried about his studies and his faith. When he was at worship he tried to remember all of the parts of worship and liturgy. He tried to imagine for everything that he saw, did and observed, that if he was asked he might be called to remember why a thing was done and why it was so. Therefore he asked questions of everyone incessantly and constantly trying to make sure he had it all right. Then came the momentous day.

He was to leave. Departure and his journey passed in a confusing frantic blur, mixed with delay, and dark quiet airline seats and awareness that the sounds and smells and people around him were becoming less and less like those which he was familiar.

For the land in which he was going, people of his faith were rare and unknown. He would indeed be a stranger in a land of strange and unknown customs, patterns and practices. Accordingly, at all times he regarded himself as an ambassador of his faith. That his every fleeting contact, every action would be a chance to connect with these strangers, to show by his love, his charity, his presence what sort of faith and people he represented. At first every act he performed, he did somewhat self-consciously reflecting that each act would be observed, perhaps critically, by strange unloving, judgmental eyes. Those eyes, trying to discern by his actions what sort of man he was … and thereby what sort of a people those of his faith were. Eventually, the self-consciousness faded somewhat as many of his actions and responses became more habitual. But that didn’t help at all. For it really didn’t get easier, those things which became habit exposed all the other things which he was forgetting or didn’t learn as well as he should have during his prior frantic, inadequate, and continuing, but now more careful, study.

Then came the time to return.

How was he changed by his trip? Why did he even have to leave for that change to take place? Why don’t we all always treat our every action as if we are that man representing Christ and his Church here in this strange land here on the hard lonely side of the eschaton?

In Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, Meg Meeker, M.D., lays out her argument as to why a young girl’s father is the most important person in her life. Building on over twenty years of medical practice, including counseling girls, Meeker has come to the conclusion that the father is primarily the one who shapes the path of his female children. The subtitle for the book is, 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know, and Meeker outlines each secret in the book’s 10 chapters. Yet, in reading her book I discovered that, while some of Meeker’s claims may run counter to what our culture tells us, most of the methodologies she posits are very intuitive, demonstrating a common sense approach towards the task of fatherhood. Was it, then, a waste of time to read the book? Certainly not! While the points Meeker explains should be common knowledge, in my opinion, I fear that our culture has denigrated the decidedly male role of father to nothing more than that of breadwinner. I also fear that too many men have been derelict in their responsibility of being their children’s, and in this context, their daughter’s fathers. What Meeker does, so elegantly, is lay out the very real and very important influence that fathers have on their daughters.

That said, here is my review of Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters.

Read the rest of this entry

Henry Neufeld has been having a conversation, some of which is with me, on Healthcare and how being Christian touches on that. He has two more posts to draw attention to, one on a visit to emergency room, and another on fear. I’m going to comment on the first (and hope to on the second later), but before I do, I want to make two things clear. As Mr Neufeld also writes, I share the notion that I am thinking these things through “out loud” on the blog to elicit comments. All these ideas and notions I put forth are not fully thought out. What we’re seeing is more the process as I try to work out some of these issues, a process I’d enjoin others to join in.

The second and more important point, in discussing Mr Neufeld’s emergency post, I’m going to be critical. I want to make it clear I don’t mean this criticism personally, and that all the criticism I offer, applies equally to me, that is, I’d probably respond and fall prey to the things I’m criticizing at least as much if not more than Mr Neufeld. To re-iterate that last point, I offer these criticisms in a generic fashion more as a thing which all of us do, but they may seem as a criticism of Henry but that is only because I am using his example. Read the rest of this entry

A gift from God.

³ Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.

⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one’s youth.

⁵ Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.

Well, unless they’re not planned or wanted. Then they’re a punishment, right Senator?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNbaig-D5pk[/youtube]

[tags]children,Barack Obama,Psalms,abortion,sex education[/tags]

Charlemagne spread his rule by a combination of military force and evangelism. The religious network of churches, monasteries, and ecclesiastic hierarchy served as a fundamental building block of the pacification and spread of his control.

Today’s multicultural sensitivities insist that we respect the religious practices of the Middle East and other countries as we interact with them. This might be wrong, or at the very least, not the best approach in the long run. We believe and practice religious freedom. Perhaps the best way to push religious freedom on those parts of the world that don’t think that is a good thing, is not to respect their religion but to push our religion into their region.

The proposal at hand is the following: We believe in our government in a separation of church and state. However, if we admit internally that the Middle East and other regions might be better off with more Christian influence, might it not be a bad secular idea to figure out what ‘denomination’ gets the most traction/success at conversion of Muslims and assist/push them into extensive evangelism in those troubled regions?

Two notes: See the prior post … and recall what “A Modest Proposal” means, i.e., that the suggestion is less than serious.

They’re turning to Jesus in droves, as noted by Chuck Colson.

According to the website Islam Watch, in Russia, some two million ethnic Muslims converted to Christianity last year. Ten thousand French Muslims converted, as did 35,000 Turkish Muslims. In India, approximately 10,000 people abandoned Islam for Christianity.

In his book Epicenter, author Joel Rosenberg details amazing stories of Muslims converting to Christianity. In Algeria, the birthplace of St. Augustine, more than 80,000 Muslims have turned to Christ in recent years. This, despite the stiff opposition from Islamic clerics who have passed laws banning evangelism.

In Morocco, newspaper articles openly worry that 25,000 to 40,000 Muslims have become followers of Christ in recent years.

The stories are even more amazing in the heart of the Middle East. In 1996, the Egyptian Bible Society sold just 3,000 video copies of the JESUS film. In the year 2000, they sold an incredible 600,000 copies.

In Sudan, as many as five million Muslims have accepted Christ since the early 1990s, despite horrific persecution of Christians by the Sudanese government. What is behind the mass conversions? According to a Sudanese evangelical leader, “People have seen real Islam, and they want Jesus instead.”

Some say that America is creating terrorists by fight Islam.  But it appears that many, many more Muslims, seeing the hate from their fellow Muslims, have decided "they want Jesus instead". 

[tags]Chuck Colson,Joel Rosenberg,Christianity,Islam,Jesus film[/tags]

Along the lines of Doug’s The Religious Left post, via Treaders, is Russell Moore’s editorial Alma’s Mater, from Touchstone Magazine (July/August 2007). From Moore,

“Peace and justice” Christians are insistent in telling us they do not wish to move away from the protection of unborn life when they point to other social issues. They simply seek to “expand” Christian social witness from the “Religious Right’s” narrow focus on abortion and marriage to the full range of life issues.

We’re not pro-abortion, they assure us. It’s just that we believe that life doesn’t begin at conception and end at birth. We believe, they say, that global warming and quality daycare and an increased minimum wage are pro-life issues too.

John Polkinghorne has an interesting new book out Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship, which I highly recommend even if I’ve only read the first chapter. Mr Polkinghorne has had a distinguished career in theoretical physics involved in the development of the Standard Model, and is now retired from that and has subsequently been ordained as a Anglican priest and has been thinking theology. His view is that Theology and Science, especially Physics are not opponents, but more like cousins. In his words:

The basic reason is simply that science and theology are both concerned with the search for truth. In consequence, they complement each other rather than contrast each other. Of course, the two disciplines focus on different dimensions of truth, but they share a common conviction that there is truth to be sought. Although in both kinds of enquiry this truth will never be grasped totally and exhaustively, it can be approximated to in an intellectually satisfying manner that deserves the adjective ‘versimilitundinous’, even if it does not qualify to be described in an absolute sense as complete.

[…]

… The thesis of underlying turth-seeking connection between science and theology appeals strongly to someone like myself, who spent half a lifetime working as a theoretical physicist and then, feeling that I had done my little bit for science, was ordained to the Anglican priesthood and so began a serious, if necessarily amateur, engagement with theology. I do not discern a sharp rational discontinuity between these two halves of my adult life. Rather, I believe that both ahve been concerned with searching for truth through the pursuit of well-motivated beliefs, carefully evaluated.

[note: emphasis mine]

Mr Polkinghorne notes that this stands in contrast to the post-modernist currents which hold that there is no truth to be sought, that truths are constructed things. And I for one, applaud that.

This book attempts to trace in detail 5 events in Physics and Chrsitian theology and seeks to find parallels and to compare and contrast them. These are:

1. A moment of enforced radical revision — for Physics, the photo-electric effect and the emergence of Quantum physics, for theology the realization that Jesus was God.
2. A period of unresolved confusion — for Physics again, the period of 1900 to 1925 had held a growing number of experiments which had no resolution in the theory of the day. Again, for theology the period in the first centuries after Jesus as they attempted to formulate ways of talking about it.
3. A new synthesis — 1925-1926 when Heisenberg and Schroedinger came up with a way to explain what was being seen and the Creedal periods of the 4th and 5th century when the Patristic fathers resolved the tensions between Jewish, Greek, and Christian ways of seeing the world and truth.
4. Continued wrestling with unresolved issues — The measurement problem in Physics and understanding the divine, e.g., terms which are unclear “begetting” and “procession”.
5. And deeper implications — the theories that resolve the problems (see above) have further implications which deepen our understaning of a wide variety of other matters.

This short book will as I mentioned investigate and explore similarities and differences of these matters in more depth. I look forward to reading on … and I encourage y’all to do so too.

For further reading of how science finds its meaning and its method of enquiry Mr Polkinghorne suggests this book: Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post- Critical Philosophy by Michael Polyani.

Joe Carter brings up a number of points, some of which I might return to, but this torture issue made me think of a question. Mr Carter writes:

Four — I can’t make excuses for us on this one anymore: Christians have to take a firm stand against torture. Yes, there is a debate about what exactly is meant by that term. Let’s have that debate. Let’s define the term in a way that consistent with our belief in human dignity. And then let’s hold every politician in the country to that standard. Our silence on this issue has become embarrassing.

Is the problem with torture about contravening will or is it about causing pain? That is if we had techniques to extract information that caused an individual to “talk” but were both pleasant (or not unpleasant) but forced one against one’s will to relay information. A suggestion of what that might be could be a drug cocktail, which might induce some euphoria as well as loosen the tongue. Other possibilities might be other “advanced” techniques which might become available as we learn more about how the brain works.

Oh and to make things clear, I’m against torture too and agree fully on that point.

During the debate some years ago over whether or not to continue to grant China “Most Favored Nation” trading status, the pro side of the argument included the idea that if we isolate China, their actions against Christians, and the religious in general, would get worse. They could do it outside of the view of the world and would be unhindered by their watching eyes. Keeping trade open would allow external influences to affect the culture.

I personally wasn’t convinced, but it was a reasonable argument. So how’s it going there these days?

The violent protests in Tibet that began last week and have since spread across (and beyond) China are frequently depicted as a secessionist threat to Beijing. But the regime’s deeper problem in the current crisis is neither ethnic nor territorial. It’s religious.

If there’s a template for Beijing’s policy on religion, it’s the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” In 1995, the regime effectively kidnapped Gendun Choekyi Nyima, a 6-year-old boy named by the Dalai Lama as the 11th Panchen Lama, the second-highest ranking figure in Tibetan Buddhism. In Nyima’s place, Beijing designated its own “official” Panchen Lama, the slightly younger Gyaltsen Norbu. Nyima’s whereabouts, assuming he’s alive, are unknown. More recently, a new set of “implementation regulations” on Tibetan religious affairs has come into force, drastically curtailing the freedom of monks and nuns to travel within China, and introducing political themes into the qualification exams required of religious initiates. Of the roughly 100 Tibetan political prisoners, fully three-quarters are monks or nuns.

Much the same goes with China’s Christians. The regime has substituted its own Catholic hierarchy — the Catholic Patriotic Association — for Rome’s since 1957, leading to endless friction between the Pope and the Communist Party. Similarly, Chinese Protestantism officially operates under the so-called “Three-Self Patriotic Movement” (the three “selfs” being self-governance, self-support and self-propagation), which in turn is regulated by the party. “The purpose of [the regime’s] nominal degree of sympathy for Christianity is to indoctrinate and mobilize for Communist Party objectives,” says journalist David Aikman, author of the 2003 book “Jesus in Beijing.” “I’ve often joked that the most leftist people in China are members of the Three-Self Church.”

I’m not really seeing how the world’s eyes have done much to curb government abuses in China. Not even the arrival of the Olympics there has helped. In fact, it’s possible that it’s causing more oppression so that the government puts it best facade forward.

But there is good news…

Read the rest of this entry

AQI Facilitation Networks Still Active in Syria

In its latest effort to target al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) financial and logistical networks operating out of Syria, the Treasury Department designated today four members of a key terrorist facilitation network. Such facilitation networks have long operated out of Syria and have been the target of periodic designations. As recently as December 2007, Undersecretary of the Treasury Stuart Levey called on Syria to “take action to deny safe haven to those supporting violence from within its borders.” Today’s designation suggests Syria still has far to go in this regard.

…

While Syria has reportedly taken some measures to curb the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, recently disclosed documents seized from insurgents in Iraq revealed that while fewer foreign fighters have been entering Iraq Syria remained the preferred route.

Car Bomb Rocks Southern Thai Hotel

On Saturday night, a 20 kg bomb hidden in the back of a car was detonated in front of the CS Pattani Hotel in Pattani, southern Thailand. Two were killed, three are in critical condition and 15 others sustained moderate injuries. It was the boldest attack by Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand in recent months. Some 3,000 have been killed since the insurgency got underway in January 2004. Violence peaked in June 2007, and has gone down, owing to stepped up counter-insurgent operations; but the average rate of killing today is still above the 4-year average. This is not the first car bomb in southern Thailand, but the first in over a year.

Islamabad bombing targets foreigners

The Taliban and al Qaeda continue their terror campaign in the nuclear-armed state of Pakistan. The latest bombing occurred at an Italian restaurant in the capital city of Islamabad. At least one civilian was killed and 15 wounded in an attack that appears to have targeted foreigners in the city.

…

The bombing occurred in the courtyard of the Luna Caprese restaurant, known to be frequented by foreigners. Pakistani police ruled out a suicide bomb attack and believe the bomb was planted and detonated remotely.

[tags]gwot, global war on terror[/tags]

US gets quicker on the draw

The US didn’t take very long in finding two al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders who killed five American soldiers in a blast five weeks ago. Both died in an attack on their vehicle in Mosul Wednesday, after a guided missile attack. It demonstrates that US and Iraqi intelligence has improved in the last area where AQI still exercises any cohesiveness…

Breaking: Americans nab high-value Osama lieutenant

The US captured an al-Qaeda terrorist who played an instrumental role in helping Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan after 9/11. Mohammed Rahim now sits in a Guantanamo Bay cell after his capture, arriving there this week, although the CIA won’t say when or where they caught him…

Important Taliban commander for northwestern Afghanistan arrested

Afghan officials have announced the capture of Maulvi Dastagir following a raid by Afghan intelligence operatives in the western province of Herat, the Pajhwok Afghan News center reported on Sunday. Dastagir, a key Taliban field operative in neighboring Badghis province, was seized in the Kamarkalagh district just north of Herat’s provincial capital. Dastagir spoke regularly with regional media outlets and was the Taliban’s unofficial spokesman for their northwestern faction.

[tags]al qaeda, aq, aqi, global war on terror, gwot, iran, iraq, pakistan[/tags]

To all you in the Western tradition. In the East, on Pascha/Easter the homily has been the same for over 1500 years. St. John Chrysostom preached this one Pascha morn and it was decided it couldn’t be improved upon. This is what he preached see what y’all think of it:

If any man be devout and loveth God,
Let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast!
If any man be a wise servant,
Let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord.

If any have laboured long in fasting,
Let him how receive his recompense.
If any have wrought from the first hour,
Let him today receive his just reward.
If any have come at the third hour,
Let him with thankfulness keep the feast.
If any have arrived at the sixth hour,
Let him have no misgivings;
Because he shall in nowise be deprived therefore.
If any have delayed until the ninth hour,
Let him draw near, fearing nothing.
And if any have tarried even until the eleventh hour,
Let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness.
For the Lord, who is jealous of his honour,
Will accept the last even as the first.
He giveth rest unto him who cometh at the eleventh hour,
Even as unto him who hath wrought from the first hour.
And He showeth mercy upon the last,
And careth for the first;
And to the one He giveth,
And upon the other He bestoweth gifts.
And He both accepteth the deeds,
And welcometh the intention,
And honoureth the acts and praises the offering.

Wherefore, enter ye all into the joy of your Lord;
Receive your reward,
Both the first, and likewise the second.
You rich and poor together, hold high festival!
You sober and you heedless, honour the day!
Rejoice today, both you who have fasted
And you who have disregarded the fast.
The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously.
The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Enjoy ye all the feast of faith:
Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness.

Let no one bewail his poverty,
For the universal Kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one weep for his iniquities,
For pardon has shown forth from the grave.
Let no one fear death,
For the Saviour’s death has set us free.
He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.
By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.
He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.
And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:
Hell, said he, was embittered
When it encountered Thee in the lower regions.

It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?
Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.
For Christ, being risen from the dead,
Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be glory and dominion
Unto ages of ages.

Amen.

Cross-posted at New Covenant

In writing about the phenomenon of the culturally feminized man, perhaps I have been amiss in my use of certain words. Not that I’ve changed my opinion, mind you, but I think I underestimated the manner in which my use of the word “feminized”, for example, would be taken. It seemed (and it still does) pretty clear to me, as it must to authors such as Mark Steyn and Nancy Pearcey, how the word should be taken. Yet, I think the negative aspects of this use of “feminization” is perhaps too easily linked up with the mere trait of being feminine (a wonderful trait, I might add, provided that one is female).

So… what word to use? Girlie-man? Nah. Too Terminator-esque. I had thought that “infantile” would be a valid substitute – but that wouldn’t be fair to all the infants in the world (given that they are not yet in a position to defend themselves). So, I’m pretty much left with the word – wimpification – to utilize in describing what I see as negative cultural influences within our society.

That said, first up in this series of posts highlighting evidence of our wimpified culture, is a tidbit from Mere Comments, titled Is Easter Too Scary for Preschoolers?.

The pastors at this church in Raleigh, North Carolina, were perplexed when they saw the Holy Week Sunday school lessons for preschoolers from “First Look,” the publisher of the one to five year-old Sunday school class materials. There wasn’t a mention of the resurrection of Jesus. Naturally, the pastors inquired about the oversight. It turns out it was no oversight.

…

“Easter is a special time in churches,” the letter from the publisher says. “It’s a time of celebration and thankfulness. But because of the graphic nature of the Easter story and the crucifixion specifically, we need to be careful as we choose what we tell preschoolers about Easter.”

…

The curriculum marketers must know how bad this sounds, so they reassure the church they believe that the Gospel is for all people. Leaving out the cross and the resurrection is actually to help children come to Christ. They write, “We’re using these formative preschool years to build a foundation for that eventual decision by focusing on God’s love and telling preschoolers that ‘Jesus wants to be my friend forever.'”

Not only do they think that the Easter Resurrection Day story is too graphic for preschoolers to handle, they also think we should be teaching those same preschoolers some anti-Biblical notion that Jesus wants to be my friend forever. One has to wonder if their curriculum has some benign “Jesus”, smiling, and clad in a sweater, asking the children, “Won’t you let me be your friend? Please? It would mean so much to me? Oh, please, let me be your friend?”

Consider, though, is the “Jesus wants to be my friend forever” message, to four year-olds, any different from the “Jesus wants to have a personal relationship with you” sermon, pitched to adults? For a wimpified culture, I fear that the answer is, no.

The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty has, as it’s quick mission statement:

The Mission of the Acton Institute is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.

Among their web site’s many features is the Acton PowerBlog, and a podcast of the various lectures and radio appearances of Acton staff as well as their recently-started "Radio Free Acton" with a bit more production value (hosted by an old blogging friend of mine, Marc VanderMaas). 

Recently in the podcast stream was a talk by Acton President Rev. Robert Sirico entitled "The Rise (And Eventual Downfall) of the New Religious Left".  It is a 35 minute speech in which Rev. Sirico covers the fallacies of the Religious Left by noting history, scripture, and church writings.  He particularly notes the Left’s penchant for increasing the power of government (which history shows never ends well) in the name of caring, when the role of the church in society is to change hearts and allow human society to come naturally along. 

I’d like to suggest this quick listen to all my SCO comrades, and those, both on the right and the left, who would like to hear a well-reasoned examination of the role of government in Christian charity.  (The page linked above has an embedded audio player.)