Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

What is the "Emerging Church" Movement?

Scott McKnight answers the question in an address delivered at Westminster Theological Seminary, October 26-27, 2006.   Warning:  McKnight is a theologian and his answer, though highly readable, is comprehensive, and therefore lengthy.  (HT: Smart Christian)    Click here for an earlier post on the Emerging Church.

Website on Mormonism: Pro and Con

Here's a useful website for studying the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormonism).  Sources include materials produced by the Mormon church as well as its critics.

High Percentage of Muslim Immigrants to Norway on Welfare

Fjordman, writing in the Brussels Journal, offers some interesting comments on welfare immigration in Norway.

I got some angry comments at Jihad Watch some days ago when I posted an essay saying that: “The welfare state is now just a big pyramid scheme where Leftist parties take our money and give it to Muslim immigrants in return for voter support. The welfare state in fact provides insecurity, since it is used to fund the Muslim colonization of the continent.”

Well, read this article [in English] in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten:

Half of the first immigrants to Norway in the first half of the 1970s are now living on state payments. The study focused on 2,500 immigrants from Pakistan, India, Turkey and Morocco born between

THE PERILS OF AMERICAN IGNORANCE

Bruce Thornton begins his review of Robert Spencer's new book, The Truth About Muhammad saying:

Ambrose Bierce once quipped that war was God’s way of teaching Americans geography. He could have said “teaching us history,” for the enemy is emboldened by our ignorance not just of where he lives but of how he lives, his beliefs and values, and to understand these traditions we must understand their history. Unfortunately, in the current war against Islamic jihad we persist in ignoring the documented history of Islam and its beliefs, accepting instead the spin and distortions of various propagandists, apologists, and Western useful idiots.

DALAI LAMA TRIVIALIZES MUSLIM TERRORIST ATTACKS

Don Feder reports that 

On leaving a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, the leader of Tibetan Buddhists told reporters that we can’t hold all Muslims responsible for the misdeeds of a few.

The Lama: "Nowadays, I often express that due to a few mischievous Muslims’ acts we should not consider all Muslims as something bad. That is very unfair."

Expanding on this dazzling analysis, the Dalai Lama continued: "A few mischievous people you can find from all religions – among Muslims and Christians and Jews and Buddhists. To generalize is not correct."

To this Feder expresses astonishment:

"A few mischievous Muslims" makes kidnapping, torture, beheadings, bomb plots,

MUSLIM RAPE? THEY WERE ASKING FOR IT

A Western Muslim leader says unveiled women deserve to get raped.  Robert Spencer covers the story with analysis here.

AMERICAN INTELLECTUAL ELITES -- TOTALLY OUT OF TOUCH

Here are perceptive words from Michael Ledeen on the alienation of the nation's elite from the thinking and values of ordinary Americans:

It [Sen. John Kerry's remarks belittling U.S. troops] underlines the near-total alienation of the American intellectual elite. I dare say that the leading news and editorial rooms, like the offices of the major universities, are full of people who quite agree with the notion that our troops are stupid and underprivileged. Each time one of our children ships out to the Middle East, we get condolence calls from friends and relatives. They simply cannot fathom it, it is so totally removed from their own experience and from their own narcissistic lives. They do not know uniformed people, they have only a totally misleading stereotype.

Incredible Stem Cell Research Breakthrough - Of The Non-Embroyo-Destroying Kind

Kathryn Jean Lopez draws attention to an amazing achievement in stem cell research of the non-embryo-destroying kind:

British scientists have grown the world's first artificial liver from stem cells in a breakthrough that will one day provide entire organs for transplant.

The technique that created the 'mini-liver', currently the size of a one pence piece, will be developed to create a full-size functioning liver.

Described as a 'Eureka moment' by the Newcastle University researchers, the tissue was created from blood taken from babies' umbilical cords just a few minutes after birth.

As Lopez writes:

Someone get this news to Missouri voters. You don't need to be pro-embryonic-stem-cell research to be pro-stem-cell-research, science, and hope.

"Suicide Killers" - A movie to see

Stanley Kurtz highly recommends "Suicide Killers," a movie eventually to be released commercially.  He writes:

A couple of days ago, I saw a remarkable documentary called “Suicide Killers.” This was at a screening intended to help qualify the film for an academy award.  The film has already made an early cut in the Oscar nomination process.  Because this documentary contains extended and unprecedented interviews with actual suicide bombers,

WAR, HATRED, DEHUMANIZATION, AND ISLAM

Mario Loyola has been reading George Orwell and offers the following post:

I try to read a few things every other day from my massive tome of George Orwell's Essays (in the Everyman Library).   Today I came across a real gem.

In his Tribune column "As I Please" Orwell wrote (August 4, 1944) that death and destruction were not the most evil thing about war:

We shall all be dead in less than a hundred years, and most of us by the sordid horror known as "natural death."   The truly evil thing is to an act in such a way that peaceful life becomes impossible.  War damages the fabric of civilization not by the destruction it causes (the net effect of war may even be to increase the productive capacity of the world as a whole), nor even by the slaughter of human beings, but by stimulating hatred and dishonesty.  By shooting at your enemy you are not in

FORGET BIRTH CONTROL: AHMADINEJAD WANTS IRAN'S POPULATION TO DOUBLE

To those exercised about the alleged overpopulation of planet earth (which I find dubitable) , this from the BBC, noted by Michael Ledeen, should prove startling:

  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is trying his hand at a new social endeavor: family planning on a national scale. The Iranian president has announced his willingness to decrease the number of hours worked by married professionals in an average week as a way of encouraging greater fertility. Ahmadinejad’s plan, which is said to be currently under review by the Ministry of Health, would reverse population control measures put in place by the regime over the past decade to boost prosperity. It envisions a near-doubling of Iran's population, to some 120 million souls, in the foreseeable future.

IS THE "MY SPACE" FAD ENDING?

Today's Washington Post carries the article, In Teen's Web World, My Space is So Last Year.

"I think it's definitely going down -- a lot of my friends have deleted their MySpaces and are more into Facebook now," said Birnbaum, a junior who spends more time on her Facebook profile, where she messages and shares photos with other students in her network.

It's an illuminating article , well worth reading.

Incidentally, current popular teen sites last month (as tracked by Nielsen-NetRatings) were "Snapvine.com, PLyrics.com, Picgames.com -- none of which appeared among the top 10 for April, or the list a year ago."    In youth culture, change is everything.   (HT: Drudge)

BISHOP CHARLES MASON'S FAMOUS PRAYER

Update 7/3/2014 - A reader commented that the links below have gone dead.  You can hear Bishop Mason praying at a number of YouTube sites.

(Original Post): A Black friend of mine has taught me a great deal about Black American culture .  He has also been a helpful tutor in bringing me up to speed (I still have a long way to go) on the history of the Black Church in America.   Recently he sent me an e-mail with a web address to an audio recording of a famous prayer within Black American Pentecostal circles.  It is a prayer by Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, the founder of the Church of God in Christ.   Bishop Mason offered this prayer at St. Paul's Church of God in Christ in 1948 when he was 82 years old.  To hear the prayer, click here, and then click on the link to the "Bishop's Prayer Part 1" and advance it to 10:33 on the clip.  I found the prayer instructive, full of interest and inspiration.  It's just under 12 minutes long.

WORLD TRIBUNE: "Ongoing 'intifada' in France has injured 2,500 police in 2006"

From the article:

This might have dropped below the radar, but Al Qaida and its allies are literally battling the Crusaders every day in Europe. And so far, Europe isn't doing so well.

"We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists," said Michel Thoomis, secretary general of the Action Police trade union. "This is not a question of urban violence any more. It is an intifada, with stones and firebombs."

The French Interior Ministry has acknowledged the Muslim uprising. The ministry said more than 2,500 police officers have been injured in 2006. This amounts to at least 14 officers each day.

ANDREW SULLIVAN GRILLED BY HUGH HEWITT

Andrew Sullivan has written a book:  The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back.   Hugh Hewitt, in an unusual interview (by virtue of the fact that Hewitt had read the book carefully and had come prepared for a serious discussion of the book), made Sullivan look like a dodger and a fillibusterer.   Hewitt's take on the interview:

The interview is tough but fair, and my observation that he didn't know the basics of American Constitutional law wasn't an insult, but an obviously correct assessment.

The reason Andrew has been the subject of quite a lot of scorn today is that he could not defend his mess of a book.  He wrote a book about theology, but objected to questions about theology.

He made obvious errors of fact, and objected to those errors being pointed out to the audience.

And he is simply ill-informed about American Constitutional law, and I called him on it.  It is, I suspect, embarrassing for

QUOTES FROM MARK STEYN

I have mentioned Mark Steyn in many posts (e.g. here,  here, and here.  Michelle Malkin has a fascinating video interview with Steyn here and Part 2 of the video interview here).  Today I'd like to highlight Mona Charen's review of Steyn's book, America Alone: The End of the World As We Know it.   It would be marvelous if everyone would click her review, but since that isn't likely to happen, I'll reproduce a few excerpts to wet one's appetite for Steyn's book.  (Incidentally, Steyn's website is here.)

On the fact that native Europeans are fast disappearing, Charen quotes Steyn:

“What’s the Muslim population of Rotterdam? Forty percent. What’s the most popular baby boy’s name in Belgium? Mohammed. In Amsterdam? Mohammed. In Malmo, Sweden? Mohammed. By 2005, it was the fifth most popular boy’s name in the United Kingdom.” By mid-century, Steyn observes, if Muslims continue to

Daniel Pipes on Iraq - "Stay the Course, But Change It"

Daniel Pipes, a man with expert knowledge of the Middle East and things Islamic, who thinks independently and courageously, offers his own blueprint on how the U.S. should proceed in Iraq.  His ideas seem unique to me; at least I've not run into anything anywhere else quite like them.   I especially like the idea of not building the planned mammoth American Embassy in Baghdad.    Though not, perhaps, as major as many other ideas he presents, he still suggests

· Terminating the mammoth U.S. embassy in Baghdad: The American-created "Green Zone" in Baghdad is too high profile already, but work now underway to build the biggest embassy in the history of mankind, a 4,000-employee fortress in the heart of Baghdad, will make matters significantly worse. Its looming centrality will antagonize Iraqis for years or decades to come, even as it offers a vulnerable target for rocket-wielding enemies. Scheduled to open in June 2007, this gargantuan complex should be handed back to Iraqis, the over US$1 billion spent on it written off as a mistake of war, and a new, normal-sized, embassy built in its stead.

MICHAEL MEDVED: 8 REASONS WHY CONSERVATIVES NEED TO VOTE

Medved has written a compelling, must-read column.    His article explains, as the subtitle states,  "Why People of Conscience Can’t Afford to Facilitate a Leftist Victory."   Important reading!

"He Talk Like a White Boy" - Interview With Author J.C Phillips

Jamie Glazov interviews Joseph C. Phillips, whom he describes as

"an actor, writer, lecturer, and social commentator best known for his role on The Cosby Show as the character Denise’s (Lisa Bonet) husband, Lt. Martin Kendall. He has also been on a variety of TV shows and in such films as Strictly Business, Midnight Blue, and Let’s Talk about Sex. His writing has appeared in Newsweek, Los Angeles Daily News, Essence, Upscale and USA Today and his weekly column, "The Way I See It" appears in newspapers around the country.  He was also a regular contributor to NPR's Tavis Smiley Radio Show.  He is the author of the new book He Talk Like a White Boy."  

In the interview Phillips explains the book title: 

The title comes from something that happened to me in 8^th grade English class and is the story that begins the book.  After I had answered a question in class a Black girl from across the room raised her hand and announced, “He talk like a White Boy!” That, as they say, was the beginning of my life.  Everything changed for me after that moment.  I had never been called an Uncle Tom before, never accused of wanting to be white, Never before assaulted because I raised my hand in class and spoke proper.  Of course now that I am writing a weekly column and appearing on radio and television as a commentator the accusation is no longer that I speak like a white boy, but that I think like a white boy.

 It's an interesting interview, and the  Amazon reviews have been uniformly positive.

THE CHALLENGE OF BEING A CHRISTIAN ON A UNIVERSITY CAMPUS

Today Jamie Glazov published an interview with Abby Nye, a 2006 graduate of Butler University and author of Fish Out of Water:  Surviving and Thriving as a Christian on a Secular Campus. 

FP: Tell us what inspired you to write Fish Out of Water.

Nye: I went to college thinking I was prepared to face a secular environment having been well grounded academically and well-schooled in various philosophical thoughts and ideologies. I was wrong. I was ill prepared to face the hostility and mocking of liberal professors often directed toward Conservative and Christian thought. I wrote this book in hopes that other students could be better prepared.

Read the whole interview. 

DEATH TO APOSTATES IN ISLAM

Robert Spencer reports on the renewed call for the head of Abdul Rahman, the Afghan convert to Christianity.   His article has the details, including an imporant discussion of the status of apostates in Islam.    Below are a few excerpts:

An Afghan citizen named Abdul Rahman, you may recall, made international news last spring, when his conversion from Islam to Christianity led to his arrest, with the intention of putting him on trial for apostasy. At that time he was spirited away to safety in Italy. Now jihadists in Afghanistan are demanding his return to Afghanistan in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist, Gabriele Torsello. “We want this issue resolved before the end of Ramadan,” his captors demanded, but no resolution seemed imminent as the holy month drew to a close.

It is safe to say that if Italian authorities agreed to turn over Abdul Rahman to the kidnappers, the convert would almost certainly be killed for his crime of apostasy from Islam . . .

MULTICULTURALISM AND THE MAJORITY CULTURE: SORTING IT OUT

Carol Iannone offers a perspective sure to displease many.  It makes sense to me.

The reason that British Airways allows its employees to wear headscarves and turbans but not crosses if they are visible, as posted previously on our list, is that multiculturalism is not about equal representation of all cultures, but a power play of the minorities over the majority.  All cultures are equal, except the majority culture, which, by virtue of being the majority, is seen as oppressive and hateful and is plied with guilt until it becomes weak, feeble, and servile.  Melanie Phillips gives a good explanation of this in Londonistan.  That's why it doesn't pay to play by multiculti rules, simply asking for proper "representation" of the majority culture.  The only path is to insist on the legitimacy of the majority culture, which gives the society its basic form, with due acknowledgement of minorities, but as part of the whole, not as separate enclaves.

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF LEARNING ENGLISH

Who of us hasn't felt compassion and sympathy towards foreigners trying to learn the English language?   It's crazy, virtually incomprehensible, as Jay Nordlinger points out in this little post:

Sometimes English drives me nuts.  There are certain instances when, in a piece of writing, you want it super-clear that “read” is in the past tense, and not the present, or vice versa.  And English, sometimes, thwarts you.

Which reminds me of a story: I once met a foreign woman — can’t quite remember from where — who noted the moment at which she gave up on English. She had studied diligently.  (I believe she was Eastern European.) For example, she knew that “read,” in the present tense, is “reed,” whereas in the past tense it is “red.” And she knew that “reading” is always “reeding.”

So she arrived in England and noticed a sign for a town called Reading. “Ah,” she said, “Reeding.” “No,” she was corrected: “Redding.”

She gave up.

MARK STEYN ON AMERICAN FEMINIST LEFTIES FAILING THEIR MUSLIM SISTERS

The eminently quotable Mark Steyn always has interesting things to say.  In this recent  interview triggered by his new book America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, he responds to a question from Kathryn Jean Lopez:

Lopez: You also write in a list of ways we can help Muslims reform Islam — that we should “Support women’s rights — real rights, not feminist pieties — in the Muslim world.”  Are American feminist lefties mature enough to do that — and work with Mark Steyn on that endeavor?

Steyn: No. The trivia of identity-group politics in America is beyond parody: Women are now so dominant at, say, U.S. law schools that feminist groups are reduced to complaining about the lack of female pipe-fitters.  If this keeps up, circa 2015 NOW will be complaining that there are too few female wait staff.  And circa 2020 that there are too few female prostitutes.  Meanwhile, in Afghanistan women were prevented by law from feeling sunlight on their faces and the only guy who did anything about it was George W Bush.  We have “honor killings” now not just in Jordan and Pakistan, but in Britain and Germany and Scandinavia. Where are the feminists on that?  This is the biggest lever we have in the Muslim world — the fact that half their populations are chattels.  They don’t want to be navel-pierced Britneyized slatterns but a lot of them want something other.  That’s a huge opportunity.

A CLASSIC TRAVEL BOOK ON AFGHANISTAN

John Derbyshire posts the following:

One of the best travel books of all time, a great favorite of mine, and I hope required reading for service personnel on their way to Afghanistan, is Eric Newby's A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush. Not the least remarkable thing about the book is that it was written by a chap whose day job was in fashion design.  Eric Newby died on Friday at the age of 86.

Amazon.com tells me it is ranked 16 out of 100 on National Geographic Adventure's list of top 100 adventure books of all time.

GLOBALIST CNN VS. THE AMERICAN WAR EFFORT IN IRAQ

CNN aired footage of an Iraqi sniper shooting an American.   Michelle Malkin  presented a video talk that recounted CNN's anti-American bias.  She followed that up with an appearance on Bill O'Reilly's TV show.   Her blog links  to Rep. Duncan Hunter's on-air interview  with CNN's Wolf blitzer.   The latter video, in particular, is a must-see.

UPDATE: Newsbusters offers extended quotes and commentary related to the CNN interview with Rep. Duncan Hunter.  Hunter,  it should be noted, is chairman of the House Armed Services Commitee.

THE PLIGHT OF CHRISTIANS IN IRAQ

Ben Witherington reports on the situation within Iraq for Christians.  I will highlight only one paragraph of a much longer and more comprehensive report. 

A little history is in order. Two of the oldest forms of Christianity still exist today in Iraq-- Chaldean Catholics and Assyrian Christians. They are still the largest Christian groups in the country, which at one time during the reign of Saddam Hussein were well over 1.5 million in number, but today the total number of Christians in Iraq is likely less than 600 thousand. One of the remarkable signs of the antiquity and continuous heritage of both the Chaldeans and the Assyrians is that they still pray in Aramaic-- the spoken language of Jesus.

THE RELIGION OF AMERICA'S FOUNDERS: ALEXANDER HAMILTON

From Bench Memos:

An Afterthought on Religion and the Founders
[Matthew J. Franck 10/23 04:50 PM]

One of the most annoying things about George Will’s review of Brooke Allen’s Moral Minority (discussed yesterday below, and quite a bit over in The Corner) was this bit.  Remarking that “the Constitution made no mention of God” (not so, actually: see here, with thanks to Ramesh Ponnuru for the reminder), Will writes: “When Hamilton was asked why, he jauntily said, ‘We forgot.’”

I presume this is Allen’s story, accepted by Will, rather than Will’s own.  But it struck me as having a false ring right away.  I doubt very much that Alexander

HATRED OF JEWS AND AMERICANS IN GREAT BRITAIN

Carol Gould writes on the situation in the Great Britain and concludes her article saying:

The American and British authorities need to get real about the threat from Britain and Europe and stop concentrating all of their attentions on the madrassahs of Pakistan. The elderly white Highlander and war hero who gave me a lift from the train station to my Scottish holiday hotel spent the entire trip berating me about the evils the Jews, Yanks and Zionists have inflicted on the world. If he is so full of rage, what is the Muslim population feeling, when they know his ilk will give them succour?

What has happened in Britain in this turbulent year did not surprise me. Those of us who live there, in the ‘coming Caliphate,’ know that the threat is huge, is massively supported and may never be extinguished. I am not hopeful.

WOMEN IN ISLAM

I am indebted to a fine piece of blogging by Sister Toldjah.   Here is excellent commentary on Islamic convert Yvonne Ridley (who praises the veil) and Asra Q. Nomani, a Muslim woman (not a recent Western convert) who writes candidly about the travail of women in Islam.   Both women published articles in the Washington Post the same day.    The Anchoress weighs in with fine commentary as well.  Both these blog posts are well worth reading.  Additional links on each site offer well-rounded complete commentary.

ON CESAR MILLAN AND "THE DOG WHISPERER" TV PROGRAM

Where have I been?  Until last week I had never heard of Cesar Millan and "The Dog Whisperer" TV program.  The person who told me about the program said she has learned as much about human beings as about dogs, and has taped many programs.  Then today I came across an internet article stating that a new season of Dog Whisperer shows begins tonight. 

The following items from the published interview caught my attention:

I teach owners how to practice exercise, discipline and then affection, which allows dogs to be in a calm, submissive state.   Most owners in America only practice affection, affection, affection — which does not create a balanced dog.

Q: When you go into a situation with  large dogs that are acting aggressively, how do you keep control of the situation?

A: First, it is important not to classify a problem dog by its breed.   All dog problems come from two things: lack of exercise and lack of leadership. That can be a problem for any dog — no matter what size or breed. I approach the situation with a calm, assertive energy.  Your dogs need you to be the pack leader.

Q: What is the best advice for new dog owners?

A: Take your dog on a 45-minute power walk every morning. But, you must use the proper method in walking your dog — when leaving the house, make sure you always walk out the door ahead of your dog to demonstrate who is boss; make sure the dog is not in front of you on the walk.

Alas, I have just discovered that my cable TV service doesn't carry the program!

A HOMESCHOOLING MOM TESTIFIES TO HER CHILDREN'S ENTHUSIASM FOR LEARNING

"Mother Skylark" writes:

It is Friday.  We have just finished our second official week of "school."  At home, of course.

It has been such a busy couple weeks with travel, many activities relating to work and education, and trying to get a certain amount of planning and routine in place.  I have felt overwhelmed and underprepared already.  The amazing thing is that that hasn't mattered so much.  Because we've chosen materials that will promote learning and curiosity and stimulate the children's minds and creativity, the children carry themselves through their studies quite eagerly.  I am little more than a guide.  I don't teach as much as place stategic materials or books or ideas in front of them and then step back to watch them interact with all the natural capacities and eagerness that are natural to children and which, I might add, formal schooling so often seems to strip them of.  It is one of the great rewards of home education to have your children begging to get their math books out and complaining when told it's time to put them away.

THE NEW YORK TIMES APOLOGIZES -- BUT YOU HAVE TO BE SHERLOCK HOLMES TO FIND IT

Andy McCarthy notes how open and honest  and forthcoming and ashamed (oh yea!  sure!) the New York Times is

... for exposing the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (see here).  Given the way it's buried in the paper, you'd have to be Sherlock Holmes to find the mea culpa from public editor Byron Calme, and his rationalization for backing his paper's execrable performance is lame.  But he did admit it was an error.  Michelle Malkin and the intrepid Power Line guys  have it.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON REMAINS OPTIMISTIC ON IRAQ

VDH'S current perspective:

. . .  What matters now is not so much what the war was or should have been, but only what it is — and whether we have learned from our mistakes and can still win.   The answer to both questions is yes. We have the right strategy — birthing (through three elections already) an autonomous democracy; training an army subject to a civil government; and pledging support until it can protect its own constitutional government.

. . .   And the key to success — a diplomatic squeeze on the Sunnis to suppress terrorists in Nineveh and Anbar provinces in exchange for Shiite guarantees of more government inclusion — is now the acknowledged goal of both the Iraqi and American governments.

KEEPING TRACK OF THE U.N. AND ISRAEL

Anne Bayefsky reports on "The U.N.'s Spokesperson for Suicide Bombers:  John Dugard delivers his annual address to the U.N. on Israel's human-rights record."   She writes: 

On October 19, U.N.-appointed “human rights” expert John Dugard told the General Assembly that “Palestinian suicide bombers” are “a consequence of occupation.” In five years traveling on the U.N. payroll - 22 percent of which comes from American taxpayers - Dugard has now distinguished himself as the most fanatical spokesperson for terrorism at the U.N. outside the Arab and Muslim world.   

More here.     Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and at Touro College Law Center.    She is also editor of www.EyeontheUN.org.

APPRECIATION OF NATURE

"Mother Skylark" offers a quote from Barbara Kingsolver's Small Wonder  that I find poignantly beautiful, one of the best pieces I can recall reading on the appreciation of the natural world.

"Let me back up and say that I am breathless with gratitude for the collisions of choice and luck that have resulted in my being able to work under the full-on gaze of mountains and animate beauty. It's a privilege to live any part of one's life in proximity to nature. It is a privilege, apparently, even to know that nature is out there at all. In the summer of 1996 human habitation on earth made a subtle, uncelebrated passage from being mostly rural to being mostly urban. More than half of all humans now live in cities.  The natural habitat of our species, then, officially, is steel, pavement, streetlights, architecture, and enterprise—the hominid agenda.

With all due respect for the wondrous ways people have invented to amuse themselves and one another on paved surfaces, I find that this exodus from the land makes me unspeakably sad. I think of the children who will never know, intuitively, that a flower is a plant's way of making love, or what silence sounds

A CHILD'S DISCERNMENT OF GOOD WRITING

"Mother Skylark" recently posted:

I read recently that:  "English majors now find sustained prose a drag...a literature major at George Washinton University recently reported on a hands-up poll [taken in her class] revealed that only half of the upper-classmen had bothered to finish the assigned "All the Kings Men," a best-selling favorite of previous student generations. Why? 'Boring!' 'Too hard to follow.' Another classmate commented on Sarah Orne Jewette's beautifully written "The Country of the Pointed Firs" 'went so slowly that it seemed like it was written by a retarded person.' " She concluded by stating, "To read well, minds must be trained to use language, to reflect, to persist in solving problems."

It is one of many reasons we use well-written literary books in everything we study.  I have been reading to the kids once a week from a thoughtful devotional book for children called "Leading Little Ones to God."  Among the vast quantities of unspiritual silly rubbish we stuff into our children's minds because it's "Christian" this seemed to be a decent intelligent book.  However, today we were reading a retelling of the story of Joseph, under the category of "God turns our troubles into good" when SuperBoy interupted with, "The writer of this book does not know how to make good sentences.  She doesn't tell the story very well." (We usually

SCALIA ON THE PROPER ROLE OF JUDGES

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has it right:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Deeply controversial issues like abortion and suicide rights have nothing to do with the Constitution, and unelected judges too often choose to find new rights at the expense of the democratic process, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Saturday.

Read the whole article.

ANOTHER REASON WHY SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES SHOULDN'T STAY AT HOME THIS ELECTION

Stanley Kurtz points out the folly of surrendering the courts to liberals if one doesn't get out and vote. 

Did you catch this little article, linked on Drudge, about what’s going to happen if the Democrats take back Congress? The president would face "Democratic demands that he offer ‘mainstream’ rather than ‘right wing’ judicial nominees if he wants them confirmed."

Need I say more? How on earth are conservative principles going to be substantively advanced by killing off the Republican congress? Are we interested in proving our political purity, or in actually advancing conservative principles? What happens if Justice Stevens, already well advanced in years, should have to step down sometime in the next two years? Conservatives will have thrown away the chance to take back the Supreme Court–surrendering success in a literally decades-long political project at the very last minute. This is madness.

Wake up social conservatives. Everything you care about is at stake right now. How can you even think about staying home with the Supreme Court on the line? How does it defend or advance the principles and practices you care about to destroy our chances of getting a genuinely conservative majority on the Supreme Court? Do we take our enthusiasm from the actions of politicians, or from our knowledge of the meaning and effects of our actions in the world?

ANOTHER REASON WHY THE STATE DEPARTMENT MAKES PATRIOTS SHUDDER

Michelle Malkin  refers to Alberto Fernandez as "al Jazeera's favorite pet tool."   Does it matter?  You bet.  He's the director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the US State Department.   Malkin calls him a "State Department apologist for jihad."  Tell me, why can't we get wiser and more savy state department personnel to represent the United States?  Public relations and media effectiveness are crucial.   Click here  for the story.

BBC BIAS - CONFIRMING THE OBVIOUS

The Daily Mail reports:

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

IS CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM A GREATER THREAT THAN RADICAL ISLAM?

It's pretty scary when people, who should know better, declare that Christian fundamentalism poses a greater threat than radical Islam.  The level of ignorance -- or is it pure unmitigated bigotry? --  is quite breathtaking.  As I said, this is truly scary.   Click here to read Jonah Goldberg's response to a Bryan Burrough review of Andrew Sullivan's book,  The Conservative Soul.   Goldberg rightly refers to the Burrough review as "silly."   I've reproduced Goldberg's response below.   [See also my earlier post On the Subject of Theocons...] 

SHOULD WE HAVE GONE TO WAR IN IRAQ?

Judging a war in progress can be a hazardous undertaking.  Jeff Jacoby in an insightful article argues against those who say that we were wrong to go to war in Iraq based on the difficulties we have encountered.  He cites the difficulties encountered in the War of 1812, the Battle of the Bulge, and the Civil War as examples we need to keep in mind lest we be guilty of judging the Iraqi war prematurely.  He concludes:

The point isn't that the violent mess in Iraq today is analogous to the Civil War in 1863, or to the Ardennes in 1944, or to the burning of Washington in 1814.  The point is that we don't know.  Like earlier Americans, we have to choose between resolve and retreat, with no guarantees about how it will end.  All we can be sure of is that the stakes once again are liberty and decency vs. tyranny and terror -- that we are fighting an enemy that feeds on weakness and expects us to lose heart -- and that Americans for generations to come will remember whether we flinched. 

POLLS - IS THE SAMPLING BROAD-BASED AND FAIR?

I've written on polls before [here] and today I see the need to do it again.   You gotta watch'em closely -- How are the questions phrased?   Who are the people being polled?, etc. etc.    Here is Kathryn Jean Lopez making an important point:

I've never been a math whiz, so I usually leave poll analysis to others, but take a look at  "Newsweek poll puts Democrats far ahead in Congress " — should anyone be shocked that Dems come out ahead when only 28 percent of your poll is made up of Republicans, and 35 percent Democrat, is it surprising that dems fare better? (Of those sampled, 282 identified themselves as Republicans, 349 as Democrats and 330 as Independents.)

FALLACI GIFTS PONTIFICAL SCHOOL

I have written appreciatively about Oriana Fallaci in the past.  [See here]  Today The Anchoress tells us that Oriana Fallaci has left books and personal papers to a pontifical school in Rome.  This wouldn't be so unusual except that Oriana Fallaci was an atheist.  I would like to reproduce the Anchoress' words for my own readers.  It should be noted that her post is crossposted at Captain's Quarters Blog which carries many reader responses.  Here is what the Anchoress wrote:

October 21, 2006

Fallaci gifts pontifical school

The headline is deplorable (she deserves to be named) but I knew immediately that they were writing about the great Oriana Fallaci, here: Atheist gifts pontifical school in will

An Italian journalist and self-described atheist who died last month has left most of her books and notes to a pontifical university in Rome because of her admiration for Pope Benedict XVI, a school official said Saturday.

Oriana Fallaci had described the pontiff as an ally in her campaign to rally Christians in Europe against what she saw as a Muslim crusade against the West. As she battled breast cancer last year, she had a private audience with Benedict…

MARRIED COUPLES ARE NOW A MINORITY IN AMERICA

Here's a short article exploring the implications for churches.  The original news article is here.  (HT: Andrew Jackson) 

THE EMERGENT CHURCH - A FIRST POST

I haven't written anything on the "Emerging Church" because I haven't felt it was something I was supposed to spend much time concentrating on.  That will probably change at some point.  But for now, I'll simply link to an article by John Mark Reynolds which offers something of an introduction and a mild critique.   Here is Mark Driscoll on a 3 1/2 minute video offering his own introduction to "Emergent vs. Emerging Churches."  Finally, Justin Taylor summarizes Darrell Bock on emerging church (or hear it from Darrell himself).   (HT: Andrew Jones)

THE WORKS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS ONLINE

Click here.   This is from the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University.  Materials are indexed by date, topics, and Scripture reference.    (HT: Andrew Jackson) 

HOROWITZ'S "ACADEMIC BILL OF RIGHTS" REVISITED

David Horowitz has been campaigning a long time for a change in the indoctrination now taking place on university campuses.  [See my earlier post]  That, of course, has produced strong opposition.  Horowitz says,

Opponents of efforts to end political discrimination and classroom indoctrination on college campuses follow a predictable game plan:

• Deny these problems exist;
• Question the veracity of anyone who claims they do; and, finally,
• Misrepresent the supporters of academic freedom as the very witch-hunters they are trying to thwart.

Michael Berube’s new book, What’s Liberal About The Liberal Arts: Classroom Politics and ‘Bias’ in Higher Education, is a case study in these techniques. Berube is a Professor of English Literature at Penn State and a member of the National Council of the American Association of University Professors, which has cast itself as the chief antagonist of the movement for academic reform.

Horowitz offers a long response to Berube's book and to those resisting the academic freedom he proposes.

ROUND TABLE DIALOG ON "FORCED CONVERSIONS" IN ISLAM

Frontpagemag has done its readers a service in publishing a round-table dialog on "forced conversions" in Islam.  [I have an earlier post on the subject here.]  Participants include Mustafa Akyol, David Aikman, Robert Spencer, and Andrew Bostom.  This is a lengthy dialog, but one that should - at the least - be bookmarked for future reference.  The theological, political, and historical references serve as a first-rate introduction to the issues. 

Mustafa Akyol, a Muslim journalist and author from Istanbul, is a moderate Muslim and a reformist.  One can read his contributions and the responses of others to gage the strengths and weaknesses of his position.  He led off by saying,

This is an important topic and, as a Muslim, my position is clear: I am absolutely against the concept of forced conversion, which I believe is in opposition to the basic principles of the Qur'an. The verse you mentioned -- “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256) -- is very clear and there are also other ones, such as, "It is the truth from your Lord; so let whoever wishes have faith and whoever wishes be unbeliever." (18:29)   There is nothing in the Qur'an which would justify a forced conversion to islam.  Indeed a purely Qur'anic Muslim view should cherish full religious freedom.