Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

CHRISTIAN REFLECTIONS ON NEO-PAGANISM

Sacred Tribes Journal has an issue devoted to paganism.   It looks very helpful.   Articles include:

Christians and the New Pagans

Contributing Factors in the Resurgence of Paganism in Western Society

A Postmodern Counter-Culture Movement: The Resurgence of Paganism in Western Society;  Neo-Paganism: Is Dialog Possible?   

Musterion:  Our Story & God's Story: Journeying with Jesus and Loving Pagans

Wiccans and Jesus: Making the Message Meaningful

Neo-Pagan and Wiccan Views of Jesus: A Reformed Christian Assessment

The Quest for a Holistic Ecological Ethic:The Pagan Challenge to Christianity

Animals Matter to God: Rediscovering Creation Guardianship

The Deeper Magic:  Paganism and Christianity in Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows and C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and That Hideous Strength 

Reading and Reference Room

The Journal also includes numerous book & film/video reviews. 

IRVING HEXAM ON THE CHRISTIAN MIND

Irving Hexam,  of the Department of Religious Studies, University of Calgary wrote:

Christianity is the greatest intellectual adventure of all.

No doubt this statement will surprise some people and shock others. Agnostics will be surprised because Christians are supposed to be intellectual ostriches. Many Christian students will be shocked because they enjoy being ostriches.

The truth of the matter is that for me to be a Christian is to belong to a great cultural

MOZART - AN APPRECIATION

Here is an excellent article by Jon Pott titled "The Triumph of Genius: Celebrating Mozart."  2006 is the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. One brief excerpt in a long and helpful article:

Mozart has probably received more attention from theologians than any other composer save Bach. Most famously, there is Karl Barth, who began each day by listening to Mozart and found in him as he found in no other a transporting freedom and play within order, an affirmation "of a world which in sunlight and storm, by day and by night, is a good and ordered world." Barth is quite sure that in heaven, the angels, when left to their own devices, play Mozart, the good Lord listening in with special pleasure.

"LEAPS OF FAITH" MADE BY "PROGRESSIVES"

Jonah Goldberg talks about leaps of faith.   Although "progressives" often disparage (and find incomprehensible) so-called "leaps of faith" among religious people, they often fail to recognize the "leaps of faith" and assumptions inherent in their own positions.  Goldberg writes:

Whatever your view of religious leaps of faith, it is hardly the case that liberalism is immune to similar leaps. Many progressives take many things on faith: the brotherhood of man, the ability of government to relieve man's estate,

DANIEL PIPES: THE WEST COULD LOSE THE BATTLE AGAINST ISLAMISM BECAUSE OF PACIFISM, SELF-HATRED, AND COMPLACENCY

Daniel Pipes begins his important article by asking the question:  "After defeating fascists and communists, can the West now defeat the Islamists?" 

He describes that which hinders the West -  pacifism, self-hatred, and complacency - and concludes his article this way:

Pacifism, self-hatred and complacency are lengthening the war against radical Islam and causing undue casualties. Only after absorbing catastrophic human and property losses will left-leaning Westerners likely overcome this triple affliction and confront the true scope

URBANA OPENS TODAY

Click here for the link.

QUOTES FROM GEORGE VERWER, FOUNDER OF OPERATION MOBILIZATION

George Verwer, founder of Operation Mobilization, has said:

"Without faith and love your Christianity will be a hollow thing, no matter what its intellectual credibility."

"Failures for the believer are always temporary.  God loves you and me so much that he will allow almost any failure if the end result is that we become more like Jesus. Forsake your wimp factor, take a step and be proactive."

"We need a constant work of the Holy Spirit.   I often tell the story about D L Moody who would   emphasize the need to be filled with the Spirit again and again. One day when asked, "Mr. Moody why do you   keep saying we have to be filled again and again?"   he replied, "because I leak".   Thank God for free refills." 

AN APOLOGETICS & CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW WEBSITE WELL WORTH BOOKMARKING

Today I came across a website on apologetics and Christian worldview that definitely needs bookmarking.  The product of the UCCF-UK (the British counterpart of America's InterVarsity Christian Fellowship), L'Abri, IFES, and others, many of the talks can be downloaded to mp3 players.  This looks outstanding both for the breadth of topics and the expertise of the lecturers.   Click here.

KOFI ANNAN AND THE UNITED NATIONS EXPOSED FOR DISTORTION, DECEPTION, MORAL OBTUSENESS AND PETTY HYPOCRISY

Victor Davis Hanson lays bare the oily false moralism of the U.N. typified by its out-going leader, Kofi Annan.  Here are a few quotes excerpted from an article that deserves to be read in full.

. . . By any fair measure the current international renegade in matters of trademark infringement, copyright violation, or cutthroat acquisition of resources is an undemocratic China. Yet we know that Annan would not go to Beijing to lecture

CHRISTIANS AND OTHER NON-MUSLIMS FACE TERRIBLE TREATMENT IN IRAQ

Nina Shea, whom I consider one of the heroes of our age, spotlights the terrible plight of Christians and other minorities in Iraq.  Where is the United States government's concern for these who are suffering so immensely?  She writes:

. . . The plight of Iraqi’s one million Christians and non-Muslim minorities is not on anyone’s radar screen. The Iraq Study Group Report, for example, ignored them completely.

The situation of the non-Muslim minorities — largely Christians (Chaldean Catholics, Assyrians, Syriac Orthodox, Armenians, Protestants, and Evangelicals), but also including Yizidis (adherents of an ancient angel religion), Mandeans (followers of John the Baptist), Baha’is, Kaka’i (followers of a syncretistic religion in the Kirkuk area), and Jews — is uniquely dire. Half of them are estimated to have been driven

IS IT TRUE THAT 95% OF AMERICANS HAVE HAD PREMARITAL SEX?

When I first read the report headlined above, I scratched my head.  It seemed quite preposterous to me.  I await further critique and commentary.  One skeptical response that sounds right to me can be found here.   Another can be found here.   Both should be read in their entirety. 

Update: 12/25/06 - A short article,  "What is Wrong with Sex Before Marriage?", offers a brief treatment of the subject.

EVALUATING "CNN PRESENTS: AFTER JESUS"

Dr. Albert Mohler does a good job evaluating "CNN Presents: After Jesus," a special airing on CNN Friday Dec. 22nd at 10:00 PM (EST), Saturday Dec. 23rd at 8:00 PM, and Sunday Dec. 24th at 8:00 PM.  Mohler critiques the program from an evangelical point of view.  He points out strengths and weaknesses, and laments that CNN did not include an evangelical theologian,  historian, or New Testament scholar such as  N. T. Wright, D. A. Carson, or Darrell Bock.  On balance, though, Mohler says that although he found a good bit to criticize, "Nevertheless, when the entire program is reviewed, I would judge the project to be more even-handed and responsible than I had at first expected." 

New Testament scholar Scot McKnight suggests that there is plenty to like and a good bit to disagree with in CNN's production.   He notes that the theme of the night was the diversity of Christianity in the first three centuries.  He then asks a good question:

How can we talk about the rise of orthodoxy and skip over Irenaeus, Ignatius, Tertullian and Athanasius — and show how they responded in their contexts to the challenges and gave major voices to the ongoing development of orthodoxy? We virtually jump from the NT to Constantine, and give the impression that orthodoxy dropped out of the sky when Constantine needed a political expedient to unify the empire.

CHRISTMAS MUSIC CALMS NEWBORNS, NURSES REPORT

From Scripps Howard News Service:

The holiday season is in full swing and it is giving nurses who work with newborns something to be thankful for. Their rows of usually fussy infants have been seduced into a collective calm, thanks to the tunes of Christmas.

"They are usually pretty cranky," said Amanda Ring, a women and children's health nurse at New York Presbyterian Hospital, Cornell Medical Center. "But when we put Christmas music on, they stop crying. It's amazing."

Read the whole article.   (HT: Cranach)

IS BLOGGING CONTENT PRINTED IN SHORT BOOKS (PAMPHLETS) THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE?

Adam Bellow, son of novelist Saul Bellow, writes in the Columbia Journalism Review of his vision to help foster the rebirth of pamphlets -- 4-by-6 inch, $4 booklets with an average of 60 to 80 pages.  He sees pamphlets (sold on the internet in pdf form and then sent as bound hard copy) as an affordable, more permanent way to disseminate ideas to both blog readers and the general public.   

Me:  I think it's a fascinating idea.  Bellow is right.  We are in the midst of enormous intellectual ferment.  Inexpensive booklets produced from blogs or by bloggers -- and published by Bellow -- is intriguing.

NONIE DARWISH'S EYE-OPENING INTERVIEW PROVIDES UNIQUE INSIGHT INTO ISLAMIC CULTURE

This interview with Nonie Darwish, the author of Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror will be a real eye opener to readers.  She grew up in Cairo and Gaza, the daughter of a high-ranking Egyptian army officer. She now lectures around the country to civic organizations, universities, churches, and synagogues.  She is the founder of ArabsForIsrael.com     A must read.

GROSS-OUT CULTURE

Candace de Russy begins her article on popular culture's degenerate state this way:

The American public square has been blitzed with what Gawker.com, a gossip website, calls “revulse-amusement” and misused for what columnist Andrea Peyser terms a “raunch-fest” — revelry calculated, according to the New York Times, to churn up waves of “ethical nausea.”

She points out that the academic elite precipitate and justify the culture-smashing filth.

The role played by leftist cultural revolutionaries in the contemporary academy, who have propagated the belief

WHY RELIGION MATTERS: RELIGIOUS PRACTICE AND THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY

This comprehensive Heritage Foundation article examines the social contributions of religion in America.  As such, it is primarily a study of the social impact of Christianity in the United States.  At least that's my take on it.  I think a quite different paper would be written concerning the impact of religion in Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist societies.  Be that as it may, it looks to me like a definitive study, highly useful, and sure to please academics out there who like long, comprehensive, well-written papers laced with footnotes.   (The paper has 136 footnotes). 

Topics covered include the following:  Religion and Marriage (divorce; marital harmony and satisfaction; cohabitation); Religion and Family Relations (mother-child relationships, father-child relationships;

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: MUSLIMS AREN'T TOLD ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST

John Podhoretz calls this the "Op-Ed of the Month... if not the year" by "the relentlessly brave Ayaan Hirsi Ali."   Hirsi Ali is the Somali immigrant who served in the parliament of the Netherlands until earlier this year when she moved to America.

Hirsi Ali didn't hear of the holocaust until she was 24 years old and living in Holland.

As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, I remember my teachers, my mom and our neighbors telling us practically on a daily basis that Jews are evil, the sworn enemies of Muslims, and that

HIGHLY RATED CHARITIES

Debra England, an expert on philanthropy and education, wrote recently:

In the absence of competitive market forces, the average non-profit organization is significantly less effective, less efficient, less innovative and more poorly managed than the average for-profit company. But if you seek impact with your donations, you must look for investment opportunities in organizations that are performance-driven and strategically aligned with your values.

Two of the 10 charities she lauded included Operation Blessing and Foundation for Defense of Democracy.    (HT: Cliff May at the Corner)

Update: 12/25/06 - I have spent considerable time looking up charities at Charity Navigator.  Later in the afternoon I also took a look at Give.org and glanced at Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.   Hereafter I won't give to any charities until I've checked them out. 

LOCAL AMERICAN MUSLIM LEADERS INTIMIDATE, BUT CAN THEY SPEAK STRAIGHTFORWARD TRUTH?

From Mark Krikorian of the National Review Corner says: 

Rod Dreher gives an account of a meeting with Dallas Muslim leaders, whose evasiveness and attempts at intimidation nicely butress my comparison a while back (see here and here) between the patriotism of mainstream Japanese American opinion during WWII and the ambivalence (at best) of mainstream Muslim American opinion today.

Me:  Read the Dreher account.   It's exactly as I expected.  After a most useful and insightful report of the Dallas newspaper's meeting with the Muslim delegation, Dreher offers some straightforward conclusions:

What I keep seeing from these meetings is an attempt -- a sincere attempt -- to mau-mau the media into ignoring disturbing things going on

WHY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS EMBRACED INDIA

Read about it in this informative and comprehensive article.

DENNIS PRAGER'S VERBAL SNAPSHOT OF WORLD CONDITIONS TODAY

The unfailingly thoughtful and interesting Dennis Prager offers a verbal snapshot of world conditions as the year 2006 comes to an end.

On the eve of the year 2007, it is evident to anyone with the fortitude to see reality that the world is not getting better, nor even staying the same, but getting worse.

. . .  Almost wherever one looks, there are more reasons for pessimism than optimism.   Africa is probably in worse condition than at any time in recorded history.  (More)

I recommend matching your own assessment with Prager's. 

A READING LIST FROM FRONTPAGEMAG CONTRIBUTORS

As I've written before, I always enjoy reading booklists.  Here's an interesting compilation of recommended reading from contributors to David Horowitz's FrontPage Magazine website.    I value this list greatly.

Update 12/20/06 - I'll add to my original post Thomas Sowell's recommended reading printed in his column today.  He recommends Melanie Phillips' "Londonistan," David McCullough's "1776", "Choosing the

FEMALE SHORTAGE IN INDIA AND CHINA

You've probably read about the ever-growing imbalance of males to females (because of abortion) in India and China.  This article brings the subject up to date. 

JIMMY CARTER'S UNERRING INSTINCT FOR ERROR

Update 12/18/06 - Here is an insightful article pointing out the millions of dollars Jimmy Carter has received from Arab sources for his library.  One can't be blamed for wondering how objective that makes him.

**

Mona Charen says Jimmy Carter has "a seemingly unerring instinct for error."  Carter has written a new book: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.  Charen says "[it] is touted (by Carter himself) as an evenhanded analysis of the Israeli/Arab conflict -- but one need go no further than the title to suspect otherwise."

Here’s a precis of the book: Israel is the problem. In fact, it’s all summed up in the final paragraph: “Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens — and honor its own previous commitments — by accepting its legal borders.” By the way, that kind of awkward phrasing is found throughout this slapdash work.

.... The book is so foolish that you can pretty much close your eyes and point to any page to find something simplistic, naïve, or tendentious.   (Read Charen's entire review)

Quotes of the Day

God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters."  - J. H. Jowett

If I had but one sermon to preach, it would be on the homesickness of the soul for God."  - Samuel Shoemaker (a key figure in the beginnings of Alcoholics Anonymous)

RAPE REPORTS SOAR IN OSLO, NORWAY - SIX TIMES HIGHER PER CAPITA THAN IN NEW YORK CITY

Norway's Aftenposten newspaper headlines: "Rape Reports Soar in Oslo."

Nearly 300 women have sought help so far this year from Oslo's emergency clinic handling rape victims. That's a higher per capita rate than New York City's, and the clinic is having trouble meeting demand.

Fjordman, who reported on this, says the Oslo's rape numbers are six times as high per capita as in New York City.   He notes  that "Two out of three charged with rape in Norway’s capital are immigrants with a non-western background according to a police study."   

THE NAZI HOLOCAUST, J.R.R. TOLKEIN, IRAN'S AHMADINEJAD

The Colossus blog offers useful reflections on the relevance of Tolkein, the history of Naziism, and the face of evil in Iran's Ahmadinejad.   (HT: Hugh Hewitt)

WHAT MAKES THE CHRISTIAN GOD UNIQUE?

Kenneth Richard Samples taught philosophy and religion courses at a public college in Southern California for a decade.  His teaching responsibilities included teaching a course on world religions which often raised special questions.  He writes here how he answered the question posed by a Jewish and Muslim student:   "Exactly how does the God of Christianity differ from the Jewish and Muslim views of God?"

I explained to them that historic Christianity, like Judaism and Islam,¹ affirms the existence of one true and living God. I pointed out that Christianity enjoys a unique and special relationship with Judaism. However, I also emphasized three distinctive ways in which the Christian God differs from the conception of God found in these two other Middle Eastern monotheistic religions. In fact, I said that these three doctrinal distinctives set the Christian faith apart from all other religious systems, not just Judaism and Islam. The three tenets (in a sense) express the theological heart of historic Christianity.

The first way in which Christianity is distinct is in its special conception of monotheism. Unlike traditional Judaism and Islam, the God of Christianity possesses a unique and mysterious plurality of personhood within its single divine essence. In other words,

WATER ON MARS SIGNIFICANT?

The Reasons to Believe website offers a perspective.

DOVER CASE AGAINST INTELLIGENT DESIGN: JUDGE COPIED ACLU BRIEFS. NO INDEPENDENT ANALYSIS!

Art Moore reports on the findings:

A historic judicial ruling against intelligent design theory hailed as a "broad, stinging rebuke" and a "masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking" actually was "cut and pasted" from a brief by ACLU lawyers and includes many of their provable errors, contends the Seattle-based Discovery Institute.

One year ago, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones' 139-page ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover declared unconstitutional a school board policy that required students of a ninth-grade biology class in the Dover Area School District to hear a one-minute statement that said evolution is a theory and intelligent design "is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view."

"SCHOOL OF THE ASSASINS" - A FAIR ACCUSATION?

See Mark Tooley's analysis.

DARFUR: WELCOME TO THE TRIUMPH OF GLOBAL HYPOCRISY

Consider these observations of Ralph Peters:

A half-million dead in Darfur; 2.5 million refugees - not counting the corpses lost in the sands or terrified survivors in hiding. Surely, the world will act?

No. The world talks. While the militias kill - and years pass. The United Nations looks away - its signature gesture when human rights are violated.

Welcome to the triumph of global hypocrisy.

OBAMA'S LIBERAL VOTING RECORD

Update 4/8/09 -  I have later extensive posts on Obama filed under the following categories: "Obama,"   "Obama as Messiah,"  "Obama's Foreign Relations," and Obama Reign.

Update 10/28/08 -  I have a lot of material on Obama and his positions here.  My posts on "Obama as Messiah" are here.  My material on McCain's "negatives" - including comments by those who originally opposed McCain, but who now support him because they understand the dangers of an Obama presidency -- can be found here.

Update 8/3/08 - What Barack Obama's "Lost Years" as a State Senator Tell us About His Ideological Core

Update 4/15/08 - Obama's Activist Homosexual Agenda

Update 2/14/08 - Larry Kudlow: Obama's Big Government Vision

Update 1/9/08 - Liberal Obama is the Most Pro-Abortion Candidate Ever.  Click here

Update: 7/19/07  - Obama favors sex education for kindergarteners!  Click here.

**

Larry Kudlow says, "Behind the Obama story is a very liberal left voting record."  Kudlow lays it out:

· Voted against extending the Bush tax cuts on capital gains and dividends.

· Voted against permanently repealing the Death Tax. (Called the cuts a "Paris Hilton" tax break for "billionaire heirs and heiresses") · Voted against CAFTA.

· Opposed any bans on partial birth abortions.

GOLDEN RULES FOR LIVING

I came across the following, but I don't know whom to credit.   I think these are pretty terrific "Golden Rules for Living".

1.  If you open it, close it.

2.  If you turn it on, turn it off.

3.  If you unlock it, lock it up.

4.  If you break it, admit it.

5.  If you can't fix it, call in someone who can.

6.  If you borrow it, return it.

7.  If you value it, take care of it.

8.  If you make a mess, clean it up.

9.  If you move it, put it back.

10.  If you don't know how to operate it, leave it alone.

11.  If it belongs to someone else, get permission to use it.

12.  If  it's none of your business, don't ask questions.

SURVEY FINDS CHRISTMAS GONE FROM CARDS

According to Britain's Daily Mail, Christmas cards are losing their Christmas message.

Only one in 100 Christmas cards sold in Britain contains any religious imagery or message, a Daily Mail survey has revealed.

Traditional pictures such as angels blowing trumpets over a stable, Jesus in his manager, the shepherds and three wise men following the star to Bethlehem are dying out.

Instead, scenes of the Nativity has been replaced on cards by designs or jokes with little or no relevance to the Bible story and the true meaning of Christmas.  (more)    HT: Drudge

I suspect the same is true of Christmas cards in America. 

THE NUCLEAR FAMILY IS IN MELTDOWN

Investor Business Daily is publishing an article in its Dec. 11, 2006 edition citing statistics from "Births: Preliminary Data for 2005," a report from the National Center for Health Statistics (the statistical arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).   

The IBD article doesn't mince words:  "The nuclear family is in meltdown, with out-of-wedlock births reaching 1.5 millionlast year, or 36.8% of the total.

Among non-Hispanic blacks, the illegitimacy rate reached a staggering 69.5%. Among non-Hispanic whites, the rate is up to 25.4%. The illegitimacy rate for Hispanics increased by 1.5% in just one year, and now stands at 47.9%.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (AP) - STILL UNTRUSTWORTHY

Update: 12/8/06 evening -  Allahpundit responds to Kathleen Carroll, the Executive Editor of the Associated Press;   12/16/06 - Michelle Malkin has more questions for AP

***

I've blogged on this before, but more and more bias and false reporting keeps coming to light in connection with the Associated Press.   Michelle Malkin points to a "must read" column by Robert Bateman in today's New York Post.  It begins:

THE most powerful media institution in all of human history is the Associated Press. Its news feed is ubiquitous - used, directly or indirectly, by every U.S. newspaper and TV news program and a vast number of foreign ones, too. AP maintains the largest world-wide

FAIRY TALES IN NORWAY GET A SCRUBBING

No one said political correctness doesn't have its inanities.  Fjordman reports at the Brussels Journal the following:

Document.no, Norway's largest independent weblog, reports that in Norwegian kindergartens, pigs in traditional fairy tales are now quietly being replaced with other animals. A person who visits kindergartens to read fairy tales experienced that in stories by Asbjørnsen and Moe, the Norwegian equivalent of the Brothers Grimm, the word pig had been replaced with fox. When she discovered the same thing happening in another kindergarten, she wondered whether this was a new policy.

In Sweden previously, the wording of several older books for children such as Pippi Longstocking has been changed to make them more "culturally sensitive."

Winnie the Pooh and Foxlet, anyone? Three Little Foxes? . . .

AFRICAN IMMIGRATION TO EUROPE - THE CASE OF SPAIN; SWEDEN

Christopher Caldwell writes on  "Europe's Future:  The Senegalese (and the Malians, Mauritanians, Gambians, et al.) are coming to Spain--and staying."

Caldwell also writes on Sweden - "Islam on the Outskirts of the Welfare State. These are major articles.     (HT: Stanley Kurtz at The Corner)

THE DARKER MEANING OF CHRISTMAS

Christmas carols need careful attention.  There we often find the unexpected.  Instead of Christmas being all bright, light and cheery, we find a darker backdrop which is quite central to Christmas, but often forgotten.

Wilfred M. McClay points out that the French carol "O Holy Night" reads "Long lay the world in sin and error pining,/Till he appeared, and the soul felt its worth."  Hmmm.   Did the world in fact lay "in sin and error pining"?  Yes, indeed.

And what about "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"?  The words in the first verse read:

"To save us all from Satan's power
When we were gone astray." 

McClay says,

THE FOUNTAIN OF A CERTAIN TYPE OF BANEFUL THINKING

Louis Markos says, "If I were asked to select the single sentence from the writings of the founders of modern secular humanism that exerted the most baneful influence on twentieth-century thought, it would have to be this seemingly innocuous line from the "Author's Preface" to Karl Marx's A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:

"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness."

The quote is from Markos' article, "Alien Notion:  John Gray's Men are from Mars, Women Are from Venus" in Touchstone magazine, December 2006, p. 9. Markos goes on to explain:

THE "VICTORY" OF THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT

The following observation by Anthony Esolen deserves some sort of prize for astuteness and succinctness:

Women are beautiful, and men are necessary.  It has been the great victory of the feminist movement to make women unlovely by persuading them that men are not needed.

            - From Touchstone magazine, December, 2006, p. 5

Translating the Bible into English: A Translator of Dante Offers His View

English translations of the Bible abound.  Each English Bible we hold in our hands is the product of a certain translation philosophy and goal.   Anthony Esolen, a contemporary translator of Dante's Divine Comedy, offers his own view:

"Dante is often obscure.  He coins odd words; he uses forms from outside Tuscany; sometimes he is deliberately archaic; sometimes he wants his syntax tangled.  When I translated The Divine Comedy, I assumed that my job was not to sand smooth what the Great One had left rough.  It astonishes me to see translators do to the Word of God what I have struggeld so hard, even with the severe constraints of meter and thyme,  not to do to Dante.  I would not have presumed to do it.

. . .  If the Bible, at once immediately accessible by children and yet embracing unfathomable truths, does not sometimes suggest the depth of an infinite sea, the translators ought to be sent packing.  Let 'em translate signs in trains stations, where dynamic equivalence serves some immediate practical purpose."

                          - From Touchstone Magazine, December 2006, p. 4 (not available online)

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON LOOKS AT DIFFERING AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES ON IRAQ

Hugh Hewitt offers links to recent articles, plus an audio/podcast interview (with accompanying transcript) of VDH's analysis.

NEW BOOK: "THE THRILL OF THE CHASTE: FINDING FULFILLMENT WITH YOUR CLOTHES ON"

Kathryn Jean Lopez introduces a great interview  with these words:

Dawn Eden, an editor at the New York Daily News and blogger with an eclectic background, is author of a new book published by Thomas Nelson called The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On. Eden’s tried it both ways, and in the book describes the life-changing experience that came with her decision to stop having lots of sex in the city.

Some excerpts:

Lopez: What was it that made you go chaste?

DENNIS PRAGER DOESN'T WANT A CONGRESSMAN TAKING HIS OATH ON THE KORAN

This article by Mary Katherine Ham serves as a good resource for getting a handle on the controversy.  CAIR, of course, has jumped in, wanting Prager's head (so to speak).  I saw Dennis Prager on Hannity and Colmes TV show tonight and if a transcript is made available I'll link to it.  Prager did a good job defending his position, though I am personally somewhat ambivalent.  (HT: Michelle Malkin)    

Update 12/18/06 - Don Feder weighs in for his own reasons.  He lists the violence enjoined by the Koran and concludes,

It's no coincidence that most terrorists on four continents are Muslims. Nor is it a coincidence that those who are killing U.S. servicemen in Iraq do so inthe name of the bible of Islam. And it isn't by chance that Osama bin Laden, Hamas, Hezbollah and Imanutjob in Iran all cite the Koran as the source of their lunacy.

DUTCH PROFESSOR FORBIDDEN TO SPEAK ON ISLAMIC ANTI-SEMITISM

Why doesn't the virulence of Islamic anti-Semitism raise eyebrows and voices in a huge  chorus of protest?  How is it that Islamic anti-Semitism thrives as a protected attitude amongst the politically correct elite ?  Why isn't Islamic anti-Semitism denounced in the strongest of terms?  What kind of insidious twisting of people's minds allows such hate to go unchallenged? 

Islamic anti-Semitism in my opinion ranks as one of the Big Stories of this century, its end still waiting to be played out.

Here is a story of a Dutch University professor who was censored from delivering a speech on the prevalence of anti-Semitism throughout history and culminating

DO CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS WORSHIP THE SAME GOD?

I commend Bat Ye'or for bringing attention to a new book which will serve to clear up a lot of fuzzy thinking on the relationship of Islam to Christianityand Judaism.  Bat Ye'or reviews  Durie Mark's Revelation?  Do We Worship the Same God? in a National Review Online article  titled "Which One God?  Comparing the Muslim and Christian conceptions of God."

With the passing of time, hidden challenges, which for a long time had been growing unnoticed and unaddressed, can suddenly emerge into the full-blown light of current events with a force which seems quite overwhelming. Today the Western world, or Judeo-Christian civilization, shaken by jihadist terror, is being rudely awakened to theological realities blurred for decades. From clashes of

India - U.S. Cooperation: New Delhi Disappoints

Henry Sokolski reports the following  disappointing news:

Less than a week after the U.S. Senate hastily cleared the way for generous U.S. nuclear cooperation with India, New Delhi made three announcements that pretty much destroyed the White House’s arguments for proceeding.

First, within hours of the Senate vote, India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh met in New Delhi with Iran’s new