Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

Bill Bennett - Failure to Teach American History Is Resulting in National Amnesia

There are so many things wrong with American education that one hardly knows where to begin.  But the failure to teach American history must rank near the top. In an important article, Bill Bennett points out that our children do worse in American history than they do in reading or math.  That strikes me as pretty amazing, and depressing.  Bennett gives examples of what textbooks teach (usually in a boring manner) and don't teach.

Who knows that America’s war against Islamist terror did not begin on September 11, 2001, but that Thomas Jefferson fought our first war on terror, against Muslim slave traders in North Africa who had enslaved some 1.25 million Europeans some 200 years earlier? Children are not taught this.

To remedy our huge knowledge-of-history deficiency, he suggests:

Let us call for a renewal. Begin with the texts. Let us have a national contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities or the Department of Education for better history textbooks, and grant the

Wacko: Michael Moore's Depiction of Cuban Health Care in "Sicko"

I have written before about Michael Moore's socialist health care documentary Sicko.  Michelle Malkin responded with a "Hot Air Vent" here. Now a Cuban American doctor, Dr. Leonel Cordova, (via Michelle Malkin  and Claudia 4 Libertad) vigorously disputes Michael More's depiction of health care in Cuba.  In a Miami CBS4-TV news video,  Dr. Cordova explains that Cuba has a two-tier health system in which only 5% of the population enjoy an excellent health system.  Claudia 4 Libertad adds:

Ask any Cuban who has recently left the island (because they can’t talk freely about this inside of Cuba) about their health care system and they will tell you that it is often a challenge just to get aspirin and they often have to get it on the black market. The run-down, dilapidated and unsanitary conditions in the facilities that the average Cuban must go to for care are a far cry from the hospitals and clinics reserved for high-ranking members of the communist party or the military. There are actually special facilities in Cuba that serve foreigners who can pay in foreign currency.

If the lauded Cuban healthcare system is so wonderful, perhaps someone can explain to me the following:

* Why some patients are taken to the hospital in wheelbarrows instead of ambulances?

* Why patients must bring their own linens for the hospital bed and often, a fan, to combat the stifling heat and lack of air-conditioning?

* Why cockroaches and other vermin are present in

Philip Jenkins Predicts a Christian Comeback in Europe; Richard John Neuhaus Remains Unpersuaded

Philip Jenkins says:

Alarmist pundits prophesy that a secular Europe risks being overcome by its fast-growing Muslim population. Yet for all we hear about Islam, Europe remains a stronger Christian fortress than people realize.

He points out that "new religious currents have become a potent force."

Examples include movements such as the Focolare, the Emmanuel Community, and the Neocatechumenate Way, all of which are committed to a re-evangelization of Europe. These movements use charismatic styles of worship and devotion that would seem more at home in an American Pentecostal church, but at the same time they are thoroughly Catholic. Though most of these movements originated in Spain and Italy, they have subsequently spread throughout Europe and across the Catholic world. Their influence over the younger clergy and lay leaders who will shape the church in the next generation is surprisingly strong.

Jenkins identifies various Protestant movements, and then invites us to pay attention to the "hugely energetic immigrant congregations."

On a typical Sunday, half of all churchgoers in London are African or Afro-Caribbean. Of Britain’s 10 largest megachurches, four are pastored by Africans. Paris has 250 ethnic Protestant churches, most of them black African. Similar trends are found in Germany. Booming Christian churches in Africa and Asia now focus much of their evangelical attention on Europe. Nigerian and Congolese ministers have been especially successful, but none more so than the Ukraine-based ministry of Nigerian evangelist Sunday Adelaja. He has opened more than 300 churches in 30 countries in the last 12 years and now claims 30,000 (mainly white) followers.

I don't have space to record all that Jenkins says, but he concludes this way:

Europe may be confronting the dilemmas of a truly multifaith society, but with Christianity poised for a comeback, it is hardly on the verge of becoming an Islamic colony.

All this is in line with his book  God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).  Interestingly, Richard John Neuhaus offered a major review in the May 2007 First Things issue.  He has serious reservations about Jenkins' thesis and in his article explains why he remains expectant that Europe will eventually go Muslim.

Bush Coddles American Apologists for Radical Islam

Yesterday President Bush gave a speech at the rededication of the Saudi-funded Islamic Center of Washington, D.C.  Steve Emerson laments President Bush's failure to say what he should have said.

Where are President Bush's advisors?  Don't they do their homework? It is truly disheartening.

Remembering America's Shameful Failure to Stand By Allies And Keep Promises

Michael Gerson, noting that Democrats in a rush to get out of Iraq offer no plan to deal with the chaos that would result down the road, offers a painful reminder in his article, An Exit to Disaster. 

In 1974, a weary Congress cut off funds for Cambodia and South Vietnam, leading to the swift fall of both allies. In his memoir, "Years of Renewal," Henry Kissinger tells the story of former Cambodian prime minister Sirik Matak, who refused to leave his country.

"I thank you very sincerely," Matak wrote in response, "for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it. You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is no matter, because we are all born and must die. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you [the Americans]."

Eventually, between 1 million and 2 million Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge when "peace" came to Indochina. Matak, Kissinger recounts, was shot in the stomach and died three days later.

Realism Required On Iraq and Radical Islam

Andy McCarthy over at the Corner sums up the situation depressingly well:

Unlike the foreign policy establishment, however, I have spent many years dealing with real live jihadists.  Fact:  They really do think they can and will win.  They don't need a lot of hope to carry on -- people willing to kill themselves in order to kill you are already pretty motivated.  But they derive great hope from what they (rightly) see as our surrenders and our ambivalence -- compared to their own great certainty and confidence. 

I am not a fan of how the war has been directed, and I believe expending our time and effort on the democracy project rather than on defeating our enemies in Iraq and elsewhere will go down as one of history's great blunders.  But with all that said, I note with the heartache of one who has seen it all too many times before:  We will rue the day we leave Iraq without routing radical Islam.  What we have not killed, we have made stronger.

Sex and Kids in America's Sex-Saturated Society

Here's a sad and disheartening  report.  The advertising industry, entertainment industry, and the education establishment have a lot to answer for (as do parents). 

Clay Jones of Second Glance Ministries says that even 10 to 14 year olds are becoming sexually active -- so many, the CDC for the first time ever is studying sexual disease rates among girls that age.

"Those young women between the ages of 10 and 14 contracted more cases of chlamydia," said Jones, "than all the women between the ages of 40 and 50 put together."

He said, "We're seeing young people seven, eight and nine years old beginning to act out sexually in ways we've never seen before."

And many Christian young people are succumbing, or at least playing up to the edge.    

. .  .  Clay Jones studies the sexual stats. And he talks a lot to youth pastors.

"Their kids are having sex," he said. "If they're not, they're participating in oral sex. And if they have young people in their groups who aren't sexually active, they're the rarity."

Cantliffe said, "So many parents have

Relativism and Christian Kids: Almost Totally Seduced

Chuck Colson has a "BreakPoint" commentary that I find chilling.   Middle School "Christian kids" resist the reality of Christianity's truth claims vis-a-vis other religions.  Colson writes:

I was dismayed a while back when I learned that a Barna survey found that “less than one out of every ten churched teenagers has a biblical worldview.” But a survey is just that, a survey. Things couldn’t be that bad, could they? Well, I recently heard a shocking story that vividly illustrates just how far relativism has infected the Church—to the point where Christian kids balk at the idea that Christianity would claim to be, of all things, true.

Four years ago, the BreakPoint staff and I launched Centurions, an intensive, year-long education program designed to equip 100 people each year to defend a biblical worldview and teach it to others.

One of our Centurions participants takes that call very seriously as she works with students at a local middle school. She sponsors a Christian club at the school, voluntary of course, and in accord with all the state laws. The students lead the club, and she mentors those leaders.

The club has been studying the ReWired curriculum, which BreakPoint created with Ron Luce’s Teen Mania. The DVD explores the four basic worldview questions: Where do I come from? Why is the world in such a mess? Is there a way to fix it? Is there a purpose for my life?

Everything was going fine until the group reached lesson 10. Lesson 10 leads the kids through a series of choices to learn to recognize the difference between matters of truth and matters of taste. One of the choices, “believing Islam, Buddhism or Christianity,” flashed on the screen.

Our Centurion—I’ll call her Joanne, told me what happened next: “The students went nuts. All but one of the eight leaders completely balked at

Secularist Europe Silences Pro-Lifers and Creationists

Paul Belian of the Brussels Journal files the following report.  In your reading, I encourage you to click through to an embedded link,  "Europe's Culture War: Secularism on the March.

Last week, a German court sentenced a 55-year old Lutheran pastor to one year in jail for “Volksverhetzung” (incitement of the people) because he compared the killing of the unborn in contemporary Germany to the holocaust. Next week, the Council of Europe is going to vote on a resolution imposing Darwinism as Europe’s official ideology. The European governments are asked to fight the expression of creationist opinions, such as young earth and intelligent design theories. According to the Council of Europe these theories are “undemocratic” and “a threat to human rights.”

Without legalized abortion the number of German children would increase annually by at least 150,000 – which is the number of legal abortions in birth dearth Germany. Pastor Johannes Lerle compared the killing of the unborn to the killing of the Jews in Auschwitz during the Second World War. On 14 June, a court in Erlangen ruled that, in doing so, the pastor had “incited the people” because his statement was a denial of the holocaust of the Jews in Nazi-Germany. Hence, Herr Lerle was sentenced to one year in jail. Earlier, he had already spent eight months in jail for calling abortionists “professional killers” – an allegation which the court ruled to be slanderous because, according to the court, the unborn are not humans.  .  . .

"Volksverhetzung" is a crime which the Nazis often invoked against their enemies and which contemporary Germany also uses to intimidate homeschoolers. Soon, the German authorities will be able to use the same charge against people who question Darwin’s evolution theory.

Indeed, next Tuesday, the Council of Europe (CoE), Europe’s main human-rights body, will vote on a proposal which advocates the fight against creationism, “young earth” and “intelligent design” in its 47 member states.

According to a report of the CoE’s Parliamentary Assembly, creationists are dangerous “religious fundamentalists” who propagate “forms of religious extremism” and “could become a threat to human rights.” The report adds that the acceptance of the science of evolutionism “is crucial to the future of our societies and our democracies.”

Democrats "Peace Plans" May Hasten War Instead

Joshus Muravchek, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, looks at Iran and the Middle East in a thoughtful essay and concludes:

The Bush administration's policies having failed to pacify Iraq, it is natural that the public has lost patience and that the opposition party is hurling brickbats. But the demands of congressional Democrats that we throw in the towel in Iraq, their attempts to constrain the president's freedom to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program, the proposal of the Baker-Hamilton commission that we appeal to Iran to help extricate us from Iraq--all of these may be read by the radicals as signs of our imminent collapse. In the name of peace, they are hastening the advent of the next war.

Ramesh Ponnuru Reviews Lee Silver's "Challenging Nature"

Ramesh Ponnuru offers a penetrating review of Princeton molecular biologist Lee Silver's Challenging Nature: The Clash of Science and Spirituality at the New Frontiers of Life.  Silver, a self-described "extremely skeptical agnostic deist," is a biotechnology enthusiast in some ways even more extreme than Peter Singer.  Silver, not unexpectedly, dislikes Roman Catholic and Evangelical positions on bioethics and biotechnology.  He accuses them of masking their religious orientation in secular-sounding arguments.  Ponnuru doesn't rate Silver's philosophical powers very highly.  He concludes his review this way:

It was once popular to speak of "the two cultures." In the one were the scientists, who knew little of the humanities; and in the other were the humanists, who knew little of the sciences. Lee Silver belongs to the first camp. He is an accomplished scientist, and his book is not without some interesting trivia...  Silver is at his best when he is teaching biology. The results are far less edifying when he commits philosophy, especially when he seems unaware that he is doing so.

Europe's Tough New Immigration Stance

Stanley Kurtz, always worth reading, notes that Europe is changing its immigration policy.

Iranian Mullahcracy Human Rights Abuses: Where Are You Rosie O'Donnell and Amnesty International?

Michelle Malkin has the photos, video, and commentary.  Click here.

Flushing Out Islamic Double-Speak in Europe

Fred Siegel in a City Journal article, "Hope for Old Europe," brings us up to date on Europe's slow awakening to the Muslim threat, fogged over until now by clever Muslim extremists' employment of Western freedoms and accommodated by liberal obtuseness and blindness.  It's a useful read.  A few excerpts:

Sarkozy’s road [Nicolas Sarkozy, newly elected French President] to the Elysee Palace was paved not only by the mini-Intifada in the Paris banlieues, but also by a memorable public exchange about Islam. An intellectually confident Sarkozy, then the interior minister, debated suave, articulate Tariq Ramadan, the grandson and heir of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. With 6 million viewers watching, Sarkozy asked Ramadan, famed as an Islamic version of a Euro-Communist, if he agreed with his brother Hani Ramadan—who had argued, in line with Muslim law, that adulterous women should be stoned to death. Pressed to agree or disagree of free speech

Stopping the Spread of AIDS in Africa is Failing Because of Multiple Sex Partners

The Washington Post has a June 20, 2007 article titled Spread of AIDS in Africa is Outpacing Treatment.  It's a powerful article, well worth reading.  An excerpt:

...  Doctors are not winning -- and probably cannot win -- the war against the epidemic, because it is spreading far more quickly than doctors are treating its victims. Even as billions of dollars are spent expanding access to antiretroviral drugs, the goal of controlling AIDS in Africa remains remote.

"At the moment, I just see a never-ending sea of disaster," said [Francois] Venter, 37, the dark-haired, long-limbed president of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society.

Underlying his frustration are grim statistics: For every South African who started taking antiretroviral drugs last year, five others contracted HIV, the same ratio as on the continent as a whole, U.N. reports say. A South African turning 15 today has a nearly 50 percent chance of contracting the virus in his or her lifetime, research shows

What's the problem? There's been an insufficient emphasis on AIDS prevention. Instead, the emphasis has been on treatment, less on curbing behavior.  As the Post article says,

The problem is not the medicine, which is among the most

Illegitimacy has risen despite--indeed, because of--legal abortion.

Liberalized abortion has resulted in an increase in out-of-wedlock births.  Seems counterintuitive?  John R. Lott, Jr. explains.

China's Space Ambitions

Stanley Kurtz says Jeff Kueter’s "China’s Space Ambitions–And Ours," the lead article in the latest issue of The New Atlantis, is well worth a read.  Kurtz says:

During the Cold War, space satellites were a stabilizing force–insuring sufficient transparency to allow the "balance of terror" to work. But now space satellites are integrated with weapons systems that target and destroy enemy forces. Our superior war-fighting capability now depends upon space, and that makes us uniquely vulnerable to satellite attack. And with civilian life itself increasingly dependent on navigation and communications satellites, even a small-scale anti-satellite attack could seriously disrupt our domestic economy. Technology makes us powerful and vulnerable at the same time.

Churchill as Zionist

I'm interested in the history of Israel's founding.  What was the role of Churchill?  John Derbyshire refers to a new book to be published in September by Yale University Press, Churchill's Promised  Land by Michael Makovsky.  Derbyshire says, "I vaguely knew that Winnie was a Zionist, but didn't realize the depth and  conviction of his Zionism. . . Along with Churchill's warmth towards Palestinian Jews went a deep dislike  and distrust of Palestinian Arabs."

A sample of pre-publication blurbs:

Fouad Ajami :

"Churchill's Promised Land weaves a seamless web between diplomatic and intellectual history.  Arresting, thoroughly documented, and at times startling, this will be the standard book on Churchill's complex political and intellectual response to the Zionist project. This is the best kind of history: no axe to grind, guided by the sources, it is a work of genuine scholarship written by a discerning and curious historian."-  

Fouad Ajami, author of The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the  Iraqis in Iraq

Natan Sharansky :

"Today, when Western civilization is under severe attack and the legitimacy of national movements, such as Zionism, is being challenged by the new post-nationalist universalists, Michael Makovsky shows in dramatic and vivid detail why Churchill, one of the greatest statesman in centuries, consistently and stubbornly fought for both." Natan Sharansky, author of The Case for Democracy

Kyle Smith Reviews Michael Moore's "Sicko"

It's a pretty devastating takedown.     (HT: John Podhoretz)

** Update 6/26/07 - Jacob Laksin of FrontPageMagazine offers his negative review.

A Must-Read Tribute to Ruth Graham by Her Grandson, Pastor Tullian Tchividjian

Ruth Graham's grandson, Pastor Tullian Tchividjian (New City Presbyterian Church of Margate, Fl) offered the following comment to a post on Justin Taylor's blog, Between Two Worlds: 

To summarize what she meant to me and the type of woman she was, I want to share an excerpt from my upcoming book Do I Know God?  (Multnomah).

"When I pulled up to their modest log cabin, my heart started to race. I’ve been visiting my grandparents at their mountain home just outside Asheville, North Carolina, my whole life. But spending time in the home of Billy and Ruth Graham continues to be a powerful experience for me. My grandparents have been walking with God for more than seventy years, and they know him better than anyone else I know. Their simple, single-hearted devotion to their Lord saturates virtually everything they say and do. Every time I spend a few days with them, I leave with a renewed passion to know God the way they do.

I walked through the front door and immediately made my way back to their bedroom, where I knew they were waiting for me. My grandfather sat in a chair next to Tai Tai (it’s what I call my grandmother), who was sitting up in bed. Neither of them gets around well anymore, so they spend most of their days together in their bedroom reading, talking, and praying. When I walked into the bedroom,

Ruth Bell Graham, the Inspiration and Strength Behind Billy Graham, Is Laid to Rest

News coverage of Ruth Bell Graham's life has been quite good.  The Asheville Citizen-Times has a web page directing visitors to a number of articles and photos and multimedia posts.   The Charlotte Observer offers a full video of today's funeral service in Montreat, North Carolina.  The Charlotte Observer offers many articles such as this one which includes links to various other articles.   

Journalist Terry Mattingly has a particularly fine internet post titled "Much More Than the Preacher's Wife,"  which is worth reading. He says,

"Anyone who has ever studied the life and career of the world’s most famous evangelist knows that Ruth Bell Graham was much more than his wife. . .  Ruth Bell Graham was nothing less, in my opinion, than the X-factor in her husband’s life . . .

Here is the link to the emotional tribute to Ruth at the homepage of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. There are also some wonderful audio files on Ruth’s life at A Pilgrim Journey.

And The Charlotte Observer is, as the major newspaper in Billy Graham’s hometown, going to keep covering the story in-depth while other newspapers move on. Here is one of the major wrap-up stories with lots of details and history. And here is a witty part of a tribute column (“She was so much more than an evangelist’s wife”) by Ken Garfield, the former Observer religion writer who took over that desk soon after I left in the mid-1980s . . .

Sen. Tom Coburn Issues a Shocking Report on the Center for Disease Control. Millions of Dollars Wasted!

Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla), himself a medical doctor, has been doing some watchdog work on the Center for Disease Control (CDC).  They waste millions of dollars! And how little wisdom and discretion they use in programming.  The Family Research Council offered this comment:

Most of us are shocked that transgender beauty pageants even exist--but what if I said that as a U.S. taxpayer you've already funded one? According to a new report on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), that's just one in a long line of unnecessary expenses that have gone unpunished, and, until now, unnoticed by Congress. When CDC Director Julie Gerberding told the Senate that her agency "needed" an additional billion dollars, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) decided to investigate how the last $10 billion had been spent. What he found was enough to make anyone sick. It turns out that the CDC has wasted millions of taxpayer dollars over the past few years on everything from vegetable statues to zero gravity chairs. As Coburn outlines in his report, "CDC Off Center," the agency has expended millions on lavish facilities, questionable conferences, and new offices in the home states of committee members who oversee its funding. Among some of the more outrageous line items, the CDC used syphilis prevention funds to host a "safe sex" event with a porn star. It spent $45 million for conferences, including some that featured prostitutes and beach parties. On the HIV/AIDS front, one grantee hosted a "bar night" with instructions on "how to throw a good party with lots of alcohol." As Coburn notes with tragic irony, the CDC spent enough on trips for employees to international AIDS conferences to underwrite drugs that would have prevented mother-to-child AIDS transmission in over 115,000 babies. If Dr. Gerberding "needs" an additional billion dollars to operate, we suggest that she look within her own budget and eliminate projects and programs that are nothing more than bureaucratic shams.

Update: 6/24/07 - Jonathan Falwell of WorldNetDaily weighs in with more details.

Jonah Goldberg Posts on Secular (Political) Religions, Drawing on Eric Voegelin and Christopher Dawson

Jonah Goldberg of National Review writes:

This [secular religion] is a subject of enormous interest to me. While working on the book, I became entirely convinced by Eric Voegelin's understanding of fascism as a political religion. But you'll have to wait for that. In the mean time, I've written a couple pieces for the magazine (see here  and here, neither on NRO for reasons that baffle me) in which I discuss liberalism as a political religion. A relevant quote from one of them:

But there was a considerable downside to the displacement of the Almighty by the trinity of the slide rule, the microchip, and the test tube. Eric Voegelin was among the most alarmed critics of the rising progressive tide. According to Voegelin, you cannot eliminate the religious instinct. "When God is invisible behind the world, the contents of the world will become new gods; when the symbols of transcendent religiosity are banned, new symbols develop from the inner-worldly language of science to take their place." Translation: When you rely on science and technology to do God's job, it won't be long before you worship science as a god. Marxism, the apotheosis of progressivism, purged the divine and replaced it with materialism. For the Marxist, proclaimed Voegelin, "Christ the Redeemer is replaced by the steam engine as the promise of the realm to come." For many people today, the steam engine has been replaced by the embryonic stem cell as the promise of the realm to come.

Update: Interesting email, from a reader:   

Jonah,   

Historian Christopher Dawson made a career of writing about “displacement of the Almighty”:   

“Every living creature must possess some spiritual dynamic, which provides the energy necessary for that sustained social effort which is civilization.  Normally this dynamic is supplied by a religion, but in exceptional circumstances the religious impulse may disguise itself under philosophical or political forms” (Dawson, Progress and Religion (London:  Sheed and Ward, Ltd., 1929; reprint, 1945), vii). 

The three main political substitutes for religion in the modern age, according to Dawson in 1934, are:  Democracy, Socialism, and Nationalism.  Each are based on fundamental factors: 

“Democracy bases its appeal on the sacredness of the People – the consecration of Folk; socialism on the sacredness of Labor – the consecration of Work; and nationalism on the sacredness of the Fatherland – the consecration of Place.  These concepts still arouse transcendent religious values or sanctions.  It is religious emotion divorced from religious belief” (Dawson, “Prevision in Religion” [1934], in The Dynamics of World History, ed. John J. Mulloy (London:  Sheed and Ward, 1958; reprint, Wilmington, Delaware:  ISI Books, 2002), 103).

Michael Crichton on "Environmentalism as Religion"

Click here.

Victims of Radical Islam and Political Correctness

Political Correctness is deadly when used to provide cover for Islamic murderers.   It doesn't help when the press keeps referring to Islam as "a religion of peace."   The fact is, as Chuck Colson notes :

Around the world, Christians are suffering and even dying, because they are Christians. They know also that the victimizers more often than not are Islamist militants.

This past April seven Christians were murdered on the southern Philippine island of Jolo.

The seven, who were working road construction, were kidnapped by the group Abu Sayyaf, an al Qaeda affiliate.

The group demanded more than $100,000 in ransom from the Christian community. When it wasn’t immediately paid, the seven, two of whom were teenagers working to help support their impoverished families, were beheaded. Abu Sayyaf then ordered civilians to take two of the severed heads to a military camp and left the other five at yet another camp.

Christians are being attacked right and left around the world primarily by radical Muslims.  But political correctness  requires "the outright denial of Islam's attitudes and actions towards what it calls  'infidels.'"   (See my earlier post).

Eliza Griswold, a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, has investigated Christian martyrdom in Nigeria, Sudan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Yemen, and Iraq.  Most recently she has written an article, "The Believers,” which appears in the latest issue of the New Republic.  In it, she compares and contrasts the Christian and Islamic use of the word “martyr.”   "For Muslims, 'martyr' indicates 'a willingness to kill.'  For Christians, it means a 'willingness to die' -- a big difference."

The persecution of Christians (and those who do the persecuting and murdering) remains an underreported story of our time.  For accounts of recent tragedies, see the links at the end of Colson's  article.    A good source for keeping tabs on persecution of Christians worldwide is Compass Direct News.

The Collapse of Europe, The Rise of Islam, and the Consequences for the United States

The above title served as the title of an international conference held last weekend at Pepperdine University.  It featured a number of luminaries including  Hugh Hewitt who gave the closing plenary address.  On a blog post he cites the books and articles he mentioned in his address. 

TimeOutLondn’s latest issue: “Is London’s Future Islamic?”  I also cited an article and two speeches on the future of Europe by Pope Benedict XVI: 

A January 2006 article in First Things, “Europe and Its Discontents”

the speech at Regenburg, and a speech to bishops on the eve of the 50^th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome.

I also recommended “American Exceptionalism” by James Q Wilson in the October 2, 2006 issue of The American Spectator, “Soft Europe,” by Leon de Winter from the March 7, 2006 OpinionJournal, and the websites of Daniel Pipes and Claire Berlinski.

I recommended two books,  The Looming Tower and America Alone, as well as articles like Lawrence Wright’s “The Master Plan,”

The 1990 United States Supreme Court decision I cited is Employment Division v. Smith.

Finally, the site on Islam v. Islamists, the film being censored by PBS, is FreeTheFilm.com.

The organizations I recommended funding are The Alliance Defense Fund, The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and the Center for Security Policy.

How Presidential Campaigns Use Technology and the Internet - Mitt Romney Example

Here's a five minute YouTube visit to Mitt Romney's campaign headquarters where young 20 somethings run the technology and website division of his campaign.   The video offers a behind-the-scenes look at how technology operates front and center in presidential campaigns.  (Note:  I am not posting this as a Romney supporter.   My current hope is that Fred Thompson will live up to expectations).   

"Open Borders Oscars" - Michelle Malkin's Clever Way to Get Across a Message

Michelle Malkin, that intrepid blogger and occasional O'Reilly Factor TV host, has done it again.  This time with the awarding of  "Oscars" to the nefarious performers in the Immigration Reform debate still taking place.  Click here to see Sen. Reid, Lindsey Graham, Geraldo Rivera et al in the performances that merited their Oscars.

Another Reason Why I Don't Ride Roller Coasters

Hot Springs, Arkansas news report:

 A dozen riders on a roller coaster spent half an hour hanging upside down — 150 feet above the ground — after a power outage shut down the attraction.

Click here to see a picture of the car hanging upside down.    (HT: Drudge)

America's (Current) Great Drought

Click here for a comprehensive survey of serious drought conditions now prevailing in the U.S. 

America is facing its worst summer drought since the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression. Or perhaps worse still.

From the mountains and desert of the West, now into an eighth consecutive dry year, to the wheat farms of Alabama, where crops are failing because of rainfall levels 12 inches lower than usual, to the vast soupy expanse of Lake Okeechobee in southern Florida, which has become so dry it actually caught fire a couple of weeks ago, a continent is crying out for water.    (more)     HT: Drudge

                                        

More Responses to Bart Ehrman's New Testament Skepticism

Update 8/13/07: I see that Hank Hanegraaff interviewed Timothy Paul Jones on his radio program July 31, 2007.    An audio recording and podcast of the program can be found here.

**
I noted earlier Timothy Paul Jones' book-length rebuttal to Bart Ehrman's book, Miquoting Jesus.   A reader of this blog commented that in addition, a 60 page critique of Ehrman's position by Dr. Thomas Howe of Southern Evangelical Seminary is available on line here.

I have subsequently (and somewhat accidentally) happened on additional responses.  Dr. Mark Roberts offers a major response of his own, in the course of which he references "two fine critical reviews of the book" -  one by P. J. Williams and the other by Daniel Wallace.   Roberts credits both reviewers as experts in the field of text criticism, the core subject of Ehrman's book.   Roberts also references a lengthy review by Jim Snapp.   It strikes me that (although I have not read it yet), a new book getting rave reviews from a wide range of reviewers might offer valuable perspectives on the subject as well:  Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony.

Britain and the "Culture of Coddling Kids"

Michelle Malkin on coddling kids.

British educators have now determined that "asking pupils to put their hands up when they think they know the answer to a question in class could make quiet children fall behind," according to the London Telegraph. To spare students from this awful terror, the British Department of Education is now recommending that children be given 30 seconds of "thinking time" before being asked to answer or told to discuss questions in pairs before answering. Instead of teaching students to conquer their shyness and stand up for themselves, educators will be encouraged to pamper them in emotional bubble wrap.

How to Draw a Head

A free tutorial provided courtesy of Academy of Art University.   (HT: the evangelical outpost)

Europe Can Learn From America About Integrating Muslims

Irshad Manji offers observations. 

Hitchens vs. Hitchens: Atheist vs. Theist

Christopher Hitchens, the commentator, journalist, and most recently author of a book on atheism (God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) has a brother, Peter Hitchens, also a journalist and author, and member of the Church of England.  In a recent article, Peter writes:

Am I my brother’s reviewer? A word of explanation is needed here. Some of you may know that I have a brother, Christopher, who disagrees with me about almost everything.

Some of those who read his books and articles also know that I exist, though they often dislike me if so. But in general we inhabit separate worlds – in more ways than one.

He is of the Left, lives in the United States and recently became an American citizen. I am of the Right and, after some years in Russia and America, live in the heart of England. Occasionally we clash in public.

  Peter Hitchens describes their upbringing and then says,

Christopher is an atheist. I am a believer. He once said in public: "The real difference between Peter and myself is the belief in the supernatural.  I’m a materialist and he attributes his presence here to a divine plan. I can’t stand anyone who believes in God, who invokes the divinity or who is a person of faith."

I don’t feel the same way. I like atheists and enjoy their company, because they agree with me that religion is important.

Of Christopher's book, Peter says:

I liked and enjoyed this book, and recommend it to anybody who is interested in the subject. Like everything Christopher writes, it is often elegant, frequently witty and never stupid or boring.

I also think it is wrong, mostly in the way that it blames faith for so many bad things and gives it no credit for any of the good it may have done.

I think it misunderstands religious people and their aims and desires. And I think it asserts a number of things as true and obvious that are nothing of the sort.

Concerning Christopher's atheism, Peter sees various problems.  For example,

Where is his [Christopher's] certain knowledge of what is right and wrong supposed to have come from?   

How can the idea of a conscience have any meaning in a world of random chance, where in the end we

Tiananmen Square - 18 Years Ago Today

Click here, with thanks to Michelle Malkin.

Why Music Really Is Getting Louder

I had always wondered about the decibel levels of much current rock music.  This article doesn't address the health/hearing question, but the quality of the music itself.      (HT: Drudge)

eHarmony Dating Service Sued By Lesbian For Excluding Gays

Jonah Goldberg alerts us in the following post to the latest cultural idiocy.

Should Gay Dating Services Be Sued by Straights?  [Jonah Goldberg]

Dumbest — and most potentially pernicious — lawsuit I've heard about in a long time. eHarmony is being sued because it's not a gay dating service too.   More thoughts here.

The first link is to a Reuter's report, and the second to a commentary at Real Clear Politics by Ross Kaminsky.  I think Kaminsky makes excellent points. 
    

Michael Ledeen: Human Crises In Darfur and Zimbabwe Require We Stop Pussy-Footing Around

Michael Ledeen has lost patience with the West's feeble response to the human crises in Darfur and Zimbabwe.  Here's what he says:

Darfur   [Michael Ledeen]

On a hot sabbath, i am prompted to say that Darfur is a catastrophe that could and should be solved in an hour or so. The killers largely operate from helicopters and small fixed wing aircraft. We could destroy them all in an hour or so. But that would be "wrong," because it would violate the current hymnal.

Go tell the victims. Explain why sanctions are better, because it makes the Western politicians feel pious. Even though black Africans are being slaughtered.

And while you're at it, tell the starving people of Zimbabwe why their killer and oppressor, Robert Mugabe, is left untouched by the entire outside world. Explain why St Nelson Mandela doesn't give a damn, while you're at it.

The Middle East is tough. These African horrors are relatively easy to fix. But nobody does a damn thing except talk about sanctions...and then largely fail to enact and/or enforce them.

When did Western leaders become vulgar Marxists? These evils do not have economic causes and are unlikely to be defeated by economic means (remember the Iraqi sanctions?). They have political causes and can be defeated by superior fire power.

Somebody?  Anybody?

Who is Responsible for the Genocide in Darfur? Nina Shea of Freedom House Blames Sudan's Prime Minister Bashir

In a hard-hitting article, hear what Nina Shea (whom I've never met  but consider a hero), has to say about Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir:

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir should hang in the halls of infamy somewhere between Hitler and Pol Pot. But few Americans recognize that he and his National Islamic Front regime are directly responsible for the death of a staggering 2.4 million of his countrymen, the displacement of seven million more, as well as the enslavement and misery of hundreds of thousands of others, including tribal people in northern Uganda. Representing the interests of only a handful of small northern tribes, Bashir’s regime has devoted itself to marginalizing and making war on Darfur and most of the rest of Sudan’s citizens since seizing power 18 years ago. . .

As president of the nation’s National Islamic Front (NIF) government and a general, Bashir is the person most responsible for the Darfur genocide, which so far has taken an estimated 400,000 lives and displaced two million western tribal people. He presides over an air force that carries out aerial bombardment and strafing of Darfur’s reed tukul villages, and a military that arms and protects the groups that torment the region by land, the Janjaweed tribal militias. His forces have attacked relief centers, refugee camps, and rebels gathered for peace talks. His senior officials have opposed the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers, and, as President Bush stated this week: “President Bashir’s actions over the past few weeks follow a long pattern of promising cooperation while finding new methods of obstruction.”   

Click through for much more on Bashir, Sudan, and surrounding countries.

Peggy Noonan on the Bush White House: Republican Rank and File Spurned

** Update follows the post (6/2/07)

As much as I appreciate the many virtues of George W. Bush, I think Peggy Noonan's assessment sadly accurate. 

What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

. . . For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding