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Some years ago I wrote friends about something I had read. Invariably they wrote back saying it had been helpful. It recently resurfaced, so I thought I would post it on my blog. Here's what I had written:
In her book, At the Corner of East and Now: A Modern Life in American Christian Orthodoxy (NY: Tarcher/Putnam, 1999), Frederica Mathewes-Green writes of her visit to the fifteenth annual Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois where she encountered 25,000 "screaming, stomping, tattooed, metal-studded Christians." The festival hosted some forty different bands including heavy metal and Christian death metal bands.
Mathewes-Green offers a fascinating and generally sympathetic glimpse of a Christian sub-culture to which many of us are a stranger. You'll have to read chapter 10 ("Twelve-Inch Mohawk at a Campsite in Bushnell") if you want to be introduced to this world that exists below most of our radar screens. It is my intention here simply to reproduce the judicious comments she offers on "spiritual feelings" and the Christian life. She writes as a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church but her perspective applies to all Christians.
At one point while listening to a ska band, she recounts that,
"Between the songs the lead singer urges listeners not to let the joy of the faith grow cold in their hearts. I hear several bands give messages like this between songs, which makes me wonder if cooling emotion is a recurrent problem. It doesn't seem to be a concern that listeners will actually lose their faith, but rather that they'll fail to experience a sufficiently vivid level of emotional engagement with it, that they may gradually grow numb or take it for granted.
"A liturgical Church has an advantage over one where worship is relatively spontaneous, in that people powered by religious emotion simply do run out of steam. Where there is a Liturgy, you show up each week and merge into that stream, and allow the prayers to shape you. But where the test of successful worship is how much you felt moved, there's always performance anxiety; even the audience has to perform.
"I had been a Christian about ten years when I noticed to my dismay that my spiritual feelings were changing; the experience was growing quieter, less exciting. I feared that I was losing my faith, or that I might hear the Lord's words to the church at Ephesus, 'I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first' (Rev. 2:4). Then I came to sense that my faith had undergone a shift of location. It had moved deep inside and was glowing there like a little oil lamp; if I was swept away with emotionally noisy worship, it might tip and sputter. Silence and attentiveness were now key.
"I think this happens naturally in a believer's relationship with God, just as it does between two people who are in love. At first, being in love is all so strange, and the beloved is so other and exciting, that every movement is a thrill. But gradually over long years the couple grows together and grows alike. They no longer find each other a thrilling unknown but drink deeply of a treasured known that will always extend to mystery. At the beginning, the heart pounds just to see the beloved's handwriting on an envelope; at the end, two sit side by side before a fire and don't need to speak at all. When these rock bands urge their audience not to let the joy fade, they may be calling them to fight a fruitless battle against moving to the next stage of spiritual communion, the one where God moves deep inside. when years shape us to be like him, his presence is less electric and strange, yet as we draw nearer, deeper faith yields deeper awe." (pp. 170-177)
Now, years, later, I still find Mathewes-Green's observations true and accurate, and continue to share what she says with others. I especially like the way she puts it:
"My faith had undergone a shift of location. It had moved deep inside and was glowing there like a little oil lamp... silence and attentiveness were now key."
See also previous "Christian Spirituality" blog posts:
Continue reading "FREDERICA MATHEWES-GREEN - - "SPIRITUAL FEELINGS" AND THE CHRISTIAN LIFE" »
The Boston Mayor, Tom Menino, detests traditional marriage advocates. The Family Research Council reports:
Boston may be where America fought for its freedoms--but now, it's a city where businesses can't even exercise them! That's all thanks to city Mayor Tom Menino, who is making it known that private companies aren't welcome inside the city limits unless they share his politically narrow views. Last week, after Chick-Fil-A's CEO Dan Cathy affirmed his belief in man-woman marriage, Menino promised to single-handedly block the chain from Boston.
Despite the fact that Cathy's views are his own--and ignoring the company's pledge to "treat every person with honor, dignity, and respect"--the Mayor insists, "You can't have a business in the city of Boston that discriminates against a population." (Apparently, you can have a mayor that does). "We're an open city," Menino told the Boston Herald, "We're a city that's at the forefront of inclusion." (Until, of course, that "inclusion" applies to people who support traditional marriage.) Surprising even the Herald staff, Mayor Menino threatened to use his political power for his personal vendetta against the Cathys, vowing to play hardball with Chick-Fil-A's permits if it ever decided to open a restaurant in the area. "If they need licenses in the city, it will be very difficult--unless they open up their policies."
For the government to engage in viewpoint discrimination is not only bad politics--it's unconstitutional. Chick-fil-A may be a private company, but that doesn't mean it has to surrender its beliefs at the dining room door. Under the First Amendment, executives at Chick-Fil-A are just as entitled as any American to speak publicly about their views. The editors at the Boston Herald agree. In a joint column, they write that the condemnation of "such an abuse of government power" should be "swift" and "overwhelming." "In Menino's city, the punishment for failing to toe the progressive line is banishment." Ironically, that's exactly the kind of despotism that Boston 's patriots were fighting more than 230 years ago. Increasingly, though, it is becoming apparent that this kind of ideological totalitarianism is the train that follows same-sex "marriage."
I enjoyed this article by Robert Johnson when I read it last December. It's subtitled: "The 50-plus crowd is having a belated romance with motorcycles." Ironically, the month before I had bought a used 163 cc Kymco motor scooter off of Craig's list. I went through the process of being licensed and even took a motorcycle safety course at our local community college.
How great it is to ride a two-wheeler! Some time ago I saw a t-shirt saying,
"Four wheels move your body; two wheels move your soul."
And another:
“A beautiful highway . . . is a terrible thing to waste on a car.”
There's more truth in those sayings than a non-rider might suspect. Go to the article and see the video of Rabbi Zig Zag on his Harley. I wish I could reproduce it on the blog but I can't. Here's the article:
James Robinson, 66 years old, recently felt an urge to take to the open road in a way he never had. So, at an age when many choose the house-on-wheels comfort of a recreational vehicle, Mr. Robinson enrolled in a motorcycle school for novices.
"I'm not trying to be cool or anything like that," says Mr. Robinson, a real-estate agent in Woodstock, N.Y. The two-day course, in which some of his classmates were teenagers, introduced Mr. Robinson to a new world, he says. "Motorcycles give you a really good feeling similar to downhill skiing, effortlessly moving through the fresh air."
Now he's browsing at the local Harley-Davidson dealership, among other motorcycle emporiums.
Mr. Robinson's belated romance with motorcycles puts him in a growing group of graying riders who are new to this mode of transport. Brooke Lefkow, owner of the Motorcycle Driving School in Naples, Fla., says that students who are at least 50 years old now make up 35% of his students, and 40% of them have no previous experience driving motorized two-wheelers.
Sonja Goulbourn, manager of Motorcycle Safety School Inc., Brooklyn, N.Y., lends further confirmation to the trend. She says her school, too, has seen more older beginners in recent years, "including some in their 70s and 80s."
Mr. Lefkow says of his students, "A lot of them say they were just too busy with careers and kids until now, and they've reached a point in life where they want to try something different." Keep reading...
Yahoo News employs the heading, "Chick-fil-A president slams gay marriage," and covered the story this way: (Article by Dylan Stableford)
The president of Chick-fil-A, the fast food chain with more than 1,600 restaurants and $4 billion in revenue, has come out against same-sex marriage.
"I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,'" Dan Cathy, the company's president and chief operating officer, said in a recent radio interview. "I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about."
In an interview with the Baptist Press published this week, Cathy doubled down on his stance against same-sex unions.
"Guilty as charged," Cathy said. "We are very much supportive of the family—the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that."
Continue reading "CHICK-FIL-A PRESIDENT SUPPORTS TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE" »
The Family Research Council does superb work in assembling these articles. For previous issues of the Social Conservative Review, click here. The items below are found here.
Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling
Legislation and Policy Proposals
College Debt
Government Reform
Regulation
Waste/Fraud/Abuse
Health Care
Abstinence
Health care reform: Political and Legislative efforts
Homosexuality
Human Life and Bioethics
Abortion
Bioethics and Biotechnology
Euthanasia and End of Life Issues
Stem Cell Research
To read about the latest advances in ethical adult stem cell research, keep up with leading-edge reports from FRC's Dr. David Prentice, click here.
Human Trafficking
Women's Health
Marriage and Family
Adoption
Family Economics
Family Structure
Media
Pornography
Internet
Religion and Public Policy
Religious Liberty
Religion in America
Check out Dr. Kenyn Cureton's feature on Watchmen Pastors called "The Lost Episodes," featuring how religion has had an impact on our Founding Fathers.
Secularism
International
Israel
Religious Persecution
The Courts
Constitutional Issues
Judicial Activism
Other News of Note
Book reviews
Todays update:
July 18, 2012 - Wednesday
It may be the last appropriations bill released this year, but it's by no means the least! Congressman Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) made sure of that. As Chairman of the House subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Rep. Rehberg gave Planned Parenthood and NARAL plenty to complain about when he unveiled his Committee's spending plan for the next fiscal year. Apart from shaving off billions from the Labor, HHS, and Education Department budgets, the measure also takes direct aim at ObamaCare, its mandates, and abortion. Even the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, home to the Left's pet media outlets NPR and PBS, would lose the crutch of millions of taxpayer dollars.
To the delight of most taxpayers, Planned Parenthood would be the bill's biggest casualty. With the blessing of Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), conservatives took an axe to the organization's federal gravy train--zeroing out every last penny to America's largest abortion business. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) tried to reinstate the funds in today's mark-up, but failed 9-5. In fact, under the leadership of Rep. Rehberg, the Committee went the other direction adding a bundle of other pro-life policies. The Chairman also took the opportunity to attach the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (ANDA) to the broader bill, which would help end discrimination against pro-lifers in the health care industry. If it survives, ANDA would give medical workers legal recourse if they're sidelined for their pro-life views.
And speaking of conscience rights, employers might have a fighting chance at protecting theirs after today's debate. Despite enormous pressure to pull the language, Rep. Rehberg stuck to his guns and included a section that exempts employers who have moral objections to contraception or abortion pills from covering them. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) did her best to strike the policy, but Republicans doubled up the opposition and voted her amendment down 9-5. And they didn't stop there! The good news spilled over into two other provisions: one blocking the funds for ObamaCare's implementation and another restoring $20 million for abstinence education grants, which had been all but destroyed when President Obama took office.
Of course, the media is counting out the bill before it even reaches the floor. Help prove them wrong! Contact Republican leaders Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and encourage them to schedule the legislation--and its pro-life, pro-freedom gains--for a vote.
Despite relentless pressure to make its message more politically correct, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has never wavered from instilling character into generations of America's sons. And according to national spokesman Deron Smith, that won't change any time soon. After an extensive two-year review, which involved everyone from executives to adult volunteers, the organization reaffirmed its commitment to keeping the Scouts "morally straight" yesterday by upholding its ban on homosexuality. "The vast majority of the parents of youth we serve value their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family, with spiritual advisers, and at the appropriate time and in the right setting," Smith said. "[We] came to the conclusion that this policy is absolutely the best policy for the Boy Scouts."
For years, the Scouts have taken a public beating from the Left--all because they stayed focused on what benefits the boys they serve rather than turning the organization on its head to meet the needs of a handful of homosexuals who want to be scout masters. The BSA tried to create membership criteria in the best interest of kids' safety and parents' rights.
In 2010, when the group made dozens of cases of child sexual abuse from the 1960s-1980s public, it was obvious that the organization wasn't arbitrarily opposed to homosexual scout leaders when it banned them from serving in the late 1990s (a decision that the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in 2000). Far from being intolerant, the Scouts took the necessary steps to cut down on the episodes of men sexually abusing boys that had been plaguing the BSA since the middle of the last century. Allowing the Scouts to appoint leaders who represent their values protects other organizations' rights of association and preserves the peace of mind of parents who want to make sure their children are mentored in healthy ways.
Most people don't realize that nearly 70 percent of all Scout troops were chartered and are supported by faith-based organizations. If homosexuals were allowed to serve in the BSA, thousands of churches would be forced to disenfranchise their troops, effectively killing the organization. So today, while so many continue to pile on the Scouts, FRC salutes them. Whether it's learning how to sharpen a knife, cook a meal, or help a neighbor, the BSA has invested billions of hours into creating generations of responsible citizens. But more importantly, the Scouts are teaching boys something our culture doesn't: how to become men worthy of respect.
** For more on the Boy Scouts, don't miss my interview on today's "Mike Huckabee Show." Click here for the audio.
The big question: If/when Assad falls, will the Muslim Brotherhood come to power as they have in Egypt? Christians in Syria tremble. Weazel Zippers says: "Expect an Alawite/Christian bloodbath once the Sunni rebels overrun the Assad regime."
Elizabeth Kendal, Christian researcher of worldwide persecution of Christians, says the media has given an entirely false story regarding Syria. She reports:
SYRIA: CHRISTIANS' PLIGHT LOST UNDER MOUNTAIN OF PROPAGANDA
Without a doubt, the greatest lie being told about the Syrian conflict is that it is being waged by President Assad against 'the Syrian people'. This is pure propaganda. In December 2011, just three months into the crisis, the Qatar Foundation conducted a major poll inside Syria to assess the level of support for Assad. (This was before al-Qaeda and other international Salafi jihadists started flooding in, making the crisis worse.) As an advocate of regime change in Syria, Qatar was embarrassed by the results and so buried them. When eventually leaked, the results revealed that 55 percent of Syrians supported President Assad and 68 percent of Syrians disapproved of Arab League sanctions. This makes perfect sense, considering that religious minorities make up 25 percent of Syria's population (Christians are 10 percent) and at least one-third of all Sunni Muslims would be nominal or secular urbanites who likewise do not want to live in an Islamic State. So the main division in Syria is not between Assad and the rest, but between Sunni fundamentalists (including foreign Salafi jihadists) and the rest, i.e. the majority of Syrians.
Continue reading "Syrian Muslim Brotherhood Says “Decisive Battle” Has Begun In Damascus…" »
This commentary from the Family Research Center is spot on:
When it comes to foreign policy, the Obama Administration has made it clear they will have two priorities -- promoting homosexuality and promoting abortion. The Administration has not only vocalized this policy but been quick to put taxpayer funds and resources behind it -- regardless of other countries' views on the matter. Earlier this year in the country of Bulgaria, the Administration spent tax dollars on a Gay Bulgarian Film Festival as well as an "after show party." In June, the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria, alongside 12 ambassadors from other countries, endorsed that country's gay parade in an official declaration.
This brought the attention of 20 civil society organizations who wrote a letter to the embassies expressing their outrage that these countries would seek to promote activity that is against Bulgarian law, which clearly defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. This all seems to be part of the President's push, headed up by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to use official U.S. resources to promote homosexuality. For example, while the Administration is slow to defend oppressed Christians who are being killed for their beliefs in Muslim and communist countries, they took less than one day to condemn the Russian government for barring a homosexual pride parade in Moscow. It is clear with this Administration that family and babies take a back seat to exporting immorality.
Utterly shameful. It's the foreign policy of the lowerarchy of the netherworld.
Wow. I'm astonished at the wealth of information available at the TGC National Women's Conference website. I heard only two talks online at the time of the conference last month, but now they are all available online either via Video or audio. Avail yourself (whether a man or a woman) of these outstanding speakers.
An added bonus is that some of the women speakers were asked what books had particularly influenced them. See the list of books here. Prepare to have a feast.
I discovered "Worthy News" today which seems to do an excellent collating news from around the world, including coverage of Christian persecution. Here are a few examples:
Friday, July 13, 2012 (6:19 am)
WASHINGTON D.C. (Worthy News)– Congressman Frank Wolf has called for the immediate dismissal of America's ambassador to Vietnam after showing little concern for the importance of human rights in that country, according to International Christian Concern.
In a letter to President Obama, Wolf wrote that the ambassador’s dismissal of human rights issues was “symptomatic of this administration’s overall approach to human rights and religious freedom.”
As part of a campaign to eradicate Christianity from Vietnam's more rural regions, government-sponsored agents attacked a priest and his parishioners during a Christian service in the north-central part of the country on July 1, and in June, local police and paramilitary forces destroyed two Christian churches, leaving hundreds of ethic Hmongs without a place to worship.
“For the last several years the U.S. has sought to strengthen ties with the Communist government of Vietnam while brushing aside the regime’s long list of human rights abuses, including the systematic persecution of Christians," said Ryan Morgan, ICC’s Regional Manager for Southeast Asia. "Christians are being arrested, beaten, tortured, and driven from their homes by a government that sees their religious beliefs as a threat. I fully agree with the sentiment expressed in Congressman Wolf’s letter to the administration and call for the State Department to stop prioritizing virtually every other issue at the expense of Vietnam’s human rights activists and Christians.”
ABUJA, NIGERIA (Worthy News)– Nigerian authorities said Sunday, July 8, that at least 63 people were killed when suspected Muslim herdsmen armed with guns and machetes stormed Christian villages, while missionaries claimed over 50 pastors and missionary leaders died in separate violence.
The attacks rocked Christian villages near the city of Jos in central Nigeria’s Plateau State since Saturday, July 8, said Mustapha Salisu, spokesman for a special taskforce made up of policemen and soldiers deployed in the area to curb years of violence.
Officials initially said that as many as 37 people died in the raids and reprisal attacks that followed, but death toll estimates later rose to over 60 killed.
The Associated Press (AP) news agency quoted Mark Lipdo, who runs a Christian advocacy group known as the Stefanos Foundation, as saying that 13 villages have been attacked. He said they were all Christian.
PASTORS, MISSIONARIES KILLED
The latest clashes came on the heels of reports obtained by Worthy News from missionary workers that as over 50 pastors and missionary leaders were "murdered so far" in recent weeks, before the latest clashes occurred.
"It is heartbreaking to think of the suffering these native Nigerian missionaries are enduring so that those who are in darkness will hear the gospel of the salvation provided by our Lord Jesus Christ," said Rae Burnett, Africa Director for Christian Aid Mission (CAM). [more . . .]
Officers of the Revolutionary Guards closed the Jennat-Abad Church along with its campsite, the "Garden of Sharon," once a popular site for Christian gatherings and conferences; eye witnesses' reported a large notice posted on the gates warning of severe consequences should anyone try to enter the premises.
These latest closures follow the official termination of Friday Persian (Farsi) language services and the compulsory cancellation of all Bible classes as well as any distribution of Christian literature.
After the Iranian New Year celebrations, Islamic state security insisted that church leaders reveal the National ID numbers of their congregations, causing some to stop attending services.
This information comes from Weasel Zippers, an important news aggregator, which in turn quotes CNS News:
With time running out on the legislative calendar, a Republican lawmaker is urging a Democratic senator to lift a “hold” on legislation that would establish a special envoy to promote religious freedom in the Middle East and South-Central Asia.
Almost a year ago, the House of Representatives passed a bill with strong bipartisan support — it had 80 co-sponsors from both parties — but companion legislation has been held up in the Senate. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who authored the House bill, says he learned that Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) is behind the hold.
In a letter sent to Webb this week, released by his office on Thursday, Wolf said he could not understand why Webb would oppose the initiative.
“More importantly, I would venture that the Coptic Christians, Baha’is, Chaldo-Assyrians, Ahmadis, small remaining Jewish population and countless other religious minorities throughout the Middle East and South Central Asia who face daily persecution, hardship, violence, instability and even death would be hard-pressed to see your objection to this straight-forward, bipartisan legislation,” he wrote. [more. . .]
Read the whole thing. It's apparent to me (and has been for a long time), that the U.S. State Department needs a radical overhaul. November can't come fast enough. Meanwhile, religious minorities suffer with few voices speaking on their behalf. Memo: Must contact my senators.
Craig Blomberg is a top evangelical New Testament scholar. Justin Taylor, who conducts the interview, writes:
Craig L. Blomberg, Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary, is one of the most prolific scholars of our day. Among his many books, Historical Reliability of the Gospels is one of the most helpful books ever written on the topic, and his Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey, is the best accessible one-volume resource on this that I know.
Here are the first 3 questions . . .
- Can you tell us a bit about your own personal experience in coming to embrace the historical reliability of the gospels? Was there a period of time in your life when you seriously doubted the historical integrity of the gospel accounts?
- One can easily find blogs and websites claiming that Jesus never existed. Even if we didn’t have the New Testament, what would we know about Jesus from non-Christian sources?
- What are some of the major categories of alleged gospel contradictions?
Read his answers to these and many more questions.
Update 7/13/12 - Condi's speech that electrified donors last month can be found here (including audio). Commentators point out that Condi is not pro-life and since Romney promised his running mate would be pro-life, talk of her candidacy may be rooted in a calculated attempt to divert attention from Obama attacks.
(Original Post) - A lot of talk has begun swirling suggesting she has emerged as the front runner. Drudge offers a headline to that effect. Peggy Noonan waxes enthusiastic:
Consider: A public figure of obvious and nameable accomplishment whose attainments can't be taken away from her. Washington experience—she wouldn't be learning on the job. Never run for office but no political novice. An academic, but not ethereal or abstract. A woman in a year when Republicans aren't supposed to choose a woman because of what is now called the 2008 experience—so the choice would have a certain boldness. A black woman in a campaign that always threatens to take on a painful racial overlay. A foreign-policy professional acquainted with everyone who's reigned or been rising the past 20 years.
It's easy to see how attractive a candidate she would be. But I've been given pause by a column Bret Stephens wrote back on May 1, 2012, titled, "Anyone But Condi." He acknowledged her attractiveness but then said:
There's only one problem. Ms. Rice was a bad national security adviser and a bad secretary of state. She was on the wrong side of some of the administration's biggest internal policy fights. She had a tendency to flip-flop when it came to the president's core priorities and her political misjudgment more than once cost Mr. Bush dearly. She was a muddler of differences at the national security council. Her tenure at State was notable mainly for the degree to which the bureaucracy ran her, not the other way around. [more... He cites details...]
So, we'll have to wait and see. Its interesting that I had clipped Stephen's column a month and a half ago. On the other hand, its easy to feel the energy and interest she would bring to what has so far been a rather lackluster campaign.
- - Reading Advice from Edmund Burke. I found this post from Walter Russell Mead fascinating:
A wonderful appreciation of the British orator, parliamentarian and essayist Edmund Burke appears in "The American Scholar" this summer, written by Brian Doyle. Read the whole thing is our advice. One (of many) highlights in the essay: Doyle tells us what Burke read.
It’s a paragraph any aspiring writer, reader and orator should study: read like this, and whatever talent you have will shine more brightly than it does now.
What did he read, this wonderful writer? Dryden’s prose was Burke’s great favorite, reported his friend Charles Fox; Demosthenes was his favorite orator, according to Chauncey Goodrich; “he delighted in Plutarch … and was particularly fond of Virgil, Horace, and Lucretius, a large part of whose writings he committed to memory. … Shakespeare was his daily study. … But his highest reverence was reserved for Milton, whose ‘richness of language, boundless learning, and Scriptural grandeur of conception’ [said Burke], were the first and last themes of his applause.” He read Bacon’s essays again and again, and clearly had read Cicero closely; he read Gibbon and Sheridan, whom he knew from Parliament; Johnson, Goldsmith, and Boswell; and he either still regularly scoured, or had a ferocious memory for, the Bible—“the most valuable repository of rhetoric in the English language,” as Burke’s later editor Edward Payne remarked. Was this, too, how Burke expended his little time alone, in his root-house in Buckinghamshire, reading avidly, widely, hungrily, happily, delighted to swim in eloquence other than his own? I hear him laughing quietly at a wry and piercing passage from Plutarch, or reciting the swinging cadences of Cicero in sheer admiration of the music of the man, or chanting lines from Lear, or reading aloud, with a shiver of awe, the Lord declaiming to Job: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who laid the corner stone thereof, when the morning stars sang together? Who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? Declare, if thou hast understanding …
-- Scott Walker Prepares to Reform Higher Education in Wisconsin
On June 19, Walker and officials from the University of Wisconsin announced a “revolutionary” flexible degree program. From the press release:
The unique self-paced, competency-based model will allow students to start classes anytime and earn credit for what they already know. Students will be able to demonstrate college-level competencies based on material they already learned in school, on the job, or on their own, as soon as they can prove that they know it. By taking advantage of this high quality, flexibility model, and by utilizing a variety of resources to help pay for their education, students will have new tools to accelerate their careers. Working together, the UW System, the State of Wisconsin, and other partners can make a high-quality UW college degree significantly more affordable and accessible to substantially more people. . .
From the Family Research Council:
In what can only be described as surreal, the City of Phoenix Court has sentenced Mike Salman, father of six and the owner of Mighty Mike's Burgers to 60 days in jail. What's the City's beef with Salman? According to our friend Todd Starnes at Fox News Radio, it has nothing to do with his business; it is what he has been doing at home. About 7 years ago Salman began holding Bible studies in his home that sits on almost 5 acres of land. In 2007 the City sent Salman a letter saying Bible studies were not permitted in their living room because it was a violation of the construction code. In 2009 after securing all the permits, Salman constructed a 2,000 square foot building in their backyard to host the 30 or so people who attended the Bible study. The harassment of the city only continued culminating in a raid of their home by police which led to them being criminally charged with 67 code violations.
What type of violations? No Exit Signs over the doors and no handicap parking spaces in front of their home. Not only was Salman found guilty and sentenced to 60 days in jail, he faces a fine of $12,180 and three years' probation. The City claims that because Salman was meeting on a regular basis he was operating a church and therefore had to meet zoning codes for public meeting spaces. When asked if the same would apply to someone who had a weekly poker night or a Monday Night Football gathering, the City prosecutor refused to respond.
If this sounds familiar, it's because it is. City governments are increasingly using zoning ordinances to trample on religious freedom. You may recall the Fromm family in San Juan Capistrano, CA that was fined by the city for violating zoning ordinances by holding a Bible study in their home. Fortunately after a public outcry San Juan Capistrano officials amended their ordinances to be faith friendly and refunded the fine. Religious freedom is our First Freedom and it recognizes our right not just to attend church services on Sunday mornings but to live out our faith in a real and tangible way. That would include the right to have a Bible Study, small group, or other "church" meeting in your own home
Here's a wonderful listing of C.S. Lewis quotes, bibliographies, and articles about C.S. Lewis. How convenient and helpful! And speaking of C.S. Lewis, here's a site that gives us an audio recording of C.S. Lewis speaking over the BBC using the text that would later become part of Mere Christianity. The site also presents C.S. Lewis in his own voice reading the introduction to The Great Divorce.
Tilda Swinton played the White Witch in the latest movie version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In an interview she offers her perspective on how she sought to portray her character saying,
It's not always necessarily the most frightening thing for small children to be shouted at. Children shout and get hot themselves all the time, and in my experience it's actually a relief if you shout back at them. Whereas the thing that's really unfathomable for children is a kind of coldness and emotional detachment; that's the thing they don't do. So it occurred to me it would be more frightening to be faced with something really unaffectable. You can't affect the Witch; you can't appeal to her; she's incapable of any compassion. Someone who gets angry is emotional; I thought it would be fun to shake up that stereotype.
Note: I posted the above back on March 8, 2006. Jennifer, an alert reader, wrote me that the first link was broken. She supplied me with a link to the C.S. Lewis section of the Online University which I used as a replacement for the broken link. Anyone interested in C.S. Lewis will find an incredible wealth of material at the Online University website. Particularly astonishing to me is the availability of some of Lewis's full essays such as "Meditation in a Toolshed" (a must-read classic!!), "On the Reading of Old Books," "We Have No Right to Happiness" (posted on a Muslim Sunni website!), "De Descriptione Temporum," and a link to the additional following essays from God in the Dock: "Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State", "Man or Rabbit", "What are we to Make of Jesus Christ?" There are still many more essays available! Amazing!!
The Family Research Council does superb work in assembling these articles. For previous issues of the Social Conservative Review, click here.
Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling
Legislation and Policy Proposals
College Debt
Government Reform
Regulation
Waste/Fraud/Abuse
Health Care
Abstinence
Health care reform: Political and Legislative efforts
Homosexuality
Human Life and Bioethics
Abortion
Bioethics and Biotechnology
Euthanasia and End of Life Issues
Stem Cell Research
To read about the latest advances in ethical adult stem cell research, keep up with leading-edge reports from FRC's Dr. David Prentice, click here.
Human Trafficking
Marriage and Family
Adoption
Family Economics
Family Structure
Media
Pornography
Internet
Religion and Public Policy
Religious Liberty
Religion in America
Check out Dr. Kenyn Cureton's feature on Watchmen Pastors called "The Lost Episodes," featuring how religion has had an impact on our Founding Fathers.
Secularism
International
Israel
International Economy and Family
Religious Persecution
Sharia law -- U.S., foreign
The Courts
Constitutional Issues
Judicial Activism
Other News of Note
John Steele Gordon, writing in Commentary, offers a valuable historical perspective:
Never before that I know of, has a federal tax been placed on inactivity. If you buy something, you pay a sales tax. If you earn income, you pay an income tax. If you do business as a corporation, you pay an excise tax. Now, if you don't buy health insurance, you pay a tax on not doing so. What else then can be taxed? Not exercising?
Book reviews
The full title of Stark's book is The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion (HarperOne). In presenting the book as World's Book of the Year, Marvin Olasky does an excellent job presenting sketches from the book.
[...] After Stark spends 200 pages on the triumph of Christianity, he turns to some defeats. The biggest ones came in the Middle East and across northern Africa, where Muslims murdered hundreds of thousands. Stark, quoting Muslim bragging about churches and lives destroyed, points out that "a great deal of nonsense has been written about Muslim tolerance." He calls the Crusades a "fundamentally defensive" counter-attack "precipitated by Islamic provocations, by many centuries of bloody attempts to colonize the West, and by sudden new attacks on Christian pilgrims and holy places."
Stark also criticizes other historians for being "as gullible as tourists, gaping at the monuments, palaces, and conspicuous consumption of Rome." He decries "the inability of intellectuals to value or even to notice the nuts and bolts of real life," and goes on to note medieval progress in windmills, crop rotation, chimneys, and a host of other practical matters.
He also calls "the Renaissance" a ridiculous myth: "Had there really been a return to classical knowledge, it would have created an era of cultural decline since Christian Europe had long since surpassed classical antiquity in nearly every way."
And yet, Stark mocks the idea of a medieval "Age of Faith," for "the masses of medieval Europeans not only were remarkably skeptical, but very lacking in all aspects of Christian commitment." Most people seldom if ever went to church, and some who did slept and snored, played cards while the pastor preached, or brought their dogs: "Most medieval Europeans were completely ignorant of the most basic Christian teachings," and many priests did not know the Lord's Prayer or other fundamentals. [more...]
It looks that way. Could this turn out to be a major story of the 21st century? Walter Russell Mead reports and comments: (excerpts with my bolding)
. . . [Canadians and Russians] are moving to step up energy relations with a tiny nation whose total energy reserves some experts now think could rival or even surpass the fabled oil wealth of Saudi Arabia.
Actual production is still miniscule, but evidence is accumulating that the Promised Land, from a natural resource point of view, could be an El Dorado: inch for inch the most valuable and energy rich country anywhere in the world. If this turns out to be true, a lot of things are going to change, and some of those changes are already underway.
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