Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

BBC - WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE ON AN ENGLISH TUDOR FARM IN 1500

How many of us know what farm life was like for ordinary folk in 1500?   The BBC has produced an amazing six-part series, each an hour long, which takes us right back to see what life was like.  What a wonderful way to absorb history!  I have listened to the first two programs and recommend them highly.   Here is the first. For more click here.  For background to the series, click here.    (See Update below the video)

  

 Update 2/5/16 - R0d Dreher writes: 

Last night we watched on YouTube the second episode of Tudor Monastery Farm, the BBC reality/documentary series in which two archeologists and a historian live out the daily lives of tenant farmers on a monastery farm in Tudor England, circa 1500. The kids love the show as much as we do, and it’s fun to watch as a family.

Last night’s episode focused on the sheep as the center of Tudor-era farm life, and the English economy. What stood out about the era was how incredibly hard life was, but also how ingenious people were in inventing techniques and technology to make their lives easier.

The show is helping me in my research for the Benedict Option book, believe it or not. One of the presenters of the program, a self-described atheist named Ruth Goodman, marvels in the second episode, as she did in the first one, over how religion suffused the lives of medieval people. She says that the calendar people lived by was not like our calendar, but rather was ordered around the feast days of saints, and other religious holidays. I mean, they had the same calendar we did, but they related to it in a very different way than we do. These people lived in a cosmos; we live in a universe. Very big difference. I’ll explain below.

Charles Taylor begins his magisterial book A Secular Age by asking why it was almost impossible not to believe in God in 1500, but in 2000, believing in God is seen as something you do with difficulty, if at all. Taylor says that it’s because the late medievals were heirs to a belief system that regarded the world as enchanted. God was everywhere, and ordered all things to Himself. All of Creation — and it was “Creation,” not yet “Nature” — was a sign pointing to its Creator. You really feel this in Tudor Monastery Farm, and the feeling is important, because, says Taylor, what really matters are the things that everybody takes for granted. It is an anachronistic mistake to think that our late medieval ancestors regarded the world as we do, except with a belief in God added to it. They did not. God and things divine were far more present in the imaginations of the people, who looked around them and saw Him. They lived in a cosmos — a universe ordered by God, pregnant with meaning and divine purpose.   

CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS - "FEMINIST CRAZINESS"

In the video below, Bill Kristol interviews Christina Hoff Sommers, a self-described "moderate feminist," former college professor, and now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. She is a critic of the radicalization of feminism over the last few decades.  I first gained knowledge of her (and the commotion she stirred up) when she published her first book, Who Stole Feminism?:  How Women Have Betrayed Women (1995).   Since then she has written other books including The War Against Boys (2001) and Freedom Feminism (2013).  She currently hosts a weekly YouTube series, The Factual Feminist, in which she addresses feminist myths in short five minute segments.   If you watch the interview, be sure not to miss the segment on "The War Against Boys" at the 42:29 - 49:09 spot)

 

On the notion that gender is a total social construction, Sommers argues for the reality of masculinity and femininity.  She responds to a Kristol question saying:  (my emphases)

It’s [gender] obviously a complicated mix of biology and culture, but, you know, there’s no society in the entire anthropological record where you find the men are the nurturers and the women are the, you know, soldiers. They don’t exist.

Again and again, we see that it’s real. There’s something, femininity and masculinity are real and most people, not all, but most people, many of the stereotypes are true. That women do tend to be more nurturing and risk-adverse and have usually a richer emotional vocabulary, and men tend to be a little less explicit about their emotions, emotionally flattened – we’ll say, stoical to be nice. More stoical, more competitive and they do engage in a lot of risky behavior, for better or worse. Men tend to show up at the extremes of success and failure more than women because they are sometimes more – single-minded in the pursuit of, more obsessive pursuits – more likely to do that than women.

QUICK TAKES

    Marco Rubio's amazing response to an atheist has gone viral and may produce a pro-Rubio surge in Iowa.  (I posted the video a few days ago).  

    BBC to Broadcast Suicide Porn

    Wounded Warrior Project Spending Big -- on ITSELF    Update: Mona Charen recommends a different charity with a similar name - Wounded Warriors Family Support

    Panthers Linebacker Thomas Davis wins Bart Starr Award: "Christ is My Leader" (video)

TONY PERKINS OF THE FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL ENDORSES TED CRUZ

Tony Perkins, who heads up the Family Research Council, last night endorsed Ted Cruz as his personal choice for President of the United States.  (He was not speaking on behalf of the FRC organization).  What he says (below) about the next president bearing responsibility to appoint at least two or three new Supreme Court justices should sober all voters.  Here is Perkins' statement from his Facebook page:   

 

I am personally endorsing Ted Cruz for President of the United States.
Here is why:

Ted is a constitutional conservative who will fight for faith, family and freedom. He will defend our right to believe and live according to those beliefs. Our families will be protected and freedom will once again mean something in America.

I trust Ted to fight to pull America out of the political and cultural tailspin that President Obama’s policies have put us in. This is no normal election; this election is about the very survival of our Constitution and our republic.

The next president will likely appoint two or three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will impact our nation for decades to come. Unfortunately, previous Republican presidents have either been unable to identify liberal jurists in conservative clothing or have been unwilling to fight for true conservative nominees.

SAEED ABEDENI REUNITES WITH MOTHER, FATHER AND SISTER

Abedini, held in Iranian prisons for 3 1/2 years, here reunites with his mother, father and sister in North Carolina.  A most touching scene!  I love Saeed's worshipful prayer as he embraces his family and Franklin Graham.

 

Czech Republic Offers Iraqi Christian Refugees a Safe Haven

   

Partial transcript:

While Americans debate their immigration policies, the people of the Czech Republic have just welcomed some Iraqi Christian asylum seekers into their country.

The first of a group of 153 Iraqi Christians arrived in Prague on Sunday. Among them was Kurdish Christian Majeed Kurdi and his family.

"So we have come here first to provide a secure life for our families, and secondly, to get a job and do something here in order to serve society as well as to take care of our families," Kurdi told CBN News.

Kurdi is well known to this reporter and others from CBN. In a story aired in September 2014, Kurdi assisted CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Mitchell on his visit to Iraqi Kurdistan.

He told Mitchell that ISIS gave the Christians of Mosul three choices.

"They are not allowed to open their churches and even if they are opened, they are going to burn the churches and also the Christians are being asked to pay the tax [jizya, tax for non-Muslims under Sharia law]. If not they can leave Nineveh…and if they didn't pay the tax, they should give their heads," he explained at the time.

AMY AND LEON KASS - AN ATTEMPT TO REVIVE COURTSHIP

Two years ago Bill Kristol interviewed Amy and Leon Kass, wise and well-read leaders of Great Books discussion-type courses at the University of Chicago and elsewhere.  I found the conversation below worth my time listening to.  (I just discovered that Bill Kristol has a whole list of interesting conversations available for viewing).  Back in 2001 I remember President Bush chose Leon Kass to head up his Presidential Council on Bioethics.  I greatly respected Leon Kass' high regard for human life and therefore his out-of-favor position on embryonic stem cell research.  Consequently he has always loomed in my mind as one of the "good guys" of the modern era.  (A few years ago I was intrigued to see that he published a "big book" on The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (2006) in which he adopts a philosophical rather than a theological approach to Genesis.  I am finding it rewarding as I make my way through it).  

Below at the 43:50 to 1:19 spot one can listen in on a discussion of Amy and Leon's course on "courtship"    They subsequently produced a collection of readings related to the course titled Wing to Wing; Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying (2000).  It cemented in my mind the important role literature plays in the education of the sentiments.   

 

One reviewer  of Wing to Wing wrote:

“Reading this book is the next best thing to gaining a coveted seat in one of the University of Chicago seminars taught by Amy and Leon Kass. In an era when fashionable opinion speaks of courting and marrying in ironic tones or not at all, the Kasses do something unfashionable. They put us in touch with thinkers, past and present, who treat the task of finding and winning a marriage mate for what it is: a pursuit central to human life and happiness. At a time when young people are floundering and failing in their search for the right person to marry, this splendid selection of readings comes not a minute too soon.” —Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, author of The Divorce Culture: Rethinking Our Commitments to Marriage and the Family (1997)

Sean McMeekin wrote a personal essay on courtship based on the book.  Excerpts:

HEROISM

In William F. Buckley Jr's book, Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith, he retells a conversation he had with David Niven.  I think it worth repeating.  

Buckley:  "He (David Niven) told the engrossing story (I had never heard it) of a single episode in the chaotic flight from France after Dunkirk in 1940.  One motley assembly, 'Royal Air Force ground personnel who were trapped, Red Cross workers, women, ambulance drivers, and, finally, the embassy staff from Paris with their children -- by the time they got to St. Nazaire at the mouth of the Loire, there were over three thousand of them and the British government sent an old liner called the Lancastria to come and take them away, with three destroyers to guard her.  They were just pulling up the anchor when three dive bombers came.  The destroyers did what they could, but one bomb hit, went down the funnel and blew a huge hole in the side, and she quickly took on a terrible list.

DAVID LIMBAUGH'S NEW BOOK - "THE EMMAUS CODE"

Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews David Limbaugh (Rush Limbaugh's brother) and a writer of no mean consequence) whose latest book is The Emmaus Code.  Limbaugh tells Lopez:

"This is the book I wish I’d had when I first became a Christian and was eager to read everything I could on the Bible and theology to accelerate my learning curve and make up for lost time. It is an Old Testament primer of sorts, with an emphasis on its Christ-centeredness. It summarizes every book of the Old Testament and shows how each one specifically points to Christ."

Some of Limbaugh's other books include Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of Christianity (2014) and Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity (2004).

MARCO RUBIO OFFERS A REMARKABLE RESPONSE TO AN ATHEIST'S CHALLENGE

Listening to this interchange has raised my respect for Marco Rubio very high indeed.  It happens that I am a Ted Cruz supporter at this point, but I am truly impressed with Marco Rubio's response.

 

 ** Interesting update (1/21/16):  Evangelical leaders support Rubio by a wide margin but evangelical rank and file support Trump by a wide margin.  Story here.

CANADA IS ON THE VERGE OF INSTITUTING THE MOST RADICAL CULTURE OF DEATH IN THE WORLD

That's right, if the nation's Supreme Court conjures a "right" to be dead, Canada will be more radical than the Netherlands, which allows psychiatrists to euthanize the mentally ill.

More radical than Belgium, in which euthanasia of the disabled and mentally ill have been conjoined with organ harvesting.

That's radical! Up until now, the so-called "right to die" has been a right to ask. The ultimate decision has been solely up to the doctor. It looks increasingly like that won't be the case in Canada.

So writes Wesley J. Smith.  He goes on:

The Supreme Court's ruling is so broad and absolute, it would appear to create a positive right to be killed if one has a diagnosable medical condition -- a very broad category -- that causes irremediable suffering, a determination solely in the view of the patient, even if he refuses alleviating treatment.

Topping it off, euthanasia will be a free service paid for by the government under Canada's single payer health plan. That works really well for socialized medicine as there is no cheaper "medical treatment" than a lethal injection.

Evidence that the court pushed a right to ask into an actual right to die is seen again in its just released ruling granting the government four extra months to write legislation implementing its original decision. Note the language I put in italics:

During the four-month During extension period, we grant an exemption to those who wish to exercise their rights so that they may apply to the superior court for the relief of their jurisdiction in according [in accordance to the terms of the original decision].

IS THE "PEER REVIEW" PROCESS ADVANCING SCIENCE?

The question deserves serious consideration.   To what extent is "science" shackled by dogma, a refusal to publish research that "goes against the grain"?  And if fresh research never gets published, how can science advance?  Dr. Hugh Henry considers the question.  Some excerpts:

In today's society, we often look to science as an unbiased source of truth, regulated by the peer review process. Unfortunately, the phenomenon of publication bias—well-documented in the scientific literature—permeates a variety of scientific studies. To put it one way, certain points of view are more likely to be published than others for reasons other than the quality of research.

For example, the authors of a 2015 meta-analysis of US National Institutes of Health trials pinpointed publication bias as the reason why we overestimate the effectiveness of antidepressant medications. Another 2015 meta-analysis of the social cost of carbon (a concept related to global warming) found that contrary data was often suppressed which "might create an upward bias in the literature."¹ The authors of the study also found that "the evidence for selective reporting is stronger for studies published in peer-reviewed journals than for unpublished papers." 

. . .  Science recently published the results of a massive study with more than 250 coauthors "estimating the reproducibility of psychological science."⁴ After conducting replications of 100 studies that were published in three psychology journals, the researchers found only 39 percent of the effects replicated the original result. Reproducibility is one of the three pillars of science.⁵ An experiment repeated under the same conditions should produce similar results; if it doesn't, then it's back to the drawing board. Yet it appears 61 percent of psychology studies fail this test.  These data support an earlier analysis that found a strong publication bias in favor of human-caused global warming in articles published in Science and Nature.²

The peer review process is supposed to pick up errors like these, but instead it seems complicit. And the problem appears much broader than just these examples.  [more . . .]

SEAN MCDOWELL - "WHAT MAKES CHRISTIANITY UNIQUE?"

A lot could be said on this topic.  Sean McDowell offers a good beginning:

 

Sean offers three brief points:  1) Christianity is testable  2) Christianity has grace  3) Christianity has Jesus at the center

Sean McDowell, a major speaker and author in is own right, is the son of famed Christian speaker Josh McDowell.

West Europe Jewish Migration to Israel Hits All-Time HIgh

Update 1/18/16 - A Reign of Terror for Jews in France  

Aron Heller reports :

Jewish immigration to Israel from western Europe has reached an all-time high as a result of a rise in anti-Semitic attacks, a leading nonprofit group said Thursday, as France's beleaguered Jewish community grapples with whether to refrain from donning Jewish skull caps for their own safety.

The Jewish Agency, which works closely with the Israeli government and acts as a link to Jews around the world, told The Associated Press that 9,880 western European Jews immigrated to Israel in 2015 — the highest annual number ever. The figure is more than 10 percent over the previous year and over double the 2013 level.

The vast majority, close to 8,000, came from France, where a rise in anti-Semitic attacks has shattered the sense of security of the world's third-largest Jewish population . . .   Close to 800 Jews emigrated from Britain in 2015. Italy and Belgium were next on the list. . .    [more . . .]

CAROLINE GLICK - SAUDI ARABIA LOOKS TO PAKISTAN FOR NUCLEAR DEFENSE

Carolyn Glick explains the ins and outs of the fragile Middle East as few others can.  Virtually everything she writes is a must-read.   

Speaking in the military garrison town of Rawalpindi, Pakistani Army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif said that any Iranian threat to Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity will “wipe Iran off the map.”

Sharif made the statement following his meeting with Saudi Arabia’s defense minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. According to media reports, Salman was the second senior Saudi official to visit Pakistan in the past week amid growing tensions between Iran and the kingdom.

Glick proceeds to discuss Pakistan as a failed state, and the outlook for Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.   Read on....

 ** On a different matter, I was sorry to read that the Kurdish Communist organization (YPG) attacked an Assyrian Christian village in northern Syria

Most in the United States are familiar with the Kurds of Iraq, and how, after suffering under Saddam Hussein, they are striving for their own nation. What many do not know is that in places like Syria, Kurds are hoping for the same thing but want, not unlike the Islamic State, a Kurdish nation emptied of all non-Kurdish peoples. While it is true that in Syria Kurds have been fighting an off-again, on-again “hot war” with ISIS, they have also been waging a slower, grinding “cold war” against the Christians, especially in Northern Syria.

*** THE 10 ABSOLUTE WORST AND MOST DEADLY PLACES TO BE A CHRISTIAN IN THE WORLD TODAY

Billy Hallowell at the The Blaze writes:  (HT: Kathryn Jean Lopez)

Christian persecution rose on every continent in the world throughout 2015, with North Korea listed as the most dangerous country to be a Bible-believer, according to a new report released by Open Doors USA, a group that works to combat global persecution.

Open Doors released its annual “World Watch List” report on Wednesday, ranking the top 50 countries “where it is most dangerous and difficult to be a Christian” during a morning event at the National Press Club. 

The report found that the 10 worst nations are as follows (listed from most dangerous to least): North Korea, Iraq, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iran and Libya. See the complete list of 50 below:

The findings in the “World Watch List” present a dire picture in which at last 7,000 Christians died throughout 2015 due to faith-related reasons. . .   Islamic extremism, according to the “World Watch List, is the “lead generator of persecution for 35 out of the 50 nations” on its list.

The day before the above list was published, Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review Online gave  Crux and the Boston Globe credit for (rare) articles on religious persecution.

For several months now, Crux, the Sunday religion magazine published by the Boston Globe, has been putting out a series of well-researched pieces from all over the world on the new Christian martyrs mostly written by John L. Allen. There have been 13 stories posted to date, many of them in the final days of December.   ...   Though estimates vary widely, even low-end counts suggest that one Christian is killed for motives related to the faith somewhere in the world every hour of every day.

COLOGNE AND THE ISLAMIC DIVINE SANCTION OF THE RAPE OF NON-MUSLIM WOMEN

Robert Spencer instructs how the Muslim sex assaults in Cologne [latest report here] involved behavior sanctioned in Islamic teachings in his article, "The Migrant Sex Assaults: Uncovered Meat."

Not a single mainstream news outlet has identified the approximately 1,000 men who congregated by the main train station in Cologne, Germany, on New Year’s Eve and raped and sexually assaulted hundreds of women -- or their counterparts who did the same thing in Zurich, Helsinki, and elsewhere -- as Muslims. But there is little doubt that they were indeed Muslim, since they have been identified as migrants and most of the migrants are Muslims.

Most importantly, identifying the attackers as Muslim leads directly to understanding the attacks themselves, because the attackers were acting in accord with Islamic teachings.

Sexual assault plagues all cultures -- but only in Islam is it given divine sanction.

In 2006, then-Grand Mufti of Australia Taj Din al-Hilali sparked a controversy when he said:

  If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem.

He was referring to women who get raped:

If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.

Al-Hilali further complained that judges in the West were too tough on young Muslims charged with sexual assault and rape, since unveiled Western women “sway suggestively”:

 

JOEL ROSENBERG ON "RADICAL ISLAM" VS. "APOCALYPTIC ISLAM"

CBN's Pat Robertson interviewed Joel Rosenberg on his latest book, The First Hostage.  Rosenberg is famous for using novels to get across powerful perspectives that readers (including world political elites) need to know in order to understand what is going on in the Middle East and the Muslim world.   In the interview and resources below, Rosenberg distinguishes between "radical Islam" and "apocalyptic Islam," a distinction rarely noted.

 

• Read the first chapter of The First Hostage right now

• FACT SHEET: The Iranian leadership’s Apocalyptic Beliefs
• FACT SHEET: The Islamic State’s Apocalyptic Beliefs

Rosen published an important article in the Jerusalem Post a few days ago titled, "What the next U.S. president will need to know about Iran and Islamic State."   Rosenberg writes:

. . .  Above all, the next president of the United States must understand that the greatest challenge facing the Western alliance in the Middle East is not simply the threat of radical Islam, but that of apocalyptic Islam.

Unfortunately, most candidates and voters are still not adequately familiar with such distinctions. But they need to be.

Why? Because while adherents of radical Islam (such as al-Qaida, the Taliban, Hamas, etc.,) use violent acts hoping to drive the US, Israel and other “infidels” out of what they regard as their holy lands, adherents of apocalyptic Islam seek to use genocide to annihilate all infidels and establish a global Islamic kingdom known as the caliphate.

For the first time in human history, the leaders of two nation states are being driven by eschatology. The rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran are consumed by ancient Islamic prophecies that predict the end of the world as we know it. So are the rulers of Islamic State (IS). The former are Shi’ite. The latter are Sunni.

Yet both believe their messiah – known as the “Mahdi” (and to the Shi’tes as the “Twelfth Imam” or “Hidden Imam”) – will appear on Earth at any moment. Both believe he will usher in the End of Days.

Both are determined to hasten his coming. But each has very different strategies to get there.

WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD CARE ABOUT ENVIRONMENTALISM

Sandra Richter, Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, explains what the Bible has to say about the topic in just under 9 minutes.