See here.
Comments are being directed here.
The new W4 post contains an address where we can try to send Rifqa a Christmas card. My defeatist self wonders if they will be delivered, but I have sent a card. It's definitely worth a try.
See also a discussion here by Jamal Jivanjee of the way in which he was given the runaround when he tried to visit Rifqa. He has some e-mail addresses for Rifqa's lawyers and suggestions for writing to them, asking them to remove part of the excuse for the runaround. She should at least be able to see some Christian friends while waiting to learn her fate. It's just incredible the way they are blatantly isolating this girl. It really looks like an attempt to break her.
We can only keep praying, but I've posted these updates to give a few practical suggestions as well
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Advent Sunday
Tomorrow is Advent Sunday. We're starting another church year. It's a wild thought. (I love Trinity season, but it gets a bit long. This year it wasn't even the longest, because Easter wasn't particularly early. Still, six months out of the year of Trinity. I suppose I should be grateful that it isn't just called "ordinary time," as I hear is now the case in the Roman Catholic Church.)
Last year, I find, looking through the archives, I wrote a really good, long, detailed post on Advent and on the ways in which Protestant Christians can and should celebrate it. Have a look at it if you're interested.
Let me add here that if you are going to celebrate Advent, you strongly consider using the real collects for Advent. Here is a page that has them all. For three out of four of them, I cannot even imagine any Baptist or other Protestant having the slightest theological scruples about anything in them, and for the fourth, the only scruples would arise from a particular interpretation of Calvinism rather than from Protestantism per se. But if you're gonna do it, do it traditional as much as possible. I once saw a bunch of "Advent prayers" that were totally modern and had nothing to do with the traditional weeks of Advent. Here, briefly, are the emphases of the collects/Sundays:
First Sunday--General Advent Sunday--emphasis on Jesus' first and second comings and on preparing for His second coming.
Second Sunday--Bible Sunday--emphasis on thankfulness for Holy Scripture and the way we should read and digest it to prepare for Jesus' coming.
Third Sunday--Gaudete Sunday--emphasis on joy, collect emphasizes prayer for ministers that they may prepare the hearts of the people for Jesus' second coming.
Fourth Sunday--Request for God's power to help us run the race that is set before us.
If you light candles, there should be three purple, one pink, and one white. One purple candle the first Sunday, two the second, two purple and the pink the third (Gaudete), and all the candles but the white one the fourth Sunday. The white candle, the Christ candle, is a symbol of Jesus, the light of the world, and is lit on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day.
And here, just because I love it so much, is the collect for Advent Sunday:
Last year, I find, looking through the archives, I wrote a really good, long, detailed post on Advent and on the ways in which Protestant Christians can and should celebrate it. Have a look at it if you're interested.
Let me add here that if you are going to celebrate Advent, you strongly consider using the real collects for Advent. Here is a page that has them all. For three out of four of them, I cannot even imagine any Baptist or other Protestant having the slightest theological scruples about anything in them, and for the fourth, the only scruples would arise from a particular interpretation of Calvinism rather than from Protestantism per se. But if you're gonna do it, do it traditional as much as possible. I once saw a bunch of "Advent prayers" that were totally modern and had nothing to do with the traditional weeks of Advent. Here, briefly, are the emphases of the collects/Sundays:
First Sunday--General Advent Sunday--emphasis on Jesus' first and second comings and on preparing for His second coming.
Second Sunday--Bible Sunday--emphasis on thankfulness for Holy Scripture and the way we should read and digest it to prepare for Jesus' coming.
Third Sunday--Gaudete Sunday--emphasis on joy, collect emphasizes prayer for ministers that they may prepare the hearts of the people for Jesus' second coming.
Fourth Sunday--Request for God's power to help us run the race that is set before us.
If you light candles, there should be three purple, one pink, and one white. One purple candle the first Sunday, two the second, two purple and the pink the third (Gaudete), and all the candles but the white one the fourth Sunday. The white candle, the Christ candle, is a symbol of Jesus, the light of the world, and is lit on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day.
And here, just because I love it so much, is the collect for Advent Sunday:
Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Recycling is great (Happy Thanksgiving)
Ha! Bet you never thought you'd see me say that.
I mean recycling posts.
I've looked at last year's Thanksgiving post and decided I cannot better either the post or the photo. The prayer is the general thanksgiving for morning prayer from the Book of Common Prayer.
A happy Thanksgiving to my dear readers.
I mean recycling posts.
I've looked at last year's Thanksgiving post and decided I cannot better either the post or the photo. The prayer is the general thanksgiving for morning prayer from the Book of Common Prayer.
A happy Thanksgiving to my dear readers.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
There's no place...
I left New Orleans for home yesterday in the rain. To be fair, the weather had been sunny until then. But yesterday morning the view from the twenty-ninth floor of the hotel was gray. Through the window drops I could see below the giant, unreal-looking palm trees marching down Canal Street, already wrapped in Christmas lights, and the narrow, straight streets of the French Quarter laid out like a map to the edge of the Mississippi, a bend of the Mississippi so huge I had at first mistaken it for the ocean.
The taxi to the airport smelled like a memory of cigarettes, and there was a Niagara pouring through a leak in the overhang at the unloading dock outside the Delta Airlines doors. I paid the taxi driver, gathered my bags, took one last look at the dirty, dark, day, and plunged into the airport for a full day's imprisonment.
All that day, the outdoors could only be seen--through tiny windows, through huge plate-glass windows. Sunny in Detroit, but a picture only, untouchable, unsmellable. The food courts in the airports smelled appetizing but too warm and overwhelming, yet not quite able to overcome the distinctive smell of airports--some sort of disinfectant common to all airports in the country. The last leg of the journey, the little flight from Detroit to my town, seemed airless. There had been a definite, disturbing smell of exhaust fumes at the beginning, which no one else could sense. Even when that dissipated, the air itself was exhausted, oxygen-poor, hardly worth the trouble of breathing. One could hardly believe that fifty souls could live and move and have their being with only that air in that narrow metal tube.
Then we banked, and looking past the girl by the window, I caught a glimpse of home. Fields like chess squares, surrounded by maple woods, mostly now leafless, looking like brown fur from that height, here and there spiked by a last, leaping flame of autumn color. The plane landed, and we waited an eternal, gasping, last few minutes before the door opened. By the grace of God, there was no jetway this time, just stairs down from the door. I stepped out, and the sky opened overhead in an infinite vault, robin's-egg blue, paling to almost white at the edges. The sunset air was clean and chill. I could have stood for ten minutes on the tarmac, just breathing, but the children were waiting at home.
This morning, I pulled the drapes back from the big, southern window in the dining room. Frost rimed everything--all the grass and the last few leaves. Just across the street, to the southeast, the cold, blazing sun topped the neighbors' fifty-foot blue spruce, looking like some improbable, out-of-scale Christmas tree star.
This afternoon I raked the leaves.
It's good to be back.
The taxi to the airport smelled like a memory of cigarettes, and there was a Niagara pouring through a leak in the overhang at the unloading dock outside the Delta Airlines doors. I paid the taxi driver, gathered my bags, took one last look at the dirty, dark, day, and plunged into the airport for a full day's imprisonment.
All that day, the outdoors could only be seen--through tiny windows, through huge plate-glass windows. Sunny in Detroit, but a picture only, untouchable, unsmellable. The food courts in the airports smelled appetizing but too warm and overwhelming, yet not quite able to overcome the distinctive smell of airports--some sort of disinfectant common to all airports in the country. The last leg of the journey, the little flight from Detroit to my town, seemed airless. There had been a definite, disturbing smell of exhaust fumes at the beginning, which no one else could sense. Even when that dissipated, the air itself was exhausted, oxygen-poor, hardly worth the trouble of breathing. One could hardly believe that fifty souls could live and move and have their being with only that air in that narrow metal tube.
Then we banked, and looking past the girl by the window, I caught a glimpse of home. Fields like chess squares, surrounded by maple woods, mostly now leafless, looking like brown fur from that height, here and there spiked by a last, leaping flame of autumn color. The plane landed, and we waited an eternal, gasping, last few minutes before the door opened. By the grace of God, there was no jetway this time, just stairs down from the door. I stepped out, and the sky opened overhead in an infinite vault, robin's-egg blue, paling to almost white at the edges. The sunset air was clean and chill. I could have stood for ten minutes on the tarmac, just breathing, but the children were waiting at home.
This morning, I pulled the drapes back from the big, southern window in the dining room. Frost rimed everything--all the grass and the last few leaves. Just across the street, to the southeast, the cold, blazing sun topped the neighbors' fifty-foot blue spruce, looking like some improbable, out-of-scale Christmas tree star.
This afternoon I raked the leaves.
It's good to be back.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Rifqa Bary being denied visitors
And, Atlas has learned, her laptop has been confiscated. The court clerk appears to have been instructed to lie to inquirers and tell them "no information" exists on the next date of her dependency hearing. (The Nov. 16 public hearing was canceled.) As lawyer John Jay points out in the linked entry at Atlas, court cases don't just float in limbo like that. There is always a paper trail and a court date scheduled for a continuing case. The public is being kept in the dark, probably illegally, so that Rifqa's supporters cannot show up to show support for her at any hearings and cannot keep sunshine on the process.
I have somewhat limited computer access right now but hope to get this up at W4 soon, perhaps this evening, as well as a link to an interview I had on various other subjects on the James Allen Show last Saturday.
I have somewhat limited computer access right now but hope to get this up at W4 soon, perhaps this evening, as well as a link to an interview I had on various other subjects on the James Allen Show last Saturday.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Good info. on Christians under the PA
The next time some anti-Israel acquaintance starts whining at you about the wrongs suffered--somehow--by Christians as a result of the Israeli "occupation of the West Bank," I suggest you give him this link.
I'm certainly going to be tempted to do so. Though I must admit to the feeling of weariness at the thought of trying to get people to see reason. If there are Arab Christians who are really anti-Israel, not just pretending out of fear (and I'm afraid there are), they are apparently ignoring some facts. Dhimmitude will do that to you. But apparently the people whispering the truth to American pastors in their own homes don't have that problem with reality. The article tells how Christians in the West Bank are much worse off ever since the Palestinian Authority has had some autonomous rule there than they were when the Israelis kept more of a hand on things. Yet plenty of Christian liberals (and what I call "paleo-leftists") want us to give the "Palestinians" a whole state with even more land and complete sovereignty. And they tell us to do so in the name of our Christian brethren who are, they claim, being deprived of "their land" by the fact that Israel still has some degree of oversight in the West Bank. Sounds like a plan to me.
But let's not let facts get in the way of ideology.
HT Israel Matzav
I'm certainly going to be tempted to do so. Though I must admit to the feeling of weariness at the thought of trying to get people to see reason. If there are Arab Christians who are really anti-Israel, not just pretending out of fear (and I'm afraid there are), they are apparently ignoring some facts. Dhimmitude will do that to you. But apparently the people whispering the truth to American pastors in their own homes don't have that problem with reality. The article tells how Christians in the West Bank are much worse off ever since the Palestinian Authority has had some autonomous rule there than they were when the Israelis kept more of a hand on things. Yet plenty of Christian liberals (and what I call "paleo-leftists") want us to give the "Palestinians" a whole state with even more land and complete sovereignty. And they tell us to do so in the name of our Christian brethren who are, they claim, being deprived of "their land" by the fact that Israel still has some degree of oversight in the West Bank. Sounds like a plan to me.
But let's not let facts get in the way of ideology.
HT Israel Matzav
Monday, November 16, 2009
Thank you, God, for everything
When I was a little girl, my parents frequently reminded me to thank God that I live in America. They rightly pointed out all the blessings we enjoy as Americans that are not enjoyed by other people in many other countries. My mother was especially emphatic, and rightly so, about the poor treatment of women in many non-Western countries and about my blessings in being a woman in America.
To my mind, that is a pretty decisive point in favor of international adoptions from such countries. That is, assuming that the parents adopting the child are good and loving. I'm even willing to throw in the assumption that the adopting parents are serious Christians and hence that the child will not trade the ills of his country of birth for all the moral evils of a secular and perhaps decadent upbringing in the West. But on those assumptions, I believe that children internationally adopted should be at least as thankful as those of us born here for the opportunity to be Americans.
This is all apropos of a blog debate here on the subject of adoption. I'm astonished at how far my interlocutor, a blogger named Laura Wood, is willing to go. She even implies that we Americans are doing something wrong if we adopt intelligent orphans from some non-Western country, thus taking those bright children out of "their" country and "altering cultural dynamics" in the country of origin. She goes so far as to imply that when such children grow up they will have a legitimate complaint of "callousness" against their American parents for having harmed the "cultural harmony" of the country in which they were born by not leaving them in an orphanage there and by giving them a loving, two-parent home in America instead. I find it astonishing that anyone would make such an argument.
Just makes me all the more grateful to be an American.
And by the way, let's not forget to pray for Rifqa Bary, that she too will have the opportunity to be an American and to have, as an adult, the religious freedom for which our country stands. Pamela Geller's rally for her was duly held today in Ohio, but because today's public dependency hearing was canceled, we still have no idea what will happen to her or even what is happening to her. It appears that she is still in foster care at the moment, but as I reported here, a blackout has been placed on her case by the court, leaving open the possibility that she could be returned to her parents without public knowledge.
To my mind, that is a pretty decisive point in favor of international adoptions from such countries. That is, assuming that the parents adopting the child are good and loving. I'm even willing to throw in the assumption that the adopting parents are serious Christians and hence that the child will not trade the ills of his country of birth for all the moral evils of a secular and perhaps decadent upbringing in the West. But on those assumptions, I believe that children internationally adopted should be at least as thankful as those of us born here for the opportunity to be Americans.
This is all apropos of a blog debate here on the subject of adoption. I'm astonished at how far my interlocutor, a blogger named Laura Wood, is willing to go. She even implies that we Americans are doing something wrong if we adopt intelligent orphans from some non-Western country, thus taking those bright children out of "their" country and "altering cultural dynamics" in the country of origin. She goes so far as to imply that when such children grow up they will have a legitimate complaint of "callousness" against their American parents for having harmed the "cultural harmony" of the country in which they were born by not leaving them in an orphanage there and by giving them a loving, two-parent home in America instead. I find it astonishing that anyone would make such an argument.
Just makes me all the more grateful to be an American.
And by the way, let's not forget to pray for Rifqa Bary, that she too will have the opportunity to be an American and to have, as an adult, the religious freedom for which our country stands. Pamela Geller's rally for her was duly held today in Ohio, but because today's public dependency hearing was canceled, we still have no idea what will happen to her or even what is happening to her. It appears that she is still in foster care at the moment, but as I reported here, a blackout has been placed on her case by the court, leaving open the possibility that she could be returned to her parents without public knowledge.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Yup
How depressing, but true. And yet there's something so satisfying and even rather darkly amusing about having someone else say it.
If a group called Muslim Jihad Warriors to Destroy the West set off a nuclear bomb and destroyed a city, Bob Schieffer would interview Lindsey Graham and Graham would say in his stupid sentimental voice, "Muslims have served in our armed forces, and some have died. These are good people," and Schieffer would add that of course Christians have done all kinds of terrible things, and they would both agree that it's crazy to blame Muslims for this, that such thoughts have no place in America.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Rifqa Bary update--secret court proceedings taking place
Rifqa Bary's hearing on the 16th (this is the hearing on her parents' claim that she is an incorrigible child) has been postponed to December 22nd. However, there is no guarantee that the date will not be changed again or a final decision made on returning her to her parents at some undisclosed time. Pamela Geller has learned somehow that hearings of some kind have already been taking place on Rifqa's case in Ohio with the public unable to know anything about them. Pamela has evidently been unable to learn what has happened at these hearings or whether Rifqa could now be secretly returned to her parents without the public's knowledge. Could she perhaps even be whisked away by her parents to Sri Lanka without our knowing? It does not seem so far-fetched, given the secrecy thus far. So not only is Rifqa herself unable to communicate what is going on, the public seems unable to find out either and shed a light on proceedings. This is very bad.
Pamela's rally on Rifqa's behalf on November 16 will take place as planned.
Pamela's rally on Rifqa's behalf on November 16 will take place as planned.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Wow, that's some admission
In this article we find quotations from a liberal journalist, John Cassidy, admitting that Obamacare won't work economically as promised but that the real goal is to "make America a more equitable country." (Why did I have to use Google to find the article by Cassidy? Why didn't the WSJ do that for me and provide a link? Anyway, here's the whole piece by Cassidy.) Cassidy says that "expanding health-care coverage now and worrying later about its long-term consequences is an eminently defensible strategy" and also that some "subterfuge" may be necessary for the desirable end of establishing an entitlement program that will be hard to dislodge later.
This reminds me of the old story about Russia. A Russian peasant picks up a bottle and rubs it, and out pops a genie. The genie offers him a wish, at which point the peasant goes into a long complaint about how unfair it is that his neighbor Ivan has a goat while the peasant with the genie bottle has no goat. "Oh, I see," says the genie. "Then your wish is that I would give you a goat, too?" "No!" says the peasant. "That's not it at all. I want Ivan's goat to die!"
HT: VFR
This reminds me of the old story about Russia. A Russian peasant picks up a bottle and rubs it, and out pops a genie. The genie offers him a wish, at which point the peasant goes into a long complaint about how unfair it is that his neighbor Ivan has a goat while the peasant with the genie bottle has no goat. "Oh, I see," says the genie. "Then your wish is that I would give you a goat, too?" "No!" says the peasant. "That's not it at all. I want Ivan's goat to die!"
HT: VFR
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Compassion and homosexual activism
Many of us have friends who have homosexual inclinations, or we have had such friends at some time in the past. Part of the success of the agenda of homosexual activists lies in making use of this fact after blocking off the possibility of real compassion consistent with traditional and Christian ethics. Those who have homosexual friends are made to feel that they are betraying those friends and are not showing love and compassion for them if they say that homosexual behavior is a sin or if they take such behavior or feelings into account in any way in public interactions (aka "discrimination").
Real, Christian compassion for people with same-sex attraction involves the assertion that such attraction is objectively disordered, which leads one to see the attraction as a tragedy and a burden in the first instance. Indulging and acting on it, on the traditional understanding, is a sin, but it is, of course, a sin that can be both resisted and, when committed, forgiven. All these theological and moral ideas lie at the heart of Christian compassion for people with homosexual feelings.
But the concept of compassion for people with same-sex attraction has been co-opted, even within the Christian world, by those who believe, even when they don't argue, that the only way to be compassionate is, in fact, not to be compassionate. Here's what I mean: If you don't think that same-sex attraction is objectively disordered, there is no point in feeling sorry for a person who suffers from it. In fact, you don't think of him as "suffering" from it at all. And if he is unhappy, you certainly aren't permitted to view his same-sex attraction as being in itself a cause of even part of his unhappiness. Hence the only way a liberal can feel sorry for a person with same-sex attraction is to assume that he is a victim--in other words, to heap blame upon traditional sexual morality and to drum up dislike and anger toward those who accept that morality. And that really isn't compassion. It's treacly liberal victimology and sentimentalism, but it isn't compassion.
It behooves me at this point not to beat around the bush. (Everyone knows how prone I am to beat around the bush.) As hinted at above, if you believe and say openly that same-sex desires are objectively disordered, you will be likely to support the legitimacy of discrimination on that basis in various cases. You will probably support the legitimacy of discrimination even on the basis of the desires without the actions in a number of easily-identified situations, particularly those where the sexes are segregated intentionally, and also those where one wants to be able to rely on one's employees to uphold a certain moral standard. In the latter case, one might justifiably reason that a person with strong same-sex desires is particularly likely to act on those desires and thus compromise the particular moral atmosphere of one's organization. This would be all the more likely if the person thought that his desires were definitely normal and just happened not to be acting on them at the moment. And, of course, if one believes that homosexual acts are sinful, one might very well not want references to such acts to be brought into one's business, and there would be many situations in which one would discriminate on the basis of active homosexual behavior in business relations.
But we've been taught that it is downright mean, even wicked, to refuse someone a job, and still more to refuse him (and his "partner") an apartment, on the basis of such a consideration, and being mean, of course, is the opposite of being compassionate.
I'm afraid there is nothing for it but for Christians to get their thoughts clear on this matter and to stop promoting the liberal lies that pass for compassion. Doing so is helping no one, least of all homosexuals themselves.
Real, Christian compassion for people with same-sex attraction involves the assertion that such attraction is objectively disordered, which leads one to see the attraction as a tragedy and a burden in the first instance. Indulging and acting on it, on the traditional understanding, is a sin, but it is, of course, a sin that can be both resisted and, when committed, forgiven. All these theological and moral ideas lie at the heart of Christian compassion for people with homosexual feelings.
But the concept of compassion for people with same-sex attraction has been co-opted, even within the Christian world, by those who believe, even when they don't argue, that the only way to be compassionate is, in fact, not to be compassionate. Here's what I mean: If you don't think that same-sex attraction is objectively disordered, there is no point in feeling sorry for a person who suffers from it. In fact, you don't think of him as "suffering" from it at all. And if he is unhappy, you certainly aren't permitted to view his same-sex attraction as being in itself a cause of even part of his unhappiness. Hence the only way a liberal can feel sorry for a person with same-sex attraction is to assume that he is a victim--in other words, to heap blame upon traditional sexual morality and to drum up dislike and anger toward those who accept that morality. And that really isn't compassion. It's treacly liberal victimology and sentimentalism, but it isn't compassion.
It behooves me at this point not to beat around the bush. (Everyone knows how prone I am to beat around the bush.) As hinted at above, if you believe and say openly that same-sex desires are objectively disordered, you will be likely to support the legitimacy of discrimination on that basis in various cases. You will probably support the legitimacy of discrimination even on the basis of the desires without the actions in a number of easily-identified situations, particularly those where the sexes are segregated intentionally, and also those where one wants to be able to rely on one's employees to uphold a certain moral standard. In the latter case, one might justifiably reason that a person with strong same-sex desires is particularly likely to act on those desires and thus compromise the particular moral atmosphere of one's organization. This would be all the more likely if the person thought that his desires were definitely normal and just happened not to be acting on them at the moment. And, of course, if one believes that homosexual acts are sinful, one might very well not want references to such acts to be brought into one's business, and there would be many situations in which one would discriminate on the basis of active homosexual behavior in business relations.
But we've been taught that it is downright mean, even wicked, to refuse someone a job, and still more to refuse him (and his "partner") an apartment, on the basis of such a consideration, and being mean, of course, is the opposite of being compassionate.
I'm afraid there is nothing for it but for Christians to get their thoughts clear on this matter and to stop promoting the liberal lies that pass for compassion. Doing so is helping no one, least of all homosexuals themselves.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
A loss for the good guys on the ordinance
I promised that I would update my readers on our local politics. Being a pessimist, I was not terribly surprised that the homosexual and transgender special rights ordinance passed in my town, though that had not stopped me from working steadily against it. This story is particularly timely in this connection. I just saw it yesterday and plan to blog more about it soon. The skies are darkening, and as Scott W. says, you can try remaining silent, like Thomas More, but it may not work forever.
A small victory against the bullies on the other side yesterday is owing to Pastor __________ of a local Christian Reformed Church. (This does not identify him, as it is nearly impossible to throw a rock in my town without hitting a Christian Reformed Church.) His church is a polling place, and yesterday the homosexual activists planted a "Vote Yes" sign right next to the church driveway. This despite the fact that most of the church members were definitely "Vote No" people, though the church had no signs up. The activists had carefully measured, and the sign was outside the 100 foot zone from the door of the church, but that of course doesn't change the fact that outside that zone was private property, and by sticking the sign in the ground on church property, they were making it look like the church endorsed the ordinance. I became aware of the situation and phoned Pastor __________. (He is not my pastor, and I'd never spoken with him, but I know quite a number of the people in his church as local friends and neighbors.) I had to leave a message, and I came away saying, discouraged, "They're gonna tell him he has to allow them to have the sign on his property because it's a polling place, as long as it's outside the 100 foot zone, and that's going to be the end of it."
But I had reckoned without Pastor _________'s principle and persistence. I got the whole story later. Of course, the activists did try exactly that line. Indeed, when he told them, "This is private property," they said, "Not today. Today it's a polling place." Why that should require the permission of partisan electioneering on the property remains a mystery to this hour! The ACLU was firmly on the side of the activist bullies, and every time the pastor came back (sometimes from conversations with the City Attorney, who was apparently just trying to interpret and apply the law correctly) and told them they had to take out the sign, the head activist would say, "That's not what my lawyer says." The lawyers went back and forth and eventually called the state election officials in Lansing. The upshot was that the activists were required to take the sign out of the ground so that it was not associated with the church but were permitted to carry it as an expression of their own views.
I still don't fully understand why they had to be allowed to do this in the church parking lot and couldn't at least be required to move to the public sidewalk, but they had attempted to brazen the matter out and associate the church willy-nilly with their own position by planting a sign on church property, and they did not win that little battle. Pastor ________ also now knows the scoop if something like this comes up again. He spent several hours of his day making phone calls, dealing with unpleasant people, and not giving in to the bluffing tactics of the activists coached by the ACLU, and I apologize to him for having assumed he would give up.
I drove past the church after dark last evening but before the polls were closed. In the parking lot was one person holding up a Vote Yes sign. And next to the driveway was an elderly man holding up a Vote No sign. Bless him. I should have stopped and said something encouraging to him. Wish I had.
For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
A small victory against the bullies on the other side yesterday is owing to Pastor __________ of a local Christian Reformed Church. (This does not identify him, as it is nearly impossible to throw a rock in my town without hitting a Christian Reformed Church.) His church is a polling place, and yesterday the homosexual activists planted a "Vote Yes" sign right next to the church driveway. This despite the fact that most of the church members were definitely "Vote No" people, though the church had no signs up. The activists had carefully measured, and the sign was outside the 100 foot zone from the door of the church, but that of course doesn't change the fact that outside that zone was private property, and by sticking the sign in the ground on church property, they were making it look like the church endorsed the ordinance. I became aware of the situation and phoned Pastor __________. (He is not my pastor, and I'd never spoken with him, but I know quite a number of the people in his church as local friends and neighbors.) I had to leave a message, and I came away saying, discouraged, "They're gonna tell him he has to allow them to have the sign on his property because it's a polling place, as long as it's outside the 100 foot zone, and that's going to be the end of it."
But I had reckoned without Pastor _________'s principle and persistence. I got the whole story later. Of course, the activists did try exactly that line. Indeed, when he told them, "This is private property," they said, "Not today. Today it's a polling place." Why that should require the permission of partisan electioneering on the property remains a mystery to this hour! The ACLU was firmly on the side of the activist bullies, and every time the pastor came back (sometimes from conversations with the City Attorney, who was apparently just trying to interpret and apply the law correctly) and told them they had to take out the sign, the head activist would say, "That's not what my lawyer says." The lawyers went back and forth and eventually called the state election officials in Lansing. The upshot was that the activists were required to take the sign out of the ground so that it was not associated with the church but were permitted to carry it as an expression of their own views.
I still don't fully understand why they had to be allowed to do this in the church parking lot and couldn't at least be required to move to the public sidewalk, but they had attempted to brazen the matter out and associate the church willy-nilly with their own position by planting a sign on church property, and they did not win that little battle. Pastor ________ also now knows the scoop if something like this comes up again. He spent several hours of his day making phone calls, dealing with unpleasant people, and not giving in to the bluffing tactics of the activists coached by the ACLU, and I apologize to him for having assumed he would give up.
I drove past the church after dark last evening but before the polls were closed. In the parking lot was one person holding up a Vote Yes sign. And next to the driveway was an elderly man holding up a Vote No sign. Bless him. I should have stopped and said something encouraging to him. Wish I had.
For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Blessed All Saints
Having forgotten to change the clocks last night, I found myself with an extra hour this morning--riches! I used part of it for practicing "For All the Saints" for our church service. I'm the organist--sort of. For some reason, I have never adjusted to my "new" glasses (during the past year) and have to play without them, so piano and organ playing are a challenge and require a little extra practice. It's a wonderful, wonderful song.
I looked around for a good Youtube video of it to embed and shall post that below. One of the Youtubes for "For All the Saints" had the song over a pretty long video clip from some movie or other of Christians being fed to lions. I only got as far as the point where the lions and leopards were pacing around in their cages and then opted out of the rest of the clip. The Christians had little kids with them whom I didn't want to see get eaten. But though I didn't find anything that was the Platonic ideal of "For All the Saints," there was quite a good one, and I'll put that up.
Please see my past All Saints posts here and here, and feel free to comment on them either in their original threads or here.
For church this morning I will be playing "The Church's One Foundation" for the prelude. I love the words to that as well. Here are two of my favorite verses:
Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!
Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
O happy ones and holy,
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them the meek and lowly
On high may dwell with thee.
There is, by the way, a long history of "The Church's One Foundation" having to do with a fight against heresy in the 19th century. Or at least, so I recall hearing. My husband and brother-in-law know a lot more about it than I do. Samuel J. Stone, who wrote the words, was an Anglican clergyman and was considered "high" for his time but was not evidently a really dyed-in-the-wool Newmanite, either. A via media guy with some high-ish leanings, I gather. Anyway, I pray that God will give us grace so to follow his good example, etc., as the Cranmerian remembrance of the dead says in the Prayer Book.
In one of those earlier posts, I said that I especially thought of Helen Berhane, a Christian singer in Eritrea who was imprisoned by the Communist government in a shipping container in Africa for her faith. (At the time that I wrote the post, I was unsure about the government of Eritrea but have since researched it--Communist.) That was with regard to the line "Thou in the darkness drear their one true light" in "For All the Saints." Naturally, this year, I am especially thinking of our sister in Christ Rifqa Bary, in a much gentler but also real imprisonment here in the United States. Though to her it must seem that she is cut off from the Body of Christ, yet it is not so, for we are all one Body united by the same Spirit under one Head who is the Lord Jesus Christ. In him we are one, and if that bond gives us communion even with those who have died in the Lord, how much more does it unite us to those who are still alive at this time, though separated from us by persecution? May the Lord Christ be Rifqa's light in the darkness and her Captain in the well-fought fight.
I post here again Cranmer's wonderful collect for the day as well as the Proper Preface with the Sanctus, and I am struck as always by the way that the Protestant Cranmer (and I mean that as a compliment) captures the concept of the communion of the Saints without in any way compromising his Protestantism. Truly, God blessed the Church by giving her Thomas Cranmer and especially Thomas Cranmer's liturgy.
The collect for All Saints:
O Almighty God, who has knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord; Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys which thou has prepared for those who unfeignedly love thee; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The proper preface, with the Sanctus:
Who, in the multitude of thy Saints, hast compassed us about with so great a cloud of witnesses, that we, rejoicing in their fellowship, may run with patience the race that is set before us, and, together with them, may receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away.
Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore praising thee, and saying,
HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, Lord God of hosts, Heaven and earth are full of thy glory: Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High.
I looked around for a good Youtube video of it to embed and shall post that below. One of the Youtubes for "For All the Saints" had the song over a pretty long video clip from some movie or other of Christians being fed to lions. I only got as far as the point where the lions and leopards were pacing around in their cages and then opted out of the rest of the clip. The Christians had little kids with them whom I didn't want to see get eaten. But though I didn't find anything that was the Platonic ideal of "For All the Saints," there was quite a good one, and I'll put that up.
Please see my past All Saints posts here and here, and feel free to comment on them either in their original threads or here.
For church this morning I will be playing "The Church's One Foundation" for the prelude. I love the words to that as well. Here are two of my favorite verses:
Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!
Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
O happy ones and holy,
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them the meek and lowly
On high may dwell with thee.
There is, by the way, a long history of "The Church's One Foundation" having to do with a fight against heresy in the 19th century. Or at least, so I recall hearing. My husband and brother-in-law know a lot more about it than I do. Samuel J. Stone, who wrote the words, was an Anglican clergyman and was considered "high" for his time but was not evidently a really dyed-in-the-wool Newmanite, either. A via media guy with some high-ish leanings, I gather. Anyway, I pray that God will give us grace so to follow his good example, etc., as the Cranmerian remembrance of the dead says in the Prayer Book.
In one of those earlier posts, I said that I especially thought of Helen Berhane, a Christian singer in Eritrea who was imprisoned by the Communist government in a shipping container in Africa for her faith. (At the time that I wrote the post, I was unsure about the government of Eritrea but have since researched it--Communist.) That was with regard to the line "Thou in the darkness drear their one true light" in "For All the Saints." Naturally, this year, I am especially thinking of our sister in Christ Rifqa Bary, in a much gentler but also real imprisonment here in the United States. Though to her it must seem that she is cut off from the Body of Christ, yet it is not so, for we are all one Body united by the same Spirit under one Head who is the Lord Jesus Christ. In him we are one, and if that bond gives us communion even with those who have died in the Lord, how much more does it unite us to those who are still alive at this time, though separated from us by persecution? May the Lord Christ be Rifqa's light in the darkness and her Captain in the well-fought fight.
I post here again Cranmer's wonderful collect for the day as well as the Proper Preface with the Sanctus, and I am struck as always by the way that the Protestant Cranmer (and I mean that as a compliment) captures the concept of the communion of the Saints without in any way compromising his Protestantism. Truly, God blessed the Church by giving her Thomas Cranmer and especially Thomas Cranmer's liturgy.
The collect for All Saints:
O Almighty God, who has knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord; Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys which thou has prepared for those who unfeignedly love thee; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The proper preface, with the Sanctus:
Who, in the multitude of thy Saints, hast compassed us about with so great a cloud of witnesses, that we, rejoicing in their fellowship, may run with patience the race that is set before us, and, together with them, may receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away.
Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore praising thee, and saying,
HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, Lord God of hosts, Heaven and earth are full of thy glory: Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Local politics
The vote on a new ordinance here in my town is coming up on Tuesday. This ordinance would add "sexual orientation and gender identity" to the town's non-discrimination statutes. Translation: Inter alia, you have to hire a guy who insists on wearing a dress and being called "Diane," even if your business is selling ice cream to little kids and your customers will understandably be disgusted and go to your lucky competitor who hasn't had a cross dresser apply.
There's a lot more to it, of course. It's interesting to see how even though this ordinance is partly about punishing people (businesses, in particular) who refuse to get on-board with the homosexual agenda, in reality the homosexual activist agenda is "so last year." Transgender rights are the latest thing.
And by the way, I would like here to say, "Shame on you" to our local Family Christian Stores store, which has shown not the slightest support for the Vote No campaign. Worse: Back in the summer, we were collecting signatures to send this to the ballot rather than having it rammed through merely on the vote of our very liberal city commission. The protest signatures put a temporary stay on the ordinance and gave us the chance to fight another day, with the voters as a whole. I went to the local Family Christian Store to ask if I could simply find out if their employees live in the city limits and get their signatures if they wanted to sign. It would have taken a big five minutes. You should have seen the smirk on the manageress's face as she told me I would have to "call corporate" in Grand Rapids for permission to make this simple canvassing of the employees. Corporate could not even be bothered to call me back. It was not good. I think frankly that it's a sign of the extent to which leftism is infiltrating evangelicalism in America, especially of the Christian Reformed variety most common in my part of the world.
Please pray for the defeat of the ordinance. I have a few more GOTV calls to make this afternoon. I'll let you know how it ends.
There's a lot more to it, of course. It's interesting to see how even though this ordinance is partly about punishing people (businesses, in particular) who refuse to get on-board with the homosexual agenda, in reality the homosexual activist agenda is "so last year." Transgender rights are the latest thing.
And by the way, I would like here to say, "Shame on you" to our local Family Christian Stores store, which has shown not the slightest support for the Vote No campaign. Worse: Back in the summer, we were collecting signatures to send this to the ballot rather than having it rammed through merely on the vote of our very liberal city commission. The protest signatures put a temporary stay on the ordinance and gave us the chance to fight another day, with the voters as a whole. I went to the local Family Christian Store to ask if I could simply find out if their employees live in the city limits and get their signatures if they wanted to sign. It would have taken a big five minutes. You should have seen the smirk on the manageress's face as she told me I would have to "call corporate" in Grand Rapids for permission to make this simple canvassing of the employees. Corporate could not even be bothered to call me back. It was not good. I think frankly that it's a sign of the extent to which leftism is infiltrating evangelicalism in America, especially of the Christian Reformed variety most common in my part of the world.
Please pray for the defeat of the ordinance. I have a few more GOTV calls to make this afternoon. I'll let you know how it ends.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Links and sample letters on Rifqa
There follow a few useful links concerning Rifqa Bary at Atlas Shrugged. I apologize for the format, etc., at Atlas. I find that the page takes a long time to load, and Pamela Geller is not always, shall we say, sensitive in her use of pictures. She also doesn't seem to know how to use the "click here for more" function for posts, and she tends to run too much information together in one post, which makes it hard to sort out visually and makes it look hysterical and less credible than it actually is. But she is in actuality the go-to source on Rifqa's case, the one person who is following the case scrupulously and collecting information all the way along, often doing on-the-ground interviewing and original, exclusive, investigation (such as finding Rifqa's father's immigration documents), and if Rifqa's lawyer and guardian ad litem in Florida had paid attention to Pamela's information and advice more, Rifqa might still be safe(er) in Florida. They really dropped the ball.
So, first, here is an early report of Rifqa's being cut off from phone and Internet. Here is an explanation from Rifqa's friend Jamal Jivanjee of the phony deal Rifqa's parents cut. He also discusses the draconian limits on her communication. How he knows about the deal, I don't know and don't ask, but it at least explains some things. And here is a post containing interesting letters from a family law lawyer from Oregon to the Executive Director of FCCS. Unfortunately, the lawyer is capital-letter-challenged, but he writes good letters other than that--has the legalese down well and knows how similar systems work. (I have some comments in the thread on this 0ne you might want to search for on the page using my name as a search term.)
The e-mail address for Eric Fenner, Executive Director of FCCS, is
edfenner@fccs.co.franklin.oh.us
There is also some sort of civil rights ombudsman who is supposed to have special charge over the rights of "clients"--in other words, the minors in the care of the FCCS. Here is his contact info:
So, first, here is an early report of Rifqa's being cut off from phone and Internet. Here is an explanation from Rifqa's friend Jamal Jivanjee of the phony deal Rifqa's parents cut. He also discusses the draconian limits on her communication. How he knows about the deal, I don't know and don't ask, but it at least explains some things. And here is a post containing interesting letters from a family law lawyer from Oregon to the Executive Director of FCCS. Unfortunately, the lawyer is capital-letter-challenged, but he writes good letters other than that--has the legalese down well and knows how similar systems work. (I have some comments in the thread on this 0ne you might want to search for on the page using my name as a search term.)
The e-mail address for Eric Fenner, Executive Director of FCCS, is
edfenner@fccs.co.franklin.oh.us
There is also some sort of civil rights ombudsman who is supposed to have special charge over the rights of "clients"--in other words, the minors in the care of the FCCS. Here is his contact info:
Kenneth Cohen
Client Rights Officer
Franklin Co. Children Services
855 Mound St.
Columbus, Ohio 43223
Phone No. 614-275-2621
E-mail address: cro@fccs.co.franklin.oh.us
Direct e-mail:
kcohen@fccs.co.franklin.oh.us
Here is the letter I wrote to Mr. Fenner (the first guy):
Dear Mr. Fenner:
I am writing to you concerning Rifqa Bary, who is presently in the custody of Franklin County Children’s Services. A news report from the Columbus Dispatch states that you have said you see no reason to believe that Rifqa would not be safe with her parents. This seems an extraordinarily hasty statement and does not seem to reflect an intention to do due diligence on the facts of the case but rather to prejudge it before an investigation has been fully carried out. Your casual comments to the press about this case are consistent with the extraordinarily fast setting of a date for trial on the merits, when Rifqa’s lawyers have just been assigned and are new to the case, and when the case is admittedly complex and difficult. It does not seem that Franklin County is giving this case the careful consideration and prudence that it deserves.
I am writing to urge that Rifqa not be returned to the custody of her parents. In repeated interviews, including interviews with Florida Law Enforcement, Rifqa has described physical and psychological abuse at the hands of her father dating back to her middle school days. She also indicates that her father threatened her in connection with her conversion to Christianity, leading to her decision to run away out of fear of him and the surrounding Muslim community who, she says, were urging him to "deal with" her conversion. She is very frightened of being returned to her parents’ custody, and it is clearly not in her best interests for her to be returned.
A serious problem in connection with Rifqa’s case is the danger that her parents will take her, as a minor, and leave the United States for their native Sri Lanka if she is returned to them. In Sri Lanka, she would not, even when she turns eighteen in nine months, have the rights and freedoms that she would have here in the United States. According to her testimony, her parents expressly threatened to take her back to Sri Lanka to be "dealt with" concerning her apostasy from Islam with methods possibly including institutionalization. This must not be allowed to happen. However, it appears that her parents (and hence Rifqa herself) are now in the United States illegally. This makes it all the more plausible that they would return to Sri Lanka, taking her against her will, if she were returned to them.
Rifqa’s father has stated in an interview with Florida Law Enforcement that he would require her to practice Islam until she turned eighteen. If Rifqa is returned to her father’s custody, she will be under religious coercion as well as being in danger.
Of particular concern is the fact that Ohio Juvenile Magistrate Mary Goodrich, at the request of Atty. Jim Zorn, has restricted Rifqa’s ability to communicate via telephone and Internet, thus causing her to be held incommunicado. This decision seems especially dangerous and outrageous. This is a child in need of protection, and it is impossible to see how her best interests can be served and her safety insured if she is unable to communicate with the outside world. In the United States, one of the ways in which we protect the vulnerable is by making sure that they are not cared for in secret, without the ability to communicate what is happening to them. Moreover, this restriction on Rifqa’s communication has more than a whiff of religious discrimination about it, as it appears that she is particularly being restricted so that she cannot obtain support in her Christian beliefs by being in touch with her Christian friends. I urge that Rifqa’s ability to communicate with others outside her foster situation be restored immediately.
Please be aware that the eyes of the world are watching Rifqa’s treatment at the hands of the Franklin County Children’s Services. It is precisely at your level--at the level of juvenile court magistrates and children’s services workers--that prudence, due diligence, and concern for the best interests of the child enter the equation, so that children are not treated in some mechanical way according to laws insensitive to the specifics of the case. Your department and the judges with whom you work have the authority and hence the responsibility to protect Rifqa, and you will be held responsible for doing so. If she is returned to her parents and deprived of religious freedom, physically harmed, psychologically terrorized, or dragged back to Sri Lanka against her will, the responsibility will belong to the local authorities of Franklin County. Please consider well what you do, and above all, err on the side of protecting this minor child from harm.
Yours sincerely,
*************************************************************************
Here is the only partially overlapping letter I wrote to Mr. Cohen:
Dear Mr. Cohen,
I am writing to you with regard to the case of Rifqa Bary, a 17-year-old minor now in the custody of Franklin County Children’s Services. Although my greatest concern is that Rifqa not be returned to her parents’ custody, given her plausible allegations of past abuse and threats from her parents and the danger of her being taken out of the United States to Sri Lanka against her will, I have already written to Mr. Eric Fenner about the case more generally and intend here to focus on some matters relating directly to civil rights, as I understand that you are the Client Rights Officer in the civil rights area for FCCS.
One issue of great concern is the fact that Juvenile Magistrate Mary Goodrich, at the request of Atty. Jim Zorn, has restricted Rifqa’s ability to communicate via telephone and Internet. The express intent of this restriction, articulated by Atty. Zorn, is to cut Rifqa off from “other people” in the situation--by which he expressly means friends that Rifqa was communicating with via Facebook and via telephone. I ask you to consider the undeniable disparate impact this will have in the area of religion. Rifqa alleges that her parents threatened her because of her conversion to Christianity, and the friends she wishes to communicate outside her foster care situation will undoubtedly be disproportionately Christian friends, offering her spiritual encouragement and comfort. Her parents desired what Atty. Zorn has asked for, because they believe Christians have been a bad influence on Rifqa. By cooperating in the attempt to isolate Rifqa from friends of a particular religion, the State of Ohio raises the possibility that it is engaging in religious discrimination and depriving Rifqa of her rights to free exercise of religion.
It is, moreover, a serious problem to isolate a child in this fashion, particularly a vulnerable child. In the United States, we generally consider that part of the protection for the vulnerable is that they are able to communicate with others and to tell others if they are being mistreated. Parents who isolated their child, particularly a young woman of seventeen, this thoroughly for an indefinite period of time, would be suspected of having something to hide, and worries would be understandably raised that the child might be mistreated and be unable to obtain help. The outside world will find it very difficult to find out if Rifqa is being pressured or treated in any inappropriate way while in foster care if she is held thus virtually incommunicado. This is not in her best interests, and all the less so as she has now been apparently deprived of the right she enjoyed in Florida to select her own lawyer.
I strongly urge that Rifqa’s ability to communicate with friends, including Christian friends, outside her foster care situation be restored immediately in the name of her civil rights.
Next, I want to ask whether Rifqa is being permitted to see regularly a religious adviser of her choice. Even convicted criminals in jail are permitted visits with their clergymen, who are given prison visitation rights. Rifqa--an honors student who has been convicted of no crime and is in a highly stressful situation-- should have at least the minimal religious exercise rights accorded to a convict.
Also in relation to rights of religious free exercise, I wish to point out that Mr. Bary, Rifqa's father, while denying various statements she has made as to past abuse, actually stated to Florida's Department of Law Enforcement that "because she is still under age and living in his home he believed she should continue to study and practice Islam." This makes it clear that if Rifqa is returned to her parents she will be compelled to practice Islam even while here in the United States, unless she should turn eighteen while still here in the United States. She will not turn eighteen for another nine months.
I also want to raise some due process issues. Mr. Eric Fenner has most inappropriately already commented to the Columbus Dispatch that he cannot see any reason why it would not be safe for Rifqa to be returned to her parents. He should not be prejudging this case in this way, when Rifqa has only just now been transferred into FCCS custody. He should do due diligence first, having in mind always the best interests of the child.
Due process is particularly a matter of concern given what I understand to be the quasi-criminal nature of the proceedings, since Rifqa’s parents are attempting to have her declared an “incorrigible child.” A trial on the merits of the case has been scheduled very rapidly, for Nov. 16, despite the fact that Rifqa has just been assigned new lawyers. It seems that her due process rights may well be violated if her lawyers do not have more time to research and prepare their case in this very complicated matter, involving multiple lines of evidence in multiple areas.
I urge you to do everything in your power for the best interests and safety of Rifqa Bary. If, through negligence and failure of due diligence and due process on the part of FCCS and the Ohio courts, she is returned to her parents and dragged out of the country to Sri Lanka, where she will have no civil rights at all, FCCS and the judge(s) involved will be responsible. It is at the level of Children’s Services that the particulars of the case need to be examined and taken carefully into account. I urge you, like everyone involved at FCCS, to err on the side of caution in safeguarding this young woman.
Best wishes,
***************************************************************************
If any of my readers would like supporting information on any of the points in the letters or these two posts--more supporting links, for example--feel free to ask.
If you should feel moved to write your own letter to either of these guys, go for it, and feel free to use the info. I've given here.
Above all, pray for her and especially for the trial on November 16.
Please pray for Rifqa
Dear friends,
I've often put up updates about Rifqa Bary at W4, usually with closed comments, because I refuse to deal with Muslim commentators on this issue. This time, W4 seems to be rolling along fine, and I've decided to update here, because I'm reluctant to cover up a new post by a fellow contributor with a comments-closed post of my own. I may yet change my mind on that, though.
Rifqa is in a very serious situation. She has been returned to Ohio, and the Ohio judge has already indicated a tendency to side with her Muslim parents. The judge has summarily ordered, without any investigation of the case (immediately upon Rifqa's return) that she is to be held in foster care without any Internet or cell phone use. This apparently means she is cut off from (literal, physical) contact with the Body of Christ, unless her foster family is Christian, which we have no reason to believe. Her Christian lawyer, whom she chose herself, has evidently been removed from the case, and new lawyers unfamiliar with the case selected arbitrarily for her by the state of Ohio. I have been unable to find out if she is being allowed any visits by a Christian pastor or being allowed to go to church. I would guess not. Even convicted murderers are allowed clergy visits in prison and some degree of free exercise of religion, but this girl has been convicted of nothing and has done nothing but run away from her parents in fear.
Her trial--yes, it is her trial, because the proceedings are quasi-criminal, her parents having filed a case to have her declared an "incorrigible child" and returned to them--has been scheduled quite soon, for Nov. 16, which is scarcely time for her new lawyers to get up to speed, even supposing that they truly want to represent her best interests.
There is great danger that she will be summarily returned to her parents and that they will immediately take her out of the country. In Sri Lanka, they can do what they want to her to pressure her to return to Islam, and turning eighteen next summer will help her not one whit. The Florida judge allowed all this to happen, dropping a requirement he had previously stated that her parents produce their immigration documents. They stonewalled him. Word from a friend of Rifqa has it that her Florida guardian ad litem (who at least really did care for her) was bamboozled along with the judge by a phony "deal" whereby the immigration issue would be dropped and Rifqa returned to Ohio if her parents would promise to leave her alone in foster care in Ohio until she turns eighteen in nine months and is no longer under their control. This deal, however, was completely unenforceable and depended on the parents' good faith, which of course is nonexistent. They reneged on it immediately when the Florida judge (who seemed in general rather sensible and concerned for Rifqa's well-being) surrendered his jurisdiction and ordered her returned to Ohio.
This is all quite terrible. There is something horrible about watching the slow squeeze of legal proceedings against an innocent girl happening before one's very eyes, telling oneself, "This can't happen in America," and then finding that perhaps it can. Of course, I cannot help being reminded of the murder of Terri Schiavo.
Right now, I do not have time to post links here to back up all my points. I will try to do so later so that you can get information in case you want to write to Franklin County Children's Services in support of Rifqa. I may also post the text of the letters I have written thus far.
Meanwhile, please pray for Rifqa.
I've often put up updates about Rifqa Bary at W4, usually with closed comments, because I refuse to deal with Muslim commentators on this issue. This time, W4 seems to be rolling along fine, and I've decided to update here, because I'm reluctant to cover up a new post by a fellow contributor with a comments-closed post of my own. I may yet change my mind on that, though.
Rifqa is in a very serious situation. She has been returned to Ohio, and the Ohio judge has already indicated a tendency to side with her Muslim parents. The judge has summarily ordered, without any investigation of the case (immediately upon Rifqa's return) that she is to be held in foster care without any Internet or cell phone use. This apparently means she is cut off from (literal, physical) contact with the Body of Christ, unless her foster family is Christian, which we have no reason to believe. Her Christian lawyer, whom she chose herself, has evidently been removed from the case, and new lawyers unfamiliar with the case selected arbitrarily for her by the state of Ohio. I have been unable to find out if she is being allowed any visits by a Christian pastor or being allowed to go to church. I would guess not. Even convicted murderers are allowed clergy visits in prison and some degree of free exercise of religion, but this girl has been convicted of nothing and has done nothing but run away from her parents in fear.
Her trial--yes, it is her trial, because the proceedings are quasi-criminal, her parents having filed a case to have her declared an "incorrigible child" and returned to them--has been scheduled quite soon, for Nov. 16, which is scarcely time for her new lawyers to get up to speed, even supposing that they truly want to represent her best interests.
There is great danger that she will be summarily returned to her parents and that they will immediately take her out of the country. In Sri Lanka, they can do what they want to her to pressure her to return to Islam, and turning eighteen next summer will help her not one whit. The Florida judge allowed all this to happen, dropping a requirement he had previously stated that her parents produce their immigration documents. They stonewalled him. Word from a friend of Rifqa has it that her Florida guardian ad litem (who at least really did care for her) was bamboozled along with the judge by a phony "deal" whereby the immigration issue would be dropped and Rifqa returned to Ohio if her parents would promise to leave her alone in foster care in Ohio until she turns eighteen in nine months and is no longer under their control. This deal, however, was completely unenforceable and depended on the parents' good faith, which of course is nonexistent. They reneged on it immediately when the Florida judge (who seemed in general rather sensible and concerned for Rifqa's well-being) surrendered his jurisdiction and ordered her returned to Ohio.
This is all quite terrible. There is something horrible about watching the slow squeeze of legal proceedings against an innocent girl happening before one's very eyes, telling oneself, "This can't happen in America," and then finding that perhaps it can. Of course, I cannot help being reminded of the murder of Terri Schiavo.
Right now, I do not have time to post links here to back up all my points. I will try to do so later so that you can get information in case you want to write to Franklin County Children's Services in support of Rifqa. I may also post the text of the letters I have written thus far.
Meanwhile, please pray for Rifqa.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Grace acronyms
Courtesy of an e-mail from Keith Pavlischek, and courtesy of First Things's Evangel blogger, we have a bunch of exceedingly clever acronyms for the word GRACE. In fairness to First Things blog, I won't just copy the whole thing here. You should go read the whole list over there. But if you're familiar with God's Riches at Christ's Expense, this is a set for every kind of Christian (and/or groups claiming to be Christian, including Barthians and Emergentists) you can imagine. A sense of humor is required to appreciate these, and some knowledge of various Christian denominations and sub-denominations, too. Here are a few of my favorites:
For Open Theists:
God Reconsiders, And Cooperates Exquisitely
For evidentialist apologists:
General Revelation And Convincing Explanations
For presuppositional apologists:
Gospel Repentance Accomplished, Circularity Ensues
For the emergents:
For theonomists:
Gospel Requires Absolutely Crushing Enemies
For the emergents:
Generational Resentment Against Conservative Evangelicals
It's hard to choose one best one, but given my present church membership, I shouldn't leave this one unmentioned:
It's hard to choose one best one, but given my present church membership, I shouldn't leave this one unmentioned:
For Anglo-Catholics:
Getting Ritualistic After Cranmer’s Execution
Heh.
Heh.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
To clamor never waken
This morning our post-Communion hymn had words from the ancient Syriac liturgy of Malabar (translated, of course). Here are the first two verses:
Strengthen for service, Lord, the hands
That holy things have taken;
Let ears that now have heard thy songs
To clamor never waken.
Lord, may the tongues which ‘Holy’ sang
Keep free from all deceiving;
The eyes which saw Thy love be bright
Thy blessèd hope perceiving.
Unfortunately, the tune for this is just dull as dull can be, which is why I don't provide a link. Any readers familiar with the Anglican hymnal will know what I'm talking about. I wish that someone would re-translate the words and set them to better music.
I was especially struck by the idea here that there is something lost when those who have once been committed to Christ wander away from Him. In contemporary terms, we can think of this in connection with children raised by Christian parents who go off the rails. If you know a child who loves Jesus Christ right now, there is something inside you that cries out, "Oh, Lord, keep them by your side! Don't let those little eyes be defiled, those hands, that body, those ears."
This song applies this idea to all of us. If we have been in the Lord's house and have praised Him, if our hands have taken holy things in Communion, we should pray that God would keep us ever near him and not let us do anything contrary, as the Prayer Book says, to our profession.
The mention of "clamor" particularly struck me, because it can be so hard to find peace and quiet when one leaves one's house nowadays. I admit to leading a sheltered life, and I'm grateful for it. I was in a waiting room this last week for quite a while. Walked in to be confronted in my face by a large TV up high on the wall with flickering images of an ostensibly naked man and woman rolling about in bed together. I never found out what that was all about (not that I wanted to know), because the image switched quickly to some sort of commercial involving someone's breaking an egg. Such is the world of television. I asked at the desk if we had to have the TV on. They said we could turn it off if no one in the room minded. As all the other people were reading (sensible folk) and said they didn't mind, we turned it off.
Fifty minutes of peace ensued. Then one of the girls behind the desk said, "It is too quiet in here!" and turned it back on. By this time, the only people in the waiting room other than me were an older couple, and the woman was apparently trying to doze with her head on her husband's shoulder. So I spoke up: "What's wrong with quiet?" I said in piercing tones. "Quiet is good!" The older woman seconded me, and we got the receptionist to turn off the sound. She justified herself in an ad hoc fashion by saying, "We have to have it on in case someone comes in who wants it." Really? Then why didn't they have it off before I walked in, in case someone came in who didn't want it? But of course, the default position is that it must be on. You vill vatch television, if we have to cram it down your throat. I take a lot of satisfaction out of having at least gotten the clamor silenced by speaking up.
That, I suppose, is a digression from the Syriac liturgy of Malabar. I pray for my readers this week that they would have some peace and some silence, and for all of us that the lips that sang "holy" will be kept free from all that would grieve Our Lord.
Have a good week.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Violent criminals for gun control
Okay, this is a great video.
Heh.
Actually, I'm told that in the book Will, by G. Gordon Liddy (which I have not read and don't particularly want to read), there is a conversation with a career criminal in which he says several of these very things.
HT Rich Gelina
Heh.
Actually, I'm told that in the book Will, by G. Gordon Liddy (which I have not read and don't particularly want to read), there is a conversation with a career criminal in which he says several of these very things.
HT Rich Gelina
Friday, October 09, 2009
New post at W4 on organ procurement
Here is the post at W4 that I have been working on. It highlights one problem apiece with each of the only two methods for procuring usable vital organs. In each case there are very real concerns as to whether the dead-donor rule is being followed or indeed whether it can be followed.
There is a danger in pointing this out: Because almost no one is ready to conclude that organ transplant should be abandoned, and because most non-Christian ethicists and scientists hold implicitly or explicitly to some sort of personhood theory that makes them dislike the dead-donor rule anyway, this may be used as an excuse for ditching the dead-donor rule and harvesting anyone who is severely cognitively disabled rather than ditching organ transplant. In fact, that's exactly what's happening, as I pointed out here.
But the truth will out anyway. Actually, it's the very ghouls who are pushing for ditching the dead-donor rule who are in some cases telling us these unpleasant facts, so there's no point in our hiding them from ourselves and from the public lest worse befall. Better for pro-lifers to know all the facts and guide their own actions and ideas accordingly.
There is a danger in pointing this out: Because almost no one is ready to conclude that organ transplant should be abandoned, and because most non-Christian ethicists and scientists hold implicitly or explicitly to some sort of personhood theory that makes them dislike the dead-donor rule anyway, this may be used as an excuse for ditching the dead-donor rule and harvesting anyone who is severely cognitively disabled rather than ditching organ transplant. In fact, that's exactly what's happening, as I pointed out here.
But the truth will out anyway. Actually, it's the very ghouls who are pushing for ditching the dead-donor rule who are in some cases telling us these unpleasant facts, so there's no point in our hiding them from ourselves and from the public lest worse befall. Better for pro-lifers to know all the facts and guide their own actions and ideas accordingly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
