I want to introduce the words of this hymn, which we sang this morning, to any readers who may not be familiar with it. The lyrics are by Samuel J. Stone, who also wrote the words to "The Church's One Foundation." I've put in brackets the verses that don't appear in our hymnal at church; it's pretty long, and I think cutting a couple of verses was a good idea. Also, the words to the final verse don't seem to have the same poetic stresses as the words in the other verses, which would make that verse hard to set to music.
The present tune is very repetitive and dull, and I think it would be wonderful if one of our talented modern hymn writers got inspired and wrote a new, singable, tune to this biblical hymn:
Weary of earth, and laden with my sin,
I look at Heav’n and long to enter in,
But there no evil thing may find a home:
And yet I hear a voice that bids me “Come.”
[So vile I am, how dare I hope to stand
In the pure glory of that holy land?
Before the whiteness of that throne appear?
Yet there are hands stretched out to draw me near.]
The while I fain would tread the heav’nly way
Evil is ever with me day by day;
Yet on mine ears the gracious tidings fall:
“Repent, confess, thou shalt be loosed from all.”
It is the voice of Jesus that I hear;
His are the hands stretched out to draw me near,
And His the blood that can for all atone,
And set me faultless there before the throne.
’Twas He Who found me on the deathly wild,
And made me heir of Heav’n, the Father’s child,
And day by day, whereby my soul may live,
Gives me His grace of pardon, and will give.
O great Absolver, grant my soul may wear
The lowliest garb of penitence and prayer,
That in the Father’s courts my glorious dress
May be the garment of Thy righteousness.
Yea, Thou wilt answer for me, righteous Lord;
Thine all the merits, mine the great reward;
Thine the sharp thorns, and mine the golden crown;
Mine the life won, and Thine the life laid down.
[Naught can I bring, dear Lord, for all I owe,
Yet let my full heart what it can bestow;
Like Mary’s gift, let my devotion prove,
Forgiven greatly, how greatly I love.]
According to the Cyberhymnal, Stone said, "Of all my hymns [this] one…is the most dear to me because of the letters I have received from or about persons to whose joy and peace and believing it has been permitted to be instrumental."
Notice the emphasis on the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ as our "wedding garment" (2 Corinthians 5:21, Matthew 22) and on Jesus' substitutionary atonement.
Great hymn words.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Rifqa Bary Update: Judge throws out parents' frivolous motion
Good news: The judge in Rifqa Bary's case has thrown out the parents' motion to set aside dependency declaration and go to trial. This is a big victory, because it indicates more clearly than anything that has come before that Rifqa is not going to be sent back to her parents against her will. She turns eighteen in five months, on August 10.
This also vindicates the strategy of Rifqa's lawyers in getting the dependency declaration in the first place. As I have said repeatedly in other venues, a dependency declaration is a dependency declaration. Because the parents made this blatant power grab in attempting to get it thrown out, Pamela Geller has, unfortunately, been saying that Rifqa was "tricked," that the dependency declaration in January is "useless," and things of that sort. But actually, today's hearing confirms the legal situation: This wasn't some sort of agreement that the parents could simply "renege" on at will. They tried that and learned (surprise!) that a court declaration of dependency has a certain status and that it's up to the court whether to throw out its own declaration. That it was arrived at by way of the parents' having dropped their objections back in January doesn't make it a "deal" they can simply "back out of."
Unfortunately, Rifqa's immigration status remains up in the air. Her lawyers have filed motions with the court to declare a) that reconciliation with her parents is impossible and b) that it is not in her interests (no kidding!) to be sent back to Sri Lanka. It appears that, under federal law, these declarations by the state family court are part of the apparatus needed for getting her legal immigrant status here in the U.S. independent of her parents. It appears that the judge did not grant those motions today, but I haven't been able to find out if the judge rejected them or did not rule on them. It is apparently rather important to get this immigration thing sorted out for Rifqa before she turns eighteen, and that is why her lawyers are pursuing a special visa for her called (I'm told) an SJLV. That remains unresolved, as far as I can tell.
Let's praise the Lord for the good news thus far.
(I'll probably cross-post later at W4, but for now I want to leave Todd McKimmey's gorgeous photos top and center and not upstage them.)
This also vindicates the strategy of Rifqa's lawyers in getting the dependency declaration in the first place. As I have said repeatedly in other venues, a dependency declaration is a dependency declaration. Because the parents made this blatant power grab in attempting to get it thrown out, Pamela Geller has, unfortunately, been saying that Rifqa was "tricked," that the dependency declaration in January is "useless," and things of that sort. But actually, today's hearing confirms the legal situation: This wasn't some sort of agreement that the parents could simply "renege" on at will. They tried that and learned (surprise!) that a court declaration of dependency has a certain status and that it's up to the court whether to throw out its own declaration. That it was arrived at by way of the parents' having dropped their objections back in January doesn't make it a "deal" they can simply "back out of."
Unfortunately, Rifqa's immigration status remains up in the air. Her lawyers have filed motions with the court to declare a) that reconciliation with her parents is impossible and b) that it is not in her interests (no kidding!) to be sent back to Sri Lanka. It appears that, under federal law, these declarations by the state family court are part of the apparatus needed for getting her legal immigrant status here in the U.S. independent of her parents. It appears that the judge did not grant those motions today, but I haven't been able to find out if the judge rejected them or did not rule on them. It is apparently rather important to get this immigration thing sorted out for Rifqa before she turns eighteen, and that is why her lawyers are pursuing a special visa for her called (I'm told) an SJLV. That remains unresolved, as far as I can tell.
Let's praise the Lord for the good news thus far.
(I'll probably cross-post later at W4, but for now I want to leave Todd McKimmey's gorgeous photos top and center and not upstage them.)
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Forgiving those who haven't wronged you
I've often wondered about the problem of forgiving those who haven't wronged you.
Suppose, just for example, that I have a dear woman friend whose husband, whom I knew only somewhat, leaves her for another woman, betraying both her and their children.
It's not my business to forgive him, right? He hasn't done anything to me. But as I watch her heartbreak and that of the children and see all the harm he has caused, I become angrier and angrier. I may even fantasize about getting a chance to tell him off someday, to bring him to his senses, of course. Of course. Well, no, actually, just to tell him off.
Is it even meaningful to speak of my forgiving him? The notion of a debt, connected repeatedly in Scripture (both in Christ's parables and in the Lord's Prayer) with forgiveness, doesn't seem to apply in such a case. He doesn't owe me a debt, and it would be presumptuous in the extreme for me to forgive him for what he's done to others, as if I could tell him, "You're free of the debt you owe for all the harm you've done to your wife and children."
This question has bothered me for a long time, because psychologically, I think one can get so resentful on others' behalf that one really needs to forgive. It's often said that holding a grudge is a problem chiefly for the harm it does to the soul of one holding the grudge. But how to go about forgiving in such a case?
As I've been reading Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead and thinking about it for a review, it has seemed to me that I get a little glimpse of the answer. In a sense, the husband in my example has wronged his wife's friends as well as his wife and children. In a sense, he's wronged a whole bunch of people, because he has, we might say, messed up the world by his sin. That sin causes a ripple effect of pain and suffering both in the people he has wronged directly and also in the vicarious suffering taken on by those who love them. In that way, he has wronged me. But this fact, which hardly seems like good news, actually is good news, because, since he has wronged me, I also can have my own small share in forgiving him and in laying aside my resentment--which really can be hatred--and my grudge. That doesn't, of course, mean that he is clean of his sin before God, if he hasn't repented it and turned back, done what he can to make amends, and so forth. But that is between him and God. And if there are costs to be paid with the civil authorities (for example, if we are talking about a crime for which they are to execute justice), that, too, is between him and them. My own forgiveness, however, is made possible both by the grace of God and by the fact of the indirect wrong done to me.
Thoughts?
Suppose, just for example, that I have a dear woman friend whose husband, whom I knew only somewhat, leaves her for another woman, betraying both her and their children.
It's not my business to forgive him, right? He hasn't done anything to me. But as I watch her heartbreak and that of the children and see all the harm he has caused, I become angrier and angrier. I may even fantasize about getting a chance to tell him off someday, to bring him to his senses, of course. Of course. Well, no, actually, just to tell him off.
Is it even meaningful to speak of my forgiving him? The notion of a debt, connected repeatedly in Scripture (both in Christ's parables and in the Lord's Prayer) with forgiveness, doesn't seem to apply in such a case. He doesn't owe me a debt, and it would be presumptuous in the extreme for me to forgive him for what he's done to others, as if I could tell him, "You're free of the debt you owe for all the harm you've done to your wife and children."
This question has bothered me for a long time, because psychologically, I think one can get so resentful on others' behalf that one really needs to forgive. It's often said that holding a grudge is a problem chiefly for the harm it does to the soul of one holding the grudge. But how to go about forgiving in such a case?
As I've been reading Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead and thinking about it for a review, it has seemed to me that I get a little glimpse of the answer. In a sense, the husband in my example has wronged his wife's friends as well as his wife and children. In a sense, he's wronged a whole bunch of people, because he has, we might say, messed up the world by his sin. That sin causes a ripple effect of pain and suffering both in the people he has wronged directly and also in the vicarious suffering taken on by those who love them. In that way, he has wronged me. But this fact, which hardly seems like good news, actually is good news, because, since he has wronged me, I also can have my own small share in forgiving him and in laying aside my resentment--which really can be hatred--and my grudge. That doesn't, of course, mean that he is clean of his sin before God, if he hasn't repented it and turned back, done what he can to make amends, and so forth. But that is between him and God. And if there are costs to be paid with the civil authorities (for example, if we are talking about a crime for which they are to execute justice), that, too, is between him and them. My own forgiveness, however, is made possible both by the grace of God and by the fact of the indirect wrong done to me.
Thoughts?
Few thoughts and a few songs
Tomorrow I'll see if I can rustle up something more profound and serious to say. No promises.
For now, here is some more music with a few thoughts.
These are all obviously meant to be fun, but this first one does make me think of a passage in the novel Gilead. The down-and-out character Jack Boughton tells of going to a tent meeting. At that meeting, a man next to him "went down" as if he had been shot. Jack says he thought that if he'd been standing a couple of feet to the left, it would have been him, which is funny and sad all at once. The other man gets up and says that he is clean and that he was the worst of sinners. Jack is just embarrassed at the time, but when he tells the story, he tells it wistfully. He says that if God had saved him there, he could have looked people in the eyes. I can't help thinking of that every time the GVB sings, "Jesus' blood can make the vilest sinner clean."
This next one is related, though even less serious and more rousing. I'm told that despite the slight bluegrass sound of the piano (Gordon Mote is incredible) and the guitar, it is really Gospel and not bluegrass. "Child Forgiven"
And last of all, for pure fun, without a stitch of serious content, here is "Swing Down Chariot," combining the talents of the GVB and Signature Sound Quartet. But y'know what this one made me think of? Some of what Anthony Esolen (see his bio at Mere Comments from the sidebar--no independent link available) has written about male bonding and masculine activities. One of the neatest things about Bill Gaither is the way that he has acted as a mentor for younger singers over a period of many years. The "men doing something hard and skilled together" feeling comes across very strongly to me in this video. Notice Marsh Hall and Wes Hampton practically high-fiving each other at the end. (Advertising note: The Youtube videos of SSQ and GVB have motivated Eldest Daughter to buy their DVD, Together.)
For now, here is some more music with a few thoughts.
These are all obviously meant to be fun, but this first one does make me think of a passage in the novel Gilead. The down-and-out character Jack Boughton tells of going to a tent meeting. At that meeting, a man next to him "went down" as if he had been shot. Jack says he thought that if he'd been standing a couple of feet to the left, it would have been him, which is funny and sad all at once. The other man gets up and says that he is clean and that he was the worst of sinners. Jack is just embarrassed at the time, but when he tells the story, he tells it wistfully. He says that if God had saved him there, he could have looked people in the eyes. I can't help thinking of that every time the GVB sings, "Jesus' blood can make the vilest sinner clean."
This next one is related, though even less serious and more rousing. I'm told that despite the slight bluegrass sound of the piano (Gordon Mote is incredible) and the guitar, it is really Gospel and not bluegrass. "Child Forgiven"
And last of all, for pure fun, without a stitch of serious content, here is "Swing Down Chariot," combining the talents of the GVB and Signature Sound Quartet. But y'know what this one made me think of? Some of what Anthony Esolen (see his bio at Mere Comments from the sidebar--no independent link available) has written about male bonding and masculine activities. One of the neatest things about Bill Gaither is the way that he has acted as a mentor for younger singers over a period of many years. The "men doing something hard and skilled together" feeling comes across very strongly to me in this video. Notice Marsh Hall and Wes Hampton practically high-fiving each other at the end. (Advertising note: The Youtube videos of SSQ and GVB have motivated Eldest Daughter to buy their DVD, Together.)
Sunday, February 14, 2010
"Lead the Way"
By one of those happy liturgical coincidences, Valentine's Day this year falls on the Sunday right before Ash Wednesday, for which I Corinthians 13 is the reading and for which this is the collect:
In strict logic and taking the song with undue literalness, he was right. But anyone who has ever read I Corinthians 13 knows quite well what Medema means. There's certainly no way in this world that I will do and be everything that love means for me to do and to be. The only solution is the grace of God and our own willingness to keep on receiving it. The only sin that cannot be forgiven, because by definition it involves the rejection of forgiveness, is despair. C. S. Lewis says,
Now, for a bonus, though not directly related to the post topic, one of the quieter Gospel numbers on my list of songs to embed--"There is a River."
O Lord, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth; Send thy Holy Ghost, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee. Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.Blind singer Ken Medema has a song called "Lead the Way," unfortunately not available anywhere on-line that I can find. It begins, "There's no way in this world that I can do everything that love means for me to do. But as long as morning breaks another day, Lord, I'm yours, I'll follow, lead the way." I remember thirty years ago or so having an earnest conversation with a young friend about that song. He opined that it implied that God is asking us to do something strictly impossible, which makes God unjust. If there's no way in this world that I can do everything that love means for me to do, he argued, how can I be blamed for not doing it?
In strict logic and taking the song with undue literalness, he was right. But anyone who has ever read I Corinthians 13 knows quite well what Medema means. There's certainly no way in this world that I will do and be everything that love means for me to do and to be. The only solution is the grace of God and our own willingness to keep on receiving it. The only sin that cannot be forgiven, because by definition it involves the rejection of forgiveness, is despair. C. S. Lewis says,
No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home, but the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one's temper and give it up.And God is ready to pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, which leaves us no excuses whatsoever.
Now, for a bonus, though not directly related to the post topic, one of the quieter Gospel numbers on my list of songs to embed--"There is a River."
Friday, February 12, 2010
Privacy warning regarding Yahoo mail
Hey, all you Yahoo mail users out there. I just found out that Yahoo Mail (you know, the thing you thought you were using just for e-mail) is now pretending to be Facebook and being, if possible, even worse than Facebook about privacy. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Yahoo mail is making available to the public your birthday, including your age, and your location without your permission. Those under age 18 do not have their age displayed. You can get it to hide your age if you are over 18, but the location and the birthday day and month will continue to be publicly available information. Your only recourse is to put in a phony location and birthday, which I think is perfectly justified, considering that the information is no one else's business and certainly is not something Yahoo has the right unilaterally to publish.
Naturally, if you start using their posting option and posting "statuses" (see the Facebook envy coming out?), adding more information to your profile, and the like, you'll have to encounter a whole web of privacy settings and such, which I have no interest in mastering, so I just don't use those features.
It's particularly outrageous that minor children have their locations displayed as part of their public profile without their or their parents' consent now on Yahoo, and the only way to get around this is to discover it and enter something like "Undisclosed Locationville, AK," on your child's profile. I find this really angering.
So far, Google mail has not jumped on this bandwagon all the way. Gmail has added a "buzz" feature which is similar, but here's the difference: Thus far, gmail does not automatically generate a public profile for you without your consent, as Yahoo did. You have to create such a profile deliberately if you want to use the "buzz" feature, so if you just don't use that feature, you don't have a gmail profile. Of course, if you have a blogger account, such as the one I have for this blog, you already have a Google profile, but you made that one on purpose and can control its contents. So Yahoo gets my thumbs down and Gmail my thumbs up on the privacy front.
Naturally, if you start using their posting option and posting "statuses" (see the Facebook envy coming out?), adding more information to your profile, and the like, you'll have to encounter a whole web of privacy settings and such, which I have no interest in mastering, so I just don't use those features.
It's particularly outrageous that minor children have their locations displayed as part of their public profile without their or their parents' consent now on Yahoo, and the only way to get around this is to discover it and enter something like "Undisclosed Locationville, AK," on your child's profile. I find this really angering.
So far, Google mail has not jumped on this bandwagon all the way. Gmail has added a "buzz" feature which is similar, but here's the difference: Thus far, gmail does not automatically generate a public profile for you without your consent, as Yahoo did. You have to create such a profile deliberately if you want to use the "buzz" feature, so if you just don't use that feature, you don't have a gmail profile. Of course, if you have a blogger account, such as the one I have for this blog, you already have a Google profile, but you made that one on purpose and can control its contents. So Yahoo gets my thumbs down and Gmail my thumbs up on the privacy front.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
"No Other Name But Jesus" and "He Touched Me"
It had been so long since I heard this song that at first I told Eldest Daughter that I didn't know it. How could I have forgotten?
Steve Green praises the name of Jesus:
It led me to reflect on the phenomenon of hand-raising. In the churches in which I was raised, hand-raising was a no-no. Way too Pentecostal. (Though it has Scriptural warrant in 2 Timothy 2:8.) The hand-lifting you see in the Gaither band reunion represents what I might call the evangelical compromise. Nobody gets up and starts dancing around. It's not a "me" thing, but it is a way of using one's posture and body to express praise to God. The nearest Anglican or traditional Catholic equivalent, I suppose, is kneeling. But that is different, too. Just interesting to reflect on.
Next, a beloved oldie, with a group put together by Gaither only at the reunion:
I hear some guy named Elvis also covered this one once...
Steve Green praises the name of Jesus:
It led me to reflect on the phenomenon of hand-raising. In the churches in which I was raised, hand-raising was a no-no. Way too Pentecostal. (Though it has Scriptural warrant in 2 Timothy 2:8.) The hand-lifting you see in the Gaither band reunion represents what I might call the evangelical compromise. Nobody gets up and starts dancing around. It's not a "me" thing, but it is a way of using one's posture and body to express praise to God. The nearest Anglican or traditional Catholic equivalent, I suppose, is kneeling. But that is different, too. Just interesting to reflect on.
Next, a beloved oldie, with a group put together by Gaither only at the reunion:
I hear some guy named Elvis also covered this one once...
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Judge sends an ultimatum to Lisa Miller--wherever she may be
A follow-up on this story:
A judge has said that if Lisa Miller does not turn over her child to her lesbian ex-lover Janet Jenkins (no relation to the child, Isabella) by February 23, he will "consider all possible sanctions under the law"--presumably a threat to issue an arrest warrant. So far Judge Cohen has not issued a warrant for Miller, who disappeared with daughter Isabella last month.
Alert reader Scott noticed that the Protect Isabella Coalition web site has disappeared. Life Site News also notes that Lisa Miller's Facebook page is gone.
A judge has said that if Lisa Miller does not turn over her child to her lesbian ex-lover Janet Jenkins (no relation to the child, Isabella) by February 23, he will "consider all possible sanctions under the law"--presumably a threat to issue an arrest warrant. So far Judge Cohen has not issued a warrant for Miller, who disappeared with daughter Isabella last month.
Alert reader Scott noticed that the Protect Isabella Coalition web site has disappeared. Life Site News also notes that Lisa Miller's Facebook page is gone.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Gaither vocal band reunion music I
Back to music. I hope my readers who aren't into the same kind of music I'm into don't mind the gospel and Christian contemp. too much. (But look below. There's a hymn in this post.) I've just discovered a bit of a treasure trove through Eldest Daughter in the form of a whole bunch of Youtube videos from a 2008 (I'm told) reunion of the Gaither vocal band. There are quite a few that I want to post here, just so those who do enjoy these kinds of things can have their attention drawn to them. I'll just start with a couple and put them up one or two at a time.
The reunion is star-studded--Larnelle Harris, Steve Green, Russ Taff, etc. I'm not as familiar with all these as Eldest Daughter, and she keeps having to tell me who's who. Guy Penrod I had never seen before. He looks, unfortunately, like a failed try-out for the part of Gandalf, but he can sing.
So first of all, fun--"He Came Down To My Level."
I love the spirit in these videos. You feel like you're really there. It's like getting together with friends and singing for fun. And there's kind of a neat masculine atmosphere, too. The band is a men's group. The wives are there, but in the background. The men are having a good time singing together.
Now here's an unlikely one. Neither gospel nor Christian contemporary. A hymn. Moreover, a hymn they even have in my 1940 Anglican hymnal. Even a "song to die for"--that is, a song about life and death and the meaning of all of life for a Christian. Done a capella--bit of a Glad sound. Very, very classy. Listen to it even if you don't like CCM.
"Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go."
More in other posts.
Update: Singin' in the shower. Includes "Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go" and also--even better, in this recording, IMO--"That Great Gettin' Up Morning" and "Good News, the Chariot's Comin'."
The reunion is star-studded--Larnelle Harris, Steve Green, Russ Taff, etc. I'm not as familiar with all these as Eldest Daughter, and she keeps having to tell me who's who. Guy Penrod I had never seen before. He looks, unfortunately, like a failed try-out for the part of Gandalf, but he can sing.
So first of all, fun--"He Came Down To My Level."
I love the spirit in these videos. You feel like you're really there. It's like getting together with friends and singing for fun. And there's kind of a neat masculine atmosphere, too. The band is a men's group. The wives are there, but in the background. The men are having a good time singing together.
Now here's an unlikely one. Neither gospel nor Christian contemporary. A hymn. Moreover, a hymn they even have in my 1940 Anglican hymnal. Even a "song to die for"--that is, a song about life and death and the meaning of all of life for a Christian. Done a capella--bit of a Glad sound. Very, very classy. Listen to it even if you don't like CCM.
"Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go."
More in other posts.
Update: Singin' in the shower. Includes "Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go" and also--even better, in this recording, IMO--"That Great Gettin' Up Morning" and "Good News, the Chariot's Comin'."
Friday, January 29, 2010
Rifqa's parents refuse to give up
Rifqa Bary's parents and their CAIR lawyer are furious: Apparently Rifqa's keepers with Franklin County Children's Services lifted her isolation to some extent after she was declared a dependent of the State of Ohio. We now learn (from their furious reaction) that during these ten days she was even--I know this will shock you--allowed to go to church. Can't have that.
So they are "going back on" the deal for her to be a dependent of the State of Ohio until she turns 18. What does this mean? I don't know. Can they just throw the dependency into question like that by sheer fiat? Their demands now include a full-blown dependency trial, which they had previously waived, and the removal of her present guardian ad litem and court-appointed attorney. Y'know, it's a funny thing the way Rifqa's GALs and court-appointed attorneys, whatever their limitations and faults, are never willing to enforce what her parents want. I think she must be a very lovable girl.
This poor girl, in her senior year of high school, once again doesn't know what the future will bring. I thank God that her isolation was lifted for a short while. These things can be changed on a day-to-day basis, and who knows if the case goes to trial whether she will be returned to isolation.
Heageny has the story here.
Atlas Shrugged readers are asking questions of Atlas-friend lawyer John Jay to get his take on this latest development. That will make it worth reading the comments thread there, at least for me. I'll pass on what I glean for those who don't read Atlas.
So they are "going back on" the deal for her to be a dependent of the State of Ohio until she turns 18. What does this mean? I don't know. Can they just throw the dependency into question like that by sheer fiat? Their demands now include a full-blown dependency trial, which they had previously waived, and the removal of her present guardian ad litem and court-appointed attorney. Y'know, it's a funny thing the way Rifqa's GALs and court-appointed attorneys, whatever their limitations and faults, are never willing to enforce what her parents want. I think she must be a very lovable girl.
This poor girl, in her senior year of high school, once again doesn't know what the future will bring. I thank God that her isolation was lifted for a short while. These things can be changed on a day-to-day basis, and who knows if the case goes to trial whether she will be returned to isolation.
Heageny has the story here.
Atlas Shrugged readers are asking questions of Atlas-friend lawyer John Jay to get his take on this latest development. That will make it worth reading the comments thread there, at least for me. I'll pass on what I glean for those who don't read Atlas.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Music from Memory Lane
Eldest Daughter has been foraging amongst my old cassette tapes and vinyl records. She found a Steve Green tape and promptly went on-line to find digital versions of his music. She found the performance below of "God and God Alone"--which sounds just like the tape version. She has, of course, researched what Steve is up to now, and she says that he doesn't try to hit as many high notes but is still singing well. She also informs me that for an awful period later on he did sport a mullet but mercifully not for very long.
It's hard to believe he was only about thirty when he recorded this. He has a wonderfully mature voice, while looking incredibly young.
Enjoy.
It's hard to believe he was only about thirty when he recorded this. He has a wonderfully mature voice, while looking incredibly young.
Enjoy.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Good news for Rifqa Bary, though she remains isolated
I have finally managed to get on Pastor Jamal Jivanjee's mailing list for updates on Rifqa Bary, so I got this hot off the press. Pastor Jivanjee reports that today, Jan. 19, Rifqa was declared a dependent of the State of Ohio. According to him, this will insure that she stays in foster care until she turns 18. I have heard this conclusion disputed elsewhere, but it's definitely a big step forward for her and apparently creates some sort of prima facie case that she will not be immediately returned to her parents. It takes her out of a legal limbo.
Jamal reports that Rifqa had to agree "that she violated rules by fleeing her home." Well, um, yes, in one sense. I'm not sure exactly what this admission on her part amounts to, legally. Pamela Geller is completely caught up in the Scott Brown Senate race but will probably have some thoughts on the legal angle concerning this admission by Rifqa in "exchange" for dependency.
Pastor Jivanjee reports that Rifqa remains isolated from fellow Christians, so the conditions of her imprisonment (and that really is what it amounts to) within the foster system has not changed. She is not permitted visitors or phone or e-mail contact with any of her Christian friends, according to past reports by Pastor Jivanjee. She will not be eighteen until Aug. 10, which is a long time to remain in something akin to solitary confinement and, for a Christian, isolated in the flesh from the Body of Christ.
But now she has hope that she will not simply be abruptly returned to her parents and whisked off to Sri Lanka, and hope will help a great deal.
Also, we know that no Christian is truly isolated, for Our Lord is always with us, and the Body of Christ is with Rifqa in prayer. Continue in prayer for her. I will continue to give updates, especially if I can find out whether she is still being allowed to receive cards and notes of encouragement.
Pastor Jivanjee reports that her dependency hearing for January 28 has now been canceled.
Jamal reports that Rifqa had to agree "that she violated rules by fleeing her home." Well, um, yes, in one sense. I'm not sure exactly what this admission on her part amounts to, legally. Pamela Geller is completely caught up in the Scott Brown Senate race but will probably have some thoughts on the legal angle concerning this admission by Rifqa in "exchange" for dependency.
Pastor Jivanjee reports that Rifqa remains isolated from fellow Christians, so the conditions of her imprisonment (and that really is what it amounts to) within the foster system has not changed. She is not permitted visitors or phone or e-mail contact with any of her Christian friends, according to past reports by Pastor Jivanjee. She will not be eighteen until Aug. 10, which is a long time to remain in something akin to solitary confinement and, for a Christian, isolated in the flesh from the Body of Christ.
But now she has hope that she will not simply be abruptly returned to her parents and whisked off to Sri Lanka, and hope will help a great deal.
Also, we know that no Christian is truly isolated, for Our Lord is always with us, and the Body of Christ is with Rifqa in prayer. Continue in prayer for her. I will continue to give updates, especially if I can find out whether she is still being allowed to receive cards and notes of encouragement.
Pastor Jivanjee reports that her dependency hearing for January 28 has now been canceled.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
What not to tell a young inquirer about the evidences of the Christian faith
This post by Professor (of a named chair at Princeton) George Hunsinger was recently drawn to my attention by a friend. It is Hunsinger's answer to a letter--either a real letter or an imaginary letter, he does not say, though I suspect it's real--from a young person inquiring about the reliability of the Gospels. Evidently Hunsinger's correspondent is inclined to disbelieve Christianity because he does not think the Gospels are reliable. Hunsinger gives only a couple of quotations from the inquiring letter, because the inquiring letter is just a launching point for Hunsinger's own (dreadful) views about evidence, faith, and Christianity.
To be fair, Hunsinger gives a somewhat grudging tip of the hat to some good books, including several I have recommended myself--Bauckham, Bruce, and N.T. Wright. (See my post here where I mention several of these.) In a sense, he recommends them to his correspondent. But his treatment of them is extremely tentative, and he repeatedly issues caveats to the effect that they overstate their case, that the reader shouldn't think from his recommending the books that evidence is really what it's all about, and so forth.
Hunsinger's statements about the strength of the historical evidence are strangely contradictory, leaving the reader with the impression that Hunsinger doesn't think much of the evidence, even though in one place he says that there is a "strong case." If the post really was written originally as a letter to a real person, I cannot understand why Hunsinger did not read it over, even once, after writing it and say to himself, "He's gonna wonder what in the world I'm even saying." Viz.:
What a mish-mash. It's pretty safe to say, though (and if you have any doubt, I encourage you to read the entire post), that Hunsinger doesn't think all that much of the strength of the historical evidence for Christianity.
Moreover, it's safe to say that he thinks that's a good thing. Because it's when he gets up on his semi-Barthian high horse that Hunsinger really gets going and that we really find out where he's coming from. In brief, he likes what he takes to be the "inconclusive" and "ambiguous" nature of the historical evidence for Christianity, because the weakness of the case makes it possible for us to take a leap of faith, and that's really, in his view, what it's all about. For example,
A centerpiece of Hunsinger's position is the downplaying of the historical nature of the Gospels. For example,
In contrast to Hunsinger's piece, and to show you by contrast just what feeble, confusing, and unsatisfactory fare Hunsinger is offering, I present you with two far more manly pieces of prose. The first is from C. S. Lewis, precisely on the question of whether the Gospels are historical reports (which Hunsinger expressly denies) or instead are "spiritual."
No less than a rigid fundamentalist who would be terribly shaken if he discovered the world to be more than 6,000 years old, Hunsinger wants the Bible to be protected from the possible buffeting of unyielding facts by being shut up in a locked box marked "Faith." The rigid fundamentalist locks up the Bible (and his interpretation of it) to protect it from possible refutation by not allowing its interpretation to be influenced in any respect by facts discovered independently. The fuzzy-headed modernist theologian locks the Bible up to keep it safe from refutation by insisting that it isn't really historical at all. Each of these asks for a double standard in his own favor, because he is not really confident that these sacred texts can meet the challenge of being treated like ordinary documents.
The reality (surprising to some) in New Testament studies is that the Christian can only benefit from a "no double standard" approach, for it is the secularists who prefer to remain ignorant of the normal standards of historiography and to treat the Gospels as unreliable if, for example, they do not coincide with one another in every detail (though of course if they did so coincide, the secularists would be the first to point out the evidence of entire collusion and copying).
As a bonus, here is Thomas Chalmers on the historicity of the Gospels. His point is that the evangelists were not afraid to submit their account to historical judgement, precisely because their story was historically true.
I find that I see so little rip-roaring evidentialism being written these days that quotations like these have something of the invigorating quality of cold water splashed in the face. These men were not afraid of objective evidential judgement. Nor should we be. I encourage all of you who teach or who work in any pastoral capacity: Teach those under your care and influence that the Gospels don't need affirmative action. The Christ of history vs. Christ of faith shtick has run its course, and we will be much, much better off if we leave it behind, permanently.
(Another post that might be of interest is here. Don't forget the post already linked on "Evidential Ammo For the Christian Soldier," here.)
An annotated bibliography with more material, written by Esteemed Husband, is here.
HT to Esteemed Husband, Tim McGrew, for the quotations from Lewis, Greenleaf, and Chalmers and for the links to them.
To be fair, Hunsinger gives a somewhat grudging tip of the hat to some good books, including several I have recommended myself--Bauckham, Bruce, and N.T. Wright. (See my post here where I mention several of these.) In a sense, he recommends them to his correspondent. But his treatment of them is extremely tentative, and he repeatedly issues caveats to the effect that they overstate their case, that the reader shouldn't think from his recommending the books that evidence is really what it's all about, and so forth.
Hunsinger's statements about the strength of the historical evidence are strangely contradictory, leaving the reader with the impression that Hunsinger doesn't think much of the evidence, even though in one place he says that there is a "strong case." If the post really was written originally as a letter to a real person, I cannot understand why Hunsinger did not read it over, even once, after writing it and say to himself, "He's gonna wonder what in the world I'm even saying." Viz.:
I think the Christian faith has to meet a minimal standard, but only a minimal standard.
In the end I think the historical evidence remains ambiguous and inconclusive, taken as a whole. There is not a lot of data to go on, which allows the evidence to be read either positively or negatively. Positively, certain lines of plausibility can be established for the "factual" claims of the gospel on historical grounds, but negatively, on the other hand, these lines of reasoning are always open to challenge and doubt. There is, again, not enough evidence to work with one way or the other that would allow us to come to unshakable historical conclusions.
Nevertheless, a strong historical case can indeed be made in favor of Christ's resurrection, for example, but not one that I think is beyond "reasonable" doubt. Reason, in any case, reaches its categorical limit here.
In his very intriguing book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2008, 540 pp.), Bauckham makes a strong case for the general reliability of the gospels. I don't think the case is as iron-clad as he does, but I do regard it as impressive. Bauckham presents a very strong and learned argument that, contrary to much modern scholarship, the gospels did not arise very long after the fact.
The point is rather that the historical claims of the gospel are susceptible to a respectable defense.
A more popular but still scholarly work would be Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (2008) by Craig A. Evans (290 pp.). I again have the same kinds of reservations. In other words, I don't reject his arguments out of hand but I take them with a grain of salt. [ME: Does he even know what the idiom "take something with a grain of salt" means?] They are impressive but inconclusive, though they show why the minimal standard that I set forth earlier has actually been met, and more than met.
It is finally not we who read the NT, but the NT that reads us. It calls us and our detached role as would-be authoritative, evidence-weighing spectators radically into question.(Clarification: The above paragraphs are all separate block quotations, not a single long quotation. They do not come immediately after one another in Hunsinger's piece.)
What a mish-mash. It's pretty safe to say, though (and if you have any doubt, I encourage you to read the entire post), that Hunsinger doesn't think all that much of the strength of the historical evidence for Christianity.
Moreover, it's safe to say that he thinks that's a good thing. Because it's when he gets up on his semi-Barthian high horse that Hunsinger really gets going and that we really find out where he's coming from. In brief, he likes what he takes to be the "inconclusive" and "ambiguous" nature of the historical evidence for Christianity, because the weakness of the case makes it possible for us to take a leap of faith, and that's really, in his view, what it's all about. For example,
The Christian faith is far more a matter of radical conversion than it is of rational persuasion. The claim that a marginal Jew who was put to death on a cross should have been raised from the dead so that he now reigns as Lord and Savior is never going to be plausible to rational or evidential considerations. It is always going to be foolishness...
The NT cannot be read intelligently unless it is read as a spiritual book, as opposed to a merely historical document. The truth to which it bears witness necessarily transcends every ordinary rational mode of perception. Unless the doors of perception are opened, and we begin thinking in a whole new framework, it will never make any sense.This is all standard modernist fare, and God knows, it's been around poisoning seminaries, Protestant and Catholic alike, for far too long. But I ask you to think: When we say this sort of thing to our young people, I will tell you what we are saying to them. "The God I believe in asks of you that you show yourself truly abject by being willing to give up normal standards of evidence, being willing to believe the claims of Christianity on evidence that is not really all that good, evidence that is shaky and questionable. He asks, to at least some extent, that you check your mind at the door. That's a really radical commitment, and it's what God glories in and hence what we Christians glory in." Which is a recipe for driving away every thinking person who hears you.
A centerpiece of Hunsinger's position is the downplaying of the historical nature of the Gospels. For example,
What I am trying to suggest is that everything finally depends on what kind of documents the gospels and other NT writings are. They are not really historical reports. They do not fall into the category of report but rather into the category of witness. They all present themselves, in various ways, as witnesses to the Risen Christ. The picture of Jesus in the gospels, for example, represents an overlay of the Risen Christ upon the "historical" Jesus, because the point is that the historical Jesus and the Risen Christ are finally one and the same.This is weaseling. Hunsinger carefully doesn't actually say that the Gospel writers inserted accounts of things that didn't really happen, in the prosaic sense of, you know, really happening, in order to show us the Risen Christ (note the heavy capital letter on "risen"). He doesn't, in fact, make himself very clear at all. What the dickens does it even mean to say that "the picture of Jesus in the gospels, for example, represents an overlay of the Risen Christ upon the 'historical' Jesus"? Why the quotation marks around the word 'historical'? Why, for that matter, does he put quotation marks around the word 'factual' in one of the quotations I gave above? What does this stuff about the capital-R Risen Christ have to do with the claim that the Gospels aren't really historical? That claim is, in any event, absolute balderdash, and dangerous balderdash at that. The Gospels most certainly are historical in genre, that specific sub-genre known as memoirs. They focus, to be sure, on a particular person. They are not meant to be chronicles of the general events of their time. But they are, indeed, meant to be reports of things that really happened in that boring, prosaic sense to which Hunsinger seems to have an allergy.
In contrast to Hunsinger's piece, and to show you by contrast just what feeble, confusing, and unsatisfactory fare Hunsinger is offering, I present you with two far more manly pieces of prose. The first is from C. S. Lewis, precisely on the question of whether the Gospels are historical reports (which Hunsinger expressly denies) or instead are "spiritual."
In what is already a very old commentary I read that the fourth Gospel is regarded by one school as a ‘spiritual romance’, ‘a poem not a history’, to be judged by the same canons as Nathan’s parable, the Book of Jonah, Paradise Lost ‘or, more exactly, Pilgrim’s Progress’. After a man has said that, why need one attend to anything else he says about any book in the world? Note that he regards Pilgrim’s Progress, a story which professes to be a dream and flaunts its allegorical nature by every single proper name it uses, as the closest parallel. Note that the whole epic panoply of Milton goes for nothing. But even if we leave our the grosser absurdities and keep to Jonah, the insensitiveness is crass–Jonah, a tale with as few even pretended historical attachments as Job, grotesque in incident and surely not without a distinct, though of course edifying, vein of typically Jewish humour. Then turn to John. Read the dialogues: that with the Samaritan woman at the well, or that which follows the healing of the man born blind. Look at its pictures: Jesus (if I may use the word) doodling with his finger in the dust; the unforgettable en de nux (xiii, 30). I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage–though it may no doubt contain errors–pretty close up to the facts; nearly as close as Boswell. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors, or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue, it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn’t see this has simply not learned to read.The other, older still (mid-1800's) is Simon Greenleaf:
C. S. Lewis, “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism,” in Christian Reflections (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967), pp. 154-55.
All that Christianity asks of men on this subject, is, that they would be consistent with themselves; that they would treat its evidences as they treat the evidence of other things; and that they would try and judge its actors and witnesses, as they deal with their fellow men, when testifying to human affairs and actions, in human tribunals. Let the witnesses be compared with themselves, with each other, and with surrounding facts and circumstances; and let their testimony be sifted, as if it were given in a court of justice, on the side of the adverse party, the witness being subjected to a rigorous cross-examination. The result, it is confidently believed, will be an undoubting conviction of their integrity, ability, and truth. In the course of such an examination, the undesigned coincidences will multiply upon us at every step in our progress; the probability of the veracity of the witnesses and of the reality of the occurrences which they relate will increase, until it acquires, for all practical purposes, the value and force of demonstration.What is really radical--in the sense of being countercultural and shocking to many--is an evidentialism like Greenleaf's that insists that the Gospels not be treated with kid gloves. No contrast could be greater than that between Greenleaf's challenge to men to be "consistent with themselves" when they read and judge the Gospels and to judge them as they would judge the "evidences of other things" and Hunsinger's attempt prophylactically to ward off judgement from the NT by telling us that it "calls us and our detached role as would-be authoritative, evidence-weighing spectators radically into question," that it "transcends every ordinary rational mode of perception," that the claims of Christianity are "never going to be plausible to rational or evidential considerations." Whence comes the great difference between these writers? It comes from the fact that Greenleaf, unlike Hunsinger, has confidence in the historicity of the Gospels and therefore in their ability to bear such scrutiny. It comes, in short, from the fact that Hunsinger represents a theological establishment that has lost its nerve.
Simon Greenleaf, The Testimony of the Evangelists
No less than a rigid fundamentalist who would be terribly shaken if he discovered the world to be more than 6,000 years old, Hunsinger wants the Bible to be protected from the possible buffeting of unyielding facts by being shut up in a locked box marked "Faith." The rigid fundamentalist locks up the Bible (and his interpretation of it) to protect it from possible refutation by not allowing its interpretation to be influenced in any respect by facts discovered independently. The fuzzy-headed modernist theologian locks the Bible up to keep it safe from refutation by insisting that it isn't really historical at all. Each of these asks for a double standard in his own favor, because he is not really confident that these sacred texts can meet the challenge of being treated like ordinary documents.
The reality (surprising to some) in New Testament studies is that the Christian can only benefit from a "no double standard" approach, for it is the secularists who prefer to remain ignorant of the normal standards of historiography and to treat the Gospels as unreliable if, for example, they do not coincide with one another in every detail (though of course if they did so coincide, the secularists would be the first to point out the evidence of entire collusion and copying).
As a bonus, here is Thomas Chalmers on the historicity of the Gospels. His point is that the evangelists were not afraid to submit their account to historical judgement, precisely because their story was historically true.
Had the evangelists been false historians, they would not have committed themselves upon so many particulars. They would not have furnished the vigilant inquirers of that period with such an effectual instrument for bringing them into discredit with the people; nor foolishly supplied, in every page of their narrative, so many materials for a cross-examination, which would infallibly have disgraced them.
Now, we of this age can institute the same cross-examination. We can compare the evangelical writers with contemporary authors, and verify a number of circumstances in the history, and government, and peculiar economy of the Jewish people. We therefore have it in our power to institute a cross-examination upon the writers of the New Testament; and the freedom and frequency of their allusions to these circumstances supply us with ample materials for it. The fact, that they are borne out in their minute and incidental allusions by the testimony of other historians, gives a strong weight of what has been called circumstantial evidence in their favour. As a specimen of the argument, let us confine our observations to the history of our Saviour’s trial, and execution, and burial. They brought him to Pontius Pilate. We know both from Tacitus and Josephus, that he was at that time governor of Judea. A sentence from him was necesary before they could proceed to the execution of Jesus; and we know that the power of life and death was usually vested in the Roman governor. Our Saviour was treated with derision; and this we know to have been a customary practice at that time, previous to the execution of criminals, and during the time of it. Pilate scourged Jesus before he gave him up to be crucified. We know from ancient authors, that this was a very usual practice among the Romans. The account of an execution generally run in this form: He was stripped, whipped, and beheaded or executed. According to the evangelists, his accusation was written on the top of the cross; and we learn from Suetonius and others, that the crime of the person to be executed was affixed to the instrument of his punishment. According to the evangelist, this accusation was written in three different languages; and we know from Josephus, that it was quite common in Jerusalem to have all public advertisements written in this manner. According to the evangelists, Jesus had to bear his cross; and we know from other resources of information, that this was the constant practice of these times. According to the evangelists, the body of Jesus was given up to be buried at the request of friends. We know that, unless the criminal was infamous, this was the law, or the custom with all Roman governors.
These, and a few more particulars of the same kind, occur within the compass of a single page of the evangelical history.
Thomas Chalmers, The Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation, 6th ed. (Andover: Flagg & Gould, 1818), pp. 55-57.
I find that I see so little rip-roaring evidentialism being written these days that quotations like these have something of the invigorating quality of cold water splashed in the face. These men were not afraid of objective evidential judgement. Nor should we be. I encourage all of you who teach or who work in any pastoral capacity: Teach those under your care and influence that the Gospels don't need affirmative action. The Christ of history vs. Christ of faith shtick has run its course, and we will be much, much better off if we leave it behind, permanently.
(Another post that might be of interest is here. Don't forget the post already linked on "Evidential Ammo For the Christian Soldier," here.)
An annotated bibliography with more material, written by Esteemed Husband, is here.
HT to Esteemed Husband, Tim McGrew, for the quotations from Lewis, Greenleaf, and Chalmers and for the links to them.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Next Rifqa hearing--Updated
Rifqa's next actual hearing is January 28. There is a minor hearing on January 19, but according to Jamal Jivanjee, this will be only to hear motions. I'm not sure that's always "only," because some of the motions from the parents' attorneys have been outrageous, but Jamal's take is that the one on January 28 is the one to focus our prayers on.
I already reported in the post just below that Rifqa's isolation has tightened since the December 22 hearing. Pamela Geller has a typically hysterical and unclear post on something like the same topic here. (Warning: The new banner is very tacky, even worse than the previous one.) I'm becoming frustrated with Geller's style, chiefly because she reports things entirely uncited. She doesn't even say, "An anonymous source told me that X." She just says things, leaving one unclear as to whether she is inferring this from some other fact or was told it clearly by someone. It makes it difficult to know how to take some of her claims. For example, she says that the magistrate at the last hearing said that there were to be "no surprises" in the case and that everything was to be discussed between her (the judge) and the lawyers in chambers ahead of time. Well, first of all, why was this not reported at the time in Jamal's report on the hearing? Since Pamela wasn't at the hearing, whom did she get this from?
But Pamela goes on, "no Islam. You can not introduce Islam." Unclear: Is this supposed to mean that the magistrate told the lawyers they cannot introduce Islam in court? Was this supposedly said in open court? I cannot believe it would not have been reported until now--by Pamela or Jamal, if no one else--if this has been known since the December 22 hearing. So, what is Pamela saying? And if she is saying that the magistrate says they cannot introduce Islam, then why the dickens does she keep abusing Rifqa's lawyers for not introducing Islam, as though it is entirely up to them?
Don't misunderstand me: I suspect that when Pamela reports something definitely and specifically as fact, she has reasons for doing so. But it would be helpful if she would tell us her reasons and also helpful if she would organize her posts better so they aren't just confusing, hodge-podge rants.
In this most recent post, she also reports (without saying how she knows it or providing a link to a source) that Rifqa's foster home location is now known to her parents' (CAIR-connected) attorney. This could be a very serious thing and very dangerous to Rifqa. We should pray for her safety all the more. But I wish Pamela would give some idea how she knows this.
Let us keep Rifqa in prayer on the 28th and every day as well.
Update: Now confirmed: Rifqa's parents and their attorney received her present foster care address. I hold no brief for Meredith Heagny of the Columbus Dispatch. She is a dhimmi reporter and pretty clearly anti-Rifqa. But when somebody leaks something to Heagny (whether they should have or not), she tells you the background, so that you believe her. Rifqa's attorneys have asked that she be moved to a new foster home, because in the course of the discovery process leading up to her hearing, her current address was revealed by Franklin County Children's Services(!) to all parties, including her parents and their attorney.
Also, it now appears that a person who has been named all along as Rifqa's guardian ad litem is in fact one of her own lawyers and that she has a different guardian ad litem (and has had all along) whose name I had not previously known. Angela Lloyd, whom I have believed was her G.A.L. and who at least appeared to be to some degree on her side, is not her G.A.L. but one of her own lawyers. The name of Rifqa's actual G.A.L. is Bonnie Vangeloff. This may shed some light on a deal Rifqa's parents' attorney struck with Rifqa's own attorneys after the December 22 hearing to have all Rifqa's mail screened by the guardian ad litem (discussed by Jamal Jivanjee here). At the time, I did not report this specific development, because I believed the screening was being done by Angela Lloyd, to whose c/o address all mail was being sent anyway. Now it emerges that this was indeed a change. I still believe that we should send notes of encouragement to Rifqa in the hopes that Vangeloff will let them through.
The third unpleasant thing that has emerged is that Rifqa's outgoing mail is at least sometimes being copied and given to FCCS, which is then moving to cut off her out-going mail to specific people. Rifqa's attorneys have agreed that she cannot send or receive any communication from the Lorenzes and Brian Williams, the people who helped her when she first ran away from home. This specified cut-off of outgoing mail was requested after Atty. Jim Zorn of FCCS (who has been a real mover in the "isolate Rifqa" push since the day she arrived in Ohio) found out that (horrors!) Rifqa "caused a birthday card to be sent" to Pastor Lorenz which "contained various statements that are of concern." This is all in the Heagny article linked above. Evidently Heagny doesn't know, so neither do we, what Rifqa could possibly have said that caused Zorn to try to forbid her to write to the Lorenzes. But who sent Zorn a copy of Rifqa's birthday card to Pastor Lorenz? Very creepy.
I already reported in the post just below that Rifqa's isolation has tightened since the December 22 hearing. Pamela Geller has a typically hysterical and unclear post on something like the same topic here. (Warning: The new banner is very tacky, even worse than the previous one.) I'm becoming frustrated with Geller's style, chiefly because she reports things entirely uncited. She doesn't even say, "An anonymous source told me that X." She just says things, leaving one unclear as to whether she is inferring this from some other fact or was told it clearly by someone. It makes it difficult to know how to take some of her claims. For example, she says that the magistrate at the last hearing said that there were to be "no surprises" in the case and that everything was to be discussed between her (the judge) and the lawyers in chambers ahead of time. Well, first of all, why was this not reported at the time in Jamal's report on the hearing? Since Pamela wasn't at the hearing, whom did she get this from?
But Pamela goes on, "no Islam. You can not introduce Islam." Unclear: Is this supposed to mean that the magistrate told the lawyers they cannot introduce Islam in court? Was this supposedly said in open court? I cannot believe it would not have been reported until now--by Pamela or Jamal, if no one else--if this has been known since the December 22 hearing. So, what is Pamela saying? And if she is saying that the magistrate says they cannot introduce Islam, then why the dickens does she keep abusing Rifqa's lawyers for not introducing Islam, as though it is entirely up to them?
Don't misunderstand me: I suspect that when Pamela reports something definitely and specifically as fact, she has reasons for doing so. But it would be helpful if she would tell us her reasons and also helpful if she would organize her posts better so they aren't just confusing, hodge-podge rants.
In this most recent post, she also reports (without saying how she knows it or providing a link to a source) that Rifqa's foster home location is now known to her parents' (CAIR-connected) attorney. This could be a very serious thing and very dangerous to Rifqa. We should pray for her safety all the more. But I wish Pamela would give some idea how she knows this.
Let us keep Rifqa in prayer on the 28th and every day as well.
Update: Now confirmed: Rifqa's parents and their attorney received her present foster care address. I hold no brief for Meredith Heagny of the Columbus Dispatch. She is a dhimmi reporter and pretty clearly anti-Rifqa. But when somebody leaks something to Heagny (whether they should have or not), she tells you the background, so that you believe her. Rifqa's attorneys have asked that she be moved to a new foster home, because in the course of the discovery process leading up to her hearing, her current address was revealed by Franklin County Children's Services(!) to all parties, including her parents and their attorney.
Also, it now appears that a person who has been named all along as Rifqa's guardian ad litem is in fact one of her own lawyers and that she has a different guardian ad litem (and has had all along) whose name I had not previously known. Angela Lloyd, whom I have believed was her G.A.L. and who at least appeared to be to some degree on her side, is not her G.A.L. but one of her own lawyers. The name of Rifqa's actual G.A.L. is Bonnie Vangeloff. This may shed some light on a deal Rifqa's parents' attorney struck with Rifqa's own attorneys after the December 22 hearing to have all Rifqa's mail screened by the guardian ad litem (discussed by Jamal Jivanjee here). At the time, I did not report this specific development, because I believed the screening was being done by Angela Lloyd, to whose c/o address all mail was being sent anyway. Now it emerges that this was indeed a change. I still believe that we should send notes of encouragement to Rifqa in the hopes that Vangeloff will let them through.
The third unpleasant thing that has emerged is that Rifqa's outgoing mail is at least sometimes being copied and given to FCCS, which is then moving to cut off her out-going mail to specific people. Rifqa's attorneys have agreed that she cannot send or receive any communication from the Lorenzes and Brian Williams, the people who helped her when she first ran away from home. This specified cut-off of outgoing mail was requested after Atty. Jim Zorn of FCCS (who has been a real mover in the "isolate Rifqa" push since the day she arrived in Ohio) found out that (horrors!) Rifqa "caused a birthday card to be sent" to Pastor Lorenz which "contained various statements that are of concern." This is all in the Heagny article linked above. Evidently Heagny doesn't know, so neither do we, what Rifqa could possibly have said that caused Zorn to try to forbid her to write to the Lorenzes. But who sent Zorn a copy of Rifqa's birthday card to Pastor Lorenz? Very creepy.
Monday, January 04, 2010
Two people to pray for
One of them, my readers are already praying for--Rifqa Bary. Jamal Jivanjee has another update on her situation here. He says that prior to the December 22 hearing, Rifqa was being allowed to talk with one friend on the phone but is now not permitted to do so. He also outlines the probable strategy of her parents' lawyer in trying to get her denied dependency status--to argue that there was no "conflict" in her home (which is legally significant in Ohio) until one was created by "brainwashing" from her outside Christian friends. Jamal urges writing to the head of Franklin County Children's Services, Eric Fenner, to protest Rifqa's increasing isolation.
The second, I just got an update about from the Pearcey Report. Some of you may have heard of the case of Lisa Miller. Lisa used to be a lesbian and entered into a civil union in Vermont. She was artificially inseminated and gave birth to a daughter, Isabella, now seven years old. Lisa renounced her lesbianism when Isabella was very little (my recollection is that she was about a year old), returned to her Christian faith, got a legal "divorce" (or whatever one calls it) from her civil union lover, and fled to Virginia, whose laws expressly do not recognize any form of same-sex union, including civil unions. However, Vermont declared custody over this as a child custody case after the model of a divorce case and ordered that Isabella be sent to spend days at a time with the former lover, who, of course, is no relation to the child at all, not even (for that matter) an adoptive parent. Lisa complied with some of these orders, but they were very traumatic for Isabella, who said both that she wanted to die after one such visit and that she was forced to bathe naked with the former lesbian lover. So Lisa disobeyed some of the court orders for visitation. The judge threatened her and eventually carried out his threat to punish her by ordering full custody of Isabella to the lesbian lover. This traumatic seizure of Isabella by the state of Vermont for a lesbian completely unrelated to Isabella, whom Isabella does not know and does not want to live with, was to be carried out by the first of the year, 2010.
Lisa and Isabella have disappeared. Their whereabouts are unknown; they are in hiding. The former lover, Janet Jenkins, is attempting to have the police trace them and turn Isabella over to her.
May God protect them.
By the way, the next time someone suggests to you that civil unions ain't so bad and it's just the word "marriage" we should be protecting, point them to this case.
The second, I just got an update about from the Pearcey Report. Some of you may have heard of the case of Lisa Miller. Lisa used to be a lesbian and entered into a civil union in Vermont. She was artificially inseminated and gave birth to a daughter, Isabella, now seven years old. Lisa renounced her lesbianism when Isabella was very little (my recollection is that she was about a year old), returned to her Christian faith, got a legal "divorce" (or whatever one calls it) from her civil union lover, and fled to Virginia, whose laws expressly do not recognize any form of same-sex union, including civil unions. However, Vermont declared custody over this as a child custody case after the model of a divorce case and ordered that Isabella be sent to spend days at a time with the former lover, who, of course, is no relation to the child at all, not even (for that matter) an adoptive parent. Lisa complied with some of these orders, but they were very traumatic for Isabella, who said both that she wanted to die after one such visit and that she was forced to bathe naked with the former lesbian lover. So Lisa disobeyed some of the court orders for visitation. The judge threatened her and eventually carried out his threat to punish her by ordering full custody of Isabella to the lesbian lover. This traumatic seizure of Isabella by the state of Vermont for a lesbian completely unrelated to Isabella, whom Isabella does not know and does not want to live with, was to be carried out by the first of the year, 2010.
Lisa and Isabella have disappeared. Their whereabouts are unknown; they are in hiding. The former lover, Janet Jenkins, is attempting to have the police trace them and turn Isabella over to her.
May God protect them.
By the way, the next time someone suggests to you that civil unions ain't so bad and it's just the word "marriage" we should be protecting, point them to this case.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Star gazing post at W4
I felt like I ought to write a post about health care, giving a link to a post that at least (and at last) tells us something about the differences between the House and Senate versions. (Though I wish they'd tell us about the similarities, instead.)
But it'll wait. It'll wait. Bad news always waits.
Instead, I irresponsibly wrote a post on star gazing and put it up at W4 just now. Here it is.
We've been doing quite a bit of star gazing here, at least as much as we can given the fact that it's cloudy nine days out of ten. But Youngest Daughter always notices a clear day and pipes up, "Can we go star gazing tonight?" Neither frost nor cold deters her. Which is cool. And it's well worth it when the weather does permit. We've had a clear day today, so we'll see about tonight, even if I have the hardihood for only a few minutes out. It's nice to be in touch with the constellations again. The early sunset helps a lot.
Happy New Year to all my readers!
But it'll wait. It'll wait. Bad news always waits.
Instead, I irresponsibly wrote a post on star gazing and put it up at W4 just now. Here it is.
We've been doing quite a bit of star gazing here, at least as much as we can given the fact that it's cloudy nine days out of ten. But Youngest Daughter always notices a clear day and pipes up, "Can we go star gazing tonight?" Neither frost nor cold deters her. Which is cool. And it's well worth it when the weather does permit. We've had a clear day today, so we'll see about tonight, even if I have the hardihood for only a few minutes out. It's nice to be in touch with the constellations again. The early sunset helps a lot.
Happy New Year to all my readers!
Sunday, December 27, 2009
The Imperials Live 1984--Bread Upon the Water
This is old, old Christian rock the way it should be. Rich, my friend, since you've posted some Christian rock at your site, this one's for you. Eldest Daughter found this performance for me on-line and included the audio track on my oldies Christmas present CD. It's a faster tempo than the studio version I already have, and of course the improvisation on the electric guitar is going to be different every time. Good old Armand Morales with his bass voice, beloved of all old Imperials fans.
Dig those haircuts! What were we thinking to wear our hair like that? I, of course, being a girl, never wore my hair like that. Enjoy. But don't bother listening if you hate old Christian country-rock.
Dig those haircuts! What were we thinking to wear our hair like that? I, of course, being a girl, never wore my hair like that. Enjoy. But don't bother listening if you hate old Christian country-rock.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Christmas presents and miscellaneous notes
I got an unexpected present yesterday. Eldest Daughter made me a CD with some oldies (by which she means, songs from the 1980's) on it. No playlist, which actually made it better, as every song is a surprise. She included "I Will Be Here," which I knew but didn't have on a CD. Just in case you aren't familiar with it, here it is.
A relative also sent us this CD, which I highly recommend. It's mostly settings of scripture and Psalms to music by Ortega himself with several wonderful hymn settings. I'm usually hidebound about new tunes to old hymns, and some of the hymns on this (like "All Creatures of Our God and King") are sung to their old tunes, but Ortega's new ones are beautiful as well.
It was a wonderful Christmas, very quiet, except when we were playing Mannheim Steamroller or Go Fish. (Go Fish has a great version of "White Christmas," but they should ditch the semi-rap version of "Little Drummer Boy"!) Faith's new Dover coloring book (from me) was a big hit with her older sisters and me as well. It has must-color pages, so I photocopied a page for all of us. (Ssshhh. Don't tell.) We sat around and colored last evening listening to music. I recommend it--if you have girls. I suppose boys wouldn't do it.
During the course of the day yesterday, probably inspired by Mannheim Steamroller's folk-type music, I got thinking about an instrument I lost about thirty years ago. It was a wonderful little thing. A man came to our high school, invited by our music teacher, and sold them to all the students for twenty dollars apiece. Twenty dollars was enough to pay, especially for my parents, that I shouldn't have lost it, but it was affordable if you tried. He called it a shepherd's pipe. It was the easiest thing to play in the world. When I'd been in grade school, I'd suffered trying to learn the recorder, which was all the rage with music teachers just then. Not only was the recorder hard to play--even for someone like me who can play the piano and read music--but to my ear it didn't sound all that good. The shepherd's pipe was wonderful. Mine was nickel plated and had a high, sweet sound a little like a piccolo. You simply played up the scale by covering the holes successively, and half-steps were played by half-holing. Nothing could be simpler. I left it lying in the ladies' bathroom at an evening school event, in the custom-made case my grandmother had sewn, and I never saw it again. It's bugged me ever since. When I've googled or asked music stores about a shepherd's pipe, I've gotten the proverbial blank stares. (Yes, Google can give you a blank stare.)
But, I've now made up my mind: It's a penny whistle. I don't know how many nickel-plated penny whistles there are out there, or if that's even important, but I'm convinced now that's what it is. Come better weather, when driving is once more simple and easy (along about May, I'm guessing), I'm going to try to find time to go to the big music store around here and ask if they have penny whistles or tin whistles. They're still only about twenty dollars. Could be fun.
A relative also sent us this CD, which I highly recommend. It's mostly settings of scripture and Psalms to music by Ortega himself with several wonderful hymn settings. I'm usually hidebound about new tunes to old hymns, and some of the hymns on this (like "All Creatures of Our God and King") are sung to their old tunes, but Ortega's new ones are beautiful as well.
It was a wonderful Christmas, very quiet, except when we were playing Mannheim Steamroller or Go Fish. (Go Fish has a great version of "White Christmas," but they should ditch the semi-rap version of "Little Drummer Boy"!) Faith's new Dover coloring book (from me) was a big hit with her older sisters and me as well. It has must-color pages, so I photocopied a page for all of us. (Ssshhh. Don't tell.) We sat around and colored last evening listening to music. I recommend it--if you have girls. I suppose boys wouldn't do it.
During the course of the day yesterday, probably inspired by Mannheim Steamroller's folk-type music, I got thinking about an instrument I lost about thirty years ago. It was a wonderful little thing. A man came to our high school, invited by our music teacher, and sold them to all the students for twenty dollars apiece. Twenty dollars was enough to pay, especially for my parents, that I shouldn't have lost it, but it was affordable if you tried. He called it a shepherd's pipe. It was the easiest thing to play in the world. When I'd been in grade school, I'd suffered trying to learn the recorder, which was all the rage with music teachers just then. Not only was the recorder hard to play--even for someone like me who can play the piano and read music--but to my ear it didn't sound all that good. The shepherd's pipe was wonderful. Mine was nickel plated and had a high, sweet sound a little like a piccolo. You simply played up the scale by covering the holes successively, and half-steps were played by half-holing. Nothing could be simpler. I left it lying in the ladies' bathroom at an evening school event, in the custom-made case my grandmother had sewn, and I never saw it again. It's bugged me ever since. When I've googled or asked music stores about a shepherd's pipe, I've gotten the proverbial blank stares. (Yes, Google can give you a blank stare.)
But, I've now made up my mind: It's a penny whistle. I don't know how many nickel-plated penny whistles there are out there, or if that's even important, but I'm convinced now that's what it is. Come better weather, when driving is once more simple and easy (along about May, I'm guessing), I'm going to try to find time to go to the big music store around here and ask if they have penny whistles or tin whistles. They're still only about twenty dollars. Could be fun.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Merry Christmas!
Though skeptics try at times, in the service of their own silly parallelisms, to imply that the December 25 date for Christmas is somehow essential to Christianity, most Christians know that this is not true. We don't actually know what time of year Our Lord was born.
But I think that those men who decided--whoever they were--to celebrate it in December were wise. Of course, they didn't foresee the spread of Christianity to the antipodes, where all is topsy-turvy and this time of year is warm, with long, sunny, days. Our brethren Down Under will have to forgive us for celebrating that whole, wonderful, awe-inspiring cultural structure that has grown up around the (probably deliberate) decision to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity at the time of the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the time of darkness and cold.
Many beautiful carols have arisen out of this choice, but one of my favorites is "Lo, How a Rose," and in all of it, my favorite line in the English translation is
She bore to men a Savior, when half-spent was the night.
The allusion here is double. First, the line alludes to the quotation from the apocryphal Book of Wisdom which is used in the introit to the Mass for Christmas:
While all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, Thine almighty Word, O Lord, leaped down from heaven from Thy royal throne.
But the phrase also alludes, probably, to Romans 13:12,
The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
By a happy accident, if it was an accident, of the translation, one can take the statement that the night was half-spent to mean either that the night was half over or that the night was half exhausted.
The time, in our world and in our country, is not bright. We may indeed feel that we are deep in the night, that the night is half-spent, and that our civilization, too, is half-spent, exhausted, its vital force and will to live running out.
The message of Christianity, embodied in the choice of the darkest time of the year for the celebration of the birth of the Light of the World, is that it is at just those times that God acts. Ever since Adam fell mankind has been in darkness. But St. John tells us that the light shone in the darkness, and the darkness was not able to overcome it. Into this, our dark world, God sent His Son, made of a woman, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Thanks be to God.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Rifqa update
See longer version at W4 here. Short version--good news for now, but the hearings continue, and there is no clear end in sight or vindication of her right to be free of her family short of her 18th birthday.
Monday, December 21, 2009
"Break Forth O Beauteous Heavenly Light"--Glad
I'm Glad to have figured out how to embed this song. It might have been made for the group. I love this song. He is our peace!
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Merry Christmas--Straight No Chaser
Enjoy.
I've never known what that song about Africa means--the one they turn into a Christmas song at the end. The SNC Christmas version is a lot better.
Fun, fun link. See also Bill Luse's post with a video of SNC in a Hardees restaurant here.
HT to my Facebook friend George.
And a blessed fourth Sundy in Advent. I hope to be able to write something more serious later this week!
I've never known what that song about Africa means--the one they turn into a Christmas song at the end. The SNC Christmas version is a lot better.
Fun, fun link. See also Bill Luse's post with a video of SNC in a Hardees restaurant here.
HT to my Facebook friend George.
And a blessed fourth Sundy in Advent. I hope to be able to write something more serious later this week!
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Gaudete Sunday
A blessed third Sunday in Advent to my readers. Today is Rejoice Sunday. There is (at least for me) a small and interesting liturgical puzzle about it, which I wrote about here.
This morning we sang in church "How Bright Appears the Morning Star," another Nicolai-Bach hymn and a great success. I defy anyone to be gloomy while singing "Incarnate God, put forth thy power. Ride on, ride on, great conqueror, till all know thy salvation. Amen, amen. Alleluia, alleluia, praise be given." And so forth.
My readers, especially my Protestant readers unfamiliar with this song, should note that it gives the whole Gospel. The words are great--note especially the second verse. And the line in the third verse (my favorite), "With praise ye sinners fill the sky." Not "with praise ye angels" or "with praise ye people" or anything dull like that. It's the sinners who are to fill the sky with praises to Christ for our redemption. (Reminds me of an old Philips, Craig, and Dean song, "Favorite Song of All," which contains the line, "His favorite song of all is the song of the redeemed."
Here are the words to "Wie Schon Leuchtet Der Morgenstern" (How Bright Appears the Morning Star).
How bright appears the Morning Star,
with mercy beaming from afar;
the host of heaven rejoices;
O righteous Branch, O Jesse's Rod!
Thou Son of Man and Son of God!
We, too, will lift our voices:
Jesus, Jesus!
Holy, holy, yet most lowly, draw thou near us;
great Emmanuel, come and hear us.
Though circled by the hosts on high,
he deigned to cast a pitying eye
upon his helpless creature;
the whole creation's Head and Lord,
by highest seraphim adored,
assumed our very nature;
Jesus, grant us,
through thy merit, to inherit
thy salvation;
hear, O hear our supplication.
Rejoice, ye heavens; thou earth, reply;
with praise, ye sinners, fill the sky,
for this his Incarnation.
Incarnate God, put forth thy power,
ride on, ride on, great Conqueror,
till all know thy salvation.
Amen, amen!
Alleluia, alleluia!
Praise be given
evermore, by earth and heaven.
And as a bonus, here is an organ version. It starts a little slow, but wait--it picks up after the introduction.
This morning we sang in church "How Bright Appears the Morning Star," another Nicolai-Bach hymn and a great success. I defy anyone to be gloomy while singing "Incarnate God, put forth thy power. Ride on, ride on, great conqueror, till all know thy salvation. Amen, amen. Alleluia, alleluia, praise be given." And so forth.
My readers, especially my Protestant readers unfamiliar with this song, should note that it gives the whole Gospel. The words are great--note especially the second verse. And the line in the third verse (my favorite), "With praise ye sinners fill the sky." Not "with praise ye angels" or "with praise ye people" or anything dull like that. It's the sinners who are to fill the sky with praises to Christ for our redemption. (Reminds me of an old Philips, Craig, and Dean song, "Favorite Song of All," which contains the line, "His favorite song of all is the song of the redeemed."
Here are the words to "Wie Schon Leuchtet Der Morgenstern" (How Bright Appears the Morning Star).
How bright appears the Morning Star,
with mercy beaming from afar;
the host of heaven rejoices;
O righteous Branch, O Jesse's Rod!
Thou Son of Man and Son of God!
We, too, will lift our voices:
Jesus, Jesus!
Holy, holy, yet most lowly, draw thou near us;
great Emmanuel, come and hear us.
Though circled by the hosts on high,
he deigned to cast a pitying eye
upon his helpless creature;
the whole creation's Head and Lord,
by highest seraphim adored,
assumed our very nature;
Jesus, grant us,
through thy merit, to inherit
thy salvation;
hear, O hear our supplication.
Rejoice, ye heavens; thou earth, reply;
with praise, ye sinners, fill the sky,
for this his Incarnation.
Incarnate God, put forth thy power,
ride on, ride on, great Conqueror,
till all know thy salvation.
Amen, amen!
Alleluia, alleluia!
Praise be given
evermore, by earth and heaven.
And as a bonus, here is an organ version. It starts a little slow, but wait--it picks up after the introduction.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Climategate bon mot
Heh. This is good. From a reader at VFR:
I'm pretty sure that there's nothing in my e-mail that would make me look like a member of a self-serving cabal bent on defrauding the global scientific community. But maybe that's just me.
Advent miscellany
Today was Bible Sunday. Here is the great collect:
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our
learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and
inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may
embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which
thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Written by Thomas Cranmer, it has that wonderful, Tudor Anglican sound. There is a hint of the rigor of the Puritans in its somberness and plainness, but only a hint. And only Cranmer could give us the justly famous phrase "hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them."
We sang Philipp Nicolai's wonderful hymn "Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying." The tune here is at least accurate though played too fast. If you can get the music, try to introduce it to your church. The Bach harmonizations, with the moving inner parts, are wonderful. It took me a while, but I finally found the translation used in the 1940 hymnal, much better than several other translations I've seen. It seems to me that this song should be sung in churches all over America, not just Anglican churches, and certainly not heretical Episcopalian churches, where they certainly aren't preparing like any virgins wise! But in Baptist, Bible churches, and evangelical churches, in Catholic churches, and in Methodist churches. Come on, let's get moving and get our lamps burning!
1. Wake, awake, for night is flying:
The watchmen on the heights are crying,
Awake, Jerusalem, arise!
Midnight's solemn hour is tolling,
His chariot wheels are nearer rolling,
He comes; prepare, ye virgins wise.
Rise up, with willing feet,
Go forth, the Bridegroom meet:
Alleluia!
Bear through the night your well-trimmed light,
Speed forth to join the marriage rite.
2. Sion hears the watchman singing,
Her heart with deep delight is springing,
She wakes, she rises from her gloom:
Forth her Bridegroom comes, all glorious,
In grace arrayed, by truth victorious;
Her Star is risen, her Light is come!
All hail, Incarnate Lord,
Our crown, and our reward!
Alleluia!
We haste along, in pomp of song,
And gladsome join the marriage throng.
3. Lamb of God, the heavens adore thee,
And men and angels sing before thee,
With harp and cymbal's clearest tone.
By the pearly gates in wonder
We stand, and swell the voice of thunder,
That echoes round thy dazzling throne.
No vision ever brought,
No ear hath ever caught,
Such bliss and joy:
To raise the song, we swell the throng,
To praise thee ages all along.
Amen.
By the way, I was just reading I Thessalonians 4 today. I saw someone say on-line a while ago--I forget if it was a Lutheran or a Catholic--"________s don't believe in the rapture." Well, it sure looks like St. Paul did!
Now, from the heights of Nicolai and Bach it's a little bit of a come-down to this far plainer tune, but the words...! I can never come to this verse without a stiffening of the spine.
But the slow watches of the night not less to God belong,/And for the
everlasting right the silent stars are strong.
Well, okay then, I guess we aren't allowed to despair, right?
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Great Climategate cartoon
See Madeleine and Matt Flannegan's blog, here. Heh.
Incidentally, if my readers want to conjecture: What do you think? Will man-caused global warming still be taught to school children as fact thirty years from now?
Incidentally, if my readers want to conjecture: What do you think? Will man-caused global warming still be taught to school children as fact thirty years from now?
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Confusing new reports about Rifqa's legal situation
Evidently some sort of plan for Rifqa was filed in Ohio court yesterday by FCCS. See here and here. I'm sure Pamela Geller is working to try to get a copy of the actual plan (I hope she is, anyway), but so far, we have only these two news stories to go by, and they present confusing and conflicting information. This is doubtless a result of the fact that newspaper writers can't write clear stories anymore, but that's a complaint for another day.
The Fox news article uses the phrase "when she goes home" but then later says that the plan also envisages the possibility that Rifqa may never go back to live with her parents. So which is it?
The Columbus Dispatch article implies that the kumbaya pow-wow the plan insists on between Rifqa and her parents will occur before a decision is made as to whether she is to be returned to them and as part of the attempt to reunite her with them. Rifqa herself has said that she doesn't want to meet with her parents.
One thing is pretty clear: She is almost certainly going to be forced to have a meeting with them, though the circumstances of that meeting are unclear. The Franklin County social worker who presented the plan has decided that what is needed is greater "understanding" between Rifqa and her parents. The Dispatch article quotes the plan as saying that Rifqa's concern is that her parents don't "understand" her Christianity. Uh, no. She's afraid she'll be killed or dragged back to Sri Lanka and there imprisoned, forced into a marriage, etc. I gather that the plan does later use the word "fear" for Rifqa's feelings. But "understanding" is the word of the day. She and her parents must get together--either before or after she is returned to them--and "hear each other out."
The plan evidently considers relatives with whom Rifqa might live if not returned to her parents. Bad move, of course, as if she has any other relatives (I hadn't heard of any before this) they will just be part of the same Muslim community and could easily be involved in returning her to Sri Lanka or in other plans against her well-being. The plan also asks what other non-relatives she might stay with. But since she is now staying with non-relatives in foster care, what is the point of that? It appears to be to get her off the hands of Franklin County Children's Services.
I haven't read the plan, but I'll bet dollars to donuts it says nothing whatsoever about preventing her from being taken out of the country if she is taken out of foster care. The clueless Dispatch writer says confidently that she will "be on her own" after she turns 18. Not if she's in Sri Lanka! But we're not talking about that, right?
The Dispatch article says that the goal is to reunite her with her parents before her birthday next August 10. Great. Statutorily, my understanding is the FCCS is bound to consider it to be their goal to reunite children with their parents. I gather this is boilerplate in most states. But children's services also have a great deal of latitude in interpreting their duties relative to this goal and are permitted to decide that it can't be fulfilled, as the child would plausibly not be safe at home. Without reading the plan, I have little evidence (besides the general folly and injustice of FCCS's actions so far) as to whether this reference to a goal of reuniting the family before Rifqa's birthday is a mere gesture to the formal statutory framework or is really a serious indication that FCCS is bound and determined to return her to her parents, even against her will. Even the text of the plan might not be at all clear on that point.
Atlas is now referring to the December 22 hearing as a dependency hearing, though her previous statement had been that this is a hearing on the "incorrigible child" matter. Have the two issues been rolled together in court procedings? No one has said. But in any event, the next date we know of is December 22.
The Fox news article uses the phrase "when she goes home" but then later says that the plan also envisages the possibility that Rifqa may never go back to live with her parents. So which is it?
The Columbus Dispatch article implies that the kumbaya pow-wow the plan insists on between Rifqa and her parents will occur before a decision is made as to whether she is to be returned to them and as part of the attempt to reunite her with them. Rifqa herself has said that she doesn't want to meet with her parents.
One thing is pretty clear: She is almost certainly going to be forced to have a meeting with them, though the circumstances of that meeting are unclear. The Franklin County social worker who presented the plan has decided that what is needed is greater "understanding" between Rifqa and her parents. The Dispatch article quotes the plan as saying that Rifqa's concern is that her parents don't "understand" her Christianity. Uh, no. She's afraid she'll be killed or dragged back to Sri Lanka and there imprisoned, forced into a marriage, etc. I gather that the plan does later use the word "fear" for Rifqa's feelings. But "understanding" is the word of the day. She and her parents must get together--either before or after she is returned to them--and "hear each other out."
The plan evidently considers relatives with whom Rifqa might live if not returned to her parents. Bad move, of course, as if she has any other relatives (I hadn't heard of any before this) they will just be part of the same Muslim community and could easily be involved in returning her to Sri Lanka or in other plans against her well-being. The plan also asks what other non-relatives she might stay with. But since she is now staying with non-relatives in foster care, what is the point of that? It appears to be to get her off the hands of Franklin County Children's Services.
I haven't read the plan, but I'll bet dollars to donuts it says nothing whatsoever about preventing her from being taken out of the country if she is taken out of foster care. The clueless Dispatch writer says confidently that she will "be on her own" after she turns 18. Not if she's in Sri Lanka! But we're not talking about that, right?
The Dispatch article says that the goal is to reunite her with her parents before her birthday next August 10. Great. Statutorily, my understanding is the FCCS is bound to consider it to be their goal to reunite children with their parents. I gather this is boilerplate in most states. But children's services also have a great deal of latitude in interpreting their duties relative to this goal and are permitted to decide that it can't be fulfilled, as the child would plausibly not be safe at home. Without reading the plan, I have little evidence (besides the general folly and injustice of FCCS's actions so far) as to whether this reference to a goal of reuniting the family before Rifqa's birthday is a mere gesture to the formal statutory framework or is really a serious indication that FCCS is bound and determined to return her to her parents, even against her will. Even the text of the plan might not be at all clear on that point.
Atlas is now referring to the December 22 hearing as a dependency hearing, though her previous statement had been that this is a hearing on the "incorrigible child" matter. Have the two issues been rolled together in court procedings? No one has said. But in any event, the next date we know of is December 22.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Rifqa post at W4
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
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
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.
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