baldilocks

Welcome, Papa

Pope Benedict XVI arrives today in the USA at Andrews AFB, MD where President Bush will meet him. Though he has been here several times, it's his first visit since becoming pope.

I'm looking forward to all of the papal reportage due for the next few days. Though I'm not Catholic and have no plans to convert, there is very much to admire about this pope, this man. And I believe that it's no coincidence that the world has a pope who has done a great deal of research on Liberation Theologies during the same time when an adherent to one of those theologies has a serious shot at becoming the most powerful man on earth.

However, am I the only one who finds it...odd for the pope to be arriving at a US military base?

(Pic courtesy of Getty Images and CNN)

It's the "White" Church that Obama's Talking About (UPDATED)

Mickey Kaus and many others are still trying to make sense of Barack Obama’s defense of the following remarks.

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant [SIC] sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

(Emphasis mine.) Says Kaus:

It lumps together things Obama wants us to think he thinks are good (religion) with things he undoubtedly thinks are bad (racism, anti-immigrant sentiment). I suppose it's logically possible to say 'these Pennsylvania voters are so bitter and frustrated that they cling to both good things and bad things,." but the implication is that these are all things he thinks are unfortunate and need explaining (because, his context suggests, they prevent voters from doing the right thing and voting for ... him). Yesterday at the CNN "Compassion Forum" Obama said he wasn't disparaging religion because he meant people "cling" to it in a good way! Would that be the same way they "cling" to "antipathy to people who aren't like them"--the very next phrase Obama uttered? Is racism one of those "traditions that are passed on from generation to generation" that "sustains us"? Obama's unfortunate parallelism makes it hard for him to extricate him from the charge that he was dissing rural Pennsylvanians' excess religiosity.

If you think about it, the fact that Obama lumped the perceived religion of the white, rural Pennsylvanian with “antipathy toward those not like them”--that is, racism, bigotry and anti-immigration (sic)--makes perfect sense.* The latter is bad and so is the former—if one is observing from the perspective of Black Liberation Theology. In Obama’s mind, the religion clung to by the “average poor white Pennsylvanian” is BLT’s demonic “white” Church. The "white" Church is the tool of oppression for all—including poor whites—and should be shaken off just like other social maladies. Just like anti-immigration (sic) and racism. One will note that, in the defense of the earlier remarks, Obama still does not say anything objectively positive about the religion adhered to by the average rural white Pennsylvanian. What he actually says is that government should answer their prayers.

But what is absolutely true is that people don’t feel like they are being listened to. And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives, and what we need is a government that is actually paying attention [to their prayers!]. Government that is fighting for working people day in and day out making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream.

Never forget where this guy is coming from. * Apologists for illegal immigration are becoming too confident in leaving out the all-important adjective 'illegal' when discussing the subject.

UPDATE: I'm not sure but I think that this my first Ace-lanche. Be gentle with me.

UPDATE:Good morning/afternoon/evening to Glenn's readers also. Hot Air's too!

UPDATE: Please read Karl's primer on Black Liberation Theology at Protein Wisdom.

Making BLT

By James Cone. It's the narcissism, Stupid!

(Thanks to Cobb)

Good Friday

As my regular readers can tell, I've been a bit busy for the last few days. But even if I hadn't been, I would have found the shear volume (mean in both senses) of response to Barack Obama's revealed racial attitudes overwhelming; too much so to respond with little more than a dumbfounded "WTF?"

The main thing that fascinates me about his attitudes is how they may have been shaped by Black Liberation Theology--an ideology whose outlines have been visible in the black community for the several decades of its existence, but one which is just now showing its face to the outside world via Obama's presidential candidacy.

So I'm reading and reading and reading. And the good thing about that is that, occasionally, one hits the jackpot.

You might recognize the author's name.

And a Good Friday to you all.

Filling the Space

Spengler at Asia Times gives a short overview of the Black Liberation Theology subscribed to by Jeremiah Wright's TUCC and, allegedly, by Barack Obama:

Since Christianity taught the concept of divine election to the Gentiles, every recalcitrant tribe in Christendom has rebelled against Christian universalism, insisting that it is the "Chosen People" of God - French, English, Russian, Germans and even (through the peculiar doctrine of Mormonism) certain Americans. America remains the only really Christian country in the industrial world, precisely because it transcends ethnicity. One finds ethnocentricity only in odd corners of its religious life; one of these is African-American.

During the black-power heyday of the late 1960s, after the murder of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, the mentors of Wright decided that blacks were the Chosen People. James Cone, the most prominent theologian in the "black liberation" school, teaches that Jesus Christ himself is black. As he explains:

Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants.

Theologically, Cone's argument is as silly as the "Aryan Christianity" popular in Nazi Germany, which claimed that Jesus was not a Jew at all but an Aryan Galilean, and that the Aryan race was the "chosen people". Cone, Hopkins and Wright do not propose, of course, to put non-blacks in concentration camps or to conquer the world, but racially-based theology nonetheless is a greased chute to the nether regions.

Spengler writes of Cone's argument about God: that He should be a god who does what humans want, be a Metaphysical Sugar Daddy or He's worthless. Cone isn't exactly by himself in that postulation.

As for Jesus Christ, He is alleged to be the Savior of the Oppressed only--as is so with all types of 'Liberation theology,' a school of belief in which the identity of the Oppressed depends on who's asking. With Black Liberation theology, Jesus is the Savior of the black oppressed--and, from what I can gather, those white persons who are willing give up the "guise of the Oppressor." Let's just say that I have more homework to do.

A cursory conclusion: it is a religion of works (as opposed to faith), of grudge-holding and of promised vengeance for wrongs done--both real and perceived, both individual and collective. But, like Shelby Steele, Spengler wonders whether Obama has merely covered himself with the coating of Black Liberation theology for his own purposes.

Whether Obama takes seriously the doctrines that Wright preaches is another matter. It is possible that Obama does not believe a word of what Wright, Cone and Hopkins teach. Perhaps he merely used the Trinity United Church of Christ as a political stepping-stone. African-American political life is centered around churches, and his election to the Illinois State Senate with the support of Chicago's black political machine required church membership. Trinity United happens to be Chicago's largest and most politically active black church.

[SNIP]

It is possible that because of the Wright affair Obama will suffer for what he pretended to be, rather than for what he really is.

Did the TUCC serve to simply allow Obama to check off “religion” on his particular “self” checklist? It seems to me that he "converted" to it without giving the matter too much thought--became a clay to be molded by humans; by his wife and by Wright. A shape-shifter.

Once people get over the outrage regarding the racism of it all, perhaps more will put together the musings of persons like Steele and Spengler in order to formulate this question: who is Obama really?

His “self” space remains yet unobserved.

(Thanks to One Cosmos)

Hole in His Soul (UPDATE: Interview Excerpt)

Shelby Steele’s 1991 book The Content of Our Character started me on my journey to conservatism. It was what first made me actively consider that being a Liberal or a Democrat were yea/nay choices rather than states of existence which were as fixed as my skin color. So I consider him one of my political fathers and have a tendency to pay attention when I see one of his essays or catch him on TV.

I did read Steele’s A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win--and I got his descriptions of the two personality masks that black people wear around white people and how few people—black or white—appreciate it when a black person takes off his/her mask. However, I didn’t really understand his description of Obama until this Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC)/Jeremiah Wright brouhaha began to heat up.

In January, Peter Robinson interviewed Steele on A Bound Man over at NRO TV’s Uncommon Knowledge. TUCC is discussed in the third part in the five parter, but the whole thing is interesting. Steele pretty much predicted how things have played out and says the same thing that I said here: that Obama's biracial-ness coupled with parental abandonment has wrecked havoc on how he sees himself and how he projects himself to others. Basically, Steele explains why there’s very little ‘there’ there. An excerpt of that third part is needed to illustrate Steele's point, I think; a transcription of it is forthcoming.

UPDATE: Here are the most perceptive observations of the interview's third part.

SHELBY STEELE: He was abandoned by his African father at the age of two. So in one stroke he lost both a father and a racial identity. So here in this all white household is this little kid who is being held accountable in the world as a black—being raised by a mother who’s white, a grandmother who’s white [and] a grandfather who is white; almost no experience whatsoever with other blacks.

And so, as I talk about in the book, as there’s a longing to know the father in Barack Obama there’s also a longing to know himself as a black; to feel that he belongs, that simple sense that other blacks take for granted, where it’s not a question at all.

For him, it’s a life-long angst. And so he’s driven in that direction and ends up on the Southside of Chicago doing community organizing when he could have gone straight ahead to law school and so forth [after earning an undergrad from Columbia]. [SNIP]

PETER ROBINSON: In any event, from Columbia he could have gone to Wall Street if he wanted to.

SS: He could have gone…and did for a brief moment. And quite, can’t take it. Wants to…this call, it’s there. This need. And so he takes this job at…below minimum wage as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago.

PR: As we have this conversation and as I read A Bound Man, I’m evaluating this man as a candidate. There’s a fascinating story, merely as a matter of character study and what it says about the state of race in the United States; but he’s running for president. So this notion of seeking out a black identity—the way it struck me was understandable and even commendable. Does it strike you the same way? Or is it still too much race? He’s doing something because of race? How do you understand it? How do you evaluate it?

SS: I went through something of it myself. Again [I’m] from that kind of a background. [Steele's father is black and his mother is white. --Ed.] I was lucky [that] I had my father. So…and I grew up in segregation and that will give you a clear sense of identity. (laughs)

PR: He was raised in a white world.

SS: Yeah.

PR: But you were raised in a black world.

SS: An entirely black world.

PR: Alright.

SS: So I didn’t feel the pressure, I don’t think, in the way that he did. But it was there. I’m aware of it. There’s a vulnerability that you have that people can see. As Christopher Hitchens says there, “why is he really black?” So somebody who doesn’t know you can walk up and say, “well you’re not really who you seem to be.” And always along with that goes this suggestion that you’re a phony; that you’re a bit of a fraud because of your birthright…your fate.

So it’s a vulnerability and there’s this desire to resolve it. And that’s, I think, Obama’s compulsion really: to establish himself as an authentic black [and] failing all along.

PR: You write: He goes to the Illinois state legislature, he’s now a member of the United States Senate for the last couple of years. He affiliates himself with a specifically black church in Chicago called Trinity United Church of Christ. You write about it at some length. So, incidentally, does Christopher Hitchens.

Quote--Christopher now: “Run by the sort of minister that the press often guardedly describes as ‘flamboyant,’ this bizarre outfit the church describes itself as” now he’s quoting from their website, “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian and speaks of a Chosen People whose nature we are allow to assume is afrocentric.” Operative sentence: “Nobody who wants to be taken seriously can possibly be associated with such a sub-standard and shade-oriented place.”

Now there’s a point there. This is a graduate of Columbia and of Harvard Law School who’s going to a place that it’s reasonable to suppose that, in one way or another, is intellectually beneath him. Right?

SS: Absolutely.

PR: So how…do we cut him slack because he needs this? How do you understand that one?

SS: That’s one of the questions that I think the press…he’s been in this what I call ‘White Guilt Bubble’ where they never ask him anything meaningful.

How is it that you go to an afrocentric, Black Nationalist church, where everything is black—morality, "black"; community, "black"; family values, "black"; a church that your mother would not be comfortable in, if she would be welcome at all—how do you reconcile…

Could you stand up in this church and say, “It wasn’t 'blackness' that created Barack Obama. It was the 'midwestern' values of my mother. That’s how it got done. So maybe the people in this church might spend a little more time talking about those values than about 'blackness.'” I don’t think that Obama is likely to do that. But, how does he resolve it? How does he reconcile? [SNIP]

SS: When you are born as he was, you endure this abandonment and [it] leaves these wounds. And there is going to be—for anybody—an attempt to sort of fill up that void in some way or another.

The only way you can do it is through a thousand little self-betrayals; where you go to that church and you turn a blind eye to the fact that it’s beneath you intellectually, that it subscribes to an ideology that would exclude the loving family that you had. You betray yourself. You get used to self-betrayal as a survival mechanism, as a way of getting through the world, getting through society. And that’s where you pay the price, because when you’re doing that, you’re not developing a self. You’re not individuating.

And there clearly is some of that with Obama—this habit of self-betrayal.

For the first time, I feel a great deal of pity for Obama, along with empathy, of course since I grew up in a kind of a "mirror universe" in relation to his own. (I can't decide which one contains the bearded Spock.)

Be that as it may, Obama's background wouldn't be such a big deal if it didn't seem as though his particular brand of neuroses played out in nearly every relationship that he has--personal and professional. His campaign is the very model of two-facedness and the absence of self which Steele points to. Obama isn't crazy but something more frightening--a vessel to be filled.

What kind of damage could such a president do?

"Inflammatory and Appalling"

...are Wright's statements, according to Senator Obama. Obama will presumably make this assertion this evening to Major Garrett on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes and on Greta van Susteren's show.

So you'll excuse me while I run some errands now in order to be back home in time to catch that live; not that it will be believable, but it will for sure be memorable.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

UPDATE: Wright, who had a role as a spiritual adviser in the senator's presidential campaign, takes his leave.

Rev. Wright is no longer serving on the African American Religious Leadership Committee.

I'm not familiar with Obama's campaign structure and I find the name of this committee curious. Something labeled for African Americans? Only? In a presidential campaign? A campaign for the US presidency?

This guy...

UPDATE: "Vehemently disagree, strongly condemn, categorically denounce and reject outright." But Jeremiah Wright "prophesied" that this would have to happen.

“If Barack gets past the primary, he might have to publicly distance himself from me,” Mr. Wright said with a shrug. “I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen.”

It's a miracle!

One of Obama's Real Problems: Jeremiah Wright

The racist rhetoric espoused by Senator Barack Obama’s pastor of twenty years and spiritual mentor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, has finally come under the large-scale scrutiny that it deserves. Wright, the retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, is overt in his condemnation of all things American and white.

The juxtaposition of Wright's words of condemnation for a largely Christian America spoken under a banner containing the name Christ is jarring. Wright’s version of Christ offers not redemption but damnation; damnation of America for her crimes—real and perceived—and damnation for whites as a collective. Rev. Wright’s statements are so inflammatory that one wonders whether he would siphon all of the Caucasian DNA out from himself if he could, to borrow a concept from Malcolm X.

Anyway, since there are so many blogs and news outlets covering this I’ll just point to those which I think provide unique insight to the issues. But first...

Why did it take so long for the MSM and other observers to give this very important issue the scrutiny it deserves? There are two reasons.

1. The race-baiting of the Clintons coupled with the accusations of race baiting by Obama supporters, and,

2. The wild goose chases regarding Obama’s Kenyan Luo heritage, his visit there, his relationship to Raila Odinga, the mind-bogglingly distorted analyses of the origins of the conflict in that country, the ahistorical analyses of how mixed-raced persons have been identified in this country and the Obama-as-Muslim whisper campaign.

Under these headings have all too many commentators been willing to conjure and/or twist facts in order to further the aim of discrediting Obama. They wanted to get to the finish line without running the entire race. (I’ve seen authors write treatise after treatise on the Kenya situation, each postulating that it was some sort of Islam-Christianity death struggle, often accompanied by external scholarly or journalistic links which refuted what was being described. And forget about a link to an actual Kenyan blogger or news source; not unless the source served to affirm the pre-formulated conclusion, which amounted to--never.)

Basically, some of you Cried Wolf on some of Obama’s issues and, in the process, hindered the publicizing of real problems with an Obama candidacy. People get tired of separating the wheat from the chaff. Just be glad that this latest and very real Wolf is egotistical enough to sell his Wolf Tickets on camera.

Now on to Wright. From a 2006 speech at Howard University, here are the basics.

"We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," … "Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body."[SNIP]

"America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. . . . We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers . . . We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi . . . We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God." [SNIP]

"We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. . . . We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. . . ." [SNIP]

"We started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. . . ."

(That Wright used the pronoun ‘we’ instead of ‘they’ is about the only positive aspect of any of this.)

Shrunken down: Michael Bowen gives an excellent analogy on how some black people have dealt psychologically with racism and the symbolic role that Wright may play for Obama in this area.

If Mitt Romney’s Mormonism was an issue, is Barack Obama’s affiliation with this church and this pastor an issue? Or so asks Kathryn Jean Lopez.

Shay Riley has been to Obama’s church:

I found the church promoted a political agenda - it is definitely a Pan-Africanist church, which in itself is good although that church promotes a socialist version of Pan-Africanism that I don't support - to the exclusion of a spiritual one rooted in biblical teachings. Or as one of my uncles says, Trinity United Church of Christ is an Afrocentric and not a Christocentric (or even an Afrocentric-Christocentric) church. That fact will not help countering the claim that Sen. Obama is "an undercover Muslim" bent on destroying America from within by joining with anti-American forces.

Wright’s rhetoric has inspired Protein Wisdom’s Dan Collins to wax poetic.

Tom Maguire (via Thomas Lifson): “[W]hen does the reconciliation begin? Barack's wife is angry, his minister is foaming, yet we are supposed to elect Barack as Mr. Sunshine and Unity. Why aren't the people closest to him sunny and united?”

Ever the one to dig a little deeper is the Anchoress:

What is going on here is a profound slight-of-hand, or an illusionist’s expert misdirection. You are being told to think you’re seeing one thing, when you’re actually seeing another. Except for the fact that whoever released these tapes has played it, this sermon would not be an example of a “race card” being thrown. It’s a victim card. This is about the Primacy of Victimhood over all else. [SNIP]

[W]hile the victim card appeals to emotions, it tends to noisily set off rage in those who listen and perceive themselves as being identified as the “enemy.” So everyone gets emotional, everyone starts yelling, and no one is listening or making any sense.

The victim card is an odd card to play in a presidential race; victimhood in and of itself seems like a strange theme for either presidential candidate to embrace. “Vote for me; I’m the bigger victim and this qualifies me to…” what, exactly, lead the wailing?

Why can't Obama really distance himself from Wright and TUCC? It'd be like cutting off his arm.

No one - unless they are a brain-dead moron - would sit five minutes under Wright’s racist and anti-American rantings without walking out. Barak has sat there for twenty years. That’s...complicity.

There may be more.

(Thanks to Instapundit, to Hot Air and to Memeorandum)

UPDATE: A 'lanche is always good to come home to. Let's see what's up in the comments.

UPDATE: Say what?

Indeed, it is a lack of understanding of the black church that contributes to the blogosphere’s and MSM’s mistaking Rev. Wright for a hate-monger.

(Emphasis mine.)

This was no mistake, Mr. Miniter, and Wright's assertions come from no church that I recognize. And by the way, there is no "black church." There is only the Church.

What about the 9/11 and HIV stuff?

There isn’t any video of Rev. Wright’s sermons on those topics [sic], but I am prepared to believe he said something along those lines. More than a third of politically active blacks believe that the HIV virus is man-made and most likely spread by the CIA, surveys show. That’s obvious nonsense, but it tells us more about the state of the black community that about Rev. Wright. He is simply echoing their paranoia. Should have risen above it and said the problems of AIDS and drug abuse are self-inflicted? Should he have called on his flock to heal itself through self-discipline and encouraged them every step of the way? Yes. But his church is not the only weak institution in this country, the only citadel that refuses impart hard truths and love toughly. [SNIP]

So don’t blame Rev. Wright. He is simply the victim of ideological disease, doing the best that he can to help others in his somewhat incapacitated state.

A commenter at Pajamas Media answers this nonsense quite effectively:

Your apologia is almost as contemptible as Rev. Wright's comments. So the po' darkies are too (oppressed? weak? slow?) to rise above this kind of garbage? [SNIP]

Giving blacks like Rev. Wright a pass is just another form of bigotry.

That pass is equivalent to treating blacks like children. I, for one, have had enough of it.

Fear of a Barack Planet

From Politico:

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign Monday of "shameful offensive fear-mongering" by circulating a photo as an attempted smear.

Plouffe was reacting to a banner headline on the Drudge Report saying that aides to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) had e-mailed a photo calling attention to the African roots of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

"The photo, taken in 2006, shows the Democrat front-runner dressed as a Somali Elder, during his visit to Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya," the Drudge Report said. [SNIP]

Plouffe said in a statement: “On the very day that Senator Clinton is giving a speech about restoring respect for America in the world, her campaign has engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election.

The dervishes started their whirl about this yesterday in conservative blogs. I remember thinking “this will be a losing proposition for anyone who runs with it.” But if this particular aspect of the Obama-is-really-a-Muslim Whisper Campaign was ginned up by the Clintons, then Senator Clinton more desperate than we may have thought.

The move is so bad that it even caused GOPAC Chairman Michael Steele to bash it.

Back to conservative bloggers and their assertions about Obama’s religion. Many of them tend to try to figure out how Obama’s religion—whatever it may be--fits into his Kenya Luo heritage, his visits to Kenya, his relationship with Raila Odinga* (his second cousin), the present political and social chaos in Kenya and all of the other issues concerning the senator’s ties to that country. The problem with much of their analysis is that they tend to shape it to fit the conclusion. Therefore, since they “know” that the man is an undercover Muslim, then anything he does points to his being a Muslim—including having the temerity to meet with a relative and not being able to predict that the person will misbehave later on; including visiting a culture and being open to wearing their traditional dress.

There’s even some clown that’s claiming that Obama isn’t even an ‘African-American,’ but ‘Arab-American.’ Still others, expound from their wealth of knowledge and logic, want to claim that the senator isn’t ‘African-American’ because he isn’t a descendant of American slaves. (This sort of legalistic Bravo Sierra is why I prefer terms like ‘black,’ ‘black American’ or ‘black African.’ Also, I heard a Tuskegee Airman used the term ‘African-descended American’—very good.)

Of the several sites devoted to exploring Obama’s background, I’ve found only one that presents uncovered facts and lets the reader come to conclusions (the preamble notwithstanding). He is also open to correction.

Don’t get me wrong. I think that it’s reasonable to check into Obama’s past—including his religion. As a matter of fact it’s crucial to question the senator’s ties to Trinity United Church of Christ—whose About page makes no mention of the Sacrifice and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Salvation offered there from, and whose platform is remarkably exclusionary and similar in tone to that of the Nation of Islam. (TUCC also has ties to Louis Farrakhan, who talks up Obama whenever he can.)

I just think that it’s best not to operate from fear and the Right’s fear of Obama is palpable. Fear is what terrorists are selling and it also makes one blunder, conservatives. Ask Senator Clinton.

Learn to separate what is proven from the apparitions found in your nightmares.

And if Robert Spencer isn't worried, should you be?

(Thanks to Drudge and to Hot Air)

*There is this document which is supposed to have been signed by Odinga. It is a Memo of Understand which promises Kenya’s Muslims—10% of the population—that, if elected, Odinga would enact Sharia law. Many Kenyans seem to think that it’s a forgery, but no answers are forthcoming. A lot of actual research was done by Eric Scheie with links posted in this comment.

Slick in LA

Former President Clinton is going to be here in South Central assuming a familiar position: puckering up to kiss black booty.

On Sunday he is scheduled to visit black churches in South Central Los Angeles, where he's expected to offer a mea culpa to those who "dearly loved him" when he was their president, Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) says.

Watson, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who has endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), tells us she'll usher the former president to more than half a dozen churches in her district where she says he needs to "renew his relationship" with congregants who were turned off by his racially tinged comments in the days leading up to and following the South Carolina primary.

I'll keep my eyes peeled. Somebody watch my six.

I know that the former president won't be at my church for two reasons: it doesn't have a predominately black congregation and it correctly doesn't concern itself with politics. (And could MSM types stop calling churches with predominantly black congregations "black churches"--as if no one of other races is allowed membership or as if all such churches are preaching "blackness?")

Looking at Rep. Watson's district--in which I do not reside--I'd bet my own unkissed backside that one of the churches to be visited is this one--a church that has many successful black entertainers in the congregation. That means the former president will be near the money, honey.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

While the Electorate's Attention Is Diverted

…Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

--Matthew 22:21 KJV

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

--Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, dated January 1, 1802.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

--US Constitution, Amendment One

While some members of the US Senate are busy running for president and other members are picking sides between them, still others are working behind the scenes for the watchword of the day: change. That change, if successful, will most certainly be dramatic. The question remains, however, is whether the prospective change is good, desirable, or whether it is even constitutional.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Senate Finance Committee chair, is heading a investigation into the finances of six Christian ministries. Each ministry must provide the committee with all information concerning its expenses, executive compensation, and amenities given to executives. The investigation started in November.

The inquiry is part of Grassley’s long-standing interest in making sure tax-exempt organizations are accountable to donors.

"I’m following up on complaints from the public and news coverage regarding certain practices at six ministries," Grassley said. "The allegations involve governing boards that aren’t independent and allow generous salaries and housing allowances and amenities such as private jets and Rolls Royces. I don’t want to conclude that there’s a problem, but I have an obligation to donors and the taxpayers to find out more. People who donated should have their money spent as intended and in adherence with the tax code."

Grassley wrote to Randy and Paula White of Without Walls International Church and Paula White Ministries of Tampa, Fla.; Benny Hinn of World Healing Center Church, Inc. and Benny Hinn Ministries of Grapevine, Texas; David and Joyce Meyer of Joyce Meyer Ministries of Fenton, Mo.; Kenneth and Gloria Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries of Newark, Texas; Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and Bishop Eddie Long Ministries of Lithonia, Ga., and Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church International and Creflo Dollar Ministries of College Park, Ga.

All of these ministries are familiar to me and, except for the Meyers (who have already complied with the Senate's "request"), all either explicitly say or give off the impression that they subscribe to the "prosperity doctrine"--that a Christian should give his/her church tithes and offerings in order to receive something tangible in return, rather than doing so because God commands it. (I would assume that the private aircraft and the Rolls Royces are evidence that the doctrine is sound. Okay, not really.) The deadline to furnish the information to the Senate Committee was December 6, 2007, so the ball is in the Committee's court.

Are these ministries grossly profiting from the tithes and offerings of their followers? Heaven only knows. And perhaps it's necessary for an earthly authority to look into answering that question.

But should that authority be the US Senate?
And how would the Senate be sure that a religious entity is accountable to its donors?
What will happen to the five ministries who have refused to release the requested information?
After the situation is resolved, what precedents would be set for governmental agencies to make further demands on some other church, synagogue, mosque, etc.?

See, we may say "yeah! go get 'em" for at least one of the above-mentioned ministries, but, as always, the short-term satisfaction of seeing suspected charlatans get theirs must give way to long-term considerations: whether this investigation will lead to more fishing expeditions in the Church.

If they can do it to these churches without actual evidence of wrong-doing, who's to say that yours isn't next?

Of the investigation, Pastor Joel Hunter of 12,000-member Northland, A Church Distributed in Orlando said that there's nothing to fear if the six entities are innocent. "Nothing to fear if innocent." Why do those words always seem to herald some intrusion upon liberty?

UPDATE: Walking the line--the Copelands aren't exactly operating as if their tax-exempt status is in jeopardy.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A Christian nonprofit says a Texas televangelist turned a national ministers’ gathering last week into a fundraising opportunity for Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee [that guy again], a newspaper reports.

The Trinity Foundation, a charity that monitors televangelists and viewed a live Internet broadcast of the event, said the fundraiser took in $111,000 and generated pledges nearing $1 million, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported in a copyrighted article Tuesday.

The fundraiser was held at Kenneth Copeland Ministries’ campus in Newark, Texas.

Russ Florence of Tulsa, Okla., a spokesman for Copeland, said in a statement that the event did not amount to an endorsement of Huckabee by Kenneth Copeland Ministries. He said Huckabee’s campaign rented one of the rooms after the ministers’ conference and Kenneth Copeland Ministries did not make a contribution to Huckabee’s campaign.

“No offering was or has been taken for any political candidate by Kenneth Copeland Ministries or at a KCM event,” Florence said. [SNIP]

“Basically, Kenneth Copeland simply asked him how he could pray for him and the governor asked him to pray for physical stamina for the team and the financial resources that they need each day,” she said. “I’m not sure who called who.”

Huckabee’s campaign released a statement saying it rented a room for “a separate event that was hosted by a private individual” and was not affiliated with Copeland’s ministry. The campaign said the event conformed with campaign finance laws and tax regulations.

The Trinity Foundation is helping in a Senate investigation, headed by Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. Grassley began the probe into spending by Christian television ministries last year.

Copeland’s actions “should raise enormous red flags,” said Trinity Foundation founder Ole Anthony. “This is not appropriate as a part of American church life or American politics.”

Civil Unions of Church and State

I had to go out—via the bus—after posting that last one, but before I did, I heard this from Mike Huckabee:

[W]hat we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards.

Is there something about the Constitution that isn’t up to God’s standards and/or does it contain a mandate to change God’s standards?

Yes I know that the governor was talking about circumventing the Constitution in order to ban same-sex marriage and abortion--two issues that I do not advocate either. But this rhetoric smacks too much of the unconstrained vision (thanks, Dr. Sowell)--a way of viewing the world in which any means are allowable to reach a certain goal. "Don't like the rules of the Constitution? Just change them, so we can get rid of that nasty same-sex marriage and abortion."

Any means necessary, indeed.

Huckabee’s assertion reminds me of something equally alarming that Barack Obama said in October:

I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth.

A kingdom. Here on Earth. And that kingdom would belong to whom exactly? Jesus Christ already said that the Kingdom of God is not an earthly one and that governmental matters were just that and are to be differentiated from metaphysical matters (“Render unto Caesar…”).

Which Christians are being pandered to by these politicians? These two are frightening.

Oh and congratulations to Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney for his win in the Michigan GOP primaries. And congratulations to Senator Hillary Clinton for her hard fought symbolic victory in that state’s Democrat primary over “uncommitted” (long story).

Jim Treacher says that these primaries have several things in common with the Special Olympics. I'll let the reader decide what those things might be.

(Thanks to ExUrban League and to Ace of Spades HQ)

Dueling Profiling in Los Angeles

So I’m coming home from church via a Los Angeles MTA Bus Sunday because the brakes on my hoopty are gone. In LA, using the Metro is perceived to be only for the “underclass” and it’s a shame too because if more used public transportation there would be more money to expand it.

I’d give up my vehicle if the public transportation were like that in East Coast cities. Maybe.

Anyway, I’m on the one of the accordion-style busses, sitting in the seats located in the “accordion.” (As far as I can tell, all of LA’s MTA busses are of this style.) The seats right next to and further to the front of the bus than the accordion seats are roughly a foot above them. And on this day, seated in such seats right next to me are two young Muslim men. They’re medium brown–skinned--around the same complexion as the youngest of my American sisters and as the two young Hispanic men sitting across from me—and, at first, the only way that I can tell that they are Muslim is that they are both wearing the little white knit caps similar to a yarmulke. (Any assistance as to what that type of cap is called is welcome.)

At first I barely notice the men. Being bored makes me nuts, so I carry a book everywhere I go in order to fill the times of expected or incidental waiting. On this day I happened to have two books, one being a Bible, of course. But I was reading the other one, a thick hardback from the library.

Then, something one of the young Muslims did caught my attention. He was wearing a thick leather jacket and he hugged himself for a long time with his hands hidden. (It was one of those warm days that occur during LA winters, around 75 degrees Fahrenheit.) I began to silently pray.

Please God, not now, not today.

The man then relaxed and began to chat with his friend in a language that I did not understand. At the next stop the friend exited the bus. The one wearing the leather jacket then moved closer to me so that he was sitting right next to me but a foot above me. Then he began to pray too--aloud and in Arabic. From (possibly faulty) memory, here’s the English:

In the Name of Allah the Most Beneficent the Most Merciful
All praise is due to Allah the Maker of Worlds.

I nearly got up and jumped out of the window of a moving bus. Instead I opened up my Bible to Matthew 21:21.

Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.

I wasn’t up for withering fig trees that day. All I asked was that the guy not be a jihadi or if he was, to not be at “work” on that day. But of course I acknowledged that “God’s will be done.”

Just then a shapely young black girl walked done the aisle in front of us. The Muslim guy and the two Hispanic guys were staring at her with open mouths. I relaxed a bit because surely he wouldn’t want to blow up the pretty girl, right? (Okay, I understand that that does happen a lot sometimes, but cut me a break; I was grasping at straws.)

Then the Muslim decided to try out his Spanish on the other men. One cannot grow up in LA and not understand at least the rudiments of the language. And, in this case, even though the Spanish was accented, I understood every word.

I heard those n*gger b*tches are hot in bed.

I was angry now instead of afraid. Then I remembered the other book that I was carrying—the large hardback. I closed it so that the Muslim would be able to read the book’s emphasized subtitle should he look down over my shoulder. He noticed the subtitle--and the photos--as soon as I closed the book because I saw him do a double-take.

The book was this one.

No words were exchanged between us and the man exited the bus a couple of stops later. I thanked God.

Please contribute to my brake fund.

Is Odinga A Muslim? (UPDATED)

I've certainly read the rumors of Odinga being a Muslim and about his alleged intention to impose Sharia law on Kenya upon ascending to the presidency since I've been paying attention to the turmoil in that country. Okay, Kenyans. Is this agreement authentic?

(Thanks to Atlas Shrugs, who sees something sinister in Senator Obama having met with a prominent political leader who knew his dead father. )

UPDATE: Odinga rejects a 'national unity government' in spite of the intervention of the US and of retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Tutu’s peace mission to Kenya last week was hampered by haggling by both warring parties over the conditions for negotiations.

Kibaki said his government was open to forming a coalition government with Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement only if Odinga accepted that there was a governing authority.

Odinga assured Tutu last week that he would enter into negotiations with Kibaki to form a unity government

But Tutu’s efforts to broker a deal came to nothing yesterday when Odinga rejected Kibaki’s offer to form a government of national unity.

Odinga said his party would be willing to enter into negotiations with Kibaki’s Party of National Unity only it were regarded as an equal. [SNIP]

Odinga said he should be the one offering Kibaki a role in a unity government.

He said: “It is an insult for him [Kibaki] to call us to join the government of national unity.

UPDATED: And the evil continues...a possible and predictable backlash.

More than two dozen Kenyan civil organizations say police have taken to using extraordinary force, and in some cases carried out extrajudicial executions, in the face of riots sparked by anger over alleged election fraud. Police deny the accusations.

The allegation is that police who are Kikuyu are taking their revenge on Odinga supporters, Luo and otherwise.

Humans.

PREVIOUSLY:

No Rest for the Wicked
Ganging Up
Uhuru Park Up Close
Six Degrees
Slaughter Postponed
Dreading Tomorrow
Kenya: Up in Smoke
Winds of Kenyan War
Kenyan Tribal Violence

A "Better" World

Speaking of Senator Obama, the deterioration of his presidential candidacy seems to be proceeding apace. From his August assertion that US troops were just “air-raiding villages and killing civilians” in Afghanistan (aren’t our efforts in Afghanistan supposed to be the “Good War?”), to his decision to cease wearing the US flag pin on the lapels of his suits (he used to wear one back when it was all the rage), the senator almost seems to be committing campaign Selbstmord.

Allahpundit features yet another of Obama’s statements—this time regarding faith. Speaking to reporters in the wake of making a campaign speech at the Redemption World Outreach Center (!), the senator disputed the assertion that Republicans hold the high ground when it comes to matters of faith. One wonders to which faith the senator was referring when he made this statement:

I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth.

Um, er, Senator, if one of your goals is to create an earthly Kingdom, that Kingdom you hope to build isn’t that of a certain Jewish Rabbi/carpenter—the one whom you claim to accept as your Savior. And, as a matter of fact, this world--this earth--is allegedly the Kingdom of that Other Guy; at least for a time.

Of course, it would be just as silly to claim that Obama is some sort of “agent of the Devil” as it is to claim that he’s some sort of Islamic Manchurian Candidate. Obama is merely spouting one of the tenets of a certain other type of “religion”—one that, however, has proven to be even more dangerous than those aforementioned, if body counts are any indication. I'd imagine that his audience, being mostly products of modern education, didn't pick up on the historical implications of an "earthly Kingdom." (That's not a slam against them, but against most public education systems.) But, sheesh! Don't any of these people--these Christians--read the Bible?

(Thanks to Gateway Pundit)

The Peace of the Grave

Whenever anyone with a certain types of name makes an entry into the public consciousness—whether that person is a presidential candidate or a girl who is kicked off of a Southwest airlines flight for dressing "inappropriately" even—some members of that public will display their ignorance with respect to the difference between race/ethnicity and religion. From this next story, one can deduce that Hamas does not make that mistake.

The body of Rami Khader Ayyad, the 32-year-old director of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, bore a visible gunshot wound to the head, and an official at Gaza's Shifa Hospital said he was also stabbed numerous times. Ayyad had been missing since Saturday afternoon.
Ayyad regularly received anonymous death threats from angry people who accused him of missionary work, a rarity among Gaza's Christians. His store, which is associated with a Christian group called the Palestinian Bible Society, was firebombed in April. [SNIP]

About 3,200 Christians live in Gaza among 1.4 million Muslims, and the Christian community has grown uneasy since Hamas routed forces of the secular Fatah movement and seized control of the coastal strip in June. During the takeover, vandals ransacked a Roman Catholic convent and an adjacent school, breaking crosses and smashing the face of a ceramic Jesus.

(Thanks to Ace of Spades HQ)

Hitchens' "Religious" Ritual

Right on cue comes noted atheist Christopher Hitchens' "tribute" to Jerry Falwell. Hitchens, who seems to take a perverse delight in trashing notable figures upon their deaths, especially those who were publicly religious, predictably excoriates Falwell for his acknowledged sins but in the midst of the rant, goes off on a tangent about certain anti-Semites who call themselves Christians. At first that seemed odd in a Falwell obit, since the reverend was a great supporter of Israel.

But it isn't clergymen who are Hitchens' enemy, per se; they're merely useful tools for the venting of Hitchens' ire (some being more useful than others). It's religion itself, especially Christianity--whether interpreted properly or not--to which Hitchens sets himself up as adversary.

At the end of the piece, Hitchens says that "[i]t's a shame that there is no hell for Falwell to go to..." That statement is refreshingly unhypocritical, since all too many atheists pretend to believe in Hell only when someone they hate passes on. The rest of the sentence reads as follows:

and it's extraordinary that not even such a scandalous career is enough to shake our dumb addiction to the "faith-based."

What Hitchens forgets about the only faith-based religion he could be talking about--assuming he ever knew it--is that if faith were not the sole criterion to get into Heaven, then no one could go since no one is capable of not doing wrong whether accidentally or willfully.

Perhaps Hitchens does take this into account but, as many do, finds it easier to believe that there's nothing else but the physical world. Understandable. However, judging from his many tirades against religious persons, especially faith-based Christians, I suspect that Hitchens does believe in the existence of God. And hates His guts.

Sharpton-Hitchens Debate

Does God exist or not? Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens make their cases for and against, respectively.

I have two questions which are unrelated to the first, however:

1. Why is Al Sharpton being held up as an "authority on Christianity?
2. Why is anyone surprised that something offensive came out of Sharpton's mouth?

As for the one Mormon running for [presidential] office [Mitt Romney], those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don't worry about that, that's a temporary situation.

(Emphasis mine.)

The next time someone white asks me what's wrong with "my" "leaders" I will point out that it is institutions such as Slate which are draping the mantle of leadership over Shapton's shoulders and not any organization known to be specifically a "black" one.

Even so, Sharpton outdid Hitchens simply in debate skills and by keeping a cooler head. That alone should be proof enough that God exists.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

Celebrating the Rise

"Reverend" Cosby preaches the words.

Dropouts: "The graduation (ratio) for black women to men is 70-30. I feel sorry and sad for all these highly educated females who are so intelligent and have no educated men to marry." [SNIP]

Parenting: "When are you going to challenge them about CDs full of vulgarity and profanity? ... When are you going to challenge them with, 'I want to know who your friends are before you leave this apartment'?"

Cosby asked foster parents, grandmothers, aunts and uncles who raise someone else's children to applaud, then pointed to the crowd: "There's your reality." [SNIP]

"I speak for the dead," he said. "And the dead say to me now, 'No more, no more, no more.' Say it to your young children."

Gerard Vanderleun knows why discovery of the "Gospel of Judas" is all the rage.

What is needed, in this secular age of self-intoxication, is a Saint who will remit our sins of betrayal; who will by his very existence sanctify treason. And who better fits this role than the man who betrayed the greatest love for the smallest change, Judas?

My progenitor--forgetting that Judas committed suicide as a result of his betrayal and is, therefore, past forgiveness--doesn't quite get the issue at hand (registration required),

It seems that, if Judas had not betrayed Jesus, Jesus would not have fallen into the hands of Caiaphas and Pilate. Yet if it was God who had sent his son to sacrifice his life for us, then the killers were merely acting as God's agents and should be hailed, not bundled into pogroms.

and muddies the whole story with a bizarre, alternate and rather Da Vinci Code-like treatise of the "real" story of Jesus of Nazareth.

Glenn Reynolds posts very sweet photos of the Easter Bunny--is there anyone that guy doesn't know?--and the Insta-Nephew.

Blogger pairing and prayer-answered update: Deb and Jay post a photo of their second blessing from God.

Good and Bad: my token (and favorite) Heathen visits his 95-year-old grandma today and takes money from children.

And Doug TenNapel talks about the transformation of Life from Death.

I've been obsessed with amphibians and raised them my whole life because they transform. Insects transform too but when they do it it's really gross to behold. Transformation is at the heart of my religion, Christianity. I believe the Creator of the universe left messages in nature that reflect his big picture plan for all of existence. There are acts of cruelty, acts of creation, and in the case of a tadpole becoming an adult toad there is transformation and completion into something wholely better than before.

(Thanks to Lucianne and to Michelle Malkin)

Any Time Now...

...we Christians will start rioting.

One problem with that, however: a portrait of the Virgin Mary covered in dung--and looking suspiciously Sambo-like--does absolutely nothing to shake the faith of those who believe in her Son as the Savior of mankind. Yes, it's offensive, but burning down the New York Times building or issuing some form of Christian fatwa--an idea that is completely foreign to this Christian at least--on the artist (Chris Ofili) would violate the tenets of everything in which Christians believe and bring absolutely no credit upon Jesus Christ nor his followers. The editors of the New York Times know this. That's why they feel total comfort in publishing a photo of this painting, but balk at showcasing the Danish cartoons in question.

BTW, lest one think that no editor of a major newpaper is brave enough to re-publish the Danish cartoons, note the Philadelphia Inquirer. And, in front of the Inquirer building, there are protests, and talks of boycotts--and rightly so. Both sets of persons--the Inquirer's editors and those who are offended--have exercised and are exercising their American rights of peaceful free expression. However, no reports of arson by Islamic extremists on such newspapers or upon Danish Embassies/Consulates in the US have surfaced. I wonder why that is.

(Other American newspapers which have published the cartoons include the New York Post, the New York Sun, the Rocky Mountain [Denver] News and the Riverside [CA] Press-Enterprise. Additionally, the editorial staff of the alternative weekly New York Press walked off the job in the wake of the executive decision not to re-publish the cartoons.)

Meanwhile, Cheeseheads are seething over the desecration of their god, Vince Lombardi. I'm betting, however, that they'll wait for spring thaw to avenge their deity.

;-)

(Thanks to Michelle Malkin and LGF)

An Open Mouth

Pat Robertson, one of the most public of Christians, has a tendency to believe that he speaks for God. That’s always a dangerous proposition.

His latest outburst concerns the grave condition of Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, who suffered a massive stroke on Wednesday and remains in an induced coma after several operations to halt brain bleeding. Mr. Robertson had this to say about Prime Minister Sharon’s condition:

"The prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who, quote, 'divide my land.' God considers this land to be his.

"You read the Bible, he says, 'This is my land.' And for any prime minister of Israel who decides he's going carve it up and give it away, God says, 'No. This is mine.'"

Presumably, PM Sharon’s apparent girth and his advanced age had no bearing on his condition. (In a video featuring Prime Minister Sharon and President Bush during Mr. Sharon's most recent visit to the United States, the contrast between the physical condition of the two men was striking--poor Prime Minister Sharon made the very exercise- and health-conscious President Bush look like Mr. Olympia.)

Ditto for the unimaginable stress that is inherent in long being the prime minister of 2006's Israel.

Mr. Robertson might want to watch out for that stray lightening bolt, heart attack, stroke, etc. if God is the type of deity which Mr. Robertson has repeatedly portrayed Him to be. It would seem to me that such a God wouldn’t take too kindly to slander or to driving people away from Him. And that is, most assuredly what Pat Robertson has done over and over again.

(Additionally, Robertson’s words serve to drive a wedge between two of the most natural of allies: Christians and Jews.)

One of the most insidious sins that plague mankind and have had the most long-lasting of bad outcomes is that of pride. Pride causes enmity between individuals, between peoples and between nations. Pride is the catalyst when one group of people attempts to assert its superiority over another. Pride allows a person to hold grudges long past the expire date and prevents that person from moving forward.

And pride lets a person believe that, because he has reputation for speaking for his beliefs and God has blessed him to own a platform for those beliefs, that he is always right and is always an unimpeachable authority in that realm.

The worst thing about people like Pat Robertson is that he has to know that whatever he says will receive the widest of media distribution. He’s got to know that there is always a microphone waiting for him to stand in front of to spout some “Christian theology.” The knowledge of this should make him mindful of his words and the effect that they will have, especially when he quotes Bible scripture. But it’s almost as if he wants to misrepresent what Christians believe. Specific for this case, it’s almost as if he has purposely forgotten other crucial parts of the scripture for the matter of sickness and death; namely, Jesus Christ’s words noting that misfortune falls on the just and the unjust alike. In other words, feces happens to us all.

If that isn’t so, what should Christians make of all of the strokes, heart attacks, untimely deaths in battle, via heinous crime or on accident? What should we make of those who live long, prosper and continuously perpetrate much evil all along the way? One wonders whether Mr. Robertson has forgotten the sin of Adam, which has allowed all of us to be subject to various forms of affliction and, ultimately, death.

I submit that Pat Robertson has long been a “respectable” version of the lunatic Fred Phelps—they both misrepresent what Christianity is and allow their pride of celebrity to spur them on--both men seem to go to absurd and disgusting lengths to get themselves talked about by all forms of the media and by the American man and woman on the street. In Mr. Robertson’s case, however, his Christian Broadcasting Network gives him the means to spread his slander of God to all and sundry. Good thing for him that God isn’t the Strategic Blunderer which Mr. Robertson makes Him out to be.

(Thanks to Charles Johnson and to Lucianne Goldberg)

UPDATE: David Corn:

So God visited a stroke upon Sharon because God is opposed to the Middle East peace process? That's what Robertson is saying. (But if God didn't want progress in the Middle East, why did God let Arafat die? I'm confused.)

Me too, David. It's nice when the Right and the Left can agree on something.

(Thanks to Pajamas Media)

Discuss The Difference

Are the words ‘atheist’ and ‘anti-religion’ synonymous? The reason I ask is because I’ve gotten into trouble with some atheist friends/associates of mine when using the word ‘anti-religion.’ I say that they are not, but I’d like other perspectives, especially from my atheist readers.

Getting the Types of Redemption Straight

I know that many are tired of the saga of Stanley “Tookie” Williams, but real life—or Whoever--sometimes intervenes and puts more thoughts into the minds of people like me.

I visited an old friend today—Victor is his name. As it happens, Victor is former member of Crips Gang of Terrorists. About my age, Victor has long been reformed and is an honest, hard-working family man now—a barber; he cut my hair. (Of note is that I acted as editor for Victor’s self-published autobiography chronicling his gang days, interesting dubbed The Choices We Make. Victor had seen “Tookie” in those days, and had, of course, known of him; however the former had never had a personal introduction.)

So it was natural that the “Tookie” subject came up; Victor was against the execution for the same reason that many others have been: the concept that a “redeemed” person should be spared the direst of earthly consequences of his/her actions. As a result, the confusion regarding what redemption is and what types of redemption there are re-surfaced, as it has here and in countless other venues.

I didn’t have time to say the following to Victor (who did prison time for his gang transgressions) and I am far less agile verbally than in written form, so I want to put this here.

Simply put, there is earthly redemption and there is heavenly/spiritual redemption.

Any type of redemption involves change: a change in attitude, made manifest by a change in word and in deed. Additionally, an essential component in redemption is the willingness and ability to pay one’s debt to those whom he/she has injured, whether the debt is to an individual or to a deity or to any entity in between.

How does one receive earthly redemption? In various ways, depending upon the injury; it can be something as simple as saying a heartfelt ‘I’m sorry’ or it can be by admitting guilt and submitting to the penalty received from a court of law—by paying the debt to society. Acknowledged in some earthly redemption is this: there are some things for which one can never get equal in this life, there are some things for which an injured party can never be ‘made whole’ again. Murder is one of those things, for obvious reasons.

In the Christian religion, heavenly/spiritual redemption is received by accepting that Jesus Christ has paid all of your (sin) debt for you. The two types of redemption, earthly and heavenly, are mutually exclusive—one cannot take the place of the other and there is no overlap. One can be consequent to the other, but that isn’t the same thing. Therefore, those who argue for giving clemency to a condemned murderer because she has given her life over to Jesus Christ are arguing apples and oranges. If the conversion is true, she has received all of the long-term forgiveness and redemption needed.

Victor noted that Paul, the author of the majority of the New Testament, had been—before the famed Damascus Road conversion--a prolific murderer of Christians and Victor asked me whether Paul had been redeemed. I answered that Paul had not had earthly redemption; had Paul—then Saul of Tarsus--been brought before the earthly authorities for his crimes, he should have been executed, should have paid his earthly debt. But God had other plans—for Paul to pay his spiritual debt by accepting Jesus Christ as propitiator for his—and everyone’s--evil and by becoming the most famous publicist for JC’s sacrificial act. (The fact that Paul had been acting at the behest of the earthly authorities of his homeland when he murdered Christians makes ludicrous the idea of him being executed for those acts. The fact that Paul ended up being martyred for his Christian faith is the height of irony. Both facts are, however, beside the point.)

Whenever a condemned murderer argues that his/her life should be spared because he/she has become a Christian, my askance radar begins to ping. Oh I don’t necessarily doubt that the conversion is sincere, but when such people confuse salvation in the spiritual realm for that from human beings, for that from government entities, it casts doubt on whether they’ve read the Rule Book. What those who use Christianity to argue for clemency for murderers forget is this: we all deserve to die--whether it's for murder or some other sin-debt in the spiritual area.

I wonder whether Karla Faye Tucker (read her story; it’s disgusting and uplifting at the same time), for example, understood Jesus’ words in Matthew 22:21: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.” In other words don’t confuse God with whoever is sitting in the State House.

Conversely, I wonder whether Timothy McVeigh, one of the authors of the notorious 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing had a conversion and actually understood what type of salvation he might be in for. (If you recall, McVeigh refused the mandatory appeals inherent in a death penalty verdict and asked for the verdict to be carried out.) It’s unnerving to contemplate that Timothy McVeigh might have not gone to Hell, but only he and God know whether he asked for heavenly redemption--God does what He wants without consulting you or me. (McVeigh’s prideful words and deeds immediately preceding his execution, however, seem to have sealed his afterlife fate.)

But the point is this: if McVeigh accepted Jesus Christ and asked God for forgiveness for his heinous crimes, then he received it, according to the Rule Book. However--assuming the foregoing is the truth-- the free gift of heavenly redemption had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the earthly penalties which he was compelled to pay for his crimes.

This sort of questioning forces a questioner to ask himself whether he actually believes in the salvation of Jesus Christ for all sins and an afterlife spent in either Heaven or Hell. If the questioner doesn’t believe in this concept, he is merely using his false understanding of what Christianity is to support his position when he excoriates Christians who support the death penalty. If he does believe, then he needs to remind himself that “as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” That passage implies that death is not the end and that judgment is contingent upon whether one has paid his debts or has accepted the “get out of Hell free” card.

Is “Tookie” (or Karla Faye or Timothy) 'square with the house' yet? If it’s the “heavenly house” to which we’re referring, I don’t know and neither do you; we can only say ‘probably’ or ‘probably not.’ Only God knows what was in the hearts of these people when they were executed. But we shouldn’t pretend as if earthly penalties and heavenly ones are related. When we do that, we show our true hand; that we doubt or don’t really believe that there is either a heavenly redemption or a heavenly Judge; that we really believe that humans are the only arbiters of right and wrong and that we—some of us—are merely using our misunderstanding of what Christianity is to attempt to shame Christians into discarding the notion of the Great Judge and into believing that death is the final fate.

Sorry, but that's not in the Rule Book either.

Merry Christmas and celebrate His birth well.

A Little Jesus-Preaching

Call this a sermon or a testimony if you wish. Myself, I’d call it survival.

In my September 11, 2005 post, my readers helped me celebrate my first voluntary baptism. One of them suggested that I read C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. The fact is, however, that I was already in the midst of re-reading it in spells. Allow me to discuss my reading habits for a bit.

Similar to not a few people, I’m usually reading more that one book during any given time interval. For me, the quantity is usually three, for three separate types of occasions: waiting for church services to start, waiting for all other occasions and bedtime. For the last two, the subject matter of the book could be anything that strikes my interest. However, the waiting-for-services book is always theological or spiritual in nature. Most of the time, it isn’t the Bible and right now, it’s Mere Christianity. (I mentioned that it’s a re-read. I had tried to read it before--when I was a wild heathen--but it couldn’t quite get into it. What a difference a conversion makes.)

About the reading of multiple books: it’s not that I’m such a brainiac; it’s just that sitting around with my thumb up my butt boredom makes me nuts.

Now on to the book.

One of the things which occurs when one becomes a Christian is that all past sins come back up to hit one in the head like a hammer. All of the terrible stuff that you had blocked out and had no intention of ever thinking about again breaks through that mental wall behind which it was imprisoned. I call that wall the Wall of Forgetfulness and of Rationalization. Accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior bulldozes that barrier and crushes it to powder.

“Oh yes. Remember when you did that? And that? And what about that?” I was a particularly heinous person in that I did what was right for me first and foremost and to hell with who it hurt.

Have I changed? In a sense, no. My first inclination is to still do what’s right for me first and all others second (a particularly strong trait in the first-born). My second inclination, however, now is to remember what that can lead to—becoming the type of person who not only sees truth as relative, but whose method of thinking always makes her desires equivalent to what is good and real and makes the opposite true as well: what she doesn’t want becomes wrong and false.

The Bible says that Satan is the Father of Lies; these progeny include the lies that you tell yourself. And once you get into the habit of lying to yourself about yourself, it becomes almost instinctive. But when reality butts against your instinct, it interrupts the play of the little DVD of self-serving scenarios running in your head and you scream “no!” and try to turn your “truth” into reality...if you're really far gone into self-delusion, that is.

A genuine conversion to Christianity throws cold water on all of that fantasy and shows you what you are and were on your way to becoming and points you in the opposite direction. You still fall short sometimes but you know you have broken the rules and you don’t try to cover it up or rationalize it away. Simply becoming a Christian doesn’t put Big J’s approval on everything an individual Christian does. We still sin and, if the conversion is true, we feel the sting of guilt even more keenly because we know what the rules are.

But also we know that we are incapable of sticking to the rules perfectly. And, most importantly, we know that our adherence to the rules isn’t what has saved and will save us anyway.

But what happens to the person—especially the one who calls herself a Christian—who continues to willfully take the wrong turn, who consciously makes the choices dictated by her appetites? Or her pride?

There’s a reason that one’s Christianity is referred to as a “walk of faith.” Every step of the way is still fraught with choices; “Do I take the road of faith or the road of sin?” is a question that has to be, a choice that has to be made every single day—every single moment.

Lewis is ever mindful of the fact that Christians believe in eternal life; that the soul lives forever. In one of the chapters of Mere Christianity, “Morality and Psychoanalysis,” he estimates how a person’s morality affects the soul’s composition and its eventual fate.

People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, “If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.” I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage impotence and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or to the other.

That explains what always used to puzzle me about Christian writers; they seem to be so very strict at one moment and so very free and easy at another. They talk about mere sins of thought as if they were immensely important: and then they talk about the most frightful murders and treacheries as if you had only got to repent and all would be forgiven. But I have come to see that they are right. What they are always thinking of is the mark which the action leaves on that tiny central self which no one sees in this life but which each of us will have to endure—or enjoy—for ever.

To me, this seems to be a particularly Catholic way of thinking--Catholics, feel free to argue--and though I have no intention of converting, it makes a lot of sense to me. If you’re going to be stuck with ‘you’ forever, it behooves you to try to become the type of person that you want to be stuck with for that long. After your threescore and ten are done (plus change, if you’re lucky/unlucky), all opportunities for modification will be past. To put it in geek-speak, in the eternal life realm, you'll have all the features and bugs that you’re ever going to have. Apart from radical change, a person is always headed in one direction or the other; therefore the time to make changes is now.

Life is short. Well, this one is.

Muslim Woman Wins Lawsuit Against Islamic School

Rights for women asserted: this time the woman is American, black and a Muslim--and a resident of Orange County, CA.

Zakiyyah Muhammad, the former principal of the Islamic Society of Orange County School, sued the school, claiming sexual and racial discrimination after she was fired. She won her case and was awarded $788,000.

Q. You were fired about two months after Fazal Mirza came on board as school board president. Why?

A. That's a good question. We concluded he chose not to work with an African-American principal. (Also) he did not appreciate the fact that I was not a subservient image who will keep very quiet.

Q. What justification was used to fire you?

A. At a school board meeting, (Fazal) said I was incompetent; he said I didn't do my job. It was a humiliating dressing down in public. I left the meeting in tears. In Islam your name is your gold. I've worked very hard to have a good name - and they were trashing it. [SNIP]

Q. Mirza is an immigrant from Pakistan. You are an African-American woman. Was culture an issue?

A. Our cultural expert witness ... testified that in (immigrant Muslim) culture, men support each other. The men (on the executive committee) just accepted whatever (Fazal) said. In their culture, women do not dare ask men for an apology or demand a public (arbitration). But that's not Islam - that's cultural. [SNIP]

Q. The jury found that gender bias, not racial discrimination, was at the heart of the case. Do you agree?

A. (Race) is a very real issue. The issue of black skin affects people on so many different levels. As an African- American Muslim, not only do I have darker skin, I also have a mental state of seeing Islam as having liberated me, not enslaved me.

I believe I have the right to stand up and express myself. I was active during the civil- rights battle. I was in Washington, D.C., holding up my little sign when Martin Luther King made his march on Washington.

(And yet) I have never ever been treated by any Caucasian even from the racist South as I was by Fazal Mirza and those men on the (school board) executive committee.

(Emphasis mine.)

How about that? Kind of gives some perspective to our little tiffs and misunderstands regarding real/alleged sexism and racism in the blog world, doesn’t it?

Congratulations, Ms. Muhammad and be happy that you are not Sudanese.

As for you, Mr. Mirza, welcome to America.

(Thanks to one of Roger L. Simon’s readers)

Not Fearing the Reaper

Death. You’re thinking about it; so am I. How to stave it off, how not to die of a painful and/or debilitating illness and, most of all, how not to perish in a disaster, whether that disaster is of human or divine origin.

Surely, you can see the contradiction in that. We exercise, eat right, don’t smoke/quit smoking, use anti-aging potions and have work done to try to look good and keep our old age comfortable, but if we’re going to die young in some large- or small-scale disaster, we don’t have to worry about any of that anyway. Yet, we view dying young as incredibly tragic. So do you want to die old and crochety or young and beautiful? You can't have both, sorry.

The thing is this: we really don’t want to die at all. We want to keep doing what ever it is that is detrimental to our health with no consequences and we want no car crashes, terrorist attacks, hurricanes, or wars to interfere with that. And on top of that, we want to stay young-looking and beautiful forever, like Tolkien’s elves.

And that is why the wailing and the gnashing of the teeth will continue about both 9/11 and Katrina, beyond all appropriate bounds.

On a certain level, it's puzzling, even amusing, all our efforts to put off the inevitable. But, yes, I’m still not smoking, will be in the gym tomorrow and am stepping up disaster preparedness around here. However, my body will still cease to function at some point and I accept that.

But what of us who believe in life beyond the grave, who believe that Jesus is the Savior of mankind? What is there to fear? By definition, nothing.

So, to acknowledge that I don’t fear that which can kill the body, and to acknowledge before men and women that I accept Jesus Christ as Savior, I’m getting baptized today, September 11, 2005.

My pastor said that today would be a good day for baptism: "a good day to stick a finger in the eye of the devil." I prefer to think of it as a good day to give the devil--and death--the finger (just in case you thought I was becoming too holy).

Back later.

UPDATE 5:30 PM PDT: Ah, you guys made me tear up! :-) Thank you.

Men, Women and the Church

Men…:::insert exasperation here::::….Don’t ask. Just trust me.

*****

On the other hand…

Michael Totten is back from Lebanon and has another post featuring more of the now-famous Cedar Revolution Protest Babes. As everyone knows, even heterosexual women—secure ones, that is--like looking at attractive women, if only to say “you go, girl(s)” or to get ideas on how to do their own hair and make-up.

Men liking women; all is right with the world.

In Michael’s comments, Will Franklin links to his own Babe Theory of Political Movements from a couple of months ago, in which he posits that where beautiful women lead, success (not to mention men) will follow.

Where and when there are hot babes, an exponential number of men will show up. If 100 cute girls with voluptuous bodies are protesting for freedom, you can count on a thousand men being there as well.

If sexy babes are involved in a peaceful political movement, it has a far greater chance of succeeding. If there are no good-looking women involved, the odds of a successful (and peaceful) movement fall dramatically.

Where and when alluring women are excluded from demonstrations, you can expect greater chances of strife, rioting, and failure.

*****

Turning Will’s theory upside down, I have this theory about church congregations; if there are too many women in the congregation, say more that 55%, the pastor has likely has too much “praise and worship” in his service and not enough teaching of the word and some of its less “uplifting” aspects. Recall Doug Giles’ words about the inability of many churches to attract men.

So why do most men avoid church? Here’s the veneer stripped-away answer: going to church for the majority of men is an exercise in unwanted effeminacy. Church, for most men, has not only become irrelevant; it has also become effeminate. Hanging out in church for most extra-Y chromosomes seems unmanly and most men more than anything want to be masculine!

In some of the churches I’ve attended, one would be hard pressed to find a man under seventy or a male child over twelve. Men don’t want to sit around on Sunday in church if all they are going to listen to is each member of the choir getting to sing solo in as many songs and a little bit of hollering preaching afterward. If guys are going to miss that football game, they’re going to do it because the pastor is

“serv[ing] up the solid meat of the scripture … the stuff that prods the congregation to biblical maturity rather than prolonging their [sic] infancy.”

Guys want you to tell them what, how, why and--most important—Who, without the pretty pink bow wrapped around it.

And, frankly--to acknowledge my less spiritual side--sitting around with a bunch of women for a couple of hours listening to bad singing and a little bit of shouting and watching a lot of jumping up and down puts me in a foul mood.

I’m willing to bet it does that to a lot of guys too.

And The Vatican Rolls On

"Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism," [...]"Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards. A dictatorship of relativism is established that recognizes nothing definite and leaves only one's own ego and one's own desires as the final measure."

--Josef Cardinal Ratzinger

Faster than a speeding senate committee, the Catholic Church elects a successor to Pope John Paul II.

To all my Catholic friends: Congratulations on the election of your new leader, Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, a German.

The new Pope even has a pre-existing fan club. Here’s a link to the fan club biography, but don’t try to get on the site today.

UPDATE: More on Benedict XVI; Wikipedia works quickly.

The Criterium

In one of Reverend Donald Sensing’s posts regarding CBS and NBC, the two networks have refused to run ads by the United Church of Christ which purports to make homosexuals feel welcome in their churches.

The broadcasting corporations’ rationale for the refusals is confusing, but, conversely, revealing; betraying a common misconception of what it means to be a Christian.

In a written statement to the church, CBS, a unit of Viacom, said the fact that the Bush administration had proposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman made the advertisement "unacceptable for broadcast."

NBC said the ad violated a long-standing policy of the network not to allow commercials that dealt with issues of public controversy. NBC is part of NBC Universal, which is 80 percent owned by General Electric Co. ., with the rest owned by Vivendi Universal.

Somehow, the Bush Administration’s support of the FMA proposal—and general disapproval of same sex marriage--has become synonymous with Christians allegedly wishing to bar homosexuals from attending church services. (No doubt, President Bush's public Christianity is somehow mixed into this stew of odd reasoning.) How did that happen?

Papa Said There'd be Days Like This

I am now the chairman of a national campaign to pass a constitutional amendment to take the right to vote away from born-again Christians. [enthusiastic audience applause] Just a little project of mine. My feeling is that born-again people are citizens of heaven, that is where there citizenship is, [laughter] is in heaven, it's not here among us in America.

--Garrison Keillor

But this type of joke doesn’t just spring up out of nowhere. Christian hatred by the media elites has always bubbled under the surface. But, since the election, it has sprung forth in full from the foaming mouths and keyboards of our intellectual betters.

It’s unnerving to witness, but not surprising.

If some of these people had read the book recently, they’d know that their behavior and attitude towards God was predicted quite some time ago.

(Thanks to Powerline)

UPDATE: I wanna party in Jesusland!

Offward Christian Soldiers

Francis W. Porretto gives perspective to the recent controversy regarding the implementation of creation "science" instruction in Wisconsin public schools.

The government-run schools were originally chartered for the express purpose of teaching the young American what he needed to know to be a good, responsible citizen. That was a relatively short list of purely practical competences:

• Basic English-language literacy.
• Basic numeracy.
• The history of the country and its civic and legal structure.
• Self-control in group situations.
• Sense enough to be able to pour piss out of a boot without consulting the directions engraved on the heel.

While the first four abilities are extremely important, the last—common sense--is absolutely essential to life and, from personal observation, is becoming less common in recent times.

I do, however, agree with John Cole (and Francis) on the subject.  Creationism isn’t science in that it cannot be verified using the scientific method-–some have said the same about evolutionary theory--and shouldn’t be taught under that category.    History, literature or theology would be a more appropriate category for such instruction.

See non-believers? We Christians don't want to indoctrinate your heathen children, regardless of of what Jesus-haters across the land claim.

Hatred, Faith And Works

What is it that keeps the Islamists hitting the Russians harder and harder and harder again? Granted, between 1979 and 2001, the United States was hit several times by these types of terrorists, but after 9/11 and its response, they seem to be confining themselves to individual American targets and military targets in Iraq.

Submission-Worthy

Michael Williams has an excellent post regarding marriage and submission, Christian-style. The bottom line, however, is on the bottom line.

(Thanks to Robert)

Born of the Spirit

I doubt that the perps in the post below this are one of these guys.

Via Chicago Tribune: A religious rite of passage on the battlefield - Marine Sgt. Andrew Jones, 25, of Sullivan, Ind., is baptized Wednesday in Fallujah, Iraq, by Lt. Scott Radetski, a Navy chaplain, in an improvised pool of cardboard boxes containing Meals Ready to Eat. Jones and three others asked for the rite after three comrades died, including two in the courtyard--"the middle of hell," as one of the GIs called it--where the ceremony took place. (Los Angeles Times photo by Rick Loomis)

(Thanks to BlackFive)

Apology

I’d like to apologize for posting this joke due to its off-color nature and NOT because it is “racist,” as a commenter contended. I am a Christian and sometimes the old life spills onto the new.

That said, in light of the injuries that Muslims have inflicted on my country, my father’s country, Tanzania, Israel, Spain, Indonesia, Australia, the Philippines and on and on, if the only retaliation to them and theirs is to be the butt of some rude jokes, they should face Mecca and give thanks to whomever it is that they’re calling God.

Crazy Man or Son of God?

“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him I confess also before my Father which is in Heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32-33)

Jesus said unto them, “If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from the God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.” (John 8:42)

Said by Jesus:

“And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you.” (John 16:23)

Foretelling of his execution and resurrection:

Then saith Jesus unto them, “All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.

“But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.” (Matthew 26: 31-32)

The chief priests and elders come to arrest Jesus. After Peter cuts off the ear of the servant of the high priest and Jesus heals the ear, he says to Peter:

“Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” (Matthew 26:53)

Sounds like Jesus thought that he was Someone Extremely Important, more than just your average Old Testament prophet.

For a guy to believe such things about himself, he had to be either a raging delusional whack-job or who he claimed to be, no in-betweens. For the rest of us, it’s our job to look at the evidence and decide which is true.

(Thanks to Dr. Gene Scott)

Living Up To Ideals (Part Two)

Lester Spence asks these questions:

juliette i'm not that familiar with the qu'ran. could you give me a citation for your reference?

could you also tell me if this type of activity is a constant over the history of the region? if we go back to 1905 for example, would we see someone lynched then?

finally, could you tell me how lynching and mass terrorism against african americans was able to continue for a full 100 years, without reference to the judeo-christian ethic?

Are Muslims following the tenets of their religion or ignoring same?

Let's turn it around. During the heyday of white American terrorism of black Americans in the South, were white American Christians following the tenets of their religion or ignoring them? If the latter was true, it isn't too hard to figure it out how it could be so: the same way that present-day Christians ignore the tenets of their religion. You may be familiar with some of the "lesser" ways: lying, cheating, stealing, committing adultery, dishonoring ones parents, etc. Or even worse, twisting the tenets of their religion to suit their own purposes.

This last sort of behavior shouldn't have to be explained to anyone who steps out of his/her door in the morning. And failure to live up to one's professed standards or twisting those standards to self-serving purposes isn't a failing unique to those who are religious.

"The hearts of men are evil beyond measure."

It took men of Christian (and Jewish) faith, black men and others, to shame the bulk of white Americans into living up to the ideals they professed to revere and cherish, whether it was “love thy neighbor as thyself” or the idea spawned from that, “all Men are created equal.”

*****

Back to your first question: does it matter whether it started 35 years ago or three years ago? Here’s my point: there is nothing in Islamic doctrine that can be used to shame the Islamists to stop using terror to attempt to achieve their aims. No Dr. Malik Shakir will come out of the Mosque holding up Muhammad as the "Prince of Peace" who commanded believers to turn the other cheek or take the two-by-four out of his own eye first. Why not? This is why.

“Slay the infidels wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush. (Koran 9:5)

Fight against those who believe not in Allah, and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth [Islam], until they are subdued. (Surat At-Taubah 9:29)

Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection. Allah is an enemy to unbelievers. (Koran 2: 98)

Again, Muslims who who terrorize, lynch and burn are merely living up to their credo, not ignoring or going against it. That's why (besides fear of other Muslims) you haven't seen any Muslims in large numbers publicly repudiating terror. (There are one billion Muslims, right?)

As a wise person said, when someone tells you that they want to kill you, believe them.

Living Up To Ideals

How do I blog about the news when one story stands so far out from the others that the rest seem like the frivolous BS of an indulgent and indulged people? Sure, grill the members of the Bush Administration over the coals using ‘damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t’ standards that no sane person/entity would ever use when its survival is a stake. And it is our survival that’s at stake, folks; those of us that espouse and live by Western and liberal (small ‘l’) values; those of us that value Judeo-Christian ethics. You know the ones I’m talking about, right? Come on, sure you do. They are the ones that cause us to double over in horror and scream in rage over photos like these (extremely graphic) and what they depict.

However, I had to calm down, re-group and think. I’ve seen stuff like this before or at least the generations before me have, right here in this country. I’ve even blogged about it before.

Back in the days when information didn’t flow so freely, American terrorists like these--who would commit acts equally as heinous—flourished and often got away scot- and conviction-free. Just forty-plus years ago—my lifetime--this sort of thing got either approval or cowed silence from those who knew about it.

So what’s the difference?

When these acts became known and documented, a large portion of Americans started to ask its government—its leaders--to live up to the laws that had been set down by their forefathers and, before them, by the Father, Himself. The people demanded that America actually be what it claimed to be. And it worked. Why? Because the idea, the foundation of America wasn’t and isn’t based on a murderous ideology.

Can we say the same of any Islam-based country/nation/society?

From where I sit, such atrocities are to be expected from a society that is Islamic in origin.

(Thanks, ironically, to Allah)

AFTERTHOUGHT: Remember Professor “Million Mogidishus?” Well he must have been feeling pretty smug today. One down, 999,999 to go. (Thanks for reminding me, Oriental Redneck.)

Keeping in Theme

Those who have not swords may still die upon them.
--Éowyn, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Thanks for reminding me, Reverend.

Francis W. Poretto muses on death cults, both foreign and domestic.

A Miscalculation

The not-so-secret secret is out: a lot of black Americans have never been happy with homosexuals equating their struggles for acceptance with that of civil rights. Part of the reason is that many, if not most black Americans are very religious; Christian and, increasingly, Muslim, for the most part. The other reason is this: many black Americans just aren’t that “open-minded” about certain things. Homosexuality is one of them. From the Washington Times:

Several black pastors are gathering today in San Francisco for the first of several rallies to denounce same-sex "marriage." Others are planning rallies in Boston on March 11, when Massachusetts lawmakers reconvene to consider an amendment upholding traditional marriage. [SNIP]

"We find the gay community's attempt to tie their pursuit of special rights based on their behavior to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s abhorrent," Bishop Andrew Merritt of Straight Gate Ministries and several other Detroit pastors said recently in a statement supporting traditional marriage. "Being black is not a lifestyle choice." [SNIP]

Black Americans have been liberal on many social issues, "but not this one," according to Star Parker, a California-based conservative leader.

The homosexual "marriage" issue "is where we get off the bus," she said.

Jesse Jackson won’t even climb aboard this particular bus.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson also has said homosexual rights are not the same as civil rights.

"Gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution," he recently told Boston-area students.

(I wonder if anyone has told him that homosexuals have a higher average income than everyone else. We’ll see if he changes his tune.)

Religious considerations aside, here’s the difference: a homosexual can hide his/her orientation. He/she can even change it, according to some Christian ministries existing for that purpose. Michael Jackson notwithstanding, a black person cannot hide or change his/her “blackness.” Ever hear of DNA?

I think that homosexual activists, in their zeal to get what they want right now have been quite short-sighted in this matter. There are too many black evangelical Christians out there that won’t “put their color before Christ,” as Star Parker put it.

Will this matter have an effect on the coming election? You bet. I can’t wait to see how.

(Thanks to Laura Ingraham)

Lightning Bolt Watch

Howard Dean loves Jesus, or at least he says he does for the benefit of the Southern vote.

He [Dean] acknowledged that he was raised in the "Northeast" tradition of not discussing religious beliefs in public, and said he held back in New Hampshire, where that is the practice. But in other areas, such as the South, he said, he would discuss his beliefs more openly.[SNIP]

Political analysts note that discussing religious beliefs could provide an important link to Southern voters. Greater numbers of Southern voters feel religion and politics need not be separate. An ABC/Washington Post poll released this week showed that 46 percent of Southerners said a president should rely on his religious beliefs in making policy decisions, compared with 40 percent nationwide and 28 percent in the East. The South is a potential problem area for Dean's campaign for the Democratic nomination, particularly as rivals like retired Army general Wesley K. Clark of Arkansas and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina invoke their Southern roots. In recent years, the South has been tough ground for any Democrat in the general election."If the Dean people are playing chess instead of checkers and are moving down the board and trying to figure out how to win a general election as well as how to win a nomination, they had best explain Dean to the people in terms of religiosity," said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow in governmental studies at the Brookings Institution.

And, like the Big He and his sort-of faithful servant, Dean knows how to play to us "backward, religious colored folk."

Just how much Dean will inject religion into his campaign, Hess said, remains to be seen. He pointed to an appearance at an African-American church in Columbia, S.C., as an example of what voters might hear in the future.

There, before nearly 100 parishioners, Dean said in a rhythmic tone notably different from his usual stampede through policy points, "In this house of the Lord, we know that the power rests in God's hands and in Jesus's hands for helping us. But the power also is on this, God's earth -- Remember Jesus said, `Render unto God those things that are God's but unto Caesar those things that are Caesar's,' " a reference to Jesus's admonition that the secular and religious remain separate.

Who is advising this poor son-of-an-unmarried-mother (figurative pejorative)? If Howard Dean really loved Jesus, he would be mindful of the perils of his latest maneuver, using the Big JC as a means to get votes. According to the Bible, God is having hypocrites even less than he’s having non-believers. If his church believes in “not discussing religious beliefs in public,” then why would he go against that now, except to use Jesus as a prop? If Dr. Dean really does believe in the redemptive power of accepting Jesus Christ as the Savior, then his long-term planning skills are questionable. If he does not, then he is a liar and a manipulator of the first order.

And the Leftists want this guy to be the Democrat candidate for president? Well, shucks. So do I.

Can the Crusader

To those who understandably refuse to register to read the Los Angeles Times, here's the editorial in its entirety:

Can the Crusader

Casting military or political struggles in intolerant, especially religious, terms is a sure way to make them intractable. The Thirty Years War, which was at bottom a battle among Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists, left Europe blood-soaked in the 17th century.

In recent decades, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has fundamentalist Israeli settlers and Palestinian militants confronting each other in explicit religious terms. That's one reason President Bush has been exceedingly careful to cast the war against terrorism in secular terms. It is a struggle for moderates to quell the fundamentalists' fondest wish, to cast the battle as one between Christian and Muslim cultures. Fundamentalism, unfortunately, can appear in many guises.

Consider this unlikely pair: Army Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, the new deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, and Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. As Times staffer Richard T. Cooper reported Thursday, Boykin has repeatedly said he sees the war on terrorism as a battle between Judeo-Christian values and Satan.

Meanwhile, Mahathir announced Thursday at the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit that "today the Jews rule this world by proxy" and must be outsmarted by Islam. In their penchant for demonizing, the two men have more in common than they might think.

Imagine the two conversing: Boykin tells Mahathir it's obvious that Islamic militants hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian And the enemy is a guy named Satan" (June 2003).

Mahathir laughs and tells Boykin he's got it wrong. No, no, don't forget the Jews: "The expulsion of Jews from the Holy Land 2,000 years ago and the Nazi oppression of Jews have taught them nothing It has transformed the Jews into the very monsters that they condemn so roundly"(1986). Mahathir continues that "the European race" itself is sexually deviant, greedy, responsible for warmongering and wants to "control the world again" (June 2003).

Boykin responds that although he doesn't believe Europe is at fault, the war on terror is "a war against the forces of darkness. The battle won't be won with guns. It will be won on our knees Stay on your knees and don't ever give up" (January 2003).

The two men perceive the world in similar terms. One sees a perfidious plot against Asian and Islamic values; the other, newly in charge of hunting down Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and other terrorism targets, appears to believe that the entire Islamic world is America's enemy.

Mahathir undermines moderate, secular Muslim leaders while Boykin mocks Bush's attempts to emphasize that the U.S. is targeting terrorists, not Islam. Boykin may say he is speaking for himself, but at his level anything said outside his living room will be seen as speaking for the U.S. military.

Mahathir will fade away on his own. It's up to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to retire the Pentagon's self-proclaimed crusader before he does more damage.

Did you note that the commentator wants General Boykin to lose his new position and be forced to retire because of his religion?

Not Holding My Breath

Greg Easterbrook of the New Republic, in a scathing review of the new Tarantino movie, Kill Bill, makes some arguably anti-semitic remarks in his blog (and subsequently apologizes). The Los Angeles Times lets an anti-Christian screed about a US Army General--who happens to be a fundamentalist Christian--slip by its editors into print.

My question: when are the powers-that-be in Christianity and Judaism going to issues their versions of a fatwa?

When are Pope John Paul II, Franklin Graham and Abe Foxman going to let loose their minions to wreck vengeance on Easterbrook and the LA times for the vicious slander of their respective religions?

Say what? What’s that you say? They likely won’t do such horrible things? Why not? According to the LA Times Editorial, fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims like the terror apologist and Jew-hater Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad are exactly the same.

When Jews and Christians start murdering innocents on purpose without the swift and overwhelming condemnation of the majority of their respective adherents, I’ll buy the analogy.

Watching the LA Times self-destruct has all the charm of gawking at a pile-up with bodies strewn all over the highway: curiousity is winning out over disgust.

(Thanks to Dennis Prager and Charles Johnson)

The High Priest of Beat Down

Don't mess with this man of God.