Quote for the Day

"I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth."

—William F. Buckley Jr. (1925- )

Article of Note: A World without the United States?

Hobbes in Sudan
What a world without U.S. power looks like

Our Commentary: sadly, many people salivate at the prospect of a world without a militarily, politically, and economically strong U.S. While our nation's actions at home and abroad are by no means perfect, a casual glance through the last 100 years of world history causes one to tremble in fear at what horrors might have triumphed were it not for us. This editorial from the Wall Street Journal gives us an important perspective the issue, and hence is an article of note for today.

From the Wall Street Journal, Thursday, 23 March 2006

At places like Davos and Harvard, the world's sages rarely stop fretting about the dangers of a too powerful America. Well, if you want to know what the world looks like without U.S. leadership, Exhibit A is Darfur in Sudan.

Today's leading authority on Darfur is the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who prophesied a world "nasty, brutish and short." At least 200,000 civilians have been killed in the past three years and two million more have become refugees. The source of the problem is the Arab rulers in Khartoum, who have pursued an ethnic cleansing campaign against black Muslims in western Sudan. They've equipped the Janjaweed Arab tribesmen to do the dirty work, and that militia is now attacking civilians across the border in Chad, creating 20,000 more refugees.

To his credit, Kofi Annan started shouting about the problem two years ago, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell labeled it "genocide" not long after that. The U.N.'s mighty peace-making machinery then started to roll and . . . nothing. The Chinese (who have close commercial ties to Khartoum) and Russians have blocked any serious intervention. Arab members of the Security Council have also opposed any attempt to single out Khartoum.

The Arab League--so quick to denounce Danish cartoons--has also stymied any global intervention to stop the murder of their fellow Muslims. Here's League Secretary General Amr Musa earlier this month: "In Sudan, there is a problem related to Darfur. We will listen to the Sudanese state minister to explain to us the developments in the issue of Darfur . . ." The League plans to hold its meeting next week--in Khartoum.

The African Union has at least sent 7,000 troops to the region, but they are under-funded and under-equipped to enforce a truce that Sudan blatantly flouts. But the African failure is also political. In January the Union held its own summit in Khartoum, and next year it plans to award Sudan its presidency. The rule seems to be never to say a discouraging word about other African leaders, no matter how murderous.

As for Europe, France would be ideal to lead an intervention force. The French have military bases in neighboring Chad and could establish a no-fly zone to stop Janjaweed bombing. However, Paris is already occupied with another intervention in the Ivory Coast, and with its own business interests in Sudan isn't volunteering in any case.

Amid this global abdication, Mr. Annan finally decided last month to call in the American cavalry. He visited the White House and, with media fanfare, all but begged President Bush to do something. Despite U.S. obligations in Afghanistan, Iraq and many other places, Mr. Bush responded by proposing an expanded U.N. peacekeeping force under "NATO stewardship."

But Sudan President Omar al-Beshir quickly played to type and withdrew support for a U.N. force. He also threatened that "Darfur will become the graveyard for the United Nations and foreign intervention." And rather than stand up to such threats, U.N. envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk has wilted. He's now talking up intelligence about al Qaeda terrorists in Khartoum who could retaliate against U.N. peacekeepers. And he's warning against any NATO intervention without Security Council approval--as if that would be forthcoming. All of this is a repeat of the same feckless U.N. pattern we've seen in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq.

So that leaves . . . guess who? The cowboy President, the American unilateralists, the Yankee imperialists--or, to put it another way, the only nation with the will and wallet to provide order in an otherwise Hobbesian world. However, that will and wallet are being stretched today in Iraq and elsewhere, and Mr. Bush is rightly wary of committing more American blood and treasure to a conflict in Sudan that the rest of the world doesn't seem serious about ending in any event. One lesson of Darfur is that there really are limits to American power, and in its absence the world's savages have freer reign.

Quote for the Day

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
Edmund Burke (1730-1797)

Nota bene: Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz

The Most Reverend Fabian Bruskewitz, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, is a holdout.

He's the last bishop in the United States to maintain that only men and boys can serve at the altar during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, VA, recently lifted the ban on "altargirls" in his diocese. The ramparts fell there, making Bruskewitz the last of the holdouts. God bless him for his steadfastness in fidelity to the heart and mind of the Church.

USA Today reported that "Bruskewitz, whose diocese includes 136 churches and 89,412 members around Nebraska's state capital, believes having only boys at the altar helps recruit them to become priests." The facts support that claim, as Lincoln is exploding with priestly vocations. Other dioceses are wringing their hands in worry as they see a largely graying presbyterate and mediocre seminary numbers. Certainly there are many reasons why Lincoln is prospering in vocations, but this policy is surely one of them.

I guess Lincoln won't be seeing one of those de-facto "Women in Albs" ministries that have become so prevalent in other dioceses!

Bruskewitz is a fine example for other bishops to emulate.

Chronicle of the Damned, part 7

Christian Alliance for Progress

Committed to ignoring the Scriptures, orthodox theology, and history. Eager to celebrate the sins of those who for the moment, find the fashionable mores of progressive liberals on their side. Damned to the pit and reminded by Jesus, "better that a millstone were placed around their neck [and dropped into the sea]....than to lead [Christians] astray." A most UnChristian Alliance, in league not with the Son of God, but the Prince of Darkness.

"The members of the Christian Alliance for Progress believe we have an obligation to reclaim the vocabulary of Christianity from extremists and to restore the morals and values of Christianity. We bring together progressive Christians and other Americans who share our passion and convictions. We will use the collective power of our individual members to help shape the political realities in our country and to strive to build a more just and compassionate nation."

"We advance a renewed, progressive vision of Gospel values and help Americans express this moral vision in how we think, work, and vote."

Beware anytime a person or organization takes it upon themselves to offer a "progressive vision" of the Gospels or any other part of Scripture.

"Many of us feel pain about the way the name of Christianity has been hijacked. It is being used to promote beliefs and actions that violate the values Jesus lived and taught. This organization is determined to reclaim Christianity. That is why we are here. We stand for values that are basic to both the Christian tradition and the American tradition. You do not have to identify as a Christian to be a part of this movement. We welcome anyone who wants to defend these values from right-wing extremists."

Not historians, it appears. Nor particularly keen on actually looking at any Scriptures other than selected passages, often taken out of context, from the teachings of Jesus.

"First of all, we advocate the traditional American values of separation of Church and State. Secondly, Jesus stood outside the power structure of his day, and he spoke for the poor and powerless. That is what prophets do. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Desmond Tutu are examples of Christians acting in the prophetic tradition. Following Jesus obliges us to speak to the government in a prophetic voice and to stand for the values Jesus taught."

Interesting choices for secondary role models. I never found King, or Tutu, to be prophets. Is it worth noting that Christian Alliance did not turn to Elijah, or Isaiah, or any other Old Testament prophet for inspiration? Maybe because that would mean a message that entails more than holding hands, talkin' bout "love", forgetting the cross, and denying any need for salvation. A man's soul must be made right before his Maker. All else is secondary.

"Do you believe that through Jesus is the only way to heaven?
This movement is not about offering people salvation. We are not a church. Our purpose is not to make dogmas. We believe that we are called to follow Jesus. When he called the disciples, he didn’t say, "Come believe in me." He said, "Come follow me." Jesus calls us to act in the world here and now. And he tells us that we will be judged by "whatsoever you did to the least of these". People in this movement hold diverse views about religion and the Christian life. Some of us follow Jesus as part of an organized religion and some of us don’t. What we have in common is our commitment to stand for the values Jesus lived and taught like compassion and justice and the equality of all people."

Bad theology, or no theology has yet to lead anywhere good or worthy of further consideration.

Well, let us consider a couple of the specifics (there are many) which damn this organization:

Abortion
"Honoring the Sanctity of Childbearing Decisions"

What a mockery of decency. I wonder how far they would take this line of thinking. For example, "the sanctity of marital faithfulness decisions" or "the sanctity of end-of-life decisions" or maybe Christian Alliance is unable to think of where these creative phrasing might go?

"You know, under the abstinence-only education programs pushed by the radical right, the rate of abortions has actually increased. Plenty of studies show that the abortion rate goes down when accurate information about human reproduction and contraception is available. But the extremists are opposed to even a basic preventative measure like that."

No! Abortion rates go down when abstinence is practiced. No sex = no baby = no abortion! And they also go down when individuals find it morally reprehensible to compound a mistake of lust and the consequences, with murder.

Now what does that tell you? It tells me that what the extremists really want is to punish any woman who has an unintended pregnancy. Jesus taught compassion, responsibility, and equality.

Beyond the buzzwords, the tell-tale signs of an ill-defined position, what really are they saying?

"Over and over in the Gospels, Jesus is scathing in his dealings with hypocrites. We believe that Jesus would recognize the inherent hypocrisy in decreasing support for family planning or reducing access to contraception while simultaneously seeking to criminalize abortion. "

So in the name of not being hypocritical, Jesus would support the murder of a child. This seems highly unlikely, particularly when one remembers the extensive use of children as metaphors or examples in the Gospels.

"Recognizing that Jesus teaches us by his example, we hold that he would treat women as full and complete partners today, just as he did in his own time. Therefore, we assert that creating secular laws to give control of a woman's body to the state is unchristian. We assert that compulsory childbearing (if Roe v. Wade were overturned), compulsory abortion (as in China), and compulsory childbearing or abortion based on the state's decision (as in Nazi Germany) all deny a woman's essential humanity and are immoral."

Well, the purpose of government is not to protect innocent life. That, according to Christian Alliance, would be unchristian. Let's pull out the police from their tidy little communities, troops from our borders, remove completely the sword from the government. What exactly is government for? Cradle to grave welfare might hint at protecting life -- so they better not espouse that line of thinking.

It is not a question of compulsion (in child-bearing). A life is created, there is no choice of what to do with him. He must live.

The time for choosing was before sex. Again = no sex = no child = no abortion. (this has been discussed in the context of extra or pre-marital relations)

All the emotional distress, the physical pain, the worry, et cetera, do not even tip the balance when weighed against a life, created in the image of God. Every consideration pales before this one fact.

"In a world where men held all positions of institutional power and had social dominance over women and children, Jesus overturned firmly established taboos to clearly demonstrate the complete equality of women. Rather than "keeping women in their place," Jesus as we find him in the scriptures empowered women."

Ah, shades of Dan Brown and The DaVinci Code.

I think it's fairly clear that Christian Alliance will not hold the line. They excuse away murder, encourage it even, all in the name of tolerance and "compassion." I find nothing, not one line, that would suggest Jesus might sympathize or support abortion. Instead, I am convinced that he would welcome those who had abortions and tell them, "go, and sin no more." To the pregnant, perhaps a warning about harming "the little ones..." and a command to raise up the child in the fear of God, always trusting upon Him to see her through the difficulties of life. Or he might suggest an adoption. That the child is unwanted or unloved is irrelevant. The ends do not justify the means. The same with the extremely rare case of a child conceived out of rape or incest. The circumstances of a child's conception do not negate his worth in the eyes of God. And finally, for cases of a mother's life being in danger, well, as compassionate as it may seem on the surface, the philosophical implications are grave. For then one is choosing one life over another based on value. That is a road straight down.
Jesus would never suggest or condone the murdering a child. That is blasphemous.

Homosexuality

"There is only the community of humankind to which all of us belong - all God's children in all our beautiful variety." This includes the full gamut of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning and any new variation blown in on the media winds.

"Currently, there is a stampede to pass laws and constitutional amendments to "defend marriage and traditional values" from gay and lesbian people by denying legal protection for their basic civil rights as Americans. We predict these laws will be viewed by generations to come as the Jim Crow laws of the 21st Century, and great will be our shame in the eyes of those generations."

The point must be simply stated. Civil rights based on gender or race, both unchosen, is in no way comparable to a sexual deviation or practice. Indeed it is neither in the same category, nor is it relevant.

"The sad fact is that, in every age and culture where a group of 'unclean, sinful others' has been identified, those outsiders become objects of fear and oppression. For example, in Jesus' day, lepers had to travel in packs, beg for food, and shout the warning 'Unclean! Unclean!' as they moved about, so no one would get near them. Today, extremists have identified gays and lesbians as the 'dangerous others' we must fear. It is said that they have an agenda to "attack the family" and that a committed relationship between a gay or lesbian couple is an 'attack on marriage.'"

Strange. I always thought lepers were unclean. Have we forgotten the medical values of quarantine. It is for the good of everyone. Jesus ministered to them, but he did not tell them to blend with the general population unless he healed them and they submitted to an examination by the priests. The isolation of inflicted individuals was an Old Testament law. One ought to fear those who by their actions knowingly or not, undermine the social structure and break down the marriage institution as ordained by God. It does not follow that gays or lesbians should be quarantined, but as long as they persist in their sin, they cannot enter fully into the fellowship of other Christians nor can they contribute to the greater good of society.

"Murder. Rape. Bestiality. The destruction of the nation. It's terrible to even think about these things, and civil rights for gay and lesbian people are in the very same list of evils. It's enough to frighten anyone - until the rhetoric is exposed under the revealing light of truth."

Sodomy. Deviation. Perversion. The destruction of the nation. Look at Greece. Look at Rome. Look at America. "until the rhetoric is exposed.....truth." Well, what is the revealing light of truth??? Christian Alliance does not say. Because there is nothing to say.

Christian Alliance strongly believes that sexual perversion and sin are gifts. God's uniqueness working itself out in the lives of those who practice such things. No theological evidence, no Scriptural teaching, nothing in the Bible supports this. It is, a lie of the devil, embraced by those who would not call sin, sin. Damnation awaits.

Stated goal

"We believe all these values were central to the life and wisdom of Jesus. He came to teach us and show us how to live in a way that would bring the beloved community, the kingdom of God here on earth. The beloved community was so important to Jesus that he worked to establish it despite the clear risk to his own life. Living these values requires hard work. But it is in living values out that the beloved community, the kingdom of God, is established. The result of it is called Shalom, the well-being and wholeness of all. This is what the word "Peace" means. And, it is our most closely held dream and hope for the world."

This seems at odds with "my kingdom is not of this world" and "I come to bring a sword" and "take up your cross" and "the world will hate you for My name's sake." Christian Alliance has fallen into the oldest lie, "you can become like gods" that is, you can create a heaven on earth. The Enlightenment tried this. Revolutions and regimes tried this to the cost of hundreds of millions of lives. Social Darwinists, social gospel, scientific methods of regulating society, and so on tried. All failed. What happened to the Christian acting as salt and light on this earth but seeking to advance the kingdom of heaven?

A strong and bitter dose of Biblical theology, orthodox teaching, and discipline might improve their vision. But one is tempted to remember the words found in Romans 1:18-28. Verse 32 offers their end: "Who knowing the judgement of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Destination:

Being an organization, Christian Alliance for Progress has their corporate headquarters in Circle Six, reserved for heretics. In seeking a kingdom on earth, they pay no heed to the soul's eternal destination. This hints at a denial of immortality. "Who make the soul die with the body," Dante places in this circle.

Branch offices and individuals affiliated with this organization will reside in Circle Seven, reserved for the blasphemers, murderers, and sodomites, and Circle Eight, reserved for falsifiers, sowers of division, and those practicing fraudulent rhetoric.

Louis L'Amour

It's the birthday of novelist Louis L'Amour, born in Jamestown, North Dakota (1908). One of the hardest working and best-selling novelists ever, he wrote a hundred and one books in his lifetime.

He knew he wanted to be a writer from the time that he could walk. So L'Amour quit school when he was fifteen and traveled around the West working as an animal skinner, ranch hand and lumberjack.

Wherever he went, he got people to tell him their own stories and whatever stories they knew about the Old West. Once, he met a gunman who had ridden with Billy the Kid and who had gone on to sell real estate.

In the early 1930s, L'Amour hopped an East African Schooner and made his way from Africa to Asia. He lived with bandits in the mountains of China and then started boxing professionally in Singapore. He won thirty-four of his fifty-nine boxing matches by knockout.

When L'Amour got back to the United States he started writing for pulp fiction magazines because he needed money and the pulp magazines paid him the fastest. He wrote all kinds of adventure stories, but eventually settled on westerns.

L'Amour's first big success was Hondo (1953), about a love triangle between a cowboy, an Apache warrior and a young widow living on a remote Arizona ranch. It begins, "He rolled the cigarette in his lips, liking the taste of the tobacco, squinting his eyes against the sun glare."

In Ride the Dark Trail (1972), L'Amour wrote, "I just pointed my rifle at him ... and let him have the big one right through the third button on his shirt. If he ever figured to sew that particular button on again he was going to have to scrape it off his backbone."

For further reading, see his autobiography Education of a Wandering Man.

taken from today's edition of The Writer's Almanac


L'Amour said, "I write about hard-shelled men who built with nerve and hand that which the soft-bellied latecomers call the 'western myth.'"

Quote for the Day

"Great nations rise and fall.

The people go from bondage to spiritual truth,

from spiritual truth to great courage,

from great courage to liberty,

from liberty to abundance,

from abundance to selfishness,

from selfishness to complacency,

from complacency to apathy,

from apathy to dependence,

and from dependence back again to bondage!"

-- Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

Christian Reflections, Seven

"The great door of covenant faithfulness is shut behind the believer and he is surrounded by the power and grace of God, even as Noah was housed within the strong timbers of the ark. There is no crack nor cranny through which the floods of wrath can penetrate -- omnipotent love has shut us in! And the Lord did this not only necessarily, but graciously."

from Sermon #1613

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

click here to learn about Spurgeon's love of a fine cigar

Christian Reflections, Six

On the Holy Trinity:

"No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the spendour of the three; no sooner do I distinquish them than I am carried back to the one. When I think of any one of the three I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that one so as to attribute a greater greatness to the rest. When I contemplate the three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided light"

from Oration on Holy Baptism

by Gregory Nazianzen (330-391)

The real Irish-American saint: Saint Brendan the Navigator

I know it's a few days late...but here is the article I intended to post on St. Patrick's Day.
-------------------------
Of Sainted Memory This St. Patrick's Day why not drink to St. Brendan?

BY JOHN J. MILLER Friday, March 11, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

This time next week, many Americans will wake up wondering why they had partied so hard the night before. A better question might be why they honor St. Patrick at all, because he is not the most fitting patron saint for Irish America.

The problem isn't that Patrick is objectionable in any way. As the man who brought Christianity to Ireland, he is obviously a figure of enormous significance. Yet there is nothing distinctively American about him--and Irish-Americans have a better choice in St. Brendan.

In the year 486, about a generation after Patrick's death, Brendan was born near Tralee, on the southwest coast of Ireland. Few hard facts are known about his life except that he founded a monastery at Clonfert and established several other enclaves around the British Isles--making him one of the fellows who laid the groundwork for Irish monks to "save civilization," as Thomas Cahill's best-selling account has it, when the rest of Europe was losing its heritage.

But that's not what makes Brendan special for Irish-Americans. His connection to them comes from the legends surrounding his other feats, which became popular tales in the Middle Ages. "The Voyage of St. Brendan" describes our hero leading a group of monks on a seven-year quest in search of a promised land that supposedly lay across the vast western sea.

The story features plenty of fantastic elements, such as fire-breathing sea monsters, an encounter with Judas Iscariot and a friendly whale who lets the pilgrims hold a Mass on his back at Easter. Several literary types have labeled the "Voyage" a Christian version of the "Odyssey," and it certainly includes adventures rivaling those in Homer's classic.

It is plainly a work of imaginative fiction. But does it also contain any kernels of truth? There is no doubt that Brendan was an extraordinary traveler. For Catholics, he is a patron saint of sailors. What is more, Irish monks are perhaps history's greatest unheralded seafarers. Many of them craved geographic isolation, where they could lead simple lives of prayer. This drove them to seek places so far off the beaten path that nobody else had been there before. (Or at least no other Europeans.)

The Vikings are usually given full credit for their bold exploration and settlement of the North Atlantic. Yet Irish monks actually beat them to Iceland, may have reached Greenland before they did and just possibly set foot in North America prior to Leif Ericson dubbing it Vinland.
This final claim can't be proved. There is no archaeological evidence for it, just as there was no archaeological evidence for Vinland before 1960, when Helge Ingstad stumbled upon the L'Anse aux Meadows site in Newfoundland and confirmed that the old Norse sagas were true: The Vikings came before Columbus.

Yet serious scholars also have put their faith in these daring Irish monks. "Norsemen discovered the New World about the year 1000," wrote Samuel Eliot Morison, Harvard's celebrated naval historian, in The Oxford History of the American People, "and an unknown Irishman probably did so even earlier."

Almost three decades ago, Tim Severin decided to test the idea. Using only materials available in sixth-century Ireland, he built a traditional Irish curragh from ash trees and ox hides, christened it Brendan, and set sail from Ireland's west coast. On June 26, 1977, he reached Newfoundland.

This resolved nothing, of course. But just as Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki and Ra expeditions opened the world's eyes to the possibility of surprising migrations, Severin helped show that the Brendan legends represent more than a theory for ethnic-pride crackpots.

If Irish monks really did make it to the Western Hemisphere, then perhaps Brendan is best understood as America's first immigrant. The story of Irish America, at least in its initial phases, is essentially the epic of a people who uprooted themselves, crossed an ocean and made homes in a place they'd heard about but had not seen.

And if the notion of displacing St. Patrick's special place on the calendar is too much to abide, then we can compromise: two parties instead of one. Or perhaps more piously, St. Brendan's feast day on May 16 can be devoted to good works as well as good ale.

Mr. Miller is a writer for National Review.

Quote for the Day

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where.

Men have left God not for other gods, they say, but for no God; and this has never happened before.

That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing first Reason, and then Money, and Power, and what they call Life, or Race, or Dialectic.

The Church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells upturned, and what have we to do but stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards in an age which advances progressively backwards?

-Choruses from The Rock, 1934

Spucatum tauri: The diversity crusade revisited (again)

Sayed and de Man at Yale

The campus that ran off a Nazi propagandist today welcomes one from the Taliban.

By John Fund, the Wall Street Journal

Three weeks after the New York Times revealed that former Taliban official Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi is attending classes at Yale, many at the university still have little to say about the controversy. Meredith Startz, president of the Yale Political Union, told me "there's more discussion of military recruiting among people at Yale than about the Taliban student."

That's partly because Ms. Startz's own organization is discouraging discussion of the subject. The union's vice president had invited me, along with Yale alumnus and Army veteran Flagg Youngblood, to debate both military recruitment and the Rahmatullah case, on campus March 29. But when he brought the proposal to the executive board, it was rejected.

"No matter how carefully we frame this debate, it would inevitably turn into a trial of a fellow student and his personal life and beliefs," Ms. Startz wrote me. "The [Political Union] is not a forum for that sort of discussion." When I asked her how mentioning Mr. Rahmatullah's professional record as an apologist and propagandist for the murderous Taliban could be construed as a discussion of "his personal life and beliefs," she told me I was playing "semantics." But she stuck to her view that the debate would be improper. ...

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