Incredible that this has gotten next-to-no coverage but at Falwell’s Liberty University, Mike Huckabee claimed divine providence as the reason for his rise in the polls. More and the video at Prezvid.
Fox News is airing the church service and sermon by the scary — for me — Rick Warren, CableNewser tells us. Of course, TV stations air services at Christmas but not as news events. Is this news? Or is it proselytizing? Will they air Friday services from a mosque in Ramadan? A service from a synagogue in the high holy days? A service from a liberal church on Christmas Eve? Where’s the news?
: LATER: I watched his service when I got home from my own. What platitudinal pop pap. With really irritating music. And Fox selling DVDs of the thing.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury speaks out against Islamic violence:
Lord Carey said that Muslims must address “with great urgency†their religion’s association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the “clash of civilisations†endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole.
“We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times,†he said. “There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths.†. . .
Lord Carey went on to argue that a “deep-seated Westophobia†has developed in recent years in the Muslim world. . . .
He said he agreed with his Muslim friends who claimed that true Islam is not a violent religion, but he wanted to know why Islam today had become associated with violence. “The Muslim world must address this matter with great urgency,†he said.
It is high time that religious and political leaders call out Islamic leaders for not calling out Islamisits for their use of violence in the name of religion. The Pope did so last week but then promptly wimped out, apologizing for hurting anyone’s feelings. Didn’t know the Pope was from California. Feelings? Since when did the Pope turn PC?
Media have not helped. They have quoted one line the Pope quoted and put that forward as an insult to Islam. Well, far be it from me to defend the Pope who does not defend himself, but read that line — from Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus in 1391 — in context and it is an important statement about both violence and rationality and religion:
The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religion”. According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels”, he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”. The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God”, he says, “is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…”.
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent.
Transcending law, even reason.
I think it’s ironic that the Pope then goes on to try to expand the definition of reason beyond that accepted in the West because he wants to portray religion as reasonable.
We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.
And he seems to be arguing that there — under a larger umbrella of reason — there is a meeting point for the religions to meet. I would say that defines optimism in our age.
So the Pope’s point was not to attack Islamic jihad but to use that as an illustration of fundamental differences. Still, he did attack violence in the name of religion. And I believe he should have stood by that firmly, for that is the discussion we must have. But instead, he wimped. And I believe that Islamic leaders should be standing firmly in the same spot, condemning violence — political violence, let’s be honest — in the name of their religion. But instead, they whine.
Where the hell are the moral leaders for our age?
: LATER: We should dread the aftermath. A Turkish paper reports that a church in the West Bank was attacked. Make that two churches. The Guardian has a picture of angry Muslims in India burning the Pope in effigy. Is this the sequel to the Danish cartoons? Let’s hope not. There are a lot more Catholics and Christians in the world to fight than there are Danes. But do note the terribly irony: The response to words condemning violence is violence.
The Howard government yesterday challenged the spiritual leaders of the nation’s Muslim community to reject terrorism.
In a firm address, Andrew Robb, Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, told a conference of Australian imams in Sydney that they had a responsibility to “quarantine Australia from the extremist elements who are tormenting the world, masquerading in the name of Islam”.
The clash of civilisations is not between Christianity and Islam, it is between nations that encourage religious diversity and those which practise religious intolerance. It is between those who favour open debate and those who think free speech is anathema. The Pope may or may not have known what a hornets’ nest he was stirring up. Even if he did, there was nothing inappropriate, within context, in what he said.
The Vatican has said he is very sorry his speech caused such offence to Muslims. That is fine but it should not go further than that. He should certainly not be pushed into withdrawing his remarks. As in the case of the Danish cartoons, Muslim zealots are trying to impose their restrictions of free expression on the West. Mindful as we should be of religious sensitivities, that cannot be allowed to happen.
As security was beefed up around Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday night, the Mujahideen’s Army movement in Iraq threatened to carry out a suicide attack against the Pope in revenge for his comments about Islam and jihad.
On a website used by rebel movements in Iraq, a message posted by the Mujahideen’s Army said members of the organization would “smash the crosses in the house of the dog from Rome.”
Jesus has a MySpace account. He lists his hobbies as “beard care, extreme waterskiing†and his favorite film as “The Life of Brian.†Last I looked, poor bloke has zero friends. In fact, He needs to advertise for them. But does He pirate videos?
Well, there’s some good news on the religious front, as far as I’m concerned:
: The Presbyterian Church USA opened up a loophole to allow the ordination of gays. This was one of the reasons I left the Presbyterian Church. Though the morally noxious rule against gays stands, local congregations are now allowed leeway. Even gays’ opponents are tired of the fight:
But Marj Carpenter, a former moderator, or elected leader of the denomination, told the assembly: “The middle — the big part of the church — is worn out with this 28-year-fight. It’s starting to affect missions. It’s starting to affect what we do for youth. It’s starting to affect evangelism. It’s killing us.” Carpenter, who said she opposes ordination of gays and lesbians, said she is “ready to compromise.”
: Meanwhile, American Episcopalians found balls and fended off pressure from Anglicans elsewhere on the issue of ordaining gay bishops, refusing to recant.
Canon Martyn Minns, a conservative leader and rector of Truro Church in Fairfax, Va., said the deputies’ vote showed the impossibility of reconciling Anglicans with different views about the Bible and homosexuality.
“It’s too hard. It’s a gap too wide,” he said.
“Unhappily, this decision seems to show that the Episcopal church has chosen to walk apart from the rest of the Anglican Communion.”
But Rev. Susan Russell of Integrity, the Episcopal homosexual caucus, said she felt proud the church was willing to affirm its commitment to fight injustice.
“The vote says we’re not willing to make sacrificial lambs of our gay and lesbian sisters and brothers and that has to leave me feeling pretty grateful and very proud,” she said.
: And back at the Presbyterian ranch, the General Assembly backed away from its — let’s call it what it is, antisemitic — push to divest Israeli investments. Now they just want peaceful investments. Drat, they’ll have to sell those Hamas futures.
The issue had divided the church, where some members thought the divestment threat was anti-Jewish, and it damaged the church’s relationship with Israel.
The eight-week program will challenge Christian students to integrate their faith, journalism practice, and understanding of our current culture in a unified fashion aptly fit for today’s mainstream newsrooms.
So you can infiltrate those citadels of Godlessness.
So I sat in church yesterday, awaiting the cue to leap up for the Halelujah Chorus, pondering the greater meaning of the Judas gospel. If it is true that Jesus had Judas turn him in to fulfill his wishes, what does that mean for the sermon I was hearing, the anthem I was singing, the building I was sitting in? I never much bought the virgin birth, wasn’t too clear on the meaning of the crucifixion, and wasn’t 100 percent convinced about even the resurrection. But, as the frequently heard rationale among the doubters goes, at least we believe in the message of Christianity and think the world is better off for his teaching. Right?
What if it was so much spin? Was Jesus fulfilling a martyr complex on top of his messiah complex? Was he fulfilling a prophecy and a plan? What does that say about free will? What if this didn’t have to happen? What if Jesus had lived a long life and died of natural causes? What if there wasn’t a crucifixion? What if he had an influence of Judaism without his followers splitting away? Would we have the same wars among the Abrahamic religions we have today? Would the world be bettter off? What does this say about moral relativism, about ends justifying means? What does it say about secrecy and conspiracy? Is heaven political? And, of course, is there heaven? Should I be Jewish?
The front of the Washington Post reports that Scooter Libby says Bush, who supposedly despised leaks, told him to leak Valerie Plame’s identity authorized him via Cheney to leak previously classified information to a single reporter and and on the same page it reports that a new translation of ancient text says that Jesus told Judas to betray him.
Life is spin.
: UPDATE: I’ve corrected and clarified this — belatedly and for that I apologize and offer the excuse of being on buses with 400 8th graders for the last two days — but the punchline remains the same.
Best moment on The Sopranos tonight (so far) is Tony Soprano yelling at an insurance flunkie who comes into his hospital room in an effort to get him out of there. She says that if emergency medicos hadn’t found an insurance card in their “wallet biopsy” on him in the ambulance, they would have dumped his ass at Martin Luther King Hospital. Tony sneers as her: “Get out of my room, you sick c***.” Spoken on behalf of insurance victims everywhere.
Second-best moment is Tony Soprano going up against a fundamentalist religious nut.
