CHRISTIAN DINOSAUR HUNTERS

There's a new trend among dinosaur hunters, now some are out to prove the Bible

Countless dinosaur bones lie buried in the rocks of South Dakota but the Christians excavating one remote cliff-face were digging not just for reptilian vertebrae but for the hand of God.

With screwdrivers, hammers and shaving brushes for tools, the group was seeking and, as far as it was concerned, unearthed proof that the animals perished not millions of years ago but in Noah's Flood circa 2300 BC.

To these believers in the Bible's literal truth, they are not dinosaurs but "missionary lizards", which are powerful weapons in the battle for young American hearts and minds.

It's an interesting trend, and one that may in fact bear some useful fruit. I'm not completely sold on the Henry M. Morris view of things, but it's an effort to address the striking problems of the current Big Bang/Darwinian hegemony.

I accept the Biblical account of Creation, but one must be careful about dogmatically accepting one explanation of those events over another. Quite frankly, I believe the details of Creation will always be a mystery never fully explainable in this vale of tears.

To my mind, the approach of the Intelligent Design school is much more effective at countering Big Bang nonsense. That's not to say I agree with every position they take, but I doubt I would agree with any approach completely. And that's the issue we have to come to terms with. The Bible is revealed truth and cannot be in error. However, man's interpretation of it can be. As we suggest more and more details to "fill-in" the Biblical account we necessarily add man's wisdom. We have to be very careful that we don't become as attached to the "man's" part as we are to God's.

[Story link via Christianity Today's Weblog]

CATHOLIC CONDOS

In the wake of the sex abuse scandal, the Boston diocese has sold off 65 churches to balance the budget. Not a few areupset at what they've become:

Boston Catholics grieving the loss off 65 diocesan churches are even more downhearted to learn that their former places of worship are being sold as luxury condominiums.

The Archdiocese of Boston last month announced it would sell off some of its churches in order to balance the budget.

Bernie McFarland and his father bought St. Peter and Paul's Church, one of the most venerable in Boston, to turn it into high-priced condos.

"We retained as much of the interior as we could to make a beautiful living space," said McFarland.

With the original plaster work, stained glass windows, arches, moldings and even the paint on the ceiling, these condos are selling for between $300,000 and $1 million.

While I am no fan of the Catholic church, at the same time it certainly is the sign of a decadent culture when 65 churches can simply be sold off, their doors shut forever. This in the face of booming population growth, of course. On the other hand, it must be recognized that it is also the result of the Catholic church's arrogance in dealing with their own charges.

On many levels, it is sad to see.

APOLLO THE LIZARD SLAYER (IN OHIO?)

An ancient bronze sculpture of a young Apollo has landed in Cleveland:

The Cleveland Museum of Art has bought what it thinks is an ancient bronze sculpture of Apollo the Lizard Slayer by the classical Greek sculptor Praxiteles. If it is authentic, it will be one of the most important ancient bronzes in an American museum.

About five feet tall, the bronze Apollo originally depicted the young god pulling back a laurel sapling with his left hand while holding an arrow aimed at a lizard with his right. The image is known from two marble copies from the Roman period, in the Louvre and the Vatican.

Impressively, the statue is known to us from the writings of Pliny the Elder:

The Roman historian Pliny the Elder saw what he considered to be the original sculpture in the first century. "Although Praxiteles was more successful and therefore more famous for his marble sculptures, he nevertheless also created beautiful works in bronze," Pliny wrote. "He made a youthful Apollo called Sauroktonos (Lizard Slayer), waiting in ambush for a creeping lizard, close at hand, with an arrow."

If the work is Greek and of the classical period, it will be the only monumental Greek bronze sculpture attributed to any Greek master through literary sources.

Perhaps even more interesting than the Rock & Roll museum.

A FEW CHANGES

Blogger has added some new features and the place needed a fresh look anyway, so I've changed the template and tinkered with the sidebar a bit. There's now a Blogroll, which will gain some new additions as time goes on. I've taken off the Search the Bible feature because things were getting too cluttered. I've also added the built in comments feature Blogger has, which means the old Haloscan comments are relegated to the dustbin of history.

So, I hope you like it. If not, oh well. But thanks for visiting and come back when you can.

SKIRTS UP, PANTS IN

Faced with ever rising hemlines, Kesgrave High School in Suffolk, England has banned skirts altogether:

A secondary school in Suffolk has become the first in Britain to ban girls from wearing skirts and order them to switch to uniforms with long trousers.

The decision by Kesgrave High School, near Ipswich, was reached after warnings were ignored and hemlines crept up to "inappropriate" levels. The new policy will come into effect in September.

"These days girls wear very short skirts which is against the school uniform policy," explained Margaret Young, one of the governors.

"Two years ago we sent out letters to parents asking them to make sure skirts were regulation length, which is just above the knee. The impact was short-lived and it wasn't long before skirts were very short again.

Adds Ms. Young:

"We simply do not want our girls going outside with a 'come-hither look'.

The eternal refrain reappears: Where are these parents?

[Link via WorldNetDaily]

BUILDING STONEHENGE?

Now archaeologists think they know after finding their nearby remains:

Remains found near Stonehenge are almost certainly of an ancient people who built the monument, excited archaeologists have revealed.

Researchers investigating the origins of the seven 4,500 year-old skeletons found buried on Salisbury Plain last year have run chemical tests to trace their origins and age.

They have concluded they are of people from south-west Wales - the same region from where bluestones forming the world-famous iconic monument originate.

Scientists seem dismissive of my theory, however:

Dr Andrew Fitzpatrick, of Wessex Archaeology, said: "In medieval times, people believed that the stones could only have been brought to Stonehenge by Merlin the Wizard.

I'll give it some thought.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE

After making national headlines, the homosexual couple in Lexington, Kentucky who used produced quadruplets via a surrogate mother (and later a fifth child) have separated after charges of domestic violence:

The two Lexington gay men who made worldwide news by parenting quadruplets and then a fifth child have separated amid allegations of domestic violence that a judge dismissed, according to court records.

Lexington attorney Michael Meehan declined to comment yesterday on Fayette Circuit Family Court Judge Kim Bunnell's decision earlier this month to reject his petition for a domestic violence order against his former partner Thomas Dysarz.

Bunnell ruled on June 1 that there was "insufficient evidence" to issue a domestic violence order. Such an order would have put restrictions on Dysarz's interaction with Meehan. Court records show separate addresses for the men.

Meehan has custody of his biological children -- the quadruplets born to Meehan and surrogate mother Brooke Verity on July 26, 2002.

Dysarz, who has custody of his biological child, Brandon Lane Dysarz, born in January, declined to comment yesterday.

And I thought those kids might make it.

TOO MANY CHRISTIANS

Apparently Penn State University is being plagued by 'Too many' Christian groups

A Christian student club is suing Penn State University for rejecting it as a student organization after being told the school already has "too many" Christian clubs.

[W]hen DiscipleMakers Christian Fellowship applied for registered status in April 2004, a university official charged with reviewing religious student organizations refused to approve the group because there were “too many [Christian] groups anyway and they were beginning to compete."

Unlike secular school clubs, Penn State requires religious student organizations to undergo a separate review process, the Christian Legal Society says.

No, no hostility to Christianity on college campuses at all. Move along, nothing to see.

KEEPING COOL ABOUT COMMUNION

John Kerry's advisors are telling him justto shut up about "the communion thing":

The Rev. Robert Drinan, a Jesuit priest who served in Congress during the 1970s, says he has advised the campaign to clamp down on religious rhetoric and "keep cool on the Communion thing" after four Catholic bishops either barred Mr. Kerry by name from taking Communion in their dioceses or said pro-choice Catholics should be denied the sacrament.

At the same time, Kerry seems to have decided to shut up about religion altogether, much to the chagrin of other campaign advisors:

[T]he Kerry campaign also has sidelined its new religion adviser, closing journalists' access to Mara Vanderslice and ignoring her advice on how to appeal effectively to religious voters.

"Every time something with religious language got sent up the flagpole, it got sent back down, stripped of religious language," a Kerry campaign source said of Miss Vanderslice's ideas on overcoming Mr. Kerry's secular image.

Although given Miss Vanderslice's resume, I'd probably ignore her, too:

Miss Vanderslice, 29, grew up Unitarian in Boulder, Colo., then attended Earlham College, a Quaker institution in Richmond, Ind.

She joined a college socialist group, majored in peace and global studies, and graduated in 1997. After interning for a year at Sojourners, a liberal evangelical magazine in the District, she joined the Jubilee USA Network, a D.C.-based group that campaigns for Third World debt relief.

A socialist Quaker advising a secular Catholic on religion in politics strikes me as a poor recipe for appealing to the religious mainstream. But that's just me.

At any rate, she seems to be the only person they have who does know anything about religion:

Plans were, said Miss [Amy] Sullivan, for the campaign to assemble a "people of faith" page for the Kerry Web site, at which point Miss Vanderslice was to be announced as the contact person.

But with Miss Vanderslice not being allowed near the press, "They have no one in their communications shop who is conversant in religion," she said.

At least it's amusing to watch.

AMERICA'S NEW RELIGION

David Klinghoffer says don't be fooled, America has its established religion:

For each element of Judeo-Christian faith, secularism has its counterpart. Like Christianity and Judaism, secularism promises eternal life — well, long life, which is the central point of the most common strain of secular faith and which explains the pop-cultural focus on moral commandments having to do with physical health: Thou shalt not smoke. Thou shalt not get fat. Thou shalt fight global warming by taking the bus to work. Indeed, thou shalt vote for public subsidies for mass transit. In secularist doctrine, a fat person isn't merely unhealthy; he is a sinner in need of salvation. To address his situation, one secular gospel preaches the good news of the South Beach Diet, another that of the apostle Atkins.

It's a religion quickly gaining full ascendancy.

YOU'LL NEVER WORK IN THIS TOWN AGAIN!

Despite wide "concern" on the part of Mel Gibson's critics that his insistence of going ahead with his movie "The Passion of the Christ" would ruin his career, Forbes magazine has rated Gibson as the most powerful celebrity in the world taking the position from Jennifer Anniston:

The magazine said the "Christ" film helped Gibson earn an estimated $210 million during the past 12 months.

Although the film opened amid a firestorm of controversy in February, "Christ" has grossed $370 million domestically and more than $600 million worldwide.

Shocking. Following Hollywood's recipe for success wasn't the best choice.

[Link via Drudge]

YOU CAN CALL ME AL, ER, ESTHER

The artist (well, work with me here) formerly known as Madonna will now be known as Esther. This new move is a reflection of her deeply held Kabbalah faith, a kind of Jewish mysticism. I'm sure Jews all over the world are thrilled.

BAD TREND IN RUSSIA

A friend of ours, Matt Duggin, moved to St. Petersburg, Russia earlier this year to work with a small group of Christians there, and, of course, seek to expand their numbers. His plans are to stay five years. We've already known Russia has not been as inviting to those seeking to spread the gospel, but a new decision to ban Jehovah's Witnesses bodes ill:

Jehovah's Witnesses have long been a bellwether for religious freedom, in this country and around the world. Without the Jehovah's Witness court victories here in the U.S., for example, religious organizations might have to seek licenses to solicit aid or even to worship. Evangelists might be forced to pay fees to hand out Bibles and tracts—and might be taxed even for giving them away. And school children would be forced to pledge allegiance to whatever the government wished.

"The Jehovah's Witnesses," Supreme Court Justice Harlan Stone once famously said, "ought to have an endowment in view of the aid which they give in solving the legal problems of civil liberties."

In this country, the Jehovah's Witnesses have been tremendously successful in expanding religious liberties. But in Russia, it's a different story. And as the state cracks down on the JWs, it looks like groups like the Baptists are next.

"Once you get a decision like this, it's open season," John Burns, the Canadian lawyer who represented the group at a Moscow appellate court, told The New York Times. He told the Associated Press, "Religious freedom has just turned back to where it was in Soviet times."

Putin is no friend of liberty, and I'd say the former KGB man is no friend of religion. I hope Matt is able to stay.

ARE FATHERS A GOOD IDEA?

As Fathers Day approaches the striking absence of fathers in American society becomes all the more apparent. Carey Roberts looks at the absent father trend and it's not very pretty:

Architects of the Great Society program went ahead and implemented eligibility requirements that cut off welfare benefits if the father resided with the mother – the so-called "man-in-the-house" rule. Now, low-income fathers found themselves pitted against government largesse to compete for the loyalty of poor mothers. A tragic mismatch, indeed.

As a result, the number of children who lived in fatherless homes mushroomed from 5.1 million in 1960 to 16.5 million in 1995. These policies were so devastating in their impact that involved, caring fathers all but disappeared from low-income, Black neighborhoods.

But do kids miss their dads?

[W]hen fathers are disenfranchised by misguided government programs, here’s the result:

Their children have a higher rate of asthma, headaches, anxiety, depression, and behavioral problems.
Teenagers are at greater risk of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use, and suicide.
Adolescent girls are 3 times more likely to engage in sexual relations by the time they turn 15, and 5 times more likely to become a teen mother.
Amazing, isn’t it?

Dads, it seems, are a good idea after all.

VATICAN: INQUISITION NOT SO BAD, BUT, UM, SORRY

The Vatican has released research showing the Spanish Inquisition wasn't so bad, but they're sorry about it anyway:

Torture, burnings at the stake and other punishments for Catholics condemned as witches or heretics by church tribunals during the Inquisition were not as widespread as commonly believed, the Vatican said Tuesday....

"The recourse to torture and the death sentence weren't so frequent as it long has been believed," said Agostino Borromeo, a professor at Rome's Sapienza University.

According to Borromeo the numbers are really quite low:

Borromeo, who oversaw the volume, said that although there were about 125,000 trials of suspected heretics in Spain, researchers found that about 1 percent of the defendants were executed.

Hmmm, let's see that's only about 1,250 folks. Good deal. No mention of how many tortured.

Oh, and they are sorry about it.

NO 'CHRISTIANITY' IN EUROPE

Despite a request by seven EU nations and the pope, there will be no reference to Christianity in the new constitution of the European Union:

Seven nations, including Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic, urged the EU to refer to the "Christian roots of Europe" and explicitly mention Christianity and God in the constitution currently being drafted. The Vatican also made clear it wants a reference to Christianity in the Constitution....

Former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing prepared an initial draft of the Constitution that refers only to the "cultural, religious and humanist" traditions of Europe.

Well, there's been very little Christianity in Europe for some time.

WHO LIES IN ST MARK'S TOMB?

British historian Andrew Chugg says it's not Mark at all, but someone else of great significance:

The mummified remains buried beneath the altar of St Mark's Basilica in fact belong to Alexander the Great, according to Andrew Chugg, a respected authority on the Macedonian conqueror.

His theory, a complex tale of medieval body-snatching, is already dividing the academic world. This week he will cause outrage among devout Catholics when, writing in the latest edition ofHistory Today, he says the saintly relics should be exhumed and subjected to genetic testing.

Locating the body's resting place has been rated as the holy grail of archaeology.

As no observer of relics, let's exhume (respectfully) and see. (We have Alexander's father Philip already.) Quite frankly I'd think odds are better for Alexander than John Mark. And all just in time for the movie.

[Link via LRC]

SUPREME COURT DODGEBALL

The Supreme Court remains seemingly agnostic on the issue of "under God" in the pledge as they toss the case out on a technicality:

All eight justices who took part in the case agreed that the federal appeals court in California ruled incorrectly last year when it held, in a lawsuit brought against a local school district by the atheist father of a kindergarten student, that the reference to God turned the daily recitation of the pledge into a religious exercise that violated the separation of church and state.

But in voting to overturn that decision, only three of the justices expressed a view on the merits of the case. With each providing a somewhat different analysis, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice Clarence Thomas all said the pledge as revised by Congress exactly 50 years ago was constitutional....

The other five justices, in an opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens, said that the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit should not have decided the case because the plaintiff, Dr. Michael A. Newdow, lacked standing to bring it.

It's a symbolic issue, yes, but as my professor Clyde Wilson always says, symbolic issues in politics are the most important, the most telling.

Of course my real issue with the pledge is the "indivisible" part.

[Update: Susanna at cotb thinks the NYT has an agenda in its coverage of the Pledge case. I'm shocked! Shocked, I say!]

BREAKING THE BREAD CODE

Stephen Lanzalotta is a baker and he's not going to take what the anti-bread Atkins diet craze is doing to his bakery business. He's fighting back with some common sense:

Lanzalotta argues that people have been eating bread for too long for it suddenly to be the reason everyone is fat.

“Human civilization and grain have ties that go way back. No municipal society evolved without grain, no matter what it was,” said Lanzalotta, who kneads his dough by hand like ancient breadmakers. “Not that I believe bread is one of the most sacred foods, but it is one of the most important things we can eat.”

He's also tapping into a fad of his own. His anti-Atkins is called The Da Vinci Diet:

The Da Vinci Diet is not published and is revealed primarily through the baker’s lectures. It consists mostly of Mediterranean foods — the foods ancient thinkers and artists ate. Fish, cheese, vegetables, meat, nuts and wine, in addition to bread — none are taboo at Da Vinci’s table.

In his diet, Lanzalotta uses a complicated formula he created that relies on the value of phi, a number discovered by ancient mathematics, used to build the pyramids, and featured prominently in Brown’s book.

Well, of course that's a little silly, but more power to him. Of course, it's a toss up which is more annoying between Atkins and Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.

HI-TECH VATICAN

The amazingly large and richly interesting Vatican library is going high-tech:

Dealing with bug infestations, normal wear and tear and even the occasional thief, keepers of the 15th-century Vatican Apostolic Library face an ever-challenging task. Their latest step to keep their invaluable collection intact has been to employ some 21st-century technology.

Officials have started implanting computer chips in the 1.6 million books in the Vatican's collection. The chips communicate via radio wave with hand-held monitors, so librarians can tell if a book is missing.

"That is no small thing, because a book that's out of place is as if the book is lost," deputy prefect Ambrogio Piazzoni says.

It's an amazing place, I'm sure. The problem is, no one really knows what all is in the place:

Today, the Vatican Library is known for its collection of about 65,000 manuscripts, the one-of-a-kind books that predate the printing press. One of the library's most important pieces is the Codex B, the oldest known complete Bible, which dates from about A.D. 325 and is thought to be one of the 50 bibles Emperor Constantine commissioned.

The library also is home to 300,000 medals and Roman-era coins....

Scholars also must know exactly what they're looking for, since the manuscript collection -- like those of other great libraries -- is not entirely cataloged. In fact, only about 15,000 to 20,000 manuscripts have been logged so far since the modern process began in 1902, Piazzoni says.

"Which means that if we continue with the same criteria of cataloging, we can assume that we'll finish in 31/2 centuries," he says.

After seeing that, I'll have to remind my wife that my meagre book holdings ain't so bad!

A NOVEL APPROACH TO AIDS: FIDELITY

As AIDS tears through Africa a shocking approach is dawning on those trying to stop the disease's spread, sexual faithfulness:

There is another way to reduce the spread of H.I.V. -- one that is increasingly recognized by public-health experts but that has been relegated, thus far, to an afterthought: fidelity -- either in marriage or in a committed relationship. As experts come to understand more about the African AIDS epidemic, it seems clear that regular sexual contact with more than one person is the key human behavior that enables the rapid spread of H.I.V. Since 2002, international organizations have promoted an approach called ''A.B.C.,'' which stands for abstain, be faithful, use condoms. But the ''be faithful'' part has largely fallen through the cracks, and that may well have undermined efforts to fight the epidemic.

Back in college I once wrote a newspaper column in the wake of the Magic Johnson HIV story. I pointed out that every case of AIDS was the result of someone's illicit behavior. In response to my 'insensitive' words about a hundred people showed up for a candlelight vigil to protest. I'm sure that bunch felt better about it all as their wicks burned down, but what I wrote was true then, and it's true now.

Don't want to get AIDS and other STDs? Then treat sex the way God intended. It'll work every time it's tried.

FAITH & THE WHITE HOUSE

TIME magazine focuses on the issue of how religious we want our President to be. It's perhaps the biggest question in this year's Presidential race, with President Bush often wearing his faith on his sleeve, and John Kerry running the risk of being denied communion by Catholic bishops. TIME won't let you see the entire article unless you subscribe, by the way.

While you're over there, though, you can read all about weblogs. Apparently it's a trend that's sweeping the WWW. I may have to see if I can find one of those.

OTHER WEBLOGS?

It's probably a shock to most theosebes readers, who find all the weblog they need right here, that there are other weblogs out there. I came across a new weblog, which has the good sense to link theosebes, called anastasis. Weblogger Chris seems to be mired in graduate education at a major Southern state university--a dicey proposition. He also seems to have Restorationist roots, and has a striking resemblance to David Lipscomb. It's one to keep an eye on.

From anastasis, I found The Scriptorium, by the Internet Monk. The iMonk is stationed, as fate would have it, at Oneida Baptist Institute, which is in the very same county (Clay) that your humble servant was raised. I have been on the OBI campus several times. From said iMonk, Michael Spencer, is a quote I can endorse completely:

I absolutely refuse to take anyone's theology more seriously than I take the text. Including my own. In the RCC discussion I am in on the forum, my RC friend has objected, naturally, to my citing Luther's words that popes have erred and councils have erred. WHICH ONES? She wants to know?

I'll tell you. All of them. Including Luther. And Calvin. And all who followed in their wake. They erred. But THE TEXT DOES NOT ERR. So may I be so bold as to suggest that clinging to the words of the text, and putting ALL theological labels and machinations UNDER THE TEXT is not an attempt at THIRD WAY. It is attempting Mere Christianity in practice. It is putting the Word of God and the Christ of the Word in the place where I can find them in my life, worship and work.

That is what we all must strive to do.

WHAT WOULD REAGAN HAVE WORN?

Well, certainly not what his mourners are:

Ronald Reagan was a formal man. He would step off Marine One in a finely tailored suit, tossing a wave and a smile. Even as he cut brush at his Santa Barbara ranch, his jean jacket seemed freshly pressed, his pompadour impeccable.

The same can't be said for many of his mourners, some of whom trundled past his flag-draped coffin yesterday wearing flip-flops, cargo shorts and T-shirts, their flabby midsections exposed. Some young women wore ultra-mini skirts and halter tops. Altogether, the sweaty masses clashed with the crisp honor guard in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, perhaps America's most sacred secular site.

Bobby Golike, 20, showed up to pay his respects to the 40th president in shorts, sock-less sneakers and a black T-shirt that read, "Slackers Unite! Tomorrow."

Slackers, indeed. See my earlier post below for my thoughts about it.

On a slightly lighter note, but which also helps make the point, I ran across this quote:

At afternoon funerals, wear a frock coat and top hat. Should the funeral be your own, the hat may be dispensed with.
--The Cynic's Rules of Conduct. 1905

Wise words.

THE GREAT COMMUNICATOR & THE TURTLE

On this day of President Reagan's funeral it is well to consider his relationship with Russell Kirk:

Reagan was known as the Great Communicator. Kirk was once described as "communicative as a turtle." Reagan lived in the glare and cameras of Hollywood. Kirk preferred a converted toy factory in rural Michigan....

Yet despite their differences, each had a profound respect for the other. And it is safe to say that conservatism as we know it would not have existed without the both of them.

Ronald Reagan, RIP.

PILING ON: TACKLING THE DA VINCI CODE

Darrell Bock has beaten Ben Witherington to the punch by being the first to release a book deflating Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (books debunking Brown are a good thing). The folks over at The Leadership Journal interview Bock about it:

The Da Vinci Code has been at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for weeks. Why is it so popular?

It's well written and kind of romantic. It's set in Paris and Edinburgh. There's mystery; there's the invoking of secret Gospels, which suggest that the book is revealing knowledge that has been suppressed.

He is working with elements of scholarship that have popularized some of the ideas surrounding the secret Gospels. This is an attempt to de-center the role of the Bible by suggesting there are other texts that say different things.

It's a novel! Will readers take those ideas as fact?

Basically yes. The real problem is that he's writing about areas that people don't know much about. The author suggests that he's researched it carefully, and you tend to trust him.

And that's why Brown can't simply be dismissed. He's positioned himself as an expert on the "real" Biblical history while providing cover when he needs it by claiming simply to be a novelist. It's good to see folks fighting back. Piling on, in this case, is also a good thing.

UNCEREMONIOUS AMERICA

I spent late night watching the C-SPAN replay of the Reagan processional down Pennsylvania Avenue. I had caught just a few minutes of it live before I had to leave for church. The ceremony of it all is striking. And for all the faults of the military, they really stand as the repositors of American pomp and ceremony. The riderless horse with empty boots backwards in its stirrups following behind the casket is more moving than any of the words spoken in honor of the late President will be.

In striking contradistinction of the activity on Philadelphia Avenue and the draped casket in the rotunda were the throngs lining the street and streaming into the Capitol ostensibly to pay respects. Throughout the processional the crowd would begin to applaud as the casket passed by. Who are these people? You don't start clapping when you see a casket! Imagine how moving the scene would have been if as the casket passed you could have heard a pin drop as people truly showed respect. And when was the last time you wore a tank top and shorts to a wake? That seemed to be the dress code for those visiting the Capitol rotunda. This is respect for a fallen President? It would be instructive to see pictures of those who visited the rotunda when, perhaps, Lyndon Johnson laid in state a generation ago.

It is encouraging to see that our nation can still do pageantry. It is less so to see that the people have no clue how to react to it.

THOSE WACKY EGYPTIANS

Yes, the ancients laughed, too! Recent lectures have explained how ancient Egyptian humor was much like ours:

For satire, [Scott] Noegel explained that commoners would make fun of leaders by showing pharaohs in an unflattering manner. For example, some leaders were depicted unshaven or "especially effeminate."

Drawings of defecating hyenas and drunken, vomiting party guests are among the existing examples of scatological humor, while the sex-based jokes consisted of "innuendoes and outright erotica," he said.

Slapstick comedy included drawings that showed people suffering unfortunate accidents, such as hammers falling on heads, or passengers tipping out of boats.

The ancient Egyptians had a special fondness for animal humor, given the many examples of sketches on papyrus, paintings, and other drawings, according to Noegel.

He said, "(The images show) ducks pecking at someone's buttocks, baboons and cats out of control, animals riding on top of other unlikely animals, baboons playing instruments, and animals drinking and dining."

One papyrus shows a mouse pharaoh, gallantly posed in his chariot pulled by two dogs, speeding towards a group of feline warriors. Yet another papyrus depicts a lion and an antelope playing a board game. The lion lifts a game piece as though in victory, while the antelope falls back in his chair.

I'm sure with some of it you just had to be there. Which means, of course, that people are people wherever, or whenever, you go.

[Link via LRC]

My new weblog toy allows me to post pictures (I hope!). This is a photo of a reproduction of the Gutenberg Bible I took on a visit to a monastery in Oregon last fall. 

NO CROSS IN LA

The ACLU continues to rewrite history and push religion from the public square:

Los Angeles County supervisors, faced with an ACLU lawsuit to remove a tiny gold cross from the county seal, have voted to remove the cross, but the Roman goddess Pomona will stay. County supervisors voted Tuesday (June 1) to remove the cross, which was incorporated into the seal's original 1957 design to represent the Catholic missions founded by Jesuit missionaries.

The seal, which appears on all county vehicles, meeting rooms and employee badges, also features a Spanish galleon, a tuna fish, a dairy cow, the Hollywood Bowl, engineering tools, oil derricks and Pomona, the goddess of gardens and fruit trees, to represent agriculture.

Hmmm. Pomona gets to stay. I wonder...

KING DAVID, WHAT 'HISTORIANS' THINK

I was checking my tv listings the other night and ran across a documentary on Biblical David on The Discovery Channel. I'm a sucker for those sorts of things, although usually they just make me mad. This is from the write-up of the show, and gives you the tone:

However, closer examination of the Samuel account suggests that there was a lot more to David's rule than meets the eye. The Near East of 1000 BC was a lawless place and some Biblical academics are convinced that many of the explanations and alibis which appear in the ancient account of David's life indicate that he was a ruthless leader whose reign was riddled with assassinations, subterfuge and double-dealing. Even the famous battle with the great Philistine Goliath fails to stand up to closer scrutiny.

David, it appears, was not the naïve shepherd boy at the time of the infamous duel, but an experienced apprentice-warrior. His sling wasn't simply a tool for sheep herding but was also a deadly military weapon, the exocet of the ancient world. If Goliath was as tall as the Bible claims then he would probably have been suffering from the growth condition, pituitary Gigantism, which has debilitating side-effects including tunnel-vision. So perhaps David's victory wasn't quite so implausible after all. When the factors are taken into consideration it is increasingly likely that it was actually Goliath who was at a disadvantage.

David was undoubtedly a great leader, but recent evidence and analysis is providing far more complex interpretations of his life. This documentary reveals that by looking beyond the two-dimensional image of the tenacious shepherd boy who became king, we can now see a far more complicated, fascinating man; a fallible and sometimes ruthless pragmatist.

You get the idea. Of course, the problem is the shows are usually arguing against a straw man. That is, they point to a one-dimensional version of David they imagine the Bible portrays then say how silly that is. Of course, the person the Bible tells us about is quite complex.

Two amusing parts stood out. The documentary told us how the Bible account of David was really just a propaganda tool to promote David's version of events, his "spin" as they hiply called it. Except when it came to the account of Bathsheba when the Bible suddenly starts telling us how things really happened, only to return to the "spin" version with the account of Absalom. They never really explained the slip up with the whole Bathsheba story, but they spoke of it in very somber tones.

But the kicker was during the unbiased analysis by these Biblical historians they showed a map. A map of Israel and Judah, the Divided Kingdom. And they told us how David's challenge was to unite this divided Israel under one rule. Of course,the problem with that is that Israel and Judah were not split until about fifty years after the death of David, when his grandson Rehoboam (Solomon's son) caused the split due to his harsh rule, allowing Jeroboam to gain a foothold of power with the Northern tribes and lead Israel away. David's line continued to rule in Judah, the Southern Kingdom.

Somehow, I think I'll stick with the Biblical account despite these Bible "historians."

RONALD REAGAN, RIP

The former President will lie in state, with memorial services to be held at his library and a state funeral in Washington.

When I was growing up, the President was Ronald Reagan. I don't mean he happened to be President, but rather in my mind that's who the President was supposed to be. He was elected when I was 10 and left office when I was a freshman in college. My family was (is) strongly Republican, and all seemed right as far as the President was concerned. My politics have changed somewhat since that time (moving to the right--we'll not go into that here), but as I look at Reagan and the men who have held the office since then his stature only grows. Compare him with Ford and Carter and Bush I and Clinton in your mind and you'll see what I mean, I think.

In my lifetime, Reagan has been the only person I can think of who truly would qualify as a Great Man. He challenged many of our nation's socialist assumptions and stared the Soviet Union in the eyes, making them flinch. He always spoke of God in a relaxed manner. Despite his lack of of formal faith, he clearly did believe in God's power and was not ashamed to speak of it. By the sheer force of his personality and will he reinvigorated the Presidency.

I had the good pleasure of seeing Ronald Reagan once. It was during my freshman year of college, when he was campaigning for George Bush. The President came to Bowling Green, Kentucky and spoke at Western Kentucky University. I used my high level College Republican connections to secure tickets. It was the only time I've seen a sitting President.

Who knows when (if) we shall see his like in this decadent nation again.

HARRY POTTER, AGAIN

The third Harry Potter movie, The Prisoner of Azkaban, opened Friday to the tune of about $100 million. I've yet to read a bad review of it. The early concern of some about the Potter books/movies for religious reasons seems to have settled down. I made the trek to the theater with my wife, brother-in-law (our own comments' Mitch) and his wife on Friday. After seeing it, I will have to agree that it is the best of the movies. Of course, it has better material to work with as well. Harry is older, and clearly Rowling ratchets up the action and intensity.

I fall into the camp of those who are generally unconcerned by the "magic" portrayed in the Harry Potter books/movies. I just have a hard time believing kids are being led into the occult arts by the teenage wizard. If you feel otherwise, I understand, and would suggest not seeing the movie. For the rest of us--more popcorn, please!

"THE PASSION"'S SURPRISING POPULARITY

The blockbuster movie "The Passion of the Christ" still has legs, but this time with a surprising audience:

The film's greatest impact, however, may be via pirated DVDs in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia; and crowded theaters in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Oman, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates.

"This film is generating so much interest in Jesus and the Scriptures," one missionary in the region said. "Every Christian we are talking to seems to have a story or two."

The film's undeserved reputation as anti-Semitic propaganda has piqued Muslim interest, according to Khaled Abdelrahman, an Iraqi former Muslim who directs a Christian apologetics website for Muslims. "Because [many Muslims] hate the Jews, they want to see the movie," Abdelrahman told CT.

The film depicts Jesus' crucifixion, which the Qur'an denies happened to Jesus. Islam regards Christ as a great prophet but not as the Son of God.

Even if they see it for ill motives, there is no group that needs the message of love, forgiveness and turning the other cheek more.

A NEW ADDITION FOR THE FAMILY TREE

The modern myth-makers we affectionately call "scientists" have provided us with another one. You can simply call their discovery "Dad":

The earliest known ancestor of most animals may have been a minute creature shaped like a flattened helmet and barely visible to the naked eye, according to a new fossil discovery.

It's actually the ancestor to various underwater critters, not you, according to them. I guess everyone has to do something to justify their salary.

STATING THE OBVIOUS

Jewish Rabbi Schmuley Boteach isn't impressed with Madonna as a spokesman for the Jewish mystical movement, Kabbalah:

"Earth to Phillip Berg: Do us all a favor and dump Madonna as your principal spokesperson," Boteach wrote. "Sorry to be so crass, but Madonna is a slut. Yes, she may sing, and she may dance. But she is famous for being a slut. And no religion dare have a slut as its principal representative."

Continued Boteach: "[I]s the Kabbalah Center really so desperate that it is prepared to promote itself through a vulgarian whose main contribution to the culture is porn rock?"

The empress has no clothes, but then again, this one rarely does (which is his point anyway).

SEEING THE FACE OF AGAMEMNON

Well, not exactly. But scientists are working with the famous death mask declared to be Agamemnon's by Heinrich Schliemann to reconstruct the face behind it. They're also poking around with the DNA to gain insight into the time when Greek history began:

"These burials are unique in the Bronze Age," says Keri Brown of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. "These people seem to have cornered the market in gold, so how did they do this, who were they and how did they have this power?"

Working with the forensic science service, Brown and her team are turning to DNA fingerprints to solve the conundrum. Using genetic material painstakingly scraped from 3,500-year-old bones and teeth recovered from the graves, the scientists hope to establish whether the dozens of privileged individuals buried at Mycenae are part of the same family, or an unrelated collection of mercenary fighters. The answer will shine light on the social structure of one of the most influential periods in human history.

"If you like, this is where Greek history starts," says John Prag, an expert in Greek archaeology at the Manchester museum.

His group has already used facial reconstruction techniques to put flesh on the ancient bones and look for family resemblances, with some success. "We got a couple of pairs that were very clearly related but there comes a point where everybody's got two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth and we all look alike," Prag says.

It would be interesting if something similar might be done in the Bible lands in the future.

[Link via LRC]

FROM THE SOMEONE-ALWAYS-HAS-IT-WORSE FILE

Be glad you're not buying gas in England:

In Britain, the Automobile Association said the average cost of unleaded gasoline was about $5.79 a gallon Wednesday, an increase of 14 cents from Tuesday.

But some filling stations were charging more than $6.31 per gallon for unleaded fuel. Total Gas in west London was selling super unleaded for $7.93.

On the other hand, when the average car is about the size of a Matchbox they don't use as much!

IT'S ALL ABOUT FORGIVENESS, YOU KNOW

Former Church of England head honcho George Carey sees no problem with England's Prince Charles and his longtime mistress, divorcee Camilla Parker Bowles, marrying sometime in the future:

"He is heir to the throne and he loves her," Carey, who led the world's Anglicans between 1992 and 2001, told The Times newspaper. "The natural thing is that they should get married."...

Carey said Christian faith "is all about forgiveness. We all make mistakes." "Failure is part of the human condition and there is no doubt that there has been a strong loving relationship, probably since they were very young, that has endured over the years," he added.

Of course, if they've had such a loving relationship "since they were very young" one might ask why they both married other people while apparently continuing their own relationship all the while. Well, we all make mistakes, and it's all about forgiveness anyway. Nothing to see here. Move along...

'AND THE NUMBER ONE BIBLICAL DISCOVERY IS...'

Readers of theosebes no doubt will have noticed my interest in things archaeological, especially when they concern the Bible. Prof. Keith N. Schoville compiled his own Top 10 list of Biblical archaeological discoveries in the 20th Century. Ferrell Jenkins has supplied pictures to go along.

I've been discussing with my high school class at church the need to give skeptics a reason to believe the Bible as we study through David Banning's Bible 101 workbook. In order to gain an entrance into the skeptical mind one must begin with common ground, that is we must give them a place where they must believe what the Bible says. Archaeology gives us those places, providing points of common ground with the skeptic. Starting with facts that can be physically seen we can move on to matters that must be apprehended by faith. And that's where the important things are.

ABORTED IMPERFECTIONS

Parents on a quest for "perfect" children (good luck with that!) are aborting their infants at an increasing rate for correctable conditions:

Those with conditions that can usually be corrected medically - such as deformed feet and cleft lips and palates - are instead being terminated.

And the number of abortions of Down's syndrome babies now outstrips live births, despite the fact that those with the condition can live a long and fulfilling life. As screening techniques improve, the trend is likely to grow - horrifying pro-life campaigners.

'These figures are symptomatic of a eugenic trend of the consumerist society hell-bent on obliterating deformity - and at what cost to its own humanity? ' said ethicist Jacqueline Laing, of London Metropolitan University. 'We are obliterating the willingness of people to accept disability. Babies are required to fit a description of normality before they are allowed to be born.'

The figures for 2002 - the latest available - from the Office for National Statistics show more women than ever are choosing to terminate babies with potential handicaps, with such abortions rising 8 per cent in a year.

That's something to keep in mind this Memorial Day. There are millions to remember who have no grave and no name. But God knows who they are.

WMD: TAX EXEMPT STATUS

There's no question that as time moves on the tax exempt status church's enjoy will be used as a weapon against them. If churches don't fall into whatever government line is popular--hiring women or homosexual clergy, for example--they might lose their tax exempt status, which would likely force some churches out of the church business. An activist secular group has decided to test this Weapon of Mass Destruction (a line that works all the better since we're talking about Catholics) against Rome's church:

A secular group asked the IRS to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Roman Catholic diocese in Colorado Springs yesterday, saying the bishop violated federal tax law when he threatened to withhold Communion from those who disagree with the church.

Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in Washington, said Bishop Michael Sheridan went too far when he sent out a church letter saying Catholics should not receive Communion if they vote for politicians who disagree with the church by backing abortion rights and other topics.

“I think Bishop Sheridan has gone over the line, telling voters whom to vote for,” Lynn said.

Lynn said the U.S. Catholic Conference has warned church officials about using words that have political impact. Several U.S. Catholic bishops have instructed Catholic politicians and voters to pay heed to church teachings.

Secularists always get touchy when churches actually expect members to live the principles to which they claim to adhere. If you're going to be a Catholic, then be a Catholic. If you don't agree with Catholic teaching (like I don't), then be something else.*

Catholics represent a substantial voting block. There are benefits politically with identifying with the Catholic Church. But some politicians--John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, anyone?--who want to have their cake and eat it, too. I'm sure they're glad to have folks like Barry Lynn and his group of raving secularists giving them cover.

*To clarify, feel free to join the church of your choice. Just remember, it's God's choice that matters.

WITHERINGTON ON 'LOST' GOSPELS

Why did the "lost gospels" lose out? Ben Witherington is unconvinced by The DaVinci Code's account:

[B]y the New Testament period, there was already a core of documents and ideas by which Christians could evaluate other documents. The New Testament documents already manifest a concept of "orthodoxy," or at least criteria by which truth and error could be distinguished. Among the second-century lists of authoritative Scriptures, never are gnostic texts listed—not even by the unorthodox Marcion in about 140. There was never a time when a wide selection of books, including gnostic ones, were widely deemed acceptable.

A good example of this is Serapion of Antioch (a bishop from 190 to 211), who let some of his flock read the Gospel of Peter in church—until he read the book himself. He concluded that it had a heretical Christology, teachings about Jesus that did not conform to other ancient apostolic documents. Or compare the Apocalypse of Peter with the canonical gospel portraits of Jesus' Passion. The gnostic text depicts Jesus as glad and laughing on the cross, a radiant being of gnostic light (81:10-11).

And where did Brown's nonsense come from? What's the purpose of it?

The novel expresses in popular form what some scholars have been arguing or implying for years. Twenty years ago, Elaine Pagels wrote The Gnostic Gospels, a book that introduced the larger public to the other "Christian" writings that arose in the early centuries of the church. Regarding the books of the New Testament, Pagels asked, "Who made that selection, and for what reasons? Why were these other writings excluded and banned as 'heresy'?"

For Pagels this wasn't a rhetorical question, but one designed to get readers to question the very authority of the New Testament.

It's well worth your time to read Witherington's exploration of this nonsense.

OLD, RURAL CHURCHES ON THE DECLINE

The church where I grew up at one time would have as many as a hundred people on Sunday mornings. That was thirty and more years ago. Now that congregation is on the decline. Will they still be meeting in a decade? It's a valid question as I don't see the decline changing. Last week I was at a wedding and at the reception spoke with the officiant for a few minutes. He's an older man who visited my boyhood church twenty-five years ago to preach. I was telling him of the decline of the old congregation. He told me of the decline of so many others. Of course, our anecdotal evidence is simply our witnessing a widespread shift:

``Part of the problem with rural churches is that old buildings don't appeal to young couples,'' said Robert Seater, pastor for New Horizon United Church of Christ in Wisconsin, recently created from three congregations in rural Sheboygan and Washington counties. New Horizon hopes to build a new church and sell the three older buildings.

``They're living in homes that are $150,000, $300,000 homes, and they don't want a building that just has a bare basement for their kids' Sunday school,'' Seater said. ``If the church is going to meet the needs of the 21st century, we're going to have to do something with these buildings.''

There is much truth to those statements, of course. At the same time I think much of it simply is shifting demographics. Our society has become more suburban than rural. As bleak as the picture seems when looked at from the old, rural church perspective, it's downright encouraging from the suburban perspective.

And while I'm a conservative by temperament--I simply hate to see these old congregations on the wane--within the scope of New Testament strictures, one must always assess the true utility of something when it comes to a church. As Garth Brown, in the NYT article, observes:

``I have some sentimental feelings, but I often think our forefathers were the kind of people who came and built a church because the community needed it,'' Brown said. ``They're the kind of people who would have said, 'We're not doing any good where we're at. Let's go build along (Route) 45 and see what we can do.'''

Back when I first went to Mecosta, Michigan to work for Russell Kirk we were riding down Main Street and I commented on a former church building transformed into an antique store. Dr. Kirk assured me it wasn't a very good antique store. I said something to the effect of, "that's too bad." Dr. Kirk said, "Well, it wasn't a very good church, either."

DEBUNKING 'DA VINCI'

One of the current 'hot' Biblical scholars (is there such a thing?) takes on one of the current 'hot' novels. Ben Witherington III has a new book on the way: The Gospel Code: Novel Claims About Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Da Vinci, which as you can tell takes on Dan Brown's bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. Needless to say, Dr. Witherington is not impressed. The folks over at Beliefnet.com have obliged us with an excerpt. If nothing else, you have to appreciate the excerpt's headline: 'An Exercise in Pure Narcissism'.

ACLU ARROGANCE

Los Angeles County has a cross in its official seal. It finally caught the attention of the lovable folks over at the ACLU, and they've given L.A. notice:

County officials say the cross represents the Spanish missions (search), which are part of California's history.

They add that it would be expensive to redesign the county seal, which was designed in 1957 and appears on most official county property: walls, documents, water bottles, uniforms, cars and trucks.

On Friday, the ACLU gave the county two weeks to eliminate the seal.

Now no one elected the ACLU. They're simply a private organization of cranks. But they've given a municipality two weeks to comply with their wishes? Will it work? Ask Redlands, California:

Last month, the threat of litigation by the ACLU forced the city of Redlands, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles, to redesign its 40-year-old logo, which also included a cross.

If you give in to terrorists, you only encourage them. I prefer the attitude of L.A. County supervisor Mike Antonovich:

"Here you have this radical left-wing organization whose own symbol should be the hammer and sickle."

Just so.

CORPORATIONS TARGET HOMOSEXUALS

As a desireable demographic, homosexuals' stock is rising in the estimation of corporations. Many are now aiming niche advertising their way:

Recognizing same-sex couples and families as an emerging market, large corporations have begun targeting the demographic in their ads.

Companies including International Business Machines (IBM), Volvo and JP Morgan (JPM) have featured gay couples or parents, mostly in print or online ads. And Subaru has been marketing to the gay population as a whole for years.

And the article points out the growing acceptance of this "lifestyle choice" much of which has been entertainment driven:

There has been a growing trend of gay tolerance, with more companies offering benefits to same-sex couples and families and more mainstream TV shows featuring gay personalities, like NBC’s popular “Will and Grace (search)” and “The Ellen DeGeneres Show (search)” and Bravo’s successful “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (search).”

“We’ve seen this acceptance in corporate America and in pop culture,” said Mark Elderkin, founder and president of PlanetOut Partners, which runs the heavily trafficked Gay.com and PlanetOut.com Web sites. “That’s creating the foundation for corporate advertising to go out and market to this group.”

Get used to it folks.

WAS THERE A TROJAN WAR?

Of course there was, says Manfred Korfmann director of excavations at Troy. And he asks an excellent question:

On the basis of my years of experience and knowledge of Troy, I feel the question ought to be: "Why should the scholars who won't rule out a possible degree of historicity in the basic events in the Iliad have to defend their position?" In light of the remarkable amount of discovery that has taken place over the last ten to fifteen years, the onus to defend positions should now be on those who believe there is absolutely no historical association between what happened at Late Bronze Age Troy and the events in the Iliad.

It's always a trick of the skeptics to stay on the offensive, make their claims and demand you prove your position in the face of their statements. They rarely are interested in accepting the burden of proof for their own arguments.

This, in case you hadn't noticed, is exactly the tack taken by Biblical skeptics. In the face of the overwhelming evidence to back the Biblical accounts, of which the Bible itself is not inconsequential, why don't you prove the Bible wrong?

MODESTY AT NORDSTROM

Eleven year old Ella Gunderson pointed out the obvious to department store Nordstrom: there are few modest clothing options for young girls. The amazing thing? Nordstrom vowed to fix it:

"Dear Nordstrom," she wrote. "I am an eleven-year-old girl who has tried shopping at your store for clothes (in particular jeans), but all of them ride way under my hips, and the next size up is too big and falls down.

"I see all of these girls who walk around with pants that show their belly button and underwear," she wrote. "Your clearks sugjest that there is only one look. If that is true, then girls are suppost to walk around half naked. I think that you should change that." (sic)

Ella's letter was relayed all the way up to Pete Nordstrom, an executive vice president and president of Nordstrom's full-line stores.

Two Nordstrom executives wrote back, promising the Redmond girl the company would try to educate both its purchasing managers and salespeople on the range of fashion choices that should be available to young people.

"Wow," wrote back Kris Allan, manager of Nordstrom's Bellevue Square store, where Ella shopped.

"Your letter really got my attention ... I think you are absolutely right. There should not be just one look for everyone. This look is not particularly a modest one and there should be choices for everyone."

In addition, according to the folks at Seventeen modesty is 'in':

"If modesty is what she is looking for, it's going to come full force in the fall," said Gigi Solis Schanen, the New York-based fashion editor for Seventeen magazine.

"The '50s sexy-librarian look is in."

Schanen said that 'tween and teen girls can expect to see fuller skirts, higher waist lines and more "layering" of tops.

The exposed belly look made popular by such singers such as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera is on the way out.

Good job, Ella!

DAVID RESTORED

A months long restoration of Michelangelo's David is now complete:

Bathed in natural light streaming through the dome of Florence's Accademia Gallery (search), the marble statue of the young Biblical hero who took on Goliath appeared more radiant Monday than it did before the cleaning.

The restoration resumed in September after an aborted start when the original restorer quit in a dispute over how the statue should be cleaned....

"'David' is still itself, only what has changed is his luminosity," said restorer Cinzia Parnigoni, who, working atop scaffolding for months, applied "mud packs" of cellulose pulp and clay to soak away the dirt as tourists gawked.

After months of restoration, the sculpture is "less cold," she said in an interview with The Associated Press before a news conference to present conclusions about the cleaning.

Of course some opposed the restoration, for reasons I will never understand. With great works of art I don't know why we shouldn't see them as the artist intended. Should centuries of smoke buildup hide the true colors of the Sistine Chapel?

On a Biblical note, one doubts that the real David spent much time posing publicly in such a stage of undress.

'THOU SHALT COMMIT ADULTERY'?

If you don't want to see 'fractions' instead of 'factions', or desire to avoid 'sour ancestors' better hire these folks:

Thank the proofreaders at Peachtree Editorial and Proofreading that the Bible refers to "our ancestors" instead of "sour ancestors," and calls for an end to "factions," not "fractions."

The proofreading service caught those typos and others before the latest edition of the Bible went to press.

At Peachtree, attention to detail is more than a job description. It's a calling.

"Bible readers are less forgiving of errors because they expect perfection in the Bible text," said June Gunden, who founded the business with her husband, Doug....

A list hangs in the Gundens' office as a reminder of how much rides on their work. The list, a collection of notorious typos found in the Bible, features one prominent error from a 1631 King James edition: "Thou shalt commit adultery."

Of course, that may simply have been wishful thinking on the part of a 17th C typesetter.

BEHIND THE SCENES ORTHODOXY

Theosebes has taken occasional looks at the internal struggles of some of the 'mainstream' denominations over issues such as homosexuality, struggles sometimes leading to the brink of outright split. Promoting the more conservative position within the denominations, it turns out, is the Institute on Religion and Democracy:

In each denomination, the flashpoint is homosexuality, but there is another common denominator as well. In each case, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a small organization based in Washington, has helped incubate traditionalist insurrections against the liberal politics of the denomination's leaders...

The institute has brought together previously disconnected conservative groups within each denomination to share resources and tactics, including forcing heresy trials of gay clergy members, winning seats on judicial committees and urging congregations to withhold money from their denomination's headquarters.

The group has been quite successful considering its outsider status and small budget. And what are the prizes of the struggle?

"It will give them access to three important pieces," said Mr. Ross, a lawyer and former official with the Planned Parenthood Federation. "One is the Sunday pulpit. Two is millions of dollars of capacity internally, with control of church newsletters and pension funds. And three is foreign missions," the agencies that dispense missionaries, and with them their brand of Christianity, around the world.

Of course, the 'courageous' (read: raving mad liberal) clergy is now fearful of the groups power:

Rev. Robert Edgar, a former Democratic congressman who is general secretary of the National Council of Churches, an ecumenical alliance that is dominated by the mainline churches and a principal target of the institute's criticism, argued that it spoke for only about a third of mainline churchgoers. "They have caused so many internal issues that some progressive leaders are afraid to take the courageous positions they would have taken a few decades ago because a third of their parishioners would cut their legs off."

I'm no supporter of denominational structures with their added rules and organizations, but within that existing structure I certainly encourage those with the more Biblical view on morality to take their stand. Of course, with the mainline denominations it may simply be rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

TIRED OF THE SAME OL' IRONING?

As the ironer of all my own clothes (my wife doesn't do it well enough to suit me, probably intentionally) I think it might be time to go X-treme:

[N]ow there's a way to add excitement, a dash of danger, the adrenaline rush of risk: Take along an ironing board, a sturdy steam iron and a load of wrinkled shirts.

It's not for the faint of heart, to be sure. But extreme ironing - the marriage of activities like cliff jumping and kayaking treacherous rapids with what participants call "the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt" - has been catching on.

You can't beat "a spot of ironing whilst rock climbing."

MORE MUMMIES!

Oh no! Not more mummies, you say. Well so does my wife when mummy documentaries come on tv (Discovery Channel, et al). Although my preference is for the Egyptian sort, sometimes you have to make do. These latest were found in Peru:

A well-preserved graveyard possibly 1,000 years old has been discovered at an archaeological complex of Inca and pre-Inca temples on the outskirts of the Peruvian capital, experts said Wednesday.

Archaeologists this week unearthed the remains of 30 people, including 19 still intact as mummies, dating from between 1000 and 1500, making them some of the oldest mummies ever found in Peru.

They said that the discovery was “exceptional” because the site had not been plundered by grave robbers and that some of the dead were religious sacrifices.

No, they might not be Egyptian, but some of them were offered as sacrifices, which makes up for it!

DEBUNKING 'DA VINCI'

The New Hampshire Union Leader has a great editorial taking 'Da Vinci Code' author Dan Brown to task:

Regarding the believability of the novel, Brown has tried to have it both ways. On his Web site he states, “The Da Vinci Code is a novel and therefore a work of fiction.” Fine. But he goes on to state, as he did in an interview on New Hampshire Public Radio, that while his characters are fictional, everything presented as fact in the novel is true and has been painstakingly researched.

Readers knowledgeable about The Bible and Christian history will have little problem debunking some of what is portrayed as “fact” in “The Da Vinci Code.”

But Brown soldiers on, and continues to hawk his questionable wares. Now he's essentially praising his own restraint in not letting out even more "controversial 'facts'":

The author of the best-selling “The DaVinci Code” said last night that he ran across “intriguing and persuading” information that Jesus Christ survived the crucifixion, but it was too controversial to put in his novel.

“To me, that was three or four steps too far."

At least Brown admits to his rather colossal ego:

He initially resisted having the book made into a movie, but succumbed when producer Harvey Weinstein told him many people don’t read books, but deserve to know the DaVinci Code story, Brown said.

“He absolutely appealed to my ego,” Brown said. “How many chances do you get to fly to Paris to see your book turned into a movie by Ron Howard?”

Brown said he’s heard that President Bush likes his books. “Deception Point” involves a politically foundering President who decides to launch a Mars mission.

“I’m not going to say I influenced him,” Brown said, “but it was a good idea.”

Isn't it wonderful that Brown can not only clear up 2000 years of religious history, but also direct American space policy? Wow, what a guy!

HOMOSEXUALS 'WED' IN MASSACHUSETTS

Unlike earlier rogue 'marriages' performed by officials openly breaking the law, Massachusetts has now become the first state to issue legal licenses to homosexual couples:

Massachusetts was thrust into the center of a nationwide debate on gay marriage when the state's Supreme Judicial Court issued its narrow 4-3 ruling in November that gays and lesbians had a right under the state constitution to wed.

In the days leading up to Monday's deadline for same-sex weddings to begin, opponents looked to the federal courts for help in overturning the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.

It's somewhat inevitable, I suppose. With the constant bombardment to normalize homosexual behavior we now find that it leads to a legal redefinition of marriage. And it will not stop with the People's Republic of Massachussets:

Out-of-state gay couples are likely to challenge Massachusetts' 1913 marriage statute, which bars out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts if the union would be illegal in their home state. Gov. Mitt Romney (search), a gay-marriage opponent, has said the law will be enforced and clerks who give licenses to nonresidents may face legal implications.

Still, local officials in Provincetown, Worcester and Somerville, have said they will not enforce Romney's order and will give licenses to any couples who ask, as long as they sign the customary affidavit attesting that they know of no impediment to their marriage.

Sure enough, Chris McCary, 43, and his partner of six years, John Sullivan, 37, of Anniston, Ala., were first in line outside town hall in Provincetown Monday morning.

"This is the most important day of my life," said McCary, who planned to return to Alabama with Sullivan, even though their union won't be recognized there. "This window could be closed in the future but it's still worth it."

I'm sure the folks in Anniston are thrilled. But now we will have homosexual 'married' couples, documents in hand, going to court in state after state in order to have their Massachusetts licenses recognized. A few states will bite. Others won't, the Supreme Court will get involved and suddenly you will awaken one day to find that homosexual 'marriages' are the law across the land. No state will actually have voted for it, but it will be legal nonetheless.

Only through great effort and determination could those who seek to defend traditional marriage prevail at this point. I believe it could happen. I just don't believe it will.

Marriage as an institution has been under attack for two generations. No fault divorce and the rise and normalization of the unwed mother has removed society's regard for that unique relationship between a man and a woman. We should not be shocked at what happens next.

THIS JESUS DOESN'T WEEP

Catholic Church officials have refused to do a full investigation into a 'weeping' Jesus portrait in Texas:

A Roman Catholic bishop said a cardboard portrait of Jesus does not show enough evidence of weeping for a formal church investigation.

Bishop Edmond Carmody had asked the Rev. Gerry Sheehan to view the portrait after 34-year-old Gloria Fino said tears were coming out of the eyes in the portrait. Sheehan told him that while the cheeks were streaked, Jesus no longer appeared to be crying.

"It's a very strange phenomenon ... there were signs that something had come from the eyes and the back of the paper print was dry, but there were no tears coming down. We see no reason to move it or to investigate now because it has stopped," Carmody said in today's Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Now, back to that shroud in Turin...

BUDDHA SNOT, MMM, MMM

Buddhist priests in Japan are attempting to stop the sale of candy called 'Buddha Snot':

Japanese priests have scored only a partial victory in their attempts to stop a sweet being sold as 'Snot from the nose of the Great Buddha'.

They have managed to stop the name being registered as a trademark, says the Daily Telegraph.

But they have not managed to stop vendors selling the sweet to tourists who flock to the temple in the ancient capital of Nara, in western Japan....

[T]he packaging still carries a picture of Buddha picking his nose.

Yum, yum.

MORE ON UK SECRET ABORTIONS

A 15 year old English girl was given a 'secret abortion' offer during a 10-minute counseling session:

Describing her initial visit to the abortion clinic with her boyfriend, Michelle said: "We went to the clinic and we went to the counsellor for 10 minutes.

"They just basically sat us down and said, if you want to keep it, it's best to tell our parents or someone that we trust, and if not, then they can arrange an abortion without our parents ever having to find out."

The teenager said she was initially too afraid to tell her parents, but changed her mind when she found out that her pregnancy was more advanced than she had originally been told.

"I read up on the internet about how it would be done and it was a very scary operation, considering it was 20 weeks when I'd been told it was only 14," she added.

Of course, the girl's mother was none too pleased:

Michelle's mother, Tracey Down, said she was shocked at how easily the abortion could have been carried out in secret. "I was more shocked that Michelle could go to the doctor's three times, have a test and go to the family planning clinic, and then sat down with a counsellor for 10 minutes," she said.

"That counsellor did not know Michelle's background or Michelle's history, and did not ask her whether she was allergic to anything. Then (Michelle could) go up to the clinic and have it done within the day and come back out again.

"Given she was so far gone, it was a major operation and I did not know anything about it... anything could have happened to her having the operation."

The same society that promotes secret abortions also will expel your child if she shows up with a Tylenol or a Midol. But abortion, of course, must not only be protected but actively promoted. These are sick people.

KING, IRAQ & THE VATICAN

U.S. Rep. Peter King reacted strongly against the Vatican's criticism of U.S. prisoner abuse photos, some of which showed sexual abuse:

“If there’s anyone in the world who has no right to speak on sexual abuse, it’s the Vatican,” said Rep. King, an anti-abortion Republican. “This is the height of hypocrisy.”

In an interview published Wednesday in the Rome daily La Repubblica, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo described the abuses as “a tragic episode in the relationship with Islam” and said the scandal would fuel hatred for the West and for Christianity....

King said the Catholic Church should be the last group to claim moral high ground on issues of sexual abuse, given the past several years of revelations about priests abusing children for years while church officials failed to stop such behavior.

“Whatever the United States has done to prisoners in Iraq is nothing compared to what priests and nuns did to Catholic kids for decades while the Catholic hierarchy covered it up,” King said.

“Think of the thousands of kids in the U.S. and Ireland who were abused by priests and nuns — you wonder where the Vatican’s moral compass is.”

Well said, Rep. King. It's impressive to see him as a Catholic speak out.

SECRET ABORTIONS

How would you like to find out that your 14-year old daughter had just had an abortion? You weren't consulted; you weren't even notified. It happened to Maureen Smith in the UK, and as you might imagine, she's none too happy:

Michelle Smith, from Mansfield, Notts, fell pregnant last month and after consultation with a community health worker at school she decided to get rid of the child.

Within days her mother, Maureen Smith, found out what was happening and the teenager changed her mind but it was too late.

She had taken the first of two pills as part of the chemical abortion process and the damage was irreparable.

Her mother is now furious that despite not having been consulted over the abortion she is now left to pick up the pieces.

As the mother well notes, nothing else in her daughter's life would be treated with such secrecy:

"If my daughter had been truanting from school or causing trouble in the classroom I would have been informed.

"Yet she can go ahead and have an abortion which will affect her for the rest of her life and I have no say and no rights as a parent."

Welcome to our Brave New World Ms. Smith.

McDONALD ON KIRK

Kevin Holtsberry has an interesting interview with Wesley McDonald on his new book, Russell Kirk and the Age of Ideology.

ALEXANDRIA U.

Archaeologists have uncovered the site of Egypt's Alexandria University:

A Polish-Egyptian team has unearthed the site of the fabled University of Alexandria, home of Archimedes, Euclid and a host of other scholars from the era when Alexandria dominated the Mediterranean.

The team has found 13 individual lecture halls that could have accommodated as many as 5000 students, according to Zahi Hawass, an archeologist and president of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The lecture halls are on the eastern edge of a public square in the Late Antique section of modern Alexandria and are adjacent to a previously discovered theatre that is now believed to be part of the university complex.

All 13 of the auditoriums had similar dimensions and internal arrangements, Dr Hawass said. They feature rows of stepped benches running along the walls on three sides of the rooms, often forming a joined U-shape.

The most conspicuous feature of the auditoriums is an elevated seat placed in the middle of the U-shape, most probably designed for the lecturer.

That's an amazing find. Maybe they'll come across a stash of documents not destroyed by the library fire.

[Link via LRC]

JESUS, THE FASHION STATEMENT

Not since the WWJD craze has Jesus been such a fashion statement:

A slew of designers and boutiques have been jumping on the Jesus bandwagon, offering everything from T-shirts to belts paying homage to the Lord. And celebrities from Madonna (search) to Pamela Anderson (search) have been spotted sporting the Jesus chic wear.

“It’s a fun, little Hollywood trend that was sparked by the success of the movie,” said E! Networks lifestyle director Elycia Rubin. “Obviously, fashion influences movies and movies influence fashion.”

A Los Angeles company called Teenage Millionaire makes shirts that say “Jesus Is My Homeboy” and “Mary Is My Homegirl.” Madonna was seen wearing a Mary shirt; Pamela Anderson and Lara Flynn Boyle (search) have been running around in the Jesus Ts, and Ashton Kutcher (search) was photographed with a “Jesus Is My Homeboy” baseball cap on.

You like to see people with true reverence. The evangelicals started this with the catchy takes on popular ad campaigns that substitute a religious message. You've seen the "got jesus?" t-shirts, I'm sure. And while some of these are clever, well-intentioned ways of making a religious point, some more than border on the flippant. Ashton Kutcher and Pamela Anderson wearing "Jesus Is My Homeboy" goes far beyond that. Jesus doesn't need to be "a fun little Hollywood trend."

UGH!

I hate to post this about someone connected with my alma mater, but a University of Kentucky and Georgetown College (a Baptist school, by the way) was denied service for wearing a pleated mini-skirt and corset into restaurants:

About 2 p.m., Jeremy Kerr, 32, attempted to eat at Tolly-Ho wearing a pleated miniskirt and a white lace-up corset.

An employee told him he would have to change or he would not be served.

"I told him girls come in dressed in these clothes all the time and don't get kicked out," Kerr said.

Owner Roy Milling, who did not witness the incident, said his employees told him Kerr's corset revealed too much. Milling said his restaurant does not discriminate against transvestites or cross-dressers.

"You've just got to cover yourself up," he said. "He was barely covered. We would have asked a female to do the same."

As a past occasional eater at Tolly-Ho I'm glad to hear there are some standards there. I need to stop and get a burger next time in Lexington. And here's something the good Mr. Kerr's students are thrilled about, I'm sure:

Kerr, who is working on his sociology Ph.D. at UK, said he has worn similar clothing in his classes. He said he typically dresses in that manner about two to three times each week.

I think that's a class I'd be dropping pretty fast.

[The Herald-Leader page with this article has a "Sponsored Links" box apparently triggered by article key words. This box had links to: "Plus Size Corsets"; "Corset Superstore"; and "Pleated Skirts". I doubt that's what Mr. Kerr had in mind when he went out that day.]

WOULD NOAH'S ARK BE PROOF ENOUGH?

Doug Mendenhall asks the question, what effect would the discovery of Noah's ark have?

Maybe the world will see a mass conversion as billions of people realize that the Bible is the only accurate account of God's dealings with humanity.

Maybe the discovery will turn out to be the greatest religious event of the century. A watershed, so to speak.

Maybe atheism will become an anachronism.

Maybe the world will unite.

Maybe the wars will end.

And maybe pigs would fly. Mendenhall knows that, too:

Instead, I expect that after the triumphant return of the Ararat team, we'll all ride a bubble of enthusiasm for a week or two, then settle right back into the lives we led before we'd seen the proof. If we had doubts before, we'll have doubts still. If we rejected God before, we'll reject him still.

Just as the rich man ('Dives') asked righteous Lazaurs to return from Abraham's bosom to warn the rich man's brothers of hellfire so some today seek extraordinary and special proof. But as the rich man was told, if they don't believe the word God has already left it doesn't matter what else they see. And so it is today.

BAPTISTS ON GODLESS SCHOOLS

Southern Baptists have before them a resolution making a call to flee 'anti-Christian' public schools:

The resolution, co-authored by T.C. Pinckney, publisher of a Baptist newsletter in Alexandria, Va., urges parents to homeschool their children or send them to Christian schools.

"God gives the responsibility for education of children to the parents, not to the government," Pinckney said in an interview Thursday. "Parents should be taking responsibility, primarily through homeschooling."

Well, sometimes I even agree with a Baptist!

WILL METHODISTS SPLIT?

Weary of constant debates over homosexuality, conservative Methodists are considering a split from liberals over the issue:

"We're tired of this being constantly, constantly, constantly before us," said Dunnam, a conference delegate and leading evangelical. If more liberal churches in the western United States decided they wanted to leave, "the rest of the church would probably agree to that," Dunnam added....

The endless conflict between conservatives and liberals "is more than we can bear," former Houston First Metho-dist Church pastor Bill Hinson told a group of about 150 evangelicals who gathered in Pittsburgh yesterday. "I believe the time has come when we must begin to explore an amicable and just separation that will free us both from our cycle of pain and conflict."

But the pro-homosexual movement doesn't want a split:

Gay-rights activists denounced talk of schism and vowed to stay.

"We are not planning to leave the church. We don't want to leave the church and we don't want to see the church split," said Rev. Monica Corsaro, spokeswoman for the Reconciling Ministries Network, a coalition of pro-gay Methodist churches.

Church leaders had hoped to avoid an ugly standoff in Pittsburgh.

But tensions erupted after a Methodist Church court in Washington state refused to enforce the ban on clergy who are "self-avowed practicing homosexuals."

Yes, the split is coming. And homosexuality is the new faultline to rip through the "mainstream" denominations.

HOLLYWOOD MISSES, AGAIN

Trying to cash in on The Passion crowd, Hollywood is trying desperately to figure out how to appeal to all the newly discovered Christians in the marketplace. With the new movie 'Saved!', Hollywood proves The New York Times > Movies > it doesn't understand:

In "Saved!," Mandy Moore and Macaulay Culkin (in a wheelchair) are siblings attending the school, a Midwestern institution where "Jesus loves you" is a mantra — and an order. A giant cutout of Jesus looms over the campus. Pastor Skip, played by Martin Donovan, is the spiritual leader of the school, handsome, hip and given to complimenting his students on being "phat."

Jena Malone plays a teenager who becomes pregnant while trying to cure her boyfriend of his homosexuality and save him from damnation. Her mother, a divorcée played by Mary-Louise Parker, is trying to be right with God but has an affair with Pastor Skip.

How is this different than if they were trying to make fun of Christians? Well, not a whit, of course. Here was a telling indicator for them:

So far the studio has screened "Saved!" for a gay audience, which loved it, MGM marketing executives say, and for religious leaders, who had mixed opinions.

And yet they're trying to appeal to religious audiences? Hollywood hasn't a clue how to do that because down deep the only thing they can think to do with Christian beliefs is to ridicule them.

I have a sneaking suspicion this won't be the movie to resurrect (pardon the pun) Macauley Culkin's career.

THE ANCIENTS: SMARTER THAN YOU THINK

A sea chart from 1539 shows sea eddies that exactly match satellite imagery, this at some surprise to modern scientists:

The ornate Carta Marina, published in 1539, appears crude by today's standards, depicting sea monsters off the coast of Scotland, sinking galleons, sea snakes, and wolves urinating against trees.

But when oceanographers examined a large group of swirls and whorls drawn off the south-east of Iceland, complete with ships, a giant fish and red sea serpent, they found it corresponded with the Iceland-Faroes Front - where the Gulf Stream meets cold Arctic waters, causing huge swirling eddy currents that could sweep a ship off course.

All too often the ancients are dismissed as ignorant torch carriers in the face of enlightened science. But as my old grad school professor used to point out, mankind forgets at least as much as it learns.

[Link via LRC]

'NEW' MAYAN CITY DISCOVERED

The Romans weren't the only game two millenia ago; the Maya were also busy:

More than 2,000 years ago, while Rome was laying waste to Carthage and the Hopewell people were building mounds in Ohio, a grand civilization flourished at a now little-known site in Guatemala called Cival....

After several seasons of digging, the researchers believe Cival was one of the largest Maya cities of the time.

It has pyramids and a large complex surrounding a central plaza. In front of a long building on the complex’s eastern edge, the archaeologists discovered a stela, or inscribed stone slab, dating to 300 B.C., perhaps the earliest such carving ever found in the Maya lowlands.

Don't you just love this archaeological stuff?

THE CHRONICLE ON KIRK

The Chronicle of Higher Education (*cough* *cough*) has a review of Wesley McDonald's new book on my old boss, Russell Kirk:

"One of the main purposes of my book is to rescue Russell Kirk from the ghetto of movement conservatism," says Mr. McDonald. "My argument is that he's an intellectual worthy of consideration apart from current politics. Conservative thought is really suffering because it lacks substance and direction. Kirk has much greater significance than what these people are giving to him."

I don't have Wes's book yet, but it's good to see the Chronicle give a real thinker like Russell Kirk the time of day.