UGA FIRES RELIGIOUS CHEERLEADING COACH

The University of Georgia has fired its cheerleading coach over discrimination claims filed by a Jewish cheerleading candidate:

The cheerleader, 22-year-old Jaclyn Steele, claimed her chances of making the football cheerleading team were hurt because she didn't participate in Bible studies and pregame prayers encouraged by Braswell.

"It created an atmosphere where if you were not Christian or didn't want to participate, you weren't treated as well as the other girls," said Deborah Lauter, southeast region director for the Anti-Defamation League, which helped Steele with her complaint to the university.

UGA officials didn't return repeated phone calls seeking comment. Steele declined to comment.

Steele was on the football cheering team her freshman year, but then was moved to the men's basketball squad and the women's basketball squad, seen as a demotion at the football-crazy school.

The UGA athletic department promoted Steele back to the football squad for this season without having to go through tryouts. Athletic officials took this action to try and avoid a possible lawsuit from Steele, Braswell said.

"I've had each religion and race you can imagine, and I love each of them," Braswell told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "It's reverse discrimination against me. ... I've done nothing unfair to Jackie or any of the other cheerleaders."

Braswell said she did allow students to pray but said the prayers were nonsectarian. She said once prayers were even said in Hebrew.

Braswell, a twelve year veteran to the job, was fired only after she informed the squad of the situation.

HA HA HA HA HA

Those ha ha ha ha Hollywood jokesters ha ha just ha ha crack me up! Ha ha Ellen Degeneres ha ha ha is going to ha ha ha ha play God in ha ha a reprise of the George ha ha ha Burns role in "Oh God" ha ha. But you see ha ha ha she's a lesbian ha ha ha and that'll ha ha ha really show those ha ha ha uptight Christians. They sure are funny.

COVERING UP!

Theosebes tries to keep you up on the latest trends (we're all about trends here), and as we pointed out in an earlier post, the younguns are starting to cover up their bellies and backsides again. The good folks at FoxNews confirm it for fall:

Parents of America rejoice: Skin is not in this fall.

The body-baring "prostitot" and XXL hip hop looks that kids coveted last year for school are being ousted and replaced with more sophisticated looks like tweed blazers, flowery brooches and argyle sweater vests.

Dodai Stewart, senior editor of J-14, a magazine for 'tweens and teens, said the biggest look this fall will be a return to more dignified fashion — ladylike looks for girls and more tailored styles for boys.

Think less Britney Spears and more Norah Jones; less Nelly and more Kanye West.

The fashion industry is slowly hearing the public’s cry for more dignified clothing, according to Judith Rasband, director of The Conselle Institute of Image Management.

“With the extremes of the Britney look and J-Lo down-to-the-navel dress, there’s been slight consumer response, " she said. "They’ve had enough, they’re disgusted and they’ve asked the fashion industry to start supplying decent clothes again.”

I think anytime we can get people to wear argyle things are good!

MORE ON THE EPISCOPAL SECESSION

Recently I wrote of the secession of two southern California Episcopal churches from their Bishop and placing themselves under the control of an African bishop. Mark D. Roberts finds a number of lessons from the action, not the least that orthodoxy in religion is moving to the southern hemisphere. From my conversations with those who have sought to spread the gospel overseas, I think there is much truth to that observation.

Mark also points us to a "pastoral letter" by J. Jon Bruno, the bishop snubbed by the secession. He ain't real happy about it. It shows that the Episcopal Church isn't at all interested in addressing the issues that are leading to this split. I think they're really bound from doing so by the extreme liberal positions of their leadership. The continued split of the Episcopal Church is inevitable--lessons to be learned, indeed!

A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE

Theosebes reader, relative and commenter Mitch alerts us to a couple of different views on the F/X series "Nip/Tuck" about plastic surgeons who make lots of money doing breast implants. First, the view of Brent Bozell, conservative media watchdog:

The show's creator, Ryan Murphy, has declared that it is his goal in life to remove every barrier to depiction of explicit sex on over-the-air TV. He was quoted earlier this year saying, "It's tough to get that sexual point of view across on television. Hopefully I have made it possible for somebody on broadcast television to do a rear-entry scene in three years. Maybe that will be my legacy."

"Nip/Tuck" arrived on the cable scene last year with a sickening bang. Critics might call it a melodrama. But it's never mellow. It's a hyper-drama. It revolves around graphic sex, a surfeit of nudity and screaming-orgasm acting. It features routine obscene language, with no bleeps. In addition to beatings, killing and torture, it favors gut-churning, graphic operation scenes that make the most graphic "CSI" look like a calm episode of "Mr. Wizard."

The good folks at AP, however, has a slightly different view of the show:

But, in its second season, this FX series continues to do much more, using cosmetic surgery as a gateway to the soul.

With sly agility it puts its characters under the knife to expose hidden truths about love, sex, beauty, aging, heartache, manhood and the vagaries of male friendship.

It remains TV's most fearless series — and not just because of those all-too-graphic, music-accompanied surgery scenes. In the hands of creator Ryan Murphy, "Nip/Tuck" remains outrageous yet assured as it bridges the gap between outward appearances and private verities, continuing to startle its audience in the process.

When a breast implant passes for spirituality in our society we're in a heap of trouble.

[Thanks again to Mitch for the links and the headline, too!]

I ONLY COVER IT BECAUSE I KNOW YOU CARE

Mado...er, Esther is planning a Rosh Hashanah trip to Israel to absorb "Kabbalah energy":

Pop singer Madonna (a.k.a. Esther) and her husband, filmmaker Guy Ritchie, will spend the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah in Israel, it was confirmed by Rabbi Yehuda Berg, co-director of the Kabbalah Center in Los Angeles.

The couple will spend two days in the Holy Land, primarily at the associated Kabbalah Center in Tel Aviv, Berg said. However, he denied Israeli press reports that Madonna and Ritchie would meet with Israeli-based Kabbalah sage Rabbi Yitzhak Kadouri to seek spiritual guidance.

Madonna has said she intends to embark on the spiritual journey to Israel to rejuvenate her spirits and absorb "positive Kabbalah energy" from the "upper world."

Her spiritual journey just warms the heart...

GOD'S PATTERN

I ran across this quote while reading Ben Witherington's new book The New Testament Story :

First, it may be observed that Old Testament stories affect how Luke tells the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth and John in Luke 1. We are meant to hear echoes of the story of Samuel and Hannah of course. This sort of storytelling has as its underlying assumption that there is a pattern to God's dealings with people, as well as a pattern as how they can and should respond." (p. 134, emphasis mine)

Now that is fundamental to understanding what the Bible is all about, and how to establish a relationship with God. "For the promise is to you and your children and for all who are far off...". (Acts 2:39)

WE NEEDED A STUDY FOR THIS?

Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse has issued a study demonstrating in teenagers a link between sexual activity and drugs and alchohol:

The words of an old proverb - "Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are" - gained new meaning on Thursday with the release of a national study showing that teenagers whose friends were sexually active were more likely to smoke, drink or use illegal drugs.

Teenagers who reported that at least half of their friends were sexually active were 31 times likelier to get drunk, 51/2 times likelier to smoke and 221/2 times likelier to have tried marijuana, according to the study, released by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

"It's a clear message for parents," said Joseph A. Califano Jr., the center's chairman and president. "The thunder of teen sexual activity and dating behavior may signal the lightning of substance abuse."

Ding ding ding ding ding--I think we have a winner!

AND THE LIST GROWS...

Among "enlightened" Western nations speaking out against homosexuality is becoming more taboo. The latest blow against freedom of speech and religion is from Sweden:

A Swedish court sentenced a Pentecostal pastor to one month in prison after finding him guilty of offending homosexuals in a sermon. The case was the first trial test of the national law against incitement as applied to speech about homosexuals.

Last year during a sermon delivered in the east coast town of Borgholm, Ake Green described homosexuality as "abnormal, a horrible cancerous tumor in the body of society." He called homosexuals "perverts, whose sexual drive the Devil has used as his strongest weapon against God."

During proceedings, the public prosecutor, Kjell Yngvesson, played a tape recording from the sermon. According to the church newspaper Kyrkans Tidning, he justified the arrest by saying, "One may have whatever religion one wishes, but [the sermon] is an attack on all fronts against homosexuals. Collecting Bible [verses] on this topic as he does makes this hate speech." [Emphasis mine, AC]

In his defense, the pastor said he merely wanted to make clear the biblical view on homosexuality, not to express disrespect.

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20)

CALIFORNIA EPISCOPAL CHURCH SECEDES

The slow motion break-up of the American Episcopal Church continues as St. James Episcopal Church has seceded from the Los Angeles Diocese

As of Tuesday, St. James Episcopal Church on Via Lido removed "Episcopal" from its name and will become part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, said Father Praveen Bunyan, pastor of St. James. All Saints' Episcopal Church in Long Beach joined St. James in the secession, diocese officials said.

Church administrators and members overwhelmingly voted Monday to sever their association with the Episcopal Church, Bunyan said.

"The Episcopalian Church has moved away from the message that is at the core of our faith," he said.

The church is ambiguous on whether Jesus Christ is the only Lord and Savior who offers salvation, Bunyan said.

"If we don't believe in uniqueness and centrality of Jesus Christ, are we even a church?" he asked.

Wow. We could see all sorts of trouble across the religious landscape if people start asking that question.

ANCIENT CITY DISCOVERED IN PERU

Archaeologists have found a 1,300 year old city deep in the Peruvian jungle:

The stone city, made up of five citadels at 9,186 feet (2,800 meters) above sea level, stretches over around 39 square miles (100 square kilometers) and contains walls covered in carvings and figure paintings, exploration leader Sean Savoy told Reuters.

"It is a tremendous city ... containing areas with stone etchings and 10-meter (33-foot) high walls," said Savoy, who had to hack through trees and thick foliage to finally reach the site on Aug. 15.

Covered in matted tree branches and interspersed with lakes and waterfalls, the settlement sites also contain well-preserved graveyards with mummies with teeth "in almost perfect condition," Savoy said.

Replete with stone agricultural terraces and water canals, the city complex is thought to have been home to the little-known Chachapoyas culture.

According to early accounts by Spanish conquistadors who arrived in Peru in the early 1500s, the Chachapoyas were a fair-skinned warrior tribe famous for their tall stature. Today they are known for the giant burial coffins sculpted into human figures found in the northern jungle region.

With all those canals it's highly likely John the Baptist used that city...oh, wait, wrong story.

GOOGLE, DON'T BE EVIL

The search engine site Google has banned an ad from a religious group questioning homosexual "marriage":

Google has banned a Christian organization's advertisements promoting its stance against homosexuality, saying the group promotes "hate."

Stand to Reason, a nonprofit apologetics organization, says its "AdWord" advertisement on Google recently was pulled down. ...

[Director of Operations for Stand to Reason Melinda] Penner countered via e-mail [to Google]: "Your suspension of our advertisement illegitimately excludes one side of the [same-sex marriage] debate. If you deem the issue itself off limits, then consistency would require you to suspend all searches of the issue. Instead, your search criteria return links to sites strongly advocating same-sex marriage. …"

You will pretty much always find it the case that when a company (or government) seeks to be "neutral" on an issue that will pretty much automatically be defined as excluding a Christian or moral viewpoint. Now that's evil.

MUSLIM MODESTY

In response to Muslim women who were skipping doctor's appointments because of those peekaboo hospital gowns, Maine Medical Center designed a modest one:

When officials at Maine Medical Center discovered many Muslim women were so ashamed they were canceling doctor visits, the hospital took action, redesigning the standard gown to provide extra coverage for patients who want it. The new hospital gowns have been available for several weeks.

"I have witnessed their misery and how bad they feel about it. They don't like it. They feel ashamed. It's very embarrassing," said Asha Abdulleh, a native of Kenya and a medical interpreter.

"This is a great example of a challenge raised by a specific community that can ultimately benefit all patients," said Dana Farris Gaya, the hospital's manager of interpreter and cross-cultural services.

I think it's great, but it raises the question: Why did it take Muslim modesty to get this done?

A TRIP TO THE VIDEO STORE

We stopped off at the (relatively) local video store today to use the free rental we have. While standing in line a girl behind me exclaimed to her friend, "Oh my G-d! The Passion of the Christ is out!"

Although she was wrong by a couple of weeks, something struck me about the irony of that statement.

On the way out I picked up the free Shelby Trader, which on the front had a $50 off coupon for your divorce or Chapter 7 filing.

*sigh*

CAN JEWS BE FOR JESUS?

Jews for Jesus, an evangelical group composed, well, of Jews is seeking to proclaim Jesus to their fellows. Their latest effort focuses on Washington, D.C. Jewish spokesman, however, aren't pleased:

The campaign is scheduled to end Sept. 18, a few days after Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year -- and the timing has infuriated Jewish leaders. They have planned town hall meetings this week to warn the Jewish community about what they call the coming "threat," and they said they will dispatch counter-missionary teams, which will seek to discredit the group and its conversion effort.

"It's offensive because Judaism is a long-established faith. Nobody wants to be annoyed by people challenging it," said Ronald Halber, executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington. "The Jewish community is not opposed to Christians being able to spread their beliefs. But Jews cannot embrace Jesus and remain Jews. We settled that question 2,000 years ago. . . . I mean, can you be a vegetarian and eat meat?"...

"Just because Jews are involved in an enterprise doesn't make it Jewish. Jews worshiped the golden calf -- that didn't make [idolatry] Jewish. It was condemned."

So can a Jew embrace Jesus and remain a Jew? Halber compares such to a vegetarian eating meat or a Jew worshiping the golden calf. The problem is that the Old Testament is full of prophecy about a coming Messiah. Had one conducted a poll in the 1st Century among Jews it would have been practically universal that the Messiah was expected. I don't really think anyone could/would argue with that.

Jesus Himself pointed out that He was the fulfillment of the Law, an argument the former Pharisee Paul makes as well. Jews such as Halber are showing either an ignorance of their own faith or a refusal to acknowledge obvious elements of it.

That really raises another issue, however. Most modern Jews aren't really a people of faith so much as a people with a traditional ethnic identity. They have transformed the Pharisaism that became Orthodox Judaism after the destrucion of Jerusalem in 70 AD into a practical Saduceeism. That is, they have secularized themselves with their only rallying cry being that they are Jews, not Christians.

Are they truly looking for the Messiah that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob promised? If they honestly are doing so, perhaps Jesus is God's Anointed One after all. Or can we ask if a Jewish people who reject even the idea of a Messiah are Jewish at all?

MARY, ABORTIONIST?

There's a new "biography" (read: "fantasy") about Mary the mother of Jesus out, and we learn a lot of interesting things about Joseph's wife:

But psychologist and political and cultural journalist Lesley Hazleton takes a daring approach in this "speculative" biography, basing her assumptions of the real-life, everyday Mary on her own experiences living in Jerusalem for 13 years, as well as on traditional and Gnostic texts. She says it's high time we get a clearer understanding of the life of that peasant girl and grown woman in first century A.D. Palestine.

"This is what I want:"she writes, "To repair the world of Mary and weave it anew into whole cloth. To give her back to herself, starting with her real name (Maryam). To restore her strength and her intelligence, and see her as the multifaceted human being she was before she became an icon: a peasant, a healer, a nationalist, a mother, a teacher, a leader -- and yes, a virgin, though in a sense we have long forgotten."

The book weaves an amazing tapestry of the threads of Maryam's skills, experiences and actions, all plausible as representative of a typical Galilean female in that drought-stricken, politically ravaged society.

Dividing the book into three sections -- Her World, Her Womb and Her Women -- Hazleton provides fascinating details of Galilean women's common knowledge of herbs, healing and midwifery/abortion.

Yes, how could we have "forgotten" all of that? Thankfully, she gives us a portrait to whom "her flesh-and-blood worshippers finally can relate." Yeah, if you're a man-hating feminist, I suppose.

You know those healing miracles of Jesus? Learned it all from Mary. And that whole "virgin" thing? It really means "rape" in Greek, you see. And the bondslave of the Lord (Luke 1:38, pardon my reference to such a patriarchal text) really also worshiped the Lady Wisdom, the maternal goddess.

This is great! I didn't know any of this stuff!

JOHN THE BAPTIST'S CAVE?

Where did the Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness live? In a cave, of course:

A British archaeologist is set to reveal what he believes to be the location of John the Baptist's cave to the west of Jerusalem, the Times reported on Monday.

Shimon Gibson, 45, has found a cave with a ritual baptism pool, rock carvings and pottery, which he linked to John the Baptist and his followers, the newspaper said.

According to the New Testament, John baptised Jesus in the Jordan River.

The Times said Gibson would reveal details at a press conference on Tuesday to be held at the cave, near the village of Ain Karim, which Christian tradition regards as John the Baptist's birthplace.

Gibson said a figure holding a staff reminiscent of representations of John the Baptist in early Byzantine art was among images incised into the rock during the 4th and 5th centuries, by which time the cave had become a shrine to the Baptist.

"I am now certain that this cave was connected with the ancient cult of John the Baptist. Indeed, this may very well be the cave of the early years of John's life, the place where he sought his first solitude in the wilderness and the place where he practised his baptisms," Gibson told the Times.

Uh, yeah, sure. I think what gave it away was the mailbox out front with "John the Baptist" on it.

UPDATE: A more detailed AP article is now out. If anything it's even less convincing. Don't these people actually read the Biblical narrative? [Link via Drudge]

GETTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE

Recognizing that church attendance is the most significant indicator of voting preference, Melinda Henneberger ponders whether people instead are choosing churches based on politics:

The fact that die-hard conservatives are not going to vote for Kerry in any event is not news to me, of course. But the people at Advent Lutheran did leave me wondering whether it's the way we vote that influences the way we pray—and with whom—rather than the other way around.

In America in 2004 there are very definitely Red State churches, like theirs, and Blue State churches, like my Roman Catholic parish in Georgetown, where John Kerry, who lives in the neighborhood, received communion not long ago.

A priest there who announced at a later mass that Kerry had been given communion at the church received a hearty ovation, amid the controversy over whether pro-choice lawmakers are entitled to receive the sacraments. (I would like to believe the applause was not for the candidate, but for the principle that no one should be turned away from the communion rail.)

Yet I have to concede that we do tend to worship with people we agree with politically. (If we instead voted for those we pray with, Kerry would have the Catholic vote sewn up. He doesn’t.)

Yes, there is a cultural divide in this country between believers and nonbelievers. The other night at a dinner, my jaw dropped when a man I had just met said of the religious right, “Those people scare me more than the terrorists do.” (Not me; I’ll take the roomful of Biblical literalists every single time.)

As Russell Kirk has pointed out--endorsing Cardinal Manning--political questions are at root religious and moral questions. I doubt there are many conservatives who chose a church based on the overall party registration of a church. I wouldn't be too surprised if some liberals had, however. When you have a particular view of God, the Bible and religion you almost certainly will tend toward certain political views. But you will rarely find someone who became a Christian because they were already, say, anti-abortion or opposed to the welfare state.

Quite frankly, even if Ms. Henneberger had not revealed that the church she attends is the one where people cheer and hoot about John Kerry taking communion (in clear violation of their church's teaching, by the way) I think we could have figured out where she stands. Those who take God and religion seriously simply don't make any sense to her and those like her.

(Hmmm, I wonder if the IRS is investigating that Catholic priest....)

MORE REASONS NOT TO LIKE CHAPEL HILL

Continuing the Academy's war against God those cuddle Tar Heels in Chapel Hill have revoked recognition of a Christian fraternity:

For the second time in two years the University of North Carolina finds itself embroiled in a First Amendment dispute with Christian groups on campus.

The Chapel Hill school has removed official recognition of Alpha Iota Omega, a Christian fraternity, because its officers have refused to sign an anti-discrimination clause on a university application that would have required the group to accept any student as a member, regardless of religion....

[UNC-CH Chancellor James] Moeser and the university, however, have refused to back down, insisting that all student groups must have open memberships.

Chip chip chipping away.

(I will admit the town of Chapel Hill has some very good bookstores.)

CHRISTIANS GAGGED IN CANADA

Churches have received official warning from the Canadian government not to address issues some view as political:

According to LifeSiteNews, churches are not only admonished against recommending certain candidates or political parties, but they also face crackdowns for speaking out on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

"The best thing for a charity to do, especially during an election, is to stay away from those issues," Dawna Lynn Labonté, a spokeswoman for the minister of national revenue, told the news agency. "There are certain issues, especially during election times, that are very political."

The gag order on religions is said to cover all moral issues, even poverty.

"Taking out a full page ad before Christmas on homelessness might not be considered political, but doing the same thing the week of an election might be considered political," Labonté said.

Of course, in a secular ideological society where all issues are political no moral or societal issue a church might address would be "non-political". Without question we find a flagrant attack on the freedom on religion.

South of the border, in Arkansas, a similar assault is underway:

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, headed by Barry Lynn, filed a complaint with the IRS against Ronnie Floyd, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Springdale, Ark., accusing him of preaching a sermon promoting President Bush's re-election July 4.

The complaint challenges the church's tax-exempt status as a religious organization.

The local Democratic Party is supporting the IRS probe, saying the sermon should be "investigated thoroughly."

I'm not one to endorse candidates from the pulpit (although I'll speak on any moral issue I see fit), but there used to be freedom of speech, but I guess that only applies to Internet porn these days.

By the way, when was the last time the IRS investigated one of the black churches John Kerry likes to quote Scripture in?

IT'S GREEK TO ME

With all eyes on Greece test your own Hellenistic knowledge.

[Link via LRC]

ARE YOU A 'HOMOPHOBE'?

Beth W. at church gave me a photocopy on Wednesday of a page 28 of the August 2004 issue of the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing (huh?) from the article "Homophobia: A Challenge for Psychosocial Nursing". The good author defines "homophobia" for us:

Homophobia results in the belief that GLBT [that's Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender for you unsophisticates] individuals are sick, immoral, or inferior to heterosexuals.

Interestingly, these people might go beyond simply shying away from the GLBTs and actually initiate "name-calling, harrasment, discrimination...hate crimes, or murder." Now personally, I would think that any murder is a "hate crime" (1 John 3:15) but that's not my focus here. Would it be considered "name calling" or "harrasment" to call someone a "homophobe" simply based on a religious belief that homosexuality is immoral? I'm sure not, of course.

We are also told that it is a "myth" that "homosexuality is a 'preference' which can be altered, as opposed to an 'orientation,' which is no more or less fixed than heterosexuality...." According to our author, "attempting to make someone who is homosexual become heterosexual is...unethical...."

Now the question we have ask is, who gets to set the moral standards here? Is the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing the guide on morality and behavior? Are they allowed to "name call" (ie, "homophobe") but I am not? And why do they get to decide.

In the end we also must ask, what immoral behavior has "science" not sought to excuse, and since when was ethics the purview of science?

BIG...REALLY BIG

Archaeologists have discovered a big--a really big--seated statue of Egyptian pharoah Ramsees II:

The remains of a colossal seated statue of Ramses II, thought to be about 13 metres tall and weighing 700 tons, have been discovered in a shanty area of the Upper Egyptian city of Akhmim, adjacent to the open-air museum. The lower part of the limestone statue is seated on a throne, to the right and left of which are figures of two of the pharaoh's daughters and princess- queens, Merit-Amun and Bint-Anath. The statue and the throne are carved from a single block and stand on a huge limestone base covered with carved hieroglyphic texts. The base also carries a register of captured enemies surmounting rings that bear the name of their home cities. Remains of colours are still visible. A colossal face that matches the base of the statue, showing the pharaoh wearing a false beard, has also been found. A splendid colossus of Queen Merit-Amun found here is already on display in the open-air museum.

Ah, I should have been an archaeologist! Great stuff.

[Link via WorldNetDaily]

NO HOMOSEXUAL 'MARRIAGES' IN SF

California's Supreme Court has dotted the i's and crossed the t's by saying what everyone already knew, the homosexual 'marriages' in San Francisco are illegitimate:

The California Supreme Court on Thursday voided the nearly 4,000 same-sex marriages sanctioned in San Francisco this year and ruled unanimously that the mayor overstepped his authority by issuing licenses to gay and lesbian couples.

The court said the city illegally issued the certificates and performed the ceremonies, since state law defines marriage as a union between a man and woman.

Of course, this issue isn't settled. The wind is blowing in the favor of depravity in our time and place.

EVANGELICALS OUT AT GOP CONVENTION?

High profile evangelicals such as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are still standing by the mailbox awaiting their invitations to the GOP convention:

The Rev. Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and a one-time Republican presidential candidate, said, "I've had no request from anybody to be there." Unlike Falwell, Robertson believes the GOP is deliberately keeping him and other evangelicals away.

"In the last convention, the thought was to keep all the conservatives out of sight," said Robertson, who has attended every Republican convention since 1988, but said he won't go this year. "The general thrust will be to entice the so-called independent moderates and I am not sure that there would be much reason for a conservative to be there."

The weasely GOP strategist Ralph Reed--we have Robertson to thank for him--claimed all was well:

"There is a specific program under way to invite social conservatives and religious leaders of a very broad or diverse representations and that is even under way as we speak," Reed said.

Translation: We're not inviting any of those guys who anyone might recognize on tv.

Although, on a brighter note, Falwell and Robertson don't have the clout they used to:

Also, many evangelicals no longer look to Robertson or Falwell as their top representatives. A survey conducted last spring for PBS'"Religion & Ethics Newsweekly" and U.S. News & World Report found that less than half of evangelicals have a favorable view of Falwell, while only a slight majority view Robertson favorably.

Is the GOP pulling back from evangelical headliners? I think without question. Is that a bad thing? Well, I'm no fan of Fallwell and Robertson, but I suspect the GOP lost the invitations for all the wrong reason. In the end, Robertson is right: it's simply another appeal to the moderate independent. And the harder the GOP goes after them, the less likely they'll be to find my vote.

[Link via WorldNetDaily]

LEARNING FROM THE AMISH

The Amish are an easy target in our modern world. They reject modernity as another outgrowth of modernity, and, well, the clothes are a bit drab. UPN has a new "reality" series centered on a group of Amish teens going to the big city. I had dismissed the show out of hand, but Chris Armstrong thinks there's something we can learn:

Those who keep watching this show can expect a far more interesting dynamic than the "let's-see-if-we-can-make-the-innocents-sin" project. That is, we'll continue, as we did in the premiere episode, to see the "city kids" squirm. And we, if we're honest, will likely do a little squirming ourselves. We are challenged by the very presence of the "plain people's" way of life, even in the diluted, transplanted form of searching, conflicted Amish young adults trying to come to grips with what being Amish means and whether they want to "own" that identity.

In the Amish, in other words, we have a highly visible witness of a different way of living.

Quoting Don Kraybill, he sums up core beliefs of the Amish, beliefs that strike me as highly valuable and sensible:

Specifically, the Amish and similar groups critique three aspects of the modern gospel of progress:

"First, they question the power of human reason as a basis for knowledge. The claims of tradition and the Bible ring truer to them than those of science and higher education.

"Second, they doubt that personal autonomy brings greater freedom or happiness. Rather, they argue that only within the web of stable communities will individuals find security and satisfaction.

"Finally, they dispute the claim of the multicultural canon that all values and beliefs are equally valid. Such tolerance, they believe, denies the very possibility of truth."

The full discussion of their mindset is worth your time. And I might even give the tv show a try.

MAMA DON'T PREACH

Madon...er, Esther (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) continues her obsession with the Jewish mystic movement, Kabbalah, and Kabbalah water:

Madonna stunned concert organizers in Ireland with her backstage demands which, according to sources, which included a request for 25 cases of Kabbalah water. The one-time Material Girl refuses to drink anything but the water sold by the trendy religious movement, which some have called a cult.

Not everyone is thrilled about her interests, however:

“Madonna has taken to pushing Kabbalah on anyone within shouting distance,” says Ross. “She’s been trying to convert everyone who works on the concert [there are more than 100], and that includes making them pray, giving Kabbalah courses as presents, and no doubt, pumping Kabbalah water down their throats. People working on concerts go through a lot of water, and it’s the only drink that she’ll touch.”

Well, apparently almost the only drink she'll touch:

Madonna’s list of backstage demands also includes vodka, but insiders say that’s to remove stains from her outfits.

(wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

WHAT MAKES THE SECULARISTS NERVOUS?

Bill Barnwell thinks his hate mail gives him insight:

First of all, they think religion is silly and stupid and should not be embraced by intelligent people. They are typically very smug in their supposed intelligence and consider religious people to be a bunch of morons. But I will congratulate the hardened atheists on this: they have much more faith than I could ever have. To have such an unflinching and unquestioning faith in naturalistic Darwinism to explain life and societal development as we know it takes quite a bit more faith than believing in the supernatural. So good job, guys. You’re an inspiration for people of faith everywhere.

Barnwell has fun getting in a few more jabs, but sees the fundamental problem as

The point is that nobody is forcing you to believe in anything. Religion haters assume they have an inherent right never to be annoyed by Christianity or exposed to it. Since the mere presence of Christianity annoys them, they feel their rights are being violated and that others are trying to "impose" their values on them. The truth is that the only thing that would make them happy is not just Christians leaving them alone and being silent, but Christianity and religion disappearing from the face of the earth.

It's hard to argue with that.

PAUL ON THE SMALL SCREEN

While searching for a DVD at the video store to bring home for evening wife time, I ran across Paul the Apostle, which listed itself as part of The Bible Collection. My curiosity was raised, but not enough to get it then. I'm usually skeptical of screen adaptations of Scripture (remember Lot's pirate ship attackin Noah's ark?), so I decided to find out the details. As it so happened, a regular visit to Christianity Today turned up a link to a review of the movie. It sounds like the bells of suspicion that went off in my head were well warranted:

Unfortunately, Paul the Apostle is one of the weakest entries in the series. Directed by Roger Young (who also directed Joseph and Jesus) from a script by Gareth Jones (Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace) and Gianmario Pagano (The Apocalypse), the film dilutes its biblical source material with much more fictitious material than any of the films that came before it.

For example, the film spends an incredible amount of time on a completely made-up Sadducee character named Reuben (Thomas Lockyer), who turns against Paul (Johannes Brandrup) when Paul becomes a Christian, and whose giggly wife Dinah (Barbora Bobulova) converts to Christianity....

But the life and mission of Paul himself are given very short shrift. Indeed, the film has a very odd structure overall; it stretches the early chapters of Acts and pads them with plenty of unnecessary material, while the actual travels of Paul are compressed to a few slight montages. Paul does not appear in the Scriptures until the end of Acts 7, and Part One of this two-part film ends with Paul's escape from Damascus, as described in the middle of Acts 9. By the time we are two-and-a-half-hours into this three-hour film, we have still gotten no further than the break-up of Paul and Barnabas (G.W. Bailey) in Acts 15. But when the film ends just half an hour later, Paul is arriving in Rome, as per Acts 28.

Now why, oh why, do people do this? Apparently the quite good movie "Joseph" from about a decade ago is part of this series. They got that right. And I understand that when you dramatize Scripture one will need at times to fill-in with dialogue and scenes that make the narrative cohesive. But most of the time we find people who imagine they can somehow improve on the Biblical account. I understand some reworking might make a more Hollywood appealing movie, but that's not what this is supposed to be about. If you don't like the story you've decided to adapt, then go write Ben-Hur. At least don't pretend it's Scripture.

Of course, we've seen the wonderful example of what can be done on screen with Mel Gibson's "The Passion". And a good friend of mine highly recommends "The Gospel of John", released to much less fanfare.

Maybe, just maybe, filmmakers can learn from their success.

NEW FONT FOR A NEW BIBLE

Seeking a new way to present one of the newer translations on the market (well, I use translation loosely--sorry couldn't resist) Tyndale House Publishers commissioned a new font for the New Living Translation:

For Brian Sooy, the way letters appear on a page is divine.

So the self-described font fanatic and owner of a graphic design firm was happy to get the call from the publishers of New Living Translation Bible to create a font for the nation's third most popular Bible, which is expected to sell up to 1.5 million copies this year....

They were looking for a new font that would make their Bible more compact and easier to read. A company art director, Tim Botts, knew Sooy and suggested him for the job.

Eighteen months later, Sooy finished the new font, which followed the style of the Bible's previous type, but incorporated more rounded letters, narrower lines and shorter stems.

Sooy called it "Lucerna," which means "lamp" in Latin. He said he was influenced by a Psalm that reads, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path."

Regrettably, I can find no illustration of the font itself.

Why, you ask, am I reading about fonts. Well, your humble servant has a fairly extensive library of books on typefaces, their history and design. I've even read D.B. Updike's two-volume history of typefaces, Printing Types. Pretty sad, I know. But I for one am quite jealous of Brian Sooy!

AND MORE FROM INDIA

Just received from Bill are these wise words, and the pictures below:

...we need to remember that American churches are not the model for how local churches are to conduct their work – the New Testament is....Why should we, who preach, try to make American churches out of those churches in India, Philippines, South America, etc., when we do foreign evangelism? They are capable of reading the Bible and figuring out how they want to run their worship and how they want to do their work.

Monkey god on the road to Vijayawada:



Centuries old Muslim fort:



Preaching in Ballinagar:

EVANGELISM IN INDIA

My good friend Bill Robinson who works with the University Heights congregation in Lexington, Kentucky is on the tail end of a three and a half week evangelism trip to Hyderabad, India organized by Ed Harrell. He's been sending out journal reports and pictures, and he has given me permission to post some here. It's wonderful to know about Christians literally on the other side of the world.

(Click on the thumbnails for full size viewing.)
Here is Ed Harrell introducing Bill:



Christians praying (little boys playing):



A baptism in an irrigation well at a rice field in Nagareddygudam. The man performing the baptism is 80 years old:



Some road obstacles:



The church in Naga. Guess which one Bill is:

IRAQ AND CHRISTIANS REDUX

Leilah Nadir doesn't think her Christian relatives in Iraq are any safer:

Refugee officials in Damascus now estimate that Iraqi Christians, about 3 per cent of the country's total population, make up 20 per cent of Iraqi refugees in Syria.

If you think about how hard life was under Saddam Hussein's regime, to have made it so much worse seems particularly horrendous and irresponsible.

It's worth your time to read it.

[Link via Christianity Today's weblog.]

IS ISLAM 'EVIL'?

Well, of course it is, but you'd better not say it in Norwich, England:

POLICE today launched an investigation into comments by a Norwich religious leader branding Islam "an evil religion".

The Rev Dr Alan Clifford, pastor of Norwich Reformed Church, yesterday told the Evening News he backed the views of BNP leader Nick Griffin, who was shown in a TV documentary telling party members Islam was a "vicious, wicked faith."

His comments sparked outrage among fellow religious leaders and anti-racist groups.

The Evening News was today contacted by the Race Crime Unit of Norfolk police to provide further information about Dr Clifford's comments, after saying they were concerned his remarks could damage "community cohesiveness".

Abraham Eshetu, diversity officer at Norfolk police, said: "We will be investigating the comments made by Mr Clifford."

Memo to diversity officers: "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." (Matthew 10:34)

THE LOVELY GREEN SHORES OF ATLANTIS

Like so many others for thousands of years, the myth of Atlantis has always fascinated me. It's one of those things that I've always wanted to be true. I tend to believe most ancient myth contains truth that is all too readily dismissed in our "enlightened" society. Geographer Ulf Erlingsson also believes that Atlantis was real, and in a new book argues that Atlantis was actually Ireland

Geographer Ulf Erlingsson, whose book explaining his theory will be published next month, says the measurements, geography and landscape of Atlantis as described by Plato match Ireland almost exactly.

“I am amazed no one has come up with this before, it’s incredible,” he told Reuters. “Just like Atlantis, Ireland is 300 miles long, 200 miles wide, and widest across the middle. They both have a central plain surrounded by mountains. I’ve looked at geographical data from the rest of the world and of the 50 largest islands there is only one that has a plain in the middle — Ireland.”

It's a fascinating theory, and he makes a convincing case. Somehow I sense the debate won't end here, though.

METH LAB AT CHURCH?

A church trustee dropped by the Bethel Moravian Church in North Dakota and found the unexpected:

A trustee of the Bethel Moravian Church near the town of Leonard, about 40 miles southwest of Fargo, came by at about 6 p.m. to drop off some towels.

Thinking it strange that the church was locked, he began rattling the doors, and then, through a crack, saw a man inside running out another door.

The trustee called sheriff's deputies, who soon caught a suspect fleeing on foot.

"I'd prefer that our kitchen be used for bake sales, but in addition to being pastor, I'm also the fire chief," said Pastor Dave Sobek.

Well, I guess that's what you get for having a kitchen at the church building...

GOOD ADVICE FOR GRANDPARENTS (OH, AND AUNTS, TOO)

Jordana offers excellent advice to various non-parenting relatives. What a sensible lady.

THE PAGAN NATION

The usually sensible Harold O.J. Brown tells us what ought to be obvious: our nation is pagan:

All this in itself is not yet a disaster, because as many rightly point out, there are many vestiges of authentic Christianity still to be found in our nation. But it would be a disaster for Christians and other God-fearers not to recognize that we've reached a turning point in our cultural history, and to go on dreaming that we can gradually change this formerly more or less Christian country for the better.

Those of us who are Christians and take our commitment seriously are slow to recognize it, but ultimately it will be easier for Christians to live in a country that we know is pagan than to live in one that we think is still sufficiently Christian to listen to us and to change in accordance with Christian values.

I commend his words to you.

ISLAMISTS DENY IRAQI CHURCH BOMBINGS

Showing great prescience, theosebes recently discussed the specter of Christian persecution in Iraq. This past week saw the bombings of several churches, but radical Islamists deny they did it:

Islamists have posted a message online denying that Iraqi militant groups bombed five churches on Sunday, and accusing an Iraqi politician of responsibility.

"If the mujahedeen (Islamic holy warriors) had wanted to target those churches, they would have made them disappear from the face of earth and nobody would have come out alive," said the message, which was posted late Wednesday on an Islamic website known to be a clearing house for the statements of militant groups.

Regardless of who did it, Iraqis who seek to follow Christ are likely going to find it only gets worse in the coming months.

DOES THE MEDIA FEAR GOD?

Well, no, not in the Biblical way that we all should, but Chris Weinkopf finds how deeply uncomfortable the elite media is with conservative Christianity:

"Do most Americans realize just how fervent the President's evangelical faith is?"

So asks the New York Times' Alessandra Stanley, in her review of the PBS "Frontline" documentary, "The Jesus Factor," which examines the role of faith in George W. Bush's life and Presidency. Stanley believes that Americans would be distressed to know that Bush engages in such outlandish behavior as daily Bible-reading, prayer, and allowing his spiritual life to inform his political one. After all, she is.

Other reviews are along the same vein Weinkopf finds:

As with an inkblot test, reactions to "The Jesus Factor" say more about the viewer than the documentary itself. People with religious faith, and those who bear no animus toward them, found the program's depiction of Bush inspiring. Diehard secularists found it frightening. And while the American public might straddle that cultural divide, the media elite almost uniformly fall on the anti-religion side.

Those good tax-funded folks at PBS are pretty clear about their perspective:

Even PBS can't avoid a certain sense of bemusement in its descriptions of these earnest Bible-thumpers. At times, its documentary takes on the same curiously detached tone of a National Geographic special on African bushmen, describing in fascinated detail the strange, alien beliefs that, to much of the American public, are simply part of everyday life.

The announcer explains, in that serious, public-broadcasting voice: "Conservative evangelicals consider the Bible to be the word of God, and without error…. To evangelicals, it is not their Christian denomination that connects them but a series of beliefs. One of the most important is committing yourself to Jesus Christ, or being 'born again.'"

You almost expect him to continue: "While the men are out hunting lions, the women fashion nose rings from the bones of small rodents."

Oh, those wacky folks who commit themselves to Jesus Christ--how very, very quaint. Nothing beats a good Jonathan Edwards sermon to be sure.

If I ever do go small rodent hunting, I'll know where I can find some.

ARTIFACTS FOUND IN EGYPT

Builders have discovered a intact tomb while working on a mosque outside of Cairo:

Builders laying the foundations for a mosque in northeast Cairo found a tomb dating from the Pharaonic period intact but submerged in ground water up to the ceiling of the tomb, official sources said Sunday.

The tomb contains an unopened basalt sarcophagus, slivers of gold dedicated to the ancient Egyptian gods Isis and Horus, and inscriptions showing the tomb belonged to a man called Ankh Khansu Derat Hor, the official news agency MENA said.

Their dating, "New Kingdom, which lasted from the 16th to the 11th century B.C", would place it at it roughly during the time of the Exodus to just before David's reign. Another fascinating find.

NO QUMRAN ESSENES?

The standard Dead Sea Scrolls story holds that a strict sect of Jews called Essenes lived in a place called Qumran. The scrolls were their library, which they hid to protect them from marauding Romans. Some archaelogists now claim the accepted version is bunk:

Located on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, Qumran is famous throughout the world as the place where the Essenes, who have been widely described in studies, conferences and exhibitions as a type of Jewish "monk," are said to have lived and written the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, based on findings soon to be published, Israeli archaeologists now argue that Qumran "lacks any uniqueness."...

"It's impossible to say that the people who lived at Qumran were poor," said Peleg. "It is also impossible that de Vaux did not see the finds we saw. He simply ignored what didn't suit him."...

According to Hirschfeld, the finds at Qumran are "revolutionary and contradict everything we know about every aspect of the Essenes."

If the new theory is credible, it will be revolutionary. The Qumran Essene story has been taught in various classes by your humble servant.

Not everyone is biting, however:

But among the supporters of the traditional theory, there are those who remain unmoved. Dr. Magen Broshi, former chief curator of the Shrine of the Book and the one who coined the description of Qumran as "the oldest monastery in the Western world," said that he does not believe the reports of finds of jewelry and cosmetics vessels at Qumran. "If these items were found, they are not from the site itself, but rather belonged to the Roman garrison stationed there after its destruction," he said. According to Broshi, "even today, 98 or 99 percent of scholars still believe that Qumran was an Essene monastery."

Of course, it's easy to see how an establishment position would remain entrenched in the face of new evidence, especially in the world of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They're not exactly a bunch eager to embrace outsiders as evidenced by the decades long restriction of simple access to the scroll texts, access that was broken several years ago against the will of the Scroll establishment.

Some have even suggested that the Dead Sea Scrolls represent, at least in part, the library of the Jerusalem Temple itself. It's a story to watch.

[Link via Christianity Today.]

AND WHY THE DEMS CAN'T CONNECT

As was noted below, the Democrats can't understand why the GOP has 'hijacked' voters of faith. Actor Alec Baldwin gives us a good clue why:

Actor Alec Baldwin slammed the influence of religious conservatives on Wednesday, telling Democrats that the Republican Party "has been hijacked by these fundamentalist wackos."

The audience, which included Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, greeted Baldwin's comment with sustained applause.

"To me, the Republican Party is the real great tragedy of the last 25 years because there are lot of good and decent people and a lot of good political points [that have] come from the Republican Party in the post-war period, but it has been hijacked by these fundamentalist wackos," Baldwin said.

Would that include his brother Stephen?

IN CASE BRITNEY REGISTERS AT TARGET...

You can always get her this for her Kabbalah wedding.

[Link via Dr. Frank]

DEMS GET RELIGION

Attempting to stake their claim to people of faith, Democrats struggle to show their religious, too:

The ballroom at the Sheraton Boston Hotel on Wednesday was filled with representatives from the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths, including Evangelicals and Baptists, who said it was okay to mix politics and religion in an effort to fulfill long-standing goals of eradicating poverty and taking care of the most needy Americans.

Still, even attendees at the event admitted that the caucus was a novelty.

Still, one of the main predictors of whether someone will vote Republican is how often he attends church:

A 2003 poll released by the Pew Center for People and Religion found that those surveyed who went to a religious service more than twice weekly were 63 percent more likely to vote Republican, while 37 percent vote Democrat. On the flip side, 62 percent of people who attended a service only once a year or not at all were more likely to vote Democratic, while 38 percent go Republican.

That's a startling gap, of course. And while I'm not the guy to ask for a GOP endorsement these days, the Dems have a long way to go before they can appeal to the sincerely religious with a straight face.

PRE-ROMAN POMPEII ?

Pompeii, the Roman city famous for its destruction by Vesuvius, is revealing its pre-Roman past:

The site looks like an example of below-street plumbing in mid-repair, yet it provides a tiny glimpse of a fact obscured by Pompeii's better-known association with the imperial era: A non-Roman civilization thrived here for three centuries, with its own temples, houses, taverns, baths and saucy sexual practices.

Last month, a team of archaeologists from Italy's Basilicata University uncovered the remains of a structure built by the Samnites, a mountain warrior people who conquered, inhabited, built up and ruled Pompeii before Roman chariots wheeled into town.

Great fun! (And I mean that.)

ALL HAIL OKRA

Mmmmm, okra!

GET YOURS NOW!

From "the most revolting thing I've ever seen" deparment, your own
"I Had An Abortion" T-shirts.

It's about time to start looking for the brimstone to start falling.

[Link via Drudge]

ME, A SNOB?


You speak eloquently and have seemingly read every book ever published. You are a fountain of endless (sometimes useless) knowledge, and never fail to impress at a party.What people love: You can answer almost any question people ask, and have thus been nicknamed Jeeves.What people hate: You constantly correct their grammar and insult their paperbacks.

What Kind of Elitist Are You? brought to you by Quizilla

That seems to be about right. I would never correct someone's grammar (other than a family member) or insult paperbacks (other than my mother's or sisters'). I would simply quietly feel smug.

Link courtesy of Jordana over at the new/old Curmudgeonry.

KING ARTHUR: THUMBS UP

My old schoolmate and fellow teaching assistant Scott Trask says the new King Arthur movie is well worth seeing:

Ignore the critics who have panned this film. From the reviews I have read, most of those who have done so, know nothing of the history of the period, and have misinterpreted their own confusion and bewilderment as products of a weak script, rather than their own ignorance. [2] In addition, many of them are, frankly, politically correct commissars who regard Kill Bill (2004) as a great work of art but The Passion (2004) as excessively violent and anti-Semitic. Any film that seeks not to vilify the western past but to honor it, in all its complexity and magnificence, is sure to incur their ire. The film is gorgeous, moving, and conveys a realistic sense of fifth century Roman Britain.

Sounds worth seeing.

CHRISTIANS OUT IN IRAQ?

An unintended consequence of the Iraqi war has Iraqi Christians in the hot seat:

Numbering some 750,000, Christians are a minority here, and even as secular Iraqis worry about the growing tide of Islamic fundamentalism, so long repressed under Saddam Hussein, their Christian compatriots are feeling the effects closer to home. They're anxious about their place in the new world around them, one that often sees them as collaborators with their American occupiers.

The new Iraq seems destined to be dominated by a mix of Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites, leaving many Christians wondering if it is time to leave.

Ironically, those seeking to practice Christianity under Saddam usually found protection under his regime:

It's a delicate issue for Christians here who want to be seen to be supporting their reborn nation's attempts at clawing back toward a better way of life, especially when for many, the worsening circumstances was undeniable.

They were able to practice their faith in relative security, free from persecution under Saddam Hussein, and threats from Islamic radicals about liquor stores and beauty salons were always firmly dealt with....

Christians who fled Iraq before the war are in neighboring Jordan and Syria, waiting and watching before deciding whether to return, said Bishop Andreas at the Assumption of the Virgin Mary Church.

"They're very afraid,'' he admitted.

Of the 750,000 Christians in Iraq, the majority are Chaldean Roman Catholic, the rest Syrian Catholic, Syrian Orthodox and Assyrian. Most live in Baghdad and its outskirts and some dwell further to the north.

One would hope for an opening to Biblical teaching with the removal of Saddam. It seems instead that just the opposite is true.

BRITNEY: KABBALAH BRIDE?

In an effort to demonstrate her spiritual side, sometimes Baptist Britney Spears may go Kabbalah with her wedding:

The pop star is planning a lavish white wedding for this fall, and a source says Kabbalah bigwigs are urging Spears to make it the first celeb Kabbalah marriage.

“There’s some resistance from her family, who are devout Baptists,” says the insider. “But maybe there’s a way to incorporate elements from both faiths, and make everyone happy.”

Ah, the old "we'll make everyone happy" routine. Of course, religion is only about making everyone happy. There is strong evidence, however, that Spears has made the deepest of commitments to the Kabbalah faith:

The source points out that Spears has been tattooed in deference to her newfound faith, which is a controversial, mystical branch of Judaism.

It's hard to argue with that.

PENN STATE BACKS DOWN

Penn St. University, which had denied a Christian club official status, has backed down:

After complaining the school had "too many" Christian clubs, Penn State University agreed to approve DiscipleMakers Christian Fellowship as a registered student organization in the face of a civil-rights lawsuit.

Glad to see enlightenment has come to the Penn St. administration.

KERRY'S CONSISTENCY

John Kerry's recent statement that life begins at conception caused quite a furor, but Ted Olsen finds Kerry is sincere and consistent:

But the real story here is that Kerry doesn't believe his comment is a biological observation. For him, it's only religious. He calls it "my article of faith" and says that he's barred from making political decisions based on that believe because of the "separation of church and state in America."

Olsen wonders what might be Kerry's guide if not faith:

Kerry's comments on separation of church and state deserve much more attention—from actual scholars and analysts, not from partisan pundits trying to score points. The political theory he's promoting here is truly remarkable. If Kerry is not voting according to his conscience, what's he using as his matrix? Not public opinion, or he would have voted for the partial-birth abortion ban. What makes an issue religious? Kerry has, in the past, (wrongly) equated Catholic teaching on abortion with teaching on other issues, such as capital punishment and the war in Iraq. But on those issues, he's on the same side as his church. Why does "separation of church and state" not come into play on these points?

But here might be a true test of his Bizarro World theory:

Wouldn't [interim president of NARAL Pro Choice America Betsy] Cavendish be surprised, though, if Kerry decided that it was wrong to protect abortion clinics from violence because the separation of church and state prohibits such a defense of human life?

Let's ask him.

CAN I UNDERSTAND THE CONSTITUTION?

Not according to several United States Senators who don't like the Biblical views of a Federal judge nominee:

Women senators are expressing outrage at a controversial judicial nominee who co-authored a 1997 article with his wife in which he suggested biblical passages about wives being subservient to their husbands should be taken literally.

J. Leon Holmes (search) — nominated by President Bush to serve on the federal district court in Arkansas — and his wife wrote the article for the Arkansas Catholic Review (search) that reads "the wife is to subordinate herself to the husband ... the woman is to place herself under the authority of the man."

Holmes said the words have been taken out of context, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein (search), D-Calif., calls Holmes unacceptable.

"How can I or any other American believe that one who truly believes a woman is subordinate to her spouse [can] interpret the Constitution (search) fairly?" she asked during a debate Tuesday on the candidate.

Even Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas claim Holmes does not have a "fundamental commitment to the equality of women in our society."

The good news is that Holmes was confirmed by the Senate. And I suspect the good Judge Holmes has views on marriage that are far closer to the actual writers and ratifiers of the Constitution than the lady (I use the term accommodatively) Senators do.

YOU'VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY

The good folks over at Newsweek have as their new cover story on 'The Secret Lives of Wives'. Now women are empowered to be just as big a sleazeball as their cheating husbands are--roar!

"It was just so ruinous for a woman to be caught in adultery in past times, you had to be really driven or motivated to do it," says Peter D. Kramer, clinical professor of psychiatry at Brown University and author of "Should You Leave?" "Now you can get away with it, there's a social role that fits you."

It's nice to see our society is so accommodating.

What sort of women are these? Let's look at 'Veronica':

Veronica, on the other hand, fell in love with a man who was not her husband while she was safely at home in the Dallas suburbs looking after her two children. Hers is the more familiar story: isolated and lonely, married to an airline pilot, Veronica, now 35, took up with a wealthy businessman she met at a Dallas nightclub. Her lover gave her everything her husband didn't: compliments, Tiffany jewelry, flowers and love notes. It was, in fact, the flowers that did her in. Veronica's lover sent a bouquet to her home one afternoon, her husband answered the door and, in one made-for-Hollywood moment, the marriage was over. Now remarried (to a new man), Veronica says she and her friends half-jokingly talk about starting a Web site for married women who want to date.

Now isn't that sweet? My question is, who is the brain challenged male who married this woman after her affair? It certainly wasn't the businessman she had the affair with--he knew what kind of woman she is.

A BIBLE, THE OLD FASHIONED WAY

Before there was Gutenberg there were innumerable anonymous scribes who beautifully wrote the Bible letter by letter with pen (quill, stylus) and ink. For centuries that process largely has been abandoned. In Minnesota Donald Jackson is reviving the process on a grand scale with the St. John's Bible:

As Donald Jackson and his scribes worked on a handwritten and "illuminated" Bible, they used an image unavailable to the monks of the Middle Ages: a view of Earth taken from space.

It's one of the many modern touches in The St. John's Bible, from using computers to lay out pages to using "virtual voice prints" of chanting monks, Buddhists and Native Americans in several artworks....

But this Bible -- thought to be the first of its kind commissioned by a Benedictine monastery in 500 years -- is still done the old-fashioned way, with every letter and illustration painstakingly drawn by hand.

Jackson and his team of artists in Monmouth, Wales, use quills cut from goose or swan feathers. Ancient inks are prepared using the yolks of eggs from free-range chickens near Jackson's scriptorium as a binder. The words are written on large sheets of prepared vellum, or calfskin, which are then illuminated or brought to light with gold, silver or platinum to form dazzling artwork.

It's an eight-year project costing $4 million. The final product will be housed at St. John's University north of Minneapolis. Time to plan that trip to the midwest, I guess.

For pictures, visit the official site.

'I MOSH FOR JESUS'

At your local 'Christian' festival or event get your 'I Mosh for Jesus' t-shirt or 'I Love Christian Boys' hat and show the world just how spiritually minded you are:

By the third day of Creation East, the granddaddy of Christian rock festivals, Dave Lula could pick a winner among the merchandise he was selling. It was a $12 T-shirt of his own design that said "I Mosh for Jesus." The crowd was young, Mr. Lula figured, and this appealed to their sense of humor and independence....

"I travel to all the festivals, dozens of them, all summer long, then I do smaller events in California during winter," Mr. Lula said, standing over T-shirts that read, "Hardcore Christian," "Hetero-Boy" and "Religion Is Dead. Jesus Is Not." He said he was not simply selling concert souvenirs. "I feel I'm getting the word of God out," he said.

All the while the old standby 'I Work For a Jewish Carpenter' bumper stickers are just gathering dust.

GOD OR OLD GLORY?

Doug Mendenhall asks a good question for this Independence Day weekend:

You're in a small group at your office or a park or a restaurant. Everybody knows everybody else; you're all friends. As the conversation rolls around the circle, one person is prompted to remark, "You know, I'm really not sure that being _______ is all it's cracked up to be. I'm thinking about looking for something different."

Would there be more consternation in the circle if that blank is filled in with "Christian" or with "American"? Which would create the bigger awkward silence? Which would most incline you to question your friend's character?

Where does God rank in our lives?

Still, while many Americans are worried about the separation of church and state, and whether government policies should narrow or widen it, I am more worried our tendency to make a religion out of being an American.

Now, the catechism of this religion may well include a belief in Jehovah. But that's not the way Jehovah sees the pecking order. His jealousy burns like a raging fire. He doesn't share his people with anyone or anything.

In fact, as a way of showing the intensity and supremacy of devotion he expects, Jesus once said to those who wanted to follow him, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters - yes, even his own life - he cannot be my disciple."

I believe the Bible commands us to respect our country, but I sure better respect God more.

IS LIGHT FASTER?

Some scientists are arguing that the speed of light (the c in E=mc2)isn't a constant at all, but instead is getting faster:

Scientists say the speed of light, regarded as a universal constant, may be getting faster.

They say it may have been lower as recently as two billion years ago - right here on Earth.

The controversial finding is based on re-analysis of old data that has long been used to argue exactly the opposite, reports New Scientist.

A varying speed of light contradicts Einstein's theory of relativity, and would undermine much of traditional physics.

But some physicists believe it would elegantly explain puzzling cosmological phenomena such as the nearly uniform temperature of the universe.

The only constant in science is that it's constantly changing.

VIRTUAL WORSHIP

The declining and embattled Anglican fellowship is trying to stem the tide with i-church:

The Church of England is operating its first virtual parish, which is designed to serve a community of online worshippers from all over the world. The Anglican Internet church, or i-church, went online three months ago, and has already attracted far more members than its organizers ever expected, even though the official launch is still a month away.
I-church recently selected Reverend Alyson Leslie from more than 40 applicants, as the part-time web-pastor.

"I am from the belief that you build a church member by member," she says.

Word is that all i-church members eventually will be uploaded to i-heaven where they can virtually experience i-fellowship with the Heavenly Father.

PRISONER RIGHTS

Most will probably recognize that theosebes is not a repository of support for murderers' rights, however when it comes to this some leeway needs to be given:

A California man who killed another man in a gunfight is looking to repent of his evil deed and be baptized.

There's only one problem – the local jail housing him is denying his request....

[Ramzee] Johnson has been studying the Bible recently with David Garner, a minister at the Oildale Church of Christ who thinks the Lerdo Jail's refusal to allow the baptism is denying Johnson the ability to be saved.

"If a person isn't baptized they won't get their sins forgiven," Garner told the paper. "A bathtub would work fine, just so long as they're covered in water."

Garner even has offered to bring a blow-up pool to the jail and pay security and transportation costs to have officers bring Johnson to his church for the baptism, both of which were rejected by officials.

Is Johnson sincere? I have no idea, but that's something for God to judge. Often there is a lot of religious politics that goes into prison ministries. Sometimes the designated chaplain will exercise control, forbidding prisoners from joining groups (or denominations) that are not their choice. Sometimes the jailer or warden simply sees it as too much trouble, digging his heels in just to be uncooperative. The former seems to be the issue here:

Dale Scadron, the supervising sheriff's chaplain and a Pentecostal pastor, told the paper he doesn't agree baptism is absolutely necessary for a person's salvation.

"My problem is that people here in jail with little hope are being told they now have no hope," Scadron said. "Now their concern is that if I'm in jail and can't be baptized and die tomorrow, I will go to hell eternally."

So since the teachings of Garner and the beliefs of Johnson run against the personal views of the chaplain, Johnson cannot be baptized in accordance with his wishes. What we see is Scadron making a power play. He sees the baptism as a threat to "his place and nation" because it goes against his religious control in his fiefdom.

One wonders if Johnson desired to exercise Muslim or Hindu beliefs if he would be denied.

Link:
Kern County Sheriff's Department

RUINS REVEALED

In an update to an earlier post, Waldo Wilcox unveiled the ancient Indian ruins he guarded for decades:

What mostly distinguishes Range Creek is that through quirk of fate and human will, it escaped both the ravages of looters and, until recently, the spades of archaeologists. Cliffside grain-storage vaults have been found here with their lids still intact, the corn and rye still inside. And while many sites in the West can still produce an old stone arrowhead or two, researchers found whole arrows here just a few weeks ago, apparently lying in the dust just where they were dropped 10 centuries ago at the time of William the Conqueror....

Dr. Jones said that, so far, 225 sites at Range Creek had been documented, some as small as a single wall of pictographs, others as large as a village cluster of a half-dozen dugout pit houses. Twenty of the sites were catalogued in the 1930's — at the time of the only other in-depth scientific work here that anyone knows about — by a team from Harvard University.

"The other 200 sites have never been seen by anybody," Dr. [Kevin] Jones said, adding that there are unquestionably thousands of sites, and that every time a team goes out, still more are found.

I keep being as amazed at Mr. Wilcox's stewardship of the site as I do the site itself. Both are impressive.

THE FAB FOUR


A motley looking crew at the Westvue church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on Saturday. Octogenarian Bob Bunting spoke on the needs and responsibilities of preachers. It was a wonderfully rich series of lectures, and demonstrated a great deal of personal will as bro. Bunting has not been well at all for some time. From left, Mitchell Stevens (my brother-in-law), yours truly, Bob Bunting, Rick Duggin (who preaches at Westvue). 

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS

Rather than comply with a new statewide directive to distribute the "morning-after pills", nurses are quitting their jobs:

Alabama recently began requiring all of its state-funded public health clinics to hand out "morning-after pills" (search) to women who are worried they may be pregnant and inform patients of their availability.

Not surprisingly, the decision has been met with controversy in the state, with some Department of Public Health nurses quitting their jobs rather than participating in an effort that goes against their religious beliefs.

Alabama health officials say the initiative, which began in April, is in the public's interest and protects their $5 million in federal family planning grants.

It's odd to me that Alabama of all places would issue such a directive. But it all becomes clear when you see "protect...federal...grants".

The Christian Coalition is working with Rep. Robert Aderholt to stop the move:

Aderholt wrote the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for clarification and received a response saying that family planning projects must offer a "broad array" of contraceptive methods but do not have to provide "all available methods and services."

Aderholt said Wednesday he's getting a majority of Alabama's congressional delegation to sign a letter telling state health officer Don Williamson that the federal government does not require distributing the morning-after pill.

However, Public Health got a letter from Health and Human Services in January that said it "should consider the availability of emergency contraception the same as any other method which has been established as safe and effective."

Your tax dollars at work.

ARE YOU A NEOCON?

Take the Christian Science Monitor quiz and find out. Your humble weblogger was identified as an "Isolationist," which is probably about right.

[Link via LRC]

WFB RETIRES FROM NATIONAL REVIEW

An icon of the American Right for a half century, William F. Buckley, Jr. is retiring from National Review:

In an interview, he said he planned to relinquish his shares [of National Review] today to a board of trustees he had selected. Among them are his son, the humorist Christopher Buckley; the magazine's president, Thomas L. Rhodes; and Austin Bramwell, a 2000 graduate of Yale and one of the magazine's youngest current contributors.

Mr. Buckley's exit from the stage of political journalism is sad to see. Granted, I've had mixed feelings about NR and WFB for some years as I believe both capitulated to a neoconservative element as National Review was purged of its Old Right sympathizers in favor of approved New York neocons.

But what Buckley accomplished with National Review was an amazing thing. Sometime take a few hours, find your local university library and turn through the pages of NR from the 1950s and 1960s. You'll be shocked by the audacity of the positions and the vibrancy of the prose. Indeed, in those early decades, National Review stood "athwart history, yelling 'Stop,'" with men such as Russell Kirk, James Burnham, Willmoore Kendall and Frank Meyer. None of them would have been allowed to darken the door of NR in the past decade.

A young Russell Kirk told the even younger William F. Buckley, Jr. not to locate the NR offices in New York City. The danger was too great for assimilation into the very establishment mentality that NR and its fellow travelers were fighting. Dr. Kirk suggested somewhere such as Chicago instead. Buckley went to NYC anyway and in the end proved Kirk right.

I had the good pleasure to meet Buckley in the National Review offices. I interviewed him in the magazine's library room for my undergraduate thesis, which looked at Buckley's and Kirk's role in the post-war Conservative movement. It was an exciting opportunity for a 21 year old. When I wrote to request the interview Mr. Buckley responded with a conditional "yes". Enclosed with the letter was a reading list to complete before the interview so I would ask sensible questions. It showed wisdom on his part, and likely reflected hard learned experience with past undergraduates!

I continued a correspondence with him for a time, and he was always gracious to answer my letters. His book God & Man at Yale, although written almost 40 years before my reading of it, was like a bolt out of the blue for me. Firing Line on PBS was unique among political television shows. There is much for which we can thank William F. Buckley, Jr. And it is no shock that he--like the rest of us--was not perfect. Still, as we often must do, we wonder what might have been.

BUT WERE THEY MORMONS?

Kept a secret for more than 50 years by land owner Waldo Wilcox, archaeologists have announced a stunning ancient Indian settlement:

For more than 50 years, rancher Waldo Wilcox kept most outsiders off his land and the secret under wraps: a string of ancient Indian settlements so remarkably well-preserved that arrowheads and beads are still lying out in the open.

Archaeologists are calling it one of the most spectacular finds in the West.

Hidden deep inside Utah’s nearly inaccessible Book Cliffs region, 130 miles (208 kilometers) from Salt Lake City, the prehistoric villages run for 12 miles (19 kilometers) and include hundreds of rock art panels, cliffside granaries, stone houses built halfway underground, rock shelters and the mummified remains of long-ago inhabitants.

The site was occupied for at least 3,000 years until it abandoned more than 1,000 years ago, when the Fremont people mysteriously vanished.

It's an amazing find, or revelation really. Wilcox did an amazing job as caretaker for a half-century. But I suspect none of those long dead Utah residents ever heard of Moroni.

NEXT, THE PRESBYTERIANS

Walking down the same path as the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church USA has elected a pro-homosexual leader:

A peace activist who supports the inclusion of gays in the ministry was elected Saturday to lead the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. for the next two years.

The selection of the activist, Rick Ufford-Chase, comes as the church prepares for a fresh round of debate at its annual convention this week on whether to repeal a ban on gay pastors.

One difference is that the Presbyterians have already fractured into various strains, many walking away from the modernism of the "mainline" version years ago. We won't see quite the drama here we've seen with the Episcopalians.

In the name of religion, these denominations continue to commit suicide.

IT'S OFFICIAL: SKIN NO LONGER IN

Fashion gurus have declared it's time to cover up:

The nearly naked looks once favored by pop stars like Christina Aguilera and television shows like "Sex and the City" are giving way to more demure styles that feature far less skin, fashion executives say.
From the runways of Europe to the malls of America, shirts and skirts are getting longer and the waistband on jeans, which had been going south in a hurry, has begun to rise, these people said.

"People are tired of seeing so much skin," said Greg Scott, chief executive of Bebe, a 195-unit chain that is known for selling slinky tank tops and short skirts....

"That whole midriff-baring thing is completely over," Scott said.

Let's hope everyone gets the memo on that.

SHOULD CHENEY BE KERRY'S RUNNING MATE?

Well, if we go by language probably so. Kerry who (in)famously and calculatedly used the "f-word" in a Rolling Stone interview (earning the nickname "John F'ing Kerry") can now welcome Cheney into the foul language club:

Vice President Cheney cursed at Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy during a confrontation on the Senate floor while members were having their annual group picture taken earlier this week, Leahy and Senate sources said Thursday....

During their exchange, Leahy noted that Republicans had accused Democrats of being anti-Catholic because they are opposed to some of President Bush’s anti-abortion judges, the aides said.

Cheney then responded, “f--- off” or “f--- you,” two aides said, both speaking on condition of anonymity.

You like to see mature exchanges like that among our nation's leaders.

In Cheney's defense, at least he has the maturity to keep such language private (well, relatively) and not planted in hep cat magazines to appeal to the kids. But episodes like that make it a little hard to take the Bush-Cheney ticket too seriously when they make their pitch to the religious right.

AT LEAST DON'T STEAL FROM THIS GUY

A couple of ne'er-do-wells decided to rob a Chicago priest and soon wish they hadn't:

A tough Chicago priest foiled two would-be robbers who tried to steal money from the church collection box, keeping one of them in a headlock until the cops came.

St. Agnes' Church in the city's West Side had been robbed before, reports WBBM-TV, so video cameras were installed overlooking the collection box.

On Wednesday afternoon, church volunteers saw a man lay out tools and try to break into the box, which was holding about $300.

Father Matt Foley ran in and grabbed the man's tools, but the crook fought back, and the tussle wandered into the street, then a nearby alley.

Said the priest: "No one steals from God."

And what brought these two to the church?

[The] two men who had gotten free meals at the church were arrested.

You like to see that.

'ESTHER'S' NEW LANGUAGE

Those attending Esther's (that's Madonna for you nonsophisticates) concerts have been treated to some Hebrew on the screen, but it seems it may not quite be Hebrew:

Fans in New York and other cities have been scratching their heads, though, trying to figure out what the Hebrew letters that flash on a video screen during part of Madonna's show mean....

Thanks to our friends Seth and Gigi, who'd been in the mosh pit dancing up a sweat, we finally broke the code....

The Hebrew letters don't spell out Hebrew words, my friends. They spell out English words, which is quite bizarre.

Seth showed us his special bracelet that allowed him into the mosh pit. On it were three Hebrew letters that looked like they spelled out a Hebrew word. Then we realized the letters sounded out to read: "Love."

But lest you think Madon...er, Esther isn't serious about her new faith you'll find she's even proudly displaying the message of Kabbalah on her t-shirt:

The rest of the Hebrew involved in the show also seemed to be gibberish, at best. But Madonna invoked Kabbalah and her superficial interest in Judaism several other times during the evening, besides wearing a T-shirt that read "Kabbalists Do It Better."

And there you have it. Faith for the new age.