NEXT!

Don't say we didn't warn you. Now that homosexuals have had some success undefining marriage in their direction the polygamists are next in line:

Hammon, who's involved in a polygamous relationship, is a founding member of the Centennial Park Action Committee, a group that lobbies for decriminalization of the practice. She's among a new wave of polygamy activists emerging in the wake of the gay-marriage movement—just as a federal lawsuit challenging anti-polygamy laws makes its way through the courts and a new show about polygamy debuts on HBO. "Polygamy rights is the next civil-rights battle," says Mark Henkel, who, as founder of the Christian evangelical polygamy organization TruthBearer.org, is at the forefront of the movement. His argument: if Heather can have two mommies, she should also be able to have two mommies and a daddy. Henkel and Hammon have been joined by other activist groups like Principle Voices, a Utah-based group run by wives from polygamous marriages. Activists point to Canada, where, in January, a report commissioned by the Justice Department recommended decriminalizing polygamy.

There's a sound legal argument for making the controversial practice legal, says Brian Barnard, the lawyer for a Utah couple, identified in court documents only as G. Lee Cooke and D. Cooke, who filed suit after being denied a marriage license for an additional wife. Though the case was struck down by a federal court last year, it's now being considered by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Barnard plans to use the same argument—that Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 sodomy case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individuals have "the full right to engage in private conduct without government intervention," should also apply to polygamous relationships.

Oh, if only to have an HBO tv show about your issue!

Quite frankly, they're right, of course. If our society cannot say that sodomy is wrong or that homosexual 'marriage' is a contradiction in terms, it certainly cannot tell polygamists they are wrong. Why, nothing is wrong, other than possibly suggesting that something might be wrong. If you can change the component parts of a marriage--substituting one man and one woman for one man and one man--why can't you change the number as well? Thus marriage is completely undefined, and means nothing.

So, after polygamy, what then?

WANTING THE ISSUE NOT THE SUCCESS

In the wake of the South Dakota law banning abortion, many Republicans are getting nervous. It's a classic case of preferring the issue of abortion to actually governing. It's much easier to pontificate than legislate.

HERE'S A SHOCKER

USA TODAY headline: Drinking may have fueled Ala. church fires
You could knock me over with a feather.

MEETING SOCRATES...

Well, the next best thing anyway. I'm off to hear (and have lunch with) Peter Kreeft at Faulkner University. I do not mean to provoke jealousy.

MORE ON THE CHURCH FIRES

It's not what we expected, I think. Rather than a couple of redneck Bubbas, three boy next door college students with an interest in theater were arrested for setting fire to nine rural Alabama churches. It all started as a prank and a joke, they said.

Their late night jollies have ruined their lives and are putting their families through grief they never imagined. And if you want leniency in Alabama, setting fire to nine Baptist churches is not the way to do it.

SAMUEL JOHNSON & THE OSCARS

Perhaps some of you watched the Oscars on Sunday. I found some '24' reruns to watch on WGN instead. But yesterday I came across a fun little book, Samuel Johnson's Insults (Jack Lynch, ed.). Here, Johnson on actors:

Among Johnson's favorite targets for good-humored insults were actors, whom he dismissed as talentless buffoons:"I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint-stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs."

"But, Sir," someone objected, "you will allow that some players are better than others?"

"Yes, Sir," he said, "as some dogs dance better than others."

I would have loved to see Dr. Johnson covering the red carpet.

ALABAMA CHURCH FIRE ARRESTS

NBC13 in Birmingham is reporting two arrests in the Alabama church fire cases. Apparently a third suspect is at large.

THE DA VINCI SUIT

Two British authors are none too pleased with Da Vinci crackpot (hey, they're crackpots themselves), and have sued the bestselling author:

If you've read "The Da Vinci Code," you know author Dan Brown loved planting anagrams as clues in his best-selling thriller. But when he named a scholarly British character Sir Leigh Teabing, little did he know an anagram could bite back. "Leigh Teabing" is a play on the names of Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent, the two authors now suing Brown's British publisher, Random House U.K., for copyright infringement. Leigh and Baigent, along with Henry Lincoln (who did not join the lawsuit), are the authors of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," a book of historical nonfiction first published in Britain in 1982. They claim Brown stole not only 15 core ideas from their book but took its "architecture"—how they connected the dots in their windy, speculative history of the Knights Templar, the Holy Grail and the Priory of Sion, a secret society that clung to the heretical idea that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and began a bloodline of European royalty.

But Brown acknowledges using the book, even referencing it within The Da Vinci Code itself:

This is an unusual copyright case: the issue is not garden-variety plagiarism but to what extent a fiction writer can use material from a protected nonfiction source.

I understand the original authors' frustration, but I don't think they really have a leg to stand on here. Brown was open about building on their ideas, which is a common practice with 'scholarly' (I use the word accomodatively) works. If I wrote a novel set in World War II I might very well choose to use the findings or theories of a particular scholar. As long as I openly acknowledge that use, I think that would fall under fair use. Of course, British law is somewhat different than American on free speech issues.

The real question is how much can be asked of a judge:

Last week the judge adjourned to read both books.

Poor guy.

IN PRAISE OF HAIR-SPLITTERS

J. Mark Bertrand confesses. He's a hair-splitter:

McGregor Wright says that, “For every inconsistent teacher there are several of their students who are quite willing to drive the truck of heresy through the holes the master has left in the semiorthodox fence.”[ii] That’s the legacy of inconsistency: one generation’s innocent mistake becomes the next generation’s cherished assumption. The teacher who admits that God is sometimes illogical will have students who insist that God is frequently illogical. And the following generation will question whether God is ever logical.

It is far more difficult to spot the last generation’s error and weed it out than to drag truth down to the level of error we inherited.

Some mistakes seem trivial but lead to significant thought shifts. Paul teaches salvation by grace through faith apart from works. Then someone comes along and says salvation is by grace, but our works are a pre-condition for God’s grace. He might never imagine a gospel of works, but his students will soon rationalize the system and arrive at precisely that. What begins as a seemingly trivial mistake ends in an egregious error.

And that’s why we need hair-splitters. That’s why we need people who will suffer the shrugs and sighs to insist that Christians speak with precision when they deal with doctrinal truth. We need people who care about the jots and tittles, who aren’t afraid to delve into the minutiae of the faith, who are willing to keep a thousand seemingly-pointless distinctions in the proper logical sequence.

Yes, sometimes we can "major in the minors", but it is human arrogance to assume that God is not concerned with His details.

THE SOUTH DAKOTA GOVERNOR signs bill banning abortions.

This may get interesting.

ANGLICAN RUPTURE?
Williams Fears Split Over Homosexuality

The Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury has again expressed fears over an Anglican split over the issue of homosexuality:

Dr Williams also warned that the worldwide Anglican Church faced a fundamental "rupture" on the issue of homosexuality.

He said he feared any split could take decades to heal.

Traditionalists have given the Church in the US until June to reverse its approach on ordaining gay clergy - or face expulsion from the Communion.

Some liberals back a looser, federal structure for the Anglican Communion.

Dr Williams said he feared any split would run too deep to make this possible.

"If there is a rupture, it's going to be a more visible rupture, it is not going to settle down quietly to being a federation," he said.

"And I suppose my anxiety about it is that if the communion is broken we may be left with even less than a federation."

...Our correspondent said the archbishop seemed to be aiming his remarks at the American Church.

The church has been given until its governing convention meets in June to reverse its liberal approach to the ordination of gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex relationships.

You know you're getting too liberal when the English try to rein you in. Look for not only an Atlantic split, but also a further American split.

Both of the mainline Episcopal members left can celebrate their 'victory' for inclusion.

MORE ON THE ANTI-ANTIS

Mike Cope has a couple topic suggestions for the Anti-Anti Lectureship.

MADONNA AWAITING MESSIAH

Kabbalish Madonna, aka 'Esther', is looking to buy a house in Israel to await the Messiah:

US pop diva Madonna wants to buy a house in the Israeli town of Rosh Pina, where the ancient Jewish Kabbalah tradition expects the Messiah to appear at the end of the world.

Yediot Aharonot said the owner of a 100-year-old, ramshackle five-bedroom villa overlooking the Sea of the Galilee had been recently contacted several times by representatives of the superstar with a view to selling his property.

According to the same source, Madonna wants to renovate the building into a centre of study of mystical Jewish texts pored over by Kabbalah followers.

You would think someone named 'Madonna' would know He's already been here.

ESV OR NO?

My old friend Shane Scott has dug himself out of the Chicago snow, moved South and started a new blog.

Shane has for many years used the New American Standard version (95 update) as I still do (he probably picked it up from me...). He's now switched to the new English Standard Version, and in his first major post defends his move.

I got a copy of the ESV a few months ago, and quite like it, although I've not used it enough to make the leap to using it as my main translation. I'll have to give it more consideration.

And a hearty welcome to new blogger Shane. Keep an eye for Faith & Thought in my blogroll.

SUPREME COURT RULES ON PROTESTS
Pro-life Demonstrators OK'd

The Supreme Court has ruled on racketeering laws used against abortion clinic protestors:

The Supreme Court dealt a setback Tuesday to abortion clinics in a two-decade-old legal fight over anti-abortion protests, ruling that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used to ban demonstrations.

Anti-abortion groups brought the appeal after the 7th Circuit had asked a trial judge to determine whether a nationwide injunction could be supported by charges that protesters had made threats of violence absent a connection with robbery or extortion....

Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Breyer said Congress did not intend to create “a freestanding physical violence offense” in the federal extortion law known as the Hobbs Act.

It's amazing how those for the "Constitutional right" of "choice" aren't much interested in the actual Constitutional right of free speech.

IS PERSPECTIVE IN ART A LIE?

In reading Ross King's Brunelleschi's Dome I came across a section where King discussed the use of 'perspective' in art, which represents distance or gives the impression of three dimensions in a two dimensional medium. Brunelleschi helped rediscover the principles of perspective and the vanishing point, which had been lost to art. However it seems the very issue of using perspective in art was a controversial one:

After the decline of the Roman Empire, however, the technique of perspective drawing was lost or abandoned. Plato had condemned perspective as deceit, and the Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus (A.D. 205-270) praised the flattened art of the ancient Egyptians for showing figures in their "true" proportions. This prejudice against the "dishonesty" of perspective was adopted in Christian art, with the result that naturalistic space was renounced throughout the Middle Ages. Only in the first decades of the fourteenth century did the ancient methods of perspective reappear when Giotto began using chiaroscuro--a treatment of light and shade--to create realistic three-dimensional effects. (p. 34)

Well, I confess this was a new one on me. I had assumed that the flattened art one sees in medieval art was simply a lack of artistic sophistication, not that there isn't a great deal of skill on display. That is readily apparent in illuminated manuscripts like the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels. But it is interesting that at least in part the lack of perspective was a conscious choice, a moral choice from their, er, perspective.

When I read that section to my wife her response to the argument that perspective was dishonest was, "Couldn't the same argument be made the other way?" Good point.

ABORTION AT THE MARGINS

Newsweek has an article on the 'New Abortion Debate', and finds that (who knew?) many people feel guilty about aborting their children:

...the pro-abortion-rights interest groups are just beginning to grapple with an uncomfortable truth: that many of the million-odd women who have abortions every year are deeply troubled, if not guilt-ridden. "Our patients are not coming to, quote, 'exercise their constitutional rights'," says Claire Keyes, who runs a Pittsburgh abortion clinic. "They want to talk about prayer and forgiveness."

They also bring up the strategy of the pro-life (aka, 'anti-abortion' in Newsweekspeak) law in South Dakota:

Even if Bush-appointed Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito want to overturn Roe (not a certainty), there is still a five-vote majority on the court to uphold the precedent, which was reaffirmed as recently as 1992. For that simple reason, trying to reverse Roe now would be a "strategic loser," says James Bopp, general counsel of the National Right to Life Committee. The federal courts would likely strike down the South Dakota law, and the Supreme Court would either refuse to hear the case or—worse for the pro-lifers—once again re-affirm Roe, say conservative legal strategists.

They are likely right that an incremental approach is better:

States may have more luck chipping away at abortion. There are bills in many state legislatures to give fetuses "personhood" and requiring waiting periods and pre-abortion counseling. Some states are considering laws to require women to get an ultrasound image before obtaining an abortion.

The good news is that there are cracks in the once perceived unassailibility of abortion in this country. That can only lead to good things.

S. DAKOTA'S ABORTION BILL

South Dakota's Governor Mike Rounds indicates he likely will sign that state's abortion bill. No shock, Planned Parenthood will file suit.

AND ANOTHER ILLUMINATED BIBLE
The 'Pepper Bible' in Dallas

Jame Pepper is holed away in a Dallas church copying the Bible by hand:

The embodiment of James Pepper's life during the past 18 years is spread out over the floor and tables of his apartment and in a special room set aside for him at Highland Park United Methodist Church, where he attends and volunteers.

Since 1987, Pepper, an investment manager, has painstakingly copied portions of the Bible word for word, and he's doing it the old-fashioned way, like scribes did centuries ago: with stylus pen and black ink on plain sheets of drawing paper, and with ancient styles of calligraphy. He shuns using a computer.

After spending as many as 16 hours on some days sweating over handwriting the entire New Testament, a task he completed in 1995, Pepper is days away from completing another phase: an illuminated manuscript of the Gospels - 304 entirely handmade, highly decorative pages in a 550-page, four-year project.

And like the St. John's Bible, Pepper is using modern themes in his illustrations:

Like the ancient scribes who placed items in their Bibles from their world, Pepper has added multicolored drawings of the Space Shuttle, Skylab, Texas flora and fauna, the Titanic, and the World Trade Center towers, where three of his friends perished during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

He's hoping to get a publisher for it. It really does look beautiful.

But for all their supposed rarity, there seems to be a lot of these lately!

NOW READING...

Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, by Ross King. It's pretty good so far.

SOUTH DAKOTA GOES AFTER ABORTION

Swinging for the fences, South Dakota lawmakers have rejected a strategy of containing abortion through restrictions and is going for the homerun: outlawing abortion entirely:

The shifting makeup of the United States Supreme Court, the opponents said, offered a crucial opportunity, the first since at least 1992.

"It is a calculated risk, to be sure, but I believe it is a fight worth fighting," State Senator Brock L. Greenfield, a Clark Republican who is also director of the South Dakota Right to Life, told his colleagues in a hushed, packed chamber here.

After more than an hour of fierce and emotional debate, the senators rejected pleas to add exceptions for incest or rape or for the health of the pregnant woman and instead voted, 23 to 12, to outlaw all abortions, except those to save the woman's life.

The governor still has to sign it, but it seems like he probably will. He has previously mentioned a preference for limiting abortion through restrictions.

Is now the time to challenge Roe again in the courts? Well, I'm not sure if Roberts and Alito will be as advertised, but nothing ventured nothing gained. I think perhaps what might be well to see is now that S. Dakota is leading the charge for other states to offer support: begin passing legislation outlawing abortion and flood the courts. The message will at least be sent, a type of civil disobedience, if you will. And if nothing else it will tax the resources of the usual suspects trying to fight it.

CREATIONISTS AT THE GATE

British campuses are facing a student revolt from those who (gasp!) believe creationism is true:

A growing number of science students on British campuses and in sixth form colleges are challenging the theory of evolution and arguing that Darwin was wrong. Some are being failed in university exams because they quote sayings from the Bible or Qur'an as scientific fact and at one sixth form college in London most biology students are now thought to be creationists....

In the United States there is growing pressure to teach creationism or "intelligent design" in science classes, despite legal rulings against it. Now similar trends in this country have prompted the Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific academy, to confront the issue head on with a talk entitled Why Creationism is Wrong. The award-winning geneticist and author Steve Jones will deliver the lecture and challenge creationists, Christian and Islamic, to argue their case rationally at the society's event in April.

"There is an insidious and growing problem," said Professor Jones, of University College London. "It's a step back from rationality. They (the creationists) don't have a problem with science, they have a problem with argument. And irrationality is a very infectious disease as we see from the United States."

Establishment Science as usual tries to have it both ways. There is the attempt to crush debate by 'legal rulings' against any dissent from the Darwinian model. When people still insist on holding on to their subversive creationist views despite official dissaproval there is a call for 'rational discourse'. 'Rational discourse', however, is always defined by the Scientific Establishment in such a way that creationism is ipso facto declared as 'irrational': Why, no rational person could believe such a thing! Rational people believe that the universe exists as the result of a great cosmic accident then billions of years later something or other crawled out of the muck and now we have all sorts of different living things running about. We know that is rational because rational people believe it, and no one I would know would believe in a (ha!) 'God'. Only irrational people believe that thus such belief is irrational. Why won't these irrational people engage us in rational debate?

Yes, the creationists certainly are the problem...

COLOMBIA PRESENTATION ON CD

Luke Chandler gives the order information for his father Royce Chandler's Florida College lecture on the nearly 30 year work in Colombia. I was blessed to travel with Luke & Royce to Colombia last month, and pray that I can return with them. The Lord's work there is impressive. As Luke put it,

1 Christian + 28 years of God-given growth = nearly 40 congregations

SCRAPPLEFACE REPORTS on Bishop Robinson's gaffe.

GODDESS REASON & HER PRIEST

Daniel C. Dennett, self-appointed priest of the cult of Reason, wants to save us from ourselves:

An ant climbs a blade of grass, over and over, seemingly without purpose, seeking neither nourishment nor home. It persists in its futile climb, explains Daniel C. Dennett at the opening of his new book, "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" (Viking), because its brain has been taken over by a parasite, a lancet fluke, which, over the course of evolution, has found this to be a particularly efficient way to get into the stomach of a grazing sheep or cow where it can flourish and reproduce. The ant is controlled by the worm, which, equally unconscious of purpose, maneuvers the ant into place.

Mr. Dennett, anticipating the outrage his comparison will make, suggests that this how religion works. People will sacrifice their interests, their health, their reason, their family, all in service to an idea "that has lodged in their brains." That idea, he argues, is like a virus or a worm, and it inspires bizarre forms of behavior in order to propagate itself. Islam, he points out, means "submission," and submission is what religious believers practice. In Mr. Dennett's view, they do so despite all evidence, and in thrall to biological and social forces they barely comprehend.

Now that is iconoclasm — a wholehearted attempt to destroy a respected icon. "I believe that it is very important to break this spell," Mr. Dennett writes, as he tries to undermine the claims and authority of religious belief. Attacks on religion, of course, have been a staple of Western secular society since the Enlightenment, though often carried out with far less finesse (and far less emphasis on biology) than Mr. Dennett does; he refers to "the widespread presumption by social scientists that religion is some kind of lunacy."

Hmmm. I think I've heard this before. Just as Voltaire predicted the demise of the Bible and religion over 200 years ago, Dennett seeks to step into the role of modern iconoclast. Mr. Dennett himself will soon join the dustbin of history, however. The Goddess is not kind to her adherents.

UTOPIAN SOCIETY REDUX

Like a flashback to the 19th Century, Domino's Pizza millionaire and devout Roman Catholic Tom Monaghan is bankrolling his own Florida town:

The 5,000-acre tomato field in southwestern Florida sure doesn't look like heaven. Bulldozers scrape the land flat while clusters of Porta Pottis signal an undeniable earthiness. But soon a massive cathedral will rise from this barren spot. Reaching 100 feet in the air behind a 65-foot crucifix, the Oratory will anchor Ave Maria, a whole new town and Roman Catholic university 30 miles east of Naples. Ground was officially broken last week, and the plan is to build 11,000 homes—likely drawing families who already hold the church at the center of their lives.

For Tom Monaghan, the devout Catholic who founded Domino's Pizza and is now bankrolling most of the initial $400 million cost of the project, Ave Maria is the culmination of a lifetime devoted to spreading his own strict interpretation of Catholicism. Though he says nonbelievers are welcome, Monaghan clearly wants the community to embody his conservative values. He controls all the commercial real estate in town (along with his developing partner, Barron Collier Cos.) and is asking pharmacies not to carry contraceptives. If forced to choose between two otherwise comparable drugstores, Barron Collier would favor the one that honored that request, says its president and CEO, Paul Marinelli. Discussing his life as a millionaire Catholic who puts his money where his faith is, Monaghan says: "I believe all of history is just one big battle between good and evil. I don't want to be on the sidelines."

Well intentioned, certainly, (for the record, I am not opposed to most contraception), but it will, of course, fail. History has shown us time and time again that utopian communities do not succeed. Sometimes they become wildly successful flatware manufacturers, but generally they drift into oblivion. If they continue it is without the focus the founders intended.

On the bright side, though, all the right people are upset about the new town:

The ACLU of Florida is worried about how he's playing the game. "It is completely naive to think this first attempt [to restrict access to contraception] will be their last," says executive director Howard Simon. Armed with a 1946 Supreme Court opinion that "ownership [of a town] does not always mean absolute dominion," Simon will be watching Ave Maria for any signs of Monaghan's request's becoming a demand. Planned Parenthood is similarly alarmed.

It's nice to see something good come out of the whole thing.

BLAKE'S 'GRAVE' SET TO BE SPLIT

A wonderful find of a 'new' set of 19 Robert Blake watercolors that date from 1805 is to be split at a Sotheby's auction. Art experts aren't pleased:

The discovery was pure serendipity: nosing around in a dusty bookshop in Scotland on a spring day five years ago, a pair of British booksellers stumbled upon a weathered red leather case engraved with the words "Designs for Blair's Grave." Opening it, they found 19 Romantic yet macabre watercolors — depicting angels, sarcophagi, moonlit graveyards, arm-linked spirits — rendered in a subtle range of grays, black and pastels.

Five years, one lawsuit and an export battle later, the watercolors — illustrations created in 1805 by the poet and artist William Blake for a 1743 poem — are being heralded by scholars as the most important Blake discovery in a century.

Yet to the consternation of many experts, all 19 are headed for auction this spring at Sotheby's in New York, which plans to break up the set and sell them on May 2 for a projected $12 million to $17.5 million. Estimated prices of the watercolors, each mounted on a 13-by-10-inch backing, range from $180,000 to $260,000 for the inscribed title page to $1 million to $1.5 million for the most intricate and compelling scenes.

It's a true cultural shame, and a travesty that the Tate was unable to raise the money to buy them. I will say, however, that I am against every work of importance ending up in a museum, but I also hate to see such a seminal set broken up.

OF MOTES, BEAMS & 'ANTIS'

Some of you are familiar with the issues that divided many churches of Christ during the second half of the 20th Century. These boiled down to what is labeled 'Institutionalism', a broad term that included the support of parachurch institutions (colleges, missionary societies, etc.) out of the church treasury. Those who opposed doing this were anti-institutional, NI for short, or, in a somewhat less kind description: 'Antis' (the 'i' is pronounced as a long 'e'; say it with a bit of a sneer to get the full effect). For full disclosure purposes, I would be considered an 'Anti'.

With that bit of background one can perhaps appreciate this 'Contending for the Faith' lectureship in Spring, TX, which is, well, anti-Anti. The best part, however, are the Thursday lectures in which the speakers insist that despite all the things that they are against they themselves could never be considered (gasp!) 'Anti' (remember the sneer). Here are a few of the Thursday topics (snide comments in brackets are provided by your humble weblogger):

9:00 AM Opposing Support for Colleges from the Church Treasury is Not Anti-ism [why, no, of course not]

10:00 AM Are We Practicing Anti-ism Because we will not Fellowship the Denominations? [never!]

11:00 AM The One-Cup Doctrine Refuted [anti-one cup, but certainly not 'Anti']

3:30 PM The Hats and Hair Doctrine Refuted [anti-hats and hair?]

7:00 PM Are we Holding a Form of Anti-ism Because we Oppose False Doctrine and False Teachers in ACU, OCU, Harding U, FHU, Lipscomb U, and the like?

8:00 PM Are we Occupying an Anti Position When we Oppose The Church of Christ Disaster Relief Agency?

Self-reflection is good, right?

The entire lectureship is available via streaming audio. Enjoy!

PREGNANT TEACHER'S FIRING UPHELD

Unwed teacher Tessana Lewis was fired by Hoover (AL) Christian school when it was learned she was pregnant. This will shock you: she sued. Genuinely shocking: she lost:

A federal judge has upheld the firing of a former teacher at a Hoover Christian school because he said the school is exempt from a federal pregnancy discrimination law, according to an opinion made available Wednesday.

The case involved a teacher at the school who was pregnant when she was hired, but was not married.

Senior U.S. District Judge William Acker Jr. said a jury correctly found that Tessana Lewis' pregnancy was a motivating factor in her firing, but the school, Covenant Classical School of Trace Crossing, is exempt because it is a religious institution that can make hiring and firing decisions based on its belief system....

Lewis claimed she was fired three days after she was hired Dec. 6, 2003, because she was pregnant. Lawyers for Covenant argued that Lewis was fired not because she was pregnant but because she had sex outside marriage, violating the Bible-based values and principles taught there.

School officials testified that the school forbids its employees from engaging in immoral conduct, both inside and outside the classroom, and is entitled to make employment decisions based on its Christian beliefs.

"The court has no quarrel with the conclusion reached by the jury that Lewis' pregnancy played a part in the decision to terminate her," Acker wrote. "It was clearly the pregnancy that alerted Covenant to the fact that Lewis had engaged in sexual activity outside of marriage. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for the jury to have answered otherwise."

Testimony showed that Lewis, when she was hired, agreed with the school's statement of faith and policies, including those concerning morality. A court filing said, however, that Lewis would not assure the school she would stop her conduct of engaging in sex outside marriage.

Well, chalk one up for religious freedom on this one. If the school couldn't fire her under those circumstances then they had essentially no ability to exercise their religious principles, which she agreed to when she was hired.

Oh, and I love this typical American jury's reasoning:

The jury, after listening to four days of evidence last week, suggested awarding Lewis $600 in back pay and $15,000 for mental anguish, according to a court filing. But Acker said the jury's clear finding in other areas favorable to Covenant prevented the jury from awarding Lewis damages.

Yes, they had every right to fire her, but let's give her a big check anyway. *sigh*

EVOLUTION & ITS COLLABORATORS

According to the NYT "churches nationwide" are singing the praises of evolution:

On the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin, ministers at several hundred churches around the country preached yesterday against recent efforts to undermine the theory of evolution, asserting that the opposition many Christians say exists between science and faith is false. At St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, a small contemporary structure among the pricey homes of north Atlanta, the Rev. Patricia Templeton told the 85 worshipers gathered yesterday, "A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all."

In the basement of an apartment building in Evanston, Ill., the Rev. Mitchell Brown said to the 21 people who came to services at the Evanston Mennonite Church that Darwin's theories in fact had compelled people to have faith rather than look for "special effects" to confirm the existence of God.

"He forced religion to grow up, to become, really, faith for the first time," Mr. Brown said. "The life of community, that is where we know God today."

The event, called Evolution Sunday, is an outgrowth of the Clergy Letter Project, started by academics and ministers in Wisconsin in early 2005 as a response to efforts, most notably in Dover, Pa., to discredit the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools.

"There was a growing need to demonstrate that the loud, shrill voices of fundamentalists claiming that Christians had to choose between modern science and religion were presenting a false dichotomy," said Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and the major organizer of the letter project.

Mr. Zimmerman said more than 10,000 ministers had signed the letter, which states, in part, that the theory of evolution is "a foundational scientific truth." To reject it, the letter continues, "is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children."

"We believe that among God's good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator," the letter says.

But just which churches?

Most of the signatories to the project and those preaching on Sunday were from the mainline Protestant denominations. Their congregations have shrunk sharply over the last 30 years. At the same time, the number of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians has risen considerably, and many of them, because of their literalist view of the Bible, doubt evolutionary theory.

No shocker there. Any church that decides to make a Holy Day out of the birthday of Saint Darwin shouldn't be surprised that people are running--not walking--away from them as quickly as they can. They proffer secular humanism with a Jesus veneer and pat themselves on the back about both their worldly sophistication and their deep spirituality. If you want to worship Darwin the Divine don't bother Jesus with the whole thing, just sleep in on Sunday instead.

WHERE'S THE LOVE?

Hindu and Muslim groups (hey, at least they agree on something!) are protesting Valentine's Day:

Hardline Hindu and Muslim groups burned Valentine’s Day greeting cards on Tuesday and held protests across India against celebrating the festival of love, saying it was a Western import that spread immorality.

Saint Valentine’s Day has become increasingly popular in India in recent years, a trend led by retailers who do healthy business selling heart-shaped balloons and fluffy teddy bears.

But the growing popularity of the day in officially secular, but mainly Hindu India has also sparked protests which have sometimes turned violent....

About two dozen women separatists, veiled in black from head to toe, rummaged shops and burnt Valentine’s Day cards in Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital, witnesses said.

“Valentine’s Day spreads immorality among the youth,” Asiya Andrabi of the Dukhtaran-e-Milat (Daughters of the Muslim Faith), a group of women separatists, said in a statement.

“We appeal to our children to stay away from this western culture.”

In Bangalore, India’s technology capital, as well as Hubli town, both located in the southern state of Karnataka, groups of Hindu nationalists burnt a big heart-shaped card.

Hmmm, sounds like somebody doesn't have that special valentine this year.

MACEDONIAN TOMB UNCOVERED

A tomb from the time of Alexander has been uncovered in Greece:

Archaeologists have unearthed a massive tomb in the northern Greek town of Pella, capital of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia and birthplace of Alexander the Great.

The eight-chambered tomb dates to the Hellenistic Age between the fourth and second century B.C., and is the largest of its kind ever found in Greece. The biggest multichambered tombs until now contained three chambers.

The 678-square-foot tomb hewn out of rock was discovered by a farmer plowing his field on the eastern edge of the ancient cemetery of Pella, some 370 miles north of Athens, archaeologists said.

"This is the largest and most monumental tomb of its kind ever found in Greece," said Maria Akamati, who led the excavations.

Archaeologists believe the tomb _ filled with dozens of votive clay pots and idols, copper coins and jewelry _ will shed light on the culture of Macedonia in the period that followed Alexander's conquest of Asia....

The tomb's size suggests it belonged to a a wealthy Macedonian family, Akamati said.

The tomb, believed to have been used for two centuries, was probably plundered in antiquity as most of the artifacts were strewn by the entrance to the chambers, Akamati said.

The complex is dominated by a central area surrounded by eight chambers colored in red, blue and gold dyes. Three inscribed stone slabs inside bear the names of their female owners _ Antigona, Kleoniki and Nikosrati. A relief on one of the slabs depicts a women and her servant.

And still lots still out there.

KING TUT'S NEIGHBORS

Dating from roughly the time of the Exodus, a tomb located near King Tut's was opened Friday:

The discovery of the tomb, a rectangular chamber cut from the rock, was announced this week by Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The tomb contains five mummies from the 18th dynasty era (about 1567 B.C. to 1320 B.C.) in wooden sarcophagi with lids carved in human shapes and colored funerary masks. It also contains 20 sealed clay storage jars used for offerings and as vessels for beer, Mansour Bouriak, director of Luxor monuments, said in a telephone interview from Luxor.

"This cache is important because it will tell us what the Valley of the Kings was really like," Mr. Bouriak said. "It also proves that the Valley of the Kings is not exhausted. It has a lot to offer to us just waiting to be discovered."

The Valley of the Kings, on the west bank of the Nile, holds numerous Pharaonic tombs, but no intact tombs had been discovered since Howard Carter, a British Egyptologist, opened King Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922.

"I believe the most important and interesting fact about this discovery is that it came after 80 years," said Dr. Salima Ikram, former professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo.

The tomb was discovered 16 feet from the tomb of King Tutankhamen, who reigned during the 18th dynasty, a time in which Ancient Egypt's power peaked. Thebes, now known as Luxor, was the capital.

Mr. Bouriak said that although the archaeologists had not entered the tomb, they had observed its contents through a 5 by 6 foot vertical shaft.

"One thing we are sure of, those mummies are not royal," Mr. Bouriak said. Royal sarcophagi carry certain signs and epitaphs and more, he said.

Ah, yes. There's so much still out there.

POPE: SCIENCE & FAITH COMPATIBLE

Well, of course they are, but the new pope spoke to the subject today:

Science made such rapid progress in the 20th century that people may sometimes be confused about how the Christian faith can still be compatible with it, Pope Benedict said on Friday.

But science and religion are not opposed to each other and Christians should not be afraid to try to understand how they compliment [sic] each other in explaining the mystery of life on Earth, he told the Vatican's doctrinal department.

The Pope made his comments at a time of heated debate, mostly in the United States, about intelligent design arguments challenging evolution. A Pennsylvania court ruled in December that intelligent design could not be taught as science in school.

"The Church joyfully accepts the real conquests of human knowledge and recognizes that spreading the Gospel also means really taking charge of the prospects and the challenges that modern knowledge unlocks," he said.

The dialogue between religion and science would actually help the faithful see "the logic of faith in God," said the Pope, speaking to members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

As I've said before, the trouble isn't with science but rather with many scientists. True science is simply another window into understanding God's creation.

HISTORY DETECTIVE

My friend and fellow former assistant to Russell Kirk Prof. Lee Cheek has been interviewed by PBS's History Detectives television program about John C. Calhoun. I hope he remembers the little people.

WITHERINGTON ON 2 TIMOTHY 3:16

I discovered that Bible commentator Ben Witherington has a weblog, and in a recent post he offers thoughts on the inspiration of Scripture:

If one studies the ancient concept of inspiration, whether in relationship to Biblical or other prophets it is perfectly clear that it was believed that the prophetic words, inspired by God, had authority because of the source and the character of the one inspiring the prophet to speak. Indeed sometimes it was even believed that the deity in question took over the human being and simply spoke through them. The Holy Writings were not seen as merely revelatory of God’s Word, they were seen as synonymous with God’s Word, such that God said what the Scriptures said.

There are other thoughts, and the comments are interesting, too. I have several of Witherington's books, and generally recommend them, although I tend (no surprise) to be more conservative than he. I used to preach in Nicholasville, Kentucky, about five minutes from where Dr. Witherington teaches at Asbury Seminary, never met him, though. I probably should have called him up for lunch one day...

A LEGEND IN HIS OWN MIND

Suburbanite turned hipster Kanye West has declared that he should be in the Bible:

The JESUS WALKS hitmaker, who picked up three Grammy Awards last night (08FEB06), feels sure he'd be "a griot" (West African storyteller) in a modern Bible.

He says, "I bring up historical subjects in a way that makes kids want to learn about them. I'm an inspirational speaker.

"I changed the sound of music more than one time... For all those reasons, I'd be a part of the Bible. I'm definitely in the history books already."

He does music?

CO-OPT YOUR ENEMIES?

The good folks at Sony who will bring you the Da Vinci Code movie have decided to deal with their critics by offering them an 'online pulpit':

Should the studio try to mollify the critics who say the "Code" is blasphemy, with its plot describing a church conspiracy to cover up the truth that Jesus married and never rose from the dead? Or should it ignore the complainers, sit back and watch the controversy boost ticket sales?

Instead, Sony has decided to hand a big bullhorn to the detractors of "The Da Vinci Code."

The company is putting up a Web site today — well ahead of the movie's release on May 19 — that will give a platform to some of the fiercest critics of "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown, the book that is the movie's source.

The site, thedavincichallenge.com [not yet active, nac], will post essays by about 45 Christian writers, scholars and leaders of evangelical organizations who will pick apart the book's theological and historical claims about Christianity.

Among the writers are Gordon Robertson, the son of the television evangelist Pat Robertson and co-host of their television show, "The 700 Club," who is writing about how early Christianity survived; and Richard J. Mouw, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical school in Pasadena, Calif.

Dr. Mouw, who contributed an essay on, "Why Christians Ought to See the Movie," said: "It's going to be water cooler conversation, so Christians need to take a deep breath, buy the book and shell out the money for the movie. Then we need to educate Christians about what all this means. We need to help them answer someone who says, 'So how do you know Jesus didn't get married?' "

Well, one must question Sony's reason for doing this. It must be to try to manage and blunt the criticism for the movie. And I, for one, will be unimpressed by reading what Gordon Robertson, or rather his ghostwriter, has to say.

Dr. Mouw is half right, at least. We do need to know how to answer the questions that Brown raises. Always remember that anyone can assert anything, and that it is often difficult to prove a negative. Brown asserts that Jesus married, but the burden of proof ultimately lies with him. As there is zero evidence to support the claim, we need not be defensive about it.

Now on the part about shelling out money to buy the book and see the movie, I'm not so sure. I have read the book, but I found my copy at a thrift store. I'll likely see the movie, but I will probably wait to rent it. I want as few dollars as possible to go directly into the coffers of Sony and Dan Brown on this one.

ALABAMA BIBLE BILL FAILS

An effort to introduce a Bible literacy class in Alabama public schools has fallen short:

The Alabama House has turned down a bill that would have allowed public high schools to offer a course teaching the literary and historical significance of the Bible.

The bill was sponsored by House Majority Leader Rep. Ken Guin of Carbon Hill and supported by Speaker Seth Hammett of Andalusia. But Republicans objected to the bill naming a specific textbook to be used in teaching the class.

Surely naming a textbook is legislative micromanaging. Perhaps it will come back up without the specificity.

EVANGELICALS & GLOBAL WARMING

Led by such megachurch megapastors as the ever purpose-driven Rich Warren, a group of evangelicals have signed a global warming initiative (actually anti-global warming, I think):

Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors."

Among signers of the statement, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, are the presidents of 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, and pastors of megachurches, including Rick Warren, author of the best seller "The Purpose-Driven Life."

"For most of us, until recently this has not been treated as a pressing issue or major priority," the statement said. "Indeed, many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians. But now we have seen and heard enough."

The statement calls for federal legislation that would require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions through "cost-effective, market-based mechanisms" — a phrase lifted from a Senate resolution last year and one that could appeal to evangelicals, who tend to be pro-business. The statement, to be announced in Washington, is only the first stage of an "Evangelical Climate Initiative" including television and radio spots in states with influential legislators, informational campaigns in churches, and educational events at Christian colleges.

Now I'm a big proponent of Christian stewardship, particularly as advocated by such individuals as Wendell Berry. But I confess I'm somewhat skeptical of this sort of grandstanding; I fear this is simply more pointless feel-goodism that seems to characterize so much of the megachurch movement. And not everyone is convinced by the initiative:

Some of the nation's most high-profile evangelical leaders, however, have tried to derail such action. Twenty-two of them signed a letter in January declaring, "Global warming is not a consensus issue." Among the signers were Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; and Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Their letter was addressed to the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group of churches and ministries, which last year had started to move in the direction of taking a stand on global warming. The letter from the 22 leaders asked the National Association of Evangelicals not to issue any statement on global warming or to allow its officers or staff members to take a position.

E. Calvin Beisner, associate professor of historical theology at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., helped organize the opposition into a group called the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance. He said Tuesday that "the science is not settled" on whether global warming was actually a problem or even that human beings were causing it. And he said that the solutions advocated by global warming opponents would only cause the cost of energy to rise, with the burden falling most heavily on the poor.

The facts seem to be that far more global warming gases are pumped into the atmosphere by a single volcanic eruption than by all of us driving our cars. Yes, I'm for responsibility, but the reality is that the US is not the place where pollution is out of control. If you want pollution try the developing world.

Generally when it comes to issues like this these pastors would be better served to go work on their Sunday sermon instead.

TAGGED

I am the victim of a 'Tag' by Anastasis, so here goes (as best I can):

Four Jobs I've Had:
1) College History TA
2) Warehouse flunky at Service Merchandise
3) Library Tech
4) Setting tombstones (my Dad owned a monument company)

Four Movies I Could Watch Over & Over
1) Casablanca
2) LOTR Trilogy
3) Empire Strikes Back
4) Raiders of the Lost Ark

Four Books I Could Read Over & Over
1) The Canon of Sherlock Holmes
2) Jayber Crow
3) The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
4) LOTR

Four Places I've Lived
1) Fogertown, Kentucky
2) Mecosta, Michigan
3) Versailles, Kentucky
4) Columbia, South Carolina

Four TV Shows I Watch
1) Sherlock Holmes (with Jeremy Brett--DVD)
2) Law & Order
3) 24
4) Gilmore Girls (with my wife)

Four Websites I Visit Daily
1) Drudge
2) New York Times (I admit it)
3) ebay
4) CatsPause.com

Four Favorite Foods
1) Hot Brown
2) cream candy
3) blueberry pie/pecan pie (tie!)
4) Corky's pulled pork barbecue

Four Places I'd Like to Be Right Now
1) Savile Row
2) Hyderabad
3) Australia
4) bed

Four Bloggers I'm Tagging
I'll be a party pooper and end the madness.

MORE CHURCH FIRES IN ALABAMA...

This morning:

Fires destroyed or damaged four more rural Baptist churches overnight. The blazes follow a rash of suspected arsons that burned five others in rural Bibb County early Friday.

The latest cluster of fires is about 60 miles west of Bibb County.

Ragan Ingram, a spokesman for the state Fire Marshal's Office, said two of the churches were destroyed.

The four fires reported today are in three west Alabama counties located near the Mississippi line.

They need to catch these guys soon.

STOPPED BEFORE HE PREACHES AGAIN

Lutheran pastor Jimmy McCants was fired by his church, but he didn't take the hint. Instead, police arrested him mid-sermon, and removed McCants from the pulpit.

Yeah, I've heard a few sermons like that, too.

OPUS DEI DENIES 'DA VINCI' CHARGES

The secretive Catholic organization Opus Dei, which plays the bad guy in Dan Brown's fantasy book The Da Vinci Code, claims Brown got it wrong. Well, it wouldn't be the first time. The question is, is there anything that Dan Brown got right?

ARE BOOKS OUTDATED?

Sony is releasing a new e-book reader that uses, well, "E ink"; it's called the (how do they think of these things?) Sony Reader. It actually sounds and looks pretty neat, and probably even useful. But does it mean books--the real kind--are on the way out? Apparently Terry Teachout thinks so:

Musing on the Sony Reader, critic Terry Teachout noted recently in The Wall Street Journal, that a book, for all its objective and subjective virtues, "is also a technology – a means, not an end. Like all technologies, it has a finite life span, and its time is almost up."

Ralph Bennet is a little more realistic, I think:

Even those who might not do all their reading on it would like to have a Sony Reader or some clone of it, just to have a tailor-made mini-library at hand. I, as a writer (of sorts) wouldn't mind having an easily portable brace of books ready to the touch – H.L. Mencken's New Dictionary of Quotations, W. E. Vine's Expository Dictionary of the Bible, the Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia, and the New York Public Library Book of Chronologies, to name a very few.


Some politician or journalist boning up for a debate on missile defense or asymmetrical warfare might like to have a Reader on the plane or in the Green Room. On a more mundane but no less useful level, take my favorite hot dog hangout, Beno's, in Ligonier, Pa. The proprietor, Pat Clark, keeps a little library of "bet settling" books on sports records, entertainment trivia etc. on the counter. They're propped up with a napkin holder and a ketchup bottle for book ends and they're always falling over and in the way. A Reader would take up less counter space and provide a wider variety of source material. Someday, every bartender will have one.


These devices could also be a boon to do-it-yourselfers, technicians and mechanics of every sort. Imagine having home repair, auto repair or other such manuals literally at your electronic fingertips, whether you're under a kitchen sink or the hood of a vintage Mustang. I suspect that just such specialized uses will provide one of the biggest markets for the Reader.

Just so. The death of the book keeps being proclaimed regularly, and while technology has made some inroads, and likely will continue to, I wouldn't schedule a book burning quite yet. Bennett again:

But, some technologies, like the wheel, have proven to have a very long life span, and books may prove mighty like a wheel. I know I'm marking myself as irredeemably old school. But, I'm a little uneasy envisioning a time when all the wisdom, folly, humor, beauty, ugliness etc. of the human condition, reflected in history and story, might repose in some micro-electro-digital Somewhere that can only be reached and breached by hand-held electronics.

What happens when we need the answer or the laugh or the inspiration, and the power goes out? Won't the pages of a book be practical and reassuring, even by candlelight?

Yes, somehow "E ink" just wouldn't be the same.

[Link via Instapundit]

GIVE ME LIBERTY...

I was blessed to be part of a seminar sponsored by the Liberty Fund foundation over the weekend. There were about fifteen participants, mostly 'clergy', and we sat around and talked about readings related to the American Founding (you can download the whole thing in pdf for free if you're so moved). It was nice to exercise some intellectual muscles rarely used since my academic days. It was also informative to be around the participants from various denominations, and getting a clearer idea of how our worldviews--and Biblical views--differ.

One of the issues of particular interest to me was whether a Christian could have supported the American War for Independence, or whether Biblical injunction would have required the Christian to support the British crown. A sermon by 18th century Anglican clergyman Jonathan Boucher argued just that.

Oh, and the pralines in Savannah are really good.

JUST AS LONG AS IT'S NOT A HATE CRIME...

I know everyone is aware of the shocking burning of six churches in Alabama. I was relieved to hear the newsreader on FoxNews inform us as most of the churches had a predominantly white membership that the fires were not considered to be hate crimes. The search for a loving and cuddly arsonist continues....

HMMM, CAN'T SEE THIS ONE

Jesus has appeared again, this time on the door of an Indiana church. Now usually I can see what they're pointing to with these things, but I just don't see this one:

Members of a church in Indiana said a wooden door bears the image of Jesus, according to a Local 6 News report.

Congregation members of the Reigning Light of the Healing Chapel in North Vernon, Ind., said the image in the wood grain is similar to that of the Shroud of Turin.

The church's pastor, Charlotte Pahls, believes it is a sign that the Lord is inviting people to knock on her door.

Associate Pastor Carroll Molenhour said she was skeptical at first.

"I don't fully understand about it, but his ways are far higher than ours and I'm sure he had a purpose," Associate Pastor Molenhour said.

The church is getting attention from people around the state wanting to visit the church for a glimpse of the image.

Huh. People flocking to the church because of it. Maybe I should go stare at the door where I preach (where was that tv station's phone number...).

FAST TALKERS

Newsweek takes a look at the new debating trend among evangelicals:

When you believe the end of the world is coming, you learn to talk fast. On a Friday afternoon the debate team from Liberty University, Jerry Falwell's fundamentalist Baptist college, is madly rehearsing for the tournament about to begin. This year's topic: should the United States increase diplomatic and economic pressure on China. They may just be practicing, but you wouldn't know it from the menacing mosquito-buzz rising as all 20 debaters read their speeches at once, as fast as they can. Policy debate on the college level has become a rapid-fire verbal assault, an arguments-per-minute game, that sounds more like the guy at the end of the car commercial than an eloquent Oxford intellectual. There is tension and more than a little spittle in the air. The Liberty team is currently ranked No. 1 in the country, above Harvard (14th) and all the other big names. But for the evangelicals, there's a lot more at stake than a trophy. Falwell and the religious right figure that if they can raise a generation that knows how to argue, they can stem the tide of sin in the country. Seventy-five percent of Liberty's debaters go on to be lawyers with an eye toward transforming society. "I think I can make an impact in the field of law on abortion and gay rights, to get back to Americans' godly heritage," says freshman debater Cole Bender.

The now infamous (at theosebes, anyway) Patrick Henry College (aka, Farris U.) also gets a plug.

And going with yesterday's post about Rolling Stone missing Sen. Brownback's 'fruits' reference, apparently Newsweek had a similar problem as revealed by this posted correction:

Correction: In the original version of this report, NEWSWEEK misquoted Falwell as referring to "assault ministry." In fact, Falwell was referring to "a salt ministry"—a reference to Matthew 5:13, where Jesus says "Ye are the salt of the earth." We regret the error.

Hmmm, an assault ministry....

MAYBE, 'LAND FLOWING WITH FRUITS & HONEY'?

Rolling Stone apparently had a difficult time grasping comments by Sen. Sam Browback on homosexual 'marriage':

It isn't every day you see the Bible quoted in Rolling Stone magazine, but Sen. Sam Brownback's reference to Jesus' words appears to have been misunderstood.

In an article titled "God's Senator," Rolling Stone quotes the Kansas Republican as lamenting the fate of countries that have legalized gay marriage.

"You'll know them by their fruits," Brownback said.

Rolling Stone's writer reports there was an awkward silence as it sounded to him like the senator was referring to gays as "fruits."

The Bible passage cited by Brownback actually warns that false prophets can be discerned by the results they produce.

Ah, the values of Biblical literacy.

SERIAL POLYGAMY

The New York Times wonders why the rich can't stay married:

FOR Ronald O. Perelman, Forbes magazine's 34th-richest man in America, marriage would seem to be getting expensive: last week, he announced that he was divorcing his fourth wife, the actress Ellen Barkin, and would pay out the $20 million promised in their prenuptial pact — having paid $8 million, $80 million and $30 million, respectively, to Wives 1, 2 and 3.

While matchmakers among the ultrarich are already speculating about who will be wife No. 5, others might reasonably ask why Mr. Perelman and other serial grooms in his jet set don't take the actor George Clooney's "never again" approach: Date ferociously, but don't marry. As one prominent New York divorce lawyer said of an 85-year-old client now negotiating his fourth prenup, "Don't you think he would stop?"

"They marry people who listen to completely different music, who don't know who Joe McCarthy was," bemoaned the lawyer, who would not be quoted by name for fear of angering his clients. "They have less chance with every one that it's going to succeed."

So why do the ultrarich marry, and re-marry, and re-marry? For men who have cycled through what Harriet Newman Cohen, a New York divorce lawyer, called "very high powered, high ZIP code divorces," marriage, more than dating, fills old traditions of respectability, status and comfort. It might even be love, for a while. Plus, they can afford it.

The article mainly looks at the economic implications, but is right on with this observation:

Of course, marriage to a certain kind of woman — a movie star, a socialite — can also be about conquest, ambition, cachet.

"It's ego," said David Patrick Columbia, who writes NewYorkSocialDiary.com. "If you're a big deal, you've got to have ways of showing it. You've got the house, got the car, got the wife. They don't think much of marriage, they think much of possessing."

They can easily find women to agree — and typically it is the women who are, as divorce lawyers gently call it, "the non-moneyed."

Stanford G. Lotwin, a divorce lawyer in New York, said he tried to warn his serial clients about taking on serial wives.

"We tell these men, you cannot go anywhere without our card in your pocket," he said. "As soon as you have your second date, you have to call, and we'll remind you how expensive this is. He'll say, 'I repeat your name in my sleep, I promise you I'm not doing anything.' " But soon enough, Mr. Lotwin will be pulling out the box of tissues he uses to guide the man's new fiancée through the prenuptial process.

For many of the men, the prenuptial is simply part of the business deal that is marriage. "They see it like a hedge fund," said Ms. Cohen, the divorce lawyer. "Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't."

And it's just this attitude that makes divorce more likely. "They're used to having whatever they want," said Norman Sheresky, a New York divorce lawyer.

Sounds like a recipe for happiness to me.

SURELY THERE'S A REAL CRIMINAL TO TAKE THE COURT'S TIME

An Italian atheist wants to see a Roman Catholic priest tried for asserting that Jesus existed:

An Italian judge heard arguments Friday on whether a small-town parish priest should stand trial for asserting that Jesus Christ existed.

The priest's atheist accuser, Luigi Cascioli, says the Roman Catholic Church has been deceiving people for 2,000 years with a fable that Christ existed, and that the Rev. Enrico Righi violated two Italian laws by reasserting the claim.

Lawyers for Righi and Cascioli, old schoolmates, made their arguments in a brief, closed-door hearing before Judge Gaetano Mautone in Viterbo, north of Rome. They said they expected the judge to decide quickly.

Cascioli filed a criminal complaint in 2002 after Righi wrote in a parish bulletin that Jesus did indeed exist, and that he was born of a couple named Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth.

Cascioli claims that Righi's assertion constituted two crimes under Italian law: so-called "abuse of popular belief," in which someone fraudulently deceives people; and "impersonation," in which someone gains by attributing a false name to a person.

"The point is not to establish whether Jesus existed or not, but if there is a question of possible fraud," Cascioli's attorney, Mauro Fonzo, told reporters before the hearing.

Cascioli says the church has been gaining financially by "impersonating" as Christ someone by the name of John of Gamala, the son of Judas from Gamala.

He has said he has little hope of the case succeeding in overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Italy, but that he is merely going through the necessary legal steps to reach the European Court of Human Rights, where he intends to accuse the church of what he calls "religious racism."

Righi, 76, has stressed substantial historical evidence — both Christian and non-Christian — of Jesus' existence.

Of course it's all silly. One might not believe that Jesus is divine--at one's own peril--but to believe that Jesus did not exist at all is, well, ridiculous. I recall a history professor when I was in grad school--I was a teaching assistant for him--dismissing any thought that Jesus didn't exist. This professor was by no means a Christian, either.

Now what might be interesting is to see whether this actually does get any traction in the European courts.

CURSE GOD & DIE?

A starving African woman tried it with poor results:

A starving Kenyan woman placed a powerful tribal curse on God, accusing him of sending famine, and died in her sleep, local newspapers said Thursday.

The woman from eastern Kenya's drought-ravaged Kangundo district decided to invoke a dreaded oath from the Kamba community, famed for its potent witchcraft, media reports said.

"Whoever brought this famine, let him perish," the woman chanted, striking a cooking pot with a stick.

"She accomplished the feat at 10 a.m. and waited for the results, but God's wrath struck at night. She died peacefully in her sleep," the Kenya Times newspaper said.

Memo to self: pray for rain instead.

(Thanks to theosebes reader Sean for the link.)

AND I DIDN'T EVEN GET A CHANCE TO SEE IT...

Why do they always cancel the best shows? I'm not sure, but that has nothing to do with the well-deserved demiseof NBC's 'The Book of Daniel':

A new television show about a pill-popping priest who talks to Jesus has been pulled from the NBC schedule for igniting little faith from viewers after just three weeks on the air, network sources said on Tuesday.

"The Book of Daniel," starring Aidan Quinn as a conflicted Episcopal minister with a Vicodin habit, debuted to mediocre ratings January 6 and sank steadily in the Nielsens in its two subsequent broadcasts.

NBC has scheduled no further episodes beyond last Friday's telecast, and the drama, originally slated as an eight-part limited series, is not expected to return to the airwaves, network insiders said.

'Conflicted Episcopal'--isn't that redundant?

Daniel, we hardly knew ye.

BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID

If this guy doesn't scare the willies out of you just looking at him then look again. He's Mike Jeffries, the 61-year old (no, not a typo) CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, and this is his marketing philosophy:

For example, when I ask him how important sex and sexual attraction are in what he calls the "emotional experience" he creates for his customers, he says, "It's almost everything. That's why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don't market to anyone other than that."

As far as Jeffries is concerned, America's unattractive, overweight or otherwise undesirable teens can shop elsewhere. "In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids," he says. "Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don't alienate anybody, but you don't excite anybody, either."

And what does he have to say about such niceties as thong underwear with come hither sayings for young girls?

Our first bump came when I mentioned the 2002 uproar over the company's thongs for middle-school girls, which had "Eye Candy" and "Wink Wink" printed on their fronts. "That was a bunch of bullshit," he said, sweating profusely. "People said we were cynical, that we were sexualizing little girls. But you know what? I still think those are cute underwear for little girls. And I think anybody who gets on a bandwagon about thongs for little girls is crazy. Just crazy! There's so much craziness about sex in this country. It's nuts! I can see getting upset about letting your girl hang out with a bunch of old pervs, but why would you let your girl hang out with a bunch of old pervs?"

Who, indeed.

CLAIRE EVELYN

The new theosebes daughter, Claire Evelyn, was born yesterday (January 23, 2006) at 1:03 PM CST. She weighed in at 7 lbs, 10 oz, and is 21" long. Mother and baby are both doing well. Father slept like a log last night.

JUST IN TIME FOR THE FC LECTURES

I don't know if the two events are related, but I've just finished making my arrangements to attend the Florida College lectures, and now this ruling:

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Let's get naked!
A federal judge struck down Daytona Beach's anti-nudity laws, saying they're unconstitutional.

Regulations prohibiting public nudity and nudity in places that sell alcohol violate the First and 14th amendments' protections of free speech and equal protection, the judge decided.

Daytona Beach also failed to prove its claim that adult nightclubs create secondary negative impacts on levels of crime, prostitution and illegal drug activity in neighborhoods, the judge wrote.

It's hard to imagine it's a coincidence.

MIXING POLICY WITH RELIGION

Yes, I have lots of views on politics. And yes, I believe Christians have every right to be active in politics. I even talk about politics here from time to time as it relates to Biblical morality per se. But at the same time one needs to be careful about equating certain political positions, particularly when they are foreign policy positions with Biblical necessity. And please, keep it out of the pulpit. Charles Marsh at the NYT makes some good points along those lines:

Recently, I took a few days to reread the war sermons delivered by influential evangelical ministers during the lead up to the Iraq war. That period, from the fall of 2002 through the spring of 2003, is not one I will remember fondly. Many of the most respected voices in American evangelical circles blessed the president's war plans, even when doing so required them to recast Christian doctrine.

Charles Stanley, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, whose weekly sermons are seen by millions of television viewers, led the charge with particular fervor. "We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible," said Mr. Stanley, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. "God battles with people who oppose him, who fight against him and his followers." In an article carried by the convention's Baptist Press news service, a missionary wrote that "American foreign policy and military might have opened an opportunity for the Gospel in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

As if working from a slate of evangelical talking points, both Franklin Graham, the evangelist and son of Billy Graham, and Marvin Olasky, the editor of the conservative World magazine and a former advisor to President Bush on faith-based policy, echoed these sentiments, claiming that the American invasion of Iraq would create exciting new prospects for proselytizing Muslims. Tim LaHaye, the co-author of the hugely popular "Left Behind" series, spoke of Iraq as "a focal point of end-time events," whose special role in the earth's final days will become clear after invasion, conquest and reconstruction. For his part, Jerry Falwell boasted that "God is pro-war" in the title of an essay he wrote in 2004.

As a healthy antidote, Marsh points to the position of the 1974 Lausanne Covenant:

Such sentiments are a far cry from those expressed in the Lausanne Covenant of 1974. More than 2,300 evangelical leaders from 150 countries signed that statement, the most significant milestone in the movement's history. Convened by Billy Graham and led by John Stott, the revered Anglican evangelical priest and writer, the signatories affirmed the global character of the church of Jesus Christ and the belief that "the church is the community of God's people rather than an institution, and must not be identified with any particular culture, social or political system, or human ideology."

Now, I'm not endorser of big church-y conventions, either, but the sentiment is correct. We must be in the world, but we must not be of it.

VATICAN: NO SUPPORT FOR INTELLIGENT DESIGN

The official Vatican newspaper has endorsed a judge's decision to remove Intelligent Design from the classroom:

The official Vatican newspaper published an article this week labeling as "correct" the recent decision by a judge in Pennsylvania that intelligent design should not be taught as a scientific alternative to evolution.

"If the model proposed by Darwin is not considered sufficient, one should search for another," Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, wrote in the Jan. 16-17 edition of the paper, L'Osservatore Romano.

"But it is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science," he wrote, calling intelligent design unscientific. "It only creates confusion between the scientific plane and those that are philosophical or religious."

The article was not presented as an official church position. But in the subtle and purposely ambiguous world of the Vatican, the comments seemed notable, given their strength on a delicate question much debated under the new pope, Benedict XVI.

Advocates for teaching evolution hailed the article. "He is emphasizing that there is no need to see a contradiction between Catholic teachings and evolution," said Dr. Francisco J. Ayala, professor of biology at the University of California, Irvine, and a former Dominican priest. "Good for him."

The Vatican has played footsie with evolution for some time now. This should really come as no great shock.

SPEARS' RELIGIOUS PILGRIMAGE

Theosebes is determined to keep up with the ever evolving religious pilgrimage of Britney Spears. We have seen her at an evangelical revival, studying Kabbalah and now moving even further East in her religious interests:

The singer — who was raised a Baptist and has famously studied Kabbalah, a branch of Jewish mysticism — now is apparently dabbling in Hinduism.

The “Oops, I Did It Again” crooner was spotted at a Hindu temple in Malibu, where she reportedly was getting a blessing for her baby son, Sean Preston.

What dastardly business would one have to be involved in to be condemned to reincarnation as Britney Spears?

I'M SURE IT WILL DO HIM SOME GOOD, BUT...

A Cincinnati judge has sentenced a man to attend a black church:

A judge has sentenced a suburban Cincinnati man to attend services for six weeks at a black church for threatening to punch a black cab driver and using racial slurs.

Judge William Mallory Jr. told 36-year-old Brett Haines, "It seems readily apparent to me that you don't like black people. That's OK with me. But you have to understand that you are at the whim and authority of a black judge."

Mallory let Haines choose between attending the black church for six Sundays or spending 30 days in jail. Haines said he'd try the church, although he doesn't usually worship on Sunday.

Mallory offered Haines the choice Friday after Haines was convicted of disorderly conduct. He was arrested in November after threatening cab driver David Wilson and Wilson's wife.

Mallory said he was concerned about maintaining the separation between church and state, so the judge asked Haines whether the option would offend him.

Haines said he would like to try it.

So it's okay to send guys to church now?

GET THOSE GAME BOYS READY

The new 'Bible Game' is Game Boy (and XBox and PS2) ready:

If the television show "Jeopardy" were written by Sunday school teachers, the result might be "The Bible Game," a new trivia game for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Game Boy Advance that casts players as contestants in a game show about the Old Testament.

While kids may not be tempted to reach for this disc on store shelves, this wholesome multiplayer title is ideal for the entire family -- and one video game mom and dad will endorse for a change.

Playable for up to four gamers on the same television, "The Bible Game" first asks that you choose a male or female character before meeting the other three contestants for the virtual television show, "Do Unto Others!"

Contestants not controlled by a human player will be handled by the game's artificial intelligence.

I may need to dust off the Game Boy.

HAPPY ROBERT E LEE DAY (OBSERVED)

Today is the official state observance of Robert E. Lee Day in Alabama. May you have a merry one.

JUDAS--JUST MISUNDERSTOOD?

Is it time to rehabilitate Judas Iscariot, the one about whom Jesus said it would have been better had he never been born? Apparently some high-ranking Catholics think so:

But it appears now that the Catholic Church may be, like Jesus, willing to turn the other cheek on a biblical stinker whose name is synonymous with treachery.

Think of it as a Judas makeover, two millennia after the fact.

The Times of London reported last week on a high-level scheme afoot to rehabilitate Judas, traditionally reviled as the traitor — a mole at the Last Supper — who finked out Jesus, fingering him for Roman soldiers.

One Monsignor Walter Brandmuller, head of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Science, appears to be spearheading the campaign, with the rumoured support of prominent Catholic scholars close to both Pope Benedict XVI and the late John Paul II....

Yet, as Lewis points out, there has always been a thorny problem affixed to this scenario. "How could someone so close to Jesus have done something like that? And how could he not have seen it coming?''

As the Son of God, Jesus would have been able to see everything coming down the pipe. This reinforces the academic argument that Judas's betrayal was preordained; there would have been no crucifixion, thus no resurrection, no dying for everybody's sins, no promise of redemption and life everlasting. And Judas was not even the only Apostle who let down the side — Peter denied Jesus too, when push came to shove, and was forgiven.

"There's a sense that everybody played the role that was intended for them as part of some master plan,'' says Lewis. "Where do you really lay the blame — with Judas, with the Romans, with Jews? Is it even right to speak of blame if it was all a matter of predestination?''

For the record — and after two millennia of Christian-propelled anti-Semitism — the Vatican has declared that Jews were not responsible in the death of Jesus. It hadn't gone without notice that many depictions of Judas — in art and medieval plays — portrayed him with a hooked nose and exaggerated Semitic features.

Reportedly, improving Christian-Jewish relations — which Pope Benedict has made a priority of his pontificate — is also a factor in the proposed rehabilitation of Judas.

Well, of course Judas was fulfilling a necessary role, but that does not absolve him of personal responsibility nor does it mean he was compelled to act against his nature and inclinations. We know also, for example, that Judas was a thief who pilfered the apostles' money bag.

The goal is to come to a three-dimensional understanding of Judas rather than simply considering him as a cartoonish ogre. We must ask ourselves what his actions can teach us, how they can warn us about our own betrayals of the Jesus who died. Rewriting history and denying the ugly choice of sin doesn't help that at all.

BACK FROM COLOMBIA

I made it back home yesterday after a week in Colombia. You can read about some of the trip at the Colombian work blog, see particularly my latest post.

I enjoyed a couple of cups of excellent Colombian coffee this morning with beans from the Colombian Starbucks, Oma.

The picture is of the city of Ibague from my hotel balcony.

OFF TO SOUTH AMERICA!

Back from the holidays, but not for long. I'm leaving in the morning for a week in Colombia. Those who are interested in keeping up with things might want to keep an eye at The Lord's Work in Colombia blog for posts by me and others. It should prove to be interesting.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

NARNIA STRIKES BACK

The Christian allegory The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe has knocked the giant monkey off his perch and regained the top spot (my apologies for tasteless ads there) in box office gross. It's amazing what a well made, family friendly movie will do at the box office. One wonders if Hollywood might sometime figure this out.

In other news, apparently the touching story of two men and their sheep, Brokeback Mountain, is dropping fast. Don't be surprised if it wins best picture, though.

PRO-CHOICE: ISSUE OR DISTRACTION?

A regular theoebes reader, and in demand college administrator, has hit the big time at drlaura.com in the 'Letters From Readers' section:

Those that are for the taking of an unborn life hide under the guise of "Pro-choice." This title does not address the issue properly. It is nothing more than a straw man. The actual problem is that people are either unclear on, or choose to hide from, what the real choice is. The choice that is presented is the same one that has faced man since the beginning of time. The choice is to keep God's commandments or to sin. Simply stated the real choice is between right and wrong - murder and life.

Be sure to read it all.

OLD THINGS ARE NEW AGAIN:
BAPTISM IN PRISON REVISITED

A long forgotten post has suddenly attracted some attention. The original post dates from July 1, 2004, and deals with a California inmate named Ramzee Johnson who was being denied the ability to be baptized in accordance with his religious beliefs. Apparently someone connected to the sheriff's found the post yesterday and is quite defensive about it all. Make sure you read the comments.

WHY TELEVISION IS BAD, HOLIDAY EDITION

My wife had her piano students in for lessons yesterday, and in the process of conversation asked them what they wanted for Christmas. One conversation was instructive.

My wife: "So, what do you want for Christmas this year?"

Child: "A Ferby!"

Wife: "Oh, what do they do?"

Child: "I don't know."

Wife: "Well, aren't those the little furry animals that interact and talk?"

Child: "I don't know."

Wife: "Well, why do you want one, then?"

Child: "I saw it on TV!"

VAN GUNDY ON THE FAMILY

Miami Heat NBA basketball Coach Stan Van Gundy has resigned from his coaching position citing family interests. I liked his comments:

Van Gundy has always professed to being a family-first man, someone who abhors road trips and the idea of spending holidays away from his wife and four children. He said that because of travel, games and practices, he would have seen his children at home only 49 days out of 170 this season.

"That's just not enough any more for me. It's just not enough," Van Gundy said. "I mean, it's been like that for my kids' entire lives. I've got a 14-year-old daughter and it started to hit me when I started thinking about her birthday, which was last month. I've got four more years left with her. Four. And then she'll be off to college and I'm just not willing to sacrifice any more of those four more years."

Van Gundy said he began wrestling with the balance between job and family during the preseason, and told Riley after the regular-season opener at Memphis that they needed to talk about the future.

"I can't believe people have that big a problem actually believing that someone would actually want to spend time with their family," Van Gundy said. "I don't know why that's so hard for people to buy into."

Did the pressure of the job and his relative success at it factor in to his decision? I'm sure it did. But Van Gundy is right. Why can't our society accept that sometimes family actually may be important.

As a father of girls myself I can say he'll always be glad he had those four years.

THE LION, the Witch and the Wardrobe is out, and A.O. Scott at the NYT likes it. Despite the Times's endorsement it's still probably worth seeing.

PROM: CANCELED

The latest trend? Canceling proms as decadent

Underlying the concern seems to be a widespread uncertainty about the coming-of-age ritual embodied in the modern prom - the $500 to $1,000 spent on dress, limo and parties before and after the actual event. It has become not uncommon for parents to sign leases for houses, where couples room together, for post-prom weekend events or for parents to authorize boat excursions in which under-age drinking is not just winked at but expected.

Trumping it all, of course, is the uncertainty about sex.

"Common parlance tells us that this is a time to lose one's virginity," Brother Hoagland and other administrators of Kellenberg High wrote in a letter to parents in March, warning them that the prom might be canceled unless parents stopped financing what, in effect, the school considered bacchanals. "It is a time of heightened sexuality in a culture of anything goes," the letter added. "The prom has become a sexual focal point. This is supposed to be a dance, not a honeymoon."

Six months after the initial letter, administrators canceled the prom by fiat, citing not just sex and alcohol use, but also what they described as materialism run amok.

You don't say.

'TIS THE SEASON FOR...LIVESTOCK?

The library in Bartlett, TN (just outside Memphis) has decided, after a mayoral intervention, to put Jesus in their nativity scene. Oddly, they were going to have a nativity scene without the Child:

Brandi Chambless is one happy woman after hearing her nativity scene will be now allowed in the Bartlett Library. It took an order from Bartlett's mayor to put Christ back into this Christmas display. Chambless is thrilled, "It means so much and we're very thankful to the mayor for doing that." Bartlett Mayor Keith McDonald heard the library had banned the religious figurines from a nativity display and would only allow barnyard animals to be shown.(emphasis added, nac)

Now how boneheaded is it to have a nativity scene with only barnyard animals?

CLASSY

A student athiest group at the University of Texas-San Antonio has organized a 'Porno for Bibles' exchange.

Mom and Dad must be very proud...and wondering why they're paying all this money for tuition.