The Bishop of Rome is very ill.

He helped defeat communism.

He helped liberate half a continent.

He has been a faithful voice for the culture of life.

And now he has managed to transform his illness into an icon for what it means to suffer and gain meaning from that suffering.

He shows the shallowness of the empty talking heads who attack him or those like Huns Kung, whose reason for fame you can never quite recall, who cannot wait for him to die to posture and pontificate. For the wise old man who was the only one with the right to pontificate never did. He simply lived a gallant Christian life.

I am no Roman and never shall be. However, this gallant knight, this friend of Reagan and the unborn, has been one of the greatest men to ever sit in Peter’s chair.

God be with you brave defender of the right. Soon God will vouch safe to give you a vision of Himself unmediated by pain in that Undiscovered Country from which no man must return.

Atheists said
you had no soul just a brain
and for now
Atheism is our new state creed
proclaiming
Daddy’s girl a computer
made of meat
adjudicated broken
obsolete
Hubby moved on to new model
but Plato
and Dante and your Lord Christ
knew with Mom
there was more to you than flesh
a woman
whose soul could be touched by love
from family,
by a child’s simple balloon
but judges say
you are only human if
you swallow.
Best wisdom of noble men
still proclaims
the image of God in us
makes man live
endowed by our Creator
with His life.
Courts killed you
but love will find your hurt soul
bring it home
love that can move the heavens
and the stars.

May the soul of Terri Schaivo and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.

FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Supreme Court Denies Parents’ Plea

The Supreme Court once decided an African was not a human.

The Supreme Court once decided that an unborn child was not a person.

The Supreme Court has now decided by default that when a human cannot swallow and a spouse with an interest in his death says he wants to die, then that man is not a person.

Needless to say, the court is sometimes wrong. God save this Court.

But, for all that, the Court has ruled. We have no better option than to follow the rule of law. We will honor Terri Schaivo by obeying for now, but never forgetting what has been done. We will do so by voting against those who have taken her life. We will honor Terri Schaivo by pressing for a better court. We will repent our part in this culture of death that helps a woman by killing her.

God knows. He will judge. Every person, even members of the Court, will answer to Him some day. He is not prejudiced. He knows no favoritism for color, age, or handicap. In that Highest Court in the cosmos all men are created equal. Terri will have a great advocate in that court. Money will not buy her foes a better lawyer than He. He knows what it is like to be executed by indifferent worldly judges who could not be bothered to intervene.

In a cosmic sense, tonight it is better to be Terri Schaivo with a soul washed clean in suffering than our dishonored court. Of course they are only men after all and every man makes horrid decisions in the heat of the moment. So fallible. So weak. Just as we are.

I am sure they natter about precedent and procedure when a life is at stake. Some binder is full of rules and regulations and the binders must be obeyed. During all of it a woman dies in Florida. May God have mercy on them. May God save our Supreme Court.

MSNBC - Insurgent attacks against U.S. troops decline

We are winning, but then we always were.

Next liberal story line: democracy in Iraq is not “pure” enough or some of the elected leaders are thugs so it was not worth going.

Bush plan:

1. Remove Sadaam.
2. Install Democracy.

The Bush plan worked.

The assumption has been that democracies do not support terror in a large scale way. That has been the case in the past. We shall see, but if Iraq becomes a semi-peaceful state that does not want to destroy Israel or the USA and if that leads at least one more state to become democratic than wasn’t the war a good thing?

We have lost fewer troops than liberals thought we would lose in just the war. If the administration was overly optimistic about occupation, the liberals were way too pessimistic about the war and occupation.

I think so.

Dear Mr. Hewitt,

For good reason, you have been a bit sad of late. These are tough times in some ways. However, with good Reagan spirit, I am reminded of five reasons to be cheerful today with an extra BONUS to cap it all off.

First, we are winning the war in Iraq. All is not perfect, but the best evidence we are winning is that the war is moving out the mainstream news.

Second, George W. Bush is defending life. He has defied the polls and acted within legal bounds to try to save a woman he does not know. We are led by a gentleman!

Third, we both live in the best and most free nation on earth. Who has a better constitution? Who has a better court system? We have mostly free men and mostly free markets! Woo Hoo!

Fourth, it is still possible to start a business and see it flourish. The person who will take down Microsoft is (in all probability) thinking up the idea even now.

Fifth, I am married to the Fairest Flower in all of Christendom. This is a great time to raise kids. I can legally home school them if I wish. That is a good reason for me to be happy. You will have to insert your own family reasons here, though I hear this possible.

Finally, we can worship God as He commands. No one is coming to close down my own Church. No one is shooting our pastors. We are free to thunder from our pulpits and to weep at our alters.

Don’t you love living in this day and age?

A fan,

JMNR

For some reason, a big group of those I know and like hate the modern world. They are almost cranky about it, like old men who always are going on about the good old days. Oddly enough, most of the writers I read that I intensely dislike also hate the modern world. They keep going on about the future they are about to create. They scare me even more.

Such unanimity is disturbing for there is much to like about the modern world. In fact, the complaints are generally written by people who would not be in their positions of authority without the modern world. They are from families that pre-modern cultures would not have allowed an education. Most would have died from dread diseases in infancy or childhood. They did not partly due to the science that only modernity could have allowed to flourish.

Of course saying so may finish me off with Christian academics, but since I am not an academic, thank God, just a teacher, and hope to be judged a Christian by a higher authority I am not overly worried.

Lately some cranky evangelicals have taken after modernity in a movement they call “radical Orthodoxy.” It is not very radical, being mostly confined to University folk (the group least likely to write a great book, start a great movement, or create great art) and to boutique churches inhabited by same.

There are obvious problems in our culture. These problems may undue it and may in fact have already undone it. This is a cause for mourning and prayer for revival and not for joy. Why?

Capitalism has been on the whole good for people. Let us all agree that greed is bad and that the quest for “things” as the Great Good of human life is a horrid evil. Let us also agree that such notions are not confined to nations driven by capitalism.

However, let us also agree that there is no special virtue in being poor, just the protection afforded by having less power. Less powerful people cannot manifest their wickedness and so have some aid in seeking virtue. However, the best man (it seems to me) is the man who is rich, even was born rich, and has chosen to find virtue in any case. He has great power in the material world and uses it for good ends.

That may consist of giving all his money away (as some I have known have done) or it may consist of living well and helping others to do the same. Some of the greediest folk I have know have been poor and most of the rich I have known have been quite noble.

Capitalism, as an economic idea, is not a fit basis for totally organizing a life or a culture, but it is a great tool for doing what it does well: creating wealth and distributing it widely. To cite just one benefit of capitalism: now nearly anyone who wants to do so can go to college as a result of it. These colleges may often be poor, but a genuine education is available in them. This is a good thing and has produced many well read and interesting folk.

Only persons who have never lived in a place not renewed by capitalism can fail to see its virtues. It has produced widely available medicine and care for more humans than ever. Comparing year book pictures of poor Americans today to pictures of even immediate ancestors illuminates all the dental and optical work now available! As one who needed thick glasses, now made thin and light by the technology enabled by capitalism, I know that the benefits are not just part of vanity!

Modern medicine, a product of our times, is also a good thing. My wife would have died in childbirth and my first son with her if not for modern medicine. We live longer and more healthy lives than ever and yet seem almost frantic to find the downside of this. It may yet be used in a monstrous manner, and I am happy to warn of this, but who would rid ourselves of it as a whole?

Even nature is cleaner in places where capitalism flourishes despite also holding human populations that could not be imagined without it. Our air is more pure than in ancient London and our water less foul with millions more people leading better lives.

Free markets are also the best system for allowing human freedom. It is all well and good to mock Locke and sneer at the Founding Fathers. Does anyone in the all knowing Christian establishment have a better idea? I am a patriot, because it is in the nature of men to love their own people. I also am a patriot because I know of no system in the history of humankind that has given justice and rights to more people than our own.

I am fond of the republics and constitutional monarchies of the West (with some personal preference for the latter). They work and they protect the rights of real people. Most of the nations of the world would be better if they had such a system and in fact are better off when they adopt it. As India proves it is the pre-modern that stands most in the way of human happiness at this level.

I love the past and learn from it. However, there is no going back to it and there is no good reason to do so in any case. It is easy to convince the young that the “system” stinks and to fill them with superior feelings about the new age that they will bring on society. It is harder to actually improve anything. I am with Teddy Roosevelt in thinking that the Reformers in the system, men of affairs who must make deals, do more good than the utopians muckraking in the University system.

If I am not overly worried about the “consistency” or the details and the theory behind it, then this is not due to a hatred of learning, but a dislike of the so called intellectuals who worry more about the ideas history than its impact on the folks. There are the folk who worried that in door plumbing would destroy the culture of West Virginia, but who themselves had never used an outdoor toliet in winter. Meanwhile, they did destroy our noble culture by their hatred of patriotism, Christianity, and free markets.

The least interesting people I know are “libertarians” or “socialists” or “Christian academics” who will not let a system that mostly benefits people last because it contradicts some idea in their theories of what would bring on utopia. There is nothing more hypocritical than seeing a Christian academic, protected by American might from pre-moderns who would kill him for his faith, using the internet, created by American free markets and government, to propagate his hatred of modernity. The alternative proposed by such ideologues is always parasitic and impractical, since it can exist only in tiny University circles. There it exists only because businessmen are convinced to cleanse their money to keep assaults on themselves alive. This is the great skill of the academy, Christian or otherwise. It attacks a thing it asks for money and gets it.

In fact, much of the rot of our time comes from folk hostile to modern ideas. The nonsense of post-modernism, now so passe that only evangelical academics can believe it, at one time bid fair to make the academy even more useless than it had been earlier. The worship of any one area of the modern (science, republican government, medicine, free markets) at the expense of the idea that produced them, Christianity, is also pre-modern. Christianity could produce great goods in all these areas, because our religion kept them from becoming idols. The pre-modern made economics or politics or science “divine” and so could make no progress.

I believe in free markets, science and and all her methods, and human rights because I am a Christian. Some Christians claim this means I worship free markets or my nation and that they are idols to me. In fact, the men I know least likely to worship their nation are the greatest patriots. Serving in Iraq means you see how nutty government can be, but it also shows you the high ideals that fallen humans are trying, however imperfectly to put in place. Like the World War II G.I. you come to love our nation and its wars for liberty while laughing that in the details it is SNAFU.

Just as the true lover is not blinded to the faults of the beloved, so the lover of nations and of men is not blind to their evils. We can think a system good in its way for this time (until a better is found for men!) without thinking it is the chief end of men.

I am glad to live in this nation, but know that the City of Man is just a resting place until coming to the City of God. However, only the mad or the arrogant try to live in the City of God without being sullied by the City of Man. Someday, one hopes soon, Christ will return and the duality of this world will be healed. This cannot be done for now so sane men must live with a duality and even an inconsistency that God allows in this present time.

In a world where evil exists, the pacifist and the person who will not be a patriot betray the oppressed. If America brings free markets and a republic to Iraq, then most of the folk there will be better off. We will make mistakes in this noble calling. The critics would make their fantastic notions of the perfect the enemy of the good and so help no one. They would live in a Heaven where evil is no more and the duality of the world healed now, but force the people of the Middle East to live in hell now.

There is no real duality. All in the end will be Good, True, and Beautiful, but it is not so now. The world is bent and twisted.

To say that it can be otherwise now, even in the present Church, is to mock God’s plan. It is not so as the events of the newspaper prove. All men are fallen. Duality is allowed to continue between truth and error (what is called faith/reason by some), beauty and ugliness, and good and evil. Even those who war against the bad must recognize that the duality is in their own hearts and fight against it. It is the best part of modernity that it recognizes that we must live with this duality and make the best of it. It is modernity that best waits for heaven in the age to come while trying to soften the harsh reality of this present age.

There is no place in the Universe that is not God’s. There is no sphere where His rule is not to be found in the end, but in this present Age God has allowed His erring children to distance themselves from Him. Our distance is so great that our politics, religion, art, education, indeed every part of life seem secular and cut off from the Divine. To an extent they are so cut off and an attempt to heal the breach fully this side of Paradise is hubris and folly. It is doing what God Himself will not do.

Instead, we are called to heal what we can while recognizing that this duality, even this seeming secularisms must be accepted for now. There is no split between faith and reason. Faith is reasonable and reason requires faith. However, in the shadow of the Fall there will be seeming reason (or science) which is really folly that is cut off from God, even in Churchmen. The wheat will be mixed with the tares and we are not able to rid ourselves of the tares without destroying the wheat. A sane man will accept the existence of both, the secular and the sacred, in all his dealings for he knows this duality is part of his own heart. He trusts in the grace of God to deliver his soul from evil, but he does not trust his own wisdom to purge any sphere, even the visible Church, from all evil.

He knows that to do so would be like Gandalf wresting control of the One Ring and attempting to purge the world of Evil. Great evil would be done by the good until the good itself would become loathsome and vile.

We see the faults of this land and speak firmly against it, but know that it is still our land where God has placed us. We stand firmly against the abuse of freedom, but refuse to take away freedom of choice that God Himself gave man in Eden. The critics of modern times, the so called radically Orthodox, are themselves so swollen with their own ideas that they cannot worship in the Church as it is

So the next time you hear the “modern world” and its ideas attacked sit quietly and then leave. Laugh if you can. Go on enjoying rights given to you by God and confirmed (as best they could) by modern thinkers like Burke and Locke. Go on voting. Press for reform. Refuse to be reduced to a consumer, but enjoy the things you do consume. Fight racism and injustice, but be glad for a system that allows you to do it. Fight government where it has gotten too big so that it transgresses liberty and vote for more government where liberty has turned to abuse. Thank God that you were born at this time when men are more free, with more ability to do good, than at any other time.

Finally, be really counter-cultural if you are in the Academy (or like I am are tempted by its vices). Bless a businessman who is just and fair. Refuse to hate the rich as a “class.” Honor government leaders, including the President. Say a good word for the Founders. Bless a government school teacher and help a home school mom. Join a church with strong doctrinal ties and learn them. Refuse to think yourself capable of creating an entire counter-culture. Until you learn to love the people you wish to serve, do not even try to “preach at” them. Learn the virtue of being content and happy. Only after that allow your natural (and good) desire to reform to cause you to speak out.

Hugh Hewitt points out that today Paul Krugman went mad.

In a nation at war with real terrorists, Paul Krugman shakes in terror at the thought of domestic terror from homeschool moms, Bible study leaders, AWANA groups gone postal, and Baptists with an attitude.

It is not just covered dish dinners anymore Mr. Krugman believes. In between a chorus of “Majesty” and “Amazing Grace,” the local Pentecostals are learning paramilitary skills.

Aunt Bee is mad, Mr. Krugman believes, and she is not going to take it anymore.

But you have to read the thing for yourself. . . as usual comments from me (written before martial arts class) in italics.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: What’s Going On?: “Democratic societies have a hard time dealing with extremists in their midst. The desire to show respect for other people’s beliefs all too easily turns into denial: nobody wants to talk about the threat posed by those whose beliefs include contempt for democracy itself.

Who is this? Is it the folk who called the majority who voted for Bush clowns? Who threatened to leave the United States over a presidential election? No. Hang on. That would be obvious. Mr. Krugman writes for the Times and so he has done some Real Reporting. He has discovered that the majority of this country as measured by the last election has contempt for Democracy.

We can see this failing clearly in other countries. In the Netherlands, for example, a culture of tolerance led the nation to ignore the growing influence of Islamic extremists until they turned murderous.

I get it! All religious people are alike. The next time Christians are being murdered in the Sudan for being Christian they should get a copy of this article and show it to their radical Islamic murderers.

But perhaps Krugman is more subtle. Perhaps the bad religions are any religion thinking it knows the truth. . . even if they don’t use violence. Why? Will Krugman at least knows they soon will! American Christians are noted for their massive use of persecution. Krugman lives in terror that same church that produced What Would Jesus Do bracelets will soon be running pogroms and gulags. But wait, weren’t gulags run be (ahem) secular folk?

In the world of Krugman, secularists never use violence, because (you see) they are not religious. Stalin? Baptist. Pol Pot? Just an agent of the Vatican. Mr. Krugman is really changing my view of history! The secular Reign of Terror in France? Big myth. It was really a plot by the Ecumenical Patriarch! Those crafty, tricky Byzantines!

But it’s also true of the United States, where dangerous extremists belong to the majority religion and the majority ethnic group, and wield great political influence.

Evidently being in the majority is not good enough for us! No. We don’t just want great political influence earned by voting. We wish to make Billy Graham the Priest-King of America! Now I confess I missed this meeting and find my own religious group so disorganized and fractious we can hardly plan a food festival let alone take over the world, but Krugman works for the Times and so Krugman is right.

Before he saw the polls, Tom DeLay declared that ‘one thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America.’ Now he and his party, shocked by the public’s negative reaction to their meddling, want to move on. But we shouldn’t let them. The Schiavo case is, indeed, a chance to highlight what’s going on in America.

Perhaps we want to “move on,” because we lost and under the rule of law (which we respect) we must lick our wounds to fight another day. Of course, that is the “simplistic” way of understanding what is happening. Krugman knows better. He knows that we are really getting our Sunday School groups together to have a Covered Dish Rebellion.

One thing that’s going on is a climate of fear for those who try to enforce laws that religious extremists oppose. Randall Terry, a spokesman for Terri Schiavo’s parents, hasn’t killed anyone, but one of his former close associates in the anti-abortion movement is serving time for murdering a doctor. George Greer, the judge in the Schiavo case, needs armed bodyguards.

Why look! It is “guilt by association.” That used to be called “bad.”

As for the “leaders” Krugman mentions in a nation with 300 million people (most religious) if the worst he can find is Terry we are indeed blessed. By the way who is Terry? What large group is he the leader of? Who follows him? Krugman does not care. He has found a fringe and even though even this fringe is not violent he has found a few people once associated with it who are. What is next for Mr. Krugman?

Perhaps Mr. Krugman, following the tolerant Romans in asking hard questions, will try to determine exactly what is in the communion wine at mass. This question was never really answered in ancient history.

Another thing that’s going on is the rise of politicians willing to violate the spirit of the law, if not yet the letter, to cater to the religious right.

It makes me sick to discover that some politicians will cater to groups that vote for them.

I am also interested in seeing what will happen when the Krugman Definition of the Law is applied to our legal system. No more merely obeying the law. We must obey the Krugman defined Spirit of the Law. “We know you did not kill anyone, Rev. Jones, but your last sermon was hateful, very hateful. You have violated the spirit of the law. You are under arrest under the Krugman act.”

This spirit which hovers like an odor over the law will soon not be enough. If we obey without cheerfulness a Krugman-inspired law might we not make Krugman feel bad? Mighn’t such bad feelings deter people from obeying a Krugman Law?

Why should we obey the mere spirit? Krugman will discover that some of us are downright surly when we obey the law. Soon, all over America, people will be arrested for failing to obey the “spirit of the law.” Krugman inspired camps for Cheerfulness about Liberalism will spring up!

Everyone knows about the attempt to circumvent the courts through ‘Terri’s law.’ But there has been little national exposure for a Miami Herald report that Jeb Bush sent state law enforcement agents to seize Terri Schiavo from the hospice - a plan called off when local police said they would enforce the judge’s order that she remain there.

Making laws to circumvent the courts? The horror! We all know the courts are to make the laws and the legislature is to applaud the laws!

And the future seems all too likely to bring more intimidation in the name of God and more political intervention that undermines the rule of law.

Yes, this law making by democratically elected legislatures is only going to continue if liberals do not do something! The executive branch is likely to keep trying to enforce the law unless all of us bow down to the courts. . . except when they make George Bush president like they did in 2000! Then we know that the Courts have violated the Spirit of the Courts and failed in their duty using the Krugman Spirit of Court Decisions Rule(df= a court decision is valid if and only if it meets the spirit of the Constitution as defined by the editorial board of either the NY or LA Times)!

The religious right is already having a big impact on education: 31 percent of teachers surveyed by the National Science Teachers Association feel pressured to present creationism-related material in the classroom.

The rest feel no pressure to mention the views of the majority of the nation in class. Krugman worries about the pressure to teach the majority opinion in class, but fails to note that creationist teachers are often fired for giving their views in class. Fired. But Mr. Krugman is right to worry about the report of a “feeling of pressure.” This is far more serious than actually losing your job for your views.

But medical care is the cutting edge of extremism.

Translation: “That Pope is a real religious nut.”

Yesterday The Washington Post reported on the growing number of pharmacists who, on religious grounds, refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control or morning-after pills. These pharmacists talk of personal belief; but the effect is to undermine laws that make these drugs available. And let me make a prediction: soon, wherever the religious right is strong, many pharmacists will be pressured into denying women legal drugs.

If you don’t violate your religious beliefs to give Krugman what he wants, Krugman will make you. That way you will not oppress Krugman by making Krugman go to the next drug store. He will force you to be free!

Krugman will prevent future “pressure” on secularists by taking away your right to choose to obey your own religious convictions! Krugman does not just have a right to buy birth control. Krugman has found a right to force you to sell it to him.

And it won’t stop there. There is a nationwide trend toward ‘conscience’ or ‘refusal’ legislation. Laws in Illinois and Mississippi already allow doctors and other health providers to deny virtually any procedure to any patient. Again, think of how such laws expose doctors to pressure and intimidation.

Well, I am relieved to discover that Krugman will intimidate pro-life doctors into doing abortions now to avoid the fear that pro-choice doctors will be intimidated into not doing them later.

But the big step by extremists will be an attempt to eliminate the filibuster, so that the courts can be packed with judges less committed to upholding the law than Mr. Greer.

Wow! This IS just like those nasty Islamic terrorists! We are going to ELIMINATE THE FILIBUSTER! I can see how that is JUST LIKE flying a plane into a building. We hate democracy, because we are using our majority in Congress to get judges who agree with the majority in Congress.

We can’t count on restraint from people like Mr. DeLay, who believes that he’s on a mission to bring a ‘biblical worldview’ to American politics, and that God brought him a brain-damaged patient to help him with that mission.

Krugman translation: “Mr. Delay said something badly so I am going to associate everything in his religion with one statement!” Krugman believes religious people should be free to hold office only if they assume a secular point of view. Everyone will soon be free to be secular!

What we need - and we aren’t seeing - is a firm stand by moderates against religious extremism.

Wait! I thought earlier in this article, Republicans were in terror of the blow back from Schaivo. Isn’t this a contradiction? Perhaps I have missed the spirit of the Krugman column by picking on his actual words. Please do not arrest me Mr. Krugman. I was very cheerful when writing this response! We love you Mr. Krugman!

Some people ask, with justification, Where are the Democrats?

Other people ask, with justification, “Who cares?”

But an even better question is, Where are the doctors fiercely defending their professional integrity? I think the American Medical Association disapproves of politicians who second-guess medical diagnoses based on video images - but the association’s statement on the Schiavo case is so timid that it’s hard to be sure.

Perhaps Mr. Krugman can use his public platform at the New York Times to intimidate the AMA into making a statement he likes to avoid their being intimidated by the powerful pastors using the platform that is the Baptist Press Association.

The closest parallel I can think of to current American politics is Israel. There was a time, not that long ago, when moderate Israelis downplayed the rise of religious extremists. But no more: extremists have already killed one prime minister, and everyone realizes that Ariel Sharon is at risk.

This might be thought over the top. . . but at our last prayer meeting there was a long time of PRAYER for Terri Schaivo. We all know the direct line between praying and killing elected leaders. It can happen here folks. It begins with Young Life and groups like Jars of Clay. It ends in assination plots.

America isn’t yet a place where liberal politicians, and even conservatives who aren’t sufficiently hard-line, fear assassination. But unless moderates take a stand against the growing power of domestic extremists, it can happen here.”

You know I feel put down by what Krugman said. The Constitution gives me freedom of religion. Mr. Krugman has not actually done anything to keep me from worshipping as I please, but he sure has violated the Spirit of that Amendment. Maybe the boys at CYO, AWANA, and Teen SOYO (we are all the same) should get together tonight and pray. Heh. Heh. Heh.

As a philosopher, who loves clarity, I have decided to define the “religious right.”

A person is a member of the religious right if and only if he is a person who allows his religious knowledge to impact his decision making, he votes, he votes for Republicans, he does not privilege secular beliefs over religious beliefs as demanded by people with secular beliefs, and argues that some behavior at present favored by the majority of the editorial board of the LA Times is wrong and should not receive the approval and support of the state.

Winston Churchill once noted that people were always threatening to resign from government positions. The real danger to them was someone might let them do it. Out of government they quickly discover that they are not nearly as important as when they were in it.

Andrew Sullivan is one of the left’s favorite conservatives. He is a fine writer and fairly well read. He often takes unpredictable positions which makes for fine television and passes for intellectual depth in our era. We don’t like people with firm convictions that govern their decision making. This is “predictable” and makes for bad television. Sullivan appears to be thinking when he decides to vote for Kerry instead of Bush. Of course, it may simply be a sign of a mind driven by passion and not reason. A man with a well thought out world view can be relied on. A man whose main object is to protect his own pleasures (whatever they might be) cannot.

George Bush was just re-elected President of the United States. He was elected without the help of Andrew Sullivan, indeed with his opposition. That is why I am amused by recent over heated blogging from Mr. Sullivan that the “religious right” is about to destroy the Republican Party.

Let us grant that polls are correct (though the last election should have given us a bit of concern about the accuracy of polls) and that the Republicans have taken an “extreme” position on the Schiavo case. Let us even assume that most voters, indeed seventy percent of voters disagree with Republicans. So what? A third of voters, those who agree and care very deeply about the issue, are now Republicans for life. One has to guess that another third of voters don’t deeply care about the issue one way or another. The rest, the iron clad Democrat vote, were never going to vote Republican in any case. Most of the shrill voices protesting the “religious right” are from that group.

People who don’t like the “religious right” (which now includes the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Pope, and Billy Graham) are never going to like the Republican Party. However, most Americans are not keen for abortion and don’t like watching Schaivo die. My guess is that a fair number wish it would go away so they could just stop being made uncomfortable by it. I cannot believe it will be a “voting” issue for most of the “majority.” Like abortion, a large number of Americans have not thought out their position and live with ambiguity. They don’t favor anyone who makes them think about the issue. Mostly, they wish to be left alone to muddle along.

I don’t like that, but it does mean that it is not a passionate (or voting) issue for them. A few letters to a blogger (”I will never vote for Bush again!”) mean nothing. We are years from the next election. Will most of the seventy percent really refuse to vote for the Republican nominee (who will not be George Bush) over this issue? I don’t believe it. I didn’t believe it when Sullivan said that cultural issues would hurt Republicans in the last election. He was wrong then and he is wrong now.

I think it safer to say that those who really care (the thirty percent) will once again do the back breaking work of running precincts, going out the vote, and keeping the party going. They will remember and appreciate the Party taking a stand. The culture of death crowd will do the same for the Democrats. The good news is that there are more of us than there is of them and we have children. Meanwhile, the vanishingly small number of “religious” party-animal Republicans will go on getting media attention, because though there are not very many of them, they are odd. They film well, like Wonkette, only conservative.

My favorite of this type is the “Easter/Christmas” Christian who is very “religious” just about the time they want to beat up on traditional Christians. Of course, their religion informs none of their decisions. Cafeteria Catholics, ethnic Orthodox, or make it up as they go Protestants, these folk have no time for doctrine, what the Bible actually teaches, or allowing their faith to change their favorite behaviors (read sins).

They are secularists every week day, but have fond feelings about the whole Christian thing. It is a private faith, but sadly for them one not recognized by the Pope, the Ecumenical Patriarch, or Billy Graham. That leaves us with sorry conclusion that they are not Christian whatever else they might be. Of course, they have every right to their sorry world view. They have the right to irrationally go on trying to make themselves happy by their embrace of the culture of death and by unnatural behavior. No person intends to stop them from committing cultural suicide. However, they must not anticipate our joining them or worrying to much if they decide our disapproval makes them want to take their toys and go home.

I am sorry to see them go. The party is, after all, not a church. However, I am not sure that a disgruntled Andrew Sullivan united with the Rockefeller Republicans, like his electorally impotent Christie Todd Whitman (run her in the primaries Andrew!), will do us much harm. We might never carry Massachusetts, but Sullivan and Whitman will never carry Florida.

Religious traditionalists cannot win by themselves. However, we plainly do not need the help of those Republicans like Sullivan, since those folk left last election. Instead, if we continue to grow amongst traditional Catholic Democrats, pro-life African-Americans, and Hispanics not eager to join with the party-animal Republicans, we have a pretty safe (and pro-creating!) sixty percent of the vote. We need right-of-center Americans (read parents) to unite and agree to disagree. Traditional Christians don’t like the Schaivo outcome, but we are living by the rule of law. Our right of center allies will appreciate that and move forward with us.

I am (at least) a sixth generation Republican. I don’t need Andrew Sullivan to tell me what a conservative is. I believe in a role for tradition like Burke, heeding the wisdom of the past like Chesterton, that our rights come from the Creator like the Founding Fathers, and in a higher moral calling for our nation like Lincoln. I believe that man was created in the image of God as taught in the Bible and that a nation should err on the side of life like President Bush. I believe in the rule of law, but a law limited by the Law of Nature and Nature’s God, like John Locke. I recognize the limited promise of government in this age and view a theocracy as wicked like Augustine, Dante, and Calvin. However, I more deeply fear godless secularism seizing our state and bring on a reign of terror as it always does, just like Ronald Reagan.

If Andrew Sullivan wants to abandon those ideas and those men, then he is welcome to do so. We will be waiting to welcome him home whenever he desires to return.

What I’m Reading

Before spending hard earned money to send their kids to a Christian college a parent should ask themselves what they anticipate from the college. If you are one of the eighty percent of evangelicals who voted for Bush, then you might not realize that many Christian college professors views you as either an idiot or wicked. They have a “radical orthodoxy” for your student. This stew of ill digested post-modern assumptions about the world (adopted just when everyone else is rejecting them) says it wants Christian scholarship to advance. But wait! It turns out that having been set free by post-modernism from modernism there is no critique of Darwin (God forbid!) only of fundamentalists who do so. There is criticism of the left in the USA, but mostly for not being radical enough. Socialism is given a big boost. Patriotism is the greatest evil. Pacifism, which has never managed to create a sustainable society of any size that did not parasitically depend on a non-pacifist nation to survive, is normal Christian living.

Here is a fascinating blog post from a Calvin college professor:

Overall, I found Sider’s book underwhelming. It certainly doesn’t compare to Noll’s account concerning the evangelical “mind” (admittedly, Sider’s isn’t an “academic” book). Whereas Noll very patiently tries to discern the causes of the scandal, Sider seems content to recite statistics and never really gets to thinking about the root cause for evangelicalism’s assimilation to a consumer culture. I suspect this is because in the end, even Sider’s version of Christianity still adheres to the same root cause, viz., majoritarian democracy coupled with the valorization of free-market economies. In short, I think this book confirms what I’ve always thought about Sider: at the end of the day, he isn’t really prophetic. He is a reformer, at best. While he tries admirably to get evangelicals to appreciate the structural character of sin, he stops short of recognizing that capitalism and the version of “democracy” pushed by the current administration are at the heart of the problem. Sider wants to create charitable, compassionate, property-owning agents of a chastened free market; he’s not willing to call into question that entire system. (He even makes a point of trying to say that the early church retained notions of private property. Acts 2:44 seems to clearly indicate they held “all things in common.”) But rabid capitalism is quite happy to encourage charity, tithing, and the like: none of it really challenges the dominant model for distributing goods and wealth.

Smith has written a book so bad (”Introducing Radical Orthodoxy”) that it defies critical comment. To pick my own area of interest, the book manages to mangle Plato so badly that one questions if Smith has ever read Plato at all. His secondary sources for Plato are eccentric (to be charitable). They apparently consist of a group of (mostly) theologians using Plato and some neo-Platonism in ways having little or nothing to do with the texts themselves, but as jumping off points for their own ideas.

Smith never argues for anything in his book. He simply asserts that thinker or activist X has fallen into Constantianism (never defined like most of his terms of abuse) and moves on. Smith does have a message for us: we are not free in the USA and the free market has so oppressed us that only revolutionary thinking can save. (It is interesting to note that the same system he despises delivered his book to me through the internet quickly at a price I could afford. At the start of my grad career such texts were much less available. Here is hoping the Dutch Reformed businessmen paying Smith’s bills wake up soon.) Like all blog posts on anything this is only a quick take. . . Essentially unfair to a long argument found in a book. . . If there were arguments or sustained discourse to critique in the book. The book itself reads like a long blog post so maybe this is sufficient.

It is rather enjoyable to be a Christian Platonist who is a Republican who believes in free markets that happily voted for George Bush. It is even more enjoyable to support our War on Terror, to think the Patriot Act on the whole prudent and beneficial, and to be glad we liberated Iraq. It is so politically incorrect in our modern Christian colleges that it makes me the true radical. Believe me it is much easier to say things like those written by Smith at Christian college faculty meetings (at most schools) than to have my views. However, it is not nearly so fun. But then, I don’t think the Roman who stopped killing Christians was all bad either.

When I was a boy one of my favorite songs was Power in the Blood:

There is pow’r, pow’r,
wonder working pow’r
In the blood
of the Lamb;
There is pow’r, pow’r,
wonder working pow’r
In the precious
blood of the Lamb.

How true this is! Every Sunday, Holy Communion brings me to a reflection on this truth. This Western Easter where we must powerlessly watch a good woman die is a good time to remember the message of the Gospels. Life is stronger than death. The Blood of Christ is stronger than the power and wisdom of Greece and Rome.

All of this is spelled out for us in the Gospels. Recently, someone asked me about the different accounts of the Eucharist in the four Gospels. The Christian is presented with four different accounts of the Lord’s Supper in Sacred Scripture. These accounts vary in detail and emphasis.

In order to form a correct understanding of the nature of the Eucharist, it is vital to determine the nature of the instituting event. What happened at the first presentation of the Body and Blood of our Lord? The three synoptic gospels are fairly consistent in their presentation of the material. John presents a somewhat different picture.

The gospel of Matthew, by tradition the first, presents a short version of the Eucharist event. He lacks some of the detail found in Mark, which is unusual since the shortest gospel is usual the most sparing of detail. (Most contemporary Bible scholars view it, and not Matthew, as the first of the canonical gospels to be completed.) Mark, for example, notes that the person providing the place for the Supper was carrying a water pitcher (14:13). He also notes that the “upper room” was a guest room in the house of the host (14: 14-15). In the fast paced gospel, these details are quite significant. Mark is trying to help his mostly Roman audience to visualize Jerusalem and the details of the feast. It might be compared to explaining the outcome of a football game to an enthusiast as opposed to explaining it to the novice.

The writer of the first gospel, Matthew if the tradition is to be trusted, is speaking to a Hebrew audience. He has placed the life and ministry of Jesus in the context of fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy throughout the gospel. He is careful to stress the Jewish context of Passover in his gospel, pointing at that it began on the first evening of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He does not mention the slain Passover lamb, assuming his Hebrew reader will understand what is happening at this point in the liturgical calendar.
Both Matthew and Mark are careful to remove Judas from the scene before the establishment of the Eucharist. This is the feast of the “New Covenant.” Jesus uses this phrase in both Matthew 26: 27-29, Mark 14:24 and Luke 22:20. For Matthew, it has a special significance. In a text almost void of detail, he is careful to get these liturgical words right.

Jesus Christ is establishing a new relationship with humanity. (This does not mean He has abandoned the Covenant people, the Jews!) This meal, this covenant, is symbolically restricted to the people of that community. There is, therefore, continuity with the older religion in the continuation of the “covenant” language and discontinuity in the direction to which this liturgy points. In Matthew’s writing, Jesus is not merely the new Moses, He is also the very manna and drink on which the Christian pilgrim survives.

This treatment of Judas is in marked contrast to that of the other synoptic, Luke. There the scene with Judas is placed after the Supper, though there is no chronologically significant connecting word (e.g. afterwards, then) in the text to connect the two stories. It is possible that Luke is not, at this point, concerned with chronological detail, though this is unusual for this writer (e.g. Luke 2:1).

Why does Luke (and perhaps also John) allow Judas to stay in the room for the Supper? Or, at the very least, why do both author’s allow the appearance that this is so? This is a difficult question, but one potential answer might be found in the different goals of the authors. Matthew is placing Christ in the context of Hebrew culture and religion. As the Messiah, Jesus must demonstrate the wisdom and foresight predicted of Him by the Hebrew Testament. Mark is trying to picture Jesus for a Roman audience. To allow the man who would betray Him to stay in the room, would be to mark Jesus as a fool or a coward to such an audience. Their accounts are chronological, because of the demands of their readers and themes.

Luke is concerned to stress the universal nature and appeal of the message of Jesus Christ. It reaches out to all, and only “fails” when the object of Love rejects it. The compassion and promise of Christ’s teaching are made all the more evident when placed on display first and then contrasted with the betrayal of Judas. The work of the Holy Spirit, which must be given first place, is contrasted with the work of Satan (whom Luke will not even mention by name) in the life of Judas. Judas is never said to actually leave the room in Luke. He is left as a sort of theological untouchable. Even his motions are not worthy of mention, compared to the central sanctity of the “Passover who must be killed.” (22:7)

Both Luke and John do not claim chronological precision in this portion of their works. They have, in my opinion, arranged the various traditions of the Supper in a manner to best take into account their respective messages.

Despite these differences in historical detail, the synoptic accounts are remarkably similar in their description of the Supper itself. In all three cases, the bread comes before the wine. Luke has a “first cup” that comes before the bread (20:17), but this is not the “blood of the new covenant” (20:20) that forms the basis of the feast. Though the wording is slightly different in Luke, most significant is his use of the phrase “in remembrance of Me,” all three gospels attribute almost identical language to Jesus in His celebration of the Supper. In all three synoptics, the Bread is broken after thanks or blessing is made for it (Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:23, Luke 22:19). Likewise the Cup is offered to all and is followed by a blessing. (Luke omits this prayer.)

Could there be any more clear expression of the importance both the Holy Spirit and the early Church placed on right worship? “History” and full detail regarding the scene that established the Lord’s Supper are not as important to the gospel writers as the theological implications found in the liturgical actions of our Lord. Each synoptic writer brings his Spirit inspired memory and theological understanding to the account. Contrary to the expectations of many moderns, the focus is on the worship and work of the Church. The thematic harmony is actually quite remarkable.

Why a “first” cup in Luke? It is not satisfying to simply note, as do several sources, that “several cups were offered during the Passover meal.” Why does Luke note this particular detail? It is not what one expect in a gospel with such universal appeal. This cup will be (verse 17) divided amongst the apostles. The reader has his attention drawn back to the eleven. Luke has Peter and John (22:8) sent to prepare the Supper. This too draws attention to the chief of the apostles.

Luke, I believe, is stressing the special and foundational role of the Apostles in the Church. He is tying this unique role directly to the heart of the liturgical life of the Church. The first cup is given to the apostles to divide equally amongst them. The special anointing belongs to all of them, not just to a single apostle such as Peter. Church government and liturgy go hand in hand. The first cup, the never repeated cup, is given to the Apostles and the work of the Church is built on that foundation.

What is the value of the “remembering” that takes place in Luke 22:19? Christ uses a term for memory with a long philosophical history. We celebrate commumion in recollection of Christ. Luke is the only one to draw Christ’s use of the word recollection to our attention. It is a word first significantly used by Plato in his Meno to describe the recollection that takes place when one recalls the Truth found only in the eternal world of the Forms. While Luke is no Platonist, this does seem significant. Memory for an ancient is a mysterious and profound thing. It is experential and not just propositional (though it is certainly that as well). Communion is a cognitive re-experiencing of a thing already known in the life of a Christian through the experience of his salvation. Whatever else it may mean, and sadly this divides traditional Christians, it is a symbolic recollection that has real power.

The Christian who has experienced the unity and mystery of the Faith in his salvation within the fellowship of the church is able to enter into and recall that process again. Such a Christian is able to become part of the eternal Now that Boethius writes of in his Consolation of Philosophy. The Lord’s Supper is now and ever shall be talking place to change all things and bring them back to right relationship with God. This is not an unnatural moment, as some Latin theology suggests, but the right and natural order of the cosmos, slowly being restored by the work of Christ.

John is unique in that it does not give the liturgical language of the Supper. In fact, the gospel does not even describe the supper. John dismisses the entire affair in a single verse at 13:2. As the last gospel to be written at the very close of the Apostolic Age, John places the liturgy in the context of Jesus’ teaching and prayers for the Apostles, the Church, and the World. This might seem odd in the light of the earlier gospels with their stress on liturgy. The synoptics, however, tie the Jesus of history to the liturgy. They place the events of the Passover and Holy Thursday into the life of the Church and the Apostolic government. The gospel of John, on the other hand, ties the liturgy to theology and the life of prayer (which cannot really be pulled apart.)

John actually spends by far the longest time on the events of the evening of Holy Thursday. What, however, is the theology of those events? In the discussion of the vine (15: 1-17), Christ points to the essential unity of the Church formed out of the matrix of His Supper. This is given even more powerful emphasis in the Apostolic and Church prayers (17: 1-26). The Holy Spirit (15: 26, 16: 5- 15) will be the helper of the Christian in making the way to the Father (14:1) clear. The Holy Trinity is, thus, most clearly expressed. It is not accident that this pivotal doctrine should be taught right after the Feast. It is at this point, when the Church has just been made one at the common table, that the unity and personhood of the members of the Trinity can best be seen. John is, therefore, the ultimate pattern for theological study in the life of a faithful churchman.

The gospels have presented us with four different accounts of the Supper. They are in essential agreement. Where they differ, we have seen that the differences are due, not to error, but to the different needs of the various gospel writers. There is one message: the Supper ties history and theology together. It is the meeting place of God and man. It is the experiential reminder to all Christians that there is wonderworking power in the blood of the lamb. .

Thanks to Hugh Hewitt for alerting me to the fact that some people, even normally good and responsible people, are calling for violence or useless and counterproductive illegal activity in the Terri Schaivo case.

As I noted in an earlier post, her parents may feel compelled to try to take her food or to protest in some non-violent way. Civil disobedience that is non-violent from parties that are directly involved, like the brave African-American civil rights protesters of the sixties, has an old and honored tradition in America. Such persons must be prepared to face the due legal consequences of those actions. One cannot engage in civil disobedience lightly or just because a single injustice to someone else is being committed. One should also resist the temptation to raise money, seek attention for an organization, or grandstand while pretending civil disobedience. Let the parties involved and their many friends weigh what they wish to do. Those of us in California, for example, should best pray which is, after all, the most effective petition of all. Vitally, we must do nothing to rock the foundations of this precious republic. No single human life, however unjustly taken, is worth the horror of the destruction of the rule of law.

That is a tough thing to say, but I mean it. I have written strongly about the great injustice, the barbaric inhumanity, being done to Terri Schaivo. I mean every word of that. However, nothing would be worse than to practice a greater injustice in her name and to sow the seeds for civil war.

Socrates was condemned to die by the city of Athens. He accepted his own death and died to expose the injustice (indeed tyranny) of the majority. Why? He could have escaped. He argued, I think rightly, that he had benefited from the laws of the city of Athens. He could not, just to save his own life, undermine those laws in his old age. Socrates died to preserve the laws of Athens for the next generation. This is heroism. His followers did not dare taint his sacrifice by violence.

Jesus was unjustly condemned by the Roman state. This is a fact that Western Christians remember today. Our Lord, who had all authority, chose to go to his death. His followers did not use the sword to try to save Him. They lacked that authority. The Christ was not willing to live by the sword of the violent and angry man cut off from the city and the state.

The United States is still the most just country on the planet. We still have due process under law. Every day, all over this nation, hundreds of cases are tried. Most are tried wisely and well. However, this is not yet heaven and some cases are decided badly. A few are decided very badly. If the Schaivo case begets a flood of evil, then a time for deep thought and careful judgment about stronger action will come. However, that time is plainly not yet upon us. (Thanks be to God!) We still have the right to vote out bad judges and to elect better men to appoint sound judges. Until we lose that right, we must not consider taking benefits from the state, including the right to vote, while taking the law in our own hands when we do not like the decisions of that state.

Governor Jeb Bush has sworn to uphold the constitution of the state of Florida and to enforce the laws of that state. He is also a citizen of the United States sworn to uphold our wonderful constitution. That constitution has been twisted and warped by bad judges acting in a tyrannical manner. However, there is still peaceful recourse to solve the problem of these judges. Bush can appoint better judges as he has the chance. At this point this is all we can do without bringing a greater injustice to pass. We must not dishonor poor Terri Schaivo by using her suffering as an excuse to bring even greater suffering. As single persons we simply do not have the authority or the ability to do more at this point than pray.

An individual has fewer God given rights than the state. The state can take your money. God calls it taxes. You take your neighbors money, even if you need it, and God calls it stealing. The state may take too much of your money in taxes, but you pay it anyway. You render to the state even what it unjustly takes. Why? God knows better than we do the horrors of civil war and the injustice and tyranny that flows from civil unrest. Except in the most extreme cases, Burke is a good guide here, even a fairly unjust state is better than the chaos of every man doing what is right in his own eyes. (Don’t believe me? Read the Biblical book of Judges!)

The state can take life. God allows the state to raise armies and execute the guilty. The state makes mistakes doing this, but if it acts reasonably and in decent order, then the citizen must tolerate some error. Why? One man lacks the standing to take the law in his own hands. History shows that individuals who do so bring murder and evil in their wake. Think of John Brown, who was a terrorist for the otherwise noble cause of abolition. He died on a gallows, freed no slaves, and murdered many. The path of Lincoln, election and persuasion, is one hundred times harder, but much more effective than that of Brown. The hot heads and radicals who took the law in their own hands brought on good folk a civil war that killed more people than all our other wars combined. It took the genius of Lincoln to defend the rule of law from both his own radicals and the South. We need not look far for a party of Lincoln to give our time, treasure, and precious vote in order to save the next Terri Schaivo. We will never forget her and we will rally to the good men, like George and Jeb Bush, who tried to save her. We will never support any John Brown who tries to use her as a prop to messianic illusions.

The case of Terri Shaivo should motivate us to never again vote for a politician who embraces the culture of death. We must work harder for men like George and Jeb Bush who respect life. Having said that we must be willing to lose some battles. Just as our brightest and best sons must die in Iraq to bring freedom to that nation so some of us, like Terri Schaivo, may become martyrs to the cause of human dignity. It is not what we would wish and we agonize over it, but it is what may yet set us free. We mourn for the injustice of the Schaivo case, but will not dignify her killers by acting unjustly ourselves. Instead, we will never forget her and vote against every government official who aided in her unjust death.

Any person who calls for taking the law in their own hands is wicked, or an idiot, or so angry that he is not thinking. He must be wicked if he knows the horror of civil war and would begin the fighting in a commonwealth where voting is still possible. He would destroy many lives to possibly save one. He is an idiot if he believes that any revolution so conceived would replace our noble constitution with anything less than tyranny. But I trust that the Christian leaders or people calling for overly strong action are simply so angry that they are not thinking well. . . good men driven by wrath to hasty words. We will see if they take those words back and obey the laws of our nation.

God save the United States of America.

The Three Essentials of Education: Part III On Books

She turned and said with a thoughtful manner, she always had a thoughtful manner, “Books are no longer the literature of our culture. Movies are now way the masses receive truth.” So a seminar speaker, long ago, introduced me to the idea that perhaps literacy is a thing of the past. We are, she proclaimed, “a post literate people.”

If I accept this, I still wonder at accepting it. For some reason, we are to rejoice in it instead of combating it. This is deemed progress so it must be opposed, but there is nothing progressive about it. It is simplest to see it as a return the slavery of illiteracy.

Even the phrase “post literate” is nonsense. Christians have always taught people to read. God, after all, sent a book not a video. We did not let the pagan Irish wallow in their symbols of other gods rudely painted on stone walls. Why should we let the pagan Americans sink back to pictures flickering on modern walls?

I do not hate movies. Indeed, I own hundreds of them! However, they can never replace books and I do not express this view because I am old and simply love books. There are good reasons to think that all Christians should learn to read and to read well.

Books make arguments. As a result, leaders will always read. Leaders are persuaded by arguments while slaves listen only to their passions. What other form of media can contain the carefully weighed exposition of a fine philosophical argument?

Movies cannot argue only cajole and persuade. This does not make them bad, just different. However, it does leave books an essential task: making the arguments only books can contain.

Arguments are the orderly discovery of truth, goodness, and beauty. Learning to love a good argument opens the minds a leader to new possibilities based on reason and orderly thinking. The alternative is (to paraphrase Mary Poppins) “disorder, chaos, in short you get a ghastly mess.” Arguments do not mean meaningless disagreement, of course. A good argument moves from the known carefully through the unknown to new discoveries. An easy example of this process is found in natural science.

Science will never be done in movies, but in print. Scientists will always be literate as a result. As science exercises great power in our culture, there is no place for leaders who will not read.

Books require dialogue in a depth no other media can allow. The author speaks to us, but his message is heard in our minds. We create part of what he leaves hidden. Just as a comic book requires more imagination than a movie, since we must fill in the “action” between the frames of the comic, so a book requires more imagination still. Even the most descriptive writer leaves great scope for the imagination. Until the film, there must have been millions of images of Gandalf in the minds of readers of Lord of the Rings. This use of the imagination is good for the mind.

Books bring new friends. Only books can carry the messages of long lost civilizations to us. Whatever its merits as a medium, Plato did not have a way of making movies. To lose the ability to read well is to leave most of human wisdom as lost to us as Atlantis.

God wrote a book. That fact alone has inspired thousands of Christians to give their lives to teaching others to read. If we love God, then we will love His book. Why would we want someone else to read it for us? Why would we want someone else to tell us what it means when we could unlock those precious truths for ourselves? The “post literate” Christian has turned over his theology to someone else. He could not possibly check the abuses of his leaders nor could he gain the joys of the text on his own. Both joys and sorrows will come from his masters who tell him what God’s word says. Why would any Christian do this?

Of course this raises the obvious question, “Why read a book other than the Holy Book?” I am tempted to say, “Well, you are reading these words now. The least you could do is use your down time to read Plato! But that is a flippant answer to a serious question.

First, other books open us to the possibility of our own error. Is Christianity true? The good Christian will explore this idea openly. If God is Truth, then He does not need to be defended by ignorance or fear of other ideas. Instead, we honor Him best when we explore the possibility that we are wrong about what He has said. I have found this process only deepens my faith and makes me more secure and not less.

Second, other books open us to deeper truths in God’s Word. Much of the cultural background to Scripture can only be learned by grasping the culture that formed the languages of the Bible. Of course this includes Greek and opens up the great works of classic civilizations as important to the believer.

However, this is not all. Great minds often expose ideas that are found in Scripture by seeming chance. Each great writer contains the image of God in his soul. He writes as best he can and sometimes God gives Him a fragment of His great wisdom. Because this wisdom comes to us in a new and fresh language it often illuminates truths in Scripture that have become old to us or we have missed in a familiarity that should produce love but often breeds complacency.

Third, the Bible does not contain all truth, just all truth necessary for salvation. Much of good human life, appropriate human activity, is not the focus of the Bible. The Bible contains all that is necessary for salvation, but man is not merely a creature to be saved. He must also be civilized since he must live today in the cities of men and cannot live yet only in the City of God. Even in the garden which man tended, he had homely tasks (compared to his relationship with God) that are not the focus of Scripture. That homely wisdom about jobs, family, and the cosmos is the proper subject of our reading in other books.

Having said that, I can honestly say that the more I have learned to love and honor Plato, the greater my hunger for God’s Word. It shines greater by far in comparison. My love for my wife does not dim my love for God, just points the way to it. Even Republic could no more overshadow the Bible than a star could overshadow the rising Sun. For me, great books have only driven me deeper into a devotional and educational life centered in the Greatest Book.

Avoid any education that claims to dispense with books. Shun any person who would have you read books about books, textbooks, before reading the great texts themselves. Bask in great ideas, beautiful words, and high culture. Why?

Some Victorians, and even twentieth century Americans, believed the great books or noble words themselves had saving power. Culture could be saved by reading the great books. This was wrong, of course. A great pearl of truth does nothing for a swinish man, but condemn him.

Only persons of character can benefit from texts. Those of us who want character bask in great books not because they save us but because it is a deeply human thing to do. Books are little creations of men created in the image of God. Men who love the Word speak words. These words are not permanent in themselves like the True Word. Instead, they are written down and so given a form of eternity. In reading them, we share in the community of human beings acting as God made humans to act. We are sharing in naming, one of the first acts God gave man. Reading ignoble texts or base books mocks that calling. Reading the classics fulfills it.

There is no real education without books.

Hugh Hewitt is right.

At the moment, just now, there is too much pain in the world.

An ailing Pope is suffering in Rome.

Terri Schiavo is being legally murdered in Florida. She experiences the agony of forced starvation.

And now in Minnesota a boy too young to vote has destroyed his own life and the lives of others. Families suffer and it horrifies me to think of even trying to say something to comfort the survivors.

Will someone now allow us to ask if our media culture of violence is good for the weakest in our midst? Will someone now allow us to ask if family structure should not center in children? Can we mourn a school culture where the weakest and the least attractive are marginalized, even by Christians?

I know there is a God and that He is good. I know evil is real and that it is the source of all the pain and suffering. I know that He would not have it so, but allows it. It must be better so.

And yet it is hard to face.

How can we live in such a world?

My temptation is to retreat from it. If I just turn on my much played DVD of Mary Poppins, then perhaps all of this will go away. Can’t I just go fly a kite?

But it is Lent, and in the West almost Good Friday. It is a time to face the reality of pain and movies like Mary Poppins are off my viewing list for a bit. Why? Because this is the time of year Christians force themselves to face the fact that just now the Kingdom of Heaven is not fully realized on Earth. Just now we are too far from the Heavenly City where all pain and suffering will be gone, or obviously meaningful, to feel comfort that we are her citizens.

I take comfort at such a dark moment in this. I serve a God who became man. And Jesus wept. Jesus, the God Man, stood before the tomb of his friend and wept. He knows our pain. He knows hurt. And then He allowed Himself to suffer in the ultimate act of solidarity with us. The weeping God is also the God who promises to make all things new and to take care that justice will be done.

In my foolish despair, I find it hard to trust His power. Power seems frightful. Power kills innocent women in hospital. Power gives children the ability to do what they should not be able to do. Who can trust omnipotence?

Except it is in His scarred hands. He been on the receiving end of power’s abuse. He knows the pain of untimely death. I can trust the Weeping God.

One of the glories of Christianity is the way the Holy Spirit has provided for the integration of practical piety, the life of the church, and theology. No place is this more evident than in the issue of repentance. According to Williston Walker, the early Church faced a difficult issue with the lapse of some converts to the faith during times of intense persecution. What was the status of such men following the persecution? Was there hope for those who committed grave sins after baptism? To avoid the danger of such sins, many people put off receiving baptism until as late in life as possible. The Roman Emperor Constantine did not enter the Church until he was essentially dying.

Such issues led to a close examination of the Bible. It was discovered that a profound grace was available to aid those who sinned after coming to faith in Christ. This grace, through repentance, was a continuing work of the grace received by the Christian at the time of his salvation. Salvation, in the forensic sense, was a one time declaration of righteousness. However, God’s grace continues to work in the Christian through repentance on the part of a Christian as he is sanctified. In my own life, I deeply regret, and have daily sorrow, for sins done since becoming a Christian. What can be done, as the late Keith Green used to sing, “with an old heart like mine?”

The historic church saw that repentance was not simply a one time affair confined to the moment of salvation. Escaping sin is not just about escaping hell. Divine grace transforms and from this divine effort comes holiness, naturally like fruit from a tree. Repentance is not merely something leading to salvation, though it is that. This “change of mind” is not just remorse, but a conversion. A mere, “Sorry,” is not enough when one faces the enormity of the nature of any sin.

For the Christian genuine repentance from sin after salvation (justification) involves a recognition of the nature of sin. Modern culture takes sin lightly, because it does not recognize that is rebellion against a Good God. The Christian knows that even the smallest sin impedes his becoming “like Christ.” He looks into the mirror of Sacred Scripture. The sinner sees that he does not measure up. He has missed the mark. Even though he is saved in terms of avoiding the penalty of Hell this is not enough to a person in love with Jesus. He longs to be like his Lord. His saving faith drives him to holiness.

Second, genuine repentance in the Christian life involves sincere contrition. Sincere contrition leads to a firm resolve to not repeat the sin. This is where the synergistic relationship between the Divine and human will is vital. Many people, not just Christians, find any process of positive change difficult without divine help, just ask any person involved with an AA group. At the deepest level, no human condition can be treated without divine grace. In the end, it is all God’s grace. Only the co-operating grace of God in conjunction with sincere contrition can save the day. Conjoining one’s repentance with that grace is the most important step in true repentance for the Christian.

Finally, the actions of the repentant Christian should match his intentions. The idea that Biblical faith does not lead to good works has no place in Christianity. Repentance is not mere assent to a new truth, but a quite literal metaphysical turning around. Of course, a real metaphysical change of direction always leads to a physical difference in the life of the subject of the change. Theology is not, for the Christian, merely about mental exercise, but about doing. A great weakness in what is now sometimes called “spiritual formation” is that it can attempt to be passionate and mental without being a “doing thing.”

True mystics, for example, are always demonstrating great personal piety that is both a reflection and a cause of their great religious experiences. One way this living, active, positive repentance can be shown is public advocacy for the culture of life. A true spiritual person battles for the unborn and for the dying. Like everything else in Christianity, repentance has a critical public component.

Repentance must be continuous, because the process of sanctification is always exposing more sin and evil in the soul of the growing Christian. The alternative to true and continuous repentance is hardening of the heart. There are no other options. One is either growing into a mature Christian or is becoming worse than a beast in a hardening of heart. Only close fellowship with believers in the church, the refreshing work of the Holy Spirit, and frequent tears of confession can keep the heart soft.

What is “hardness of heart?” This is the state when sin and wickedness in the individual’s life no longer stir the conscience. Pharaoh acted unjustly toward the children of Israel and so God, when He came on the scene in the ministry of Moses, hardened Pharaoh’s heart. This was not the fault of God. A heart tender from frequent confession and repentance will soften when God appears. The vain heart of Pharaoh, who never does confess to actual fault in the destruction of his nation, hardens like mud in the sun before the brilliance of God.

Practicable Christian piety that drove this profound discovery was also dependent on it. Saint Maximus the Confessor believed the Spiritual Way, the pathway to union with God, began with the “praktiki.” This was the practice of the virtues. This practice begins (and ends) with the life long habit of repentance. Without such repentance, the devoted Christian could never hope to reach a meaningful contemplation of God.

No one can reach purity and holiness without gaining the condition of a repentant heart. The paradigm Biblical example of such a heart is in the parable of the Prodigal Son. (Luke 15: 11-32) The wicked son leaves the Father and squanders his fortune. He eventually comes to see, however, the folly of his ways. He then takes the most important step. He leaves the pigs behind and comes back home. At that point, only the Father can restore the right relationship. The Father co-operates with the turning of the son and meets him on the road. More than that the Father lavishes gifts and favors on the repenting child. The son goes from a pig sty to a party. This is a wonderful example of what happens in the personal life of a Christian when he turns back home. Though he will continue to rue the error of his ways, that he ever left home, he will also receive great joy.

An interesting fact is that the joy in the parable was communal. The entire community, except the hard hearted older son, was part of the joy of Christian growth. Why do modern Christians think they can be godly without a growth in holiness?

The daily devotional is an excellent example of the daily integration of repentance with life. Central to the piety found in such important books as My Utmost for His Highest or The Way of the Pilgrim, holiness is not an option to a growing Christian. All great Christian devotional works call for repentance. The daily life and religious practice of repentance are, therefore, a major part of genuine Christian practice.

Such devotion to repentance also has a possible eschatological significance. Luke 24: 47 says, “. . . and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” This is part of the task of the Christian church. This was almost the last command Jesus gave in Luke’s gospel account. Such a message requires the full attention of the church. What are the best ways to carry it out?

The answer, in my opinion, is in the common practices of the church. As is usual in the Christian church, repentance was made part of the daily life of the church. Almost all churches, from those with informal services to those with very formal liturgies, frequently call members to personal reflection and repentance. No Christian ever walks alone. In many senses, the life of the Christian is captured within the fellowship of the church.

As can easily be seen, therefore, repentance is no exception to the usual integration in Christianity between private piety, the work of the church, and the dictates of theology. It is a weekly part of the liturgy of most churches, the private devotional life, and a grace in its own right for public services.