Religion Archives

I know it's not really a revolutionary notion, but if further proof were needed that (1) some people have waaaaaaay too much time on their hands and (2) the internet is the greatest thing ever created for pouring that time down an endless hole, I present to you:

1. The Bible - the whole Bible - translated into lolcat. Via Ace. If you don't know what lolcat means, I can assure you, it's not worth finding out.

2. But wait, there's more! There's also The Brick Testament, the stories of the Bible rendered in Legos. This one, at least, is entertaining beyond a few lines, and I can understand why someone would bother doing it, but still. It may sound like a cool educational idea, but like the Bible itself, there's a lot of stuff in there you would not show your kids.

(On the other hand, this is just coolness beyond description).

Lileks on debating the existence of God:

Hugh Hewitt had a three-hour debate between Hitchens and Mark D. Roberts the other night over the subject of God, and it was quite enjoyable, both for its depth and civility. I think Hitch won, ergo God Does Not Exist. Dynamite the churches! Of course, in such situations the atheist always wins, because he doesn’t have to prove anything. It’s like a color-blind man debating someone without sight about the existence of Red – a fascinating intellectual exercise that tests and reveals the talents and character of the debaters, but has little to do with the hue of the stuff that runs through your arteries.

Like a lot of conservative pundits, I could exhaust my server with examples of things Rev. Jerry Falwell said that I would not want to associate myself with, the short summary of which is that for much of his career, he was not a political asset to the conservative movement. (Go here, though, for one example of me defending Falwell on theological grounds)

But a man's passing has a way of focusing attention on the big things he did with his time on this Earth, rather than the raw, rough edges of his public statements. And an article in the current New Republic inadvertantly gives Rev. Falwell a legacy any man would be proud to leave behind:

The Catholic Church was the first to attack abortion: Even before Roe, the Church hierarchy coordinated a parish-by-parish effort to stop any sort of reform bill, including those for therapeutic abortions. This predominantly Catholic movement didn't broaden into the more ecumenical one we know until the late '70s and early '80s, when Protestant evangelicals first joined in. In 1978, Jerry Falwell preached his first sermon on abortion; a year later, the newly formed Moral Majority put abortion at the top of its list of secular humanist scourges. Two years later, Ronald Reagan was the first presidential candidate in U.S. history to run on a party platform that condemned abortion.

R.I.P.

PS - That TNR piece also claims - revealingly, of the dehumanized mindset that sets in on this issue - that partial-birth abortion isn't a big deal because "only" 2,200 of them are performed a year . . . how, I ask, would the writer of that piece respond if a conservative said that "only" 2,200 deaths from the Iraq War per year was too small a number to be of concern to anyone, or that "only" 2,200 executions a year shouldn't be enough for anyone to care about.

I thought so.

So the Ninth Circuit rejects claims that San Francsico discriminated in applying its noise ordinance against roving Christian evangelists, rejecting a rare marriage of evangelical Christians and the ACLU. Maybe it's just me, but my reaction to this case is that I can think of higer-leverage uses for dedicated Christian evangelists than preaching by loudspeaker on the streets of San Francisco.

Hat tip to Josh Trevino.

Yeah, another bunch of links and quick hits, heavy on politics and war.

*First of all, for my own purposes I should note here that as of this week I have been at my law firm for 10 years. A milestone, of a sort.

*This putatively hostile profile of Mitch McConnell makes him sound like the ideal leader for a legislative majority - a guy who's a brilliant master of parliamentary rules and techniques, a workhorse rather than a showhorse who has a keen understanding of how to hold his caucus together and has been an instrumental player in some of Bill Frist's biggest successes. The authors criticize him for not writing "landmark legislation" or taking to the airwaves, but they have to concede that McConnell has done, in his fight against campaign finance regulation, the very thing the Framers most hoped a a Senator would do - wage an unpopular one-man battle against landmark legislation that is simultaneously self-interested (by protecting incumbents) and hostile to our constitutional guarantees of free speech. And as for his partisanship, (1) the authors don't really even pretend that Tom Daschle wasn't an arch-partisan and (2) "bipartisan" legislation is usually a warning to watch your wallet anyway.

*While I share David Frum's frustration that Bush didn't spend more of his UN speech pressing the case against Iran, I thought this passage in the speech was one of the best articulations yet of why the battle against tyranny in the region is so important to the battle against terrorism - as Bush's predecessor would say to himself, "it's the propaganda, stupid":

Imagine what it's like to be a young person living in a country that is not moving toward reform. You're 21 years old, and while your peers in other parts of the world are casting their ballots for the first time, you are powerless to change the course of your government. While your peers in other parts of the world have received educations that prepare them for the opportunities of a global economy, you have been fed propaganda and conspiracy theories that blame others for your country's shortcomings. And everywhere you turn, you hear extremists who tell you that you can escape your misery and regain your dignity through violence and terror and martyrdom. For many across the broader Middle East, this is the dismal choice presented every day.

This is, by the way, a signal difference from the Cold War - the Communist bloc may have fed its citizens propaganda, but at least they were literate and educated, and thus easier to reach with a contrary message. Illiteracy is a particular problem in Egypt and one of the reasons why Egyptian society presents a greater danger than, say, Iraq or Iran of the populace embracing Islamist nutcases if given the vote.

*Links on the continuing saga of the threats of violence against the Pope for implying that Islam preaches violence: was Pope Benedict trying to build pressure for Christians to receive the treatment in Muslim lands that Muslims receive in Christian lands?; the archbishop of Sydney isn't backing down; David Warren on the BBC; and Fr. Neuhaus at First Things has some reflections. More detail on the violence and threats of violence here, here, here and here. Josh Trevino offers trenchant analysis, especially this parallel:

There's an illuminating historical incident from the tenth century that deserves wider dissemination, and that the Pope might have used in lieu of Manuel II Paleologue's quote. That Emperor was the last to enjoy a full reign in a free Empire; but nearly four hundred years before, the Empire was enjoying a resurgence. Manuel II Paleologue ruled barely more than Constantinople itself - but Nikephoros II Fokas ruled from Italy to the Caucasus, and from Bulgaria to Syria. He was a longtime foe of the Muslim Caliphate, and he observed that a signal advantage of the Muslims was their jihad doctrine. The Orthodox Church then - as now - regarded war as a regrettable necessity, with emphasis on the regrettable part, and soldiers returning from war would be made to perform some manner of penance before again receiving communion. By contrast, Nikephoros II Fokas observed that the Muslims who went to war were directly fulfilling the commandments of their faith, and were accordingly more motivated, violent, and relentless. The Emperor decided that the Christians needed a similar spiritual edge, and so he asked the Patriarch Polyeuktos in Constantinople to declare that any Christian who fell in battle was automatically a martyr. In effect, he requested a Christian version of jihad. The Patriarch and the entire Church hierarchy, so often in that era mere tools of Imperial policy, refused. The Emperor was forced to back down, and within a few short centuries, the Empire was overrun by the Muslims.

Trevino also points out something else. While the founder of Christianity was martyred by the State and the Church endured three centuries of persecution from its founding, Islam began as, and has for most of its existence been, the religion of power and the powerful, united with the State. There are examples of Muslims living under both the culturally light yoke of colonialism (in British India and the brief Western mandates over the former Ottoman territories from 1918 until just after WW2) and Communist opression (mainly in Kazakhstan and the other southern republics that left Russia at the collapse of the Soviet Union), but Islam for the most part does not share the heritage of other faiths in surviving separate from and in opposition to the State. None of this suggests that Islam is necessarily or by nature bad or dangerous, but it does underline why Islamic doctrines have been such potent and hard-to-defuse weapons in the hands of actual and would-be tyrants.

*I had hoped to get to the issue of the Senate Intelligence Committee reports on pre-Iraq-War intelligence sooner and in more detail, but I have only thus far had the chance to read parts of the reports. Critics of the reports have been out in full force on the Right - Stephen Hayes says the report glosses over Saddam's history with jihadist extremists, as does Deroy Murdock, Byron York looks at the fact that Chuck Hagel, a Republican on the committee, had a former Kerry campaign staffer on the committee staff, Wizbang has a link here to a piece that appears to rehash some of Hayes' reporting, and here to a CNN report from 1999 (quoted by Hayes in his book) claiming that Saddam offered asylum to bin Laden. Read and judge for yourself - like I said, I haven't had time to digest all of this yet.

*From the National Law Journal on the Supreme Court's new term:

"There are some stand-out cases and each of them will test whether this is a 'restrained' Court," said constitutional law scholar Douglas Kmiec of Pepperdine University School of Law, referring to the abortion, affirmative action and punitive damages challenges.

+++

Kmiec concedes that it is "very difficult at first blush" to see why a conservative, restrained court would take the [partial-birth] abortion challenges, since there is no circuit split and there is a recent precedent.

"Maybe the answer is: It's not a fully restrained court, especially in this case where Justice Kennedy has been waiting to prevail, and justices [Clarence] Thomas and [Antonin] Scalia have not fully signed on yet to the Roberts-Alito method of decision-making," said Kmiec.

Um, the Executive Branch has asked the Court to reverse lower court rulings that struck down an Act of Congress. I don't care what your judicial philosophy is in deciding a case like that, the Court is almost always going to take a case in those circumstances; it would be a serious dereliction of its institutional role not to.

*A female Supreme Court justice in Yemen? Baby steps.

*Lawrence of India: funny how this statute didn't get mentioned in Justice Kennedy's discussion of international precedents in Lawrence v Texas. Remember, foreign law only counts if it helps one side.

*Jane Galt has more on the illnesses of Ground Zero workers.

*Correction: Hekmyatar wasn't actually captured.

*Ricky West on Keith Olbermann's guest list.

Ace nails this one.

Everyone who complains about the Pope's quotation should first be asked: is it, or is it not true, that Islam commands that the faith be spread by the sword? Anyone who doesn't explicitly and unequivocally renounce that doctine should not be listened to.

A couple more random thoughts:

*Frankly, if it is controversial for the Pope to speak negatively about another faith, we're in trouble. As a matter of earthly politics, we expect our religious leaders to espouse tolerance; as a political strategy, it is sometimes prudent for people of many faiths to form alliances within free societies against secularists. But as a matter of propagating the faith - the first duty of the clergy - of course, the Pope is entitled to explain why another faith is false prophecy and leads to ill.

*If these guys take a shot at the Pope, they will have enemies they have not previously dreamt of.

Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy (which has expanded in size these days to the point where it resembles more an enterprise-in-fact than a conspiracy) points out that Pope Bendict has been taking a harder line in demanding that Muslim countries chip away at their oppressive treatment of Christians.

A group of Episcopalians wants to make Thurgood Marshall a saint. Via Bashman. Now, Marshall was a fine litigator who did a lot of good in his years as a practicing lawyer, and for the most part I wouldn't hold against him, in this particular context, the fact that he was a poor judge, as he was in most cases a well-intentioned one. But I do wonder about sainthood for a man who joined Roe v. Wade and, so far as I can tell, never repented of it.

Luigi Cascioli. Personally, I don't understand how anyone - regardless of their position on the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth - can believe that the man never walked this Earth, and I certainly don't understand how you would go about proving that in a court of law.

Of course, what is menacing here is the threat to use the legal system to outlaw Christianity.

"If you're putting up a Christmas tree in order to tick off the ACLU, you've really missed the point."

In a post on Harriet Miers, Jonathan Last quotes the conclusion of an article by Justice Scalia in the journal First Things, featuring some vintage Scalia. An excerpt:

Could it be, however, that Smith is inviting, tempting, seducing his fellow academics to consider the theological way out of the quandary--the way that seemed to work for the classical school?

As one reaches the end of the book, after reading Vining's just-short-of-theological imaginings followed by Smith's acknowledgment of "richer realities and greater powers in the universe," he (she?) is sorely tempted to leap up and cry out, "Say it, man! Say it! Say the G-word! G-G-G-G-God!" Surely even academics can accept, as a hypothetical author, a hypothetical God!

So, how exactly does this conversation go: "here, have some meth, and then let's talk about Jesus"?

Seriously, it's still an impressive and inspiring story of something good coming from a horrible situation, and God working through someone who didn't set out that day with any intention of spreading the Good News.

We hardly needed his latest blunder - publicly musing about the wisdom of assassinating Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez - to remind us that Pat Robertson is a fool and a liability to the conservative cause. (And proof that a good resume is no substitute for good judgment: among Robertson's attainments, in addition to his ministry, he is a graduate of Yale Law School and a combat veteran as a Marine in the Korean War).

What's so grating about this remark is that Robertson is a man of God, and as such ought to be much more careful about indulging speculation about resorting to violence than the average public figure. Assassinating tyrants may well be morally justifiable, but if a man of the cloth can't at least offer caution and restraint on our impulses in that direction, he's really not doing Jesus or His followers any favors.

And in that regard, this is considerably more problematic than just praying for the Lord to engage in some Old Testament-style smiting of Chavez. That, after all, is the distinction I find so troubling about many Muslim leaders; as I've written before:

I have no problem with people who believe that God is going to send me to Hell for being a Catholic. They believe their thing, and I believe mine. I have a major problem with people who think that they, rather than God Himself, should send me there.

(More on related topics here, here and here).

Of course, unlike many of the pronouncements of radical mullahs, nobody can seriously believe that anyone will threaten the life of Chavez as a result of Robertson's statement, so it's not really comparable in terms of the direct mischief caused. Instead, what's much more damaging about Robertson is simply that it gives Chavez, who like most tyrants thrives on his self-arrogated role as a victim of American plots, an excuse to further consolidate his power and spread yet more anti-American propaganda in Latin America. Thanks, Pat. You've given the real bad guys ammunition just as much as Dick Durbin ever did.

Finally, two last notes:

*Predictably, there was no such hue and cry when George Stephanopolous called for assassinating Saddam in 1997. (Via Wizbang). But in fairness, the situations were not the same. Chavez was orignally democratically elected, and while his re-election was likely the result of violent intimidation and outright fraud, he has considerably more plausible claims to some sort of legitimacy than Saddam did. Also, by 1997 we'd been to war with Saddam once, and appeared to be on the eve of war with him again as part of his decade-long failure to comply with the terms of the cease-fire; he'd tried to assassinate a former US president himself, he was openly paying terrorists in Israel, he'd been to war with Kuwait and Iran and bombed Israel and Saudi Arabia, he'd used chemical weapons in battle and against his own people . . . you know the drill. Chavez has made all sorts of trouble and promises more to come, but he doesn't (yet) have the kind of rap sheet Saddam did as far as putting himself beyond the pale of even the kind of conduct we have wearily grown to expect from rogue states, let alone civilized nations.

*Byron York argues that Robertson isn't as irrelevant to conservatism as some commentators make him out to be. Although he may in some ways be right, I find York's argument a bit unconvincing, as all he really points to is Robertson's TV ratings, and not everyone who still watches his show necessarily takes his political meanderings all that seriously.

OK, we all know that when the new pope was announced, they made the announcement with the Latin phrase for "we have a pope". But what's the proper spelling of that phrase? There certainly is plenty of disagreement:

1. Habemas Papam? (See here and here)

2. Habemus Papam? (See here and here).

3. Habemus Papem? (See here and here).

4. Habemas Papem? (See here).

5. Habemus Papum? (See here and here).

You say potato, I say . . . Any Latin scholars out there? Looks like #2 is the correct answer, since that's what's on the official Vatican website. Slate concurs.

Breaking. No name yet.

UPDATE (which I'm correcting on the fly): It's Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, 78 years old, reportedly now Pope Benedict XVI, one of the few cardinals appointed before the papacy of John Paul II. Ratzinger is considered, in common parlance, a "conservative" on matters of Church doctrine. He's the 265th pope, and - I believe - the first German. [Correction: first in a very, very long time; this article on papal names says the first German pope was in 996]

MORE: Sam Ser in the Jerusalem Post on Ratzinger's time in the Hitler Youth (membership was compulsory - the Nazis, you will recall, were big fans of compulsion - but Ratzinger was exempted from activities due to his religious studies) and his years in Nazi Germany (he lived under Nazi rule from age 6 to 18, and only becoming a priest saved him from induction into the SS). All of which may make the timing of this unfortunate.

I'm still digging out from the combination of work and Opening Day, but this one is a classic, from Powerline on Saturday: the NY Times ran a web obit of Pope John Paul II that included carefully pre-arranged criticisms of the Pope - including from an "eminent Swiss theologian, who was barred by from teaching in Catholic schools because of his liberal views" - but still included a space marked "need some quote from supporter."

Typical Times. How hard, really, is it to find not only a supporter of the pope but one of equal prominence to an "eminent theologian"? The National Review certainly didn't have trouble locating supporters of this pope.

Interesting article on Fr. Edwin Cipot, who was recently appointed by Cardinal Egan as director of vocations for the Archdiocese of New York. Before the priesthood, Fr. Cipot was a minor league ballplayer who just narrowly missed making the Mets in 1978, and an actor whose one cup of coffee in Hollywood was a tiny part in The Natural.

Earlier this week, the Pope provided a welcome reminder about Christmas.

Meanwhile, the usual silly controversies of this holy season are underway, to which Jim Geraghty has a good response. This is probably my last post of the year, so, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

This Nicholas Kristof column in last Wednesday's NY Times, denouncing the "Left Behind" series of novels popular among evangeical Christians, rather perfectly captures a misunderstanding of religious tolerance that is found too often on the Left, and one I've dealt with before. Here's Kristof:

The "Left Behind" series, the best-selling novels for adults in the U.S., enthusiastically depict Jesus returning to slaughter everyone who is not a born-again Christian. The world's Hindus, Muslims, Jews and agnostics, along with many Catholics and Unitarians, are heaved into everlasting fire: "Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and . . . they tumbled in, howling and screeching."

Gosh, what an uplifting scene!

If Saudi Arabians wrote an Islamic version of this series, we would furiously demand that sensible Muslims repudiate such hatemongering. We should hold ourselves to the same standard.

[snip]

I accept that [the authors] are sincere. (They base their conclusions on John 3.) But I've sat down in Pakistani and Iraqi mosques with Muslim fundamentalists, and they offered the same defense: they're just applying God's word.

. . . [I]f I praise the good work of evangelicals - like their superb relief efforts in Darfur - I'll also condemn what I perceive as bigotry.

See, here's the problem. Kristof isn't just asking the authors of these books to allow for people of other faiths to practice their own faiths in peace; he's demanding that the authors change what they themselves actually believe to be the Word of God. That's not a plea for religious tolerance; it is, in fact, religious intolerance, as Kristof is saying that the beliefs of these Christians are so offensive to him that they must be branded as "bigotry" and driven from public expression.

Let me put this another way to explain why the comparison to radical Muslims is so offensive. I have no problem with people who believe that God is going to send me to Hell for being a Catholic. They believe their thing, and I believe mine. I have a major problem with people who think that they, rather than God Himself, should send me there. It is right and proper and necessary to denounce religious extremists who are unable to accept the peaceable coexistence of people of different religions, who call for earthly violence and political opression against those of different faiths. But to demand that people give up the tenet of their faith - a central one in many faiths - that says that they are following the one and only path to salvation, that's what Stephen Carter has referred to as demanding that people treat "God as a hobby" rather than taking faith seriously. While it may in some circumstances be rude to say it, I wouldn't want to live in a country where people could not