Like Lose an Eye I didn't bother watching the debate last night. In fact, I don't watch debates since the last Presidential election season. As one who has actually read parts of The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, the debate between Bertrand Russell and Father Copleston on the existence of God, and a whole host of other debates, I find most political debates to be pathetically sophomoric.

Also, watching something I can just read a transcript of -- or a news story about -- is a terribly inefficient use of my time: I can read faster than anything will every happen in a debate. So I have read.

Most distressing was Giuliani's exchange with Romney on immigration. America's Mayor is supposed to be a hot-shot lawyer. Boy he must be out of practice.

In an effort, no doubt, at a tu quoque, he took Romney to task for employing illegals to do landscaping at his home. In order to deflect Romney's criticism of Giuliani's sanctuary-city-like immigration policy, Giuliani accused Romney of having a sanctuary mansion. When Romney explained that he didn't hire the people himself, but rather employed a landscaping company (which company -- not Romney --employed the illegals) Giuliani dismissed it as irrelevant because no matter how it occured the fact is that Romney had illegals working right under his nose.

What ever happened to intent? Because that -- and not the simple presence of illegals within one's jurisdiction -- is the issue. Giuliani intended to be lax in his policies. Romney didn't. Giuliani knew he had illegals; they weren't exactly under his nose. Romney didn't know, even if only because he didn't think it proper for him to ask about someone's legal status simply because they spoke with an accent. (Think about what Giuliani would have done with it if Romney had done so!)

Intent. It's relevant. It's absence on Romney's part is what separates him from Giuliani.

Then there was Senator McCain on waterboarding:

McCain, who has shown no love for Romney during the campaign, seized on Romney's response to a question about the legality of waterboarding as an interrogation technique. Romney said that as a candidate he would not publicly discuss what techniques he would rule out. That prompted McCain, a former Vietnam POW, to assert that waterboarding is indeed torture and should not be tolerated.

"Governor, let me tell you, if we're going to gain the high ground in this world ... we're not going to torture people," McCain said. "How in the world someone could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted on people who are in our custody is absolutely beyond me."

The Senator may want this thing he calls the high ground, but I want this thing I'm calling victory in the war on terror. Victory in a war and this "high ground" the Senator speaks of may be mutually exclusive objectives. There are some who think our doing nothing in response to 911 would have gained us this "high ground". Getting their idea of the "high ground" certainly will not get us a victory in a war. Since the Senator and these other people are both using the term "high ground" it must be something subjective. Victory in a war, on the other hand, is pretty objective, if not elusive at times.

And as for the legality of waterboarding -- as I've said at least once before: Let them continue to urge Congress to illegalize waterboarding if they object so strongly to it. Senator McCain can assert that waterboarding is torture. But as objectionable as waterboarding may be, it is not torture unless and until it is defined as such in the law. It isn't torture because McCain says it is. It's a rule of law kind of a thing. (Look at this way: Some people think abortion is murder. It isn't, not until Roe is overturned, returning the matter to the states and the states define it as such.)

So there it is. We have one candidate who can't (or just won't) distinguish between actively assisting illegal immigrants and simply being unaware of the immigration status of someone else's employees. And we have another candidate who thinks his opinion of what the law should say has the force of law, and people should be appraised accordingly.

Oh. Yeah. Senator McCain's we're-all-God's-children slap at the so-called based was a truly precious moment. We're all God's children is supposed to have some sort of specific implications for border enforcement policy I guess. Gosh. We're all God's children. Therefore what? His comprehensive immigration reform isn't really a logical implication of the proposition. We're all God's children. Well, heck, let's just do away with all borders. Then we won't have any illegal immigration to worry about. Anywhere.

You are now free to move about the globe.

H/T: Professors R-Squared

I don't think this news will really "quell" the stem cell debate. Even if this puts an end to the quest for embryonic stem cells, it really constitutes only an "armistice" , not a true end to the debate. "We're not going to do it this way after all because we found another way," is not the same as "We're not going to do it this way because doing so is unethical."

In reality, I don't think it will be a long-lived armistice, either.

The reprogrammed skin cells may yet prove to have subtle differences from embryonic stem cells that come directly from human embryos, and the new method includes potentially risky steps, like introducing a cancer gene. But stem cell researchers say they are confident that it will not take long to perfect the method and that today’s drawbacks will prove to be temporary.

If the researchers are wrong and cannot perfect the method; if they are wrong and the drawbacks prove not to be temporary -- then the debate will prove not to have been quelled.

Then there is a certain prejudice here. You know how you know people whom you so dislike that if they are for something you are just positive you need to be against it? There are some people who, in addition to scientific curiosity, just cannot stand the idea that the pro-life movement might "win" something.

Much of this goes back to Galileo's conflict with the Church over heliocentrism, from which the Church still has a black eye. (Of course, the problem is that the Church had made Aristotelianism synonymous with Christian orthodoxy. But any Church which makes that sort of move deserves the black eye it gets as a result.) If anyone associated with any religious perspective objects to a research program, then it is another "Galileo" moment, with affected scientists in the role of persecuted scholar, in the second-oldest conflict in human history: academic freedom versus religious orthodoxy. (The oldest conflict is good versus evil.) Then, of course, there is the conflict between evolutionism and its opponents. "Which scientific breakthrough have these people not opposed?", one might well ask.

So, if "these people" are against it, then we must be on the right track.

I wonder, though, if our pro-life scruples are really understood. Because of the religious connection (most pro-lifers are Christians, Jews and Muslims) those scruples are summarily dismissed as primarily religious in nature. Being summarily dismissed, those scruples may not be understood, not because opponents of pro-life positions are stupid, but because those scruples really haven't been contemplated.

Our scruples are rooted in the fact that we think the human embryo is, well, human. Some believe that the humanity of the fetus, though not explicitly asserted, is implicitly asserted by the way Scripture talks about the life in the womb. Others of us believe that the embryo is human because this proposition seems to follow from the proposition that like begets like. The proposition is at least arguable. It is also a philosophical proposition, not a religious one.

That the embryo is human is an important idea for us, with specific regard to scientific research, because most people recognize that scientific research involving human subjects, at least in the U. S., must be guided by four principles:

1. Respect for autonomy of humans
2. Beneficence
3. Justice
4. Non-maleficence

Right there is where we get into difficulty. Respondents usually talk as if we mean by human with respect to the embryo what we mean by human with respect to, say, a neophyte, a toddler or even an adult. Since, on their view, embryos are not human, the principles of bioethics do not guide research involving them. And, of course, they usually do not fail to ridicule our contention about the humanity of the embryo.

The fact is we don't mean that an embryo is human in terms of consciousness, especially as respects the ability to feel pain. We simply mean that, as the offspring of two humans, the result of the union of two gametes, it is human offspring. And, whether conscious or not, humans are entitled to protections.

No, unlike a fetus (arguably) an embryo doesn't feel anything, isn't conscious -- probably. So more than likely it has no awareness of what is happening to it. But to stress this is to make consciousness the essence -- or close thereto -- of being human. Is it? Certainly consciousness is an attribute of being human. But it's only one attribute. How important an attribute is it? Is consciousness the essence of what it is to be human, the most important (or simply just the most relevant) attribute of a human? Perhaps it is, but that is not a scientific question; it is a philosophical one. And people who argue in the negative (i.e., against the proposition that consciousness is the essence, or most important attribute of being human, etc) are not offering a religious answer. (Indeed, I doubt that we shall find in Scripture an assertion -- explicit or tacit -- of the most important attribute of being human.)

And as a philosophical question it's problematic. It may be that of all the attributes which humans possess, consciousness is the most important one. So important that the fact that an embryo is not conscious (right?) means that it may be used for purposes of scientific research. On the other hand, it may be that simply being the offspring (at any stage of development!) of human parents is the most important attribute, perhaps even the essence of what it is to be human. Regardless which of the many attributes humans possess is the most important (for purposes of bio-ethical matters), it is problematic for a member of the human race to say which of all the attributes possessed by members of the race is essential, or at the very least the most important attribute when it comes to legal protections.

We can concede that this probably is not conscious:

Unwelcome thoughts while praying? (“Unwelcome” is putting it generously.) This may not be the end of the world. And it need not signal the death of your prayer life – if handled properly.

It is of the nature of inner prayer to reveal the hidden passions concealed in the human heart and to tame them. Inner prayer shows us our captivity to the fallen spirits, making us realize our imprisonment and freeing us from it.

There is no need, then, to be disturbed and perplexed when passions rise up from our fallen nature or when they are spurred on by evil spirits. Since passions are tamed by prayer, when they arise we should practice the Jesus Prayer inwardly, very quietly and without haste: little by little this will allay the up-surging passion. At times the onset of passions and the invasion of hostile thoughts are so powerful that it leads to a great struggle in the soul. This is the time of hidden martyrdom. When assailed by passions and devils, we should proclaim our faith in the Lord by devoting ourselves with the utmost persistence to prayer. This will invariably bring us victory. – St. Ignatii Brianchaninov

Now, whether or not one practices the Jesus Prayer, the principle is the same: one just may, in the course of earnest prayer, have one's hidden passions revealed. St. Ignatii’s advice would then be the same.

Well, it might have been, but when the book store in your local mall can't make it, while every store catering to every interest an adolescent (including the over-forty adolescents) can possibly have (especially clothing and music), a story like this just doesn't surprise you.

Sometimes I think it would be great to be able to control the thoughts of the weak-minded in order to make them read more -- like that scene in "Attack of the Clones":

Elan Sleazebaggano: Wanna buy some death sticks?
Obi-Wan Kenobi [using a Jedi Mind trick]: You don't want to sell me death sticks.
Elan Sleazebaggano: I don't want to sell you death sticks.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: You want to go home and re-think your life.
Elan Sleazebaggano: I want to go home and re-think my life...

It would be great to do that to the kids and young adults selling trinkets in the kiosks at the mall.

Trinket-seller: Excuse me, sir. Would you like to buy a gnome?
James [using a Jesuit mind trick]: You don't want to sell me gnome.
Trinket-seller: I don't want to sell you a gnome.
James: You want to go home and re-think your life.
Trinket-seller: I want to go home and re-think my life.
James: And read some books.
Trinket-seller: And read some books.
James: Lots of books.
Trinket-seller: Lots of books.
James: Especially non-fiction.
Trinket-seller: Especially non-fiction.
James: But you'll finish your shift first, of course.
Trinket-seller: But I'll finish my shift first, of course.

That would be fun. Sort of.

Of course, reading more in and of itself wouldn't signify anything. Some time ago we were treated to news that liberals read more than conservatives, as if reading simply more books is an unqualified good. The content of the books themselves would, apparently, be irrelevant. It could be that we're reading less in terms of quantity, but better in terms of content and quality.

Not, of course that we'd all agree on quality. A relative of mine thinks Stephen King is a wonderful writer. I don't. Neither does Harold Bloom. I think Walker Percy is a wonderful writer -- well, was.

But I doubt Americans are reading better in terms of quality than they are in quantity. And I don't think it would pay very well to speculate. One could proffer the suggestion that we just enjoy ignorance. After all, we are notoriously "anti-intellectual." Of course, I think we are so in the best possible way: we don't mind them. In fact, we value them as long as they remember their place. We don't mind being advised by them -- just being ruled by them. We'd sooner be ruled by people selected at random than by the top one hundred graduates of an Ivy League university.

Even if there were not this spirit of "anti-intellectualism", intellectuals themselves have rather harmed the notion of the importance of reading. Once you've read through a handful of texts in contemporary literary criticism (and especially after you've learned to deconstruct everything from your favorite author to the evening news), why bother reading? What can the written word possibly have for you? Truth? Certainly not. A regime of truth, more likely. Entertainment? Perhaps. But then why bother with the tedious process of decoding the written word, for entertainment, when you can play HALO, or whatever else floats your boat?

Reading, for fun? Why bother?

Note: My reference to "Jesuit mind trick" is not to suggest that Jesuits have -- and use -- unethical mind tricks to work their will in people. As a former wanna be Jesuit, I have a great deal of respect for Jesuits, despite the fact that I am outside of Roman Catholic orthodoxy.

John Chrysostom, on preparing for Sunday worship (or Saturday, for you 7th Day brothers):

[W]e are to-day to set foot within the holy vestibule, wherefore I have also put you in mind of the charge.

Since, if the Jews, when they were to approach “a mountain that burned, and fire, and blackness, and darkness, and tempest;” or rather when they were not so much as to approach, but both to see and to hear these things from afar;—were commanded for three days before to abstain from their wives, and to wash their garments, and were in trembling and fear, both themselves and Moses with them; much more we, when we are to hearken to such words, and are not to stand far from a smoking mountain, but to enter into Heaven itself, ought to show forth a greater self-denial; not washing our garments, but wiping clean the robe of our soul, and ridding ourselves of all mixture with worldly things. For it is not blackness that ye shall see, nor smoke, nor tempest, but the King Himself sitting on the throne of that unspeakable glory, and angels, and archangels standing by Him, and the tribes of the saints, with those interminable myriads.

For such is the city of God, having “the Church of the first-born, the spirits of the just, the general assembly of the angels, the blood of sprinkling,” [Heb. 12.22, 23, 44] whereby all are knit into one, and Heaven hath received the things of earth, and earth the things of Heaven, and that peace hath come which was of old longed for both by angels and by saints.

Herein standeth the trophy of the cross, glorious, and conspicuous, the spoils won by Christ, the first-fruits of our nature, the treasures of our King; all these, I say, we shall out of the Gospels know perfectly. If thou follow in becoming quietness, we shall be able to lead thee about everywhere, and to show where death is set forth crucified, and where sin is hanged up, and where are the many and wondrous offerings from this war, from this battle…. From "Homily on Matthew 1.1"

According to Greyhawk, there are two Iraqs, one in which things are going well and one, a media creation, which is a distaster.

The Iraq we need to abandon is the Iraq that the media have created. It's a lengthy post, well worth the read. It ends like this:

So I'm walking to the gym. Under my feet: four inches of gravel pave the way. Concrete t-wall sections form unbroken fortress walls on either side of my path. It's early in the morning, so the shadow of the wall on my left is shading that half of the road. A breeze is blowing, and in the shade in the moments just after dawn that breeze hits me in my shorts and t-shirt and chills me just enough that I take a few steps sideways and into the sun. And then it hit me - I'd been walking in the shade because that's what I - and everyone else here - had done throughut the 120 degree summer and on into the merely 90 degree days of early fall. And while the change has been gradual, it was only today that I noticed it, as I broke a time-worn habit and passed from the too-cool shadows into the glowing warmth of the morning desert sun. And I'm whistling a tune...

The media have been rather interesting to watch with respect to the war issue. They do seem to be doing much of their reporting so selectively as to give the impression that they are committed to undermining the war effort.

By and large they certainly give that impression. But I wonder about something.

I have a friend who is a counselor, a Christian counselor. For some time he taught the adult Sunday School I attended a few years ago. In the course of one session he made the comment that after decades of counseling he's convinced that most people are doing the best they can -- even if their best, quite honestly -- stinks. Failure, he said, is not prima facie proof of not trying.

Maybe the real problem, as it concerns the media, is not that they are trying to undermine the war, though I recognize that possibility. Maybe the real problem is that many of them just don't like war, an obvious enough point, but bear with me.

When I was an early teenager I complained to my dad about someone who didn't like me, despite there being not the slightest possibility of my having done something to this person. "Son," my dad said, "learn to accept now the fact that no matter where you go in life, someone, somewhere is just not going to like you for no reason. And there won't be anything you can do, up to and including sexual favors, that will change their minds about you."

I have noted over several decades that my father was indeed correct.

I have also noted the way people treat those they dislike in comparison with those whom they like. Take this person I just mentioned. One day (it was winter, junior high) a friend of his slipped and fell on some ice and he helped his friend back to his feet. They both got a laugh out of it, but it was the laughing with, not laughing at. Just a few days later, I slipped on some ice and (wouldn't you know it!) this nemesis of mine was there and got a great laugh out of it (i.e., laughing at, not with). I also noticed that this guy's friends could say something, and I could say the same exact thing. There was a problem only with things I said. One day, one of this guy's friends told him I soiled his shirt with my nasal discharge -- which was certainly not true. But because it was me, he believed it.

It is easy to believe the worst, to see only the worst about someone or something we do not like. That guy didn't like me; and everything I said or did was wrong, even if it was the exact thing one of his friends said or did. That's life.

The media do not like war. There is, therefore, nothing about this war which can have any redeeming value. To suggest that a war is going well is to assert an oxymoron, like bad scotch or something. A good war is like a good disease. There's a greater likelihood of someone being "pretty ugly" than of having a "good war".

It only gets worse when you throw in the media's obvious dislike of the President and most of his cabinet.

H/T: Blackfive

A distillation of the debate as reported here:

Clinton: You other candidates are distorting my record.
Others (in unison, with Obama hands clasped in front of him, clearly hearing the National Anthem playing somewhere): No we're not.
Clinton: Yes, you are.
Others (in unison, Edwards poofing his hair): NO, WE'RE NOT!
Clinton: Yes, you are and you're slinging mud too, just like Republicans.
Others (in unison, Biden trying to look like he's been able to keep up): Hey, take that back!
Clinton (trying to overcome the damage done by her campaign's complaining about how the guys keeping beating up on her, a poor, virtually single mother, still married -- and faithful -- to a philandering horn dog): And your doing it not because I'm a woman but because I'm ahead.

After having assumed multiple positions on issues like the war in Iraq and licenses for illegal aliens, Mrs. Clinton had the temerity to assert, “The American people know where I stand.”

Yes. With both feet planted firmly on a single pair of water skis, but holding on to ski ropes fastened to two boats, not exactly traveling in the same direction.

I'm still trying to figure out this assertion by Obama: "As long as we're distracted by this problem, we're not solving it."

Politiconese -- it's like a whole other language.

"It does not take a stethoscope to hear the pulse of New Yorkers on this topic," Mr. Spitzer said, standing with a half-dozen members of New York’s Congressional delegation who had supported his original move to give licenses to illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigrants driving legally.

Admitting he has failed to sell New Yorkers on the merits of the plan, NY Gov. Spitzer is giving up his plan to license illegals to drive.

Merits? What are the merits of making it possible for people in a nation illegally to drive in that nation legally? What hubris: It is not that the plan was without merits, but that the voters just couldn't be convinced of the merits. The plan itself has the merits. The problem is the voters. (Darn them! Idiots!)

I wonder what he'd do for an encore. Offer chips and beer to a man who broke into his house to watch a football game?

"You're here illegally. But, by all means, help yourself to our streets."

Then there's Jose Serrano:

Today, it is not Spitzer that lost, it is America...because we could have gotten a long way in New York to dealing with a real issue.

Frankly I don't see the loss in a nation's asserting its sovereignty. Not licensing illegals is quite consistent with the notion of border enforcement, which is itself consistent with national sovereignty. I don't see the loss in a nation's refusing to make it easier for those who have crossed its borders illegally to travel about on its roads with impunity. (Here's something I'd like to see: for Spitzer and his ilk cross into Mexico, or even Canada, illegally and apply for a driver's license. I'm keen to learn how that works out for them!)

It is amusing -- bit in no way surprising -- to note that, for Serrano, "dealing with a real issue" means dealing with it the way Democrats think it should be dealt with. My way or the highway! So to speak. Like the way some couples compromise.

Husband: I want a dog. She wants a cat.
Friend: So what are you going to do?
Husband: We compromised.
Friend: Oh? How's that?
Husband: We're getting a cat.

One has to wonder just how a nation loses by treating people as if they truly are in said nation illegally.

"Mr. Auslander, you're here illegally. Now, we can't have you driving on our roads without a license. So, here's your license. And remember, Mr. Auslander: if you break any of our really important laws (not our immigration laws, of course) you may be subject to deportation. So behave yourself out there. Seriously. We mean it. Really. No foolin'."

Like Yakov Smirnof used to say: "What a country!"

from a Liberal, naturally.

Drudge is reporting:

CNN's Wolf Blitzer has been warned not to focus Thursday's Dem debate on Hillary. “This campaign is about issues, not on who we can bring down and destroy,” top Clinton insider explains. “Blitzer should not go down to the levels of character attack and pull ‘a Russert’.”' Blitzer is set to moderate debate from Vegas….

A caller to Limbaugh, identifying himself as a liberal who will vote for Hillary, argues against the report by asserting that the Clintons are smarter than that.

Well. There you go.

1. According to Mr. A it is the case that Ms. B has done Z.
2. But Ms. B is smarter than to have done Z.
3. Therefore it is not the case, as Mr. A claims, that Ms. B has done Z.

Brilliant.

If only we all would not do things we are too smart to do.

Note: I am not implying that conservatives don’t offer “brilliant” logic of their own. However, in my experience, it is liberals who are always making sure everyone knows how better educated, how much smarter – and well read!!! – they are than everyone else. (And if the issue isn’t who’s smarter, then it’s who’s more compassionate [with other people’s money, of course].)

According to this story about oil profits, oil companies are going to have difficulty keeping their profits as high as they have been. But of course no one's going to be crying over it: they make billions in obscene profits.

In our innumerate society it is irrelevant that those billions have rarely amounted to more than a profit of around 10% -- give or take a few percentage points. (And yes I have been tracking.) We are supposed to believe, according to the "innumerati", that once a company makes billions it is immaterial that those billions represent a profit of only ten percent. The relative size of the business in terms of the amount of business it does and the scope of its operations are irrelevant.

The word on the street is that the issue is "obscene" profits -- like the obscenity of a 10% profit, which is "obscene", recall, because that 10% amounts to billions, rather than millions, or merely thousands. And whatever the profit margin (as a percentage), billions of dollars in profits are obscene. If those billions represented a paltry 2% they would probably still be called obscene. Even, ostensibly, if some of the people with a right to a share of those profits are old people who own shares of mutual funds whose managers wisely invested in petroleum companies.

I suspect that the real issue is the whole concept of profit. For some, making a profit means selling something for more than it's worth. If you, as a car dealer, buy a car for $30K and then turn round and sell it for more than $30K plus your cost of doing business, then you are ripping people off by selling the product for more than it's worth. (Never mind that two people rarely place identical values on identical goods.) It's just that, for now, "obscene" profits are easier to attack than non-obscene profits. But this is only because economics and mathematics educations stink to high heaven in our republic. As a consequence, people truly believe they can talk meaningfully of profits without considering the margin, as opposed to just the dollar figure.

And it's easy to dislike petroleum companies. (Actually, the behavior of many corporations, though perhaps not most, make them all relatively easy to dislike, especially those which make very bad CEOs into very rich CEOs. Honestly: why shouldn't people think ill of companies which will pay CEOs 364 times what the average employee makes just to run these same companies almost to the brink of disaster?) Where else can you just raise and lower your prices based on the market cost of raw materials?

Well, actually, just about everywhere. In my little corner of the world, people in the construction business have difficulty bidding jobs and guaranteeing the price for as long as 30 days from the date of bid due to fluctuating lumber costs. Sometimes the price can change drastically in the space of just a few days. And it doesn't matter where you get your lumber -- Lowe's, Home Depot. They raise their lumber prices because the lumber companies have done so.

I remember a period, over a decade ago when I was running a restaurant to put myself through graduate school. There were floods and droughts in various parts of the world. And these weather phenomena played havoc with my food costs. On several occasions it would go something like this. One week I might get a case of good lettuce for, say, $16. But the next week a case of lettuce would cost me $30. Why? Flooding in the area of the world my lettuce was coming from destroyed most of the lettuce crop. My supplier, incurring a higher cost, kindly passed that cost on to me.

Now, we decided not to pass that cost on immediately to the customer, betting that the crops in other parts of the world would be better and, thus, the cost of lettuce lower. We were right; and our customers never knew. Yes, it hurt the bottom line a bit; and yes we recouped our losses over the weeks and months after the Great Lettuce Crisis. But it was still a bet, still a risk; and we could have lost that bet big time. (Previously, in a similar crisis, we raised our prices and some of my customers treated me like an oil executive.)

The person who really increases your price at the pump is the owner of the station at which you fill up; and that may not be owned by a petroleum company like ExxonMobile. Apparently, some station owners leave prices alone, betting that crude price (but certainly not refining costs!) will drop again, allowing them to recoup their losses. That's their choice. But the companies that actually supply the local station owner may not have that choice in the long run.

And even if they do, 10% isn't very much. If it is, my employer is more obscene than an oil company. My employer aims at, and usually hits, a profit of 12%. Heavens to Betsy! Twelve percent? I suppose I should take him out back and shoot the greedy, thieving bastard.

(I don't know. Maybe 10% is obscene. That would explain why so many Christians don't tithe.)

Of course, I take some ribbing from my center-left Christian brothers for defending oil companies. But here's the thing. Too many of them seem to me to think that oil companies are evil for various reasons. Perhaps they are. "Vengeance is mine," says the Lord. And these brothers of mine seem to think that they are the instruments of God's justice, seeking to punish the evil oil companies by confiscating their profits and distributing them to the poor. My only problem, if these oil companies are evil, is that the God of these brothers of mine who think they are serving His purposes requires that an accusation be confirmed by two or more witnesses and before a competent and duly authorized tribunal (see Deuteronomy 19.15). (Yes, there are Christians like this on the Right as well. I think I've demonstrated that I am a critic of their approach also.) Now, in that same Law, is stipulated that if accusers make false, unfounded accusations then they are to receive the punishment that the accused would have received had he been found guilty (see Deuteronomy 19.16-19). I wonder how those brothers of mine would like it if someone simply accused them of wrong-doing (or simply of making "too much" money) and helped themselves to some fraction of their profits (i.e, what is left of their take-home pay after they pay all their bills)?

I also have "secular" scruples as well. It is almost a sacred, fundamental principle in U. S. law (see Const., Amend. 5) that before the accused is deprived of life, liberty or property he has a right to confront the evidence against him in a court of law.

The Left have enjoyed telling us about all the rights that the present Administration is slowly wiping away. Perhaps that's true. But when you want to deprive people -- even corporate entities (owned by people, by the way) -- of some of their property for making "too much" profit without accusing them of breaking a law; when you want to do that on the basis of such an accusation, without even bothering to prove the case in a court of law; when you want to do that, without giving the accused the opportunity to confront the evidence against him -- then you're not in much of a position to talk about who's hard at work depriving people of their rights.

It just comes to this. If you are going to insist on treating people like law-breakers, then you ought to demonstrate the law-breaking. And if you want to treat people like law-breakers for making "obscene" profits, then write your congressman and let's get a law passed that will define "obscene" law-breaking and out-law it. But remember, the Constitution prohibits ex post facto laws. So, you can get those evil, greedy oil companies for their future "obscene" oil profits, but the "obscene" profits they've already made are pretty much theirs. Alternatively, Justices Breyer and Ginsberg, et al, could always apply their notion of "public use" in defense of seizing those "obscene"oil profits; or, they could find some obscure provision in the laws of some advanced European nation (maybe Belgium: those cats are always ahead of the curve) which prohibits "obscene" profits.

Just remember: Someday, someone could be coming after your obscene 10% -- give or take a few percentage points.

Taking up a theme involved with inner prayer (the subject of two previous postings, here and here), one has to ask about the efficacy for one's prayer life of repeating the same prayer over and over (i.e., in this case, the so-called Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me") and, for some people, hour after hour.

Isn't that the sort of "vain repetition" Jesus is talking about in Matthew 6.7 when he says, "And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words." The idea of repeating a simple prayer like the Jesus Prayer seems to be in conflict with the instruction here. Saying, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me" over and over is repetition.

Actually, I don't think it is at all what Jesus is talking about. Yes, it is technically repetition. But is it, for being repetition, meaningless, or vain, repetition? It isn't repetition per se that is forbidden; it's meaningless repetition. Also, there is the matter of "many words". The key is, I think, in the Greek words used in the passage: "battalogeo" is better translated "tedious babbling" (we all know someone...), hence the superiority of the NIV here; "polulogia" (many words) connotes one who uses too many words, one who keeps explaining himself to you even after he's convinced you, long after you understand the point and you start to wonder if he thinks you're stupid for letting him convince you so soon, so he's going to keep on talking until he gets to the point at which you should have been convinced if only you were smart enough to wait that long. Kind of like some callers to radio talk shows, who keep making their point after the host gets it -- and so do you.

In commenting on this passage, Calvin says:

He reproves another fault in prayer, a multiplicity of words. There are two words used, but in the same sense: for battologia is “a superfluous and affected repetition,” and polulogia is “unmeaning talk.” Christ reproves the folly of those who, with the view of persuading and entreating God, pour out a superfluity of words. This doctrine is not inconsistent with the praises everywhere bestowed in Scripture on earnestness in prayer: for, when prayer is offered with earnest feeling, the tongue does not go before the heart. Besides, the grace of God is not obtained by an unmeaning flow of words; but, on the contrary, a devout heart throws out its affections, like arrows, to pierce heaven. At the same time, this condemns the superstition of those who entertain the belief, that they will secure the favor of God by long murmurings.

What Calvin thinks -- and clearly I think he's correct -- is that Jesus is rebuking those who believe "the efficacy of prayer to lie chiefly in talkativeness. The greater number of words that a man mutters, the more diligently he is supposed to have prayed."

Now, it isn't that Calvin is dispositive of anything. But I do happen to think he's correct. There are, in the English translation of it, ten words in the Jesus Prayer. Hardly "battalogia" or "pulologia". (Amaze your friends with words like those!) Hardly the approach to prayer that a used car salesman would take, as if artful expression in a long-winded sales pitch will persuade God more effectively than a simple, heart-felt request. No, a prayer such as the Jesus Prayer is the heart-felt cry of a person with so much to pray about, so many people and their needs, so many things weighing him down with concern (an entire world at war, for example) that the only thought he can cogently express, the single petition which covers and includes all else burdening him is, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me [and hear all the other petitions I would make if words did not fail me for the weight of them on my soul!]."

Most people I know feel a certain pressure to offer specific, detailed petitions to God, as if the longer and more detailed the prayer the greater efficacy in prayer. They sound a bit like people at parties who know it's polite to talk so, fearing silence, they never shut up. I wonder: if you can really do that all the time, just how burdened for those things are you really? I also wonder: do you think God won't know what you're approaching him for unless you deliniate it for him in minute, and verbose, detail?

But then, why pray at all? Calvin, still commenting on the passage from Matthew says,

Believers do not pray, with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting him to do his duty, or of urging him as though he were reluctant. On the contrary, they pray, in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his promises, that they may relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them into his bosom; in a word, that they may declare that from Him alone they hope and expect, both for themselves and for others, all good things. God himself, on the other hand, has purposed freely, and without being asked, to bestow blessings upon us; but he promises that he will grant them to our prayers. We must, therefore, maintain both of these truths, that He freely anticipates our wishes, and yet that we obtain by prayer what we ask.

Prayer is not an exercise in saying or thinking words. Prayer is the natural result of the soul's quest to commune with God. Or, as Theophan would put it, "Prayer is the way of ascent to God."

Now, to get back to images during prayer.

Perhaps you've had the experience of wandering thoughts while you pray. Perhaps (thinking about Theophan's caution against images) images come to mind while you pray. I think it's unavoidable: you are flesh as well as spirit. But recall that Theophan's great concern is not images per se. He is talking about being aware of the "eye of God" on your "inner being". The eye of God -- have no image or concept of that. How could you? Well, you can always try. As Calvin wrote: The human mind is an idol factory. Beware.

No. Images will come to your mind as you pray, repeatedly, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me." (Or any prayer exercise you may engage in, really.) The imortant thing is to have no images of God in mind as you pray.

As for those other images and wandering thoughts. Think about them for a moment. What are they? As you pray, are you distracted by things you have to do? Like shopping? But why ought that be a distraction from prayer? If you acknowledge God's ownership over all you have, and recognize a duty to exercise stewardship, then certainly shopping is a proper subject of prayer.

I don't want to suggest that you simply make these "distractions" from prayer immediately subjects for prayer. Neither do I want to minimize these as distractions from prayer.

I want to suggest that when your prayer life is right and something like shopping comes to mind, you may actually be praying about the shopping -- or whatever -- you have to do. Perhaps you are praying and you are distracted just momentarily by the thought of someone, a friend, a sick or dying relative. If Theophan is correct, and the words you utter are not essential to prayer, then perhaps those images represent something that you are praying about without being thoroughly conscious of it. Perhaps -- think about it for a moment -- those images represent some of the things you are burdened with and for which the Holy Spirit is praying on your behalf (see Romans 8.26).

Or it may be that God is talking back to you as it were. If you are praying and are "distracted" by the thought of shopping --or something else on an ever-growing to-do list -- perhaps you need to re-evaluate your life. We do a lot. Activity may suggest a life filled with purpose, but sometimes activity is just activity and more activity is just more activity. Perhaps those distractions from prayer are, more importantly, distractions from your entire life (see Luke 10.38-42). Perhaps God is giving you those images and wandering thoughts not as distractions, but because they are His testimony as to what are your real distractions.

Let me suggest, in true Calvinistic fashion there are two areas of thought with regard to images and concepts in prayer: God and Man (i.e, specifically, you). Have no images with respect to the first. As for the significance of images and concepts or distractions, you have to exercise your judgment about their meaning and significance. There is nothing automatic, nothing obvious about their meaning and significance.

As Theophan says,

Attention to what goes on in the heart and to what comes forth from it is the chief work of a well-ordered Christian life. Through this attention the inward and the outward are brought into due relation with one another. But to this watchfulness, discernment must always be added, so that we may understand aright what passes within and what is required by outward curcumstance. Attention is useless without discernment.

Barbara Boxer recently explained why we should accept uncritically scientists claims about global warming.


It's like this. When scientists told us that cigarettes cause cancer, we didn't question them. When they told us that HIV causes AIDS, we didn't question them. (Well, anyone who did, as we know, was a whacko.)

They were correct about smoking and cancer. They were correct about HIV and AIDS. We didn't question them then. They must be correct about humans and global warming. We shouldn't question them now.

Athena has spoken. Let all the earth keep silence before Her.

Brilliant.

Then there's Russ Feingold, another Congressional genius. He doesn't think we can rely on Mukasey as attorney general because Mukasey won't agree with Feingold and others that waterboarding is torture.

One has to wonder, why does not the Congress make it a federal crime for a U. S. interrogator to use waterboarding as a method of aggressive interrogation? For you see, if they would do that, then it would not matter whether the Attorney General agreed that waterboarding is torture. The Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States and his office, the Department of Justice, must prosecute those who are accused of breaking federal law. What Feingold wants is for an Attorney General to share an opinion with him and his cohorts and, apparently, to have that opinion be granted the force of law, and violators of this opinion to be prosecuted.

Presently, I am listening to Rush justify his aforementioned mocking yesterday of an 18 year old Inuit girl's testimony on the effects of global warming on her community.

His justification amounts to this. He claims for himself the right to criticise testimony before Congress, and won't apologize for doing so.

He's correct: he has that right. And he should criticise such testimony.

Mocking a girl for crying during her testimony, however, is not the same as criticizing (or critiquing) her testimony. There is a distinction. Limbaugh should make it also.

One of my favorite bumper stickers (right up there with "God is too big to fit in one religion") reads "I'm not rich enough to be a Republican."

The stereotype of the rich Republican is maximized to the highest extent possible during election season. The truth is, in fact, quite the contrary:

Income disparity – to use the class warrior’s favourite term – is greatest among the districts of lawmakers that lead each party’s campaign arm. Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen chairs the Democratic congressional campaign committee. With more than 36,000 prosperous households and a median income of nearly $70,000, his suburban Washington district even out-sparkles Ms Pelosi’s. In contrast, fewer than 5,000 such wealthy households are found in the largely rural district of his Republican counterpart, Tom Cole from Oklahoma. The median income there is only $35,500.

It doesn't matter to me which party has more rich people in it. The question is largely irrelevant. The real question is which party has positions which I think -- by and large -- are better for the country. The answer to that question is not determined by the answer to the question, "Which party has the most rich people in it?"

However, if a party is going to be held up as a party only for the rich, then the assertion should be true, even if it is an ad hominem argument -- the most popular argument in political discourse today.

P.S.

Speaking of political discourse, it was disappointing to hear Rush Limbaugh mock an Inuit for crying during congressional testimony on the loss of culture her people experience due to global warming. Even if anthropogenic global warming is not true, it's poor form to mock people who think they've been harmed, even if they are incorrect. If your position is that global warming, even if true, is not anthropogenic, it certainly serves no good purpose to mock someone who thinks it is and that she is a victim. And it certainly makes some people disinclined to hear your case.

Did I mention that it's poor form?

About the general connection between Christianity and politics, our position is more delicate. Certainly we do not want men to allow their Christianity to flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster. On the other hand we do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything – even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy demands, and then work him on to the state at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist’s shop. Fortunately, it is quite easy to coax humans round this little corner. Only today I have found a passage in a Christian writer where he recommends his own version of Christianity on the ground that “only such a faith can outlast the death of old cultures and the birth of new civilizations.” You see the little rift? “Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.” That’s the game. – C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, XXIII, para. 4, emphasis mine.

To this "Wisdom Sundays" posting, in which Theophan the Recluse makes brief mention of "the images in your soul", Mary Ann asks "[W]hat are the 'images in your soul'? Thoughts of the material or self?"

The quick and dirty answer is no, he isn't referring to worldly images, but to images which might appear to one as one prays. It would then be to these images that one prays, and upon these images that one relies for response. The key word is intermediate -- intermediate images, not simply images.

I'll allow Theophan to explain.

Hold no intermediate image between the mind and the Lord when practising the Jesus Prayer. The words pronounced are merely a help, and are not essential. The principal thing is to stand before the Lord with the mind in the heart. This, and not the words, is inner spiritual prayer. The words here are as much or as little the essential part of the prayer as the words of any other prayer. The essential part is to dwell in God, and this walking before God means that you live with the conviction ever before your consciousness that God is in you, as He is in everything: you live in the firm assurance that He sees all that is within you, knowing you better than you know yourself. This awareness of the eye of God looking at your inner being must not be accompanied by any visual concept, but must be confined to a simple conviction or feeling. A man in a warm room feels how the warmth envelops and penetrates him. The same must be the effect on our spiritual nature of the all-encompassing presence of God, who is the fire in the room of our being.

The words, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me" are only the instrument and not the essence of the work; but they are an instrument which is very strong and effective, for the Name of the Lord Jesus is fearful to the enemies of our salvation and a blessing to all who seek Him. Do not forget that this practice is simple, and must not have anything fanciful about it. Pray about everything to the Lord, to our most pure Lady, to your Guardian Angel; and they will teach you everything, either directly or through others.

and

In order not to fall into illusion while practising inner prayer, do not permit yourself any concepts, images, or visions. For vivid imaginings, darting to and fro, and flights of fancy do not cease even when the mind stands in the heart and recites prayer: and no one is able to rule over them, except those who have attained perfection by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and who have acquired stability of mind through Jesus Christ.

As you can see, Theophan isn't talking about images of the material world or of the self. For issues related to the material world, and to Self, he has other solutions.

Now, it might seem strange that Theophan would say about prayer that the words don't matter. But think about other relationships we have. Mine with my wife comes to mind just now. Often she will express a desire to talk. To me, to talk is to talk about something. If you want me to talk to you, but can't name the thing you want to talk about I'm inclined to put my nose back in my book.

I learned long ago not to ask my wife what she wants to talk about. (I still do it occasionally, just like I do other things I know better than to do -- like drinking a litre of single malt scotch or tequila. But I digress.)

If my wife and I spend thirty minutes talking about the number of ground hog burrows, or the amount of rabbit excrement on the ground (it's not for nothing that our place is called " Las Conejeras") she's happy. It's not the subject matter that counts; it's the visit. For the same sort of reason Theophan can talk about prayer in which the words are inessential, unimportant. What Theophan is talking about is visiting with God, or perhaps better acknowledging the fact that God is always visiting you -- experiencing, or being aware of the fact of God's presence, always with you.

And here we come to a good reason for not permitting images or concepts. If you think about visiting perhaps you have an image in your head about the last time you visited with, or were visited by, someone. (Every time I think of Chicago, I think of the "El", which I rode with my grandmother when I visited her as a child.)

That image (i.e., of "visiting") isn't really helpful when it comes to "visiting" with God, or in thinking about his "visiting" with you. The reason, of course, is that when you and your spouse, or friends, or relatives visit, there is a time when the visit is over and the visitors leave -- hopefully. That is not the case with God. Acknowledging that the words in prayer are inessential because the point is to acknowledge one's being in the presence of God works quite well as long as you don't think of it as -- don't employ the concept of -- a "visit".

Just pray, says Theophan. And don't employ any concept of what it is you are doing. Though Theophan might not have put it this way, it may help: As soon as you employ a concept you begin not to pray but to theologize. Now there's a time and a place for everything, but the time to pray is not the time to theologize.

Therefore, as Theophan says, "Just pray." Don't conceptualize what you are doing. Don't categorize it -- adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication -- whatever.

When you think about it, what Theophan is talking about makes sense when you consider that God knows what you need or want before it occurs to you to mention it to him. Prayer, then, isn't primarily about accomplishing anything; it's primarily about communing with God. It is about enjoying the privilege of unity with God through his son Jesus Christ.

Note: I'm still Calvinist, Reformed, and Presbyterian. So, Happy Reformation Day !

In view of yesterday's posting, I'd thought I'd share a bit of Calvin on the subject of the Law of Moses.

The allegation, that insult is offered to the law of God enacted by Moses, where it is abrogated, and other new laws are preferred to it, is most absurd. Others are not preferred when they are more approved, not absolutely, but from regard to time and place, and the condition of the people, or when those things are abrogated which were never enacted for us. The Lord did not deliver it by the hand of Moses to be promulgated in all countries, and to be everywhere enforced; but having taken the Jewish nation under his special care, patronage, and guardianship, he was pleased to be specially its legislator, and as became a wise legislator, he had special regard to it in enacting laws. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Bk. 4, Ch. 20, sec. 16, emphases mine.

Contrary to popular beliefs -- and "Calvin's Geneva" -- Calvin was not a theocrat. Indeed, a litle known secret is that his preferred system of government was a republic.

When the 13 original states formed our union and created the federal government to manage the business of the union, the states had the right to make the decision for themselves about slavery. This makes sense when one considers that these states were, in fact, independent and sovereign nations. As the union grew certain members of Congress expressed by various means their desire to limit membership of new states to territories which would ban slavery, thus depriving new states of a right previously enjoyed by the founding states – without amending the Constitution. The crisis was eventually resolved -- temporarily -- by the Missouri Compromise of 1850. But the idea remained that the members of the union could gang up on other (new) members and thus deprive them of such a right without amending the constitution as proved by the reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Act and its provision for popular sovereignty on the slavery question. This attempt to deny to states a right recognized (albeit tacitly) by the Constitution ultimately led to the Civil War. To put it in contemporary terms, the slave states objected to the efforts of the free states to impose morality upon them.

In many ways this Constitutional crisis was brought about by the annexation of lands as “territories” rather than the admission of new states – Louisiana Purchase, Annexation of Texas and Vermont, etc. This was problematic because while the U. S. Constitution as ratified, did contemplate the admission to the union of new member states, it didn't really (in my opinion) provide very well for the admission as new member states former territories owned and governed by the Union in a manner similar to that in which Great Britain owned and governed the colonies. As properties of the Union, rather than members of the Union, territories had not the same relation to the federal government as did member states. An issue like slavery could therefore – and arguably – be determined for these properties by the Congress. If slavery were outlawed in the territories, and if the territories were to be admitted to the Union on condition of maintaining this prohibition then Congress could have power to create states which had a view of slavery determined for them, and thus give to “free” states more power in Congress and at the same time less power to the “slave” states. Hence, the aforementioned Kansas-Nebraska Act. Then too, there was the problem (for the free states anyway) of the possibility, entailed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, of slavery being permitted (i.e., in a new state) where it had previously been prohibited (i.e., a former territory).

The Constitution, at ratification, left the issue of slavery for member states to determine for themselves. It also, as I mentioned above, contemplated and provided for the admission of new members to the Union. It would have been eminently reasonable to think that these new member states should also have had the freedom to determine the issue of slavery for themselves, even if (as I believe the “slave” states did) those new member states made the wrong decision.

Quite frankly, though I have never favored slavery, my sympathies with respect to the issue of states’ rights have long been with the southern states. For that same reason, I think that while I oppose the notion that two members of the same sex can marry I have to assert the right of each state to make that determination for itself, with the understanding that other states may arrogate to themselves the right not to recognize such a relation inside their borders. I also think that states should have the right to determine for themselves the matter of abortion. It's all about sphere sovereignty, a very important concept in reformational philosophy (here, also).

It is sad that so much of our national politics concern matters which are properly left to the states. It is also sad that some of the leaders of the various ideological communities do not seem to know much about federalism -- you know, those little things like limited government, enumerated powers, states rights. Sadder still that James Dobson, and other Christian leaders of his ilk, is one of those. How else to explain his resolve that if neither of the two major political parties nominates "an individual who pledges himself or herself to the sanctity of human life" he and his fellow travelers will vote for a minor-party candidate. Subsequently, he expressed concern about Rudy Giuliani's belief that states should decide the marriage issue for themselves. (The very idea!)

How unfortunate that Dobson seems unable to see that the problem is not that Rudy Giuliani wouldn't support a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one women -- or whatever phraseology Dr. Dobson has in mind. The problem (well, one problem) is that Dr. Dobson either does not understand, or entirely like, federalism. Why should it matter to the union as a whole whether a state, or any group of them, permit same-sex unions? Yes, I know: there is the "full faith and credit clause" in the Constitution. (Once again, we have a problem created by those who, whether Liberal or Conservative, want to impose a morality upon every state in the union. Naturally. But I digress.) This clause has its limitations. For example it ought not by simple fiat legalize what a state has prohibited. But -- again -- I digress.

The problem, even on a Christian worldview, is not that a state may permit same-sex marriages. Neither is the problem, really, that states may permit abortions. The problem is that people want these things. A Christian ought to be able to envision a society which permits behaviors to which he himself objects on moral grounds while at the same time envisioning a society in which those behaviors aren't engaged in -- at least very much -- because so few people want to do.

It strikes one as "pie in the sky by and by", I know, like visualizing world peace. But it is, I think, a bit more consistent with Christian theology than the approaches of either the Christian Right (use legal means to stymie such practices) or the Christian Left (utilize strange interpretive techniques, involving higher criticism to excuse the practices). First, it takes into account the "whole story" as we have it from Paul. Second, unlike visualizing world peace, it doesn't pretend that visualization can produce results.

Many Christians approach the issue of homosexuality and same-sex marriage from Romans 1.27 (among other passages): "...the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts...." Quite clearly, St. Paul thinks this is wrong. But moving from there to political action, even if that political action amounts simply to denying the "marital" union of two (or more?) members of the same sex, fails to account for all that St. Paul says here. For he doesn't say only that "men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another,...committing indecent acts." He explains why this is so (Romans 1.18-27):

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

Paul's argument is that, first men reject the knowledge of God which they possess (by virtue of having been created in His image) and then (because God "gives them over" to it due to their refusal to acknowledge his authority) they become inflamed with same-sex passions -- among others. And being thus inflamed the desire for same-sex unions follows rather logically, I think. If this is the case then one must wonder what Dobson and his compatriots think is to be done. This is not a problem easily resolved (if resolved at all) by law. Law cannot quench desire, quite the contrary in fact -- something else Paul knew (see Romans 7.5).

If the situation arises as a result of God's providence, I don't know how one escapes the conclusion that the situation must also be resolved by some providence of God. Authoritarian law will hardly work when "authority" is precisely the problem. (If they won't obey God, why should they obey James Dobson?)

And it's not just the homosexual who has a problem with a law which would prohibit him marrying another man. We have those who, believing that an accident of birth cannot constitute a grant of authority (as I occasionally tried -- unsuccessfully -- to explain to my parents decades ago), work aggressively at undermining parental authority, doing all they can to drive a wedge between parents and children, even to democratize the family. Even the so-called laws of logic, according to the post-modernist critique, have no authority. For still others facts are not authoritative either. In this milieu, a law restricting marriage to one man and one woman must appear as arbitrarily tyrannical -- and mean -- as a law putting Jews into concentration camps.

So the issue, as Paul informs us, isn't sex . It isn't marriage, either. The issue is authority. The Christian recognizes that behind the authority of the state is the authority of God (see Romans 13.1-7). But if there is no authority behind the state, then what? Law is arbitrary. This is true even in a democracy, since its fundamental principle -- rule of the majority -- is also arbitrary. Why should the majority rule? Because they say so? You see the problem. The rule of the many is no less arbitrary and tyrannical than the rule of the few -- or even the one.

Beginning with ego-centric (rather than theo-centric) presuppositions men -- according to St. Paul -- are handed over to "degrading passions." The Christian who recognizes the function of these ego-centric presuppositions must also recognize the visceral tendency which men have to be consistent with their presuppositions. These presuppositions -- and the passions which now accompany them -- require the permission of same-sex unions. However -- and this is the part where we get to the aforementioned visualization -- should men repent of their ego-centric presuppositions, their passions may be altered as well. And that is how a Christian can visualize a society which permits something like same-sex marriage and yet sees very few instances of it. What the law permits, the regenerate human may refrain from doing, by virtue of God's gracious empowerment. The same with abortion. Not pie in the sky by and by, like visualizing world peace, but taking seriously Christian theology (especially hamartiology) and applying it.

One can't help but wonder, then, where Dobson and others get the idea -- the Biblical warrant -- for the agenda they espouse. It is true that in the Scriptures same sex relations are prohibited. It is also true that the Scriptures specify the general conditions under which human life may be taken; and the unborn satisfy none of those conditions. So I am with Dobson (he'll be so glad to know that, I'm sure) from the ethical perspective on same-sex relations and abortion, among other things. And I certainly agree that Christians can and should be involved in the political life of the nation in which God has providentially planted them. But there is a step from "Scripture teaches us that these things are wrong" to "Scripture teaches us to make our nation's laws reflect what the Scriptures teach is wrong."

Some find this warrant in the Cultural Mandate, while others find it in the so-called Dominion Mandate. As a Neocalvinist I certainly accept the Cultural Mandate (and reject the Dominion Mandate). However the relation between the Cultural Mandate and the Mosaic law is problematic -- problematic, that is, in terms of using the Cultural Mandate to justify bringing outsiders under covenant stipulations. There is a social aspect to the Cultural Mandate. In being "fruitful" and "multiplying" families and extended families will be formed; out of this family formation societies will develop. These societies, naturally, will require some system for regulating these relational affairs, a system of formulating, executing and enforcing laws. From the desire of the Self to express itself and to satisfy its curiosity, the arts and sciences develop. Technology and skills develop for the provision of needs and wants. Being human, it ought to go without saying that the Christian will participate on some level in this process.

For guidance in participating in his society's legal-political life, the Christian understandably seeks out the Law, the Mosaic law. What he will overlook when he does this is that this law mediates a covenant; and it does not mediate this covenant to every human indiscriminately, but rather to the descendants of Abraham. And while the Jews' working out of the Cultural Mandate was governed by the Law of Moses, Israel -- the people of God -- had no mandate to bring into submission to this Law people who lived outside of her national boundaries, her "jurisdiction" if you will -- outside of the covenant. (This is why Jews have never proselytized.)

So one question for the Christian is this: Do the people of God have a mandate from God to bring "outsiders" into submission to those laws given to the people of God as his peculiar people? (You might want to answer, "Yes, by evangelizing them." But that will make them members of the covenant community, in which case they would not be outsiders. I'm talking about making outsiders submit to the covenant requirements while still "strangers" to the covenant.) Even after reading several Reconstructionists' essays, I cannot see that there is such a mandate. (Later today I'll be re-reading one of Greg Bahnsen's essays on the subject. I'll let you know if I change my mind.)

More importantly for the Christian is the fact that Jesus, a second Moses, mediates a new covenant, which fulfills the Mosaic Law. The non-Christian is not a party to that new covenant either. Again: How does one go about arguing that "strangers" to a covenant are bound to the legal stipulations entailed in a covenant to which they are not parties? Riddle me that.

The only covenant to which non-Christians and non-Jews are parties is the Noachian Covenant (see Genesis 9.4-6). Rabbinic Judaism has deduced 7 laws from this covenant, but on its face it provides for little more than the preservation and protection of human life by explicitly requiring the life of one who takes a life. From this explicit provision one can logically deduce other provisions for protecting human life, including human government which, in addition to meting out the punishment to the murderer, can craft positive laws for the furtherance of the mandate to hold human life in high esteem. (Indeed, I happen to believe that many of those things Dobson calls "traditional family values" are also consistent with the high esteem for human life entailed required by the Noachian Covenant.) It is easy enough to make arguments against abortion on such a basis, but not so much against homosexuality or same-sex unions. Besides, I think we shall find that most people hold human life in high esteem, but differ on when human life begins. And they certainly do not see how permitting same-sex unions is harmful to human life.

This relation of law and covenant is crucial to understanding the Christian's relation to his (earthly) country. The prevailing notion is that the Christian, in the U S, stands in the same relation is the "remnant" in apostate Israel or apostate Judah. Hence the felt need for Christians (the "remnant" of apostate US) to reclaim the US for Christ. I don't deny that Christians were far more numerous and politically powerful at the nation's founding than today, but there is nothing to reclaim for Christ. Christians in the US are not Israel's and Judah's "remnant". The Christian -- no matter how friendly, or even how "Christian", his country is to him -- is always a stranger in a strange land. If anything the Christian's relation to whatever nation he lives in is more like that of a Jew in Babylon. And to those who were going captive to Babylon, God through the prophet Jeremiah said:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: "Build houses for yourselves and settle in. Plant gardens and eat from them. Marry and have children. Have your sons and daughters marry and have children in order that your population increases rather than decreases. And work for the health and prosperity of the city where I am sending you away captive, and pray to the LORD for it: for in their health and prosperity you will have health and prosperity. (Jeremiah 29.4ff, my translation.)

Like Jews in Babylon we have a duty to seek the good health and prosperity of the US. The question is whether Dobson's plan (especially the part about a new party) will truly serve the goal of peace, prosperity, and the good health of the nation. Will the strong arm tactics he proposes (let's call these tactics for what they really are) create peace for the the nation? Our Constitution requires a chief executive to sign or veto legislation, to execute the laws, to conduct treaty negotiations, to appoint judges and ambassadors, to serve as commander in chief of the armed forces. We require the smoothest, most peaceful and uneventful transfers of power from administration to administration. We need to have a country in order to have a country which treats the unborn the way we'd like to see the unborn treated. We need to have a country in order to have a country which, while it tolerates same sex relationships and makes certain provisions for them, does not marry them. And in order to have a country, we need a stable government, with peaceful elections providing for immediate and uneventful transfers from administration to administration, from Congress to Congress.

I have no personal issues with Dr. Dobson. I've met him -- and his wife-- though I doubt he would recall. He and his wife visited my church once or twice. On one occasion he and his wife sat right behind my wife and I. Very nice man, very nice couple. I don't question his motives. I don't question his Christian commitment. But I do question his understanding to the relation between covenant and law. I do question whether his application of the principles of the Christian worldview is correct. Mainly, I question whether the principles he seeks to apply are actually the appropriate principles to apply.

We don't really need a President who will affirm a commitment to the sanctity of human life. We don't need a President who shares our view of same sex relationships. What we really need -- for the good health and prosperity of the nation -- is a President who is committed to protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States, one who is committed to limited government and enumerated powers, and who as a consequence nominates to the federal bench judges committed to originalism. Goodness! If we could just get that!

Okay. Back to my "sabbatical".

What is it to be a "spiritual giant" in the Christian faith? I've heard it said of this or that person that he (or she) is (or was) a spiritual giant. I've been on a sort of sabbatical, during which time I've given much thought to this -- as well as other things. I have found this bit of wisdom worthy of serious attention.

Progress in the spiritual life is shown by an ever-increasing realization of our own worthlessness, in the full and literal sense of this word. The moment that we ascribe some value to ourselves, in any sense whatever, it will mean that things have gone wrong. It is also dangerous; the enemy will draw close and begin to divert our attention, throwing stumbling blocks in our path. A soul that thinks highly of itself is like the crow in the fable who listened to the fox's flattery, and let the piece of cheese drop in order to show off. May the Lord help you to become more thorough in the task of attributing no value to your labours. See to it, as well, that there are fewer images in your soul and more thought and feeling. Persevere with the inner prayer you have begun; this is the way to reduce the flow of images through the mind. The moment will come when you will feel the issue of them stanched, like the issue of blood in the woman (Luke 8.44). -- Theophan the Recluse

Incidentally, the "inner prayer" Theophan is talking about is the so-called Jesus Prayer, which goes like this: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

I think the desire on the part of a Christian to be a so-called spiritual giant is unworthy, perhaps even sinful. I think we shall do well enough just to do -- or to try to do -- our duty.

Supposedly Rush Limbaugh (during his 26 September broadcast) insulted soldiers who oppose military operations in Iraq by calling them phony soldiers. A week later, a week during which any who wanted could hear or read for themselves what he said, he continues to take flak for it. It’s almost unbelievable. Almost.

Now, you would think that Limbaugh said, “It is my sincere belief that any soldier who opposes the war is a phony soldier.”

Here’s a phony transcript of the offending call (from Media Matters site, not Limbaugh’s):

LIMBAUGH: …Mike…in Olympia, Washington. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

MIKE: Hi Rush, thanks for taking my call.

LIMBAUGH: You bet.

MIKE: I have a retort to [a previous caller], because I am a serving American military, in the Army. I've been serving for 14 years, very proudly.

LIMBAUGH: Thank you, sir.

MIKE: And, you know, I'm one of the few that joined the Army to serve my country, I'm proud to say, not for the money or anything like that. What I would like to retort to is that, if we pull -- what these people don't understand is if we pull out of Iraq right now, which is about impossible because of all the stuff that's over there, it'd take us at least a year to pull everything back out of Iraq, then Iraq itself would collapse, and we'd have to go right back over there within a year or so. And --

LIMBAUGH: There's a lot more than that that they don't understand. They can't even -- if -- the next guy that calls here, I'm gonna ask him: Why should we pull -- what is the imperative for pulling out? What's in it for the United States to pull out? They can't -- I don't think they have an answer for that other than, "Well, we just gotta bring the troops home."

MIKE: Yeah, and, you know what --

LIMBAUGH: "Save the -- keep the troops safe" or whatever. I -- it's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.

MIKE: No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.

LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.

MIKE: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they're willing to sacrifice for their country.

LIMBAUGH: They joined to be in Iraq. They joined --

MIKE: A lot of them -- the new kids, yeah.

LIMBAUGH: Well, you know where you're going these days, the last four years, if you signed up. The odds are you're going there or Afghanistan or somewhere.

MIKE: Exactly, sir.

It seems to me quite clear that Mike believes that soldiers who oppose the war are phony soldiers and that war supporting soldiers are “real.” Rush’s problem is that his interjection (i.e., “The phony soldiers”), in context, does seem to agree with Mike’s assessment. I think it is quite clear that Rush thought the caller’s reference to “these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media” was to truly phony soldiers – people who claim either to be soldiers and are not, or soldiers who have made claims about their service which are not true. I think it’s very clear that Rush and Mike were not talking about exactly the same thing. As it turns out, Mike – but not Rush – thinks that soldiers who oppose the war in Iraq are not real soldiers. That’s his problem. Frankly, each time I read this transcript I find myself unsure that I know what Mike meant by “real soldiers”. Sometimes I wonder if the non-real soldiers are those who enlisted in order to get college money, or something like that. I don’t know. He doesn’t express himself very well. (Of course, to be fair, Rush did interrupt and distract him from the point of his call.)

Now, I just happen to have been listening to Limbaugh that day so I heard the rest of the call, and also heard Limbaugh immediately give an example of just what he meant by the phrase “phony soldiers”. Media Matters’ excision of this part of the call is why I refer to theirs as a phony transcript. A real transcript ought to have included what follows. It went like this (from his site):

(NOTE: What you are about to read resumes right after Mike says, “Exactly, sir.”)

MIKE: …My other comment, my original comment, was a retort to Jill about the fact we didn't find any weapons of mass destruction. Actually, we have found weapons of mass destruction in chemical agents that terrorists have been using against us for a while now. I've done two tours in Iraq, I just got back in June, and there are many instances of insurgents not knowing what they're using in their IEDs. They're using mustard artillery rounds, VX artillery rounds in their IEDs. Because they didn't know what they were using, they didn't do it right, and so it didn't really hurt anybody. But those munitions are over there. It's a huge desert. If they bury it somewhere, we're never going to find it.

RUSH: Well, that's a moot point for me right now.

MIKE: Right.

RUSH: The weapons of mass destruction. We gotta get beyond that. We're there. We all know they were there, and Mahmoud even admitted it in one of his speeches here talking about Saddam using the poison mustard gas or whatever it is on his own people. But that's moot. What's more important is all this is taking place now in the midst of the surge working, and all of these anti-war Democrats are getting even more hell-bent on pulling out of there, which means that success on the part of you and your colleagues over there is a great threat to them. It's frustrating and maddening, and why they must be kept in the minority. I want to thank you, Mike, for calling. I appreciate it very much.

Here is a Morning Update that we did recently, talking about fake soldiers. This is a story of who the left props up as heroes. They have their celebrities and one of them was Army Ranger Jesse Mcbeth. Now, he was a "corporal." I say in quotes. Twenty-three years old. What made Jesse Macbeth a hero to the anti-war crowd wasn't his Purple Heart; it wasn't his being affiliated with post-traumatic stress disorder from tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. No. What made Jesse Macbeth, Army Ranger, a hero to the left was his courage, in their view, off the battlefield, without regard to consequences. He told the world the abuses he had witnessed in Iraq, American soldiers killing unarmed civilians, hundreds of men, women, even children. In one gruesome account, translated into Arabic and spread widely across the Internet, Army Ranger Jesse Macbeth describes the horrors this way: "We would burn their bodies. We would hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque."

Now, recently, Jesse Macbeth, poster boy for the anti-war left, had his day in court. And you know what? He was sentenced to five months in jail and three years probation for falsifying a Department of Veterans Affairs claim and his Army discharge record. He was in the Army. Jesse Macbeth was in the Army, folks, briefly. Forty-four days before he washed out of boot camp. Jesse Macbeth isn't an Army Ranger, never was. He isn't a corporal, never was. He never won the Purple Heart, and he was never in combat to witness the horrors he claimed to have seen. You probably haven't even heard about this. And, if you have, you haven't heard much about it. This doesn't fit the narrative and the template in the Drive-By Media and the Democrat Party as to who is a genuine war hero. Don't look for any retractions, by the way. Not from the anti-war left, the anti-military Drive-By Media, or the Arabic websites that spread Jesse Macbeth's lies about our troops, because the truth for the left is fiction that serves their purpose. They have to lie about such atrocities because they can't find any that fit the template of the way they see the US military. In other words, for the American anti-war left, the greatest inconvenience they face is the truth.

The transcript ends there. Limbaugh segued immediately into an explanation of what he meant by “phony” – or “fake” – soldiers. I heard that Morning Update also. Limbaugh wasn’t talking about soldiers – real soldiers – who oppose the war. He was talking about truly fake soldiers. And I find it very telling, though hardly surprising, that Media Matters’ redaction of the transcript ends where it does. The entire transcript shows their phony assertion for what it is.

These are people who want honesty and believe the President lied us into war. These are people who assert that Limbaugh is disingenuous. And yet, to substantiate a charge against him they can only be, shall we say, less than honest in their transcript editing.

For their false witness against Limbaugh I think Media Matters should receive whatever consequences they intended for him. Whatever they may have been. Too bad they don’t have a radio show that Democrats want to pull off the Armed Forces Network.

Of course, following General Wesley Clark’s suggestion, Media Matters, like Limbaugh (and along with CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, L.A. Times, N.Y. Times The New Republic, and others) need to be rated. (On the grounds that since there are standards in public broadcasting – X-rated, R-rated, etc – there ought to be standards in political discourse. Ratings on political speech. And these people insist it is the Right who are trying to take away freedoms.) After all, many (like Elizabeth Edwards and Brian Gough, of VoteVets.org) have demonstrated the true purpose of these phony charges: to silence, or at least muffle, the loudest voice in their opposition.



IN THE INTEREST OF FULL DISCLOSURE: I am somewhat of a fan of Limbaugh’s. He's very well-read and informed for someone with no college education (in an era which over emphasizes university education). However, he is a bit (bit?) bombastic -- and more emotional than I can usually stomach from anyone. I still prefer him to any one of his critics.

I'm certainly no fan because I agree with everything he says, or every position he takes. I certainly don't. (I don’t even agree with my wife about everything.) And any agreements we have are accidental, perhaps even coincidental, and largely as a result of his borrowing from my (i.e., Christian) worldview. He’s a conservative; I’m a center-right Christian democrat. (No there isn’t a Christian Democrat party in this country – well, not one in which I would be comfortable, anyway – but as a political view, that is where I am.) It stands to reason that we will have many positions in common. But we have those positions for different reasons.

For example his position on economics seems to me pragmatic. His position on taxes is very similar to my own, especially as regards the welfare state. But his grounds are pragmatic: his primary concern seems to be that raising taxes doesn't "work", that the welfare state actually harms the people intended to be helped. My own opposition to the welfare state is normative: I have scruples about taking one man’s money (just because he has “plenty”) and giving it to someone else (just because he doesn’t have plenty). And I happen also to think that it doesn't work, but that is not the first question I ask. The first question I ask is: Is it ethical? (Hint: Thou shalt not steal; Thou shalt not covet, etc.)

Some Christian Democrats assert that the welfare state follows logically from the teaching of Scriptures to remember the poor. But to force non-Christians, an entire society, to exercise Christians' duties isn't right and ought to be seen (if certain people are to be consistent) as a violation of the so-called separation of church and state. After all, the same Scriptures teach us to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. I note that these same Christian Democrats – unless I missed it – who desire that we give the force of law to the Scriptural injunction to remember the poor are not advocating a return of the blue laws.

Be all that as it may. Rush critics are inclined to lump me in with him so I'm inclined, ocassionally, to defend him, rather than distance myself from him.

Besides, I'd rather be lumped in with Limbaugh than his ideological opponents. If for no other reason than that Limbaugh is right about at least one thing: his opponents' tactics are Stalinistic. A kinder, gentler Stalinistic to be sure. But Stalinistic nevertheless.