CRANACH OLD BLOG SITE ARCHIVE - 2007LUCAS CRANACH THE ELDERPosts from the old WORLD site
October 26, 2007
CRANACH has a new home
Just as my wife and I have just moved into a new home, so has the Cranach blog. As I said would happen, WORLD’s sub-blogs are being kicked out of the nest, which is a good thing. I have my own domain, even, which will make possible my doing other things on the web. Cranach’s new address is www.geneveith.com. Please bookmark this new site and visit often. This site will still be up for awhile, as the discussions keep going on. It will also take me awhile to move the archives and the blogroll. But do move with us as Cranach goes into its new phase.
Posted by Veith at 09:34 AM October 25, 2007
The Faith-Based Rockies
The Colorado Rockies are getting criticized for crediting their astonishing ascension to the World Series to God’s blessing. To the point that the major league website has censored out the God-talk from an interview with Oklahoma-slugger Matt Holliday. But the Rockies go beyond making the sign of the cross when they go up to bat. As a policy, they have instituted what they term “character” practices: General Manager Dan O’Dowd, in an interview with USA Today before the streak, said: “You look at some of the moves we made and didn’t make. You look at some of the games we’re winning. Those aren’t just a coincidence. God has definitely had a hand in this.”
The article, parts of which Rockies players said were overstated, reported that the team doesn’t allow Playboy in the locker room, players are encouraged to attend chapel on Sunday, and Bible studies on Tuesday nights are packed. The team doesn’t listen to obscenity-filled rap music in the locker room like most other teams, either.
The Rockies are the only team in the majors with a paid chaplain on staff. And players share their testimonies with fans after the game on Faith Day, which includes a postgame concert and discounted tickets.
. . . . . . . . . .
Within a single strike of being eliminated from playoff contention a few weeks ago, the Rockies are now headed to the World Series for the first time in the short 14-year history of the franchise. They were in fourth place in the National League West when they began their streak a month ago. They then proceeded to win 13 out of the last 14 regular-season games and didn’t lose a game in their postseason series against both the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks. No team has ever won so many games in a row this late in the season. No team has ever made fewer errors in a season than the Rockies have this year.
“When a player’s playing really well, it feels really mysterious. It’s like a religious experience,” says historian Warren Goldstein, who has written books on both baseball and religion.
The difference between failure and success at the pro level is so minuscule that when things really click for a baseball club, people feel they’re in a kind of a zone where the normal rules don’t apply. “And that feels to a lot of players as though it’s a religious thing, like a religious experience,” says Goldstein. “In a way, I’d be astonished if they didn’t think they were getting some kind of extra, supernatural help.”
The Rockies had their road-to-Damascus conversion three years ago when pitcher Denny Neagle was caught soliciting a prostitute. Rockies Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Charlie Monfort released him three days later, swallowing $16 million of his contract. Monfort’s own faith intensified after he was put on probation for driving while impaired, and he changed the way he ran his club.
“We started going after character six or seven years ago, but we didn’t follow that like we should have,” he told USA Today. “I don’t want to offend anyone, but I think character-wise we’re stronger than anyone in baseball. I believe God sends signs, and we’re seeing those.” I think this is an example of very appropriate piety on the part of the baseball players. We should all praise God when things go well in our lives and our vocations. And here is another and perhaps better way to look at it: Maybe good character and moral self-discipline make for winning athletes.
The usual response to all of this is that God surely doesn’t care about mere sports! “Are you saying God loves the Rockies more than the Red Sox? Or that God is judging the Rockies because they were crushed in the first World Series Game 13-1? Or that He has something eternally against the Cubs?” No, not at all. These are mysteries. But why should God care about the fall of a sparrow? Or how many hairs you have on your head? And yet, He does. He seems to be interested in EVERYTHING!
Posted by Veith at 06:31 AM
The scary evangelical is not an evangelical
Have you read any of the stories on Erik Prince, C.E.O. of the Blackwater security company, recently in the news for nefarious deeds in Iraq? One motif of those stories is to associate Mr. Prince with the conservative evangelicals, which have become the boogie-men that secularists like to scare themselves with. The picture of Mr. Prince is of a “theo-con” with a private army, out to take over the world. But, as Mollie Hemingway points out, Mr. Prince is a Roman Catholic! The mainstream media doesn’t even understand the difference!
Posted by Veith at 05:57 AM
October 24, 2007
The Eugenics Agenda
James Watson won the Nobel Prize in 1953 for discovering the structure of DNA, a feat he popularized in his book “The Double Helix.” Lately, he has been spouting off about how black people are genetically inferior. Michael Gerson gives more details and raises the spector that looms behind such comments, the new biology’s penchant for eugenics. Gerson goes on to show that science alone can recognize NO BASIS for equality, human rights, or protecting the weak. For that you need to believe in something “transcendent”:
In 2003, Watson spoke in favor of genetic selection to eliminate ugly women: “People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great.” In 2000, he suggested that people with darker skin have stronger libidos. In 1997, Watson contended that parents should be allowed to abort fetuses they found to be gay: “If you could find the gene which determines sexuality and a woman decides she doesn’t want a homosexual child, well, let her.” In the same interview, he said, “We already accept that most couples don’t want a Down child. You would have to be crazy to say you wanted one, because that child has no future.”
. . . . . . . .
“If you really are stupid,” Watson once contended, “I would call that a disease.” What is the name for the disease of a missing conscience?
Watson is not typical of the scientific community when it comes to his extreme social application of genetics. But this controversy illustrates a temptation within science — and a tension between some scientific views and liberalism.
The temptation is eugenics. Watson is correct that “we already accept” genetic screening and selective breeding when it comes to disabled children. About 90 percent of fetuses found to have Down syndrome are aborted in America. According to a recent study, about 40 percent of unborn children in Europe with one of 11 congenital defects don’t make it to birth.
. . . . . . .
British scientist Robert Edwards has argued, “Soon it will be a sin of parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease.” A sin. Which leaves disabled children who escape the net of screening — the result of parental sin — to be born into a new form of bastardy and prejudice.
. . . . . .
Yuval Levin of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a rising academic analyst of these trends, argues: “Watson is anti-egalitarian in the extreme. Science looks at human beings in their animal aspects. As animals, we are not always equal. It is precisely in the ways we are not simply animals that we are equal. So science, left to itself, poses a serious challenge to egalitarianism.”
“The left,” Levin continues, “finds itself increasingly disarmed against this challenge, as it grows increasingly uncomfortable with the necessarily transcendent basis of human equality. Part of the case for egalitarianism relies on the assertion of something beyond our animal nature crudely understood, and of a standard science alone will not provide. Defending equality requires tools the left used to possess but seems to have less and less of.”Posted by Veith at 07:12 AM
World Serious
My favorite sentence in a sports commentary this year is by Dave Sheinin, on the Colorado Rockie’s last 22 games: Win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, loss. Win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win.
Make your World Series predictions here.
Posted by Veith at 06:23 AM
California update
Now a million people have been evacuated due to the wildfires in California, the biggest mass evacuation in California history.
Posted by Veith at 06:08 AM
October 23, 2007
The Christian Right’s Candidate?
As I blogged about earlier, leaders of the Christian right met in Washington to try to decide what presidential candidate to rally around. The results of the straw poll, with 5,776 votes cast:
First place: Mitt Romney (1,595)
Second place: Mike Huckabee (1,565)
Rudy Giuliani only won 107 votes, but that was more than John McCain’s dead-last showing at 26.
Posted by Veith at 07:15 AM
A new tactic for the Revolution
Still-Communist China is buying a big stake in the major investment bank Bear Stearns. This to go with earlier purchases of the private equity firm the Blackstone Group and the British establishment bank Barclay’s.
This is a brilliant tactic that Marx and Lenin never dreamt of! Become the proletariat of the whole world and make so much money that you can just buy the Capitalists!
(Whenever I bring this sort of thing up, some of you maintain that China isn’t really Communist any more, that what we are seeing is the victory of capitalism. I’m telling you that China is indeed Communist and that its leaders have simply devised a hybrid of market-based development within an overarching socialist ideology. That is, a Communism that works. Or, more precisely, a National Socialism.)
Posted by Veith at 07:04 AM
California burning
Southern California is on fire. A quarter of a million people have been evacuated, the most since Hurricane Katrina. Wildfires are ravaging San Diego, Orange County, Malibu, and many other beautiful places, including Pepperdine University. Hundreds of homes, churches, and other buildings have been destroyed, and one person so far has been killed.
We’ve got lots of blog readers in those areas. Someone who has been evacuated into some big basement or whose home has been burned down is unlikely to have internet access, so I don’t expect first-hand reporting, but I’d like to hear from you if possible about how things are. The rest of us should pray for them and their fellow-Californians.
Posted by Veith at 06:52 AM
October 22, 2007
What do you need in a Pastor?
The North Carolina conference this year was about the Office of the Ministry. I had been asked to approach the topic as a layperson and to suggest what we lay people need from our pastors. I was rather uncomfortable with that assignment, not wanting to be a pastor critic as I’ve been a movie critic, but I came up with some things to say.
I can’t believe I didn’t ask this sooner so that I could have used it as research for my presentation, but I’d like to know (especially since the seminary profs there said that I need to convey my message to their students so I might talk about this some more), what do you need in a pastor and what do you not need?
Posted by Veith at 08:20 AM
Scaerisms
Last weekend I spoke at the annual Luther Lecture program sponsored by Salem Lutheran church and Mt. Olive Lutheran church in North Carolina. Another one of the speakers was Dr. David Scaer, the renowned theologian and professor at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN.
The organizer of the event, Rev. Ray Ohlendorf, had to high-tail it out of there to get to his grandson’s baptism in Wisconsin, so it was left to Dr. Scaer to run the whole Sunday service, beginning with Bible class. Dr. Scaer is an irascible, witty, satirical kind of guy, known for giving individuals a hard time. (”But I just do it for sport,” he said as we were driving. “I don’t really mean it.”) His lecture style is digressive, to say the least, but in the pulpit he was all-business.
But whether he is tormenting someone or off on a tangent lecturing or preaching or telling anecdotes, Dr. Scaer tosses off profound theological insights as if they were afterthoughts. Here are some from the weekend:
Against the common evangelical assumption that very young children, being unable to reason, cannot have faith: Jesus commends the great faith of someone three times–the Syro-Phoenician woman, the centurion, and, as a group, CHILDREN.
On Thanksgiving coming up: To ‘thank” is a transitive verb; without saying whom we are thankful TO, just being thankful is an incomplete thought.
On Prayer: God comes to us in His Word and sacraments, but in prayer, we come to HIM.
On Jacob wrestling with the Angel of the LORD: Prayer is hand-to-hand combat.
Do any of you, particularly his students, have memorable Scaerisms of your own?
Posted by Veith at 08:00 AM
October 19, 2007
Suburban radicalism
Michael Gerson observes how his local suburban coffee shop is decorated with left-wing slogans and sells anti-Bush T-shirts and projects this whole bohemian revolutionary kind of vibe. This in fact has become a commercial fashion:
However you judge its authenticity, this brush fire of suburban radicalism is part of a trend. Mall mainstays such as Urban Outfitters have sold shirts sporting the CCCP logo (for the young or forgetful, this was an acronym for the Soviet Union), along with kaffiyehs to show solidarity with the Palestinians. Every store that hawks bath salts seems anxious to prove the connection between long soaks and social sensitivity. Images of Che Guevara adorn bikinis — more than slightly incongruous for one of the fathers of the Cuban labor camp system. Last year, the actress Cameron Diaz got into trouble in Peru for carrying a purse decorated with a Maoist slogan in a nation that suffered 70,000 deaths from a Maoist insurgency. (She later apologized.)
Marketing experts call this kind of social appeal “emotional branding.” Since it is difficult to gain consumer loyalty based on the virtues of clothing produced by the same Chinese manufacturers, companies compete for customers by reflecting their lifestyles and aspirations. People are shopping for “symbolic benefits” such as a feeling of sophistication, not just real benefits such as, well, coffee. And there seems to be a close tie between emotional branding and leftism. In the world of marketing, radical politics seems to be a symbol for rebellion, anger, individuality and artistic self-expression — the main preoccupations of youth culture. I have never been in a coffeehouse that displayed posters of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher. There actually was a time when conservatism was fashionable, and it is a bad herald that liberalism has become trendy again. Notice that ideas and arguments do not matter, just the coolness factor.
The irony, though, is that this so-called suburban radicalism, based on displaying one’s political righteousness on one’s consumer goods, is so capitalist to the core, turning ideologies into commodities to buy and sell in the marketplace. Affluent slaves to fashion who express their political zeal by buying $5 lattes pose NO threat to the established order.
Posted by Veith at 08:08 AM
Krauthammer’s razor
In an excellent column on Nancy Pelosi’s bewildering crusade to pass that resolution condemning Turkey for genocide, Charles Krauthammer sets forth a general principle: I fall back on Krauthammer’s razor (with apologies to Occam): In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.
Posted by Veith at 08:03 AM
Woes of the Christian Right
Christian activists are holding a big conclave in Washington today, trying to figure out what to do about the presidential election. I don’t understand why they aren’t rallying around Mike Huckabee, whom even the secular media is praising as a candidate, and who is not just trying to get the Christian conservative votes but is a Christian conservative himself. The argument that he can’t win is ridiculous at the primary stage. Of course he can’t win if people who like him won’t vote for him because he can’t win. Vote for the person you agree with and maybe he will. Some of the same people who think this way about Huckabee are contemplating a Third Party candidate–do they think he can win?
Meanwhile, according to the linked article, Bob Jones III, the fundamentalist and arch-separatist, has endorsed the Mormon Mitt Romney! If Bob Jones can endorse a Mormon, anything can happen.
And while the leaders fret, the folks in the pew–half of them, according to polls–support pro-abortion but tough-on-terrorism Rudy Giuliani. My prediction is that, if abortion is taken off the table, with the choice being between two pro-abortion candidates, many conservative Christians will just revert to their former and in some ways more culturally-natural home in the Democratic party.
What do you think this election will do to Christian political activism?
Posted by Veith at 07:49 AM
October 18, 2007
The Woodstock Generation of politicians
In the earmark orgy, in which Congressmen pad legitimate bills with pork barrel spending of taxpayer money for special interests back home, the Senate is poised to allow Mrs. Clinton to give $1 million to an upstate N.Y. museum commemorating the Woodstock concert. The museum is already funded by a billionaire, but the Senate wants you to fund it too.
Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma congressman who deserves some kind of award for his lonely battle against this sort of thing, has been trying a new strategy, offering bills to take that money instead and use it for causes beloved by Democrats, such as “helping the children,” but even that doesn’t work.
Posted by Veith at 07:21 AM
Photo IDs for voters
I once wrote a monthly column for a local newspaper. I did a series of pieces on some deplorable racial issues that earned me all kinds of plaudits. Then, after an election marred by voter fraud, I did a column on the necessity of requiring voters to prove their identities with photo ID cards. Then some of the very people who had praised my crusade against racism attacked me, assuming that my desire for clean elections proved that I was a racist after all. So it was with some sense of vindication that I read this column about a court ruling that laws requiring voters to prove their identities are constitutional. The issue was clinched when the litigators arguing about how oppressive the measure is were unable to turn up EVEN ONE individual who would be burdened by this law: After two years of litigation, neither the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) nor the other organizations who brought the Georgia suit could produce a single individual who did not already have a photo ID or could not easily get one. The claims that large numbers of voters lack a photo ID were dismissed by the court when the plaintiffs were unable to produce evidence.
As the judge noted, “although the Plaintiffs claim to know of people who claim that they lack Photo ID, Plaintiffs have failed to identify those individuals”the failure to identify those individuals ‘is particularly acute’ in light of plaintiffs’ contention that a large number of Georgia voters lack acceptable Photo ID.”The case now goes before the Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear the arguments and settle the question once and for all.
When an individual can vote more than once in different precincts and claiming different identities, as has been happening, that cancels the vote of rightful citizens of every race. It destroys democracy. All Americans of every party, group, and political persuasion, should support voter identification.
Posted by Veith at 07:04 AM
October 17, 2007
History in a broken plate
Archeologists rummaging around in James Madison’s garbage dump at his estate Montpelier have found a broken piece of china that apparently once belonged to the executed French queen Marie Antoinette. The relic, identified by its designer, jibes with oral accounts according to which the Father of our Constitution bought them from another founder James Monroe, who picked up the dishes when he was our diplomatic representative in France. Monroe sold them, among other keepsakes, when, in the absence of expense accounts, he was raising money to go back to France to buy the Louisiana Purchase!
Posted by Veith at 08:47 AM
Truth or Consequences
Congressional democrats are pushing for a non-binding resolution condemning Turkey for genocide against the Armenians. It is true that 1.5 million Christian Armenians were slaughtered in the early part of last century, though Turkey insists that they were largely casualties of starvation, disease, and war, since the Armenians were fighting on the side of the Russians during World War I against their own country.
I am sympathetic with the Armenians, but why pass a resolution now? Turkey, hyper-sensitive about the issue, is threatening to invade the Kurdish region of Iraq, the Kurds (like the Armenians) wanting their own country that includes part of what is now Turkey. The Iraqi Kurds have been sending guerillas–or call them “terrorists”–into Turkey to try to raise a rebellion. (Now Turkey knows how Israel feels.) So what happens if Turkey sends troops into Iraq and they cross our troops? The situation is incendiary.
This kind of feel-good legislation, oblivious to consequences, is what we can look forward to if and when the Democrats finish their takeover. There is a reason the Constitution entrusts the conduct of diplomacy and foreign relations to the Executive Branch.
Or do you think Congress should just go on record about the truth, regardless of the consequences?
Posted by Veith at 08:19 AM
Playoffs
Has there ever been a team as hot as the Colorado Rockies? And I feel good for Cleveland, a Milwaukee-type city. And there is Kenny Lofton, 15 years after a one-season wonder from thke Brewers, Pat Listach, beat him out for Rookie of the Year, still playing well, hitting home runs and stealing bases at the age of 40.
Posted by Veith at 08:12 AM
October 16, 2007
Relativism vs. Islam
Another cultural problem we have in prosecuting the war in Iraq and the larger war against Islamic terrorism–despite our military prowess–is articulated by Mark Steyn in “The Washington Times”:
One reason is we’re not really comfortable with ideology, either ours or anybody else’s. Insofar as we have an ideology, it’s a belief in the virtues of “multiculturalism,” “tolerance,” “celebrate diversity” — a bumper-sticker ideology that is, in effect, an anti-ideology that explicitly rejects the very idea of drawing distinctions between your beliefs and anybody else’s.
This was emphatically not the case, Mr. Steyn shows, during the Cold War , when Americans of all stripes–liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans–agreed on a clear ideology arrayed against Communism.
I would add, from remembering those times and from recently watching old Twilight Zone reruns, that this ideology emphasized the values of personal liberty, capitalist economics, and transcendent religion.
Posted by Veith at 07:01 AM
Dignity vs. Democracy
Columnist David Ignatius quoting counter-insurgency expert Lt. Col. David Kilcullen on the cultural divide in our actions in Iraq: “We talk about democracy and human rights. Iraqis talk about justice and honor.”
I would add that tribal societies are especially fixated on their honor, which explains why families in such socieites are often willing to kill their own children for violating their family honor in marrying the wrong person, or converting to Christianity, or other transgressions.
Ignatius emphasizes the “dignity” angle, observing, rightly, that our very presence in Iraq violates that people’s sense of dignity. This is why occupying powers always have such problems defeating native insurgents and why our problems in Iraq are so intractable.Posted by Veith at 06:25 AM
Military Victories
In most wars, the press covers the nation’s victories, in which the public takes satisfaction. In the Iraq war, coverage is mostly limited to how many of our soldiers got killed. Even when “good news” gets reported, it has to do with our soldiers building schools and helping kids. Not killing the enemy. But here the anti-war “Washington Post” tells a story of note, that our troops, for all of their problems with other factions, have come close to defeating Al-Qaida in Iraq.
Posted by Veith at 06:25 AM
October 15, 2007
Living Wills
No one ever accused “The Washington Post” of being pro-life, but the lead column on Sunday’s opinion sections was Charlotte F. Allen’s catchily-titled Back Off! I’m Not Dead Yet. It draws on her experience as a cancer patient about how people are subjected to intense pressure in hospitals to sign “Living Wills,” giving permission for doctors to start refusing care at various points so the patient can die. While not objecting to the principles behind the Living Wills as such, the author makes the case that in the way they are being promoted, they amount to propaganda and legal cover for euthanasia, which she shows is more common than we realize.
Posted by Veith at 07:12 AM
Hard Times Cafe
I’ve got to add another restaurant to my list of favorites: The Hard Times Cafe. It’s in Alexandria, though I see in the website I just linked there are some other locations. It’s modeled after the classic chili parlours of Oklahoma and Texas, but this one features three versions of this delicacy: Texas style, Cincinnati syle (!), and (my favorite) Terlingua Red. Not only that, but it has the best jukebox ever, playing vintage artists like Hank Williams and contemporary artists in that tradition, such as Wayne the Train Hancock and the Jimi Hendrix of country music, Junior Brown. (Also rockabilly and boogie, as well as Elvis and Bob Dylan, who are correctly placed in this overarching genre.) Hard Times also occasionally sponsors Western Swing or Alternative Country bands giving a concert out back in the parking lot.
I’ve eaten there several times now, underneath a faded Oklahoma flag. Sunday after church my wife had a meeting at her school, so after eating our Frito Pies, I stayed behind to watch the Packers beat the Redskins on the muted TV, with Johnny Cash wailing in the background. It couldn’t get much better than that for me.
Posted by Veith at 06:54 AM
Objective Justification
It was good to be back at our new church home on Sunday, after a spell, which will resume, of weekend travelling. One thing that struck me was an excerpt from Henry Eyster Jacobs’ “Elements of Religion” (1894), which we get from the excellent Scholia resource service and print on the backs of our bulletins:
Every human life that enters this world is that of a redeemed child of God.
He or she is also a child of wrath, Eyster explains, but Christ has died for the sins of the whole world. Therefore, everyone has been redeemed. The child of wrath simply needs to receive that redemption through the means of grace (the Word and Sacraments) and the saving faith in Christ whom they communicate.
Eyster is referring to a neglected teaching of Lutheran orthodoxy: the doctrine of objective justification. Christ has already justified the world. Each person now needs “subjective justification,” the personal appropriation of Christ’s work. But we can look at each person we see, including non-Christians, as one of Christ’s redeemed children.
Calvinists, of course, who believe Jesus died only for the elect, will not agree with this, of course, and I’m not sure how Arminians or other evangelicals take this. But I think this is an important teaching that can help us perceive the lost in a more loving way.
Correct me if I’m misconstruing objective justification or leaving something out. Also, feel free to comment on what YOU learned in church this week.
Posted by Veith at 06:41 AM
October 12, 2007
Terrorist mastermind converts to Christianity?
According to this report, Ramzi Yousef, who organized the first attack on the World Trade Center (not 9/11, but the earlier bombing in the parking garage) claims to have become a Christian. The terrorist, now in a Supermax prison in Colorado, claims this, but the warden accuses him of just playing games. But for a Muslim–who used to pray every hour when he first got there–to even say such a thing would be unthinkable unless it were true. The terrorist and his prison will be featured on this Sunday’s “60 Minutes,” which will air what the warden says. I suspect the program is missing the full magnitude of this possibility, which, if true, would be dramatic evidence of the grace of God changing a very hardened heart.
Posted by Veith at 07:56 AM
Nobel Prizes
So Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize? For his movie? If there were a Nobel Prize for environmentalism, OK, but what does that have to do with Peace, except in some metaphorical or indirect sense? And Doris Lessing gets the prize for Literature? I cannot speak of the other prizes, though one of the science awards went to the person who pioneered the technology that lets us download music.
Who would YOU nominate for a Nobel prize? (Both serious and satirical candidates are welcome.)Posted by Veith at 07:44 AM
Bad Principles vs. No Principles
Which is better, or rather the lesser of two evils? A leader with bad principles, who would thus systematically and regardless of consequences enact bad policies? Or one with no principles, who might occasionally do something right out of opportunism, pressure, or self-interest?
Conservative pundit Charles Krautthammer says this about Hillary Clinton:
I could never vote for her, but I (and others of my ideological ilk) could live with her — precisely because she is so liberated from principle. Her liberalism, like her husband’s — flexible, disciplined, calculated, triangulated — always leaves open the possibility that she would do the right thing for the blessedly wrong (i.e., self-interested, ambition-serving, politically expedient) reason.
I’m not convinced, despite Mr. Krauthammer’s examples that he gives, that Mrs. Clinton is NOT ideologically motivated. But still, what do you think about the philosophical question–which has many applications–that this poses?
Posted by Veith at 07:33 AM October 11, 2007
Your kind words
In answer to some of your kind words upon my return: The best way to read academic books, such as my out-of-print and now expensive book on George Herbert, is to check it out of a library. Libraries are the custodians for books like that. Most big and university libraries have it already, but any library can get it for you via interlibrary loan. Same with my book on the Hudson River artists. And I actually am toying with someone else on the possiblity of a Herbert collection.
And, yes, I’m a big P.G. Wodehouse fan. Thanks for your offer, Mark. I’ll get back to you, but I must set off for another busy day.
Posted by Veith at 07:14 AM
Hope for Europe and the rest of us
In London the Montgomeries took me to the Evensong service at St. Paul’s cathedral. Then in Salisbury I went to morning and evening services in the cathedral there, which is one of the most magnificent of all gothic structures. I had been to both places before as a tourist, but to experience them for the purpose for which they were built was overwhelming. With the ethereal voices of the children’s choir chanting the Psalms, the rich Biblical language of the Book of Common Prayer, and the extensive Bible readings, those transcendent structures were filled with the Word of God.
The cathedral services had no sermon, which I considered a good thing, given the current state of Anglican theology. But no one could deny, being in those cathedrals at worship, that Christianity is a formidable, profound, culture-creating religion, with a palpable presence.
Yes, Christianity is in a bad way in the West. Paul McCain reports in Cyberbrethren that ministers are being warned not to wear their clerical collars outside official functions, since there have been so many violent attacks on the clergy. But aren’t we told that Christians are BLESSED when we are unpopular, spit upon, and despitefully used? Doesn’t cultural hostility always bring out the best in the church, while cultural acceptance always makes the church weaker and less faithful?
My observation from the conference, after meeting many faithful Christians from England and elsewhere around the world, is that in countries where the church is culturally unpopular, ONLY those who are true believers bother to go to church. The intensity of faith increases.
The hope for Christianity in Europe is not in the numbers of people currently in the pews but that the Word of God is there. Europe has the infrastructure for reformation and revival. That the Word of God is still present means that God has not abandoned the West and that its time will come again.
Posted by Veith at 06:52 AM
October 10, 2007
The Conference
The conference on George Herbert–who is arguably the greatest Christian lyric poet–was at Salisbury, an easy train ride from London. Herbert’s tiny church, St. Andrews, was just a couple of miles from the city (I thought it was way out in the country), accessible via a very pleasant walk. (It’s still an active parish, with the members giving the 60 or so attendees from 9 countries a fine presentation on Rev. Herbert and their church. They included fascinating and, I think, otherwise unknown details, such as his custom of ringing the bells every morning, at which time he would pray for his parishioners and they would pray for him. This custom of mutual prayer continued for centuries until WWII, at which time the bell was melted down for the war effort.)
It was very gratifying for me to get back into Herbert scholarship. My dissertation led to my first book, “Reformation Spirituality: The Religion of George Herbert.” At that time, scholars tended to interpret Herbert in terms of medieval Catholic meditative practices. I made the obvious point that Herbert was, rather, shaped by the Reformation, with his poems all about the conflict between sin and grace, depicting justification by faith, and just about every other facet of Reformation piety. (My paper this time was on Herbert and the doctrine of vocation.)
I was pleased to see that now my position is generally accepted. (Other scholars around that time also were making similar points.) Big name scholars came up to me saying how they were influenced by that book, with one saying “it changed my life.” How amazing it is to me whenever I hear from someone who was positively affected by something I have written! How amazing it is to me to have actually had an impact on the scholarly world.
I met lots of fine scholars, a good number of which are devoted Christians. I met a professor from Japan whose research interest is Luther’s influence on Herbert. (This may be another example of Christian evangelism in Japan happening through Christian artists, such as Bach and writers such as Herbert.) Anyway, going to this conference was very good for me, as I get back into academia.
Posted by Veith at 06:44 AM
The Club
In London, I met up with my new colleague John Warwick Montgomery, who, with his charming wife Lany, took me out to dinner at his club. No, not the Drones, as would befit me better, but the Atheneum, where Dickens and Thackery reconciled, which has a bulging scrapbook of all of their members who won Nobel prizes. (The Atheneum actually has swept those prizes, taking one in every category, including the Peace prize [Churchill, I believe] and Literature [Kipling; T. S. Eliot].)
“The Atheneum was posh and flash and all that, with its dark panels and obliging attendants, but it was also kind of shabby with its well-worn furniture and the way everything was so, so old, making it quite comfortable even for this Oklahoma country boy. The place was thick with history, as is England in general. The best part, though, was conversation with the Montgomeries, something I’m looking forward to doing even more of this side of the pond.
Posted by Veith at 06:32 AM
Thrill of Victory, Agony of Defeat
I can’t believe I didn’t include a “you be the blogger” category for Sports, especially since so much has happened while I’ve been gone. So go ahead and take this space, you woeful Cubs fans, optimistic Brewers fans, surprised Packer fans, jubilant Red Sox, suicidal Yankees, etc., etc.
Posted by Veith at 06:29 AM
I’m back!
I’m back from England (more on that later) and I now, finally, have an internet connection at our new house. I still need a new home for this blog. Being able to archive the thousands of back pages may be more challenging than I thought. I’d be glad to hear of any servers or services any of you might recommend.
Posted by Veith at 06:25 AM
October 01, 2007
Disruptions
Sorry you had trouble getting onto the blog today. WORLD is re-doing its website presences and the sub-blogs, of which is this one, will be affected. We will soon have a new server, so stay tuned. We need to move everything over, and then I hope you will re-do your bookmarks. Anyway, stay tuned. If you click the old link and miss the memo about the new one, just do a search for CRANACH and you should find us. In the meantime, things should work as usual until further notice.
Posted by Veith at 07:30 PM September 28, 2007
You be the blogger week
Well, we’ve sold our house in Wisconsin, closing this morning, and we’re buying a house in Virginia, closing this afternoon. So this weekend will be all about moving. I’m not sure when our DSL line will be activated. And as if settling into a new house were not making for a busy enough week, Tuesday night I’ll be headed to merry England, where I was invited to give a paper on George Herbert, arguably the greatest Christian poet, at an international conference being held in his honor at the site close to where he lived. (The title of my paper: “”Brittle, Crazy Glass’: George Herbert, Vocation, and the Two Priesthoods.”) So that will be great fun, though I regret the timing and feel guilty leaving my wife behind to unload boxes. Anyway, this will all mean that I won’t be blogging next week.
I hate it when the blogs I read take off, person of habit though I am. (I miss Bunnie Diehl, who has never come back from her vacation, and I check Luther at the Movies every day in the so far vain hope that his hiatus to take care of a sick relative–is it Katie? Little Hans?–whom I pray for will soon get back to blogging.)
So if you are in need of a Cranach fix, let’s do this: I will set up posts for some of our familiar categories. I will turn them wholly over to you, notable readers and incredibly insightful commentators who carry this blog anyway. (I mean, really. Two posts on Jesse James turned up veritable experts on the man, including Roger who actually attended his second funeral!) Find a subject on which you have something to say, start some threads, provoke some discussions, and I’ll leave you to it until I return.
Posted by Veith at 05:47 AM
Culture warriors/culture worriers
Posted by Veith at 05:07 AM
Vocation
Posted by Veith at 05:05 AM
Theological topics
Posted by Veith at 05:04 AM
Movies, Books, & Music
Posted by Veith at 05:04 AM
Pro-Life topics
Posted by Veith at 05:03 AM
Political topics
Posted by Veith at 04:02 AM
September 27, 2007
To our agnostic reader
Lively discussion continues to rage on the post about “Brights,” a.k.a. atheists, a couple of days ago. The comments include one from the Brights’ webmaster, who took umbrage at the way I was making fun of the atheists’ self-chosen moniker. But I appreciate SteveG, an agnostic who reads this blog, for weighing in.
SteveG, if the only Christianity I knew was mainstream liberal Protestantism, I would be like you. I’d much rather be an agnostic–or even a “bright”–than a theological liberal. Theological liberals don’t believe Christianity either, gutting it of the good parts (the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Gospel) and leaving only religiosity and do-gooderism. I have no respect for that. You are better off leaving, as you did.
As a Lutheran, I confess, in the words of our catechism, that “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to Him.” Luther continues: “but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” Faith is a gift. I can’t help having it.
Why do I have it and you don’t? I don’t know. It is certainly not because I am better than you. It is probably because I am worse than you. I suspect that you consider yourself to be a good person and are fairly satisfied with your life. If so, you are right. Christianity has nothing for you.
If, however, you do not live up to your own standards, if you have known guilt and failure, if you ever feel lost in the cosmos, if you struggle with the meaning of life and death, then the message that God became a human being; that somehow He took into Himself your griefs and transgressions; that God died for you; that He rose from the dead and somehow carries you with Him. All of that can become quite compelling. Not as an intellectual theorem but as something–rather, someone–that possesses you.
I know Christ not just as some idea to be debated, nor even just as a historical fact, nor even as an imaginary friend inside my head. He is outside myself, but really present. I hear His voice everytime I open my Bible or hear good preaching. I can pray to Him and I have the sense that He is listening. I encounter Him, not abstractly, but in His body and blood when He gives Himself to me again in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.
I can’t explain this, and I’m not saying it makes sense, but this is a genuine conviction, the evidence of something not seen, a kind of trust and relationship that is faith. Not faith in an emotion or a choice or an idea but faith that has the object of God enfleshed and nailed to a cross.Posted by Veith at 05:50 AM
The hidden agenda in the embryonic stem cell debate
Here is a powerful article by Julia Gorin on the fact that stem cells from embryos are not working to treat the ailments they are supposed to, but that only adult stem cells are actually showing therapeutic promise. And that the hidden agenda of the activists calling for the harvesting of embryos for their stem cells is to further dehumanize the fetus and to thus further legitimize abortion on demand.
The article is from several years ago, so the science may not be up to date, but she also addresses other arguments in the debate that I have not seen before and that cut through to the heart of the issue. I’ll post the whole thing after “continue reading.”
From Jewish World Review, October 15, 2004:
Christopher Reeve’s untimely death this week no doubt will endow the fight for embryonic stem-cell research with that much more sanctimony, and will inspire even more voters to heed Ron Reagan’s Democratic Convention call to “cast a vote for embryonic stem cell research” next month.
But the widespread lust to create and destroy embryos borders on creepy. While the world fixates specifically on embryonic stem cells, the cells cultured from adult and umbilical cord tissue have been making all the breakthroughs — just as one questioner cited at last week’s presidential debate.
The embryonic stem cell controversy is as charged as it is not because of religious right-wing zealots, as proponents of the research would have us believe, but because of abortion-on-demand zealots: it’s a sneak tactic to reinforce dehumanization of the embryo. But the successful right-wing-zealot spin on the debate has more than half of Republicans supporting taxpayer funding of it.
The record on embryonic stem cells is this: Stem cells extracted from embryos lack appropriate developmental instructions. In English, that means they’re so malleable that when a Parkinson’s patient in China was implanted with them a few years ago, her brain grew a cancerous cyst of human bone, hair and skin. Does Ron think his father should have had a Siamese twin in his head to keep him company during Alzheimer’s?
Speaking of Alzheimer’s, the experts say it’s unlikely that the cure for that particular disease lies in stem cells at all. “I personally think we’re going to get other therapies for Alzheimer’s a lot sooner,” stem cell researcher Michael Shelanski told the Washington Post in June. The paper goes on: “…Given the lack of any serious suggestion that stem cells themselves have practical potential to treat Alzheimer’s, the Reagan-inspired tidal wave of enthusiasm stands as an example of how easily a modest line of scientific inquiry can grow in the public mind to mythological proportions. It is a distortion that some admit is not being aggressively corrected by scientists.”
But the public likes fairytales, and counts on the magic wand of government money to deliver them.
Recall when the issue of the day was experimentation using aborted fetal tissue, a precursor to the embryonic stem cell debate. According to that study, done at the Parkinson’s Institute in Sunnyvale, CA and published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 200l, when brain cells from aborted fetuses were used to treat Parkinson’s patients — who had the usual tremor-type symptoms — the patients could now add uncontrolled writhing, twisting, chewing, wrist-flexing, head-jerking and arm-flinging to the roster.
In contrast, a patient named Dennis Turner testified at a Senate Hearing in July about the adult stem-cell treatment he received for Parkinson’s four years ago. He related that his shaking had improved to the point that not only was he able to go back to doing big game photography, but also to escape from a charging rhinoceros.
In June, 2002, the most flexible adult-derived stem cell was discovered in bone marrow, capable of transforming into just about any of the body’s specialized cells. In 2001, when an Israeli girl’s own white blood cells were implanted into her spine to treat paraplegia, she regained bladder control and limb mobility that stopped just short of the ability to walk — precisely the hoped-for benefits of embryonic stem cell therapy that are a decade or more away if at all.
Meanwhile, there is no law against private funding for embryonic stem cell research. Yet PPL Therapeutics, the British company that created Dolly the sheep, shut down its stem cell research program after it failed to find a buyer. Today PPL focuses on what it calls “more profitable markets” like protein treatments for lung disease and cystic fibrosis.
In contrast, BBC.com reports that Britain’s National Health Service “has recently invested large amounts of money into storing cord blood from newborn babies, and a number of private companies in the US and Europe are also offering cord blood storage services.” That’s because U.S. researchers have successfully used stem cells from umbilical cords to treat genetic diseases in children. The Duke University researchers had been using cord blood but, continues the report, “until now have been unsure as to why their treatment was successful.”
Perhaps it’s because they’re not using aborted fetuses or farmed embryos. Perhaps science is trying to tell us that the difference between an umbilical cord from a live birth, and a discarded fetus or embryo isn’t subtle. Perhaps the ethical way may also prove to be the most expedient way. Perhaps science is reminding us that it has ethical lines that shouldn’t be crossed — something that we used to be aware of.
The science-above-all argument is that in research, all avenues must be explored; one cannot pick and choose among them — regardless of whether the most promising of those avenues is capable of producing the desired result on its own.
But when did farming embryos for research and disposal become a legitimate avenue of research? If scientific research means pursuing all avenues, why not experiment on lunatics? Death row inmates aren’t busy either. Nor, for that matter, are the terminally ill or the elderly. These people have far less life potential than an embryo, anyway. If advancement is the priority, why not take an example from the Germans and Japanese, especially since our research is for creating cures and not plagues?
Naturally, prisoners — and most lunatics — would never consent to being experimented on. And their advocates would defend their civil rights. Conveniently enough, embryos can’t give or withhold consent, and their rights advocates are dismissed as fanatics.
But who are the real fanatics? When the debate is embryonic stem cell research, its proponents place science above everything else. When the debate is abortion — and science itself gives us ever clearer and earlier glimpses of “what” is growing in a uterus — the science-above-all crowd dismisses the science, even vociferously contradicting it.
So what we have is this: In the case of stem cells, all moral questions are abandoned supposedly in the furtherance of science. In the case of abortion, science is abandoned in the furtherance of an agenda. But the agenda is one and the same in both cases, and “science” is merely its pawn.
Posted by Veith at 05:44 AM
September 26, 2007
Vocations that are not callings
The Jesse James discussions raise an important issue about vocation. Since the purpose of every calling is to love and serve our neighbors, occupations that involve harming and using our neighbors are not true callings. God did not call Jesse James to rob or shoot his neighbor. So being a criminal is not a valid vocation.
That should be obvious, but there are also lawful professions that also involve harming one’s neighbor. An abortionist misuses his physician’s calling to heal by killing his patients. A pornographer makes a living by causing his neighbors to sin.
The early church had to contend with this with their catechumens, insisting, for instance, that Christians could not be gladiators, who kill their neighbors for sport. Being a soldier, though, does love and serve his neighbor, according to Luther, by defending his country, even though his calling entails killing his enemy.
There are some fine lines and no doubt disagreements about this. I once spoke about vocation in Nevada, where the question arose about the vocation of the blackjack dealer. Does she love and serve her neighbor as an entertainer, or harm her neighbor by winning his money? And what does a church in Nevada do with many members who have a part in the gambling industry?
Can you think of other lawful occupations that are not true callings from God and that Christians would do well to leave?
Posted by Veith at 06:18 AM
Book reviews
Thanks too for the book suggestions. You mentioned some I want to read. And thanks for the kind words about some of my books. I just finished another one, and it’s encouraging that people read them and find them helpful. I’m also glad some of my former students read this blog. One would think they would have had their fill of my digressions.
Posted by Veith at 06:14 AM
Jesse James, again
Thanks for the substantive and informative comments about Jesse James on yesterday’s post. To tell the truth, I’m not nearly finished with Hansen’s book, so I’m not sure what’s in it later. I’m glad to hear that he is a Catholic who has indeed treated Christian themes in literature–I want to read those others–so perhaps Jesse’s spiritual bent will come out later. But what I wish the author would have done, for a beginning, is simply tell us what church he went to. Was he a Baptist who believed “once saved always saved,” interpreting that (wrongly) as a license to do whatever he wanted to do? Or was he a Methodist always re-committing his life to Christ whenever he killed an innocent man in cold blood, as he did often? Was he an antinomian Lutheran? (My impression from the book is that Jesse was so self-righteous he never considered anything he did as wrong, an ugly dysfunction that can crop up in all denominations, but which does not get past God.)
So I appreciate very much Roger Moldenhauer’s contribution, that Jesse’s father was a Baptist pastor who was one of the founders of William Jewell College! More amazement! I envy Roger for attending his re-burial service, a regular gospel-preaching Baptist funeral. My mind continues to boggle.
And it keeps boggling that he remains a folk hero in Missouri and that people still defend him. One of the themes of Hansen’s book is the way Jesse became a celebrity and the way the dirty little coward who laid poor Jesse in his grave (who knows my allusion?) wanted to be a celebrity, motivated not just by the governor’s reward money but by the chance to be famous. Robert Ford went on the road re-enacting his assassination on the stage, but the public soon turned against him big time.
I’m also encouraged that Lars Walker wants to write a Western and has already done research on the Northfield bank incident, including seeing the skeleton of whoever it was. (My mistake, not Hansen’s: The skeleton in life belonged to Clell Miller.)
Posted by Veith at 05:48 AM
September 25, 2007
Read any good books lately?
Enough about my reading. Have you read anything you’d like to recommend?
Posted by Veith at 06:42 AM
War and/or Peace
I am happy to report that I have taken upon myself a project that I have long anticipated, as I discussed some time ago on this blog: I am reading Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” It’s before-bed reading, so I am taking it slowly, in it for the long haul. I admit that I am tempted to skip the Peace part and go right to the War. The first hundreds of pages take place in drawing rooms and at balls, but I see that Tolstoy is patiently building characters that I’m sure will pay off.
I have learned that Boris and Natasha from the old and great “Rocky & Bullwinkle” show were named after a couple in “War and Peace.” And I am curious how the stout, bespectacled, good-natured but clueless Pierre will do once he goes to war. Right now, he is actually sympathetic to Bonaparte. In fact, all of these Russian aristocrats are always speaking French and love all things about that country. Tolstoy is setting up some major ironies.
Posted by Veith at 06:41 AM
Jesse James, the Christian outlaw
I’ve been reading Ron Hansen’s “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” Not because it was made into a Brad Pitt movie to be released soon but because it was recommended as a good example of a genre I’m interested in, a rigorously accurate piece of history told with the narrative techniques of the novel. As the title indicates, the book is about the famous outlaw and the dirty little coward that laid poor Jesse in his grave.
The character of Jesse James is fascinating. He was a Bible-reading choir director who just happened to make his living robbing trains, sticking up banks, and murdering some 17 men. But he was a man of principle, refusing to rob preachers and widows. He would write letters to newspapers about how God will continue to protect him as long as he continues to serve Him.
He is a study in false piety. He seemed to rationalize his predations with a defeated-confederate loyalty, a modern Democrat’s hostility to corporations, and–above all–a sense that the world disrespects him and so deserves every blow he can give it.
Like most modern authors, Hansen does not really know what to do with religion, so I don’t think he really captures Jesse’s character, with its mixture of sanctimony and cruelty, hypocrisy and lawlessness (qualities that really do go together, though usually in a milder concoction than we see with Jesse James).
I’d like to see what an author who does understand Christianity could do with this character. Maybe we could lure Lars Walker into the task by appealing to his Minnesota nationalism. He could center on the James and Younger gangs’ disastrous attempt to rob the bank in Northfield, Minnesota. In that best of arguments for the Second Amendment, the townspeople got their guns and blasted these high-powered criminals to kingdom come.
I blogged about that event before, occasioned by my visit to that fair and brave little city, but Hansen provides some priceless details. When word spread that the bank was being robbed, the townspeople ran home to get their guns or, if they didn’t have one, rushed into the general store to make a purchase. The only ammunition one defender had was birdshot, which, while not lethal, absolutely tortured the bad guys trying to run away. The town’s mild-mannered physicians, Dr. Wheeler, went to the second floor of his building and from his window picked off one legendary outlaw after another. When the smoke cleared, the town donated the bodies of the slain malefactors to science. After the nearby medical school was finished with them, Dr. Wheeler procured the skeleton of one of the Younger brothers whom he had killed and kept it on display as a medical reference in his examining room.
A fiction writer couldn’t make up details as good as what actually happened.
Posted by Veith at 06:18 AM
September 24, 2007
Comments on Vocation
Read the comments on the weekend’s post about the vocation of actors. These are unusually insightful–even for this crowd of insightful readers–on the value of the arts and the nature of vocation.
Yes, “vocation,” meaning “calling” is technically reserved for those who have been “called by the Gospel,” but other terms, such as “office,” can apply to non-Christians as well. I was particularly intrigued by Lars Walker’s point about how those who put on a play all have to work together for a common goal–including making each other look good–as an image of how other callings also ought to function. Frank’s point about how “play” relates to all vocations was also helpful to me.
Posted by Veith at 08:53 AM
Ken Burns’s “The War”
Did you see the opener of Ken Burns’s new documentary on World War II, “The War”? I didn’t, but would like to hear from those who did. From what I read, it sounds rather like a pacifist screed, focusing on the horrors of war (which are certainly real), while downplaying the heroism and the morality of those who fought such a just war. Or does the heroism and morality come through? The filmmaker’s treatment of the Civil War was outstanding, but that really was a tragic conflict. I am hoping that he might hit the right notes with WWII. Did he?
Posted by Veith at 08:37 AM
Prospects for the “Brights”
As I blogged about recently, atheists are starting to call themselves “brights.” My colleague David Aikman is writing a book about the new atheists, and I heard him recount a comment from a pundit making fun of the term. He said that by calling themselves “brights,” the atheists are implying that everyone else is “dim” and stupid. The atheists might as well just refer to themselves as “smarty-pants.”
If there is one thing today’s postmodernist public cannot abide is anyone implying that they are better than anyone else. This antipathy, of course, also applies to Christians, whose belief in morality is often interpreted as some kind of moral superiority. (I heard that a contestant in one of those reality-based model competitions was a Christian who refused to pose in revealing outfits. She was soon voted off the show because he acted like she was better than anyone else.) Certainly, Christians who want to be convincing to the public today, so as to evangelize them, would do better to confess their sinfulness rather than their virtues.
But the neo-atheists are going to have the same problem in their anti-evangelism. This is not their only problem in reaching postmodernists. They are arguing on the basis of absolutes. They are saying Christianity is not true. They are arguing that Christianity is not good. Neither line of thought carries much weight in an age of relativism.
Even worse for the cause of the brights is that they are militant in wanting people to abandon their different faiths and to embrace atheism. That’s proselytizing. It’s also, by today’s standards, intolerant.
The brights can be seen as atheistic fundamentalists (people who think they have the only truth when it comes to religion), or as atheistic jihadists (people trying to stamp out the religions that oppose theirs).
Maybe the brights should talk with some church growth consultants. To reach people today they need to incorporate some catchy pop songs, meet felt needs, and downplay their doctrines.
Posted by Veith at 08:12 AM
September 21, 2007
The Vocation of Athlete
Now do the exercise described below, in the previous post, to the vocation of the professional athlete.
Posted by Veith at 08:10 AM
The Vocation of Actor
The post below raises an important theme for this blog, the doctrine of vocation. According to Luther, vocation is “God’s mask,” in which He is hidden but through which He works to give His gifts and govern His creation. God gives us this day our daily bread through the vocation of farmers, millers, and cooks. He grants healing through the vocation of doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals. He creates new life through the vocation of mothers and fathers, etc., etc. So he also works through us in our various vocations in the church, the household (including the workplace), and the state. And our purpose in all vocations is to love and serve our neighbor.
Ironically, the workplace vocations that most immediately and most importantly serve the neighbor are those that often receive the least esteem from the world, as well as the lowest pay (garbage collectors, farm workers, physical laborers). Whereas those that arguably do little earthly good (entertainers, athletes) have the highest status and paychecks.
But I do think entertainers and athletes have a legitimate vocation from God. What are the implications of the doctrine of vocation, say, for actors? What is their proper work. Who are the neighbors they are to love and serve, and how can they do that? What temptations do they face to misuse their vocation?
Posted by Veith at 08:01 AM
British actors vs. American celebrities
Nearly a third of the new television series premiering this Fall feature British actors. This article amounts to an interesting consideration of the acting vocation. It seems in England, acting is taken as a serious profession, involving extensive training, discipline, and hard-work. In America (though that older tradition still exists, especially in the theater), the emphasis is often on becoming or creating a celebrity.
Now Hollywood is discovering that England has a legion of skilled professionals who, by American standards, have a “fresh face.” Which is ironic, because my wife and I, being BBC aficionados, have noted how we keep seeing the same faces, from Dr. Who episodes to Masterpiece-theatre historical extravaganzas. We have also noticed how some of them have come to America to seek their fortunes, with many of these virtuosos appearing in bit parts.
Now at least some of them are getting good roles. The ground-breaker, as the linked article says, was Hugh Laurie, who, as I have written before, is a COMIC actor who, as Dr. House, plays totally against type and with a dead-on American accent. Click “continue reading” for a telling comparison of actors from the two countries.
Referring to Kevin McKidd, who played the centurion in the terrific HBO series “Rome“:
“We have a star culture — in Europe, it’s a profession.”
Case in point:
“Journeyman” star McKidd explained to critics at the press tour that his native Scottish accent is “completely impenetrable.” So when he went to drama school in Edinburgh, he was trained in a “very middle-class kind of neutral Scottish accent,” after which — at British drama school, “which is theater-based and Shakespeare-based” — he learned “what they call ‘RP,’ which is ‘received pronunciation,’ which is what the news readers over there speak.” And now, he said, he’s learned a “West Coast American accent” for his “Journeyman” role.
“I’m from the East Coast,” his American co-star Gretchen Egolf prattled merrily when he was through, flipping her hair. “I haven’t thought one minute about changing my accent to the West Coast American accent — you’re doing a much better job than me.”
See what we mean?Posted by Veith at 07:47 AM
September 19, 2007
Investing in rope to hang capitalists
Still-communist China is launching a huge high-tech surveillance program to keep tabs on dissidents, questioners, and Christians. To buy, sell, and develop the necessary technology, the still-communist government has started a for-profit corporation, China Security and Surveillance Technology.
This corporation will soon be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It has already attracted some $110 million FROM AMERICAN INVESTORS!
Comments columnist Harold Meyerson (linked above):
To be sure, leading American companies have a long and sordid record of investing in totalitarian states, including Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia and axis-of-evil Iran (hello, Halliburton). But, distinguish as we must among the various levels of hell, at least those American companies did not invest in the Gestapo, the Stasi, the KGB, the Revolutionary Guard. Maybe that was only because it was hard to turn a buck on the Stasi. Once China turned communist repression into an investment opportunity, however, capitalism responded as capitalism is supposed to respond: It wanted in. There are mega-bucks to be made, the hedge funds concluded, in hedging against democracy.
Capitalism is global now; democracy is not. We are moving toward one unified world market that is home to democratic and authoritarian systems alike. The Chinese model of Leninist capitalism poses a systemic challenge to the democratic capitalism that the West espouses. It promises continuing power and greatly increased wealth to the ruling elites of developing nations. Which means that America must disenthrall itself from one of its most cherished myths: that capitalism and democracy go hand in hand, that the spread of markets inevitably means the coming of democracy. That was a key argument that proponents of extending permanent favored trade status to China made during the 1990s. In fact, the creation of the Chinese-American economic entity that followed — in effect, moving our manufacturing belt from the Midwest to Shenzhen — has demonstrated the opposite. Leading American companies such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have acquiesced in Chinese Internet censorship. China’s nonexistent standards of product safety — the direct consequence of its absence of democracy — became our standards, too.
And now, some of Wall Street’s smoothest operators are investing directly in China’s suppression of speech, worship and the right to assemble.Posted by Veith at 07:12 AM
Re-education camps
In Iraq, we are currently holding some 25,000 detainees–rounded up insurgents, including over 800 juveniles–which gives us the opportunity to re-shape their thinking. From an article on the subject:
The U.S. military has introduced “religious enlightenment” and other education programs for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, said yesterday.
Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to “bend them back to our will” and are part of waging war in what he called “the battlefield of the mind.” Most of the younger detainees are held in a facility that the military calls the “House of Wisdom.”
The religious courses are led by Muslim clerics who “teach out of a moderate doctrine,” Stone said, according to the transcript of a conference call he held from Baghdad with a group of defense bloggers. Such schooling “tears apart” the arguments of al-Qaeda, such as “Let’s kill innocents,” and helps to “bring some of the edge off” the detainees, he said.
. . . . . . . . .
Psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors and interrogators help distinguish the extremists from others, he said.
After reassessments and interrogations, Stone said, some detainees are recommended for release. “If a detainee is an imperative security risk . . . then I’m going to reduce that risk and I’m going to replace that destructive ideology,” he said. “And then when he’s assessed to no longer be a threat, I’m going to release the detainee being less likely to be a recidivist.”
Since May, Stone said, he has released about 2,000 detainees “and we’ve not had any coming back.” Propaganda, re-education camps, brain-washing, and government-sponsored teaching of religion–does this bother you, even though it seems to “work”?
Posted by Veith at 06:59 AM
September 18, 2007
The Return of Ayn Rand
Another factor in the rise of atheism, described below, is what we might call the second coming of Ayn Rand. Read this for how high-powered executives and entrepreneurs are embracing her writings. (A major acolyte is former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.)
According to Rand and her “objectist” philosophy, the only virtue is selfishness. She advocates radical libertarianism and laissez faire economics in every sphere of life. She attacks belief in God and altruism of every kind. Her novels, though, celebrate the entrepreneur who rises above the crowd. She thus has great appeal to many conservatives, some of whom glom onto her celebrations of freedom and free enterprise without buying completely into her ideology. Still, the Randian mindset is very insidious.
There is an atheism that attacks Christianity on the grounds that it is not true. The new atheism, described below, attacks Christianity on the grounds that it is not good. But Rand’s atheism, with that of her mentor Nietzsche, is far more devastating, attacking Christianity on the grounds of its strengths. The ethic of “love,” they claim, inhibits the natural law of survival of the fittest, making successful people feel guilty, and draining the culture of its strength, with Christian compassion begetting expensive welfare programs, protectionist economic policies, and other misguided attempts to prop up failures, etc., etc. And unlike most atheists, she offers a positive ideology to fill the void she creates.
When I was in high school, a good friend got way into Rand and this kind of thinking. It challenged my then rather minimalistic faith more than anything else. Trying to answer her led me to C. S. Lewis, among other writers, and drove me deeper into Christianity. But it is driving even more away.
Posted by Veith at 09:08 AM
Atheism is back in vogue
Read this article and this article, which chronicle the new upsurge of atheism.
Five recent books attacking religion (such as Christopher Hitchen’s “God Is Not Great”) have become bestsellers, outselling titles by the Pope and Tim LaHaye. Today, 5 million Americans claim to be atheists. Throw in agnostics and you have 20 million. But more and more are coming out of the closet, admitting their unbelief, thanks in part to the backlash against all “fundamentalism” after 9/11 and the surging unpopularity of conservative Christians.
Meanwhile, atheists are organizing into associations. Among other things, they are devising ceremonies for weddings, the birth of babies, and funerals. (Remind you of any other institution?)
And, to give themselves a better connotation, they are following the model of homosexuals who started calling themselves the more cheerful word “gay.” The atheists are calling themselves “brights.” (This signifies also that they think they are brighter and smarter than people who believe in religion.)
Posted by Veith at 07:10 AM
September 17, 2007
McCain’s church-hopping
Evidently, Episcopalians don’t have a confirmation vow. John McCain says that he is no longer an Episcopalian but a Baptist. But that’s he’s still Episcopalian.
Posted by Veith at 07:40 AM
Overcome with Faith
Don’t get me wrong, from the post below: Other Christians also are willing to suffer all, even death, for their faith. I salute these faithful Presbyterians: Details have emerged about how those South Korean Christians were treated by the Taliban. They were beaten, put through mock executions, and threatened with death if they did not convert to Islam. This entailed reciting a particular prayer. Apparently, none of them did, and two of their number were killed. Killer quote in the article, as the leader of the group was led away to his death: “overcome with faith.”
Posted by Veith at 07:21 AM
To suffer all, even death
Our transfer finally went through, so yesterday my wife and I were formally received into membership at St. Athanasius Lutheran Church. The service drew on the Baptism and Confirmation liturgies. We renounced the devil and all his works, we affirmed our belief in the Holy Trinity, we accepted the authority of the Bible, and we confessed that the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church is drawn from the Bible and is “faithful and true.” After agreeing to hear the Word of God, receive the Lord’s Supper, and live according to the Word of God “in faith, word, and deed,” we were asked this:
Do you intend to continue steadfast in this confession and Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?
We answered, “I do, by the grace of God.”
I don’t believe we were asked that when we first became Lutherans years ago, nor in the other churches we transferred to. As I blogged some time ago, that confirmation vow is very powerful, making us feel a solidarity with those through the ages who did suffer death rather than deny that confession. I think of the Inquisition, whose original target was believers in the “Lutheran heresy,” the cities in the Thirty Years War whose inhabitants were put to the sword for believing the Augsburg Confession, the members of the “Confessing Church” who opposed the liberal, Nazified state church of Germany that formally rejected the Scriptures for being “Jewish,” the Lutherans being killed by Muslims in Africa today (a land that has far more Lutherans than America does).
Becoming a Lutheran is a big commitment in this time of church shopping and generic Christianity. I can understand someone not wanting to be a Lutheran, but I can’t understand how anyone who took that vow could join some other church or would want to, given how Word-centered, Christ-centered, and Gospel-centered this theology is.
Posted by Veith at 06:47 AM
September 14, 2007
Our little controversy
On the “Having Discussions” post: I do not have time to engage in Matthew 18 controversies with people I don’t even know and on internet accounts I don’t even have time to keep up with. I don’t think Matthew 18 should be used as a shield to ward off criticism in intellectual disputes, and, besides, as Luther’s Large Catechism (to which I must confessionally subscribe) it doesn’t apply here because public offenses may be publically rebuked. (Luther didn’t need to travel to Rome to discuss his disagreements with the Pope privately before publishing his 95 Theses.) But even setting aside all of this and assuming Matthew 18 does apply, Manxman was the one who attacked ME!
And it wasn’t because of his “manner.” It was the substance. He claimed I believe things I do not believe, that I was going soft on an issue that I was not going soft on. I keep explaining that, but he and some of his defenders still do not understand. Whoops, I used a confusing word. Let me explain: Wanting to “understand” something is not that same thing as “understanding” in today’s therapeutic tolerant sense. Rather, it is what I am obliged to try to do in my vocation as a scholar. Asking a question is not the same as “questioning,” but is what I am obliged to do in my vocation as a teacher.
Manxman did not apologize, except in a sense that makes him get to be Martin Luther and me get to be Neville Chamberlain. He is clearly not sorry for what he said, nor does he think he needs my forgiveness. But I don’t care. I’ll forgive him anyway.
You’re not banned, Manxman.
Posted by Veith at 08:59 AM
How the government solves a problem
It has been discovered that prison libraries had a big selection of jihadist literature. OK, that is a problem. So the solution was to draw up a list of 150 safe titles from each of the world’s religions. Then, all titles that are NOT on the list are to be purged from the shelves, including many innocent and edifying Christian books.
Instead of just getting rid of the books that DO incite violence, the government gets rid of a far larger number of books that DO NOT. I guess the idea was to prevent the necessity of anyone having to read any of them.
Posted by Veith at 08:40 AM
Animal/Human Embryos
British scientists are getting ready to generate the first embryos that are hybrids of human beings and animals. British regulators have given permission for human cells to be imprinted in a cow’s egg, which will then be destroyed after 14 days.
Please notice, these will not be just cells, but EMBRYOS. By pro-life doctrine, an embryo is life to be protected. These will be hybrids, not chimeras (in which species are mixed on the level of DNA), since the DNA in these cases will all be human.
Let’s go ahead and take the next step, since scientists are sure to. If they could generate a chimeric human/cow embryo, a genuine half-man, half-cow creature, should we grant it the status of human life? Assume that it could never be brought to term, so we couldn’t know whether the man-cow would be rational or not. If you would not consider it human, does that mean there is no problem in making such combinations? (I myself am certain that such violations of nature should not be made, and if they are made, they should not be killed.)
HT: my student Ed Hill
Posted by Veith at 07:22 AM
September 13, 2007
Passing of a generation
Madeleine L’Engle died. The author of “A Wrinkle in Time” and other fantasies, L’Engle drew openly on her Christian faith. Yes, her Episcopalianism sometimes fell short of Biblical orthodoxy, but most of her works are worth reading and her influence was a good one.
Also, D. James Kennedy died. He was a major architect of the Christian right. He also developed the “Evangelism Explosion” program, which trained laymen to share their faith and sparked a mass evangelism movement.
They join Jerry Falwell, another iconic evangelical leader. Billy Graham also seems to be in his last days. Chuck Colson has retired from the helm at Prison Fellowship. Big church pastors have long gone grey. (I’m not feeling too well myself.)
What we are seeing is the passing–or retirement–of a whole generation of Christian leaders in a number of fields. Who is replacing them? What changes, for better or worse, might this herald for American Christianity?
Posted by Veith at 07:01 AM
Hope when the sun burns out!
Bracketing the secularists’ world view and ensuring their tragic sense of life is their sure and certain realization that the human race is doomed. Eventually, their scientists tell them, the sun will explode and the earth will be incinerated. Some put their hope in interstellar space travel as a way of continuing the humanist ideals, but most accepted that, ultimately, humanity has no hope.
Now, though, some astronomers are saying that maybe earth could survive when the sun becomes a Red Giant.
Watch for this possibility to manifest itself in a cheerier secularist world view. There is a new, more winning brand of atheism that is moralistic (which rejects Christianity on the grounds that it is bad, rather than that it is not true) and optimistic (yes, when we die we just return to the dust, but in doing so we achieve a mystical oneness with the universe). In the years ahead, unless churches can get their act together, this may become neo-islam’s biggest competitor.
Posted by Veith at 06:52 AM
September 12, 2007
Islam going church growth?
Islam now has a televangelist, Amr Khaled, with millions of fans. He preaches an upbeat, anti-terrorism version of Islam, speaking not only onTV but in huge halls, projecting his messsage on gigantic screens, giving humor-laced sermons, and Qu’ranic tips for successful living. The Egyptian preacher is currently on a speaking tour of the United States. He is being called the Muslim Joel Osteen.
In other words, Amr Khaled has adopted the tactics of the church growth movement and American evangelicalism in order to spread Islam!
In fact, what this article describes sounds just like what goes on in many ostensibly Christian churches! While we should appreciate his non-murderous approach to his religion, as we posted a few days ago, this kinder, gentler Islam just might catch on in our culture. And churches, many of which have watered down their Christianity into a treacly soft drink, may be ill-equipped to do anything about it.
Posted by Veith at 07:43 AM
Really bad movies
Rotten Tomatoes (a very useful resource, by the way). The critical putdown has to be an artform of its own, and the article gives some that are especially artistic.
Posted by Veith at 07:42 AM
Memorial Service
Our students at Patrick Henry, in their own inimitable way, put on a memorial service last night for the 9/11 victims. It was very moving. The speaker was a Navy commander who was on the fourth floor of the outer ring of the Pentagon. He described how he watched the airplane coming right at him, finally to crash into the building just 100 feet or so away. He lived to tell the tale, and he did so in an inspiring way. Oh, yes. He was also the commanding officer on the U.S.S. Cole, subsequent to its attack.
Posted by Veith at 07:33 AM
September 11, 2007
9/11 Remembered
Today we remember September 11, 2001, how we could see on television the plane crashing into the building, watching those towers fall, hearing the reports of the crash into the Pentagon and into a field in Pennsylvania, wondering what else would happen. Remember the day of horrors.
But remember too how we Americans were all unified, how we were bound together in love and compassion and mercy for the fallen and in the desire to defend our civilization against barbarians. Do you remember that? And how we honored the firemen, police, and rescue workers for their vocations and how they sacrified their own lives to save others?
Do you remember the moral clarity? How trivial and absurd relativism seemed at the time, how even avant garde artists were hailing the end of irony and cynicism. How nearly everyone realized that multiculturalism is no excuse, that all religions are not the same after all, that Western civilization is worth defending after all.
But how quickly we have forgotten, as if 9/11 had never happened.
This will be the only post today. Comment with your own reflections on the fact, the meaning, and the lessons of that September 11 six years ago.
Posted by Veith at 09:13 PM
September 10, 2007
Al Qaeda the Political Party
Osama bin Laden’s latest tape makes him sound like a presidential candidate. He stakes out positions against global warming and big corporations to woo the left. AND to woo the right, he comes out against high taxes. In Islam, he says, there are no taxes. Just a mandatory alms of 2.5%.
I’m telling you, a slightly kinder and gentler Islam will have a lot of appeal in our post-Christian culture. If Al Qaeda would move from terrorism to politics, perhaps with the help of a good political consulting firm, the sky would be the limit.
Posted by Veith at 06:04 AM
Having Discussions
A unique feature of this particular blog is that it is not just me giving my opinions; rather, it is a discussion blog. The best part about it are the discussions I provoke, and we have had some very good ones, thanks to you readers and commenters, who have kept up an unusually high level of discourse, again, in stark distinction to that on many blogs.
It seldom advances a discussion to just rant and rave about how terrible something is. We often know that already. On the “Victimless Crimes?” post a few days ago, I did not want us to get bogged down on the obvious evil of sex in public bathrooms. I was trying to see if anyone–especially those who go on and on about the need to legalize “victimless crimes”–can rationalize any kind of justification for this kind of lewd behavior.
But to say that my attempts to “understand” in any way condones such behavior is ludicrous, insulting, and unworthy. What especially sticks in my craw is when the commenter said, “As Mr. Veith pursues his vocation, he needs to evaluate just exactly what kind of fruit his efforts in doing so are producing.” Casting doubt on my calling and its effect strikes me where it hurts.
In general, I will not allow “flames” on this blog, and I see no reason why I should allow myself to be flamed on my own blog. It’s fine for commenters to disagree with me, but in this case there was no disagreement! The commenter was misrepresenting me, saying I was soft on an issue that I am not soft about.
The commenter who said this has been a long-time reader and commenter, and he has often contributed excellent points, so I hesitate to ban him. But I’m close to doing that. If he apologizes, I am eager to forgive him in the name of Christ. If he doesn’t, or if I get another vitriolic response, he’s gone from this forum.
Posted by Veith at 05:59 AM
Church Report: Death by Communion
I visited another fine church in the area, Our Savior Lutheran Church, in Winchester, VA. The pastor, John Sound, who hails from India, invited me to talk about my book “The Spirituality of the Cross,” which a book study group will be studying.
Anyway, during Communion, an odd thing happened to me, which had never happened before. I breathed in a crumb of the communion wafer and started choking! No Heimlich maneuver was necessary, as the event passed quickly after a few coughs, but how strange! If I choked to death having Holy Communion, I suppose that would be a good way to die, if there is such a thing. I’m trying to figure out how to interpret this experience.
Posted by Veith at 05:51 AM
September 07, 2007
Is America in decline?
There was a time when Greece dominated the known world. Persia (now Iran) had a turn. So did Babylon (now Iraq). Spain was once the world’s superpower. France played that role. England outdid just about everybody else in global hegemony. Now the United States of America is the world’s megapower. But a number of books and articles are claiming that America has started its decline. Some say China will be next. Or a revitalized Russia. Or the European Union.
People from both the left and the right are saying this. The left still dislikes nationalism. The right decries American decadence.l
This article by Joel Aschenbach sums up those predictions, but makes the case that the USA is still going to be dominant over the next half century.
What do you think? Will America still be the world’s dominant economic, technological, military, and cultural player in 50 years?
Posted by Veith at 06:45 AM
Luther’s writing for children
As alluded to yesterday, here is Luther writing to his little son Hans, 4 years old:
Grace and peace in Christ be with thee, my dear little son! I am very pleased to see you so diligent, and also praying. Continue to do so, my child, and when I return I shall bring you something from the great Fair (Messe ).
I know a beautiful garden, where there are many children with golden robes. They pick up the rosy — cheeked apples, pears, plums, etc., from under the trees, sing, jump, and rejoice all day long. They have also pretty ponies with golden reins and silver saddles. I asked whose garden it was, and to whom the children belonged. The man said, “These are the children who love to pray and learn their lessons.”
I then said, “Dear sir, I also have a son, Hanschen Luther; might not he too come into the garden and eat the beautiful fruit, and ride upon these pretty ponies, and play with those children?” “If he loves prayer and is good,” said the man, “he can, and Lippus and Jost; and they shall get whistles and drums, and all sorts of musical instruments, and dance, and shoot with little cross-bows.”
And he showed me a lovely lawn, all ready for dancing, where whistles, flutes, etc., hung. But it was early, and the children not having breakfasted, I could not wait for the dancing, so I said to the man, “Dear sir, I must hurry away and write all this to my dear little son Hans, and tell him to pray and be good, that he may come into this garden; but he has an Aunt Lene, whom he must bring also.” “That he can,” said the man; “write him to do so.”
Therefore, dear little sonny, learn your lessons and pray, and tell Lippus and Jost to do so too, and then you will all get into the garden together. I commend you to God, and give Aunt Lene a kiss from me.
Thy dear father, MARTIN LUTHER .Posted by Veith at 06:18 AM
September 06, 2007
Religious Beliefs as a Scandal
Michael Gerson makes some devastating points on how Democrats in Louisiana have been using Bobbie Jindal’s Catholicism to say that the GOP gubernatorial candidate hates Protestants. We blogged on this a few days ago. Gerson observes that Democrats have been going to great efforts to portray themselves as faith-friendly, but here the Louisiana partisans go showing they do not have a clue when it comes to religion:
This Democratic ad is not merely a tin-eared political blunder; it reveals a secular, liberal attitude: that strong religious beliefs are themselves a kind of scandal; that a vigorous defense of Roman Catholicism is somehow a gaffe.
This is a strange, distorted view of pluralism, which once meant civility, respect and common enterprise among people with strongly held and differing convictions. In the liberal view, pluralism means a public square purged of intolerance — defined as the belief in exclusive truth-claims and absolute right and wrong. And this view of pluralism can easily become oppressive, as the “intolerant” are expected to be silent._. . . . . . . .
On the evidence of the Louisiana ad, Democrats have learned little about the religious and political trends of the last few decades. For all its faults, the religious right built strong ties between conservative Catholics and conservative Protestants on issues such as abortion and family values, after centuries of mutual suspicion. Evangelicals gained a deep affection for Pope John Paul II and respect for Catholic conservatives such as Justice Antonin Scalia. And conservative Protestants recognize that secularist attacks on Catholic convictions are really attacks on all religious convictions and could easily be turned their way.
“The most passionate defenders of my beliefs,” says Jindal, “have come from people who don’t share my beliefs.”Posted by Veith at 08:49 PM
Victimless crime?
Rich Shipe asks what many of us poor, naive unsophisticates are wondering, in light of Senator Larry Craig’s arrest in the Minneapolis airport rest room. Just how common IS this? Is public restroom sex an accepted part of the gay lifestyle? Rich asks, are restrooms in airports, rest stops, and other public places safe and/or appropriate for unaccompanied children?
I’d like to ask a further question of the libertarians and gay rights advocates on this list. Is this an example of what you libertarians call a “victimless crime” that should be legalized? Would “the gay community” like to see anonymous sex in public restrooms legalized as a victory for the cause? Do you not see harmful social consequences in this sort of thing?
I don’t want any gay bashing here or discussions of Senator Craig’s guilt or innocence. I’d just like to learn how different perspectives look at restroom sex and to get my mind around how it could possibly be justified.
Posted by Veith at 11:26 AM
September 05, 2007
The little dog’s golden tail
The notable Lori Lewis is trying to identify this alleged quotation from Luther:
“Be thou comforted, little dog, Thou too in Resurrection shall have a little golden tail.”
Does anyone know the source of this? I told her that my blog readers know just about everything.
Posted by Veith at 07:10 AM
America’s Most Successful Communist. . .
is Pete Seeger, according to this fascinating article by Howard Husock, who traces the party’s “Popular Front” initiative to spread Marxist ideology through popular culture. To say Seeger is a communist is not a conservative, McCarthyite smear, by the way, but a historical fact, which even today he himself affirms. This article traces Seeger’s efforts in this regard and his influence on folk and pop music, which leans left to this very day.
Posted by Veith at 06:22 AM
Ransoming the hostages
It turns out, South Korea paid the Taliban $20 million to release the 19 survivors among the Christian missionaries held in Afghanistan. The government also promised to pull out its couple hundred troops in the coalition of the willing. And to not let missionaries go to Afghanistan. This means that hostage-taking will remain a profitable enterprise for the terrorists.
Posted by Veith at 05:54 AM
September 04, 2007
Is Vocation back?
Our pastor DID tie in Labor Day to the doctrine of vocation, in his prayer and in some of the hymns. And not, I think, because of this blog. Did you hear about vocation on the Sunday before Labor Day? Are you hearing more about that critical but long-neglected doctrine? Is the church recovering that paradigm-shifting teaching, which has so much to say about the meaning of our lives and how to live as Christians? (Here it is, in a nutshell.)
UPDATE:To answer Frank’s point from yesterday, non-Christians too are used by God to give us our daily bread, to protect us, to create works of beauty and meaning, etc., etc. Technically, the word “vocation” is used to refer to those who have been “called” by the Gospel, so that Luther uses “station,” “office,” and other terms for non-Christians. Even non-believers are citizens of God’s Kingdom of His Left Hand, and He works through them as well. Labor Day is indeed a secular, national holiday, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. But we Christians can breathe meaning into it.
Posted by Veith at 07:20 AM
America is still the manufacturing leader
Yes, we know lots of manufacturing has gone overseas. But this article cites some remarkable statistics:
The United States makes more manufactured goods today than at any time in history, as measured by the dollar value of production adjusted for inflation — three times as much as in the mid-1950s, the supposed heyday of American industry. Between 1977 and 2005, the value of American manufacturing swelled from $1.3 trillion to an all-time record $4.5 trillion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
With less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States is responsible for almost one-fourth of global manufacturing, a share that has changed little in decades. The United States is the largest manufacturing economy by far. Japan, the only serious rival for that title, has been losing ground. China has been growing but represents only about one-tenth of world manufacturing.Not that manufacturing in America isn’t changing. Productivity gains mean fewer jobs. And those that remain require more skills and education. Technology drives America’s manufacturing industry today. Biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and other sophisticated products are making the most money. Competition is picking up, though, from countries like China, India, and Brazil. And physical labor is indeed being farmed overseas, where Chinese workers make as little as 40 cents an hour.
Posted by Veith at 07:11 AM
The Labor Union paradox
Labor unions have never been more powerful politically, with the Democratic party bending over backwards to obey their every whim. And yet, union membership in American industries have plummeted to miniscule proportions. With one rather dramatic exception. Liberal columnist E. J. Dionne gives some telling statistics:
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 24 percent of the American work force was unionized in 1973 and unionization rates were roughly equal in the public and private sectors. The latest figures, for 2006, show a decline in unionization to 12 percent of the workforce and a radical shift in labor’s composition: Now only 7 percent of private-sector workers belong to unions, compared with 36 percent in the public sector.
The “public sector” is what is unionized! Teachers, government workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees–these, not workers in manufacturing industries, dominate today’s labor movement. And their political savvy and interests are obvious: They want more role for government.
Posted by Veith at 06:58 AM« July 2007 | Main | September 2007 »
August 31, 2007
Happy Vocation Day
Let us engage in cultural evangelism as the church did centuries ago, co-opting non-Christian festivals and turning them into Christian feasts. Join my crusade to turn Labor Day into a celebration of the Christian doctrine of vocation.
Independence Day has its fireworks, and Thanksgiving has its turkeys. How should Vocation Day be celebrated?
How about on this holiday, though everyone has it off, revelers go to work anyway without being paid. No, I don’t think that would catch on.
Since vocation is about loving and serving your neighbors, on this one day of the year, everyone actually gets together with their next door neighbors whom they have never met before.
Let’s generate some ideas here, and maybe try them out this weekend.
Posted by Veith at 07:12 AM
The Prosperity Gospel
The good news is that Christianity is booming in Africa. The bad news is that much of it is tainted with the prosperity gospel, in which believers are promised material wealth if they only have enough faith. This is rampant too, as you can see if you tune in to the “evangelists” on TBN.
In all fairness, as the article says, in empoverished Africa, “prosperity” can mean simply a roof over your head and enough food not to starve. And an African friend of mine said that when his people become Christians, they generally do become more prosperous because they have a new work ethic, a sense of vocation, and a freedom from cultural superstitions that lead Christian areas to do better economically than the Muslim or Animist areas.
Still, the “name it and claim it” preachers from America–who