Those of you who are Lutherans or who are considering Lutheranism or who are fellow travelers might want to sign up for  The Wittenberg Trail, an online community of some 800 Lutherans from around the world who meet together online to theologize and socialize. And get a load of this “commercial” the group put together for YouTube:

Unlike the “new atheists,” the old atheists, such as Nietzsche and Camus, were at least honest in facing up to the implications of their non-belief. Consider what Walter Burns says about Camus’ “The Stranger”:

Meursault, its hero (actually, its antihero), is a murderer, but a different kind of murderer. What is different about him is that he murdered for no reason–he did it because the sun got in his eyes, à cause du soleil–and because he neither loves nor hates, and unlike the other people who inhabit his world, does not pretend to love or hate. He has no friends; indeed, he lives in a world in which there is no basis for friendship and no moral law; therefore, no one, not even a murderer, can violate the terms of friendship or break that law. As he said, the universe “is benignly indifferent” to how he lives.It is a bleak picture, and Camus was criticized for painting it, but as he wrote in reply, “there is no other life possible for a man deprived of God, and all men are [now] in that position.” But Camus was not the first European to draw this picture; he was preceded by Nietzsche who (see Zarathustra’s “Prologue”) provided us with an account of human life in that godless and “brave new world.” It will be a comfortable world–rather like that promised by the European Union–where men will “have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night,” but no love, no longing, no striving, no hope, no gods or ideals, no politics (”too burdensome”), no passions (especially no anger), only “a regard for health.”

Sound familiar? This describes our postmodern lives perfectly! Notice that our culture’s “practical atheism,” believing in God and yet assuming that He doesn’t matter, has the same effect as actual atheism. And that we are already there!

“The Weekly Standard” has a remarkable article by Walter Berns entitled Religion and the Death Penalty, arguing that the two are intimately connected. A sample:

The best case for the death penalty–or, at least, the best explanation of it–was made, paradoxically, by one of the most famous of its opponents, Albert Camus, the French novelist. Others complained of the alleged unusual cruelty of the death penalty, or insisted that it was not, as claimed, a better deterrent of murder than, say, life imprisonment, and Americans especially complained of the manner in which it was imposed by judge or jury (discriminatorily or capriciously, for example), and sometimes on the innocent.Camus said all this and more, and what he said in addition is instructive. The death penalty, he said, “can be legitimized only by a truth or a principle that is superior to man,” or, as he then made clearer, it may rightly be imposed only by a religious society or community; specifically, one that believes in “eternal life.” Only in such a place can it be said that the death sentence provides the guilty person with the opportunity (and reminds him of the reason) to make amends, thus to prepare himself for the final judgment which will be made in the world to come. For this reason, he said, the Catholic church “has always accepted the necessity of the death penalty.” This may no longer be the case. And it may no longer be the case that death is, as Camus said it has always been, a religious penalty. But it can be said that the death penalty is more likely to be imposed by a religious people.. . . . . . . .  European politicians and journalists recognize or acknowledge the connection, if only inadvertently, when they simultaneously despise us Americans for supporting the death penalty and ridicule us for going to church. We might draw a conclusion from the fact that they do neither. Consider the facts on the ground (so to speak): In this country, 60 convicted murderers were executed in 2005 (and 53 in 2006), almost all of them in southern or southwestern and church-going states–Virginia and Georgia, for example, Texas and Oklahoma–states whose residents are among the most seriously religious Americans. Whereas in Europe, or “old Europe,” no one was executed and, according to one survey, almost no one–and certainly no soi-disant intellectual–goes to church. In Germany, for example, leaving aside the Muslims and few remaining Jews, only 4 percent of the people regularly attend church services, in Britain and Denmark 3 percent, and in Sweden not much more than 1; in France there are more practicing Muslims than there are baptized Catholics, and a third of the Dutch do not know the “why” of Christmas. Hence, the empty or abandoned churches, or in Shakespeare’s words, the “bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.”   

What do you think the connection is between religion and the death penalty? The article, with its very unusual and pro-death penalty take on the matter (using all these existentialists to make its point) does neglect those whose religion motivates them to oppose the death penalty (such as that little sect called the Roman Catholic Church!).But beyond that, the article is interesting in addressing the consequences of the decline of Christianity in Europe, as reflected in this quote’s shocking statistics.

Some conservatives, including some of you commenters on this blog, are saying that there is no difference between John McCain and the Democrats, that we will, in effect, have a liberal administration no matter who wins.But consider this from  William J. Bennett & Seth Leibsohn, an epic catalog of specific battles that the presumptive Republican nominee has had with liberals in general and Democrats in particular. And these are on hugely important issues: McCain has been consistently pro-life, pro-military, and–his big issue–anti-government spending.

When the battle is joined between the two party’s nominees, the differences will sharpen. McCain would do what President Bush did not do–and for which conservatives have turned on him–namely, get federal spending under control. That long-forgotten conservative principle, in turn, will shrink the power of the central government in a significant way.

I’m afraid the campaign will, in fact, be about Democrat’s promises of huge new spending programs vs. McCain’s calls for fiscal restraint. And you know what side the general public, including many who have been calling themselves conservatives, will go for.

It was bad enough that the jihadists in Iraq are turning mentally-handicapped women into suicide bombers.  Al-Qaida is also using  children as young as 10.