Politics and Religion archives
Drink a health to the wonders of the Western world, the pirates, preachers, poteen-makers. . . .John Millington Synge, The Playboy of the Western World
John McCain has two advantages over Barack Obama. Whereas Barack has only one spiritual advisor, John has three - one of whom is dead and two of whom say nuttier things than Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright. McCain's three advisors, are, however, supporting a Republican and thus, based on the silence from the right, one can only conclude their comments need no explanation. That may be because their sort of nuttiness is indigenous to a party whose biggest present to the United States in the 21st Century is George W. Bush.
John Hagee is the most prominent supporter and where the Lord has led him was explored here earlier. John McCain's statement that he was "very proud to have pastor Hagee's support" tells you more about McCain than an 800-word column can. So does McCain's acceptance of Rod Parsley as his religious advisor.
Rod is a bible-college drop out who began preaching to small crowds some 20 years ago. Today he is the chief pastor of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, an organization that has 12,000 members.
One week before the Ohio primary, Senator McCain appeared with Rod Parsley at a campaign rally in Cincinnati in which Rod described McCain as a "strong, true, consistent conservative." Accepting the description and with Rod standing next to him the senator described Rod as a "spiritual guide." That occupation does not, however, enable Rod to live up to his full potential. Rod would make an excellent Secretary of State since he knows a fair amount about foreign policy as his writings show. Mother Jones writer David Corn describes some of the things Rod has written that lend weight to my suggestion.
In his book 2005 Silent No More Rod describes the fact that there is a war between "Islam and Christian civilization." As quoted by Mr. Corn, Rod writes: "The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore."
Of course a Secretary of State has to understand history as well as current events in order to be effective, and Rod has the appropriate background for that as well. In his book, Rod says Columbus: "dreamed of defeating the armies of Islam with the armies of Europe made mighty by the wealth of the New World. It was this dream that, in part, began America."
Rod's dislike of Muslims is not irrational. Rod has discovered, he says, that "Islam is responsible for more pain, more bloodshed, and more devastation than nearly any other force on earth at this moment." (Lest he appear naïve it should be observed that the book was written before Mr. Bush trumped Islam by invading Iraq.) Furthermore, Rod continues, Islam is not simply evil. It is actually the "anti-Christ religion." Muhammad "received revelations from demons and not from the true God. Allah was a 'demon spirit'."
In his book Rod calls himself a "Christocrat", wants to prosecute folks who commit adultery (but probably not for past offenses since that would include Senator McCain if Bernard Shaw's uncontradicted statement to Mr. McCain during a 1999 CNN interview that the senator had an affair while married, is to be believed) and compares Planned Parenthood to Nazis. There are no reports that McCain has disavowed anything Rod has said.
The third endorsement comes from a corpse and one is forced to rely on a blog called BuzzFlash for the report of that endorsement.
According to the blog, shortly after the primary season voting started, the McCain campaign announced that the senator had been endorsed by Jerry Falwell. When a reporter asked how that news had been imparted since Jerry had gone on to his great reward some months earlier, the spokesman said the endorsement was a matter of controversy "you know, like global warming . . .. following Senator Brownback's lead, and indeed that of Gov. Huckabee, about what counts in life, we take the Falwell endorsement on faith."
It's not surprising that the campaign welcomes the endorsement. A corpse is considerably less likely to say things publicly that embarrass John McCain than either of the two self-proclaimed representatives of the Lord he has adopted as spiritual advisors. Of course, John being elderly, may not even notice.
Longhaired preachers come out every night; Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right. - Joe Hill, The Preacher and the Slave
As John McCain and his presumptive vice-presidential running mate, Joe Lieberman, toured the Middle East together (Joe to remind John of who is on first in Iraq so as to correct gaffs born of John's ignorance or old age, and John to demonstrate that notwithstanding his occasional gaffes, he still has the intellectual ability to be president of the United States) it was useful to keep in mind the words of one of John's recently announced supporters, John Hagee.
It was especially useful since instead of hunting and exposing the fox as responsible media should do when in pursuit of truth, the media has been docilely led and influenced by the fox in the fox's unceasing attempts to savage Barack Obama because of the words of his friend and pastor, Jeremiah Wright. A reading of the sermon that inspired the fox's incessant diatribe reveals that the sermon is no worse than, and in many respects considerably more thoughtful than, the hatred expressed by John McCain supporter, John Hagee (Hagee) over the years.
Hagee's calumny has made anything even hinted at by Reverend Wright seem bland. He has explanations for just about everything bad that has ever happened and, amazingly, and as MediaMatters, the press watchdog site has noted, they all relate back to God's and Hagee's view of current events.
Interviewed by Terry Gross on National Public Radio's Fresh Air on September 18, 2006 Hagee explained his and God's thinking. About Hurricane Katrina he said that on the day of Katrina's arrival, a homosexual parade had been planned in that city. As a result of that and a generally dissolute life style pervasive in that city, he explained: "I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are-were- recipients of the judgment of God for that. . . . And I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans." Asked by Ms. Gross whether Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews he replied that the Quran "teaches that very clearly." Muslims and gays are not the only groups that have received the benefit of the Lord's thinking as explicated by Hagee.
On February 28, 2008, Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League For Religious and Civil Rights, commented on the Hagee's endorsement of John McCain the preceding day saying: "[F]or the past few decades, he [Hagee] has waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church. For example, he likes calling it 'The Great Whore,' an 'apostate church,' the 'anti-Christ,' and a 'false cult system.' . . . In Hagee's latest book, Jerusalem Countdown he calls Hitler a Catholic who murdered Jews while the Catholic Church did nothing. 'The sell-out of Catholicism to Hitler began not with the people but with the Vatican itself' he writes." Of course Mr. Donohue is not totally objective. He's a Roman Catholic.
Hagee also knows how to raise money. On July 27, 2006, in a longer profile of the minister, the Wall Street Journal reported on a fund-raiser sponsored by Hagee's 16,000 member Cornerstone Church. In the church bulletin, "The Cluster", the fundraiser was announced with a catchy lead-in. It said: "Slavery in America is returning to Cornerstone." The teaser ended with the sentence "Make plans to come and go home with a slave."
John McCain was delighted to be endorsed by Hagee. Following the endorsement he said: "All I can tell you is I'm very proud to have pastor Hagee's support." He was not asked to explain whether that meant he, too, shares that John's feelings about Muslims, Catholics, and the joys of slavery. A few days after the endorsement and told of Hagee's comments about Catholics, John McCain partially followed Barack Obama's lead and repudiated any of Hagee's comments if they were "anti-catholic or offensive to Catholics.
John McCain's acceptance of the endorsement by the other John may well have been influenced by his mentor, Joe Lieberman. Joe is a big fan of both Johns. He hangs out with the John who's running for president. He admires the other John.
In July 2007, Lieberman was a speaker at a convention of "Christians United for Israel," a group of which the other John is founder and national chairman. In thanking the other John for inviting him, Joe said: "I would describe Pastor Hagee with the words the Torah uses to described Moses, he is an "Eesh Elo Kim," a man of God because those words fit him; and, like Moses he has become the leader of a mighty multitude in pursuit of and defense of Israel. . . . If ever there was a man who will be blessed because he has blessed Israel, Pastor Hagee, it is you. . . ."
Whether John McCain is blessed because John Hagee blessed him - only time will tell.
The idea of a sun millions of miles in diameter and 91 million miles away is silly. The sun is only 32 miles across and not more than 3,000 miles from the earth. . . . God made the sun to light the earth, and therefore must have placed it close to the task it was designed to do.
- Wilbur Glenn Voliva, leader of the Flat Earth Society.
It seems only fair. From Europe we have received Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, to name but a few and to Europe we are now exporting the learning of the illustrious members of today’s equivalent of yesterday’s
Flat Earth Society. News of the exportation of their beliefs comes at an inopportune time coinciding, as it does, with news that one of its leading exponents and the head of one of the institutions of education associated with it, has just been charged with bilking the institution of millions of dollars in the furtherance of the Lord’s work.
According to a suit filed by three former professors of Oral Roberts, University, Richard Roberts, the offspring of its founder, spent lavishly from the institution’s coffers in order to remodel his Dwelling Place and repeatedly took private trips on a university plane and engaged in assorted other activities that ill become one occupying a position as exalted a position as the one he held.
But this is not about him and anyway, those are simply allegations in a civil suit that may or may not be proven when the trial occurs. This is about exportation.
On October 4, 2007, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, mustering more courage than many school boards in the United States, condemned efforts to teach creationism in European schools by a vote of 48 to 25. Adopting recommendations of a report prepared by Guy Lengagne, a senior French member, the Assembly decried the advocates of creationism saying they were seeking to “impose religious dogma” and were promoting “a radical return to the past”. In a bit of chauvinism the Assembly pointed out that the notions of creationism were “an almost exclusively American phenomenon”. The Assembly said that denying pupils knowledge of evolution was “totally against children’s educational interests” and that creationists support a “radical return to the past which could prove particularly harmful in the long term for all our societies.”
In Poland, Deputy Minister of Education, Miroslaw Orzechowski, a member of the ultra-conservative league of Polish Families dispensed with the notion of evolution by calling it a “lie”. In Serbia, Liliana Colic was “forced to resign after ordering schools to stop teaching the Darwinian theory of evolution if creationist ideas were not also part of the school curricula”, according to a report from the International Herald Tribune. Russia, too, has families making similar demands. Nonetheless, Europe still has a way to go if it hopes to catch down with the United States.
No one in Europe has yet suggested, as the educational leaders of Cobb County, Georgia, did some years ago, that books describing evolution have stickers placed in them advising students to carefully evaluate its tenets before placing much stock in them. (A federal court ordered the stickers removed.) Nor have there been reports that movies have been withdrawn in Europe because they suggested evolution took place. That's what happened in some Imax theaters in the South where, among others, the movie “Cosmic Voyage” was removed from the screen. The description of the movie, nominated for an academy award in 1997, says it “explores some of the greatest scientific theories, many of which have never before been visualized on film.” Through some oversight it failed to include depictions of God creating the world in 7 days and was, accordingly, not shown in parts of the South.
"Volcanoes of the Deep Sea” that the National Science Foundation and Rutgers University had a role in producing was not shown in the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History after an audience that was given a preview of the film pronounced it “blasphemous," according to the New York Times. The film suggested that life might have begun in the undersea vents in an undersea volcano. Among the viewers’ responses, said the Times: “I really hate it when the theory of evolution is presented as fact” and “I don’t agree with their presentation of human existence.”
Some movie producers have expressed the fear that if sufficient numbers of theaters turn down movies that treat evolution as fact, future production of such movies will be inhibited. That would please those who don’t believe in evolution. If evolution is not presented as fact it may eventually go away. It’s hard to argue with them. They are living proof that not all living things have evolved. They’ve not.
When you ask God to send you trials, you may be sure your prayer will be granted.
— Léon Bloy, Pages de Léon Bloy
For those who are skeptical about the power of prayer, to say nothing about the existence of God, it was an encouraging development. Indeed, it may well have turned a number of atheists into devout Christians. And an unlikely path to conversion it was. Although at first blush his critics might have labeled Mr. Wiley S. Drake a kook, closer inspection reveals that his suggestion is in fact more civilized than the practice followed by the Crusaders of the 13th century and their contemporary counterparts who believe that in slaying the infidels lies the path to salvation. Not that Crusaders had the IRS, al Qaeda or the Iraqis to deal with. Nonetheless, Mr. Drake’s suggestion is a better way to deal with the problem than that employed by the Crusaders and Mr. Bush.
Mr. Drake is the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Buena Park, California. He has used church stationery and his Internet radio program to encourage his followers to support Mike Huckabee’s campaign for the presidency. The Internal Revenue Code, which is read with far greater reverence and taken more seriously by its readers than the Bible, proscribes the involvement in political campaigns of religious organizations that are known as 501(c)(3) organizations. By using his church, a 501(c)(3) organization, for political purposes, Mr. Drake (who presumably finds it easy to obey the 10 Commandments) was violating one of the thousands of commandments found in the Internal Revenue Code.
In response to Mr. Drake’s activities, the organization Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AUSCS) asked the IRS to investigate and consider revoking his church’s tax-exempt status. Mr. Drake was understandably upset with the AUSCS. Unlike George Bush, who upon becoming upset with Saddam Hussein embarked on a course that left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis homeless and resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, Mr. Drake embarked on a far more pacific route. He invoked something called "imprecatory prayer." In a "media advisory" of August 14, Mr. Drake says that having been unsuccessful in attempts to talk to AUSCS, “we must begin our Imprecatory Prayer, at the key points of the parliamentary role in the earth where we live. . . . The righteous have dominion, but only through imprecatory prayer against the ungodly. . . . David, as our Old Testament shepherd, gives us many Imprecatory prayers, and can be found to be in best focus in Psalm 109.” He closes by saying: “Please join us, with Bible in hand, and let us do battle against the enemies of God.”
In the media advisory Mr. Drake asks his followers, in their prayers, to specifically target Joe Conn or Jeremy Learning, who are apparently the signers of the letter to the IRS. In explaining his action Mr. Drake said that “The prayer does call for serious, serious punishment on people. But I didn’t call for that, God did.”
Psalm 109 that Mr. Drake offers as a guide to the kinds of things one might ask the Lord to consider has many good suggestions for getting even with one’s enemies, but the beauty of it is, the Lord takes care of doing it all and man does not have to get involved beyond praying for bad things to happen. Among the bad things the Lord might want to consider inflicting on the psalmster’s enemies, the psalmster suggests (on the off chance the Lord won’t think of them Himself) “May his days be few; may another seize his goods! May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow!. . . May the creditor seize all that he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil!” etc. Those are, of course, exactly the consequences of what George Bush, acting, he would have us believe, as God’s surrogate, has done in Iraq. The difference between Mr. Bush and Mr. Drake, is that whereas Mr. Bush took it upon himself to do the Lord’s work, Mr. Drake is content to simply ask the Lord to do those things and leaves the rest up to him. There are hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who wish that George Bush had incorporated all of Psalm 109 in his prayers, asked his subjects to do the same, and left the rest up to God. Mr. Bush, of course, declined to follow this route. There may be a reason.
Sister Thomas Bernard MacConnell, founder of the Spirituality Center at Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles explains: “It is very possible that my enemies are not God’s enemies.” It is likely Mr. Bush didn’t want to take a chance on that being the case, which explains why he took things into his own hands rather than leaving it up to God. That’s too bad. If imprecatory prayer was good enough for King David one might have thought it would be good enough for King George.
Everybody talkin’ bout heaven ain’t getting’ there,
Heaven, heaven.
— I Got Shoes, spiritual
At first it seems like incredible intolerance. Reflection reveals it’s nothing more than a space problem. I refer to Pope Benedict’s latest pronouncement.
In what seemed like yet another foray into the World of Complete Insensitivity, Pope Benedict XVI took aim at all the religions in the world, thus showing himself to be a man who was in his prejudices nothing if not ecumenical. Until his latest pronouncement his comments had led to the conclusion that he was not big on Muslims but there was nothing to suggest he harbored any animosity towards the rest of the world’s religions.
The first revelation of his Papal animus towards Muslims occurred in 2006 when Pope Benedict organized a conference to correct the actions of his predecessor, John Paul II, who had used the occasion of the 2000 Millenium celebration to ask “pardon” for the Crusades. At the conference, the Italian historian, Roberto de Mattei, said the Crusades were a “response to the Muslim invasion of Christian lands and the Muslim devastation of the Holy Places.” The Crusaders, said he, were “martyrs” who “sacrificed their lives for the faith”. At a time when tensions were already running high between Christians and Muslims, the timing of the conference seemed awkward.
In a lecture delivered a few months later, the Pope quoted the 14th century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, who wrote that Mohammad had brought things “only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” “Violence” said the Pope, “is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.” He was comfortable saying that since the conference on the Crusades laid to rest any thought that the Crusades were an attempt to “spread by the sword the faith [they] preached.” Had the events described occurred in reverse order, his comments would have seemed absurd since until the conference everyone, including John Paul II, believed that the Crusades had been an attempt to spread the faith by the sword.
April 20, 2007, was the day the International Theological Commission said there were “serious” grounds to hope that unbaptized children might get into heaven. If the report lives up to its promise, billions of infants who over the millennia have not been baptized and have, therefore, been in limbo, will now be heading off to heaven. And that brings us to the present flap.
On July 10 Pope Benedict made the startling statement that there are defects in all religions that are not part of the one he runs. (The pronouncement about “defects” was made just a few days before it was disclosed that the Roman Catholic Church in Los Angeles was paying $660 million to settle sexual abuse lawsuits against members of its clergy for conduct that seemed defective.) The document says if it’s salvation you’re after, the only way you’ll get it is through the Roman Catholic Church. His comments related back to a 2000 document drafted by a group he then headed entitled “Dominus Iesus.” It said, among other things, that the Church is “necessary for salvation.” Although recognizing that for those who are not formally part of the Church “salvation is accessible by virtue of a grace,” the document goes on to say that it would be “contrary to the faith to consider the church as one way of salvation alongside those constituted by the other religions seen as complementary to the Church or substantially equivalent to her, even if these are said to be converging with the Church toward the eschatological kingdom of God.”
To the non-theologian the new document is a touch confusing, and may have confused Benedict, since it says the “separated churches and Communities, though [suffering]. . . from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church.” That would seem to suggest that contrary to news reports these other folk may still get to heaven, although it’s not clear how.
Be that as it may, this is not a theological treatise and I would suggest that the reasons for saying those not members of the Church may be denied salvation have nothing to do with theology but everything to do with heavenly over-crowding thanks to the advent of the unbaptized infants. It is clear that if heaven becomes overcrowded (as is much of the world from which its denizens come), heaven and the Church (the means by which one gets to heaven) will lose much of their appeal. The Pope is simply being, as the vernacular has it, proactive, to make sure it remains a nice place for his flock. Non-Catholics should not take offense. There’s nothing personal about it.
That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.
— Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries
It was not enough to elect him president. Now they’ve gone and crowned him king. Of course he’s been acting like a king for some time now. The Supreme Court simply formalized it.
It happened in the case with the cumbersome name of Hein, Director, White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, et al. v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc. et al. The cumbersomeness of the name could not hold a candle to the cumbersomeness of the conservative majority’s reasoning as it explained why, if the king does wrong using his own money - even though provided by taxpayers - the king's subjects cannot challenge him. It was not the king’s first foray into the world of the unbridled.
That started with what are informally known as signing statements. His royal highness, President George Bush, has adopted the practice of appending a signing statement to whatever legislation sent to him that offends the royal nose. In the signing statement he lets it be known that he may ignore the law signed by him. The most famous signing statement was appended to a law that forbade torturing enemy combatants. That law was passed following the 2005 hearings to determine the suitability of Alberto Gonzales to become the chief law enforcement officer in the United States. During those hearings it was learned that Mr. Gonzales believed that torturing people overseas was permissible since the U.S. Constitution does not apply at overseas prisons.
Senator John McCain, who knows better than any other legislator now serving what torture is like, promptly introduced a bill explicitly banning cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody anywhere in the world. When the legislation passed with a veto-proof majority notwithstanding the opposition of Messrs. Bush and his vice president Dick Cheney, Mr. Bush donned his nicest turncoat, called a press conference and with Mr. McCain at his side praised the legislation. After the press conference, when everyone had gone home, he doffed his turncoat and appended a “signing statement” in which he said in so many words he would construe the law as he saw fit.
Speaking anonymously, because he wasn’t supposed to be speaking at all, a palace spokesman said: “Of course the president has the obligation to follow this law [but] he also has the obligation to defend and protect the country as the commander in chief, and he will have to square those two responsibilities in each case. We are not expecting that those two responsibilities will come into conflict, but it’s possible that they will.” Having learned of the wonders that can be wrought by the signing statement, we have now been introduced to the privileges of the Executive Order (EO).
By means of an EO the king can expand his authority. When Cheney asserted for convoluted reasons that an EO mandating oversight of the handling of classified materials in White House offices did not apply to him, its express language notwithstanding, the president announced that as its promulgator he knew what it meant and it did not apply to the office of either the president or the vice president. The Supreme Court has now gone him one better. It has said that the king’s subjects may not challenge the king’s use of funds of the exchequer when they are spent in furtherance of an EO.
In the Hein case the court said that taxpayers as taxpayers did not have standing to challenge the president’s use of taxpayers’ funds in support of faith-based activities in violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution when the funds were spent pursuant to an EO and not from funds specifically allocated by Congress for purposes proscribed by the Constitution. As the Court explained: “[T]he expenditures at issue here were not made pursuant to any Act of Congress. Rather, Congress provided general appropriations to the Executive Branch to fund its day-to-day activities. . . . Those expenditures resulted from executive discretion, not congressional action.”
The dissent explained why the majority was wrong even though the majority opinion is now the law of the land. Speaking for the rational branch of the court, Justice David Souter said: “When executive agencies spend identifiable sums of tax money for religious purposes, no less than when Congress authorizes the same thing, taxpayers suffer injury. And once we recognize the injury as sufficient for Article III, there can be no serious question about the other elements of the standing enquiry: the injury is indisputably ‘traceable’ to the spending . . . .” Continuing, Justice Souter said: “[I]f the Executive could accomplish through the exercise of discretion exactly what Congress cannot do through legislation, Establishment Clause protection would melt away.” The majority would like that. So would George Bush. Then we might truly become a Christian nation, like the country from which we got our independence more than two decades ago, as Mr. Bush said when addressing the West Virginia Air National Guard on July 4, 2007.
Editor's Note: Spot-on's Mike Spinney has written on this issue as well. That post is here.
An Army of Devils is horribly broke in upon the place which is our center . . . . And the houses of the good people there are filled with the doleful shrieks of their children. . . tormented by invisible hands. — Cotton Mather (1692)
The Puritans are back and who more worthy to lead them than Cotton Mather and John Hathorne (now known as James Dobson and Bill O’Reilly) renown witch hunters of the 17th century whose successes were hanged and in one case, pressed to death.
James Dobson is the founder of Focus on the Family. Focus on the Family as its name suggests, is a reincarnation of the 17th century Puritan tradition. It and its leader focus on things going on in other people’s lives as the Puritans did, alerting a fearful populace to signs of witchcraft and other heretical activities among their friends and neighbors.
In 2006 Mr. Dobson campaigned against four bills proposed by the California legislature which he perceived to be dangerously tolerant of homosexuals whose practices invoke his wrath, if not the wrath of his boss, the Lord who, after all, created the homosexuals and bears them no animus. Mr. Dobson said that if the proposal became law, the legislature would be delivering California children “straight into the arms of the homosexual activist community.” Continuing he said: “If these bills are signed into law, who knows what the liberal courts in California will be able to make out of this in the years to come? There goes the next generation of children.” His crusade successful, all but one of the bills was vetoed.
Continuing in his search of other places from which the Devil could be driven, Mr. Dobson then discovered Boulder High School in Boulder, Colorado. Boulder High School sponsored a panel discussion with participants from the University of Colorado Conference on World Affairs, an annual conference that this year featured, among others, lectures by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, Sen. Joe Biden and former Sen. Tim Wirth. The conference is celebrated nation-wide for bringing together distinguished scholars from around the world to engage in spirited discussion and debate.
The panel selected by the students for presentation at the high school was entitled “STDs: Sex, Teens and Drugs.” To everyone’s great surprise the panelists discussed sex, teens and drugs. The language and responses to questions from students by some of the panelists were provocative, and designed, at least in part, to stir students’ bile, as lecturers frequently do. Her bile riled, a student complained that the panel discussion was a one-sided discussion that discredited religious views and abstinence. She reported her dismay to her mother. Her mother complained to the school board. The complaints were reported in the media. Mr. Dobson read the reports and he and Bill O’Reilly, a television personality of empty mind but head full of words, appointed Mr. O’Reilly to serve as judge in a media trial of those who permitted this devilish invasion of the halls of education.
Hearing of the trial, a Republican mob consisting of 10 state legislators demanded that the superintendent of schools (who is to retire in three weeks) be fired, together with the school principal (who is not retiring). Mr. O’Reilly put on trial not only school officials, but the town and, for good measure, its district attorney. He reminded listeners that the murderer of JonBenet Ramsey remained at large and that another criminal case involving a dead child had not yet come to trial. Summing up his indignation, Mr. O’Reilly said: “This is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. It epitomizes what happens when secular progressives take over.” Thanks to the Devil hunters, the Devil may soon find Boulder an inhospitable place.
When the Dobson-O’Reilly empty heads met to exchange vacuities on Mr. O’Reilly’s television show, Mr. Dobson said: “In this stage of my life, little makes me angry. But this is outrageous and I can’t believe it.” Of course he does believe it and intends to put a halt to it. Powerless to organize a mob to take all offenders to the public square for an informal hanging, Mr. Dobson has suggested another, although less efficient way, to drive the Devil out. He is exploring the possibility that the school board, the superintendent and the principal violated the criminal laws of the state of Colorado. If so, he will demand that the district attorney (who, though Mr. O’Reilly believes her to be incapable of prosecuting murderers, may have more luck with witches) prosecute the Devil’s disciples.
I’m sure Messrs. Dobson and O’Reilly regret that those who have conspired with the Devil can’t just be hanged without a trial. It would be faster and would avoid cluttering up the courts with the kinds of justice that Messrs. Dobson and O’Reilly routinely dispense.
Editor's Note: Spot-on's Mike Spinney has some observations about religion and politics here.
Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.
— H.L. Mencken
From time to time events ecclesiastical eclipse things political. It’s happened before and will happen again.
On October 31, 1992, it was reported that Pope John Paul II was prepared to close an investigation into the condemnation some years earlier of Galileo. In 1632 Galileo published his proof of the Copernican theory of the solar system, a proof that put him in bad odor with the church since it contravened the Ptolemaic theory that all heavenly bodies orbit the earth. Unsuccessful at convincing the powers that were that his findings did not constitute heresy, on June 21, 1633, he was found guilty of having “held and taught” the Copernican doctrine and was ordered to recant. Recanting, he was nonetheless placed under house arrest where he remained until his death at age 77; his study of the solar system was placed on the list of church-banned books where it remained for 122 years. His rehabilitation was delayed until 1992 when Cardinal Paul Poupard, who was the head of an investigation by the church into Galileo’s theory, said: “We today know that Galileo was right in adopting the Copernican astronomical theory.” Galileo, wherever he now is, was undoubtedly delighted. Shortly after his restoration to the ranks of the reputable, Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution, which had once given the church ecclesiastical heartburn, were also embraced. That happened in 1994.
That was the year in which the Pope announced to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that Darwin’s theories are sound so long as they take into account that creation as described by him was the work of God. The Pope said that “fresh knowledge leads to recognition of the theory of evolution as more than just a hypothesis”.
Commenting on the two rehabilitations, Francesco Barone, a philosopher on scientific issues said: “With Galileo’s recent ‘rehabilitation’ and with this message by Pope John Paul II, the tear between the church and science has been strung together.”
The most recent good news from the Vatican was Pope Benedict XVI’s approval of a Vatican report released April 20 by the International Theological Commission that said there were “serious” grounds to hope that unbaptized children might get into heaven. Prior to this report it was believed that unbaptized children went to a place called “limbo.” Theologians (none of whom, I have it on good authority, has ever visited) describe “limbo” as a place where children enjoy an eternal state of perfect natural happiness. It almost certainly has enough teeter-totters and swings for everyone, as well as cotton candy, lemonade, computer games and all the other things children enjoy. According to those in the know, the only thing lacking in limbo is communion with God, which in the vernacular means the children there have no adult supervision, a condition that most of the children would find very much to their liking and in many cases probably comports with their idea of heaven.
If the International Theological Commission in its continuing studies of this issue concludes that the unbaptized can go straight to heaven without passing limbo and that view becomes church doctrine, there are two obvious questions. Will the new policy be retroactive and will there be an age or geographical cutoff?
With respect to the first question, it seems likely that in the divine order of things there are a certain number of unbaptized infants who die each year and if they are now permitted to enter heaven, their entry will occur in an orderly fashion. Those presently in limbo present an entirely different problem. There are surely billions of unbaptized infants cavorting about in unsupervised perfect happiness in limbo. Although all may not want to leave their perfectly happy state, others may welcome the chance to get to heaven which, even though none of them has been able to visit it, almost certainly enjoys as good a reputation in limbo as it enjoys here on earth. If billions decide all at once that they want to go to heaven, the question is can heaven accommodate what might be described in today’s parlance as a “surge”.
The second question is whether there is an age or geographical cutoff for invocation of the dispensation. At what age does failure to be baptized become an offense that warrants limbo or, worse yet, hell, and is there consideration of where the child is located geographically? It is a lot easier to get baptized in Manhattan than in a remote village in Tibet. Those are questions that I, being a columnist and not a theologian, cannot hope to answer. I suspect the Vatican will appoint yet another commission with an appropriate Latin moniker to study the question and make appropriate recommendations to the Pope. The children in limbo as well as those still on earth will eagerly await its conclusions.
They [Americans] equally detest the pageantry of a king, and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop. - The Letters of Junius (1769)
It may have been a way of saving money. That would make sense given the amount of money the Catholic Church has had to pay in settling lawsuits arising out of the sexual abuse of children by priests. Although it is impossible to get exact numbers, one recent study suggests that the U.S. Roman Catholic church may ultimately pay as much as $1 billion to those abused by priests over the last 50 years in the United States alone.
The money savings idea came from the recent meeting of the Conference of Bishops that took place in Baltimore, Md. Here is the plan the bishops have for saving money: They reduced the spending on communion wine in parishes all over the United States.
It was a brilliant strategy and a tribute to the ingenuity of the bishops who in other parts of the declaration from that conference gave the impression that what passes for enlightened thinking in 2006 evokes memories of enlightened thinking when Joan of Arc was being ministered to by the Holy Fathers.
According to reports of the conference the Bishops acknowledge that 96% of married Catholics use birth control to avoid overpopulating the world. The Church does not like birth control. It prefers an overpopulated world with all its untoward consequences. (In fairness it should be noted that those unfortunate enough to live in overpopulated parts of the world where there is insufficient food to feed all can at least take comfort in that fact that the sadness that may otherwise accompany the act of dying young from starvation is offset by the prospect of an earlier reunion with the Heavenly Father than the well fed can anticipate.)
The bishops concluded that Catholics who use birth control should be denied communion. That means the only folks at the communion rail will be the celibate, older married couples who no longer need to use birth control, the young folk who have discovered alternatives to the traditional ways of enjoying the pleasures of the flesh without the possibility of procreation and the homosexuals who have no need to use birth control. The latter group, however, will also not be heavy consumers of communion wine.
In addition to the bishops’ learned declarations that sex is exclusively procreational and not recreational, they took a strong stand against the evils of homosexuality, solemnly proclaiming it a sin. The need for such a proclamation was deemed important because of the Massachusetts legislation that permits gays to marry, a law that could be construed to mean that society thinks homosexuality is OK. The Bishop whose sexual urges were long ago sublimated (except for the occasional predator) wanted to clear up any misunderstanding to which such legislation might give rise.
The Bishops’ work product dealing with homosexuality is called “Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care.” The document is not completely intolerant. It says gays should be welcome in churches but says the church has a right to deny roles of service to those whose behavior violates her teaching because “such service might be an occasion of scandal and appear as condoning immoral lifestyles.” It reaffirms the notion that “homosexual acts are immoral” and states that “the homsexual inclination is objectively disordered.” It also reaffirms its opposition to same sex marriage and adoption of children by gay couples, (life in the orphanage apparently being preferable for the child to being exposed to the evils of the homosexual life style.) The foregoing notwithstanding, it says there should be no hatred or discrimination against gays, (except when it comes to the sacraments).
Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George, vice president of the conference said that to be a good Catholic when gay meant living a life of celibacy. Exalting the virtues of celibacy above any intrinsic value it would otherwise have he said of celibate homosexuals: “They are not only striving to be chaste they are striving to be saints.” (A clear advantage to heterosexuality, it would seem, is the ability to achieve sainthood through good works rather than chastity, chastity being a virtue that has little to recommend it and benefits no one but the chaste who becomes saint.)
Commenting on the reference in the title of the document prepared by the conference referring to homosexual “inclinations”, Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a group for gay Catholics observed that sex preferences are not “inclinations”, they are “orientations” and said: “If the bishops do not understand this basic reality of sexuality, how can they offer any advice for ministry to real people?” A non-catholic contemplating the work product of the conference would have a simple answer-they can’t and they don’t. Pass the wine.
It is circumstance and proper timing that give an action its character and make it either good or bad. - Agesilaus, Plutarch, Lives
Timing is important. So, it seems, are clothes
Back in April Joe Ratzinger (or Pope Benedict XVI as he likes to be called now) and some of his buddies thought a time when relations between Muslims and the rest of the world were distressingly low was a good time to rehabilitate the Crusaders. According to those folks the Crusaders had been getting a bum rap for years so in April the Vatican sponsored a conference in Rome to demonstrate that the Crusades had the noble aim of recapturing the Holy Land for Christianity. The conference’s aim was at variance with views of the Crusades held by Pope John Paul II who on the occasion of the 2000-millennium celebrations asked “pardon” for the Crusades.
Later in the year Joe again offended Muslims when he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor who claimed that the Prophet Muhammad brought “things only evil and inhuman” to the world. Whatever his intentions, the remarks greatly upset many in the Muslim world driving really important stuff right off the front page of the newspapers. To prove that Joe isn’t the only one with a great sense of timing, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, have now gotten into the act. They don’t like what Muslim women wear.
October 5, 2006, Straw, who was formerly Britain’s foreign secretary, wrote a column in the Lancashire Telegraph in which he describes how uncomfortable he feels when he encounters women in his constituency wearing a veil. He is not made uncomfortable by the veil that hangs discretely from the hat of a well turned out socialite but the face-covering veil known as the Niqab worn by Muslim women. He said it is hard to talk with someone whose face cannot be seen and, therefore, he asks Muslim women to remove the veil when visiting with him.
Eager to be heard on the subject Tony Blair, modeling himself after his hero, George Bush, mouthed some mind-numbing phrases such as: “I think the reason why Jack raised this is because these are issues that people do feel quite strongly about and they are trying to say how do we make sense of a different type of society in which we live, how do we make sure people integrate more . . ..” He also observed that the veil was a mark of separation that made non-Muslims uncomfortable. Lest he appear intolerant, however, he added: “No one wants to say that people don’t have the right to do it. That is to take it too far. But I think we need to confront this issue about how we integrate people properly into our society.”
Concurrently with the foregoing, Aishah Azmi was told by a British tribunal that she had not been discriminated against when she was told she could not continue teaching unless she removed her veil. Commenting on the ruling she said: “The veil does not cause a barrier. I can teach perfectly well with the veil on” observing further that veiled women were not “aliens”.
As the British were lamenting Muslim dress, the tabloid 7DAYS published in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, was lamenting Western dress. The issue was not the veil. It was skin and dress considered "immodest" during the Muslim holiday Ramadan. In a front-page editorial, the newspaper said: “Too much flesh on show is wrong in a Muslim country at any time but offense is being felt especially during Ramadan. . . . 7DAYS feels it is only right to dress decently and respect the desire of Muslims for peace and quiet during days of fasting and prayer.”
Readers writing in to comment on the editorial included one who recalled that the “Sharjah Decency Code” for women proscribes “clothing that exposes the stomach and back, short clothing above the knee and tight and transparent clothing that describes the body”. The reader describes them as easy to follow guidelines and laments the fact that people can’t be decent enough to follow them during the region's traditional holy season. Maya Rashi Ghadeer, a columnist in a competing newspaper was quoted by the New York Times saying that people in Dubai fear that “the expatriate is going to impose his culture on us. Most locals are afraid that they are losing their basic identity forever.” There's a sentiment with which Jack Straw might, ironically, agree.
The world would be a happy place indeed if the lesson taught by the foregoing was that the people of the world have arrived at a point where their differences are to be settled in fashion salons rather than on battle fields. Instead, the lesson is that intolerance remains the norm.
Continue reading "A Fashionable Crisis" »
These two halves of God, the Pope and the emperor. - Victor Hugo, Hernani
Neither of them believes in science. They both believe in God. They both have a weapon available to them to enforce their beliefs. George Bush can veto. Pope Benedict can excommunicate.
George Bush has never vetoed a bill. He hasn’t had to. He simply ignores laws he doesn’t like and says, when signing, that that’s what he’ll do. He’s been president for the longest 6 years in the history of the United States. During that time he has signed 110 bills with which he disagrees and has attached 750 signing statements telling anyone more literate than he, (i.e. those who can and do read) that he will ignore that which he has just signed.
According to Arlen Specter, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, “the president has taken the signing statements far beyond the customary purviews. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont called Mr. Bush’s signing statements “a grave threat to our constitutional system of checks and balances.” Having been unaware that the country even had a constitution until he became president and someone mentioned it to him, Mr. Bush is hardly troubled by his new discovery. On an issue slated to reach his desk in the not too distant future, Mr. Bush may well be forced to exercise his first veto, a signing statement being too weak a remedy. It’s all because of what the House of Representatives did in 2005 and what the Senate is about to do.
In 2005 the House passed a bill that calls for expanding federal funding for stem cell research to include leftover embryos that, if not used for research, might be discarded from fertility clinics The Senate has promised to take the bill up in July and if it passes as expected, it will be sent to the president for his signature.
The one thing Mr. Bush knows about stem cell research is that if he doesn’t veto the bill he will alienate his right wing supporters and spoil his non-veto record. Being a pragmatist as well as an ignoramus he has, therefore, promised to veto any bill lessening the restrictions on stem cell research. Whether there are enough votes in the Congress to override his veto will be determined after he’s vetoed the bill.
Back in Rome Pope Benedict and friends are sponsoring a conference that will attack the issue of stem cell research head on. It will be the second conference in 2006 that will cause some to wonder where Pope Benedict spent his time before his ascension. The first was in April when he sponsored a conference to rehabilitate the Crusaders. That conference occurred about the same time there were riots all over the world over the publication in Denmark of cartoons deemed offensive to Muslims. Insensitive to what was happening outside the Vatican, it sponsored a conference that said the Crusaders had the “noble aim” of recapturing the Holy Land for Christianity. A speaker at the conference was the Italian historian Roberto de Mattei who described the Crusades as a “response to the Muslim invasion of Christian lands and the Muslim devastation of the Holy Places.” With that brilliantly timed bit of political theater behind him, Pope Benedict decided it was time for another step backward.
In late June 2006 it was announced that another conference convening on July 1 in Valencia, Spain, would be asked to consider the question of excommunication for scientists who (a) were Catholics and (b) engaged in stem cell research. Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo is the head of The Pontifical Council for the Family, the group that proposes family-related policies for the church. The Council describes itself as an part of the Vatican administration that “promotes and coordinates pastoral efforts related to the issue of responsible procreation, and encourages, sustains and coordinates initiatives in defense of human life in all stages of its existence, from conception to natural death.” The one defense of human life the council does not support is research in how to improve it if it involves stem cells, even stem cells that would otherwise be destroyed. In an interview with the Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana Cardinal Trujillo says: “Destroying an embryo is equivalent to abortion. Excommunication is valid for the women, the doctors and researchers who destroy embryos.”
According to Paolo Binetti, an Italian politician, defining the penalty for those doing stem cell research was necessary so the church could catch up with the Bush view of science by taking a giant step backwards. As he explained to Elisabeth Rosenthal of the New York Times, when the church decided in 1990 to impose automatic excommunication for those involved with abortion, “embryonic stem cell research was not a front-page issue.” Now it is and the church wants to make sure that it is no less regressive than George Bush. It’s not.
Editor's Note: Spot-on has an archive of articles related to the politics of the stem cell debate, nationally and in California. Click here to access that archive, listed by writer's name.
Hey Joe. - Song by Jimi Hendrix
There is some good news (in the non-Gospel sense) and some bad news from the Roman Catholic Church. The good news is found in the audit report prepared for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The report finds that in 2005 the Bishops received only 783 new accusations of sexual abuse committed by priests, a significant decline from the 1,092 reported in 2004.
Only nine of the new accusations were for incidents occurring in 2004. The decline can be attributed to a policy adopted in 2002 known as the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. Among its mandates is the creation of safe environment programs for, among others, “children and youth . . .. about ways to make and maintain a safe environment for children.” 5.7 million children received safe environment training in 2005 compared with 3.1 million children who received that training during 2004. The total population of children entrusted to the care of the church is reportedly 6 million so it is obvious that good progress is being made in teaching children how to protect themselves from the shepherds to whose care they have been entrusted.
Less cheery? News that Pope Benedict has decided that this was a good time to correct the historical record pertaining to the Crusades. This comes at the same time many Muslims were wreaking havoc around the world because of some offensive cartoons first published in Denmark, and others were urging acts of terrorism against the West because of Mr. Bush’s war.
The Crusades have been a delicate historical subject for years. When Mr. Bush referred to his invasion of Iraq as a “crusade”, it was pointed out to him that the word suggested a religious war against Muslims and he should look in the dark recesses of what passes for a mind to find another word to describe his courageous assault on Iraq. That same sense of delicacy, however, escaped Pope Benedict and his advisors. The Vatican recently sponsored a conference that says the Crusades were wars that had the “noble aim” of recapturing the Holy Land for Christianity.
By organizing the conference now, Pope Benedict demonstrates a keen sense of timing. It also shows that even though he has helped his predecessor Pope John Paul II board the fast train for sainthood, he didn’t know what he was talking about when it came to the Crusades.
Pope John Paul II had used the occasion of the 2000 Millennium celebration to ask “pardon” for the Crusades. That act of contrition did not resonate with conservative members of the Church who look back with considerable fondness on those halcyon days. Among the conservatives on whose deaf ears the request for pardon fell, was Joe Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict XVI.
Although Joe, or Benedict as he now prefers to be called, called for dialogue between Muslims and Jews at the time when he changed his name in 2005, he also said that Muslim culture is at variance with Europe’s Christian roots. He could have said that about lots of other cultures but he didn’t think of it.
At the Vatican sponsored conference, the Italian historian Roberto De Mattei said the Crusades were a “response to the Muslim invasion of Christian lands and the Muslim devastation of the Holy Places”. He described the Crusaders as “martyrs” who “sacrificed their lives for the faith”.
Jonathan Riley-Smith, Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University said people who asked forgiveness for the Crusades “do not know their history”. He may have been thinking of Pope John Paul II who was probably the last public figure to comment on the Crusades since news of the Crusades has been replaced on the nightly news by news of what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, to name just two of the places that have pushed the Crusades off the front page.
Although columnists are believed to have opinions about almost everything and in some cases do, I have no opinion at all about who were the good and the bad guys in the Crusades. The only thing of which I am sure is that there is considerable tension between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world. That tension is manifested daily in random acts of violence committed against soldier and non-soldier alike, in far off places and close to home by those espousing one religion or another. It seems a singularly peculiar time to host a conference designed to rehabilitate that, for which in 2000, Pope John Paul II apologized. To the uninformed it would seem of little moment whether the Crusades were or were not a good thing. It is a debate that could easily be saved for a quieter time. It’s too bad no one mentioned that to Joe.
Aside from a few odd words in Hebrew, I took it completely for granted that God had never spoken anything but the most dignified English. - Clarence Day, Life with Father
The comparison is superficial. Irani President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was expressing a wish. American preacher Pat Robertson was offering a rational explanation of the event. Those two things are quite different.
President Ahmadinejad greatest, if not only, skill seems to be inflammatory utterances designed to inspire anger and hatred. In December he said, as he had earlier, that the holocaust never happened and if it did, it happened in Europe and therefore all Jews in Israel should return to Europe where they lived before coming to Israel. Upon learning of Ariel Sharon's stroke he said: "Hopefully the news that the criminal of Sabra and Shatila has joined his ancestors is final."
Like Mr. Ahmadinejad, Pat Robertson was not at a loss for words. His comments, too, were condemned by the world community but condemnation of Mr. Robertson seems unfair. He did not hope for Mr. Sharon's death. He simply offered a non-medical explanation of why Mr. Sharon was smitten.
One of the things the Lord has given Mr. Robertson is the ability to understand why world events take place. Thanks to the "700 Club," the television show he anchors on his own Christian Broadcasting Network, Mr. Robertson can share the Lord's musings with the rest of us. Because of Mr. Robertson's unique position vis a vis the Lord, he is in a position to let us know what the Lord is thinking in addition to invoking his assistance from time to time.
His most public supplication this year was his request of the Lord, following Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation, that there be another United States Supreme Court vacancy. Mr. Robertson asked his followers to pray: "Take control, Lord. We ask for additional vacancies on the Court." Sure enough, the Lord granted his request and within a few weeks Chief Justice Rehnquist was dead and the prayed-for vacancy existed.
Mr. Robertson's success in that arena has now emboldened him to act as God's spokesman in explaining all manner of current events. His most recent explanation pertained to the stroke suffered by Ariel Sharon.
According to Mr. Robertson, the stroke is not related to Mr. Sharon's age or health. It is a politically inspired illness inflicted on Mr. Sharon by the Lord because of things Mr. Sharon has done. Mr. Robertson, in this matter, is the Lord's spokesman. In explaining the Lord's infliction on Mr. Sharon he said he prayed with Mr. Sharon just about a year ago and said Mr. Sharon is "a very tenderhearted man and a good friend." Nonetheless, having been told why Mr. Sharon is ill, he felt it incumbent upon himself to share his knowledge with the world. Mr. Sharon, he said, was stricken because of actions taken by Mr. Sharon as prime minister of Israel and is now the recipient of what Mr. Robertson calls "divine punishment".
It all has to do with the Gaza Strip.
When Mr. Sharon issued the order that Jewish settlements and troops be removed from Gaza that was, said Mr. Robertson speaking for God, a division of the Lord's land of which the Lord disapproved. As Mr. Robertson explains: "You read the Bible and he says 'This is my land', and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says, 'No, this is mine'". We should all be indebted to Mr. Robertson for explaining that what might have seemed a serious medical crisis is in fact a manifestation of the Lord's displeasure.
Interestingly, the White House, failed to understand that Mr. Robertson was merely reporting what the Lord had told him, and said his remarks were "wholly inappropriate and offensive." Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's ethics and religious liberty commission said he was "stunned and appalled that Pat Robertson would claim to know the mind of God concerning whether particular tragic events. . . were the judgments of God."
Readers will surely join me in condemning the comments of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. On the other hand they will also join me in expressing dismay at those critical of Mr. Robertson for sharing with us the thinking of the Lord. One, who by his own admission, stands in such proximity to the Lord certainly has an obligation to let the world know what the Lord is thinking. By learning what the Lord is thinking we, too, may be able to comport ourselves in such a manner as to please Him, thus assuring ourselves of long life.
UPDATE: Robertson has
apologized to Sharon's family for his remarks. He left the Lord out of it this time.
I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defense and do beseech your Lordships to be merciful to a broken reed. - Francis Bacon, on being charged with corruption in Office.
He’s clearly not as bad as the press makes him out to be. But it’s easy to overlook that fact if one focuses on his conduct instead of his defenders.
It would be impossible in a space as small as this to describe all of Congressman and former Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s conduct that has had the unfortunate result of giving him a reputation of being a ruthless, power mad, egotistical and unscrupulous politician who stops at nothing to accomplish his ends.
His antics have included such whimsies as commandeering a government airplane in order to hunt down Texas democratic legislators playing hide and seek with their Republican counterparts, to promising retiring Representative Nick Smith he would support Mr. Smith’s son in the son’s bid to replace his father if Mr. Smith would vote for the prescription drug bill. Although a man of unquestioned integrity, Mr. DeLay was admonished three times by a prissy House ethics committee for violating rules pertaining to House members’ interaction with registered lobbyists.
Contrary to what the admonishments of Mr. DeLay suggest, he was and remains, very sensitive to any suggestion that he is unethical. He was even more sensitive to the possibility that if a Texas Grand Jury questioned his integrity by issuing an indictment, he would, under House rules, have to give up his position as majority leader in the House. To avoid that possibility, he and his Republican colleagues voted to amend the rule that would have required such draconian action. The revised rule said the party steering committee would decide if the conduct for which a person in a leadership position in the House was criminally indicted was the sort of bad crime that would embarrass House members were the defendant to continue in a leadership role, or a not very bad crime that would not have that effect.
The change meant that if indicted, Mr. DeLay would be able to keep his post since it was believed unlikely he would be charged with a bad crime. The new rule, appropriate as it was, produced such an outcry that it was replaced by the old rule, Mr. DeLay has been indicted, and there is a new Majority Leader in the House. It doesn’t seem right and if you doubt it, listen to Mr. DeLay’s own words.
Mr. DeLay is a devout Christian who once said he was God-sent to “stand up for a biblical world view in everything I do and everywhere I am.” He wants to establish America as a “God-centered nation.” God will surely not permit the prosecution of such a righteous man to succeed. He will, as the rest of us have, listen to Pat Robertson and David Brooks and not to Austin’s district attorney, Ronnie Earle who has a political agenda.
Pat Robertson is famous for his pancake recipe described on his website and for his recent suggestion that it would be appropriate for someone to murder Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez. When not promoting the creation of pancakes and corpses, Mr. Robertson is, like Mr. DeLay, engaged in the Lord’s work. Within a couple of days of Mr. DeLay’s descent into legal purgatory, Mr. DeLay appeared on Mr. Robertson’s television program. They did not talk cooking or murder. They talked about what a good person Mr. DeLay is and what a bad person the Austin district attorney is.
The New York Time’s David Brooks is another defender. So florid were his phrases in an op-ed piece appearing two days after Mr. DeLay’s descent into purgatory that it was necessary to read his column repeatedly to make sure Mr. Brooks was not mocking Mr. DeLay. He was not.
Mr. Brooks said: “DeLay was never the ruthless tyrant news media reports made him out to be. He’s actually a modest, decent and considerate man.” He went on to say that: “DeLay didn’t do anything for personal enrichment.”
Mr. Brooks was probably unaware that Mr. Brooks was affectionately called The Hammer by his colleagues, a sobriquet bestowed by those unfamiliar with his decent and considerate qualities. Mr. Brooks probably missed news of Mr. DeLay’s trip to England and Scotland paid for by lobbyists in contravention of House rules. It cost dozens of thousands of dollars and was only modest if one twisted the meaning of the word.
Mr. Robertson is a man of the cloth and Mr. Brooks a man of the press. They would not tell their followers Mr. DeLay is a good man if they didn’t believe it. It’s too bad his conduct speaks louder than their words.
We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples? - Seneca, Epistles
Pat Robertson is the man whose website commends to the reader his booklets that describe Age-Defying Antioxidants, Age Defying Protein Pancakes and Age-Defying Protein Shakes (the latter two having been described here recently). Given Mr. Robertson’s love of the Lord it seems curious that he would sell products that will delay the advent of that happy day when his followers meet the Lord, something that age-defying products presumably postpone. As curious as that may seem, it can’t hold a candle to his other activities. In addition to selling age-defying products, Mr. Robertson is a professional Christian who invokes the Lord’s aid in getting rid of those he dislikes.
Addressing the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy a few weeks ago he suggested that his followers use the following prayer: “Take control, Lord. We ask for additional vacancies on the court.” That prayer seemed relatively harmless because one assumes the Lord will exercise discretion in deciding whether to respond to the supplicant’s plea and distinguishes requests made by the nut case supplicant from the other kind. Nonetheless, it seems odd that a man of the apron who - when not hawking his foodstuffs -- is a man of the cloth would be invoking the Lord in that way. It would be more seemly for him to enjoin his followers to pray that the pancake recipe sold on his website will always produce light and fluffy pancakes.
His call for a vacancy on the court pales by comparison to his dabbling in foreign policy in which he solicited an unidentified someone to commit murder. Speaking of Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, on the 700 Club program on August 22, 2005, Mr. Robertson said: “We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another $200 billion to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
Responding to the reverend’s suggestion of murder, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said: “Our department doesn’t do that kind of thing. It’s against the law.” He’s right. That is why - in all probability - the U.S. had nothing to do with the assassination of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963 and why tales of keystone cop attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro are nothing more than a figment of someone’s imagination. That does, of course, still leave us with Venezuela.
If not against the law, it was a violation of the charter of the Organization of American States for the United States to encourage those who wanted Mr. Chávez removed (not murdered, you understand) in 2002 prior to the expiration of his term by holding early elections.
According to reports senior members of the Bush administration met repeatedly with Chávez opponents plotting his ouster in early 2002 and supported their efforts. According to one anonymous spokesman, the administration was sending subtle signals that it didn’t like Mr. Chávez.
The disliked stemmed in part from the fact that he appeared to threaten the independence of Venezuela’s state owned oil company, the third-largest supplier of American oil. Press secretary Ari Fleischer said that the United States “is convinced that the only peaceful and politically viable path out of the crisis is through the holding of early elections.” (Under the Venezuelan Constitution an early election could not be held until August 2003.) Two days later, perhaps having read that constitution, the administration announced that it was not calling for early elections after all. Ari Fleischer said that: “We call for the will of the people to be heard through the provisions of the Constitution, in the manner that the Venezuelan people deem most appropriate.”
In April 2002 there was a coup that briefly ousted President Hugo Chávez. On the day of the ouster Mr. Fleischer said the ouster was Mr. Chávez’ own fault, he having provoked the crisis that led to his ouster. The State Department promised full cooperation with those who had sponsored the short-lived coup. Within two days Mr. Chávez was back as president. Mr. Fleischer expressed the hope that Mr. Chávez would respond by “governing in a fully democratic manner.” Then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice expressed the hope he’d be less “highhanded” in dealing with his opponents. Whether the administration thinks he has been less highhanded is unknown. Whether it does or does not, it’s unlikely Mr. Bush would follow Mr. Robertson’s advice. He has too much respect for international law. He would not have invaded Iraq had Iraq not had weapons of mass destruction. He would never follow the advice of a crazy Christian pancake maker that he sponsor murder - unless, of course, he thought he could get away with it.
I count religion but a childish toy,
and hold there is no sin but ignorance. —Christopher Marlowe,The Jew of Malta
Sunday, August 14 promises to be a great day for the Lord. Not that it's the only exciting day. George Bush gave Him another in early August. But I get ahead of myself.
August 14 is Justice Sunday II. That's the day that's been selected by those who support the nomination of John Roberts to the United States Supreme Court to make a joyful noise in support of remaking the Supreme Court. The event will be broadcast from Nashville, Tennessee. The roster of speakers is as impressive as the roster of non-speakers.
One of the most impressive speakers is the scourge of all things that creep and crawl, large and small, Tom DeLay. Commenting on Mr. Bush's Faith Based Initiative in 2002 he said; “I see it as a great opportunity to bring God back into the public institutions of the country. God has been removed from all of our public institutions.” Now he can show support for bringing to the Court new Justices acquainted with his God.
Another distinguished participant is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. He recently drew attention by comparing stem-cell research to Nazi experiments conducted on prisoners during the Holocaust. He suggested that “if you wanted to take the time to read about it, there would have been some discoveries there that benefited mankind.” He did not identify them but presumably he got his information from the Lord and it should not be doubted by the likes of me. His comments probably pleased the right wing as much as Sen. Bill Frist’s displeased them.
That may explain why Sen. Frist is not on the roster. Instead of comparing stem cell research to the holocaust Sen. Frist permitted his political instincts to guide his medical instincts and announced his support for stem cell research, something his medical instincts had formerly opposed.
Also left out: Pat Robertson. Judging from his website, it seems Mr. Robertson wants to be known for his invention of Pat’s Shake which is available at GNC stores around the country. On his website he describes it as a “delectable shake that will help you build muscle and lose fat.” People who’ve taken it have “achieved remarkable weight-loss, lowered their blood pressure and cholesterol, increased their energy, and even improved the quality and texture of their skin.” When not promoting the Shake, Mr. Robertson can be found preparing his “Age-Defying Protein Pancakes” that combat the build-up of plaque and provide “complex carbohydrates to keep your system running at its best.” There are also cooking tips to help “make your pancakes light and fluffy.”
In addition to his cooking skills, Mr. Robertson is a man of the Lord. Why he was not invited to participate in Justice Sunday II is unknown. It was he who suggested a prayer he asked his viewers to offer up. It goes like this: “Take control, Lord! We ask for additional vacancies on the court.”
That seems unchristian, suggesting that the prayer’s offerer is asking the Lord to end one or more lives of those now serving on the court in order to create vacancies. Although some of its members are old and in the case of Justice Rehnquist ill, it nonetheless seems inappropriate to ask the Lord to hasten whatever it is he has in store for them. Probably the Lord knows that that kind of a prayer is inappropriate and may well conclude that Mr. Robertson should quit talking to Him and concentrate more on shakes and pancakes.
In addition to the excitement generated by the upcoming event, during the first week in August George Bush waded into the debate about intelligent design. Ignoring those who would suggest that his occupancy of the White House gives proof, if proof is needed, that there is no such thing as “intelligent design” Mr. Bush said the theory should be taught in the public schools as a companion to another interesting idea called “evolution.” As he explained to reporters: “I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought.” His comments helped fuel the textbook debate now being fought in Odessa, Texas over a book that will now be used in the classroom in that city. The book reportedly includes a statement that NASA scientists are now able to prove that somehow two days of time has gone missing since earth was created thus proving that the bible was speaking literally when it made reference to the sun standing still.
All in all, it’s been a great August for the religious right. It’s not so good for the rest of the country.
