The most troubling thing about the Wright fiasco for me isn’t that we might be electing a de facto Wright as our next president, no, not by far. What’s troubled me is not knowing what’s going on in black churches.

I’ve always thought it’s pretty much what goes on in white churches, only with better rhythm, but Wright cast serious doubts on that, leaving me nervous. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, the news that Wright’s Trinity Church had spawned a half dozen daughter churches struck me like news that a radical Islamist mosque had open a half dozen branches.

Now, thankfully, there’s a comprehensive analysis that paints a much better picture of Wright as a loud-mouthed minority in a black church that doesn’t much resemble Trinity at all. Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom, writing in RCP today, tell us:

Some of these [black] churches are led by figures like Rev. Wright, an adherent of what is called black liberation theology, which rejects racial integration and stresses the experience of black bondage. But not many. C. Eric Lincoln’s mid-1980s survey of the leaders of 2,150 black churches found that two-thirds of them said they had not been influenced by “any of the authors and thinkers of black liberation theology.” Indeed, 63 percent did not believe that the black church had “a different mission from the white church.” A third did not even think it was “important have black figures in [their] Sunday school literature.”

Unfortunately, that data is from a survey that’s 20 years old. Surely there must be more current data!

The authors do tell us that Wright’s Trinity is actually not “a part of the African-American religious tradition,” as Wright so forcefully told us, but a minority black population within the overwhelmingly white (96%) United Church of Christ.

The real black churches, not surprisingly, are the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) or the National Baptist Convention, which is 98% black. On race, AME says that its basic beliefs do not “differ from what all Methodists believe.” The church split from the larger, predominately white Methodist church because its members weren’t welcome in a racially divided America, but it didn’t warp into a pseudo-religious hate machine in the process.

I wouldn’t want churches serving predominantly black audiences to be clones of white churches because they wouldn’t be manifesting Christ in the best way for the audience, just as most whites would have a difficult time finding Jesus in the black church, since its style is foreign to us. There is clearly room for many styles of preaching, but there is no room on the pulpit of the Christian church for philosophies that, at their core, are just as hateful and wrong as Nazism.

The Thernstrom’s RCP post doesn’t go far enough or deep enough, and certainly isn’t current enough, but it’s a much-needed start. In all the writing about Wright, there’s precious little about the true nature of the black church — use the search engine or compiler of your choice and you’ll see what I mean, as I wanted to back up the Thernstroms with additional info, but found nothing useful.

If anyone has seen more on this topic, please give me a link.

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Some post I put up recently offended a young convert to Islam, Yasmine, who wrote me this:

I don’t know if You ever get this but I hope that one day you educate yourself and I really mean to educate yourself because I haver read all of your posts and some are decent while your arrogance and ignorance is apparent in your opinon and writing style. I am a muslim convert and I invite you to my blog, come a check if I am oppressed and if my faith is so evil.

I ignored her unfounded judgment of me and responded that I would pray for her salvation and:

I’m sorry you made such a tragic mistake by converting to Islam. I read your blog and you seem to be a thoughtful, but emotional, young person and I’m afraid your emotions led you to a religion that is fine on one level but also has a very dark side (jihad, terror, suppression of women, and a God that doesn’t care enough about you to give you a clear path to heaven — outside of jihad).

My comments generated a torrential response from her, which I will fisk herewith:

I am emotional? On the contrary, I am strong and strive for human excellence. so to improve myself in every aspect is very important to me.

I based that statement on her own writings, a blog post about having children that was awash in emotions.

Wish you were a little more open minded and dared to think outside the box for once. I have not done a mistake, I have made the best thing I could ever do in my life and that was to convert to Islam…

I wonder why she thinks that. Christianity offers an excellent moral structure and a clear path to salvation. Islam clearly has some great rules for morality and social structure.

But it also has some terrible ones that the rest of the world’s religions have done very well without. As for salvation, in Christianity it’s simple; it is based on faith, not works. But in Islam, it’s works:

“Then those whose scales are heavy, they are successful. And those whose scales are light are those who lose their souls…”

Further, Islam promises

“… a Paradise as vast as the heavens and the earth, which awaits the God-conscious, who spend for charity in time of plenty and in time of hardship, and restrain their anger, and pardon their fellow men, for God loves those who do good.”

Whereas Jesus told us that faith alone will open the doors to heaven, Allah makes no such promise, and the Muslim must always wonder whether he’s been God-conscious enough, giving enough, forgiving enough to achieve Paradise, living in doubt … unless, of course, he takes the Jihad route. More on that in a bit.

I was not just a christian before but a practicing christian. who has read and studied the bible extensively. Who had moralities and respect for all humans beings. Do you?

I would hope I pass this test. I’ve read the Bible every day for over 12 years … well, I missed a handful when the alarm didn’t go off … but I’ve read it front to back twice and most of its books three or four times. I’ve been to Bible studies, have been attending the same men’s group for five or so years, have heard a ton of good preachers in church and on the radio. Not that any of that matters at all, because it’s the Spirit that brings the experience alive — something Yasmine should understand:

Say, the Holy Spirit has brought the Revelation from thy Lord in Truth, in order to strengthen those who believe, and as a Guide and Glad Tidings to Muslims. (Quran, 16:102)

Before I became a Christian I was in turns a “practicing” but not reborn Christian, a student of Buddhism, Tantric yoga and various mystical doo-dahs taught by a bunch of phony poobahs. For a time I even delved into the mystical Islamic Sufi sect, so I’ve been around the block a bit, even knocking on Allah’s door.

The culmination is that I have “moralities” and respect for most human beings, but certainly not all. I do not, and never will, respect human beings who recruit terrorists, or human beings who blow themselves up on crowded streets, or human beings who fly airplanes full of innocents into buildings full of innocents.

Perhaps I should double my Bible-reading time …. Yasmine goes on,

I would not sit there and proclaim to be righteous person when you slander a faith you know nothing about. you are only a media slave. Even I a twently year old knows better to make judgments by media because apparently you are not Muslim. I dare you to learn about it and you’ll see what I mean. Will you? I don’t know. there are people that will be forever be blind no matter what you tell them.

Readers of C-SM should get a pretty good chuckle out of the “media slave” call-out. Yasmine has every right to ask me to study her religion, but until her religion drags itself out of its bloody past and reforms, I have the right to say, “Why waste the time, especially when I’ve got a perfectly great religion of my own?”

I would suggest to start fromt the bible because that is how I came without being aware I desired Islam. Alhamdulilah (Thank God). I did not even know about Islam then.

This is a very curious girl who has lived through an experience I cannot understand. I cannot understand how a book so full of love and sound teaching could lead someone to a religion that has comported itself so badly ever since Mohammed started spreading his revelations by both the sword and the book.

if you are such a good pious chrsitian (practicing) I suggest for you to refer to me where it explains the trinity and where Jesus proclaims to be God. He called himself a messenger and I will show you all the proofs you need to but not to convert you but to verify your bigoted mindset. inshallah (if God wills).

Bigoted mindset? Pot calling kettle black?

But I’m glad Yasmine asked. There are so many places in the Bible where the Trinity is addressed, and even more that proclaim Jesus to be God — not a mere messenger like Mohammed. Yasmine must have missed these verses; I hope she will read and understand them because they are wonderful:

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith.

Who is the one who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who Testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

For there are three that testify:

the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. [Trinity]

If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning his Son.

The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son.

And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not walk in the life. (1 John 5: 1-12)

And these, some of the most beautiful words ever written:

In the beginning was the Word (Spirit), and the Word was with God, and the Word Was God.

He (Jesus) was in the beginning with God. (The Trinity)

All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkeness did not comprehend it. …

And the Word (spirit) became flesh (Jesus), and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1-5, 14)

I will freely admit that I don’t understand the Trinity, but I am in awe of it and looking forward to the day when I will understand it — a day not on this plane.

But I anticipate Yasmine would retort that I’m quoting John, not Jesus. Then let’s see what Jesus himself has to say about it:

So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules.

But Jesus replied, “My Father never stops working, so why should I?”

So the Jewish leaders tried all the more to kill him. In addition to disobeying the Sabbath rules, he had spoken of God as his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.

Jesus replied, “I assure you, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and tells him everything he is doing, and the Son will do far greater things than healing this man. You will be astonished at what he does.

He will even raise from the dead anyone he wants to, just as the Father does. And the Father leaves all judgment to his Son, so that everyone will honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. But if you refuse to honor the Son, then you are certainly not honoring the Father who sent him. (John 5:16-23)

Unfortunately, we must break our reverie and return to a subject as awful as the Trinity is awesome: Jihad.

Jihad? Means struggle not holy war although it can also be reffered to that just like the crusades and missionariy tactics used by some chrsitians. that take advantage of poor countries to only benefit from there desparity to convert them.

The Crusades were a thousand years ago and were the response to Islam’s overthrow of the Holy Land. And missionary tactics like those of Jihadists? Show me one. Missionaries convert by the Word and the Spirit, not the sword and C-4. My Christian missionary friends dedicate their lives not just to bring them to Christ; they also dedicate their lives to lifting up the poor, bringing better medical care, education and opportunity to the people they work to bring to Christ.

The phrase “take advantage of poor countries to only benefit from there [sic] desparity [sic] to convert them” makes me wonder if Yasmine is only “a media college prof slave.” It sounds like the sort of twisted view of the world that a left-leaning Islamic studies prof might say to a young gal as open to new ideas as I was when I was in my 20s, my dabbling years. (But how do we explain her horrific spelling and punctuation?)

I’ve heard Yasmine’s “jihad means struggle not holy war” thing so many times I suppose the Muslims think if they say it often enough, we’ll believe it. The problem is the word “not.” To be accurate, Yasmine needs to say “jihad means struggle and holy war.” Maybe not to her, but to many, many Muslims including one you may have heard of, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

Zarqawi’s exposition of Islamic theology as he sees it is most revealing. “There is no doubt,” he says, “that Allah commanded us to strike the Kuffar (unbelievers), kill them, and fight them by all means necessary to achieve the goal. The servants of Allah who perform Jihad to elevate the word (laws) of Allah, are permitted to use any and all means necessary to strike the active unbeliever combatants for the purpose of killing them, snatch their souls from their body, cleanse the earth from their abomination, and lift their trial and persecution of the servants of Allah. The goal must be pursued even if the means to accomplish it affect both the intended active fighters and unintended passive ones such as women, children and any other passive category specified by our jurisprudence.” (source)

Paradise is guaranteed to those who “slay and are slain” for Allah: “Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth” (Qur’an 9:111). Christianity offers no such route to heaven.

you can go ahead and assume I came to Islam due to my emotions but I don’t care what an hateful prejudiced unpious not God fearing Man’s evaluations.

Salam (peace), Yasmine

How do you get to peace if before you meet someone, before you know anything about them, you leap to a conclusion that they are “hateful prejudiced not God fearing?”

I don’t believe I have ever said anything hateful in C-SM or elsewhere about run-of-the-mill Muslims who don’t go around beheading journalists, blowing up buses filled with Israeli school children … or for that matter, calling for the annihilation of all Jews. I have always been careful to differentiate between “Muslims” and “Islamists.” Yet here I am hateful and prejudiced.

I have never said anything in C-SM that would indicate that I am not pious, but because I choose (thank God!) to be pious to God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus instead of Allah and Mohammed, I’m just an infidel to be loathed.

Peace, Yasmine.

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All We Ask For Easter

The pretty little photo above greeted me on Ask.com this morning, as a pleasant reminder that it is possible for high tech companies to acknowledge, albeit in a secular manner, religious holidays.

Over at Google, as usual, a blank screen. All we ask is that the nerds, geeks and billionaires there should acknowledge that the nation that nurtured them is a Christian nation.

Joyous Easter

Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20: 10-18

Despite all the times Mary heard Jesus say that he would go away and come back, that he would rise, she didn’t believe it literally, so that when she saw the empty tomb, she lost faith.

All it took was one word … “Mary” … and she believed fully. The Lord spoke a word to me 12 years ago … “Laer” … (he didn’t even have to ask where that weird name came from!) and I believed.

Easter is a beautiful day here today, with the hills bright green and the sky a deep blue. But even if it were cold and sleeting, it would be just as beautiful a day. The miracle of the resurrection creates its own beauty, for all of us.

Easter At Trinity United

As Jeremiah Wright spends Easter on Sabbatical — “Rehab for Reverands,”‘ if you will — Obama’s new pastor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, led the Easter morning sunrise service at Trinity United.

He used it as an opportunity to raise money for “The Resurrection Fund,” a fund-raising effort he wouldn’t describe due to live video feeds, purchased DVDs of the sermon and Fox News reporters in the church, but concluded his pitch saying,

In order to crucify him you’ve got to lift him up … he had more visibility on the cross than he did during his entire ministry.

A deft analogy … but is America ready for Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s persecution for being a hateful racist to the Passion of our Lord?

Are we ready for a teacher who says America should be damned for made-up crimes against blacks while also condemning America for not being pro-choice and for trying to stop the abortion madness — a real crime America could very well be damned for — are we ready for such a man to be likened to Christ this Easter morning?

The congregates at Obama’s church are. The “In order to crucify him …” line above was one that drew loud affirmation, according to Fox.

(hat-tip: Gateway Pundit)

Speaking of Trinity United …

I thought it might be fun to see if the Bush-haters at Trinity United were OK with taking Bush’s money, and sure enough, they are. From a 2001 Health and Human Services report on early Faith-Based Initiative programs:

The grant program has also provided funds to the South Side HIV/AIDS Coalition in Chicago, a multi-agency group including Trinity United Church of Christ, Provident Hospital of Cook County and the Alliance for Community Empowerment, to provide culturally sensitive and responsive HIV/AIDS education and services to African-Americans.

Should God damn Trinity United for taking this evil money?

Among The Baptised

Pope Benedict baptised six new Christians at his Easter morning Mass today, among them a promient (but non-practicing) Muslim:

Italy’s most prominent Muslim commentator, a journalist with iconoclastic views such as support for Israel, converted to Roman Catholicism Saturday when the pope baptized him at an Easter service.

As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Magdi Allam’s head and said a brief prayer in Latin.

“We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another,” Benedict said in a homily reflecting on the meaning of baptism. “Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close.”

Vatican television zoomed in on Allam, who sat in the front row of the basilica along with six other candidates for baptism.

An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Allam often writes on Muslim and Arab affairs and has infuriated some Muslims with his criticism of extremism and support for the Jewish state. (Fox)

A brave man. Allam has already been sentenced to death by the Islamic fanatics of Hamas for his radical belief that a people should be allowed to live in peace.

In addition to being brave, he is educated and urbane … a far cry from the everyday suicide bomber recruit.

Hat-tip: Jawa Report

Res-Erection!?

It wouldn’t be Easter without an attack on Christian sensibilities during Holy Week, would it? This year I had to dig a little deeper, but sure they’re up to their same old Christian-slamming.

On Good Friday the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel began running this ad, for the “Res-Erection Tour” of the play Puppetry of the Penis, which Badger Blogger describes thusly:

Wikipedia describes this as: “The theatrical contortion of the male genitalia (penis, scrotum, and testicles) into various positions along with comedic narration”. So basically what it is, is two guys get on stage and play with themselves in front of an audience.

He reports that a call to the vice president of advertising at the paper expressing outrage at allowing this defiling of the Resurrection during this Easter season resulted in no straight answers. He was expecting straight answers?

The play doesn’t start for three weeks, so placing the ad on Good Friday was much more an anti-Christian political statement than a marketing statement.

Wimpy Anti-Christians

The U. of Virginia student newspaper, the appropriately named Cavalier Daily, since it does take a cavalier view of American society, has gotten Christians riled up before for its anti-Christian cartoons, like the one above, which ran last August.

They got slapped around for their last venture into Christian-bashing, so what did the do in 2008? They ran two cartoons:

In Thursday’s issue of the Cavalier Daily, the comic strip “TCB” featured a crucified Jesus performing stand-up comedy.

“And what’s the deal with these crosses? Was there a sale on t’s at the letter store,” Christ asks in the strip. “This whole situation makes me cross! Oh yeah, am I right? Am I right?”

The unseen crowd heckles the Christian savior, who is grinning and speaking into a microphone. “Boo,” they say. “Go back to Bethlehem.”

The comic strip drew angry responses from campus Christians, who called it offensive – particularly with Easter right around the corner. …

Friday’s “TCB” strip … depicts God and the Virgin Mary in a post-coital quarrel. In it, a shirtless God, smoking a cigarette and wearing sunglasses, utters a profanity, though three letters have been replaced with asterisks. (Daily Progress)

How bold! How cutting edge! How pathetically typical and to be expected on today’s Secularist university campuses!

Confronted (again!) with accusations of hate-cartooning and pointed questions about why they are so willing to attack Christians on their most holy day but never to attack other faiths, the editors boldly replied:

The Cavalier Daily sincerely regrets any offense readers may have taken to two recent comics in the strip TCB published March 13 and 14. The content of the Comics page reflects neither the views of the Managing Board nor of The Cavalier Daily as an institution. When the comics were considered for publication, they were deemed to have met The Cavalier Daily’s censorship criteria, which can be found at this address. It is never the intention of The Cavalier Daily to offend, and we regret having done so.

The cited censoring criteria allude to “viewpoint discrimination” as something the editors shouldn’t foster. In other words, it’s all right to allow someone to express a viewpoint that is deeply offensive to others, thereby discriminating against thousands or millions, but it is not all right to discriminate against the expresser of the hateful viewpoint.

So of course the editors sincerely intended to offend. They looked for viewpoint discrimination, found it, and let it go with the knowledge from previous experience that doing so would discriminate against others.

As for the cartoonists, they bravely issued this statement:

The comic artists responsible for the March 13 and 14 TCB comic strips decline to comment on their work at this time.

They couldn’t even show the decency to toss out one of those lame “if we offended, then we apologize” non-apologies.

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Let no kindness go unpunished:

JUBA (Reuters) – Sudanese students attacked two U.S. aid workers and set fire to their office in a row over college fees and graduation at an institution the aid group was helping to run, an official with the group said on Tuesday.

The two members of U.S. Christian charity Samaritan’s Purse were beaten by 28 male and female students from the teacher training college on Saturday morning, Samaritan’s Purse education program coordinator Lago Joseph said.

They were evacuated from the town of Julud in Sudan’s South Kordofan region to neighboring Kenya for treatment.

The students were angry over a rise in college fees and the news that some of them were not going to graduate, Joseph said.

A spokesperson for Samaritan’s Purse told Reuters the two injured workers are recovering from their injuries.

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On Sunday, Barack Obama said he prayed to Jesus every night, believes in abortion rights, thinks gays should be able to marry and:

“If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans.”

The rumble you hear is the sound of Christians, Catholics and Mormons stampeding to other candidates. (And Jews and “people like [Bookworm], who believe that the Bible has important moral lessons throughout its pages” — sorry for the omission on the first post!)

To us there is no such thing as “an obscure passage in Romans.” Paul’s letter to the Romans is the foundation of the application of our faith, and if you check a Bible-reading Christian’s Bible, you will find those pages to be very well worn, with lots of underlining and highlighting.

They may not be red-letter passages, but they illuminate the teachings of Christ and make them applicable to our day to day faith.

I’m guessing Obama is thinking of Romans 1:27 as his “obscure verse:”

In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Does he also consider obscure these admonitions from Paul, just a few verses later?

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God‑haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Reject the one, and you reject the others, saying in effect that all matter of evil, wickedness, God-hating, slandering,disobedience, faithlessness, heartlessness and ruthlessness are OK because, after all, they are just mentioned in some obscure passage from Romans.

Such ignorance of the faith he purports to hold is astonishing … until you look at the other half of his statement about the Sermon on the Mount; then it becomes flabergasting.

Where exactly does the Sermon on the Mount justify gay marriage?

Is it “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy?” It can’t be because in liberal speak that is tolerance, not justification.

Could it be “Love your enemies?” Maybe, but clearly that is a reference to real enemies, those who smite you (to put it biblically), not those you disagree with.

Maybe we’ll find a hint from back in June 2006, when Obama referred to the Sermon on the Mount, saying,

“Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let’s read our bibles. Folks haven’t been reading their bibles.”

How then did he miss these passages from the Sermon when he was reading his Bible:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

In one fell swoop, Obama has exhibited his ignorance of his faith, has offended all Christians who understand Paul’s teachings to be central to our faith, and has been pretty much caught teaching others to break commandments.

Will this damage Obama? It’s easy to think that his support is hard-left and not concerned about Christian issues, but you don’t pile up the votes and dollars he’s getting if you are McGovern-like in your appeal. His appeal, being much broader, has roped in many good Christians, and gross errors like this may well cause them to look beyond the slick rhetoric, and consider the values of the man behind the words.

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I was thinking on the way home tonight of the recent hostage release in Columbia of two hostages held by FARC … and got to wondering about Dave Mankins, Mark Rich and Rick Tenehoff.

The three Christian missionaries were kidnapped by FARC on January 31, 1993. They and their families were living in Panama, about 15 miles from the Colombian border. They were there at the invitation of village leaders, teaching villagers to read and write in their own language and providing medical assistance. They were seized when FARC guerrillas captured the village — and have not been heard from since.

Unfortunately, it appears these three FARC hostages will not be released. I found this at the site The Inspirations, posted in 2007:

We now know that Rick, Mark and Dave did not survive, and it’s God’s Time for closure. Since 1996, the picture has been confusing. Had they been killed, or were they still waiting in a guerrilla camp? Slowly the story has emerged of a military attack and the ensuing fatal shots from the captor’s guns.

I sat in a Colombian prison in early September, 2001, with a guerrilla who had once guarded Rick, Mark and Dave. His words, “They are dead,” were final and emphatic, confirming what we had heard from several other insurgents. The years of tears and anxiety for our dear brothers have ended.They have gone to a far better place. They rejoice in the presence of the God they served so faithfully. Colombian authorities and the FBI will continue to search for those responsible, but now we have the answer we need.

Many of you have prayed for the Hostages, their families and us. Nearly eight and a half years have brought countless answers to your prayers. Our path has moved alongside presidents and humble peasants, guerrilla commanders and archbishops, self righteous and spiritually hungry. Three martyrs have gone to their reward. Families of the hostages have discovered God’s sufficiency. And we have seen Him work in unique places and in lives of people we otherwise would never have met. What a privilege!

I purposefully put the word “apparently” above, because I would like FARC to confirm that Mankins, Rich and Tenehoff did indeed die while in the hands of the Communist guerrillas, and own up to their responsibility for what happened to three men who were just trying to help people.

Hugo (No, you go) Chavez is trying to score diplomatic points by brokering talks between the Columbians and FARC, a group he has no real quibble with since he’s an idiot. He could score some points with countless Christians in America and around the world if he could use his influence to get FARC to disclose the status of the three missionary hostages.

Of course, impressing Christians is not high on Chavez’ to-do list.

And being humanitarian is not too high on FARC’s, since they hold as many as 750 hostages by some reports, including 45 ‘high profile’ ones, mostly Columbian leaders. Not able to raise a credible army any more, they are left with only the repulsive tactic of kidnapping and ransoming.

So goes Communism, and along with it Chavez, figuratively wagging his tail, as friendly to FARC as a pup.

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Our tree has, as always, far too many presents beneath it. It makes me queasy.

Some family members won’t be a part of our Christmas, even though they’re in my heart. It makes me sad.

Our family’s faith, who knows where it is, as daughters grow in independence?

Still, Christmas joy is the emotion of this moment: Joy for the family, joy for our blessings, joy that we were born Americans, joy, most of all, for God born as a baby in a manger.

And joy that there are people like Chicago Trib columnist John Kass, who can sit down and capture Christmas so beautifully it just makes your heart ache. If you only read one Christmas essay this season, I hope it is Kass’ On This Night, A Comforting Message.

Update: Francis W. Porretto of Eternity Road forwarded me a wonderful audio file telling the story of Jesus’ birth through the eyes of a tax collector … could it be Matthew? It is wondrous storytelling… listen here.
hat-tip: Real Clear Politics

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clipped from youtube.com

Floating crosses, like daisies, can be pretty things, but when they are used politically, they can offend.

Mike Huckabee is hoping that Iowa voters, busy wrapping presents and roasting chestnuts by the open fire (apparently not caring a whit about global warming), will see his friendly face, hear the warm voice and peaceful message, note that he’s got the spirit of the season and isn’t attacking anyone … and maybe that they’ll connect with the cross drifting by ethereally in the background as he speaks.

It is not a mistake; it is a cross, not merely a bookshelf bereft of books. The positioning, the panning, the careful contrast of white against dark makes it very evident that the image was carefully thought out to serve two purposes: Connect with Christians, and leverage the ad buy by getting free air time as pundits discuss the meaning of it all.

For me, it accomplished the latter, but not the former, and I am one big fan of the cross and all it stands for: God, Christ, salvation, love, sacrifice. I’m glad that Mike Huckabee is a Christian and that America is a place where, unlike England, a man who stands up proudly for his faith can run for office. I’m glad that Huckabee is surging in the polls for little reason other than he’s a nice-sounding Christian guy, because it shows that America is still, as it always has been, a Christian nation — despite what the Secularists would have us believe, or force us to accept.

I even believe it’s fine to use the cross as a subliminal messaging tool. I met a fellow recently who had invented a new kind of file folder clip that was quite ingenious. Incorporated subtly into its inside parts was a cross. I asked him about it and he smiled and said, “I believe in workplace evangelism.” More power to him.

But what Huckabee has done, besides trying rather clumsily to subtly appeal to Christians, is to leverage his ad budget by the cross. He knew and his staff knew columns would be written, blogs would be posted (mea culpa) and airtime would be filled with discussions about his ad, so his investment of a few tens of thousands of dollars would reap him millions of dollars in additional exposure.

That is the stuff of money lenders in the Temple, and you know what Jesus did to them — He turned over their tables and chased them out. You just don’t use the cross that He gave his life to us on as a way to tick up a point or two in the poll swithout having to pay for it.

As Peggy Noonan put it today in the WSJ,

Ken Mehlman, the former Republican chairman, once bragged in my presence that in every ad he did he put in something wrong–something that went too far, something debatable. TV producers, ever hungry for new controversy, would play the commercial over and over as pundits on the panel deliberated over its meaning. This got the commercial played free all over the news.

The cross is the reason you saw the commercial. The cross made it break through.

I’m not sure if Peggy saw her secondary message: The cross is what makes it possible for any of us break through, and that purpose of the cross is so far superior to what Huckabee is using it for that his ad is, in a word, sinful.

Regular readers know I’m not a Huckabee supporter because I’m voting on foreign policy platforms this election, but if I were, I’d be re-thinking my vote based on this ad.

Update: Vote on your choice for the best and the worst of the candidates’ Christmas ads at Stuck on Stupid.

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This is the most bizarre separation of church and state shenanigan I’ve heard in quite some time:

“Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU), has issued a disturbing policy which requires all employees to refrain from using the word ‘Christmas’ in oral or written form. This directive was given by the university upon legal advice of the Oklahoma Attorney General, W.A. Drew Edmondson. Liberty Counsel sent a demand letter to SWOSU following a complaint from a university affiliate.

The statement was issued by The Liberty Council and is posted in its entirety at Tapscott’s Copy Desk. It continues:

John Misak, the [SWOSU] Director of Human Resources [definitely not the Director of Human Intelligence], recently visited various university departments and employee groups and informed everyone that any decorations featuring the word ‘Christmas’ in any work or public areas of the university must be immediately removed. He also instructed everyone to discontinue the use of the term ‘Christmas’ in their speech while on the job. This censorship specifically includes exchanging greetings of ‘Merry Christmas’ among employees or with non-employees, whether initiated by a non-university employee or not. Christmas remains a legal holiday for state employees, including those at SWOSU. The directive does not include any other legal holidays such as Thanksgiving or New Year’s.

Folks, this is at an institution of higher learning, showing just how oxymoronic that term has become.

SWOSU tried to deny the charge for a while today, but employees have confirmed to Tapscott that it’s true:

A veteran administrative employee of SWOSU confirmed that she and her colleagues in her department were told by their boss “to take the word ‘Christmas’ off of our email signatures and not to use that word in any official correspondence.”

Connie Phillips, SWOSU’s admissions coordinator, said she refused to comply. “I told them they could write me up but I was not going to take it off my signature.”

But the next sentence is the real kicker:

Other SWOSU employees were resisting the orders as well. “The people in the business office had a decoration up with the word ‘Christ’ in it and they were told to cover it over. They did but then they took it off. It’s been on and off about three times now, I think.”

Can you imagine a better example of a skirmish in a culture war?

Expect a howl, a big howl, especially since Atty Gen Edmonson is already an infamous rights-tromper for prosecuting three men for the heinous crime of advocating fiscal responsibility from elected leaders. This is a man who apparently lacks any concept of the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, Freedom of Religion or Freedom of Speech.

If you would like to call Edmonson and wish him a Merry Christmas, you can reach him at 405-521-3921.

hat-tip: memeorandum

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Howard Meyerson has a bully pulpit — the Washington Post — and he uses it to bully those who regularly listen to the pastors behind the pulpit, and to show a remarkable level of bigotry and ignorance.

His column today, Hardliners for Jesus, is critical of the “Christianization” of the GOP, but a better case can be made for the “de-Christianization” of the Dems. Here’s Meyerson:

As Christians across the world prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it’s a fitting moment to contemplate the mountain of moral, and mortal, hypocrisy that is our Christianized Republican Party.

Don’t you just love it when non-Christians use our holiest days to attack our faith? Let’s blast the Jews every Yom Kippur, the Muslims at Ramadan and don’t forget the Buddhists … uh, who don’t really have a Big Deal Day.

There’s nothing new, of course, about the Christianization of the GOP. Seven years ago, when debating Al Gore, then-candidate George W. Bush was asked to identify his favorite philosopher and answered “Jesus.” This year, however, the Christianization of the party reached new heights with Mitt Romney’s declaration that he believed in Jesus as his savior, in an effort to stanch the flow of “values voters” to Mike Huckabee.

Meyerson obviously has never read Jesus, or he would understand the clarity of Bush’s answer. I understand his point, because I was in his shoes. Before I became a Christian, a friend answered the same question the same way and I was mystified … and not too impressed with him.

A few years later, I found myself highlighting words from Jesus and Paul in a small bible and giving it to my personal trainer, who was enthralled by Nietzsche. A year or so later he was coming to our church.

My concern isn’t the rift that has opened between Republican political practice and the vision of the nation’s Founders, who made very clear in the Constitution that there would be no religious test for officeholders in their enlightened new republic. Rather, it’s the gap between the teachings of the Gospels and the preachings of the Gospel’s Own Party that has widened past the point of absurdity, even as the ostensible Christianization of the party proceeds apace.

It’s a good thing Meyerson isn’t concerned about any rift between how the GOP addresses religion and the Founding Fathers and the Constitution. Does Meyerson not know that the Founding Fathers very much had a religious test? It was, “You’d better be a Christian or you flunk the test.” Concerns about Jefferson’s lack of faith, which he very actively debunked when running, were more prominent in his day than the Romney questions are today.

Before Meyerson starts teaching to us about the preachings of the Gospel, Lord protect us!, we should pause to ask ourselves what the Dem’s religious test is.

A few years ago, they didn’t have much of one. We saw Bill going to church with the Biggest Bible Ever Seen, but since Roosevelt was very upfront in praying for victory in the war, Dems and religion gradually have parted ways, disaffecting countless religious Dems who have become Republicans.

This year, following their failure to address the concerns of morality voters in 2004 and 2006, the Dems very much have a religious test. They have all, or nearly all, professed their faith. They’ve made The Statement, then they’ve gone on to more important things, leaving faith behind … until the next opportunity to Play Christian in front of a large black congregation.

We know by their actions faith is not a deciding factor in their lives, which gives many Dems comfort, just as we know faith is a big factor in the lives of most GOP candidates, Rudy and Fred notwithstanding.

The policies of the president, for instance, can be defended in greater or (more frequently) lesser degree within a framework of worldly standards. But if Bush can conform his advocacy of preemptive war with Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount admonition to turn the other cheek, he’s a more creative theologian than we have given him credit for. Likewise his support of torture, which he highlighted again this month when he threatened to veto House-passed legislation that would explicitly ban waterboarding.

Meyerson doesn’t know Jesus. He doesn’t understand how infrequently he spoke of government. The Romans were occupying the Holy Land even as he lived, and Jews of the time expected the Messiah to be the guy who used God’s power to toss them out, but all Jesus said of them was, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caeser’s and render under God that which is God’s.” Hardly anti-war stuff.

Meyerson writes selectively of the Sermon on the Mount. Here’s the full passage he lifted from:

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ “But I say unto you that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.”

Jesus is speaking quite personally here, guiding us in our relations with others. Did Meyerson want Bush to “turn the other cheek” and allow al Qaeda to strike our shores again after 9/11? And what would come of Dem funding from trial lawyers — and what would come of John Edwards — if the admonition against litigation were followed?

As for torture, it is good to remember that Christ and his apostles were the recipients of torture that goes far, far beyond anything Bush dreamed of. Did a one of them protest it as inhumane? No. It is not in the record. I don’t say this to defend torture, but only to admonish people to use the Bible correctly; not doing so is offensive and dishonest.

Now Meyerson really winds up because it’s not the War on Terror that’s got his goat, it’s how we treat our harmless, wonderful illegal immigrants:

But it’s on their policies concerning immigrants where Republicans — candidates and voters alike — really run afoul of biblical writ. Not on immigration as such but on the treatment of immigrants who are already here. Consider: Christmas, after all, celebrates not just Jesus’s birth but his family’s flight from Herod’s wrath into Egypt, a journey obviously undertaken without benefit of legal documentation. The Bible isn’t big on immigrant documentation. “Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him,” Exodus says the Lord told Moses on Mount Sinai, “for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Holy. Moley. Christmas celebrates Christ’s family’s flight to Egypt to escape Harrod’s wrath? Where does he get this? It most certainly does not celebrate it. Even so, Joseph and Mary were of Israel and their flight from Harrod hardly reflects what’s happening with our immigrants.

Worse, Meyerson is not up on his history of Israel. God protected his immigrants — although he subjected them to 40 years in the wilderness and the generation from Egypt died off — but if we follow this track of thinking very far, Meyerson’s position is that the Mexicans should come here and slay every single person — man, woman and child — plus all their animals upon their arrival, as if they were Hebrews slaying all the Amalekites, as God commanded.

Come to think of it, if Meyerson is taking this tack, he’ll have to accept the White Man’s manifest destiny and its impact on Native Americans.

Anyway, the way America treats its illegals is Christian indeed. They have rights, health care, jobs, charity and lenient law enforcement. That doesn’t mean that we can’t enforce laws in a humane and effective manner.

Now Meyerson huffs up big and delivers his final glory pitch. Can you guess what it is? I bet you can!

We’ve seen this kind of Christianity before in America. It’s more tribal than religious, and it surges at those times when our country is growing more diverse and economic opportunity is not abounding. At its height in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was chiefly the political expression of nativist Protestants upset by the growing ranks of Catholics in their midst.

Yes, in this holiest of seasons, this bigot is accusing Christians of being racist murderers who take the laws into their own hand, lynching at will, killing little girls in their churches (friends of Condi Rice, BTW).

What was the party of the KKK? The Democrats. What was their faith? Who knows, but it wasn’t any Christianity we would recognize this day … although the members of the Westboro Baptist Church might — but they have no support whatsoever in the Christian community.

Meyerson, of course, will never write so scathing a column about Muslims, nor will he ever admit that he and his party have their own faith, Secularism, and they are rudely and even violently evangelical about it.

Well, you know what they say: Love the sinner. Go back and read this column and see if there’s a single ad hominem attack on the man. There is not, and I didn’t have to make one edit. I just wrote it this way naturally, without profanity, without personal attack.

That, my friends, is because of the Spirit of Christmas. Meyerson might want to dip into it a bit and share it with his unbelieving, and often very rude, friends.

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