Binary Reasoning Informs Christian Morality and Ethics

 

Alice C. Linsley

Thank you, Bishop Hewett and the reverend fathers who invited me to speak at this beautiful and historic All Saints Episcopal Church in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.

I will try to keep my remarks brief. What a speaker really needs is a conclusion and I hope to get there before you stop listening.

The late Colorado oil magnate, Raymond Duncan, once said, "If the speaker won't boil it down, the audience must sweat it out."

For the most part my remarks will be directed to the choir, as they say, so feel free at any time to shout “Amen!” or “Hallelujah!”, in a seemly Anglican manner, of course.

A few of you may be aware that I lived in this area for 16 years. I lived for 5 years in Malvern in a small Mennonite community. The women of the community taught how to grow and preserve vegetables, how to sew, smoke hams, and repair a broken lawn mower using parts from their supplies of cannibalized machines. A strong bond of affection developed between us, and the year before I left to go to seminary, the women asked me to lead a one-day retreat at their church on the book of Ruth.

During those years my family and I worshipped at the Church of the Good Samaritan in Paoli. The rector at that time was the Rev. Daniel Kilmer Sullivan, a Canadian by birth and a good priest. As demonstrated by Fr. Rix, Canada has produced some very fine clergy!

Fr. Dan’s assistant was the Rev. Dr. Henry Lawrence Thompson III who became the Dean of Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge.

Looking back, I recognize that Fr. Sullivan was under pressure from the Diocese to put forward a woman for ordination from his parish. After a year of discernment, I met with Bishop Lyman Ogilby with whom I established immediate report when he learned that I had spent part of my childhood in the Philippines. Bishop Ogilby had been a missionary bishop in the Philippines when it was still a U.S. territory.

While I lived in this area, I saw radical developments in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. In 1974, eleven women were irregularly admitted to the priesthood, including several lesbians. The late Louie Crew was promoting gay activism and in that same year he founded the first chapter of Integrity. In 1977, Bishop Paul Moore of New York ordained the lesbian Ellen Marie Barrett, who had served as Integrity's first co-president.

In 1983, I began my seminary studies at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Mount Airy. While there, I studied Anglican Polity under the Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Steenson who Pope Benedict XVI appointed as the first Ordinary of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter on January 1, 2012. Dr. Steenson was the first person to challenge me on the question of women and the priesthood.

I did my internship at All Hallows, Wyncote, and I served as a deacon for 9 months at Trinity Episcopal Church in Swarthmore. Then I served as the Chaplain at the Church Farm Church in Exton, Pennsylvania.

During those years I was having many significant dreams which I recorded in journals. One dream proved to be prophetic. In the dream, I was vested and standing in the procession of priests. We were preparing to process into the church. Suddenly, off to my right there appeared a gleaming white pearl and I knew that it was the “Pearl of Great Price”. The only way I could take hold of it was to leave the procession of priests and turn my back on my bishop. That is what I did on the Sunday of Gene Robinson’s consecration.

I left the Episcopal priesthood, turning my back on Bishop Stacy Sauls to take hold of something or rather Someone of infinitely greater value; the Son of God, who came into the world to save sinners like me. And to Him I offer my joyful praise and adoration. I can do no other.

I recount this personal history as a backdrop to the doubts that began to form in my mind about women and the priesthood. I was ordained to the priesthood by Allen Bartlett in June 1988. There was a disquieting smirk on his face when I turned to give the final blessing.

Honestly, I sometimes wonder if he would have approved this Bible-believing traditionist for ordination if it had been up to him. I did not aspire to break the glass ceiling like Barbara Harris, the first African American female bishop, or to defy the Church's teaching on marriage like the lesbian bishop Mary Glasspool, or to distinguish myself by breaking from my religious roots, as did Bishop Geralyn Wolfe, a convert from Judaism.

My doubts about women’s ordination launched me into a ten-year study of that dangerous innovation. In my investigation I drew on my background in anthropology, philosophy, and linguistics. I noted that no women served as priests among the biblical Hebrew. Likewise, men did not serve as midwives. This suggested that men and women have distinct types of blood work: the priests in the place of blood sacrifice where women were forbidden to enter, and the woman in the birthing chamber where men were forbidden to enter. Two types of blood work in two distinct places and the two were always maintained apart. I pondered that a great deal.

Among the biblical Hebrew who delivered to us the authoritative moral law, male and female are distinct physiologically, anatomically, emotionally, and in the work they were created to perform. This seems obvious even to those who minimize the distinction between males and females. Some realities cannot be denied.

Consider the recent news about University of Pittsburgh professor Gabby Yearwood. When he was asked by swimmer Riley Gaines if an archeologist can differentiate between two sets of 100-year bones as male and female, Professor Yearwood answered “no” to which the entire audience laughed. Yearwood responded, "I'm not sure why I'm being laughed at! I'm the expert... I have a Ph.D.!" Those college students recognize that someone can get a Ph.D. in anthropology and still be ignorant of basic facts about the difference between males and females. Forensic medicine has been identifying the sex of older human remains since the 16th century, and today we have the advantage of genetic testing as well.

Pondering the two distinct types of blood work took me deeper into consideration of the binary reasoning of the biblical Hebrew. That reasoning is based on empirical observation of the hierarchies in the order of creation. These hierarchies are expressed in a small number of binary sets: Creator-creature, life-death, heaven-earth, male-female, and sun-moon. The Apostle Paul uses this binary reasoning in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 when he contrasts the Creator and the creature, the sun and the moon, and the perishable and the imperishable.

The spiritual rot we are experiencing in some parts of our Anglican world is due to rejection of the authority of Scripture and the binary reasoning of the Bible. We have too few bishops like Bishop Hewett who will defend the Faith and uphold godly practices.

Too few Anglican priests proclaim our catholic Faith; many because they do not understand it, some because they do not believe it. Our divisions are the fruit of theological waffling by generations of leaders who have heeded the noise of our culture rather than the voice of the Spirit of God.

Many of our parishes do not focus on the study of Scripture. One is more likely to find a group studying a contemporary devotional or a popular spiritual self-help book. I hope each of your parishes makes the study of Scripture a high priority.

Do not neglect women’s Bible studies because wives have a profound influence on their husbands. Wives need to study the Bible so that they may recognize God’s truth and help to form their children in that truth. Your parish will prosper when the women become rooted in sound teaching and in the wisdom of God.

It is evident that when the Scriptures are neglected, people go astray, and wolves at the door gain access to the flock. The wolves seek to eviscerate the Gospel because they hate the Lord of Life.

We must remain vigilant against ideologies that promote rebellion against God’s order, and we must teach our children to recognize expressions of that rebellion such as radical feminism, gay activism, and Godless political ideologies. Rebellion is evident in the slogan of the 2019 American Socialist Party Convention that met in Chicago.

We must impress upon our children that the Christian Faith and the authority of Scripture remain unchanged and are unchangeable. Anglicans have not been as protective of the Faith as we should have been. Our confession is Christ crucified, risen, and coming again. Until His arrival, we make disciples, strengthen one another, and receive Him in the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist.

The kerygma and the Nicene Creed express Anglican dogma, and the Bible informs and shapes our doctrine and practice. We require nothing to be believed that is not attested by these our authorities. That is why we reject innovations, be they from Rome, the Episcopal Church, or the Church of England. That is why we refute falsehoods, be they ideological or theological.

The Church receives its Tradition concerning Jesus Messiah from the early Hebrew through the Apostles. That sacred Tradition builds a hedge around the observable order of creation. What the Creator has established is to be guarded. Life is greater than death. Thus, the Hebrew were never to boil a baby goat in its mother's milk (forbidden three places in Scripture). This blurs the distinction between life and death because the mother’s milk is to sustain the life of the offspring.

There is a binary distinction between humans and non-human animals. Bestiality is forbidden as it blurs the distinction between humans and animals.

Homosex is forbidden because it blurs the distinction between male and female, a binary set established by God in the beginning and by which humanity is to survive extinction.

The hedge extended even to the sowing of seed and to textiles. They were not to sow two types of seed in the same field or weave cloth of two different types of fiber.

To us moderns, such prohibitions sound strange because we have blurred the binary distinctions. In fact, some have rejected binary reasoning entirely though it is the logical outcome of empirical observations of the order of creation.

The spilling of human semen (onanism) was regarded as an unrighteous act because this violates the divinely established order in creation. The seed that should fall to the earth is the seed of the plants with roots in the earth. The seed of man should fall on his own type (the womb), from which man comes forth.

In 191 A.D., Clement of Alexandria wrote, “Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted.” (The Instruction of Children)

The prohibition against onanism reflects the ancient wisdom that was informed by observation of immutable (fixed) patterns in nature. It is based on reality, not imagined entities or moral relativism. Dr. David C. Innes of King’s College in New York City, recently wrote, “Living in reality also means living in principled awareness of who is in charge of all things and thus living in recognition of what is true.”

You may be wondering how this relates to the binary reasoning that informs Christian ethics and morality. Consider what Bishop Hewett wrote in his homily for the First Sunday after the Epiphany:

Ethics is man’s study about what is good and right and true. Morality is God’s revelation to man about what is good and right and true. Ethics come from man and morality comes from God. God reveals the moral law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The Law comes from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Ghost. The moral Law is the straight edge against which everything must be measured.

 

I am reminded of something C.S. Lewis wrote in his book Reflections on the Psalms. He wrote, “Some give morality a wholly new meaning which we cannot accept, some deny its possibility. Perhaps we shall all learn, sharply enough, to value the clean air and ‘sweet reasonableness’ of the Christian ethics which in a more Christian age we might have taken for granted.”

We daily encounter a general contempt for Christianity. May it teach us to value the sweetness and solidity of the moral path God has laid before us.

As Christ’s followers, we understand that Christian ethics cannot be separated from the moral law established by divine authority. The Scriptures and our catholic Faith inform us as to what is good and right and true. When we drift away from these authorities, we become complacent about the Gospel. Complacency leads to decadence, and decadence leads to corruption.

Attempts to revise Christianity come from those who reject divine authority. Rejection of divine authority expresses itself in the invention of identities that have no basis in the observable order of creation. A boy can declare himself a girl and his delusion must be accepted by school authorities, or they will face a lawsuit. Rather than affirm what is wholesome, the headlines promote the anomalous as normal. Such delusion is the product of senseless and darkened minds as Paul attests in the second chapter of Romans.

Anglicans are to meet the rejection of God’s authority in a reasoned and compassionate way. We must seek, as God does, to reason together using the authority of Scripture. We cannot claim Scripture as a primary authority if we reject the binary reasoning of the Bible.

This evening we will examine that binary reasoning in greater detail so that we may be understand how it informs our Christian morality and ethics, and that we may be better prepared to defend the Faith against seemingly overwhelming attacks.

 

What is “binary reasoning”?

 
The biblical Hebrew were very concrete thinkers. Their perceptions of God were based on their empirical observations of the order in Creation. They noticed that trees only reproduce trees, and birds only reproduce birds. The Book of Genesis speaks of how each reproduces according to its “kind”. They observed that humans only reproduce humans and that humans come in two sexes: male and female. They noticed that the loss of blood brings death and they logically associated blood with life.

In the Bible we find binary sets, that is sets of two entities that appear to be opposite yet complementary. The four basic sets for the biblical writers are:

Creator-Creature

Life-Death

Male-Female

Sun-Moon

Note that one of the entities of the set is greater than or superior to its opposite. The creature is dependent upon the infinitely greater Creator for all things. The Creator is greater than the creature. That is the very definition of God which even an atheist must admit. It is the greater that stoops to save the weaker. The Almighty condescends out of His compassion. "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." (2 Cor. 8:9)

Life, or immortality, or the imperishable is superior to death, decay, and extinction. Anyone who has lost a loved one knows that life is greater than death. It can be argued based on 100,000 years of burial in red ocher, a symbolic blood covering, that humans hope to escape mortality. We yearn for the immortal nature for which we were first created. God told the Israelites to choose life rather than death. Life comes through loving obedience. Death comes through disobedience and spiritual rebellion.

The male of our species is larger and stronger than the female. The sun’s brightness surpasses the brightness of the moon.

Note the consistent logic here: Without the Creator there would be no creature. Eve comes after Adam as she is taken from his side. Without the sun, there would be no refulgent light from the moon.

The binary sets present hierarchies, and in our society the term “hierarchy”, like the term “binary”, has become a bad word.

The entities of the binary sets are not equal in function, strength, or glory. The binary reasoning of the biblical writers is diametrically opposed to the dualism of Eastern religions that arose in the Axial Age (900-200 B.C.). There is no Ying-Yan in the Bible because the sets observed by the biblical writers are not equal.

The binary sets of the Bible are not arbitrary and subjective. They are based on empirical observation and experience. The biblical binary sets are not subjective. The opposites of tall and short do not constitute a binary set because those descriptions are subjective. Were I standing next to a Watusi warrior I would appear short. However, were I standing next to a Pygmy, I would appear tall.

On the other hand, it is universally evident that males are anatomically larger and stronger than females. The larger and stronger is to protect the smaller and weaker.

When we come to the sun and moon, we recognize what is stated in Genesis, chapter 1: God created two great lights in the heavens. The sun is the greater light, and the moon is the lesser light that rules the night. Indeed, the moon does not shine at all. It reflects the light of the sun.

For the biblical Hebrew ultimate authority rests with the High God whose symbol was the sun. In Genesis 1:16, the sun is said to be the greater light that rules the day. The word “rule” speaks of what is above all and over all. That makes the sun a fitting symbol for the highest and ultimate authority.

Let us be clear that the Hebrew did not worship a Sun God. That is evident in Psalm 19 where we are told that God has set a tent for the sun which comes forth as a bridegroom from his chamber and rejoices to run his circuit.

Among archaic populations, the sun was perceived as inseminating the earth. One can imagine how this perception developed as people observed particles of light or sunbeams filtered through the forest canopy. The meteoritic iron found on the earth's surface was worn by chiefs and rulers because it represented power from on high. King Tut's dagger had a gold sheath and a tip made of meteoritic iron.

This binary reasoning poses ultimate authority with the God who is a king, not a queen. In his book on Women and the Priesthood (p. 240), the late Fr. Thomas Hopko wrote, "In his actions in and toward the world of his creation, the one God and Father reveals himself primarily and essentially in a 'masculine' way."

In the sun-moon set, the sun is regarded as having masculine qualities and the moon as having female qualities. This was expressed in the appearance of the king and queen. The king appeared with sun-darkened skin and his queen appeared with whitened skin.

In the Ancient Near East, the sun-moon binary set was expressed in the way royal couples presented themselves in public. The king appeared with skin darkened by the sun and the powdered queen appeared pale as the moon. The sun-moon binary set among the early Hebrew is often a reference for a royal couple. Joseph speaks of his father and mother as the sun and the moon (Gen. 37:9). This attests the high social rank of his Hebrew parents.

Two Wives Establish a Kingdom

 
It was common for high-ranking Hebrew rulers to have two wives. One was usually a half-sister as was Sarah to Abraham. The second wife was usually a cousin, as was Keturah to Abraham. Abraham’s father had two wives. The Hebrew priest Elkanah had two wives: Peninnah and Hannah. Other Hebrew rulers with two wives include Lamech, Jacob, Amram, Moses, Jesse, and Joash.

In 1 Chronicles 4:5, we read that "Ashur, the father of Tekoa, had two wives, Helah and Naarah."

In 1 Chronicles 4:17-18, we read that Mered had two wives and one was "Pharaoh’s daughter Bithiah, whom Mered had married."

The two wives in the Song of Solomon represent the two horizons or dusk and dawn. One of Solomon’s wives is described as having sun-darkened skin ("dark as the tents of Kedar") and the other is described as having skin as pale as the moon (S. of S. 6:10). For the rulers of the Ancient Near East, the two wives represent a claim to a vast territory that extends from horizon to horizon. 

The two wives’ settlements were at the extreme boundaries of the ruler’s territory. Abraham's north-south territorial boundaries were marked by the separate settlement of his two wives. Sarah resided in Hebron and his cousin wife Keturah resided in Beersheba to the south.

Consider the story of Lamech’s two wives in Genesis, chapter 4. Their names, Adah and Tzillah, are derived from the words for dawn and dusk.

This narrative suggests that Lamech ruled over a vast territory. The sun-moon binary set and the east-west solar arc are used in the Bible to speak of the authority and sovereignty of divinely appointed Hebrew rulers. They expected a woman of their ruler-priest caste to conceive the Son of God by divine overshadowing, just as happened with the Virgin Mary (Lk. 1:35).

The Virgin Mary was a descendant of the early Hebrew ruler-priests. Even the Talmud recognizes that. Sanhedrin 106a says Jesus' mother was a whore: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters.”

The divine appointment of the Theotokos is an example of the binary balance of authority among the biblical Hebrew.


Binary Balance of Authority and Narrative Representation

The social structure of the biblical Hebrew reflects that binary balance. It was neither matriarchal nor patriarchal. It was characterized by a balance of authority between males and females that is extraordinary in any age.

Binary balance is expressed in many features of the Hebrew social structure. There were male rulers and female rulers; male prophets and female prophets. Both males and females could inherit property and wealth. Consider the distinct duties and responsibilities of the mother's house (Ru. 1) versus the father's house (Gen. 38:11). Some Hebrew names honor a male ancestor and some honor a female ancestor.

In the Hebrew double unilineal descent pattern, both the patrilineage and the matrilineage are recognized and honored, but in different ways.

There is binary balance in the biblical narratives also. The blood symbolism of the Passover associated with Moses has a parallel in the blood symbolism of the scarlet cord associated with Rahab. Consider the two occasions when death passed over. Moses' people were saved when they put the blood of the lamb on the doors. Rahab's household was saved when she hung a scarlet cord from her window.

The abusive behavior of drunken Noah toward his sons has a parallel in the abusive behavior of drunken Lot toward his daughters. Their behavior causes trouble for their children. Noah curses his son and/or grandson. Lot impregnates his daughters.

Consider the gender distinction expressed between the oak and the palm. The male prophet at Mamre sat under a firm and upright oak, representing the masculine principle. Deborah sat under a date nut palm, representing the feminine principle.

In the stories of the Moreh’s oak and Deborah’s palm, we also find directional distinctions of a binary nature. The Moreh’s oak is located on an east-west axis between Ai and Bethel. Deborah’s palm is located on a north-south axis between Bethel and Ramah.

There is binary balance in the New Testament narratives also. At the presentation of Jesus in the Temple His identity as Messiah is affirmed by the priest Simeon and by the prophetess Anna. Jesus restored the widow of Nain's deceased son to his mother (Lk. 7:11-17). Jesus restored Jairus' deceased daughter to her father (Mk. 5:21-43).

The binary reasoning of the Bible involves recognition of fixed sets and the distinction between the entities in the set. In his commentary on the book of Genesis, Leon Kass notes, “Opposition is the key to the discovery of the distinction between error and truth.” (The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, p. 238.)

In the Johannine writings the Church and the world are a binary set comprised of unequal entities. Because the Church belongs to the One who has overcome the world, the Church is the stronger entity of the set. 1 John 4:4 reminds us that, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”

Consider the implications of that reality. Persecution does not defeat the Church. Censorship does not silence the Church. His resurrection power is invincibly at work in us.

Now with a clearer understanding of the binary reasoning of the biblical writers, we may take up the implications for Christian morality.



Family life

Speaking of family life, the Anglican Divine Jeremy Taylor says that marriage is the seminary of the church which “daily brings forth sons and daughters unto God…Marriage is the mother of the world, and preserves kingdoms, and fills cities, and churches, and heaven itself!"

The Church opposes homosexuality and adultery equally because they destabilize families and societies. These have destabilized many local churches as well.

Gregory of Nyssa minimized the distinction between males and females, believing that we were created to become sexless angelic beings. However, most of the Church Fathers held the institution of marriage in high esteem and encouraged it for the procreation of children to be brought up in the Faith.

St. John Chrysostom observed a binary hierarchy in both family and church. He wrote, “Were there is equal authority, there never is peace. A household cannot be a democracy, ruled by everyone, but the authority must necessarily rest in one person. The same is true for the Church: when men are led by the Spirit of Christ, then there is peace. There were five thousand men in the Jerusalem church, and they were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they were subject to one another; this surely is an illustration of wisdom and godly fear. Notice, however, that Paul explains love in detail, comparing it to Christ’s love for the church and our love for our own flesh.”


Church life

Paul’s chain of command in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 reflects the biblical hierarchies. He explains, “the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” He also says that the head of the Church is Christ (Col. 1:18). Paul is not imposing hierarchy upon the Church. Rather, he wants the Church to reflect the divine order of creation.

Homosexuality, transvestism, and gender and species confusion oppose the order of creation and deny divine authority. The Triune God has a purpose for each person. Rebellion against His purpose brings gradual loss of the divine image. Therefore, those who oppose His authority are to be pitied and we are to humbly pray for them.


Christian Ethics

How does the binary reasoning of the Bible inform Christian ethics? Remember that biblical binary sets are comprised of two entities that are not equal. The Church and the world are not equal in power and glory. As we are joined by grace to the glory of the Almighty through our baptism, we become part of the stronger entity, the Church.

The weak of the world need our voices to defend them, our hands to help them, and our witness to give them hope.

In reference to abortion, we are to defend the defenseless and advocate for the unborn.

In reference to euthanasia, we seek to maintain space for God to work to the natural end.

In reference to the poor who Jesus declared the “least among us”, we are to provide their basic needs, encourage them, and treat them with dignity.

In reference to the sick whose weakness makes them vulnerable, we are to visit, offer prayer, anoint with oil, and encourage.

In reference to prisoners who can be set free by the Gospel, we are to visit, lead Bible studies, proclaim salvation, and encourage through counsel and prayer.

In reference to orphans and widows, we are to be their family, and the local parish is to be their home and a place of protection.

I conclusion, the binary reasoning of the Bible presents us with a clear picture of the Creator’s immutable authority to which the humble bow and against which the arrogant rail. The lawlessness and spiritual rebellion of our day is not a new development. The Apostles Paul, Peter, and John offer us appropriate warnings.

Writing in the second century, Irenaeus said we are to avoid heretics, “while cherishing with the utmost diligence the things pertaining to the Church, and to lay hold of the tradition of truth. . .. What if the apostles had not in fact left writings to us? Would it not be necessary to follow the order of tradition, which was handed down to those to whom they entrusted the churches?”

In 372, Bishop Basil of Caesarea wrote, “The teachings of the fathers are despised, the apostolic traditions are ignored, and the churches are filled with the inventions of innovators. The shepherds have been driven out, and in their place, they bring in ravening wolves to tear apart the flock of Christ.” (Epistula 9:2)

We should not be surprised that there is a crisis of authority in Anglicanism. Nor should we be discouraged that the world considers us weak. God exchanges our weakness for strength. We are regarded as foolish, but our wisdom is of God.

We hold fast the faith proclaimed by the Apostles and we uphold the authority of Scripture. When discouraged, we remember our Lord’s assurance: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Mt. 16:18)

He is the Lord of Life who was with God in the beginning. In him was life, and that life is the light of the world (Jn. 1:4). He said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (Jn. 16:33)

 
Related reading: "What Does it Mean to Be Contrary to Nature?" by Dr. David Bradshaw; BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Orthodoxy Requires Binary Reasoning; Derrida and Biblical Anthropology

What Albert Einstein Thought of Christianity

 

Albert Einstein wearing a yarmulke at a synagogue in Berlin.

Einstein's preference for Judaism as a moral system.

Mein Weltbild, Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934

"If one purges the Judaism of the Prophets and Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is capable of curbing all the social ills of humanity.

It is the duty of every man of good will to strive to steadfastly in his own little world to make this teaching of pure humanity a living force, so far as he can. If he makes an honest attempt in this direction without being crushed and trampled underfoot by his contemporaries, he may consider himself and the community to which he belongs lucky."

(Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, New York, Bonanza Books, 1954, pp. 184-185. Also, Einstein's The World as I See It,Philosophical Library, New York, 1949, pp. 111-112)

He believed that "Judaism is not a creed: the Jewish God is simply a negation of superstition..." (Ideas and Opinions, p. 186.)

Einstein's attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church.

In a 1940 issue of Time magazine, Einstein expressed a change of heart toward the Catholic Church for its role in opposing the Nazis:

"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."

 

Einstein's appreciation for the uniqueness of Jesus.

Einstein expressed his attitude toward Jesus in an interview by George Sylvester Viereck that he gave to The Saturday Evening Post (October 26, 1929). He was asked, "To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?

Einstein replied, "As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."

When asked if he had read Emil Ludwig’s book on Jesus, Einstein stated, "Emil Ludwig’s Jesus is shallow. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot."

In the same interview, Einstein was asked if he accepted the historical Jesus.

He answered, "Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. How different, for instance, is the impression which we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus. Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus.” (Einstein, as cited in Viereck 1929; see also Einstein, as cited in the German magazine Geisteskampf der Gegenwart, Guetersloh, 1930, S. 235).

George Sylvester Viereck said, "Ludwig Lewisohn, in one of his recent books, claims that many of the sayings of Jesus paraphrase the sayings of other prophets."

"No man," Einstein replied, "can deny the fact that Jesus existed, nor that his sayings are beautiful. Even if some them have been said before, no one has expressed them so divinely as he."

Einstein on the relationship of Science and Religion.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." ("Science, Philosophy and Religion: A Symposium", 1941.)

Related reading: Einstein Was Right About Education; Albert Einstein on Bertrand Russell

Barth's Critique of Religion of "Good People"

In the midst of the carnage of the first world war in Germany, the great Protestant theologian argued that Christianity involves more than inner morality and being a ‘good person’

By Giles Frazer

It will be a century this coming summer that the great Protestant theologian Karl Barth began his revolutionary commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. A quiet and studious man of simple tastes, Barth was an unlikely revolutionary. He listened to Mozart, smoked his pipe and read the paper: “Theology is done with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other,” he said. But mostly he sat and wrote. His Church Dogmatics is more than six million words. And no, I haven’t read it all. But his considerably shorter Epistle to the Romans, written earlier, was the decisive turning point in 20th-century theology. It was a book that dropped a bomb on the comfortable assumptions of German liberal thought. And it’s a bomb that needs dropping again – but this time much closer to home.

Barth’s target was the sort of theology offered by his tutor, Adolf von Harnack. For the universally admired Harnack, Christianity was a religion of inner morality – of good people, in their local congregations, who sought nothing more than personal transformation. They respected the state and didn’t cause trouble. It was, to use the language familiar today, religion as a private matter, equally suspicious of outward forms of ritualism and popular superstition. Cultured and rational, it stayed out of party politics and set its mind on higher things. For Harnack, Christianity was fundamentally a religion of individual righteousness.

On the day war was declared between Britain and Germany, the Kaiser gave a speech to the assembled members of the Reichstag in which he made the moral case for Germany going to war. The speech was partly written by Harnack. Two months later, an open letter by 93 German intellectuals – 11 of whom, including the great theoretical physicist Max Planck, went on to be Nobel prize winners – made the same case. The war was a sacred mission. It was a question of survival for a superior culture that had given the world Goethe, Beethoven and Kant. Harnack’s name was among the 93 signatories.

And Barth's world was in tatters.

Read it all here.

Polish Bishops Oppose Dangerous "Gender" Ideology

In a Pastoral Letter from the Polish Bishops' Conference

Bishops attack dangerous "Gender" ideology and redefinition of marriage

The gender ideology is the product of many decades of ideological and cultural changes that are deeply rooted in Marxism and neo-Marxism endorsed by some feminist movements and the sexual revolution. This ideology promotes principles that are totally contrary to reality and an integral understanding of human nature. It maintains that biological sex is not socially significant and that cultural sex which humans can freely develop and determine irrespective of biological conditions is most important. According to this ideology, humans can freely determine whether they want to be men or women and freely choose their sexual orientation. This voluntary self-determination, not necessarily life-long, is to make the society accept the right to set up new types of families, for instance, families built on homosexual relations.

The danger of gender ideology lies in its very destructive character both for men, people contacts and social life as a whole. Humans unsure of their sexual identity are not capable of discovering and fulfilling tasks that they face in their marital, family social and professional lives. Attempts to form different types of relations de facto seriously weaken marriage as a community created by a man and a woman and the family built on marriage.

Read it all here.

Quote of the Week - Gerald Bray

"Often, holiness is a whole lot of little, non-heroic things, but they're the difference between life and death."--The Rev. Dr. Gerald Bray

Positive Images of the Conflict in Egypt

Egyptian child's drawing of the bloody conflict in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood burned 50 churches and Christian establishments on a single day. Note that the mosque weeps with the church and tries to comfort.

Christians at a burned down church in the city of Suez stood behind the altar with signs that read: "My fanatic brother, we came here to pray for you." Note the vested man at right front with the a scar on his forehead. He was formerly Muslim.

In one village, Muslim farmers went to the Coptic priest (shown below in black) and stayed with him and with other Christians guarding the village church.

Muslims and Christians join hands to protect each other during prayer.

Although the altar was totally burnt, the Christ Pantocrator icon was untouched by the fire at Mar Gerges Coptic Orthodox church in Asyut.

Related reading:  Muslim Brotherhood Terrorism; US Egyptians Rally in Washington; Egyptian Christians Suffer Muslim Backlash

Secular squatters on Biblical land

Jeff Fountain

Human dignity and rights needed to be set free from religious foundations. Only a secular basis can maintain their continued existence free from religious violence and tensions.

At least, that was the learned opinion one of Holland’s best-known atheists as expressed in a seminar last week in The Hague. Dr Margriet Krijtenburg, who spoke in Dublin at a recent State of Europe Forum, was presenting her doctoral thesis on Robert Schuman to an invited audience, and had invited her supervising professor, Paul Cliteur, to be one of her respondents.

As in Dublin, Margriet had described Schuman’s conviction that the Christian faith had a significant role to play in restoring unity in Europe and in Europe’s future. Concepts such as human dignity and solidarity were, in Schuman’s understanding, intrinsically linked with a Christian concept of humanity.

Margriet’s professor agreed that the identification of such values as the freedom of expression, of religion and of assembly had laid foundations for the unique European project. But fortunately, he said, those values had been set free from their religious roots and redefined within a sustainable secular framework. Such a framework protected human dignity from religious intolerance and offered it a tolerant pluriform context.

A few days after attending this seminar, an engagement near Den Bosch gave me the opportunity to visit the former Nazi concentration camp in Vught while in the neighbourhood.

Some 31,000 Jews, political prisoners, resistance fighters, students, Jehovah’s Witnesses, tramps, black marketeers and criminals were thrown together into Kamp Vught, some for short periods, others longer. Almost all of the 12,000 Jewish internees, over a third of the camp population, were later murdered in extermination camps in Poland.

A reconstructed cell remind visitors of the so-called “bunker drama” of January 15, 1944. In response to a protest by prisoners, the camp commandant ordered 74 women to be locked up together in one cell in a space of nine square metres, without ventilation. When the doors were finally opened after 14 hours, ten of the women had died.

Most sobering, however, was a memorial to the 1,800 Jewish children taken away from the camp on June 6 and 7, 1943, to a “special children’s camp” -- or so the parents were told. Some parents were allowed to accompany the children. After a three-day train ride to the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland, almost every person perished.

The cold metal monument carried those names and ages of 1,269 of the children that are known. I stood there transfixed and emotionally disturbed reading the ages of these little defenceless human beings. I sought out the ages of my own three grandchildren: three months, two years and four years.



At the base of the monument was a sculptured teddy bear, a truck and other toys. In the trunk of my car was a wrapped present for my grandson celebrating his second birthday. What if he had been born 70 years earlier, to Jewish parents?

What was the source of the evil that had led to this vile crime? Was it not a denial of the Biblical truth that the dignity of every human is rooted in the understanding that life is a gift of the Creator? and that each one of us has been created in His image, Imago Dei?

Had not the “freeing from religious foundations”, the rejection of the Biblical view of humanity, by Hitler and his henchmen caused this European tragedy? Was it not this very tragedy that had led Schuman and others to formulate the European Convention on Human Rights, to which every member nation of the Council of Europe had to agree? Was it not their aim to render such “state gangsterism” impossible, to prevent for ever the atrocities of Kamp Vught, Dachau and Auschwitz?

How quickly we are forgetting this most important lesson of modern times! No, Professor, it is not “fortunate” that in the minds of millions of Europeans today human dignity has been freed from its historical and transcendent foundations. For there are no other foundations. We can’t invent foundations or roots. A process of materialistic evolution in which only the fittest survive can never result in protection and rights for the weak and vulnerable.

As (non-believer) John Gray, formerly of the London School of Economics, wrote in his 2007 book Straw Dogs: humanists are simply Christians in disguise. If there is no God, there is no basis for human dignity and human exceptionalism. Humanism is the creed of those who have “given up an irrational belief in God for an irrational belief in humans”.

The truth is, many Europeans are squatters living in a house built on Judeo-Christian foundations -- but they don’t want to pay the rent.

Jeff Fountain and his wife Romkje are the initiators of the Schuman Centre for European Studies in The Netherlands. This article has been republished here with permission from the Centre’s website.

Israeli Police Attacks on Christians Denounced

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) -- Patriarchs and heads of Christian churches in Jerusalem on Sunday released a joint statement denouncing attacks by Israeli police officers on worshipers and pilgrims during Holy Saturday at the Church of Holy Sepulcher.

Signatories of the statement highlighted that they saw “awful scenes of the brutal treatment to clerics, average people and pilgrims in Jerusalem during Holy Saturday.”

They added: “A day of joy was turned into a day of severe sadness and pain for several of our faithful brothers who were mistreated by a number of Israeli police officers at the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem leading to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.”

It is unacceptable, according to the statement, that clergymen and average people “get beaten brutally and indiscriminately and be denied access to their churches under the pretext of keeping order.”

The statement urged the Israeli government to denounce the violence that police practiced against worshipers and clergymen.

The patriarchs and heads of churches also denied claims of those who blamed the churches for what happened during the Holy week in Jerusalem. “These claims are counter to what happened in reality, and all heads of churches condemn the Israeli procedures and violations of the Christians’ rights,” the statement said.

The statement was signed by heads of all recognized churches in the Holy Land including the Roman Orthodox Church, the Latin Church, the Armenian Orthodox Church, the Custodian of the Holy Land, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Ethiopian Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Maronite Church, the Episcopal Church, the Lutheran Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, and the Armenian Catholic Church.

Israel apology

Israel on Thursday officially apologized to Egypt after Israeli police officers attacked Egyptian diplomats and a Coptic clergyman at a church in Jerusalem.

Egypt's Foreign Ministry summoned Israel's ambassador in Cairo after the attack during Orthodox Easter celebrations at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Israel Broadcasting Authority said.

Israeli police say they were not notified of the attack but that they will investigate immediately, the IBA reported.

Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Amr Roshdy told Egypt's daily Al-Ahram that Israeli authorities tried to stop Egyptian diplomatic officials from attending Coptic Easter mass.

From here.

Metropolitan Hilarion on Persecution of Christians

"In Iraq only one tenth of a million-and-a-half Christians that lived there ten years ago have survived. In Egypt we are witnessing a mass exodus of Christians. There are practically no Christians left in Libya. Ninety five percent of Christians have abandoned Homs in Syria. We, Orthodox and Catholics, must raise our voices jointly in defense of Christians subjected to persecution and repression in these countries, as well as in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nigeria and in a number of other countries as well."-- Metropolitan Hilarion

Western Media Ignores Plight of Eastern Christians

Indifference to the fate of Middle East Christians has ancient roots

The Western media is using an centuries-old playbook in its treatment of Iraqi, Syrian and Egyptian Christians.

In 2010 an al-Qaeda front group attacked one of Baghdad's main cathedrals during Sunday mass. More than 50 people were slaughtered. The militants had a clear and simple explanation for this atrocity: "All Christian centres, organisations and institutions, leaders and followers, are legitimate targets for the muhajideen wherever they can reach them. We will open upon them the doors of destruction and rivers of blood."

In this environment, it’s no wonder that Christianity is dying in the land of its birth.

What’s more puzzling is why the Western world couldn’t care less. As recently as a century ago Christians made up 20 percent of the population of the Middle East, with thriving communities in what is now Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt. Today thanks to persecution and instability, that estimate has fallen to less than 5 percent. But instead of alarm bells- or even a flicker of interest -- this calamitous decline has been greeted with yawns by the Western media.

Read it all here.


Related reading:  Africans Puzzled by Western Antagonism to Christianty; Boko Haram Butchers Christian Factory Workers; Coptic Christians Fear Future in Egypt; Nuns Threatened in Upper Egypt; Britain Denies Protection to Iraqi Christians; Another Example of Media Bias Against Christians

Jesus Will Return to a Faithless World

A recent Pew study indicates that less than 50% of those surveyed believe that Jesus Christ will return within 40 years. Since the return of Christ is a dogma required to be believed to be a Christian, this signals failure of the Churches to teach the full Gospel.

Quote of the Week - Mark Noll

"The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind." -- Historian Mark Noll

Lebanon: Muslim Fertility Slump

As the only Arab country where a substantial proportion of the population is Christian, Lebanon’s geo-political importance is out of proportion to its size – four million people in a country the size of Jamaica. It has a vital role to play in struggles between the West and the Muslim world and in dialogue between Christianity and Islam.

But a poll taken in January shows that two-thirds of Lebanese Christians feel that the very existence of their communities is under long-term threat in their country. They say that too many of their fellow Christians are emigrating, their share of the population is shrinking and their political leaders are consumed with factional infighting.

This is a glum picture – but it may be false, according to a bombshell report on Lebanese demography just released in English – and reported exclusively in MercatorNet. It has been extensively reported in the Lebanese media.

The report was produced for the Lebanese Information Centre (LIC), a Beirut think tank, and the figures were checked by Statistics Lebanon, one of the country’s most prominent polling and research firms.

According to this study, the clichés are wrong. The proportion of Christians in the country – which currently stands at about 34 percent -- is slowly increasing. By 2030, it will rise to 37 percent and by 2045 to more than 39 percent. And because hundreds of thousands of overseas Lebanese are eligible to vote, the increase in registered voters is even more impressive. By 2030, 40 percent of Lebanese on the electoral roll will be Christian, and by 2045, the figure will be 41 percent.



In the knife-edge politicking of Lebanon, this figure has momentous consequences, says Dr Wissam Raji, of the LIC, the lead author of the report. “Ever since the Syrian army left Lebanon in 2005,” he says, “the Christians have been gaining momentum. According to our constitution, Christians have 50 percent of the political power of the country. These figures eliminate the possibility of evenly dividing the political power into three as suggested for the last 10 years by the majority of the Shiites who want equal shares between themselves and the Sunnis and the Christians.”

The topic of population statistics in Lebanon is always potentially inflammatory. For more than 50 years, the government has refused to publish statistics about the size of religious groups. Lebanon is the only member of the United Nations which has not conducted a census since the end of World War II. In fact, while the United States takes a constitutionally-mandated census every ten years, Lebanon’s one and only census took place in 1932 when France was the ruling colonial power.

According to figures gathered at the time, Maronite Christians made up about 29 percent of the population, Sunni Muslims about 22 per cent and Shiite Muslims about 20 percent. A decade later, in 1943, Lebanon became independent. The population then was officially estimated to be about 30 percent Maronite, 21 percent Sunni and 19 percent Shiite.

The Maronites, Sunnis and Shiites are just the largest and most powerful of the 18 religious denominations recognised by Lebanon’s constitution. The Greek Orthodox are currently estimated to be about 8 percent, the Melkite Catholics about 5 percent and the Druze, a Muslim sect, about 5 percent.

However, political power in the government was parcelled out in the 1943 constitution among the three largest groups in proportion to the size of their population in the 1932 census. The president was always to be a Maronite, as it was the largest single denomination. The prime minister was a Sunni, and the speaker of the House a Shiite. Because Christians had constituted 54 percent of the population in the 1932 census, parliamentary seats and jobs in the public service were allocated on a 6:5 ratio.

But the Christian birth rate began to fall and Christian emigration began to rise. A civil war raged from 1975 to 1990. For everyone it brought misery, chaos and death, and between 600,000 and 900,000 Lebanese fled the country. From 1975 to 1984, 80 percent of those leaving were Christians. But as the resistance of the Christian militias stiffened and Muslim factions began fighting amongst themselves, the proportion was reversed. Between 1985 and 1990, 83 percent of the emigrants were Muslim.



In 1990 a peace accord was signed which brought an uneasy peace. Everyone knew that a new government ought to reflect the new political and demographic realities, but there were no figures to back up the sensation that the Christian presence was diminishing. So the warring factions agreed that the proportion of deputies in the parliament and public servants should be adjusted from a 6:5 ratio of Christians to Muslims to 1:1. And that is where it stands today.

However, demography never sleeps. And quietly the proportion of Christians began to rise again. The first reason was unequal shares of emigrants. According to the Lebanese Information Centre, about 60 percent of the 700,000 people who have left the country after 1992 were Muslim. And then Muslim birth rates began to fall. Fast.

Although the Western media keeps ringing alarm bells about high Arab birth rates, the reality is quite different. Youssef Courbage, a distinguished Lebanese demographer who works in France and Norway, says, “Of the three major monotheistic religions, all of which encourage fertility, Islam is the one that encourages procreation the least.”

In Lebanon the Muslim fertility rate was 5.44 children per woman in 1971, compared to the much lower Christian birth rate of 3.56. But by 2004, the Lebanese Information Centre estimates that it had dropped to 1.82, compared to the Christian fertility rate of 1.53.

Why are birth rates so low in a society where most people’s identity is built around their religion?

The response of the Lebanese Information Centre can be summed up in three words: instability, education and secularisation. The war caused a slump in fertility. And as more opportunities opened up for girls, they married later and had fewer children. The growing secularisation of Lebanese society meant that both Christians and Muslims were paying less attention to the exhortations of religious leaders to have big families.

“Huge numbers of our men emigrate,” Dr Raji told MercatorNet, “and the emigration of families is much lower than individual emigration. So over the last 30 years this has led to a huge number of single women in our society. With political stability I believe that our fertility rate will definitely increase in the coming years due to lower intensity of emigration.”

The upshot of all these trends is that a 40-year decline in the Christian population has been reversed. Unless another war breaks out, it is unlikely that Lebanon will lose its identity as the only place in the Arab world where Christians and Muslims share political power.

Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet.

 

Quote of the Week - David Bentley Hart

"Reason, in the classical and Christian sense, is a whole way of life, not the simple and narrow mastery of certain techniques of material manipulation, and certainly not the childish certitude that such mastery proves that only material realities exist. A rational life is one that integrates knowledge into a larger choreography of virtue, imagination, patience, prudence, humility, and restraint. Reason is not only knowledge, but knowledge perfected in wisdom. In Christian tradition, reason was praised as a high and precious thing, principally because it belonged intrinsically to the dignity of beings created in the divine image; and, this being so, it was assumed that reason is also always morality, and that charity is required for any mind to be fully rational. Even if one does not believe any of this, however, a rational life involves at least the ability to grasp what it is one does not know, and to recognize that what one does know may not be the only kind of genuine knowledge there is." -- David Bentley Hart (From Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies)

Coptic Christians Fear Future in Egypt

"In Iraq only one tenth of a million-and-a-half Christians that lived there ten years ago have survived. In Egypt we are witnessing a mass exodus of Christians. There are practically no Christians left in Libya. Ninety five percent of Christians have abandoned Homs in Syria. We, Orthodox and Catholics, must raise our voices jointly in defense of Christians subjected to persecution and repression in these countries, as well as in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nigeria and in a number of other countries as well."-- Metropolitan Hilarion



By Richard Spencer, Alexandria

Coptic Christian churches in the United States say they are having to expand to cope with new arrivals, as priests in cities like Cairo and Alexandria talk of a new climate of fear and uncertainty.

"Most of our people are afraid," Father Mina Adel, a priest at the Church of Two Saints in Alexandria said. "Not a few are leaving - for America, Canada and Australia. Dozens of families from this church alone are trying to go too."

Father Mina's church has an important place in the history of the Arab Spring. It was struck by a car bomb on New Year's Eve 2010, Egypt's worst sectarian attack in recent decades, in which 23 people were killed.

After the bombing, liberal Muslim groups staged protests in support of Christians, printing posters showing the cross and the crescent interlinked which then went on to be symbols of inter-faith unity during the Tahrir Square protests three weeks later.

But the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in parliamentary and presidential elections has changed the mood - particularly as the biggest opposition party is the even more hardline Salafist movement which wants strict Sharia law implemented.

Read it all here.

Related reading: Nuns Threatened in Upper Egypt; Coptic Christians Get No Help from Obama; Egyptian Christians Threatened; Pope Benedict: Attack on Coptic Christians Offends God; Muslim Brotherhood Has Not Abandoned Violence

National Liberation Army Making Christian Martyrs

January 9 (World Watch Monitor) — Four months after guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) sent a murdered evangelist's wife their first demand to abandon her home in northeast Colombia's volatile Arauca department, the militants made good on their threats, report sources close to Open Doors, a ministry to persecuted Christians.

On Monday, Jan 7th 2013, as the family's pastor finished an evening devotional in the home of widow Alicia Castilla, assassins entered the home and opened fire on her with pistols, killing her instantly in front of her three children and her father.

An Open Doors worker who cannot be named for security reasons told World Watch Monitor that before leaving the home, the guerrillas told Castilla's son, 18-year-old Hernán, that the rest of the family had three days to leave the region. After that, the killers warned, they would return and one by one kill other family members.

Castilla's death follows the murder of her husband, lay evangelist Nelson Ramos, two years before, in January 2011, also at the hands of the ELN. The armed rebel group holds a virtual sway of terror over the area.

Ramos, who had come to faith in Christ two years before his death, often shared the gospel in Saravena, a border town near Colombia's frontier with Venezuela. A few months after his conversion, the ELN issued its first expulsion order against him and his family.

"When Nelson preached, people were attracted to the gospel," the Open Doors worker said. "He was always talking about Christ."

Hernán Ramos, the couple's son, told the Open Doors worker that, beyond denouncing his father for preaching, the guerrillas never fully explained why they so adamantly wanted to drive out the family. After he had received threats during 2010, guerrillas entered the family's home and shot the elder Ramos as his wife and two small daughters watched.

In the months following Ramos' death, Castilla feared that her son would carry out his stated plans to avenge the death of his father. But at a July 2011 encounter ministering to children in the persecuted church who have lost one or both parents (held by the ministry), Hernán renounced his earlier vow to join the Colombian military to gain training in weaponry and avenge his father's murder. Instead he was baptized and became deeply involved in church activities.

Castilla, in her mid 40s, joined an Open Doors group that supports widowed victims of persecution. The group began in Arauca in 2010 and today includes 30 families across Colombia. The Open Doors worker last saw Castilla on Dec 21, in Saravena at a ministry workshop where Hernán restated his commitment to not avenge his father's death.

While she was away attending the workshop, guerrillas visited Castilla's house with a third warning to leave. Castilla was willing to move, but her elderly father was not.

"She was always bearing witness about forgiveness and living in peace," the Open Doors worker said. "Alicia was a woman who was very committed to God, but from the start she was very worried about the threats."

Although local government authorities are mandated to remove murder victims from crime scenes, they refused to handle Castilla’s body, fearing reprisals from the ELN insurgents. Finally funeral home workers retrieved her body.

"The local authorities understand who the guerrillas consider their enemy, and they prefer not to visit certain places," the Open Doors worker said.

Founded in 1964, the ELN is one of several illegal armed groups fighting for control of the rich petroleum resources in this area along Colombia's eastern-central border with Venezuela.

The violent groups use the Arauca department as a narcotrafficking route, forcibly recruit children into their ranks, and persecute those who oppose them, namely the church. A culture of death governs the region amid an atmosphere of fear and revenge.

"The ELN believe that Christians are brainwashed with the Bible, and that they will never support their revolution," the Open Doors worker said. The militants are also suspicious that Christians are spies and informants for the government, and complain that they give funds to their churches and refuse to support rebel activities.

"They also notice that when Christians fast and pray, the guerrillas’ violent plans against them are oddly stopped!"

"We must pray that Hernán's heart and decisions don't change, that everything be transformed into blessing and not a chain of blood and hate," the Open Doors coordinator for Arauca said. "We pray for his protection, and also for his little sisters Rosmy and Jackeline, ages 9 and 6, who now face life without either one of their parents."

Related reading:  

Ben Stein Sets the White House Straight

Apparently the White House referred to Christmas Trees as Holiday Trees which prompted CBS presenter, Ben Stein, to present this piece.

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for  being Christians.  I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period.  I have no  idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country.  I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat...

Or maybe I  can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?  I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too.  But there are a lot of us who are  wondering where these celebrities came from and where the  America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different:  This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

  
 In  light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc..  I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she  was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she  didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.  Then  someone said you better not read the Bible in school...   The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and  love your neighbor as yourself.  And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our  children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr.  Spock's son committed suicide).  We said an expert should know what he's talking about..  And we said okay..

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out.  I think it has a great deal  to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is  for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to  hell.  Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.  Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when  you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.  Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it... no one will know you  did.  But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.


My Best Regards,  honestly and respectfully,

Ben  Stein

A Blessed Nativity Feast to All

Unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulders; And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

St. Ambrose of Milan on the Nativity

"He was a baby, He was a child,

so that you might be a perfect man;

He was wrapped in swaddling clothes,

that you might be loosed from the snares of death;

He was in a manger, so that you might be in the altar;

He on earth, that you might be in the stars.

He had no other place in the inn,

that you might have many mansions in the Heavens.

He, it says, being rich, became poor for your sakes,

that through His poverty you might be rich.

Therefore, His poverty is my inheritance,

and the Lord's weakness is my virtue.

He chose to lack for Himself,

that He might abound for all."


-- Saint Ambrose of Milan

Quote of the Week - Henry Drummond

"Christianity is the religion of cities. It moves among real things. Its sphere is the street, the market-place, the working life of the world."--Henry Drummond, in The City Without a Church

That is true. It is also the religion of wilderness caves and monasteries.