Anti-Christian National Cleansing

In Egypt, Christians endure their ‘Kristallnacht’

Charles Jacobs
Republished from Big Peace

Recently Jews in synagogues around the world heard an ancient prophesy about a time of tribulation for the Christians. In the haftarah, the Prophet Obadiah hears G-d warning the Edomites (traditionally a Jewish term for the people who eventually made up the Christian world): “Behold on that day… Your mighty ones to the South will be broken… every man will be cut off by the slaughter…”

How eerily reflective of the moment: Within just the last couple of weeks, the Washington-based Christian Solidarity International (CSI) issued a “Genocide Warning” for Christians and other religious minorities across the Middle East, and launched a petition urging President Barack Obama to speak up.

The “Arab Spring” seems to be rapidly springing shut on Middle East Christians, most clearly in Egypt

Baby Farming

A Dirty Little Secret

One of the worst experiences of my working life was practising law as a staff solicitor for a law firm in South Auckland.  Part of my role was to make applications on instructions from CYFS staff for care orders, guardianship orders and adoption orders for children under the care of the government.

I became increasingly uncomfortable with my part, not just as a professional doing my job, but as a human being.

Sadly, my experience was that the primary motivator for most of the adults involved with these children was money.

Deadly Vegetarianism

Ordering the vegetarian meal? There’s more animal blood on your hands

Mike Archer argues that vegetarianism kills more animals than a diet of meat eating.

The ethics of eating red meat have been grilled recently by critics who question its consequences for environmental health and animal welfare. But if you want to minimise animal suffering and promote more sustainable agriculture, adopting a vegetarian diet might  be the worst possible thing you could do.

Ozymandius Revisited

Lessons From an Antique Land

Drawing lessons from the past can be a risky business, fraught with over-simplification and naivety.  But the task is nevertheless inevitable, necessary and right.  If you believe, as all Christians do, that God's glory and wisdom is displayed in His handiwork and that His handiwork includes both creation and providence then history not only reveals God's glory, it must be seen as intrinsically instructive--for those who have eyes to see.

Historians have often noted the rapid spread of Islam in the 6th century.  Some even imply that it was miraculous.  Others, demonic.  Muslim apologists point to it as a sign of Allah's pleasure. 

Some things are clear.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Just Me Being Silly

Culture and Politics - A Second Battle of Tours
Written by Douglas Wilson
Thursday, December 15, 2011

[We have often observed that most of the worst egregious statist overreaches ever inflicted upon  New Zealand have come from the National Party--the "right of centre" party.  Think Occupational Health and Safety, Resource Management Act, Children and Young Persons Service, and the Emissions Trading Scheme.  Partisan fools are somehow less aggrieved when "our people" are the ones putting us under the cosh.  This betrayal and folly is not restricted to New Zealand.  Doug Wilson reflects on just such a stupid move by Republicans in the United States. Ed.]

Yesterday the House approved the National Defense Authorization Act, and the Senate is likely to do the same today. There is a possibility that the president will sign it, but he might veto it, and things have come to a pretty pass when I am hoping that Obama will protect us from the Republicans.

Completely Unexpected

We Did Not See This Coming

Sectarian violence has broken out in Iraq before the dust had settled from the departure of the US army.  Shi'ite, versus Sunni, versus Kurds, with a dash of Iran, and possibly Al Qaeda.  Sixty people dead from terrorist bombs.

The reverberations will continue for a while.  It shows into high relief, yet again, that governing elites and the Commentariat of the West neither understand religion nor see its vital significance in human action. One reason for this is the West's self delusion that it has risen above, evolved beyond religion.  Its demeanour is to look down from a lofty height, dismissing all religions as something mature people grow out of when they start thinking for themselves.  The West sees itself as a-religious.

Small "C" Conservatism

Losing Our Soul

We at this blog are "small-c" conservatives.  The past, what we have inherited, represents the sovereign, providential governance of the Living God over His creation as He brings His glorious purposes to pass.  In respecting and studying and analysing our past, we see the glory of God writ large.  We see redemption.  We encounter the grounds of all life and hope.

Hence, we find novelist P D James to be right on the button in this quotation:

The Koran Cannot Be Its Own Interpreter

Perpetual Internecine Conflict

We have been re-reading Alfred Guillaume's Islam (Baltimore: Penguin, 1956).  It is well dated now and in many ways serves as a curio.  The author's hope for the future of Islam based upon certain modernising efforts he had observed in his lifetime has now been well and truly dashed by events in our generation.  But in other ways, Guillaume's volume remains relevant.

Some things stand out.  Islam's epistemological foundation is deeply compromised.  The text of the Koran is arranged in an arbitrary fashion,

. . . on the purely mechanical plan of putting the longest chapters first and the shortest last . . . (Ibid., p.58)

so that there is no certainty about which particular passages correspond to what time in the life of Muhammad.

. . . scholars, eastern and western alike, have been busy for centuries in trying to determine to what period of the prophet's ministry a particular sura belongs.  The problem is further complicated by the inclusion of verses which must have been spoken at Medina in suras which begin in Mecca. (Ibid.)

Why might this be a fatal problem?

How the Kingdom Comes

Transformation Through Conversion

"I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and possess the land." (Exodus 23: 30)

God told the Israelites that their Biblical culture would come "little by little".  It did not come suddenly, or overnight.  It came gradually.  The covenantal society . . . can only come about the same way.  That is, if it is to survive, it must come about from the bottom up. . . . It can only successfully come about (and stick) if it takes holy at a grass roots level through evangelism. 

The expansion of the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome serves as an example.

Lest We Forget . . .

Obsequious, Adoring and Useless

This is the state of the current NZ Labour Party, according to one of its stalwarts, Chris Trotter. 

Mr Shearer inherits a party in which rank-and-file members have sunk to the level of what one wit describes as “MP fan clubs”. At its upper levels, the party is caught in the grip of a sclerotic, self-selecting oligarchy based in Labour’s insular and largely unaccountable sector-groups. In effect, Mr Shearer’s Labour Party is rapidly disabling itself. His first and most urgent priority is to kick it back into life.

This, more than anyone else, is the legacy of Helen Clark.  She represented capture of the party by left-wing academics, career bureaucrats, homosexuals, and unionists. Most of them had never done a day's work in the real world in their lives.

Free From the Dictates of Men

Christian Liberty

Practical Christian Living - Dealing With Sin
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, August 23, 2010

The way others are to view your liberty is not the same way that you should view your liberty.
Other Christians should let you do what you want unless the Bible forbids it. That’s how we guard against legalism.

But you should use your liberty differently—you should be asking what the reasons are for doing it, and not what the reasons are for prohibiting it.

First Glimpses

The Hobbit

For those of you who missed it, here is the first trailer of  The Hobbit.



It looks like there will be plenty of integration with the Lord of the Rings.

Christmas Meditation

A Theology of Christmas Gifts

Liturgy and Worship - Church Year
Written by Douglas Wilson
Saturday, December 17, 2011

INTRODUCTION:
One of the most obvious features of our Christmas celebrations is the gift-giving. How are we to understand this as Christians? What are the pitfalls? Are all the pitfalls obvious? Because our lives are to be lives of grace, and because charis means grace or gift, this is something we have to understand throughout the course of our lives, and not just at Christmas. But it has to be said that the machinery of our consumer racket does throw the question into high relief for us at this time of year.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Reflections on Christopher Hitchens

Occasional Services - Memorial Homilies
Written by Douglas Wilson
Friday, December 16, 2011

Scripture says that it is better to go down to the house of mourning than to the house of laughter (Ecc. 7:2). The reason given in that passage is that this enables the living to "lay it to heart." The death of Christopher Hitchens should in the first place remind us of our own mortality. We should lay it to heart. As Donne so memorably put it, "ask not for whom the bell tolls." Every funeral is our own. These are issues that affect every last one of us.

Those who hold to the gospel of Jesus Christ must always remember that the good news of Christ is set against the backdrop of the bad news -- we are all of us sinners, and we all need cleansing and forgiveness. Christopher Hitchens did not need to come to Christ to have his arguments refuted (although that would have happened). He needed to come to Christ to have his sins forgiven.

And the Point Is . . .

The Meaning of Christmas

Great stuff from a congregation in the UK. (Just love the Aussie classicist.)


That's Christmas (Short Film) HD from St Helen’s Church on Vimeo.

Letter From America

Merry War on Christmas!
I can’t wait to see what those courageous atheists come up with for Ramadan.
December 17, 2011

Mark Steyn

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE 

Christmas in America is a season of time-honored traditions — the sacred performance of the annual ACLU lawsuit over the presence of an insufficiently secular “holiday” tree; the ritual provocations of the atheist displays licensed by pitifully appeasing municipalities to sit between the menorah and the giant Frosty the Snowman; the familiar strains of every hack columnist’s “war on Christmas” column rolling off the keyboard as easily as Richard Clayderman playing “Winter Wonderland” . . . 

This year has been a choice year.

Prophetesses of the Age

It's Not My Fault

As chutzpah goes, this was as big as it can ever get.  A despicable woman had systematically tortured and abused her children in the worst way--including ripping off toe nails and pouring salt and boiling water on the wounds--and justified herself by saying it was the fault of the state.  The government had not helped her enough. 

This grand effrontery was taken up publicly by the woman's lawyer, Lorraine Smith:

Something Different

An Unusual Maiden Parliamentary Speech

Alfred Ngaro is the first Cook Islander to grace the NZ Parliament. Yesterday, he gave the first Address in Reply speech to the Parliament. It is worth listening to. His description of his background, his hard working parents, the strength of family life, their Christian faith, and his commitments to family and community are both laudable and encouraging.

We hope that he will not succumb to the insidious lie of the omni-competence of Government to fix all things and be the Saviour of the people, for that is the corruption of Parliament itself. So many of his predecessors have been suborned. We hope that Mr Ngaro will be made of better stuff.



It is encouraging to see such people becoming MP's. We could do with an entire chamber of them.

Hat Tip: Keeping Stock

Beyond Reasonable Credence

Body Mapping and Blood Splatter

Life imitating entertainment.  That's what is happening in court rooms everywhere these days.  Turn on the TeeVee on virtually any night and you will have three or four forensic crime shows to watch.  Within short order you will become a relative expert on data matching, blood splatter patterns, bullet rifling, and finger-printing.  It's all comforting because the innocent are always vindicated, the guilty are always caught, and it is hard-evidence, fact-based.  Science, after all, gives certainty.  Many would say, the only certainty in this mad world.

Ah, sorry.  It all a figment of the febrile imagination of TeeVee moguls and their minions.  But it is having a  significant impact on law courts and juries.  It's got the Aussies worried.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Vaclav Havel, Christopher Hitchens, and Kim Jong Il

The Rage Against God
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, December 19, 2011


On the death of Kim Jong Il, one wit tweeted that he liked to think that God had let Havel and Hitchens decide who would be the third one to go. That's funny, but if ideas have consequences, and they do, then there are a few other considerations.

We often say, when someone passes away, that they have "gone to their reward." But given atheism, what is that reward exactly?

Principled Assassination

"Good on ya', Bro'"

Passing into the folklore of Western civilization is the heroic attempt by some, including the Desert Fox, to assassinate Adolf Hitler.  They failed.  But we have honoured their moral judgment and their courage.  All of which serves to prove that assassination, when attempted for right reasons and true moral principles, can be a worthy deed.

When John Key was first elected Prime Minister of New Zealand we were told his nickname was Smiling Assassin--earned from his time as an international currency trader with Merrill Lynch.  Three years have passed and and it is time to reassess the moniker.  We can testify to lots of smiling.  That much is true.  But not much assassination.  Definitely not true.

His predecessor, Helen Clark gave every indication that when it came to the "sense of humour" department she was a shingle short.

Chilling Revelations

 How Long, O Lord

Below are a series of clips manifesting the depth of depravity of the monstrous regime in North Korea.  They present testimony from defectors and escapees.  It's a dirty secret that no-one likes to talk about in the West. 

Praying the Imprecatory Psalms on behalf of those suffering is by far and above the best and most potent response Christians in the West can make. 

They Are Only Christians

Complicit Silence of the West

We have been watching media commentary upon North Korea, post the death of Kim Jong Il.  The overarching, meta-narrative is that North Korea is a paranoid country, ridden with fear.  The sub-narrative is that no-one should do anything to make it more paranoid.

Several observations can be made on this pop-psychoanalysis of  North Korea's regime.  Firstly, it is paternalistic.  Like much that passes for psychology these days, it looks down from a great height upon a lesser people, regarding them as children, immature, wilful, and troubled.  Secondly, it produces a "don't scare the horses" approach to the regime.  But one thing tellingly missing is a clear statement that the regime is evil.  Such ethical categories don't really fit in the polite salons of diplomacy, old boy.

Work and Save Like a German

The Hundred Years’ German War
Germany’s dominance was won by national character, not arms or handouts.
 
Victor Davis Hanson
Republished from National Review Online
December 15, 2011

The rise of a German Europe began in 1914, failed twice, and has now ended in the victory of German power almost a century later. The Europe that Kaiser Wilhelm lost in 1918, and that Adolf Hitler destroyed in 1945, has at last been won by Chancellor Angela Merkel without firing a shot.

Or so it seems from European newspapers, which now refer bitterly to a “Fourth Reich” and arrogant new Nazi “Gauleiters” who dictate terms to their European subordinates. Popular cartoons depict Germans with stiff-arm salutes and swastikas, establishing new rules of behavior for supposedly inferior peoples.

Duplicitous Ethics

Enslaved

When governments do it, all is fine and dandy.  When the market does it, well then, it is evil, self-seeking, and greedy.  This is the mindset of so many today. 

It reminds us of the old saw that used to appear from time to time on car bumpers: "Don't Steal!  The Government Doesn't Like Competition."

An apt example of this double standard of duplicitous ethics is at hand courtesy of Bryan Gould, Vice-Chancellor of Waikato University, and British ex-Labour MP.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Reagan and Mao

Culture and Politics - Politics
Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Conservatism is not a static ideology. It is not an ideology at all, actually, but it is especially not a static one. But ostensible conservatives today like to act as though the decision of the ages rests upon whether we want Obama in or out. Everything rides on the consequences of this election.

This is why history is left out of it. Historical icons are not left out of it, but that is a different thing altogether.

Christopher Hitchens

Obituaries

This from Justin Taylor.

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)

Christopher Hitchens died on Thursday night at the age of 62, after a 18-month battle with esophageal cancer.  He was a brilliant and entertaining man. He was enormously gifted, and in his final years he took those gifts and used them to mock God, using his considerable wit and sharp tongue to convince as many people as possible to do the same.

When I had a crisis of faith my freshman year at a secular university studying religion, I was deeply convinced that there were only two options: full-blown Christian orthodoxy or atheism. Liberal theology—with its fantasy of rescuing the “kernel” (or essence) of Christianity from the (disposable) “husk” of dogma—had no appeal to me. And this is one of the things I appreciated about Hitchens.

The Scientism Paradox

An MIT Scientist Refutes Scientism

From Justin Taylor's blog.

“Scientism” is not the same as “science.”

Scientism is a philosophical belief about science, holding that science is the only rational approach to truth in the world, and that only scientific truths can be rationally accessed and believed. (A softer form of scientism would hold that the results of science are the most rational and most objective truths we can have or hold.)

I think it’s safe to safe this is the dominant worldview of the secular scientific community—despite the fact that it is a self-defeating position (since “scientism” itself is a philosophical position and not a scientific truth).

Those seeking a refutation of scientism might be interested in a new book by Ian Hutchinson, professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, entitled Monopolizing Knowledge: A Scientist Refutes Religion-Denying, Reason-Destroying Scientism.

You can also read quite a bit of the book online for free at the author’s website.

HT: Chronicle of Higher Education blog (via Gene Veith)

Self-Destructive Class Warfare

Striking Folly

The Port of Auckland is presently debilitated by rolling strikes which put the strike threat system into bold relief  as extortionate blackmail.  Thankfully, the export/import business can transfer to Tauranga.  Whilst this does not help owners of the Ports of Auckland (Auckland City) it does provide a boost to shareholders in the Ports of Tauranga.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Not Compassion at All

Money, Love, Desire - The Good of Affluence
Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, December 14, 2011

You have a button in front of you, placed there by a helpful genie. But instead of giving you the standard three wishes (and why doesn't anybody ever wish for ten wishes?), the genie has limited your options.

If you push the button, the real income of all the "have-nots" in the world will double overnight.