Living off of Christian capital.

The real meaning of "noon", How the ancient Jews (and medieval Christian monks) continue to influence modern society.
 

How “noon” came to mean “mid-day”

As the Christian monks and priests, in their prayer books, had adopted the ancient Jewish mode of counting time, the Jewish “hours of the day” came to be identified with the “hours” (or prayers) of the Divine Office. Ultimately, the prayers of the Breviary came to be more dominant in the European mind even than the original meaning of the Jewish “hours”.

When the prayer of “none” (now pronounced and called “noon”) came to be prayed not at the “ninth hour” (i.e. 3pm) but at mid-day, 12 pm began to be called “none” after the prayer time of the monks and priests. Thus, the English word “noon” originally refers not to 12 pm (or mid-day) but to the “ninth hour” which is 3 pm. However, because the monks and priests began to pray the Breviary earlier in the day, the word “noon” has come to mean “mid-day” or 12 pm.

Modern society is rooted in Christianity and Judaism

Many modern secularists refuse to speak of “Christmas” and instead insist upon the “winter holiday season”. They do this in order to keep Judeo-Christian biblical ideas out of modern language.

However, if such secularists really wanted to “purify” modern language from its Christian and Jewish roots, they would have to stop using even the most common words – like “noon”. Here, as bad as modern society may sometimes seem, it is encouraging for Christians to remember that the biblical influence on modern western society is so deep that the only way to remove the Judeo-Christian roots would be to utterly destroy Western Civilization. We can only hope that the secularists will recognize this truth.

I'm posting this because I'm reading John Loftus' "The End of Christianity," which contains an essay by Hector Avalos that argues that the Bible should not be studied because it is totally irrelevant to modern society.  This seems like an apt counter-argument that could be replicated throughout modern culture.

Stoking the fires of sectarianism.

Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin weighs in and argues that Catholics should not vote for a polytheist who claims to be a Christian.

In various races, we might be asked to vote for candidates who are Mormon.


While they may be very nice people and may even share many values with Christians, Mormons are not Christians. They do not have valid baptism because they are polytheists. That is, they believe in multiple gods. This so affects their understanding of the baptismal formula that it renders their administration of baptism invalid and prevents them from becoming Christians when they attempt to administer the sacrament.

Unlike other polytheists (e.g., Hindus, Shintoists), Mormons claim to be Christian.

Casting a vote for a Mormon candidate thus means casting one’s vote for a polytheist who present himself to the world as a Christian.

I can see situations in which that might be a morally legitimate option. For example, if one lived in Utah, where the only viable candidates in many races are Mormon, it could be morally legitimate to vote for a pro-life Mormon over a pro-abortion Mormon.

But matters seem different when we are talking about national races, such as the presidency.

To elect a Mormon to the American presidency would, to my mind, be a disaster.

It would not only spur Mormon recruitment efforts in numerous ways, it would mainstreamize the religion in a way that would deeply confuse the American public about the central doctrine of the Christian faith. It would give the public the idea that Mormons are Christian (an all-too-frequent misunderstanding as it is) and that polytheism is somehow compatible with Christianity.

In other words, it would deal a huge blow to the American public’s already shaky understanding of what Christianity is.

That means it would massively compromise a fundamental value on the scale of the abortion issue.

Faced with the choice of voting for a pro-life polytheist-claiming-to-be-Christian or a pro-abortion whatever, I might well choose to simply sit out that race and refrain from voting for either candidate, because voting either way would mean doing massive damage to America.

Note that I’m not in principle opposed to voting for polytheists. I could see, for example, voting for a pro-life Hindu over a pro-abortion monotheist. But a Hindu does not claim to be a Christian and thus does not risk confusing people about the core doctrine of Christianity the way Mormonism does.

Akin is a serious and subtle thinker.  I agree with his observations but I disagree with his conclusion.

I think that there is a serious value in the American tradition of tolerance.  The American social compact involves "bracketing" a candidate's religious views from his public views.  This has been a very effective way of preventing sectarian squabbling that would divide the religious vote to the benefit of the secularists.  By agreeing to disagree, we do not automatically respond to a candidate's view on tax policies with an appeal to their wrong-headed views on transubstantiation.

Of course, that live and let live view doesn't mean muting religious disagreements.  Insofar as Mormons are not Christian, then the proper response to the erosion of what it means to be "Christian" about which Akin is properly concerned is more speech about the subject.

"Are you now or have you ever been a Lutheran?"

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway at Get Religion, who is a Lutheran, analyzes the silly hit piece on Michelle Bachman's former membership in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS):

I don’t know what it is about conservative women that makes some reporters lose their everliving minds, but Bachmann’s candidacy is this year’s Sarah Palin media meltdown, apparently.


In any case, Joshua Green is one of the more partisan folks at The Atlantic, and that harms his piece when it comes to stuff like facts, nuance and context.

For one thing, the headline is not true. It’s about the church body to which Bachmann once belonged, but not her current church. And let’s actually start there. I’m a confessional Lutheran. Ostensibly, Michele Bachmann was a member of a more conservative but also confessional Lutheran church body. And for years, whenever I heard her speak, she never sounded even mildly Lutheran to me. The “the Lord put it on my heart” type language. The “the Lord anointed me” stuff. This is not how Lutherans speak, although I won’t bore you with all of the why. Her other affiliations have always been more evangelical than Lutheran, going back decades.

You might keep that in mind when you’re thinking about what news value a hit-piece on the doctrinal views of a church that a presidential candidate no longer belongs to has.

And:

The justification for the hyperbolic story about 500-year-old history is that, we’re to believe, Michele Bachmann will have trouble getting the Catholic vote in light of the fact that she was once a member of a Protestant church that had Protestant views on Catholicism.


Yeah, right.

There is no political significance to what the article reports. Instead it serves only to alarm the casual observer over a non-issue. I mean, seriously, go to Minnesota and you can see for yourself that there is no 30 Years War breaking out among the large Catholic and Lutheran populations. That state has had tons of Catholic and Lutheran governors — many of whom held opposing views on the papacy. They somehow managed to get through it.

Exactly.  As Rodney Stark points out, religious cooperation in America is a unique phenomenon.  Despite their oppositions, members of different religions - led by their clergy - have cooperated in emergency relief and prayer services - in ways that have no imitation throughout the way.

This cooperation is what true tolerance looks like.  Rather than a watering-down of difference, in American religious pluralism we see a respect for other human beings because we recognize their humanity and their likeness to God and their common membership in a community united in mutual respect.

So, why in the face of that singular success, does the leftist media want to stir up religious discord by focusing on Mitt Romney's Mormonism and Michelle Bachman's former church's roots in the 16th Century?

21% of Atheists believe in God; 12% believe in Heaven.

Talk about non-dogmatic.

According to the recent Pew Survey on Religion in Public Life.

It seems that the Right of Conscience is a Live Issue in the Medical Profession.

Hospital apologizes for disciplining 9 nurses who refused to participate in abortion.

At the root of this case, is a heartbreaking story. A pregnant woman checked herself in when her water broke at just 14 weeks. A fetus isn't viable outside the womb until 16 weeks. Doctors said the baby simply would not survive. So, instead of waiting days for the mother to give birth, they recommended an abortion, and she agreed.


But in labor and delivery, nine nurses on duty refused to assist because the baby still had a heartbeat, and the mother's life was not in jeopardy. Still, the hospital suspended them all.

"It was clear that management had the wrong set of facts," said NUMC CEO, Arthur Gianelli.

Weeks later, Gianelli admitted, it was all a management mix-up. Nursing managers had thought the mother was in danger when she really was not.

Once the union stepped in, the hospital reversed the suspension. Gianelli also personally apologized to all nine nurses while promising a full review.

"I made the determination that these disciplines were not in order, we rescinded the disciplines and apologized directly to the nurses because I felt they were owed that, quite frankly," said Gianelli.

I'm surprised by the outcome. I take it that the union contract had a "conscience clause" for abortions not involving the life of the mother.  Given the general media stance that any medical professional who refuses to participate in abortions is somehow complicit with bad medicine, I'm surprised that there is any such clause as a matter of private contract, although, yes, it does make sense.

Also, I'm surprised that 9 nurses all bailed.  Again, the media has been silent about the conscience of those who oppose abortion in the medical profession.  Based on the non-coverage, I'd been left with the impression that abortion was essentially a non-issue for nurses and doctors.  Obviously, it's not - if 9 nurses refused on conscience, it certainly sounds like the right of conscience is a live issue within the medical profession.  That is worth knowing.

Secular Ideology trumps Conscience and Social Welfare

Catholic Charities is ending its foster care program and will soon be ending its adoption services in the District of Columbia because of DC's refusal to allow a conscience clause.

The Book of Eli

Father Barron has his typically insightful review of the movie.

Warning:  Spoilers!

The Book of Eli

The "Book of Eli" is simply the greatest Evangelical/Pentecostalist Post-Apocalyptic movie starring Denzel Washington ever made!!!

Denzel Washington manages to make even being a Baptist look cool.

Alright, my tongue is someone planted in my cheek, but the serious point is that "The Book of Eli" really does communicate a Pentecostalist ethos in a serious, substantial and strong way. Eli is nothing less than a prophet moved by the Holy Spirit who hears God telling him what to do. The Baptist part comes in the love affair that Eli has with the Bible and in his faith that the Bible is the Word of God that has the capacity to change the lives of those who hear it.

It turned out to be a surprisingly religious movie told from an all-too-often-overlooked religious perspective.  I was pleasantly surprised.

There were also some deep homages to other classics of the "After the Blowup" sub-genre.  In several scenes, Eli is detained in a room that has a poster for the movie "A Boy and His Dog."  The movie was based on the Harlan Ellison Nebula Award winning novella of the same name, which also depicted a post-apocalyptic world that was every bit as gritty and desperate as the one that Eli walks through.

There also seems to an homage to Walter Miller, Jr.'s great "A Canticle for Liebowitz" in the idea that people would be induced by the horror of the death of civilization to burn every last book that contributed to the holocaust of humanity.

And Denzel also kicks butt, which is cool.
 
Heads cut off, arms cut off, bad guys get just desserts, PSB says "go see."

Polytheism, Pluralism and Tolerance

Wintery Knight has a very interesting excerpt of a dialogue between a Hindu and a Christian.  The Hindu's argument seems to be that the Christians should be prevented from proselytizing, or even speaking about their faith in public, because Christianity makes a claim to exclusivity, whereas Hinduism can permit a diversity of religious views...except for one that says other views are false.

Hindu_Jagdish:


- Hindus believe that there are many ways to achieve union with God

- they are all equal, you can follow the path you like to be united with God

- we Hindus are very very inclusive, every other path is a right path to God

Hindu_Anil:

- the right to freedom of religion does not allow you to say that Christianity is correct

- Jesus did not say that you go and condemn people of other religions

Christian_Sunil:

- but I convert people by my love and self-sacrifice, not through coercion

Hindu_Anil:

- it’s ok to be a Christian if you keep it to yourself and don’t tell anyone else that their religion is wrong

According to Professor Philip Carey, Christianity is unique in the religious-sphere because of its obsession with the person of Jesus.  Because Christianity is about a person, it is essential to know who that person is, which therefore puts a heavy emphasis on doctrine, specifically correct doctrine, about the person of Jesus.  Christianity is thus a faith rather than simply a practice and faith - being intellectual adherence to ideas - are by definition exclusive.  One can, for example, be faithful to many things, until there is a conflict among those things, and then the true faith has to be determined. This is the reason for the Christian obsession with orthodoxy, i.e., "correct belief," rather than some Christian proclivity for hair-splitting.

In contrast, other religions tend to emphasize "orthopraxy," i.e., "correct action."  Undoubtedly all religions have a mix of orthodoxy and orthopraxy.  In the Catholic and Orthodox churches, orthopraxy can be found in the requirement of correct liturgical and sacramental actions, but even there orthopraxy follows from,  or is intended to safeguard, orthodox belief.  For example, the hedges around the sanctity of the Eucharist simultaneously flow from and emphasize the realization that the Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ.

Religions without the commitment to "faith" or "doctrine" may be able to find unity in an orthopraxy divorced from the personal belief of the practitioners of that religion.  Hence, it is said that the pagan Roman religions were frankly indifferent to the personal beliefs of their adherents as long as those adherents went through the proper motions.  I'm skeptical of such sweeping generalizations because I suspect that the desire for meaning is wired into the human psyche and, so, we care what other people believe.  Also, I note that the Athenians seemed to care very much about what Socrates believed, albeit they might have cared less if he hadn't also been the teacher of various politically disreputable students. 

The exclusive claims of Christianity may represent something unique even compared to the exclusive claims of Judaism.  Certainly, Jews could not worship other deities, but apparently gentiles could participate in Jewish communal worship while maintaining a "faith" in other deities.  According to Paula Fredriksen:

DH Ancient Judaism is a way of life, a way of looking at everything. So what would have changed for a God-fearer when he or she became convinced by Paul’s message?


PF I imagine Paul going into a Diaspora synagogue as part of the gathering that would happen on the Sabbath, and among his audience are gentiles who are interested enough in Judaism to also be there. What they hear is an extreme form of Judaism—that the Messiah has come, and that the end of the age is at hand. They’re able to understand what Paul is talking about, because they’ve heard the Bible read to them in the synagogue.

Behaviorally, what changes for them? The difference is that Paul said they must not worship their own gods anymore; that they couldn’t eat the meat that was sacrificed to their native gods anymore; that they could only worship the God of Israel through baptism into His Son, Jesus Christ. Paul (and others like him who were giving this message to these “churched” pagans—pagans who were already in the synagogue) is giving them the message that in this regard they have to act as if they’re Jews. These gentiles are being told by Paul that, as a matter of principle, they have to violate their ancestral custom and not worship their ancestral gods. They’re going to be included, as gentiles, in the final redemption.

Now in one sense, so far, that’s normal Judaism. Paul is standing on top of a centuries-long tradition that anticipates gentiles being part of the kingdom of God. Israel will be redeemed from exile, and gentiles will be redeemed from idol worship. Paul, in this odd wrinkle in time between the resurrection and the second coming, is asking these gentiles to stop worshiping idols before the kingdom is publicly established. He’s making a much more rigorous Jewish demand on his gentiles-in-Christ than the normal synagogue would make on their pagan gentile sympathizers, because he’s saying, “You must not worship your own gods any longer.” Normal synagogues never did that. It would be much more difficult, and socially destabilizing, to be a gentile-in-Christ within Paul’s movement than to be a gentile God-fearer in a mainstream synagogue community.

Now, that is something I'd never heard before.  I had assumed that the God-fearers had given up their worship of other Gods - their idolatry - as part of their participation in the Jewish synagogue.  Apparently that assumption was wrong, in which case Paul's message of avoiding idolatry does take on a different, more urgent, context.  It would seem to have been, as Fredriksen argues, potentially destablizing to established pagan culture.

Coming Soon to an America Near You!

Canadian Human Rights Commission files complaint against Catholic bishop for refusing to allow homosexual to serve as altar server.

TORONTO, July 10, 2009 - The Catholic Civil Rights League commented today on the filing of a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission against the Bishop of Peterborough for discontinuing the service of two homosexual men as altar servers at a parish church in the diocese.

According to a report published in the Catholic Register, Jim Corcoran brought the complaint after he was asked to give up his position as an altar server at Sunday Masses. Mr. Corcoran, who has acknowledged that he is homosexual, was relieved from those duties at St. Michael’s parish in Cobourg, Ontario.

Without commenting on any individual personnel situation or personalities that are involved in this case, the relationship between the Church and altar servers, in the League's opinion, has none of the attributes that would make it a subject for a complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. No one serves on the altar as a right; it is at the discretion of the pastor, who in turn is at the service of his bishop. Mr. Corcoran’s role was not unlike that of other liturgical servers, who are part of the overall presentation of the Mass.

The decision about who can serve on the altar is a matter of Church governance. While the Church is subject to human rights law when it employs people in a commercial relationship, the same cannot be said about decisions involving who is a member, or how they can best serve.

Wintery Knight has a video of Senator Jim Demint denouncing the Democrat Hate Crime amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill. Check out the section at 6 minutes and 30 seconds where Demint discusses a provision in the Bill that states that the new law would not allow prosecution "solely" on the basis of religious expressions.

Did the California Supreme Court Create a Religious Test by its Gay Marriage Decision?

The Marriage Law Digest excerpts this decision from the Saskatchawan Human Rights Commission:

Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal

May 23, 2008

http://www.saskhrt.ca/forms/index/Descisions/05232008.htm

A man filed a complaint with his provincial Human Rights Tribunal after a marriage commissioner refused to perform his same-sex marriage ceremony because of religious objections. The tribunal agreed that a denial of service by a government official was
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and that a religious exemption for the commissioner was not required, in part because “permitting marriage commissioners to justify refusing their statutory service on religious grounds could lead to as many eligibility tests for civil marriage as there are marriage commissioners.” The commissioner was fined $2,500 and ordered to perform same-sex marriages in the future.

California judges may perform marriages pursuant to California Family Code Section 400. (Fn. 1)

Will a judge or county face a Section 1983 law suit if a judge makes it a practice to refuse to officiate at gay marriages because he or she is a devout Catholic, Jew or Protestant and decides to follow his or her religious beliefs?

Probably. I can certainly see those lawsuits happening.

In which case, I can also see the Judicial Performance Commission sanctioning those judges who practice their religious beliefs and I can see the State of California vetting judges on the basis of whether the judge is Catholic, orthodox Jewish or traditional Protestant, which, in turn, will effectively tilt the selection process in favor of the liberal denominations and non-believers.

Imagine that, it's almost as if the secularist elite have set up a system that favors the secular elite.

If these musings pan out, then this will be another example of "coming to the nuisance."

Those who hold to a traditional religious belief will be accused of being the author of their own misfortune, although, in fact, their position hasn't moved an inch.
____________________
Fn. 1 - Actually section 400 authorizes a laundry list of categories, including "a priest, minister, or rabbi of any religious denomination", retired judges and legislators. Query whether a priest who refuses to perform gay marriages is denying a constitutional right "under color of authority" sufficient to make that priest liable under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983?

"That was quick" Update;

Central Valley Business Times reports that the Kern County Clerk's office has announced that it is out of the marriage ceremony business:

You can still get a wedding license at the Kern County Clerk of Courts office in Bakersfield, but don’t expect any ceremony.

Kern County Clerk Ann Barnett says she just doesn’t have enough staff or space and there’s that security concern so no more marriages in her office of any king – gay or straight – as of June 13, four days before the date set Wednesday by the California Supreme Court to permit same-sex marriages in the state.

Bakersfield Californian columnist Lois Henry writes that she had heard that Ms. Barnett told her staff that she “would not allow them in Kern County because of her personal beliefs.”

Ms. Barnett, in announcing the ending of all civil ceremonies by her office, refused to comment about the report.

“My staff meetings are confidential so I will neither confirm nor deny that information,” Ms. Barnett told the columnist.

“Solemnizing weddings … is discretionary on the part of the County Clerk,” a press release from Ms. Barnett’s office says. “As done in other counties, information necessary to solemnize marriages will be made available to those acquiring licenses.”

One solution to the problem of being accused of discrimination is a blanket policy denying the service to everyone.

Speaking Truth to Power

Here is a real nice "Q and A" on Archbishop Naumann's request that Kansas Governor Sebellius not present herself for Communion.

On the other hand, here is a church that is looking to lose its tax exempt status.

Insight Scoops - the blog of Ignatius Publishing - collects the statements of various California Catholic Bishops, which are quite different from the unctious toadying of the Episcopalian Bishops and not designed to reassure our robed masters of their undying loyalty to Caesar.

"From Archbishop George H. Niederauer of San Francisco:

Statement on California Supreme Court decision by Archbishop of San Francisco George H. Niederauer

In regard to this decision of the court, the Catholic Bishops of California have said that "Catholic teaching maintains that marriage is a faithful, exclusive and lifelong union between one man and one woman joined in an intimate partnership of life and love-a union instituted by God for the mutual fulfillment of the husband and wife as well as for the procreation and education of children."

This teaching of the Church follows forth from the teaching of Jesus Christ: "Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?" (Matthew 19: 4-5)

At a moment in our society when we need to reinforce the strength of marriage and family this decision of the Supreme Court takes California in the opposite direction. This action challenges those in society who believe in the importance of the traditional understanding of marriage to deepen their witness to the unique and essential role that marriage between a man and a woman has in the life of society.

From Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron of Oakland:

Message on Trinity Sunday, 2008

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

From the decision of our State Supreme Court last Thursday, we appear to be heading – at least for a time – toward a social order in which same-sex couples will be able to contract marriage. This is a profoundly significant matter. I, as your bishop, want to speak to your about it, to offer you my pastoral support and guidance.

My message today, because of circumstances, must be relatively brief. I cannot talk about all that needs to be said in a full discussion of this question. Nonetheless, I will offer some strategic points that give us a sense of our situation.

I begin with the most fundamental point: Marriage is a reality authored by God in his very act of creating the human race. According to his irrevocable plan, the marriage relationship is only possible between one man and one woman. The purposes of this relationship are (1) the mutual loving support of husband and wife and (2) their loving service of life by bringing children into the world and raising them to be virtuous and productive. The experience of history – both ancient and in our own time – has taught us that no government has the power to change the order which God has inscribed in our nature.

The conviction that same-sex couples cannot enter marriage is a conviction which all Catholics implicitly affirm when, in our baptismal promises, we profess that we share the Church’s faith that the “Father Almighty [is] the Creator of heaven and earth.”

This conviction about marriage, while confirmed by faith, can be known from reason. Therefore, our efforts to enshrine this wisdom about marriage in the laws of our community are not an imposition of an ideology but a service of the truth which we make for the common good. This wisdom about the nature of marriage is not a form of discrimination, but undergirds our freedom to live according to God’s plan for us.

Your priests and I, together with the deacons and our other co-workers, pledge to support you as you exercise your baptismal vocation. As the Second Vatican Council reminds us, God gave you the mission to configure the civil order to his design. In this way, through Christ and with the help of His Holy Spirit, you are making of this world a gift pleasing to the Father. This is the most fundamental act of your baptismal priesthood.

As I see it, the challenges ahead fall into two classes: (1) those of the short term and (2) ones for the long haul.

In regard to the short term: As faithful citizens Catholics are called to bring our laws regarding marriage into conformity with what we know about the nature of marriage.

In the long term: If such efforts fail, our way of life will become counter-cultural, always a difficult situation for Christians -- one our forebears faced in many ages past, one that the Lord himself predicted for us. Indeed, even if such efforts meet with success, our work is far from done. We would still be living in a society where many accept a set of convictions that is ultimately detrimental to the integrity of human life, with negative consequences for one’s happiness in this world and the next. Your mission then will be, as it always has been, to be a light and leaven for the new creation established in Christ. The resources of the Theology of the Body, worked out by the late Holy Father, John Paul II, will be an especially helpful resource for this task.

I will do my best, as the principal pastor of the Church in the Diocese of Oakland, to lead you in your response to this situation in the months and years ahead. And I know that your priests are one with me in pledging you this service.

Above all, let us not lose heart. As Pope John Paul II constantly reminded us: “Be not afraid.” Christ is risen. His vision for our world, and for the place of marriage in it, will, according to the time he has appointed, become the truth of our world.

Yours in Christ,

Bishop Allen Vigneron

And from the California Catholic Conference (PDF format):

SACRAMENTO – Ned Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, released the following statement on behalf of California’s Bishops and the California Catholic Conference, following the California Supreme Court’s decision declaring the state’s Defense of Marriage Act (Proposition 22) unconstitutional, thus allowing same-sex marriages to take place in California:

“The California Catholic Conference of Bishops must express its disappointment in the California Supreme Court decision to declare Proposition 22 unconstitutional.

“Proposition 22, which states, ‘Only marriage between one man and one woman is valid and recognized in California,’ passed eight years ago by a vote of 61.2 to 38.8 percent. That statute reflected the wisdom of the voters of California in retaining the traditional definition of marriage as a biological reality and a societal good. Unfortunately, today, the Court saw fit to disregard the will of the majority of people of California.

“Catholic teaching maintains that marriage is a faithful, exclusive and lifelong union between one man and one woman joined in an intimate partnership of life and love—a union instituted by God for the mutual fulfillment of the husband and wife as well as for the procreation and education of children.

“Partnerships of committed same-sex individuals are already legal in California. Our state has also granted domestic partners spousal-type rights and responsibilities which facilitate their relationships with each other and any children they bring to the partnership. Every person involved in the family of domestic partners is a child of God and deserves respect in the eyes of the law and their community. However, those partnerships are not marriage—and can never be marriage—as it has been understood since the founding of the United States. Today’s decision of California’s high court opens the door for policymakers to deconstruct traditional marriage and create another institution under the guise of equal protection.

“Although we strongly disagree with the ruling, we ask our Catholic people, as well as all the people of California, to continue to uphold the dignity of every person, to acknowledge individual rights and responsibilities, and to maintain support for the unique and irreplaceable role of traditional marriage as an institution which is fundamental to society.”

Bishop Vigneron is spot-on with his observation that Catholics - and other Christians - may soon find themselves marginalized as the "counter-cluture", an oddball minority with oddball ideas. Based on developments in constitutional law that seem to have marginalized the importance of religious conscience, while weirdly expanding the importance of physical acts involving genitalia - which is obviously what the framers of the Constitution intended all along - I'm not encouraged that our civil rights will find much protection when they run up against the sacred rights of abortion or sodomy.

Welcome to the future.

The Democrat Party at Prayer, Part 2

Mere Comments links to the Northern California Episcopalian Bishop's laudatory comments for the decision of the California Supreme Court to strip away the people's right to choose to engage in a unique social experiment.

The TEC bishop writes:

This decision gives our church another opportunity to partner with our state to ensure that all families have the support they need to build relationships that strengthen our communities, state and country.

Jesus tried to free his disciples from a narrow definition of what it means to be his follower. In Matthew 10:42, Jesus says “whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” God affirms the good in the world outside the boundaries of religious creeds and dogmas. In this spirit, we also affirm and rejoice in this decision by the California Supreme Court precisely because we are Christians.

Because Jesus was all about letting people choose their own definition of marriage...< sarcarsm >which is why He was so down with divorce. < sarcasm >

*Sheesh* Don't these people ever read?

An Objectivist's Take on Christianity and the Rise of the West

This is an e-mail I sent out in response to a friend who sent me a link to The Tragedy of Theology: How Religion Caused and Extended the Dark Ages A Critique of Rodney Stark’s The Victory of Reason by Andrew Bernstein.

I glanced at the objectivist's essay.

My take is that he knows the words, but doesn't have a clue about the music because he ignoring Stark's central point, which is that the basic principles of orthodox Christianity - as it developed in the West - are what promoted science and capitalism. The author - Andrew Bernstein - is a captive of his own cultural worldview and doesn't know or appreciate the fact that there are different Christian theologies which would have had drastically different effects on cultural development.

For example, Bernstein burns the bulk of his essay on Christian oppression of heresy without ever discussing what those heresies stood for. It seems that to Bernstein all of these heresies were about "free thought" and therefore the repression of heresies like Manichianism and Catharism are uniformly an attack on free thought.

While this viewpoint may be understandable to those of us who live in a culture with a developed understanding of science and capitalism, which takes pluralism for granted, it is idiotic to project that perspective back to a time when the scientific worldview hadn't yet caught on and for which there was no guarantee that it ever would.

In that world, the repression of Manichianism and Catharism were absolutely "good" things that allowed the development of a scientific worldview. As everyone who has spent any time studying pre-modern heresies knows, Manichianism and Catharism were based on a dualistic view of reality where spirit was "good" and matter was "bad." Matter - the perceived world - was, for these theologies, the product of an evil, twisted god who wanted to trap the good spirit in a false and illusionary existence.

A fundamental question that Bernstein might ask - but doesn't - is what is the likelihood of science - which finds truth in the external world - would develop in a world that viewed matter as illusionary and deceptive?

In fact, we know the answer - not likely. We see this - and Stark explains this - in the Asian world which took exactly that perspective and never developed science.

So, Bernstein doesn't deal with Stark's central point; he just assumes the answer that fits his parochial 21st cultural perspective.

An analogy might be with Communism. Is it really a limitation on "free thought" and a setback to science if Communists are prevented from taking over the coercive powers of government? I don't think history would support that claim.

Likewise, Bernstein points out that some of Aquinas propositions ended up on the Bishop of Paris' list of condemned propositions. This is certainly true and may represent an internecine academic squabble between the school of theology and the school of arts more than an attack on "free thought."

Nonetheless, the interesting side effect of that condemnation was that it stimulated the empirical attitude on which modern science is based. By condemning some Scholastic propositions based on logic - such as whether there could be a plurality of worlds - the Bishop unintentionally re-oriented scholars to examine the physical world, which is obviously the heart of modern science. (This isn't my eclectic interpretation; I've seen the point made by several historians of science.)

But note that the empirical potential of science was latent in Scholasticism and Christianity from the beginning because orthodox Christianity affirmed the goodness of the created world and the lawfulness of nature. Moreover, Aquinas himself taught the Scholastic doctrine that there was nothing in the mind that was not initially in the senses, which is a nice summary of empiricism. Finally, Aquinas taught that the use of human reason and the examination of nature was compatible with revelation, and not a threat to it.

These points are, of course, found in Stark and missed in Bernstein, who undoubtedly assumes the modern view that progress to science was inevitable, which it wasn't.

I have a problem with Bernstein's claim Europe experienced no economic growth between 500 AD and 1500 AD. Obviously, the Europe of, say, 1350 was economically more powerful and better developed than the Europe of 800 AD in terms of banking, industry, commerce, technology. So, what is Bernstein's point?

Perhaps Bernstein's point is to cherry pick data. Yes, there was the Black Death and there were certainly famines at points in European history, but the significant thing is that Europe recovered from the Black Death in a way that Justinian's empire did not recover from a similar epidemic in the 600s. Could the reason for the difference have been the improvements in technology, commerce etc. that Stark cites?

Yup.

Bernstein is also faking some of his claims. He writes, for example, No one could match his “knowledge” of angels, and he devoted far more of his massive Summa Theologica to them than to physics.

Uhmmmm....not so much.

I was surprised to find that despite his nickname, the "angelic doctor" doesn't spend all that much time on angels in the Summa. Out of something like 600 questions in the Summa, his chapter on angels amounts to 14 questions (albeit the subject does crop up in a few other questions.)

On the other hand, the Summa is littered with discussions of Aristotelian physics, such as whether light is a body. Interestingly, Thomas gets the answer wrong – he says it is not – but he gets it wrong for perfectly rational reasons based on the observed data!!!!

Thomas writes:

The second reason is from movement. For if light were a body, its diffusion would be the local movement of a body. Now no local movement of a body can be instantaneous, as everything that moves from one place to another must pass through the intervening space before reaching the end: whereas the diffusion of light is instantaneous. Nor can it be argued that the time required is too short to be perceived; for though this may be the case in short distances, it cannot be so in distances so great as that which separates the East from the West.

Alas, Thomas didn’t have atomic clocks or lasers in the 13th Century in order to accurately measure very fast and very small things.

Nonetheless, we ought to give credit to Thomas for doing pretty well with the observations he was able to make with what he had available to him.

But note that Bernstein’s oservation that ” Reason is an observation-based methodology” to dismiss Aquinas is bogus. In fact, Bernstein is guilty of the sin he accuses Thomas of: rather than going to the data, Bernstein has concluded from “logic” what he expected to find.

Thomas’ interest in physics shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who takes some time to think about the subject. Thomas is deeply indebted to Aristotelian metaphysics, which are dependent on Aristotelian physics.

D’uh!

Finally, Bernstein's appreciation of Aristotle is ironic. I think it is terrific that Bernstein finds a great deal of value in Aristotle's contribution to the rise of science and rationality in Europe, but I know that Aristotle has taken a great beating among the heirs of the Enlightenment every since around 1600 and, today, the only place that one can find any kind of Aristotelian rationality is not among post-modern academicians, but in the Catholic Church which maintains a living continuity - as it has for the last two thousand years - with classical philosophy.

Those are my quick thoughts on this Friday morning.

Church and State

In 1984, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that a church's "absolute privilege" to discipline members ended when that member left the church.

Here is an interesting passage:

¶16 While the Court in Watson unequivocally banned judicial scrutiny of purely ecclesiastical decisions,20 it has since discussed the possibility of "marginal civil court review" of these disputes. In Gonzalez v. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila21 the Court stated:

"In the absence of fraud, collusion, or arbitrariness, the decisions of the proper church tribunals on matters purely ecclesiastical, although affecting civil rights, are accepted in litigation before the secular courts as conclusive, because the parties in interest made them so by contract or otherwise. Under like circumstances, effect is given in the courts to the determinations of the judicatory bodies established by clubs and civil associations."

In a later case, Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese, Etc. v. Milivojevich,22 the Court announced that its Gonzalez "fraud, collusion, or arbitrariness" exception was dictum only, concluding that:

"whether or not there is room for `marginal civil court review' under the narrow rubrics of `fraud' or `collusion' when church tribunals act in bad faith for secular purposes, no `arbitrariness' exception - in the sense of an inquiry whether the decisions of the highest ecclesiastical tribunal of a hierarchical church complied with church laws and regulations - is consistent with the constitutional mandate that civil courts are bound to accept the decisions of the highest judicatories of a religious organization of a hierarchical polity on matters of discipline, faith, internal organization, or ecclesiastical [775 P.2d 773] rule, custom, or law."23

In Serbian the Court held that:

"the First and Fourteenth Amendments permit hierarchical religious organizations to establish their own rules and regulations for internal discipline and government, and to create tribunals for adjudicating disputes over these matters. When this choice is exercised and ecclesiastical tribunals are created to decide disputes over the government and direction of subordinate bodies, the Constitution requires that civil courts accept their decisions as binding upon them."24

Although the Court has explicitly eliminated an "arbitrariness" exception to the rule that civil courts are prohibited from adjudicating religious disputes, whether these tribunals are still constitutionally permitted to review final ecclesiastical decisions for "fraud" or "collusion" has not recently been revisited.

And:

31 By voluntarily uniting with the church, she impliedly consented to submitting to its form of religious government, but did not thereby consent to relinquishing a right which the civil law guarantees her as its constitutionally protected value. The intentional and voluntary relinquishment of a known right required for a finding of an effective waiver was never established. On the record before us Parishioner - a sui juris person - removed herself from the Church of Christ congregation rolls the moment she communicated to the Elders that she was withdrawing from membership.43

Also see the Church Discipline blog.

The Democrat Party at Prayer

Here is the statement by the Episcopalian Bishop of Los Angeles on last week's California Supreme Court gay marriage ruling:

Today's Supreme Court decision on same-gender relationships is important because it reflects our baptismal vow to "strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being" and our commitment to justice and mercy for all people.

The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has been a leader in working for the rights of all people in the State of California, and that work is honored in today's ruling. The canons of our church, under "Rights of the Laity" (Canon 1:17.5), forbid discrimination on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, disabilities or age. We affirm equal rights for all.

We will continue to advocate for equality in the future and will do so at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, which will meet in Anaheim in 2009.

I celebrate and give thanks for this decision of the court and look forward with joy and excitement to a future of justice and mercy for all people in the State of California and the Episcopal Church.

To paraphrase St. Paul, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, gay nor straight in Jesus Christ our Lord.

--(The Rt. Rev.) J. Jon Bruno is Bishop of Los Angeles

Sure, it's all peace and love, until those who disagree want to leave with the property that they have spent generations paying for...and then it's to Hell with the apostates.

Sweet.

Update:

This comment to the above post is interesting:

Bp. Bruno’s statement was crafted mainly and perhaps brilliantly for one prime purpose: to curry favor with the California Supreme Court same-sex-marriage justices who with their colleagues on the bench are considering an appeal in a case involving estranged Episcopal parishes in his diocese. The decision in that case will determine whether church property disputes in California are to be settled in deference to the hierarchy (a win for Bp. Bruno, KJS, et al ) or according to neutral principles of law (the people win).

Does anyone know if some of those justices are Episcopalians?

Given the fact that the majority went out on a long limb to rule in favor of same sex marriage, and considering how weak the rationale was for the decision, you have to wonder if the majority won't appreciate the kind words offered by one of the litigants in the Episcopalian church property case now pending before California Supreme Court.

Established Churches in America.

We are doing a "Reformed Church of America" property case, and I just learned that the reason that the Reformed Church of America ("RCA") does not have a "trust clause" in its "Book of Church Order" seems to arise from the fact that the RCA, which derived from the Dutch Reformed Church, may have been one of the "established churches" of New York state.

Obviously, the Dutch Reformed Church was the established church of old "New Amsterdam." When the English won "New York," England agreed to respect Dutch Reformed property and recognize Dutch Reformed "discipline." The legal relationship of the RCA was up for discussion with the American Revolution when the Anglican establishment was severed from England, and it seems that RCA legal rights were written into the new New York constitution.

I need to find that constitutional provision.

Poking around, I found this interesting site on the established churches after the Revolutionary War. It is amazing how accepted the idea of established churches were in Revolutionary America, and how long they lasted - at least, de jure - after the Revolution.

Here is a nice graphic on the point:



For example, the 1775 North Carolina constitution had the following provision, which was in effect until the 1877 Constitution was adopted:

Article XXXII. That no person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.

Not to be outdone, New Hampshire had this provision in its Constitution from 1784 to 1877:

Senate. Provided, nevertheless, That no person shall be capable of being elected a senator who is not of the Protestant religion...

House of Representatives. Every member of the house of representatives... shall be of the Protestant religion...

President. [H]e shall be of the Protestant religion."

Maryland ended its requirement that elected officials had to be Christian in 1867. There is this interesting provision from the 1776 Constitution:

leaving to each individual the power of appointing the payment over of the money, collected from him, to the support of any particular place of worship or minister, or for the benefit of the poor of his own denomination, or the poor in general of any particular county: but the churches, chapels, globes, and all other property now belonging to the church of England, ought to remain to the church of England forever...

I wonder if the reluctance of the American Revolutionary governments to seize the property of the established churches is one of the many distinguishing marks between the American and other revolutions?

Crocodile Tears

Pope Benedict's visit to America has refreshed interest in the "pedophile priest" scandal. I have a post on Bill Maher's obnoxious comments below. Likewise, JohnMark at Beggars All - a "Reformed" blog - blogs about a movie on the Catholic scandal which he said "My wife and I watched this movie in disbelief with our jaws dropped. I recommend it be watched with caution as it is a very difficult movie to watch." And Christopher Hitchens recouns the scandal with great zeal.

Is it unfair to point out that those who seem most excited about the Catholic scandal are - to put it mildly - not friends of the Catholic Church? That they might have some stake in waiving the "bloody shirt" other than seeing justice done to miscreants and for the victims?

Because, obviously, there are those who have a deep psychic investment in seeing their bete noir villified as much as possible, and if playing on tropes, themes and stereotypes achieves that end, the more the better.

Bu this is a serious thing indeed for those who are tarred by the "guilt by association" game. I remember the elderly monsigneur at my church sobbing as he explained to the parishioners how mothers would caution their children to stay away from him after the media began the drumbeat of stories about "pedophile priests."

This experience highlights the human cost of those who are unfairly stigmatized through "guilt by association." The game of guilt by association is particularly obnoxious insofar as it reinforces a false and invidious public belief that pedophilia and the related cover-up are somehow a "Catholic problem."

That stereotype is false as non-Catholic scholar, Phillip Jenkins has observed:

My research of cases over the past 20 years indicates no evidence whatever that Catholic or other celibate clergy are any more likely to be involved in misconduct or abuse than clergy of any other denomination -- or indeed, than nonclergy. However determined news media may be to see this affair as a crisis of celibacy, the charge is just unsupported.

Literally every denomination and faith tradition has its share of abuse cases, and some of the worst involve non-Catholics. Every mainline Protestant denomination has had scandals aplenty, as have Pentecostals, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Buddhists, Hare Krishnas -- and the list goes on. One Canadian Anglican (Episcopal) diocese is currently on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of massive lawsuits caused by decades of systematic abuse, yet the Anglican church does not demand celibacy of its clergy.

However much this statement contradicts conventional wisdom, the "pedophile priest" is not a Catholic specialty. Yet when did we ever hear about "pedophile pastors"?

In his book Pedophiles and Priests, Jenkins stated his opinion that between .2 and 1.7 percent of priests are pedophiles, but that the same figure among the Protestant clergy ranges between 2 and 3 percent.

But, strangely, no mother cautions her child to stay away from Protestant pastors.

It is notable that those who are most strenuous in their condemnation of the Catholic Church have nothing to say about the problem of pedophilia in the American education system.

This is particularly odd because the scope of pedophilia in public schools dwarfs that found in the Catholic Church. I took depositions in one case where a teacher who had surrendered his license because of accusations of pedophilia had the administarion from another school district "go to bat" to get his license back; the entire process was tinged with "deniability" by those involved as to the truth of the charges. A study by Charol Shakeshaft on the de facto conspiracy to conceal pedophile schoolteachers vindicates my anecdotal observations. According to her report, moving molesting teachers from school district to school district is a common phenomenon. And in only 1 percent of the cases do superintendents notify the new school district. (See here for sources.) According to the Shakeshaft report, 6 to 10% of school children experience sexual abuse at the hands of teachers.

The silence of Protestants and Atheists on this subject is particularly noteworthy since these people are taxpayers and voters and therefore actually have some responsibility and control over the educational system.

In that vein, Mark Shea has noted the curious situation of those who condemn the Vatican for not taking action that we, the people, are also not taking:

So, from where I sit, we are left with this: Failing to summarily fire bishops whom even we laypeople (who own all the guns, run all the police forces, staff all the courts, and manage all the jails) have not opted to charge with any crimes, what is it people are asking the Pope to do? As far as I can tell, they are demanding that the one person in the world whose job, more than any other, is to proclaim the mercy of God do our job for us by administering some sort of vague but severe punishment for something we will not, ourselves, punish (and which we in many cases celebrate, namely a laissez faire attitude toward our sex lives, including the sex lives of our kids).

I'm all for jailing bishops who have committed crimes. But, see, that's *our* job as laypeople and we have basically decided we can't or won't do that. I'm not a lawyer and I have no idea of the legal guilt of this or that bishop. But I do know something about the gospel and it seems to me that if we laypeople don't think we have a case against the bishops beyond their being dumb, shady, slick, and disingenuous, then I don't see how it is the Pope's task to be more merciless than we are.

Certainly, everyone can agree that sexual abuse is a scandal, whether the culprit is Protestant, Catholic or a school teacher. Addressing that problem requires clear thinking. The goal of solving the problem is not furthered by layering myths and stereotypes around the subject for polemical purposes.

Update:

Here is an informative dismantling of the prevalent claim that Benedict issued an order that sex abuse be covered up.

Jonah Goldberg explains why the "Darwin fish" is obnoxious.

I've had the same reaction to the enlightened, tolerant types who think that mocking my religious symbols is the height of bravery or intelligence.

During a 1991 visit to Istanbul, a buddy and I found ourselves in a small restaurant drinking, dancing and singing with a bunch of middle-class Turkish businessmen, mostly shop owners. It was a hilariously joyful evening, even though they spoke nearly no English and we spoke considerably less Turkish.

At the end of the night, after imbibing unquantifiable quantities of raki, an ouzo-like Turkish liquor, one of the men came up to me and gave me a worn-out business card. On the back, he'd scribbled an image. It was little more than a curlicue, but he seemed intent on showing it to me (and nobody else). It was, I realized, a Jesus fish.

It was an eye-opening moment for me, though obviously trivial compared with the experiences of others. Here in this cosmopolitan and self-styled European city, this fellow felt the need to surreptitiously clue me in that he was a Christian just like me (or so he thought).

Traditionally, the fish pictogram conjures the miracle of the loaves and fishes as well as the Greek word IXOYE, which not only means fish but serves as an acronym, in Greek, for "Jesus Christ the Son of God [Is] Savior." Christians persecuted by the Romans used to draw the Jesus fish in the dirt with a stick or a finger as a way to tip off fellow Christians that they weren't alone.

In America, the easiest place to find this ancient symbol is on the back of cars. Recently, however, it seems as if Jesus fish have become outnumbered by Darwin fish. No doubt you've seen these too. The fish symbol is "updated" with little feet coming off the bottom, and "IXOYE" or "Jesus" is replaced with either "Darwin" or "Evolve."

I find Darwin fish offensive. First, there's the smugness. The undeniable message: Those Jesus fish people are less evolved, less sophisticated than we Darwin fishers.

The hypocrisy is even more glaring. Darwin fish are often stuck next to bumper stickers promoting tolerance or admonishing random motorists that "hate is not a family value." But the whole point of the Darwin fish is intolerance; similar mockery of a cherished symbol would rightly be condemned as bigoted if aimed at blacks or women or, yes, Muslims.

As Christopher Caldwell once observed in the Weekly Standard, Darwin fish flout the agreed-on etiquette of identity politics. "Namely: It's acceptable to assert identity and abhorrent to attack it. A plaque with 'Shalom' written inside a Star of David would hardly attract notice; a plaque with 'Usury' written inside the same symbol would be an outrage."

But the most annoying aspect of the Darwin fish is the false bravado it represents. It's a courageous pose without consequence. Like so much other Christian-baiting in American popular culture, sporting your Darwin fish is a way to speak truth to power on the cheap.

These observatons show particular empathy inasmuch as the symbol is not part of Goldberg's tradition.