Sermon for the Feast of All Saints

Overflow Space
The Feast of All Saints
Revelation 7:9-17
November 1, 2009

Dear friends in Christ: Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Despite his theology, one of my more liberal seminary professors preached one of the best ordination sermons I have ever heard.

He spoke of the angelic hosts gathered to watch the evening’s events, and the saints and martyrs met to ratify what was done in the Wartburg Seminary Chapel. He spoke of the smoke and the incense surrounding the throne of God, and its wafting and swirling and reaching from the heights of heaven down to the little congregation in the chapel. He spoke of angels waiting on tiptoe to behold the wondrous event of a servant of the eternal Word being commissioned to carry the Gospel into the world, and the apostles and martyrs gathered together to give their blessing to their successor. He evoked Augustine and Ambrose, Polycarp and Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom and Justin Martyr, Luther and Melanchthon and all the great theologians of history, all gathered together with us to join in on the sending of Don to proclaim the same message they had proclaimed, and to impart the same truths they had imparted.

He painted the scene so skillfully that we could imagine the heavens opened, and all those he named looking down upon us, and upon Don, and the very universe holding its breath as God sent His servant to bear His Word into the world. And at the very height of his rhetoric, he paused.

“But wait a minute,” he said. “It’s just Don!”

Yes, it was just Don- the guy we’d had classes with, and eaten our meals with, and socialized with, and seen unshaved more times than we could mention as he stumbled out of bed to grab breakfast before the refectory closed. It was just Don- just plain, ordinary Don- a nice enough guy, to be sure, but no august personage or dazzling celebrity. Just Don, our friend and classmate.  Just everyday, ordinary Don.

And yet, the professor pointed out, all of the other things were also true. This was an occasion every bit as momentous as he had implied, and the saints in light did indeed join their voices to ours in praising God for sending another witness into the world.

Today is the day when the Church celebrates the saints. To be sure, Augustine and Ambrose and Polycarp and Ignatius and Perpetua and Luther and Chemnitz and Gerhard and all the other heroes of Church history are among them. So are the Apostles. So are the Prophets. But wait a minute! So are Grandpa and Grandma, and Mom and Dad. So is that Sunday School teacher who taught you all those Bible stories, and perhaps the pastor who confirmed you. So are the every-day, unglamorous, unremarkable and- if the truth be told- imperfect saints whom God has sent into your life to set your feet upon the path of grace.

Yes, all those glorious heroes of the Faith are among those we commemorate today. But not a single one of them earned their place in the heavenly chorus by their profound theology or compelling witness, by their personal virtues, or even by the shedding of their blood. The source of the holiness of all the Holy Ones is the same and His Name is Jesus.

It is not merely the great saints of history the Church remembers today, Nor is it even the unsung heroes of our own spiritual lives. It’s also you and me- all of those who, baptized into Christ and living their baptism in daily contrition and repentance, nourished by the body and blood of Christ received in the Sacrament and sustained by Holy Absolution and the support of their fellow saints, have Jesus within them, living His life and doing His work, making them holy by the imputation of His own holiness by grace, received by faith.

There are many who down through the years have claimed a place among the high and mighty host who join their voices to ours this and every Sunday in the praise of that grace and in giving glory to the Lord Who loved us and gave Himself for us on the basis of their own wisdom, their own struggles, there own moral discipline, their own holy lives, and their own remarkable qualities. But they are absent from that Host on high. No, on the contrary, those who belong to the heavenly chorus that joins its praises to ours this morning are the poor in spirit, not those who put themselves forward; those who do not glory, but rather mourn- and so receive the comfort which can only come from the One Who bore in His own body the sins and sorrows of the world; not the bold and assertive, but the meek; not those who are full of themselves, but those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They are those who have loved mercy, and who have single-mindedly sought not their own glory or their own agenda, but God’s Kingdom and God’s will. They are those who have been hurt, and who have every reason to strike back, but instead turn the other cheek, and seek not revenge or even justice, but peace. They are the insulted and the mocked and the spoken against and the despised and the persecuted. They are people remarkable for how unremarkable they are, and imposing precisely in their insignificance, as the world measures such things.

But they shine like the stars, imbued with the righteousness of Another, the holiness of Another, the power of Another, the glory of Another. They are those who, like their Master, have humbled themselves, and walked the path of the cross.

And now, as the glory of the world turns to riches and the achievements and boasts of those who cut a figure in his world turn into dust, it is their turn to shine. It is their turn to rejoice, and to dazzle the universe with a light that is no less brilliant for its being reflected from the One Who is the source of their joy and their glory, just as He is the source of their righteousness and their holiness. Today, the ordinary, the everyday, the insignificant, the expendable, and the unremarkable who forever bask in the glory of the Son of God- and reflect it, too- are in a very real sense here with us this morning.

That’s one of the neat things about belonging to one of the liturgical churches. As I pointed out last Wednesday night during Confirmation class, the liturgy with which we worship had its origins in the Catacombs during the earliest days of the Church. The language may be different, and the surroundings may be different, but when we chant or recite the words of the liturgy we are using the very same words the martyrs used to worship God. Justin Martyr not only used these very words, but wrote down one of the earliest accounts of their use. Athanasius and Augustine and Ambrose and Luther all used these very words- and so did Grandma and Grandpa, and that Sunday School teacher, and that pastor.

In my previous parishes, it has been my custom to either decorate the pulpit and the font and other convenient spots in the church with small and very crude banners I’ve made, or with much more attractive ones more artistically talented members of the congregation have made, commemorating members of the congregation who have transferred to the Church Triumphant the previous year. Each of them has borne the title “Saint,” their first name, and the day of what has been traditionally treated as a saint’s real birthday, the date of their entrance into eternal life. Each banner has also borne some appropriate symbol of their vocation or their life.

Part of the idea has been to celebrate their presence among the saints in reflected Light, shining, no matter how ordinary and familiar they may have been, with the holiness and glory of Christ, and sharing in His joy to all eternity. But there’s also another purpose those banners have served. They also have served as a visible reminder that those very people, though absent from our eyes, are nonetheless with us in the Divine Service.

There has been talk of cutting a hole in the wall and using the space next store as “overflow space.” But there is plenty of overflow space here this morning, as small as this building is. And it’s no less real for being unseen.

It’s an amazing and comforting thought: when we lift our voices in worship on this and every other Lord’s Day, those who occupy that unseen “overflow space” join their voices to ours. Grandpa and Grandma are among them, and Mom and Dad, and beloved aunts and uncles and cousins and friends and Sunday School teachers and pastors.

The Apostles are there, too- and Augustine and Athanasius and Polycarp and Ignatius and Luther and Walther. We who worship in the same words the Western Church has used down through the ages have special reason to bear in mind that it is no empty conceit that every Sunday the pastor prays in the Preface, “Therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven we laud and magnify Thy glorious Name.”

The mystery we celebrate today- the mystery of the Communion of Saints- tells us that simple, ordinary, unprepossessing people like the ones who have nurtured our bodies and souls and been our companions on our pilgrimage here on earth are none other than the very saints of God, who shine with the reflected glory of the One Who has made His righteousness theirs by grace, through faith- and they shine with a splendor for which words cannot be found. But more than that, it tells us that even though we continue to struggle and to suffer in this veil of tears, for all our mourning and our poverty of spirit, for all that people laugh at us and take advantage of us and look down upon us and treat us badly, we, too, are among that company. In our weakness and our daily struggle with sin, we nonetheless share in Christ’s righteousness and Christ’s holiness. Through the Word, through the Sacraments, through Holy Absolution and through the mutual conversation and consolation of our fellow saints, Christ is being formed in us just as He was formed in them- and some day, if we remain faithful, we will shine just as they do.

Scripture does not tell us that they are aware personally aware of the events of our lives, and even hints that they are not. Far less does it teach us to pray to them. Yet they are with us even so, these saints who have gone before us. They join their voices to ours in worship and praise, across the ages and across the great divide between heaven and earth. And one day we will fully share their joy, and faith will give way to sight, and reunited to our loved ones who have gone before us we will sing the praises of God and the Lamb throughout eternity.

But the mystery of the Communion of Saints has another comfort for us: the knowledge that even as we continue to walk our dreary path thorough this sad and sorry world, their voices are already joined to ours in praise and worship, and the righteousness and glory with which they shine are ours, too, through our common faith in the One Who has included us all in His one Church, and through the everlasting life of the One Who binds us together even when time and death itself seem to separate us.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

The wrong question, and the right question

Today is the Festival of the Reformation. On this day in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, beginning the restoration of the apostolic Gospel to center stage in the life of the Church after a long exile to the periphery. On that day, the Church began to remember that the Faith is about Jesus, and not about us; that His activity, and not ours, is decisive.

Those who ask, "What Would Jesus Do?" miss the point of this day- and of that apostolic Gospel. The point is not what Jesus would do if He were in our shoes. The point is what He has already done for the ones who are already in our shoes- us.

Those who seek to make their lives "purpose driven" miss the point that it is God Who accomplishes His purposes in our lives, not by our own striving but by His almighty power in hearts which look, not to their own preparations or efforts, but to the One Who lives His life in and through those whose faith is not in their own activity, but in His finished work.

Those whose eyes contemplate their own spiritual navels are many in today's "Protestantism." It would be well for them to read the 95 Theses, and contemplate Luther's observation that it is repentance, and not achievement, which is the warp and woof of the Christian life, and the central truth of our Faith: that we are not only justified but sanctified by grace alone, through faith alone, for Christ's sake alone.

No, "What Would Jesus Do?" is not the question. The question is "What Has Jesus Done?" He who apprehends the answer to that question, and trusts it, need not wonder what Jesus would do in his shoes, because Jesus lives in Him- and is already doing it.

Meet the Ricketts family

As Rick Morrissey points out, the Cubs are finally owned by Cub fans. Perhaps that will make a difference.

In any case, the Ricketts family seem not only to be nice people with whom Cub fans like me can identify, but fellow sufferers from the incurable illness of loyalty  to a team whose management has not always through the years always seemed to put nearly as high a priority on the club's success as we did. Whether P.K. Wrigley, a fine gentleman who unfortunately was clueless where baseball was concerned, or the Chicago Tribune, a corporate entity for whom the bottom line was measured in dollars and cents rather than wins and losses- the management of the team has seldom seemed to be on the same page as the most dedicated fandom in all of sports, for whom a world championship would be not merely a notch on a corporate gunhandle or a nice thing for the city, but an event right up there with birth, marriage and death as a life event.

One gets the feeling that Tom Ricketts would greet a World Series victory for the Cubs the same way, and that's an awful nice feeling to get from a Cubs owner for a change.

Finally!

The sale of the Cubs is now complete. Tom Ricketts now owns the team, And like any new administration, his deserves our support until and unless he shows that he doesn't deserve it.

Maybe things will change now, and we'll finally get to grab the brass ring sometime soon.

Gotta root for the Phillies.

The World Series this year isn't exactly good versus evil. But it's something versus evil.

Philadelphia versus evil, perhaps.

So much for the Bears

The Bengals are a good team, but that doesn't matter. After yesterday's embarrassment, any illusion that my Bears are a playoff team- or even a particularly good one- are dashed, Cutler or not.

We need an O-line and a defense before anything like the hope that we Bear fans had going into this season will be justified. And that, I fear, will take a while to arrange, even if the front office resolutely sets about that task this very day in a focused and determined fashion.

Hah.

RIP, Atvar

Atvar, aka "Big Guy," my ornate uromastyx (he's the hatchling on the left), has apparently crossed the Rainbow Bridge at the age of seven.

I'll miss him a lot.

Sermon for Reformation Sunday

THE TRUTH IS A PERSON

Reformation Sunday
October 25, 2009
John 8:31-3

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

Dear friends in Christ: Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Ever since the ELCA convention last month, it's been even more fashionable than usual for more Lutheran Lutherans than they to bash the ELCA for not abiding in the Word.

I have absolutely no doubt that sometimes we've been more vehement than we needed to be, and maybe even a little nasty. More than that, I have absolutely no doubt that there have been times when I have personally let my frustration spill over into rhetoric which was less than helpful.

Part of the problem is the Pharisee in us- the part that thanks God that we are not as the ELCA is. But part of it, too, is the recognition that we are surrounded by professing Christians who feel no particular obligation to continue in Christ's Word. They're perfectly willing to tell us that, though seldom in those precise words. And it's hardly just the "liberals" among whom that tendency prevails.

We hear from our fellow conservative Christians that we confessional Lutherans need to "lighten up" about the Real Presence and baptismal regeneration and the other issues which divide us from Protestant Evangelicalism. Some argue that only matters which directly affect the salvation of individual souls ought to be church divisive. Others suggest that there's a sort of Great Consensus among those of us who want to be biblical Christians, and that whatever we disagree about beyond that consensus can't really be important- or at least as important as making a united witness to the world.

I well remember the afternoon over at Faith Lutheran on University in West Des Moines when Bishop Hougen and the clergy of the ELCA's Southeastern Iowa Synod gathered to discuss our view of truth. We were presented with three possible attitudes toward the truth which some in the Church hold. One was the traditional notion that truth is, at least to some extent, knowable. The second was Modernism- the idea that while there is indeed such a thing as truth, it's finally unknowable. And finally, there was Post-Modernism- the idea that there really is no such thing as "truth."

The presenter asked for a show of hands. Exactly two hands went up when he asked how many of us believed that truth was knowable- mine, and, interestingly, Bishop Hougen's. The overwhelming majority of the pastors present declared their belief in Modernism- in the notion that truth was unknowable. It still seems incredible to me, but there was even a substantial number whose confession was that there simply is no such thing as truth.

How can you not be frustrated in the face of that? These men- and women- had sworn at their ordination to conform their teaching to the Scriptures and the Confessions, and most of all to the Truth in its ultimate form: the Word made flesh, the Truth become a human being named Jesus, Who lived in a definite place and time and spoke certain definite words and made certain specific claims about- yes- truth. But more than that, Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be the Truth- and the Way, and the Life, too, and the only way by which human beings can come to the Father.

There are those who deny that Jesus ever lived- despite the fact that His life is far better attested than that of, say, Socrates. To question that He lived isn't really intellectually respectable, but people do it anyway. Others want to pretend that He was a Great Religious Teacher, on a par with the Buddah or Confucius or Mohammed. C.S. Lewis pointed out that a man who made the claims that He made, and made them falsely, could either be the greatest fraud the world has ever known or a lunatic on a par with the man who believes himself to be a poached egg, but never a great religious teacher or even merely an ethical man.

But in this Oprahfied and intellectually nihilistic world, even those who claim to be His followers deny that there is such a thing as truth. That being the case, it can hardly surprise us when the clear and consistent testimony of Scripture with regard to human sexuality is set aside by some of those very people.

But that it shouldn't surprise us doesn't make it less frustrating. How can a person confess the One Who claims to be the Truth with one side of his mouth, and deny that there is such a thing as truth with the other? How can a person claim to be His disciple, and yet disregard what He has to say about the binding nature of the Moral Law?

I don't know. How can we?

Because we do, you know- and just as blatantly as those in the ELCA we like to point our fingers at. It's certainly both puzzling and disturbing that some can have such compassion for the poor and for discriminated against minorities, and so little for the unborn. But is it not just as great a contradiction to be filled with compassion for the unborn, and to fail to have the same compassion for the poor and for the other victims of social injustice?

We accuse others of picking and choosing what they accept in the teachings of Jesus and what they reject. And so they do. But so do we. Sectarianism is as much a sin as syncretism. A failure to confess what unity we have with other Christians, and to combine our confession of the truth when they err with charity and a due regard for the Eighth Commandment is as much a denial of the Truth Himself as a willingness to be accomplices in the trivialization or denial of what He taught us.

All too often we judge not only doctrine and behavior, but people. The Truth made flesh forbids that. And in our daily interaction with our fellow human beings both inside and outside the household of Faith, we are often so certain of our own rectitude and insistent upon our own rights that we forget that Jesus came to call, not the righteous, but sinners- and that to assign ourselves a place with the righteous is to define ourselves outside of those for whom He came. All to often we forget that the Truth bids us empty ourselves as He did, and humble ourselves, and be willing to take the role of the transgressor and to suffer all that it entails even when we do not deserve it, for the sake of the other.

A pastor I know remarked in a sermon on this text a few years ago that all of the problems the Church faces finally boil down to a failure to continue in Christ's Word. But I think it goes beyond that. I do not say that our lives would be filled with nonstop ease and joy if only we continued in His Word. To say that would be a lie. His way is the way of the cross. His way is a way of suffering. His way is a path of self-renunciation and self-denial. The cross is the greatest of all truths. To be a follower of Jesus is to share His Cross. "When Christ calls a man," as Bonhoeffer once wrote, "He bids him come and die."

But our failure to be who Christ calls us to be, and thus to ultimately share in the joy that only those who bear the cross with Him can know, always comes finally from our failure to continue in His Word. If we are in slavery to sin and to bad habits and even to pride and self-righteousness, it's not because we don't try hard enough or haven't managed to summon up the willpower. It's because we refuse to die.

But die we must. To continue in Jesus's Word is to die daily to sin and self-righteousness, and to the temptation to thank God that we are not like those who do not continue in His Word. To continue in Jesus' Word is to accept its accusation, and its condemnation, in all its sternness and gravity.

But it is also to rise daily, just as He rose. Yes, the cross hurts. And yes, the cross is central to what it means to continue in Christ's word. Yet it was through the cross that He bought our pardon for our failure to be what He is, and to continue in His Word. It was through the cross that Christ came to rise again, as He bids us rise, living in the forgiveness and righteousness that He purchased for us on the cross, living in the freedom that can only come when all that is selfish and self-centered and proud and willful in us is crucified with Christ, and we live as what His word proclaims us to be: righteous, not with a righteousness of our own, but with His, and living a life that is His, having laid down our own at the foot of the cross.

And that, you see, is finally what continuing in His Word is all about: living as what that Word declares us to be. His Word declares we who are by nature slaves of sin to be free, to be sons and not slaves; for His sake to be beloved and accepted where for our own sake we deserve only to be judged and to be condemned.

We are surely right to insist on the Real Presence, and that the New Birth takes place just as Jesus says it does, by water and the Spirit. Those are important truths for those of us who daily lay down our own lives in our baptism, to rise again living His, and who receive His forgiveness and His very life in His very body and blood in the Supper. But to continue in Christ's word- to be free- is more than having our doctrine straight. It is to recognize our need for mercy, and to trust in the mercy offered us in Christ. And it is to live as people who daily die to any claim to know the truth apart from the One Who both died and rose to justify ungodly folk such as we confess ourselves- apart from Him- to be.

It is to lay down our lives and any claim to be in the right, and to live instead as forgiven sinners whose only righteousness is Jesus, is to continue in His word. To do that is to know the One Who is alone the Truth, and Who alone can set us free.

May the peace of God, that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

A deficit in leadership?

Back in 1960, an inexperienced and frankly unqualified playboy senator was opposed by an extremely talkative former Minneapolis mayor, an old line wheeler and dealer of a Senate Majority Leader, and a twice-defeated political dilettante from Illinois for the Democratic presidential nomination. We might well have wondered where all the great American leaders had gone.

Except that from the viewpoint of 2009, a choice between John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey, and Adlai E. Stevenson doesn't look all that bad.

David Gergen thinks we have a deficit in leadership these days- that Americans just aren't producing potential presidents like we have in the past. I think he's wrong. Granted, we have a deficit in leadership in the White House right now. But I suspect that every generation wonders why the leaders who will look like giants to future generations don't measure up to those of the past.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Obama alienates France

French President Nicholas Sarkozy came to office as a vocal pro-American. But the incredible ineptitude of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy has needlessly alienated him, and caused him to recalculate his posture in the world.

HT: Drudge

The first eight minutes of 'V'

This one got good reviews.

Premieres Nov. 3 on ABC.

Nothing purple about Obama

Tom Bevan has an interesting article over at Real Clear Politics on the contrast between the president Barack Obama said he'd be, and the president he's actually turned out to be.

Even more interesting is the number of Obamaphiles who- against all the evidence- continue to crow that their man is somehow trying to "bring us together."

Happy birthday, universe

According to the calculations of 17th Century Irish Bishop James Ussher, the Six Days of Creation began on October 23, 4004 B.C.

Of course, the presuppositions which led him to that conclusion- which included a duration for the universe of exactly 6000 years- meant that the world should have ended in 2004. We're apparently living on borrowed time.

Actually, whether one accepts Bishop Ussher's thesis or not, as I look around me I can't escape the conclusion that he was at least right about that much.

Poor Jesse!

First Barack Obama gets elected president- and deprives him of any claim to be the leader of black America.

And now this:



As the author of the blog where I found this points out, however, of one thing we can be certain: he is somebody..

HT: Iowa's Newz Liter

I love the Blackhawks' ads this year!

The team they're playing has by far the lamest name this side of the Iowa Chops. But still...



HT: @ChiBlackhawks

'Immature and thin-skinned'

The San Diego Union Tribune has editorialized that the Obama administration's Alinskyite war on Fox News brands it as "immature and thin-skinned."

HT: Real Clear Politics

Olbermann busted!

Meanwhile, Ann Coulter has busted Keith Olbermann for using a phonied-up version of Bush 41's "Willie Horton ad" to support his scurrilous claim that it was racist.

The actual ad never mentioned Horton's race, and never showed his picture. Moreover, all the "criminals" in the ad were white. But Olbermann used an altered version of the ad containing a picture of Horton to make his argument about how terribly racist conservatives are.

HT: Drudge

On the other hand....

...no sooner has POTUS given the word chutzpah a new definition by claiming that Republicans "do what they're told" and Democrats "think for themselves" than his press secretary threatens to go him one better.

Mr. Gibbs calls President Obama's indecisiveness about Afghanistan "his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform," while claiming that Dick Cheney failed our men and women in uniform by not being "focused" on Afghanistan during the previous administration!

I think it was Goebbels who said that the more outrageous the lie, the more people will believe it. Certainly that principle seems to be animating the administration these last couple of days!

Democrats do what!?

Hey. Listen for yourself. If I hadn't heard it with my own ears...

There is a marvelous Yiddish word- chutzpah- which is classically defined as that quality exhibited by a man who murders both of his parents and then pleads for mercy on the ground that he's an orphan. For any Democrat to make the claim for the members of his or her party that the president makes in this clip gives the word a whole new definition!





HT: Drudge

Just as good a question

Somebody at Facebook has a poll going asking whether Fox News is a news source or not, thus abetting the Administration line. I thought it only fair, therefore, to post one asking whether the media whose bias runs in the opposite direction- say, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and ABC- are news sources.

However people answer these questions, it will be interesting to see how many have both the perspective and the integrity to answer them the same way.

ADDENDUM: There's also a poll about whether Fox should fire Glenn Beck. I've responded with one of my own asking whether MSNBC should fire Olbermann. My answer in both cases is no; I'm not in favor of silencing people just because I disagree with them- even when I find them reprehensible, as I do Olbermann.

The Isle of Inisfree

Watching The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara used to be as much a part of our St. Patrick's Day ritual in the Waters household as the corned beef and cabbage dinner and the green we wore to school.

Orla Fallon of Celtic Woman sings a song featured prominently in the score of that movie, and one I've always loved.

Seven months after the stimulus...

...49 of the 50 states have actually lost jobs.

HT: Drudge

My father's namesake

My father, Robert McKinley Waters, was named after the good Republican president who held office when he was born. His older brother, my Uncle Johnny, was John William Gladstone Waters, named after Queen Victoria's Liberal prime minister. Grandpa, an immigrant from Belfast, was a great one for naming his kids after political figures he admired. Dad's own heroes included both Robert Taft and Walter Reuther. We in our family have never allowed our own political philosophies to unduly affect our feelings about figures from history or politics we've found admirable for one reason or another.

President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgoz at the World's Fair in Buffalo, N.Y. some four months after Dad was born. I found it interesting when visiting the Antietam battlefield a few years ago that there's a monument not far from Burnside Bridge on the spot where, as a young noncom, McKinley served coffee to the Union soldiers who were involved in the fighting.

Anyway, I came across the slide show of the campaign, assassination, and funeral of Dad's namesake on You Tube, and I thought I'd share it.



Here's a brief documentary on the assassination (the electric chair scene at the end is, of course, a re-enactment- done, as it happens, under the supervision of Thomas Edison).

The great heart of a great man

The skillful animation of an actual photo of Lincoln, combined with an authentic Kentucky/Southern Illinois accent and actual quotations from the president who couldn't justify "shooting the whole man just because his legs (were) cowardly," give us a wonderful glimpse at the great heart of our greatest president.

The lies of Michael Moore

The pattern of dishonesty in Michael Moore's "documentaries" isn't nearly as well known as should be. It's amazing, for example, how few people realize that the wonderful health care system he attempted to pass off as available to everyday Cubans in Sicko is in fact available only to foreigners and members of the Cuban Communist party.

Dan Gifford provides an opportunity for you to educate yourself regarding Moore's habit of fictionalizing the truth.

Time running out for Obama's media honeymoon

Steve Huntley of the Chicago Sun-Times has figured out that the Obama administration and its acolytes in the media can only blame George W. Bush for its own shortcomings for so long- and that the excuses are already wearing thin.

Rich Lowry of the National Review makes pretty much the same point.

HT: Drudge,
Real Clear Politics

Jews not allowed at Comen breast cancer conference in Egypt

The Susan G. Comen Breast Cancer organization is holding a conference in Alexandria, Egypt.

Jews are not allowed. Israeli participants- including Nobel prize winners- have had their registrations canceled at short notice.

Apparently the religious bigotry of local authorities is to blame. The Comen organization, which is headquartered in the United States, shouldn't put up with this.

HT: All in Faber

ADDENDUM: It appears that those responsible for the reported ban have changed their minds.

Jews banned from breast cancer conference

The Susan G. Comen Breast Cancer Conference is about to convene in Alexandria, Egypt.

No Jews are allowed.

Israeli doctors were told on short notice that their registrations had been canceled.

Cancer is a terrible disease. So is religious bigotry. The Comen Foundation- an American group- should insist that the restriction be removed, or else cancel the conference.

HT: Flo Johnson

Britt Hume chimes in

Krauthammer strikes back

Charles Krauthammer answers the Administration's attacks on Fox News- and White House Communications Director Anita Dunn's statement that she was joking when she called Mao one of her favorite political philosophers.

Hmmmm, Mr. Axelrod?

Fox's John Gibson asks what, if- as the White House suggests- Fox News is not a real news organization, MSNBC is.

Good question:

Maybe this lady should just shut up

White House Media Director Anita Dunn- who boasts that Mao Tse Tung, the greatest mass murderer in history, is one of her "two favorite political philosophers-" herein admits that rarely if ever during the 2008 campaign did the media get to cover any Obama story that the campaign didn't "control."




HT: Drudge

Fie.

The Bears should have won 35-21 last night.

You can't turn the ball over three times in the red zone and beat a team as good as the Falcons. And yes, the Falcons are a good team.

Last year, the Bears lost to Atlanta  because of an incomprehensible decision by Lovie to kick short after Robbie Gould knocked through what should have been the game-winning field goal. The decision gave Matt Ryan the field position to set up what really was the game winning field goal with a single completed pass.

This year, it was Jay Cutler throwing the ball to people wearing the wrong color jersey at the worst possible times, the usually sure handed Matt Forte being unable to hang on to said ball at the most critical possible moment, and Orlando Pace picking exactly the wrong point in the game- seconds to go, deep in Atlanta territory, and fourth and one- to jump early and make it fourth and six instead.

I'm not giving up yet. With all respect to Pastor Esget, I fully expect Brett Favre to self-destruct as usual late in the season. But the Bears are now two games back. I think they can beat Minnesota once. I don't think they can beat them twice.

Right now, I'm looking at 10-6 and a possible wild card. Next week they play the 4-1 Bengals, who are, as their record indicates, no longer pushovers. A loss against Cincinnati would be disastrous.

You have to to better than this, guys. You are better than this.

One more thought: when opposing QB's have a quarterback rating of only 40 on one side of the field, and of over 100 on the other side, it's time to get a new cornerback. Fast.

A tale ot two statements

One of them, Rush Limbaugh never actually made- not even close- but it's been shouted from the housetops that he did. It even cost him an ownership share in the St. Louis Rams.

The second, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn- the critic of Fox News- certainly did make. Nobody has heard about it, though.

They should.

Joe Biden is one heartbeat from the presidency.

And that's scary.

HT: Real Clear Politics

The last thing the world wants

One wonders how long it will take before Bono and other Europeans, Leftists, Hollywood types, and other such individuals will realize how yesterday talk about the world "wanting to believe in America again" really is.

Barack Obama has been president for nearly a year, and has wimped out over and over again all over the globe. He has yielded, and conciliated, and generally played the patsy at nearly every opportunity. Other than getting him the Nobel Prize, it hasn't really accomplished much. The world may love him, but it respects the country he supposedly leads the less for his alleged leadership.

The world still hates us- and precisely because it wants to. We are a convenient scapegoat. Too much satisfaction is there to be derived from the tough times America is facing economically for the jealousy of decades to simply be forgotten. There is too much reveling to be done in the perceived decline of American power in the world.

No, Bono. The world doesn't want to believe in America again. That's the last thing it wants. Hating America is just too satisfying. And now that the second Jimmy Carter is in the White House, if the world really wanted to love us, it would.

It doesn't- though it does love Barack Obama. In George Will's telling phrase, it "adores him- and ignores him."

HT: Real Clear Politics

St. Luke, Evangelist

Marching Orders
Luke 10:1-9
St. Luke, Evangelist
October 18, 2009

Today is the feast day of the only writer of any book of either Testament who was a Gentile.

Luke was a Greek doctor and sometime companion of Paul on his missionary journeys. He was the author both of the Gospel which bears his name, and of the Acts of the Apostles- the New Testament's record of the spread of Christianity through the ministry of Paul and Luke and Barnabas and Silas and John Mark and the others who were involved in the Church's first, explosive growth. That being the case, it's especially appropriate that the reading from his Gospel, which is appointed for his feast day, is about being sent by Jesus into the world to proclaim the Good News to those who haven't heard it.

The actual context is the sending of the Seventy-Two, a group of those beyond the Twelve Apostles who followed Jesus. They were, in effect, to act as His "advance team," visiting the places where Jesus Himself would go later. Our Lord's instructions are remarkably brief. They involve no elaborate preparations. As church growth programs go, this set of directions is remarkably simple and to the point.

The first thing Jesus tells the Seventy-Two to do is to pray that God would send laborers into the harvest. "The harvest is plentiful," He tells them, "but the laborers are few." That hardly seems to be the case! Any of us who have ever been involved in evangelism know just what a discouraging task it can be.

There was an area of central and western New York State, which the heretic Charles Finney- who believed that evangelism was simply a matter of salesmanship, involving nothing whatever of a supernatural character- called "the burned-over district." So much evangelizing had been done there that Finney complained that there was no "fuel" left to re-kindle the fire. People had seemingly become immune to evangelism. Mention Jesus to people in that area, and their eyes would glaze over. Knock on their doors, and they would immediately tell their wives, "Oh, no. Another evangelist. Get rid of him, Martha!"

There's a sense in which all of America is a kind of burned-over district. Just about everybody has heard about Jesus. That doesn't mean, of course, that what they've heard is accurate- it's probably not- nor does it mean that they can see what relevance He has to their lives. Unfortunately, Finney’s spiritual descendants- those who look upon evangelism as a sales job- have predominated among those who have taken it upon themselves to spread what they believe to be the Gospel in this country, and it’s often been a mixture of legalism and jargon which has distorted the Message and obscured the Good News. That’s what always happens when mere humans usurp God’s job of making Christians, instead of being content to be His humble instruments.

But Jesus didn't send the Seventy-Two do be salesmen. Nor did He send Paul andv Luke and their companions to be salesmen. And He doesn't send us to be salesmen, either. He didn't tell the Seventy Two to advertise for harvesters, or to recruit harvesters. He told them to pray that laborers be sent into the harvest. From the beginning, He wanted to be sure that they understood that- Finney to the contrary- God is the One Who is in charge when the Gospel is shared. The Holy Spirit, Who operates through the Word, is the only “soul winner.” Our job is to speak the word.

We are not, the Church Growth people to the contrary, told to succeed in filling the pews, and the only way to fail in our mission is to fail to do the one thing we’re commanded to do: to speak the Word. It does not return to Him empty. It either converts, or it plants a seed, or it judges. But it never fails. Never.

But first, we are told to pray that God would send laborers into the harvest- because whether we can see it or not, the harvest is plentiful. There are multitudes who are carrying burdens too heavy for them to bear, and who think that what we have to offer is a greater burden still. But the yoke of Jesus is easy, and His burden is light. He sends us, not to add to their burdens, but to be the means by which He lifts them.

He calls us to be, in the words a D.T. Niles, “one beggar telling another where to find bread.” He offers the Seventy Two no courses in evangelism. The procedure He lays before them involves a notable lack of premeditation. He tells the Seventy-Two not to bother with a moneybag, a knapsack, or even with shoes. He tells them not to waste time saying “hi” to that neighbor they pass on the road. The task is too urgent. The job is too big.

There is a scene in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in which the resurrected Aslan, accompanied by Edmond and Lucy, recruits his army for the coming battle by breathing on those the Witch has turned into stone, and bringing them to life again. Aslan, of course, is Jesus, Who breathed on His disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Pneuma in Greek means “spirit.” But it also means “breath-“ just as the Old Testament Hebrew equivalent- ru’ach, what God breathed into Adam so that Adam became a living creature- means both “breath” and “spirit.”

The task is not to sell. The task is not to debate. The task is to share the breath of God, the Spirit of God, Who alone can give spiritual life and Who alone can win souls- and who does so through the Word about Jesus.

Jesus sent the Seventy-Two out as sheep among wolves. He sends us out that way, too. Despite the size of the harvest, our perception is right about one thing: we live in the midst of a culture that is profoundly hostile to the Word.

But the world of the First Century was that way, too. We may be rejected when we speak of the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life through Jesus. But we will not be made into pariahs for our faith. We will not be boiled in oil, or skinned alive, or beheaded, or crucified upside down, as tradition says the Apostles were. We will not be exiled, as was John- the only one of the Apostles to die a natural death. But Jesus does not promise us that the fruit our witness bears will always be visible, or that it will always lead to acceptance. Sometimes the Word judges rather than converts. And sometimes even when it converts, it bears fruit years later.

But we are not asked for results. We are simply sent out as the Seventy-Two were, to bear witness to the coming of the Kingdom of God.

The Word that we are called upon to speak does sometimes judge, even if we ourselves are commanded not to. People don’t like to hear that Word of judgment. But here’s a point, which the latter-day Finneys forget, but which is of the very essence: we are sent, not as sheriff’s deputies bearing a writ of condemnation, but as liberators, bearing a word of pardon. The Word of judgment- where the Word does judge- does so only in order to prepare the way for the Word of healing. The Law always prepares the way for the Gospel. We are sent, in the words of the pastor from Giertz’s The Hammer of God, as a visitor to the cell of the condemned bearing a letter of pardon in his pocket.

We are sent, not to indict, but to deliver God’s pardon. Our task is to represent, as the gang-bangers put it; to show the colors, to be whom God the Holy Spirit has, through baptism and the Word, has made us.

And what is it that baptism and he Word have made us? Forgiven. Healed. Pardoned. Strengthened. We are sent out as exactly what the people we encounter are: ordinary, fallible people no better and no worse than they, but whose failings are washed clean every day by the water of our baptism, and by the blood of Jesus.

We are sent out as people who are often confused and bewildered and at a loss, just like those to whom we are sent- but who by God’s grace trust that God has our times in His hands, and will bring us through our stumbling journey through all the detours our own willfulness and lack of trust take us on and all the disasters life can dish out to an eternal home.

We are sent as people who make mistakes, who drop the ball- and who, worse, act and speak selfishly and sometimes hurtfully to others, but who in Christ have both forgiveness for our sin and the means of healing for the relationships that it bends and sometimes breaks. We are sent as people who screw up.

We are sent out, not as people who have arrived, but as people who know where we are going; not as people who succeed, but as people whose shortcomings are forgiven and, at length, healed; as people in need, but whose need has been met- and continues to be met every day.

We are sent out as people in the same boat as others, as so many beggars telling other beggars where bread can be found. Some will listen; others may not. That is not our concern. We are not called to bring people to Christ. We are not called to prosper, to fill the pews, or to grow as a congregation.

We are called to be nothing more or less than what our baptism has made us: unworthy people made worthy by the merits of Jesus; sinners forgiven by a grace God wants to share with all human beings; people drowning in a sea of our own unworthiness, made worthy and kept alive by a life preserver in the shape of a cross, able to keep any number of the drowning people we encounter afloat as surely as it has rescued us.

We are called to finally do nothing more or less than to invite the drowning people all around us to grab hold, and live. Or rather, to give them the opportunity to be grasped through the Word by the One Who has rescued us, and who is able to bring them to safety as surely as we.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

Slandering Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh has been forced out of a group seeking to purchase the St. Louis Rams on the basis of certain racist statements attributed to him by Leftists- but which, in fact, he never made.

The Wall Street Journal opines.

This is a truly bad idea

This post is about a product that would be inappropriate if it commemorated any president. That it commemorates our first African-American president adds an element of apparent racism to what otherwise would be mere disrespect and bad taste.

I saw the commercial below the other night. At first, I was certain that I'd dozed off, and was dreaming. But it's apparently real. And it is so incredibly disrespectful not only of the president but of the office he occupies that I can hardly find the words.

Walgreen's has pulled this product from their shelves. Good. Perhaps its originator, Joseph Pedott, had only good intentions. But he should have known better- and given the fact that I saw the ad only the other night, apparently this thing is still being sold.

Obama, Carter, and Chauncey Gardiner

David Rothkopf of Foreign Policy magazine says that Barack Obama's foreign policy is rapidly turning him into the second coming of Jimmy Carter.

Charles Krauthammer is even more brutal, comparing the rhetoric of Obama's wide-eyed admirers in Stockholm and elsewhere to that of Chauncey Gardiner, the blithering innocent in the 1979 film Being There whose banal and inane ramblings are mistaken by the Washington intelligentsia for profundity.

Obama's naive and ineffectual foreign policy views may impress the Nobel Committee, but thus far they has made him the most ineffectual president in the international arena since- well, Jimmy Carter.

HT: Real Clear Poltics

Rasmussen: Huck leads 2012 GOP pack

A Rasmussen Poll reports that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is favored by the most Republicans to be their 2012 candidate for president.

Huckabee gets 29%, compared with 24% for the man usually seen as the front runner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who probably would lead the pack if she wasn't signaling her disinterest so strongly, gets 18%, followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 14%, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty with four percent.

Six percent of those polled prefer another candidate, while seven percent are undecided. Pawlenty's relatively poor showing may be a reflection of low name recognition.

Meanwhile, according to the same poll, 81% think it at least somewhat likely that the Republican candidate will defeat President Obama in 2012. Half- 50%- think it very likely.

HT: Drudge

Ready to be patronized?

Noam Chomsky is an extremist, I grant. But listen to his rhetoric here- not about Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage (although what he says about them is offensive enough), but what he says about the average American.

Chomsky does what liberals do best: patronize and marginalize. And he does an absolutely superb job of illustrating the truth of what he finds it so regrettable that the yokels are being told by Limbaugh and Savage and others about people like himself

You know. The yokels who are bitter and cling to their guns and religion, as somebody or other said a while back.

HT: Drudge

If this is a joke, it's a bad one

I saw the commercial below on television the other night. I thought I must have stumbled across a re-run of Saturday Night Live or Mad TV.

But apparently not.

This is in such amazingly bad taste that I don't know quite how to react. It also strikes me as vaguely racist. It's certainly disrespectful of the highest office in the land, as well as of the man who occupies it.

No purple here

Peggy Noonan draws the contrast between President Obama's "bring us together" campaign rhetoric (which many of his supporters continue, incredibly, to associate with him), and his divisive rhetoric and actions since taking office.

A "purple America?" Not, it seems, under this president!

HT: Real Clear Politics

The only one

Tom Norris- boyhood friend and neighbor of economist/comedian Ben Stein- is a unique figure in American history.

He is the only man ever to win the Congressional Medal of Honor, and have his life saved in a separate incident by another hero- awarded the Medal of Honor for doing so.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Moore "confused?" At the very least!

John Stossel reacts to propaganda film maker Micheal Moore's latest attack on the American system by calling Moore "confused."

That's a little like calling Osama bin Laden "rude."

The geysers of Enceladus: a clue to possible life on Saturn's moon?

Controversy rages as to whether the saltwater geysers on the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus mean that it might have a potentially life-bearing ocean under all that ice, as astronomers suspect Jupiter's moon Europa- and perhaps also Ganymede and Callisto- may have.

We're talking about a really, really huge distance from old Sol here. The theory is that the metallic cores of moons orbiting gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn experience huge tidal pulls by both the planets they orbit and other passing moons. This, astronomers theorize, could generate heat much the same way rapidly bending a paper clip warms the medal- perhaps enough to make it possible for life to gain a foothold.

So is the geyser portrayed in the picture evidence of potential life, or just "Cold Faithful?" The jury is out.

That could have been me one afternoon in 1967...

I have always loved football, and wanted in the worst way to play it. But alas, when I got to high school, I discovered that I just wasn't the type.

I went out for the Frosh-Soph team my freshmen year, and lasted one practice. I simply wasn't in good enough shape to even give it a decent try that first year. But between my sophomore and junior years, I did a lot of running and calisthenics. I went out for the varsity my junior year.

I tried so hard that Coach Stedman didn't have the heart to cut me. Or rather, I had come out after all the cuts had already been made, and he decided to humor me rather than give me the bad news all by myself. He carried me, as he put it, as "Luther South's one-man taxi squad." What that actually meant was that I got to practice and to stand on the sidelines with the team during games. I got a "Certificate of Participation," and was technically a member of the team; some of my friends who really were members of the team speculated that if we had won the league championship (which we very nearly did), I would- incredibly- have actually gotten a letter.

But I never suited up for a game. I never actually wore a uniform. Nevertheless, one Saturday afternoon, as I stood there on the sidelines, I had my chance to be a hero.

It was a very windy day. We had the ball deep in the other team's territory. It was fourth down and long. Coach Stedman decided to attempt that rarity in high school football, the field goal.

The kick was blocked. Since field goals are so rare in high school, every player on both teams reacted as if it had been simply a missed extra point. They all assumed that the ball was dead.

But I knew better. Unlike the guys on the field- on both teams- I'd followed football closely enough for long enough to realize that on an attempted field goal (or actually, even on an attempted extra point) a blocked kick that never crossed the line of scrimmage remained a live ball. Anybody on either team could have picked the ball up and run with it- and likely scored a touchdown, because it would have taken everybody on the other team by surprise. They would never have realized what had happened before it was too late.

But alas, I was on the sidelines. I considered yelling or gesturing or something to the guys on the field. The trouble was, of course, that if somebody on the other team had understood what I was saying....

So I decided not to take the chance. After shouting a couple of times, and failing to get the attention of any of our players, I just shut up. Nobody seemed to notice that the referee never blew his whistle. The officials just stood around, waiting. Finally, after a long enough pause that one would have thought that somebody on the field would have noticed, the officials looked at each other, shrugged- and finally blew the play dead.

As I recall, we won the game anyway. But I have always remembered the moment when I could have scored a touchdown- if only I had been on the field. Or been responsible for a teammate scoring one, if I hadn't been so afraid of being to blame for the other team scoring one.

That incident comes to mind tonight because I just read on the Internet that something similar happened in a high school game in Michigan this past weekend. But this time, somebody on the sideline who knew the rule (A coach? An injured player? John Glenn High School's "one man taxi squad?") did holler and gesture and carry on- and caught the attention of one of the players on the field, who picked up the ball and- while the other team was celebrating- ran into the end zone, scoring the winning touchdown.

Watching the video reminded me of my one chance to have been a gridiron hero, even standing on the sidelines. And now, looking back on that play from a distance of twenty two years, I wish I'd taken the gamble and tried a little harder to get the attention of one of the guys on the field wearing red that afternoon.

The Emperor's nudity causes further comment

Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle has noticed that the BBC has noticed that the globe just isn't getting warmer any more- and that there are major problems with the notion that the human race was responsible for past warming.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Breathtaking cluelessness

Sometimes somebody in government says something so utterly and mind-bogglingly clueless that one stops and wonders how our the mail gets delivered. Never was this more the case than with an interview given by White House Communications Director Anita Dunn on CNN as part of the Administration's ongoing war with Fox News.

Savor the utter failure to grasp the essentials of the topic manifest in the following quotation: "What I think is fair to say about Fox -- and certainly it's the way we view it -- is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party. They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that's fine. But let's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is."

Two things. First, whatever criticism one might be disposed to offer concerning the objectivity of Fox News, a compelling case can be made that CNN- and ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, and the mainstream media generally- are at least as much a wing of the Democratic Party, and for the same reasons. And secondly... well, let's let Fox News respond.

"It's astounding the White House cannot distinguish between news and opinion programming," Fox News Senior Vice President Matt Clemente replies. "It seems self-serving on their part."

Yeah. It kinda does- especially since every newspaper in America has an editorial page.

The problem comes in when opinion and news coverage melt into each other. The regularity with which this happens in the mainstream media has been a conservative talking point for at least a generation, and with good reason; upward of ninety percent of working reporters regularly vote Democratic in presidential elections. With all the ethical grounding and integrity in the world, the filters of opinion and worldview through which any journalist views the news inevitably color how he or she reports it. The trick is for a journalist to be aware of those filters, and to strive to minimize their impact on his or her reporting.

Those who see the often outrageous liberal bias in the mainstream media as an intentional plot of some kind are in pretty much awash in the same sea of naive and self-serving cluelessness as Dunn. While commentators like Glenn Beck are no more news reporters than MSNBC's... well, pretty much anybody on MSNBC, of course Fox News tilts to the Right in its news reporting. Its journalists, too, are only human, and Fox News does tend to serve as a kind of refuge for that endangered species, journalists whose personal politics are something other than hard Left.

The point Dunn misses is that even to the degree to which it does so, it doesn't even begin to compensate for the tilt to the Left reflected in news coverage by major outlets just about everywhere else.

HT: Drudge

Desertion in the face of the Enemy

Why do members of the clergy remain silent amid the storms of the Culture War?

Doug Giles offers us not one reason, but ten.

BTW, the "Enemy" in the title of this post is not the people who disagree with the Christian world view. He is much more ancient than they are- and far more guileful.

Science vs."Scientism"

Andrew Sullivan- a doctrinaire Homosexualist- would doubtless disapprove of the notion that his views on how his own sexual orientation should be treated by society constitute an ideology. This does not stop him, of course, from speaking of the attitudes of certain Christians toward the relationship between their beliefs and public policy (attitudes which Sullivan understands far less well than he thinks) as "Christianism." Sullivan claims to be a Christian himself. Doubtless the rejection of his sexual values by the historic Christian tradition constitutes, for Sullivan, an example of "Christianism."

In this interesting article, William McGurn argues in the Wall Street Journal that a kind of doctrinaire ideology of materialism has developed in our culture which he terms "Scientism." McGurn defines Scientism as the belief that "science alone can speak truth about man and his world."

Not all scientists- or materialists, or atheists- are adherents of Scientism, McGurn points out. The wonders of scientific discovery itself inculcates far too much humility for that in many scientists with a thoroughly materialistic world view. But alas, there are also those like Richard Dawkins- or New York Times reporter Gardiner Harris, who recently rather snarkily reported that many scientists see "outspoken religious commitment as a sign of mild dementia."

The contrast between humble agnostics like Jay Gould or Carl Sagan, on one hand, and doctrinaire ideologues like Dawkins is obvious. The former have open minds; the latter, as McGurn observes, are "every bit as dogmatic as the William Jennings Bryans of yesteryear."

One might, perhaps, usefully think of them as Scientism's fundamentalists.

The Blackhawks set a record- and remind their fans why they hope

Anyone who wonders why we long-suffering fans of the Chicago Blackhawks are so hopeful about this team need not go back to last year's impressive regular season or amazing playoff run. All such a person needs to do is to look at tonight's game.

Calgary opened the game by scoring five unanswered goals. Cristobel Huet was pulled after allowing three goals in the Flames' first five shots . Backup Antti Niemi didn't look much better. Things didn't look good after the first period.

The Hawks then proceeded to tie an NHL record and set a team record for the biggest comeback in history by scoring five unanswered goals of their own- before winning it on a goal by Brent Seabrook 26 seconds into overtime.

The UC must have rocked tonight. Oh, how I wish I'd been there!

CBS's Schieffer: The prize is the loser

Bob Schieffer of CBS's Face the Nation says that the lasting impact of the odd decision to award President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize for having good intentions is that the prize is devalued in the eyes of people to whom it once meant a great deal.

Interestingly, Schieffer admits in the process to his own bias in favor of Obama's foreign policy.

Meanwhile, Robert Tracinski of The Intellectual Activist frankly labels Obama's award "the Nobel Prize for Moral Posturing."

HT: Real Clear Politics

Superintendent defends Obama praise song

The superintendent of that Burlington, N.J. school where the students were videotaped singing a song glorifying President Obama in terms reminiscent of North Korean kids singing the praises of Kim Sung Il or Soviet children singing about Stalin has pointed out that the song was part of a celebration of African-American history in general, and says that there was no intention on anyone's part of advancing a political agenda. Uh-huh.

The teacher who taught the kids the song has since retired.

HT: Drudge

Off the wall and over the top at HuffPo

John Nolte over at Big Hollywood points out a stunningly bizarre rant by Russell Simmons at HuffPo on how God is gonna "get" America if we don't get behind Barack.

Nolte lists ten points made by Simmons and asks us to try to find the only one that wouldn't scare the living daylights out of any reasonable person.

Go ahead. Try your luck.

Mayans say the world will NOT end in 2012

According to Mayan Indian elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun, all the hype about the Mayan calendar "running out" in 2012 and the world ending is just that- hype.

It seems that while 2012 will mark the end of an era in Mayan belief, plenty of Mayan calendars do, in fact, refer to dates after that year- in fact, as many as two thousand years later.

Sorry, Harmonic Convergence fans.

HT: Drudge

Hopefully, this time the story of the Visitors from Canis Major won't be such a dog

In 1983, NBC produced a miniseries about reptilian aliens from a planet orbiting the Dog Star arriving on Earth, dressing up as humans, and posing as benefactors in order to conceal their intent to eat us and steal our resources. They told us that they had a desperate need for our garbage, or some such thing, and in exchange for our giving it to them they supplied us with cures for various diseases and various technological breakthroughs. But then, they "exposed" a "plot" by Earth's scientists and political leaders to conceal the fact that we'd had cures for cancer and other horrible diseases all along. Public opinion turned against the very people who could have saved us, and the "Visitors" began their takeover of Cattle Pen Earth.

All in all, a Sirius situation.

A small group of humans, however, learned the truth, and organized a resistance movement, borrowing Winston Churchill's "V" for victory as its symbol- and providing the miniseries with its title in the process.

The miniseries eventually spawned another miniseries, a full blown series (that lasted all of one season), and finally a novelization by sci-fi author A.C. Crispin. All in all, the V story struck me as a first-rate plot undermined by mostly bland, one-dimensional characters; the villainess- the evil Diana- and a friendly alien defector played by Robert Englund of Freddie Kruger fame were really the only interesting characters in the show. True, there were a couple of elderly Holocaust survivors among the Resistance, but the movement was deprived of credibility by the predominance in its leadership of young, blond Southern Californians with perfect teeth and no personality. Despite the interesting plot, I found it hard to care very much about most of the people with whom I was supposed to identify. They always seemed as if they would have been more at home riding a surf board than hurling a Molotov cocktail.

Diana swallowing that live guinea pig was a great gross-out scene, though- especially the way the lump moved ever so slowly down her throat.

ABC has remade the miniseries, and will broadcast it beginning next month. Those who have seen the pilot give it good reviews. Here's hoping the story gets a better telling this time.

Re-visiting The Visitors

In 1983, NBC produced a miniseries about aliens arriving on Earth and concealing their intent to eat us and steal our resources by posing as benefactors. A small group of humans, however, learned the truth, and organized a resistance movement, borrowing Winston Churchill's "V" for victory as its symbol- and providing the miniseries with its title in the process.

The miniseries eventually spawned another miniseries, a full blown series (that nlasted all of one season), and finally a novelization by sci-fi author A.C. Crispin. All in all, it struck me as a first-rate plot undermined by mostly bland, one-dimensional characters; the villainess, the evil E.T. Diana, and a friendly alien turncoat played by Robert Englund of Freddie Kruger fame were really the only interesting characters in the show. And then, it was hard to buy the notion of the world being saved by quite that many young, blond Southern Californians with perfect teeth and no personality. Despite the interesting plot, I found it hard to care very much about the people with whom I was supposed to identify.

ABC has remade the miniseries, and will broadcast it beginning next month. Those who have seen the pilot give it good reviews. Here's hoping the story gets a better telling this time.

On the folly of a best-of-five playoff series in baseball

While I was rooting for the Dodgers in the NLDS (given the obnoxiousness of so many Cardinal fans, how could I not?), I really don't take all that much pleasure in the Cardinals suffering the same fate that my Cubs suffered the previous two years.

Really, the parallels are scary. Not only has the Central Division champion been swept in the first round three years running, but each year they have managed to score exactly six runs in those three games.

666. The Number of the Beast. This is the sort of thing I would have expected to work for the Cardinals, not against them.

Seriously, though, if it's any consolation to Cardinal fans who read this blog, this is just one more example of the utter absurdity of a best-of-five series deciding anything in baseball. Even best-of-seven is pushing it. One best-of-seven World Series you might be able to justify. This business of having to win two short series before you even get to the World Series is absurd. It's all about who happens to get hot during a stretch of two or three weeks- after playing 162 games over a period of six months to get there.

As Jean-Paul Sartre might have said, C'est absurd.

ADDENDUM: Looks like the Twins were swept by the Evil Empire, too. Sorry, Pastor Esget!

BBC notices that global warming isn't warming the globe

The BBC has admitted that 1998 was the warmest year on record- and that global warming hasn't been warming the globe for the past eleven years.

In a rare fit of objectivity for a mainstream news source, it has actually acknowledged that natural causes, rather than human activity, may be responsible for most of the warming that has happened.

Meanwhile, Al Gore- who rarely debates his vocal assertion that the planet is headed for climatic disaster due to human abuse of the environment- actually took questions on the subject at a meeting in Wisconsin. When an Irish filmmaker challenged Gore about what he said were a series of inaccuracies in his film An Inconvenient Truth, Gore pointed out that a British court had upheld its showing to English schoolchildren. When the filmmaker attempted to challenge Gore further, his microphone was cut off:



Approximately two hundred protesters showed up to register dissent from Gore's position.

HT: Drudge

I guess it's all a matter of perspective

The vapid silliness of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to an American president whom nobody pretends has done anything to deserve it is underscored by the demoralization it has caused among human rights activists in China. The possibility that one of their number might have received the prize had been much discussed, and the gesture might have achieved some positive good in a nation governed by the most murderous regime in recorded human history.

It made Fidel Castro happy, though.

Meanwhile, Peggy Noonan- with her usual blend of eloquence and insight- calls the award "wicked and ignorant," while British columnist Minette Martin says that Obama should have declined it.

HT: Drudge and Real Clear Politics

Sermon for Trinity 18

All
Matthew 22:34-46
Trinity 18
October 11, 2009

Why did the Pharisees ask their question? The text says that it was to "test" Jesus. What would the "right" answer have been? Was his response a matter of academic interest? Did they want Jesus to settle an argument? Were they curious about how to go about winning the maximum number of brownie points from God with the minimum amount of effort?

All of the above, probably. Though they would have been surprised to hear it, the Pharisees were sinners, just like the rest of us. The Old Adam in each of us misses the point of the Law. It wants to rank the Commandments, as if the violation of the even least of them, being an affront to God, were not of ultimate seriousness. The Old Eve in each one of us wants to excuse our own sins by telling itself that, after all, they're not as bad as somebody else's. The fallen nature in every ever human being- Christians included- wants, first of all, to be accepted by God because we're such spiritually hot stuff, while at the same time winning that acceptance with the minimum possible amount of effort.

No, the Old Adam just doesn't get the Law. It clings to the illusion that it can, in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's phrase, "stand before God and say, 'I have done my duty.'" And if its sin is pointed out to it, no problem. It can always try harder next time.

Dr. Hein back at River Forest used to call the kind of Law the Old Adam goes in for "watered down Law." An awful lot of it gets preached in Christian circles, and even more of it is practiced. "Watered down Law" is the kind that elicits a resolution to roll up one's spiritual sleeves and try harder.

We don't know the exact motivations of the Pharisees who asked Jesus which was the greatest commandment, other than that it was "to test Him." But Jesus did. He knew the human heart. He knew its fondness for trying to tame and domesticate God's Law to serve the needs of the ego, or to get by with offering God less than is His due, and keeping the difference for oneself. And so Jesus declined the gambit. He refused to rank the commandments, so as to justify offering God less than total obedience. And He refused to preach watered-down Law to the Pharisees.

The opposite of watered-down Law, Dr. Hein used to say, is full-strength Law. It does not elicit a determination to try harder. It does not flatter the Old Self's ambition to stand before God and claim to have done its duty- if possible on the cheap. Instead, it crushes us. It brings us to the point of despair. It makes it absolutely plain that when it comes to meeting God's minimum demands, we haven't, we don't, and we can't.

Jesus let them have it with both barrels! Which is the greatest commandment? "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind."

All. Every single bit. Jesus doesn't tell them that God has to simply come first. He points out that He comes last as well as first- and everything in between, too. God, He points out, deserves every last bit of their allegiance, and every last scrap of their loyalty. His due is nothing less than every last bit of us. Every thought, every word, and every deed must be taken captive to His glory and His will.

No matter how well you obey, it's not enough. God is entitled to better obedience. No matter how well you serve Him, it's not well enough. God is entitled to better service. He's entitled to every scrap of our intellect, every crumb of our devotion, and every bit of our very selves.

And we don't give it to Him, do we? Oh, of course the Pharisees might have claimed that they did. Pharisees always do. Denial, as a certain freshman United States senator used to point out on Saturday Night Live, isn't just a river in Egypt! But the more honest and self-aware a person is, when confronted with the heart of the Law as Jesus confronted the Pharisees, the closer to the surface is our knowledge that when we claim to serve God with all our heart, all our souls, and all our minds, just as He commands us to, what we are really doing nothing is more or less than trying to stave off the despair that would arise from the honest realization that we haven't, we don't, and we can't meet His minimum demand of us.

It's that despair to which the Law seeks to drive us. It's that despair to which Jesus sought to drive the Pharisees. That's the most important role of the Law: to show us that our best just isn't good enough.

But wait- He wasn't done yet! They'd asked him what the greatest commandment of the Law was. Well, He was going to tell them what the second greatest commandment was, too. And it was not calculated to lessen that rising sense of despair.

Skeptics about the Faith often pont out that many unbelievers and followers of other religions have lived noble lives of self-sacrifice, and served humanity with great dedication. "Do you mean to tell me," they ask, "that God would refuse a place in heaven to such people just because of their religion?"

But even if we ignore their failure to keep the first and greatest commandment- we, who are pf the Faith, also fail it- the greatest philanthropist who ever lived fails the second, too- and that regardless of his religion.

The second commandment is not merely that one must love one's neighbor. It's not even that one must, on occasion, subordinate one's own welfare to that of one's neighbor. No, the second commandment Jesus lays before the Pharisees is that they must love their neighbor as themselves. And not merely occasionally, or even usually or customarily. No more than we are only occasionally or ordinarily expected to love God with all our hearts and souls and minds does God demand that we only occasionally or ordinarily love our neighbor as ourselves.

What would it look like if we did? That man standing along the expressway with the sign, "Will work for food." What would be do for that man if we truly loved him as we loved ourselves? Could we drive on without being sure that he had a place to sleep tonight? The hospitals are full of people who never get visitors. The nursing homes are still fuller. How would we spend our leisure time if we truly loved our neighbors as ourselves?

How many times do we find ourselves acting selfishly and thoughtlessly even toward our closest neighbors- those of our own household? As it is with loving God, so it is with loving our neighbor: no matter how complete our devotion and self-sacrifice, it will always fall short of all- and "all" is the minimum God demands.

My vicarage supervisor was fond of pointing to Micah 6:8- "He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you, but to do justly,to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?-" and calling it "the John 3:16 of the Old Testament." But it's not. We know all too well what is good. God has written it on our hearts, and not even the ravages of sin have erased it. What is good is that we love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and with all our souls, and with all our minds, and our neighbors as ourselves. But that's just the problem: we haven't, we don't, and we can't.

No, there is only one John 3:16. And it's the only answer for our utter and abysmal failure to meet God's minimum standards for us, for our sad and sorry failure to love God with every moment with everything we are and everything we have, or our neighbors remotely as much as we love ourselves.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." God loved us with all His heart, and all His soul, and all His mind. He loved us enough to become one of Us, and to love us even to the point of death. And He loves us that way still.

We do not love our neighbors as ourselves, even when we love them the most deeply and sincerely. But God loved us more than He loved Himself- loved us and gave Himself for us. We love Him because He first loved us. We love our neighbor because in loving our neighbor, we love Christ. And if our love for God and neighbor always remains a sad and paltry thing- and it does- then our knowledge that in His love He stood in the breech and made up for what was, what is, and what in this life always will be lacking in our own by His total and complete and reckless giving of Himself inspires in us a gratitude and a love and a desire to be like Him that leads us to love Him and our neighbor ever more in this life, until in the next life our love is like His.

What does it look like to love God with all one's heart, and soul, and mind? What does it look like to love one's neighbor as ourselves? It looks like Jesus. It looks like our God and our dearest Neighbor hanging in absolute love and total self-abandonment on the cross for our failure to love. Through the dying to sin and rising to life that is the substance of the baptized life, through the Word of the Gospel, and through the Meal in which He comes to live in us that we might live in Him, leach day- inperceptable though it may be to our own eyes- He is formed in us, and through us more and more loves the Father as He deserves to be loved, and loves our neighbor as He loves us- with the absolute and total and all-sufficient love of the One Who daily is being formed in us, and who is our only righteousness.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.