The Wittenberg Door Mouse

Why should the devil have all the good P.R. tactics?

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:04:00 +0000

I'm imagining Margaret Sanger on stage, donning a gag and standing stoically beside a man delivering her written speech to the crowd, in defiance of the arrest threat from the city of Boston.

The scene is an icon of the noble struggle against oppressive patriarchy. It resonated perfectly with the inner sense of suppression that American young adults in the late 1920's were born into and against which they were ostentatiously rebelling. It helped that Sanger, herself, was an outspoken member of that same segment and subculture, so the gesture was natural for her. She didn't come up against the overarching problem in today's Western PR enterprise, namely, the reality that all public communication is intercultural.

And, as ever, the medium is the message.

As far as the public imagination is concerned, it didn't matter then, and it doesn't matter now whether or not the content of her message was rational, grounded, edifying, wise, loving, or good in any way. It didn't matter then in seed form, and it doesn't matter now in its maturity, that the message would be integral to the development of the now culturally engrained worldview that allowed, propelled, and sustains the worst massacre in human history.

The devil gets this stuff. A gifted musician, he weaves themes and knits phrases which later build and swell into an avalanche of emotion. His timing is impeccable, his messaging is sweet and palatable. And he leaves you wanting more. So much so, that after the first movement, he hardly has to do anything to encourage the growth of his insidious seed. We humans take that ball and run with it to absurd ends, convinced that, somewhere along the way, we'll actually find more Turkish Delight.

[Ya, I know. Too many metaphors. But it's hard enough for me to find time to blog at all, let alone to go back and finesse and ....like.....EDIT. So lay off.]

Anyway, without constructing an adequate argument, I am just sharing my thought on the matter. I see so many PR debacles in the Christian world. The good stuff gets buried or maligned by the world's (read satan's) super-oiled PR machine. I'm not talking about Qura'n burnings. That didn't have to get perverted and spun to be stupid. Like Lady Gaga, it was born that way. I'm talking about when good people actually follow the Holy Spirit and do the work to which God calls them. When the Church exercises Her prophetic role in this dark world, and does so in faith, hope, and love, but gets dog-piled by the media and the propaganda machine. Great PR is so much less vulnerable to those attacks, but great PR, we don't have. We just don't. The best Christian PR people work for those few (and largely useless) rich "christian" organizations who can afford them.

Because we're under attack ALL THE TIME, our prophetic voice calling out the infallible Truth that the world ignores out of active ignorance or passive deception too often ends up sounding like Jean-Luc Picard insisting despite tremendous torture and coercion that "there.....are.....four......lights!". He doesn't (and we don't) have the resources to muster up a better delivery than the salient Truth, prudentially and sparingly spoken.

And, as ever, the Medium is the Message.

God, help us. And ask Gabriel to chip in, too. Thanks. Amen.

Really deserves it's own follow-up post: Clever turns of phrase by the Culture of Death

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:12:00 +0000

So remember how I just wrote about this article, like, 5 minutes ago?
Well I forgot to mention the other really maddening part about it.

The culture of death LOVES fancy words. They quite enjoy clever turns of phrase. And they REALLY love euphemisms.

For example, the culture of death often calls itself "Pro-Choice". That sounds nice, doesn't it?
The wholesale slaughter of innocent babies is called "reproductive health care".
When it's particularly focused on girls, it's called "gender selection".
But when the movement wants to highlight an anti-feminist application of abortion in the developing world (that is, when a woman chooses something THEY wouldn't choose), they give it a nasty name like "gender based foetuscide".
When it involves arbitrarily halving the population of a womb for convenience's sake, it's called "twin reduction".
When we determine that Granny needs to be put down like a stray mutt, it gets subsumed into the otherwise charitable category of "end of life care".

The linked article made me aware of a new term they are using (though I am not sure if it's just new to me or if it's really new).

To wit:

When you DO want to euthanize Granny as if she were an injured mule, but you don't own a barn or a shotgun and you can't bear the thought of knowing the exact moment of her death (in other words, when you're murderous, selfish, AND anemic), you have a new option. You can give Granny a cocktail of drugs to keep her really really quiet. Even deader than sleep, but not quite dead (you gotta say that like that weird wizard played by Mel Brooks in The Princess Bride). Then you just stop feeding her. Eventually, at some unpredictable point in time, she either starves to death or her weak heart just fails because of the extreme sedation. And the beauty of it is, you don't know what actually killed her (the poison or the starvation), so there's very little blame to go around, and very few guilty feelings. She'll probably die alone and in her "sleep", so it's a simulation of that scenario when your sick Granny just slips away peacefully one night and you get a phone call from the nursing home. It's almost touching in it's simplicity and similarity to a natural passing-on.

We call it "palliative sedation".

Now, isn't that special? So...so...palatable!

These people have SUCH a way with words!

How exactly do you become an expert on death?

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:44:00 +0000

At first, I thought this article was news.

I only read the last few words of the headline : "...legalization of assisted suicide". I read on, skimming only, thinking that some special case had emerged and raised the issue. Perhaps some compelling or sentimental story was unfolding, one in which some dying person was being victimized by their own existence in a previously unforeseeable way.

But, after 5-8 seconds, I saw no case, and was confused.

I went back and read the headline.

...

Ohhhhhhh, I get it. It's a panel of EXPERTS.

Silly me. Here I thought that the postmodernist relativistic machine had cooked up a fresh way to present sensible reality as a basis for deconstructing the natural law. I mean, we all know that we can only know morality existentially, right? The new modernism would have us believe that, as human experience grows, and as more and more possible scenarios are dealt with by increasingly aware and compassionate human beings, morality will be more and more sharpened like a pencil (which eventually disappears). Objective knowledge and authority are discounted in this enterprise as vestiges of oppressive medieval classism. Or worse, it smacks of religion.

How heartened I was to see that assisted suicide was being promoted, not by sentimentalism or the evolution of morality, but by a panel of experts.

WHEW!

Yaknow, good thing. I mean, I would have started to think that the media had gone on some militaristic campaign to undermine the sanctity of life. I would have been writing about the evils of media activism, or maybe about the lamentable state of a society that rejects the wisdom of the ages because they can't learn from history. Maybe I would have rolled my eyes at the arrogance required to believe that right and wrong are defined by poll results and the shifting winds of public opinion.

But they consulted the EXPERTS. Thank goodness.

See, Christians? We are vindicated. The majority does NOT get to determine morality. Authority is NOT rejected. The EXPERTS are in charge.

Truth isn't unified, is it?
Truth doesn't find it's mysterious origin and telos in God, does it?
The experts aren't experts because they can reliably be said to be aligned with divine revelation. NOOO! That's silliness. They're not experts because they're RIGHT. They're right because they're EXPERTS.

Twin Reduction

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 23:18:00 +0000

We have such clinical names for evil these days. "Reproductive Health" is one that sends shivers up my spine. "Gender-based foetuscide" is another. And today, I came across another I hadn't heard before. "Twin Reduction".

What utter disgusting horror.
What stark and unabashed evil.
It's nothing short of the demonic forces of hell at their insidious deceptive work.

I know - it sounds like a mechanical function or a financial procedure.

Nope.

It's actually random murder.

It's closer to Hitler's "Final Solution".
You go into a woman's womb, indiscriminately wipe out half it's population, and leave the other half traumatized for life.

Read here if you have the stomach.

Help me out, here

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 11:18:00 +0000

Facebook removed my second-last post, and warned me because it was, in their automated message's language, either "offensive, threatening, or hateful, among other things".

Among other things? So which was it? Horribly rude, or just filled with too many spelling errors?

Apparently, my account could be terminated or my access to certain features restricted if I persist in.....um....whatever it was that got this post flagged. So, what, either tone down the genocidal rhetoric, or use spell check? Or take a writing class?

Because there is no way to contact Facebook to inquire about this, I won't be able:

1) to submit a clarification or an appeal,

2) to find out if someone reported the post to initiate its removal, or to discover who it was,

3) to discern exactly what triggered the removal, or

4) to adapt so as to avoid further censure.

I suppose that, given that the word "k*ll" appears in the title of the post, it could have been flagged by a search bot, but that doesn't quite line up: I am sure there are hundreds of posts urging people to "k*ll Bill C-###" or simply reporting on how some warring group k*illed members of their opposing group. Neither of those examples incites violence, except in the most ivory of ivory towers where latte-sipping "professional victims" plot how to suppress free speech across the world. [I decided not to go further on that very enjoyable rant, for the sake of preserving the point.]

No, all signs point to someone flagging the post as offensive. But what I learned on Facebook's FAQ page is that a real person at Facebook actually verifies every complaint. So at least two real people substantiated my offensiveness (or at least my lack of a grade school education).

JUST FOR THE RECORD,

1) I quite like my actual next-door neighbors.

2) Even if I did not, I would wish them no harm.

3) I have never and will never perpetrate the kind of violence that I metaphorically refer to in my post (either the analogous kind I talk about nor the actual kind I am really getting at in the post).

4) I was employing the classical rhetorical technique of the "absurd analogy". Obviously, I was relating the crime of murder and it's absurd justification in my fictitious situation to abortion. I don't know how this wasn't clear.

5) Abortion is murder.

I would love to hear feedback on this. Why is my post so offensive? It still lives on my blog. See the link above.

Thanks, all.

God bless.

Why I Love Jesus +a few +meme

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Thu, 26 May 2011 15:00:00 +0000

It's not like I don't have anything to blog about, Gregory.

I just don't usually have time. Least of all for these kinds of digital chain-letter deals. But this one was pure and simple, and a few people I respect are into it, so here goes.

One further caveat: I do not hesitate to talk about how much I personally love Jesus, but two things generally keep me from doing so in a venue such as this one:
1) I don't love Him very well, and it's embarrassing.
2) Words don't speak as loudly as sacrifice.

But anywazzzz, here goes...

5 REASONS I LOVE JESUS:

1) I love Jesus because He is everything good about everything.
The Scriptures bear me out on this, albeit in fancier words.
Everything I desire in my heart, everything that I ache to possess or to experience, even if that desire is expressed in sinful ways, is rooted in something fundamentally good, true, and genuinely sweet. And all of it is found in the Person of Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God. He is the fulfilment of every human desire and longing, and the very essence of life itself. This is the purest, most sublime, and most absolute Truth I am capable of knowing.
This truth is foundational to just about everything else. To avoid risking a unidirectional perspective on this concept, I will leave it as is.

2) I love Jesus because He first loved me.
I know I stole this from Gregory (actually from the Apostle John), but as I read the title of both Gregory's and Owen's posts, it was one of two answers that popped to my mind instantly (the first one being #1 above).
My take on this is not primarily that I am simply grateful for His love and therefore consciously decide to love Him back in some evolutionary self-preservation sort of way. I am eternally grateful to Him for His love, but that's not why I love Him in the sense that I wouldn't choose to love Him if He didn't give me what I want or need. Rather, the sense in which I love Jesus because He first loved me is that without His love, I would not exist to love Him, nor have the inherent created purpose of loving Him, nor understand love at all, nor be free to love Him or anyone, nor have access to the never-ending Source of love that is Him (which would lead to a Dead Sea effect), nor in any other way have any capacity to love whatsoever. Born out of this loved-in capacity, I also happen to be grateful and to feel great affection for Jesus, but that's a vapour droplet compared to the mighty rushing river of love that I am still learning to ride in Jesus. I get tingles just thinking about Him, though. Ya, I was Pentecostal. Sue me.

3) I love Jesus because He is the only object worth loving.
This is, of course, connected to #1 above (as is everything else). But the angle I wish to highlight here is that my love, when I am functioning well, is not so much fragmented between different objects, but rather is consolidated in Jesus, Who is present in every person to some degree, and in every object worth loving. Jesus is all good and worthy of all of my love. I don't love my neighbour apart from that which he derives from Jesus, or else my love is selfish.

4) I love Jesus because He is there.
Jesus is not just an abstraction. He is not just the noumenal object of my love or it's ethereal source. He is present and available to me. Had He asked me to love Him only virtually, I would settle either into an unfulfilling nominal affection born of duty, or I would eventually dry up and not really experience any love at all, and I would be lifeless and...like....Southern Baptist or something. No, I don't just have an idea of love or of Jesus; I have things to latch onto that are good, and that I can love, and through which I can actually FEEL love. This is God's mercy and Divine Pedagogy. The symbols, handles, labels, structures, bodies, and touchpoints of Jesus are not mere abstractions, but are really and truly infused with HIM, with His very essence and substance. Most of all, they are gifts of self from Him to me. He is there in the Church, in the Scriptures, in the Sacraments, in the Liturgy, and in people (especially the poor). His love is felt every time I participate in His life of grace. His love might be harsh or tender, compelling or comforting, wounding, or healing. But it's Him. Really Him. Present, available, and constant. Jesus is amazing.

5) I don't really love Jesus
I know...it doesn't fit.
St. Philip Neri (it's his memorial day today) had a famous ecstatic experience along the Appian Way in 1544 in which his being totally flooded with Divine Love caused him to scream out in pain "Enough, Lord, I can bear no more!" Although this was ecstatic and unusual, it illustrates the fact that we can't really take in the enormity of love that Jesus deserves. Any time we don't love someone with the totality of love they deserve, it's as though we don't love them at all.

I've decided to kill my next door neighbour.

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Fri, 06 May 2011 02:08:00 +0000

He's in my way. I have to look at his house every day, and it just reminds me that behind the house is a fence, separating my yard from his. His existence is the main reason that my property (MY property) is not DOUBLE its current size.

I had no choice or voice in my neighbour's arrival. He moved in without consulting me at all. And he bothers me. I don't like the way he makes me feel or how he disrupts my normal routine.

I used protection. I made sure that all my junk mail got routed to the house next to mine. I messed up the lawn a bit so nobody would ever want to move in. I thought I could have huge parties in the empty house and never have to give them up, but nobody warned me about the dangers of a real person deciding to move in. When he moved in, I had to think about my life and what I really wanted. And I don't want him as a neighbour.

I also happen to know that he has a very low quality of life, and would be much happier without a neighbour like me who doesn't want him or love him. And I am sure there is nobody else out there who could ever want him as an adopted neighbour. Besides, if I did give him up for adoption, I would have to wait for the house to sell, and that's months from now before he's gone, and I would have to put up with all the open houses and all the "please don't walk on the grass -I'm showing the house" and then there's the moving truck that is a total pain in the breakfast-table-window-view. No, it would be far easier simply to kill him. Snuff him out quickly and painlessly. Much more effective, and frankly, more humane.

Now, some pro-property moralizing puritans might say something about how it's a "sin" to kill another human being, but they're SO last century. They really need to update their petty little moral code based on antiquated and highly gendered and class-based concepts. Property owners USED to rule the world...in the FEUDAL system....helloooo! Samuel de Champlain called and he wants his friggin' horse-drawn plow back. That SO does not fit with today's forward thinking. In fact, the distinction between property owners and non-property owners is totally a product of state-sponsored "othering" and promotes undemocratic, culturally insensitive attitudes toward people with different views.

And when it comes to respecting the dignity of life, who are THEY to lecture ME on how I should run MY life? How about my rights in this? I really, really want my neighbour's property, and frankly, he doesn't have the "right" to keep me from having it. After all, it's MY property value that's being affected here, and nobody, and I mean NOBODY, has the right to tell me what to do with it! Especially some property-owning, anti-lease, anti-rent, pro-fence xenophobic bigot who thinks that yard expansion and my self-actualization is some kid of a "sin" or should be against the law. Where do these people get off?

Trying to outlaw or prevent yard-expansion is simply backwards, and it will take us backwards as a society. The reality is that people have killed others for property since, like, forever. It's just a part of human existence (though the pro-fencers want to deny it). The real issue to address here is how to make the killings safe and humane, so that the operation doesn't revert to some back-alley coat hanger killing the way it happens in countries that don't have sophisticated weaponry or proper drugs for sedation. If the pro-fencers really cared about people, they would be fighting for better conquest healthcare, not less of it! Barbarians!!!

Calling this murder or sinful or wrong hurts my feelings, and will lead me to conclude that no moral system that suggests something I disagree with could ever be valid.

Can any doubt remain?

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:54:00 +0000

Stephen Harper didn't simply remain silent on abortion. He actively stated here that he will intentionally defeat any legislation that reopens the issue as long as he is PM.

Haper's hardly clear on anything, but he bothered to be articulate and unequivocal about this. Any doubt/hope in this regard that he created when he kept the CIDA money promised at the G8 Summit away from abortion-related activities overseas has been firmly squelched today.

Can any doubt remain that he is not and has never been the Christian candidate or the automatic choice for Christians? Can we all just acknowledge that there isn't one viable national party that stands for Christian morals, and then move on to judge parties on their platforms on their objective merit, knowing that none of them are going to even pretend to try to stop the baby killers?

It's an interesting read, just to hear him finally be really straightforward and clear on something. Read it here.

It's like a bandaid - just rip it off.

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:30:00 +0000

Read this and be reminded that the world and the Church see things verrrrry differently.

Renounce. Tax. Exempt. Status.

Save yourself the trouble later. Plan now for it. Lose income. Lose members. Then evangelize them.

JG

Macleans isn't Conservative-biased, is it? [yeesh]

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 17:49:00 +0000

A case of subtle manipulation of those who read only the headlines, perhaps?

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 18:00:00 +0000

This blog continues to be about the interface between the Church and the world.

Here's a story from Oregon where the archdiocese of Portland is severing its ties with the United Way because the pooled giving charity is also supplying access to abortion drugs.

The United Way allocated $71K to the archdiocese for its work with the area's poor. I'm not sure if that's annual or if it needs to be applied for again each year.

No doubt, there will be calls of dogmatism and accusations of putting politics over helping people.

What do you think of this moral dilemma? The Archdiocese will not likely be able to raise enough incremental donations to cover this loss. That means less resources to help the poor. Is this a case of no longer being being able to make friends with evil mammon like Jesus said? Or is it a principled stand on one of the most crucial issues of our time? Does NOT taking a piece of the worldly pie just leave more money for killing babies?

I am truly torn on this one. I'm not equivocating on the absolute, objective, grave immorality of abortion. I am not unsure about the evangelical necessity of helping the poor. And I'm not torn because I think for a moment that helping the poor is more important than protecting babies from murder. In fact, I think those are one and the same - they are both expressions of love and compassion, and they are just different fronts in the same spiritual battle for justice. No, poverty is not worse than infanticide. I just simply don't know what the most prudent choice is in this situation.

If I had to decide in this moment (without the precedent of the Archbishop's decision), I would err on the side of taking the money, because, to my knowledge, taking it doesn't help or endorse the other charities who also receive United Way funding. I stand to be corrected if that's not true. But, as I have said before, I am uncomfortable with accepting money with strings attached.

This is DIFFERENT than the case of the archdiocese of Washington DC not being able to accept money from the municipal government that distributed funding only if recipient organizations adopted certain distinctly secular high-level policies. I commented on that before, but have mysteriously misplaced the post. Strange. Anyway, that was different because of the strings attached. I have objected to government funding for Church programs precisely because governments can't be trusted to impose regulations in the future that are unacceptable to the Christian Faith. It's more about the risk of becoming systemically addicted to outside funding. I suppose that applies to the present case as well. I don't really know.

I should note, for what little it's worth, that I support the Archbishop's decision, not only because he has the authority to make it, but because I think it was made from wisdom and prudence.

I'm very interested in your feedback.

Abortion is chauvinistic, dummy.

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 22:43:00 +0000

I just heard this term for the first time: "gender-based foetuscide". (sp?)

The otherwise enlightened person who said it to me explained that it's most commonly used in the context of "intentionally allowing only males to be born".

Foetuscide? Gender-based foetuscide? It sounds so......so.....sterile. So....technical.

In most other contexts, it's called abortion. In any morally honest context, it's called murdering babies until you get a boy. A healthy boy. A well-formed boy.

It's like "reproductive healthcare". That's one of the most offensive and oxymoronic terms known to humankind when used in its most common sense.

But what's worse is that the women's-libbers only really want to drive home the point that you shouldn't be valuing girls less than boys. They're all about making abortion a women's rights issue. We should all support "a woman's right to choose" until....wait a sec.... women are choosing based on an anti-woman criteria....hey, that's murd...ummm....that's abor......ummmm..I mean, that's DISCRIMINATION! It's....it's...it's.....GENDER-BASED foetuscide!!!!

"Gender based" is the prefix that they use to emphasize the utter wrongness, the patriarchalism, the chauvinism, the sheer depravity of a thing. The crazy deception here is that gender-based foetuscide can be wrong, not because it's murdering innocent children in the most unspeakably brutal ways, (no, no, that's soooo simplistic and unsophisticated), but because it DISCRIMINATES against women.

Now, wait a second. Doesn't the term "discrimination" imply that abortion in some way wrongs or disadvantages the foetus (read "human baby") involved? Doesn't that make the baby a victim? Doesn't that suggest that the baby's human rights are in some way violated? Because you can't have it both ways. Either abortion is murder and you just want to make sure that little boys get their brains vacuumed out as much as little girls do, or abortion is simply the amoral extraction of a highly complex organ and the artificial interruption of a biological process, which makes the gender issue moot.

Or, this just serves to illustrate the diabolical true colours of the pro-abortion lobby. Clearly, they can't be labelled anymore by the seemingly noble moniker of "pro-choice", can they?

Awesome clarification analogy re: Popes supposed condom comment

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:56:00 +0000

FULL CREDIT TO REUTERS AND FR. JOSEPH FESSIO S.J.
(Yes - a JESUIT of all things)

In the first place a solution which is not “moral” cannot be “justified”. That is a contradiction and would mean that something in itself morally evil could be “justified” to achieve a good end. Note: the concept of the “lesser evil” is inapplicable here. One may tolerate a lesser evil; one cannot do something which is a lesser evil.

But the crucial distinction here is between the “intention” of the male prostitute, viz. avoiding infecting his client, and the act itself, viz. using a condom. Since this distinction has been missed in almost every report I’ve read, it calls for some elaboration.

(Photo: Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi during a news conference on the pope’s new book at the Vatican November 23, 2010/Alessandro Bianchi)
This distinction, in moral philosophy, is between the object of an act and the intent of an act. If a man steals in order to fornicate, the intent is to fornicate but the object is the act of theft. There is no necessary connection between stealing and fornicating.

In the case of the Pope’s remark, the intent is preventing infection and the object is use of a condom.

Here’s an example of this distinction that parallels what the Pope said. Muggers are using steel pipes to attack people and the injuries are severe. Some muggers use padded pipes to reduce the injuries, while still disabling the victim enough for the mugging. The Pope says that the intention of reducing injury (in the act of mugging) could be a first step toward greater moral responsibility. This would not justify the following headlines: “Pope Approves Padded Pipes for Mugging” “Pope Says Use of Padded Pipes Justified in Some Circumstances”, Pope Permits Use of Padded Pipes in Some Cases”.

Of course, one may morally use padded pipes in some circumstances, e.g., as insulated pipes so that hot water flowing through them doesn’t cool as fast. And one may use condoms morally in some cases, e.g. as water balloons. But that also would not justify the headline “Pope Approves Condom Use”, though in this case it could be true. But it would be intentionally misleading.

In sum, the Pope did not “justify” condom use in any circumstances. And Church teaching remains the same as it has always been—both before and after the Pope’s statements.

It seems as though people need to review their statistics textbooks.

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 01:29:00 +0000

Or maybe just their prejudices.

Here's what I mean. Let's say I were to report the following:

Yet another multiple child murder has been uncovered, and the victims' mother
has been charged. Given the recent spat of maternal infanticides in the past few
months, critics of motherhood have been stepping up their cries for sweeping
action and radical change throughout the families of the world. Social workers,
midwives, the police, and popular psychologists are all coming under fire for
not doing more to prevent mothers from murdering their children, especially
immediately after birth. Husbands and boyfriends, especially, are being
targetted in the media for their almost unbelievable stories of ignorance of the
situation due to fantastic sounding technicalities or the deterioration of
relations between the mother and her partner. Questions about the validity of
female-only mothering are being raised. Advocacy groups are calling for a major
overhaul of the mothering system as a whole that will critically re-examine
long-standing traditions and accepted norms about women, the family, children,
and the way the human race is propagated.

People, when a shocking news story hits a tipping point and garners mass public interest, the media will follow the money and apply all their power of investigative journalism to seeking out and sensationalising any smidgen of that story or an eyebrow-raising spin-off. It sells papers and magazines in a day when those sales are dropping faster than a millstone in the sea.

The obvious rebuttal to this "story" is:

- I have a great mother.
- Mothers aren't all like that.
- Those bad people constitute a fraction of the mother population.
- You can't judge all mothers by a few troubled sickos.
- Any human population that big is bound to have a few nutjobs.
- I am sure that if you look at it, mothers are really low on the list of populations with a per capita concentration of child killers.
- You can't change the nature of motherhood anyway. It's critical for the survival of humanity.
- Motherhood is a God-made institution.
- Stop pestering mothers - your argument doesn't make any sense.
- Level your anger against the abusers, not good mothers, who make up the vast majority.
- All you really need to do is get to know a few great mothers. I can introduce you to some.

Now...
- substitute "priest" and its derivatives for "mother" and its derivatives.
- substitute "church" and its derivatives for "family" and its derivatives.
- substitute "child abuse" and its related terms for "child murder" and equivalent references.
- substitute the Catholic Church and its hierarchy for "husbands", "partners", as well as other structures and supports of family life.
- reverse all gender references.
- leave everything else the same.

Now, stop picking on priests.
Better yet, go talk to one.

Oh....
While you're at it, consider how much wiser it would have been for the mothers in question to simply murder their babies a few days sooner than they did, while the children were still in the womb, or, before that magic point in the birth canal when the gelatinous organic blob inside of them becomes a human being. None of them would be facing charges today. Perhaps the logical conclusion is to set up government-paid "last chance" counsellors in maternity wards to advise mothers that they may regret having their babies and should seriously consider slaughtering them BEFORE they deliver, lest the foetus become a real child. You know, in order to avoid the extra societal cost of incarcerating the mother.

How bloody (and) convenient that would be.

Cardinal Ouellet, on te plumera

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Sat, 29 May 2010 02:50:00 +0000

Read this.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am no fan of Stephen Harper, whose moral compas points only to the pole of power and control. Unfortunately, I have to admit that his recent decisions on abortion are right up Justice Alley (even if he did promise not to legislate on the issue...ya ya ya it's not legislation it's only a huge chunk of foreign policy and a lot of money ... but whatever).

Quebec leftists are up in arms because Cardinal Ouellet the Catholic Primate of Canada has dared to suggest that abortion is a crime. Apparently, speaking for the voiceless victims of abortion is "imposition of religious doctrine" on the state, according to the prez of the Quebec Federation of Birth Planning. What gets me first of all is that a leader of an organization with a name like that can distinguish its OWN message from the "imposition of religious doctrine", seeing that the promulgation of such a message has had the effect of changing the popular understanding of the destruction of an entity that has never been widely regarded as anything less than a human child until the last few decades from "murder" to "reproductive health". And their name: "Federation of Birth Planning"? WTF? Are you joking me? Is that like the "Bureau of Employment Assignment" or the "Committee on Un-American Activity"? How Macarthian can you get? Don't tell me that's not the imposition of religious doctrine (you have to see beyond the obvious humanity of a foetus and concentrate on the right of CHOICE, in the name of freedom and equality for all.)

Second, I also don't understand why Cardinal Ouellet's position on abortion should be called religious doctrine at all, since the Church's congruent cry against all violence against innocents is usually upheld by the mainstream media and hailed as a beacon of social justice. The Church doesn't decry the slaughter in Sudan because it is in line with some national government's agenda or because it is a uniquely Christian doctrine to dislike murder; She does so because it is immoral to kill people like that and nobody is speaking for the victims. The Church does not have to justify speaking out against murder. Nor does she have to justify why she calls abortion murder. It is the abortionists who have revised the commonly accepted understanding.

I remain an advocate for the utter and complete separation of Church and state (or, better stated, a complete abandonment of the state by the Church in favour of people and the Gospel). It is the abortionists, in this case, who are advocating for some kind of union between the two estates that have nothing in common. In fact, one leftist journalist voices his wish that the Cardinal's comments will earn him a "slow and painful death" because he gives voice to a Church teaching that is contrary to the prevailing cultural winds. As if the Church should be a weather vane...? As if North American social sensibilities are a reliable moral benchmark? As if a 30-year-old politically correct legislative provision serves as such a clear and authoritative delineator of inalienable human rights as to anathematize any contradictory teaching, no matter how old? What planet is this journalist living on?

I think if Cardinal Ouellet were to die a slow painful death, it would be to give him an opportunity to offer his suffering in prayer for the salvation of the souls of the journalists and those employed in the abortion camps...errr...industry...errr....clinics.

Sarah Palin says that America is a Christian nation.

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Fri, 07 May 2010 15:30:00 +0000

"What in hell scares people about talking about Americas foundation of faith?", she said to Bill O'Reily. This isn't the first time she has spoken like this.

Lots of Christians agree, and lots of Canadian Christians assume that both Canada and the United States are "Christian nations".

I'm not scared of talking about American's "foundation of faith". I'm not scared to call it a total sham.

Jesus makes pretty clear what anything founded on faith looks like. Paul does, too. The Church has expounded, defended, and promulgated the principles of faith, the path of virtue, the application of the Word of God, and the means of accessing grace for 2,000 years. How can anything be Christian which does not deeply and intrinsically connect to those things? How can anything be Christian which does not and never has acknowledged Jesus as Lord? How can anything be Christian which is not and never has been intrinsically subject to the "law of Christ"? How can anything be Christian which does not and never has submitted to His authority in His body, the Church?

Don't get me wrong - I am not even saying at this point that America or Canada should in fact be Christian. I am only saying that they are not and never have been. It's one thing for a wingnut republican politician to try to gain political points by taking the Lord's Name in vain by suggesting that America is Christian. It's another thing entirely for Christians to have such inflamed sentiments of civic patriotism and such pathalogical insecurity or such malignant ignorance or such bad ecclesiology that they agree with her.

A question of Right versus right.

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:14:00 +0000

So Nebraska wants to limit abortions of babies who have developed past the fetal age of 20 weeks, the age newly established by the medical research community as the point at which an unborn baby can feel pain. What I understand about the science from the WP article (you can read it here) is that, contrary to what was believed decades ago (specifically in 1973), immature nervous systems are not able to deploy the pain mitigation mechanisms that physiologically mature nervous systems have. Essentially, this means that unborn babies feel pain more severely rather than less. I took a glance at the science and I couldn't take much of it because I have a three children and the thought of them scraping their knees makes me breathe hard and become dizzy.

But the bigger philosophical issue, of course, is that the infliction of pain should not be a demarcation point for the morality of killing. Unless we want to stay consistent and make it legal to kill people in other painless ways.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, your task is to determine whether Mr. Smith's first shot killed the victim before he became aware of any pain or if the victim remained alive for a few seconds in pain before the second shot".

"Your honour, the poison that Ms. Jones used to kill her victim completely disables the nervous system - there was no possibility of pain".

"The crown alleges that although most of the grenade attack victims were close enough to the detonation point as to preclude any pain in their deaths, there was one victim who got up to get a drink 6 metres away, and therefore may likely have experienced at least 3-5 seconds of agonizing pain before succumbing to his fatal wounds. Therefore we charge the defendant with one count of murder instead of eight.".

Absurd.

This story illustrates the complete vacuity of the world's hopeless moral systems.

If the evangelical right, misguided as they often are, were behind this campaign, I can fault them only partially on this one. Although their argument about pain betrays the whole point about murder being wrong absolutely, I can see and empathize with their desire to at least limit baby killing by appealing to the world's sensibilities. It seems that most people, even those with a moral system devoid of divine authority and love, don't like hurting babies.

I just can't help, though, but draw the comparison to the same evangelical right's support of the death penalty, rejecting the argument that because some executions are botched and become cruel and painful episodes, there should be no capital punishment.

The historical Church of Jesus Christ values life for life's sake. She values pain for it's spiritual efficaciousness. She loves mercy. She practices and teaches justice. She sacrifices for the poor and the young out of love for God, leading necessarily to love for other people, because they are also loved by God.

The historical Church of Jesus Christ is a collective expert on humanity by virtue of the divine wisdom she has received from the Holy Spirit, informed by Jesus, the apostles, and sacred scripture. She stands for justice in a world dominated by the deception of the prince of the power of the air. She prophesies and speaks the whole consistent truth. She appeals to an authority higher than culture, more compelling than emotion, and more tangible than common sensibility.

Considering this, the question to ask is:

"Am I right because I am a member of this historical, universal, and authoritative Church, submitted and accountable to the whole of her teaching, or am I right by accident?"

The Future of Radical Missions of Mercy

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:53:00 +0000

The Catholic Church has always been on the edge of evangelism. Think about it.

In the age of science, I hear that there is a new frontier of ministry to the most vulnerable and forgotten members of the human family, bar none.

So there are literally hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos that are not needed for the purposes for which they were originally produced. Some call them snowflake babies. I am not sure of how or why this is, but I guess they are just remaining frozen for now until someone figures out the ethical thing to do with them (funny how that wasn't the question to start with).

I read in a news story that I won't post that a nun whom I will not identify said that if the labs decide to allow women to adopt these embryos and have them implanted artificially, she would found a new order of nuns for that very purpose.

I can scarcely imagine a more integral, relevant, and powerful ministry of witness, sacrifice, and mercy in this age.

God bless the snowflake babies and these women who would become mothers of a generation.

Now where have I heard that before?

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:12:00 +0000

Not sure why it happened today, since the event occurred two and a half years ago, but I got one of those "Can you believe what this person said about God" email forwards today from a person who was outraged and offended that Kathy Griffin accepted her Emmy award in 2007 (I wrote that correctly) with some derogatory remarks about Jesus.

As I recall and was reminded by the email, Ms. Griffin said that other people thank Jesus for their award, while in her estimation "nobody had less to do with this award than Jesus". She then goes on to say "suck it Jesus - this is my god now!" (referring to the Emmy).

But since this event and Bill Donahue's customary outrage happened during my blogging hiatus, I never commented. I feel now like I did then: that Griffin was just being truthful. I think Jesus Himself is less offended by such honesty than by cultural "christians" who blather on disingenuously about giving thanks and glory to Jesus but who acknowledge him about as much as Griffin does outside an event like that. She only told the naked truth: that Jesus had very little to do with the award, that she is not fond of Him, and that the statue in her hand is in fact her god. I see nothing offensive about that; it's refreshingly honest. In fact, if Jesus had decided to help somebody win a public award, I am guessing that an award for helping to churn out the immoral drivel that people call television would be among the last things He might choose.

The person who generated this email was particularly vexed to know that if Griffin had pointed out Muhammad as the person who had nothing to do with the award, she would be branded as intolerant and inconsiderate of Muslims.

When will christians wake up to the fact that we live in a world that hates Jesus? And hates us because it first hated Him? It's in the Bible! Better that unbelievers own that fact rather than live out their time on earth thinking that their godless lives are not a stinking offense in the nostrils of God and they discover the truth too late. In fact, recognition of one's disposition of utter opposition to God is one of the first steps to reconciliation and peace with Him. Kathy Griffin is closer to being able to truly accept Jesus than is someone who pretends to know Him already. To say that her comments are offensive is to say that one simply does not understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. The outrage may have come from nominal, cultural, and hopelessly ignorant christians, but they do not come from the Church or from Jesus.

Surely more troubling is the one who was originally offended by this story. They would have christians rise up and denounce the inappropriateness of making one's honest beliefs public and of mocking others' belief systems. Now where have I heard that before?

Oh my. Oh. My.

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 02:06:00 +0000

It takes a lot to shock me.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2010/02/18/12928251-ap.html

Lest I be thought of as too liberal...(I wrote this in February but neglected to post it)

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:54:00 +0000

I can't stand this.

What? Post-natal abortions?

Note that the reasoning is based on ALL the same logic applied by pro-choicers to late-term abortion. Freedom of choice, mercy on a child with poor prospects for quality of life, and the lack of suffering in the "merciful" procedure.

The only thing good about this story is that it highlights the infernal lie that is the Pro-Choice Movement. If conception is not the demarcation of human life, and now even BIRTH is not, what in the flaming hell is the normative moment at which the intentional termination of a human life can be called a homicide?

Even if birth remains recognized as the demarcation point, this story still shows us the diabololical idiocy of pro-choice reasoning. The fact that the line can be blurred between the ante-natal and postpartum states of a child is proof that nothing magical occurs somewhere in the birth canal to make a human being. If this is the case, then life begins at conception, and an entire class of citizens is being subjected to arbitrary summary execution at the whim of any parent who so chooses, and such executions are not only un-prosecuted, they are funded by the state in many cases.

Well, c'mon, you wouldn't want injury to occur to the parent who decides to murder their baby, so we'd better provide reproductive health care.

WHAT?

Did you get that?

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CARE ??!!??!!

RE - PRODUCT - IVE HEALTH CAAARE?

Children die of DIARHEA in Africa every day, and we need to provide REPRODUCTIVE HEALH CARE to make sure that infanticide is SAFE and not too damaging to the mother?

What's the adult equivalent?

"Hey, doc, my neighbour here is really pissing me off and I think he should die. He has a really poor quality of life and I just don't think I am ready to pick up his mail for the rest of my life. I'm not ready for that kind of responsibility or dirty work. Could you make it quick and painless, please? And provide me with some free counselling so I don't feel TOO bad for having him professionally whacked?"

Of course, that's an absurd analogy. Why? Because YOUR NEIGHBOUR HAS A CHOICE IN THE MATTER.

The pro-choicers try to make this argument about sexual rights and moralism and preachiness. You gotta be kidding me. I don't give a flying fart about a sinner's sin. As I recently heard it put, "Sin is in the sinner's job description". Go ahead - fornicate all you want. I won't condemn you for your sexual sin. I will call it sin and I'll offer you Jesus. He'll deal with sin like He dealt with it on Good Friday. But in the meantime, it is in MY job description to give a voice to those who lack one and to stand up against the wholesale murder of innocent babies.

Then they try to make it about women's rights and feminism. Again, you gotta be kidding me. If I say you should not murder the hunman product of rape, I am somehow condoning RAPE? Nonsense! And if I am a man saying to a woman that she should not murder the baby inside her because I think it's wrong, I am somehow trying to wrest control of that woman's body away from her as a patriarchal neanderthal? No, I don't know and can never know what womanhood and motherhood feel like, but I am damn sure that MURDERING your baby is not a pure expression thereof.

Then they finish off by accusing the pro-lifers of minimizing the pain of reluctant mothers and dismissing the hardship involved in whatever decision they make: abortion can result in depression, guilt, and medical complication, whereas giving birth results in more painful decisions like becoming a mom against your will or having to give up the baby for adoption. This is also not true. I have nothing but compassion for any mother faced with an unwanted child. If she kills the baby, I have the same compassion on her as I do on any other murderer. Murder permanently defaces one's personhood, and that's really tough to endure for the rest of your life. Legal justice does not heal spiritual and emotional wounds. If she keeps the baby or allows the baby to be adopted, I have compassion on her for her sacrifice and emotional turmoil.

I also have compassion on every child who has been slaughtered, kept begrudgingly, rendered fatherless, abandoned, or institutionalized. But not as much as the One Who said "Let the little children come to me and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God".

emergency - PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG RIGHT NOW

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:02:00 +0000

No time for eloquence right now - this is a flat-out EMERGENCY.
YOU need to make a difference right now and create some political will to correct a horrible wrong. Here are my last 2 facebook posts to sum it up. PLease use every social networking site or tool you have access to RIGHT NOW. It's not about politics or prestige or marketing - it's about the children. This might be coming from George Clooney - HIS PUBLICISTS NEED TO HEAR RIGHT NOW THAT THIS IS IMMORAL AND THAT HE WILL LOSE A TON OF PUBLIC APPROVAL IF HE SUPPORTS THIS DECISION.

HopeForHaitiNow show not allowing Canadian networks to use Phone number of canadian partnership #canadaforhaiti. Donations won't be matched by Government and no tax receipt. SHARE THIS - FAST!!!!! NOW!!!!! Very high diplomatic channels being engaged right now. MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD - THIS IS IMMORAL.

PLEASE PLEASE pass along - political arrogance in the American HopeforHaitiNow broadcast tonight will prevent thousands of dollars from being matched by the Canadian government because they won't broadcast the Canadian charity phone#'s. Ambassadors and heads of state are involved. Get behind the good guys. Make your political voice heard! Scream loud enough to force people in high places to listen to us right now!

Location, location, location!

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:50:00 +0000

ALTERNATE TITLE:

"Jesus loves you. POW! you're dead."

In view of yesterday's sort-of belligerent post and the email feedback I received, I thought I should sharpen the edges of a particular nuance by commenting on today's Church-and-state story about New Testament verse references being inscribed on sights used by American soldiers in Afghanistan.

Beside being a manifestly bad PR story for the Pentagon, this story allows me to show that my objections to blurring the line between Church and state are not born of a secularist worldview; rather, they are precisely Christian concerns. Even fundamentalist ones (you might call them orthodox concerns). And here's the nuance: I am concerned with sharpening the effectiveness and accuracy of Christian communication and branding, not with somehow changing the content of the brand. THAT particular job was done when the brand was incarnated in Jesus. It continues to be fleshed out by His Church.

To be clear, I stake my life on the truth and authority of every single one of the verses referenced on the equipment in question. I have absolutely no problem with (and I fully endorse) a soldier's desire to constantly avail her/himself of these nuggets of sublime truth. (S)he carries wrapped food in her/his pocket; let her/him also carry spiritual food.

To be sure, as I said, the American military should be concerned. This story could make every American soldier seem like that WWII sniper in Saving Private Ryan who eloquently recites the Psalms as he picks off dozens of Germans one-by-one from his safe perch. This injected poetry into the mini-massacre, distracting the viewer from the grotesque head-explosions and instantaneous mass-orphaning going on. It's stirring (and justifying) to compose a song with grunted psalmic crescendos lyrically rushing into each trigger-pulled "victory for freedom" punctuated by the rhythm of the firing pin against the slump of leather-clad German bodies in the dust. Anyway, whatever image comes to mind when folks hear the "Jesus-gun" story, the word "crusade" is not far removed from it.

But apart from the Pentagon's PR debacle, I submit my larger concern: namely, that the probably well-meaning fundies who snuck the verse inscriptions onto the equipment in contravention of federal law did so against the best interests of the gospel they were trying to promote. In short, the brand was hurt. Brand messages say as much by their delivery as by their content. Picture some overt gospel message painted on an American soldier's gun instead of a concealed inscription. Arguably, the propagators of these inscriptions would want the messages referenced therein to be shouted from the rooftops, right? So, imagine it - "Jesus is

Lord" or "God loves you" or "Repent and be baptized" in neon pink down the barrel of the gun. The PLACEMENT of those very good, true, important, and loving messages so clearly links them to "Die, infidel".

In short:

Yes, the Pentagon needs to revisit the RFP with Trijicon Inc and somehow revoke the contract. Yes, charges should probably be laid.

But the bigger question is: "Why the HELL would any good Christian want to make these inscriptions?" I'm sure the Gideons or the Bible society wouldn't mind supplying tiny compact Bibles to soldiers for free, and that wouldn't involve legal penalties or damage to Jesus' reputation.

In my mind, there are really only two valid verdicts here from a Christian messaging perspective:

Verdict Option #1:

The leaders of Trijicon are waging an idealistic war of their own and not actually spreading the gospel. They enjoy the thought of towel heads getting wasted with their Jesus-guns more than they like the idea of someone actually reading and being transformed by the verses they reference.

Verdict Option #2:

The leaders of Trijicon are simpletons and just.....just....wanna get the WORD out about Jeeeeeeeeesus and to show forth his GLOWRAY! And we'll just bless ahh great nation bah puttin' the sword of the LORD on the swords of ah anointed soldiers, amen? I said aMEN? heh - Grant them VICt'ry, oh Lowad, -heh- as they carray thy TRUTH -heh- to the uttamost paahts o' the heeeeeeathen lands! [Insert B-3 organ swirl]

You get the picture. Either way, they're crazy and their pastors should encourage them to stick to street witnessing, where the fallout from their idiocy can be managed locally.

+ + +

Joey, this doesn't exactly soften your position as you might have intended.

When the spirit moves, I GAHT ta follow! hah ..... GLOWRAY!

[OUTRO: B-3 solo with boom-chuck drums, 2/4 clapping, and a killer bass walk.]

Pat Robertson's Pact with the Devil

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:55:00 +0000

I thnk the context is painfully apparent, so, onto the point(s).

Obviously, I am livid at Pat Robertson's latest attempt to plumb new depths of idiocy and destroy Jesus' reputation. I have already stated many times that this man is a festering malignant tumor on the gospel. I have repeatedly stated (even when I wasn't seeing red) that Christians of all stripes need to actively and publicly distance themselves from him and his organization, and to unequivocally renounce his rhetoric as non-Christian.

I even predicted that he would say something about how the Haiti quake was the fault of Hatians and/or voodou. I wish now that I had posted that prediction here when I made it.

But this guy has said so many things damaging to the gospel since my last rant on him. Why pick on him now? Because this latest episode is both the perfect storm and the perfect oppotunity. It's the perfect storm with regard to Pat's false prophethood, because it combines all of the most toxic elements thereof. It's the perfect opportunity because the untainted wrong-ness of his comments and the resulting public outrage are all we need as a community to finally get this twit's microphone taken away and to throw him off the Christian branding radar once and for all.

You see, my visceral anger over all of this is not like the anger of the political left in general. They are mad because Pat chose the wrong time to point out something with which they already categorically disagree, namely, that God is living and active in the world, and that His sovereign decrees in the Bible about morality and curses and blessings are more than just fleeting fancies and philosophies, and that they are binding on human beings to this day. For the political left, a message like this is just ill-placed when juxtaposed with unspeakable suffering. And, for them, it makes it worse that a very rich white man is blaming very poor black people for their own suffering. Others are using this incident to show (quite rightly) how Pat completely twists history to suit his message, and therefore how all of evangelical Christianity is intellectually weak.

But the reason that Pat Robertson is an insufferable twit and needs to be expunged from the public record as spurious and possibly insane is NOT that he believes in a real God who issues real moral imperatives. It's not even that Pat would call people to submission to said God or that he would suggest that failure to accept God's words, ways, and love could result in personal and societal calamity. All these things are true. God is not to be triffled with, and His followers are not just philosophers with nothing to contribute to real life on earth. Fear of the Lord, not chicken soup for the soul, is the beginning of wisdom.

No. What renders Pat Robertson's comments about Haiti yesterday so heretical and damaging is not the notion that God could ever bring judgement on a person or a group of persons as a result of their actions. It's that he perverts Christian eschatology, soteriology, cosmology, demonology, anthropology, and apologetics so badly as to take all the hurtful bits of each, makes a hard-packed snowball out of them, and launches it into the face of an already misunderstanding public that Jesus is trying to reach. This is the spirit of antichrist, the lord of "truthiness".

I won't get into the theological disagreements I have with Pat. But I want to point out the most vexing irony of this whole thing: Pat's meta-narrative of countries and their allegiances that are tied to their destinies.

Dr. Robertson (I still have a hard time believing someone actually conferred doctoral degree on this man) refers to the mythologized story of the ceremony at Bois Caiman that many believe became the catalyst for the Hatian revolution. This event probably happened and probably did launch the slave rebellion that brought about the revolution. And it almost certainly involved a voodou ceremony and included the sacrifice of a pig. And, in a manner of speaking, the devil may have been involved (insofar as he is likely involved in just about any invocation of spirits outside the covering of Jesus Christ). Robertson makes the astute observation that "many scholars and religious figures" believe that Haiti was cursed since that day. Well, THERE's a revelation, eh? Haiti? Cursed? You don't say! The problem with his argument is his implication that the cursing is a direct result of the aforementioned ceremony, and that all the Haitian slaves consciously made a pact with Lucifer, apparently oblivious to the fact that such a pact would result in centuries of cursing until they became enlightened by some kind of prophetic sermon from the likes of Robertson, at which time they would collectively slap their foreheads, turn to Jesus, and become a Cinderella nation overnight. Would that it were that way - we rich folk in North America would be absolved of our weighty guilt and our Haitian relief efforts could be considered pure charity and not the justice owed to our neighbours that it currently is.

The stark irony in this latest Robertson travesty that overwhelms me is the fact that the Haitians did in 1791 what Robertson believes America should do today.

Robertson usually advocates for a sort of ultra-nationalistic religious re-pristinisation. By that I mean that if he had his way, America would return to its puritan patriarchal and uber-patriotic roots, and live according to a civic religion that includes a pre-civil war mindset, strong protestant christian overtones, white picket fences, and a strictly (legislated) cohesive societal way of life. In a sense, Robertson sees America in a perpetually pre-Revolution state, where they must always struggle against tyranny and rely on strong leaders who will uphold the moral framework of the founding fathers. When American society drifts away from that standard, he would probably say that the tyranny of the European monarchs is replaced by the tyranny of leftist agendas, or of some group that represents it.

Similarly, the Haitian slaves, who had been forcefully removed from their West African homes, forcefully converted to Christianity, and forcefully enslaved, revolted on the grounds that something in their patrimony had been lost and needed to be reclaimed. Their West African animistic religion needed to be recaptured, along with their individual freedoms and powers of self-determination. They might as well have begun the revolution with a declaration of independence or a congressional act, but they chose to consolidate their intentions, not in a document, but in a ritual that, at least thematically, followed their ancient traditions.

When we compare the Haitian revolution with the American one, we see obvious similarities in the motivation for, character of, and fallout from each of them. Both involved a sense of reclaiming an old tradition, resisting the conservationist elitist European powers, asserting human rights, claiming control of new-found lands based on sweat equity as opposed to aristocratic privilege, and establishment of a new and distinct republican government.

Robertson would have us believe that the Haitian and American stories split after this point, with the Haitian republic being cursed and evil as a result of it's satanic revolutionary catalyst, as opposed to the American republic being a beacon of righteousness as a result of its good christian revolutionary impetus. Rather than fully draw out the inconsistencies in this ridiculous notion, I ask the reader simply to think about that for a moment. Another moment. And another. Almost there.....see? Riiiiight. Thoughts of slavery as the economic engine of 18th and 19th century America start to flood the mind? Maybe images of the United Empire Loyalists being shipped off to Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Upper Canada, an option not available to Haitian French loyalists? How about the fact that the American revolution was not as pure as the Haitian one, since many historians regard it as the replacement of a distant elitist government with a slightly less elitist local government (i.e. different elite nobles fighting for control of the land and peoples), as opposed to the only successful post-colonial slave-led rebellion that we see in Haiti? The implication there is that the success and prosperity of the newly founded Haitian republic would necessarily be hindered by factors stemming from the reality of a truly disadvantaged group coming into possession of resources and autonomy without the benefit of a centuries-old trial? It's not like the slaves negotiated a new social contract with the French involving self-governance and then decided to go all the way and declare independence. The Haitians, in order to rise up, had to truly break their shackles and make war with the little they had against the Imperial power.

And yes, those same factors did severely hamper their prospects for prosperity. For one, their crushing debt to France was more than the entire American national debt. In addition, though they had significant natural resources at the time, they weren't diverse enough (mainly sugar) to change with the shifting world economy. This was truly a nation rising from the dust amid the huge European powers and their offshoots. It was not a result of satanic cursing.

Again, to accomplish all this, they returned to their ancestral religion. They found the inner strength to reclaim their old traditions despite their oppression. And if my evangelical friends object by claiming that America turned to God while Haiti turned to voodou, I remind them that a cursory examination of American religion during the colonies and the revolution would show you that America was no more righteous or godly than Saint Dominique (later Haiti). Both nations used whatever religion their ancestors gave them to further their political ideals, good and bad. It was never about righteousness; it was about power.

Robertson wants America to exercise this kind of power continually. He may not be conscious of trying to manipulate God for political power. He is probably a true believer in the sense that he actually sees the political power of American Christians as the work of the Holy Spirit. But that's precisely the problem. He has been deceived by someone very bad from a very hot place and is CO-OPERATING with him to advance the notion that God's righteousness and the human ideal can be realized through human means or with the world's values. That's a pact with the devil, whose best weapon in his fight against the regenerated people of God is TRUTHINESS.

I part ways with Robertson not because I don't believe in saying things the world finds difficult to hear. In my opinion, most of what the Church of God has to say is difficult for the world to hear and is counter-culture and subversive. Judgement and cursing are real. The Bible is true. The Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth and the authority on how to commune with God and access His gifts and avoid His wrath. The reason I think that Robertson should be removed from public prominence in representing christianity is that He will twist true Christianity to suit his political and societal vision, and because he combines that perversion with a driving lust for power and wealth. I imagine that the antichrist will be a much more popular version of Pat Robertson.

By the way, I posted earlier on Facebook that the Church needs to "disown" Robertson. I wish to modify that slightly, because the connotation is that Robertson is beyond the reach of grace. Of course, he will never be exempted from the forgiveness that Jesus offers, so the Church can't disown him per se. However, to mitigate public scandal, correct Jesus' reputation in the world, preserve the spiritual health of the family of God, and promote the possibility of Robertson's own penitence, the most stringent penalties should be imposed. So what I meant to say was that the Church should excommunicate and shun him. Christians should boycott any media or business owned by Robertson, and take active public steps to distance themselves from His rhetoric. We should leave absolutely no doubt that Robertson is on his own on the fringes, and does not represent Jesus in the least. If we don't do this, we are participating in Robertson's unholy pact.

Discernment

noreply@blogger.com (Joey) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 01:32:00 +0000

A plain-Jane post today (and no, Jane, you're not plain).

I have come to the understanding that discernment (the kind we are commanded to practice; not the special spiritual charism) is not a specially acquired skill as I had thought. Nor is it something requiring special divine intervention. In fact, I believe that everybody practices discernment every day; one may just not know it or be able to apply it as well as another can.

It's kind of like wine tasting (not that everybody does that everyday, though it would be nice). I may not know how to articulate what I sense as "hints of oak" or "hmmm.....nutty" or "a nice bold finish". But I do (or would) taste whatever it is that is meant by those labels. My pallet is more or less as "refined" as someone who knows what they are talking about - it's just that when you spend a lot of time actually thinking about and analyzing and appreciating the different nuances in wine, you begin to remember and compartmentalize those nuances, apply labels to them, discover their chemical origins, note how they interact with each other, and observe the conditions they create. If you're good with words, you can write wine reviews for the newspaper that sound like personal ads ("bold and long-legged, provocative but naive", etc.).

Discernment is similar. The conditions that are perceptible to us without special private revelation are available for perception every day. It is a discipline to look closely at the reality constantly in front of us and to appreciate it, analyze it, and think about it. Once you begin to identify the different nuances in the reality around you, you begin to remember and compartmentalize them, apply labels to them, discover their spiritual origins, note how they interact with each other, and observe the conditions they create. If you're good with words, you can impart understanding.

A good friend of mine said that wisdom is the combination of knowledge and understanding to elevate the human standard of living to God's perfect standard. Being created in the likeness and image of God, we have a degree of understanding naturally available to us. Knowledge is acquired by observation and study and attentiveness. Understanding is acquired through discernment as described above. If the very first step is already taken, namely, fearing the Lord (Prov 1:7), wisdom is sure to follow.

"I discern in my spirit" is still a valid phrase, but it is for things that require special revelation. I suspect that, over time and continued receptivity to that special revelation, even some of those things can become perceptible on a regular basis as long as one's ability to perceive is not clouded by the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.

It just feels like I should end with AMEN.

Man, am I ever becoming Catholic. Or just pompous. Or both.