The Plight of Coptic Monks

According to their calendar, it's the 15th century, and their mindset reflects it: Land Dispute or Jihad? The Coptic Monastery Raid Revisited

From the article:

The video report depicted numerous monks, bruised, burnt, and bloodied, with broken bones and punctured wounds. One monk was severely beaten on the head, another stabbed in the neck...

"One of the monks had his arm and legs broken. The other two were tied together with ropes, suspended from a tree, and severely beaten with hoses and sticks. Afterwards, they were placed—upside down and still tied together—on the back of a donkey and shoved off. The monks were further commanded to spit on the cross and proclaim the shahada [the profession of Muslim faith that 'There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet,' which, when uttered in front of Muslims, transform the speaker into a Muslim]—beaten every time they refused, and even threatened with death."

In their ignorance of Church history, they did not know that their basic nature is the same as those who beat St. Peter and his fellow Apostles:

[W]hen they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. (Acts 5:40-42)

2,000 years of persecution hasn't eliminated Christians from the earth. Not even Stalin's highly-organized purges could stop Christians from singing their hymns and taking Holy Communion. Why do these guys think they can do greater? As Gamaliel said right before the Apostles were beaten, "if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nothing; but if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it!"

An Answer about Intelligent Design

In a previous post, I asked the following:

how much more defensible would Intelligent Design be as a philosophy [than as science]?

Upon further consideration, I have concluded that I.D. is impossible as a science, but completely feasible as a philosophy. The scientific method, in its most basic form, requires experimental evidence from at least two emperical data points, one of which is a control.

We, being within the body of evidence itself, cannot experimentally produce two data points to prove that outside intelligence provides the design of the system in which we exist. That is to say, we cannot produce a design without an originating intelligence in order to show that our system is designed by an Intelligent Being.

Ergo, Intelligent Design is not science. However, just as imaginary numbers can be proven to exist via mental consideration, so also Intelligent Design may yet be subjected to such mental exercise.

A Question About Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design is not a science. Science depends upon emperical evidence, and I.D. has very little (read "none").

However, how much more defensible would Intelligent Design be as a philosophy?

Memory Eternal

With the saints give rest, O Christ, to the soul of Thy handmaid Bonnie Magdalene, where there is neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but life everlasting.

A Useful Paraphrase

Some things never change over time, and human nature is one of them. To illustrate, let me paraphrase 1 Corinthians 1:22-24:

For rednecks require a sign, and geeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto rednecks a stumblingblock, and unto geeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both rednecks and geeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

Abortion? It's Just Politics, Says Bill

Some students from Franciscan University got Bill Clinton to expose his moral vacuity a couple days ago. I especially love the part where he tries to use "political will" to justify abortion-on-demand, as if these little things like "right" and "wrong" have nothing to do with it.

Awareness Altered, Not Absent

And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. (Mark 5:39, KJV)

Have you ever been dreaming while your clock radio was playing, and you heard the radio in your dream? Then you tried to shut off the radio, even unplugging it, but it just kept playing? (And then you woke up, to recover from the budding nightmare...)

You heard this life in your sleep. So do those in the Body of Christ who have fallen asleep. Bishop Nicholas of Myra in Lycia hears us when we say, "Most holy hierarch Nicholas, pray to God for us." The priest Valentinus hears the prayers, "O Martyr among Priests, Saint Valentine, intercede with Christ God to save our souls."

And if the saints in slumber pray for us, does God hear their prayers?

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Colossians 3:16, KJV)

Not all singing is with the mouth, and not all words to the Lord are heard with human ears. Even those who are "dead to the world" have silent hymns, and the Lord hears the words of their hearts.

Holiday Slideshow

Being the geek that I am, I like to challenge myself with new ideas. A few weeks ago, I decided that my latest challenge should be to create a Christmas slideshow. I could put up a few strings of flashy lights, maybe even hang a wreath, but why should I be like my neighbors? I have the power of Linux and Free Software at my fingertips; I should show it to them, right?

My requirements for the project were simple:

1. It must start automatically after boot.
2. It must have some privilege separation, for protection against my programming mistakes.
3. Later, I decided it should not run during the day, when sunlight makes the slideshow pointless.

The first challenge was to decide on the hardware setup. I have two primary systems: my powerful desktop, my much weaker system for experiments. My desktop system is nowhere near a window, and I didn't feel like moving my entire computer desk. I'm not sure the weaker system is capable of running a slideshow (yes, it really is that weak). I don't have a VGA extension cable, but I do have lots of Cat5 for Ethernet. Ah, the distributed X protocol to the rescue! My desktop runs the slideshow, and the experimental system runs the X server. Already having a serial console on the experimental system is an additional benefit, because I can keep a text login for emergency rescues.

The second challenge was to find properly-licensed images suitable for viewing from the street. I leave this as an "exercise for the readers," who might want pictures for Hanukkah, Sol Invictus, Kwanzaa, or even simply "Happy Birthday." My only word of advice: try not to be too abstract or conceptual. Remember, this really is a show for the "man on the street"; as my geeky retired mother said, Nativity scenes should not look like pickles.

Finally, it was time to make it all work together. To meet requirement #1, I had to make sure the script was suitable for running from /etc/inittab. Bash scripting is my language of choice, but security isn't really part of the language (hence requirement #2). I had initially decided to use OpenOffice.org Impress, but it proved to have difficulty with long-term stability, so I settled on using the GLslideshow module from the XScreensaver collection. The GLslideshow setup also uses less memory.

I wanted to make the setup reasonably portable, so I decided to keep the configuration in environment variables (as many as I could think of). These are the local user for the X server; the remote user and hostname for the GLslideshow client; and a local, writable directory for state management.

The X forwarding capability of OpenSSH makes it the preferred channel for connecting the X server and the GLslideshow client. My desktop system connects directly to the Internet via dial-out, so a mis-routed packet needs to be shielded from snooping. The OpenSSH project provides the ssh-keygen program for automating SSH connections, without requiring a password. On the experimental system running the X server, I logged in as myself and ran ssh-keygen, giving no password. The generated key allows unattended scripts to use SSH sessions.

On the desktop system, I created a new user called "slideshow", with only a home directory, but none of the skeleton files. On my Slackware system, this meant deleting the standard skeleton files after the fact, leaving only .ssh:

useradd -g users slideshow
cd /home/slideshow
rm -rf * .[a-z]*  # Be very careful NOT to use ".*"!
mkdir .ssh

Then I copied the .ssh/id_rsa.pub file from the experimental system to the desktop, for password-less SSH connections:

cd .ssh
scp me@remote:.ssh/id_rsa.pub authorized_keys
chmod 600 authorized_keys
chown slideshow:users authorized_keys

I confirmed this was correct, by opening an SSH session from the remote system to the local system, without requiring a password.

The GLslideshow program needed to know where to find the images on my desktop system. In a terminal window, I typed:

xhost +localhost # A different user needs this for X access
su - slideshow
[password]
xscreensaver-demo

Then I clicked on the Advanced tab, selected "Choose Random Image" in the Image Manipulation block, and entered "/home/slideshow/wallpapers" as the directory containing the images. Closing the window saved the parameters.

Next, I created a script on the experimental system, to check the network connection and start the slideshow, if the time is between 5:00PM and 7:00AM. Okay, the script is actually the result of approximately 17 iterations. A few notes:

1. I have tried to centralize configuration into the environment variables at the top of the script.
2. Using -Y instead of -X bypasses certain security checks in OpenSSH's X forwarding. This means it should be used only on a trusted network, with trusted systems.
3. The parameters to glslideshow (no fading or panning) are chosen to minimize the network and CPU load on my experimental system.
4. Checking that X is still running could surely be improved. Another process with the same PID as $XPID could appear, confusing the state management with a race condition.

With this script in /etc/rc.d, I made the following adjustments to /etc/inittab:

1. I commented out all the c1-c6 lines, so that no login would interfere with the VGA screen. (I already had the serial console ttyS0 set up, from previous tinkering.)
2. I changed the x1 line to read: x1:4:respawn:/etc/rc.d/slideshow.sh

With that, I logged in as root and typed "telinit 4" to see if it would work. Voila! Every 20 seconds, a different image appeared.

Bearing in mind the networked nature of the script, I tested its recovery capability by rebooting my desktop. Sure enough, it restarted just fine. In fact, the slideshow was running on the experimental system before my X login screen appeared on my desktop.

To make it fully automatic, I changed the default runlevel in the experimental system's /etc/inittab to 4:

id:4:initdefault:

This is Slackware's default X login runlevel; some (most?) Linux distros use runlevel 5 instead. A reboot of the experimental system made sure the slideshow script would survive a reboot.

Once everything was working together correctly, I put the monitor in the window, so that my neighbors and people walking and driving by could see it.

My experiment has been a personal success, bringing together my skills in Bash scripting, documentation chasing, and the old "scratch an itch" feeling.

Not a Bed of Roses

Behold, there went out a sower to sow: And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred. (Mark 4:3-8, KJV, emphasis added)

The seed that fell on "good" ground, fell on ground that was fertile and tended. Someone pulled the weeds, put a fence around it to keep out the wild animals...

...and made sure it got some natural fertilizer every year.

I guess preaching the Gospel can sometimes be a stinky business.

Joy in Sadness

With the Saints give rest, O Christ, to the souls of Thy servant Rami, where there is no pain, no sorrow, no sighing, but life everlasting. Amen.

The Defendant Who Died

A Nebraska state senator has decided to "sue God" in court, making all kinds of wild accusations against Him. Ostensibly, he's trying to make "a point about frivolous lawsuits," but the sound bite I heard with him on the radio puts the lie to that. He said, with a microphone in his face, that Christians are using the courts to push a "bigoted" agenda. I guess he hasn't looked in the mirror lately.

But the stickiest thing about it is, wasn't God already tried and executed 2,000 years ago? How can Chambers bring Him up on charges again?

Or maybe Chambers is just another anti-Christian twit who refuses to recognize God's triumph over death, against which even Chambers himself is powerless.

Incarnation's Purpose

I used to think Christ came to earth as a common man, in order not to frighten us when we saw Him.

No, Christ came to earth as the original Man, in order to frighten us into realizing just how badly we have damaged His image in us.

Complete Glory

Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (I Corinthians 6:19, KJV)

In light of this verse, and the implications it carries, I finally figured out what bothers me about shows like Heroes and comics like X-Men. It's the suggestion that somehow, we are "incomplete" without that next evolutionary step.

The so-called "enhancements" man wants are really defilements of God's temple. It is very much like putting a mirrored disco ball in the middle of the church ceiling: it might make the kids go "ooooh!", but in reality it's gaudy, pretentious, and it detracts from the Lord's due glory.

Why I Am Not a Dualist

After the recent earthquake in Perú that killed over 500 people, survivor Richard Stallman made the following comment on Linux.com:

I read that a church collapsed on worshipers during mass; later I heard that the priest had been rescued. Believers surely attributed the rescue to the good will of a benevolent deity. They probably did not attribute the collapse to the ill will of an evil deity, but it would be equally logical.

As one commenter put it on another board, "Wow." The sheer audacity of those two sentences is shocking.

The rough-and-tumble discussion that ensued gave me pause for thought. What exactly was it about Stallman's comment that was so abrasive? Was it the timing? Certainly that was part of it. Was it his brazen rudeness to the faiths of his hosts in Perú? Possibly. But I think the fingernails on the chalkboard came from one phrase: "the ill will of an evil deity," and the accompanying assertion that this is somehow "logical."

This is not "logical" by any stretch, for those who believe in ultimate good and evil. If there are (at least) two "deities," and one is good, while the other is evil, how can either claim superiority over the other? Or, if one deity is indeed superior, how can the inferior power claim "deity" and legitimately demand obedience?

I see good as ultimately powerful over evil, and whatever purpose the good has for allowing evil for a short time, does not mean we should simply tolerate evil until some Omnipotence smacks it away. The dualistic idea that good and evil have parity is repugnant to me, and negates the very notion that one can be called "good" and the other not. They become simply two hostile forces between which we choose.

If Stallman was trying to be "good," using human deaths in a natural catastrophe to make some agnostic/nihilistic point is hardly the way to do it. On the contrary, Stallman the opportunist saw fit to denigrate a 2,000 year old system of belief to make some out-of-the-blue point about faith on Linux.com, possibly even the faiths of his hosts in Perú.

When Pat Robertson the opportunist did something similar after Hurricane Katrina, ostensibly trying to make a point for Christianity, he was told in no uncertain terms to "sit down and shut up." Richard Stallman deserves the same treatment for the same bad behavior.

Willfully Blind

In chapter 9 of the Gospel According to St. John the Evangelist, we get a stark contrast of authorities: Jesus' authority as the Creator, and the legalistic authority of the Pharisees.

When Jesus encountered the blind man (v. 1), His disciples asked Him who was being punished (v. 2). Jesus pointed out that, in this case, the man's blindness was no punishment, but a means to reveal the power of God (v. 3).

His sin was neither the cause nor the primary concern of Jesus' actions.

Once Jesus finished the repairs (a slight augmentation of His work in Genesis 2:7), He sent the man to be baptized in the Apostle's Pool (v. 7), appropriate since he was about to be an "apostle" to the Pharisees. At this point in the narrative, Jesus and the man lost contact. The man trusted Jesus' word, and went to wash. When he did, he received his sight.

How joyful this certainly made him! He received what he had never had before, and his entire life was transformed as a result. Not like someone who had become blind, mourning a vision lost, he went from what had been the only life he had known to one filled with brilliant hues, stark contrasts, smooth gradients, and the blessings or dangers in the hands of those around him. He no longer needed to fear the entire unseen world, because he could see the silent dangers, the sharp edges, the hard walls, the clenched fists. He had a strength that was new to him, sight, and it was a strength given by God Himself.

Such joy was short-lived. The rumors started to spread, that maybe he had an unknown twin brother, or a doppelganger that was standing in his place as an attention-grabber. He quickly affirmed that he had been the blind man (v. 9), and as a result he was compelled to appear before the Pharisees (v. 13).

The Pharisees did everything they could to find a crime, something to quash Jesus' ministry, but the only tenuous suspicion their legalistic minds could develop was "working on the Sabbath." Jesus had just demonstrated His perfect authority as God, the Giver of the law and the Sabbath, and the Pharisees were hung up on what day of the week it was!

When they could not use the man to find an accusation against Jesus, the man's parents were summoned to answer for their son. Their response cut to his heart: they would not defend him. These people, who had worked so hard to raise their blind son to adulthood, who until hours earlier did his cooking and cleaning, suddenly left their son to stand on his own. Their fear kept them from sharing in the joy of their son's new sight; they could only answer their interrogators with evasion and non-answers (vv. 20-23).

The Pharisees returned their attention once again to the man, this time forcing him into an oath, then trying to lead him into repudiating Jesus' authority (v. 24). The man refused to go along with this, taunting them for their automatic hatred of the One they claimed to serve (v. 27). The Pharisees, as if to confirm it, stopped whitewashing their attitude with a direct accusation: "You are this man's disciple!" (v. 28), then admitted that they hadn't bothered to investigate Jesus for themselves (v. 29). The man, now needing to defend himself without any assistance, threw their ignorance back in their faces, calling it a "wonder" (v. 30), then said plainly that Jesus' actions demonstrated His authority.

In their evil hearts, the Pharisees held on to the one thing Jesus rejected from the outset: the sin of the man and his parents. "You were completely born in sins, yet you would teach us?" (v. 34). What Jesus set aside regarding the man's blindness, became the only thing that mattered to the Pharisees.

They kicked him out of the synagogue for his proper contempt, but put a tail on him, hoping he would lead them to Jesus. Because he had not yet seen Jesus after he received his sight, he didn't recognize Him at their next encounter (v. 36). Jesus pointed out who He was, giving the man the opportunity to worship Him Whom he now saw (v. 38).

The Pharisees who had tailed the man, in refusing to worship the Lord and Creator Whom they had seen for several years, responded to His mission statement with the angry retort: "What, are we blind, too?" (v. 40). Jesus answered by pointing out that they didn't think they needed healing, so they would not get it (v. 41). They preferred their blindness.

Between Being and Not Being

When someone chooses hell over eternal communion with the Lord of all existence, he chooses innate contradiction.

In hell, all human desires are frustrated, including the supreme human desire to serve the Lord. All petitions for relief (the only self-centered desire in hell) are ignored, as the Lord refuses the condemned any influence over His eternal blessings.

The Lord's answer to prayer, no matter what it is ("yes," "no," "wait") is still an affirmation of the petitioner's existence. Those in hell get no such acknowledgment.

Thus, those in hell are caught in a contradiction, of existence and pointlessness. They exist, but they don't matter to Him upon Whom all existence depends.

Once again, my thanks to "the Batman" for stirring my brain on this topic.

Same Concept, Different Words

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. (Numbers 6:25-27, KJV)

Jewish ontology gives special meaning to someone's face. If the king looks at someone in his court, he is giving consent to that person's presence. In Fiddler on the Roof, when Tevye's daughter Chava married a Christian, he turned away and would not face her.

When Peter rebuked Jesus for speaking of His crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus counter-rebuked Peter, saying,

Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. (Mark 8:33, KJV, emphasis added)

Or, in modern parlance, "Get outta my face!" Same concept, different words. Peter was still bound by worldly thinking, and as such threatened to interfere with Jesus' salvific work. Jesus rejected this outright.

Predestination and Free Will

It isn't difficult to demonstrate the compatibility of human free will with God's omniscience.

Quick, choose a number between 1 and 50! Got it?

Now, truthfully, I don't care what number you chose. And I doubt God cares, either. But the point is this:

Do you really think God didn't know, at the Creation, which number you just now chose? At the same time, did His foreknowledge in any way negate your choice?

His knowing in eternity does not preclude our temporal decisions.

Popular, Cute, and Wrong

No, I'm not talking about Paris Hilton. It's one of those stories about Heaven going around on the 'net. It tries to hand the reader a platitude on a silver platter, but its conclusion is dangerously wrong.

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead. He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.

When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side

When he was close enough, he called out, "Excuse me, where are we?"

"This is Heaven, sir," the man answered.

"Wow! Would you happen to have some water?" the man asked.

"Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up"

The man gestured, and the gate began to open.

"Can my friend," gesturing toward his dog, "come in, too?" the traveler asked.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets."

The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.

After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence.

As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.

"Excuse me!" he called to the man. "Do you have any water?"

"Yeah, sure, there's a pump over there, come on in."

"How about my friend here?" the traveler gestured to the dog.

"There should be a bowl by the pump."

They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it.

The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog.

When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.

"What do you call this place?" the traveler asked.

"This is Heaven," he answered.

"Well, that's confusing," the traveler said. "The man down the road said that was Heaven, too."

"Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That's hell."

"Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?"

"No, we're just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind."

Can I get an "awwwwwwwwww"?

There's just one catch: There is no place in Heaven for people who want things on their own terms. Their demands that "It won't be Heaven without my little Billy" are vain attempts to subject eternal communion with God to human pride.

Instead, Heaven is the place for those who let go of all, leaving it to God to either give it growth or incinerate it:

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.... [W]hosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26-27, 33, KJV)

"All that he hath" includes his favorite hunting dog, her little Billy, and whatever earthly benefits you think you have.

The best friend who says, "spend eternity with me," becomes an obstacle to Heaven, setting himself up proudly as the focus of eternal joy. Such a perversion of philia, friendship, turns the best friend into a deadly enemy and an agent of Hell.

(For further reading: The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis.)

Memory Eternal

Hi, folks.

Sorry I've been so quiet these past few days. I lost a friend and mentor of sixteen years last Friday.

He was an artisan, specializing in Eastern Orthodox iconography and calligraphy. At one time, he had been a blacksmith, but his knees eventually gave out on him, leaving him unable to stand for more than a few minutes at a time. He also had some experience with woodcarving, and was an excellent cook.

When my marriage fell apart, and I crawled back to my hometown with my tail between my legs, it was on his shoulder that I finally let loose all the agony and self-loathing that was pent up inside. He was good with words, but he had a keen sense of expression that understood how much more valuable a hug could be.

He had a major stroke last Tuesday night, leaving his right side paralyzed. It was a blessing that he, as an artisan, was not left long to live without the use of his better hand.

When his soul finally departed, he was surrounded by family and friends of this life, praying that the holy angels would stand guard around him in the next.

One of the things we pray for in the Orthodox liturgy is "a Christian end to our lives, peaceful, without shame and suffering, and for a good account before the awesome judgment seat of Christ." I believe he was granted the former, and soon we will pray that God grant him the latter as well.

Sic semper vita. Thus always is life. But that doesn't mean I have to like it, or approve of it.

Racing Toward Martyrdom?

It's bad enough when religious persecution comes from non-believers. It's even worse when the persecutors claim to be fellow believers. Worse yet, when one of the first in line has a Ph.D. For this reason, Francis Beckwith has my sympathy.

Douglas Groothuis (the "Ph.D.") has this to say about Beckwith's return to Catholicism (all emphases mine):

Dear Frank:

This is a sad day for all true sons and daughters of the Protestant Reformation, for all who lived and died for its truths.

Having abandoned the distinctives of the Reformation (which are deeply rooted in Holy Scripture), you are embracing serious theological error. I wish I could say otherwise, but conscience-bound, I cannot.

By joining Rome, you are putting an institution above God; you are putting men (and I mean males) ahead of the pure gospel of Jesus Christ (See Galatians 1:6-11).

However, you are doing the right thing to resign from your position at ETS.

I have appreciated much of your writing over the years, but I lament what you have now done.

Sincerely,
Doug Groothuis

Ouch. I know some people are anti-tradition, but coming from a Ph.D. it's particularly shocking. In fact, Groothuis' invocation of Galatians 1:6-11 undermines his own case:

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.

Any other gospel than that ye have received. Groothuis probably does not realize that his reference actually strengthens the case for tradition, affirming Christ's promise: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. 28:20). The Gospel which Paul preached is the same Gospel handed down to us, generation to generation, strengthening the Body of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. This promise of Christ's presence was not suspended for 1,600 years, it was not revived by Martin Luther's "Reformation." The Gospel can be preached from any quarter, as the Holy Spirit sees fit, including in a Catholic congregation. Groothuis needs to be careful, lest his own Gospel preaching become one based on men (or a man, Martin Luther), rather than the continuous, eternal Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Most sadly of all, he is putting his faith in the slain martyrs of the Reformation, calling upon their sacrifices to justify his anti-traditional positions, rather than seeking his justification in Christ. If the "body count" is a measure of "holiness," then Catholics are far holier than Protestants, and Orthodox most of all, having suffered the bloodiest religious persecution of history under Soviet Communism. The holy martyrs are recognized, not by how they died, but how they lived in Christ. Martyrdom is not simply "dying for a cause"; it is the witness of Christ's Resurrection, whether the believer dies in persecution or in slumbering solitude.

"I know where the Church is; I do not know where She is not." When Jesus Christ chooses to obscure His holiness for the protection of His Body, we need to remember the Lord's answer to a despondent Elijah: "I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him" (I Kings 19:18). The Church can be found everywhere, whether Douglas Groothuis sees it, or chooses not to.

The Climate Change Religion

The mask finally slips: Gore sees 'spiritual crisis' in warming:

"It's in part a spiritual crisis," Gore told the crowd in the Convention Center at the American Institute of Architects national convention. "It's a crisis of our own self-definition — who we are. Are we creatures destined to destroy our own species? Clearly not."

Rush Limbaugh was right: Environmentalism is the new Communism, complete with the same demands to end private property rights. This time, instead of service to the all-powerful State, the focus is service to the all-important "Mother Earth."

With evidence of warming even on Mars and Jupiter from the Sun's variable energy production, Al Gore still expects us to believe that rising temperatures on Earth are primarily because of humanity's activity. The new "carbon offset" fraud has about as much research and accountability as Scientology.

Al Gore's own mansion has a five-figure electricity bill, yet we're supposed to believe he cares about the planet? I think Matthew 23 applies here:

Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,
Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:
All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.
For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,
And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,
And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.

Environmentalism, as an end unto itself, is a religion, with Al Gore as its Chief Priest, repentance via carbon offsets, and redemption through the Kyoto Protocol. How much more proof do we need?

New Presentation, Same Message

I texted several friends yesterday afternoon, saying "Christ is risen! :-)".

The first reply I got: "Indeed He is risen! (Who is this?) :-)"

The icons are right. The face is important.

A Glorious Pascha!

Christ is risen from the dead,
trampling down death by death,
and on those in the tombs bestowing life!

Having beheld the resurrection of Christ, let us worship the holy Lord Jesus, the only Sinless One. We venerate Your cross, O Christ, and we praise and glorify Your holy resurrection. You are our God. We know no other than You, and we call upon Your name. Come, all faithful, let us venerate the holy resurrection of Christ. For behold, through the cross joy has come to all the world. Blessing the Lord always, let us praise His resurrection. For enduring the cross for us, he destroyed death by death.

Dichotomy: Hell and Heaven

The Lord gives us many warnings about "hellfire and brimstone" in the New Testament. What exactly is He warning us about? And why so many more words of warning about Hell, than enticement about Heaven?

Hell is the realm of ultimate contradiction, where God's will is carried out only by denying God's will to its residents. It is not His will "that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9); in the name of isolating evil from the joys of Heaven, a place is set aside where evil has its way. Agony, selfishness, denial, powerlessness, division, hatred, anger, and above all pride are the norms in Hell. Humanity, created by God, is corrupted permanently; all truly human desires are forgotten, while un-human desires are eternally frustrated. Made for the punishment of demons (Matt. 25:41), Hell is everything inappropriate for humanity, the culmination of rejecting God's love for us.

Heaven, then, is Hell's unequal opposite. Just as darkness cannot overcome light, Hell cannot overcome Heaven. Where Hell is the culmination of rejecting God's love for us, Heaven is the culmination of our love for God. Our goal is not the created Heaven, but the Uncreated Lord Who loves us and Whom we should love with all our hearts, souls, and strengths. Heaven is a secondary concern, not an end in itself.

And, where Hell is so easily definable, Heaven is not. Where Hell is easily obtainable now, Heaven is the reward which comes only to the patient. The Lord speaks of Hell with very specific descriptions ("where the worm dieth not, and  the fire is not quenched"), but His most specific description of Heaven, "in My Father's house are many mansions" (John 14:2) still leaves much to the imagination. The message seems to be, "Just you wait and see, it will be better than any words can describe."

(For further reading: The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis.)

That Time of Year Again

Gentlemen, take your positions.

Ready...

Set...

DEFAME!

Seriously, you'd think the yearly ritual of bashing Christ's Resurrection would be getting old after almost 2,000 years. But no, the so-called "post-modern" heretics can find lots of tawdry new ways to express their hatred.

Can we expect the same attitude from James Cameron towards Islam? I'm not holding my breath.

Update 2007-02-26 01:30pm EST: Cameron has exposed his dilettante side:

Archaeologists and clergymen in the Holy Land derided claims in a new documentary produced by James Cameron that contradict major Christian tenets, but the Oscar-winning director said the evidence was based on sound statistics.

Lies, damned lies, and...

Another Carl Sagan Screw-up

A Carl Sagan quote from my "fortunes" file:

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987 CSICOP keynote address; emphasis mine)

He obviously never heard of these:

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. (Matthew 28:19,20, KJV)

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. (Mark 16:15, KJV)

Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. (Acts 2:41, KJV)

Yes, it even happens today. It takes precious little effort to find people whose hearts were changed; one only has to ask colleagues and friends about any radical Christians they might know.

Yet somehow, I suspect Mr. Sagan never bothered to ask. He was wise not to ask questions for which he didn't wish to know the answers.

On the Phrase "Salt of the Earth"

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. (Matthew 5:13, KJV)

How did His audience understand "salt?"

1. The most common use of salt in Jewish society was for making meat kosher. Special, flaky salt, distilled from either the Mediterranean Sea or the Dead Sea, rubbed into beef, will dry it out quickly, making it less suceptible to spoilage. Thus, salt cleanses.
2. Salt was used for currency in some social strata. Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in mined salt, rather than mined and minted metal. Thus, salt adds value.
3. In the Third Punic War, the Romans may have used salt (or seawater) to render farmland unarable. Thus, salt is a combat weapon.
4. Finally, the use everyone knows: flavor enhancement for food. This savor is the sine qua non of salt. Without it, salt is just a white powder, or a gray rock, "good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."

On a related note, to call His disciples the "salt of the earth" points out their un-common status. In Judea, salt was harvested from salty waters, not from the earth. Even given the proper modern English rendition of the phrase, "you are the earth's salt," the sense still retains the idea that the salt is where it doesn't belong. We belong to the Lord's Kingdom, not an earthly kingdom (John 18:36).

Sic semper vita

Grant remission of sins, Lord, to all our fathers, brothers, and sisters who have departed before us in faith and the hope of the Resurrection, and make their memory eternal.

Thus always goes life: the prince and the pauper, the infant and the patriarch. No strength prevents death, "the way of all flesh."

And so it has become for my uncle Thomas, a man larger than life. He was, in every sense of the phrase, "master of his domain and lord of all he sees." He worked in the coal mines while he and his wife raised four boys, each one a handful in his own way. Last year saw their Golden Anniversary celebration in their tiny little hometown in the hills.

The end of his life was not peaceful, but it was merciful.

On the Rich Man in Hell

Luke 16. It's a snapshot of hell, focused on the rich man. It shows a three-fold rejection of God's relationship to man: Abraham, representing the first covenant of salvation; Moses, representing the law; and the prophets, representing God's warnings of our ways. In other words, "I'll tell you how," then "here's how," then "do it." The rich man wanted none of it.

He has no name; "may his name be erased" is a common Jewish curse, in line with the Semitic philosophy about names and knowledge. Nobody in hell has a name, because nobody else cares to know it, not even others in hell.

The rich man's first complaint from hell: "Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame."

The rich man refuses to admit his own powerlessness.  He still considers himself the "master of his domain." He arrogates to himself the authority to boss around Abraham, the first Jew. Then, to make bad worse, he tries to use Abraham to boss around Lazarus, for his own selfish purposes. Bad, bad, bad!

In hell, the focus is entirely on self; others get only pride, arrogance, hatred, disdain.

Abraham's response, condensed: "You did not show mercy to Lazarus, and so cannot now receive any mercy from him." Abraham doesn't even bother to confer with Lazarus on the matter, choosing instead to protect Lazarus completely from the rich man's evil desires. 

The rich man's second complaint: "I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment."

Is he trying to save his brothers? No. There is no love in hell. He's trying to keep them from arriving and making his own torment worse. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Yes, and the rich man and his rich brothers did not keep one another in God's love. All that will be left is their own hatred for one another, made even worse by the familial relationship they share.

What's more, whereas Moses' law forbids divination by spirits of the dead (necromancy, spiritism, witchcraft), the rich man is trying to get Lazarus to facilitate an abomination (Deut. 18:9-12).

The final complaint exposes just how devoid of love he is. First, Abraham responds to the second complaint: "They [the brothers still living] have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them." Moses (the law) and the prophets were sent by God, and Abraham invokes them as a rebuke to the rich man.

Then the rich man replies, "Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent."

In other words, "No, Abraham, God didn't do enough!" The law and the prophets drew the full picture of God's expectations of us. Ultimately, he's trying to blame God for his own foul end!

All Bible quotes are from the KJV. Again, my thanks to "the Batman" for spurring me to write this.

All Nations, Not One Nation

As a convert, I tell people I am "Orthodox by choice, Greek by default." I was actually attending an OCA congregation regularly while I was investigating Orthodoxy during college. After returning to my hometown, I was chrismated into a Greek congregation, as it was the only Orthodox congregation less than an hour's drive from home. Today, after having lived elsewhere twice, I still call this congregation "home."

Since my chrismation, I have worshiped with Greeks, Russians, Belorussians, Ukrainians, Syrians, two Indians, a Japanese, a Chilean, and a Filipina, all confessing Orthodox. Will uniting the Orthodox in the USA lead to "Americanization" of the Church's beauty? Perish the thought! Her ethnic varieties are a direct result of the Lord's command in the Great Commission: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations..." (Matt. 28:19, emphasis mine)

To use ethnic differences as barriers, foundations for prejudice, etc., is indeed a grievous sin. But what good can come of minimizing "Old Country" cultures to fit into a so-called "American Orthodox" institution? Such a move would serve only to alienate the thousands of Orthodox immigrants, people who desperately need the support and experience of other Orthodox who migrated before. Without strong islands of old culture, new immigrants will find much less motivation to attend the Divine Liturgy regularly. They will prefer to stay home, rather than add one more day of frustrating culture shock to their week.

The cultural expressions of Orthodoxy (styles of iconography, hymnody, liturgical language) are just that: culture. None is "more Orthodox" than another, because Orthodox doctrine is independent of all of them.

Thank the Lord for this, because I can feel "at home" in a congregation, no matter what language I hear the most. They are my fellow Orthodox, and what they profess in the Nicene Creed, I profess, too. No man's jurisdictional unity is needed for the beauty of "all nations" in the Body of Christ; His true unity is sufficient.

On the Baptism of Children in Scripture

What is baptism?

"Baptism" is derived from a Greek word, baptisma, which refers to a total immersion in water. For example, a ship sunk in battle would be recounted in historical chronicles using words related to baptisma.

As a religious act, baptism is a washing to signify a cleansing from sin, the death of the old sinner and the resurrection of the new believer. For Christians, it is commanded in the warning of St. John the Baptist: "Repent and be baptized, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near." Jesus Christ Himself was baptized by St. John, and called it a righteous act. In the words of the Anglican Catechism, baptism is "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace."

What are the origins of baptism as a religious act?

The Jewish immersion (tevilah) is always a cleansing act. The mikvah where this is performed contains "living water" (rain, snow, or flowing water, not carried or pumped), and the people or dining utensils immersed will leave the immersion ready for full participation/use in Jewish religious life.

What is a Nazirite?

The Nazirite is subject to particular Jewish laws, in addition to the regular laws. Grapes and grape-derived products (wine and raisins), corpses, and haircuts are avoided, although the consequences of not avoiding any of these varies according to circumstances. People under a Nazirite vow perform a tevilah at the end of their obligation. Additionally, they bring three offerings: a burnt offering, a sin offering, and a peace offering. Other items (grains, matzoh, oils) may be offered as well. These actions are appropriate to the penitent, possibly due to the exit of the Nazirite from a strictly religious life to a more conventional, worldly life.

The avoidance of grape wine required particular lifestyle adjustments, as it was commonly used to make stale water potable. To the Nazirite, the only water available for consumption was drawn from a spring or river, or gathered from rainfall into a cistern (again, the "living water").

The word "Nazirite" is derived from the Hebrew nazir, meaning "consecrated," "set apart," or possibly "crowned." All three of these interpretations are attributes of the Church, although translated in the NT using different Greek words. "Consecrated" is translated as hagiasmo, "made holy" (or, literally, "made to be not of this world"). "Set apart" is semantically similar to ekklesia, "those called out," the word used for the Church in the New Testament. The "crown" is stephanos, the crown of the champion, which all persevering believers receive in their victory. Conceptually, all Christians are Nazirites.

Why is Nazirism important in the New Testament?

Several people were probably Nazirites, starting with St. John the Baptist: "He shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink" (Luke 1:15). Jesus Christ may have taken a Nazirite vow to prepare for His temptation in the wilderness, ending the vow with His baptism in the Jordan River. St. Paul took a Nazirite vow in an attempt to mollify the unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem, who considered him a traitor. St. James the Just ("the Brother of the Lord") is mentioned in extra-Biblical texts as living an ascetic life, in a manner consistent with Nazirism.

What precedents show a parent committing a child to Nazirism?

Hannah promised the Lord that her first-born Samuel would never have cut hair (I Samuel 1); the mother of Samson was warned by the angel of the Lord to observe Nazirite vows for the sake of her son, who would be a Nazirite all his life (Judges 13). Zacharias, the father of St. John the Baptist, learned the same of his son from Gabriel.

What Biblical anecdotes confirm the Christian baptism of infants and children?

St. John the Baptist performed his work for people in a fervently Messianic state of mind, and he knew in a unique manner just how correct was the people's anticipation. According to Matthew 3:5-6, "Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins." He used the Jordan River itself as a mikvah, baptizing all who came to him in repentance. Most of the women who came to the scene probably brought their children with them.

At Pentecost, "Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall call" (Acts 2:38-39). The word used here is teknon, not merely "sons and daughters," but specifically to children who are still under the care of their parents.

Everyone present in the house of Cornelius was baptized with water (Acts 10). As a separate military household, this probably included children; unmarried soldiers commonly live in barracks.

Everyone in Lydia's household was baptized (Acts 16). As a vendor of royal indigo, Lydia was very well-to-do; her household would have included her own children, as well as those of her servants and maids.

Shortly after this, when Paul and Silas were in prison, they baptized the night watchman and everyone in his house:

Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house. (Acts 16:29-34)

St. Paul indicates in I Corinthians 1 that he baptized the household of Stephanas.

What about repentance? Must it precede baptism?

No; baptism can bring about repentance, as attested in the warning of St. John the Baptist to the Pharisees and Sadducees: "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance." The Greek word eis specifically denotes "toward, into, approaching," indicating a destination. Thus, infants who have yet committed no sin (although born of the flesh) can receive baptism, which later leads to repentance and healing.

My gratitude to "the Batman" for challenging me to document this.

"Until"

And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS. (Matthew 1:25)

This does not automatically mean that Joseph and Mary had normal marital relations after Jesus' birth. Compare the following from I Corinthians:

For [Christ] must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. (I Cor 15:25)

Christ's reign does not end after His enemies are vanquished. "Till" merely indicates a goal to be accomplished; it does not alter or eliminate the precedent once that goal is reached.

God is Love? Yes, but...

(Cross-posted.)

Quote:

Well, if truth be told, that's all Christmas is about....Love

Please allow this Eastern Orthodox converted westerner to amplify a bit.

This "love" is far more than just "peace on earth, good will to men." The "love" in "God is love" is agapē, the love that is ill-understood, un-repayable, and very one-sided. As a former seminarian once explained to me, the love of a parent for a severely retarded child approaches this kind of love. The recipient is forever dependent upon that love, and even though it can never be repaid, the parent keeps on giving it.

In the case of Christmas, when God the Son set aside all His glory and took on a human body, the angels of heaven celebrated, the demons of hell arranged a counter-strike, and humanity finally started to see "how we're supposed to be": completely dependent on our Creator's infinite gifts, and reveling in the joy of His all-powerful protection. The Original, in Whose image we're all made, came to set things right in our hearts, by showing what the given Law was really about: agapē, from God to us, and through us, to one another.

I write this, in order to show that "peace on earth" and "God is love" have implications far beyond mere greeting-card phrases.

For All the Saints

For all the saints, who from their labour rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed:
Alleluia, alleluia.

For all the saints, such as Paul, who helped set me up in my first apartment, with cooking utensils, flatware, and a TV. He could be a cranky old man, but his charity was never in question. May his memory be eternal.

For all the saints, such as John, a mischievous fellow, loved by many, but more importantly who loved many and who worked to make sure his neighbors' needs were taken care of. May his memory be eternal.

For all the saints, such as Ayad, who confessed the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in the face of certain martyrdom. May his memory be eternal.

May their memory be eternal, O Lord, worthy of blessedness and eternal memory.

Why Orthodoxy

Many converts claim many reasons for joining Orthodox Christianity. Mine is very simple: it's in the Bible.

In college, I looked around, as many college Christians do. I wasn't satisfied with Episcopalianism, so I checked out Catholicism and Presbyterianism. I found Catholicism to be too institution-oriented for my satisfaction, and the Presbys were in a full retreat from doctrinal truth  (although one fantastic preacher did seem to "get it").

After a year in western Europe, I met a friend who had studied for a semester in Moscow. She had gone totally Russophilic, and invited me to visit a Russian Orthodox congregation where she attended Divine Liturgy. I figured, sure, I could at least enjoy the music, even if I didn't understand what was going on.

What I didn't expect was a priest who also grew up Episcopalian, who knew all the questions I would have, and knew how to answer them in a way that made sense to me. He very generously submitted to a Q&A session after the Liturgy. Little by little, I found Orthodoxy to be very much to my liking, but I needed to know that it was, above all, correct. Negotiations about revealed Biblical doctrine are a no-no in my criteria. I didn't say anything to anyone about this; I simply waited for the right bit of information to come along.

After a year of checking and probing, I decided to do some independent research. I went to the campus library and check out Orthodox Theology: An Introduction by Vladimir Lossky. I figured it would be good for a neophyte like myself. I didn't expect to find the object of my search.

In a simple discussion about the Holy Spirit, Lossky made a statement about Him "Who proceeds from the Father (John 15:26)." I thought, Wait a minute, he left something out. I had been raised to say "from the Father and the Son" in the Nicene Creed, which we recited regularly in church. So I looked up the Gospel reference, and this is what I found:

But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

For eleven years, I had been saying a Creed with something that was not in the Bible!

I knew then and there that I could no longer avoid becoming Orthodox. Any attempts to do so on my part would have been intellectually dishonest. Sure, there would be some gaps along the way, but time and opportunity would fill them in.

Since then, I found out that this "Filioque heresy" has been a near-constant thorn in the side of the Orthodox. From the unbridled speculations of Tertullian and Origen, through the Great Schism and the subsequent re-formulations of men's (not God's) designs for the Church, the rejection of historical Orthodoxy has left many in the West without a true Church. Every Protestant denomination, formed "in protest" against some perceived infraction, has pulled further away from the community founded by Jesus Christ and His Apostles, and the Filioque has become the hallmark of "unorthodox Christianity."

Exactly Human

I've seen many comments lately referring to Hamas, Hiz'b'allah, and terrorists in general as "sub-human" or "less than human." I haven't liked that, for the simple reason that it usually precedes a slippery slope into genocide. I just found another, much more real reason for avoiding dehumanization of the enemy:

Without the capacity for tremendous evil, nobody could ever ac