Tom McMahon

Darwin Fish

An excerpt from Jonah Goldberg:

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

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

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

But it’s the false bravado of the Darwin fish that grates the most. Like so much other Christian-baiting in American popular culture, sporting your Darwin fish is a way to speak truth to power on the cheap, to show courage without consequence.

So Why Put Faith In Man?

J.R. Richard Was The Most Intimidating Pitcher In Baseball
Until He Suffered A Stroke At Age 30

Excerpts from a revealing interview with Dave Hollander:

DH: How did the Houston Astros organization help you during your recovery?

JR: I don't see anything they've done at all to help me recover.

DH: They didn't check in on you at all?

JR: Yeah, to see if I could pitch again. That was the checking they did.

DH: They weren't interested in J.R. Richard the person?

JR: No, they were not. I think it was pretty self-evident how they were interested in me. If they had been interested in me and I was such a valuable asset to the ball club, why wasn't I checked earlier? Why wasn't I checked all those times I was complaining? ...

JR: I don't think the way I was treated down here [Houston] that they were really concerned at all. Not even my agent was concerned. I never heard from him since then. But I'm not amazed at that. That's the way people are. People don't really give a shit about you as long as they get what they want from you. Then they're done with you. They don't really care nothin' about you.

DH: How has this experience damaged your faith in other people?

JR: I don't have faith in other people. I have faith in God. Because I know that's the source of my beginning and end. That's the source of everything. As it says in the Bible, man will always let you down. So why put faith in man?

Just In Time For Christmas: Green Bay Church Gets New Stained Glass Window

Just In Time For Christmas: Green Bay Church Gets New Stained Glass Window

(via WI Catholic Musings)

The Muslim Student Association: A Tax On Free Speech

The Muslim Student Association: Attacks On Free Speech

The timeline, more or less:

1. Charlie Sykes and I caught flak for my Coexist bumper sticker parody. The Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee said it was unfair to Muslims. The Blue Cheese section of the blogosphere piled on. No reason at all to pick on the Muslims, they said.
2. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Conservative Union invites Walid Shoebat, a former Palestinian Liberation Organization member, to lecture on "Why I Left Jihad," on campus Dec. 4.
3. The Muslim Student Association makes very-thinly-veiled threats of violence if Walid Shoebat is allowed to appear.
4. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee now is charging the Conservative Union, a student organization, $2500.00 for security costs in connection with this appearance. Keep in mind that Walid Shoebat is a reformed PLO terrorist who speaks against jihad. And that it's the Muslim Student Association that is demanding he not be given an opportunity to speak. And that the University can't set the security fee based upon an assessment of the speaker's views and the likely reaction to it.
5. No matter. The event is going to be held as planned. And with all this controversy, it's now turned into a major media event.
6. Does anybody have worse timing than the left-wing bloggers of Wisconsin?
7. Does anybody have worse PR than the Muslims?

A Couple Of Thoughts On Religion

Excerpts from Burt Prelutsky:

But how is it my concern what people believe if it gets them through the bad times or it helps them to lead decent lives? I think the 10 Commandments and the Golden Rule make a lot of sense, but I don’t feel the need to believe that Noah set sail with the world’s largest zoo or that Jonah set up housekeeping in the belly of a whale. In the immortal words of Ira Gershwin, I’m of the opinion that it ain’t necessarily so. But, heck, I’ve been wrong before and I have two divorces to prove it. ...

Unlike most of the non-religious people I know, I am not opposed to religion. In fact, I tend to prefer believers to agnostics and atheists. They don’t seem to be nearly as self-righteous and self-important. Perhaps it’s unavoidable that if a man doesn’t believe in a superior power, it tends to make him view himself as the center of the universe.

Chestertons: The Cigarettes For Conservative Catholics

Chestertons: The Cigarettes For Conservative Catholics

In The Chemo Room

From Susan Estrich:

I spent half the day yesterday in the chemo room with my friend, who is beginning a new round.

It was day one, and my first time in this particular chemo room. If you've never been in such a place, based on my experience in three different ones over the years, they're all pretty much the same. Big comfortable chairs. People of all ages. Magazines, books, reading material (one I went to even had little TV's, like the gym).

And IV stands and plastic bags dripping medicine everywhere. ...

You aren't a Republican or Democrat in the chemo room. People don't talk about hating the opposition, they don't scream and yell about who's right or who's wrong, the way they do in the other worlds I live in. They aren't mean, nasty and competitive. They know better. ...

I did a lot of praying as I sat there. It was, for me, a holy day anyway, but that really wasn't why. I felt like I was in a place of worship, surrounded by God's children, watching people do the Lord's work. I prayed for my friend, and for my sister who is facing cancer for the second time, and for all my friends who carry that particular burden with them everyday.

God Likes To Go Off-Road

A short excerpt from the article Cancer's Unexpected Blessings by Tony Snow:

God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension—and yet don't. By his love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

God Will Not Be Mocked

1. The University of Michigan (Dearborn) is building two foot-washing baths especially for Muslim students.
2. The heavily, heavily-favored Wolverines of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) were defeated by Appalachian State (!) in the upset of this young century, 34 to 32.

Coincidence? I think not . . .

The Truth About High Point Church and the Funeral of the Gay Gulf War Veteran

Excerpts from Paul Edwards:

The mainstream media wants you to believe that a conservative evangelical church deep in the Bible belt has refused to bury a Gulf War veteran because he was gay. Some in the Christian media want you to believe that the church hasn’t shown the love of Jesus to a dead man’s family. Neither is anywhere near the truth.

Here are the facts. High Point Church, a non-denominational church in Arlington, Texas, had been praying for Cecil Sinclair after Cecil’s brother, Lee (the only member of the Sinclair family who was a member of the church) requested prayer for his brother who had been awaiting a heart transplant. When Cecil Sinclair’s health became critical last week, the family called a staff member from the church to be with them at the hospital. In the hospital, in the moments immediately following Mr. Sinclair’s death, the family asked the staff member if the church would be open to holding a memorial service for their loved one. The staff member assured them the church would be available to help the family in any way appropriate, a response any pastor would give in that situation.

Cecil Sinclair was not a member of High Point Church, yet this church selflessly and sacrificially ministered to his family in the wake of his death, preparing and delivering food for the family and one hundred relatives and friends, along with many other expressions of kindness. The church offered to produce a video retrospective of Mr. Sinclair’s life for use during the memorial service. When the family provided the pictures to the church it was then that the church learned of their intention to make the memorial service a celebration of Cecil Sinclair’s gay lifestyle. One of the photos provided by the family “showed a man with his hand touching another man’s genitalia,” along with other inappropriate photos, according to a statement on the High Point Church website.

The family also requested that “an associate of an openly homosexual choir” officiate at the service and that the homosexual choir sing during the service. “It became clear to the church staff that the family was requesting an openly homosexual service at High Point Church - which is not our policy to allow,” the statement on the church’s website said. After initially agreeing to host the memorial service, the church informed the family it could not do so based on the direction they were taking service. The church then secured - and paid for - another location for the memorial service, which the family declined. The church also produced the memorial video without the inappropriate photos.

High Point Church did not refuse to host the funeral of a gay man, as is being widely reported in the mainstream media. The church refused on biblical principle to allow a celebration of the homosexual lifestyle in its sanctuary, a decision most theologically sound churches would make under similar circumstances. ...

The church did not refuse to host the memorial service because Cecil Sinclair was gay. They refused to host the memorial service because the family was turning it into a celebration of the man’s sin - his homosexual lifestyle. Churches and ministers bury sinners every day. But we don’t highlight their sin on the big screen while we are doing it. We exalt Christ. We proclaim the gospel. And we celebrate the triumph of the cross over sin and death, none of which the family had in mind for Cecil Sinclair’s memorial service.

Islam And The Duty of Due Diligence

An excerpt from Hugh Fitzgerald:

No one is being asked to join the Resistance in France in 1942. No one is being asked to be a hero. But one owes it to oneself, to other Infidels, to one's children, to at least fully inform oneself about Islam, its central tenets, and about the treatment of non-Muslims under Islamic rule, during the past 1350 years. That is an act of study, not of bravely being a courier, or hiding British airmen, or blowing up the oilfields of Rumania, or any such feat of derring-do.

This is the only feat of derring-do you are being asked to perform: study, study, study. Not all night, not all day. But enough so that you understand what Islam is all about, so that you cannot be fooled in conversation, and so that you may, through letters, through discussions, through phoning in to those PBS talk shows run by Lord Haw Haws and Tokyo Roses, get the truth through.

What should this duty be called? Let us say: the Duty of Due Diligence. We are being asked to accept a "merger" of our civilization with that of Islam, without knowing very much about Islam. And that "merger" is supposedly to take place through the unhindered, and supposedly irreversible, movement of Muslims to the Lands of the Infidels. Well, Due Diligence demands that we study this matter very carefully.

Go ahead. Perform that Due Diligence. It is the minimum that can be asked of you.

Teaching The Supremacy of Islam to Muslim Children

Ibn Warraq explains how it's done:

I had to go to Canada, Toronto, to renew my work visa, about 8 months ago. And I went through Minnesota and I stayed with a niece of mine. She came to Canada about 9 years ago from Zimbabwe. She's married, and she has 4 children. All four children were born in Zimbabwe in southern Africa. She was telling me - she told me this story herself. One day in the kitchen, her children were all very excited, because there was a big ice-hockey match, between a Canadian team, and the Sabres, I think, in Buffalo. And they were all very much, of course, for the Canadian team. They were saying, "Mama, we are really going, we are really Canadian, we really want the Canadians to win!" And she said she brought all the kids into the kitchen, and said, "Listen. Don't you ever forget. You are not Canadians. You are Muslims." This was their primary identity. And you can imagine the conflicts this must have engendered in the children. What they will be going through in the next few years, I don't know.

All Muslims swear allegiance to the ummah, the worldwide Islamic community. So the dangers don't come, won't come just from suicide bombers, but ordinary Muslms, who just somehow have been taught, from a very early age, to shun Western values.

(via Relapsed Catholic)

Wife Number 19, or The Story of a Life in Bondage, Being a Complete Expose' of Mormonism, and Revealing the Sacrifices and Sufferings of Women in Polygamy, by Ann Eliza Young, Brigham Young's Apostate Wife

Wife Number 19, or The Story of a Life in Bondage, Being a Complete Expose' of Mormonism, and Revealing the Sacrifices and Sufferings of Women in Polygamy, by Ann Eliza Young, Brigham Young's Apostate Wife

The complete text of the 1875 book is online. Here's a short excerpt from Chapter 19:

The marriage of mother and daughter to one man was of so common an occurrence that it ceased to be regarded as anything out of the ordinary course of events.

I had some schoolmates, two sisters, whose mother was married to a Mr. McDonald, and when she gave herself to him, it was with the express understanding that the daughters should be sealed to him as soon as they were of a proper age. The little girls knew of the arrangement, and used to talk very openly of marrying Pa, and in very much the same way they would speak of their intention to take tea with a friend.

That mother must have taken a great deal of comfort with her children! Fancy her feelings; knowing that she was bringing up her daughters as wives for her own husband!

Wives and mothers, living outside of polygamy, can anything be more revolting to your ideas of womanly purity, more thoroughly opposed to all the sweet tenderness of the maternal instinct, than cases like this? And yet, horror- stricken as you are by them, they are by no means exceptional, but are of frequent occurrence. And it is in your own country that these outrages against all womanhood occur, under your own government, upheld by our own chosen legislators - tacitly, at least - since in this time, as in the days of Christ's actual presence on earth, those who are not for are against. And if your government and its rulers refuse to do, or even fail to do without refusing, anything to eradicate this foul blot upon national purity and honor, why, they are in so far encouraging its presence, and rendering it daily more difficult of eradication.

For the tide of evil that set so strongly in those terrible days of 1856 has never been stayed. It still rolls on with all the added ruth and abomination which it has gathered in its course, until it is one reeking mass of the foulest impurities.

Incest, murder, suicide, mania and bestiality are the chief "beauties " of this infamous system, which are so glowingly alluded to by its eloquent expounders and defenders.

Gotta love those long 19th-Century book titles, eh? I first discovered this book 17 years ago at, of all places, a funeral home. I was browsing the old leather-bound books on the bookshelf, waiting for the service to begin, and found books like "Speeches of Theodore Roosevelt" and "Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" and "The Federalist Papers" when all of a sudden my eye caught a glimpse of "Wife No. 19, A Life in Bondage". Whenever I go to a funeral service at that funeral home, I pull out that book and read a couple of pages.

Getting Rid Of Brand Clutter

Michael Hyatt,  President & CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, on the decision to consolidate their 21 different brands ("imprints" in the book publishing biz) into a single Thomas Nelson brand:

From my first-hand conversations with retailers, it’s clear to me that imprints don’t mean much to them. There are too many. No one can keep them all straight. Speaking as the CEO of one the larger publishing houses, I couldn’t even keep our own imprints straight. If you work outside a publishing company, you don’t have a chance. Multiple imprints only add another layer of confusion to an already complex and convoluted industry.

Worse, with rare exception, imprints mean absolutely nothing to consumers. When was the last time you or anyone else you know walked into a bookstore and said, “Hey, what do you have new from [insert an imprint name].” No one does this. They might ask about a specific author or a specific category, but they never ask about the imprint. They probably can’t even tell you what imprint their favorite author publishes under. Imprints make a distinction without making a difference.

If it doesn’t matter to retailers and it doesn’t matter to consumers, why do we need them? I would argue that we don’t. The only people who care are usually the publishers who lead the imprint and a few authors who have an emotional attachment to the their history with that imprint. But this means nothing to customers. The sooner we start focusing on what matters to them—and the more we invest in that—the better off we will all be.

He Deserves To Burn in Hell for All Eternity

An excerpt from the satire site BlameBush!:

But Falwell’s most heinous act, the one for which he deserves to burn in Hell for all eternity, was that he took all that Bible crap seriously - and convinced others to do so as well. His irrational views against sodomy, pre-marital sex, infanticide, and pornography not only soured voters against the Democrat Party platform, but also put a real damper on my Friday nights.

For all his crimes against humanity, Falwell doesn’t deserve an ounce of the respect any proud liberal would pay a copkiller or a Crip who murdered an entire family for kicks. But while I’d just love to drown myself in the same wave of uncontrollable giddiness that swept the progressive blogosphere when Tony Snow’s cancer returned, Falwell’s quiet and painless passing makes me feel somewhat cheated. He was a hatemongering bigot, and there are 225 million fundamentalist Christian wackos out there who share his beliefs. Until they all share his fate, America will never be free of hate.

Immune to Irony

Patrick McIlheran on the reaction to Jerry Falwell's death:

The left-wing blogs leap on his corpse with both feet. Wonkette, for instance, manages to call him a "racist bag of s---" and to exult, "Praise God, Jerry Falwell is dead." The New York Times confines itself, at least on its news pages, to recounting his views on the Teletubbies, but its readers don't, managing to call him, presumably before the next of kin are all notified, a "preacher of hate," a "hate monger," a "hateful bigot," a "fat windbag" and, for variety, "hateful." Your typical Times reader is apparently immune to irony.

(via Jessica McBride)

Muskrat Dinner

Michigan Catholics get a special Lenten dispensation to turn this:

Muskrat

Into this:

Muskrat Dinner

This goes back to the 1800's, to the fur trapper days. One bishop wrote that "anyone who could eat muskrat was doing penance worthy of the greatest of the saints."

Repentence And Forgiveness

In a discussion about Newt Gingrich, Functional Ambivalent takes a scenic detour:

The concept of repentence and forgiveness is not something lots critics of Christianity have really come to grips with.  I know people who go absolutely ballistic when discussing President Bush's alcohol-saturated, slacker past, wondering how social conservatives can support a guy who apparently indulged in almost all of the things social conservatives hate.

The answer is, of course, repentence and forgiveness.  President Bush sinned, he abandoned his sin, and he is going forth and sinning no more.  (Within reason; we're all sinners.)  Repentence and forgiveness only count, of course, when one truly does abandon sin.  If President Bush professed his repentence and forgiveness, and then went out and continued his life as a drunken, skirt-chasing brat, his conservative Christian backers wouldn't be te so understanding.  But as long as he continues as a changed man, his sin is forgiven and, for all practical purposes, forgotten.  That's one of the awesome things about Christianity, well practiced: No grudges held.

Is Barack Obama's Church Racist?

From the Trinity United Church of Christ web site:

Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee chaired by Vallmer Jordan in 1981. We believe in the following 12 precepts and covenantal statements. These Black Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered. They must reflect on the following concepts:

1. Commitment to God
2. Commitment to the Black Community
3. Commitment to the Black Family
4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
6. Adherence to the Black Work Ethic
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of "Middleclassness"
9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community
10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions
11. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System
12. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.

Do you think that if Mitt Romney's local church talked about the White Community, White Institutions, and the White Value System that it would have gotten more attention from the Liberal Media than this has? (via Marquette Warrior) 

Filthy Rich: The Unnoticed Gift of Trickle-Down Decadence

Excerpts from Touchstone:

The rich can afford their vices, for a time anyway; the poor have no such margin for comfort. They are, in fact, endangered by the vices of the rich. I don’t simply mean that the rich man can extort his will from the poor, or wield the law as a club to keep the poor man in his place. He can do worse: He can infect the poor man with his vice, and that may be the quicker way to destroy him.

That’s because the rich set the example for the poor. Their vices attain celebrity; a Casanova or a Don Juan sets the petty rakes of a nation to school. Now the rich can buy their way out of entanglements. They can raise a bastard child, or bribe an offended lady. ...

The most bountiful alms that the rich can give the poor, apart from the personal donation of their time and means, are lives of virtue to emulate. It is their duty. But when they use their means to buy off the effects of vice, or, worse, to celebrate it, that is an offense against those whom Jesus called “little ones,” and no amount of almsgiving can lighten the millstone.

Smackdown!: Dilbert Creator Scott Adams Gets Taken Down Hard On His Own Blog

A couple of excerpts from Scott Adams:

One type of intelligence that I never hear discussed – and might be the most important one – is the degree to which you believe you are “special.” Or to put it bluntly, the more special you believe you are, the stupider you are.  ...

You can judge your own specialness quotient by your reaction to this post. If you are chuckling to yourself because humans are indeed inconsequential in the big scheme of things, you probably have no specialness issues. But if you are already writing a comment involving free will, quantum uncertainty, proximate causes, and alternate dictionary definitions of intelligence, you probably have a specialness problem.

To which commenter Bob The Elbonian replies:

In other words: I think X. Those who don't think X have a problem with Y. If you consider responding to my assertion that those who don't think X have a problem with Y, then you've proved my point and most certainly have a problem with Y. If you think X also, then you're okay so give yourself a pat on the back. ...

This post does make me wonder what it means to be open-minded. It seems a lot of the people who want others to be open-minded get awfully upset about others not being open-minded. Which in itself doesn't seem very open-minded.

I wonder what the world is coming to when it seems we are all free to discuss the merits of a view but not allowed to hold one.

Nicely Done! While J-Walk liked Scott Adams' post, I found it to be one of the saddest things I've read in a long, long time.

Mammon

Mammon

(via Mark Shea)

A Dog's Purpose

My old high school friend Jeff Brown forwarded this email story along to me:

Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog's owners, Ron, his wife, Lisa, and their little boy, Shane, were all very attached to Belker and were hoping for a miracle. I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer. I told the family that we couldn't do anything for Belker and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home.

As we made arrangements, Ron and Lisa told me they thought it would be good for four-year-old Shane to observe the procedure. They felt as though Shane might learn something from the experience. The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker's family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on. Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away. The little boy seemed to accept Belker's transition without any difficulty or confusion.

We sat together for a while after Belker's death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives. Shane, who had been listening quietly, piped up, "I know why." Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth stunned me. I'd never heard a more comforting explanation.

He said, "People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life -- like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right?" The four-year-old continued, "Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don't have to stay as long."

Come To Think Of It, Where ARE All The George Baileys?

The Evangelical Outpost compares Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead with Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life:

Ironically, Rand’s protagonist has become something of a cult figure, an ideal to aspire to, while Capra’s hero, a far darker and complex character, is considered an “everyman.” Such a misreading is laughably absurd. Howard Roarks can be found just about anywhere. Although they may not be as talented as drafting or speechifying, the self-centered libertarian fratboys found on every college campus exemplify Roarkian morality. But while Roarks are all around us, where can the George Baileys be found?

Indeed.

We Don't Do Things Like That In America

Wes Pruden on those six Flying Imams:

The imams should be told, forcefully, that making an intimidating row of rituals is not the American way and won't be permitted. If a half-dozen Catholic priests insist on conducting a Mass aboard an airliner, they will be told to stop it. Six Baptist preachers won't be allowed to conduct a revival meeting amidst either the cheap or expensive seats. Jewish mohels can't perform circumcisions aboard (even for volunteers). We don't do things like that in America, and no apology is forthcoming.

(via Dhimmi Watch)

Swedes And Indians

Mark Shea on Elton John's call to ban religion:

Peter Berger has remarked that if Swedes are the most secular culture and India is the most religious, then America is best described as a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes. I think that, in the reaction to Sir Elton's stupid prattle, there is a sense that, perhaps, the Swedes in Euro-American culture are speaking about their long range hopes for dealing with all of us Indians.

(via Relapsed Catholic)

Warner Sallman's Head of Christ: The Most Popular Picture Of Jesus Of All Time

Warner Sallman's Head of Christ: The Most Popular Picture Of Jesus Of All Time

Excerpts from GodWeb:

With the possible exception of Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper, no picture of Jesus is etched so deeply into our imaginations than the Head of Christ, painted in 1940 by Warner Sallman. Perhaps this is because Sallman's image of Christ has been reproduced in so many different media; it has been used to illustrate the pages of the Bible, Sunday school literature, calendars, posters, church bulletins, lamps, buttons and even bumper stickers. The Head of Christ has been reproduced over 500 million times, making it one of the most popular art works of all time.

For many of us this image is part of our childhood, having been hung on the walls of Sunday School classrooms and the halls and offices of the churches where we received our nurture in the faith. Countless Christians have recognized in Sallman's picture the personal savior whose intimacy and tenderness is at the heart of their faith. ... As one woman put it, the picture appeals to her simply because it shows, "just what Jesus looked like." ...

Art critics generally see it as pure kitsch. Among the most vociferous critics are clergy and professors who see in it the naive, sentimental and culturally backward faith in which they were raised and which an education helped them leave behind.

From Christianity Today:

A pious man by all accounts, Sallman worked as a freelance illustrator, producing religious imagery for a variety of publications including the Evangelical Covenant Church's denominational magazine Covenant Companion in the 1920s and the Salvation Army's War Cry in the 1930s. The charcoal sketch called "The Son of Man," which appeared on the cover of the Covenant Companion in 1924, attracted enough admirers over the years that Sallman painted an oil version in 1940. The image was titled "The Head of Christ." For many people, this image of Jesus, composed like a photographic portrait, looked like the serene "best friend" they wanted in their Savior. ...

After the war, groups in Oklahoma and Indiana conducted broad campaigns to distribute the picture across private and public spheres. A Lutheran organizer of the effort in Indiana said that there ought to be "card-carrying Christians" to counter the effect of "card-carrying Communists." Copies of Sallman's "Head of Christ" were placed in public libraries, schools, police departments, community centers, and even in courtrooms. One photograph from 1962 shows Vice President Lyndon Johnson posing reverently beside a copy of the picture sent to him in Washington. Today, the portrait of Jesus is still found in both Protestant and Catholic churches, enjoys fond use among Mormons, Latinos, Native Americans, and African Americans, and hangs in Christian homes in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe.

Probably like you, I've seen this painting a million times and never once gave a thought to who drew it. (via  the evangelical outpost)

If You Bought The House Of In Cold Blood Fame, Could You Hire A Roman Catholic Priest To Bless It?

The Herbert Clutter Home Of In Cold Blood Fame Is For Sale

Here's my question: If you bought this house, could you hire a Roman Catholic priest to exorcise it or absolve it or annul it or bless it, whatever they call it to cleanse it of any Evil Karma left over from the famous murders that took place there four decades ago? Are some priests better at that sort of stuff than others? What do they usually charge? Do they charge more if you're not Catholic?

I'm not Catholic myself and normally have no need for a Catholic priest, but I'd think you'd want to call in the the heavy hitters on this one.  (via Neatorama )

San Diego Mormon Temple

San Diego Mormon Temple

Neil Woodburn: Europe has its Catholic cathedrals and we here in America have our Mormon temples.

Publicly Teaching Traditional Christianity Is Now A Crime In England

From the Daily Mail via The Volokh Conspiracy:

A police force was caught up in a freedom of speech row after its officers arrested an anti-gay campaigner for handing out leaflets at a homosexual rally.

South Wales police admitted evangelical Christian Stephen Green was then charged purely because his pamphlets contained anti-gay quotations from the Bible.

Mr Green faces a court appearance today charged with using 'threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour' after his attempt to distribute the leaflets at the weekend 'Mardi Gras' event in Cardiff.

A spokesman for the police said the campaigner had not behaved in a violent or aggressive manner, but that officers arrested him because 'the leaflet contained Biblical quotes about homosexuality'.

So how did we end up at this point? By not standing up to the Homosexual Community and by letting the Champions of "Diversity" ride roughshod over traditional values and our basic civil rights. Maybe this story will be a wake up call to what these folks are really up to.

Jimmy Carter Proves The Existence Of A Merciful God

Excerpts from Rick Moran:

If Jimmy Carter didn’t exist, our enemies would have to invent him.

How the world avoided unmitigated catastrophe on this man’s watch is one of the great mysteries of the universe, on a par with finding proof that dark matter exists and how in God’s name Britney and Kevin are still married. His stewardship of our government in the late 1970’s will go down as one of the more curious episodes in the history of the American experiment, made all the more surreal today by his status as global nag and international defender of thuggish brutes.

How this man found himself on January 20, 1977 sitting in the oval office rather than the back porch of his peanut farm has to be considered one of the biggest accidents of history of all time. ...

It wasn’t just incompetence, although he and his befuddled advisors never could get a handle on inflation, the economy, and most especially, the dirty necked galoots who ousted the Shah of Iran. And thankfully, the Soviet Union at the time had their own leadership problems with an old, infirm, and nearly senile Brezhnev, thus moving cautiously until they were absolutely sure they could get away with murder in Cuba, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and other points on the globe that were subsumed by the March of History.

In fact, it wasn’t until the last two years of this mountebank’s presidency that the Russians got rolling. If they had begun their assault on western interests a year or two earlier, God knows what the result would have been.

Another Miracle: An Ultrasound In An Image Of Jesus!

Another Miracle: An Ultrasound In An Image Of Jesus!

This one's more for the Unitarians, Agnostics, and Skeptics. And believe me, when you're in the business and The Big Guy chooses your brand of equipment, it's a Big Deal.

In Christian-Muslim Relations, Peace Is Not Served By Ignoring History

An excerpt from the Catholic Archbishop of Denver:

Islam has embraced armed military expansion for religious purposes since its earliest decades. In contrast, Christianity struggled in its divided attitudes toward military force and state power for its first 300 years. No “theology of Crusade” existed in Western Christian thought until the 11th century. In fact, the Christian Byzantine Empire had already been resisting Muslim expansion in the East for 400 years before Pope Urban II called the First Crusade — as a defensive response to generations of armed jihad.

Much of the modern Middle East was once heavily Christian. Muslim armies changed that by imposing Islamic rule. Surviving Christian communities have endured centuries of marginalization, discrimination, violence, slavery and outright persecution — not always and not everywhere; but as a constant, recurring and central theme of Muslim domination.

That same Christian suffering continues down to the present. In the early years of the 20th century, the Muslim Ottoman Empire murdered more than 1 million Armenian Christians for ethnic, economic, but also religious reasons. Many Turks and other Muslims continue to deny that massive crime even today. Coptic Christians in Egypt — who, even after 13 centuries of Muslim prejudice and harassment, cling to the faith — continue to experience systematic discrimination and violence at the hands of Islamic militants.

Harassment and violence against Christians continue in many places throughout the Islamic world, from Bangladesh, Iran, Sudan, Pakistan and Iraq, to Nigeria, Indonesia and even Muslim-dominated areas of the heavily Catholic Philippines. In Saudi Arabia, all public expressions of Christian faith are forbidden. The on-going Christian flight from Lebanon has helped to transform it, in just half a century, from a majority Christian Arab nation to a majority Muslim population.

These are facts. The Muslim-Christian conflict is a very long one, rooted in deep religious differences, and Muslims have their own long list of real and perceived grievances. But especially in an era of religiously inspired terrorism and war in the Middle East, peace is not served by ignoring, subverting or rewriting history, but rather by facing it humbly as it really happened and healing its wounds.

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother: Father Flanagan, Boys Town, And A 1969 Hit Song For The Hollies

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother: Father Flanagan, Boys Town, And A 1969 Hit Song For The Hollies

An excerpt from Wikipedia:

The origin of the title of the song has caused great speculation. In 1924, the first editor of Kiwanis Magazine, Roe Fulkerson, published a column carrying the title "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother". Dated September 1924, the article speaks of Fulkerson's encounter with "a spindly and physically weak lad" carrying a baby and "staggering towards a neighboring park".

" 'Pretty big load for such a small kid' I said as I met him. 'Why, mister,' he smiled, 'He ain't heavy; he's my brother.' "

Fulkerson goes on to examine his profound regard for that statement and how it could perhaps help us to view life in a better way.

The phrase is also associated with Father Edward J. Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town. Father Flanagan came across a line drawing in the Christmas 1941 edition of the Louis Allis Messenger, a company publication. The "Two Brothers" line drawing of a young boy carrying his brother featured on Page 44, in gold & black ink. The caption read "He ain't heavy Mister - he's m' brother!" It was created by Mr. Van B. Hooper who later became the editor of Ideals Magazine. The drawing was subsequently repeated in the first issue of Ideals in December of 1944.

(Inspired by Woody!)

The Presbyterians Rename The Trinity

The Presbyterians Rename The Trinity

A longer list than you may have seen earlier:

• Sun, Light and Burning Ray
• Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Life-giving Womb
• Giver, Gift and Giving
• Rainbow of Promise, Ark of Salvation and Dove of Peace.
• Lover, Beloved and the Love, and Binds Together Lover and Beloved
• Overflowing Font, Living Water, Flowing River
• One From Whom, the One Through Whom, and the One in Whom We Offer Our Praise
• Rock, Cornerstone and Temple
• Fire That Consumes, Sword That Divides, and Storm That Melts Mountains
• Creator, Savior, Sanctifier
• Rock, Redeemer, Friend
• King of Glory, Prince of Peace, Spirit of Love
• One Who Was, the One Who Is and the One Who Is to Come
• Huey, Dewey and Louie

The Trinity, Updated.

From Best Of The Web:

"Delegates of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are to tackle whether to adopt gender-inclusive language for worship of the divine Trinity along with the traditional 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit,' " the Associated Press reports from Birmingham, Ala.:

The divine Trinity--"Father, Son and Holy Spirit''--could also be known as "Mother, Child and Womb'' or "Rock, Redeemer, Friend'' at some Presbyterian . . . services under an action Monday by the church's national assembly.

"Mother, Child and Womb"? That's even more sexist than the old patriarchal Trinity. We suspect God will be quite angry at the suggestion that she is no more than an Incubator. It ought to be "Woman, Fetus and Body."

"Rock, Redeemer, Friend" is much better, and it's easy to remember. Rock crushes Redeemer, Redeemer cuts Friend, Friend covers Rock.

Outsourced Prayer Lines Confuse Callers

Surprise connection: Many callers to U.S.-based prayer lines don¹t know their calls are routed to India.

    DES MOINES — Last month, Lori Danes, 43, called the prayer line of a major television ministry and requested prayer for her mother's persistent ulcers. But her prayer representative, who called himself "Darren," prayed in a strong Indian accent that "all the gods would bless her mightily."
    "I was stunned," Danes says. "It was like I'd called a demon prayer line."
    The manager of India Prayer Solutions, located in Mumbai, India, apologized for the incident and fired the employee who, he said, had not been properly trained. But dozens of similar incidents have rattled U.S. callers since major ministries began outsourcing their prayer lines to India. The ministries insist they are overwhelmed by the growing number of calls for prayer.

That's just one of the many fine articles you'll find at larknews.com, a sort of Onion for Christians. Other recent articles:

• Presb. Church USA launches ambitious plan to lose only 5% of members
• Billy Graham stubbornly refuses to write end times novel
• Youth pastor hazing on the rise
• Missionary digs pit toilet, then leaves Namibia

(another great find from the Marquette Warrior)

Fruits And Nuts

Fruits And Nuts

Edgar Cayce

An excerpt from Scott Adams:

I just saw a TV show about famous alleged psychic Edgar Cayce. Back in the 1920s he was putting himself into trances and making lots of predictions that – according to this program – turned out to be true. One prominent example they gave is that he predicted the exact year of the depression. Then the show mentioned that Cayce’s lifelong dream was to start a hospital, which he accomplished. Unfortunately it quickly went out of business because he started it around the same time as . . . the depression

The Liberals I Can Deal With, It's The Objectivists You Really Need To Keep Your Eye On

A comment I made in the post Objectivism: The Unlikeliest Cult In History:

[When Slim Pickens learns Clevon Little is the new sheriff of Rock Ridge in the movie Blazing Saddles]:

Slim Pickens: Now if that don't beat all. Here we take the good time and trouble to slaughter every last Indian in the West, and for what? So we can appoint a sheriff that's blacker than any Indian. I AM depressed.

For some reason that always reminded me of the Objectivists: They got rid of God and the Book of Genesis and for what? So they could endlessly discuss Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged in the the same worshipful tone.

Of course, my favorite bit of Having Fun With Objectivists has still got to be Tom McMahon, Please Kindly Go To Hell, Along With Your Friend Whittaker Chambers.

And to think I used to be such the shy, sensitive type.

With St. Patrick's Day On A Friday In Lent, Do Irish Catholics Go Without Their Corned Beef?

Since I didn't grow up Catholic, I don't know the answer to this. And I mean the real Irish Catholics, the ones over here, not those phony ones they have over in Ireland. Anyway, this must have happened before, right? Anybody know what the accepted practice is?

Why Muslims Are The Only People Who Make Feminists Seem Laid-Back

We used to sing this song in my high school German class:

German Version	English Translation
C-A-F-F-E-E trink nicht so viel caffee	C-O-F-F-E-E don't drink so much cofee
Nicht fur Kinder ist die Turken Trank	Not for children is the Turkish drink
Schwech die Nerven macht sich blass und krank	It weakens the nerves and makes you pale and sick
Sei doch kein Musselmann	Don't be like a Muslim
Der ihn nicht lassen kann!	Who can't leave the stuff alone!

Maybe the answer to World Peace is simply De-Caf.

The Assault Ministry Of Jerry Falwell

Via Relapsed Catholic, the latest from Newsbusters:

Newsweek no doubt thought they had a neat story on college debate, which is all the rage at Christian colleges. (That, and it never hurts to remind liberal readers of the Vast Right-Wing Christian conspiracy brewing in the shadows.) Reporter Susannah Meadows focused on a hot debate team at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University:

"We are training debaters who can perform a salt ministry, meaning becoming the conscience of the culture," says Falwell, who is also hoping the team will elevate the humble academic reputation of Liberty itself.

But that's not the way the article originally appeared. Oops. As a sign of Newsweek's general hostility to (and ignorance of) the religious right, they had to publish this correction: 

Correction: In the original version of this report, NEWSWEEK misquoted Falwell as referring to "assault ministry." In fact, Falwell was referring to "a salt ministry"—a reference to Matthew 5:13, where Jesus says "Ye are the salt of the earth." We regret the error.

Do you think we should tell Newsweek that it's Gladly The Cross I'd Bear