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Archive for the 'Christians' Category

In which I hate on vapid Christmas songs caterwauling for some inchoate “Peace”

Tweet I adore traditional Christmas music, whether it’s the Old English Christmas Carols or the non-denominational Christmas songs that began to the music market with Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.  I’m as happy singing O Holy Night as I am singing Here Comes Santa Claus.  Christmas songs give me a huge endorphin rush. There’s one class [...]

Biden explains when it’s okay to impose his religious views on others

Tweet Nobody ever accused Joe Biden of being coherent.  Peter Heck, however, realized more quickly than I did that Biden was being exceptionally incoherent — or hypocritical or held tightly in the grip of cognitive dissonance — when he was asked to explain the relationship between his faith and his politics.  I’ll give you Heck’s [...]

The Presbyterian Church and Israel

Tweet I my post yesterday about the truly loving care my mom gets in an old age run under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church, I said that I resent the Church’s attitude towards Israel, but that I can’t fault it with regard to its care for the elderly.  With perfect timing, NRO came out [...]

Moderating the sexual revolution

Tweet Yesterday, I riffed on James Taranto’s post regarding whether the sexual revolution bell can be un-rung.  I don’t think we can go back to the way things were before — time does, after all, run forward, not backwards — but I do think we are still in a position to moderate its worst excesses.  [...]

Molock rising

However, this rationalization for infanticide, just published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, makes me wonder if Molock isn’t stirring anew in the ebb-tide of the Judeo-Christian West.

The Obama administration engages in full-out war against pro-Life people *UPDATED*

Tweet As others have commented, the Catholic Church is making the loudest noises about the new Obama Care mandate regarding birth control, abortifacients, and sterilization, but the policy is really a strike against everyone who is pro-Life in America.  If you’re a pro-Life employer, you have to pay for your employees’ abortion pills.  If you’re [...]

I’ve got smart friends and they send me interesting things

Tweet It’s a family stuff day, so blogging has been light, and will continue to be so.  Fortunately, I’ve got friends who send me interesting things which I am so happy to pass on to you.  In no particular order: Wolf Howling has written a fascinating, scholarly dissertation examining the adversarial history of faith and [...]

The Obama administration’s “compromise” re the Health Care mandate is a scam

Tweet You guys are all too smart to fall for the fake compromise the Obama administration offered to organizations that do not want to pay for women’s birth control, sterilization, and abortifacients.  Just in case you missed the story, though, let me quote from Ace, who drills into the heart of the deceit behind this [...]

The difference between a Sharia state and a Christian state

Tweet The Daily Mail created a lovely matched set, showing side-by-side stories that perfectly illustrate the difference between life in a 21st century Sharia state and life in a 21st century Christian state: Life in a Sharia state:  “We, the state, are going to kill gays.” Life in a Christian state:  “I’d like to warn [...]

Obama administration to offer religious organizations a “choice” — a Hobson’s choice

Tweet Back at the end of the 16th century, Thomas Hobson ran a livery stable (which, in pre-auto times, was the equivalent of a car rental place).  Unlike other livery stables, he refused to allow his customers free pick of horses.  Instead, they were told that they could take the horse in the stall nearest [...]

Kathleen Sebelius’ defense of the new ObamaCare mandate is pathetic

Tweet Pathetic is a very strong derogatory word, but I think it’s apt when looking at Kathleen Sebelius’ defense for the Obama administration’s recent mandate that all employers must purchase insurance that provides their employees with birth control, sterilization and morning-after pills.  A fisking is in order (all hyperlinks in original omitted): One of the [...]

Hugh Hewitt hits an important nail on the head regarding the new ObamaCare mandate

Tweet I hadn’t looked closely at what Sebelius said when promulgating the new ObamaCare rules that require religious organizations to fund birth control, sterilization, and morning-after pills.  Hugh Hewitt, however, did look — and caught something interesting: The press release that accompanied the new rule didn’t mention “Catholics” or “Catholic institutions,” but was as obviously [...]

Christmas thoughts from a Jewish blogger

Tweet I’m about to wade into theology here, so feel free to beat me around the head (politely, of course), if I’ve committed some egregious doctrinal sin.  Before you do, though, please follow my argument to its conclusion, to see whether I’m on the right track. I got to thinking about evil today. In my [...]

Submission in a marriage *UPDATED*

Tweet As part of a larger rumination about religion, Barney Quick looked at the Christian notion of a woman’s submission within her marriage, since the media is going after Michele Bachmann on that point: The recent dust-up over Michelle Bachmann’s statements on record that she feels Biblically commanded to be submissive in her marriage is [...]

Carrying old grudges

Tweet “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.”  — Deuteronomy, 24:16. One of the things that always struck me as bizarre about old-fashioned Christian antisemitism was how anachronistic it [...]

Jesus as an openly gay man

Tweet Paying work places its demands on me, but I thought you’d like to see and think about (and perhaps comment upon) an article that tries to imagine what it would be like if the newly discovered gospels reveal that Jesus was an openly gay man.  I find it a bit peculiar insofar as it [...]

It’s entirely possible that, when it comes to gay marriage and the First Amendment, pluralism won’t work.

Tweet Rodney King got his 15 minutes of fame for (a) getting beaten up while resisting arrest; (b) having his name attached to some horrific riots; and (c) plaintively asking “Can we get along?”  The last is a great thought.  I’d like to get along with people better myself.  “Getting along,” though, presupposes that people [...]

Two posts I’d like you to read

Tweet I keep getting called away by real life, so let me quickly apprise you of two posts I think you’d enjoy. The first is at Wolf Howling.  WH is inaugurating a series examining 15 battles that were turning points in history.  His first post is about the Battle of Chipyong-ni, Feb. 13-15, 1951. If [...]

I now pronounce the Archbishop of Canterbury officially insane

Tweet The Archbishopric of Canterbury used to be a pretty important job.  The guy who held that position, going back to the earliest Middle Ages, was the premier leader of the English church, whether that church gave allegiance to Rome or the British Monarch.  The current Archbishop, Rowan Williams is, as best as I can [...]

A Christmas appreciation *UPDATED*

Tweet ‘Tis the season for the usual politically correct attacks on Christmas.  Ecumenical signs, disingenuously trimmed with Christmas holly and ornaments, urge a generic “Happy Holidays.”  Bank inspectors, perhaps seeking an easier task than examining a bank’s books, remove crosses.  Every December, Scrooge takes his steroids and is out in full force. You’d think, of [...]

Israel, American Jews, American Christians and a whole bunch of other stuff too

Tweet I struggled for a few minutes to find a clever title for this post that would convey the volume of information I’m about to download from my brain, but realized I couldn’t.  A laundry list description will just have to do. You see, last night, I had the pleasure of attending a Hanukkah party [...]

Liam Neeson — great voice, little brain

Tweet Liam Neeson, who does the voice of Aslan the Lion in the Narnia movies, has upset people by claiming that Aslan could as easily be Allah or Buddha as he could be Christ: Ahead of the release of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader next Thursday, Neeson said: ‘Aslan symbolises a Christ-like figure but [...]

A couple of AP articles that caught my eye, both for what they say and for what they don’t say *UPDATED*

Tweet I was very surprised to see an AP wire story reporting that Islamic militants (as opposed to mere “militants” or “insurgents”) were holding “Christians” (as opposed to mere “people”) hostage.  Even more surprising, the AP reported that the Islamic militants were probably affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq, an entity one apparently couldn’t acknowledge [...]

How does one win the war without destroying oneself? *UPDATED*

Tweet All our weapons — free speech, reason, forbearance — are for dealing with people who are sort of like us.  The existential crisis comes when we find ourselves dealing with people who are in no way like us.  Do we oppose them by being even more like ourself than before (more speech, more reason, [...]

Being forgiven for our past sins — or, maybe, O’Donnell has grown up *UPDATED*

Tweet I know this will come as a surprise to all of you, but I was not born wise or well informed.  I blush to think of some of the behaviors in which I indulged, and the ideas that I held, when I was younger. When I was a very little girl, I picked up [...]