Return to the Hill Country

Part 1--The Farmhouse

I am going to stray a bit from my usual topics and take a break from fretting about our foreign policy, George Bush, Pope Benedict, the Armenian Genocide, the banalities of our popular culture, as well my various observations of a religious nature, etc. Rather, I want to flesh out some jumbled thoughts and impressions that are never far from my consciousness. They are all of a family nature. Whether the writing of them will be therapeutic, or merely self-indulgent navel-gazing, remains to be seen. But I do apologize in advance, so don't feel compelled to read through all these ramblings.

In recent weeks, I have had the opportunity to spend time in the Texas Hill Country--that ruggedly beautiful region than fans out northwest, west and southwest from Austin. As much as I enjoy the scenery, the real treat is the approach to life one finds here—straight-forward and honest, little given to pretense, egaliterian, lively, yet laid-back. My own region of the state, by comparison, appears cramped, uptight and often given over to superficial pettiness. I recognize the romanticism in all this--there's clearly good and bad all over.

My roots are here, at least on the paternal side of things, though my immediate family has been gone for 70 years now. My dad’s leaving had everything to do with the cold, hard necessities of the Depression era. His life (and as a result, mine) was played out elsewhere, and in the measure of the world, done so with some degree of success. And yet, I have always believed that something special and meaningful was lost along the way. And so, I return here, time and again, whenever possible; looking for that intangible, and on occasion, catching a glimpse of it.

A distant cousin invited us to a Christmas barbeque at her ranch, which served as the excuse for the most recent excursion. Although she lives in Austin, she lovingly maintains the old 1870s farmhouse, and drives out several times a week. And her holiday get-togethers are always done up right—this year being a catered, chuck wagon barbeque out on the hilltop homestead. The connections are now remote—my closest kin there being a few remaining 2nd cousins of my dad. But my surname removes these gradations, and I treasure the time spent with these easy, gentle souls. I allow myself a little pride here, noting that the adjoining “mountain” (more like a butte, actually) bears our name and still gives testimony to the role we played in this place.

On the drive out, I made a quick detour by my grandparent’s last farm. My granddad had sold the earlier, old family farm in 1920. With his sisters living elsewhere and owning a 2/3 interest in the place, the decision was made to sell. And so they did. A succession of rented places followed; first by grandmother’s people, and then later among granddad’s, until he purchased this 160 acre farm in the late 1920s. There's no getting around the fact that it is something of a forlorn and melancholy site now. Yet, in my mind I can see the bustling farmstead in its day. They grew crops of all kinds--cotton, as well as row crops--raised beef cattle, kept dairy cows, sheep, horses, mules—altogether as diversied and self-sufficient a farm as could be. My granddad served on the board of the little school house located two miles south. And, most importantly, grandmother had a church of her faith within riding or driving distance. Theirs was a happy home.

My granddad was a forward-looking, optimistic sort—perhaps foolishly so. After the Stock Market Crash of 1929, agriculture and cattle prices dropped sharply. While prices were low, he figured that this would be a good time to expand. The leading local mercantile firm was happy to oblige and gave him more than enough rope. But agricultural prices had not stabilized, they had just paused before dropping off the precipice into nothingness. My granddad was a proud man and concealed their plight from his children, who really did not realize they were poor. My dad thought he was going to college. Granddad talked him into putting it off a year or two, and by that time it was out of the question. During this time, my dad when out to the Texas Panhandle (in the fall of 1933) to earn extra money by picking cotton. Some cousins were becoming well-established out there, and had a job waiting for him. He returned home for Christmas, only to find an empty and deserted farm. The lender had pulled the plug—taking everything, even my dad’s personal horse and saddle. This event, in turn, led directly to my grandmother’s untimely death 3 months later, which completed the tragedy. My dad had just turned 20 years old; his baby brother had just turned 3 weeks old. My dad and his younger brother had to go to work to support the younger children, wo were more or less farmed out among various relatives. So, the farm became a melancholy place in our collective family memory.

The little box house still hangs on, after a fashion. The porches are long gone, and recent owners have covered the structure in tin and used it as a barn and/or storage building. I stopped to have a look around. The back was more or less off the house, so I just hopped in. Since I was trespassing, I didn’t linger long. The wood floors remain firm and strong. The ceiling and some interior walls have been removed to facilitate storage. The room that must have been my grandmother’s kitchen lay next to the back porch. But I couldn’t tell where the stovepipe into the parlor had been. I recall the story vividly. My dad’s older brother, who always took him self very, very seriously, was entertaining his girl friend in the parlor. My dad and his younger brother snuck up to the attic room, taking along one of the family cats. Somehow, they managed to open the stovepipe and shove the cat down the pipe going into the parlor. The mayhem which ensued from a screaching, clawing cat, frantically trying to extricate itself from the stovepipe, brought a swift halt to my uncle’s wooing. My dad, ever quick-witted, made a hasty retreat down the stairs and out the back of the house. His younger brother, convulsing in laughter, was a little slower on the getaway and, unfortunately for him I suppose, by that time my granddad was waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. I smiled as I jumped to the ground from where the porch had been. As I walked back to my vehicle, I noticed narcissuses coming up in the surrounding pasture and wondered if my grandmother had planted them. And I also paused to wonder what all of our lives would have been like had they not lost the farm, had she lived to a ripe old age and if the family had stayed together? But such thoughts are not helpful and are not productive of anything. And worse yet, such thinking discredits and discounts the very real providence of God. And so I drove off, for my cousins, and the barbeque, were waiting.

Finding Unity

Rod Dreher has a timely article in today's Dallas Morning News, concerning Pope Bendict XVI's visit in Istanbul. Dreher hits on a number of issues of great interest to me: Turkey and its relationship to Europe, the plight of the Orthodox in Turkey (and all Christians, for that matter), Turkish nationalism, Armenian Genocide denial, and Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. He suggests that while the media will be focused on Benedict and his prickly relationship with the Islamic community, the real story will be his meeting with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Dreher recounts a recent conversation with an Orthodox priest who laments that "the entire Byzantine Empire has been reduced to the Phanar." Would that it were so. Actually, the Orthodox Patriachate is hemmed into part of a block, with a mere handful of Greek shops on the adjoining street corner. The Phanar district has been almost completely taken over by the most conservative Islamic immigrants from eastern Turkey. If you want to see black burkhas in Istanbul, then go to the Phanar. But this is just symptomatic of the precarious plight endured by the few remaining Orthodox Christians in Constantinople. Dreher writes:

Few in the West gave a thought to Byzantium until Benedict cited in September Emperor Manuel II Paleologus in a controversial address that set off Muslim mobs in yet another spasm of inflamed sensitivity. Benedict's speech--both its content and the Islamic reaction--brought to mind the fact many Western elites take pains to avoid noticing: that down through the ages, the meeting between Islam and Christianity has been a mostly unhappy one. This is certainly true from the point of view of Eastern Christians--Orthodox, Coptic and otherwise--wh have suffered for many centuries under the Muslim yoke.

Well put, particularly the reference to our Western elites. Dreher comments on the age-old grievances between Eastern and Western Christianity, but concludes that "the hour is late indeed for the Orthodox to dwell on this history, as a resurgent Islam pushes what is left of Christianity in Muslim lands further to the brink of extinction." He also believes that "Benedict has a clearer eye about Islam than his predecessor... [and] he is not prepared to pretend that it is of no matter that in Europe Muslims are free to worship as they please and to build mosques at will, while in Turkey and the Muslim world, Christians are generally not permitted to build churches and face state-sanctioned discrimination. It is better, says Benedict, to speak frankly about the world as it is, rather than about the world Western elites wish we lived in." Lastly, Dreher believes that "it is in the interest of both Catholic and Orthodox believers to achieve whatever effective spiritual unity they can manage. History is on the move again, and not in their direction." Good thoughts, all around.

(The picture is of the Haghia Sophia the last time I was there, I taking special pains to find a view that clipped off the 4 minarets.)

Not Ready for Prime Time

I read with interest the interview in last week’s NY Times with Katharine Jefferts-Schori, the new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in America. I had refrained from commenting on this truly embarrassing interview, for frankly I do not have a horse in this race. The ECUSA is on a somewhat different trajectory than I am on. Additional information on KJ-S coming to light, however, causes me to offer up an opinion anyway.

I find three of her answers deeply troubling:

Q: How many members of the Episcopal Church are there in this country?

A: About 2.2 million. It used to be larger percentagewise, but Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children.

I recall a saying from either one of the Desert Fathers, or perhaps from the Philokalia that one will never get in trouble for saying too little, or remaining silent. [S-P, help me out here!] Let's examine her answer. The newspaper asked a straightforward question. The correct answer (if indeed it is that many) was “about 2.2 million.” STOP. But KJ-S continued, noting that they “tend to be better-educated.” (While certainly true in the past, less so today and totally beside the point.) She concluded, somehow, that reproducing was somewhat lower-class behavior, or at least a under-educated thing to do. And then for good measure, she took a swipe at those rutting, breeding Catholics and Mormons. Considered alone, the last sentence is almost neutral, but within the context of her total answer, it was highly insulting. Why would one say those words, and particulary to a reporter of the nation's newspaper of record??? Can you say Elitist?

Q: Episcopalians aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?

A: No. It’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion.

This answer completely floors me! Yes, it is true that for the most part, higher-income and better educated people do have smaller families. But that is not the question. The question was “aren’t Episcopalians interested in having children (new little Episcopalians)?” KJ-S answers flat-out: No. And then, true to form, she goes on. In her view, being a good steward of the earth is a greater good than procreating (since when did it become either/or?). The last religious group I am familiar with that actively discouraged families and children were the Shakers. Met any Shakers lately?


Q: He [Pope Benedict] became embroiled in controversy this fall after suggesting that Muslims have a history of violence.

A: So do Christians! They have a terrible history. Look at history in the Dark Ages. Charlemagne converted whole tribes by the sword. I think Muslims are poorly understood by the West, and it is easy to latch onto that which we do not understand and demonize it.

Oh, dear. Where to begin: a cheap, moral-equivalizing, milksop cop-out, coupled with an appalling ignorance of history! No one seriously tries to whitewash Christian history these days—far from it. But KJ-S seems eager to spotlight our "terrible history,” as if this were some novel insight on her part. Yes, we tend to view the “Dark Ages” (a simplistic misnomer if there ever was one) as a rather bleak period of history. Bad things happened and terrible conditions persisted (as viewed from our modern perspective.) And yet, this is a western European concept that totally ignores the Christian East, where conditions were much different. And the thing to remember is that, by and large, the barbarity of the age was in spite of the Christian influence, not because of it. As Western Europe was coming out of barbarism (when things were really rotten), imagine how much worse conditions would have been (and had been) without Christianity. And the bottom line is that violence, the “convert or die” mentality, was never a tenet of the faith, was never institutionalized into the very fabric of belief, regardless of the brutality of the age. Even in the worse excesses of European Christian expansionism (the Spanish in Latin America, for example), the authentic Christian witness was always there as well. Such cannot be said for the violent, forced imposition of Islam across much of the known world, as decreed by Mohammed, the Koran and the hadiths. And yes, Islam is often misunderstood, but just because something is uncomfortable, or is an inconvenient truth does not mean that it is misunderstood. It seems the demonizing is largely not of our making. KJ-S would be better informed if she were to read the account of a recent symposium, here.

Even more disturbing is the story concerning KJ-S's mother, a convert to the Orthodox faith, and the behavior of KJ-S after her death. Ochlophobist has investigated and has the full story, here.

Ouch!

This is a little late in coming, but I did want to mention the series of excellent essays in the November 20th issue of The American Conservative. Any literary endeavor associated with Patrick J. Buchanan is guaranteed to be lively and, shall we say, colorful. The magazine does not disappoint. I have learned to appreciate the writings of Daniel Larison at Eunomia and particularly wanted to see what he had to say in the current issue.

The headline on the cover asks Who Killed Conservatism? with a droll caricature of Bush as a gravedigger beside an open grave. One writer after another excoriates the Bush Presidency and his foreign policy legacy. And this from conservatives--just imagine what is being written over at The Nation. And I think therein lies the gist of this issue: that whatever Bush is, he is not conservative, or at least not one in the traditional meaning of the word, back when words actually had meaning. In a strange way, he and Hillary Clinton occupy opposite ends of the same continuum; each suffused with a heady Methodism, convinced that the world can be remade in this life, and that is what the "Almighty" (to use a Bushism) intended.

Buchanan writes:

Judgment day appears at hand. For the neo-Wilsonian foreign policy Bush embraced after 9/11 is everywhere collapsing in ruin. It consisted of three components....the concept of preventive war...an "axis of evil".... [and] contending contra history, that America can never be safe until the world is democratic...Neoconservatism has thus given us a bloodshed unending in Iraq, inflamed the Islamic world, divided America from Europe, antagonized Russia, and probably effected our early expulsion form Central Asia.

Austin Bramwell, former director and trustee of National Review observes:

Since 9/11, the conservative movement has not made unsound or fallacious arguments for supporting Bush's policies. Rather, it has made no arguments at all....the broader conservative public supports Bush for very sensible, non-neoconservative reasons. Those reasons just happen to be poorly informed....If Americans understood that soldiers were dying not to kill the bad guys but to prevent them from killing each other, Bush's popularity would evaporate.

Jeffrey Hart concludes:

Is Bush a conservative? Of course not. When all the evidence is in, I think historians will agree with Princeton's Sean Wilentz, who wrote a carefully argued article judging Bush to have been the worst president in American history. The problem is that he is generally called a conservative, perhaps because he is obviously not a liberal. It may be that Bush, in the magnitude of his failure defies conventional categories. But the word "conservative" deserves to be rescued.

Daniel Larison writes:

In Traditional Christianity, the motif of liberation and deliverance is a strong one--so strong that the story of Israel's freedom from bondage in Egypt and the spiritual liberation of humanity from sin through Christ's death and resurrection can easily become confused with ideas of earthly, political liberty from which they are clearly and sharply distinct....but lately here in America we have started to see a similar blurring of the lines between Christian spiritual liberty and political liberty, the latter of which assuredly has its historical roots in the lands and traditions of Christian civilization.

[Quoting Bush]: "I believe a gift form that Almighty is universal freedom. That's what I believe...God's gift to every man and woman in the world."

...there is something deeply disturbing about the conflation of God's gifts and political liberty, and especially with the political liberation of other nations....it can dangerously blur the lines between the sacred and the profane...and...there is the danger of encouraging despair and loss of faith in a God who supposedly gives universal freedom but nonetheless withholds it from billions of our fellow human beings and who denied it to most of humanity for thousands of years.

Political freedom is a product of culture and habit, the fruit of the discipline of civilization. As beings created in the image and likeness of God, it might be said that all men have the potential to acquire these habits and learn this discipline over a great length of time, but to believe that this discipline is more or less automatically inherent in all people right now is to dismiss both the effects of the fall and the contingencies of history.

If Bush speaks of God giving men universal freedom, he might as well say that God has given man universal bread or universal world peace, while tacitly ignoring hunger and war....He grants to men spiritual liberty from sin and death--far greater liberation, surely, than the tawdry Rights of Man. It is not faithful to the Christian tradition, and possibly rather unhinged, to say that God gives man universal freedom.

Read it all here, or better yet, go out and purchase a copy.

St. John of Damascus Orthodox Mission

After our first Divine Liturgy. Yours truly on the far left.

Christianity Today

A reference in today's Dallas Morning News sent me scurrying to the website for Christianity Today (otherwise not a site I particularly frequent). The article I wanted to read, "Finding God in Russia," was not yet online. But I can only imagine the worst. The CT folks are not exactly Ortho-friendly these days.

But two online articles did catch my attention. The first Marginalized Again, is particularly galling.

Evangelicals are incensed over developments in Israel. Religious education is compulsory in Israel. Muslims and Jews have their own religious instruction. And so do Christians. Representatives of the Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Anglican churches developed the curriculum for the Ministry of Education. But it seems the new school curriculum approved for Arab Israeli Christian students in grades 10 through 12 is not evangelical. They maintain that it "conflicts with their theology and must not be adopted." Oh, dear. The curriculim seeks to "include doctrinal statements and teachings about the sacraments and church rituals with an emphasis on the heritage and traditions of Christians in the Holy Land." The nerve! For the life of me, I cannot imagine how these heirs of 2000 years of Christian history and martyrdom in Palestine can last much longer without indoctrination into the cream of late 19th-Century American theological insight, such as: premillenialism, "one-saved, always saved," the non-essentiality of baptism or the "invisible" church.

While the overwhelming majority of the remaining 140,000 beleaugered Arab Christians are members of the Orthodox, Catholic or Anglican churches, an Evangelical spokesman said that they "could not accept the curriculum's teaching that the church is the believer's interpretive authority, nor its assumptions that rituals, sacraments, and liturgical prayers are means of sanctification." He asked "how can I as an evangelical advocate transubstantiation, praying to the saints and the Blessed Virgin, or salvation by water baptism?"

The Rt. Rev. Riah Abu El-Assal, the Anglican bishop in Jerusalem, responded that evangelicals are "often perceived as having a different agenda, more to do with Zionism." No joke. The evangelical spokesman admitted as much, but added "there are clear voices among both Western and Palestinian evangelicals who oppose Zionism." Where, exactly?

The ancient Christian community in Palestine is taking a battering from all sides. They don't need grief from know-it-all American evangelicals or their agents.

And then there is the interesting development concerning the purposeful Rick Warren, of Saddleback Church fame. Mr. Warren recently visited Syria, held a series of meetings--one even with Bashar Al-Assad--and then flew on to Rwanda. Some Conservative Christians have consequently turned on Warren, seeing this visit as a betrayal of Israel. "The Crosstalk Radio Talk Show, part of a Christian radio network, called Warren a 'mindless shill' for Syria and said he 'owes an apology to Israel, to the American people and to the victims of Syrian-sponsored terror.'" I hope to visit Syria one day. Somehow, I doubt I will be apologizing to Israel for doing so.

Warren's response in a press release is well worth reading. A couple of excepts, as follows:

Dr. Warren was in Syria to meet with and encourage the country’s key Christian leaders; dialogue with top Muslim leaders; and promote religious freedom. Leaders who met with Dr. Warren included the Patriarchs of the Greek Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church; the leader of the coalition of Evangelical Churches of Syria; and the pastor of the world’s oldest standing church dating back to 315 AD; and Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun, the Grand Mufti.

Many Americans don’t realize that both Christianity and Judaism are legal in Syria. In addition, the government provides free electricity and water to all churches; allows pastors to purchase a car tax-free (a tax break not given to Muslim imams); appoints pastors as Christian judges to handle Christian cases; and allows Christians to create their own civil law instead of having to follow Muslim law. Every Christian with whom Dr. Warren’s team met -- including those in the city of Malula, where they represent two-thirds of the population -- expressed gratitude for the government’s protection of their right to worship.

"The Syrian government has long had a bad reputation in America, but if one considers a positive action like welcoming in thousands of Christian refugees from Iraq, or the protection of freedom to worship for Christians and Jews in Syria, it should not be ignored,” Dr. Warren said from Rwanda. He further explained that in terms of religious freedom, Syria is far more tolerant than places like Burma, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, and nations identified in the U.S. Commission Report on International Religious Freedom. ''Muslims and Christians have lived side by side in Syria for more than a thousand years, often with mosques and churches built next to each other,” he added. “What can we learn from them?"

Warren is a man to watch. Somehow, I think he may be about to break out of the evangelical reservation.

Nahed's Story

I have just finished a short book, Islam Encounters Christ: A Fanatical Muslim's Encounter with Christ in the Coptic Orthodox Church by Nahed Mahmoud Metwalli (Minneapolis: Life and Light Publishing, 2002). This rivetting story, an autobiographical account of an Egyptian Muslim woman's conversion to Christianity, is one that will stay with me for a long time.

In 1989, Nahed was a noted and influential educator, with important family connections in the Egyptian government. She presided as head principal at a high school of over 4,000 students, the largest school of its kind in Cairo. Like Saul himself, she hated Christians and took particular delight in persecuting the Coptic Christian teachers, staff and students under her charge. Without fail, they took her abuse and quite literally, turned the other cheek. And yet, Nahed was empty inside, concluding that even though she "prayed a lot and read the Koran often, yet there something missing." She even went to Mecca for 10 days, but returning more distraught than ever. As she was to learn, what was missing from her life was Christ. Nahed's remarkable conversion cost her everything--her job, home, position in society, as well as most of her family. She went from a respected and sometimes feared, official to a hunted fugitive, staying one step ahead of the police, as she fled from apartment to apartment. Many of the Christians who befriended her along the way suffered imprisonment and torture.

At one point, her sister was able to contact Nahed and give her 3 options: (a) she could turn herself in and recant what she had done, or (b) her family would commit her to a mental hospital as she had converted to Christianity and must obviously be mentally deranged, or (c) the family would kidnap and kill her and bury her in the desert, with absolutely no repercussions. Thankfully, Nahed and her oldest daughter were able to leave Egypt by means of fake passports (though not without one final scare as she noticed her picture on the wall in the airport passport control office).

But what I find particularly instructive (and convicting) is what first attracted Nahed to Christ: the behavior of these detested Christians--what we would call Christ-likedness. Nahed writes:

Indeed, I was both innovative and creative in humiliating, hurting and causing problems for the Christians. Not because I was evil but because I thought they did not love the God whom I loved and I worshiped. Yet there was always something puzzling me; I needed that inner peace which Christians had and for which I yearned. I was far wealthier than they were, wore expensive clothes and lacked nothing. Yet, there was something reassuring inside them. I could spot a Christian from the look in his/her eyes, that deep confident, peaceful look.

Later, Nahed caused much difficulty for a priest trying to enroll his daughter in her school. She remembers:

He thanked me, we shook hands and he went on his way. He had no idea of what turmoil was going on inside me. I felt so bad. One question kept haunting me, "What is it within this man? How can he be so kind and tactful?" He had what I lacked and was searching for: peace. I tried to forget this incident, but from time to time I would remember his look at me; his deep eyes filled with peace.

If one is looking for the elusive key to ministry in the Middle East, the simple answer is found in this book. But there is even a more obvious application, one that hits much closer home to me. Privileged and pampered American that I am, I do not have to live among people who hate me because I am a Christian (yet). But I am in contact with many, many people in a day's time. I wonder what peace do they see in my eyes, if any?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner.

Not that it matters in the least, but

This is the one-year anniversary of this blog. I have to admit that I take great pleasure in the writing and dialogue. And while this exercise may have brought some much needed clarity to my own muddled thinking, the best part...the absolute best part of all this is the online acquaintances I am now honored to number among my friends. Thanks, guys!

Good thoughts

Over at Second Terrace, there is a good anaylsis of the recent Republican election debacle. Somewhat as an aside, he relates the following fascinating, and prescient anecdote:

(A Nazarene missionary stopped by to see me, some years ago, as he was heading off somewhere in Northern Africa. Since I was the only Orthodox priest he knew, he asked me what the Orthodox Church knew about living with Muslims. "What kind of evangelistic program did you guys use with them?" he asked, with a callowness that was charming, in a way. I mused, while he coached me with a multiple-choice response: "Door to door? Evangelistic services? Literature?" He didn't like my answer, as I had expected. "There's only one evangelistic program that works in that world," I said, "Martyrdom -- the old-fashion, non-homicidal kind.")

And then I have just come across Frederica Mathewes Green's thoughts on the Ted Haggard mess, found here. She has the best take on it that I have read so far. I particularly like this:

So it is a mistake to present Christianity the way some churches do, as if it is the haven of seamlessly well-adjusted, proper people. That results in a desperate artificial sheen. It results in treating worship as a consumer product, which must deliver better intellectual or emotional gratification than the competition. And that sends suffering people home again, still lonely, in their separate metal capsules.

What all humans have in common is our pathos. Getting honest about that binds us together. And then we begin to see how the mercy of God is pouring down on all of us all the time, just as the Good Samaritan bound the wounds of the beaten man with healing oil. May God give this healing mercy to Ted and Gayle, and to their children. May God reveal his healing mercy to Michael Jones, who told the truth. May God have mercy on all of us.

High Five!

Okay. Confession time. I went to see Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. This may be the most hilarius bit of film making I have ever seen. I was literally on the floor laughing. Check it out here (be sure and watch the deleted scenes), here and particularly, here. Not for the squemish or easily offended. You go see! High Five!

You Gotta Love Texas Politics

I have tried to refrain from commenting on this year's political campaigning. I saw no need to join the chorus predicting a well-deserved drubbing for the GOP. But then, there is always Texas. Our gubernatorial race has generated a bit of interest. Rick Perry, the current occupant, is a former Texas A & M cheerleader who moved up from Lt. Governor when W moved into the White House. He served out the remainder of that term and was reelected in his own right in 2002. Although popular with the Texas business establishment and GOP activists, his statewide ratings are abysmal--and rightfully so. The irony is that if Perry is re-elected and serves out this term (as seems likely), the most mediocre governor in memory will be the longest serving governor in Texas history.

Sensing that Perry had a lock on the Republican base, Texas' political gadfly, the much-married Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn, opted out of the Republican primary and challenged Perry as an independent. She shares the moderate anti-Perry disgust vote with another independent: singer-songwriter-author-animal rights activist Kinky Friedman. Kinky initially grabbed the spotlight with campaign slogans such as "How Hard Could it Be?" and "Why the Hell Not?" Although still wildly popular on the Letterman show, his campaign has stumbled somewhat in Texas. And then there's the Democratic candidate, somebody Bell, I think. As it stands, the lackluster Perry will win another term with something over 30% of the vote.

Oh well, the state that foisted LBJ on an unsuspecting nation can hardly complain much about a piker like Perry. And then he does this. With the election absolutely sown up, Perry decides to throw a little red meat to his God-and-County constituency. He, along with some 60 odd Republican candidates, prostitute themselves before a get-out-the-vote worship(?) service at the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. [Does this many Republicans on the dais at one time raise any red flags about the church's tax exempt status?] You may not be familiar with the Cornerstone Church by name, but have probably seen it on television, as this is the megachurch of that bumble-butt televangelist, John Hagee.

Hagee, once he got wound up, declared that "if you live your life and don't confess your sins to God almighty through the authority of Christ and his blood, I'm going to say this very plainly, you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket." After the event, a reporter asked Governor Perry if he agreed that non-Christians were going to hell. Perry, a graduate of the George Allen School of Political Suavity, responded: "In my faith, that's what it says, and I'm a believer of that."

His opponents were quick to respond. Friedman, a Jew who often describes himself as a "Judeo-Christian," noted that Perry "doesn't think very differently from the Taliban, does he?" and that Perry's comment "hits pretty close to home." Meanwhile, Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn, trolling for votes in the black Baptist churches of Ft. Worth, tried to match Perry in cringe-inducing commentary: "There are many ways to heaven. We're all sinners, and we're all God's children...God's a uniter." [Carole might need to refresh her reading of Luke 15:49-53]. The Democratic candidate noted that "God is the only one who can make the decision as to who gets into the kingdom of heaven." I am reminded of an observation I once made about Protestantism being all about status: who is in and who is out.

The picture at the top of the article says it all. Hagee, Sr. is front and center. Hagee, Jr. is to the right [Why am I reminded of Governor O'Daniel and son from O Brother, Where Art Thou?] Our governor is on the left, with his hands covering his face. I'm ashamed too, Governor.

Dry Spell

My nephew tells me I need to post something to the blog. Okay.... Yet, for the life of me, I cannot think of anything that really needs saying, or rather, that needs to be said by me. At the risk of sounding like a whiney-baby, I suspect the weariness of being on crutches since September 22nd is starting to take its toll on me, in body and spirit. And then I remember those who have never walked, or those who will never walk again, or those who have lost limbs. All of which makes me ashamed of my minor complaints, particularly in light of the grace shown me in this recovery. And so, all I offer is the following quote:

He was bald but seemed to be bearing up well.

Anthony Powell, Afternoon Men

Trick Dogs

Down here in Evangeland, it is the Fall Festival season. This is the time of year when many of our churches, being oh-so-careful not to use the "H" word, trot out their annual "Fall Festival" extravaganzas. Two goals seem to be in play. One is to provide a safe, secure venue for children to dress up, have fun, play games and indulge in some serious sugar highs. This is noble and laudable. The secondary motive is evangelical in nature--to entice families into the church through the children. The thinking is that if the children come, the parents can't be far behind. Frankly, I've never seen this really work, but of course, I could be wrong.

And I have absolutely no beef with any of this at all. What amuses me, however, is the fierce competition among churches within the "Fall Festival" market. A case in point: in my morning drive into the city, I passed a small surburban non-denominational community church (something with "Grace" in the name) that had obviously chunked out a great deal of money on a new, state-of-the-art sign, with bright red streaming video. And this morning, they were advertising their Fall Festival.

PUPPETS!!!! CANDY!!!! TRICK DOGS!!!!

Trick Dogs??? That's it! This church has inadvertantly stumbled upon what has been missing in American evangelicalism all along--trick dogs. Look for it soon in your neighborhood!

Let's Talk About Real Persecution

This is Bahaa El Din Al Akkad, a former muslim sheikh in Egypt. He has spent the last 18 months languishing in an Egyptian prison. His crime? Leaving Islam and converting to Christianity, of course. Or as the charges read, "insulting a heavenly religion." Thanks to Sand Monkey, who is, in my view, one of the best news sources in the Middle East. Read his account and Bahaa El Din Al Akkad's story here. By all means, READ HIS STORY.

Two thoughts come to mind. First, this is why I want to gag whenever I hear American Christians talk about being "persecuted" for their beliefs. Such talk trivializes faith and demeans the suffering of the truly persecuted church throughout the world. And second, I am ashamed that it is our billions which prop up this regime. (I know, I know. What replaces it will surely be much worse. But still....)

No Relief in Sight

The news from Iraq remains unremittingly bleak. Syrian Orthodox Priet Fr. Paulos Iskander (Paul Alexander) was recently kidnapped and beheaded by unknown terrorists. Read here. The most comprehensive report is from Al Jazeera News, found here, and a related story here.

And today's paper is just chock-full of news from the abyss, such "Shiite town erupts in revenge killings after bodies found." Shiite villagers attacked a neighboring Sunni village, killing at least 26, this in retaliation for the beheading of 14 local Shiite construction workers the day before. And this story: "Iraqis' faith in premier fading fast." The story notes that to date, some 400 committees have been formed to investigate the myriad problems facing Iraq. So far, only 1 has brought its findings to Parliament. Meanwhile, since the government's formation, daily killings in Baghdad have risen from 65 to 100. At least one bureau of the new government is doing a landmark business--the passport office. Passports are being issued at the rate of 15,000 a week. Anyone who can afford to get out is getting out while they can.

These stories just set the stage for the cringe-inducing interview with Samir Sumaidaie, the Iraqi Ambassador to the U.S. He states:

...I want to make the distinction between what's going on in Iraq and all-out civil war. What's going on in Iraq is a campaign of violence waged by extremists on both sides, extremist Sunnis and extremist Shiites. There is no widespread conflict between the communities. The communities live quietly, peacefully and agreeably with each other, and have done so for thousands of years.

Unbelievable.

Sunday Quotes

Sunday Paper Misc.

Georgie Ann Geyer on Immigration:

She quotes from film producer Ron Maxwell, who says

"the world is divided into two kinds of people. Those that live in three diminsions live simultaneously in the past, present and future. Those of us who live in this present are trustees to hand the past over to the future so the dead and the unborn are as alive as we are. But those who live only in the present think it's fine to pave over a battlefield or destroy a Buddha."

and John Tanton, founder of FAIR, who asked

"when did we begin to see man in America as only an economic animal?"

Good question, that.

Nick Gillespie, in article on Chris Anderson, editor of Wired and author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More:

We are turning "from a mass market," he argues, "into a niche nation" in which we can find exactly what we want in clothes, art, music and food. And, quite possibly, politics, personal identity, lifestyle and more.

And I suspect our American religiosity falls firmly within the "more."

Finally, in a review of Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children, an excellent quote from Edith Wharton:

"There are lots of ways to be miserable, but there's only one way of being comfortable, and that's to stop running around after happiness."

I like Edith Wharton.

Staring Down History

Igdir is a rather nondescript, if not unpleasant, modern city in far eastern Turkey, close on to the Armenian border. The region is noted throughout Turkey for its apricots. I can attest to the fact that they are indeed heavenly--juicy and the size of peaches. The region's shame, however, is this monstrosity. For this is the monument to the "Turkish Genocide." That's right; not the Armenian Genocide, but the Turkish Genocide. Turkey, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, maintains that there was no systematic genocide against the Armenians between 1915 and 1918, that while some Armenians did die during the "troubles," it was nowhere near the 1 to 1.5 million figure usually cited, that this part of Turkey was never primarily ethnic Armenian and that as many innocent Turks died as did Armenians. This monument, with museum underneath, is meant to perpetuate and validate this lie. Supposedly, the monument was built in such a location that, on a clear day, it could be seen in Yerevan, the Armenian capital.

My hosts wanted me to see this. The museum contained several rooms with official statements from Turkish historical conferences, old photographs showing Armenian "guerrilla" fighters (with guns!), and pictures from the 1990s unearthing of Turkish graveyards, supposedly showing the victims of the Armenians. The musuem sought to hammer through 3 points:

1. the Armenians "had it good" under the Ottomans
2. the Armenians were armed
3. that Turkish deaths equalled, if not exceeded those of the Armenians

The first point does have some merit. In many ways, Ottoman Armenians functioned in the same way as Jews did in many European societies. This appeared to be more of a Constantinople phenomenon, however. The fact that there were some armed Armenian freedom fighters is not news. So what? The museum's implication is that all were. Their panaramas depicting Armenian priests urging bloodthirsty hordes against the "innocent" Turks were particularly revolting. The third point is their Big Lie. Certainly, some innocent Turks lost their lives in this era. No one denies that. But Turkey resolutely denies the magnitude of Armenian deaths, or that there was any aspect of systematic "ethnic cleansing."

My host and I had a somewhat spirited discussion later on. He observed that many of the Armenians were not killed by the Ottoman troops, but rather, died of disease. "Like starvation," I asked? He excitedly replied, "Yes! Yes!" My sarcasm was lost on him. In other words, the only deaths that counted were those Armenians actually shot, stabbed, drowned or clubbed to death; not those who died of starvation.

I can understand Armenian anger towards Turkey. But this illogical Turkish animosity against Armenia baffles me. Would they not stay in line as they were being executed? Apparently, the fact that Armenians refuse to concede the point on what happened, and that the Armenian diaspora keeps the issue alive, infuriates many Turks. My host even thought tiny Armenia had designs on this part of Turkey, which would be comparable, I suppose, to Paraguay having designs on Brazil.

In my view, this is the main obstacle to Turkey joining the EU, or indeed, Turkey taking its rightful place on the world stage. By this, I do not mean the fact that they are Muslim, for frankly, they wear that very lightly. No, it is rather their infuriating nationalism, xenophobia, historical amnesia, and simple Turkocentric view of everything.

I love Turkey. I have friends there. I've traveled there three times, and hope to return. But this attitude becomes really, really hard to take at times. Much of it could be dismissed as mere silliness, were it not for the fact that it is believed, just as they largely believe 9-11 to be a U.S. government conspiracy. For example, I learned that: the Great Wall of China was built to keep out the Turks; that a Turk probably discovered America before Columbus (I suppose he will have to get in line behind the Norse, the Chinese, and according to Mormon theology--the lost tribe of Israel); that the American Indians are actually a Turkic people (could be); and on and on it goes. The 5 raised swords of the Igdir monument depict various stages of Turkish history, with a bas relief below each. One depicts a fierce Turkish soldier underneath a double eagle ensignia. I pointed this out to my host and said, "that's a Byzantine symbol!" He replied, "no, it's Turkish." I said, "no, I know a little about this sort of thing. That is definitely the Byzantine double eagle." "They got it from the Turks," he confidently replied. End of discussion.

I readily agree that the Ottoman Empire worked better in the Middle East than anything that has come along since. Think about it. But no, Turkey is not ready. And it will never be unless it honestly engages its own history.

A Ride with the Queen

On Fox News tonight, I listened to an interview with former Secretary of State, James Baker. Baker related an anecdote about President Reagan's state visit to Great Britain. Queen Elizabeth II hosted the Reagans at Windsor Castle. As both were avid horse-people, aides arranged a short, private ride. Far removed from reporters, the riders trotted up a nearby hill. Queen Elizabeth's horse, shall we say, was suffering from gas and emitted several short bursts, as only horses can do. The Queen turned to President Reagan and said, "Oh, I'm so sorry!" The President never batted an eye and replied, "that's quite alright, Your Majesty. I thought it was the horse."

History Matters (Still)

Rod Dreher at Crunchy Con has a number of excellent and timely articles posted today. The most intriguing, to me, is "History Matters," and his link to Daniel Larison.

Larison is a Ph.D student in Byzantine History at the University of Chicago. His post, entitled "History Matters, Even For Those Who Think It Has Ended," can be found here.

Larison begins by quoting Paul Schroeder from The American Conservative, whose full article is well worth reading and can be found here. Schroeder notes that the main intellectual defect in current American foreign policy is the lack of any sense of history...a trained intuitive sense of the way things do not happen. (How they actually happen depends on the evidence.) America’s leaders and their advisers, including some so-called historians and political scientists, not only are ignorant of history and insensitive to it, they despise and repudiate it.

Larison's commentary is impressive.

History teaches the attentive student the tragic sense of life, which most Americans cannot grasp at all, and an awareness that some problems are not meant to be solved but are to be endured.

and masterfully (and also quoted in to Dreher post):

History does not repeat itself, of course, but it does provide cautionary lessons to those who would take heed of them. Among them are these basic truths: that great powers sow in the exercise of their own dominance the seeds of their collapse; that no victory is complete, no cause is ever truly vindicated by force of arms, and no defeat is final so long as people retain memory of it; that concentrated power is the ruin of a nation; that natural affinities and attachments to kith and kin are more enduring and powerful than almost any idea or belief known to man; that man has a deep need to worship and find meaning beyond himself, whether in the divine or the demonic; that man is impractical and irrational and will ensnare himself in fetters to acquire what he desires; that most men, if given the chance, will betray themselves and all they hold dear for the acquisition of power.

Untold volumes have been written, either trying to explain or explain away what Larison sums up in a paragraph. His site is well worth visiting and exploring.
Thanks Rod, and Daniel, and Dr. Schroeder.

Give Me That Rodeo Religion

In the last few days, I had opportunity to travel around a bit in this weird state of mind called Texas. Obstensibly, I was to attend a one-day continuing education seminar west of San Antonio, but you might say I took the long way there. A freakish accident, resulting in a broken ankle, scotched my seminar attendance and sent me limping home a day early (but that is another story).

I enjoy driving the backroads, savoring the small towns and the occasional cafe where the waitress might still call you "Hon." In these places, you catch glimpses of the unique, the off-beat, and sometimes, the downright bizarre.

Somewhat in that context, I always pay special attention to the churches I pass along the way: their archetecture (or lack thereof), their sloganeering, and especially their names. The Jesus Christ is the Answer, Inc. Church, painted in large red letters on the church roof is hard to miss, or forget. Somehow I suspect someone didn't really think this one through...."Hi, I'm with the Jesus Christ is the Answer, Inc. Church and I'd like to tell you that Jesus Christ is the Answer"....it just doesn't flow. I found the Little Zion Jerusalem Baptist Church, an odd juxtaposition, but then I found the Mother Zion Missionary Baptist Church completely baffling. I am familiar, of course, with the biblical usage of the word "Zion," but what is meant by "Mother Zion?" I don't get it.

But outside of these colorful varieties and the traditional Baptist/Methodist/ Church of Christ matrix, most everything else was of the "new" variety. By this I mean some variation of the phrase "New Life," "New Beginnings," "New Covenant," etc. or something or the other. In fact, 90% of these churches are some jumble of the following phrases:

New Life
New Beginning
New Covenant
Faith
Family
Fellowship
Praise
Community
Outreach Center

Just mix and match to come up with a jazzy name, find a metal building, and you are in business. Interestingly, many tend to avoid the word "church," thinking, I suppose, that if you don't call it a church, then people will come. So you end up with things like New Life Outreach Center, or New Beginnings Family Fellowship, or New Covenant Fellowship Center. A variation in a nearby county is Driven Life Outreach Center. Driven life? Excuse me. I don't mean to put too fine a point on it, but Muslims are driven. Christians are led. Bottom line: more often than not, new is not better.

I take all this in stride, but for some reason, I am baffled and a little disturbed by the phenomenon of the "cowboy churches." Those of you who don't live in the South or West may be puzzled by what I mean. These are churches specifically designed for "cowboys," where they can wear their boots and jeans and whatever else (hats?) and be comfortable and not feel out of place. Invariably, they meet in a large metal building that perhaps once was, or could still double as, a barn. Usually there is a roping arena out back, where the congregation can "rope," I suppose, after church.


What got me to thinking about this was the particular cowboy church I passed down in Central Texas--the All Around Cowboy Church. Now I understand that this is a rodeo term, but it just struck me as funny. If you are a part-time cowboy, or what we used to call a drug-store cowboy, then podner, you'd better jest mosey on down the trail, for this church is for "all around" cowboys.

And therein lies the heart of what bothers me about all this, and why it is just another example, par excellence, of the dissipation of Protestantism. The cowboy church philosophy, I gather, is to create a worship environment that is inviting to the "cowboy." I am speaking only for my part of the state, but real cowboys are pretty scare around here. There are folks who may have a few cows and who may occasionally ride a horse, but by and large it is merely an affectation, a stance, in many cases a mere fashion statement--a preference for wranglers and Tony Lama boots. (Now some truth in advertising here: I am not one, have never been one and have never aspired to be one. But my dad was--a real, old-time cowboy. He did other things, for sure, but at heart he was a cowboy, from cowboy country. So I do know the genuine article when I see it.) So, in effect, what we have here is a denomination created in large part for people who want to dress a certain way. I suppose it is no different than having Surfer Dude Churches in California and Hawaii, where you can carry your surfboard to worship. The raison d'etre of the cowboy churches is their particular hobby, or fashion preference. In my mind, this has trivialized Christianity down to the point where it cannot go much further.

Two final points and I'll stop "beating this dead horse." American religious groups of all stripes have long adopted casual dress in worship. (I have no problem with this, up to a point, because what bothers me more than casualness is pretense.) I never heard of anyone being turned away from any Protestant church around here for showing up in boots and jeans. It just wasn't an issue. So there was no real need for any separate churches. And I wonder what my reception would be at the All Around Cowboy Church if I showed up in khakis and loafers? It's just the same old thing. Finally, the image of the cowboy in American culture is one of lonely, rugged, individualistic, self-reliance. While these traits may serve you well in taming the frontier, I don't see a single one that should be a characteristic of Life in Christ.

By the way, the first picture is our cowboy of American myth. The second picture is the real thing, my g-g-uncle Henry who went up the Chisholm Trail in the late 1870s.

Obsessed

Okay, I'll admit it. I recognize that I have become tee-totally obsessed with this whole Pope Benedict mess. I'm still stirred up about it and the thoughts that follow are far from a measured, calm response to the controversy.

My state of mind was not helped by yesterday's Dallas Morning News. The editorial headline read: "Pope was careless, but reaction is out of line." Although they did bemoan the disproportionate Islamic response, they saved plenty of advice for the pontiff, as well. The editor advised that Benedict should have "chosen a better example for a recent talk that has launched an international furor," and that "wisdom prescribed care and clarity in speaking of sensitive religious matters," concluding that "the current pope cannot afford another blunder like this one."

Careless? Blunder? What pure, unadulterated, pandering crap this is! As I have stated here and elsewhere, I am convinced that Pope Benedict's words were carefully chosen and he said exactly what he intended to say. I do not know his exact reasons for doing so, but they were no careless blunder. Ochlophobist has some fascinating speculation as to his motivations.

And then over at Dreher's Crunchy Con, I found a link to this about the planned "Day of Rage" this coming Friday, in which Muslims will vent their outrage over Pope Benedict's remarks. Oh, so you mean, the last week of rage hasn't been enough? I would suggest a counter "Day" in the West. I'm not sure what we should call it. Maybe "Day of Get-over-it-already" or maybe "Day of Grow-up!" or perhaps "Day of You-Call-That-A-Religion?" I don't know.

And yet, there are hopeful signs of dawning awareness in the West; perhaps a belated recognition of the adversary we face. By this I mean that some of the secular Left, who in former days would counsel "dialogue" and "understanding" and "sensitivity," now view this as the insipid pandering that it often is. Case in point (and a hat tip to my friend Milton) is Sam Harris, a left-leaning atheist whose latest book was entitled The End of Faith. He writes:

But my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith. On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right. This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that "liberals are soft on terrorism." It is, and they are. A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world — for reasons that are perfectly explicable in terms of the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. The truth is that we are not fighting a "war on terror." We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise. Unfortunately, such religious extremism is not as fringe a phenomenon as we might hope....Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization. The truth is that there is every reason to believe that a terrifying number of the world's Muslims now view all political and moral questions in terms of their affiliation with Islam. This leads them to rally to the cause of other Muslims no matter how sociopathic their behavior. This benighted religious solidarity may be the greatest problem facing civilization and yet it is regularly misconstrued, ignored or obfuscated by liberals....We are entering an age of unchecked nuclear proliferation and, it seems likely, nuclear terrorism. There is, therefore, no future in which aspiring martyrs will make good neighbors for us. Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies....To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization. For the full story, read here.

And then there is Anne Applebaum, writing in the Washington Post:

Western politicians, writers, thinkers and speakers should stop apologizing -- and start uniting. By this, I don't mean that we all need to rush to defend or to analyze this particular sermon; I leave that to experts on Byzantine theology. But we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech -- surely the pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts -- and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns. By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde and Fox News -- Western institutions of the left, the right and everything in between. True, these principles sound pretty elementary -- "we're pro-free speech and anti-gratuitous violence" -- but in the days since the pope's sermon, I don't feel that I've heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus. A lot more time has been spent analyzing what the pontiff meant to say, or should have said, or might have said if he had been given better advice. All of which is simply beside the point, since nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should…

Indeed. Read the full article here.

And finally, Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury adds his voice:

The former Archbishop of Canterbury...has issued his own challenge to “violent” Islam in a lecture in which he defends the Pope’s “extraordinarily effective and lucid” speech. Lord Carey said that Muslims must address “with great urgency” their religion’s association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the “clash of civilisations” endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole. “We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times,” he said. “There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths.” ...
Arguing that [Samuel] Huntington’s thesis has some “validity”, Lord Carey quoted him as saying: “Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.” He said ... it was the “moral relativism of the West” that has outraged Muslim society. Most Muslims believe firmly that the invasion of Iraq is 2004 was solely about oil, he said. He went on to defend the Pope’s fundamental thesis, that reason and religious faith can be compatible. “The actual essay is an extraordinarily effective and lucid thesis exploring the weakness of secularism and the way that faith and reason go hand in hand,” he said. He said he agreed with his Muslim friends who claimed that true Islam is not a violent religion, but he wanted to know why Islam today had become associated with violence. “The Muslim world must address this matter with great urgency,” he said.

Read here for entire article.

End of rant.

We Are All Paleologi Now

The furor over Pope Benedict's remarks continued unabated over the weekend, following what is now a predictable and depressingly familiar pattern. Only two sentences from an academic speech by this former academician have apparently offended the whole of Islam. The silliness and absurdity of the protests rival that of the Danish cartoon "scandal." For Islam, this may be another Emperor-has-no-clothes moment.

But protests in the Muslim street appear to be the order of the day. In the face of their own homegrown poverty, endemic and institutionalized corruption and near hopeless economies--all legitimate reasons for protest--many riot over this obscure quotation of a 14th-century Byzantine emperor by a German Pope. The indignation is not confined to the "streets." Muslim political leaders compare Pope Benedict to Hitler and recall their ambassadors from the Vatican. Official apologies are demanded across the board, but it is doubtful any will be sufficient to assuage the tender sensibilities of the professionally agrieved. Meanwhile Palestinian churches are indiscriminately torched, with Orthodox and Anglican churches suffering alongside Catholic. (Proof, if any were needed, that despite the distinctions we ourselves make, we are all very much in the same foxhole.) And apparently, elderly Catholic nuns are now to be shot in the back, as evidenced by the tragedy in Mogadishu.

That is the world we live in now. Of course, the irony here is that this reaction in the Muslim world only validates and reinforces those very sentiments--expressed by Manuel II some 600 years ago--that the protestors find so reprehensible today.

Victor Davis Hanson has some insightful comments here, and including this absolutely spot-on summation:

... by quoting from the emperor rhetorician Manuel Paleologus—whose desperate efforts at strengthening the Morea and the Isthmus at Corinth a generation before that awful Tuesday, May 29, 1453 all came to naught—the Pope failed to grasp that under the tenets of radical Islam of the modern age, context means little, intent nothing, learning less than zero. If a sentence, indeed a mere phrase can be taken out of context, twisted, manipulated to show an absence of deference to Islam, furor ensues, death threats follow, assassins load their belts—even as the New York Times or the Guardian issues its sanctimonious apologies in the hope that the crocodile will eat them last.

Rod Dreher has a good discussion here, with a link to Michelle Malkin here, who in turn has a link to a must-read article that puts the original 14th-century remarks of Manuel II Paleologus in their proper context, here.

Dreher thinks something about the reaction to Benedict's speech seems to have pushed Christians...over the line, concluding that if any good is to come out of this mess that began with Pope Benedict's speech, it will be that fewer and fewer ordinary people will be gulled by political correctness, and will start to understand exactly what we're all up against.

One can hope.

Finally, Dreher notes "in any case, Benedict's speech will go down as a defining moment in this conflict."

Remembering Oriana Fallaci

Oriana Fallaci is dead. After battling cancer for 10 years, she returned to her native Florence to die. A take-no-prisoners journalist, Fallaci had bested the likes of Arafat, Kissinger and Khomeini in her day, as well as being shot 3 times and left for dead at the Mexico City Olympics of 1968. Always controversial, she was perhaps never more so than in the post 9/11 years.

I came to appreciate her rather late. A New York Times review of her The Rage and the Pride in September 2002 was my first introduction. I ordered the book, read it overnight in one sitting, and then promptly ordered 5 copies to give as gifts. It is neither a well-written nor even a well-reasoned book, but it is quite simply the most passionate book I have ever read. It is a cry of truth, and truth is often an inconvenient and uncomfortable thing. An extended passage from her The Rage and the Pride follows:

Good Lord, I don't deny anybody the right to have fear. A thousand times I have written that whoever claims not to know fear is either a liar or an idiot or both. But in Life and in History there are moments when fear is not permitted. Moments when fear is immoral and uncivilized. And those who out of weakness or stupidity (or the habit of keeping one foot in two shoes) avoid the obligations imposed by this war, are not only cowards: they are masochists.

Masochists, yes, masochists. And on this subject let's finally speak of what you call Contrast-Between-the-Two-Cultures. The two?!? If you really want to know, I feel uncomfortable even when you pronounce the words "two cultures." That is, when you put them on the same level as if they were two parallel entities. Two realities of equal weight and value. Don't be so humble, my dear. Because behind our culture there is Homer, there is Pheidias, there is Socrates, there is Plato, there is Aristotle, there is Archimedes. There is Ancient Greece with its divine sculpture and architecture and poetry and philosophy, with its principle of democracy. There is Ancient Rome with all its grandeur, its universality, its concept of the Law, its literature, its palaces, its amphitheaters, its aqueducts, its bridges, its streets built all over the then know world...There is a revolutionary called Jesus who died on the cross to teach us the concept of love and justice. (And so much the worse for us if we didn't learn it). There is a Church that...gave a tremendous contribution to the History of Thought, and after the Inquisition began to change. Not even an anti-clerical like me can deny it. Then there is the cultural awakening that started and flourished in Florence, in Tuscany, to replace Man at the center of the Universe and [re]concile his need of freedom with his need of God. I mean the Renaissance....There is also the heritage left by Erasmus from Rotterdam and Montaigne and Thomas More and Cartesius. There is also the Enlightenment....There is also the music of Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and Rossini and Donizetti up to Verdi and Puccini and company....Finally, there is our Science, by God. And the technology that derives from it....Enough with bullshit, my dear: Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Pasteur, Einstein were not followers of the Prophet. Were they? The motor, the telegraph, the light-bulb, I mean the use of electricity, the photograph, the telephone, the radio, the television, have not been invented by some mullahs or some ayatollahs. Have they? The train, the automobile, the airplane, the helicopter, (that Leonardo da Vinci fancied and designed), the spacecrafts with which we have gone to the Moon and to Mars and will so go to God knows where, the same. Right? The heart and liver and eyes and lungs' transplant, the cures for cancer, the genome's disclosure, as well. Wrong? And let us not forget the standard of life that Western culture has achieved at every level of society. In the West we don't any longer die of starvation and curable diseases as they do in the Moslem countries. Right or wrong? But even if all these were unimportant achievements, (which I doubt), tell me: what are the conquests of the other culture, the culture of the bigots with the beard and the chador and the burkah?

Look and search, search and look. I can only find the Prophet with his sacred book that sounds preposterous even when it plagiarizes the Bible and the Gospels and the Torah and the Hellenistic thinkers. I only find Averroe with his indisputable merits of scholar...Omar Khayyam with his fine poetry, plus a few beautiful mosques. No other achievement in the field of art and in the garden of Thought. No accomplishment in the domain of science, of technology, of welfare...When I mention this truth, some object with the word mathematics....Mathematics was invented more or less simultaneously by the Arabs, the Indians, the Greeks, the Mayans, the Mesopotamians. Go and check. Nor did your ancestors invent numbers. They simply invented a new way of writing them. The way that we Unfaithful have adopted, thus facilitating and speeding the discoveries you never made. That invention is highly commendable, I agree. Undoubtedly meritorious. But it is also insufficient to define Islamic culture superior to Western culture. As a consequence, I feel fully authorized to affirm that, apart from Averroe and some poets and some mosques and the way of writing the numbers, your ancestors have substantially left a book and that's all. I mean that Koran which for a thousand and four hundred years has tormented humanity even more than the Bible or the Gospels and the Torah together...

As you see, Fallaci pulls no punches. I would like to think that Fallaci was becoming uncomfortable with the atheism she professed throughout her career. Some of the best writing in the book is her defense of the churches in Florence and her indignation and rage over their desecration by Somali Muslims. The Somalis, protesting the hesitancy of the Italian government to renew their visas, erected a tent city in central Florence. Taped recordings of "calls to prayer" by a muezzin drowned out the bells of the churches. Some Somalis used the bapistry of the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral as a urinal and defecated in front of the 9th-century Church of San Salvatore al Vescovo. Fallaci complained to the newspaper, then the Mayor of Florence and finally the Minister of Foreign Affairs. All were sympathetic, but no action was taken. Finally, in desperation, she called the chief of police. She informed him that if he did not see to the dismantling of the tent city, that she would burn it down and "that not even a regiment of soldiers could prevent it." Furthermore, that she fully expected to be arrested, handcuffed and locked in jail, and that the newspapers and TV stations would report that "Fallaci has been incarcerated in her own city for defending her own city. And this will throw shit on all of you." The tent city promptly came down, but as she states, it was a Phyrric victory. The government quickly and quietly re-issued all the visas.

I know she respected the new Pope, and even had an audience with him within the last year. I would like to think that she was informed of his comments earlier this week that have ignited such a furor. I think she would have been pleased. What a woman!

Obituaries here and here, and a book review from earlier this year here.

Memory Eternal.

Pope Benedict's Byzantine Moment

It is always noteworthy when a 21st-century Pope quotes a 14th-century Byzantine. Pope Benedict XVI did just that at a speech given at Regensburg University.

Benedict addressed the issue of Islamic holy war, noting that it was "against God's nature." He quoted, interestingly, a 14th-century Byzantine Emperor, Manuel II Paleologos.

Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman , such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.

Benedict went on to explain the emperor's repudiation of, and unreasonableness of, the use of violence in spreading faith.

One spectator was impressed, noting that "Muslims aren't going to take us seriously until we become conscious of our own values."

Exactly so. Read here.

Wedding Feast at Cana

No commentary, just a beautiful fresco.

Haghia Sophia Church, Trabzon (Trebizond), Turkey; 13th Century.

A Belated Plug

I want to take opportunity to put in a good word for good man--Steven Robinson. As most visitors here already know, he is the co-host of "Our Life in Christ." His audio archives are an incredible resource--whether you are just inquiring into Orthodoxy, have already become so and need help with Protestant friends and family, or are a lifelong Orthodox looking to deepen your faith. If you don't already have it bookmarked, do so NOW.

Steve is devoted to pastoral work and is to be commended for his recent article in the Spring 2006 issue of AGAIN magazine: "I Am Not My Sin: An Orthodox Pastoral Approach to Same-Sex Attraction." Unfortunately, this article is not online. You can subscribe to the magazine (and purchase back issues, I suppose) on the Conciliar Press website.

Finally, Steve is a man with a wicked, wicked sense of humor. If you don't believe me, check out "poor little Billy's" plight on his blog.

Thanks, Steve, for everything.

The Middle East, As Always

Rod Dreher takes on President Bush's recent speech before the American Legion. He observes:

Lord have mercy, will he not observe that to more than a few people in the Muslim world, freedom does not mean the same thing it does to Americans. Freedom means freedom to live as they believe God has commanded them to live. Democracy means electing people who will implement God's law, as they understand it. This crazy hubris, believing that everybody in the world wants the same thing as Americans, is wrecking us.

For the full article, read.

In last weekend's Dallas Morning News Dreher writes about Suyyid Qutb, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and the "philosopher of Islamic terror." His conclusions are worth reading. Go here.

William J. Abraham is a Professor at Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theololgy. In spite of that, he hits the nail on the head, here.

And finally, common sense and reality from, of all places, The Boston Globe, here.

Travel Journal--26 June 2006

I awoke on the morning of June 26, 2006 in a Swiss-style chalet high in the Kackar Mountains of northeastern Turkey. I had left the Republic of Georgia 11 days earlier. This area of Turkey is known in the travel guidebooks as the Georgian Church country. The region was once part of Georgia, both ethnically and politically and a few ruined, soaring Georgian-style Orthodox churches from the 10th-12th century remain. Even so, they are quite a draw. I had hoped to visit four. While this appeared to be easily managable looking on the map, the reality of the mountainous terrain and twisting dirt roads defeated this goal. We managed to visit three, and by that time I was ready to come down out of the mountains.

Our pension was in Barhal, a small village wedged between the base of a mountain at the confluence of 2 rushing streams, 19 miles and 1 hour and 20 minutes up a torturous dirt road from Yusefeli. If you are looking to get away from it all, Barhal is a likely spot. A dolmus or two make the run up from Yusefeli, but the village doesn't see much traffic beyond that. My bed and board, including supper and breakfast cost $25. The only other tourists there consisted of a party of Swiss mountaineers. Incredibly fit, they all seemed about 6'2", wore hiking shorts and boots, and looked liked they could be extras from any old Nazi propaganda film. I had to wonder--if you are Swiss trying to decide where to go on holiday, wouldn't you rather go to the beach than the mountains?

That morning, we drove up the trail past the village towards the Barhal church. Up until last year, it had served as a mosque and was currently closed pending restoration as a museum. The 10th or 11th century building was perhaps the best preserved of the three I visited, but the least prepossessing. This was due in part to it being wedged in on the side of a hill, with a grade school immediately adjacent, and trees closing in all around. There simply wasn't anywhere to stand back and get a perspective of the structure. I peered through the cracks in the doors--all the frescoes had received a thorough Islamic whitewashing years ago. It merely looked like a bland, deserted mosque. Before we left, my guide and friend, Turan, climbed a nearby mulberry tree and shook down plenty of delicious fruit for us.

Leaving Barhal church, we continued away from the village, further and further up the mountain valley. I kept thinking that we had reached the end of the road, but on and on it went, following close to a mountain stream. A single strand of electric wire paralleled the road and stream--sometime precariously--and sure enough, here and there, clumps of cottages and huts lay clustered along the hillsides. We passed 2 backpackers and stopped briefly to talk with them and give directions. They had a copy of a page out of the Lonely Planet guide, but were otherwise close to being quite lost. Turan was able to be of considerable assistance. We asked where they were from and they said "Chicago." They then seemed surprised to learn that I was an American as well. When we left, Turan assured me that they were not Americans, but Israelis trying to disguise their nationality. I tended to agree, they certainly did not seem American at all. Interesting, though. Later we passed a young woman herding a few head of cattle along the road. I'm afraid our vehicle scattered her charges. Eventually, our driver Belial, dropped Turan and I off at a bend in the road. We were to hike up and around the mountain and meet him at another crossing. Hiking the Kackars was a little more than I had bargained for.The steep climb certainly dispelled any lingering illusions about my youth and vitality. As we ascended, we found ourselves approaching a solitary cabin with unlimited vistas. A young woman worked the field in the foreground, as an adolescent boy performed chores around the house. The head of the family was on the roof, building a porch roof across one side of the cabin. He invited us to have tea. In short order the daughter of the household brought out a large wooden tray, the teapot, and the ubiquitous tulip-shaped glasses and sugar cubes for our tea break. We squatted on our haunches, drank the strong tea and smoked. Turan and the man talked at length. Later my friend was to relate the man's story to me. This was their home only during the spring and summer months. The snow forced them out during the winter. During those months, the family lived in an apartment in Yusefeli while the father would go to Istanbul to work as a day laborer. Theirs was a hard existence. He said the government was encouraging them to suppliment their income with activities such as beekeeping. This led to a story about "crazy honey." In some of the mountain valleys, the bees feed on the poppies that grow wild. Their honey is to be eaten with great moderation and in very limited qualities. The man had a friend who had helped trap a bear on the other side of the mountain. His payment was a spoonful of this honey. He was angry, believing that he had been taken advantage of. They warned him only to just taste it. The friend did not heed the warning, however, put the entire spoon in his mouth. Ten minutes later he started to feel a little groggy, and the next thing he remembers is waking up 2 days later. After 3 cups of tea, we thanked our host for his hospitality and trudged on up the hill. I tried not to let on, but I was forever thankful when Turan took the trail that began to descend the mountain! We trekked through one hillside village where the old lady laughed at Turan when he ran from her bees. I was exhausted by the time we caught up with Belial and our vehicle. I settled into the back seat for a long rest. Before reaching Barhal, we were stopped as a maintainer worked on the road--scraping away a recent rock slide. Interesting, a mini-van from Georgia was parked in front on us, of which more will be told later.

We arrived in Yusefeli a couple of hours later. This is a bustling little hub, the only place in these mountains for a town of any size. Yusefeli was a conservative town where all the women on the streets wore the headscarf. Men clustered around the cafes, drinking endless glasses of tea, and the women walked together and kept completely to theirselves. Yet, the town's main draw was tourism, so you could still get a beer in the riverside cafes. We bought a watermelon, some homemade cheese, homemade bread, some juices and water and headed for our next destination--Dort Kilisesi. In Turkish, that means "4 Churches." Only one was left, but it had never been a mosque and was one I particularly wanted to see. It lay probably 20 miles out from Yusefeli in the opposite direction than Barhal. But here again, the mountainous terrain was make it a 2-hour journey. All roads in this region follow the streams, and this was no exception. I was intriqued to see rice paddies between the road and water. At Tekkale we turned right, heading further up the mountain valley.

At long last we reached Dort Kilisesi. The church was not completely visible from the road, but sat on a high bluff, which an orchard falling down the hillside to the road. We sat on the ground in the orchard and ate our picnic feast (really, Turkish watermelons are the best in the world). As it was threatening rain, I decided to go on up the hill alone. And perhaps Turan and Belial were tiring of my churches, as they chose to remain in the orchard. Dort Kilisesi sort of sneaks up on you. I was not prepared for the size of the structure. Simple in design, but immense. I entered into the cavernous interior. Dirt has silted up quite a bit on the floor, but the church is still solid, with roof completely intact. Rows of 4-story columns line the interior. The frescoes are fading fast, that, in fact being a major reason I chose to visit here. I took many snapshots, but other than Christ Pantocrator and angels, I was not generally not able to determine who they depicted. Sadly, the old church has also been an obvious and favorite site for teenage graffiti. I lingered for quite a while in the sanctuary, before stepping outside. Of the three churches I had visited in the region--Osk Vank, Barhal and Dort Kilisesi--this was my favorite by far.

As I stood outside I heard a noise--lots of voices and commotion, in fact, coming from down the hill. I then saw a man approaching the church. I observed him as he slowly crossed himself three times in the unmistakable sweeping movement of the Georgians. My heart lept--the Georgians are here! I approached and tried to make him understand that I too, was Orthodox. I didn't think to show him my cross. Needless to say, we were having trouble communicating--the only word I knew was "madlapt" (sp.), Georgian for "thank you." But we eventually understood each other well enough and shook hands heartedly. The rest of his party had joined us by this time. It seems he was the driver of the minivan we were behind way back in Barhal. The group included 2 female teacher/chaperones and a gaggle of teenagers being taken on a cultural tour of their heritage in what is now Turkey. The young people seemed excited to be there and anxious to see the church and frescoes, once they had finished with their extensive greetings to me. Now I ask you, how many of our teenagers would submit to doing something like this, much less be excited about it? Not many, I fear. We posed for pictures and the one here says it all.

I said goodbye to my Georgian friends and brothers and walked back down the hill, and back into Turkey. I did not realize how much I had missed Georgian society in these 11 days. I do not want to engage in any cheap, simplistic Christian triumphalism. But, this incident brought home to me a great truth. We were only a few miles away (as the crow flies) from Georgia proper. But between there and here lay a deep, cultural chasm: the division between a Christian society and the Muslim world. I am still at something at a loss to express it adequately, but the sense of it is as real as anything I have ever experienced. The strictures of the Muslim world, the separation of men and women, and the very presuppositions from which they order their life may not be so obvious at first, until that is, they are contrasted with these curious, lively, noisy, loving, and sometimes untidy Christians. Thank God for the Georgians.

My Akdamar Poll

If you find yourself in far eastern Turkey, in the environs of the breathtakingly beautiful Lake Van, you are probably there to visit Akdamar Island. Such was the draw for me. Akdamar was the locus in this part of "Armenia" from the 900s until about 1918 or so, when the last of the local Christians were killed in the Armenian genocide. At one time, the island housed a royal palace complex and an extensive monastery, in addition to the cathedral church. The church served a comunity of over 140 area churches and 40 monasteries. Today, only the church is left, and it has stood vacant since the end of the First World War.

The church is currently undergoing a government-sponsored restoration, after decades of neglect. Admittedly, this may be cause for concern--the restoration of an ancient Armenian church by the Turkish authorities--but I will give them the benefit of a doubt. Ankara's aggressive PR campaign and overtures to join the EU undoubtedly play a part in this. That, and the dawning realization that there are tourist dollars in these crumbling Christian ruins. Day in, day out, three ferries continuously ply the 2 kilometers between shore and island. Our ferry carried 36 passengers--35 Turks and 1 Texan. I believe that this is a hopeful sign. Turkish nationals are apparently interested in visiting Akdamar and picnicking among the jumble of ancient Armenian tombstones with their huge, ornate crosses. The point is this: there is no way to "Turkify" Akdamar. It is wholly, completely, totally Armenian--and Christian.

My 35 Turkish fellow travelers broke down into 19 men and 16 women. In my journey throughout Turkey, I took to observing the number of women wearing headscarves. They have become common (and an issue) in Turkey only in recent years--tied to political and social conservatism, a "return to traditional values," if you will. I find the wearing of headscarves to be an obviously inexact, but not unreliable, measure of Islamist sentiment.

Lake Van lies in far eastern Turkey, in supposedly one of the most conservative regions of the country. Nevertheless, only 4 of the 16 women wore headscarves. Again, I find this hopeful, and is illustrative of the complex and changing nature of Turkish society.

The Islamist agenda, just as the practice of Islam itself, is somewhat different in Turkey. The Turks are both staunchly Muslim and secular at the same time. This dichotomy precludes making hard-and-fast conclusions about the culture. In fact, the only place I visited where all women wore headscarves was in Yusefeli, deep in the mountains of northeastern Turkey, although I am sure that is also the case in most rural villages, as well. I have been told that for many women, the wearing of the headscarf is more of a political statement than a show of religious fundamentalism. Throughout eastern Turkey, I could draw no firm conclusions--some women wore them, many did not.

There seemed to be no sifting-out between those who did and those who did not. Young women in headscarves--or even dressed "full burkha"--walked arm-in-arm with girls without the scarf who wore western-style blue jeans. My guide told me that each girl made the decision for herself, that there was no pressure one way or the other. I doubt seriously if this is the case in many rural areas, but otherwise I suspect it may be so. What is frowned-on, however, by all parties, is the wearing of short skirts. This is really just not done in Turkey.

I did not notice appreciably more headscarves in eastern Turkey than in Istanbul, as one might expect. In fact, Istanbul is such a cosmopolitan place that it is much like New York in that you are liable to see anything there. For example, the old Greek Phanar district has been largely taken over by poor, fundamentalist Muslims from eastern Turkey. The bearded men are in woolen skullcaps and the women in black burkhas--some with eyes and nose exposed, and some with only the eyes exposed. You might as well be in Kabul. (And believe me, this dress--and what is signifies--is as alarming to most Turks as it is to us). Yet, just across the Golden Horn, along the Istiklal Cadessi, I had to look, and look, and look to spot even one woman in headscarf among the crush of shoppers. As I sat in the sidewalk restaurant, observing, I eventually counted three.

Most of Istanbul falls between these two extremes. Many young Turkish women who opt for the headscarf also wear attractive white close-fitting tunic-style coats. Older women often wear the ubiquitous, shapeless floor-length overcoats endemic to Turkey. They come in two colors: gray and taupe, and they wear them regardless of how hot it is outside. Unfortunately, women who wear these seem cursed to assume their shape. On the other hand, young women in headscarves are often dressed elegantly from head to toe, with special attention to footwear.

I am trying not to obsess on this issue, but merely attempting to gauge the extent and direction of Islamism in the one Muslim country in which I have some limited experience. Blanket assumptions about the Middle and Near East can be ill-informed, and as we are finding out, dangerous. My gut feeling is that Turkey's westward orientation is irreversable; no matter how long it takes, they will eventually join Europe. But they will do so as a decidedly Muslim nation. And Europe, no longer Christian in any real sense, but retaining enough of a veneer of such in their collective memory to be alarmed, is scrambling to confront this dilemma. I am also convinced that if the West ever comes to an accomodation or truce with Islam--and clearly, I am not at all hopeful that such will ever, or should ever occur--it will have to be on the Turkish model.