Burton on Burke

You can never have too many friends, but those that last a lifetime and who stick with you through thick and thin are rare indeed. A person usually only has 2 or 3 who fall into this category. Milton is such a friend. He is, among other things, a mystery writer of some note. If you enjoy that sort of thing, you can find his works, here, and here. We serve as something of a sounding board for each other--which is useful, I suppose, as it keeps us from inflicting our pontifications on our other friends, co-workers and acquaintances. The depravity of modern American culture, the loathsomeness of our political discourse and the foreign policy debacles du jour provide ample fodder for our mutual rants. Recently, Milton forwarded a short essay on Edmund Burke and the nature of true conservativism, to-wit:.

Of late I have become deeply annoyed with those who profess to be both conservative and Christian and who show no outward signs of the practice--or indeed even the understanding--of either. In the first place, in this country the word "conservative" has been hijacked by a gaggle of right wing Jacobins who know exactly what they are doing, and who have been aided and abetted by legions of gullible followers who don't know what's being done to them, and who have no more understanding of the history of the Anglo-American conservative tradition than they do of... Well, anything else of substance.

What the Jacobin types want is nothing less than the complete transformation of our nation into a borderless utopia whose foreign policy is determined by a coalition of neocon theorists and the crony capitalists who dominate the major defense industries. As far as their dupes out here in Red State land go, their hopes are both more modest and less well-defined. They still give the occasional verbal lick and a promise toward abortion, and they can be counted on to get a bit huffy at the notion of gay marriage. But where I come from [East Texas], the mainstay of these common folks' agenda is the vague notion of "putting God back in the classroom," which in their minds amounts to opening each school day with approved prayers, and then prefacing the local Friday night football bloodletting by having some jackleg preacher from a local fundamentalist congregation mumble a few words of pious drivel about Jesus and sportsmanship into a defective PA system. And that's about the extent of it as far as either Christianity or conservativism go with the man on the street, though I'm sure sugar-plum visions of Rotary, the local Chamber of Commerce and due and proper veneration of such heroic figures as General Patton (now, there's a real man's man!!) dance around somewhere far back in the unexamined recesses of his mind.

There is a problem with all this, though. The true intellectual father of our conservative tradition was, of course, the great Edmund Burke, and this isn't quite what he had in mind. Burke saw human rights not as things that float down from the aether to fall equally on all mankind, but as time-proven, positive benefits to both individuals and society that have emerged through trial and error and with great struggle from a historical process. And while I am sure he would have said that it was desirable for all peoples everywhere to have and enjoy the basic rights we have come to appreciate--a free press, free speech, freedom of religion, etc.--the truth was that he knew these things came into being through a unique set of circumstances, and that their actual possession in the real world was the heritage of a particular people--the British and their colonial offspring. If you will remember, Burke supported the American Revolution because he knew the North American Colonists were being denied their traditional, hereditary rights as Englishmen. On the other hand, he was opposed to the French Revolution because he saw it for what it was--an effort to impose theory on reality and thereby completely remake both human society and human nature along the lines set down by its chief spiritual guru, Jean Jaques Rousseau, a charming fellow who sired several illegitimate children on a scullery maid, then forced her to dump them in a foundling home when their presence in his life became oppressive. After which he went on to write a book on how to raise children that was very popular with the intellectuals of his day. Sound familiar? It should because he too thought that it takes a village. It should also sound familiar because Newt Gingrich's Contract With America owed more to Rousseau (albeit through what was no doubt ignorance on the part of its authors) than it did to true Anglo-American conservativism. As proof one need look no further than the Newt-Suiter's simultaneous proposal that we scrap the two-hundred-year-old congressional committee system and replace it with a series of "task forces" set up to deal with specific issues. Whatever Gingrich is, he is most definitely not a conservative because no true conservative would ever play so fast and loose with time-honored legislative procedures.

There is at the heart of conservativism a "fear and trembling," an appreciation of the limits of human understanding and abilities, and a rightful veneration of the successes of yesteryear. True conservativism has at its roots a respect for what has worked--or at least what has been tolerable--in the past; it is a perpetual attempt to let reality--and particularly the reality and limits of human nature--mold one's thinking in regard to society and politics. The conservative, grounded as he is in Christianity, sees human nature as fixed, immutable, and deeply flawed, if not totally depraved. The Liberal holds human nature up as infinitely malleable. Fix the outward environment and you will fix the man. The conservative knows that neither will ever be completely fixed, nor even partially fixed for very long. Liberalism, in both its right and left wing incarnations, represents an eternal effort to impose theory on reality. The liberal of either stripe takes a look at any situation and thinks how much better things might be made with a complete overhaul. The true conservative sees that same situation and thinks how much worse things might be, especially with too much ill-advised tampering. As a consequence, the former is wedded to broad brush strokes and big canvasses, while the latter is first, last, and always, an incrementalist. He realizes that social/political progress always comes in small, hesitant steps, and that many mistakes are made along the way. He knows too that politics is the product of human nature (often the worst aspects of that nature), and he accepts that it is not and never will be the doorway to Heaven. In his approach to government he is rather like the Medieval cartographer who, upon getting to the limits of known geographical knowledge, would draw a line and annotate his map with the statement, "Take ye care! Beyond here lurk troglodytes!"
They do indeed.

None of us is ever going to get the America of our individual dreams, and it probably wouldn't work very well even if we did because we and our institutions are and always will be deeply flawed.

So who have been the real conservatives in our history? In the presidency only three come to mind--Washington, Cleveland, and Eisenhower. That Ike made no effort to roll the country back to a pre-1929 state by abolishing the Social Security, the FCC, the FAA, and the Federal Trade Commission as the radicals of the Taftite right wanted is testimony to his good sense. He inherited a country that was doing pretty well, and he declined to tamper with its essentials. As for the rest of our chief executives from both parties who have been called conservative, they divide almost equally between Rotarians, ciphers, and idiots. Regan was a special case--the best of the Rotarian type, an able and decent man who probably was the last of the small town presidents. Though he spent a great deal of his life in Hollywood, his heart and his instincts were still with Main Street and Mid-America even when his ideology was off-the-wall.

And as for modern "conservative" Christianity, for it to ever have any validity it is going to have to go beyond the social Darwinism propounded by Falwell, Robertson, Hinn, and the rest of that coven of money grubbing Jesus-wheezers who would elevate the buying of something and selling it for a profit to a position equal to Holy Communion, and for whom the Christian life goes no further than opposing gay rights and supporting the local athletic teams.

So what is a person who is both Christian and temperamentally conservative in the Burkean sense to do since there are no political candidates that truly match up with his sensibilities? You might apply some time each day toward cultivating a healthy loathing for the meddlesome do-gooders who besiege us on all sides. I myself have found that to be an edifying pastime. Hatred, as our British cousins say, is not to be despised. Or you might do as I do and have a spot of fun and defuse some of your frustrations by making up a List of Utterly Pointless Countries. Guatemala and Belgium are high on my own roster. And while we're on the subject, I don't see that the world has any crying need for Lithuania, either. Beyond that, you might see to it that you render more to God than you do to Caesar, not just in money, but it time, thought, and veneration as well since modern man has entirely too much respect for government and politics anyway.

Remember the Balkans?

Bal·kan·ize (bôl k -n z )
To divide (a region or territory) into small, often hostile units.

The best I can figure, the administration of George W. Bush has 406 days remaining. That is more than enough time to initiate any number of fresh foreign policy blunders. But our administration seems perversely intent on bringing to fruition a disaster left over from the Clinton regime. In fact, there is no daylight between the Bushies and the Clinton on this topic. Iran? Syria? No, Kosovo. Yes, Kosovo.

Ready or not, Kosovo is poised to declare independence from Serbia, and the U.S. and most of the E.U. seem likely to go along. Apparently, this is a bad idea whose time has come.Russia will oppose the move, but what they will do to counter such a unilateral declaration remains to be seen. It doesn't have to be this way, as Doug Bandow observes:

Thus, the European states and the U.S. should propose a new round of negotiations – genuine negotiations. No preconditions. No timetables. If the Albanians want independence, they need to come up with sufficient concessions, territorial or other, to win Serbian assent. If the Serbs want to maintain formal sovereignty over Kosovo, they need to come up with sufficient concessions, expanded autonomy or other, to win Albanian assent. Agreement might still prove impossible. But success would be far more likely than from the faux talks promoted by the allies.

What's another foreign policy crisis among friends? Maybe one too many. The best hope to avert a new, and possibly violent, breakdown in the Balkans is for both Washington and Brussels to realize that America and the Europeans are far too busy to deal with civil disorder and conflict in Kosovo. They must tell Pristina no to independence. And they must do so quickly.














Nicholas Kulish examines the plight and prospects of the beleaguered Serbian minority in Kosovo, here. The picture is of Mother Anastasia and a German soldier in the gutted St. Joanikije Monastery. “This monastery was always offering a comfort of healing, not only for Christians but for Muslims as well,” Mother Anastacia said.

Since the Albanians in Albania have their own country, and soon the Albanians in Serbia will have their own statelet, it will be interesting to see how long it will take the Albanians in Macedonia to begin agitating for more autonomy. Not long, I'd wager. It will also be interesting to see just how the lessons of our Kosovo experiment play out worldwide. For there is hardly any country of consequence today that does not have an enclave of some sort with an equal or greater claim to "self-determination" than does Kosovo.

And if you like Kosovo, you'll love Molvania.

St. John the Baptist, Rev. Strangelove and the Israel Lobby

I came across an interesting link at A Conservative Blog for Peace. It concerns the Franciscan-run Monastery of St. John in the Desert, located just outside of Jerusalem. The site is traditionally associated with the home of St. John the Baptist and his mother, who is buried there.

The monastery has long been a pilgrimage destination, as well as a popular hiking area for Jerusalemites. No longer, as the monastery has been overrun by both secular Israelis and Orthodox Jews. The monastery is closed to visitors, save for those with licenced tour guides. In the last few years, the quality of visitors from Jerusalem has changed remarkably. On the one hand, the baptismal pool has been taken over by skinny-dippers and couples using the site for lewd behavior. Then in August, the monastery was overrun by 30 Orthodox Jewish "settlers," brandishing machine guns and threatening the priests. Fr. Sergio reported that "they started to say 'Eretz Israel is our land, and you have to go.' They were very aggressive. They spit at me. They said 'You killed my family.'" Read the whole story, here.

This disturbing view of the new Israel does not exactly harmonize with the image propagated by Rev. Strangelove, seen here.

Which brings me to The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy, by American scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, easily one of the most controversial books published this year. The authors make a strong case, saying what everybody knows, but what nobody heretofore could actually say, to wit:

• that the Israel lobby is far and away the most powerful on Capitol Hill,
• that the lobby heavily influences our foreign policy initiatives (or lack thereof) in the Middle East,
• that these various interest groups--primarily AIPAC--exert, through their contributions, an unhealthy control over our representatives and senators,
• that the lobby effectively squelches dissent or debate on issues pertaining to Israel,
• that the lobby has a marriage of convenience with Christian Zionists,
• that the lobby perpetuates the falsehood that Israel is still weak and in need of our subsidies and unquestioning support,
• that the interests of the US are subsumed by Israel's to such a degree that, in fact, Israel's interests are America's interests,
• that our biases have poisoned our relationships and influence throughout the region.

While the authors' premise was somewhat "preaching to the choir" with me, the details were still an eye-opener. The degree to which AIPAC and others have been able to shut-off debate over our support to Israel--even among Jews--is both astounding and frightening. And while I am sure there are some exceptions, most of our elected national representatives come off as little more than AIPAC whores.

Of course, the book has been roundly trashed, as would be expected. For to question the role of the Israel Lobby in the U.S. is to be instantly labeled an anti-semite. And yet, the book is doing well, and the subject of much discussion. The fact that it was published at all is remarkable. The work may in fact lead to what approaches an honest debate of our policy in the Middle East.

The book has some drawbacks, but by and large it is a seminal work. I believe it will take its place with Huntington's Clash of Civilizations. One can certainly disagree with the premise of either book, but each are of such import that they frame all discussions on the issue that follow. For a rare positive review, see here.

I am not familiar with the Biblical Archaeology Review, its reputation or slant. But in browsing through Barnes & Noble at lunch one day this week, I took note of the current issue. The lead story is Who Owns the World's Oldest Bible?, with a picture of St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai on the cover.

The story concerns, of course, the mid 4th century Codex Sinaiticus, which is the oldest complete New Testament.

The Codex Sinaiticus contains the oldest complete copy of the New Testament—from the mid-fourth century. Originally, it contained the Old Testament too, but most of that is now missing.The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the big three...fourth or fifth century codices of the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) that include the New Testament as well. Vaticanus is at the Vatican. Alexandrinus is at the British Library. And Sinaiticus is, well, in four different places. And thereby hangs my tale. Each venue of Sinaiticus maintains that it owns the part that resides there. The major part is at the British Library (formerly part of the British Museum) in London. A lesser part is at the University Library of Leipzig. A few fragments are in St. Petersburg at the Russian National Library. Finally, the monks of St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mt. Sinai, where it all originated, have discovered a few more leaves. The monks would like it all back.

The BAR article is behind the firewall and not available online. I have copied a portion of one of the side bar articles, below:

Why is Sinaiticus Significant?

Codex Sinaiticus, written around the middle of the fourth century A.D., is arguably the earliest extant Christian Bible. It contains the earliest complete copy of the New Testament. Only one other nearly complete manuscript of the Christian Bible--the Codex Vaticanus--is of a similarly early date. The only Christian manuscripts of scripture that are definitely of an earlier date contain relatively small portions of the text.

Three principal aspects of the codes contribute to its great significance: it roles as text, canon and book.

Codes Sinaiticus represents one of the most important witnesses to the Greek text of the Septuagint and the New Testament. It is customarily given primacy of position in the lists of surviving manuscripts consulted for establishing the oldest text to these two traditions and is usually represented as ..."01" for the New Testament....By the middle of the fourth century there was wide, yet neither complete nor universal, agreement over the books to be considered as authoritative for Christian communities. The Codex Sinaitiucs, being one of the earliest intact collections of such books, is essential for an understanding of the contents and the arrangement of the Biblical canon, as well as the uses made of it. The Greek Septuagint in the codex comprises books not included in the Hebrew Bible and regarded in the Protestant traditions as apocryphal: 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4th Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach. Appended at the end of the New Testament in the codex are the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. The idiosyncratic sequence of books is also remarkable: Within the New Testament, the Letter of the Hebrews is placed after Paul's Second Letter to the Thessalonians and the Acts of the Apostles between the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles. All these facts have to be considered carefully when reconstructing the history of the canonization of the Christian books.

This process of canonization has also influenced and been influenced by the medium in which it-the codex-has been transcribed and transmitted. From our earliest evidence onward, and in contrast to earlier and most contemporaneous practices, Christians preferred the format of the codex over the roll, particularly, albeit not exclusively, when copying sacred literature. And from the fourth century onward, parchment was increasingly used instead of papyrus, which had previously been the predominant choice. The quality of Codex Sinaiticus's parchment and the advanced binding structure that would have been needed to support and contain within one volume over 730 large-format leaves make the Codex Sinaiticus one of the most outstanding examples of book manufacture in its time. The careful planning, skillful writing, and editorial control needed for such an ambitious project gives us an invaluable insight into professional Christian book production that would exert its influence for many centuries afterwards.--Dr. Juan Garces, curator, Codex Sinaiticus Project, British Library.

The story addresses how the codex managed to end up, by and large, in the British Library. The key player was one Constantin von Tischendorf, a 19th century German scholar. In 1844, Tischendorf visited the monastery as part of an extended research trip throughout the Levant, in search of biblical documents. If the story can be believed, he stumbled upon a large basket full of old parchment. These sheets, like two baskets before them, were old and mouldy and destined to be burned. He was allowed to keep 43 leaves, but the rest was refused him, perhaps due to suspicion at his eagerness. Upon return to Europe, he deposited these leaves at the University of Leipzig.

Tischendorf would return again and again to the monastery, trying vainly to gain access to the parchments. Finally, in 1859 he met with success. Though a Protestant, he went as the emissary of the Orthodox tsar, Alexander II of Russia. [In one glaring mistake, the author of this article needs to know that the Tsar was NOT "after all, the head of the Orthodox Church."] Tischendorf jockeyed between Cairo, the monastery and Constantinople, trying to negotiate release of the codex. He even became involved in a dispute between the Patriarchs at Constantinople and Jerusalem, which involved the Sinai monastery. At long last, he received permission to borrow the codex to have it copied, save for a few leaves retained at St. Catherine's. Tischndorf even signed a receipt acknowledging same (said receipt being prominently displayed in the monastery to this day).

The rest of the story can be guessed. The codex was "presented" to Alexander II. The Russians interpreted it as a gift from the monastery to the Orthodox tsar. Protestations from the monastery over the decades went unanswered. In 1930, the Soviets were in need of hard cash and sold the codex, save for a scrap or two, to the British, for 100,000 pounds.

Today, all four depositories--the British Museum, the University of Leipzig, the Russian National Library and St. Catherine's Monastery--are working together to preserve and conserve the document. Ultimately, it will be digitized, available online with translations and in facsimile editions. A television documentary is in the works, as well. As a condition for their essential participation, the monastery insisted that the real story be told of how they lost control of the codex. And, oh yes, they still want it back.

Another side bar article in the magazine is An America Monk in Sinai. This is an interview with Fr. Justin, the librarian of the monastery, who grew up Baptist in Texas. He is the monk pictured on the cover of the magazine, and I believe he was the monk who accompanied the exhibit of icons to the Getty Museum last year, as well. And in the small world category, he is also a friend of a friend of mine.

The Oration in College Station

Okay, this is the funniest thing I've read today.

Some News of St. Nicholas from Turkey

(Icon of St. Nicholas from Orthodixie)

I do not know whether the story is factual or not, but it seems that the Turkish government will finally allow Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to celebrate a Divine Liturgy in the Church of St. Nicholas in Demre, Turkey. This seems to be the original source.

If true, it would mark a small, but significant step in the right direction for the Turkish government. The Minister of Culture stated that "I earnestly want every citizen in this country to be able to freely celebrate their own religion in the place seen as most important for worship.” Apparently, he also appropriated 45,000 Turkish Lira for completion of restoration of the 4th-century basilica. We'll see.

A Little Dispassion, Please

Faced with an oil-rich and newly-assertive Russia, we seem to have fallen back into a sullen, suspicious, Cold War-type, bear-baiting attitude. I have long contended that in this post-Communist world, Russia is--or should be--our natural ally. For excellent commentary on developments in Russia, and our appropriate response, I recommend:

Daniel Larison, here, here and here.

Justin Raimondo, here.

A Whole Lot of 'Splainin' to Do

The suddenly-struggling Mitt Romney has scheduled a major address tomorrow at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas--ostensibly to address lingering concerns about his Mormonism. From the beginning, Romney has been extremely reluctant to discuss this, if not downright testy. Now it looks like he will, once again, attempt to gloss over these concerns with soothing platitudes. It won't work. It is not that American Republican primary voters are bigoted against Mormons or ill-informed about the faith. Just the opposite, actually. Most people know, like and respect their upstanding Mormon friends and neighbors. At the same time, most people know quite a bit about the tenets of the faith and frankly are weirded-out by it.

I don't usually link to Mark Davis, but he has it just exactly right, here. Davis observes:

...he will mess it up. It will be delivered smoothly, as every Romney speech is. He will make the points he wishes to make, and they will be made eloquently. But they will do him no good because he has no intention of doing what is necessary to minimize the problem his faith poses among the voter pool he is trying to attract.

Instead, a Romney spokesman indicates that he will "share his views on religious liberty, the grand tradition tolerance has played in the progress in our nation." In other words, Romney will be dishing out oatmeal to an audience looking for a little meat. Davis continues:

...questions remain, and there is only one way to address them....This is not done by telling people that Mormonism is really just another form of mainstream Christianity. Thoughtful people can argue all day about whether Mormonism belongs under the Christian umbrella, but the fact is that crafting an entire text to supplement the Bible, based on Jesus' visit to America 200 years ago, complete with wholesale revisions in mankind's status in the afterlife, will naturally raise the eyebrows of those who believe the Bible is the only faith document followers of Jesus need.

It is pointless to argue with anyone about the portions of his faith that involve the miracles that give that faith its validity. But part of Mormon belief involves an entire civilization existing in what is now America some centuries before Christ's birth and some centuries after. This society, using a hybrid Hebrew/Egyptian tongue and employing agricultural and metallurgical technologies that objective historians simply find no evidence to support, either existed or it did not. A voter e-mailed me a few months ago, with vast admiration for Mr. Romney on the issues, but asking: If he'll believe this, what else will he believe? This is not unfair. The question for Mr. Romney is how to address it. It is not with familiar platitudes about religious liberty or lectures on tolerance.

To be expected, Daniel Larison has keen insight into Romney's dilemma.

Second Terrace raises another interesting point:

But no one will notice that Romney doesn't know about the Trinity, except, perhaps, as a shibboleth. On Thursday, Romney will confess that he is a Christian. And the tragedy on that day will be -- especially for Mitt -- that no one will disagree for the right reason.

I just wish Mitt would explain about the magic underwear.

Ethiopian Orthodoxy

If you are fascinated by Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity--as I am--you will certainly enjoy "Keepers of the Lost Ark?" in the current Smithsonian Magazine. A corollary article, Christmas in Lalibela, is also good.

Interview with Frank Schaeffer

I was surprised to find an interview with Frank Schaeffer on the editorial page of the today's Dallas Morning News, here. Editorial columnist William McKenzie examines the role of celebrity worship within Evangelicalism. He notes that while the movement prides itself on needing no mediator between themselves and God, they in fact suffer from the worship of icons--in this case, celebrities.

McKenzie is a frequent commentator on religious topics and is perhaps unusually qualified to write on this subject, having studied for 3 months at Francis Schaeffer's L'Abri Fellowship in 1977. This lead to this interview with Schaeffer's son, Frank, an Orthodox convert. Some Orthodox consider the plainspoken younger Schaeffer to be too polarizing a spokesman. Perhaps. All I know is that in my first inquiries into Orthodoxy, the first book I purchased after an Orthodox Study Bible was Schaeffer's Dancing Alone. Honestly, I don't believe it particularly set me on the wrong path at all. I appreciate and acknowledge the part he played in my early inquiries into the Faith.

McKenzie believes that "evangelicals have a rare chance to rethink whether the worship of leaders is healthy for their movement. And how much is consistent with the Gospel." He agrees with Schaeffer's statement:

"Big-time American Christianity is incompatible with the Gospel. It is part of the entertainment business. No matter what you think you are doing, you are really just another celebrity in a celebrity-obsessed culture."

And as McKenzie asks, "Where's God in all that?"

The article is worth a read, as is the more extended interview, here.

Never Mind!

Long ago, back when my wife and I were courting, we would go out on Saturday night. We would generally go to a restaurant and perhaps catch a movie, but would always be back to her parent's house in time for Saturday Night Live. This was pretty much the extent of our dating life--I worked out of town during the week and she was working full time, as well as finishing graduate school. Anyway, we both loved the now-classic SNL skits. A particular favorite was Gilda Radner as Rosanne Rosannadanna. Radner played a news reporter who inevitably got her story totally, terribly, agonizingly wrong. Eventually, she would be called down by the ever-correct Jane Curtin, causing Rosannadanna to ultimately close with "Never Mind."

That is what I thought of this morning upon reading the Dallas Morning News. The National Intelligence Estimate--representing the consensus of all 16 American spy agencies--concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. This information, by the way, was available to President Bush a month or two back at the time of the now infamous news conference, in which he did some major saber-rattling about the Iranian nuclear threat, while throwing about references to World War III. As the story notes:

Rarely, if ever, has a single intelligence report so completely, so suddenly, and so surprisingly altered a U. S. foreign policy debate.

Never Mind.

Giving Hope a Second Chance

If you are following the Huckaboom, then you might enjoy Andrew Sullivan's column, here. But my caveat still holds: Beware of smiling Southern governors.

Seers and Sages

For the last few days, the AMC channel has been rerunning the movie Troy, which remains something of a guilty pleasure for me. I've always been a sucker for these overblown Hollywood spectacles. This one is a real hoot fest. The street scene of old Troy, complete with llamas mixed among the goats and donkeys is a pure delight (Troy, if you may remember, was in Asia Minor, near the shores of the Aegean Sea--not in the Andes, near the shores of Lake Titicaca where one would naturally find llamas. A minor detail...) Peter O'Toole, going through his paces as King Priam, was a class act, as always. Eric Bana's portrayal of Hector was on the mark, though the elfin Orlando Bloom less believable as Paris. Diane Kruger was nice enough, but something of a ho-hum Helen--hardly "the face that lauch'd a thousand ships." The main attraction (to many of both sexes, I suppose) was a brooding Brad Pitt as Achilles, stalking about in various stages of undress.

In the telling of this myth, I have always been more sympathetic to Hector and his put-upon Trojans. The tragic figure of Cassandra, another child of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, was especially poignant. I believe the producer's missed a bet by writing her out of the script. Cassandra, of course, had the gift of prophecy. She clearly saw the oncoming doom, yet she was cursed to have her visions ignored and/or misunderstood. She, rather than Paris (as in the movie), warned of the Trojan horse. And as we know, it all came to a bad end. Cassandra herself was captured by Ajax and carried off to Greece in slavery (as depicted here, in a painting as overblown as the movie.)

It is in the nature of things that seers, most often foretelling an ill-wind, generally fair poorly--whether the mythical Cassandra, the biblical Jeremiah, or even current prophets of doom. Which brings me to....ahem, Pat Buchanan (I know, I know--a clumsy, ham-fisted segue. But it's late...)

I have enjoyed Pat from way back in his Crossfire days. I never supported his presidential bids, but find myself more and more in agreement with him these days. He has recently published a new book, Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology and Greed are Tearing America Apart. The prophet of doom approach is something of a cottage industry with Buchanan. This work, together with his previous State of Emergency and The Death of the West form what some might call the Hell-in-a-Handbasket Trilogy.


Buchanan talks of his latest work, here. He attributes the Bush failure to "his fatal embrace of ideology." Buchanan sees ideology as a "substitute religion, a belief system based on ideas that are often contradicted by history and common sense." Just as Marxism, fascism and socialism were all gods that failed, so is Bush's "democratism." What is "democratism," you ask? Just listen to any Bush speech. Buchanan explains:


Democratism is a belief that all men are equally endowed with a desire for freedom and an aptitude for democracy. All can be uplifted, and all brought to see that democracy is the one true path to peace in our world. In democracy lies our salvation. This conviction lay behind the invasion of Iraq, Bush’s crusade to democratize the Middle East and his “global democratic revolution” to “end tyranny in our world.” And, as Woodrow Wilson’s crusade “to make the world safe for democracy” gave us Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, Bush’s crusade for democracy is leaving us with ashes in our mouths.

Buchanan finds no cynicism at play here. He sees Bush, like Wilson, as a True Believer. Of course, many who have long despised Bush refuse to grant him this, characterizing the President as both cynical and manipulative, as well as naive and inarticulate. I tell my friends of this persuasion, "Look, he is either an evil genius or he is a doofus. He can't be both." I tend to agree with Buchanan that Bush is a man of his convictions--which of course, makes it all much worse when such convictions are so dangerously ill-informed.

Using my B&N coupons and discounts, I can purchase the Buchanan book for 55% off. So, we'll see what he has to say. But I do think he is on to something here. For Buchanan is not trotting out the standard boilerplate issues that have come to define "conservatism." The title says it all: hubris, ideology and greed. The word "hubris" is much used these days, but it is crucial we remember it's original Greek context--the excessive pride which precedes a fall. This, coupled with an ideology of democratism is a recipe for disaster. And finally, add to this our greed--from an acquisitivst culture currently engorging itself in a holiday spending frenzy, all the way up to our global American corporate capitalism writ large. Buchanan sees a train wreck on the horizon.

I wouldn't know how to be anything other than an American, and one of the Southern variety. I love my country (if by that one means love of family, hearth and home) and our unique history. But that said, we are still nothing special. By that I mean, I don't confuse the USA with the Israel of God (nor do I confuse Israel with the Israel of God, for that matter.) We are the product of historical forces, just as every other country. Our borders are not inviolate, but the result of historical processes, just as other countries (and for a view of how things could have turned out very, very differently, see here.) Our system of government is unique and has served us well. In my view, however, it is not God-given, or even particularly blessed by Heaven, or necessarily universal in application. To someone who ascribes to "democratism," who believes in Americanism as a near-religion, who believes that our troops, wherever they are, are by definition, "fighting to protect our freedoms," this is rank heresy. But there is an ebb and flow to civilizations, cultures and nations. The changes we are undergoing are indeed transforming the country we know. How could it be otherwise? No nation stands outside of history.

But back to Buchanan's book, for his emphasis intrigues me. Like most prophets, he is calling us to repentance--from our pride, our false gods, and our greed--before it is too late.

As in everything, there are those who beg to differ. Which brings me to Michael Medved. The last time I heard of Medved was back in the mid 1990s, when he was giving movie reviews on talk radio, right after Rush Limbaugh. Apparently, he has now joined the ranks of the political commentariat. Our own local newspaper is so conservative that their guest editorialists run the gamut from Cal Thomas to Mona Charen. If they are feeling particularly edgy, they'll throw in one by Robert Novak. I made the mistake of reading one of Charen's recent columns, a near-hysterical screed against Ron Paul. The best I could tell, Paul's main offense was in not answering an on-air/online challenge by Medved.

Medved, here, takes Buchanan to task , casting him among the "militant alarmists" who preach "apocalyptic hysteria." Medved compares Buchanan's omens to those of Jerry Falwell, Billy Sunday and Michael Savage (a little context here, please.) Medved is right to say that there have always been doomsayers. But that is not to say that they are always wrong. In Medved's pollyannic view, things are much better now, actually almost hunky-dorry. He lumps Buchanan among those who are too quick to discredit our ancestors. He lauds the virtues of the Victorian Age and quotes from Getrude Himmelfarb (who may be a great scholar, but who as Mrs. Irving Kristol still has a lot to answer for in giving birth to neo-con chickenhawk William Kristol.) He contends that "today's citizens display vastly better discipline and higher moral standards" than our Revolutionary ancestors. Oh yes, indeed. As proof, he cites reduced New York City crime statistics, as well as historical alcohol consumption statistics. In the later 1700s, the average American over fifteen drank just under 6 gallons of alcohol a year. The current average is less than 2 gallons. Lord, have mercy. Medved misses the point so widely that one doesn't really know where to start to answer it.

An axiom I live by is that things rarely turn out as bad as we fear, nor as good as we hope. While not particularly inspiring, such an approach works out well on the day in, day out struggles of existence. That said, those who sentimentalize and who look at the past uncritically, are often the ones left with nothing by simplistic platitudes for the present. We need more voices like Buchanan, and fewer from the likes of Medved.

Variations on "Situation Hopeless, But Not Serious"

Technically, my son is still a member-in-good-standing of the evangelical church in which he was raised, though he is far down the road towards Orthodoxy. I am fine with this, for the advice I often received was that it was "all in God's own time." He attends, on occasion, a large, downtown congregation, primarily to maintain contact with his peers, and more importantly, to go out to eat afterwards with a herd of young 20-somethings. Invariably, he will return, incredulous at what he had heard that night. For example, the preacher recently related a story about his mentor, who had it seems, restored the church to Thessaloniki, Greece. The minister smugly proclaimed that by his friend's efforts, Christians were once more meeting in that city! (By Christians, he meant adherents of the early 19th-century American frontier primitivist Restoration fellowship who have leaped back across history and restored the church of 1st-century purity--and not, of course, the Holy Orthodox Church, founded in Thessaloniki by the Apostles themselves,and having been in continuous existence for nearly 2,000 years, suffering through, I might add, 500 years of Muslim occupation. This group is very careful to avoid using the word "Christian" in connection with anyone other than themselves.) My son was tempted to walk out in disgust, but decided to sit for the rest of the show.

While the Thessaloniki anecdote is fascinating (in the sense that a train-wreck is fascinating) and fraught with possibilities, it is not where I am going with this story. My son also reports that most sermons and prayers are overtly patriotic in nature, variations on the theme of "getting this country back on track." For as the preacher reminded the audience, "did you know that it is now illegal to read your bible on the school bus?" (This is just abject silliness, obviously taken from "A Thousand and One Preacher's Anecdotes to Scare the Bejeebers out of the Ill-Informed." (Honestly, what kid wants to read their Bible on the school bus, anyway? I do recall, however, sometimes praying that the tough kids at the back of the bus wouldn't beat me up.)

But the persistent refrain, again and again, seems to be "getting this country back on track." What is usually implied by the phrase is not some sort of call for sackcloth-and-ashes repentence and humility, but rather, political action of some sort--to overturn Roe v. Wade, to crack down on illegal immigrants, to legislate against gay marriage, to get tough with the Iranians, to put prayer back in school, etc. This is nothing new, I've heard it all my life. Usually it came from some old fogey (though with another birthday approaching, I'm beginning to warm up to old fogeydom), and usually it referenced the time before the Vietnam War, when society seemed to fit a particularly air-brushed interpretation of American history. Well, over at the excellent Second Terrace, in a post here, the writer (whose name I do not know) gets to the real heart of the matter. In commenting on Harold Bloom and Jacques Barzun, he takes issue with the premise of Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind." ST finds that the American mind has not closed, but rather, it has never been opened, and this for want of knowledge of the Trinity, as we teeter on the lip of the Abyss.

Bloom was dead wrong. The closing of the American mind happened long before his precious Europeans came over and made our universities respectable. It happened even before there was an America.

The true closing of the mind is what initiated the course of decline that now obtains in American/Western society: it is called decadence, and it is the inevitable product of the denial of the Trinity, the deity of the Son, and the possibility of the deification of man.

I tell you that it is the Doctrine of the Trinity, the witness of the Church, that keeps the mind of the West together….I am a Trinitarian because that doctrine is the secret life-giving stream not just for the Church, but for the epistemology of the West. Without this truth, and its meditation, there is no West, for without the Trinity there is no Peaceful thought, and all consciousness is fractured.

So the Second Terrace writer concludes that America has never really been "on track," our present predicament merely the logical result of centuries of digression from Trinitarianism. I find much truth in this. These thoughts were still with me when I read the December issue of Chronicles (whose articles are sadly not online, though their blog is linked.) Aaron D. Wolf, in his "Dobson's Choice: Politics in the Spirit of Martyrdom," makes a number of good points. A few selections follow:

...we have frittered away the Christian convictions that created our civilization, trading our birthright for a pot of politics. We have placed our hopes not in the transforming power of the Gospel but in the edicts of Caesar. In the process, our faith itself has lost all of its sharp edges, becoming so benign that it draws little attention to us. Instead, what garners attention is our insistence that the non believing majority of our fellow citizens submit to our beliefs on abortion and "gay marriage." these two issues have become the faith that we confess before men.

...legislation cannot save, in the ultimate sense, a hellbent people or its offspring.

Thus, if we wish to restore the civilization that has been lost, we have to pay more attention to our Faith and less attention to Republican politics. We have to baptize our children instead of trying to baptize our elections. We have to stay married instead of trying to define marriage.


The myth of Christian America, perpetuated by distorted accounts of American history which insist that any deist President who mention "God" in a speech, from Jefferson to Lincoln, must have been "one of us," has created a false confidence that we are just one election away from returning to our Christian Founding....Such confidence, and the political maneuvering that often accompanies it, undermines the Christian desire to make a bold and clear confession of faith.

In contrast with the faith of the early martyrs, Wolf writes:

Of course, things are different for us: We live in a democracy, and, as citizens of a democracy, we have never been asked to burn incense to the emperor; we just asked ourselves to preserve our Christian civilization by voting for the most pro-life President in U.S. history, even after he burned incense to Allah by declaring that Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike pray to him, then wished us all a happy Ramadan.

So, the Second Terrace interpretation actually offers some solace for all the hand-wringers. There will be no "getting the country back on track," as both train and rails were flawed from the beginning and are not fixable. I think deep down, in their heart of hearts, even the preachers realize this.In other words, the situation is indeed hopeless--but not serious, for there is another way.

Add This to Your List...

...Of Reasons To Give Mike Huckabee a Pass

Mike Huckabee is enjoying something of a boomlet these days. He's smart, humorous and likeable enough. And admittedly--with his emphasis on poverty and conservation--he is giving a new twist to current Republican talking points.

In today's Times I read that he has received the endorsement of Tim LaHaye, co-author of the wildly popular and truly awful apocalyptic Left Behind novels. In a letter mailed to his supporters, LaHaye stated that "America and our Judeo-Christian heritage are under attack by a force that is more destructive than any America has faced since Adolf Hitler" and "Defeating the radical jihadists will require renewed resolve and spiritual rearmament by the evangelical pastors of America." In the letter, LaHaye and his wife encourage pastors to attend 2-day conferences to be held across the nation, in which, by teleconference, Mr. Huckabee will be the only speaker.

Giuliani has Pat Robertson, McCain has John Hagee, Romney has Paul Weyrich and Bob Jones III, so it is no surprise that Huckabee would garner this endorsement. Nor is it unusual that Huckabee would buy into LaHaye's Flash Gordon eschatology. After all, Huckabee is a Southern Baptist preacher. What bothers me are the words of a campaign spokesman, who stated that Mr. Huckabee had read some of the Left Behind novels and enjoyed them. What this tells me about Mr. Huckabee is that he is not a reader.

The Face of Iraqi Christianity

Thanks to James for the link to THIS site.

The persecution of Iraqi's near 2000-year old Christian community is old news by now. They have perhaps suffered more than any. With the destruction of Iraqi civil society, with no one to protect them, these Christians were caught in the middle of the Shiite and Sunni infighting--easy prey for al Qaeda or whatever militia or insurgency happened to be sweeping through a neighborhood. As they were often hard-working and prosperous, they also made prime targets for kidnappings or confiscations. I linked to an excellent story of their plight back in April, 2006, here.

In the Dora district of Baghdad, many churches were fire-bombed and most Christians fled to either Jordan, Syria or northern Iraq. But the story by Michael Yon linked here offers some limited hope for the future. Bishop Shlemon Warduni has returned to St. Peter the Apostle Church in Dora (Catholic Diocese for Chaldeans and Assyrians in Iraq). Before a recent Mass, Muslim and Christian neighbors worked together to re-install the cross on the church's dome. Yon reports on the service:

Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, “Come back to Iraq. Come home.” They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq.”
















The sight of Iraqi Muslims filling the pews of a Catholic church, calling for the return of the Christian community does indeed send a powerful message. I try not to read too much into the situation--for this may be a unique, particular circumstance--but hopefully this message will get out, not so much among the expatriate Christian community, but among Muslims themselves. From recent headlines, some Turks, as well as Israelis, could benefit from this lesson. (Thanks to Serge for these links, and check out Michael Yon's site for the rest of the marvelous pictures from the St. John's service.)

Sweatin' for Jeezus

I am not much of a sports guy. I rarely know who is playing in the Superbowl. A pilot announcing the score on a Boston flight was the only reason I knew who was in the last World Series. Before I read a newspaper, I carefully extract the classified and sports sections, and discard them before ever engaging the paper. I have never held a golf club in my hands. With waterboarding torture being a hot topic these days, I would say that all they would have to do to me is tie me up and set me before a televised golf or baseball game. I would confess to anything. I firmly believe that professional sports is the scalpel by which modernity has lobotomized American popular culture.

I do make a few minor concessions. I enjoyed the Tour de France as long as Lance Armstrong was competing. I take a bit of an interest in the World Cup every few years--where you can root for an actual country. On the weekend after Thanksgiving, I usually have the television or radio on, to periodically check and see how bad my alma mater (The University of Texas at Austin) is whupping-up on the little school down in College Station. Even then, my interest is not such that I would actually sit down and watch the game.

Several years ago, I was walking past our school's ball fields. It was summer, and Little League was in full swing. I heard one of the coaches yelling at his young charges, trying to motivate them, I suppose: "It's not all fun and games out here, you know!" Oh really, that is what I thought it was supposed to be. Therein lies the whole problem, in my view.

The meshing of our sports mania with religion has always baffled me. Years ago, one of my very oldest friends--too clever by half--commented on the mad rush among Southern Protestant churches to build basketball gyms. He called it "sweatin' for Jeezus." I continue to find the remark applicable to so many situations.

Recently, a golf pro won some tournament somewhere, and in his acceptance speech, he said he "gave all the glory to God." That is well and good. But glory is one thing. Hitting a little ball with a stick into a hole for money is something altogether different.

Back in my Protestant days, we were in the habit of closing out Wednesday night services with a devotional message. Indeed, it was almost an unwritten creed that you could not have a Wednesday night service without such. Anyway, one of the leaders of our little church was fond of using inspirational, hut-hut, locker-room motivational stories on these occasions. I remember sitting in the pew, wondering what in the hell any of that had to do with our faith, failing to grasp the least bit of significance any of it had to the real questions of Christian living. I saw it all as just insipid, superficial fluff, a cheesy refashioning of Christianity along the lines of our Southern sports culture.

We once had a preacher who delivered a Sunday night sermon using hunting analogies. He walked up to the front of the auditorium in hunting cap and vest, carrying a rod and reel, shotgun and other hunting props. I remember sitting in the pew, cringing in embarrassment and thinking to myself: "Just don't lay the shotgun on the communion table. Just don't lay the shotgun on the communion table." He did. That preacher didn't last long. But apparently, his only problem was that he was just a little ahead his time.

This Sunday morning, I caught a bit of the televised broadcast of our local Baptist megachurch. Their new auditorium--nicknamed by some cynics as the "Baptidome"--seats 3,400 and it takes 3 back-to-back services to handle the crowds. The church's parking lots have quite literally consumed what was once one of our cities prettier neighborhoods. Buses are needed to taxi worshippers parking in the more remote lots. Membership here carries a lot of weight in this town, and has the reputation of being where you need to be to do business around here.

But I digress--back to this Sunday's service. The church has a full-fledged orchestra to accompany their praise team. They opened with a peppy song of some sort. I don't remember exactly what it was, I just remember there was a lot of clapping and bebopping around. And trumpets. These are not your father's Baptists. Then the preacher came out--dressed head to toe in a full baseball uniform and cap, carrying a bat and a ball. His entry set off lots of laughter and clapping. Who knew worship could be so, well, fun. This get-up was to inaugurate their new series called "GSPN." Get it. Obviously, this is inspired by ESPN, which--I am told--is an all-sports network. The preacher explains that the GSPN stands for God's Spiritual Player Network. He goes on to detail how the purpose of this program is to make every member a "spiritual player." Next week, there will be Bass Pro theme, where the lesson will be on "God's Fishing Tips." The following week will be golf-themed, "Keeping it within the Fairway." After that would come the football sermon, but by this time I couldn't watch anymore. Years ago, I thought our preacher's hunting sermon was sappy and silly. This is much worse. Don't ever think that things can't go any lower.

Larison on Tbilisi

The political turmoil in Georgia has been much in the news this last week. My interest in the nation is not really of a political nature, but as these developments eventually affect all aspects of a society, I have been following events closely. As is often the case, Daniel Larison has one of the best reads on the situation, here.

Run, Ron, Run!

Well, the 2008 Presidential aspirants are beginning to hit their stride. I am not at all sure what I will do come next November. I am quite sure what I will not do. For me, 2008 is an opportunity to do penance for my sins of 2004 and 2000. In the meantime, I am enjoying the spectacle. There hasn't been a race like this since 1952.

I am particularly impressed with the Ron Paul phenomenon. His headline-making fundraising efforts are finally breaking the media barrier. Still, besides Chris Matthews and a few others, he gets little attention. This morning, on George Stephanopolis' talk show, he was discussing the New Hampshire primary with Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts and George Will. As they flashed the latest poll numbers on the screen, Stephanopolis noted that the big story in the numbers was the collapse of Fred Thompson's campaign (who, as Cokie Roberts noted, was strolling, rather than running, for the Presidency). "Wait a minute," I thought. The big story was not that Thompson (whose candidacy was all media hype to begin with, in my view) was now #6. The big story was that Paul was #4 in New Hampshire, not far behind McCain.

I first started taking note of Paul in one of the early Republican debates where he had his now-famous interchange with Giuliani. As it sunk in what Paul was saying about our involvement in the Middle East, and its root causes, I jumped up from the sofa, hooping and hollering in support. St. Rudy of 9/11's response was classic demagoguery. He scorned Paul for straying from the script. Paul had the temerity to actually speak truth.

Paul remains one of the longest of long shots. But as Paul Gottfried notes, here, "he is a wonderful embarrassment to our two odious national parties." And in that context, I say "Run, Ron, Run!"

There's a decent story in today's Times, as well.

The Good That Kings Do

Apparently, there is still a place for kings in today's world, as King Juan Carlos of Spain demonstrated this week--telling Hugh Chavez, "Why don't you just shut up." Certainly this is one of the more satisfying headlines of the week.

Mustafa Akyol and the New Islam (part 3)

On November 5th, Mustafa Akyol wrote on Apostacy is a Right, Not a Crime. He begins with the now-familiar story of the Afghan man who was spirited out of the country last year before he could receive the death penalty for becoming Christian. Akyol notes that this "story was only one of the many severe violations of religious freedom in the contemporary Islamic world." You don't say. In Saudi Arabia, Filipino workers are deported if caught having private worship services in their room (see Thomas Friedman's article, here). In Egypt, converts are locked up in insane asylums because, by definition, anyone who leaves Islam for Christ has lost their mind. Throughout Muslim lands, even in Akyol's supposedly enlightened Turkey, Christians must keep a low profile. There is a reason all the churches are hidden behind protective, walled compounds.

And conversion is strictly a one-way street, as it has always been. Akyol admits as much. "Traditional Shariah (Islamic law) considers apostasy a major crime that deserves capital punishment...Ex-Muslims are consistently suppressed, harassed and attacked by their former co-religionists. As a Muslim, I feel ashamed to read such news."

Akyol is to be commended for his honesty. But he also maintains that Islam is not at odds with human rights, that such "elements in the Islamic tradition...should be discarded in the modern era." These calls to bring Islam up to speed with modern sensibilities is not without irony to many of us in the Christian West, where many are ready to jettison any teachings that inconvenience our 21st-century "lifestyle." Islam makes some pretty exclusivist claims about itself. Whatever you think it is, it has never been a way of life that allowed for its adherents to freely move to other faiths; at least not in my readings.

Akyol, incredulously, contends that the Koran doesn't really ban apostasy, and "actually includes many verses, which cherish religious freedom." He cites 2 verses: "There is no compulsion in religion" (2:246) and "It is the truth from your Lord; so let whoever wishes have faith and whoever wishes be unbeliever." (18:29). Well, indeed. I am certainly no Koranic scholar, and am not interested in any prooftexting battles. The Koran says many, often contradictory, things. For those who want to justify persecution of other faiths, there seems to be no shortage of Koranic support for such belief.

Akyol continues: "...a forced belief in anything is a totally absurd concept. If someone becomes or stays a believer because he is forced to do so, then that faith will simply have no meaning." Well yes, and no. It is a simple historical fact that much of the Middle East, and the whole of North Africa, submitted initially to Islam under the sword, and the heavy restrictions placed on those who refused to convert. To the first generation or so, Akyol is probably correct--their faith probably had no meaning other than survival. But give it time. Literally hundreds of millions of devout Muslims today are the descendants of these forced conversions.

Akyol believes ban on apostasy grew out of the particular political situation of early Islamic Arabia. Perhaps so, but the practice soon became the accepted norm through the Muslim world and centuries.

Akyol concludes: "Apostasy cannot be considered as a crime in today's world. It is, indeed, a natural right. People should have the right to believe or disbelieve in Islam." He also believes "that Islamic sources need a serious reconsideration. What most Muslims attach themselves to as divine commandments are actually the political and cultural codes of the early centuries of Islam, which were, to be sure, man-made facts."

These are strong words, coming from a Muslim writer. I wish him well, but I am not particularly hopeful. His reinterpretation of Islam seems like a lot of wishful thinking to me. And I see absolutely no evidence of such a societal shift in attitude in any Muslim country. Nevertheless, these are the voices of reason that we have been straining to hear for so long, and so I encourage Akyol to continue to speak out.

Mustafa Akyol and the New Islam (part 2)

On November 2nd, Mustafa Akyol wrote on Ein Volk, Ein Ummah, Ein Muhammad? A recent visit to Prague served as the catalyst for this story. A young lady approached him on the street and asked Mustafa to join her cause. When he inquired as to what that cause was, particularly, she replied "we are standing up against Islam." The irony here is pretty thick. The young Czech nationalist was not able to recognize in her listener to be one of the very people she was protesting against. As he noted, drolly, "I was definitely not the most promising candidate to be inspired by that message."

As it turns out, the lady was a member, unfortunately, of a right-wing Czech nationalist group--the Narodniks. Akyol contends that such groups "fuel fear about and hatred towards Muslims" and are "fueling the global threat called clash of civilizations. [This is a pet peeve of mine--the pejorative misuse of Samuel Huntington's quite legitimate thesis].

Anyway, Akyol's comments are what one would expect. What one does not expect, however, is his main point, as follows:

Much of the responsibility lies in the hands of Muslim leaders and intellectuals. We should see that there is Islamophobia in the world, because there are men who blow up innocents, respond to any criticism with fury, treat their wives as slaves, and do all of these in the name of Islam. The racist and xenophobic tendencies in European societies add a lot to the problem, to be sure, but they are secondary. The primary issue is what some misled Muslims do.
What is really needed is an initiative by Muslims to reject and denounce all the horrible things done in the name of their religion and do this frankly and persuasively. The objections to the West and its policies, on the other hand, should be made calmly and constructively.

My, that is refreshing. Such realism is healthy and sorely needed from the Muslim side of the aisle. But Akyol still does not quite grasp the thrust of the argument. I doubt that European concerns, which he labels as "Islamophobia," are fueled by racism. If they were, restrictive immigration and native opposition would have stopped Muslim migration to Europe long before they reached their current numbers.

While a veneer of cultural Christianity pervades western Europe, the practical observance of the faith is weak, and getting weaker, if most surveys can be believed. But even the thoroughly secular European understands about reciprocity. The religion of the Hare Krishnas who proselytize at the airport are no concern. Nor are the well-scrubbed young Mormon missionaries, or Pentecostal street preachers. Europeans are not afraid to mix it up in the marketplace of ideas. But they know that whenever Islam becomes predominant in a society, the equal playing field vanishes, and everybody else is constricted to the will of the Muslim majority. That is the fear and that is where the opposition comes--not racism.

Mustafa Akyol and the New Islam (part 1)

Mustafa Akyol is an up-and-coming young Turkish writer. A regular contributor to the Turkish Daily News, his articles often find their way into English language journals as well, such as "Turkey's Veiled Democracy" in the current issue of The American Interest. His blog, The White Path is often of interest.

I found his three most recent blogs to be of particular interest. On October 29th, he wrote on God, Gold and Islam. Attending a conference in London, Akyol found himself surrounded by monuments attesting to the might and glory of the British Empire. He muses on the cause of such a phenomenon--and by Anglo-Saxon extension, American progress, as well. What interests Akyol, as a Turk, was the role religion played in the expansion of Anglo-American progress. He cites Walter Russell Mead, Max Weber and Alexis de Tocqueville as sources who, to varying degrees, attribute the advance of the British and American empires to their religiosity. Mead, in fact, notes that 19th-century Britain and the US today were "significantly more religious than most,” arguing that "religion acted as a driving force in the progress of Britain and the United States."

Well, let's not get too carried away, here. Religiosity is hard to quantify, at best. Is Mead saying that Anglo-American Protestantism far outpaced the Catholicism of the Hispanic countries? Or the Orthodox devotion on the Russian steppes? I would not make such a claim. And while the vaunted Protestant work ethic certainly played a key role in what is seen as "progress," other factors were equally important. Britain was an island culture which had the luxury to develop in a unique way, generally free from the threat of invasion (after, of course, those pesky Vikings). America was similarly protected. The role of English common law and the rise of British constitutionalism are equally important and cannot be overestimated. Also, the cynical paleocon might note that the very progress the Protestant work ethic engendered served to ultimately undermine these very same religous underpinnings.

But what interests Akyol, of course, is the application of this scenario to Islam in general, and Turkey in particular. He notes that modernization occurs if the religion is "dynamic" and not "static." He admits that many would argue that Islam does not lend itself to being "dynamic." You can number me among those skeptics. Akyol counters with a reference to medieval Islam's golden age, and the fact that "there are many fine Islamic thinkers who theorize modernist interpretations of Islam." Well, this "golden age" is overblown, as they all are. And I have yet to see any "modernist interpretations of Islam" really taking hold. Akyol rightly references Turkey's "Gülen Movement,” and its emphasis on "peace and tolerance...education and interfaith dialogue... [and] pro-business and entrepreneurial spirit. Akyol does have a point. They are certainly pro-businesss and entrepreneurial. I am still waiting on evidence of the interfaith dialogue, though.

The problem, I think, with Mr. Akyol's theory is that it was not religion in the abstract, or just any religion that helped power the British and American ascendency. Rather, it was a specific religion, the Protestant slant on Christianity. I'm not at all sure that this translates to the older forms of Christianity, much less other religions, and in particular, Islam. But if Akyol is on to something, it will be proved out in Turkey first. As he concludes: "Alas, if the Islamic world will be able to breed a “dynamic” interpretation of its faith, then Turkey, it seems, will be one of its main architects. So, keep watching."

So You Want to go to Georgia?

Have you ever thought about visiting the Republic of Georgia? If not, why not? I can guarantee that it will be the trip of a lifetime, in which you will come home a changed person. John Graham has organized the Monastery tour for 2008. Five of the fifteen slots have already filled. So, contact John, here, and tell him I sent you.

Touchstone on Evangelicalism Today

Magazine subscriptions come and go, but I have held on to Touchstone Magazine. Some issues are of more interest to me than others, but the November issue justifies my loyalty. Two stories in particular attracted my attention: Byzantium Yet Fallen: The Critical Lessons for Christians in the Long Shadow of 1453, and Evangelicalism Today, A Symposium: Six Evangelicals Assess Their Movement. The magazine is planning future forums on Catholic, Orthodox and mainline churches. The six contributors are:

Russell D. Moore (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)
Denny Burk (Criswell College)
John R. Franke (Emergent Village)
Darryl Hart (Orthodox Presbyterian Church)
Michael Horton (editor of Modern Reformation)
David Lyle Jeffrey (Baylor University).

A number of questions were submitted to the participants, from which a few excerpts follow:

How do you define "Evangelical" in a way that distinguishes Evangelicals from other believing Christians?

"...a common confession of faith-one that includes Great Tradition affirmations such as the Deity of Christ and the virgin birth and Reformation distinctives such as justification through faith alone by grace alone in Christ alone. The sermon is central, and concludes with a call for unbelievers to identify publicly with Christ and his church." (Moore)

"Evangelicals trace all of their beliefs to the inspired Scriptures, which they believe to be the sole authority for faith and practice. American Evangelicals have stressed the inerrancy of Scripture as a necessary condition of its authority." (Burk)

"What matters is one's personal relationship with Jesus instead of belonging to the church." (Hart)

"Someone who likes Billy Graham." (Horton)


Has Evangelicalism lost anything in the process of maturing (if it did)?

"...many of us...have become mired in just what the Fundamentalists warned us we would: worldliness. The carnality in many Evangelical churches is astounding, not just at the obvious level of sensuality, but also at the less obvious (to us, anyway) level of covetousness, love of money, and celebrity worship." (Moore)

"In defining itself against liberal Protestants on the one hand and Roman Catholics on the other, much of Evangelicalism has become seriously deficient of ecclesiology and of the Great Tradition in general." (Burk)

"I don't think it has lost anything essential to its nature. If anything, it needs to continue to grow and develop far more than it needs to try to recover some aspect of its past." (Franke)

"What seems to have changed markedly among Evangelicals is a willingness to combat doctrinal error...and the triumph of an impoverished view of tolerance." (Hart)

"...the movement has shown that it is as capable of surrendering its soul to the mall just as mainline Protestantism has largely offered itself to the academy. If Fundamentalism reduced sin to sins (or at least things they considered vices), contemporary Evangelicals seem to have reduced sin to dysfunction. In this context, Jesus is not the savior from the curse of the law, but a life coach who leads us to a better self, better marriage, and happier kids." (Horton)

Are there any fundamental difference within the Evangelical movement today...?

"...while pietism may have enriched the Reformation churches to some extent, the heritage of revivalism represents a counter-Reformation that in many respects went even further than Trent in the direction of Pelagianism...In both faith and practice, Reformation Christianity differs from the sort of Evangelicalism represented, for example, by Charles Finney, more radically than it does with Rome or Orthodoxy....there is the Reformation stream...the revivalist stream...the growing popularity of Anabaptist, Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, as well as a fresh appreciation for the heritage of Protestant liberalism...Evangelicalism may increasingly be incapable of theological definition....Evangelicals may show appreciation for a variety of traditions without ever belonging to any one." (Horton)

What does your movement...fail to see that it ought to see?

"...that Jesus did not die for a "movement" but for a church....that the love of money is the root of all evil." (Moore)

"Evangelicals often fail to see the extent to which they are shaped by their culture." (Burk)

"By and large, Evangelicals have accommodated the gospel and Christianity to the dominant cultural assumptions of our society." (Franke)

"Evangelicals have rarely understood that the lowest-common-denominator Christianity they have used to achieve success...does not do justice to the fullness of biblical truth." (Hart)

"Surveys reveal that a huge percentage (some studies have it as high as 80 percent) of those reared in Evangelical churches drop out of church by their sophomore year in college....I think we have failed to see that emotional summer-camp experiences cannot sustain a robust faith through the trials of real life. So, ironically, while Evangelicalism celebrates reaching the lost, it is losing the reached....when the gospel is reduced to simplistic jargon and is taken for granted in the life of the church, the next generation even forgets the slogans." (Horton)

"We entertain, we preach to the choir, we provide creature comforts and go to great lengths to be altogether use-friendly. Meanwhile, the "one thing most needful" has generally suffered among us in inverse proportion to the scale by while our organization machinery tends to focus on all things bigger and better. Another blind spot is an uncritical identification of radical individualism with the Christ-life, and a corresponding resistance to connecting faithfulness to Christ with love of neighbor and pursuit of the common good." (Jeffrey)

What would you say to an Evangelical tempted to become Catholic or Orthodox?

"Most Evangelicals...are going to make quite poor Catholic or Orthodox churchmen...many of them become Catholic or Orthodox because they are tired of dealing with sinful, hypocritical, arrogant, mindless, loveless Evangelicals...[and] seem to think all Catholics are Walker Percy or Richard John Neuhaus or that all Orthodox are Maximos the Confessor." (Moore)

"The current rot within Evangelical subculture does not accurately reflect the richness of its theological heritage. Fundamentally, the Evangelical faith is rooted int he solas of the Reformation, which are themselves rooted in the confessions of the ecumenical creeds, which are themselves rooted in the inscripturated apostolic witness to Christ." (Burk)

"Both the Catholic and Orthodox traditions maintain that the authority and grace of God are mediated through the agency of the historical and institutional church. For Evangelicals, the genuine significance of the church in the economy of God does not in any way imply that the church has been fully entrusted with authority or given control over the dispensation of grace in the world. These belong to God and God alone." (Franke)

"Evangelicals contemplating the other Christian traditions need to think carefully about how they are right with God and the nature of the redeeming work of Christ. The Protestant Reformers answered such questions in decidedly different ways from Catholicism and Orthodoxy. So to switch Christianities may be more of a change than frustrated Evangelicals are prepared to accept." (Hart)

"Starved for mystery, transcendence, maturity, order, theological richness, liturgy, and history, many young Evangelicals are discovering Reformation Christianity. Yet for some, it is only a rest stop on the way to Rome or Orthodoxy. Here’s how I would counsel such a person: Start with the gospel. The gospel creates and sustains the church, not the other way around....That is what the Reformation was all about, and it is why we need another one....Reformation Christianity is catholic and Evangelical." (Horton)

"...institutional infamy for clerical abuse..." (Jeffrey)


What has Evangelicalism to offer the wider world that it will find nowhere else?

"Christ and him crucified." (Moore)

"...the salvation that results from this gospel by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone so that the sinner can have assurance now that God is no longer against him but for him because of Christ." (Burk)

"...this passion for the gospel is our particular gift." (Franke)

"Evangelicalism has more energy, creativity, and zeal than is typically found in other Christian traditions....Even so, Evangelicalism’s best attributes may not be as desirable as commonly assumed. Evangelicals may be at a point where they need sobriety about themselves and the God they serve more than they need enthusiasm." (Hart)


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Clearly, I have some differences with these guys, but I really admire their candor and self-criticism. By and large, their comments were startling in their objectivity and freshness. Hardly a triumphalist note was sounded. From my position on the outside, looking in, I do have a few observations, which I hope will be as charitable as theirs.

First, I find the Evangelical allegiance to Scripture to be all-important--but what is really meant is limited to interpretations of scripture since 1500: Reformed, revivalist, pietist, anabaptist, restorationist--it all must begin there. To the extent that Evangelicals buy into the concept of being on a spiritual journey, their trek is along a trail that must twist through Wittenburg, Geneva, Edinburgh, Boston, the American frontier, and for some, even Nashville, Dallas, Los Angeles and Colorado Springs. Non-evangelicals might suggest that there are other paths that are much older and straighter, where the destination is not only always in view ahead, but all around you as you travel.

I found Hart and Horton the most hard-hitting. Horton made an excellent point about how far removed contemporary Evangelicals are from the Reformation leaders. He contends that Luther was infinitely closer to the Pope or the Patriarch than he would be to 19th century Evangelicals, much less those of today (think Joel Osteen). And herein lies the problem, in my book. The whole construct will not hold water, but becomes weaker and weaker over time. Of course, Horton contends that a new Reformation is needed (Lord help us!).

The writers were at their weakest when answering the question as to what Evangelicalism had to offer the world that it could find nowhere else. Their response was "Christ and Him crucified." Of course, this is the right and best answer, but certainly not one unique to Evangelicalism. The good Catholic or Orthodox would answer the same way.

Nor did I think they knew what to do with the question about Protestant converts to Catholicism or Orthodoxy. Jeffrey makes a cheap shot about the institutionalized Catholic clergy abuse. Moore is unconvincing in his response and--if indeed he actually believes this--totally misses the attraction that the Apostolic churches hold for Evangelicals. He is a bit dismissive, concluding that church members leave because of the hypocrisy and small-mindedness of their fellow Evangelicals. Leaving Protestantism for Orthodoxy or Catholicism is not the same thing as say, moving your membership from First Baptist to Calvary Fellowship because you were mad at Deacon So-In-So. It's on a different plane altogether. I have yet to run across a Protestant convert to Orthodoxy that left for such a reason, or who had such naive expectations of Orthodox believers. I believe Evangelicals leave because of the thinness of the doctrine, worship and faith expounded--seeking the fullness they can find in liturgical churches, a yearning, if you will, for closer communion with Christ. Often they find this, and much more. The other contributors, by and large, urged caution for those comtemplating swimming the Tiber or the Bosphorus--to hang in there and rediscover their own rich theological heritage.

Again, I commend these Evangelicals, primarily Horton and Hart. Hopefully, the future installments featuring Catholic and Orthodox writers will be equally forthcoming.