This is interesting:

The grave of Hungary’s last communist ruler, Janos Kadar, was pried open and his remains and his wife’s urn were thought to have been stolen, the police in Budapest said. The marble cover stone of Mr. Kadar’s grave was removed and his coffin was broken. Graffiti that read “a murderer and traitor may not rest in holy ground” was nearby. “The bones appear to be missing, and it also looks like his wife’s urn is gone, too” said a spokesman for the police, Endre Kormos. Mr. Kadar ruled Hungary from 1956, when Soviet troops crushed the anti-Communist uprising, until 1988 when he retired. He died a year later in July 1989, less than a year before the country’s first free post-Communist elections.

I recall that the Bulgarian government itself destroyed the mausoleum of Georgi Dimitrov, founder of the Communist regime there. It was as ugly as one could imagine, and located directly across from the old Royal Palace on Prince Alexander of Battenberg Square. It took a week and 4 attempts, but the eyesore was finally dynamited. One would hope that someone in Moscow was taking notes for the Lenin Mausoleum.

But really, this sort of thing is still distasteful, even for these old Communist thugs. The French monarchs, almost without exception, were buried in the Basilique Saint-Denis. The royal crypt, with its cadaver tombs, is as macabre a place as you would ever want to visit. During the French Revolution, the government opened all the graves, and the remains of hundreds of French royals dumped into a large pit. Only years later were the bones gathered up and re-interred in a common grave in the crypt. And of course, such was the fate of the last Romanovs.

So, such behavior has a long history. But those that do so today fall to the same level as the French anarchists of the 1789 and the Bolsheviks of 1917.

"...our bones have been scattered before the mouth of the grave." (Psalm 140)

Really, Mr. Erdogan?

The April 17th Der Speigel interview with the Turkish Prime Minister Reycep Tayyip Erdogan, here, is instructive, though a little dated in light of events of recent days. The discussion obviously focuses on Turkey's languishing EU bid, as well as the larger role the country now plays in the Middle East.

I am not at all ill-disposed towards Mr. Erdogan. But I am disappointed, though not surprised, to read of his quite obvious prickliness and irritation when the interviewer zeroed in on Turkey's infamous "Article 301" and their ill-treatment of religious minorities. Specifically, Der Speigel grilled the Prime Minister about the confiscation of church property and the closing of the Greek Orthodox seminary at Halki. Erdogan's answers were, charitably speaking, disingenuous.

Frankly, I doubt that Germany cares a whit about Greek Orthodox seminaries in Turkey, or anywhere else, for that matter. But they are fearful and uneasy about Turkey's prospective entry into the EU. So, the Halki controversy is being used to stall the EU bid. The continued attention could cause a resolution to the impasse, in the Patriarchate's favor; or it could unleash a reaction in Turkey that would further imperil the tenuous Orthodox presence there. The picture (above) of the Halki Seminary was one I took last year as the ferry to Buyukada passed the island of Heybeliada. A portion of the interview follows:

SPIEGEL: Brussels complains that the pace of reforms in Turkey has slowed. For example, you still have the infamous Article 301, which makes the denigration of Turkishness prosecutable and limits freedom of opinion. The EU is also demanding complete freedom of religion.

Erdogan: In Turkey the religious minorities have more rights than they do in Europe. What aspect of their faith are they not allowed to live out here? Do we tear down their churches?

SPIEGEL: Churches are not allowed to own property, they are not a legal entity. Churches have been expropriated from many Christian communities.

Erdogan: We changed the construction law. Before, there were only "mosques," but now we have "places of worship." New churches are opening. We wanted to change the law on religious institutions, but the president didn't sign it. Now we're sending it through parliament again. The courts have also started to return property of minority institutions that has been seized.

SPIEGEL: Why are churches still prohibited from training their own priests? The EU has been calling for the famous Greek-Orthodox seminary on the island of Halki near Istanbul to be reopened.

Erdogan: If they don't accept us into the EU because of Halki, so be it! This is a different situation. We have problems with Turkish law in this case. It used to be a high school, but now they want to transform it into a kind of university, but the high council for universities doesn't permit this.

SPIEGEL: Why are authors still tried in Turkey under Article 301?

Erdogan: I see that you are influenced by the Turkish press! Please check how many have been sentenced under this law or are in jail.

SPIEGEL: But people have been convicted. For example, murdered journalist Hrant Dink, who had Armenian roots, was sentenced to probation

Erdogan: I met the writers who say that Article 301 must be completely eliminated. I asked them: Do you want to make it easier to decry the state, the parliament or the prime minister? I am saying yes to criticism, but no to insults. There are similar laws in Europe -- but for us it is about Turkishness, and for you it is about the German nation.

SPIEGEL: But we are protecting the state, there is no protection for "Germanness." So you don't want to change 301?

Erdogan: I don't think it should fall completely. The article also protects the right to criticize.

Debating Season

Other than the last 5 minutes of tonight's GOP show, I have managed to miss both the dreary Democratic debate in SC and the cringe-inducing Republican stand-off in CA. I've had much more useful things to do, such as scrubbing the mildew out of my shower. But I really wish I could have seen this showdown. The French can be exasperating, I suppose, but they are never, ever boring.

The Brothers Karamazov

Two nights ago, I finished The Brothers Karamazov. I attempted it once before, in 2003, but gave up after 300 pages or so. The new translation by Pevera and Volokhonsky certainly helps. I suppose the work is just about everything it has been made out to be. Magnificent. I suspect I will be referring back to my underlinings from here on out--trying to get a grasp on it. The following is a favorite passage, from the teachings of Elder Zosima:

Young man, do not forget to pray. Each time you pray, if you do so sincerely, there will be the flash of a new feeling in it, and a new thought as well, one you did not know before, which will give you fresh courage; and you will understand that prayer is education. Remember also: every day and whenever you can, repeat within yourself: "Lord, have mercy upon all who come before you today." For every hour and every moment thousands of people leave their life on this earth, and their souls come before the Lord--and so many of them part with the earth in isolation, unknown to anyone, in sadness and sorrow that no one will mourn for them, or even know whether they had lived or not. And so, perhaps from the other end of the earth, your prayer for his repose will rise up to the Lord, though you did not know him at all, nor he you. How moving it is for his soul, coming in fear before the Lord, to feel at that moment that someone is praying for him, too, that there is still a human being on earth who loves him. And God, too, will look upon you both with more mercy, for if even you so pitied him, how much more will he who is infinitely more merciful and loving than you are. And he will forgive him for your sake.

Keep an Eye on Turkey (continued)

Protesters in Istanbul marched Wednesday with placards reading “Let’s defend living together,” after the killing of three evangelicals in the east.

This is sad news, indeed. Three evangelical Christians associated with a publishing house in eastern Turkey were found murdered, after being bound and tortured. The publishing firm printed Bibles and religious material. I have to believe that the perpetrators of this heinous crime--as well as the assassination in recent months of an Armenian writer and Roman Catholic priest last year--are radical fringe elements in Turkish society; representative of neither Turkish secularism or Islamism. I will be interested to gauge the extent of public and official revulsion/repudiation of the crime.

Mustafa Akyol, here, asks some hard questions of his fellow Turks and their "Christophobia." He concludes:

As a more short-term solution to Christophobia, we Turks need to begin to stand against it more vigorously. Our all-mighty state shows no lack of determination in punishing insults (and sometimes even criticisms!) against “Turkishness” and its perceived sacred pillars. It should also start punishing those who spread hatred against the Christian — or Jewish, Armenian, Kurdish, etc. — citizens. That hatred not only ends in horrible bloodsheds, but also puts shame on us Turks more effectively than any insult could do.

Assorted Quotes

"It's as if Jimmy Swaggert had come into hundreds of billions of dollars and taken over the church..."

unnamed Arab official explaining to Michael Hirsch how the Arab elite view the Saudis, their money and their Wahabbism, found here.



"They honesty think that if we're nice to everybody they'll be nice to us. But I've studied history."

Camille Paglia to Rod Dreher on the de-Christianized West, an empowered Islam and her fellow Democrats' complacent response to same, found here.



“No Mullah Left Behind.”

Thomas L. Friedman on President Bush’s refusal to do anything meaningful after 9/11 to reduce our gasoline usage and dependence on Persian Gulf oil, found here.

Keep An Eye on Turkey

Visitors to this blog may notice that I have an inordinate concern with Turkey. Despite many frustrations, I do have a genuine fondness for the place. Turkey is unique and not particularly representative of any place other than itself, much less the Islamic world. Western culture intersects with that of Islam in Turkey more so than anywhere else in the Middle East. The resulting dynamics are fascinating, and Turkey's journey holds clues for the evolving relationship between East and West.

First the bad news, here. The Turkish nationalism and xenophobia that colors all discourse concerning the Armenian "issue" continues apace. I have commented on all this before here, here, here, here, and here. The New York Times reports on an interesting recent development at the U.N. A scheduled exhibit on the Rwandan genocide at the U.N. has been blocked by Turkey. Apparently one sentence on one of the panels makes a passing reference to the mass murder of the Armenians. Because of this, Turkey applied pressure to squelch the exhibit. The offending sentence is as follows:
“Following World War I, during which one million Armenians were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin urged the League of Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international crimes.” The exhibit’s organizer agreed to drop the phrase “in Turkey,” but U.N. leadership, with their backbones of mush, caved in anyway. The Times wisely observes that "It’s odd that Turkey’s leaders have not figured out by now that every time they try to censor discussion of the Armenian genocide, they only bring wider attention to the subject and link today’s democratic Turkey with the now distant crime." Exactly so. Robert Fisk, longtime Beruit correspondent for The Independent, and author of The Great War for Civilization (with it's long chapter on the Armenian genocide), spoke to this last October, here.

Now for the good news, here, where 300,000 demonstrators fill the streets of Ankara. Why? To protest the creeping Islamization of Turkey. “We don’t want to become another Iran, another Afghanistan,” said Hanife Sahin, a retired nurse, stooping under the red tent formed by a Turkish flag that ran like a river over the crowd. The remarkable thing about the protest was that it was not inspired by any dramatic move by the Turkish government. Rather, it was triggered by a general unease about Islamic trends in the country; seemingly little things such as new religion textbooks in the schools, postal employees taking off on Fridays, more women wearing head scarves, etc. A gaggle of high school girls ticked off the reasons they did not want the party and its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to take the presidency. More women are wearing head scarves, said Ecem Karanfil, a 17-year-old in a T-shirt and jeans. “We want to feel comfortable dressing the way we want,” she said.

Also:

A small thing had caught Ms. Sahin’s attention. A government official had recently suggested increasing the number of letters in the Turkish alphabet to 32 to allow the language to better accommodate Arabic sounds. “I’ve done pretty well with 29 so far,” she said, smiling.

Good coverage and photos of the rally can also be found, here.

Despite some headlines suggesting otherwise, Turkey is a long way from abandoning its 84-year path of secularization.

Surprisingly, a similiar demonstration took place in Pakistan, of all places. Here.

Greater Kurdistan

The Kurds finally seem to be having their day in history. The whole Kurdish question finds a sympathetic audience in the US. Americans are just naturally disposed to support most any nationalistic struggle for self-determination. And with the country desperate for any semblance of good news out of Iraq, the Kurds seems to be the only contenders.

Kurdish independence was briefly considered at the Conference of Versailles. But they never really had a chance. Despite the encouragement of T. E. Lawrence, the Kurdish hopes were crushed under the onslaught of British and French colonial aspirations. So, the Kurds had to settle for long years as the step-children of a cobbled-together Iraq. Muslim, though neither Arab, Turk or Persian, the Kurds comprise perhaps the largest ethnicity without their own country.

Since the First Gulf War, they have become largely self-governing, and today, while technically still a part of the Iraqi Federation, they are independent in everything but name. A controversial (but not in doubt) plebiscite scheduled for November will move the oil-rich and once-again Kurdish city of Kirkuk back under Kurdish control. After that, Kurdistan will exit Iraq whenever the time is right for them. While the front of the house is collapsing in flames, no one will blame the Kurds for fleeing out the back door. And there is no one to stop them from doing so--neither Iraqi nor American troops are capable of preventing it.

If it were only that simple, no one would be terribly concerned about a Kurdistan emerging from the wreckage of Iraq. But it is not that simple. Millions of Kurds are dispersed not only across northern Iraq, but in northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and northwestern Iran. Behind the dream of an independent Kurdistan is the corollary that one day all Kurds will be united under one flag.

In fact, PKK guerrillas (or terrorists) have battled Turkish forces in that country off and on for 3 decades now. In recent years, the Turkish army has, by and large, subdued rebel activity. And not only that, the government has sought to address the long-standing grievances of the residents of southeastern Turkey, Kurdish or otherwise. Billions of dollars have been invested in economic development. The results are not hard to see. Cities such as Urfa and Mardin are booming, and the countryside around there is blossoming before your eyes. Admittedly, this progress has not yet penetrated the far reaches of the region, adjoining Iraqi Kurdistan. Yet, much of the pent-up discontent has been diffused.

But with Iraqi Kurdistan a near fait-accompli, PKK activity is picking up again. And Turkey is alarmed, as would be expected. The already heavy Turkish military presence in the region is being beefed up. From my observation and contacts, I believe the Turkish government, the Turkish military and the Turkish people are resolved to disallow a resurgence of the PKK. Nor will they tolerate Kurds across the border in Iraq providing a safe haven.

That is why I went to eastern Turkey last year. On something of a sabbatical, I was seeking the relics of ancient Christianity in the region--primarily the Suriani Orthodox churches and monasteries around Midyat and the few remaining Armenian church ruins left in the region from Van to Kars. I surmised that if I did not go at that time, the Kurdish troubles could re-ignite, cutting off all travel in the area for years to come.

I did not come away with particularly sympathetic feelings for the plight of the Kurds in Turkey; for though a minority, they seemed eager to persecute those minorities underneath them. The situation of the remaining Suriani Christians in the Mardin province has stabilized, and some may even be returning in small numbers. This is primarily for two reasons: Turkey's desire to present a clean human rights record in its EU bid, and considerable monetary support from the successful Suriani diaspora in Europe and Canada. Yet in the 1980s and 1990s, the Suriani were almost swept from the region. While the Turkish government looked the other way, it was the Kurds who invaded Christian villages and appropriated their homes, fields and orchards. It was the Kurds who intimated the Christians and killed those who refused to leave. It was the Kurds who took over the ages-old Christian shops, homes and mansions in Midyat and other cities.

One particularly poignant experience was at the Church of St. Demetrius, east of Midyat. This had been a sizable Christian community until the 1990s. The local Kurds ran off the entire Christian population of the village. The town is now nearly deserted, save for some turkeys and a handful of Kurdish families. Only Fr. Yacob and a Suriani Orthodox nun remained in the compound around the 5th-century Church of St. Demetrius. We could not communicate by language--he knew no English and I knew no Turkish or Aramaic. But as I was leaving, I made the sign of the cross, in the Orthodox manner. As his eyes conveyed understanding, he nodded and slowly, sadly and knowingly returned the sign.



Likewise, the isolated Suriani Church of the Virgin Mary in the center of teeming, swarming, volatile old Kurdish Diyarbakir seems particularly precarious for the 3 remaining families holding out there. Nor were the Kurds particularly good neighbors to the former Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire, being more than willing accomplices to the horrors of 1915-1918. So, all in all, I take a jaundiced view when I read or hear of those waxing eloquent about the glories that will be Kurdistan.



















I observed a good bit of the heavy Turkish military presence in the east. Dogubayezit and Kars seemed almost like armed encampments. We attempted to visit the 9th century Armenian cathedral at Mrens, which rivals the great Cathedral of Ani. Though clearly visible from the highway, it was in a "restricted zone." Large areas of the east are off-limits, supposedly for fear of PKK rebels. I wondered whether it was just an excuse to keep up an extensive military presence near the Armenian border, as well as making the border a de-facto no-mans-land. First we appealed directly to the governor of Kars province. After first giving permission, he politely decided "no." Then we went to the army. No again. Then to the police. No once more. Finally, we appealed to the gendarmes. They refused as well. They did give us permission to visit the ruins of another Armenian church that I'm sure they thought we would never try to locate, as it was so inaccessible. (Little did they know. Ha!) Anyway, they warned us that we were on our own and that they could offer no protection from the PKK.

Now things seem to be really heating up. In a February interview only recently released, Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani warned Turkey that if they interfered in the issue of Kirkuk, then the Kurds of Iraq would interfere in Diyarbakir. Continuing, he stated "If we are denied our right to settle down and live freely, I swear by God that we will not allow others to live in security or stability." When asked about the PKK, he replied "Frankly speaking, we support their rights."

Of course, Turkey did not take these taunts lying down. Prime Minister Erdogan shot back with an angry retort. And a leader of the Turkish military has called for a military operation into northern Iraq to rout approximately 4,000 guerrillas holed-up there. So, we will see.

Interestingly, even an oil-rich, but land-locked independent Kurdistan is hardly viable without the goodwill and acquiescence of Turkey. Turkey, not any of Kurdistan's other neighbors, would be the dominant party in the exportation of Kurdistan's oil riches, viable transportation by air in and out of the country, and in outside economic investment. For what its worth, it seems to me that Turkey might need to get used to the idea of a rump Kurdistan. But the Kurds, for their own good, better give up any idea of pushing their borders northward.

Pascha 2007

For Pascha this year, most members of our mission church visited at St. Seraphim Cathedral in Dallas. It was, without question, an incredible experience. Rod Dreher, a member there, describes it much better than I can, here.

CHRISTOS ANESTI !

CHRISTOS ANESTI!

ALETHOS ANESTI!

(from the Church of St. Archangels Michael and Gabriel, Arbanassi, Bulgaria, 16th-C)

Akdamar (Ahtamar) Update

Last August, I posted my thoughts on Akdamar (Ahtamar) Island, site of a 9th-century Armenian church in now far-eastern Turkey, here. Ahtamar seems to be a flash-point for usually volatile Turkish-Armenian relations.


Mustafa Akyol reports on recent developments on the island, here.
















The restoration of the church is now complete, and with great fanfare, has been reopened (minus the cross on the dome) as a museum. Akyol, a Turkish writer, rightly argues that the structure is a church, not a museum, and that Turkey should be confident enough to allow it to be used once more for what it was intended to be.

Amen, and amen.

Time to Dust Off Huntington Again

I'm a big admirer of Samuel Huntington and his seminal work, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (1996). I read it when it was first released, and have revisited it a couple of times since. His thesis has been often misunderstood and abused. The catch-phrase of "clash of civilizations" has been much over-used and ill-used. Yet his arguments are standing the test of time, and he appears ever more prescient amidst our continuing foreign policy debacles. In my view, no one sets it out quite like Huntington. In 1993, before the publication of this book, he wrote:

History has not ended. The world is not one. Civilizations unite and divide humankind. The forces making for clashes between civilizations can be contained only if they are recognized.... What ultimately counts for people is not political ideology or economic interest. Faith and family, blood and belief, are what people identify with and what they will fight and die for. And that is why the clash of civilizations is replacing the Cold War as the central phenomenon of global politics, and why a civilizational paradigm provides, better than any alternative, a useful starting point for understanding and coping with the changes going on in the world.

Whether you agree with him or not, an informed citizen should be familiar with Huntington. So, my question is this: Have you re-read Huntington lately?

Rod Dreher has. In a recent article in the Dallas Morning News (01 April 2007) entitled "Not everyone is longing to be an American," (here), Dreher takes another look at Huntington. A few excerpts, to-wit:

Now that dreams of building a neoliberal Arab Utopia are dying in the back alleys of Baghdad, Mr. Huntington's sobering wisdom deserves a serious second look.

Mr. Huntington's thesis has been widely misinterpreted as a theoretical basis justifying a Western crusade against Islam. That's entirely false....Far from being an incitement to conflict, his book warns the West to avoid needlessly provoking war by failing to grasp the critical importance of cultural difference.

The most important factor shaping the post-Cold War world is cultural identity. The idea of universal values is "a distinctive product of Western civilization" and not shared by other civilizations.

The West is also dazzled by its own pre-eminent power and fails to notice its slow but steady decline relative to other world civilizations.

Isn't it true, though, that as the world becomes more technologically modernized and economically connected, other nations will become more like the liberal democratic West? No. Societies worldwide are modernizing without Westernizing.

In the Muslim world, the Islamist resurgence that we in the West would like to think of as a fringe political movement is actually, says Mr. Huntington, a broad and dynamic phenomenon. It is futile to expect liberal democracy to emerge in the Islamic world, because it is a Western concept antithetical to core Islamic values, such as the inseparability of religion from the civil sphere, collectivism and the privileged status of Muslims within a social plurality.

The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power. The problem for Islam is not the CIA or the U.S. Department of Defense. It is the West, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the universality of their culture and believe that their superior, if declining, power imposes on them the obligation to extend that culture through the world.

Dreher concludes that Americans have a particularly hard time accepting this because (1) "it violates the deeply held belief that inside every human being is an American, waiting to come out" and (2) "it seems to imply that reconciliation across civilizations is impossible." Our presuppositions of American exceptionalism run deep and wide with us.

But as Huntington notes, "our values might be universally true, but they aren't universally shared." Check out Dreher's article, and by all means (re)read Huntington.

Clash of Trivializations

The following is from the editorial page of the Dallas Morning News for Monday, 2 April 2007. The position is well-stated, and one that needs to be repeated time and again. The link can be found here, though I have copied the article in its entirety.

Clash of Trivializations

On his radio program Le Show, satirist Harry Shearer airs a feature called "News Outside the Bubble," in which he comments on important stories underplayed in the U.S. news media. The idea is that Americans live in a hermetically sealed zone that keeps relevant information from crossing our minds and informing our judgment.

Last week's editions of Time demonstrated why it's the newsweekly of choice for the Bubble Nation. In its three international versions, Time's cover centerpieced a report on the Taliban roaring back in Afghanistan.

On its American cover? "Why We Should Teach the Bible in Public School."

Are the news media dumbing Americans down or merely giving people what they want? Either way, the public remains ill informed and insufficiently curious about the world beyond our borders. America's painful experience in Iraq should teach us how little we truly understood about the complexities of that nation and its culture before our invasion.

Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington has controversially warned his countrymen that we risk exacerbating a "clash of civilizations" by failing to grasp the fundamental differences among cultures and instead assuming the rest of the world is like us.

In this context, it's easy to see why Americans might be puzzled, even offended, by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah last week calling the U.S. occupation of Iraq "illegitimate." Aren't the Saudis our allies? And why in the past two weeks did Pakistan, which gets billions in U.S. aid each year, strengthen Gen. Pervez Musharraf's dictatorial powers?

These allied governments might be behaving badly. But it's also possible that they're acting in America's best interest. Maintaining stability in oil-rich Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan – and keeping anti-Western Islamic forces out of power there – is extremely important to U.S. interests.

Americans, idealistic by nature, must appreciate that there's considerably more gray in the world than black and white. A more realistic Middle East policy would seek to understand the differences not only between Islamic and Western civilizations, but also among the nations within the Islamosphere – and to work with those differences to strengthen America's hand.

But first, we have to burst our bubble.

“But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth; they shall be given over to the power of the sword, they shall be prey for jackals. But the king shall rejoice in God; all who swear by Him shall glory; for the mouths of liars will be stopped.” - Bridegroom Service of Holy Week, Psalm 63

Ethiopian Orthodox Christians in the News

The current issue of Spiegel (the international edition of Der Spiegel magazine) is devoted to the topic of "The Power of Faith--How Religion Impacts Our World." They include an excellent article on the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, found here. The story is informative, and surprisingly, largely supportive. The writers do attribute Ethiopian poverty at least partly to the Church, however. They contend that the numerous church holidays and fast days prevent the Orthodox Christians from doing more agriculturally.

However, these time-honored traditions and their enforced observance by the church are partly to blame for Ethiopia's plunge into bitter poverty over the past 50 years. How can a country possibly be self-sustaining if its people are prevented from tilling their fields every other day?

If poor and Orthodox Christian Ethiopia were surrounded by prosperous non-Orthodox African nations, then this argument might have some merit. Such is clearly not the case. Only this simplistic and unsubstantiated charge mars an otherwise excellent report.

The 300

I haven't yet seen 300, other than some clips on PBS. And I doubt that I will, until perhaps it is released on dvd. (For someone who doesn't even watch hospital shows on television because of the operating room scenes, the gore-fest that is 300 would be a little much). Some critics have panned the film as an overly-simplistic good vs. evil morality play, and have questioned its historical veracity (to which I would ask, just which historical era has Hollywood not butchered?) But, the Battle of Thermopylae was indeed a pivotal moment in history, the consequences of which have reverberated down through the ages. And from what clips I have seen, this particular re-telling of the epic seems to be one incredible movie.

The fact that the movie has generated world-wide debate speaks to its significance. Of course, voices within Islam, particularly from Iran, have protested against the film, saying that it casts the East in a purely negative light and reinforces existing stereotypes: the West (Sparta)=good, the East (Persia)=bad, which in turn unnecessarilly inflames existing present-day tensions between the two regions. And of course, as in the case of the Danish cartoons, such protestations are carried to extremes.

Mustafa Akyol is a noted young Turkish writer and commentator. He can generally be relied upon as a voice of reason on issues that too often become inflamed (see his blog, the White Path). Outside of the spectacular cinematography, he finds little to commend.

The message that the film is designed to give is all too obvious: Western civilization (which is free, rational and beautiful) has always defended itself against the barbaric East (which is tyrannical, irrational and ugly). And the saga just continues today.

Akyol pinpoints 3 areas of concern:

1. the movie is cast as a prelude for today's "clash of civiliztions,"
2. the movie is wildly unrealistic, and
3. that Sparta was in fact a bastion of fascism, not liberty.

I believe Akyol over-reacts somewhat. The movie is an entertainment product, not a vehicle for political propoganda. But he does raise some valid points. Akyol observes that the neocons who find validation in the story of a small, corageous band (Sparta) standing firm against an oppressive superpower (Persia) need to rethink the analogy. Who is the superpower today, he asks? We are. His second point is also valid. As he notes: "some of their soldiers, with their turbaned heads, look quite like the Islamist warriors of today." He finds this to be intentional. Perhaps so. In my view, a most glaring inaccuracy is the weird depiction of Xerxes himself. I would have thought that they would have paid at least a passing glance to the archeological record. And his final point has some merit, as well. If we are looking for ancient Greeks to emulate, we might pause before choosing the Spartans, as theirs was a fiercely militaristic society. Akyol even brings up the whole homosexuality issue concerning Sparta, which the film glosses over and/or ignores. (While not "homosexual" in the modern understanding of the word, the 300 did fight as couples. And of course, neither the ancient Persians or modern Turks can afford to throw any stones in that area.)

Akyol's essay can be found, here.

Spengler, takes on Iran's tantrum over the movie and weaves it into his larger view of imperial Persian ambitions here. He writes:

These new imperial ambitions inspire Iran's impassioned defense of the ancient Persian Empire, which, as noted, trample over the Koran's clear view of the matter. What upsets the Persians is not the inaccuracies of 300, a Hollywood genre film with few pretenses at historical authenticity. They simply don't like the fact that the Persians lost.

Never one to mince words, Spengler continues:

On the surface, the most objectionable departure from historical fact is the figure of Persia's King Xerxes, who is portrayed as a monstrous, body-pierced, sexually ambiguous monster prancing madly about the battlefield. That is fanciful, to be sure, but conveys a deeper truth about the character of Persian rulers, who were among the most lascivious, concupiscent, slothful, sensual, deceitful and greedy gang of louts who ever had the misfortune to reign.

Check out what he has to say.

On Death and Dying

In my recent reading of Fr. Alexander Schmemann's Journals, I found that he had quite a lot to say on the subject of death and dying. This has always been of interest to me as well, and has been somewhat on my mind in the last few months. I have been curious to what extent people really think about death and dying. In our culture, at least, it seems most everyone is in full-fledged denial, rushing madly to occupy every waking moment with activity--doing everything, anything to avoid the essential reality of their existence. So much so, that when the time comes, some seem actually surprised by it all, and surviving family members may act as though fate has played a cruel and unusual trick on them.

Our avoidance can even be somewhat comical. I purchased my first home when I was 22, in what was characterized as a transitional neighborhood. A, shall we say, "colorful" Pentecostal widow lady lived next door. She tied dozens of artificial red flowers to a shrub in her front yard, so that it would "bloom" all year long. She also fashioned a commode into a planter for her petunias. That too, in the front yard. You get my drift. Anyway, at the drop of a hat, she would testify that she was Heaven-bound, ready to go, right now! Her commitment to leaving, however, was somewhat suspect, for in almost the same breath, she was just as apt to tell you about the time when she was having a heart attack and prayed to God to deliver her--and He did!

One often hears the complaint--particularly as people age--how life is going faster and faster, the years slipping away from them, so to speak. And of course, this is true in light of God and eternity--In the morning they are like grass which grows up: In the morning it flourishes and grows up; In the evening it is cut down and withers. And yet, I wonder if the people who harp on this theme are in fact those most disconnected with the rhythm and routineness of death? For the fracturing of our communal, familial and tribal ties is a legacy of our modern (and now post modern) world, as is the resultant disconnect with death.

I have never really felt this, and still do not. In my mind, the years of my youth and early 20s seem like ages and ages ago. I recall a quote from Donald Davidson, the Southern writer, who said "life is long enough to live." This actually seems much a paraphrase of Seneca's axiom, "life, if well lived, is long enough." There is wisdom here, and I find it more in keeping with an authentically Christian view of reality.

Fr. Schmemann had keen insight into our society's attempted dismissal of death and dying. His characterizations from 30 years ago are even more accurate today.

Fear of death comes from bustle, fuss, not from happiness. When one bustles around and suddenly remembers death, death seems totally absurd, horrible. But when one reaches quiet and happiness, one contemplates and accepts death quite differently....In happiness, in genuine happiness, one always feels the presence of eternity in the heart, so that happiness is open to death. (p. 33)

And later:

Death is in the center of religion and of culture, and one's attitude towards death determines one's attitude toward life. Any denial of death only increases the neurosis (immortality) as does its acceptance (asceticism, denial of the flesh). Only victory over death is the answer, and it presupposes transcendence of both denial and acceptance--"death consumed by victory." The question is "What is this victory?" Quite often the answer is forgotten. Therefore one is helpless in dealing with death. Death reveals--must reveal--the meaning not of death, but of life. Life must not be a preparation for death, but victory over death, so that, in Christ, death becomes the triumph of life. We teach about life without relation to death, and about death as unrelated to life. When it considers life only as a preparation for death, Christianity makes life meaningless, and reduces death to "the other world," which does not exist, because God has created only one world, one life. It makes Christianity and death meaningless, as victory; it does not solve the neurosis of death. Interest about the fate of the dead beyond the grave makes Christian eschatology meaningless. The church does not pray about the dead; it is (must be) their continuous Resurrection, because the Church is life in death, victory over death, the universal Resurrection. (p. 45)

This is a particularly powerful passage for me, for in all my earlier years as a Protestant, I never, ever heard it articulated quite this way. Of course we heard countless exhortations for hope after death, innumerable sermons about Christ's atoning sacrifice on the Cross, and a myriad of allusions to the beauties and wonders of Heaven. Yet, despite it all, in some sense we were unsure what to make of death, swinging from "super-assurance" to doubt. But what Fr. Schmemann describes; this over-arching view of death as victory and triumph, this trampling down of death by death and the view of the Church as life in death, I have only found in the fullness of the Faith.

Fr. Schmemann also thought that people have not so much abandoned belief in God, but rather they have lost their fear of God and knowledge of the reality of death.

People have stopped believing not in God or gods, but in death, in eternal death, in its inevitability--hence, they stopped believing in salvation. The seriousness of religion was first of all in the serious choice that a person considered obvious, between death and salvation. People say that disappearance of fear is good, although the essential experience of life is facing death. The saints did not become saints because of fear, but because they knew the fear of God. The contemporary understanding of religion as self-fulfillment is rather cheap. The devil is eliminated, then hell, then sin--and nothing is left except consumer goods. But there is much more fear, even religious fear in the world than ever before--but it is not at all the fear of God. (p. 63)

Fr. Schmemann pinpoints one sure proof of our death-denial--the shuffling off of the dying to the realm of hospitals, nursing homes, funeral homes, etc. His portrayal of a nursing home visit to an aging bishop is especially poignant.

The impression is not only of a death cell, but precisely of the devilish absurdity of such a gathering, of every "settler" condemned not only to his decay and his dying, but also to the sight--life in a mirror--of the same decay and dying all around. Man must die at home! There must not be this awful isolation, this multiplication of dying, of disintegration. But there is the question: How does one resolve this situation in practice in this frightening and unfeeling world, totally dependent on economic possibilities and impossibilities. (p. 239)

I also appreciate what Athanasius wrote, in his On the Incarnation, on Christians and death:

...instead of fearing it, by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead....death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe in Christ tread it underfoot as nothing, and prefer to die rather than to deny their faith in Christ, knowing full well that when they die they do not perish, but live indeed, and become incorruptible through the resurrection.

And finally, thumbing back through an old common-place book, I found the following by Malcolm Muggeridge:

Like a prisoner awaiting his release, like a schoolboy when the end of term is near, like a migrant bird ready to fly south...I long to be gone. Extricating myself from the flesh I have too long inhabited, hearing the key turn in the lock of time so that the great doors of eternity swing open, disengaging my tired mind from its interminable conundrums and my tired ego from its wearisome insistencies. Such is the prospect of death.

The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann, 1973-1983

I must be the last kid on the block to read Fr. Schmemann's Journal. Once started, I could not put it down--a treasure of a book, by a remarkable man. What strikes one is his brutal honesty and tender humanity. Schmemann was a man of many interests, and his journal entries are wide-ranging. Along the way, he expressed great appreciaton for some of my personal favorites--the writings of Flannery O'Connor and Julian Green, as well as, of all things...."Fawlty Towers."

His frustrations are well-documented--clericalism, academic pettiness, the artificial "busyness" that can pass for church life, the dimunition of joy in the Liturgy, the baseness of Western society and what he refers to as "Byzantinism." But the journal is far from a chronicle of complaint. Schmemann always came back to the simple joy of life in Christ, for as he said, "there is undoubtedly only one joy: to know Him and share Him with each other." His last entry before his death was "What happiness it has all been!"

For some of the best ruminations on Schememann, review Scrivener's 13-part series, here.

Much Better Now, Thanks!

After 2 long weeks, the staples are now out, the catheter has been removed, and I am within days of being able to drive again. So, my recovery from surgery is coming along nicely. I want to thank everyone who visited, called, encouraged me by email, and offered up prayers on my behalf. This experience has taught me a few things about humility and gratitude, the nature of true friendship, and most especially, prayer. Until this last year, I have barrelled through life with barely a runny nose. For the first time, I am on the receiving end of prayer for the sick. Now I understand.

Spengler, Europe and Orthodoxy

Spengler, in “Europe is not the sum of its parts,” makes some interesting observations regarding Europe’s continuing quest for a constitution. Basically, he sees no way forward for a constitution or a European government, as Europe is increasingly divorced from what made it Europe in the first place--the Church. He notes that it was the “unified Europe of Church and Empire [that] created the nations along with the languages and cultures,” and believes “as individual nations, Europe's constituent countries will die on the vine.”

Spengler concurs with Belloc's quip - "Europe is the faith, the faith is Europe," and finds Voltaire to be only half right, for the "Holy Roman Empire was neither Roman nor an empire, but it was holy. European monarchs donned the robes of ancient Rome like small children playing dress-up...but the unifying concept of Christendom is what made it possible to create nations out of the detritus of Rome and the rabble of invading barbarians."

What really caught my eye, however, was Spengler's closing:

To recapture Europe means re-creating the faith. It is hard to imagine that the Roman Catholic Church might re-emerge as Europe's defining institution. The European Church is enervated. But I do not think that is the end of the matter. As I argued last month, Russia has become the frontier between Europe and the Islamic world and, unlike Europe, is not prepared to dissolve quietly into the ummah. Pope Benedict's recent pilgrimage to Turkey, it must be remembered, only incidentally dealt with Catholic relations with Islam; first of all it was a gesture to Orthodoxy in the form of a visit to the former Byzantium, its spiritual home.

Franz Rosenzweig, that most Jewish connoisseur of Christianity, believed that the Church of Peter (Rome) and the Church of Paul (Protestantism) would yield place to the Church of John (Orthodoxy) - that the churches of works and faith would be transcended by the church of love. If Europe has a future, it lies in an ecumenical alliance of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and at least some elements of Anglicanism.

For the time being, Europe's constitution will be stillborn. But Europe is not yet dead. Russia is the place to watch, and the quiet conversation of Catholicism is the still, small voice to listen for.

I recommend this article.

The Infidel

The Dallas Morning News recently published an excerpt from Ayann Hirsi Ali's new best-seller, Infidel. Ali's story is becoming increasingly well-known. This strikingly beautiful and fearless 37-year old is an internationally renowned spokeswoman against the oppression of Muslim women. She escaped from Somalia in 1992 and sought asylum in the Netherlands. Ms. Hirsi Ali went on to repudiate Islam and gain a seat in the Dutch Parliament. In 2003, she collaborated with Dutch director Theo van Gough in the filming of Submission, Part 1. This, in turn, led directly to his brutal murder by a young Moroccan immigrant. The assassination rocked Europe, and did more than anything to shake the continent from it's contented and delusional lethargy. Ms. Hirsi Ali has been under a death threat since that time. She left Parliament in 2006 and moved to the US, where she is a fellow for the American Enterprise Institute. She remains heavily guarded at all times, yet continues to speak out. Infidel is her story.

Ayann Hirsi Ali pulls no punches. Three excerpts follow:

In Islam, unlike in Christianity and Judaism, the relationship of the individual to God is one of total submission, slave to master. As Islam is conceived, any kind of disagreement with Allah is insolence because it assumes equality with Him. I felt that liberation of Muslim women must be preceded by liberation of the mind from this rigid, dogmatic obedience to Allah's dictates. Allah is constantly referred to in the Quran as "the most compassionate, the most merciful"; He also says several times that he has given us a will of our own. In that case, I wonder, why would He mind a little debate?

I called the film Submission, Part 1, because I saw this as the first in a series that would tackle the master-slave relationship of God and the individual. My message was that the Quran is an act of man, not of God. We should be free to interpret it; we should be permitted to apply it to the modern era in a different way, instead of performing painful contortions to try to re-create the circumstances of a horrible distant past.

People ask me if I have some kind of death wish, to keep saying the things I do. The answer is no: I would like to keep living. However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.

The full article can be found here.

But as admirable as she is, I find myself uncomfortable with Ms. Hirsi Ali's struggle. For she has replaced her faith with, well, no faith at all. Ali's response to a destructive faith is a life devoid of faith. She writes, I said goodbye to Theo. He himself didn't believe in a Hereafter. I no longer believe in a Hereafter. And so this was it, I thought: This is the end. No, but it is sad.

Rod Dreher speaks to this concern in an excellent article, here. He notes that she is a tragic hero, three times over. (And please pardon the lengthy quotes.)

Though she is more staunchly European in her beliefs than many Europeans, her countrymen want her to shut up. She reminds them of their own cowardice in the face of aggressive domestic Islamism and of the utter failure of Europe's multiculturalist ideals....that is Ms. Hirsi Ali's first tragedy.

Her second tragedy is even more dispiriting: She has probably arrived too late. Ms. Hirsi Ali forces Europeans to confront their own helplessness in the face of a civilizational threat entirely of their own making.

Ms. Hirsi Ali's final tragedy is that what she preaches is leading to the triumph of what she most fears. Having escaped a cruel culture dominated by religion, she understandably despises faith. But religion per se was not what oppressed Ms. Hirsi Ali; it was a particular religion, Islam. The militant secularism Ms. Hirsi Ali advocates has already created a spiritual vacuum in Europe that Islam is filling.


Dreher concludes:

An exhausted Europe is dying from its lack of spiritual dynamism. Europe has set its prosperous face against the religious foundation upon which its post-classical civilization was built. As European Christianity breathes its last, the hedonism, moral relativism and consumerism that have replaced it cannot muster the wherewithal even to have babies, much less resist a confrontational Islam....As post-Christian Europe shuffles toward senescence, Islam's vital energy waxes. No one who cherishes the achievements of the West – including free speech, democracy, minority rights and equality for women – can see their crushing lack in the Islamic world and view the rise of Euro-Islam with indifference....it must be conceded that Muslims today have a firm spiritual foundation for their individual and collective lives. No one can see that crushing lack among Europeans and view Euro-secularism with indifference.

There is something deeply admirable about this passionate African woman's stirring defense of Western liberties. But the question remains: What is freedom for? It cannot be an end in itself. There must be purpose beyond self-gratification. Europe is proving that materialism – the philosophical basis for the secularism and libertinism that is modern Europe's creed – is not sufficient to sustain civilization.

With their terrifying confidence, Islamic believers understand something about human nature that the West has forgotten – but will soon relearn, the hard way. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, if Europe will not have the God of the Bible, it should pay its respects to Allah.

There's nothing new here, really. Dreher and countless others have been sounding the alarm for years now. But it still needs to said, and often. The situation put me in remembrance of a passage I've just read from The Brothers Karamazov. This from Father Paissy's address to Alyosha:

Remember...that the science of this world, having united itself into a great force, has...examined everything heavenly that has been bequeathed to us in sacred books, and, after hard analysis, the learned ones of this world have absolutely nothing left of what was once holy. But they have examined parts and missed the whole, and their blindness is even worthy of wonder. Meanwhile the whole stands before their eyes as immovably as ever, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it...For those who renounce Christianity and rebel against it are in their essence of the same image of the same Christ, and such they remain, for until now neither their wisdom nor the ardor of their hearts have been able to create another, higher image of man and his dignity than the image shown of old by Christ. And whatever their attempts, the results have been only monstrosities.

Freeman on Dostoevsky

I always enjoy Fr. Stephen Freeman's Glory to God for All Things. In a recent post on Dostoevsky, he notes having purchased the new translation of The Brothers Karamazov. (I found this interesting as I also bought the new version a few days ago. Facing several weeks of recuperation at home following surgery, I plan to really read TBK this time.) Fr. Stephen's article is excellent, as usual, but I particularly like the following paragraph:

This reality of our age has something to do with Orthodoxy for me. The “thinness” of Protestant thought and practice do not contain enough of heaven to serve as a sufficient antidote in our modern world - at least for me. I could not be a happy Protestant without somehow becoming blind to my own culture (for to a large extent, Protestantism simply is the culture and, for me, cannot be the bearer of Kingdom of God). Our culture has spawned many religions that are essentially worship of America itself (homegrown products like Mormonism is one that comes to mind - but I would have to quickly add almost all of the Protestant Churches that I know). I like America, but I do not think it is the bearer of the Kingdom of God.

Russia's hudna with the Muslim world

Spengler is always excellent. In my opinion, his latest column on Putin’s Russia, here, is his best yet. I have long contended that--in the grand scheme of things--Russia is not our enemy. In fact, as the 21st century progresses, they may be our last natural ally. Of course, their heavy-handedness can be hard for us to take—just as our sanctimony is for them. For all the recent uproar over Putin’s Munich speech, I actually found little with which to disagree. Some excerpts from Spengler follow (emphasis mine):

Perhaps it is inevitable that Washington should misunderstand Moscow at this juncture in history. Putin has embarked on a monstrous enterprise, next to which Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor seems like a country parson. European Russia is dying, and Muslims will compose a majority of citizens of the Russian Federation by as early as 2040. But the successors of Imperial Russia, the Third Rome after the fall of Constantinople to Islam in 1453, refuse to slide without a struggle into the digestive tract of the House of Islam. Western Europe may go with a whimper rather than a bang as Muslim immigrants replace the shrinking local population, but the Russians have no such intention. Putin and his comrades will employ all the guile and violence at their command to delay the decline of European Russia. The Europeans are the emasculated remnant of a fallen civilization; for better or worse, the Russians still are real men.

Putin is playing a Great Game in Central Asia, comparable in scope to the long duel with Britain during the 19th century, but with a difference: Russia's object is no longer imperial, but existential. America's blundering about its borders in the form of "color revolutions" in the republics of the former Soviet Union is an intolerable form of interference.

It is instructive to contrast Russia's policy in Chechnya with America's catastrophic policy in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. Force, duplicity and bargains with the devil are the hallmarks of Russian strategy. Free elections have brought Hamas to power in the Palestinian territories, entrenched Hezbollah in Lebanon, and set in motion a civil war in Iraq. By contrast, Putin has pacified the most stubborn Muslim population in the world, namely Chechnya, by means that horrified the world. The United States offers democracy to the Muslim world, and is universally hated; Putin destroys an entire Muslim country, and is welcomed as a friend. The question begs itself: who better understands the Islamic world, Vladimir Putin or George W Bush?

It is maddening to contemplate the denizens of Washington sipping white wine and debating the final triumph of liberal democracy and free markets in the vaunted "end of history". Russia's tragedy is beyond their comprehension. For three generations, the communist system rooted out and extirpated any soul intrepid enough to show thought or initiative. By the early 1990s, Russia's European population was a passive, sullen rabble incapable of asserting its rights; the cleverest and most adventurous emigrated. Demoralization manifested itself in high rates of alcoholism, drug use and venereal disease. Life expectancy fell from 70 years in 1990 to 65 years today. It will take two or three generations before Russians acquire the courage and the sense of civil society to determine their own destiny after the fashion of the Anglo-Saxon countries.

The only leadership left in Russia by the terrible adverse selection process of the communist system was the former secret guardians of the state, men whose unique position required them to live by their wits. The former secret-police official Vladimir Putin is the only sort of man who could rule Russia in the wake of its 20th-century tragedy. There is nothing to like about the man, but there is something to respect. Russia is fighting for its life against the odds, and there is no one left to fight for Russia but the bloody-handed fighters of the old regime.

Safe in their own continent, with a Muslim population of no more than 2 million to 3 million, composed to a great extent of educated immigrants, the Americans are incapable of understanding what Russia now faces. Yet Russia is a natural ally of the United States for the remainder of the 21st century, perhaps the only natural ally the US will have. Europe does not have the stomach to resist its gradual assimilation in the Islamic world. But Russia will resist, and it will do so ruthlessly. America's cookie-cutter approach to nation-building has been a disaster; Washington stands to learn a great deal from the tragic history of the Russian Empire.

By all means, read the entire article.

Power, Faith and Fantasy

I am currently reading Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present--and I would have been finished by now if I hadn't been side-tracked into John Ash's excellent A Byzantine Journey (which is, by the way, a worthy companion to Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain). Anyway, Israeli author Michael Oren chronicles American involvement in the region from the earliest days of the Republic. The book is balanced, to a fault, and written in a breezy, narrative style. Oren is an accomplished storyteller.

Perhaps the most intriguing part, for me, is Oren's depiction of Protestant missionary efforts, beginning in the 1820s. Somewhat surprisingly, they advocated a return of the Jewish people to Palestine from the very beginning. Of course, Christian support for Zionism really gained traction after WWII, but the basic premise had long been in place. On the other hand, they were puzzled by the existence of the 1800-year old Christian community. The Catholics, Orthodox, Melkite Catholics, Oriental Orthodox, etc. were seen as barely Christian, at best, and ripe prospects for proselytization. So, our meddlesomeness in the region has a long history.

Sad to say, American ignorance of anything predating the Reformation continues apace. I was recently reading the church bulletin of a large Protestant church. The minister (a friend of mine) is well-educated and highly intelligent--and someone whose opinion I respect. He has been in Israel recently and his on-going reports are carried in this church's bulletins. Visiting Bethlehem, he is surprised to discover that there are 15,000 Arab Christians in the city, behind the newly constructed Israeli wall. And he admits that he had been ignorant of their existence prior to the trip.

Until recent years there had been more, of course. Lots more. Even a casual reader of this blog knows this to be a special interest of mine. Middle Eastern Christians have been caught in the vise for over 1300 years now. Our politicians and preachers often seem blithely unaware of the effect we have on their ever-diminishing prospects. Even with the best of intentions, our uninformed policies and Protestant presuppositions and sensibilities often do nothing more than tighten the screws.

For more about the exodus of Christians from the Middle East, check out Robert Spencer's article, here.

The Spiritual Psalter

(No. 11)

No one can heal my disease except He Who knows the depths of the heart.

How many times have I set boundaries for myself and built walls between myself and sin! But my thoughts transgressed the boundaries and my will tore down the walls, for the boundaries were not secured by fear of God, and the walls were not founded on sincere repentance.

And again I knock at the door, that it may open for me. I do not cease to ask that I may receive what I request; and I know no shame in seeking Thy mercy, O Lord.

O Lord, my Savior! Why hast Thou forsaken me? Have mercy on me, O only Lover of mankind. Save me, a sinner, Thou only Sinless One.

Wrench me from the mire of my iniquities, that I may not be forever sullied by them. Deliver me from the jaws of the enemy, who roars as a lion and desires to swallow me up.

Rouse thy strength and come, that Thou mightest save me. Beam thy lightning and disperse his power, that he may be struck with fear and flee from Thy face, for he has not the strength to stand before Thee and before the face of those who love Thee. As soon as he perceives a sign of Thy grace, he is taken with fear of Thee and withdraws from such with shame.

And now, O Master, save me, for I flee to Thee!

from A Spiritual Psalter or Reflections on God excerpted by Bishop Theophan the Recluse from the works of our Holy Father Ephraim the Syria.

The Next Conservatism

The lead article in the February 12th issue of The American Conservative is entitled The Next Conservatism. I found it well worth a read, and believe it will appeal to those with Orthodox sensibilities. The authors contend that what passes for American conservatism today has run its course, is dead intellectually, and would be unrecognizable to the fathers of historic conservatism. They posit a rejection of ideology, as true conservatism is not an idealogy, but a way of life. They advocate a return to "retroculture."

Some excerpts:

Real conservatism rejects all ideologies, recognizing them as armed cant. In their place, it offers a way of life built upon customs, traditions, and habits—themselves the products of the experiences of many generations. Because people are capable of learning over time, when they may do so in a specific, continuous cultural setting, the conservative way of life comes to reflect the prudential virtues: modesty, the dignity of labor, conservation and saving, the importance of family and community, personal duties and obligations, and caution in innovation.

If the next conservatism is to reverse this decline and begin to recover the America we knew as recently as the 1950s...It must lead growing numbers of Americans to secede from the rotten pop culture of materialism, consumerism, hyper-sexualization, and political correctness and return to the old ways of living. The next conservatism includes “retroculture”: a conscious, deliberate recovery of the past.

So the next conservative movement is just this: a growing coalition of people who are committed to living differently. They share a common rejection of the popular culture, of a life based on wants and instant gratification, and of the ideology of multiculturalism and political correctness. They seek to work with other Americans, and perhaps Europeans as well, who know the past was better than the present and are committed to living as their ancestors did, by the rules of Western culture. They carry their quest into the political arena, lest their enemies mobilize the power of the state to crush them. But they look beyond politics to lives well lived in the old ways, as lamps for their neighbors’ footsteps, as harbingers of a world restored, and as testimonies to the only safe form of power, the power of example. We might add, as gifts to God as well.

Count me in. But if you think that Weyrich and Lind go too far in their nostalgic pining for the 1950s, you'll appreciate John Derbyshire's "yes, but" respose in the same issue, here.

About Taki

I recommend the new web magazine, Taki's Top Drawer. This is what they have to say about themselves:

About Taki
On February 5, 2007, journalist and socialite Taki Theodoracopulos launched Taki’s Top Drawer, (www.takimag.com), a conservative online magazine. Taki writes a column, the “High Life,” which has appeared in London’s The Spectator for the past twenty-five years. He writes also for National Review, the Sunday Times (London), Esquire, Vanity Fair, and Quest, among others. In 2002, Taki founded The American Conservative magazine with Pat Buchanan and Scott McConnell. Taki is a descendant of a titled family from the Ionian island of Zante. His father was a self-made shipping magnate who served in both the Greek armed forces during the World War II Balkan campaign of 1940-1941 and the anti-German resistance movement. Taki was educated at the Lawrenceville School and the University of Virginia, and is married to Princess Alexandra Schoenburg.

Why start this new online magazine? According to the just-turned-70 writer—who’s fit as a fiddle, and active in competitive martial arts—“I want to shake up the stodgy world of so-called ‘conservative’ opinion. For the past ten years at least, the conservative movement has been dominated by a bunch of pudgy, pasty-faced kids in bow-ties and blue blazers who spent their youths playing Risk in gothic dormitories, while sipping port and smoking their father’s stolen cigars. Thanks to the tragedy of September 11—and a compliant and dim-witted president—these kids got the chance to play Risk with real soldiers, with American soldiers. Patriotic men and women are dying over in Iraq for a war that was never in America’s interests. And now these spitball gunners, these chicken hawks, want to attack Iran—which is no threat to the U.S. at all. One thing I can tell you for sure, there may well be some atheists in foxholes—but you’ll never find a neocon. They prefer to send blue-collar kids out to die on their behalf, so they get to feel macho—and make up for all the times they got wedgies in prep school. It shall be our considered task to take on the chicken-hawks of this world, and give them wedgies again.”

Writers for this site will include conservative and libertarian luminaries like Paul Gottfried, R.J. Stove, Justin Raimondo, Steven Sailer, John Zmirak, Robert Spencer and many others.

“We want to reflect a traditional conservatism that prefers peace with honor to proxy wars, Western civilization to multicultural barbarism, Christendom to the European Union, and Russell Kirk to Leon Trotsky. This will undoubtedly infuriate many in the mainstream ‘conservative’ movement, who have transferred their loyalties elsewhere. It’s time to raise their blood pressure a few points—and help them burn off some of those five-course meals they’ve been eating down on K Street,” Taki said.

Promising.

Forgiveness Vespers

Last night, I participated in my first Forgiveness Vespers as an Orthodox Christian. I wasn't sure what to expect, exactly, but the service was one of the most incredibly moving experiences of my life. It is somewhat hard to describe--let's just say that you spend most of the time on the floor, prostrate, asking the forgiveness of, well....everybody.

The homily last night was simple, beautiful, and moving. We were reminded that, as the prodigal son, this is a season for our returning to our senses, and remembering the gift of forgiveness--that in our forgiving of all, we secure our own forgiveness. So, as someone who is proud and opinionated, who often pretends that sarcasm is a virtue (it is not), and who enjoys a bit of gossip and dirt as much as the next person, I humbly ask your forgiveness. Forgive me.

(Fr. Joseph Huneycutt has St. Tikhon's 1901 homily for Forgiveness Sunday, here.)

Interview with Lord Carey

I came across this short interview today with Lord George L. Carey, former archbishop of Canterbury, who is on a speaking tour of the U.S. I found his responses refreshingly clear and straight-forward, whether discussing Islam or the Anglican Communion's on-going deconstruction (at least in the northern hemisphere). Other than failing to bat down the interviewer's predictable cheap shot of equating supposed Christian violence with that of Islam, Carey's thoughts are worth a look. Read it here.

Lives of the Georgian Saints

I am current reading Lives of the Georgian Saints by Archpriest Zakaria Machitadze. I highly recommend it. The book is well done--a tight hardcover, with color icon prints of the Georgian saints, as well as many pictures of their churches and monasteries. In chronicling these little-known saints (at least to us in the West), the author also imparts a tremendous amount of Georgian history, from the first century through the Soviet era. Perhaps more so than for any nation today, the history of the Orthodox Church is the history of this country. The book would certainly make a nice gift for someone, as well as excellent Lenten reading. Copies are $29 plus $4 mailing from St. Herman Press, here.

The Shame of the Cross

In the year 1064, Turkish tribes under the leadership of Alp Arslan, overran Ani, a Armenian city of over 100,000 inhabitants. Hundreds of churches dotted the metropolis, dominated by the great cathedral church. Alp Arslan ordered that the dome of the cathedral be scaled and the great silver cross pulled down. He had the cross embedded in the threshold of his mosque, so that "true believers" could trample upon the symbol of the Christian faith as they entered. The city never recovered from the carnage and butchery that followed it's fall. Today, Ani is a windswept ruin, though the gaunt shell of the enormous cathedral still stands.

A thousand years later, any battles over the cross are not so epic or spectacular--at least here in the West. There are no walls to scale, few defenders, and often as not, those inside the walls have already done the preparatory dirty work.

The following story should not be particularly alarming, mainly because it is so typical and the responses oh so predictable--all grist for the conservative talk show mill, I suppose. The story revolves around a simmering fuss at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. W&M is our nation's second oldest university, dating from 1693. As one would imagine, the college is steeped in history. The gem of the campus is the Wren Chapel, dating from 1732. [I visited in 1998 and can attest to its beauty]. At issue is an 18" brass cross which has been on the altar there since 1940. It seems some students have taken offense. And with good reason--a cross! In a chapel, of all places! Imagine the horror of it all.

Gene K. Nichol, the school president, is sensitive to the tender sensibilities of the W&M student body. Indeed, he notes that since 2005, perhaps 20 people have mentioned to him their concerns about the brass cross. With such an overwhelming groundswell of opposition, what course could he take other than remove the cross? In October, he did that very thing "to make the chapel more welcoming to all faiths." He remarked that "it's the right thing to do to make sure this campus is open and welcoming to everyone...this is a diverse institution religiously, and we want it become even more diverse." But of course. And what better way than to remove the last remaining vestige, however faint, of the faith that both formed and has informed the university for most of his 313 years? Certainly, W&M is an elite institution that no longer caters to planters sons from along the Rappahannock. The international student body is indeed diverse, and I would doubt that a majority is even nominally Christian. But still, one can't help but be struck by the silliness of it all.

Some former students have rallied to protest the removal, and well-healed alumni have threatened to withhold funds. A spokesman for the group claims "it reflects a view that religious symbols --religion and the public expression thereof--are somehow an obstacle for us to get along with one another."

Nichol counters by asking "does that marvelous place belong to everyone, or is it principally for our Christian students...Do we actually value religious diversity, or have we determined, because of our history, to endorse a particular religious tradition to the exclusion of others."

I suppose the chapel could be converted to a cafeteria. Perhaps that would not be offensive. Of course, there could be no pork, and the other meat would have to be halal.

As one would expect, Nichol's decision was endorsed by the student assembly, most of the faculty and the Campus Ministers United. An Orthodox Jewish student from Israel complained that he was "uncomfortable" during Freshman orientation in the chapel. But now he feels "an integral part of the community due to this symbolic action." How lovely. And I'm sure Israeli colleges are equally accommodating to any non-Jewish students that come their way. Really.

Perhaps the opponents of the cross have inadvertently hit on something. In our country, the symbol has become little more than a piece of decorative art or a fashion accessory. When seen in this light, there could have been no ruckus at William and Mary. But maybe the Israeli student was right to feel "uncomfortable" in the same room as the cross. For the cross does not soothe and comfort. Rather, the cross, rightly seen, is unsettling. It is convicting. It pierces the soul and demands a declaration from us. And ultimately, it leads us to our redemption.

So, we'll see. Perhaps the alumni money will triumph over the diversity and dialogue crowd. But it will be a hollow victory. The problem here, it seems to me, is not those non-Christians who catch a sense of what the cross implies and oppose it. Rather, the true enemies are those useful idiots who, while giving lip service to Christianity, jettison the cross as a divisive and offensive symbol, to be sacrificed to the God of Diversity.