Sex in the Media

I was challenged recently to seek the positive. Not to focus on the negativity that the news media thrives on and to that end I present a positive spin on Hollywood Finds Sin in Soda Ads, Not Televised Sex Scenes?

First there is the health issue about the sugar, the empty calories and the childhood obesity epidemic particularly among the lower socio-economic demographic. It is good that the media is concerned about this because, well frankly many of these children are deprived of other sources of entertainment and therefore watch a lot more television than they ought to because television can be free while swimming is not and many parents concerned for their children's safety keep them indoors to protect them from the neighbourhoods they live in.

Second, things have improved on the sex front. It is doubtful that anyone could make Pretty Baby or The Blue Lagoon today without repercussions from both Hollywood and the legal system. There may be more adult sex on television and film but there is far less overt child sex tolerated in the media. Further it is now routine to find someone who has found some hidden sexual message in what is supposed to be children's programming and publicized it; google 'Lion King sex' or 'Bugs Bunny penis'. The point is that as the medium has matured that it has become harder to produce such material and the child sex laws have changed enough that it is illegal to produce what was once legal.

Like I said focusing on the positive rather than being negative. Affirm what is righteous and do not unnecessarily reward with attention what is not.

What if God is using them to correct us?

If one has had any sort of Christian indoctrination they are familiar with the idea of the still small voice. God does not scream, he whispers. God does not send his rebukes through the "credible" leaders rather he send them through the outcasts so that one must be attentive in order to hear it. He has a record of using animals, pagan nations, and shepherds (who I have been taught would have had a status close to that of niggers, with all the baggage attached to that word, in much of the history of mainstream American society). My point is what if God wants out of Christmas and he is using the Humanist, those whose message is most despised by the Church, to send his message to the Church?

Quite a few years ago I had the experience of being in a church service on either the last Sunday of November or the first Sunday of December where it began to rain inside the building (the new roof was inspected), there was evidence left on the pews and the floor, but not the ceiling. The response of the leadership was to set the morning's agenda aside and go with the flow, as it were. In the following week the senior pastor made the decision to set that Sunday aside until the new year and to pursue the Christmas program as planned; whatever happened that one Sunday died in December. The follow year I was in a different church in a different city, having moved over the summer, when a word from Amos was highlighted at the same time of year, I hate, I reject your festivals, and I will not smell [the sacrifices of] your assemblies.

What if God wants out and we are drowning him out with all our noise, both inside and outside the Church?

A Question of Commitment

Over the weekend I finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin; a book that Abraham Lincoln is said to have credited with starting the American Civil War. When I heard that I decided that I had no choice but to read the book.

But I did not find it that powerful. Maybe it is because I was reading it nearly 200 years after it was published. Maybe it is because I have a more secular mind than what the book was targeted at. Maybe I just have a hard heart. Regardless I did not find the book to be powerful enough to start a war.

But what book, what ideas would I find powerful enough to go to war over? It is no secret that I find the current Canadian government's justice policy to be as anti-Christian as Harriet Beecher Stowe found slavery but am I willing to declare war on the Canadian government? Is this a cross I am willing to die on? Am I literally willing to give my life for the cause of holy justice and the gospel?

Am I so committed to the absolute superiority of Judeo-Christian ideals that I am willing to publicly humiliate and expose the the so-called Christian politicians who disagree with me as charlatans and false prophets or be labeled as one myself and face public humiliation like a true martyr? Am I as committed to my cause and the purity of the gospel as Stowe was?

November 11

Earlier today, as I was observing Remembrance Day in my own way, I discovered that November 11 is also date of the feast of St. Martin of Tours.

You can be forgiven if you are ignorant of St. Martin of Tours, that is if you are a protestant. Although I think more should be taught about the early saints and martyrs of the Christian faith, which is what my ultimate point will be.

But returning to St. Marin of Tours, it is very interesting, possibly even prophetic that the feast of St. Martin of Tours and Remembrance Day are both on November 11. This saint is famous for being willing to go into battle unarmed and wearing only a cross as his armour. He was a soldier in the Roman army who embraced Christianity after a vision in which Jesus thanked him for literally clothing [Jesus] as he sat on the side of the road posing as a beggar a day or so earlier. Upon his conversion he came to the conviction of that he could no longer take a life and so he offered to go into battle unarmed with only a cross around his neck to protect him; fortunately for him a peace treaty was signed before he had to make good on his offer.

His conversion brought about a radical change and a teaching that many could possibly use to learn today. We are called to be a peculiar people, radically and significantly different from those we associate with in the mainstream, or pagan culture. My concern, in fact it is becoming a conviction, is that our churches stand for virtually nothing today, and what they do stand for I fear they ought not to. There are great things that can be done using the economies of scale of a congregation but it seems to me most exist for the sake of existing and are having no impact on the society.

Part of this is because we are ignorant of those who have gone before us and what they stood and died for. The stories of the saints are the stories of people who did great things and the biblical ideas and conclusions that motivated them, something that I think we ought to discuss more often as we grow in and examine our own faith in more detail. Unless of course Tertullian was wrong and the blood of the martyrs was not the seed of the church.

What are the ideas, the convictions that those who went before us were willing to die for? As Protestants we know about the reformers, but what about those who kept the faith from the very beginning and up to the reformation? Why is more not taught about them and the theology they clung to that caused them to suffer for their faith?

Stephan Harper is a Fascist

Fascism: A tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

Stephan Harper is a fascist. That is a statement of fact, he exercises strong autocratic or dictatorial control over his cabinet and therefore over the Canadian people.

He is dismantling the the Canadian Wheat Board against the majority vote of Canadian farmers, those who rely on it and have a vested interest in it. He is also pressing forward with his crime bill; Bill C-10 Safe Streets and Communities Act, a bill that has opposition from many who are in the know and it will directly effect, both police and people who work to rehabilitate criminals; a bill that contains policies that have been discredited or deemed too problematic (to cite one source) in other jurisdictions.

We are not even 6 months into his 4 year mandate and he is already showing signs that he is an ideologue who has no regard for what is best for the Canadian people. The lemmings voted for him and now they will pay the price.

I will give him this though, because all signs are that we are headed for a global economic crisis and if he leads us through it successfully he may go down as the greatest Prime Minister we ever had but equally so he may go down as the worst. But regardless I stand by my accusation that he is a fascist, albeit an unintentional one.

Ashamed

I have recently hit a new low in my so-called Christian experience. I think I am ashamed to be an evangelical, in fact I think I want to renounces the adjective.

I have been watching the Republican nominations with great interest and I in no way want to be associated with those people. So much so that I would probably even renounce Christianity if I did not think that the Holy Spirit would just go and drag me back.

The ideas and the policies being put forth are nothing short of a proverbial middle finger at scripture. I find it strange that those who are most concerned about hell and doctrinal purity are those who are the least concerned about doing what Jesus said they need to do to avoid being sent there. The cold, hungry, thirsty stranger mentioned in Matthew 25 could more accurately be translated as the the illegal or undocumented Mexican. Those who are most concerned about hell want to shoot and kill illegals, or Jesus, as they cross into the United States. I guess Kris Kristofferson is right Jesus really would just get nailed up if he came down again.

Homosexuals are people. I may disagree with their identifiable behaviour but that is nothing new for me, in fact it is normal. I am a corrections chaplain, I regularly deal with people whose identifiable behaviour I have problems with. I am less concerned with keeping homosexuals from marrying than I am with being able to befriend them and not being a barrier to the Holy Spirit working in their lives, which is what I fear public condemnation does - turns them off of the Holy Spirit before they even have a chance to encounter him.

Those who claim to be the most devout followers of the man who dared to touch the lepers are now the ones who condemn the lepers. I know a man who is struggling to find his place in this society, a modern day leper. He is a registered sex offender, a homosexual paedophile, and when I have asked, begged actually, for help from the evangelical community I have been met with indifference at best and hostility at worst. Meanwhile a friend and colleague of mine, a minister who denies the virgin birth and other “core” doctrines, has had no problem getting help from her community. Like I said I am ashamed.

The last point I should address is why this matters not only in the United States but globally. Unless I am mistaken, the largest Christian publishing houses in the world are all located in the United States, as are the most prolific and influential authors. Unwittingly, but nonetheless certainly, the vile poison that the American political system has become is infecting Christianity and particularly it’s more conservative variants. For about three years now I have been asking pastors and other Christian leaders to name me three well known and respected Christian authors who are not American citizens I have yet to have one pastor or leader answer my question.

Just as the protestants of old were, and some still are, concerned about Rome’s influence on Christendom so too must we be concerned about the influence American politics has on Christendom.

At the risk of being accused of plagerism (again)

A 'Christian' Europe Without Chrisitanity

By David Gibson Religious News Service

(RNS) Does European Christendom need Christianity to Survive?

It may seen an odd question for a religious culture that once stretched from Britain to the Bosphorus, born of a deep and diffuse
faith that inspired great cathedrals and monasteries and filled them with believers for centuries.

But when right-wing extremist Anders Breivik killed 77 people in a horrific rampage in Norway last month, he highlighted a novel
development in the history of the West: a burgeoning alliance between believers and nonbelievers to promote Europe's Christian identity.

"European Christendom and the cross will be the symbol in which every cultural conservative can unite under in our common defense," Breivik wrote in his rambling 1,500-page manifesto. "It should serve as the uniting symbol for all Europeans whether they are agnostic or atheists."

Whether Breivik himself can be considered a bona fide Christian given his lack of a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God," as he put it, was a topic of much debate. There was no doubt, however, that he was a devout believer "in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform."

In fact, that's been the case for any number of unbelievers for more than a decade.

One prominent example was the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, who spent her last years before her death in 2006 inveighing against a Muslim influx that was turning the continent into what she called "Eurabia."

Fallaci liked to describe herself as a "Christian atheist" -- an interesting turn of phrase -- because she thought Christianity provided Europe with a cultural and intellectual bulwark against Islam.

There's also Scottish-born historian and political conservative Niall Ferguson, who calls himself "an incurable atheist" but is also a
vocal champion for restoring Christendom because, as he puts it, there isn't sufficient "religious resistance" in the West to radical Islam.

(Ferguson dedicated his latest book, "Civilization: The West and the Rest," to his new partner, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch atheist who has promoted the values of Christianity over those of her native Islam.)

The modern-day crusade for Christendom by nonbelievers tends to be rooted in fears about Muslim immigration, but it's also fueled by worries about the deterioration of European culture -- and nostalgia for the continent's once central place in world affairs.

For some atheists, retaining European identity is reason enough to set aside long-standing enmity between churches and nonbelievers that dates back to the secularism of the Enlightenment and the anti-clericalism of the French Revolution.

And unlike the persistent sniping between atheists and believers in the U.S., Europe's nonreligious conservatives have found ready allies in the continent's religious leaders -- most notably Pope Benedict XVI.

Even before he was elected pope in April 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was spearheading the Vatican effort, however unsuccessful, to have the European Union's new constitution recognize the continent's Christian heritage. He also rejected the idea of allowing Muslim Turkey into the EU. "Europe is a cultural continent," he told a French magazine, "not a geographical one."

As pope, Benedict eventually softened his opposition to Turkey's entry into the EU but continued to insist that Europe's Christian
culture must be protected, even as religious belief among Europeans declined.

In August 2005, just a few months after his election as pope, Benedict met secretly with Fallaci, news that upset Muslims when it
leaked out. Muslims were even angrier at the pontiff's controversial speech a year later in Regensburg, Germany, when he depicted Islam as prone to violence and alien to Christian Europe.

"Attempts at the 'Islamification' of the West cannot be denied," Benedict's closest aide, Monsignor Georg Ganswein, said in a 2007
interview. "And the associated danger for the identity of Europe cannot be ignored out of a wrongly understood sense of respect."

"The Catholic side sees this clearly," he added, "and says as much."

But some atheists see this as well, and are equally happy to say so.

One of Christendom's most prominent atheist advocates is the Italian philosopher and politician Marcello Pera. In 2004, he delivered a series of lectures with then-Cardinal Ratzinger that set out their shared view of the need to restore Christian identity in Europe in order to battle both Islam and moral degeneration.

Later, Benedict wrote a forward to Pera's book, "Why We Must Call Ourselves Christians," which promotes Benedict's argument that Western civilization can be saved if people live "as if God exists," whether they believe that or not.

It's not a new argument -- 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal held that even if God's existence cannot be proved, people ought to act as though God exists because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

But the updated version seems to be winning some converts. In a landmark ruling last March, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Italy could continue to display crucifixes in public school classrooms because the cross with Jesus on it is a "historical and cultural" symbol rather than a religious one.

While the Vatican welcomed that decision, others wonder whether the cost was too high -- essentially emptying a container of its meaning in order to preserve the cultural form.

And an empty container, no matter how attractive on the outside, can be filled with all manner of beliefs on the inside.

What was Warren Jeffs Sin?

In August 2011 Warren Jeffs was convicted of polygamy and paedophilia. But what was his sin? According to scripture it seems that neither hebephilia, sex with a sexually mature minor - which is actually what Mister Jeffs is “guilty” of, nor polygamy are sins. When this was pointed out to a wised old saint this author knows the saint pointed out that the church has their values screwed up, we are gracious towards divorce, which scripture condemns, and condemning towards polygamy, which scripture seems to allow.

Mister Jeffs conviction coincided with Genesis 28 in an exercise this author’s Bible study group is doing. An exercise that began with Genesis 1 and that forbids us from citing or discussing any scripture found after where we had previously read; in other words we are studying scripture as if we are being exposed to the Bible for the very first time. In light of this, what was Warren Jeffs’ sin?

Among the patriarchs we have Abraham, the dirty old man who married a much younger woman, Keturah, and fathered more children. We also have Isaac who was 40 when he married Rebekah, who was in all likelihood 20 years or more his junior. She was a young maiden when they married and it seems that Jacob and Esau’s conception 20 years later was only a miracle because she had been unable to conceive to that point, unlike Sarah who conceived well past menopause. Finally we have Esau, who although not technically not a patriarch is from the same line. It does not seem that his polygamy is condemned in any way, just mentioned as a fact, like his excessive red hair.

So the question remains what exactly is Warren Jeff’s sin? He did nothing that Abraham, Isaac or Esau did not do; we esteem these men as forerunners of our faith but condemn Warren Jeffs for the same behaviour? How is polygamy a sin? How is hebephilia a sin? God/the Bible says nothing derogatory about these men’s behaviour and yet thousands of years later we consider these men’s behaviour such a grave sin that those who follow in their footsteps deserve to die in prison.

This is not a defence of either hebephilia or polygamy, but rather a question poised; “Why does modern Christian thought consider behaviours God seem indifferent to, polygamy and hebephilia, to be grave sins while being gracious to to a sin God says he hates, divorce?”

The Jewish View of Creationism

Rabbi Adam Jacobs
Managing Director, Aish Center in Manhattan

Few adjectives produce more of an emotional charge than "fundamentalist." It conjures up images of unhinged radical mobs in neuvo-Klan attire (indiscriminately) firing their AK-47's in the air, or of barefoot ignoramuses clutching their Bibles and getting excited to head off to the town lynchin'. Regrettably, there are far too many folks -- both inside and outside the religious camps -- with a sub-par comprehension of the actual fundamentals of religious thought and practice. This lack of knowledge tends to feed the stereotypes that the non-religious world perceives. Within the fundamentalist/secularist battle that has been flaring across the world stage for the last 200 plus years, there is perhaps no greater flash point than that of creationism, as was recently evidenced in the 27,000 comments made in a recent HuffPost piece on the topic.

To the secularist, the notion that we should flippantly toss aside hundreds of years of scientific investigation unequivocally demonstrating an extremely old universe simply because some ancient tome says it was created less than 6,000 years ago is nothing short of idiocy. What I hope to demonstrate is that Judaism's understanding of this matter (and many others) is significantly more nuanced, complex and surprising than what is currently believed to be the standard religious gloss on the subject. The truth of the matter is that Judaism is frequently (and unfairly) lumped together with other religious systems that actually have vastly different ways of looking at things.

One thousand years ago, the great Jewish philosopher and physician, Moses Maimonides, wrote that there is no contradiction between Torah and science and that if one is perceived, then there was a misapprehension of the science or the Torah. Two centuries later, Rabbi Isaac of Akko, a disciple of the great Moses Ben Nachman (Nachmanides) and one of the foremost Kabbalists of his generation, wrote some surprising commentary regarding the age of the universe. In his work "the Trove of Life," he explains that the Earth was actually 42,000 years old when Adam was created and that these years are "divine" years and should not be thought of as 365 regular days. Rather, a divine year is 1,000 times longer or 365,250 years. He based this on a verse in Psalm 90 that says "1,000 years in your eyes is like a day gone by." Do the math. According to Rabbi Isaac, the universe is 42,000 x 365,250, or 15,340,500,000 years old. This figure is squarely within the ballpark of where modern cosmology places the age of the universe. How did he know this? And how did he posses the temerity to conclude it in the midst of the Dark Ages? Perhaps our fundamentalism is not quite as primitive as is supposed.

Dr. Gerald Schroeder, an Ph.D. in physics from MIT, has spent the last 35 years investigating the confluence of science and Torah and has a novel, yet compelling, approach. Starting with Einstein's discovery of the relativity of time, he explains how great changes in gravity or velocity produce measurable changes in the flow of time. He demonstrates that on an imaginary planet so massive, with a force of gravity so great, that its time was slowed by a factor of 350,000, a visitor would live out three minutes of normal-feeling time while concurrently, the folks back home would have lived out an entire two years. Looking from Earth, the actions of the "big planet" visitor would appear to be unfolding extremely slowly, and vice versa from the other vantage point. Big Bang theory posits that the entire universe at its inception was but a minuscule speck. This notion was supported and recorded by Nachmanides in the 13th Century when he explained that the universe was originally condensed into the size of a mustard seed. As the universe expanded (again, a notion supported by both science and Torah), time expanded with it so that every time it doubled in size, time would pass at half its original rate. Following this logic, Dr. Schroeder demonstrates that it is perfectly conceivable that from the universe's perspective, six 24-hour periods had passed and concurrently the dilated outer reaches of that space would view it as if 15 billion years had elapsed. Have a look at his book The Science of God for the full treatment, including charts outlining the exact duration of each Biblical day.

I understand that it will be irresistible for some to label this approach as "apologetics," "reverse engineering" or worse. Bear in mind that true intellectualism requires us to remain open to new ideas that don't fit neatly into our current worldview. Most people are so wholly invested in their way of thinking that no amount of evidence would suffice to disavow them of it. Nonetheless, there are still some brave souls out there with the courage to take a second look. These ideas are old, based on the writing of well known and established Jewish scholars, who in turn learned them from more ancient sources. These sources depict an origin of the universe that is clearly, and uncannily, similar to that of modern cosmology and quite unlike the views of some "fundamentalist" religions out there. And when these sources have in the past conflicted with the cosmological thinking of the time, it is often the science that has evolved to an understanding closer to that of the religious. The Big Bang Theory, for example, positing that the universe is expanding infinitely from a single point, was quite controversial. Since the 1960s, that theory has been largely accepted as scientific fact.

That should give us pause. Science and religion have different functions in our lives, but they are not necessarily and always in opposition. Do your own research. If it's true, then integrity demands a re-evaluation of the value (of at least one) fundamentalist religious system.