A New Song for the PCUSA

Since 14F has passed, we all know where to go if you:
1) Are married, but don't think your sex life should be confined to your spouse.
2) Can't abide being married to just one person at a time.
3) Are single and want to "test the milk" before you "buy the cow."
4) Reject the basics of human biological gender.



Let's face it. Gay clergy isn't the problem. Making the fundamentals of the faith optional is the disease...confusion over the sexes is just a symptom. As professor Alice Linsley reminds us: "Dialogue with revisionists is impossible."

“Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it, and, indeed, to neglect to confound evil men - when we can do it - is no less a sin than to encourage them”
St. Felix III, Bishop of Rome, 483-492

Best wishes, though, to all my friends of evangelical persuasion still on that ship. May you find a lifeboat soon.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) an apostate denomination

Here lies the boundary of a Christian church that knows itself to be bound by the authority of Scripture. Those who urge the church to change the norm of its teaching on this matter must know that they are promoting schism. If a church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church would stand no longer on biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. ("Should We Support Gay Marriage? No") Wolfhart Pannenberg

More analysis at Viola Larson's blog...

I'm pleased to see that others are pointing out what we've known for a long time. This is the end game for egalitarianism. When men and women become interchangeable in the liturgical context of authoritative public ministry, you can't stoop the implication that other liturgical / public authoritative acts are bound by sexual/gender distinctions. END

I'm 

Episcopal Church General Convention Same Sex Blessing

Sometimes I just can't help myself! They make it too easy.

A New Song for the PCUSA

Since 10-A passes, we all know where to go if you:
1) Are married, but don't think your sex life should be confined to your spouse.
2) Can't abide being married to just one person at a time.
3) Are single and want to "test the milk" before you "buy the cow."
4) Reject the basics of human biological gender.



Let's face it. Gay clergy isn't the problem. Making the fundamentals of the faith optional is the disease...confusion over the sexes is just a symptom. As professor Alice Linsley reminds us: "Dialogue with revisionists is impossible."

“Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it, and, indeed, to neglect to confound evil men - when we can do it - is no less a sin than to encourage them”
St. Felix III, Bishop of Rome, 483-492

Best wishes, though, to all my friends of evangelical persuasion still on that ship. May you find a lifeboat soon.

AU Trifecta

And again with AU. Now they say Rome can't talk about marriage.

“I am amazed that church officials would threaten to stop helping the disadvantaged because they are being asked to treat all citizens of the District fairly,” he continued. “They seem to have lost all perspective. How strong is their commitment to helping the poor if they’re willing to take this hardline stance?

It seems that everybody is required to take a break from any opinions that religious persons may have, but religious people don't have the same right of reprieve?

I think the "REV" in "Rev. Barry Lynn" stands for revisionista.

AU Speaks

So they want us to keep the church from advocating for conscience bound issues in healthcare, but it's okay for the Roman Church to lobby for healthcare in general? GIVE ME A BREAK!

Keep Religious Doctrine Out of the Law | Americans United

False starts in False Bay

An ad absurdum response to upcoming considerations in the Synod of the Diocese of False Bay, Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

Scheduled to meet 23-26 September, on its agenda is the following resolution:

“That this Synod

• Affirming a pastoral response to racist land-owners in our parish families.
• Notes the negative statements of previous Provincial Synods that racist white members of our Church share in full membership as baptised members of the Body of Christ, and are affirmed and welcomed as such;
• Affirms our commitment to prayerful and respectful dialogue around these issues, mindful of the exhortations of previous Lambeth Conferences to engage with those most affected.
• Commends giving serious and prayerful consideration to the acceptance of racist white landowners as valued members of our parish, bearing in mind the long standing tradition within the Anglican Communion of respect for individual conscience, in seeking to be faithful disciples of Jesus;
• Asks the Bishop to request the Synod of Bishops to provide pastoral guidelines for those of our members who are seeking to restore Apartheid structures as faithful members of our parish families.”

At the end of August the Diocese of Cape Town passed a similar resolution asking the Bishops “to provide guidelines for the pastoral care of racist white landowners”.

h/t Anglican Mainstream

I invoke Godwin's Law

Okay...I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but...

The Goracle has tripped to the ridiculous...he's now saying that global warming (or, more properly, skeptics of anthropogenic global warming) is the Nazism of our time.

So, I guess he's using Godwin's Law to shut down the argument since - despite his constant crowing - the science is still unsettled.

P.S. - Hey sunspots, welcome back!

Obama is an International Weenie

Besides unconditional table-talks with dictator Ahmadinijad, President Obama sent invitations to Iranian diplomats to join him at the White House for our July 4th hot dog festival. (source)

The incredible irony here is that he would have to serve them Hebrew National™ hot dogs in order to both honor and violate their religious convictions. You'd wonder what's next on his diplomatic dhimmitude:

Inviting North Korean officials to share cake at a celebration commemorating the Non-Proliferation Treaty? Perhaps inviting the Taliban to a festival celebrating International Women's Day? Maybe we can even invite Zimbabwe to party with the Department of Agriculture, or have Libyan diplomats as guests of honor at a commemoration of human rights? h/t Michael Rubin

Okay...so he's already reneged on his invitation.

Apparently, Iranian response to domestic disputes of non-representative government doesn't cut the mustard. Yet he sees no link with a regime suppressing peaceful protest and the fact that they aren't allowed to have guns.

Yep...according to the Iranian Constitution:

Article 27 [Freedom of Assembly]

Public gatherings and marches may be freely held, provided arms are not carried and that they are not detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam.
Article 151 [Military Training]
In accordance with the noble Koranic verse: "Prepare against them whatever force you are able to muster, and horses ready for battle, striking fear into God's enemy and your enemy, and others beyond them unknown to you but known to God..."possession of arms, however, requires the granting of permission by the competent authorities.

I don't know about you, but that seems pretty close to what the President thinks should happen with our constitutional right to bear arms. According to the 2007 small arms survey, Iran is at the same level of gun ownership that most gun-banning countries (like China and the UK) are.

Now I'm not suggesting the Iranian intelligentsia stage a violent coup. But as we draw near the commemoration of our own violent coup, I think it wise to stop for half a moment and think about what would have happened in our country's history if men like Obama (yes, there were capitulators aplenty back then) had ruled the day instead of the men who became our Founding Fathers.

Stand up, Mr. President. Russia and North Korea are flexing their bully muscles. Only an America resolved to be strong in itself, and strong for others will be able to maintain global balance.

Where's American's United when you really need them?

Hawaii's state senate has declared September 24, 2009 "ISLAM DAY." You know...for tolerance's sake.


Why they didn't choose a Friday (I hear September 11th was open), I don't know.

What else I don't know is where are the indignant letters from "the Rev. Barry W. Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State."

Maybe his arms are just too tired from giving President Obama bear hugs for snubbing the National Day of Prayer.

Nah...he's just against Christianity having a public footprint. Kinda reminds me of these guys.

Way to go, numpty Mr. Lynn.

Stick to lawyering and leave the "reverend-ing" to those of us who bend both knees to Jesus alone.

Ministers of Molech

In case you're wondering why the Episcopal Church USA is shrinking at an alarming rate, you might want to check the rantings...er, “sermons” of the woman they just elected president of the Episcopal Divinity School at Harvard. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale has lots to say about her favorite axe to grind - abortion. (After serving nearly two decades on the national board of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice the board of NARAL Pro-Choice America, she'd better.)

When a woman finds herself pregnant due to violence and chooses an abortion, it is the violence that is the tragedy; the abortion is a blessing.

PLEASE NOTE, less than 1% of abortions are sought for rape (and most of the incest cases are covered up by the abortion industry)! You'd think a policy-wonk would know that. Oh well...Romans 1:18-23, I suppose.

When a woman finds that the fetus she is carrying has anomalies incompatible with life, that it will not live and that she requires an abortion – often a late-term abortion – to protect her life, her health, or her fertility, it is the shattering of her hopes and dreams for that pregnancy that is the tragedy; the abortion is a blessing.

When a woman wants a child but can’t afford one because she hasn’t the education necessary for a sustainable job, or access to health care, or day care, or adequate food, it is the abysmal priorities of our nation, the lack of social supports, the absence of justice that are the tragedies; the abortion is a blessing.

And when a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion – there is not a tragedy in sight -- only blessing. The ability to enjoy God’s good gift of sexuality without compromising one’s education, life’s work, or ability to put to use God’s gifts and call is simply blessing.

These are the two things I want you, please, to remember – abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.

Did you catch that. It's not that she doesn't want to impose her morality on someone else. It's not that she sees this as a tragic consequence of living in a fallen and unjust world. No...abortion is - in her words - a blessing.

Well...isn't the Episcopal Church blessed.

I really appreciate how she ends it:

God bless you all.

Don't you mean to say: “God abort you all.”

EDS trustee, The Rt. Rev. M. Thomas Shaw stated in a press release, “I am thrilled with the appointment of Katharine Ragsdale as the president and dean of EDS. She brings a wealth of small parish ministry to her new position and it is critical that the new president and dean be able to train and form parish priests for the growth of progressive parishes across the country. She brings a wealth of experience, talent and creativity to this new position.”

Small parishes, indeed. Ms. Ragsdale most recently served as vicar of St. David's Church. For non-Anglicans, that may sound impressive. But you need to understand what it means to be a vicar. Vicar - a shortened form of vicarious - means someone who stands in place of the bishop. Since the bishop is responsible for all ministry within his diocese, a vicar is sent when the representation does not need or cannot support a rector (viz, a full-time priest). For instance, a campus minister can be a vicar - even though it's often a full-time job. Other public but non-parish functions can have a vicar. But when a vicar is in a parish setting, it is for one of two reasons: a) the church is a mission / plant and cannot yet support a rector; or b) the church is in such steep decline that it can no longer support a rector. Care to geuss which category applies to St. David's?

A telling article from the Boston Globe uses words like “tiny.” They had this to say: “Ragsdale's parishioners love her, aside from a few who have left because of her politics...”

Aside from being incapable of teaching seminarians how to grow a church,based on her practical experience, she's not capable of teaching them any academic subject either - seeing as her own doctorate is the professional vocational degree, the Doctor of Ministry (abbrev. D.Min.). Not to DMin-ize the board of trustees, but...srsly? Were all the PhD's taken? I mean...this woman is being put forward as the president of a seminary that is affiliated with HARVARD UNIVERSITY (not to mention Episcopalianism...the Cadillac of progressive Americanity). Is she expected to be taken seriously by the scholars in the religion department? Or by fundraisers?

Wow....well, at least she'll be eager to admit this guy for study.
Yes... I know he's joking.

BTW - I was going to post this yesterday, but I didn't want anyone to get it confused with a National Atheist's Day prank. (Psalm 14:1)

h/t Reformed Pastor and MCJ

Food and Sex

This is from today's AP:

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The West Michigan Whitecaps say they have no plans to put a warning label on an enormous new hamburger they're selling this season — despite a vegan advocacy group's request to do just that.

Susan Levin, a staff dietitian for the Washington-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, sent a letter to the Grand Rapids minor-league team on Tuesday. She's asking that the 4,800-calorie burger be labeled a "dietary disaster" that increases the risk of cancer and heart disease.

The 4-pound, $20 burger features five beef patties, five slices of cheese, nearly a cup of chili and liberal doses of salsa and corn chips — all on an 8-inch bun.

Whitecaps spokesman Mickey Graham says the burger is a gimmick that's being promoted as a very unhealthy menu item.

Here's the warning I suggest:

WARNING: May cause people who think that women have a right to kill a baby to say that you don't have a right to know how heart-stoppingly delicious this burger tastes.

What kills me is that we've turned food into the new sex. Can you imagine the outrage they would have if we asked for warnings on miniskirts? Oh the moral indignity they have when we "puritanical prudes" take offense at the sexualization of our daughters when we complain about the toys they make and the clothes they produce. (BTW, modesty is never really out of fashion.)

(Click on that pic to enlarge - or just take my word for it: they are marketing this as appropriate clothing for a 12-18M and 18-24M old girl. And that's not even the "thongs" I've seen in WalMart!)

Think about it. When was the last time you were accosted for a consumer choice (whether it be a car, an item of food, a television from your local big-box chain store, your pharmaceuticals)? Or maybe not accosted, but scolded by the news reports?

Now...when was the last time you heard people being scolded for having serial sex partners? I remember watching Oprah and Jerry Springer one day. On Oprah, Amy Dacyczyn a.k.a. the Frugal Zealot was talking about wearing second-hand bras and socks and shoes. The audience was totally grossed out - gasping at the disgustitude of this woman. Meanwhile, on Jerry Springer, you have a guy who is sleeping with his girlfriend, his girlfriend's sister, and her cousin. Plus he'd just been caught with the neighbor. And nobody found that "gross." (Oh yeah...he was also jobless, but the men in the audience were hooting him up as though he were somehow a male idol. American idle is more like it.)

We're forging a new set of purity laws in this country that will turn us into Pharisees - hypocrites who make a big deal about paying your mint and dill and cumin tithe, but ignoring the weightier matters of the law. Paul - who had been rescued from hypocritical pharisaism - saw the danger and warned Timothy that in the later times, people will devote "themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons" and "forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth."

(Those who are undermining the intimate ties between sex and family life - marriage and procreation of children - are making marriage a burden, and thus forbidding it.)

Priorities are shifting...but this is nothing that we - the Christian Church - have not faced before. Perhaps we are in the last days of the American Empire. So be it. Read St. Augustine's City of God where he talks about what it means to live as the church apart from the Roman Empire. We'll figure it out...and maybe even see a new era of Christendom from our missionary activities.

Who ya gonna call (upon)?

Okay...I can be sacrilegious sometimes. And when I saw this, I snickered pretty hard.

Then I started theologizing and realized that there was a deeper point to be grasped. They got the wrong person of the Trinity.

For you non pop-culture mavens, the guys at the bottom are the Ghostbusters.

Does your church equivocate on the Trinity? Is worship offered to the Father, in the name of the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit? Or do they take modalist language like "Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer"? Is it worth losing the covenant-keeping God revealed in the Scriptures and Christ Jesus for the non-gendered bland deity of "God"* or "Holy One"*?

*(Biblical names, no doubt - but reflective of a paucity of uses of Scripturally shaped - and even mandated, in the Baptismal Formula from Christ & the Apostles - language used in the Bible.)

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings

...hast Thou ordained strength
because of Thine enemies....



...that Thou mightest still [silence] the enemy and the avenger.

Psalm 8:2 (Authorized Version)

Merciful God, whose image Thou hast maintained in the fallen sons and daughters of Adam and Eve; strengthen in righteousness Thy covenant-keeping children, that in their weakness they might speak with holy boldness, and in their innocence Thy wisdom shew forth; through the same Lord who took on infant flesh and knoweth the weakness thereof, even Christ Jesus who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, One God now and forever. Amen.

Three Catholic Universities Give Up Catholic Ethics for Lent

Folks...you just can't make this up.

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: From February 23 to 28, Georgetown University is hosting “Sex Positive Week,” sponsored by feminist and homosexual student clubs.

On Monday, the event “Sex Positive…What’s That?” featured a speaker from Black Rose, an organization “which provides a forum for the many different expressions of power in love and play. This can include dominance & submission, bondage & discipline, fetishism, cross-dressing, to name a few.”

Yesterday’s talk, on Ash Wednesday, “Torn About Porn?” was advertised to include “discussion about arguably alternative forms of pornography that are not supposed to be exploitative, but rather radical and empowering.”

On Saturday, February 28, pornographic film director Tristan Taormino will speak on “Relationships Beyond Monogamy”—one day after speaking in downtown Washington, D.C., about “Anal Pleasure 101”. She will discuss her book Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships with Jenny Block, author of Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage. Taormino is also the author of True Lust: Adventures in Sex, Porn and Perversion.

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: On Tuesday, the Student Diversity and Cultural Affairs Office of Loyola University Chicago presented the film Brother to Brother about a homosexual African-American who is transported in time to cavort with the allegedly homosexual writer Langston Hughes.

The film is part of a semester-long “Color of Queer Film Series” sponsored by the university. Upcoming films include Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros about a 12 year-old boy who falls in love with a male police officer, and I Exist: Voices from the Lesbian and Gay Middle Eastern Community in the U.S.

SEATTLE UNIVERSITY: This week is “Transgender Awareness Week” at Seattle University, including a session on allegedly transgender Bible heroes and heroines and “Criss-Cross Day,” where students are encouraged to “come dressed for the day in your best gender-bending outfit.” The events are sponsored by the university’s Office of Multicultural Affairs and the student Trans and Allies Club.

“That Catholic universities would permit these events on their campuses at any time of the year is unthinkable, but to do so during the holy season of Lent is unconscionable,” said Reilly.

“The saddest part of this story is that there is no indication that these universities are ashamed or embarrassed by what is taking place on their Catholic campuses. Parents and potential students might begin to wonder how these universities can in good conscience consider themselves Catholic when they allow such perverse distortions of Catholic values to take place.”

h/t Cardinal Newman Society

Starry Eyed on Tax Relief

So the new transparency that Obama promised is starting to look a lot like that same old mendacity we got under the previous administrations.

On the radio, I heard about a new website set up to help the tax-paying populace (all 46% of us) keep an eye on where our money is going. (You have to provide the flushing sounds yourself.)

Mr. Obama has been trying to sell us a bill of goods about how he is taking the same steps that Kennedy, Reagan, and even Bush II took to spur a sagging economy: TAX RELIEF. Now, tax relief does work. We've seen that. But what he's proposing isn't tax relief at all.

First, as in my post last Friday, giving non-taxpayers money channeled through the IRS and calling it a rebate isn't tax relief. It's welfare at best, Marxist redistribution of wealth in the middle, and outright vote-buying.

But then going on to lie about what counts as tax relief by throwing in all sorts of stuff not even covered under any rubric of tax or IRS is just outright deceitful. Let's take a look at RECOVERY.GOV to see where it says all that money is going.

Ooh!!! $288Billion in tax relief! I'm so relieved! I thought this was just going to be a big spending bill where the government decides what to do with my money. I'm so thankful they're going to entrust me with more of what I earned... and... uh....

....wait a second. What's that asterisk doing there? I'd better check the fine print and footnotes.

* Tax Relief - includes $15 B for Infrastructure and Science, $61 B for Protecting the Vulnerable, $25 B for Education and Training and $22 B for Energy, so total funds are $126 B for Infrastructure and Science, $142 B for Protecting the Vulnerable, $78 B for Education and Training, and $65 B for Energy.

Lemme get this straight - since you're being all transparent and accountable: $123 Billion of this "tax relief" is really just more of the other stuff you've got listed there. Am I reading that right? So really it's only $165 Billion is in tax relief. And a good bit of that is really just going to be shuffling money to people that didn't pay any taxes to begin with?

So much for HOPE and CHANGE in the politics of deception.

Take these provisions with a grain of salt? YES WE CAN!

I think I liked the cowboy diplomacy better than the cowboy economics.

Fifteen Reasons I'm Already Tired of the Obama Era

by John Hawkins, posted at TownHall.com on Tuesday, February 24, 2009

15) The stimulus bill is the single largest spending bill in the history of humankind and yet, Obama is running around telling everyone how he's going to cut the deficit in a few years. Obama claiming to be a deficit hawk -- that's like getting a lecture on honesty from Bill Clinton.

14) ACORN, which engaged in large scale voter fraud during the 2008 election that won't be seriously investigated because Obama is in the White House, is now unapologetically breaking into houses across the country and encouraging squatters. Apparently, if you're a liberal group, you are above the law as long as the Obama administration is in the White House.

13) Despite the fact that America just conclusively proved it's not a racist nation by electing the first black President, race hustling bottom feeders like Al Sharpton and Julian Bond are making ridiculous charges of racism over an obviously non-racial cartoon. I thought the implicit promise of the Left was that electing Obama would put the race hustlers out of business?

12) Despite all the doomsday talk that we're hearing about how only European style socialism can save us from another depression, this recession isn't even close to being as bad as the one we endured in the early eighties. The utter lack of perspective about this topic is disturbing.

11) Barack Obama has already broken more campaign promises in a month than George Bush did in eight years. He's a living, breathing example of everything people hate about politics. He's habitually dishonest, will say anything if it benefits him politically, and he has already doled out more taxpayer money to his supporters via the stimulus bill than any politician in history.

10) Many of the same moderate Republicans who helped destroy the party over the last 4 years by pushing big spending, big government, pro-illegal immigration policies, and worst of all, John McCain, are once again declaring that the solution to our problems is to pursue many of the same policies that allowed the Democrats to take almost total control of D.C. "Thanks, but no thanks" for the "helpful" advice.

9) It's grotesque to see the worshipful treatment Obama is getting. It seems like his face is on the cover of half the magazines in the country, the press treats him with kid gloves, and they're naming schools after him. Meanwhile, he's just another sleazy politician who has yet to show an aptitude for much of anything other than reading off of a teleprompter.

8) In what is sure to be the first of many betrayals, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins sold the Republican Party and the American people down the river on the stimulus package. The amazing thing was not that they caved, since it has come to be expected from those three, but that they prostituted themselves to the Democrats so cheaply. Had they simply held out for another week or two, they could have given the GOP much more leverage, shaved at least another hundred billion off the stimulus package, and could have acquired tens of millions more in goodies for their constituents.

7) The Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, is a tax cheat. Let me repeat that: Timothy Geithner, the guy who is the head honcho of the IRS, is a tax cheat. One more time, Tim Geithner, the guy who will be in charge when the Obama administration institutes what will probably be the single largest tax increase in American history, later in Obama's first term, is a tax cheat.

6) Despite the fact that the Big 3 automakers have been so thoroughly destroyed by the unions that work for them that they have to come begging for billions per month just to survive, the Democratic Party is getting ready to try to ram a card check bill through the Senate that would expand the presence of unions all across the country. That's like finding a turd in the punch bowl and just tossing it into the lemonade.

5) The single most successful program of the Clinton years, welfare reform, has already been essentially repealed with no debate via the stimulus package. It's part of Obama's attempt to radically transform the country before the American people fully realize what's happening. So far, judging by the lack of discussion over welfare reform, it seems to be working.

4) The very same government that destroyed the banking industry by forcing it to make loans to people who couldn't pay them back is now using the very crisis it created to try to nationalize the banking industry. This is like making an arsonist the new fire chief after he burned down the fire station and 3-4 city blocks surrounding it.

3) Barack Obama is like Jimmy Carter on speed. In anticipation of the American people vomiting at the mere mention of his name in the future, he's trying to cram every single thing on the liberal wish list through so fast that our legislators don't even have time to read the bills that they're voting on.

2) We're literally going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars rewarding people for failing to pay their mortgages. Granted, they're not going to admit to that, but when people who pay their mortgages on time get nothing while people who aren't paying their mortgages get a break, courtesy of their fellow citizens' tax dollars, what else can it be called other than a reward for irresponsibility?

1) Prior to the stimulus bill being passed, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the recession we're in would be over by the 2nd half of 2009. In other words, we're going to spend 1.2 trillion dollars on a stimulus bill and best case scenario, it could pull us out of a recession 3-6 months early. Of course, it seems more likely that all the government interference and massive increases in debt could extend, rather than shorten the length of the recession. If we're not out of it by 2010, we know who deserves the blame.

Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

H is for Hypocrisy

On Wednesdays, I try to blog on a worship topic. However, my seminary has decided that the worship of perverse sexual acts and child rape is appropriate, so I'm interrupting my regular schedule.

(Sort-of...they promote it with the title V is for Venite. And venite is a legitimate liturgical topic which I'll need to return to at some point.)

Q is for Questionable Judgment

Here's the link to their site discussing the upcoming campus-sponsored production of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.

R is for Risible

Here's my response (which may or may not be on the site...they moderate, and I was censored in public discourse throughout parts of my seminary career):

I'm personally saddened to see the Women's Center sponsoring this play. In a notorious section, "The Little Coochi Snorcher that Could," a woman recounts how as a 13 yr old girl she is given alcohol and then seduced by a 24 yr old woman. In the original form (which has been unsatisfactorily redacted to omit it and change the age from 13 to 16), she dismisses the substance abuse and statutory violation by saying: "Now people say it was a kind of rape.... Well, I say if it was rape, it was a good rape...." In another segment, a six year old is queried about her genitalia (smells, names, etc.). As the father of beautiful little girl, I would be hard pressed to stay in my seat through such a performance.

The rest of the play wavers between diatribes against men and male-female sex as inherently violent, or about sexual practices that really deserve to stay in the bedroom. How this play actually addresses violence against women (especially when it is celebrated in the above scene), or opens frank conversations about the role men - and women - have in the sexualization of children and women (objectification is a prologue to rape and oppression) is perhaps beyond the scope of Wimminwise to answer. But it would be helpful to reflect on why this play at this seminary - of all the venues and content available - is appropriate and effective.

O is for Objection

Beyond the politicization of a day that Christians should remember for martyrs, they overturn a divinely-ordained institution (heterosexual marriage). Worse, marriage is meant to be a mysterious - almost sacramental - expression of the union of Christ and His Church. What are we to make of this from a seminary?

B is for Bias

Why is homosexual rape given a pass by an event promoted as anti-violence-against-women?

H is for Hypocrisy

We have a mandate to reform the culture to the Scriptural norm (the norming norm), not let culture corrupt the message of the Scriptures.

E is for End!!!

U is for Update: They posted my response. It was the same old "You don't know what you're talking about." However, I have it from an eyewitness that the attendance at these events has been blissfully low. As some one once termed roughly 1/3 of the campus population: "middle-aged bitter divorcees and their dogs."

Sad, really. Men need to be molded by their interactions with the pain of women....this just stops with scolding.

AU's Audacity of Dopes

The atheists [erm...] freedom-preserving faithful at Americans United (against Churches oops, I keep doing that!) have issued a call to SC to ban an "I Believe" license plate.

[A] retired United Methodist minister served as lead plaintiff in Americans United’s lawsuit, Summers v. Adams, which asked the court to halt South Carolina from producing an auto tag favoring one religious group over others.

This plate, unlike those requested by private groups and organizations, originated in the South Carolina legislature and was passed by statute. The plate features a cross, a stained-glass window and the words “I Believe.” No other faith group has been offered a similar plate, let alone those who want a plate stating, “I Do Not Believe.”

Let's take a look at this link to SC DMV plates.

Secular Humanists of the Low Country Plate

Although Secular Humanist of the Low Country is a membership based organization the “In Reason We Trust” plate is available to all SC residents. The fee for the plate is $30.00 every two years in additional to the regular registration fee. As a non-profit organization, the Secular Humanists of the Low Country do not receive any portion of the funds generated from the license plate sales.

Call me crazy, but for the life of me that looks just like an “I Do Not Believe” license plate.

Plates promoting Fishing, Wildlife Conservation, Golf, NASCAR, Education, Home Ownership and even [gasp] the national motto of In God We Trust - all of these are okay. Same with any number of voluntary organizations like colleges, schools, Freemasons, etc. Heck...they even have one for squardancing and the Carolina Shag, the states official dance. Just don't have anything to do with the church.

They're also up in a dander about the Choose Life plate. (Doesn't that go hand in hand with the shag plate anyway?)

If the DMV chooses to appeal the decision, AU will be ready. The state already failed in its appeal defending a law allowing a “Choose Life” plate back in 2006. It’s astonishing, and a waste of taxpayer funds, that state officials would want to continue pushing this when it is clearly a violation of church-state separation, Khan said.

Absolutely right. It's a horrendous waste of taxpayer money to present a plate that raises money from voluntary contributors. (Willikers! Obama is going to make sure you can use that money to fund more abortions...sounds like a win to you dweebs.)

Let's get something straight. THE RIGHT TO LIFE IS A PROTECTION GRANTED BY NATURAL LAW AND GUARANTEED BY THE CONSTITUTION. Civilized countries know this. It's not a church-state issue.

“I wish our legislators would read the Constitution as avidly as they read public opinion polls,” Jones, a Unitarian minister, wrote in a column for The State, South Carolina’s largest newspaper (See “Illicit License.”)

Yeah, me too. Vide supra!

Summers and Knight, both Christian leaders, also saw the legislators’ decision to approve this plate as demeaning to the faith they cherish.

“They are taking a Christian symbol and using it for marketing and advertising purposes,” Summers said. “This is an abuse and misuse of the Christian cross.”

Okay, Summers. What should we do with people that take the Christian ministry and use that for agitating and political purposes?

Hunter and the Hunted

The Daily Mail reported on a harrowing hunt in Barrow, Alaska.


Apparently, Barrow (Alaska's northernmost town) has a history of these critters getting after folks. I'll bet this guy stands behind his governor's approval of the reducing polar bear population.

But he may have a question about why she didn't gun it down, since she can apparently see a lot from her front porch.


h/t PhDiva