Mother Jesus

Episcopal Presiding Bishop-elect Katherine Jefferts Schori has ... brass. Only days after her election, the London Times reports,

Dr Schori signalled her feminist credentials in a sermon that drew on the writings of the 14th-century Julian of Norwich. She said: “Mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation — and you and I are His children. If we’re going to keep on growing into Christ images for the world around us, we’re going to have to give up fear.”

The General Convention has been a parlous affair, its every painful moment reported in the international media, and she in now one of the very few female Anglican primates in a communion that still has great reservations about women priests. You might have thought her sermon would have been something straightforward and unexceptionable, on the order of "Jesus loves me, this I know /For the Bible tells me so." In the ears of many traditionalists, "Mother Jesus" is decidedly exceptionable language.

But should it be?

The Times adds:

Liberals in Britain and America defended her sermon as being in a long tradition of writings by women theologians that use the metaphor of Jesus as mother.

Certainly true -- and Dame Julian is certainly common coin in modern Anglican circles. But the maternal Jesus is not merely the province of female theologians. The same image is used often in medieval writing by men, especially Cistercian monks, and most especially St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard is of such importance to the history of theology that he is sometimes called "the Last of the Fathers." There's a classic essay on how he used "Mother" as a term both for Jesus and for himself as abbot, by Caroline Walker Bynum.

Nor did the tradition die with Bernard. The same images -- of Jesus and the parish pastor as "Mothers" -- were used repeatedly by John Donne, the Dean of St Paul's and a key figure in conservative, high-church Anglicanism of the 17th century. (There is a chapter on this in my STM thesis, available for publication if anybody is interested . . . ).

I saw Bishop Schori bashed a little (okay, a lot) for using this image on a blog today. Even when somebody pointed out the Biblical use of maternal imagery for God, the blogger just kept going. But I suspect he was a Baptist, and may have lacked a keen sense of tradition. Bishop Schori, as an Anglican, is expected to preach with the whole cloud of witnesses around her -- and in this case, she evidently did.

Alas, Poor Rowan

An English writer cheers the US Episcopal Church for refusing to be intimidated by other Anglican provinces, and -- more pointedly -- portrays the Archbishop of Canterbury as a man who has surrendered his ideals.

This may be an oversimplification. PECUSA is a mess right now, and it is hard to cheer much for a mess. And Archbishop Rowan Williams is attempting a task which seems frankly impossible: to hold both the CofE and the Anglican Communion together.

Still, Michael Hampson makes an interesting case. His brief piece includes some things I did not know, especially the Coelkin case (which is somewhere between Mother Angelica vs. Cardinal Mahoney and Lefebvre vs the Vatican). It is worth reading.

Spinning Clergy

So a couple of ministers make a movie about football. It gets a PG rating, which is about what they expected. Then, so far as we can tell, here's what happens:

The MPAA, which rates films, gives Facing the Giants a PG for "mature themes." These are pretty common in pictures about guys pounding the crap out of each other then getting naked and showering together. (See under: North Dallas Forty, or Cruising.)

But somehow, the religious themes of the movie also come up in conversation. So the producers decide that they got their rating based on religious bias, rather than the aforementioned pounding and showering. And they raise a big stink, and are joined by the usual crowd of thugs and morons, by which we mean the US House of Representatives.

Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., sent an angry letter to the MPAA. "If religion creates a warning for parents and kids and violence and bad language don't, this thing appears to me to be heading in the wrong direction, and I think most Americans would agree," Blunt said.

Can you smell the spin here, people? An indie flick about football is pretty ho-hum stuff; but an indie flick about football that's been censored by the evil ratings bureaucracy and defended by a few stalwart people of faith -- well, heck, that's a cause celebre. (Or would be, if Republicans could read French). It's all a crock, of course. That's not why they got the rating. But wouldn't it be cool if it were? Think of the tickets they'd sell, the church-group DVDs, the Hollywood offers. So even though it isn't true, they must have decided, let's just say it is.

And we'll even find a pet Congressman to go in on the gag. (Blunt knows from spin -- he's married to a tobacco lobbyist. Not Aaron Eckhardt, though.)

Here's the funniest part -- and we don't mean ha-ha-funny:

One of the filmmakers said he'd want to be warned if his children were going to see a film with a pro-Islamic message. "But our country wasn't founded on Islamic values," [said producer-star Alex Kendrick.] "It was founded on Judeo-Christian values."

This defender of free speech actually approves of warning moviegoers about religious content, provided it isn't his religion. Yeah, that's the spirit that made America great, isn't it?

Searching the House

You know the story by now: FBI searches the office of a congressman. Congress raises a stink. Bureau chief and Attorney General threaten to resign if search is ruled illegal.

A couple of interesting thoughts present themselves. One is the studious secrecy of the Bush Administration itself. These people claim "executive privilege" at the drop of a hat, even for such basic details as which industry lobbyists the Veep meets with before making policy. Never mind the outright lies that Scott "Pudgie" McClellan used to tell in his effort to stonewall the Plame investigation. So is it just me, or is there a faint aroma of hypocrisy here?

After all, executive privilege exists so that the President and his team can do their work without coercion from the other branches. Although Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution doesn't specify that a congressman's chambers shall be off-limits to an Executive Branch investigation, it certainly tends in that direction. It exempts them from prosecution, or even questioning, for things they do on the floor of Congress. As with soveriegn or diplomatic immunity, legislators are freed from certain kinds of scrutiny in order to let them function independently. So you can see why Speaker Hastert and Minority Leader Pelosi, strange bedfellows to be sure, are ticked off at the White House.

But let's give the devil his due. Rep. William Jefferson of Louisian is accused of accepting bribes. Does anybody actually doubt his guilt? I mean, the guy's a congressman. From Louisiana. Of course he took the money. So you can also see why he was under investigation in the first place, and why AG Gonzales and FBI Guy Mueller are ready to quit over this. He probably broke the law, they know it, and they want to put him in jail. Rightly so, if only the search were legal.

And oh my stars and garters, will you look at this. President Bush actually arranged a compromise -- a 45-day period for both sides to cool their jets. While it is a pleasant novelty to type the words "Bush" and "compromise" in the same sentence, let's be honest about this. Washington in general, and the House in particular, are places in which a lot of old grudges remain in play, seemingly without terminus. The two parties are still pissed at each other over Vietnam and Watergate, disasters which predate the birth of the average blogger. The Whitewater investigators spent six years looking into allegations that were already a decade old. The power elites have gotten over Teapot Dome, but only just.

So jets are going to cool in six weeks? We think not. This time-out is probably just a chance for both sides to marshall their forces. And remember, the sides in question aren't Republican versus Democrat. They are Executive versus Legislative -- or, it sometimes seems, autocrat versus .

But here's the silver lining: Gonzales and Mueller threatened to resign if they don't get their own way. So if Bush were a really smart politician, this could be a great opportunity. He could simply insist that the privileges of Congress be respected, and the seized documents be returned -- simultaneously striking a blow for the Constitution and forcing out the single most articulate spokesman for the illegal and immoral practice of torture that has helped to taint his administration's place in history and the good name of the United States.

Win-win, Mister President. Win-freaking-win.

Neuhaus Defends Sex Abuser

To its credit, Benedict XVI's Vatican has done what John Paul's dared not: publicly disciplined a highly-placed figure accused of abusing young men under his religious care. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, has been "invited" to refrain from any public exercise of his priestly office, and turn to a life of "prayer and penitence." (Read the Vatican's press release).

The Times article gives details, but the bottom line is that at least nine former seminarians claim Maciel molested them. He denies the claims, as do his supporters -- well, of course he does. It seems John Paul was believed those denials. And Benedict, as a cardinal, had personally ended a 1999 proceeding against Maciel.

But as the monstrous reality of Rome's coverup culture has become more apparent, Cardinal Ratzinger re-opened the Maciel case, and talked about getting rid of "filth" in the Church. The Vatican statement expressly stated that, due to his age and ill-health, Maciel would be spared a trial -- but the implication is clearly that a trial might otherwise be forthcoming.

To be sure, some people don't think Benedict has gone far enough. "They have negotiated with a criminal," says one former priest. Well, yes. But district attorneys do that every time they offer a plea bargain -- and the guilty still get punished.

Here's the part that kills us, though. Maciel has a number of prominent defenders in the Catholic neo-con camp: think George Weigel, Bill Bennett, Mary Anne Glendon. (Where is Michael "Warmonger" Novak, we wonder?) One of these is Richard John Neuhaus, who seems to be getting a little weirder in his old age. Here are the money quotes:

On Friday, Father Neuhaus . . . said he still believed that the charges against Father Maciel were unfounded. "There is nothing in the Vatican statement that suggests that the word penance is meant as a punitive measure," he said.

Asked why the Vatican would take any action, he said, "It wouldn't be the first time that an innocent and indeed holy person was unfairly treated by church authority."

A little disingenuous, don't you think?

First, let's remember what penance is: turning to God and asking forgiveness. For what? For sins. The Vatican doesn't specify which sins -- nor would we ask it to -- but the invitation to penance is clearly offered as the result of an investigation and the alternative to a trial. So yes, there is something in the statement which suggests a punitive measure, even if it doesn't make such a claim expressly.

And second, if we are going to extend charity toward our neighbors, should we not begin by assuming that nine men are less likely to lie than a single one, and to assume that the Pope knows something about his own affairs?

Giuliani Proves Shakespeare Wrong

Rudy Giuliani, in a campaign speech for Ralph Reed, declared heterosexual marriage to be "inviolate." Oy, vey. Where to begin?

First: As the Times notes, Giuliani was finessing his long-standing support for gay civil unions. One has to assume that Reed's conservative supporters will see through this pretty quickly. And in a just world, support for Reed would alienate Giuliani's own moderate base.

Second: Giuliani is selling his soul by supporting Reed's homophobic Christianist campaign in Georgia. No surprise there; as we ramp up for the '08 Presidential campaign, souls are going for cheap. Anybody remember McCain's little visit to Liberty U.?

But here's where the rubber hits the road, people --

Third: Inviolate? What does this guy know about keeping marriage inviolate? Let's review.

(a) Giuliani's first marriage was to his second cousin, Regina Peruggi. Under canon law, this is grounds for an annullment, which he sought and received. Not right away, mind you, but after fourteen years together. Fourteen years. And -- key concept here -- he "learned" about the blood relationship and got the annullment while he was in the middle of an adulterous affair with TV personality Donna Hanover, whom he later married.

(b) Giuliani's second marriage, to Ms. Hanover, was an ugly thing. During his tenure as Mayor of New York, he was generally believed to be engaged in an affair with one of his subordinates, press secretary Crystyne Lategano, who later got a plum political appointment. They denied it all, to be sure, but nobody believed them. So there -- if the speculation is true -- we have adultery coupled with abuse of power coupled with nepotism and topped with an icing of lies.

(c) Even if the first affair isn't certain, the second is. While still married to Hanover, and still mayor, Giuliani started sleeping with Judith Nathan. (They marched in the St. Patrick's Day Parade together, for crying out loud -- the way normal mayors usually do with their wives. Oh, and he later married her.) Giuliani and Hanover had an ugly, public squabble over who could live in Gracie Mansion -- and of course, their kids got caught in the middle. In the divorce proceedings, he accused her of "cruel and inhuman treatment," while she accused him of "open and notorious adultery." Which argument was more convincing? Well, she gets a million dollars a year in alimony.

So. Rudy Giuliani is a serial adulterer, a liar, a man who doesn't mind dragging his kids through the mud that he creates with his disdain for marriage vows. And, since Rome won't annull his second marriage, he is also presumably unwelcome to receive communion in his own church.

So maybe this guy should keep his big mouth shut on the subject of making marriage "inviolate." In any case, his speech in Georgia proves that Shakespeare is wrong -- conscience doth NOT make cowards of us all. Or does that only work if you have a conscience?

"Code" Encourages Interfaith Cooperation

Three cheers for "The Da Vinci Code!"

Sure, it's a crock of lies packaged as trashy fiction. Sure, the "Priory of Sion" doesn't exist, despite Dan Brown's claims. Sure, Opus Dei -- dubious though it may be -- is nothing like the organization the book depicts. Sure, albino monks all over the world feel personally discriminated against. And sure, I'll never again walk through the front door of a Gothic church without squirming.

But the book manages to tick off not only the usual Christian crowd -- the Catholic League, TV preachers, etc. -- but also a fair sample of the moderate mainline. By uniting the extremists and the moderates, it strikes a blow for Christian unity.

And better yet, it also ticks off Muslims. (Remember, Jesus PBUH is a prophet.) And we all know what Muslims do when they get angry, don't we? Hide your ambassadors and intelligence attaches -- embassies will burn.

In fact, with the respect for freedom we have come to expect from our Asian neighbors, there are loud calls to ban the movie version in India and Korea. What tickles the Egg is that these calls come both from Christians and from Muslims "in support of our Christian brothers."

As Isaiah says, the lion shall burn embassies with the lamb.

So let's hear it for the Code -- a media product so objectionable it can turn age-old enemies into riot-prone enemies of free speech.

Two Dumb Complaints

A Sri Lankan bishop postpones his trip to Britain because he believes that being fingerprinted at the embassy is "humiliating" and "discriminatory." Get real. At various foreign borders, I have been searched, probed, detained, lied to, denied a passport stamp, held at gunpoint, and robbed. Friends have had drugs planted in their baggage so that they could be forced to pay a bribe (the Peruvian police take credit cards). Those were humiliating and discriminatory. But offering my fingerprints in an effort to make international travel safer strikes me as the least a person of good consciece can do in these parlous times. Or, put bluntly: Wake up and smell the terrorism, Your Grace.

A Navy chaplain complains of religious persecution. He argues that the Navy wants to discipline him for praying in uniform. But this is disingenuous; he happened to pray while appearing in uniform at a politically-motivated press conference. And -- as the Right has recently taking to reminding retired generals -- there are strict rules governing the involvment of the military in civilian political affairs. (The difference being that the said generals have returned to civilian life, while Lt. Klingenschmitt remains on active duty. For now.)

Oh, and be alert: Friends in military chaplaincy have been worrying for years about the grpwing dominance of fundmentalists with a a hard-right political agenda. (See under: Air Force Academy). Klingenschmitt is a symptom, not the problem.

Episcopalians Dodge Bullet.

For now.

The California Diocese elected Mark Andrus as its next bishop. There were seven candidates; of those, two were gay men and one was a lesbian. One of the men was black. So this was, as these things go, a very diverse slate.

[Note to self: Aren't you sick of using "diverse" so superficially? For all I know, the whole group held the precise same social and theological views, exercised the same leadership in the same way, and so forth. There are other kinds of diversity than race, sex and nookie -- but mainline American Christianity doesn't care about anything else anymore.]

Anyway, the Spirit moved the diocese to choose Andrus, thereby postponing -- sorry, I meant averting -- a schism in the Anglican Communion. That was, surely, not the purpose of the vote -- the people needed a bishop, and sought the best person for the job. Averting schism was just a happy side effect. (Which is why, sooner or later, there will be a schism.)

Meanwhile, the Anglicans in Canada have come out against the proposed Nigerian law that would restrict basic human rights not only for gay people but for churches that serve them and newspaers that write about them. They "disassociated" themselves from the Church of Nigeria, which supports the law. Oh, yeah. There's a schism coming.

David Blain is an Idiot.

There. It had to be said.

How "Opal Mehta" Got Published, Got Revealed, and Got Yanked Off the Shelves

By now you've heard about 19-year-old Kaavya Viswanathan and her novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life. The big news is that Viswanathan plagiarized sections of her book from another writer, Megan McCafferty. Now it turns out she also lifted a few chunks from Sophie Kinsella's The Princess Diaries and Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

That's the big news. But let's talk about the smaller, but still interesting, parts of the story.

First, money. Her publishers paid Viswanathan something like $500,000 as an advance. She's 19 years old. There are some very, very good writers in this country who never earn a dollar for their work, and many of the best never make a living at it. So whose bright idea was it to ante up half a million dollars for a teenager's first novel?

Second, Harvard's literary standards. I hope her English professors take note of the fact that she's ripping off crap. (Not you, Salman.) If you're going to steal, baby, why not steal from Flaubert?

Third, Harvard's ethical standards. (And everybody else's.) I recently taught course at an up-and-coming third-tier private college. Two sections, 25 students each. I had four cases of plagiarism. In each case, the boneheads had simply pasted in material they copied from the Internet -- Wikipedia, mostly, and one Wiccan site. (Something about that "wick" sound, I guess). They cried crocodile tears when I gave them "D"s, not seeming to understand (despite my rather stern comments and repeated references to both Turabian and the student handbook) that the normal punishment for plagiarism on a college term paper is expulsion. Or at least it was when I was a young 'un.

"What do you expect from these kids," I said to myself. "They're studying at Party U.; it's not like this place is ... I dunno ... Harvard." Except it turns out that it IS as though that place were Harvard, with less money.

My students claimed, without exception, that nobody had ever explained to them why it is wrong to take credit for things that somebody else has written. They had, by the way, gone to good high schools, several of them church-affiliated. So from the middle of American higher education to the top, it appears that there is a student culture which takes for granted what we old fogeys still call plagiarism. Call it hommagerie, or the age of sampling. Call it by the polite Biblical-studies term of pseudepigrapha. But either way, look for many sequels to Opal Mehta.

Nigerian Bishop Hates Sin AND Sinner

"Hate the sin, love the sinner." That was the mantra of my conservative seminary classmates, tossed around so blithely in discussions of homosexuality that it came to induce instant nausea. And yet, let's be honest, it does describe a defensible position, in discussions far more wide-ranging than those of mere sexual morality.

The anti-gay crowd has hewn to this line in the debates which are slowly dividing worldwide Anglicanism (here's the New Yorker's take, reasonably good by secular-press standards). They have inisted that while they consider homesexuality sinful, they continue to care pastorally for gay people, and object to any legal or civil institutions which "victimize or diminish" them.

Or at least they did. Seems that Nigerian archbishop Peter Akinola, a leader of the anti-gay forces, "recently threw his prestige and resources behind a new law that would criminalize same-sex marriage in his country and deny gay citizens the freedoms to assemble and petition their government. The law would also infringe upon press and religious freedom by authorizing Nigeria's government to prosecute newspapers that publicize same-sex associations and religious organizations that permit same-sex unions."

The quotation is from an op-ed piece by Bishop Chane of Washington, which has appeared in the WashPost and on the Episcopal Life website.

Apparently, the man who has become the living symbol of the global south's position on sexual morality is also happy to associate himself with the global south's endemic contempt for human rights. I hope that conservatives within America's Episcopal Church think long and hard about whether Akinola is somebody they want to, er, climb into bed with. Even proverbially.

Outraged Christians Burn Embassies

Not really. And that's the point.

A new movie has outraged Indian Christians with its depiction of a nun who falls in love and whose "attempts to flee the convent supposedly create hilarious situations." The poster is a sort of hommage to the Seven-Year Itch, and it has Indian Christians, especially priest and nuns, pretty hot under the collar (or wimple).

Well, okay, I admit it: we in the West have become inured to this sort of petty insult. Naughty nuns were a staple of Reformation-era polemic literature. More recently, we've put up with singing nuns and flying nuns, albeit pretty decorous ones; but also nuns on the run, nunsense, Sister Mary Ignatius, Whoopie Goldberg (twice). And there's a lot worse out there -- nuns having sex, nuns possessed by demons, nuns and abortions. I won't tell you where to find it 'cuz that stuff is gross, but you all know how Google works. And even though every nun I've ever known personally was in late middle age and dressed like a second-grade teacher, the TV and movie nuns are nearly all smoking hot and dressed in pre-Vatican habits. But with heels.

The mind reels. The people who make nun movies have, so far as I can tell, never met an actual nun.

Anyway, inured or not, let's make no mistake: a lot of this stuff isn't just irreverent, it's insulting. To Catholics, to Christians, to common sense. So, even if we can't get too very excited about it, the Egg certainly does understand the restiveness among Indian Christians. They're ticked, and they deserve to be. This is an insult to some of their mostl deeply held beliefs and most deeply revered figures.

But guess what? No embassies burning. No movie studios in flames. No kidnap videos, or assassinations. And I'm going to go out on a limb, and wager that there aren't going to be any, not over this. And that, gentle reader, tells a great deal about the difference between outraged Christians and outraged Muslims. Doesn't it?

Pastor Kills Girl

Terrible story from Kennewick, Washington: Randall Foos, an ELCA pastor, was driving his car and hit a bicylist. Her name was Sara Casey, she was 19 years old, and she died. Pastor Foos has been arraigned on charges of second-degree manslaughter.

This is an awful thing, but we all know that traffic accidents happen. Here's the part that ticks us off at the Egg: the accident took place in 2003. Foos has only just been charged because of new evidence that, three years ago, he couldn't see well enough to drive.

This raises some questions. First: Did anybody test his vision after the accident? Police, insurance companies, anybody? And second, which is more to our point: Don't Christian ethics -- which are more stringent than state traffic laws -- require a blind driver to admit that his blindness has resulted in a young woman's death?

Now, the jury is still out -- literally, figuratively, whatever. Maybe the "new evidence" is misleading. Prosecutors have been known to suffer an excess of zeal. Maybe the guy's vision was better than the state will argue. Maybe the bicylist was pedalling recklessly, without the right reflectors, and a person with 20-20 eyes would have hit her just as easily.

But here's the part that makes me shudder: If this man is guilty, how has he lived with himself these past three years?

Pro-Life & Pro-Choice Sides Agree!

After years of bitter debate, pro-choice and pro-life activists have agreed to bury the hatchet -- in Britney Spears.

Or anyway, in a sculpture that shows her giving birth, naked, on a bear-skin rug. The sculpture, "Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston," was made by Daniel Edwards, whose resume includes a bust of Ted Williams' severed head.

The Brooklyn gallery where it is to be displayed has been pounded with emails from concerned political extremists. The pro-choice side doesn't like the name, the pro-life side doesn't like the subject. (Remember, they're the same power bloc that draped a nude statue in the Justice Department. A far more decourous nude sculpture, too.)

The sculptor doesn't care. Doesn't side with either party on this. He just wants to be rich and famous. And here's the Egg, helping him toward that lofty goal.

A Tale of Two Converts

The first is a fellow in Afghanistan. You know, "free," post-Taliban Afghanistan. Abdul Rahman converts from Islam to Christianity, and now prosecutors are calling for the death penalty.

Why? Because, even though the new, USA-approved Afghan constitution claims to recognize international conventions regarding human rights, it also lets shariah prevail when there is any conflict. And under shariah, as we all know too well, apostasy is punishable by death. Oh, and if the court doesn't kill him, senior Afghan clerics have promised to incite mob violence that will.

(The guy may get off the hook because he's insane. The judge certainly hopes he will. Go ahead, my secular humanist friends, make your obvious jokes about Christianity. But remember that Stalin classified a lot of people as insane when they disagreed whith his party line, too.)

The second fellow is Phillippe Troussier, a French soccer coach (or "le football," as they say). He and his wife have converted from Christianity to Islam. Nobody is calling for much of anything. Certainly not death. Why? Because France is actually a free country, in which basic human rights (such as freedom of religion) are protected by law.

Yes, yes, I know: the French won't let schoolchildren wear burkahs or crosses in class, which to American ears doesn't sound like freedom. But it is, in a convoluted Gallic way, because it keeps religious symbols, and any bias based on them, out of state schools.

Darkly funny remark from Islam Online, quoted in the article: "thousands of French revert to Islam every year in France, but not all of them declare their new faith outright, fearing discrimination at home or work and a stereotypical view that reverts tilt towards extremism."

Poor babies. They're afraid of job discrimination. And why is it that Muslim converts to Christianity, even in Western countries, often keep silent? Are they afraid of job discrimination, too? Oh, right: they're afraid of being murdered.

How Bad Is It?

Sandra Day O'Connor thinks the United States is slipping toward dictatorship.

The recently-retired Supreme Court Justice cites the increasing numbers of death threats directed toward judges, and -- in particular -- efforts by the other branches of government to interfere with the independence of the judiciary.

The money quote is:

"We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."

Good God, this is scary stuff. Paranoiacs of both left and right have always warned about an American dictatorship, going back at least as far as the Jefferson presidency.

But Sandra Day O'Connor, a Reagan appointee whose departure is mourned most by Democrats, is not the Mel Gibson character in "Conspiracy Theory." Nor is she a politico on the hustings, seeking to motivate voters by the application of fear. She is the opposite of all these things: a an elder stateswoman, one of the longerst-serving of the nation's living leaders -- and a retiree from what is, in any case, the most circumspect of the three branches. These people aren't glib, they aren't facile, they aren't alarmist.

So ask yourself:

How bad do things have to get for a retired Supreme to warn us about dictatorship? And how bad does that mean things already are?

Motley Fool Opines on NY Senate Race

The New York senate race is shaping up to be another high point in the saga of democracy.

The Democratic candidate is the incumbent, Hillary Clinton. For reasons that elude the Egg, she makes conservative blood boil like nobody's business. This despite the fact -- or perhaps because of it -- that she has proven to be a pretty good senator.

So you might think the Republicans would throw their heavy artillery at her: Pataki. Giuliani. Well, not those guys of course -- they both want to run for President. But somebody like that.

Instead, the first challenger was Westchester DA Jeannine Pirro. She's a pretty good DA. She wasn't much of a candidate, though. She made a fool of herself in her first press conference, and things went downhill from there. And her husband seems to be a crook, which is generally not the way to atttract "law & order" votes. They pulled her before the embarrassment could get much worse.

So now comes John Spencer -- not the late lamented actor who played Leo McGarry, but a former mayor of Yonkers. Lovely town, Yonkers, if you can just get past the town. Spencer's a soi-disant "Reagan Republican," which doesn't necessarily mean he's a low-IQ ideologue who switched parties, divorced his wife, advertised cigarettes as a health aid, and told "personal stories" that were really plots from old movies. It does mean he takes the standard hard-right positions: anti-immigrant, anti-abortion, pro-gun.

He also comes up with gems like this: that Sen. Clinton "aids and abets" America's enemies with her criticism of President Bush's handling of the Iraq war. (That despite Bush's own statement that "it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my ... conduct of the war.")

Spencer's primary opponent, as of recently, is a Kathleen Troia McFarland, a more traditional New York Republican -- Park Avenue blue-blood with liberal social views. (Never forget: this combination brought us Nelson A. Rockefeller, of blessed memory).

So here's where the fun starts. The Post quotes McFarland's self-description in a pre-campaign memorandum: "I believe in a woman's right to choose, stem-cell research and full civil rights for gays. Our family worships in the Episcopal Church, but we are not evangelical."

Well. To hear the Rev. Duane Motley tell it, she has -- by simply describing herself -- issued a fatwa against all "Evangelicals." (The word has been misappropriated, but never mind...) Per Motley, "She's saying, 'I'm a Rockefeller Republican, I'm not one of those religious wackos over there on the right . . . she's insinuating that evangelicals are the religious right and they're controlling things in the country. Well, evangelicals are not running the country, I wish they were, but they're not."

Defensive much, Duane? She's saying no such thing, obviously -- however much one might wish it were true. But Motley doesn't hear what she's actually saying; he hears an entirely different speech, one directed against him. This is what family-systems therapists call a reaction against self-differentiation. In other words, simply by saying "Here's who I am," McFarland has earned the sputtering rage of Duane Motley, who can't live with the fact she is different from himself. This is scary stuff. It is a sleazy kind of religious bigotry. Put bluntly, in the new world of American politics, candidates no longer have the right to announce their religious views, whatever those may be -- they are required to claim at least token allegiance to the militant Christianists.

Meanwhile, Spencer is calling McFarland "a Clinton pawn," and so forth. Sure she is, John. Because I'm sure she'd prefer to fight a long, hard battle against a classic made-for-New York Republican who shares many of her social views but (a) is aligned with the ruling party and (b) lacks her many negatives. Rather, that is, than crush you like a bug, and Duane Motley with you.

But here, for my money, is the kicker: McFarland was a Pentagon official during the Reagan era. Unlike Spencer, who claims the mantle, she actually worked for President Reagan. On defense and security issues. So if you're a knee-jerk right winger, ask yourself: Who in this primary combines authentic Gipper bona fides with a legitimate chance of winning? And if you're not, then ask yourself: Who in this race combines traditional New York Republican values and genuine Defense Department national-security experience?

And who's just blowing demagogue smoke?

Disappointment of the Week

You don't have to click -- the Times headline tells all: "Advisers Say Discontent Hasn't Discouraged Bush."

Of course it hasn't. Why should it? Losing the 2000 election didn't discourage him. His own witless failure to read the PDB warnings about bin Laden didn't discourage him. Letting bin Laden escape at Tora Bora didn't discourage him. When Daddy's point man Unca Brent warned him that Iraq would be a bad move, it didn't discourage him. Forcing Colin Powell to lie to the UN about WMDs didn't discourage him. The Downing Street Memo that proves he knew about the lies doesn't discourage him. The steady stream of former staff members who either say outright (Richard Clarke, Anthony Zinni) or imply by their silence (Powell) that he combines a frightening zeal for war with a stunning lack of aptitude for fighting it hasn't discouraged him. Squandering the surplus and creating a gazillion-dollar deficit that will be paid off by our great-grandchildren doesn't discourage him. The evident need to keep changing rationales for a pre-emptive war that defies both international law and the traditions of the faith he so vocally espouses didn't discourage him. Having his torturers and secret prisons revealed to the world didn't discourage him. Having his administration called "Worse Than Watergate" by one of the Watergate conspirators (!) didn't discourage him.

The man is positively undiscourageable.

Not to mention shameless. Not to mention unimpeachable, no matter how much Garrison Keillor and I might wish it otherwise.

Or, to put it another way: He doesn't care about the facts. He doesn't care about the will of the voters. He doesn't care about the good of the Republic, now or in the years to come. Why on earth should anybody expect him to care about a few rebellious voices in a party so ferociously disciplined that it will easily silence them before they can actually do any good?

Sex Sells (Biblical Version)

Interesting and not-snide article from the Kansas City Star on the Song of Songs. Apparently, some people -- meaning some US evangelicals -- are rediscovering the naughty thrills of the Song, and using them to draw crowds.

I know these thrills well. In a long-gone Confirmation Class, my lay catechist described it as "the Bible's dirty book," and said that in some pious households the pages were glued together to keep children from reading them. Always an oponent of censorship, I rushed home and read the thing start to finish.

Honestly? I was a little disappointed. Great poetry, but not the easiest stuff to read. There seems to be an underlying narrative, but the details are awfully hard to figure out. Readers usually wind up imposing their own heavy-handed interpretations on the text. (To judge from the Star article, the Kansas evangelical preachers choose a narrative that is very, very different from my own. I see -- and have preached -- a tale of forbidden love, love outside the boundaries of social convention, perhaps even the law. They seem to see a married couple on the honeymoon. Well, as we said in the Seventies, whatever gets you through the night.)

But here's something interesting: several of the editors and professors quoted for the article mentioned that they had never seen (or presumably heard) a sermon on the Song. Okay, the Song is one of those books -- like Esther -- that lectionary committees have traditionally skipped over. So it's an understandable omission for those of us who use the lectionary -- but passing strange in the free-church world. This is great stuff, and powerful stuff, and if you spin it jussssst right, it can even be stuff that speaks clearly about God's love.

Here's my proposal: Let's make 2006 the Year of the Song. I challenge my free-church readers (there must be one) to lead a summer series on it. For the rest of us, perhaps a mid-week Bible study. Or thinking about it in relation to our appointed texts -- surely a creative mind can find in the Song some relationship to St. Mark's Gospel.

Yes, there will be a few repressed pew-sitters who wig out. But there always are -- if not over this, then over a sermon explaining that torture is bad, that the poor need our help, or that God is not actually in the White House. And isn't that always one of the joys of priesthood?

Renewing Worship?

Lutherans -- or at least their publishing house -- have long felt the need for a new hymnal and service book. (Unlike our Anglican cousins, we typically combine the two). Be careful what you feel the need for.

1978's Lutheran Book of Worship is a masterpiece of liturgical scholarship. Inter alia, it restored to the Eucharist an eschatological dimension; eliminated faux-Jacobean worship dialect; offered three practical Mass settings, appropriate for congregations with differing levels of musical skill; acknowledged that the introit had become an anachronism; and offered elegant orders for daily prayer, which have drawn praise from no less an authority than Robert Taft. And plenty more.

But it was never perfect. It lacked a complete psalter. The hymn choices and harmonizations were sometimes questionable, and the texts were frequently altered to dubious effect. The emphasis upon German, Scandinavian and "traditional" 19th-C. American hymnody became ever more limiting, as Lutherans struggled to receive the gifts of African and Latin American Christianity.

So now comes "Renewing Worship," the culmination of a 15-year process, now in its last stages. A new book will be published soon -- and this is a big event in American Lutheranism. We take our "new books" seriously. Which makes the readily apparent problems with Renewing Worship especially worrisome. Here are a few preliminary concerns. I'll raise more later:

Inclusive language. Well, the Egg is all for it. Strongly, loudly, frequently. The LBW rightly eliminated the "masculine neuter," an historically questionable grammatical trick by which both men and women were referred to as "man" or even "men." God -- as Trinity, Christ, Father and Spirit -- remained "he." A few congregations have adopted the practice of emending the texts to remove masculine pronouns for God -- a common enough practice among US Protestants. (The Romans flirted with this, but Rome told them to stop.) Most haven't.

RW goes further in this direction. A few more hymns lose their pronouns -- hardly a surprise.

And the truth is that hymn texts have always -- always -- been subject to ideological editing. We love Luther's Lord Keep Us Steadfast, but it is a long time since we sang about "murd'rous Turk and papist's sword." How many of us have ever sung the true verse 3 of Lift High the Cross? (It's about "false sons" of the Church, "those who hate her," all meaning exponents of the Higher Criticism). Or verse 3 of "Faith of Our Fathers," about how "Mary's prayers" will overthrow Anglicanism?

But RW goes a step too far: It gender-neutralizes the Psalter. We are not talking about the sort of gender-accurate translation that the NIV publishers tried a few years ago, before Southern baptists threatened a boycott. We are talking about translations which distort the Biblical text. Psalm 1 -- "Blessed is the man" -- becomes "blessed are they." In Hebrew, it's "ha-ish." That's "the man." A person in general, or humanity in general, is "enosh."

More typically, this business involves a change from third to second person -- God is not "he" but "you," which the publishers call "the language of prayer." Oh, piffle. The psalms themselves are the language of prayer -- they have been for millennia. And they aren't like hymns -- they are are Scripture. They shape the way we pray, and we dare not reshape them to fit our desires. If we don't like them, we should pray something else (and find another religion. Taoism is sort of nice).

The publisher's note is a little deceptive. It claims this second-person business is common in Hebrew poetry, and brags about the "Lutheran Old Testament scholars" who have been consulted. All well and good, but it skips over the basic, irreducible fact that the words are being mistranslated. People in the pews deserve, at the very least, to know this.

But this isn't really what burns our britches at the Egg. As I said, we like inclusive language. We really, really do. Here's what gives us agita:

Dumbing It Down. There's a great song by folk-rock-Lutheran guy Jonathan Rundman about how often leaders dumb down the language -- and content -- of worship. This idea is always to welcome strangers, by making worship accessible even to the uninitiated. So they make it sweet and easily digestible, like baby food. Get rid of the hard words. Replace the crucifix with a cross, and the cross with a painted angel. or better yet, an abstract design, so people can project onto it their own hopes and dreams for a religion.

But you are supposed to grow out of strained carrots and applesauce. The problem with these dumbed-down services is that they take away the substance, and never bring it back. And so the depth of the Christian message goes missing, and is not retrieved. Rundman's refrain ends, prophetically, "we're creating monsters." Damned right we are, with an emphasis on the "damned."

There aren't many good Transfiguration hymns. The best is probably "O Wondrous Type, O Vision Fair." Or was, until RW rendered it "O Wondrous Image." These words are close in meaning, but not the same. An image is, etymologically, an imitation -- as human beings are of God, or a picture of the thing depicted. In Christian theology, a "type" is something rather different -- a prefiguring, as the Ark is of the Church, say, or in this case, the Transfiguration is of the Resurrection. (In fairness, the original Latin of this hymn has the less precise word "forma;" John Mason Neale made the typological point explicit in his translation.)

Worse yet, consider one of the brilliant Eucharistic hymns by Thomas Aquinas. "Thee we adore, O hidden Savior" is the traditional, and accurate, translation of Adoro te devote, latens Deitas. The hiddenness of God is the whole point here -- that even though we cannot see or taste the presence of Christ, we nonetheless trust that he is present because he said so. A very Lutheran idea, by the way. Or it was, until RW butchered it: "Thee we adore, O Savior God most true." Still an accurate idea theologically -- but simply not the point of the verse or, indeed, the hymn. For an idea of how badly endumbed the RW version is, compare the seven-verse original seven-verse original to RW's four bastardized verses. (You'll have to scroll to find them; it's a long document, but the hymns are alphabetical). Worse yet, RW credits its translation to Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose actual version is so scrupulously good. (And we don't much like Hopkins, generally).

So what shall Lutherans do, if all this ticks them off a bit to much? Well, RW can't be stopped; it's almost in print. But that doesn't mean we have to buy it. The LBW is good for a few more years. This Far By Faith is a pretty good book. The Episcopalians have a hymnal, and their prayerbook is okay, except for the Calvinist parts. or maybe we should go back to the Common Service. I'm game if you are.

Because I Do Not Hope To Turn...

The line, of course, is from T.S. Eliot's poem for today, Ash Wednesday. Great poem, to be sure. But the first verse is misleading to a casual reader.

Ash Wednesday is all about turning. That is, turning away from sin and toward God. It is about repentance, reconciliation, return. For Christians, these things are always possible. No matter how far we have strayed, how low we have fallen, the presence of a loving God is no further away than one prayer, one sacrament, one turn in the opposite direction.

We have a lot to repent, no matter who we are. Republicans lie, Democrats are cowardly; the press asks foolish questions and fails to ask the ones that might make a difference; the rich forget the poor, and the poor burn with envy. America is fighting a war in which neither side uses just tactics, or even tries. (Here's more scary documentation of the Bush Administration's effort to make torture legal). Gay activisits want immediate change, and don't care if they split their churches; and their opponents want to live in the past forever, and don't care who they prevent from hearing the Gospel. And as for us who serve in the clergy ... well, our sins are at least as scarlet as anybody else's. At least.

But maybe this year we will change. Maybe this year we will repent, and be reconciled to God, and renew our spirits. Probably not -- but maybe. The possibility is always there. Whenever we want to come home, God is always willing to receive us. That's the point.

David Irving Stinks. Now Cut Him Loose.

The Globe and Mail gets it right. David Irving is "a Holocaust-denier, an anti-Semite and a racist," whose grotesque ravings include the claims that "Anne Frank could not have written her famous diary, that Hitler never gave an order to exterminate the Jews and that 'Auschwitz is a legend, just like the Turin Shroud.' " Although they don't say it, Irving is by any civilized standard a creep, a jerk and a buffoon.

But he doesn't belong in prison.

It does not take a genius to see that the German and Austrian laws against Holocaust denial are powerful symbols of the damage that Nazism did to, and through, those nations. They are a powerful sign of the commitment those nations made to acknowledge the crimes of their own citizens and governments, and to brook no neo-fascist foolishness.

But the laws are wrong.

Freedom of speech is not an option for a free society. It is a requirement. It cannot be dispensed with simply because the person speaking, or the things he says, are wicked. Irving's madness has made him a contemptible laughginstock among historians. But -- even if he has incidentally given comfort to the most wretched remainders of a justly defeated ideology -- he has not incited violence or given away national security information. (The question of whether he has slandered anybody is a bit dicier, but can surely be dealth with by a nation's usual laws).

If we are going to be repelled by Islamofascist fatwas against offensive Danish cartooning, we have little choice but to be equally repelled by Austrian imprisonment of a man for the presentation of offensive (and patently false) historical claims. And it is no contradiction to find Irving no less repellant than the laws which have convicted him.

Yowza -- Cheney Takes Responsibility!!!

In his interview with (who else?) Fox News, the Veep took complete responsibility for shooting a guy in the face. He disavowed, in particular, any effort to "make it Harry's fault." (Are you listening, Pudgie McClellan?)

For a moment, we at the Egg were thrilled by all this. Wow, we thought. Cheney's really standing up here. He's admitting he made a mistake.

And then our heart sank. This shouldn't be such a big deal. Most of us learned the lesson in grade school, when Dad marched us back to the candy store to apologize for filching that Hershey bar. It shouldn't surprise us when our elected officials take responsibility for their mistakes. The fact that it does come as a surprise -- and a relief -- only shows how conditioned we have been by decades of executive lying. From "I am not a crook" to "I did not have sex with that woman," we have come to take for granted that Presidents will lie to us.

Still, let's be clear: when it comes to evading responsibility, the Bush Administration achieves new levels of shamelessness. Yellow-cake, Plamegate, WMDs, torture and secret prisons, warrantless wiretapping, you name it.

And it's not just about lying and evading responsibility, but about blaming other people for their own screwups. The Administration, and "movement" Republicans generally, continue to blame the CIA for "intelligence failures," even though it is pretty obvious that the warmakers rejected outright any intelligence that wasn't flawed the way they needed it to be. (Don't believe me? Click here.)

By the way, we love Chuck Hagel's comment: "If [Cheney'd] been in the military, he would have learned gun safety."

So the guy Cheney shot had a heart attack. Well, I would too, if somebody shot me in the face, neck and chest. And I'd feel damn lucky to still have a heart that could be attacked.

Here's my question: if Harry Whittington dies, does that make the Veep a murderer? Or anyway, a manslaughterer? I'm not kidding. There are laws about this sort of thing.

Or don't our laws govern the Executive Branch anymore?

Dear Dick

Dear Mr. Cheney,

The National Rifle Association is a group dedicated to gun safety. I think they also do some advocacy work on the side. Perhaps you've heard of them?

Anyway, they have a pamphlet with some rules for staying safe. I thought you might be interested in Rule # 1:

1. ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction. This is the primary rule of gun safety. A safe direction means that the gun is pointed so that even if it were to go off it would not cause injury or damage. The key to this rule is to control where the muzzle or front end of the barrel is pointed at all times. Common sense dictates the safest direction, depending on different circumstances.

Boy, does this sound like a great idea! Bet you wish you'd thought of it before you tried to take off Harry Whittington's head with birdshot the other day, huh?

They even teach courses in this stuff. There aren't any in the District of Columbia, where you live, but maybe you could take a class in Virginia. Here's the list of classes. After all the embarrassment you've caused him, I'll bet your boss would pay for it. Or maybe Mr. Whittington would. Or maybe the Senate Democrats, now that know what you're capable of.

Cheney Bags Lawyer

The headline, a new classic, is courtesy of the Herald of Glasgow. But the link gets you to the WashPost, for a nice, thorough description of the Darth Cheney shooting incident. Highlights include:

Cheney was hunting illegally. At least technically: he lacked a $7 dollar out-of-state hunter's credential that Texas requires. No big deal, really. So do lots of people who hunt birds in Texas; but they aren't (a) multi-gazillionaire war profiteers; and (b) Number 2 in the Executive Branch.

Catch the spin: Yes, accidents will happen, and that's all part of the sport. We get it. But Scott "Pudgie" McClellan is going one step further, and trying to blame the victim: "The protocol was not followed by Mr. Whittington when it came to notifying the others that he was there."

We prefer the response from a lawyer at the National Shooting Sports Foundation: "You're hunting together; you need to know where everyone is." Or from another Texas quail-hunter: "If you pull the trigger, you're responsible for it, no matter what…. In hunting, the shooter is responsible for knowing where the shot is going. That's the bottom line."

The White House delayed about more than 18 hours before talking about this, and would have kept silent altogether if it hadn't been reported in a local paper. Great PR move, guys. If they don't think we deserve to know about hunting accidents, of course they don't think we deserve to know about wiretapping, torture and secret prisons.

Homage to Peter Zenger

If Zenger means nothing to you, check the link. Meanwhile: I'm sorry, but I can't let go of the Cartoon Riots. First, they are getting worse -- deaths in Afghanistan today.

Second, and more important, I am troubled by the fuzzy thinking that surrounds them.

I am troubled by the apparent conviction that, because Muslims do not draw pictures of Muhammad, neither should anybody else. I am troubled by the implication that non-Muslims ought to obey the strictures of Islamic law. As Sullivan said today, I don't ask atheists to genuflect in front of a church. Or, more to the point: polygamy is against the law in every Western nation. It is legal, and not uncommon, under Shariah. So Muslims violate the Western sense of decency on a daily basis, but you don't see us rioting.

I am troubled that after decades of routinely publishing cartoons that depict Jews as hook-nosed devils, Muslims worldwide suddenly develop a passion for cultural sensitivity.

I am troubled by the number of Western governments, religious organizations and news outlets that seem willing to accept the idea that free speech shouldn't hurt anybody's feelings. The idea is nonsense, of course. Worse, it plays into the hands of those Western powers -- the Bush and Blair administrations, the Vatican and now South Africa -- who have their own political reasons to put limits on free expression.

I am troubled that when a Hizbullah official says that "If any Muslim had carried out the fatwa [against] Salman Rushdie, those despicable people would not have dared to insult the Prophet Muhammad - not in Denmark, not in Norway, and not in France," there are still Western governments and press organizations which ignore the danger of going wobbly on free speech. He is arguing that murder is the right way to shut up the people he disagrees with.

And I am troubled by how few of the news reports seem to acknowledge what is surely obvious: the rage of the rioters isn't really about perceived blasphemy per se. A drawing of the Prophet is at most the spark that lit the fuse. They may not like it, but other representations of the same man (such as the one at the Supreme Court) have provoked letters and petitions, not mobs and torches. The rioters are enraged because the cartoons -- at least the one most widely reported -- draw a connection between Muhammad and violence.

Whether such a connection is fair or not seems to be, at the very least, open for debate. Unlike Jesus or the Buddha, Muhammad led troops in battle. While Christianity and Buddhism both have plenty of violence in their histories, of these three faiths only Islam has as its central historic figure a person who voluntarily engaged in combat. Not metaphorical battle, not spiritual warfare, but actual swords-and-bloodshed fighting. This doesn't translate into something simple-minded on the order of "all Muslims are violent." The evidence is clear that most are not. But it does leave open the possibility that for many adherents of the religion he preached, the example of Muhammad may seem to validate and even demand religious violence.

And no, I don't imagine it is very pleasant to be reminded of the fact. But don't blame the messenger. Or burn down his embassy.

Suddenly, I'm in Bed with the Conservatives

Sullivan is all over this like a cheap suit. Good on yer, Andy. (The passage from Beaumarchais is especially apt.)

Michelle Malkin's blog has a scary photo essay. "Freedom go to Hell" pretty much says it all.

Vatican Chokes.

We almost used a stronger word. While Muslim mobs burn the Danish embassy in anger over cartoon representations of Mohammad, the Roman hierarchy comes across with gems like this: "Freedom of the press, including satire, must stop where religious belief begins."

That's Ersilio Cardinal Tonini, erstwhile archbishop opf Ravenna. Cardinal Silvestrini, head of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, offers a similar gem: "We, too, here in Europe, should rebel against the idea of mocking religious symbols," Silvestrini said. "Freedom to satirize which offends other people's feelings becomes prevarication."

What's wrong with this picture? Well, apart from the fact that either Silvestrini or his translator doesn't know what "prevarication" means, there's the fact that these remarks are sheer nonsense. Undemocratic, tyrannical, pre-Enlightenment nonsense. I invite Tonini to make his point to the ghosts of Diderot and Voltaire, or even Erasmus. (Not to mention Monty Python and the Simpsons). And I invite Silvestrini to find any examples of satire properly so called that do not offend somebody's feelings. He certainly won't find them in Juvenal or St. Jerome.

There is more to this than the Vatican's well-documented history of affection for certain kinds of tyranny, both intellectual and political. Rome shows signs of joining the frightened governments of Western Europe (yes, Mister Blair, this does mean you) in limiting free speech. The motivations may be different -- the governments are afraid of riots; Rome is probably trying to prepare a case against the next Andres Serrano. But the point is that both impulses are wrong. Even if well-intentioned, they are steps away from liberty and toward an accommodation with tyranny.

Of course there are limits to free speech. Mischief-makers can't shout "fire" in a crowded theatre. Embedded reporters can't broadcast troop positions (thank you, Geraldo). Burning a flag is pure symbolism; burning a building is arson and sometimes murder. There are limits -- but nasty cartoons, foolish displays of tasteless museum art, public exposure of persons and ideas whose folly needs to be exposed -- these are not things that a free society can with justice limit. Because then it is not free.

Angry Muslims Burn Stuff.

I'm sure they threw rocks, fired shots in the air, and tried to recruit a few suicide bombers as well. We get the idea, guys.

And the idea that the Islamofascists want us to get is this: "Hey, West. Abandon your principles. Abandon your commitment to free press, free speech, the free exchange of ideas, even offensive ones. Replace all this with a society in which Islamic laws (such as those which forbid depictions of the Prophet) are respected even by non-Muslims, and in which Muslims themselves are judged only by Muslim courts. In other words, let us slowly cripple your legal systems, and exempt ourselves from them entirely. We'll call this 'respect.'

"And if you 'respect' us, we won't burn your stuff. You know, your flags, your buildings, your people who work in those buildings. That kind of stuff."

Here's something noteworthy, though. The mobs have been angry at the Danes over some cartoons lately (see below). So, as angry mobs will, they set fire to something -- the Danish embassy in Damascus. (The picture is from the AP). And wouldn't you know: the same building houses the Swedish and Chilean embassies. Which gets to the real point: " 'Respect' us, or every aspect of your societies -- those which offend us and those which do not -- will be burned."

To be fair, the American military (which has torched an embassy or two itself) has a similar doctrine. They call it collateral damage.

Muslims Outraged. Again.

Ho-hum. Muslims worldwide -- for which read "radical Islamists and those they have suckered with their demogogic divel" -- are up in arms over some cartoons in the European press. Tasteless, silly cartoons that included caricatures of Muhammad.

They want Denmark to apologize. That is, they want the government to apologize for what appears in the press. They want this, of course, because as subjects of the world's worst totalitarian regimes, they can't imagine anything appearing in a newspaper that hadn't been approved by the government.

(I waited years for the Nixon Administration to apologize for leaking the Watergate story.)

They want Denmark to apologize, as well, because they know that there is a symbolic war being waged between their Islamofascism and the ideals of an open society. Now, Western governments don't always do a great job of upholding those ideals (see above, under "Watergate;" or latterly, headings for Gitmo, Gonzales, Abu Ghraib and Wiretapping), but still, we are the only game in town. As often as Islamofascism can make the West apologize, it can make itself out to be the offended party, the victim rather than the aggressor. As often as it can achieve that goal, it can pull otherwise decent, loving and humane Muslims into its clutches.

(Yeah. And Southerners still call their attack of Fort Sumter the fuse that lit the "War of Northern Aggression." Go figure.)

But here's the part that really burns our britches at the Egg. They are ticked off over a newspaper caricature of Muhammad? Christians in the West have been forced to spend years listening to Pat Robertson's caricature of Jesus. Do you hear us complaining?

(And if not, why not?)

Lutherans Just Like Catholics -- In the Bad Way

High-church types, yr. obdt. svt. included, suffer from occasional bouts of "me-too-ism." Lutherans and Anglicans ape bits and pieces of Roman Catholic practice; Romans sometimes crib from the Orthodox playbook, etc.

So I suppose an ELCA pastor convicted and sentenced for soliciting sex from a 14-year-old boy over the Internet was inevitable. Thank you, Michael Anthony Harris, formerly of St. Paul's, Pensacola. You've proved that we are capable of just as much betrayal of trust, sexual violence, and general clerical malfeasance as our tonsured brothers.

Word of advice: once you get out of prison, keep your distance from Father A. That guy has a quick temper and a long memory for creeps like you..

Impeach Bush

Follow the link to see the Egg's New Year's wish. About as likely as dancing sugarplums, but what the hey.

Christus Belli

Christmas has come and gone (at least for those who aren't down with the whole "twelve days" business). And with it, we may hope, has gone the War on Christmas promoted by Bill O'Reilly and his ilk.

For my Hanukkah gelt, the funniest take on this bit of festal foolishness was Stephen Colbert's. He started with spiral-cut ham, and built to ... well, you'll see. Follow the link, scroll down if you have to, and then click the box for "Xmas."

NY Man Changes Name to "Jesus Christ"

Merry Christmas. Sigh.

My favorite part of the Daily News article is the, err, revelation that Jose Luis Espinal, of Washington Heights, is the second person this year to have his name legally changed to the Savior's.

Alleged Pope Incarnate is Excommunicated

That's the actual CNN headline. But what we love best is the subhead: "Bishop also issues warning to woman claiming to be Virgin Mary."

Seems a Puerto Rican firefighter believes that John Paul II has taken over his spirit, and that Benedict XVI is "the antichrist." (Okay, Martin Luther occasionally muttered something about the Pope being antichrist, but the context was different.)

Geeze, Louise. The Egg is old enough to remember when crazy people just claimed to be Napoleon and let it go at that.

Anglicans Restore the Taurobolium

Anglicans in South Africa aroused some consternation over their plan to ritually sacrifice an ox in celebration of opening a new diocese. The SPCA, needless to say, objected.

The Beliefnet comments on this one got sorta bogged down in the history of Jewish and Zoroastrian demonology, and for the less obscurely minded, on the question of whether the sacrifice was okay as long as they planned to eat the animal. Well, fine, everybody has a perspective. Our thinking here at the Egg is that this sounds like the Mithraic rites of intiation -- slaughter a bull, and take a bath in it's blood. Ick.

But here's the thing: Last I checked, Anglicans were Christians (despite Bishop Spong). And Christianity has historically taken a pretty dim view of animal sacrifice. And yes, I understand the nuance that Paul (in 1 Cor 8) is talking about animals sacrificed to pagan deities. And I try to be sympathetic to calls for enculturation. But still -- what possible purpose can an animal sacrifice serve for Christians, given that whole Hebrews 10 business about how we are made holy by the sacrifice of Christ, once and for all?

We Evangelicals have always been a little skeptical about the Roman Catholic interpretation of the Mass as an "unbloody sacrifice." But, whatever its limitations, that has to be safer theological ground than, well, an extremely bloody sacrifice. I mean, do you know how much blood an ox has?

Why We Like Bush Now

Don't get all huffy now. The Egg hasn't been wild about W., and isn't changing its position much. (We know the White House is heaving a sigh of disappointment).

But let's give the proverbial devil his due. On his recent swing through what the pre-PC crowd used to call the Orient, President Bush has been undiplomatically blunt in criticizing China's continued denial of human and civil rights to the Chinese, and especially of its religious oppression.

You know what? Good for him. Here's a story about official government torture of eight "house church" members, as well as the kidnapping of a Beijing pastor. Here's one about a Tibetan monk who has been barred from coming home. And here's the latest on Falun Gong.

Mind you, it isn't just the Chinese. Anastasia Yezhova has a theory that one reason Muslims settle in Europe -- apart from the grinding poverty of their homelands -- is that in Europe they are free to practice their religion. You heard me. It is easier to practice Islam in Europe than in all those "Islamic Republics" we keep reading about.

So, yes, I still think the President lied his way into a war, which he has since waged brutally but ineffectively. Yes, I think he has made absurdly bad political appointments, squandered the budget surplus, robbed from the poor to fatten the superrich, and -- yes, that old chestnut -- stolen one if not both elections. But there's no way around it: He's speaking truth to power on the question of religious freedom.

I may hate myself once I get sober, but ... You go, George.

In French, C'est "Polygamie."

Per the current official line out of the Elysee, the problem isn't unemployed, marginalized Muslim rioters. It's polygamy.

See, France doesn't believe in work -- so unemployment can't be a problem. It doesn't believe in minorities -- so marginalization can't be the problem. And it doesn't believe in religion, so -- well, you get the idea. In a nation that has worked hard to officially ignore the facts of life, the brutal evidence that those facts remain stubborn things requires some creative interpretation. But the people who brought us Jacques Derrida are up for the task.

Of course, as Dhimmi Watch asks, "which major world religion promotes polygamy?" Hint: It's not Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Judaism, Taoism, Confucianism, or Shinto. (Watch out for the Jains, though. Rumor has it those pacifist vegetarians are up to something....)

Mind you, the French Left is outraged by all this talk, which it says will "reinforc[e] xenophobia and racism." And maybe they're right. Maybe polygamy is a basic human right -- or anyway, a civil right. And maybe Fundamentalist Mormon Warren Jeffs isn't just the kind of sicko who "marries" a 16-year-old girl to an already-married adult man -- maybe he's a freedom fighter.

Right.

Strike up the "Marseillaise" and break out the kiddie porn, folks. It's gonna be a long night while the sleep of reason goes on breeding monsters.

Still, It Moves

Or so said Galileo, according to tradition, under his breath after an official recantation. And he was right; the earth does move around the sun.

So now Kansas (along with Ohio, Minnesota, New Mexico and maybe Pennsylvania)has decided to play Pope in the seemingly endless American road-show version of the same play, with Darwin as the understudy for Galileo. Kids in science class will now be taught the Intelligent Design party line, ratherthan ... oh, I dunno ... science.

Kansas calls it a victory for free speech. I call it a victory for the Counter-Reformation papacy -- that is, the desperate forces of reaction fighting their Pyrrhic battle against empiricism and modernity. But that's okay. Because still, it moves.

A Priest, a Rabbi, and the Prime Minister...

Britain is no haven for free speech (see under: libel laws). But in the LA Times, Michael McGough skewers Blair's recent proposal to effectively ban criticism of religions or their beliefs.

Best bit is a quote from gay columnist and erstwhile MP Matthew Parris, to the effect that the law might prevent him from criticizing the pope for excluding homosexuals from the priesthood. "To what kind of philosophical shambles can our Government have been reduced, when it promotes laws to criminalize me if I encourage hatred of such a Pope, yet looks away when such a Pope encourages hatred of me?"

The idea that jokes about "a priest, a rabbi and a minister" would be banned is Orwellian, but not utterly implausible. Especially if you throw in an imam, since -- reading between the lines -- the real bottom line here is the increasing danger (and ease) of pissing off unemployed, riot-and-assassination prone Muslims. Insult Roman Catholics, and you get a lecture from Bill Donohue at the Catholic League. Insult a Muslim in Europe these days, and you get the Theo van Gogh treatment. (Meanwhile, insult an Anglican, and he laughs along uncomfortably, to show you what a good sport he is. Poor buggers.)

McGough is less convincing when he addresses America's present confusion about public displays of religiosity. Oh, we're confused alright -- and badly. But our confusion isn't like the English kind. And to say any more about it would take a loooong post.

Happy Halloween

Anne Rice, Goth goddess, has traded in her vampire stories and bondage fairy tales for ... wait for it ... Jesus.

You already know the story, because it is so achingly familiar: she got sick, she got well, she turned her life over to God. All on the Road to Damascus. And now she's written a book about Jesus as a seven-year-old.

This could easily destroy her career. Imagine all those vampire fans screaming "it burns!" when they see a cross. On the other hand, it probably won't. First, although most religious novels are unbearable, you do find exceptions. Kirkus calls this one "riveting and reverent," two adjectives that are usually antonyms. They even compare her to seriously great modern writers like Nikos Kazantzakis and Shusako Endo.

Well, maybe. Or maybe not. Because -- and here's my second reason this book won't hurt her career -- Catholicism invented the Goth sensibility. You name it: the architecture, the candles, the superstition, and the constant tone of throttled eroticism. She can do this stuff from memory, and her people (I'm not one) slurp it up like blood from a virgin's throat.

Wow. The more I think about it, the more I think this may work. Somebody read the book and let me know.

Pastor Secretly Sells Church

The do things differently in California, I guess.

Read Andrew Sullivan

Father A. hasn't had much time for blogging lately. I blame parish duties, some teaching, and a head cold.

But Andrew Sullivan -- gay Catholic English Republican -- makes his living this way, so he's got all the time in the world. (As Satchmo sang in the saddest of all the .
Bond flicks). And people, the man has something to say.

Hadn't followed him in a while, so it came a shock this morning to see how much he has come to hate the Bush administration. Mostly it's the lying, secrecy, torture, and secret prisons. And then there's the anti-gay-marriage stuff. Oh, and Cheney thinking he's a king instead of an elected official

Seminarians in Debt

The number of seminary students who borrow big money ($20k+) to complete their education has quadrupled in ten years, according to a new report. Not only that, but many more now enter graduate programs with significant debt from their undergraduate years.

This has serious ramifications for US congregations. Pastors don't earn that much to begin with -- a fair living, generally speaking, but no fortune. And less at smaller parishes. It used to work okay, back when seminary education was more heavily subsidized by church bodies. But as the money has run out among the mainstream denominations, so have those subsisidies. Which means that newly-ordained pastors, carrying more debt, may have to steer away from smaller, struggling congregations. Which will in turn struggle harder.

Bad news. But there is a funny part. The report refers to this as "theological debt." Well, no. It's educational debt. Theological debt was the basis of Anselm's atonement theory in Cur deus homo.

Okay. Maybe it's only funny if you blew a fortune on seminary.

Bush Back on the Sauce?

That's the report in the usually unreliable National Enquirer. The claim is that Hurricane Katrina was too much for him, and Laura found him swigging Jim Beam from the bottle. Naturally, we don't believe a word of it.

But apparently, an online gambling service called BetCRIS is now offering various Bush-related odds:

"Bush exposed for drinking alcohol during his presidency is featured with odds of 5 to 1. Compare that with 15 to 1 odds that Bush actually admits to drinking alcohol.

"Bush checking into a rehab program is listed with 40 to 1 odds. Bush becoming a preacher is listed with 2 to 1 odds. Bush converting to Judaism is posted with 300 to 1 odds. Bush becoming a Muslim is posted with 500 to 1 odds. Bush becomes a spokesman for Viagra/Cialis is listed with 35 to 1 odds. . . ."

We certainly would not wish the President a return to dipsomania. Nor -- being a preacher ourselves -- would we wish him a place in our guild. But many mysteries concerning Afghanistan and Iraq might be explained if, after leaving office, he were to become a shill for impotence medications.

Oh, and in case you were wondering: BetCRIS offers no odds at all as to whether Bush gets impeached.

Speaking of Scared...

Turns out Roy Moore (see below under "Certain Southern Judges") is a poet. Seriously. Click the link.

Okay, I'm Scared

Headline: "I Killed So Many, I Lost Count, Says Boy, 11." It's an article on the Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan terrorist organization made up almost entirely of abducted children, who are used both as soldiers and sex toys.

Don't let the name fool you. These people, obviously, are freaks; they have more in common with the Maoist Sendero Luminoso than with any genuine religious movement. They aren't Christian, although -- like certain Southern judges we could name -- they do want to rule their nation according to the Ten Commandments. (Well, sorta kinda. "Thou shalt not kill" apparently doesn't count -- in either case.)

Right Joins Reality-Based Community

Conservatives seem pretty worked up over Harriet Miers and her lack of paper trail. In the Wasington Post article above, Cathie Adams, president of the Texas Eagle Forum, says "President Bush is asking us to have faith in things unseen. We only have that kind of faith in God."

Er, um, we thought you people thought he was God. Didn't one of you people say, on TV during the last camapign, "God is in the White House"? Of course that's what you believe. What else would explain your belief in his omniscience regarding WMDs? His omnipotence regarding AIDS in Africa? His omnibenevolence, encapsulated in the meaningless nostrum "compassionate conservatism"?

Of course, not all gods are created equal. In case after case, the President has asked for our faith without offering a credible reason -- and in case after case, he has failed to deliver. As gods go, he's proven to be one of the falser ones.

Sacrilege aside, Bush's critics have been arguing for years that he makes policy decisions based on convictions, rather than facts. The classic expression is Ron Suskind's 2004 Times magazine article, in which he quotes "a senior advisor to Bush" mocking the "reality-based community," those poor deluded fools who believe that "solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." This, according to the advisor, just ain't the way the Administration works. And indeed it hasn't been. Instead of actually analyzing facts, the Prwsident has proudly, boldly, led with his gut -- or, anyway, his big mouth. And the idolaters have gone along, trusting his word rather than the facts.

So Cathie Adams is (shudder!) right on this. Confidence in the President requires a kind of faith which should properly be reserved for God -- and which, when given to a human being, is inevitably misplaced. Welcome aboard, Cathie. Wish you'd gotten here before the ship began to sink.

Mormons Watch Porn-Lite.

Per the Provo, Utah Herald:

Copies of a movie aimed at a Mormon audience have been pulled from store shelves after a recording mix-up left buyers watching "Adored: Diary of a Porn Star" instead of the squeaky clean "Sons of Provo."

This is funny, but funny stuff happens. What really tickles us is a line several grafs down, as the "Adored" producers clarify the nature of their product:

"Adored: Diary of a Porn Star" is an unrated independent film that is not pornographic, said Corey Eubanks, spokesman for Wolfe Video, the largest distributor of films featuring gay and lesbian characters and stories. However, the film does contain sexual situations and its subject is the life of a gay porn star. "It's a very heartwarming film about a porn star that reconnects with his family," Eubanks said. "It's not a porn film at all. It's just about someone who is a porn actor."

Pity the poor Mormons. We thought 3.2% beer was bad enough -- but even their porn is watered down.