December 18-19th issue of the Wall Street Journal had this article on the importance of a right understanding of the place of the Humanities in a university education. The article can be read here.

I enclose my letter to the editor for your dining and dancing pleasure.

Dear Editors:

Thank you for printing the piece by Alain de Botton Dec 18. He rightly sees the importance of the humanities to humanity, and we applaud him as he calls the modern university to task for its utilitarian approach to education. The great books, art, and music of our culture can indeed act as a “storehouse of useful ideas,” and those ideas more than justify four years' study at university.

However, when he encourages the thought that the culture might serve as a substitute for scripture, Mr. de Botton underestimates the foundational place of scripture in our art. The humanities can indeed speak to the needs of the human, but the majority of the cultural power that he rightly finds in the great books of the West is the result of centuries of reflection on and belief in the biblical narrative and its view of life. The great books carry the wisdom of the ages in the same way a river carries water. The river and the water are as one to us, so we might be excused for thinking that the book and its contained wisdom are also one, but we would never imagine for a moment that the river created the water. Mr. de Botton helps us see the benefit that comes from knowing the work of our best writers (not to mention our best composers, architects, and filmmakers), but they did not create the wisdom they espouse. Artists discern it then embody it in their artistic expressions. The help they may offer their readers about marriage, death, and work is founded on a picture of those subjects found in the Bible. So the view that scripture and culture might serve as two potential options for the foundation of a civilization misunderstands the relation of the two elements: scripture is the water, culture is the river. The Western dismissal of scripture as the source of wisdom is simply bad scholarship -- it ignores most of the very points of the books Mr. de Botton sites, and can only end up misinterpreting the work of Suger, Dante, Durer, Botticelli, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Bach, Mendelssohn, Eliot, Rouault, et c.

This misunderstanding may very well be the reason for the loss of purpose Mr. de Botton finds in many humanities departments. Perhaps we have substituted culture for scripture already -- in the 18th-19th century? We first lost the water, and as a result the river dried up. How can we claim the humanities can offer wisdom if we no longer believe in the Giver of wisdom? We are right to try to regain the humanities, but without their foundation in theology they dry up, and even their most ardent supporters find it hard to give reason why they should be studied, apart from a vague sense that they are more meaningful than the robotic pragmatism preached in every public square. It is no wonder we have become a culture of utilitarianism, we doubt everything else.

We applaud Mr. de Botton’s new work in London for calling us back to the humanities, but fear that without the underpinning of biblical virtues, it may lead only to a repeat of the errors of Modernism. In the end, there are only two ways to go: either to accept the cultural relativism presently taught in the trendier humanities departments, or do the hard scholarly work of rethinking the connections between faith and reason that were lost in the Enlightenment. We are humbly attempting the latter.

A student asked me about the Old Testament law and why there are parts of it that we no longer keep. Here's the response I gave.


That's a good question, and the answer is definitely NOT that we are a different culture...some laws (like against eating pork) have been over-ridden (see Acts 10:13-15). But mostly it is because in the NT we have a deeper understanding of the law. It is like the spirit of the law is more nuanced than the original law. You know, when you first learn to write, you are told always use this, never use that, but when you start reading great writers, they sometimes do the very thing you have been told not to do. But you learn that those are exceptions that are not contradictions, rather they are genius -- the great writer saw deeper than the rules...the OT law is the minimum requirement for faithfulness, but keeping that law is not impressive to God - He wants us to (in one sense) forget about trying to keep the law - He has a higher plan for us. Those who point to the law and say "see? I kept the law here and here and here..." are the dorks who don't get it. Sort of like a 1st grader who is proud of the fact that he can draw his numbers perfectly within the lines but knows nothing of what numbers really represent in physics or calculus. At one point in the life of the faithful, number-drawing is good, but as we grow we begin to see that learning to write numbers is only the barest beginning, and to perfect our drawing when we should be considering differential equations is goofy.

In the same way, God taught us laws that then we no longer needed -- what He always wants is faithfulness, not adherence to laws per se...the laws are not arbitrary, He really does want us to not lie, murder, worship idols, but the best way to stop doing that is to put our faith in His fulfillment of the law, and live "in Him" by that faith. Again, it is the faith in His person that fulfills the law for us. Once He came to earth and we heard Him speak, we (like Paul) realized that there is a lot more to real life than laws, but like the first-grader, we need the law first, then we can in a way surpass it. The law is a mountain that we need to climb, find we can't and then receive grace. But then, and only then, do we see the reality that the peak of the mountain is really only the starting point -- we (to borrow from Lewis) were meant to get to the top of the mountain so that we might sprout wings and fly.

Since I posted the last, I thought you might like to hear my Muslim friend's response to my long post (names are withheld, and are not important). Here it is:

Thank you very much for your answer Mr. Y, (ZZZ) is getting these messages too.

I understand what you're saying from your perspective and it sounds correct. I watched the video an CNN and maybe I need to watch it again to understand better. They are talking really fast. However if somebody supports such suicide attacks I cannot agree with them since I am a muslim.

You're right that not every Islam world leader denounced suicide attacks or bombings. But for Turkey I know many Islamic Scholar that they denounce those kind of acts. I like the commentators point on "muslim people are victim of terrorism as well as christian people are". There shouldn't be problem between real believers otherwise the dark powers are going to try to have us fight with each other for those acts that real muslims and christians do not accept. I know you since we met and spent some time, and I did not have any hesitation about your position on that matter I mean I don't think that you think this is real Islam.

We as Turkey have some Al-kaide members in our country's prisons and they did some suicide bombings in Turkey at several locations before 9-11 and after 9-11. I am trying to say that we started to deal with terrorism before 9-11 so I understand your feeling about it. However, we have to work together and protect each other, or they bomb a mosque today and then bomb a church tomorrow then uneducated people think that this is a war between religions. That would be a chaos.

I think we should talk about this on this sunday.

Regards,

XXX

(the Sunday he is referring to is an evening discussion group we have with college students. We have invited this young man, and he has come several times -- once he even cooked dinner for us, and it was GREAT!)

Lately, I have had a great conversation with a friend who is foreign Muslim studying in the US. He wrote me, asking about how people can think that Islam can be linked to terrorists. I believe him to be honest, but not seeing that connection is strange to me, and here is how I answered his sincere question (the reference to Keith Olbermann is because my friend sent me one of Mr. Olbermann's MSNBC rants, and I felt I should address it to the degree KO deserves...):

Hi, XXX - I welcome your reasonable mind and gentle heart, and would love to speak with you about this issue, as I need your perspective. I know a little, and will be glad to lay out what I have understood about it. Please feel free to correct me if you find I am misled.

You ask how it can be that some people are connecting Islam to terrorism. You have perspective that I do not, as you see Islam from the inside, as one who practices the religion. I think most Americans see it from the outside (that is, they are not Muslims themselves) and so see only what Muslims do and say rather than what they believe. It is a hard fact to get around that 100% of the terrorism in the world is committed by people who claim to be doing it in the name of Allah. Of course it is foolish to reverse this and say that 100% of the Muslims of the world are terrorists, but the distinction between those who are and those who are not is best accomplished through the way real Muslims denounce terrorism (as you have done).

Mr. Olbermann is a poor spokesman for anything reasonable. The problem I have with his approach to most subjects (and this video clip is a good example) is that he likes to leave out large portions of his opponents' arguments, then act as though his opponents are fools (which can be very annoying.) I find this approach foolish, and does little to clarify issues.

The opposition to the Mosque/Community Center is not opposition to Islam, or a sign of not wanting Muslims to be able to worship or own property in the US, or a lack of understanding that we were assisting Muslims in Iraq when we fought a war against Hussein (a few of Mr. Olbermann's arguments). These are what we call "straw man" arguments. There are many mosques in NYC already, so Muslims are not being singled out for abuse. What's more, the opponents of this particular project are not saying that the Imam doesn't have the right to buy and build there. It is a free country - he can do so if he wants to, just like any other American. What opponents are saying is that it feels like disrespect and insensitivity to the very people with whom he says he wants to have "dialogue". It is a poor start to a conversation.

But there are other questions that have been raised about this particular project. Representatives of the project have been asked directly if they renounce terrorism and agree that Hamas is a terrorist organization (as America's government officially states). They are willing to renounce terrorist acts in the abstract, but refuse to renounce Hamas. Also, they have said they are willing to accept donations from Saudi and Iran, two of the world's greatest exporters of terrorism, and supporters of Hamas. Because of this, many have been unwilling to support the plan to build this building.

If it is hard for supporters of the Park51 building to see what respect would look like, I would like to suggest a way. I think that the Imam and his donors, who say that they want to build bridges and dialogue with Americans, should instead offer to donate the money they have raised for the Park51 building to help rebuild the Trade Center Towers. This would show the world (and especially the terrorists in the world) that they are Americans first, that there is NO connection between real Muslims and those who flew the planes, and it would prove to Americans that the money donated is not from terrorists. Does this seem outlandish? How important is it to begin real dialogue and prove that there are no ties between these folks and terrorism? It would also show the terrorists that they have no fear of them.

One other reason why Westerners link Islam and terrorism is hearing reports like this one about the Imam of a London mosque who actually supports Osama bin Laden and encourages Muslims to blow up buildings and people in order to teach the West a lesson for supporting Israel. I heard him speak on CNN last Saturday night. (see the excellent interview here: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/09/05/gps.int.jihadi.cnn?iref=allsearch). It would be horrible to think that there could be a mosque that preaches this kind of hate right next to the hole in the ground that came about from this kind of preaching.

While there are certainly Muslims who say, like you do, that one can be a Muslim, or a terrorist, but not both; there can be no doubt that there are Muslims who say the full opposite: that Muslims must take their faith seriously enough to die in its cause: that to be a real Muslim one MUST be a terrorist. Therefore, it seems to most of us in America that there is a civil war of sorts within Islam between those like you and those like this London Imam. And we are watching to see who will win. It seems to me that the questions you have are good ones, but they need to be addressed to the London Imam, and those like him, who claim to be "first and last a Muslim." (quote from the interview)

If there were Christians who spoke this way, calling for recruits to kill unsuspecting shoppers and businessmen to bring about the will of God, there would be world-wide outrage, and Christian leaders would be called upon to denounce this horror. The only reason why people would be reluctant to do so would be if they were afraid they would be the next targets of the terrorism. Is this the case in the Muslim world? Do you think moderate Muslims are afraid to speak up and denounce those who commit these horrors in the name of Allah because they are afraid they will be targets?

We would love to see you anytime, XXX, and will bake brownies specially for your visit! Thank you for speaking with me about this issue - relations between Muslims and Christians may be the most important issue on the planet at this time.

ISLAMOPHOBIA.
I think it is actually quite reasonable for people who have seen the continued terrorism over the years -- all from cowards screaming "Allahu Akbar" as they kill unsuspecting civilians -- to be fearful about Islam as a religion. It is more reasonable to use the word "homophobia" than "Islamophobia" but each is used in its sphere simply to stifle debate. But fear of Islam is quite reasonable, given that all the terrorist activity -- ALL of it -- has been carried out by smiling, lying, cowards who claim to be Muslims. It is rather incumbent on those who claim that Islam is a religion of peace to prove their case by their actions, and understand that a watching American public should not be asked to take their word for it. When we invaded Iraq, our troops went out of their way, placing themselves in danger to prove to the Iraqi people that we were NOT there to harm them. And we were liberating them from Saddam! We were fighting on their behalf! It was incumbent on us to prove by our actions that we were not there to colonize, destroy, steal their oil, et c. We shouldn't be ashamed of ourselves and be cowed just because we are called names like "Islamophobic." It is incumbent on the Moderate Muslim to prove that he is peaceful and not acting like the terrorists who cite Islam as their motivation.

"You will know them by their fruits" we are told. A religion should be judged by its actions, and when someone does something evil in the name of God, the true believers are responsible to distance themselves from the act. It should not be reversed and pressure put on the victims of these attacks to make fine distinctions between smiling, honest "moderates," and smiling, vicious liars who are attempting to destroy us with whatever means necessary, including deceit.

This is said in sober logic, not hot anger. This is only being reasonable, and treating American concerns as seriously as we would treat the concerns of Iraqi civilians, or German civilians in WWII. I think it is unreasonable to turn victims into the "bad-guys" and act as though they should be the ones to fix the problem brought about by the actions of the terrorists. It is absurd to say, "We shouldn't be held accountable for the actions of those terrorists - they hold to a completely different religion than we do. We are peaceful Muslims, but they on the other hand, are terrorist Muslims - a VERY different thing altogether. We read the Koran, they on the other hand, read the Koran." But we, the non-Muslims are supposed to be able to parse out the differences, and know that one is good and the other bad? Do you know how the terrorists fought our troops in the desert? They would fire on us without uniforms, then run into the city where they were indistinguishable from the local innocent civilians. These are vicious and cowardly enemies. And if we shoot the wrong one, WE are instantly the bad guys. If they are successful in killing one of our guys either by posing as a local civilian, or by using local civilians as human shields to hide behind to keep us from firing on them, they are heroes to their people! Why should American civilians be expected to be this discerning, or not make decisions out of fear? "Islamophobia" is irresponsible use of language, because it ignores the reasonable fear of the victim.

I would like to be able to write like this:

A Piece of Chalk

by G.K. Chesterton
(from an essay in TREMENDOUS TRIFLES. The original essay appeared in the DAILY NEWS, November 4, 1905)

I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up a walking-stick, and put six very bright-coloured chalks in my pocket. I then went into the kitchen (which, along with the rest of the house, belonged to a very square and sensible old woman in a Sussex village), and asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any brown paper. She had a great deal; in fact, she had too much; and she mistook the purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. She seemed to have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must be wanting to tie up parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to do; indeed, it is a thing which I have found to be beyond my mental capacity. Hence she dwelt very much on the varying qualities of toughness and endurance in the material. I explained to her that I only wanted to draw pictures on it, and that I did not want them to endure in the least; and that from my point of view, therefore, it was a question, not of tough consistency, but of responsive surface, a thing comparatively irrelevant in a parcel. When she understood that I wanted to draw she offered to overwhelm me with note-paper.

I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I not only liked brown paper, but liked the quality of brownness in paper, just as I like the quality of brownness in October woods, or in beer. Brown paper represents the primal twilight of the first toil of creation, and with a bright-coloured chalk or two you can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and blood-red, and sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness. All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; and I put the brown paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and possibly other things. I suppose every one must have reflected how primeval and how poetical are the things that one carries in one's pocket; the pocket-knife, for instance, the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.

With my stick and my knife, my chalks and my brown paper, I went out on to the great downs. . .

I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place to sit down and draw. Do not, for heaven's sake, imagine I was going to sketch from Nature. I was going to draw devils and seraphim, and blind old gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, and saints in robes of angry crimson, and seas of strange green, and all the sacred or monstrous symbols that look so well in bright colours on brown paper. They are much better worth drawing than Nature; also they are much easier to draw. When a cow came slouching by in the field next to me, a mere artist might have drawn it; but I always get wrong in the hind legs of quadrupeds. So I drew the soul of a cow; which I saw there plainly walking before me in the sunlight; and the soul was all purple and silver, and had seven horns and the mystery that belongs to all beasts. But though I could not with a crayon get the best out of the landscape, it does not follow that the landscape was not getting the best out of me. And this, I think, is the mistake that people make about the old poets who lived before Wordsworth, and were supposed not to care very much about Nature because they did not describe it much.

They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; but they sat on the great hills to write it. The gave out much less about Nature, but they drank in, perhaps, much more. They painted the white robes of their holy virgins with the blinding snow, at which they had stared all day. . . The greenness of a thousand green leaves clustered into the live green figure of Robin Hood. The blueness of a score of forgotten skies became the blue robes of the Virgin. The inspiration went in like sunbeams and came out like Apollo.

But as I sat scrawling these silly figures on the brown paper, it began to dawn on me, to my great disgust, that I had left one chalk, and that a most exquisite and essential chalk, behind. I searched all my pockets, but I could not find any white chalk. Now, those who are acquainted with all the philosophy (nay, religion) which is typified in the art of drawing on brown paper, know that white is positive and essential. I cannot avoid remarking here upon a moral significance. One of the wise and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, that white is a colour. It is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows white-hot, it draws stars. And one of the two or three defiant verities of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, for example, is exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a colour. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel, or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen.

Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colours; but he never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white. In a sense our age has realised this fact, and expressed it in our sullen costume. For if it were really true that white was a blank and colourless thing, negative and non-committal, then white would be used instead of black and grey for the funereal dress of this pessimistic period. Which is not the case.

Meanwhile I could not find my chalk.

I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town near at which it was even remotely probable there would be such a thing as an artist's colourman. And yet, without any white, my absurd little pictures would be as pointless as the world would be if there were no good people in it. I stared stupidly round, racking my brain for expedients. Then I suddenly stood up and roared with laughter, again and again, so that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine a man in the Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hour-glass. Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some salt water with him for his chemical experiments. I was sitting on an immense warehouse of white chalk. The landscape was made entirely of white chalk. White chalk was piled more miles until it met the sky. I stooped and broke a piece of the rock I sat on: it did not mark so well as the shop chalks do, but it gave the effect. And I stood there in a trance of pleasure, realising that this Southern England is not only a grand peninsula, and a tradition and a civilisation; it is something even more admirable. It is a piece of chalk.

G K Chesterton

Wedding sermon, based on Revelation 19:7-9 (given July 31, 2010)


Why do we cry at weddings?

We cry for several reasons, one of which is that everything is so beautiful at a wedding - the bride with her beautiful dress, the flowers, the candles the fine music -- the tradition of it all. I find that when God wants to get my attention, he sends me one of two things: suffering, or beauty. Each pierces my cold heart, and grabs my attention. And that’s just what God wants at a wedding - to get our attention, because He has something he wants to show us.

Have you noticed that when it comes to planning a wedding, even the most informal folks return to formal traditions? We may be ok with informality in our church services, but when it comes to a wedding, most of us want the traditional groom in the front, bride in white coming down the aisle, organs and baroque music and flowers and candles...

I think it is because a wedding is more than just the union of two people - it is an important part of the the life of a community. It defines something about what we think is important - what we value. The way we do weddings is important to all of us, not only the bride (regardless of what we see on Bridezilla). This whole ceremony is like a play, and we each have our roles to play - the bride, the groom, the parents, family, and friends, the pastor...and if each takes up his role, everyone leaves satisfied. If you doubt that there are roles, just imagine attending a wedding in which the groom walked down the aisle to join the bride in the front, or more bizarre still, that the groom wears the dress. Do you think that is arbitrary? All the roles resist being interchangeable.

So if this is a play, with specific roles, dress, and action, who wrote the script, and where do we get this notion?

From the verses we just read.

   For the wedding of the Lamb has come, 
      and his bride has made herself ready. 
 8Fine linen, bright and clean, 
      was given her to wear." (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)

I remember being in Bratislava one Saturday and walking by a church just as a bride and groom came out -- and she was in white, and everyone on the street stopped and looked, and smiled, and even applauded them...why is even a stranger’s wedding beautiful, and brings tears to the eye?

Could it be that we are haunted by a longing for something -- something we can’t name -- that is hinted at in the wedding? We want our bride in a fine dress because she is playing a part.

The beauty of the wedding ceremony, with its radiant bride, handsome groom, loving friends and family, is only a shadow of a larger reality. It is like children playing dress-up in their parents’ clothes, or pretending to be a pro quarterback, or a ballerina. Everyone knows the joy of pretending as children, but wouldn’t it be strange if there were no actual reality we were pretending about? Wouldn’t it be weird if we encouraged our boys to pretend to be a quarterbacks but had forgotten what the game of football was? -- or encouraged our girls to pretend to be ballerinas but knew nothing of ballet? The only reason children dress up in their parents’ clothes is that there actually IS an adult world - a world to which they aspire. But the world over, while we still dress our brides in the finest of clothes many of us have forgotten that there is a reality the tradition represents. We are haunted by a meaning we have forgotten; a meaning that still sways our choices without our being aware of it consciously; a meaning that is even more beautiful than Catherine or any specific bride; a meaning that touches us at our deepest levels and draws tears: the secret is that the beautiful bride represents US -- the Faithful Church of Revelation 19 --- the Church won over by the love of Jesus...the Church purified by her Lord, and made ready to spend eternity with Him. Our beautiful Catherine represents the Body of Christ, and she is dressed in the finest linen because it represents the righteous works the Church has done because of what her Lord did for her. She represents all of the faithful: men and women both - we all play the feminine role in a great wedding. No wonder we relate to her. No wonder her beauty delights us all - she is the way we hope one day to be! We cry partly because deep down inside we long for the day when the Bride will be united with her husband Jesus, and all the evils of the fallen world, even death itself, will be done away with. Now THAT is going to be a party! Hallelujah!

Her beauty and fine clothes represent OUR status after what Jesus has done for us. He has forgiven us and made us pure. But we must never forget that she has prepared herself for her husband the groom. It is not just the bride who plays a role in this play: the groom plays a role as well. We must never forget in our weddings that the only reason brides choose dresses and march down aisles is because the groom first proposed. Most people still hope that the groom will do the proposing - why is that? Is it just old fashioned? Or is it too an echo of a deeper truth? Don’t we always want to know HOW he proposed to her? (and Andrew’s story is a great one, so get him to tell you if you don’t already know...) Now be honest - wouldn’t you be just a little disappointed if we heard he didn’t initiate and propose? It is just not as “romantic.”

This turns out not to be just an old tradition with no foundation -- it imitates the reality that Jesus is the one who proposed to us -- “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” we are told. It is the love of the groom that chose the Church, called her, wooed her heart, fought dragons to free her, and finally won her affections. It is not by accident that all the fairy tales work this way - she is to be cherished and loved, fought for, there should be some sacrifice on the part of the groom to win her, because that is how Jesus loves us. Then, he gave her the beautiful dress to wear, and put the wedding together to show the world His love for her. It may seem like a little thing, but is EVERYTHING: the groom proposes and the bride accepts. He initiates, she responds. He leads, she follows. In the language of Ephesians chapter 5, he loves, she submits.

If you are like me, you find yourself conflicted about this last word. Somehow it isn’t fair, I think. Why should it be that he gets to lead? Yet, I wouldn’t feel right if she leads and he follows either exactly... Why is this a conflict? Because we like calling our own shots. We don’t take well to being under someone else’s authority -- remember the temptation of the Serpent in the Garden? “You shall be as gods” -- you can call your own shots and not have to answer to anyone!

But this is why Christian weddings are so helpful - not only to get the bride and groom off to the right start, but as a reminder to all of us who are either married or considering being married. If we understand that we are taking up roles -- that husbands are to be like Jesus, and wives are to be like the church, then it becomes easier to understand -- the wedding itself is an imitation of this larger reality that carries on throughout the marriage.

But if you are still not convinced, there is an even deeper magic - one that makes the reality of the Revelation 19 wedding itself an imitation of something deeper still. The relation of the groom to his bride is a picture of the relation of Jesus and His church, but the relation of Jesus to His church is an imitation of the relation of God the Father to God the Son. And here we finally come to bedrock. The ultimate reality is the eternal and Holy Trinity, from Whom all goodness, truth, and beauty flow. Throughout eternity the Father leads and the Son follows. The Father creates, the Son is the one through whom the creation is accomplished. If you were ever tempted to think that the follower is inferior to the leader, that is, the bride inferior to the groom, or the church inferior to Jesus, think again. No one follows because he is inferior - we take up these roles because that is how the dance of love goes -- the husband leads and the wife follows because Jesus leads and the Church follows -- and that happens because the Father leads and the Son follows. We are all in imitation of the Trinity, and there is not ONE IOTA of inferiority in the Son. He is completely God with nothing missing. He doesn’t follow because he lacks anything, he follows because He knows how love works. Because the Triune God IS what love is, so in marriage, He invites us to participate in that love. The husband sacrifices himself for the wife, and the wife submits herself to the husband, because in the few times that we get that right, we experience a small taste of divine joy. It is like the perfect waltz - the two become one precisely BECAUSE they take up different roles - we were built this way. Only in retaining our differences can we become complementary, and only complementary things can become one. This is the misunderstanding of much prevailing thinking today about marriage -- we think the two should become identical/interchangable because we assume this will assure equal treatment. But two who become identical forfeit their ability to become one -- the only way to become one is to be complementary. One leads, one follows, and each does his part for the glory of God, and the delight of the other. Never for himself. He who leads for himself becomes a tyrant. She who submits for herself becomes a manipulator. But when each is done for the benefit of the other, we experience a taste of divine joy. Andrew - I charge you to be careful never to take Catherine’s willingness to follow for granted - she doesn’t OWE it to you, she grants it to you for the glory of God and to help you to become the man God designed you to be. And Catherine, I charge you to be careful never to take Andrew’s provision for you for granted. He doesn’t OWE it to you, he sacrifices freely for the glory of God and out of his love for you - know that it is a blessing from God through Andrew for your good, and be ever thankful. In this way your trust in each other will increase.

We faithful Christians are members of the Bride of Christ, and we are being given the incomparable invitation to participate in the dance of love that has gone on eternally within the Trinity. In that dance is life, love, and meaning. Apart from Him you can do nothing. The bride and groom in our wedding today imitate this great dance when the groom proposes, the bride accepts, and then prepares herself for HIM. The Bride of Christ is invited to enter into love itself: the love that the Father and the Son have shared since before time began. So it shouldn’t surprise us that our bride and groom promise to love one another for the rest of their natural days. The bride here is invited to spend her life in love as well: to join in the dance that takes its rhythm from the music of heaven.

Andrew and Catherine would be the first to say that while today is their wedding day, they are not the center of this ceremony. It is not all about the bride and her dress; neither is it all about the groom and his proposal. It is ultimately about Jesus and HIS proposal to us His Church - will we accept Him? Will we allow Him to provide us with a dress of fine linen as He desires? THIS is what is at the center of our joy today - this is why we cry tears of joy - this is why the bride’s beauty is so important, and this is why the groom can’t stop smiling: this is the mystery: the two weddings become merged and indistinguishable -- the beauty of the Revelation 19 wedding lends meaning to the ceremony here -- the very real beauty of our bride here lends a tangible reality to the invisible Bride the Church and the love of our groom here helps us see a glimpse of the love of Jesus for us His bride. The promises of Jesus and the Church to one another are manifest in the lives of these two making promises today. And heaven rejoices and sings with us over such an exhibition of love and devotion.

So this is why we cry at weddings: they represent something that is just outside our grasp -- something invisible, yet truer than anything visible. This wedding today is beautiful because it joins two in Love with a capital “L”: may their marriage continue to reveal what they have begun to reveal today: the invisible relation between our Lord and His bride - and may they walk in His Spirit all the days of their lives.

And as for us? We are told:
'Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!' " And he added, "These are the true words of God."
Let us pray.
Father - bless this union with your presence and joy. That Catherine and Andrew may always walk in your Spirit, bear one anothers’ burdens, and know that you brought them together for their delight and your glory. In the name of Jesus, our Lord and Groom, Amen.

There's an old joke: they say that in heaven all the cooks will be French, all the policemen will be English, all the engineers will be German, all the lovers will be Italian, and the Swiss will run the trains. In hell, it is all off by one: all the cooks will be English, all the policemen will be German, all the engineers will be French, all the lovers will be Swiss, and the Italians will run the trains.

What if this is the way of the denominations? What if in heaven all the systematics profs will be Presbyterian, all the cultural philosophy will be done by Romans, all the lawmakers will be Lutheran, personal holiness taught by the Baptists, and all the creative artists will be Anglicans. In hell, the Lutherans would write the poetry, the Presbyterians would make the laws, the cultural philosophers would be the Anabaptists, personal holiness would be led by the Anglicans, and the Romans would teach systematics. (I am sure that I have offended ALL now, but I mean this lightheartedly! Ps 133:1)

How is it that we have so many for-profit colleges cropping up? University of Phoenix is only one of many, the most recent of which is Victory University. They have cropped up because we have become a culture that requires a college diploma as de rigeur for anyone hoping to land any job of any significance.

Where did this come from? The idea that we need a diploma (of any kind from any institution) to find a job is based on the thought that making a living in this world is the end of human endeavor. That comes from dismissing anything that smacks of eternal-ness. If we as a culture no longer believe in the God of the bible, we no longer believe that our actions in this life have eternal consequences. If there is no eternal aspect to the work we do in this life, what else is there but making this life as comfortable as possible? The way to do that is to make as much money as possible. The way to make money is to have a good job, and the way to weed out the numbers of people applying for "good jobs" is to require a college diploma. This means there is an increasing demand for diplomas. Not education, mind, only the symbol of that education, the diploma.

Why should we then be surprised that the ingenuity of our best and brightest (if not most virtuous) is spent on finding ways to satisfy the demand for diplomas? The problem is that college education is quite expensive. Wouldn't we be doing a good deed if we could find ways for those with few resources to get to go to college? It worked with the housing market -- let's offer low interest government loans to everyone who wants to go to college! First the government evaluates the student's ability to pay and turns the student over to private banks, offering to back the loans with tax-payer funds. But this year, our mental giants in the government have decided the private banks are just in the way -- why not give the tax-payer funds directly to the student -- better still -- directly to the college. The student pays his loans back when he gets out of school and begins earning income. What could go wrong?

Well, the whole system could go wrong because we have forgotten what governments are for, and what colleges are for. Governments are not banks or investors, they are to provide for common defense and establish and enforce the laws the people enact through their representatives. Colleges are not to provide jobs for people, but rather to pass on the accumulated wisdom of our civilization through its cultural inheritance. Ironically, passing on these definitions are what colleges SHOULD be doing, and if they do not, we are left to the whims of re-definition with each passing generation.

The way it goes wrong is that once forgetting and redefining government and college, the student does not have what the college diploma symbolizes. He has the paper and not the wisdom. Strangely enough, knowing these definitions and being a person educated in our cultural inheritance makes a student better prepared for any work he takes up -- so with the loss of this education, he is also nowhere NEAR as prepared for a job as he might be, and the inevitable result is that he finds he can't earn after all, and defaults on his loans. The government, which backed the system to begin with (the road to hell is paved with good intentions), swallows the loans, and bails out the students with money they print or borrow, which has the inevitable result of first inflating the money supply, then adding to the already astronomical debt, and finally one day helps throw our country of now uneducated barbarians into bankruptcy.

We are a rudderless ship. We no longer know the definition or telos of either government or college, and as a result will destroy them both by recasting them. If our colleges were still teaching what these definitions and purposes were, we might have a hope that one day we could put the pieces back together, but without them, we are lost. To continue the metaphor, if the rudder is the definitions, the sea anchor and the keel are the inherited artifacts and philosophies of our culture. The music, art, literature, architecture, history, and philosophy of Western civilization cannot make up for the loss of the Holy Spirit-defined guidance system, but they serve as ballast and drag against the fickle winds granting us time while we pray for spiritual revival and a re-forged rudder. Without a vision the people perish.

It seems that the Swiss have voted to refuse to allow mosques to build minarets. There are four in the country right now, and they will be allowed to remain, but they don’t want more built because they are considered political expressions, and are thus against the Swiss constitution.

It is a strange notion that Westerners should refuse minarets while allowing mosques. If the Muslims are religious without being political, it is a benign symbol and therefore the buildings should be allowed, minarets and all. If Muslims are religious and political, then a minaret can be taken as a sign of intention to encroach, but then so are the mosques themselves, and both should be outlawed.

When are we going to admit that religious convictions are the foundations for political actions and beliefs? One has to think only for a minute to see that if the West were a culture based on Muslim belief, there would be little freedom for Christians and Jews to build their churches and temples. Why can’t we see that the Muslims are only free to build mosques in Swiss and American cities as a result of the freedom to practice religion that is based on Christian vision for a good society? A society that is free is free to do the right thing. Christians know that coercion is never going to lead to truth – people need to choose to love God, not be forced to do so. That is why we hold the political belief that governments should guarantee the free practice of religion. (of course when the founders of the US wrote that the government should not restrict the free exercise of religion in the Bill of Rights, they were intending to keep the country from establishing a national denomination – Anglican or Lutheran or Roman Catholic – I think they would have been extremely surprised that their rules have allowed the practice of Islam, Buddhism, et c. in America. This is a different world than they had, but the idea of free exercise is still a good one.)

It is a sort of cultural amnesia that allows our present political leaders, colleges, schools, even churches to think that there are no connections between the freedoms we enjoy and the Christian thinking that founded our countries. (I am not saying that everyone who founded our countries was a Christian – but the influence of faithful men like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Pascal, Shakespeare, Bach, Newton, Kuyper, George Washington, TS Eliot, and a thousand more, is undeniable). It is as though we have built the massive skyscraper of the West on the sound foundation of a Christian view of life, God, and man, then decided that we can make changes in the foundation without causing any effect on life at the 21st floor/century. This is the result of forgetting history.

When are we going to say, “You may live here, but understand that the freedoms you enjoy are due to the sacrifices of many generations of Christians. We require that you show respect.”? The freedom the Muslim enjoys to worship his god in his way is one of the benefits of Christian culture, not Muslim culture. We would require the same if anyone came to live in our homes. Hospitality is a two-way relationship: there are rules for the hosts, there are rules for the guests. Violation on either side can ruin the relationship.

So what are the Swiss trying to say with their ban of minarets? That they don’t mind the mosques, just the visual symbol of their presence? How does one separate the minaret from the mosque? As time goes on, the differences between the three cultures are going to become increasingly apparent.

Commencement Address given May 2010


Honored seniors, students, respected faculty, staff, and administration, fellow board members, friends, and most of all, parents, I am delighted to have the honor of addressing you on this important night when we celebrate the commencement of our latest senior class. I have enjoyed working with you seniors in Capstone all year, and in Theology III last year, and apart from two rather inexplicable attachments of yours, I am very proud of your accomplishments. The first is your attachment to the High School Musical movies, and second is to the name “The Great Hodge-Podge.”

Brevity is most certainly is the soul of wit, and while I am ordinarily reluctant to take any advice from Polonius, if there were an appropriate place to be brief, it would be when you are standing between a wild-eyed senior class and its stack of diplomas. I want to promise you that I will indeed be brief, to the point, time-conscious, brief, short-winded, timely, brief, and most of all, redundant.

Seniors, you have been told for years now WHAT a Classical/Christian education is, not only through the content of your classes, but in parent meetings and assemblies – some of you since kindergarten -- and you would probably rather have a root canal than hear it discussed in public again, and I can’t blame you. So, I’m going to make you a second promise, one that is even more daring: I am NOT going to tell you what Classical/Christian education is again…even if you beg. If you don’t know by now, there is really very little help for you, anyway.

However, I do want to tell you a secret. I want to tell you WHY we did it. We, that is, the faculty, staff, board, and most of all, your parents, who chose to put you through this peculiar education when you could have been sent to public and private schools already in existence. It would have been easier, less expensive, and just the thought of the extra free-time we’d all have had --- well, all I can say is that we would all have better golf games…

Why did we do it? Because we believe it is the best way we know to prepare you to be used by God. Make no mistake - this education is not for you. It is for God. The command to be fruitful and multiply given in Genesis was taken rather seriously by your parents, and you are the resultant fruit -- once they got over the initial shock of bringing you into the world, they found themselves in the somewhat Abrahamic position of knowing that you would one day have to be sacrificed. (don’t look so alarmed, Katie - I am speaking figuratively...) Your parents began to see their responsibility to train and teach you so that you would be able to accomplish whatever work God would have in store for you.

What I mean is that your life is not your own. You didn’t make yourselves, and you didn’t raise yourselves -- and you don’t give yourselves meaning. You were created for God’s purposes, and your parents, who have rightly taken the responsibility for your education, have turned to our school to help them prepare you in this life for the next. Yes - it is part of the medieval mind that the purpose of education is to prepare you for eternity. Of course, there are consequences in THIS life when you believe. Being prepared for eternity means that you will live the life you live BEFORE death DIFFERENTLY than others around you.

You have heard it said that the Classical/Christian education is the somewhat awkward combination of Greek reason and Christian revelation, and that this combination is the foundation of Western civilization. Actually neither of these statements is completely true. First, the only reason that the combination of reason and revelation is in any way awkward is that the two sides of reason and revelation have been rather brutally separated by our recent ancestors, and putting them back together is a little reminiscent of Humpty Dumpty. And secondly, the only reason we think of this hybrid as the foundation of Western civilization is that we have overlooked what really IS the foundation of Western civilization, a foundation that is at once more clear and more mysterious.

You will recall that God had to throw the Apostle Paul down to the ground and blind him in order to get his attention. What really interests me tonight in this story is that when Paul is led blind into Damascus, God speaks to a fellow called Ananias, and tells him to go heal Paul. Well, Paul’s motto was always “stone first and ask questions later,” and Ananias was understandably a bit reluctant to meet him. But God convinces him by telling him that he has chosen Paul to be the one to take God’s name to the gentiles. Why did He choose Paul?

Who can fathom the plans of God? But we can speculate a little -- Paul grew up in a Jewish home, learned his scriptures, knew the ways of temple worship, and by his own admission, kept the law perfectly. But in addition to being the consummate Pharisee, he had also been given a Greek education. He knew his revelation, but he also knew his rhetoric. He embodied the Athens/Jerusalem combination: reason and revelation, knowledge and belief, eloquence and wisdom. It should not surprise us that God chose this man to be the one to speak for him. He had been prepared for this job long before he had any idea what he was going to do. Think of how Paul used his rhetorical ability combined with the truth of God’s revelation to him!

A side bit of advice – it is not unusual NOT to know what you are going to be doing in life. Yes, we all like to have a plan, but God is in the business of changing your plans when it serves His purposes, and His purposes are always better for you than your original plans. What’s more, no authority figure above you can ever do anything to you that God doesn’t allow, so don’t ever be afraid of losing your job. Do what is right in all cases. This life is very short, and you want to be able to be proud of your decisions, so always make them in faith and trust that God has all things in His control. Hold those plans loosely.

So how did God’s chosen spokesman know where to preach? You will recall how in Theology III we discussed Acts chapter 16 about how Paul says he desires to turn east and preach to the eastern world but he is specifically stopped by the Holy Spirit, and given a dream of a man in Macedonia, that is in the west, calling him to come and preach the gospel to them. He interprets this dream as a command from God, and immediately obeys, traveling across the Aegean Sea to Macedonia, then south into Greece, and winds up in Acts 17 on Mars Hill in Athens, the center of the ancient Greek world, then returns to Jerusalem.

In his third journey, he repeats his trip to Greece and writes his epistle to the Roman Christians, showing that his eyes and heart were facing even further west. Of course, in his final missionary journey, Paul goes to Rome. You see, from the point of that miraculous dream, Paul never again looks east. Once God set him on this path, he never looked back. It can rightly be argued that THIS is the true founding of what is known as Western civilization – all the accomplishments of the Greeks were astonishing, but until their reasoning was teamed up with the revelation of Jesus in the Christian church, the West as we know it could not be born. That means that all the accomplishments of Augustine, Boethius, Bede, Anselm, Suger, Thomas, Dante, Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, Leonardo, Shakespeare, Milton, Rembrandt, Handel, Bach, Pascal, Newton, Burke, Wilberforce, Mendelssohn, Rouault, Eliot, Chesterton, and even what’s-his-name who wrote the Narnia stories, all these people owe their accomplishments to one man who was prepared when God told him to preach the gospel to the west. And how many more in the future will be blessed by this event? How many in East Africa, East India, East China, SE Asia, and in the dense jungles of East Memphis owe their knowledge of the Savior to the Western culture that was born out of the combination of one man’s obedience and education? This is how Western civilization was born. Not simply through a forced combination of two competing schools of thought, Athens and Jerusalem, science and faith, reason and revelation, but through one unified thing: an obedient Christian who was educated to think well.

Do you see why your parents thought this was worthwhile? Why the board, faculty, staff, and administration would sacrifice their golf games to be sure this education was passed on? Do you see how you COULD have attended a school with excellent academics but didn’t teach the Faith? Or how you might go to a school that is thoroughly Christian but sees little value in teaching logic and rhetoric? We are part of a long history of faithful men and women who have passed on what they knew, regardless of the cost, and you are the next link in the chain. We are hoping that you will embody what is truly great about the West – that you will be a group of people with a command of language, and a command of the Scriptures. Then, armed with the indwelling Holy Spirit to guide you, you will be equipped to live out the truth, and be witnesses to God’s work of redemption in this world as long as your life lasts or He tarries. It is not by accident that you have been trained this way -- you have been chosen too, just like Paul – you have been educated for a reason. You are going to be ready when the Lord says, “not this way, that way” – and the result of your faithful choices will echo through the future generations just as Paul’s have.

But always remember that without the leading of the Holy Spirit, your education is of no value at all. In fact it could make you quite proud, which is deadly. It required a conversion, not a diploma, for Saul to become Paul. So in a way we are taking a big chance. An educated man who refuses God’s leading can do more damage than he could have done without the education. An educated man has the ability to lead - so you will be leaders, like it or not -- where will you lead us? Will you allow the Holy Spirit to lead you as He did Paul?

At this point in the speech, most commencement speakers tell you that this is an exciting time – the beginning of your careers, you can be anything you want to be, just believe in yourselves. But I am not going to say any of that. There are two good reasons why I won’t: first, it is a load of foolishness, and second, it is a load of foolishness. This IS an exciting time, but it is not because you can be anything you want to be – for example, I can say without too much fear of contradiction, that none of you will have much of a future in the NBA. You can’t be ANYTHING, but that’s a GOOD thing -- saves on loads of wasted time wondering! The point is, you weren’t built to be anything – you were built to do the specific work that God has called You to -- “you are God’s workmanship, created for good works in Christ.” You will embody the faith, communicating it to your watching pagan/barbaric neighbors -- and you’ll do it through your academic work, through the way you raise your children, through your writing, artwork, science, through the businesses you start, the churches you lead, through the way you spend your leisure time, through your carefully chosen words, and most of all, through the way you love one another and those pagan/barbaric neighbors – in short, the Lord will be made visible through the WAY you “do” culture.

Through you we hope to see a genuine turn back toward civilization again. It is a mighty burden to place on such a young and small group – and it may be that it will only be possible through your great-grandchildren -- but it will be accomplished, if it is accomplished, through a million little faithful decisions day-by-day, week by week by a growing community of believers who reveal the truth by their actions. By the way you look at the ways of the World, with its eyes on efficiency and “bottom line,” this-world benefits, and saying - NO. There is a goal others can’t see - a target we live for that they don’t know about - our decisions are made by aiming at eternal targets, not at a comfortable life of money and power in this world. As I told you in my one bit of advice, life is very short, and it will gone before you know it -- I know it doesn’t feel that way now, but ask your parents and grandparents and see if I am not right about this. Life is just a breath long when compared with eternity, and the only work that will stand is that which is done in faith. If we are each faithful in our own generations, God can and does use us to accomplish His work, and what better thing can there be than that?

May our Lord bless you each and keep you safe as you enter into the world of academics, and give you great joy as you stand with and for Him there. So -- I promised I’d be brief, and I promised I would not explain the Seven Liberal Arts again -- but now I want to ask YOU to promise ME something: promise that you will never apologize for faithfully holding fast to both these God-given gifts: revelation and reason – they are your inheritance as godly men and women of the West. Promise?

What would happen to a culture if they dismissed God's picture of sinful behavior (the law)? For example, our culture has given up the idea that ENVY is a sin. But this has serious repercussions. You'd think that giving up envy as a sin would lead us all to be more satisfied with our respective lots -- but no! Envy continues to rear its ugly head, only now we don't shame people who admit to it. Instead, we see envy in one person (or group) as a signpost that points to the inevitable conclusion that there is some sort of inequity present. Envy, instead of being a character flaw in the one who has it, becomes the alarm revealing "social injustice." If there were no social injustice, everyone would be at peace, right? QED.

There are many problems with being our own moral indicators, but for the sake of the line of thinking, let's accept the premise. Then the worst is yet to come. What is the solution for social injustice? Equalization, which usually takes the form of the redistribution of wealth. The people who have unjustly gotten more than the others should be penalized: fined, taxed, made to pay restitution -- in short, anytime envy rears its ugly head, we call for the one who is envied to pay. This is like the parent who, when confronted with the inevitable, "That's not fair -- he got more than I did," takes a part from the one who has more and gives it to the one who has less. What lesson is learned? That if you want more, just whine about it, and the powers that be will get it for you.

The reason this approach commands such attention in our day is that it seems compassionate. How can you want those poor people to be abused? What have they ever done to you? The question is not what have they done to me, but what have they done to God? Envy is a sin because it breaks the 10th commandment: No coveting your neighbor's anything! Why should we not allow coveting? Because it is faithless. This brings us full-circle: we envy because we don't believe that God will provide for our needs. We have dismissed God from the equation, so when we see imbalances between the haves and have-nots, we assume that there is an injustice, and try our best to fix it from our own perspective. The trouble is, envy is NEVER SATISFIED, and imbalances will be ALWAYS WITH US. No matter what we do, we cannot make the playing fields level. We can't make everyone have the same upbringing, same IQ, SAT scores, go the same colleges, have the same character, the same work ethic, the same capital, the same talents, or the same investments. The outcomes are always going to be different because WE are simply different. The only answer is to allow God back into our explanation about life, and trust that His love will bring about His good in our lives no matter what our circumstances. Of course with this love comes His description of reality, and part of that description says, "No coveting." It is sin. This just means that when we sense envy in our hearts, we call it the ugly evil that it is, and pray for help getting rid of it. Then get on with the difficult work of standing against the effects of the Fall, and fighting real injustice, not the injustice we have to modify with the word "social."

For an example - have a look at this: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/business/15mortgages.html

What if we have been looking at money the wrong way? What if it were not a commodity to be gathered, but simply a means -- a series of numbers -- that we use to reflect our common value system? We pay more for an hour of a brain surgeon's time than we pay for the plumber's time because we as a community value the work of the brain surgeon more than the work of the plumber. (I am not saying what we SHOULD value, just that we DO value it this way. One could certainly make the case that the plumber's abilities contribute more to a greater number than the brain surgeon's...but I digress...)

If we saw money only as a snapshot of our value system, then every price setting would become revelation of our convictions as a group. And instead of striving to gain money, as though it were a commodity in itself (currency traders notwithstanding), focus would be shifted to how one can EARN A LIVING. The only use for money is to trade for other things, and the only way to gain the power to trade is to have something to offer (a trade, a skill, an ability). We like to think that people can do whatever they like, and that they should be able to live the way they would like to live. But what if we were to think that one needs to earn a living again?

Four votes shy...

So why is this health care bill so important? Why are so many so up in arms about passing it or defeating it?

Say you arrived on Mars, and found two groups of Martians, the Hoes and the Whiches, heatedly debating the subject of whether or not to carry red rocks in their pockets. You might understandably lack any real appreciation for the subject, not living there, or knowing any of the reasons for or against the practice.

But say you learn along the way that the Hoes outnumbered the Whiches in their parliament, so that the Whiches didn't really have any chance to win a vote unless many of the Hoes voted with them. So the entire debate is within the Hoes' contingent.

Those who are against the issue argue that this is a bad idea because it would have terrible effects on the financial life of the population, reduce individual liberty, increase government control over more of life, and would go against the laws they already have on the books about red rocks. They offer that if given the chance they would be pleased to consider addressing the problem (whatever it is) together, but that this way is bad for them all.

Those Hoes in favor of this issue are lying in their press releases, knowingly overestimating the benefits of carrying rocks, and ignoring the costs, as well as offering huge payoffs, court appointments, kickbacks, exemptions, promises of support in the next elections, and even threats in order to purchase enough votes from the opposition Hoes (they don't even TRY to win any Whiches to their cause) to win the vote.

Not knowing anything about the details of the plan, which side would you be more attracted to?

The point of the exercise is to see how important the MEANS of winning the debate are to you. Do ends justify means? No matter what you think about the idea that health care should be a right for all, are you willing to compromise your souls in order to have it? I believe there are those in our country today that don't believe enough about virtue to allow it to alter their choices.

If we are to suppose that the Bush administration was over-zealous, war-mongering, and constitution-shredding, what are we to make of the events since the new president took office? After 9/11/01, there was not a single successful terrorist plot on American soil until this new administration. Every one was stopped. Every one. And we know now that there were many attempts. The only successful terrorist activity in this country since 9/11 has been under the new administration.

The Ft. Hood shooting was clearly Islamic terrorism: the cowardly murder of unarmed men and women. The Christmas "panty-bomber" (thanks, Mark Steyn) too was clearly an Islamic terrorist, in a cowardly attempt to kill unarmed men, women, and children in the air and on the ground. The administration must see this as failure.

In addition, the war in Afghanistan has heated up, and there has been little strong leadership from the White House (in spite of the president's rhetoric before the election that this was the "good" war). The winding down of the Iraqi war had begun under the previous administration, and whatever the degree of its long-term results, its success is due to the "surge" mounted and maintained by the previous administration in spite of the opposition of the Democrats.

It seems that 1/3 of all the terrorist plots in the last decade have happened during 2009. (See Victor David Hanson's piece on NRO: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjYyYzhlZWM3NGViOTEwMmE1NGNlY2M5MGMxMzM4ODY=). The numbers of attempted attacks are (as predicted) going UP under this new administration. Charles Krauthammer said the other day that we should consider the Christmas bombing a success for the terrorists as it should have worked, and would have apart from the bomber's ineptitude and the heroism of one Dutch fellow.

What will it take to turn this around? Quietly, the present administration is adopting the very policies of the Bush/Chaney White House that they criticized so blatantly during the 2008 campaign. Hanson writes, "Given his adoption of the Bush protocols, Obama might show the same magnanimity toward his predecessor that he does toward the Muslim world."

I won't hold my breath.