In the First Circle

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's In the First Circle--a new translation and first edition of the uncensored (originally published in censored form as The First Circle) version--came out this fall, and I have just finished the 740 pages. It is a book I hope to read again, which says a lot. Like all good Russian novels, it has a cast of characters, prisoners in a special camp in a Moscow suburb, who work alongside free workers on various technological projects as directed by fearless leader Stalin. Solzhenitsyn's portrayal of Stalin and the inner workings of his mind, along the author's wrenching portrayal of the thoughts, fears, compromises, aspirations, denials and betrayals of both prisoners and free citizens reflects a mirror on the human condition under the thumb of an elite set of tyrants and bureaucrats who would rule over man for his own good. Collectivism and oppression and the psychologies that enable them are the context for the aspirations, strivings, and failings of the human spirit. The characters are richly varied (and two are somewhat autobiographical), and I look forward to having the opportunity to revisit this suburban prison, along with Eleanor Roosevelt (who makes an appearance at the prison in one memorable satiric chapter).

Garrison Keillor's Secret Celebration

One of our readers at Brandywine Books alerted me to this recent column by Garrison Keillor, of whom I imagine you've heard.

It's a very odd column, from someone who (I'm told) is a very odd man. The most interesting part is here:

Unitarians listen to the Inner Voice and so they have no creed that they all stand up and recite in unison, and that's their perfect right, but it is wrong, wrong, wrong to rewrite "Silent Night." If you don't believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own d*mn "Silent Night" and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write "Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we'll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah"? No, we didn't.

This remarkable passage is notable for being at once gratifying and infuriating. It does my heart good to know that Mr. Keillor cares about the truths of Christianity, the uniqueness of Christ, the importance of the Incarnation, all that culturally inconvenient stuff that makes the difference between true belief and mere sentiment. Good on him for that.

But then he goes on to insult Jewish songwriters (like Johnny Marks, whom Mark Steyn has been eulogizing this season) who write perfectly pleasant, seasonal songs loved by millions, as if propagating some kind of low dose Blood Libel. It's the sort of out-of-left-field change of argument one expects from a stubborn spouse (or so I've heard) who's in a bad mood and just wants a fight.

I have a theory on what Keillor's really thinking here. Like most theories (most especially mine) it's probably wrong, but I'll wheel it out and let you tell me what you think. Bear in mind that I can claim some insight into Keillor's mind because, like him, I'm a) a small town Minnesotan by upbringing, b) pathologically shy (though I've never figured out how somebody as diffident as he claims to be has managed to be married so many times. Wish I knew where to shop for that kind of shyness), and c) closely associated with Lutheranism.

Continue reading "Garrison Keillor's Secret Celebration"

Thanks for Your Generosity

I've been slapped down with some nasty bug today and have had to work from home for a grand total of an hour or so. (A visit to a nearby pharmacy "minute clinic" puts me on antibiotics, so I hope to be back asap.) From e-mails I've recent from Jenny Grisolano at work, I see that so far today $3,950 have been donated on-line to support the work of the Fellowship. This is amazing and I wish to thank all donors today and during the entire year for your generous gifts of support.

You can be assured we use your gifts at this time as wisely as we can: we've pared down to a 6-member staff; three of us put out Touchstone, Salvo, The Daily Devotional Guide, and the Calendar of the Christian Year; the other 3 run the business, pay the bills, fill orders, and do marketing, and yes, read Touchstone and Salvo galleys and do fund-raising with what time we have and according to our needs. Honestly, our goals this year are just to do the bare bones work and pay the bills. No special funds for large marketing efforts are included (though they'd be welcome). Beside the regular editorial work, I pitch in with fundraising, marketing, and all the various business decisions that come up from time to time. We have one part time person helping with marketing (especially fielding welcome requests for sample copies) and when needed volunteers will come in to help stuff envelopes and so on.

Our plush facilities are on the first and second floor of a typical modest Chicago bungalow (a parish house that we rent), with the usual sorts of adjustments needed to make things fit: business office on the back porch, copier in the kitchen, printer in the pantry. The three of us producing the publications work upstairs (attic) under a sloping roof with a ceiling of no more than 7 feet in the center--without windows and good lighting (which we have) claustrophobia might set in--but it doesn't and we're happily working away each day, with Fed Ex and UPS trucks pulling up each day at the house for deliveries of supplies.

You're welcome to stop by for a visit. (Call 773 481-1090) The neighborhood is certainly lower-middle class, roughly half way between Chicago O'Hare and downtown, not far off of the Kennedy Expressway (I-90/94) and the CTA Blue Line which connects O'Hare and downtown.

I am happy where we are, happy to be still publishing, and happy that we have made so many friends over the years, including new ones this year. God alone knows what the future holds for our country, our churches, our communities, our ministries, and for each one of us personally. We're called to live and have faith one day at a time--today, to be precise. I thank our many donors old and new for all that you have done to make FSJ possible. God willing, our plans for next year will result in the continued godly and fruitful edification of our readers as they make their way Home, as witnesses to the Lord born in Bethlehem of the Virgin, who gave Himself to us that we might fully give ourselves to God and to His grace that saves us and makes us free, no matter our circumstances. Thank you and God bless you.

(We're closing in our goal for the year. On-line donations may be made securely here. Checks should be mailed to The Fellowship of St. James, 4125 W. Newport Avenue, Chicago, IL  60641.)

Jesus, the Friend of My Enemy

     A few days ago I received this lovely tribute to a Lutheran pastor, Richard Wurmbrand, who worked for twenty years in Communist Romania, and spent fourteen of them in prison for his faith. Pastor Wurmbrand was no despiser of the Orthodox; he met many saintly priests and laymen in prison, and confessed to them, and learned from them the arts of patience and holy love.

     I have been pondering the story of the priest, effectively murdered by his torturer, dying of wounds he had received, meeting the torturer himself in the barracks, after the Communists had turned against him and beaten the life nearly out of him. The priest was dying, and the man confessing, who was his murderer, was dying; yet the priest asked the help of a couple of men to carry him over to the bed of the murderer, so that he could console him, and give him love, and hear him groan out a life of sin, and assure him that God had not abandoned him.

     It is enough to take the breath away. And I ask myself, "What single thing have I done today -- or this whole year -- or in all my life, to go out of my way to show love to someone who hates me?" So simple it is to understand the command of Jesus, and yet how many are the excuses we make to keep from fulfilling it! How easily I forget that the enemy is loved by Jesus with a love that I cannot imagine. And it is that transcendent worth that makes it not only right for me to love my enemy, but possible in the first place. For without it, he is my enemy, my rival for the compassing of certain goods whereof there is a finite supply. He is my political opponent, perhaps, and I must rise by his fall. But under the canopy of that Good which makes all earthly goods fade into relative insignificance -- even as it confirms their goodness, in their right place -- I can and indeed must love my enemy, because Jesus loves his enemies, among whom we all at some time have stood, or are standing even now.

     Here, in the loving of the enemy, there is nothing to lose but our pride, and everything to gain. What would the world be like, if once in a week, as a kind of observance of Sabbath rest from the weary bustle of pride and envy and wrath, we were to direct a single act of love, even gruff love, towards someone who has hurt us, or who hates us, or who mocks us, or who (and this is the terrible secret of bullies, for example) is afraid of us? Would we make conversions to Christ? Indeed we would. First among them would be ourselves.

     And, as if to confirm my thoughts and abash me at once, one of the finest students I have ever taught came to visit at my office the other day. His senior year had been made miserable by a professor who is what I call a "destroyer," that is, someone who cannot bear that anyone else should uphold a standard of goodness and beauty that she (in this case it was a woman; most of the really determined destroyers at my school are men) had rejected. We talked about it for a little bit, after which I said, as if I were the possessor of great wisdom, "You should pray for her."

     "I do," he said.

NYTimes on Robert George

The Conservative-Christian Big Thinker today is Robert P. George, according to this feature article in this Sunday's New York Times. Indeed:

With the death of the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran minister turned Roman Catholic priest who helped bring evangelicals and Catholics together into a political movement, George has assumed his mantle as the reigning brain of the Christian right. And he is in many ways the public face of the conservative side in the most urgent culture-war battle of the day.

It's not because he loves wearing mantles, I am sure, but because he loves the truth and sees what its denial does to society and real people. The articles goes into much detail about George's views on marriage and the role of reason in the moral life.

Robert George was indeed at "the center of the event" described in the opening two paragraphs: an energetic emcee and moderator from morning through late evening, despite being sick.(Instead of a glass of wine at the evening reception, he nursed a glass of one of those cold remedies.) I've been saying to friends and staff this past year, "Robert George is really on a mission. He has really stepped up...."

[Minor detail: The described meeting of 60 in the library took place in the morning and Metropolitan Jonah was not at that meeting (I don't believe Archbishop Dolan was either, though perhaps he came late); Jonah was at the afternoon meeting, which was not in the library and included perhaps as many as 200 people.]

Boundless Angels

Jim Tonkowich offers this interesting piece on angels as we approach Christmas. Shepherds and angels--just an old story or did they hear heaven singing? I know so many people who have angel stories; it's hard NOT to believe in angels. (Best angel movie? My vote is Wings of Desire (Wenders, not the Hollywood remake.)

The Anti-Christmas Card

Every year I enjoy receiving Christmas greetings in the mail, but this year an atheist friend sent me something new: an Anti-Christmas card in which he gave us felicitations of the winter solstice, inviting us to join our pre-Christian forebears in celebrating its prospects.  He takes a Nietzschean view of Christianity: it is a myth in which the spiritually and mentally weak take refuge, a platform from which to make cowardly and self-righteous assaults on those who have the courage to deny the truth of these fairy-stories and live in a demystified reality.

I am sympathetic to his charges, since I find them true from a perspective I understand, and do not find unreasonable, but have chosen not to adopt because I do not myself wish to be judged on my worst points.  It is by no means difficult, however, to find representatives of Christianity against whom they are perfectly plausible.  If someone concentrates his sight on these, defining the faith by its worst professors--who loom exceedingly large in the view of many through no fault of their own--then it is indeed every bad thing that so many wounded freethinkers accuse it of being. 

I rarely find these people unlovely--in fact, the contrary has usually been true.  Many of them seem full of love, not only for people, but for God’s other handiwork--and they are lovers of truth so far as they are able to perceive it as unconnected to orthodox religion.  Are they really atheists?  God knows, but I am not willing to affirm it.  What does one say of someone whose encounters with professing Christians and their churches have left him cold or hostile, but who rejoices in justice, truth, goodness, and beauty so far as his prejudices allow him to perceive it?  

St. Augustine said he would never have believed the gospel if the authority of the catholic Church had not influenced him to do so, but for many this authority has been obscured, the power, glory, beauty, and authority of the Church having been eclipsed by the flocks of mendicants, hucksters, and holy shows in its outer courts.  Becoming atheists to their gospels is a necessary step to finding one’s way to God.  While we cannot deny the fool the privilege of saying “No God” in his heart, the atheist as we can know him may not be a fool; indeed, we who profess Christ need to be especially careful that we do not become fools ourselves in our profession to know God, inclined as we are to make him over after our own images and worship what is in fact an idol.

For me the authority of the catholic Church has only been discoverable behind the churches.  What has made it discoverable is my love of, and strong desire to play a part in, the Great Story from which all stories worth hearing come, of which I have written elsewhere.  The Church is the Beautiful Princess whom the Handsome Prince went through death and fire to win.  This story is not told only by the Bible--although that is the authoritative version which gives the central detail--but in variation (and sometimes only in part) by all the storytellers whose stories simple people such as I want to hear.  The Prince returns to Ithaca, or Minas Tirith, or Hogwarts, or heaven, ruining his enemies and claiming his bride.  This is the only story I want, and, like a little child on Mother’s knee, insist absolutely it be told right--with no “creative” work on the part of the storyteller, whose sole task is to pass it down accurately and uncorrupted.  

Now, there are certain requirements involved in being a Christian which are obnoxious to us worldly people naturally inclined to sin.  But I hardly see how one could desire to do what is necessary to know Christ without loving him first (even when his name is not known), as the object of what Lewis called Sweet Desire--a mysterious and overwhelming longing, rooted in the Self by Grace, that goes far beyond and is far deeper than fear or respect or religious devotion or even much that is regarded as love.  It is much more like strong sexual desire, its loss what is felt, and meant to be felt, at the end of every carnal exultation.  It is what is found when a special gift of God allows us to consider, even for a brief moment, what our hearts desire--of what the place will be like where we want our pilgrimage to end.  We cannot summon this of our own will; it comes as when a chime awakens the vision of “a far green country under a swift sunrise,” which then quickly recedes--and so it should, for it is not of this world, but a visitation from another.  

There are “church” formulations of this understanding which are absolutely and formally correct: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever” is one of the best.  These generally leave me as cold as they do my atheist (or angry heretic) friends.  But I have no problem whatever seeing the Lord Jesus Christ as the handsome Prince, the Church as his Bride, and wishing myself to be among his friends.  For me, as well as perhaps for them, he needs translating out of church language before he can be translated back in, but once the translation has been made, then one can see it was the ancient voice of Mother Kirk in all her hidden glory that was speaking to us all along--yes, even in Homer.

Touchstone in the WSJ

It's nice to see that after 25 years of publishing we're noticed in the Wall Street Journal.

About the article itself: Being intellectual isn't enough. That merely describes a developed (or sometimes overdeveloped) mental capacity for detailed abstract thinking and an acquired taste for ingesting (and/or producing) academic prose. Are all Evangelical Biblical Commentaries and systematic theologies anti-intellectual? They're just not fashionable with the secular academy. (Carl F. H. Henry was not intellectual?)

Where Evangelicalism failed is in not heeding calls to engage the two-thousand year tradition seriously (e.g., the Chicago Call) and thus the content of what its best minds process is too narrow both chronologically speaking and culturally speaking: mega-church mimicry of the thin crust of mass American culture du jour won't creat an environment for intellectual rigor. But that is changing. The appearance of the Ancient Christian Commentary series and others like this are signs that a broader chronological engagement is sought, which is itself one way to escape cultural captivity and shallowness.

While some point out that Evangelicals who have become more intellectual have usually "converted" to Catholicism or Anglicanism or Orthodoxy, I'd put it differently. If the goal is to be simply more intellectual (because you get more respect in the wider world), most such people end up becoming liberal Christians of some sort or nothing at all. It's not than someone, like Dorothy's Scarecrow, final got a brain and the lights went on and he became a Catholic or Orthodox.

I believe it's more often the case than someone with interest in studying his faith discovers the depth of Christian tradition, for love of Christ and for the things of Christ. This is what captivates the mind,  not worldly intellectual fashion. But here's the tricky part, something I must hasten to add. One might remain an Evangelical and not "convert." The claims and theologies of the "historic" churches may be engaged with intellectual rigor by Evangelicals. Obviously, since this may be a new encounter for many (as it was for me) a certain number will examine the competing claims of other traditions and perhaps be swayed by them. Or not. I think of the late Victor Walter, a Evangelical Free Church professor of patristics at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the 1970s. Today, I think of colleagues and friends at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Mohler and Moore. Or The City journal mentioned in the article, by our friends at Houston Baptist University. To some, no doubt, they're not intellectual enough, by which I take it that these critics are more interested in the kind of intelligence it takes to convince readers that white is black and black with.

And finally, for many, you will never ever be considered as a candidate for being an intellectual, no matter what else you do, until you offer a pinch of incense on the altar of St. Charles Darwin. Some of the fiercest proponents of this position are Christian intellectuals themselves who'd like to keep their unwashed cousins out of the clubhouse.

The City and The Wall St. Journal

The Wall St. Journal has an article up on the topic of evangelicals and intellectuals.  Now, this would normally interest me in and of itself, but the great part is that the piece mentions Houston Baptist University’s journal The City.

We founded the journal as something of an evangelical First Things a couple of years ago and the response has been fantastic throughout.

Here’s a clip from the article:

At this relatively early stage, most of the examination takes place not in the public square but on the campuses of evangelical colleges and in Christian publications, and much of the discussion is about the nature of the evangelical mind. This is seen most clearly in Houston Baptist University’s new publication The City. Its winter 2008 issue featured an essay by a young evangelical writer named Matthew Lee Anderson titled “The New Evangelical Scandal.” Mr. Anderson suggests that though new evangelicals are marked by a shift away from the ethos of their parents’ generation—including moralism, political partisanship and anti-intellectualism—the change is not as drastic as some have come to think and is actually just “version 2.0 of the seeker-sensitive movement: it’s trendier, better dressed, and more open to conversation.” The scandal, Mr. Anderson suggests, is that the perceived shift occurring among younger evangelicals is more a matter of expression than substance.

The New Ledger and The End of Secularism

Okay, I’ve pelted you with all manner of material in which I am interviewed about my book by various professional Christian types.  How about one with a website that has a Wall Street and Washington, D.C. focus?

My friend Ben Domenech and I founded The City together at Houston Baptist University.  He continues to be the  dominant force in the production of that journal and has gone on to found a fantastic website on politics and finance called The New Ledger.  I feel very honored that Ben has seen fit to post an interview with me about the book there.  

Like many conversations between old friends, this one makes for good listening.

"We'll Kill You Unless You Tear Down Your Bell Tower"

Incoming late last night:

Summary: ISTANBUL, December 15 (Compass Direct News) – In response to a Swiss vote banning the construction of new mosque minarets, a group of Muslims this month went into a church building in eastern Turkey and threatened to kill a priest unless he tore down its bell tower, according to an advocacy group. Three Muslims on Dec. 4 entered the Meryem Ana Church, a Syriac Orthodox church in Diyarbakir, and confronted the Rev. Yusuf Akbulut. They told him that unless the bell tower was destroyed in one week, they would kill him. “If Switzerland is demolishing our minarets, we will demolish your bell towers too,” one of the men told Akbulut. The threats came in reaction to a Nov. 29 referendum in Switzerland in which 57 percent voted in favor of banning the construction of new minarets in the country. The Swiss ban, widely viewed around the world as a breach of religious freedom, is likely to face legal challenges in Switzerland and in the European Court of Human Rights. Fikri Aygur, vice president of the European Syriac Union, said that Akbulut has contacted police but has otherwise remained defiant in the face of the threats. “He has contacted the police, and they gave him guards,” he said. “I talked with him two days ago, and he said, ‘It is my job to protect the church, so I will stand here and leave it in God’s hands.’”

If the "Syriac Orthodox church in Diyarbakir" referenced above doesn't mean anything to you, then read the Touchstone feature article, "The Return of the Suriani: A Visit to a Christian Minority in Turkey That Refuses to Die," by Joel Carillet (March 2006). In this case, the local priest is willing to die.

[This and many other unique feature articles are published 6 times a year in Touchstone. Subscribe on-line here today!]

Are Darwinists Scared to Read Signature in the Cell?

I doubt it. It's just that they don't want to render "discussable" anything written by a proponent of Intelligent Design. As I was saying yesterday in my post "Signs in the Cell": Let's hear from the scientists why Stephen Meyer is mistaken in Signature in the Cell. So far, it seems, based on this from Evolution News & Views, the sounds of silence. Let's hear the science from those who complain that ID is not science.

J. Gresham Machen on Public Schooling (1923)

"A public-school system, in itself, is indeed of enormous benefit to the race.  But it is of benefit only if it is kept healthy at every moment by the absolutely free possibility of competition of private schools.  A public-school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument of tyranny which has yet been devised.

"Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective.  Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist.  Such a tyrrany, supported as it is by a perverse technique used as the instrument in destroying human souls, is certainly far more dangerous than the crude tyrannies of the past . . . ."

From Christianity and Liberalism, p. 14.

Useless Utility

     This Advent at the Esolen house, as always, we watch old Christmas specials, including my half-guilty favorite, which is the musical cartoon version of A Christmas Carol, with Mister Magoo as the grasping old bill collector Ebenezer Scrooge, and Jack Cassidy (of all people) as Bob Cratchit, and Morey Amsterdam making his voice go small for Tiny Tim.  "Are there no workhouses?" sneers Jim Backus, in the inimitably squeaky and sly voice of Magoo-Scrooge, about to tell a couple of pleaders for charity where to go.  "Are there no prisons?"  Scrooge pays handsomely for such institutions, he says, and those who cannot afford better must go there.

     Now the popular interpretation of the story is that Scrooge is merely greedy, and that once he is persuaded to loosen up his death-grip on the moneybags, all will be well.  That, of course, is completely to misconstrue what Dickens cares about most deeply.  Scrooge indeed will loosen that death-grip, but only after he has undergone a change of heart, which will involve a rejection of utilitarianism and an acceptance of the Christian belief that every human being, even a crippled little boy named Tim, is of inestimable worth, and cannot finally be placed in a balance with material goods and material pleasures.  And that is a lesson of enduring value.  Scrooge, today, would not be the tight-lipped honor-clamped Victorian man of business; he might instead be a profiteer in bad mortgages, lavishing himself with a posh mansion and trips to the Caribbean.  The utilitarianism underlying his "business," or his refusal to see that mankind is his business, would be the same, and must be rejected for the same reasons.

     For it is a marvelous paradox, that if we really wanted the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and if we really counted as "good" those things that are transcendently good, such as the love of a little child, then utilitarianism testifies against itself and declares that the last thing we should want to do is to produce utilitarians.  Let me enumerate some of the reasons.

     First, it is one thing to say that in the utilitarian calculus everyone ought to count the same, and quite another thing to move the hearts of men to make that accounting correct.  Dickens shows us one of the possibilities in Mr. Scrooge himself.  He pays taxes (plenty of them, as he thinks) to a reformist government that sets up the palliative institutions.  For him, the mass of mankind have receded into abstraction -- relieving him of the necessity to attend to the pain of any one uncomfortably corporeal person near to him, as for instance his struggling nephew Fred, or his penurious clerk Bob.  The other possibility is embodied in Dickens' satire on bad charity, Mrs. Jellyby, in Bleak House.  This woman procures subscriptions to assist the natives of Borioboola-Gha (and to assist, not coincidentally, the British coffee trade), at the expense of her own children, whom she ignores.  She practices what Dickens calls "telescopic philanthropy," meaning that she is of no use whatever to anyone; rather, she is consumed in selfishness, albeit a pleasanter and more dreamy-eyed selfishness than that of Scrooge.

     Now it will not do to object that these are extremes, because Dickens' very aim is to show the utilitarian or the global philanthropist in pure state -- and not give them credit for a humanity which their system perversely denies.  For both Scrooge and Mrs. Jellyby show that one cannot love that abstraction called "humanity," and that therefore all actions performed in order to increase the total happiness of humanity must be vitiated by that same lovelessness.  If it be objected that Scrooge should have taken care of Bob Cratchit, and that Mrs. Jellyby should have seen to her own children, I reply that indeed they should have -- and would have, had they learned to love those nearest to them, and to esteem them as valuable beyond reckoning -- which is but another way of saying the same thing.  But then they must cease to be utilitarians.

     For -- and this is my second reason -- the utilitarian cannot admit of inestimable value, without rendering all calculation pointless.  It is one thing to say that calculation and love do not coexist; and that we would all be better off producing people who love rather than people who calculate.  It is another, and more potent, thing to say that the terms of the calculus themselves have no meaning.  These views of the world are irreconcilable.  In one, the value of a crippled little boy is something no doubt very great but also determinate, needing to be weighed in the balance against, say, the value of a sound pound sterling, and the free market, and the rights of collection agencies and repo men.  In the other, the whole purpose of having a law-of-the-household at all is that there might be households, so that a Tim would get enough food to eat.  "Mankind," says Jacob Marley, "was my business."

     Which leads me to my third objection -- that utilitarianism enshrines a most particular and culturally determined version of the good life, and it is by no means clear that such a life deserves that enshrinement.  Let us suppose Ebenezer Scrooge with the same habits of mind, except that he has been persuaded, for the sake of the country, that a certain amount of almsgiving would in fact redound to his own benefit and to the benefit of a great number of others.  What, essentially, would be so different about him?  The Cratchits would be better off, no question, but we would still have in Ebenezer a man swaddled up in selfishness, dead to genuine love.  Give him some pleasant tastes in diversion -- the opera, the playhouse -- and he might even pass for a boon companion, but hardly a friend, much less a man who encounters the depths and the mystery of life.

     Perhaps Scrooge would be, then, what we train our children to be now.  I recall a conversation I had last year with a very smart professor of health policy, a Christian of sorts, who laid it down as certain that health at least was necessary for human flourishing; we could all agree on that.  I couldn't agree, though; I was thinking of a pair of useless people who changed millions of lives, and neither of them enjoyed good health.  One was the ragged Saint Francis of Assisi, and the other was a girl who caught tuberculosis and spent the rest of her short youth in a convent, dying in agony -- and in peace: Therese of Lisieux.  I simply do not see how holiness can be measured -- and holiness, not health, not wealth, not prestige, not victories on the golf tour, is the ultimate standard for a truly human life.

     Be advised, Christians!  Attend to the Master, who never says to us, "Succeed in the world!"  The next time someone asks what you hope your children will be, shake the earth beneath by replying, "Saints."  And, after all that, it is the saint and not the utilitarian who is of most use in shaping the world; he whips the utilitarian at his own game.

Do You Believe in Miracles? C.S. Lewis College Begins!

UPDATE: See the video. It may work where the website has not been.

The dream begins. I visited with the people behind this recently and am extremely excited. Wonderful, raving, gigantic thanks to the Hobby Lobby people for backing the great men and women of the C.S. Lewis Foundation.

Read more here.  (link has been broken, but video above should work)

UN Petition for the Unborn Child and the Family

The UN should continue to abide by its earlier Declaration of Human Rights, which has very good things to say about the family and rights of parents to educate their own children. The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute has been collecting signatures on a petition that you can read and sign here. I did, just today, signer number 629,738. Take a look if you haven't already.

[Please help support Mere Comments and the Fellowship of St. James with a year-end tax deductible online donation today.]

Oral Roberts Dies

I never knew Roberts was a Methodist for 19 years.

Oral Roberts, dean of Pentecostal evangelists, dies at 91

By Lisa Singh and Adelle M. Banks
Washington D.C., 16 December (ENI/RNS)--Oral Roberts, the pioneering television evangelist and faith healer who became the dean of Pentecostal preachers in the United States, has died at the age of 91.

The founder of the Tulsa-based Oral Roberts University, Roberts was the author of more than 130 books, including his massive autobiography, "Expect a Miracle: My Life and Ministry", Religion News Service reports.

Roberts died on 15 December in Newport Beach, California, of complications from pneumonia, his publicist announced.

In 1954, Roberts became the second evangelist to appear on television - Rex Humbard was the first by a few months - when NBC began broadcasting his tent crusades. He switched to a half-hour Sunday show 13 years later, and by 1977, his Sunday morning show reached 1.1 million households and was the top-rated religious programme on television.

Ordained by the Pentecostal Holiness Church - he joined the United Methodist Church in 1968 and left after 19 years - Roberts drew nationwide attention during his 60-plus-year career for his healing services and "discussions" with God. [reprinted with permission]

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The Advent Conspiracy

I think Robert Hart was correct in saying I might find this story about the Advent Conspiracy interesting. I have not been offended that cashiers (sometimes) don't say "Merry Christmas" for I don't need their words to celebrate Christmas properly (and he might be a Muslim or an atheist), though any "secularizing" motive behind corporate policies instructing cashiers not to say Merry Christmas do rankle me, but that's because it's another reminder of how secularized Christians and the rest of society have become. But is Christmas all about shopping? It certainly seems that Advent is. But:

[Pastor] McKinley and his friends decided to try a radical experiment. They urged congregants to spend less on presents for friends and family, and to consider donating some of the money they saved as a result. At first, church members weren't quite sure how to react. "Some people were terrified," remembers McKinley. "They said, 'My gosh, you're ruining Christmas. What do we tell our kids?'" The pastors had to reassure people that they weren't advocating a Grinchy no-gifts kind of Christmas, but rather one in which people spent a little less and thought a little more, expressing their love through something more meaningful than a gift card. Once church members adjusted to this new conception of Christmas, they found that they loved it. Many, in fact, seemed relieved to be given permission to slow down and buy less.

Baseball player Albert Pujols is behind the conspiracy as well. Judging by the number of garages that are no longer used for automobiles but for storage and by the growth of the personal storage locker business, I'd say cutting down on buying stuff may be long overdue and might eventually free up some street parking.

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Signs in the Cell

I've read Stephen Meyers superb and accessible Signature in the Cell and highly recommend it to atheists, Darwinists, and anyone else who needs to know (or is just curious about) "what does it take to get life started?"  Heather Zeiger wrote a review of the book for our Salvo magazine. If you know of any serious scientific engagement with Meyer's book, let me know. And I don't intend to read anything other than scientific critiques of his arguments. In CBS News's 60 minutes (which I rarely watch) a scientist who is developing techniques for growing all sorts of body replacement parts said, to paraphrase from memory, that every single cell in the body has all the programming inside it needed to develop any part of the human body and that we're just trying to learn how to manipulate that programming. Programming arose by itself, eh, Darwin?

Christmas Trees in Beijing

Fom the other side of the planet, here is a piece on secularism and Christmas celebrations at MercatorNet by Christina Nicholas, a recent high school graduate in Beijing.

Christmas in Chinese is sheng dan jie, literally translating to Holy Birth Day, and Christmas trees are sheng dan shu, literally Holy Birth Tree. Even one of the world’s officially atheist nations seems to have no problem with the name’s allusion to the birth of Jesus Christ.

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