Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments

Updated Gifts

We were not able to post on the chart at the top of the page the latest update on end-of-year giving (Jerry does this, but he was not available this afternoon). As of about 4 PM today, we've reach over $296,000, so that $53,000 remains. Any mail or check dated December 31 or earlier will be counted for 2007, plus on-line contributions made before midnight Dec. 31. Many thanks to the many, many readers who have supported us so generously this year! A blessed New Year, Anno Domini 2008 to one and all.

As the Calendar Turns

     "Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it."  If only!  I'm sure that many of you have heard some form of that quip by Santayana, and I daresay that in an unguarded moment I may have actually used it in class, as if the study of history were mainly justified by its prophylactic utility.  That's not fair to Santayana, who meant no such thing, but it is how the quip is commonly understood.  If you don't know your history, then you are likely to step on the same landmines that your ignorant forebears stepped on, and then think how sorry you'll be.

     An excellent corrective to this half-mistaken call for the study of history is a book I've just read for the first time -- to my embarrassment I say it, but everyone has his sins of omission.  It's Richard Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences (1948), one of those books like Kirk's Conservative Mind or Lasch's Culture of Narcissism that allows you to stand clear of the contemporary welter and see not only how we've arrived at the current unpleasantness, but how apparently disparate phenomena are related: the loss of the sense of transcendentals; the reduction of the people to the masses; corporate capitalism and the oxymoronic anonymity of property; pragmatic education in the service of materialist ends; and what Weaver calls "The Stereopticon," the public rapid-fire of one image after another, without cultural or historical context, at speeds that make reflection and reason impossible.  The Idea, by the way, that has brought about these Consequences, is the nominalist one, given us by Scotus (whom Weaver does not single out for villainy) and Ockham (whom he does), which denies the existence of universals, and eventually replaces the quest for knowledge-as-truth with the Baconian quest for knowledge-as-power-over.  In other words, it dethrones wisdom and sets up technological and bureaucratic utility in its place.  It sees the world finally as a machine, and then man as a machine, or as some great inert mass to be activated for pragmatic and materialist purposes.

     Some developments since Weaver wrote would bring him cause for hope: the homeschooling movement foremost among them.  In a home school, the teachers and the students largely choose their course of study, making judgments that it is better for Joey to read Dickens than it is for him to read Stephen King, and so judging in the light of values deriving from their sense of the good, the true, and the beautiful.  Or maybe, if they are foolish, they make the reverse judgment; but at least they are human in their error, and not some indiscriminate portion in a vast mass, and they will suffer the consequences of their misjudgment and perhaps learn from them, exactly as if they had neglected to provide for raingutters in a house they built for themselves.  Yet many developments would but confirm Weaver's vision.  He would, as the old-fashioned liberal Lasch did, see the feminist "revolution" as but one form of capitulating to the freedom-destroying reduction of families to wards of the state, and of genuine individualism to narcissism, with one's value determined not by tradition, or honor, or noble obedience to moral directives that transcend the age, but rather by celebrity, a plaque on a desk, and brightly ribboned toys.  Every philosophy that scorns the past, writing it off as one long night of stupidity, or, worse, as "socially constructed" and therefore irrelevant to us now, condemns man to live a prey to current social managers and mass education and entertainment.  You cannot be a lover of wisdom without a strong memory, Plato says. 

     I live and work in the midst of the ruins: just the other day I saved from the dumpster several learned expositions, written for the Intelligent General Reader, of the Summa Theologiae of Aquinas.  When I opened one of the volumes, a passel of newspaper clippings fell out, along with some prayer cards, and memorials for deceased Dominicans.  On the inside of one cover was written "R. J. Fortin, 1951" -- and if I am right, that means that the book was owned by an excellent Shakespearean scholar, an alumnus of my college, and the founder of our Western Civilization program.  Somehow no one in my library saw fit to save the books.  As no one in a local Narragansett Bay library saw fit to save four volumes of the renowned history of the Indians, by Francis Parkman.  Mass man, watching "news" en masse, "educated" to believe that the latest ephemera, a Romney or a Mrs. Clinton, have ever entertained a single idea to distinguish them from the masses to which they agree that we should be reduced.  We will know that we have a chance of rising from the sludge when the following conversation becomes conceivable once more:

     Puling Person of the Populace: "Our schools are failing, Mr. Presidential Candidate.  What do you plan on doing about it?"
     Mr. Candidate: "Nothing at all.  If your students can't read, might I suggest that you see to it yourselves?  Might I also suggest that you fire those currently in charge of your schools?  See to it yourselves.  You are not children."
     Puling Person of the Populace: "But Mr. Presidential Candidate --"
     Mr. Candidate: "No more.  Do not embarrass yourself any further."

     Anyway, I wish you all a blessed Feast of the Circumcision -- though I know it happened a long time ago.

Approaching the end of 2007

Every day more than 1,800 readers visit the Mere Comments website. Thanks to every one of you who has graciously contributed this year! Since July 1, 2007 (which is the beginning of our fiscal year), our Friends of Mere Comments have donated $13,227 towards the ministry of The Fellowship of St. James. Our overall fundraising goal for the end of the 2007 calendar year is $350,000 —we have currently received $271,490. Please consider a gift to FSJ in these next few days, and remember that a contribution made by December 31 is considered as a tax-deductible gift for 2007.

Last year a Mere Comments reader asked if we could post on the website a graph that illustrates how close FSJ is in reaching our fundraising goal. It was a good suggestion, so we’ve posted a chart, which we will update regularly. And it will be posted on the website until the close of our fiscal year, June 30, 2008.

Mere Comments, Touchstone, The Daily Devotional Guide, the Calendar of the Christian Year, and Salvo are all reader supported. Nearly 60% of the revenue comes from the generosity of readers and foundations. Here at FSJ we try not to inundate you with too many appeals for your financial support, yet we are compelled to ask occasionally throughout the year for you to give as generous a gift as you can.

During the next few days, in the midst of celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas, will you seriously consider if you are able to support the ministry of Mere Comments and The Fellowship of St. James? Your generosity, whether $20 or $2,000, will be greatly appreciated!

God bless you and may you enjoy a blessed New Year!

Eighth Day: Touché Socrates!

Just in case you're not familiar with Eighth Day Books, I note their catalog, just received in the mail, which paging through gives me great pleasure and whets my appetite for more reading, which is for me a bit of education. I have to watch what I spend, of course, but the selection is top notch, and even reading the book descriptions is fascinating. Including this one:

Although we rarely question the value of writing, producing, selling and reading books--after all, books are our passion and our business--never have we experienced such broad confirmation of these activities as we find in So Many Books. Socrates, in the Phaedrus, argued that books undermine our powers of memory and are inferior to conversation. Today's critics are more likely to point to the astounding number of titles published per year in issues of only a few thousand (more than a million) as a troubling development. But essayist Gabriel Zaid, at ease with the philosophy, history, psychology, and business of books, is their match, marshaling amazing facts and figures and constructing original arguments. Among the former are that 81% of Americans want to write a book, the Oxford University Press kept a certain translation from the Coptic into Latin (that sells an average of 2.6 copies/year) in print for 200 years; and that books that will sell for $30 to a few thousand people can't be given away to another ten thousand. Zaid weaves all into an utterly able defense of the book, and its irreplaceable contribution to cultural conversation. Touché Socrates!

Oh, the full title: So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance, by Gabriel Zaid; trans. by Natasha Wimmer. It's the most fun I've had reading a catalog in a while. And I do buy their books from time to time. If you're ever in Wichita, visit the bookstore, owned and operated by Warren Farha. I'm told it's an amazing place, well worth a bibliophile's time. And full disclosure: We've had Eighth Day at our conferences, with Mr. Farha's traveling bookstore on hand. It always does a brisk business with the Touchstone crowd.

Updating the Social Gospel

Mark Tooley writes at FrontPage magazine about an upcoming new Social Creed of the National Council of Churches, which is intended to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1908 Social Creed. Tooley is not comfortable with the NCC passing on the torch of the Social Gospel to itself at hundred, given its recent history and troubles. Which is not surprising.

O Loveless Town of Bethlehem

Robert Hart sent me this link to a story about a fracas that erupted after Christmas in the Church of the Nativity in the little town of Bethlehem. Someone's ladder encroached on someone else's church space. The whole point (well, one of the points) of the Nativity story is that God became man, without property. Cattle shed, feeding trough, swaddlings cloths (Fr. Patrick Reardon said in the Vulgate it's "rags"), no room in the inn for Mary and Joseph and the Baby. Homeless, poor. Today the heirs of this story: "How dare anyone step on my piece of the Savior's birthplace!" And this is not news, apparently: "As usual the cleaning of the church afer Christmas is a cause of problems," says the mayor. Looks like they're doing the wrong kind of house cleaning.

England Returns to Rome

Well, not exactly, but the numbers tell the story, that is to say, that on Sundays more Roman Catholics are at worship than are members of the Church of England (which, according to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, you can join regardless of whether you believe in some bit of doctrine like the Virgin Birth).  The latest to join the Catholic Church there, of course, is former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

St. Stephen

This is the Feast Day of St. Stephen, martyr (cf. Good King Wenceslaus looked out, on the Feast of Stephen, i.e., the day after Christmas). Fr. Robert Hart has posted a sermon on St. Stephen, worth a look, for your Christmas season edification.

Christmas Eve

How is He contained in a womb, whom nothing can contain? And how can He who is in the bosom of the Father be held in the arms of His Mother? This is according to His good pleasure, as He knoweth and wisheth. For being without flesh, of His own will has He been made flesh; and He who is, for our sakes has become that which He was not. Without departing from His own nature He has shared in our substance. Desiring to fill the world on high with citizens, Christ has undergone a twofold birth. (Hymn, Matins of Nativity)

The New York Times and Antony Flew's God

The New York Times Sunday Book Review looks at Anthony Flew's book, There Is a God. The Times wonders if Flew has become an American as well as a theist, because of the Yankee prose in the book. The review seems to suggest that someone has ghostwritten the book for Flew, given the differences from his earlier argumentation. I suppose the Times is confident that such evidences of design point to an intelligent purpose behind them. Oh, wait.

Make Ready, O Bethlehem

"Make ready, O Bethlehem; for Eden hath been opened for all. Prepare, O Ephratha; for the Tree of Life hath blossomed forth in the cave from the Virgin. For her womb did appear as a supernatural paradise, in which is planted the Divine Plant, whereof eating we shall live and not die as Adam. Verily, Christ shall be born, raising the image that fell of old." (Prefeast of the Nativity, Troparion, December 23)

Landrover & Christmas Closing

Between now and the year's end, please make a gift to your favorite magazine, weblog, or runner-up if it comes to that, since we are very much supported by our friends and wouldn't be here without your kind support. This year continues on the lean side, but as long as we have enough to make do, we are content. ( I don't do this for a Lexus. Landrover sent FSJ an ad suggesting we buy one for company purposes. Tax write-off. Yeah, right.)

Our office is closing today shortly, until December 26. Someone will likely still post a bit or two at Mere Comments, depending on opportunity and inspiration.

On behalf of all the staff and editors, I wish each and everyone a Blessed Christmas!

Frank Schaeffer Under Review

For those familiar with Francis Schaeffer and the continuing story of his son, Frank, this is just in from the Pearcey Report--a review of Frank Schaeffer's Crazy for God.

Reading Like a Child

     Every once in a while I am reminded why teaching is so great a profession.  I trust I won't betray any rule of privacy in printing these two splendid paragraphs written by one of the wisest students I've ever had.  They are the conclusion of a term paper on The Winter's Tale:

     "And even the last great miracle of the play -- the resurrection of Hermione -- is bound up with humility worthy of the Virgin.  First we have the worker of the miracle, Paulina.  In resurrecting Hermione, she is repeating the work of Christ, when He raised not a king nor a hero from the dead, but Lazarus: a humble man who had no particular political consequence, but was simply loved by Christ, and infinitely important in the kingdom of heaven, for kings and shepherds are equal as men once worldly titles pass.  And Paulina herself sets aside her own feelings for the sake of Leontes, a man who has no right to have such a friend as she, having sent her husband to his death.  She, like her soon-to-be-husband Camillo, is not only a worker-out of providence, but proof that true service is grace itself, a gift that cannot be earned.
     "And finally we have Hermione, the woman from whom Perdita has inherited her uniquely unashamed humility.  We cannot forget what Hermione's forgiveness of Leontes means -- not only did his actions "kill" her, but they led to the abandonment of her daughter for nearly two decades, as well as to the very real death of the son they shared.  That is no easy thing to put aside.  But -- in an act as miraculous as her resurrection itself -- she humbles herself so far as to forget her pain and forgive Leontes even before he has the chance to apologize.  There's something to be said in that, in humbling herself, she makes herself most like God."

     How niggling and petty most criticism sounds by comparison; and all the pettier, when it is slicked up with scholarly references and tricked out in impeccable and soporific scholarly style.  This student of mine, it seems to me, has always read like a child, and that is why he sees the great and elemental things in life and art, and can respond to them in gratitude and wonder.  Do not attribute that habit, O scholar of the narrow wrists and pinched heart, to naivete and a happy disposition.  Lay not that flattering unction to thy soul.  If anything he's a bit somber, and prone to melancholy.  So are many children.

     His insights here fit well with what another of my students wrote, on the same play.  He'd plowed through a few Hellenistic romances -- particularly the Argonautica by Apollonius and the Ethiopian History by Heliodorus -- and concluded that they were small, sheltered worlds of comedy within a tragic universe; islands of tragicomedy which the gods happened, arbitrarily, to favor, or which malevolent gods happened to overlook.  By contrast, he said, what Shakespeare shows us is that comedy is a greater and more exuberant world than the world of tragedy, because the world is in fact comic, while it is only the rocky little heart of man that isolates him in the tragic.  Hence, in Christian tragicomedy, we have something far greater than the coincidences and pleasant endings of a Hellenistic romance.  We have the escape of a human soul from the small cramped world to the vast true world; and this escape turns upon a turn, the turn of grace and repentance.  That student too, for all his theological sophistication, was reading like a child.

     I don't know how I could explain this wisdom to most of my colleagues in what we call, without irony, "the profession".  The teaching of literature has become an exercise in aging, not in the recovery of youthful wonder.  In that regard it reflects the general state of the "career" in our day.  Indeed the "career" is absurdly misnamed.  It often marks, in the soul of the person whom it pursues, a flight from the child and from oneself, into what is planned, grooved, tracked, settled, and old.  It is a flight from the vast world, a world superbly made for running around in, to a narrow world, wherein laufen ist strengst verboten.  I don't mean that people shouldn't hold down jobs; a job is a thing you have to do, and if you enjoy holding one down, or, better, pouncing upon it, kicking it, and swinging it against a tree, by all means, go for it.  People do need to make money, and you might as well relish what you do to earn your keep, if you can.  But the real opportunity for "careering," in the old and true sense of zigzagging down a snowy hill on a piece of cardboard, is to be found in the big and comic world made by God, and not in the narrow cubbyhole carved out by and for the self.  Says the child to the critic, "Somebody has been raised from the dead over there.  Didn't you notice?"

Clean Ambition

. . . . But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, “Friend, go up higher;” then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.

Ambition is an excellent thing. As a father, nothing would dismay me more than having my daughters submit to me as husband material a man with no reasonable ambitions. (I say “reasonable” because I would not be happy with some guy whose ambition was to read every science fiction novel that had ever been written, or who wanted to be the Hobo King.)

But many, early in life, err, transgressing our Lord’s teaching by cheating to get ahead, for much of what He is talking about here involves just that. “Taking the lowest place” includes resolving not to limit one’s ambitions, but to maintain the conscience in a healthy, working state, and then taking only so much advancement as a clear conscience before Him will allow. This will most often mean taking a far lower seat than a man with healthy ambitions suspects he deserves. (It will sometimes mean taking a far higher one, which is another subject.) But if he is a Christian, he must believe his vindication will come, usually later, most often after his death, and from the hand of God, within the Ultimate, “Friend, go up higher.”

Deporting one’s self in this way requires faith, without which it is impossible to please God. It is a sin, I believe, either to kill the desire for the highest achievement--to accept the self as some sort of craven, servile, mediocrity, thus risking hell for rejecting the talents one has been given--or to step outside the rules we have for the deportment of life to rise in the estimation of the world, but not of the Lord.

This came to mind when considering the plight of older men who, to rise in this very way, capitulated when they were young to ways of thinking they knew at the time were wrong or at least questionable, but which, if they did not submit to, they knew their chances for rising in their chosen world of endeavor immediately became severely limited, if not extinguished. So they began to think and speak and write in the required way, making themselves into the critics and enemies of those who remained faithful and would not. They worked hard, built careers and reputations, rose in the world, enjoyed good salaries, the praise of men, and happy reception among the right sort of people.

But now when they are older and inexorable Death is becoming clearer on their horizon, when what they have earned by tainted ambition is becoming dull and commonplace, when they are attacked in their quiet moments by an insistent messenger called Reflection and forced to review their lives for what they have been, what do they do?

Well, many try to make amends by half-measures. They band together for the virtuous attempt to fix some of the problems they have created, not by repenting of their fundamental error and making a clean breast of it--thus admitting much of their life’s work wasted time--but in denouncing certain of its downstream effects as something they never intended. The cost of doing what they know they should would simply be too high--the moral equivalent of giving up their pensions--loss of honor privileged old men expect in compensation for the loss of youth.

This, I believe, is a very widespread phenomenon, the misery and hypocrisy of which could have been escaped in youth with firm resolution of living in a way that pleased God and letting the chips fall where they may. I know many that have been able to do this, retaining their ambition to be the very best they could be, not worrying about how far it will take them in the world, but rather doing the right thing, then standing back to see what the God who is pleased with them does with their offering. Life for people like this is very interesting, full of surprises and the testimonies of fulfilled divine promises.

Wise young men become wise old men. They are not by any means exempted from pain--only from meaningless pain, or perhaps we should say the pain of meaninglessness--which includes the terrible sadness of the old man’s secret regret.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Letters to the Editor

An enjoyable review here by Andrew Ferguson of Buckley's latest collection from the National Review, enjoyable at least for people like me who edit and publish magazines. And maybe people who read them and write letters to the editor.

Christian Ethics for 2088

Would you ever baptize a robot? How about a human clone? How about some other form of bio-engineered human life-form?

Last week I taught the first-ever "D-term" December class here in Southern Seminary's School of Theology. The course, Introduction to Christian Ethics, ended with a reflective analysis examination required of all of the students. They are working on them now, but I thought I would post the question here.

For the exam, I chose a deliberately outrageous example, an ethical and theological dilemma none of them would have ever faced. The reason for this is that I wanted them to think through issues that are not standard boilerplate ethical questions in the evangelical repertoire. The students are graded not on the final conclusion to which they come, but on how they get there. How they process the question through the prism of biblical revelation and a theology of the Christic mystery at the center of the universe, the coming Kingdom of Christ, the uniqueness and dignity of human beings in the image of Christ, the creational order, the conscience, and prudential wisdom in making hard decisions.

Question:

It is the distant future. You are 106 years-old, and in good health with a sound mind. Your great-grandson, Joshua, is a young pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention (now called the Galactic Immersionist Federation). He is seeking your counsel because, as he puts it, "I've got a question and there's nothing about this in the Bible."

Modern technology has enabled infertile couples to engineer what the press of the day calls "robo-frankenbabies." These babies' bodies are constructed partially with, as in the Frankenstein novel of old, body parts from human corpses and partially with body parts produced via human cloning. These children are real flesh and blood in every way, except with a robotic brain. This cyber-brain is programmed with advanced artificial intelligence so that the child is able to truly think on his own. He is able to express joy and sorrow, grief and gladness, the full range of human emotions.

At Vacation Bible School (now called "Reverb"), Aidan, age eleven, came to see your great-grandson, the pastor. Aidan's parents are unbelievers, but he has been moved by the Gospel presentation given at the end of Reverb week. He cries in Pastor Joshua's office. In fact, he is convulsing in tears.

"I know I'm a sinner," he said to Pastor Joshua. "And I know that I deserve to go to hell." He continued through his sobbing, "I love Jesus, and I want to know Him. What must I do to be saved?"

Pastor Joshua stepped out of his office to confer with his Associate Pastor, Caleb. Josh's first instinct is to lead the boy to Christ.

"Josh, I don't know," Caleb said. "Yes, he has a human body, but his mind and heart are artificial. His brain is that of a robot."

Joshua replied, "Yes, but he's human, too-at least it sure seems so. His blood pumps, his heart beats, he sweats-and he thinks, makes choices, and feels. He even feels guilty!"

Caleb said, "Yes, but he's programmed to feel and to make choices-even though those choices are random."

Joshua responded, "But isn't it the randomness of those choices, and the ability to long for communion with God, the ability to know the conviction of sin-doesn't that mean something?" Joshua said, "I've been told my whole life to offer the Gospel to every repentant sinner. In my office there is a repentant sinner, and I don't know what to do."

Pastor Joshua walked back into his study to see the trembling boy in his study. Aidan was reading Pastor Joshua's Bible, an old King James Version that belonged to Josh's great-great grandmother. Aidan looked up from the Bible and said, "Does Jesus love me, Pastor? Did Jesus die for me? Can I be saved from this guilt and, like you said in your message, from sin and death and hell?"

Aidan looked up and asked, "Am I a real boy? And can I be a real Christian?"

Pastor Joshua said to Aidan, "I want you to stay here with Pastor Caleb for a few minutes while I teleport over to the nursing care facility so that I can talk with some one I think might know the answer to this."

Joshua sits by your bed, asking for help. "Should I lead him to Christ?" he asks. "Should I baptize him?"

What do you tell him?

While waiting for you to respond, Pastor Joshua organizes the stuff he brought with him-hastily grabbed as he walked out of his office. In his hand is the King James Bible that little Aidan was holding. The Bible falls open to John chapter three. Joshua notices that the red letters in the middle of the page are smudged by something. In verse sixteen, the word "whosoever" is almost illegible. The page buckles underneath where it is printed.

"Something's on my old Bible," Joshua says to you, as you think of how to answer his question. "Some kind of salty water stain, I don't…."

Joshua stops and looks up at you, with realization: The stain is from the tears of a crying seeker. And they sure look human to him.

Nativity Coverage by ABC

This is making quick rounds, sometimes with a misleading headline such as "Archbishop of Canterbury says Nativity a Legend." The transcript of the interview with Rowan Williams's comments is right here. I'd say his approach leaves me a bit cold, but he had been asked to assess the Nativity Scene of a typical Christmas card. He's pretty squishy in places, even the way he frames his answers, most especially the nuanced bit about the Virgin Birth. All so smooth. But calling the Nativity itself a legend is a misreading and bad headline writing, dishonest. Unlike mine for this post.

Nativity Prelude

From the Vespers service of the Orthodox church last evening comes this lovely hymn:

Receive, O Bethlehem, her that is the City of God; for she is come unto thee to give birth to the unwaning Light. Ye Angels, be astonished in Heaven; ye men, give glory on earth; ye Magi, bring from Persia your thrice-glorious gift; ye shepherds abiding in the field, sing the thrice holy-hymn. Let every breath praise the Creator of all.

Sure beats most of the things I hear in public spaces and airwaves during Advent! Meditate on it to your heart's content. To fully grasp with the heart and mind the truth in such texts, wouldn't that be worth more than any of the gifts advertised, even those claiming to "last forever"?

The Decline from "Religious" to "Spiritual"

More Spiritual, But Not in Church from Inside Higher Ed reports, not surprisingly, that

while attendance at religious services sharply declines during college, students do in fact significantly progress along their spiritual quests throughout their first three years.

. . . researchers find that religious beliefs change only slightly during college, while religious observance drops dramatically. The proportion of students who believe in God dipped slightly from 77.1 percent freshman year to 74.2 percent junior year, while there were slight increases on other indicators of belief (see chart below). 38.6 percent of students report that they attend religious services less frequently than they did in high school, while just 7 percent say they attend more often as college students. The rate of non-attendance increased from 20.2 to 37.5 percent.

I post this because some of you may find the charts comparing freshmen with juniors of interest or use and also because I was so amused by the study's definition of "spiritual":

“The real change is relative to spiritual qualities – the growth in self-understanding, caring about others, becoming more of a global citizen and accepting others of different faiths,” said Helen Astin, an emeritus professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and co-principal investigator for the study.

Now, admittedly, "spiritual" and "spirituality" are words with meanings as wide as the Pacific (and often as deep as the puddle in the street out front), but the words should have some relation to some actual spirit, something from a world not our own, something supernatural, something that or someone who tells us things we do not know, judges us for our failures, and gives us ideals to strive for if not help in reaching them.

It's not a useful word if it doesn't refer to a real spirit. It's not a useful word if it means, as it does in the study, a general inclination or shape of mind or emotional pattern or set of attitudes or collection of values. There is no reason to call any of these spiritual.

Unless, of course, you like that little sense of importance and that comforting sense of social approval that our society still gives to "spiritual things," and if you are unwilling to admit that you live in a world divorced from any transcendent meaning, justification, and support. If, in other words, you want to live as if the world were secure because the creator still loves it, without actually believing that He does.

The effect of misapplying "spiritual" is to disguise what is actually happening to these young people. The terms "religion" and "spiritual" treat the changes in the students' lives as movements along a spectrum, one in which both poles are forms of the same thing, so that a move from one to another is not really a radical change. But what the study describes is a movement from some form of real religious belief — a real relation to a spirit — to a dressed up form of materialism. That is a radical change.

I am not suggesting that the researchers intentionally hid the nature of the change they observed, perhaps to avoid alarming religious parents still sending their children to secular institutions. I suspect they are as clueless as to the meaning of the words they use as everyone else, and like to dress up their favored attitudes by calling them "spiritual." It's a warm and fuzzy word. It's a cute cuddly bunny word.

Dr. Astin says, by the way, “I see it as very good news, to see that our students change in this way.”

Waterwalk: A Book to Savor

At least I did, savor it, I mean. And that's not supposed to be faint praise, for I still mean what I wrote (below) about this brand new book by a longtime friend, Steven Faulkner (who's written for Touchstone in the past).

I particularly commend Waterwalk: A Passage of Ghosts, to fathers with sons. My, I still feel like I was in the boat on that journey, with a very reflective and imaginative and spiritually earnest companion.

You can order it in time for Christmas, I'm sure, at Amazon. As I think I implied above, I didn't write this blurb as a mere favor, but with pleasure:

Steven Faulkner skillfully enlists sun, moon, wind, water, sand and fire in bringing the reader alongside him, with his son, on their nine-week voyage. Through his eye for detail and his bracing poetic imagination, Faulkner renders a quintessentially American landscape into not only a mirror of its historical movement from rugged wilderness to industrialized heartland, but also into an arena for the manly exertions of a father seeking only to connect with his son. Waterwalk is in turns humorous, haunting, exhilarating, even devastating, much as the courses of our lives unpredictably flow through both hardship and delight. There are encounters with “ghosts” here to be savored long afterwards. It’s a lyrical odyssey I did not want to end.

--James M. Kushiner
Executive Editor, Touchstone Magazine

Faulkner, a Catholic convert, raised a large family in Kansas, and worked various jobs while obtaining his doctorate in English. He's a gifted writer. And I don't think he would mind if I said that if you like Esolen, I'm willing to wager you'll love Waterwalk: A Passage of Ghosts.

The Reasons for Pudder

Steven Hutchens' Avoiding Dysgraphsia and the entertaining discussion it began reminded me of a favorite passage from Sir Ernest Gowers' The Complete Plain Words, a very good book on writing by an English senior civil servant asked by the Department of the Treasury to write something about official English. (It's actually two books combined: Plain Words [1948] and The ABC of Plain Words [1951]).

Gowers is writing about "pudder" (meaning "gobbledygook" and taken by the writer Ivor Brown from Lear's "the god who keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads") and noting that "It seems to be a morbid condition contracted in early manhood. Children show no signs of it." He gives an example from a ten-year-old's essay:

The bird that I am going to write about is the owl. The owl cannot see at all by day and at night is as blind as a bat.

I do not know much about the owl, so I will go on to the beast which I am going to choose. It is the cow. The cow is a mammal. It has six sides — right, left, an upper and below. At the back it has a tail on which hangs a brush. With this it sends the flies away so that they do not fall into the milk. The head is for the purpose of growing horns and so that the mouth can be somewhere. The horns are to butt with, and the mouth is to moo with. Under the cow hangs the milk. It is arranged for milking. When people milk, the milk comes and there is never an end to the supply. How the cow does it I have not yet realized, but it makes more and more. The cow has a fine sense of smell; one can smell it far away. This is the reason for the fresh air in the country.

The man cow is called an ox. It is not a mammal. The cow does not eat much, but what it eats it eats twice, so that it gets enough. When it is hungry it moos, and when it says nothing it is because its inside is all full up with grass.

The passage is funny by itself but I have another reason to type it out, besides entertaining you. Gowers notes that "The writer has something to say and said it as clearly as he could, and so has unconsciously achieved style." I think this is right and points to an idea no one in the comments on Steve's post seems to have said: people often write badly not because they don't know grammar or haven't read good writers, but because they don't know what they are talking about.

The ten-year-old has got most of his facts wrong, but we know that he has actually looked at a cow and tried his best to describe it, which makes spotting his mistakes easy. Most of, or at least a lot of, the kind of hopelessly bad writing we all bemoan seems to come from people who haven't actually seen the thing they're writing about.

Those of you who teach children can correct me, but in the case of children, the problem seems to me to be increased by the kind of assignments teachers give out. I mean the kind of creative, engaged, explorative, stimulating — I'm afraid I can't remember the jargon, but you'll all know what I'm talking about — assignment that often leaves children frozen with confusion.  Five pages on the causes of the Depression, say, after the kids have read two chapters of a textbook and three handouts, and seen a documentary.

The teacher is just asking, nay begging, for pudder aka gobbledygook. What he (the teacher) generally wants is a regurgitation of the readings, with an answer along the accepted lines, and he will get that from the dullards who do the obvious, the brown-n . . . the apple polishers who do what's wanted, the conceited who do what's obvious and wanted but praise themselves for it, and the ambitious students who know how to play the game to win.

The rest, who naively think they're supposed to say something original, start writing and because they have no real idea what are the causes of the Depression, because they have never thought about historical causation and know almost nothing about the history, economics, politics, or anything else, will start babbling. They sit at their computers, faced with a blank white screen and the need to produce five intelligent pages on the causes of the Depression for Mr. Jones, who, like, knows everything and grades hard and is, like, sooooo demanding, and force themselves to write.

And then there are the students, often the brightest and most serious, who have thought about it just enough to know they don't know anything, and that the experts write very big books on the subject and fight like cats and dogs on the subject. They could write an honest paper, limited to what they know, meaning that they'll say that X says this and Y says that, but then the teacher is likely to grade them badly, with a concerned note explaining that they're supposed to engage the material and — again I've forgotten the jargon, but many of you will have heard it. These too may take refuge in bad writing just to get the A their knowledge and effort deserve.

There are other reasons for adults writing this way, but I wouldn't underestimate the extent to which adults in business and academia are given the same type of assignment, and have an even greater sense than the kids that they're supposed to say something original but can't. So they grope to speak of a subject they do not understand, with predictable results. They have been trained to do this, of course, in sixteen years of schooling, so writing pudder comes naturally.

But that's not the only problem. Since originality can get you in trouble, especially if you're wrong but often even if you're right (and sometimes being original and right can really put your career in the tank), it's best to look original but without saying anything that can be held against you. The possibility of writing confusingly appears to the poor guy as the perfect answer, even if he doesn't put it to himself quite that clearly.

I think that the demand that you say what you have no competence to say explains a lot of bad writing, in children and in adults. It is not the only cause, not by a long shot, but it is a big one.

Giving to Poor Dives

This article from the Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that charitable giving is up this year--but only to what we might call high-end, high visibility "charities." I put that in quotes because these non-profits are institutions such as museums, art institutes, ballet companies, and universities.

A study released this month of more than 8,000 gifts of $1-million or more to 4,000 nonprofit organizations found that the largest share of those dollars, 44 percent, went to higher education, followed by hospitals and other medical institutions (16 percent), and arts and cultural organizations (12 percent). Social-service groups received just 5 percent of the dollars, according to the study by the Institute for Jewish & Community Research. Despite critics like the billionaire investor Bill Gross — who wrote on the Web site of his investment company, Pimco, that with today’s dire social needs, “it is hard to justify the umpteenth society gala held for the benefit of a performing-arts center or an arts museum” — the trend is unlikely to change soon.

Giving that directly benefits the poor is down. That so much wealth should be given to "higher education" when it seems to sink lower and lower, is discouraging. One thing the schools don't seem to teach is what wealth is for. Of course, they can't exactly "go there" anymore, since that would mean a return to Wisdom Literature with maybe a religious idea or two thrown in.

I don't see where we fit into the categories mentioned above (and the percentages don't add up to 100 percent), but I know, since we are a religious non-profit, that we are not a naturally attractive "charity" for many of the super-rich. Somehow those with the biggest barns don't want to get too close to  religious magazines of our ilk, where someone might slip in references to certain uncomfortable texts from time to time, such as the one about the barns or how a beggar named Lazarus entered paradise and escaped torment in the end.

January 1 AD 2008

The "year-end"--which has floated around the 365 days over millenia depending on culture, place, etc (e.g. Jewish New Year in September, old New Year in March) is not that far away. We usually get a flurry of Calendar orders the last days of December, sometimes more in the first week of January when the December page is turned up and there's no more calendar left. We've still enough calendars on hand for single and bulk orders, with convenient on-line ordering, so you won't have something to add to your to do list on January 1, 2008.

Advent & December 17

Today in the Orthodox calendar is the commemoration of the Prophet Daniel and the Three Men. In the Catholic calendar December 17 marks the beginning of the "O Antiphons" popularized in the ancient hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. These antiphons, as explained here:

The exact origin of the "O Antiphons" is not known. Boethius (480-524/5) made a slight reference to them, thereby suggesting their presence at that time.... By the eighth century, they are in use in the liturgical celebrations in Rome. The usage of the "O Antiphons" was so prevalent in monasteries that the phrases "Keep your O" and "The Great O Antiphons" were common parlance. One may thereby conclude that in some fashion the "O Antiphons" have been part of our liturgical tradition since the very early Church.

Daniel and the Three Youths play a role in the Eastern liturgical celebration of Christmas in that Dec. 17 hymn for them is also sung on the Sunday before Christmas, which marks the "ancestors of Christ." Daniel is not strictly speaking an ancestor, of course, but between the hymns for the Second Sunday before Christmas (for the "forefathers") and the First Sunday ("ancestors") a great many Old Testament names are sung, from Adam to Zechariah. This Old Testament focus is also richly expressed in the O Antiphons. The Eastern hymn ("troparion") for December 17:

Great are the accomplishments of faith; for the three holy youths rejoiced in the fountain of flames as though as waters of rest. And the Prophet Daniel appeared as a shepherd to the lions as though they were sheep....

The element of fire is extremely important in biblical and traditional church history. Many of the stories of the martyrs involve fire that doesn't consume the martyr as would normally be expected. St. Polycarp is the earliest example that comes to mind. In the hymnography of the Eastern churches, the Young Men in the Fire are the subject of the 8 Ode at matins: they face the choice of idolatry or fire. According to the traditional interpretation, the Angel of the Lord protects them in the fiery furnace in an envelop of a "dewy breeze"--something obviously beyond normal physics is taking place in the story. It is a supernatural protection, as in the stories of some of the martyrs. The pillar of fire in Exodus, as well as the Fire of the Burning Bush, appear to be supernatural fires, hinting at a power beyond what we see with our eyes and measure with our scientific instruments. Much the same can be said about the many stories we have passed down to us, even from modern times, of an "uncreated light."

Second, the image of the youths "as at waters of rest" or perhaps "still waters" brings in the shepherd imagery, which is extended to Daniel, who plays shepherd to the lions. In both cases the order of nature is subverted or overruled--fire that does not burn and (one would assume) hungry lions who "fast." So the Incarnation, which is at the center of the church's liturgical expression, is a subversion of the "normal" order. God becomes Man. A Virgin is a mother.

It reminds me of a scene from the film Andrei Rublev. A Tatar invader who has just sacked a town and destroyed the inside of a church looks upon a large icon of the Nativity. Smoke still smolders from the burning of the iconostasis nearby. "Who is that woman?" he asks? And the baby? "That's the Virgin's Son, the Son of God." "Hah!" A Virgin Mother! He laughs. (This isn't verbatim, but from memory.)

All of this by the power of faith, which can stop the mouths of lions and quench raging fire. (Heb. 11:34) Some may laugh with the Tatar at the absurdity. But if I accept the Incarnation, then accepting that the mouths of lions were stopped is a piece of cake.

Avoiding Dysgraphsia

As a public librarian I notice that many people come to the library not to read, but to write, now especially when the library computers have word processing software. Often, surprisingly often, they will copy out their work and bring it to a librarian for comment or correction. More often than not what they have produced is dreadful; responding briefly and constructively becomes one of those challenges that helps make for an interesting day.

Leaving out of consideration the bad writing of the crackpots, the insane, people with obviously sub-normal intelligence, or those who are new to English, we still see a preponderance of native speakers of normal or better intelligence with a high school or better education, who have a burden or an assignment that requires the production of good prose, but who cannot produce it--whose writing makes them appear less intelligent or educated than they really are.

One can, I suppose, blame the schools for some of this. I have noticed that the writing of people in my family who received their elementary education before, say, 1950, and never advanced past high school, is usually far better than their college-educated children and grandchildren. My reference desk experience is that far more older people than younger ones, when asked on the telephone, for example, if one is speaking to Mr. So-and-so, will correctly answer, “I am he,” instead of something like, “This is him.” In a former day good grammar, a part of good writing, was evidently taken more seriously.

But one cannot blame the schools for everything. Laziness and inattention of the student plays its own part, and ultimately blame for failing to learn one’s own language well enough to communicate competently rests on the individual. I wish I was able to keep a notebook of examples of the work of the frustrated thirty, forty, and fifty-year olds who can’t write to dangle in front of students who are being offered the opportunity to learn good communication skills but don’t think it’s worth their while.

And perhaps it isn’t--until they need to write a love-letter, are asked for a brief essay on the application for a job they really want, or have a message to the world--or even to some stupid blogsite writer--that really must be heard.

Hutchens on the Evangelical E. O. Wilson

Writing in The New Atlantis, our own Steven Hutchens examines The Evangelical Ecologist E. O. Wilson. Readers will recognize in the essay's opening paragraphs classic Hutchens:

One of the more exasperating characteristics of the biblical God is that He, inferior to greater souls in this regard, seems to evince very little reverence for life. By this I mean His attitude toward the biological life we prize so highly in ourselves and by natural extension in other living things seems to be entirely, and jealously, proprietary, and that what we would bestow more generously, had we the power, He, in accordance with His own lights, keeps short and difficult. We humans in particular, who would be gods, He quickly recycles: “Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away.”

The scriptures show him removing life from the whole earth when men displease Him, contemplating this event not only once, but twice, “the fire next time.” The attitude that seems to please Him most toward this gift which seems so precious to us that we are constantly tempted to define our being by it is “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away—Blessed be the Name of the Lord.”

Now comes E.O. Wilson, complaining to Christians about the loss of plant and animal species.

An Intelligibility Gap

     Advent to me has long felt like a time of endings -- as the darkness gathers, and the old order rolls on to its long awaited consummation.  I'm out of tune with that ghastly tinselly thing called the "holiday season."  I play carols on the piano, and advent hymns, and go rummaging through antique stores and other quiet places for gifts for my wife and children, and find myself among a crowd of memories.  I see a sled on the snow at night.  The air is cold in the way that only the cold of childhood can be.  I hear the voice of my father, who died a long time ago.  I am surprised there's still so much left in me of the small boy that I was.  And the years will pass, and those memories will dwindle, and be no more, like the print of the snow.

     Then my mind returns to the words of Saint Paul, who begins by singing the praises of love, and ends rapt in contemplation of the life to come, when "we shall know, even as we are known."  We shall know -- we shall see God face to face.  But that's not the only thing Paul says in that verse.  We shall also be known.  I'd always taken for granted that being known was no problem; everybody is known by someone, and now, in the resurrection, we shall know God, too.  But it comes to me that here nobody is known, not to the depths of knowing.  I don't even know myself.  That small boy whooshing down the dark hill on the Flexible Flyer is more than half a stranger to me.

     Will all of that be lost?  I'm looking out of the window now at a fencepost covered with snow and draped with Christmas lights.  It's an intelligible world out there, all of it, whether natural or fashioned by man's hand.  How strange, that the world should be intelligible, when such a tiny part of it is actually intellected, if you'll forgive the word, by the mind of any creature.  What of all the rest that could be understood, if only one were there to understand it?  I imagine a beautiful and intelligible universe, bursting into existence, producing works of staggering splendor, obeying the most elegant and intricate laws of mathematics, but no creature in it to behold it; then collapsing upon itself and blinking out into the dark.  Wouldn't that be the deepest imaginable absurdity, intelligibility without intellect?  Nor will it do to say that my example is comparable to the old conundrum of a tree falling in the forest.  It's not absurd to imagine that a creature that can be heard or seen will happen not to be heard or seen, because hearing and seeing are properties that depend upon the beholder; there is nothing about the inner being of a thing that makes it visible.  But there is something about the inner being of a thing that makes it intelligible -- indeed, intellection is precisely a being's insight into that inner being, that inner order.

     If we accept what the materialists say, we are left with an epistemological chasm as wide as the cosmos: all that to be known, and yet, finally, virtually none of it known, and what little that qualifies as knowledge, vague, generalized, shaky, mainly local to our brief span of time and space.  And a chasm as deep as the heart of man, too.  All those people we see, and all those many others we will never see because they died long ago, would be knowable but unknown, their tragedies and comedies as pointless as bits of cosmic dust.  None of that makes sense to me, which is another way of saying that a world so splendidly intelligible and yet so stupid to the core is incoherent.  There must be One who knows.  If so, then there is One who knows that dimly knowing part of the world called man.  He who hasn't forgotten His own childhood, I suppose, will not forget mine or anyone else's.  We're told by our faith that we will meet many a blessed soul taken up into the life of God.  We may even come to know ourselves.

Kosovo Quagmire

Orthodox leaders rally to oppose Kosovo independence
ENI-07-0971

By Jonathan Luxmoore
Warsaw, 14 December (ENI)--Serbia's predominant Orthodox church has launched a diplomatic drive among church leaders abroad to prevent an expected UN vote to allow the independence of Kosovo from Serbia.

"By supporting this independence drive by Albanians living in  Kosovo, the West forgets the hurt suffered in recent years by the Orthodox Serbs who live there," Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II of Russia told Serbia's Vecernje Novosti newspaper on 8 December.

"In this spiritual cradle of Serbian Orthodoxy, 150 churches and monasteries have been destroyed or desecrated, and numerous unimaginable crimes perpetrated to eliminate the Serbs," Alexei was quoted as saying. "I urge Western Christians to examine their consciences on Kosovo's projected status and help rescue the region's religious heritage."

The patriarch, who offered to mediate in the war-torn Serbian province, in an October address to the Council of Europe, was speaking ahead of a 19 December UN Security Council debate on Kosovo self-rule, which is expected to be opposed on Serbia's behalf by Russia.

European Union leaders have been moving towards a plan for statehood for Serbia's breakaway province, which has not pleased Russia.

In Istanbul, the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomeos I, told the visiting Serbian president, Boris Tadic, he would back a peaceful solution to disputes over Kosovo, from which up to 200 000 ethnic Serbs have fled since international control was imposed following NATO military action in 1999.

Leaders of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority are expected to declare the province's sovereignty after the failure of UN-backed negotiators from the US, the European Union and Russia to reach agreement on its future.

Concerns have, however, been expressed for the surviving Serbian Orthodox minority in northern Kosovo, who have been promised protection by NATO and EU forces under a "supervised independence" plan drawn up for the UN by former Finnish president, Martti
Ahtisaari.

The Serbian Orthodox Church's information service said the head of the (Orthodox) Church of Greece, Archbishop Christodoulos, had expressed concern over the province's future during talks on 11 December with Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro.

The information service referred also the Greek archbishop's "open discontent against the holders of political world power and their attitude towards the cradle of Serbian culture and spirituality".

I've tried to follow the story in Kosovo. From the previous Milosevic reprisals (by "militias") against its majority Albanian population, the forced flight of the Kosvar Albanians during the US-led NATO bombings (which also witnessed killings by Milosevic's troops), their return after Milosevic's ouster, the ongoing reprisals and killings of Serb minorities in Kosovo by Albanians, including destruction of churches, it would seem to me at least that either troops are going to have be kept there for many years, or independence will be granted to Kosovo and remaining Serbians will either leave or take their chances. (I might note that Kosovo's majority strongly shifted from Serb to Albanian when the birth rates of the Serbs plummeted and the Albanians rose.) This is the ultimate problem with hyper-nationalism: a homogeneous population is required, even demanded. One language, one ethnicity, one religion, maybe even one political party, the latter of which can be used as a substitute for the first three.

St. Lucia, December 13

Today is the feast day of St. Lucy of Syracuse, early Christian martyr. She's also popular in Scandinavian countries, although how many Scandinavians believe in holiness anymore? Or a real St. Lucy for that matter? And if she showed up in Stockholm, wouldn't take her to be a fruitcake? That might go for Chicago, too. I continue to read about these "saints," like Herman of Alaska, an Orthodox monk sent by the Russians to Alaska when it was Russian territory, whose feast day is also today. Herman had more trouble with the Russian businessmen in Alaska and their treatment of the Aleuts than he had with the Aleuts, who seemed happy to receive the good news of Christ. The businessmen, fur traders, that is, mostly, gave the missionaries such a hard time that most of them left, except Herman, who moved to little Spruce Island near Kodiak Island, and died in 1837, in his eighties.

Who Made You, Huckabee?

James Altena sent this link to a video of Mike Huckabee's response to a question about evolution and the Bible. It's good. Mr. Altena comments:

The press takes a shot at trying to portray Huckabee as an ignoramus or bigot and falls flat on its face. Notice the interrogator's reaction versus the audience's-- this didn't exactly go the way the former had hoped. Refreshing, too, that Huckabee did not duck the question in any way.

Mapping Global Warming

Curious to see what was inside the large envelope from yesterday's mail, I open it and saw, among other things, that the direct mail piece from a well-known charitable organization that operates around the world had included a large (20 x 32) map of the world along with other papers, telling me about their operations and asking me for their support.

My immediate thought upon seeing the map was how many of these maps would be thrown away, which reminded me of another larger poster I received in the mail a month or two ago, advertising a cable network program on global warming, I think, or something about the environment. Pulling out one of the letters inside of the map mailing, I saw across the top that the organization had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a few years ago, just as the environmentally-conscious Al Gore had been just recently. So the throw-away map just struck me as a bit incongruous.

But I shouldn't be too picky about such things. The map may help the organization help people, after all. And, besides, I still haven't quite thrown away the map, since I love maps. To continue on the theme of global warming, for a moment, and maps, I note that my eye was drawn to the large white island called Kalaallit Nunaat, a property of Denmark also called Greenland. This island seems to be loosing great chunks of its ice. In fact, what was once thought to be a peninsula has been revealed to be an island after the melting of ice around it.

So global warming is certainly real, though the causes for it are disputed. The map set me to wondering how the warming has affected a man I met back in 2001 on a flight from Glasgow to Toronto. When asked where he was going, he said, "Pond Inlet." Where's that?" "Baffin Island. That's where I live." It's 400 miles above the Arctic Circle.

He mentioned that he did tend to get a bit depressed during the winter months. Sunlight deprivation: The sun disappears around November 11, not to be seen again until around February 2. (Interesting that November 11, St. Martin of Tours, was in olden times viewed as the beginning of the winter season, and Presentation, February 2, is a feast of Light--Candlemas, the appearance in the Temple of the "Light to enlighten the Gentiles.")

I have to think of Pond Inlet when I complain about the dark and cold and gloomy days here these past weeks in Chicago."It could be worse." As far as Pond Inlet goes, global warming might change their economy a bit. They will certainly be visited more often. Are they anticipating this? Perhaps. They've got a website, with information about tours. If I get a brochure in the mail for Pond Inlet luxury condos, then I'll know we're in trouble.

Debate Goes On...

Denyse O'Leary is a gutsy Canadian journalist, co-author with neuro-scientist Mario Beaureagard of The Spiritual Brain, to be reviewed in a future issue of Touchstone. She  also writes a column for Salvo, and helps post at Salvo's blog site, Signs of the Times. Her latest post here takes you to her review of a book by John Lennox, an Oxford mathematician, called God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?

I find this debate immensely fascinating. I am reading Dembski and Wells's The Design of Life, and recently toured Chicago's Field Museum's exhibit, Darwin. I enjoyed the exhibit for the most part, except the video and text taking shots at intelligent design, just in case you've been infected with that intellectual virus. (Well, ID is being taken "seriously"? Why bother with it at a science exhibit if you don't think it's science? There was no video panning the 6-day creation story, which some read scientifically.) Darwin's acheivement as a naturalist is quite impressive, I must say, all the same. Seriously. I came away  inpressed with the man's work, if not his ultimate conclusions.

Now We're Getting Somewhere

First, thanks for the donations sent in on-line overnight and this morning. You can join the company of our supporters on-line here. We really do continue to need additional contributions at this time.

Second, I am somewhat amused at this story and its headline, "Rapid Acceleration in Human Evolution Described." What's described is quite interesting, and not surprising. My question: Are the differences between humans now and those, say, 5,000 years ago such that we would not be able to "breed" with the older versions? And if the answer is No, we're still the same "species," are these new accelerated difference such that one can project a likely trajectory that would in time create a new species of humans? Is this article really talking about Evolution or simply Adaptation? That whatever it is is accelerating is probably good news. The human race is racing along a breakneck speed, getting somewhere. "Where" is the big question.

As a side note, if anyone has proof of reverse evolution taking place among human beings, I'd be interested to see it. Outside of professional wrestlers, I mean.

Short & Sweet

We very much need your help to keep paying our bills, publishing, writing, and all that we do. Without generous reader support, especially at this time of year, we'd simply have to cut way back. Think of the editorials & writings of Robert George, David Mills, Jim Hitchcock, Anthony Esolen, Patrick Henry Reardon, S. M. Hutchens, Russell Moore, Tom Buchanan, Leon Podles, Wilfred McClay. Those guys are worth it! You can give securely on-line here, or mail your gift to the Fellowship of St. James, PO Box 410788, Chicago, IL. Any gift large or small--dollars add up--will be greatly appreciated. We pray every day for our subscribers, readers, and friends, and we're here to serve you. But we really do need your help today.

Monitoring the Future Today

Apparently there is some good news, culturally speaking: Pete Wehner reports at Commentary's blog about the latest Monitoring the Future survey from the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, which

tracks smoking, drinking, and illicit drug use among the nation’s secondary school students, assessing every year about 50,000 8th, 10th, and 12th graders in more than 400 secondary schools.

The key findings are that 8th, 10th, and 12th graders across the country are continuing to show a gradual decline in the proportions reporting use of illicit drugs. . . .

The proportion of 8th graders reporting use of an illicit drug at least once in the 12 months prior to the survey was 24 percent in 1996 but has fallen to 13 percent by 2007, a drop of nearly half.

How the Grinch Stole Back Christmas

Regular reader Joe Long sends the sequel to How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and has kindly let us post it here.

How the Grinch Stole Back Christmas

‘Tis a tale often told, and every Who knows,
How the Grinch first descended from Mount Crumpet snows
And stole away Christmas (its trappings, at least)
Then had his heart changed, and came back for roast beast.
Not everyone knows what has happened since then;
How the Grinch came to think he must steal it again –

For Grinches are grinchy, and grinch-genes will tell –
And in some ways, he wasn’t adjusting too well.
Though his heart grew three sizes, his brain had not shrunk
And he tired of buying up masses of junk
And dealing with hassles and hustles barbaric
For “holidays” swiftly becoming generic.

The customs traditional, which the Grinch loved
Were watered-down, fluffed-up, or “new and improved”.
Why, at one Christmas feast, by one misguided Who,
The roast beast itself was a glob of tofu!
And the songs which reformed him with simple Who joys
Were increasingly drowned out by “noise, noise, noise, noise.”

And deep in his heart, underneath his green fur,
The Grinch knew that things weren’t right as they were.
His ponderer once more was sore as could be
In the checkout line near the HDTV’s,
When the half-hearted clerk with a faraway gaze
Blandly muttered to him, “Happy Holidays”.

Well, the Grinch’s lips curled in a most Grinchy smile
(More grinchy, perhaps, than he’d been in a while!)
He remembered his heritage, cunning and sly,
He thought, “I was made this way – p’raps this is why!”
Then he fixed his eyes on the unfortunate knave,
And regarded him mildly, and told him, “How brave!”

“Brave?”, asked the clerk, “Why, what did I say?”
“My good man, you have wished me a fine Holy Day!
“I thank, good sir, and return it sincerely;
“For you wished for me, sir, not a merry day merely,
“But a day blessed with favor from our Lord divine –
“I return it; may your Holy Day, too, be fine!”

“No! I just said ‘holiday’,” stammered the clerk,
“For that is the policy here where I work…”
“Delightful!,” the Grinch interjected with glee.
“Such corporate boldness – it overwhelms me!
“A spiritual awakening – that’s what it means!
“Now, sir, sell me some cards with nativity scenes.”

There were no such cards, for he’d sold his last few
But he did have a Santa. The Grinch said, “He’ll do,
“That old Bishop Nicholas, merry and stout.
“He once punched the heretic Arius out!”
And the clerk looked about – and no bosses he saw -
“Merry Christmas!,” he whispered, and shook a grinch paw.

The Grinch strode from the store and out into the street,
“Merry Christmas!”, he said to each Who whom he’d meet,
And he said to himself, “Why, this really is nice!
“A good deed which has gained all the thrill of a vice!
“This holiday season need not make me blue;
“For with each ‘Merry Christmas’, I break a taboo!”

Some heartily answer, returning his greeting;
And others more shyly, ere swiftly retreating –
Some say “Happy Hannukah” back with a grin,
Which the old Grinch returns, and calls that a win/win.
Some never quite notice; too stressed and engrossed.
But some look offended – and these he likes most.

“Now, don’t kid a kidder,” he tells such a one –
“I stole Christmas once, and I know how it’s done.
“But I stole it with style; I stole it with flare.
“You aren’t that clever, or else wouldn’t dare;
“To my exploits, your Christmas theft can’t hold a candle –
“You’re not even a thief – just a wannabe vandal.”

For a Grinch is a Grinch, at the end of the day
(And as he observed, Someone made him that way)
As wise as a serpent (and almost as green)
And not really worried if folks think he’s mean.
He stole Christmas once, but he made his amends –
Now he’ll steal Christmas back, for his more timid friends.

So when you’ve the chance (if, that is, you’ve the guts)
Please join me