Happy Easter!

“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”, performed a cappella by the Eclipse 6

Happy Feast of St. Stephen!

As Seen In the classic Christmas carol “Good King Wenceslas”:

The children’s cartoon Phineas and Ferb is surprisingly traditional (and educational!) on the subject:

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

In the tradition of Christian martyrs, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., lost his life but won the war.  In the years after his assassination, his call for America to live up to her founding principles, his vision of all people treating all people as fellow human beings regardless of color, became the national consensus.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I turned on the radio to find that today even NPR was singing about Jesus—even during Terry Gross’s Fresh Air!

How appropriate, for this week of Thanksgiving, that even NPR should sing praise to God.  We may not always remember it, but Thanksgiving is supposed to be all about God, about giving Him our thanks and even our service:

Be Strong and Holy

Worth meditating on:  Apparently the/a Greek word for “holy” also means “strong”.

In Christianity, we are called to sanctification, the lifelong process of cooperating more and more with God’s work to make us holy, pure and set apart for His service.  In one of the seeming paradoxes of Christian theology, this process also makes us spiritually stronger and stronger, even as it also makes us more and more dependent on God, the eternal Source of all goodness and love and power.

Politics, Poetry, Tragedy, Comedy

New Web site offers an unusual combination of haikus, news, and conservative views:

Hainews

Themes covered and alluded to so far range from the Bible to Donald Trump.  But you have to click on the links, the text (haipertext?) of the poem, to understand what it’s talking about.

Trump Still Faking Faith, Failing

Awkward:

The Republican presidential candidate spoke at Liberty University Monday . . . .

“Two Corinthians, right? Two Corinthians 3:17, that’s the whole ball game,” Trump said, as laughter rippled through the audience, perhaps because most Christians refer to the book as “Second Corinthians.”

‘The arc of history is long, and it bends where God wills it.’

Beautiful, just beautiful.  NRO’s David French:

This month, Ta-Nehisi Coates published Between the World and Me, a powerful collection of essays written in the form of letters to his teenage son. The book is a sensation on the left, and it is full of rage and even hate. Rather than write a conventional review of the book, I thought I’d respond with my own letter, written to my seven-year-old African-American daughter.

Dearest Naomi . . .

Prayers for Marriage Recommended by the Anglican Church in North America

From our bishops’ statement on the Supreme Court ruling this week:

We call our people to a season of prayer for marriage and offer the accompanying Litany and Prayer to guide us.

Unanimously adopted by the College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America.
June 26, 2015

More Responses to Obergefell vs. Hodges

The Anglican Church in North America responds at some length.

Scott Walker made a great statement in response to the Supreme Court decision.

Five unelected judges have taken it upon themselves to redefine the institution of marriage, an institution that the author of this decision acknowledges ‘has been with us for millennia.’ . . .

Web Comic Biblenauts Explores Bible with Humor, Compassion

A friend of a friend of a friend started drawing a Web comic a couple of months ago.  Biblenauts follows two time-traveling visitors through the stories of the Bible, starting with the first chapter.

The author isn’t exactly an orthodox believer—as his “About” page jokes, “The views and opinions expressed in this comic strip do not necessarily reflect the opinions of God or his affiliates”—but Biblenauts is occasionally both thoughtful and moving.  Here, it contemplates the creation and destruction of the world and the meaning of free will, suffering, and mercy.

Half Empty, Half Full, Runneth Over

One Christian tells his personal story: Zack Locklear, “My Biggest Struggle With Christianity”

One of the beautiful challenges of attending a secular university has been being forced to look at Christianity through a different lens from what I had been used to in the past. . . . Incredulous and skeptical, I eventually wondered into the thick fog of nihilism. When God became unapproachable, life became meaningless; and a person can only live so long like that. . . .

Upside-down

Overheard at work (quoting from memory):

Woman 1 (recalling when she found out she was pregnant):  I told her, I can’t marry this guy—there’s no way.  And she said, That’s OK.  I’m so glad she didn’t say, Then why were you having sex with him?

. . .

Woman 2:  You don’t have to have sex with someone just because you’re married to him.

Comparison to Interracial Marriage a Terrible Argument

People love to compare those who want to maintain the traditional legal definition of marriage (one man and one woman) to those who supported laws against interracial marriage in the American South in the first half of the twentieth century.

It’s a terrible argument, but people keep making it, even (most recently) a federal appeals-court judge.

Meriam Ibrahim, Sentenced to Death in Muslim Sudan for ‘Apostasy’, Free and Alive with Her Family in America

Sometimes the news that makes headlines is good news; sometimes this story has a happy ending:

“Meriam Ibrahim, Sudan Woman Who Faced Death Over Faith, Receives Hero’s Welcome In U.S.”

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — A Sudanese woman who refused to recant her Christian faith in the face of a death sentence arrived Thursday in the United States, where she was welcomed first by the mayor of Philadelphia as a “world freedom fighter” and later by cheering supporters waving American flags in New Hampshire.

Love, Hatred, and One Woman’s Journey from the Left to the Right

Via Asylum Watch (a. k. a. Conservatives on Fire), writer and teacher Danusha Goska has a long, thoughtful piece at American Thinker on “Why I Am No Longer a Leftist”.  Be warned that it both uses rude language and frankly discusses some pretty disgusting stuff.  If you don’t mind that, I encourage you to read the whole thing; it’s very interesting.

How far left was I? . . . So far left that my Teamster mother used to tell anyone who would listen that she voted for Gus Hall, Communist Party chairman, for president. I wore a button saying “Eat the Rich.” To me it wasn’t a metaphor.

Islamists in Iraq Tell Christians to ‘convert, pay a poll tax, leave by Saturday or die by the sword’

When even NPR says Christians are being persecuted and killed off, you know it’s true.  From All Things Considered:

Talking about Politics and Religion

They say you shouldn’t talk about politics and religion, but I had occasion to go to two Thanksgiving dinners last week, and at both I was fortunate to have the opportunity to talk about politics and religion, if not with the whole party, then at least with a couple of the people there.  It went, as far as I am aware, very well:  Neither they nor I became unpleasant or unkind at any point; no one raised his voice or started interrupting or talking over anyone.  They were, in fact, perfectly enjoyable conversations, even though (if it doesn’t go without saying) we disagreed on the substantive underlying issues (I was talking with an atheist, a liberal, a Muslim, etc., about health care, etc.).

Trending

Mark Steyn, as usual, is must-read material.

In the Nineties, in his famous and controversial book Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples, V. S. Naipaul wrote of the eastern lands conquered by Islam that “converted peoples have to strip themselves of their past.” In the West, in the nation states that built the modern world, that process is well under way. And Islam is Europe’s future. Which is to say, for Europe, there is no future.

Good Friday: Mark Steyn Reviews The Passion of the Christ

In the church year, Easter is when the we remember Christ’s resurrection and ultimate triumph over death; Good Friday is when we remember that we, in our sin, put Him to death.

In observance of Good Friday today, Mark Steyn reprints his 2004 review of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.  (Note that this link will probably expire.)

Instead of Jesus the wimp, Mel gives us Jesus the Redeemer. He died for our sins — ie, the “violent end” is the critical bit, not just an unfortunate misunderstanding cruelly cutting short a promising career in gentle teaching. . . .