“War on Christmas” Post-mortem: Do Christians Have a Persecution Complex?

January 8, 2012 By Timothy Dalrymple

Like megachurches, homeschooling, and Tim Tebow, “Merry Christmas” has become a religio-cultural Rorschach test.  If you prefer that department stores greet you with a “Merry Christmas,” or at least wish they didn’t feel compelled to adopt the anodyne “Happy Holidays,” chances are good you’re a conservative Christian of some stripe.  If, on the other hand, you prefer to talk about how ridiculous it is that anyone should care how a department store greets them, or if you prefer to mock that concern and say that people who feel that concern should (a) get a life or (b) stop trying to impose their religion or (c) remember the true meaning of persecution, then chances are that you belong to that coalition of groups that tend to feel scorn for conservative Christians — which is to say atheists, progressive Christians, and other liberal religious groups such as New Agers, Neo-Pagans or “Nones”.

There were a couple examples of the latter at Patheos over the past month.  James McGrath, a progressive Christian academic who blogs at Exploring Our Matrix (often a very funny blog), thought he’d flip the script by posting on “Christmas: The Christian ‘War on Solstice‘”.  McGrath explains that he devoted a recent Sunday School class discussing “one of the great Christmas miracles: the fact that long ago Christians managed to ‘hijack’ the already-existing solstice festival, and turn it into a Christian celebration so thoroughly and so effectively that, more than a millennium and a half later, cultural Christians can complain about the ‘hijacking’ or ‘secularization’ of Christmas without any sense of irony.”  (Apparently, the co-opting of a religious celebration by a very different set of Christians over 1500 years ago means that American Christians cannot show concern about the co-opting of their religious celebration today.)  Since the Bible neither provides the date of Jesus’ birth nor enjoins the commemoration of it, and (McGrath says) Christmas is the result of taking a pagan holiday and transforming it into a Christian one…

…I find the complaining of cultural Christians in the United States about their beleaguered or persecuted status at Christmas time not only ironic, but tedious and even offensive. The earliest Christians lived in a world where the issue was not the failure of salespeople to wish them a merry Christmas, but rather their own failure to participate in dominant cultural and religious rituals. The issue for the earliest Christians was not whether one could display a nativity scene on government property, but that every city where Christianity spread featured prominent displays of deities whom the Christians would refuse to worship, sometimes at the cost of their lives. That was persecution, not the fact that someone wishes you “Happy Holidays” – especially when that person would probably not be considered a true Christian anyway by born-again believers.

Further swipes at “cultural Christians” and “born again Christians” are scattered throughout the post.  He recommends “ceasing the ridiculous habit of complaining about what others do or do not wish you,” and condemns these same cultural Christians for (he assumes) indulging in the same consumerist, materialistic frenzy that Christmas has become for the culture as a whole.  In fact, he issues a pretty sweeping judgment on this score: “If your Christian faith is about what you wish others and what you demand that they wish you, and not also about what you spend and what you spend your money on, then I would suggest that you have only a veneer of Christianity spread over cultural values that are not specifically Christian, and which you share with most other people in your historical and national context.”  He closes with another judgment upon the banality and superficiality of such cultural Christianity.

Putting aside for the moment the superficiality of McGrath’s own rendering of the origins of Christmas–there are various theories on the origins of Christmas, and the solstice (as well as various other pagan festivals that have been suggested) quite possibly had nothing to do with it–what concerns me more is the absence of any attempt to understand the concerns of his more-conservative brethren charitably.

Ironically, a Neo-Pagan author named P. Sufenas Virius Lupus shows more sympathetic imagination, although it’s wrapped in the same bitter scorn sandwich.  When the ancient pagans persecuted the early Christians, this conferred upon us a “persecution complex” for the ages.  [If you'll pardon a digression: Lupus says Christians were put to death for being "unpatriotic" and refusing "to participate in a token fashion in the rituals of state."  I'm not a specialist here, but this seems absurd.  Christians were persecuted for many reasons.  They were blamed (almost certainly falsely) and treated monstrously for Nero's fire (Lupus suggests that, even if they did not start the fire, they probably did nothing to stop it because all they cared about was heaven, or something), they were attacked by rival sects, clergy were imprisoned or put to death for promoting a forbidden religion, and Christian practices were outright banned.  They were beaten, flogged, imprisoned, stoned, crucified, even roast inside a giant bronze bull (an imitation of Phalaris' legendary instrument of torture, for classical history buffs).  Yes, Christians refused to offer sacrifices or burn incense to the Roman gods for the sake of the Emperor, but that's because they understood the seriousness of worship and fealty.  Lupus suggests that what Christians refused to do was basically the same as "standing with one's hand over one's heart during the Pledge of Allegiance."  But covering your heart during the Pledge of Allegiance does not require Christians to recognize or honor other gods, and thus betray their most central beliefs.]

Yes, the Christians who were once persecuted by pagans and Jews became the persecutors of pagans and Jews.  This was common in the ancient world, but still shameful.  Lupus finishes:

You cannot rightly claim to be in the position of a persecuted minority any longer; you have, more often than not, been the persecutors for the last 1650 years or so. For those of us who are not of your belief system, we have no interest in “dying for” our religion, because we value life and wish to have it in abundance, here, in this very good and beautiful, though flawed, world. For us, martyrdom is not a virtue nor an ideal. For us, who are now in the position that your spiritual ancestors were when your religion emerged, would you act in ways towards us that you still execrate the Romans for nearly two millennia later? “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” indeed…

I don’t know if I would liken the present-day circumstances of American Neo-Pagans with those of the early Christians who were slaughtered in arenas, but, again, there’s more than a whiff of mockery for Christians feeling “persecuted” by the mis-appropriation of one of their holiest holidays.  Is this fair?  Four thoughts:

FIRST, If Christians complaining about “Happy Holidays” have likened this to persecution, I’ve never seen it.  There may be outliers.  But as a general rule, we know very well the difference between hearing “Happy Holidays” and being thrown to the lions, thank you very much.  I imagine that Professor McGrath, in his classes, would encourage his students to take on the strongest representation of a viewpoint they want to critique.  (I know I did with my students.)  But McGrath, Lupus and their ilk are taking on a weak, caricatured version of this concern.  Note that they do not cite an actual Christian leader making this argument, and lay out the argument; they just head straight for their caricatures and proceed to mock and lecture them.

SECOND, if conservative Christians who lament the displacement of “Merry Christmas” and other trappings of traditional Christmas celebration are not claiming that they’re being persecuted, what exactly are they claiming? Well, you wouldn’t know it from McGrath’s or Lupus’ entries, but the concerns are generally (1) the eviction of the sacred from the public square and (2) the marginalization of Christianity in a nation that was built upon it.  For example, I posted a guest post from Ravi Zacharias on Christmas Eve.  Zacharias explains that he takes no offense when he visits a Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim nation — even if its form of government is secular — and finds the people celebrating their religious holidays in public.  When he came to the United States, he was “thrilled to see Christmas celebrated and the reason for the season so obvious: the birth of Jesus Christ.”  He knew not every American was Christian, but “expected the charitable heart of even the dissenter to allow that which has been practiced in this country historically and traditionally to continue.”  Alas, however, it is no longer so.  Now the Judeo-Christian “worldview, on which our systems of government and law are based, is expelled from the marketplace.”  This concerns Dr. Zacharias, because “Democracies that are unhinged from all sacred moorings ultimately sink under the brute weight of conflicting egos.”

THIRD, in other words, this is not about persecution.  This is about the wrong-headed notion that a form of government that honors the non-establishment and free exercises clauses requires us to eliminate any signs that Christianity is somehow exceptional in American history, society and culture. The soldier in the “War on Christmas” is less concerned that he hears “Happy Holidays” than he is by the fact the department store feels compelled to avoid “Merry Christmas.”  Put differently, this is about the secularization of something Christians consider holy (and yes, Christians protest the commercialization of Christmas just as much, in fact far more), and the militant expulsion of robustly Christian elements of American culture, elements that were long celebrated in this country, from the public square.  These are legitimate concerns.  Most Christians believe that seeding a culture with teachings and traditions and stories that uphold what is True and encourage what is Good and Beautiful will have a nurturing, restorative effect upon that culture.  And many American Christians believe that a Democratic system of government, and even a free market economy, built upon the principles of God-given rights and freedoms, necessarily rests upon, and flourishes with, the principles and virtues those teachings, traditions and stories confer.  Withdrawing the “salt,” the preservative power of Christian teachings from the culture, will only hasten its disintegration.

FOURTH, however, I wonder whether we’ve reached the point where the pretense that America is still a Christian culture, or the attempt to conserve it as such, is better let go. To be honest, I go back and forth on this.  I believe in being a Christian conservationist, in preserving and nurturing within our culture and society the things that are good and true and redemptive.  The trappings of Christian faith can have a beneficent effect upon the culture when they spring from communities devoted wholeheartedly to the essence of Christian faith.  There are places (I would define them quite locally) where this is still the case in America.  But it’s hard to say anymore that mainstream American culture as a whole is Christian.  And when that’s the case, the cultural trappings are just that: trappings, the paraphernalia of a now-departed faith, and they’re generally conscripted into the service of idols.  When that is so, when the salt has really lost its saltiness, then it’s better dispensed with.

I sense that McGrath is trying to get to this point, but his prejudices get in the way.  It’s facile, and false, to dismiss conservative Christians or born-agains as “cultural Christians.”  That’s not the point.  The point is that cultural Christendom — by which I mean not a particular, political subgroup of Christians I dislike, but the cultural trappings of our Christian heritage — may have to die before essential Christianity can find new life.  When people go through the motions, when their faith becomes empty repetition, or if they reach the point where their faith is more about the cultural artifacts they surround themselves with — what they read or watch or listen to — and not a living encounter with Jesus Christ, then it’s better to give up the pretense that it’s “Christian” altogether.

Zacharias actually shares this perspective.  ”Maybe someday we will thank the rabid secularists as well,” he writes, “when ‘Merry Christmas’ will no longer be forbidden in our cities.  Exhausted and disappointed in self-worship, we may turn to God again and hear his story afresh.”  Maybe we have to become an un-Christian society before we can become a Christian one again — or maybe, at least, authentically Christian communities can best rise up and flourish in a culture that is clear again on what is Christian and what is not.

Maybe.  What do you think?

Filed Under: Christmas Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Is the Jesus Story a Myth?

September 12, 2011 By Timothy Dalrymple

Every now and then I’ll hear from someone who has bought into the “Jesus Myth” hypothesis.  You can find this in books like Jesus Potter, Harry Christ, in the “historical” studies of Acharya S., or from your neighborhood atheist who heard that there are some similarities between the stories of Jesus and Mithras, and who finds it expedient to believe that the Jesus narrative was fabricated like a patchwork quilt from various other stories that might have floated through Palestine two thousand years ago.

Bart Ehrman is not at all a defender of the historically orthodox version of who Jesus Christ was and what he did and taught.  Our own Ben Witherington is a faithful documenter of the various things Ehrman gets wrong.  Yet there is no doubt over the fact that Bart Ehrman is a respected scholar who does his homework.  And here is Dr. Ehrman confronted with the “Jesus Myth” hypothesis on a radio program (HT Scott Rachui):

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If you’re interested in learning more, I recommend the series from James Hannam which we published on the Evangelical Portal – in Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.  For other online sources of information on the pagan parallels theories, see this detailed examination of various pagan deities and whether their stories coincide with that of Jesus, this note from William Lane Craig, or (as a more specific example) this response to the Jesus-as-Mithras claim, or this article from Ronald Nash. For book-length responses, consult R. T. France’s The Evidence for Jesus or Nash’s The Gospel and the Greeks.

It’s difficult, of course, for a non-historian to know how to sort through these things.  If one historian (or at least a person who holds herself out as a historian) claims that the Jesus story is a composite of pagan myths while another historian says otherwise, how do you know whom to believe?

This is why responses like this from Bart Ehrman are so difficult for the Jesus Mythers.  It’s not as though the historians and New Testament scholars who affirm the existence of Jesus are ultra-conservative Christians who will defend their Jesus no matter what.  That’s not the case at all.  I’ve never met Ehrman, but I’ve met plenty of people in the field, plenty of historians and biblical scholars who are eager — truly eager — to overturn traditional views of Jesus.  They’re also eager to publish books that make a splash, get on the cover of Time magazine, and sell like hotcakes.  The fact that even they cannot bring themselves to say that Jesus never existed is devastating to the Jesus Myth hypothesis.

As Ehrman says, there is no serious historical scholar who believes that Jesus never existed.  In fact, for the longest time there was no scholarly response to the Jesus Myth hypothesis, just because there were no credible proponents of the hypothesis in scholarly circles.  Ehrman makes the reason plain.  We have more evidence for Jesus than we do for anyone else in the ancient world — and arguably (I would add) more than anyone up through the medieval period.  If the abundance of evidence for Jesus is insufficient, then the evidence for every other figure is even more insufficient and we might as well stop reading history books.

Simply put, if you can’t say that Jesus existed, then you can’t do history at all.  Dismissals of the existence of Jesus are not historical.  They’re ideological.

Filed Under: Biblical Scholarship Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Is the Academic World Anti-Christian?

September 9, 2011 By Timothy Dalrymple

My recent Open Letter to a College Freshman generated many positive responses.  One less-positive response came at Mark D. Roberts’ excellent blog, where a commenter explained that he had not found, some decades ago at UCLA, the kind of antagonism toward his faith that I described.  We should not, he said, “send freshmen off to college assuming that they are entering a spiritual war zone where their beliefs will constantly be under attack.”  Another commenter (a professor) said the letter creates the impression that faculty “must be bulwarked and buttressed against.”

The commenters are right, but they’re really objecting to what they assumed the letter implied.  That will be clear by the end of the post.  There are at least two questions here: Is the academic world antagonistic to Christian faith?  And should Christians go into academia with a kind of bunker warfare mentality?

Is the Modern University Antagonistic to Christian Faith?

The proper answer here is that the modern secular university in general is deeply suspicious and critical of traditional Christian belief.  First let me explain a caveat, and then I’ll explain two reasons for this aversion.

The caveat is implied in the italicized qualifiers.  The modern secular university is generally comfortable with certain forms of Christian faith.  A recent analysis of the General Social Survey from the sociologist Philip Schwadel contradicts the (in his words) “almost unquestioned belief” among scholars of religion “that education and other aspects of modernity are detrimental to religion.”  By many measures the more educated, he found, are more religiously observant — they’re more likely to participate in worship and devotional activities, more likely to affirm the importance of religion in public life — and it’s hard to imagine that this would be the case if the educational establishment in general were averse to Christian faith itself.

However, while academia does not decrease the incidence of Christian faith, certain forms of faith are strongly preferred at the modern university.  Schwadel’s study found that the increase of education does not make a person more or less likely to believe in God or the afterlife, but the more educated are less likely to believe that the Bible is the literal Word of God, or that Christianity is the only true or salvific religion.

This points to the first reason why the modern secular university is averse to orthodox Christian faith.  The university is not opposed to Christianity itself, but to certain beliefs and behaviors associated with traditional Christianity.  Some of those views are theological or ecclesial in nature; the academy in general, for instance, will not look kindly on the view that the Judeo-Christian Bible alone adequately describes God, or faith in Christ is the sole path to salvation, or that men alone should be in positions of church leadership.  Some of those views are metaphysical; the academy in general will be averse to the view that God intervenes in the human sphere in ways that defy natural explanation, or that Jesus was literally resurrected, or that the process by which the Christian canon was selected was guided by the Spirit.  Still other of those views are social-political; the modern secular university is adamantly opposed to the views that abortion, premarital sex and homosexual relationships are immoral.

If you are a Christian who does not hold to many of these views, or perhaps you study in fields where these things are rarely discussed, or perhaps you just rarely speak up in defense of your views, then you will find less friction against your faith in the university atmosphere.  If you belong to a community that affirms many of these things, however, and you have not repudiated that community, then you will find that many faculty, especially in philosophy or religious studies or social studies or etc., will believe that your intellectual “maturation” requires that you leave behind these backwards, provincial, irrational points of view.  In some cases, those faculty members will be able to defend their opposition to your beliefs with great power of evidence and argumentation.  In other cases, their opposition will be more visceral and political.  If you’re one of those Christians, namely the theologically, morally and perhaps politically conservative kind, then you are likely to encounter a good deal of opposition to your faith.  Not because the faculty dislike Christianity in all forms, but because they dislike the things that Christians traditionally have believed and valued and fought for.  These same faculty are just poorly taught; they inherited a view of history in which the Christians and their moral absolutism, their exclusivism (called “religious supremacism” in some academic circles now), and their “imperialism” are the causes of much of the suffering in the world.

The second reason for the modern secular academy’s aversion to traditional Christian faith is precisely that it’s traditional.  I tried to explain this in the Letter.  The dynamics of academic work in the humanities and social sciences reward the proposal and defense of novel and liberating theses.  If I had proposed, for instance, to defend a White Male Theology, not only would I be told that this perspective had already been adequately examined in the history of Christian theology, but I would be told that it was exclusionary and hurtful to privilege the dominant, majority group.  If I proposed, as a white male, to defend Black Womanist Theology, or One-Legged Lesbian Theology (we kid because we care), or to claim that white male privilege was so pervasive in the history of theology that the whole kit and caboodle should be thrown out — ah, then I’d have a worthy subject for a dissertation.  It was always revealing to me that “I find that offensive” was the Get Out of Argument Free Card in too many seminars.  In the study of religion there is a great deal of interest in exploring the perspectives — and the grievances — of historically marginalized people groups.

Some of that is right and good; it is important to learn from the experiences of groups that have not always been represented at the table.  But I find that the relentless publication pressure for the new creates a systemic bias against traditional beliefs (because a defense of traditional beliefs is anything but new), meaning that many academics learn that they can have success by attacking traditional beliefs or developing new systems of belief, and that the pressure to develop arguments that are regarded as helpful or liberating produces a systemic bias against those things that the faculty have come to regard as “oppressive.”

Should Christians Enter Academia Ready for Battle?

For all that, however, a dismissive or suspicious or antagonistic attitude toward the faculty is neither justified nor helpful.  I believe that Christian students who enter into the modern secular university should be aware of the forces shaping the intellectual life there and how those forces often lead to skepticism or attack toward traditional forms of Christian faith.  They should understand that professors — no less than other human beings — are limited and fallible and often swayed by their desires and biases and grievances.  And they should understand that the dynamics of publication and tenure, as a general matter, do create strong incentives and rewards for those who challenge challenge traditional beliefs and strong disincentives and penalties for those who defend them.  They should know that many professors will believe that “maturing” in their beliefs will mean becoming more inclusive, more “tolerant,” less “dogmatic,” more affirming of different moral systems and different lifestyles — in short, more like them, the professors, and less like the pastor at home who believes that Jesus really did perform miracles and that the Bible is a repository of eternal truths and moral values.

But they should not view their professors as the scheming enemies of their faith.  For one thing, it’s just not that nefarious.  Most professors really do want to help their students; they just have a particular view of what that “help” looks like.  For another thing, as I noted in the letter, professors have learned a great deal over the course of their careers and students should learn everything they can from them.  There is a body of knowledge to receive from the elder generation, and there is a process of reexamining our faith and coming to appreciate the faiths and philosophies of others that is very helpful and important.  For many Christians, college is a kind of intellectual rumspringa where they explore and experiment with other ways of seeing the world.  All of that is fine.  I just want those students to know that when they encounter sophisticated criticisms of Christian faith, they should know where those criticisms are coming from, and they should know that there are just-as-sophisticated defenses of Christian faith out there.

Perhaps most importantly, though, a bunker, warfare mentality just isn’t a winsome witness and it often creates the false impression (for the student herself) that her faith depends upon her defense of it.  Confident in the goodness of the Truth, Christians of all people should be the most open to honest inquiry and generous intellectual dialogue.  They should not be defensive or desperate; they should be even more committed to seeking and serving the Truth than the professors are.  Too often (though not always), apologetics is driven by insecurity.  If someone asks you a question to which you don’t know the answer, say, “That’s a great question.  I really want to think about that with you.”  Be good humored, be comfortable, be personable.  It is not you who hold on to God; it is God who holds onto you.  God will not be hurt, offended or thwarted just because you cannot defeat the arguments of the skeptic in the classroom.

And you may find that your faith is strengthened because you wrestled with God and trusted in Truth.  One of the most interesting results from Schwadel’s study was that Evangelicals, more than any other religious group, are the most likely to grow more devout and more observant in their faith as they become more educated.

So, to be clear, I made the case that there are intrinsic antagonisms between the modern secular academy and traditional Christian faith.  I did not make the case — and in fact I explicitly said otherwise — that students should not listen to their professors, should not be open to questioning their faith, or should retreat behind some kind of intellectual bunker.  I think it’s far better to engage the culture of the university, to honor the ideals of inquiry that the university itself often fails to fulfill, to permeate the whole academic sphere with faithful students seeking the Truth faithfully, than it is to withdraw behind intellectual bunkers and lob bombs across the ditch.

Filed Under: An Open Letter to a College Freshman Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Morning Report, September 24th: Finding the Right College, Recession and Racial Integration, The Missing Index, Faith at Harvard, Terrorism Central, Suing the Truth-Exposers, Mamas and (Bad) Papas, Palinasia, Hollywood Morality and Cracking the Nut of Iran

September 24, 2009 By Timothy Dalrymple

One Christian’s perspective on the day’s news:

1.  For those who are guiding children toward college, or interested in the best way to do so, Thomas Sowell has a nice article with some direction on how to find the right college.  The rankings one finds in a place like US News and World Report are not meaningless, but they have very little to do with the quality of the experience the student will have.  I should add, however, that college is largely what one makes of it.  Approached rightly, I believe that almost any student can be happy at almost any institution, if s/he develops the right relationships, maintains the right attitudes and pursues the right things.  For all the focus on finding the right college, there should be more attention to how one makes the college the right college through the actions one takes once there.

2.  RECESSION AND RACIAL INTEGRATION.  Along these same lines, Christianity Today has an interesting account of how the financial pressures of the recession have led black and white churches to integrate and worship together.  Ours is a God who makes good things out of evil, or what the world calls evil.

3.  THE MISSING INDEX.  With the emergence of the Baucus plan, we’re no longer dealing with multiple possible bills and all the confusion that brings.  The Baucus plan represents the Democratic game plan right now.  So it’s gaining more and more scrutiny.  Dick Morris, who is apparently no fan, details (some of) the costs of the Baucus plan for non-rich Americans.  He claims that the uninsured will only receive subsidies for insurance coverage after they have paid 20% of their income.  Of course, Dick Morris could be mistaken, so I will wait for confirmation on that.

What is interesting to me, however, is the 35% tax on “gold-plated” health insurance policies ($8000 for individuals), which is intended to help pay for the subsidies that will be given to the poor.  So  imagine that an individual receives an insurance policy worth $10K.  The insurance provider will then be taxed $3500.  The profit margin in the health insurance business is exceedingly small.  A study in 2003 showed that 70% of insurance providers either had a negative profit margin or one underneath 5%.  Average returns recently have been about 3%, making health insurance less profitable (by margin) than 85 other industries.  So there’s no way the insurer can simply eat the 35% increase in cost.  Naturally, then, the provider will pass that cost along.  Those who paid $10K for their own insurance will now pay $13.5K; those who receive insurance through their employers may find their plans dropped (sending them into the government plan, if there is one) or lowered in quality in order to fall beneath the trigger point.

The Democrats (and of course the Republicans, though they’re not the ones in charge right now, so the Democrats get to enjoy the burden of leadership here) do not want to tax everyone.  So this is a way of taxing individuals indirectly, by taxing those who provide them services with very little profit, knowing full well the cost will be passed along.  But it won’t seem like a tax, since the cost is coming from those evil insurance providers (further cultivating animosity between patients and insurance providers…sending more into the arms of the government?).

But what’s interesting to me is that the “trigger” of $8K for individuals (something like $21K for families) is not indexed to inflation (not to mention, as Morris notes, medical inflation, which has been twice the ordinary inflation rate).  Indexing to inflation would be an obvious thing to do, so someone must have decided not to do so.  According to estimates, 10% of Americans presently have health insurance policies that fall into this category.  Many of them are not rich; many belong to unions that have used their bargaining power for Cadillac insurance plans.  Bear in mind that the reformed system would not “begin” until 2013, by which time 15% or 20% of Americans may reach that trigger.

There are two reasons why Democrats may not want to index the trigger to inflation.  First, of course, is if they intend to spread the burden beyond the 10% over time.  You pass the bill when only 10% would qualify, minimizing the push-back from voters, but by the time the plan is enacted its costs fall on more.  The other reason is if the politicians want the power, as they currently enjoy with the Alternative Minimum Tax, that comes with annually patching the problem.

But who knows?  The Baucus plan may change in dramatic ways.  Pelosi is trying to liberalize it.

4.  OBAMA TIRED OF PAYING FOR YOUR OIL.  Barack Obama wants to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies, at least if he can get everyone around the world to do it in conjunction (so there are no competitive disadvantages posed to any one country’s businesses), which seems reasonable to me.  Also, this piece at The New Republic makes the strong point that “the one way” Barack Obama can bring his term back to success is by improving the economy and in particular unemployment.  I have not bought into the argument many have made that Obama’s administration is in mortal peril.  But I think this is roughly correct; the complicating factor is, the economy will eventually turn around, and will almost certainly do so before 2012.  Assessing the extent to which Obama deserves credit for that will prove a complicated matter.

Another move from the Obama White House that deserves notice: they’ve decided that Bush was right about the power of the executive to detain terrorists as combatants indefinitely without trial, based on the war powers already given the President by Congress.  This doesn’t bother me, but we should learn a lesson: some things are easy to castigate when the other party is in power, but look different once you’re in the Oval Office and you’re responsible for keeping America safe from homicidal maniacs.

5.  LIFE OF FAITH AT HARVARD.  Today I met with some great young men from Harvard’s Ichthus journal, and the Evangelical Portal will be developing a relationship with them (and hopefully with some of its sister journals at other schools).  I’m quite impressed with the quality of their material — even at their blog.  Here is a very nice reflection on the “abundant life” found in Christ:

It was Nietzsche who said it first, but it’s a common thought—Christianity is nihilistic. People may not express themselves in so many words, but who hasn’t heard the argument that Christians are prudish, repressed, reactionary, life-denying—life-hating? That Christians want to stamp out natural loves and pleasures? That Christians are so fixated on their pie-in-the-sky, ethereal heaven that they completely lose sight of life on earth?

Read the rest here.

6.  TERRORISM CENTRAL.  A lot of terrorism-related news all at once.  The terror arrests in Queens and Denver — leading to warnings on rail safety.  A new video from Ayman al-Zawahiri.  The terror probe expands.  Warnings also for stadiums, hotels and transit, and travel to Germany.  All coincidence that these things are coming together?  Apparently the video of bin Laden’s lieutenant, which was probably intended to be released on 9/11, may have been delayed for a few weeks by jamming the web sites that distribute these things.  Was that to throw off an intended attack?  To prevent it long enough to give us time to make the arrests?  And was the message a sort of “trigger” intended to rouse a sleeper cell to action?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Just the discovery of what appears to be an active al Qaeda cell within the United States is disturbing enough:

The terror probe that burst into the spotlight in New York last week may have led authorities to the first active al Qaeda cell uncovered inside the U.S. since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to officials familiar with the matter.Current and former U.S. officials say the allegations in the case embody their worst fears — that a legal U.S. resident could quietly leave the country, receive explosives training from al Qaeda in a lawless region of Pakistan, then return to U.S. soil.

7.  TURNING YOUR BACK ON MADNESS.  Congratulations to the UN delegates who walked out on Ahmadinejad.  And I’ve got to say that I’m enjoying this new tone from Obama:

UNITED NATIONS – President Barack Obama challenged world leaders Wednesday to shoulder more of the globe’s critical burdens, promising a newly cooperative partner in America but sternly warning they can no longer castigate the U.S. as a go-it-alone bully while still demanding it cure all ills.

“Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone,” said Obama in put-up-or-shut-up comments before a packed U.N. General Assembly hall. “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”

In his first appearance before the group, Obama promised the U.S. would reach out in “a new era of engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” but he also wagged a rhetorical finger at leaders who spend much of their time at international gatherings excoriating the U.S. He said “an almost reflexive anti-Americanism” that swept the globe under the administration of his predecessor, George W. Bush, is not “an excuse for collective inaction.”

“Nothing is easier than blaming others for our troubles and absolving ourselves of responsibility for our choices and our actions,” he said.

You mean, the US isn’t responsible for all the evils in the world?  And you mean that other countries would rather sit back and let us address the world’s gravest problems, and then criticize us for doing it wrong?  Hmm.

8.  SUING WHISTLE-BLOWERS.  ACORN sues the filmmakers James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles for the recorded conversation in the Baltimore ACORN office.  It may be the case that Maryland law allows ACORN to sue them, while other state laws do not.  Which is not to say that ACORN will win the case; that seems unlikely.  They may be testing the waters to see whether Andrew Breitbart, whose media organization has rather sheltered and cultivated the filmmakers, will offer to settle out of court.  One has to suppose that ACORN would not want this to go to court, since the discovery process could be incredibly damaging to them.  Or it may be more of a PR move intended to portray themselves as victims, and later, when the lights of public attention have faded, ACORN will withdraw the suit.  You can read the story of the background of the video here.  Conservatives have long felt that ACORN, and in particular its electoral arms, are more extensions of the Democratic party than independent entities, and have shielded illegal activities under the banner of noble intentions and community service.

I’m not a fan of this kind of journalism, whether it’s done on the Right or the Left, and whether it’s high-end material like Michael Moore or low-end material like O’Keefe and Giles.  We need more media products that examine issues from every angle, not polemicizing from one angle, mocking the opposition, showing them in the worst possible light, or in their worst moment.

9.  MAKING THE BAND.  Children wearing different colored bands that denote the different kinds of sexual favors they must bestow if their bands are snapped?  Apparently.  Read about the callous disregard of the store owner who sells these items.

10.  THE BAD PAPA OF THE MAMAS AND THE PAPAS.  Mackenzie Phillips, daughter of John Phillips, musician for the Mamas and the Papas, tells about how her father raped her when she was 19, on the night before her wedding.  He taught her to roll a joint at 10, and introduced her to heroin at a very young age.  They carried on an incestuous affair for 10 years.  But, she says: “My father was not a bad man. He was kind of a testament to what drugs and alcohol – in huge quantities – can do to a person’s priorities. Their motives.  I don’t hate him. I understand that he was a very tortured man, and he sort of passed that torture down to me.”  Ugh.  Those 60′s peace musicians were so enlightened, weren’t they?

11.  A NEW LEAF?  Not a link here, but just a note: I greatly appreciated the different tone Obama seemed to offer on the talk shows on Sunday.  I thought he was much more conciliatory, much more willing (following his own advice) to avoid attacking the motives of those who disagreed with him.  That’s what I was hoping to see in the speech he gave before Congress.

12.  COMPETING POLLS.  Some time ago I noted that a majority of physicians seemed to be in favor of health care reform along the lines proposed by Obama and Democrats.  Now another poll appears that suggests the opposite.  Hmm.

13.  SCHOOL PROPAGANDA?  Does this high school quiz seem propagandistic to you?  Before you decide, read the full story here.  It does seem to encourage students to assume that President Obama is telling the unvarnished truth, and doesn’t encourage a critical attitude or assessment.  But I don’t recall many instances in my own education (granted, I did independent study during my high school years because of my gymnastics career) when I was encouraged to view a President’s claims with skepticism.  It doesn’t sound as though the teacher, however, allowed a critical discussion, so that seems wrong to me, if the account is correct.  On the other hand, I have no idea what to make of this video.  The commenters take it too far when they warn of moving toward fascistic indoctrination.  But it is worrisome.  If it doesn’t bother you, ask yourself whether you’d mind if such a song were sung to President Bush in his first year, or after 9/11?

One of my fundamental precepts, however, is that people are more or less the same (profound, I know), and that includes Democrats and Republicans.  Not necessarily the same in their principles, but in their neuroses, their weaknesses, their faults.  There was a tendency after 9/11 to glorify Bush as the leader chosen by God for such a time as this.  Yet I don’t recall quite the same tendency to leader-worship as one finds with Obama.  In some ways that’s understandable; Obama is the first African-American President, so he accomplished something historic simply by being elected.  He speaks in the loftiest of rhetoric, at least on occasion, and inspires many people.  In office, however, Obama should be held to the same critical standard as all politicians, and we should expect him to stumble in much the same way other politicians do.

14.  PALINASIA.  Sarah Palin gave her speech in Asia, and reviews varied from those who thought it was “brilliant” to those who walked out (American delegates who were presumably against her to start with).  And again it always fascinates me to read the comments from the enlightened on websites like Swampland.  My favorite is cfukara, who suggests that Palin only got her degree by giving sexual favors to her professors.  Granted, Palin does not have the preferred ideology of the intellectual elite, and she performed poorly in some early interviews on national policy issues, but she’s accomplished, with no help from her husband or a big-name patron, a great deal more than 99% of the population.  She may not be a genius, and I think she’s wrong on certain issues, but she’s clearly an intelligent woman, competent, courageous, ambitious, and hard-working.  The loathing on the Left for Palin continues to amaze.  My suggestion: like Bush Derangement Syndrome, and the Obama version, let’s call this Palinasia.  And speaking of Palin, this Democratic operative has an interested prediction, if current trajectories hold, for Palin “with her arms raised in triumph on Election Day 2010.”

15.  LANDSCAPE ASSESSOR.  Information on the political landscape, from Byron York:

It’s also far smaller than the massive 19-point lead Democrats held over Republicans in June 2008. So in less than a year and a half, the Democratic margin has fallen from 19 points to 3. (The last time the Democratic lead was so slim was five years ago, in October 2004. The last time Republicans held the lead in the Congressional question was October 2002.)

16.  WONDERFUL HOLLYWOOD.  Yet another television show (“Cougar Town“) with no moral compass.

17.  COLUMN OF THE DAY.  Thomas Friedman on the hopes of cracking Iran with threats of biting sanctions and military action.

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