2015-08-30T21:30:28-04:00

One of J. R. R. Tolkien’s earliest writings has been published this week in England.  (It will be released in the U.S.A. in April.)  It’s called The Story of Kullervo, a retelling of a dark episode from the Finnish national epic the Kalevala.  Hannah Sander of the BBC tells about the influence of this epic and of the Finnish language and mythology on Tolkien’s imagination.  In addition to direct parallels, Tolkien’s descriptions of Middle Earth owe much to the Finnish landscape and the Finnish language seems to have been a model for Elvish. (more…)

2009-05-06T05:00:57-04:00

You might have missed Snafu’s comments on the Changing your religion post about the church in Finland:

In Finland the situation is such that people are not so much changing their denomination but leaving the church membership. As you might know, we have a former state church (now a “people’s church”) and almost everyone used to be a member of the church. However, the Sunday service attendance has never been very high and is at the moment ca. 1-2 % of the membership.

ELCF measured by members is roughly twice the size of LCMS. At the moment the members-leaving-the-church rate is about 40,000 a year. Most of this is happening via a website eroakirkosta.fi (freely translated: “leavethechurch.com”) hosted by a certain atheist organisation. At the moment 81% of Finnish people are members of the Lutheran people’s church and it’s getting down. Sweden is a bit ahead of us, they’re in about 70%. In Germany, ca. 10-15% (if I remember right) are members of a church, whose confession at least on paper is excplicitly Lutheran. The number is going down while it is approximately the same as the number of muslims in Germany. And this is the home country of Luther!

Europe is getting more and more secular and more and more islamic. Well, you might know already that.

My reply:

My impression, Snafu, is that these state Lutheran churches are very, very liberal and modernist, that they don’t believe in the Bible or the confessions and that they hardly care about the Gospel. If that’s so, why WOULD anyone go to them? What are they offering that people can’t already get from secularism?

What is your situation as a believing Lutheran Christian in that context? Isn’t there a small confessional remnant in each country?

Whereupon he replied:

You’re very much right, dr. Veith. It is true that the state churches are very liberal. There was a poll a few years ago showing e.g. that 30% of the clergy did not believe hell existed at all. This year we have seen a pastor (female) coming out of the closet and getting full support from her bishop and another pastor “changing” his sex through a surgical operation, also getting full support from his bishop. And let me tell you, it’s not going to stop here.

To answer your (big) first question even a bit: The mental frame of the Finns is still that “to be a Finn is to be a member of the church”. This is also the reason why the older, Bible-believing members don’t know where else to go. However, this is changing and the younger believers are also leaving the church: 1/7 of those 40,000 report they left because the church is too liberal. I have friends who have then switched to Eastern Orthodox or Pentecostal (the next biggest churches in Finland).

To answer you second question (also a big question that no short answer would suffice).: there is a small remnant of confessional Christians in each country. However, these groups can be quite different from each other, others being quite revivalistic or piethistic, others confessional Lutherans, others charismatic. If you rule out the question of baptism, the state churches include almost all the possible protestant denominations.

My home is a confessional Lutheran movement “Luther foundation” that within a couple of years will start as an independent diocese in the church. A corresponding diocese in Sweden is the Missionsprovinsen, to which we have good relations. (and neither is recognized by the heads of the state church). The situation is a bit complex, and would take long time to explain but you can read a bit more in a blog: http://tentatioborealis.blogspot.com/

The writer is a friend of mine who studied in Ft. Wayne last year (a good friend of prof. Pless).

The state church still has baptism; still reads the Word of God in its liturgy; still distributes Holy Communion; all of this still evidently creates believers, though amidst much apostasy. I’m intrigued by that cultural loyalty of ordinary people to the church, which I’m not willing to completely discount. I’ve heard predictions of a Christian revival in Europe. Christ is still in Finland, isn’t he?

2024-09-06T14:40:51-04:00

The problem with 15-week abortion bans; Switzerland is reconsidering its neutrality; and leftist dictator changes the date of Christmas.

The Problem with 15-Week Abortion Bans

Republicans trying to stake out a “moderate” position on abortion have been proposing banning the procedure after 15 weeks.  But 96% of abortions happen before 15 weeks.

Several states ban abortion after 6 weeks, but that still allows for 44.8% of abortion.  It does prevent 55.2% of them, which is not nothing.  But setting gestational benchmarks is still legalized abortion.

The question is whether a developing child in the womb is worth protecting.  Is he or she a human being?  If so, abortion at any stage is abhorrent.

On some, maybe most issues, there is a continuum of positions, with a spectrum in the middle that can be described as “moderate.”  Abortion is not like that.  It’s a binary issue:  you either support it or you don’t.  There is no “moderate” position.

A pro-lifer can push for laws that result in fewer abortions, as in the 6-week states (with Florida’s law being challenged with a referendum that would remove virtually all restrictions).  But a 15 week ban only masquerades as “moderate,” since it still legalizes nearly all abortions.

HT:  David Mueller

Switzerland Is Reconsidering Its Neutrality

Since 1515, Switzerland has been a “neutral” country, successfully staying out of foreign wars, even as they raged all around it.  The last century saw two world wars, but those world at war did not include Switzerland.

Not that they didn’t have wars.  They had some civil wars and were invaded a few times, most notably by Napoleon.  And Swiss mercenaries were highly prized employees through the 19th century, fighting as contract workers rather than troops under the authority of their government.  But Switzerland didn’t take sides in international conflicts.

Swiss neutrality was formally recognized by other nations, making Switzerland useful for international diplomacy (as a place where warring sides could meet to negotiate with each other) and international finance (with the famously confidential “Swiss bank accounts” allowing for transactions free of government interference).

Today, though, Switzerland is reconsidering its policy of neutrality.  A study group has issued what is being described as a “bombshell report” recommending that Switzerland develop a “common defense capability” with the European Union and NATO.

The main reason is the continent-wide fear of Russia in light of its  attack on Ukraine.  Sweden and Finland had also been officially neutral throughout the Cold War, but the fighting so close to their borders led them to join NATO.

There is also a financial motive.  Swiss law forbids selling weapons to countries that are at war.  The Swiss defense industry is missing out on money to be made by exporting military supplies.

The study group’s report recommending modifying Switzerland’s neutrality policy is very controversial in Switzerland, with opposition coming from both right wing and left wing parties.

Leftist Dictator Changes the Date of Christmas

The leftwing dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro is giving a gift to his people, celebrating his election to the presidency that virtually everyone condemns as fraudulent.  He is making Christmas come early.

On his weekly television show, Maduro made this announcement:  “This year and to honor you all, to thank you all, I am going to decree the beginning of Christmas on October 1. Christmas arrived for everyone, in peace, joy and security!”

In the midst of mass protests and arrests of his critics, Maduro–who has opened two new prisons to accommodate his 2400 new political prisoners–evidently wants to spread holiday cheer, with Christmas decorations and music going up early.  He also hopes to boost the economy, as workplaces give Christmas bonuses and shoppers spend more freely.  Inflation in Venezuela this year is 99.98%, which sounds like a lot, but it has come down since 2018 when it was 63,374%.

This is not the first time Maduro has revised the liturgical calendar.  Last year he had Christmas start on November 1.  In 2021, he had it start on October 4.

Christmas, of course, is a season.  I couldn’t find out when the Christmas season in Venezuela will end.  I don’t know what this change does to Advent and Epiphany.

At any rate, this is an especially blatant case of government presumption, asserting its authority over religion, culture, and time itself.

 

 

 

 

2024-07-29T14:16:22-04:00

Our technological progress has been remarkable, and this is certainly true of our military technology.  It’s being tried out in the wars in Ukraine and Israel, where the defensive technology donated by the United States has been shooting down incoming missiles and making a big difference.  And yet military technology has gotten so advanced that, paradoxically, it is bringing back the conditions of World War I.

The war between Russia and Ukraine started as a duel featuring the latest military technology, with drones, anti-missile defenses, precision weapons, and devices of unprecedented lethality.  As a result, though, since any advance or attack will be observed and obliterated, both sides are dug in, keeping their heads down in a new kind of trench warfare reminiscent of World War I.  Michael Peck reports:

Modern weapons have become so accurate and lethal that soon armies will not be able to maneuver rapidly on the battlefield.

Instead, they will trudge forward under the protection of defensive “bubbles” designed to stop drones and missiles. According to this vision, swift battlefield maneuvers will be replaced by grinding wars of attrition where victory goes to the side that has the most firepower as well as the most resources to replace losses.

It’s a grim vision of warfare that has more in common with the slaughter of the First World War than the mechanized blitzkriegs of World War II and Desert Storm, where infantry and armor backed by airpower seized vast territory. . . .

The Ukraine war has demonstrated that — at least for now — firepower dominates maneuver. Russian and Ukrainian have painfully learned that with surveillance and attack drones constantly overhead, emerging from cover is dangerous and slow. Long-range guided missiles and shells can decimate armored columns that dare to thrust through minefields and layered defenses covered by artillery and airpower. Instead of sweeping offensives, the Ukraine war has become a largely static conflict where immense preparations are made for attacks that might gain an obscure village or a few square miles of territory before the attacker halts to dig in and regroup.

Furthermore, the war is demonstrating the measure/counter-measure dynamic that has long characterized military technology.  We have bombs, missiles, and even artillery shells that have GPS guidance, enabling them to hit any programmed target with pinpoint accuracy.  But now Russia has learned how to jam them.  From Yaroslav Trofimov of the Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall):

The Excalibur artillery round performed wonders when it was introduced into the Ukrainian battlefield in the summer of 2022. Guided by GPS, the shells hit Russian tanks and artillery with surgical precision, as drones overhead filmed the resulting fireballs.

That didn’t last.

Within weeks, the Russian army started to adapt, using its formidable electronic warfare capabilities. It managed to interfere with the GPS guidance and fuzes, so that the shells would either go astray, fail to detonate, or both. By the middle of last year, the M982 Excalibur munitions, developed by RTX and BAE Systems, became essentially useless and are no longer employed, Ukrainian commanders say.

Several other weapons that showcased the West’s technological superiority have encountered a similar fate. Russian electronic countermeasures have significantly reduced the precision of GPS-guided missiles fired by Himars systems, the weapon credited for reversing the momentum of the war in Ukraine’s favor in the summer of 2022, Ukrainian military officials say.

A brand-new system, the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb munition, manufactured by Boeing and Sweden’s Saab, has failed altogether after its introduction in recent months, in part because of Russian electronic warfare, Ukrainian and Western officials say. It is no longer in use in Ukraine pending an overhaul.

Now not just Ukraine and Russia but the militaries of other nations are realizing the importance of old-fashioned artillery.  Says Trofimov:

One of the lessons learned in Ukraine is about the continuing importance of old-school unguided artillery shells, the manufacturing of which is only now beginning to pick up in the U.S. and Europe after decades of decline, said Lt. Gen. Esa Pulkkinen, the permanent secretary of Finland’s defense ministry. “They are immune to any type of jamming, and they will go to target regardless of what type of electronic warfare capability there may be,” he said.

Just like World War I.
Photo: Zelensky at a trench by manhhai, Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via Flickr,  CC by 2.0

2024-06-21T15:55:59-04:00

Louisiana has passed a law requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in all of the state’s classrooms.  In 1980, the Supreme Court overturned a similar requirement  in Kentucky, but that was before 2022 when the court threw out the principle that was the basis of that decision, the “Lemon Test,” which requires laws regarding religion to have a secular purpose,  neither advance nor inhibit religion, and avoid the state becoming “entangled” in religion.

Reportedly, Louisiana governor Jeff Landry pushed the new law in order to find out where the post-Lemon court will draw the lines.  He said that he “can’t wait to be sued,” and a number of groups are lining up to oblige him.

The opponents of the requirement are saying, of course, that the new law violates the separation of church and state and that it amounts to an “establishment of religion” in violation of the First Amendment, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

So does posting the Ten Commandments establish Christianity (perhaps Reformed Protestantism, if the non-Catholic and non-Lutheran numbering is followed)  and, presumably, Judaism (which has a different numbering still) as Louisiana’s official religion?

In discussing the controversy, Natan Ehrenreich at National Review draws on a new book on the Establishment Clause by two legal scholars, Nathan S. Chapman and Michael W. McConnell, entitled Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience.

They say that at the time of the founding the establishment of a religion, which was pretty much the norm in Europe, involved six specific characteristics.  In countries with a state church, the state. . .

(1) exercised control over doctrine, governance, and personnel of the church;

(2) had laws mandating compulsory church attendance;

(3) provided financial support to the church;

(4) prohibited or restricted worship in other churches;

(5) made use of church institutions for public functions;

(6) restricted political participation to members of the established church.

Thus, in the Church of England of the time, the state supervised doctrine, appointed bishops, and assigned clergy to parishes.  It enforced laws requiring attendance, citing Luke 14:23, “compel them to come in.”  It fully financed the church.  It forbade Catholic services and those of Protestant separatists (which is why the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock).  The Anglican church was fully involved in coronations, state funerals, the opening of Parliament, and other state ceremonies, as is the case even today.  And only Anglicans–not Catholics or Protestant separatists–were allowed to hold public office, vote in parliamentary elections, or attend the universities.

To be sure, by the late 18th century, some of these practices were toned down.  The Toleration Act of 1688 allowed for non-Anglican Protestants, as long as they were licensed and did not meet in private homes.  Catholics were gradually granted toleration beginning in 1778, when they were allowed to worship publicly, and continuing through the 19th century, when they were allowed through various laws to hold office, enroll in universities, and the like.  But even today many of those original characteristics apply to the Church of England.

Other nations had their own state churches that had the same or similar characteristics.  Where Catholicism was the state religion, the church hierarchy had the responsibility of appointing bishops and assigning priests to parishes, but the state generally was allowed to make recommendations that were usually followed.  Switzerland and the Netherlands had Calvinist state churches.  The various principalities of Germany had their own state churches, with some being Catholic, some being Reformed, and some being Lutheran.

The Scandinavian nations of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland had Lutheran state churches.  For much of their history, no other churches were allowed.  As a result, the Lutheran cultural influence is said to be greater in Scandinavia than in Germany, which was home to a number of other religious traditions and smaller state churches.  That would change, somewhat, with the rise of Pietism in the 19th century, though that movement for the most part stayed within the context of Lutheran churches.  And, of course, the state churches, under the control of the secular authorities, would become more and more secular themselves with the advent of theological liberalism.

Here is my question, which perhaps some of you can help me with.  How can Lutheran state churches be justified given the Lutheran doctrine of the Two Kingdoms?  They must have been, since many orthodox Lutherans operated that way, before the mechanisms of the state church led them to become liberal and secularist.  That began to happen as early as the 18th and 19th centuries, as we see with the “Old Lutherans” who would leave the state church and come to America, eventually founding the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.

Back to our main topic, Ehrenreich believes that if the Supreme Court justices are truly “originalists” in their interpretation of the Constitution, they will rule that posting the Ten Commandments does not constitute an establishment of religion.  After all, it has nothing to do with the six defining characteristics of a religious establishment.  Nor would prayer in school, displays of religious symbols, certain kinds of funding, and other contentious issues involving the relationship between church and state.

Do you think the Justices will rule in that way?

Some conservatives–the Catholic integralists and Reformed and Pentecostal dominionists–think that America should have an established religion.  Do you think they would like their churches being subject to those six characteristics of state churches?

It seems to me that, judging from history, state religions do not generally, in practice, mean that the religion rules the state.  Rather, the state rules the religion.

 

Photo:  Coronation of Charles III by Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

2024-04-20T10:14:43-04:00

Ronald Reagan–and a Cranach subscriber–saved Israel (over Biden’s objections);  connection between the church slump and the surge in mental illness; and the Finnish Supreme Court will try the faithful Lutherans yet again.

Ronald Reagan–and a Cranach Subscriber–Saved Israel (Over Biden’s Objections)

Iran attacked Israel by launching hundreds of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones.  But 99% of them were shot down before doing any damage.  That is a remarkable success rate, saving countless lives.

Many of those were shot down by Israeli, American, British, and Jordanian aircraft–yes, pilots from the Palestinian state of Jordan, part of a coalition of Sunni Muslims opposed to Shi’ite Iran, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that provided help and intelligence in thwarting the Iranian attack.  But the biggest factor in protecting Israel from the massive barrage of missiles was the so-called “Iron Dome,” the air defense system that launches missiles to intercept incoming missiles, the equivalent of hitting a bullet with a bullet.

So the biggest hero of this defensive achievement has to be Ronald Reagan, whose Strategic Defense Initiative led to the development of this technology.  So says Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal.   Reagan’s 1983 proposal was mocked by Democrats as “Star Wars,” though the space-based elements of the project never materialized.  And one of its biggest critics was then Senator Joe Biden, who said,

“Star Wars represents a fundamental assault on the concepts, alliances and arms-control agreements that have buttressed American security for several decades, and the president’s continued adherence to it constitutes one of the most reckless and irresponsible acts in the history of modern statecraft.”

Now President Biden is taking credit for the success of Israel’s missile defense.

Much more worthy of credit is one of our own, your fellow Cranach subscriber Bob Foote, engineer extraordinaire and my cousin, who was part of the team that invented and implemented this amazing life-saving military technology!

Connection Between the Church Slump and the Surge in Mental Illness

The United States is seeing a dramatic rise in mental health problems, particularly (as we have blogged about) among teenagers and young adults.  The conventional wisdom is blaming cell phones and social media, but a Harvard public health professor is making a connection to the decline in religious involvement.

Ira Stoll at The Editors Substack quotes an article by Dr. Tyler VanderWeele in the journal Harvard Public Health:

Extrapolations from the Nurses’ Health Study data suggest that about 40 percent of the increasing suicide rate in the United States from 1999 to 2014 might be attributed to declines in attendance at religious services during this period. Another study suggested declining attendance from 1991 to 2019 accounted for 28 percent of the increase in depression among adolescents.

Vanderweele says there have been at least 215 reliable studies that suggest that “weekly religious service attendance is longitudinally associated with lower mortality risk, lower depression, less suicide, better cardiovascular disease survival, better health behaviors, and greater marital stabilityhappiness, and purpose in life.”

The Wall Street Journal has published an article by Clare Ansberry that comes to the same conclusion, citing further research, including international studies.

Finland’s Supreme Court Will Try the Faithful Lutherans Yet Again

We’ve posted many times about the faithful Lutheran Christians Dr. Päivi Räsänen and Bishop Juhana Pohjola who were charged under Finland’s “war crimes and crimes against humanity” statute for citing what the Bible says about homosexuality.

Dr. Räsänen is a physician and member of parliament who in 2019 tweeted a criticism of the state church for being one of the sponsors of the LGBTQ Pride parade in which she quoted Bible verses.  Investigators also found a pamphlet on the Biblical teachings about marriage she had written in 2005 that disapproved of homosexuality.  The police also charged Bishop Pohjola, the leader of a confessional Lutheran church body with which the LCMS is in fellowship, for publishing the pamphlet.

The two were acquitted in their trial.  But in a country without the protection against “double jeopardy” that Americans enjoy as a constitutional right, prosecutors can appeal an acquittal until they get a guilty verdict!  The two were acquitted by the appellate court.  Prosecutors  appealed that ruling to Finland’s Supreme Court.

The hope was that the court would refuse to hear the case.  After all, two lower courts refused to convict the two, with the appeal court panel agreeing unanimously that they were innocent of the alleged “hate crime.”  Expressing a religious conviction does not constitute “hate,” and Finnish law does protect the freedom of religion and the freedom of speech.  And yet the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case, which to me is not a good sign.

Dr. Räsänen and Bishop Pohjola have been put through this ordeal for five years and now must go through the pressure of a trial for the third time.  This is a clear example of the weaponization of the legal system.  Even if they are ultimately acquitted–prosecutors would have one more shot at them at the European Court of Human Rights–the trials themselves are the punishment, with the apparent intention of deterring anyone else from refusing to go along with the LGBTQ party line.

 

 

 

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