Joseph over at the Rosh Pina Project is continuing the theme on Melchizedek, which is well worth a read in my opinion:-
Was King David a Priest Forever According to the Order of Melchizedek?
Previous posts on the priestly order of Melchizedek, as articulated by a Messianic Levite can be found here and here.
Ya gotta admire it…
The devout Roman Catholic vowed to hand over half his fortune to the Church if he ever became rich when he was working as a penniless sweets-seller in Wales after the Second World War.
Instead, at the age of 82, he has fulfilled the deal by giving almost his entire £480 million estate to a new charitable foundation, keeping less than £10 million to see out his old age.
Mr Gubay, who amassed his riches after founding the Kwik Save supermarket chain in 1965, will continue running his companies until he dies and hopes to push to value of his empire to more than £1 billion.
After his death, the newly-founded Albert Gubay Charitable Foundation will receive an estimated income of £20 million a year from the businesses.
The Welsh tycoon has stipulated that half the income must be invested in the Roman Catholic Church, in line with his “pact”, while the rest can be distributed at the discretion of the trustees.
What follows is a cross-post from CyberBrethren which contains a very sobering, hard-hitting, well articulated, astute analysis on the evangelical “heart condition”.
Although this article is reflecting on US Evangelicalism, I’m sure this will ring true for those of us in the UK, who have been made to suffer the 40 days of affliction, namely, Rick Warren’s “Purpose-Driven Church”.
Dr. John MacArthur offers these poignant observations about the state of American Evangelicalism, which apply across the board to all conservative denominations in the USA. These problems are not particular to the Evangelicals. We Lutherans are struggling with the same issues. I appreciate Dr. MacArthur’s honesty and candor. Much food for thought for all of us. I urge you to read this very carefully.
You don’t have to be an astute observer of the evangelical scene to notice the unrelenting barrage of outlandish ideas, philosophies, and programs. Never in the history of the church has so much innovation met with so little critical thinking.
Giving a thoughtful biblical response becomes harder and harder all the time. Merely sorting through all the evangelical trends and recognizing which of these novelties really represent dangerous threats to the health and harmony of the church is challenging enough. Effectively answering the huge smorgasbord of accompanying errors poses an even greater dilemma. New errors sometimes seem to multiply faster than the previous ones can be answered.
To sort it all out in a godly way, cutting a straight path through the wreckage of evangelicalism, several old-fashioned, Christlike virtues are absolutely essential: biblical discernment, wisdom, fortitude, determination, endurance, skill in handling Scripture, strong convictions, the ability to speak candidly without waffling, and a willingness to enter into conflict.
Let’s be honest: those are not qualities the contemporary evangelical movement has cultivated. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Consider the values and motives that prompt postmodern evangelicals to do the things they do. The larger evangelical movement today is obsessed with opinion polls, brand identity, market research, merchandizing schemes, innovative strategies, and numerical growth. Evangelicals are also preoccupied with matters such as their image before the general public and before the academic world, their clout in the political arena, their portrayal by the media, and similar shallow, self-centered matters.
Maintaining a positive image has become a priority over guarding the truth.
The PR-driven church. Somewhere along the line, evangelicals bought the lie that the Great Commission is a marketing mandate. The leading strategists for church growth today are therefore all pollsters and public relations managers. In the words of Rick Warren, “If you want to advertise your church to the unchurched, you must learn to think and speak like they do.” [Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995) 189] An endless parade of self-styled church-growth specialists has been repeating that same mantra for several decades, and multitudes of Christians and church leaders now accept the idea uncritically. Both their message to the world and the means by which they communicate that message have been carefully tailored by consumer relations experts to appeal to worldly minds.
Many church leaders have radically changed the way they look at the gospel. Rather than seeing it as a message from God that Christians are called to proclaim as Christ’s ambassadors (without tampering with it or changing it in any way), they now treat it like a commodity to be sold at market. Rather than plainly preaching God’s Word in a way that unleashes the power and truth of it, they try desperately to package the message to make it subtler and more appealing to the world.
Runaway pragmatism and trivial pursuit. The most compelling question in the minds and on the lips of many pastors today is not “What’s true?” but rather “What works?” Evangelicals these days care less about theology than they do about methodology. Truth has taken a backseat to more pragmatic concerns. When a person is trying hard to customize one’s message to meet the “felt needs” of one’s audience, earnestly contending for the faith is out of the question.
That is precisely why, for many years now, evangelical leaders have systematically embraced and fostered almost every worldly, shallow, and frivolous idea that comes into the church. A pathological devotion to superficiality has practically become the chief hallmark of the movement. Evangelicals are obsessed with pop culture, and they ape it fanatically. Contemporary church leaders are so busy trying to stay current with the latest fads that they rarely give much sober thought to weightier scriptural matters.
In the typical evangelical church, even Sunday services are often devoted to the trivial pursuit of worldly things. After all, churches are competing for attention in a media-driven world. So the church vainly tries to put on a bigger, flashier spectacle than the world.
Evangelical fad surfing. Contemporary evangelicals have therefore become very much like “children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about with every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4: 14). They follow whatever is the latest popular trend. They buy whatever is the current best seller. They line up to see any celebrity who speaks spiritual-sounding language. They watch eagerly for the next Hollywood movie with any “spiritual” theme or religious imagery that they can latch on to. And evangelicals discuss these fads and fashions endlessly, as if every cultural icon that captures their attention had profound and serious spiritual significance.
Evangelical churchgoers desperately want their churches to stay on the leading edge of whatever is currently in vogue in the evangelical community. It almost seems like ancient history now, but for a while, any church that wanted to be in fashion had to sponsor seminars on how to pray the prayer of Jabez. But woe to the church that was still doing Jabez when The Purpose-Driven Life took center stage. By then, any church that wanted to retain its standing and credibility in the evangelical movement had better be doing “Forty Days of Purpose.” And if your church didn’t get through the “Forty Days” in time to host group studies or preach a series of sermons about The Da Vinci Code before the Hollywood movie version came out, then your church was considered badly out of touch with what really matters.
It is too late now if you missed any of those trends. To use the language of the movement, they are all so five minutes ago. If your church is just now experimenting with Emerging-style worship, candles, postmodern liturgy, and the like, then you are clearly way behind—that train already left the station…and crashed.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that all those trends are equally bad. Some of them are not necessarily bad at all. For example, there can be great benefit in teaching a congregation how to respond to something like The Da Vinci Code. But contemporary evangelicals have been conditioned to anticipate and follow every fad with an almost mindless herd mentality. They sometimes seem to move from fad to fad with an uninhibited and undiscerning eagerness that does leave them exposed to things that may well be spiritually lethal. In fact, the question of whether the latest trend is dangerous or not is not a welcome question in most evangelical circles anymore. Whatever happens to be popular at the moment is what drives the whole evangelical agenda.
That mentality is precisely what Paul warned against in Ephesians 4:14. It has left evangelical Christians dangerously exposed to trickery, deceitfulness, and unsound doctrine. It has also left them completely unequipped to practice any degree of true biblical discernment.
The sad truth is that the larger part of the evangelical movement is already so badly compromised that sound doctrine has almost become a nonissue.
The mad pursuit of nondoctrinal “relevancy.” Even at the very heart of the evangelical mainstream, where you might expect to find some commitment to biblical doctrine and at least a measure of concern about defending the faith, what you find instead is a movement utterly dominated by people whose first concern is to try to keep in step with the times in order to be “relevant.”
Sound doctrine? Too arcane for the average churchgoer. Biblical exposition? That alienates the unchurched. Clear preaching on sin and redemption? Let’s be careful not to subvert the self-esteem of hurting people. The Great Commission? Our most effective strategy has been making the church service into a massive Super Bowl party. Serious discipleship? Sure. There’s a great series of group studies based on The Matrix trilogy. Let’s work our way through that. Worship where God is recognized as high and lifted up? Get real. We need to reach people on the level where they are.
Evangelicals and their leaders have doggedly pursued that same course for several decades now—in spite of many clear biblical instructions that warn us not to be so childish (in addition to Eph. 4:14, see also 1 Cor. 14:20; 2 Tim. 4:3-4; Heb. 5:12-14).
What’s the heart of the problem? It boils down to this: many in the evangelical movement have forgotten who is Lord over the church. They have either abandoned or downright rejected their true Head and given His rightful place to evangelical pollsters and church-growth gurus.
John MacArthur is the pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, president of The Master’s College and Seminary, and featured teacher with the Grace to You media ministry. Grace to You radio, video, audio, print, and website resources reach millions worldwide each day. Over four decades of ministry, John has written dozens of bestselling books, including The MacArthur Study Bible, The Gospel According to Jesus, The New Testament Commentary series, The Truth War, and The Jesus You Can’t Ignore. He and his wife, Patricia, have four married children and fourteen grandchildren.
The original post is here.
For previous posts related to the ongoing dire straits relating to Ezekiel’s Tomb, click here, here, here and here.
Cross-post by Bataween over at the Point of no Return Blog:
Iraqi intellectuals to inspect state of Ezekiel’s tomb
A group of prominent Iraqi intellectuals including academics from the local university of Al-Kufa have announced their intention to visit the Prophet Ezekiel’s Tomb.
They will be inspecting the reconstruction of Ezekiel’s Tomb and will film it. They regard the shrine as a World Heritage site to be protected and saved.
The visit follows reports that workmen renovating the shrine had painted over ancient Hebrew inscriptions around the tomb, causing irrevocable damage to its Jewish character. When Iraq had a Jewish community, thousands used to visit the shrine, especially at the festivals of Shavuot and Rosh Hashana.
In the face of an international outcry, the Iraqi authorities promised to transfer control of the renovations to ‘specialised international authorities’, presumably UNESCO.
As occurred at the nearby site of Babylon, it is feared that changes to Ezekiel’s shrine may be too extensive for the site to be declared a World Heritage site.
I used to do a “British Humanist Watch” but think I’ll now swap to an “Ekklesia Watch”.
Intriguing to observe yesterday, Ekklesia expending their efforts to defend the British Humanist Association, and offer us a nice apologetic on their behalf in the face of negative comments written in the Church of England Newspaper.
Here is a snippet for you enjoyment:
Humanists reject accusations that their election briefings ‘target’ Christians
The British Humanist Association (BHA) has forthrightly rejected as “untrue” accusations published in the Church of England Newspaper (CEN) this week that it has targeted and criticised Christians in its election briefings.
The BHA, whose high-profile backers include the popular actor and author Stephen Fry, works for a world “where people are free to live good lives on the basis of reason, experience and shared human values”.
Its aims state that the organisation exists to “promote Humanism, campaign for an open society and a secular state, and work with others of different beliefs for the common good.”
I’ll let you read the rest if you can stomach it.
I for one am looking forward to an upcoming blog post promised by Gavin Drake on the subject of: “Why I believe Ekklesia is anti-Christian”.
Just noticed a great little article in the Guardian by Jonathan Chaplin:
At the beginning of the week Jonathan Bartley argued here – as he routinely does via his Christian think-tank Ekklesia – against recognising churches’ legal right to hire staff according to their own beliefs. He didn’t frame it in that unflattering way, of course. Instead he tried to justify the significant curtailment of corporate religious freedom his view implies by appealing to an unanswerable claim: that Christian love mandates treating people inclusively, with equal regard.
Well he’s right about that. But he simply bypasses the question of what equal regard actually means in practice. A moment’s thought reveals that equal regard can’t possibly mean treating every individual identically. Jesus certainly wasn’t being very “inclusive” in castigating the oppressive religious leaders of his time as “whitewashed sepulchres”, or turfing out the corrupt money-changers from the temple. Acts of justice are acts of discrimination and exclusion. Anti-racist laws rightly exclude racist behaviour: that’s their particular way of showing equal regard – love – to people of colour.
This one’s for Jim 
Cross-post by Mariano from Atheism is Dead. This is part 4.
Part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here.
We now conclude considering part of the American Humanists Association’s “Interesting Facts You Might Not Know”: “Without a god, why be good at all?”
We now pick up where the last segment ended.
3) It is an argument to embarrassment:
The only answer to the premise “Without a god, why be good at all?” was a presupositional assertion, “Because you know you want to, anyway,” this was the only “why” offered.
To the next logical question, “What if you are wrong and I do not want to?” the argument to embarrassment rears its ugly head. You would want to be good “Unless you were born a sociopath or had your natural sensibilities destroyed in childhood.”
But why? One does not have to be a sociopath in order to simply not care or mere be self-interested. Or what if I want what others have and thus just take it from them? Or what if I do not have a specific belief I consider my own moral concoction superior to yours and thus, do that of which I approve but you do not?
The point about us being social primates is certainly simplistic as it does not seem to take into account that chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, baboons and the like war over territory, food, mating—and do not forget the flinging of fecal excreta. But the claim is that “they have basic feelings of empathy and sociality built in…These animals don’t get their social behavior from Scripture and neither do you. Morality finds its roots in human nature.”
It may perhaps be likewise argued that God has likewise infused such social creatures with morals “built in” so that they need not “get their social behavior from Scripture.” Yet, I do not believe that it is necessary to do so. Certain actions buttress societal living and there is no reason why animals and humans should not share these certain traits—we have imperatives that make certain acts immoral while they do not.
I am prepared to argue that while is it certainly possible, let us even grant say that it simply is a fact, that we are social primates and learn morals by experience and experimenting with different social constructs, etc.
According to this scenario what God did was to declare which naturally-built-in-human-nature impulses are moral and which immoral—we have various impulses and must discern between them.
Lastly, there is no reason to infer relation, evolutionarily and thus morally, to “other” social primates simply because the exhibit “basic feelings of empathy and sociality.” Both we and they must be social to some degree and so we all function according to that which facilitates social relations.
“These animals don’t get their social behavior from Scripture and neither do you” is the very height of this fallacious statement. Speaking for myself (and many, many people whom I know) the betterment of my moral life was not due to being taught in science class that the universe was an uncaused accident, that life came from non-life when lightning struck a swamp and I was nothing but a glorified animal, just another social primate. It came about when I ascertained that the Bible is God’s word and sought to follow the very ethical promptings against which I had for so long rebelled.
The bottom line in this case is that atheists can make whatever semantic moral statements that they with but only theism provides a foundation for morality as well as justice.
Perhaps we may state, “Yes, humans can learn about life in group just like any social animal but some of those actions which are thusly learned as still to be considered immoral.” Some in the group will horde, some share, some will feed the poor, some will eat the poor, some will be promiscuous, some monogamous. If you know anything about Darwinian philosophizing each and every, all actions, are considered to play a beneficial part in our evolution (Sam Harris made such a claim about rape).
In this view God parsed human actions into, let us say, morals and ethics: with morals referring to the mores which merely describe what human are doing and ethics referring to the ethos which prescribes what humans should do.
Bill Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, offered a very interesting and succinct observation in his post Are Atheists Evil? Bad Reasoning in Sam Harris (see that post’s comments section 5.22.2007 12:26pm):
Imagine a situation in which A is in a position to impose his will on B (by raping and murdering her, say) and that A will “get away with it.” (No one cares about B, they are far off in the wild, etc. We may imagine that A will die in a month from cancer.)
In this situation, does A have a reason not to rape and murder B, a reason to not gratify himself? If there is no God, and no surivival [sic] of physical death, what reason could A have? Because it is wrong in the abstract for A to rape and murder? That will strike A as a joke.
“You are going to oppose to my real and furious lust an abstract moral demand that hangs in the air with no way of being enforced??” This is one way to focus the question that people like Harris and Shermer apparaently [sic] don’t grasp.
The consideration of mores versus ethos touches upon a common atheist misconception, particularly Christopher Hitchens, who think that it is ridiculous to claim that God gave the Ten Commandments since surely, people prior to the Ten Commandments know that murder, lying, etc. were wrong. What God was doing is building a nation from the ground up from a group of people who had been institutionalized due to 400 years of slavery in Egypt (more details on this are found here); do they really fail to note that it is the Bible that tells us that Moses fled Egypt after committing murder?
The problem is that atheists seem to think that when Judeo-Christians refer to “absolute morality,” “moral law,” “moral code,” et al, they are referring to a set of statements such as the Ten Commandments. But what is being referred to in such cases is God’s will, God’s nature, God’s promptings, God’s potency in establishing and administering morality, God’s holding us accountable, etc. (see Is There a Common Misconception Regarding Absolute Moral Claims?).
Clearly, leaving human action to be guided by social primateism and human nature alone has produced results which are generally agreed upon to have been deleterious. Moreover, human nature is clearly not animal nature: a lion wants to kill a zebra (note that it does not murder a zebra) but it does not want to kill every zebra. It does not hate zebras for any reason (such as different color fur). No, in fact, the lion wants zebras to be healthy and plentiful. The lion will thus share territory and resources with zebras. Not so with humans.
Now, the claim that “No specific belief is necessary for goodness” is not specific enough as you may not necessitate any specific belief in order to end up doing good but it does require a specific belief in order to define goodness to begin with. And this is where the contention betwixt humans comes into play. For example, some claim that it is good to love your neighbor, other claim that it is good to blow up your neighbor. Being “good” can mean anything when left to primateism and human nature—just consider some real life examples that I provided in the post “A Good Person” and Atheism On Meaning and Purpose . It is the basis upon which we determine what “good” is that will then determine what we determine to be “good.” Is something good because an atheist claims that it is good or does the atheist claim that it is good because it is good?
God places moral urgings and a conscience within us all believer or unbeliever. The atheist is making an argument for God’s superfluousity within God’s universe. Thus, regardless of theology or lack thereof we “all have the same sorts of ethical notions and feelings.”
However, it may be of interest to note a parable in this regard:
A man fell into a well.
Krishna walked by and said, “Your karma determined that you fall and I will not interfere with karma.”
Buddha walked by and said, “This world is an illusion both ‘you’ and that well. Cease from desire and you will cease from suffering.”
Confucius walked by and said, “Confucius says, ‘One ought not fall into such wells.”
Muhammad walked by and said, “Alas, it is Allah’s will that you fall into the well.”
The Darwinist said, “Only the unfit would fall into a well; you are not meant to survive.”
Jesus walked by and yelled, “Take may hand, I will save you!”
With regards to good social primates I simply could not help it…
From Seinfeld’s “The Face Painter,” episode, May 11, 1995
Kramer: Hey, Jerry? You’re a smart guy, right?
Jerry: No question about it.
Kramer: Alright, you know I’m supposed to go on this special tour today with George’s girlfriend.
Jerry: At the zoo?
Kramer: Yeah, but before I met up with her, I stopped to look at the monkeys,
when all of a sudden I am hit in the face with a banana peel.
I turn and look and there is this monkey really laughing it up.
Then someone tells me that he did it.
Well, I pick up the banana peel and I wait for that monkey to turn around.
And then I whap let him have it.Jerry: Kramer, you threw a banana peel at a monkey?
Kramer: Well, he started it!
Jerry: It’s a monkey, Kramer!
Kramer: Well, he pushed my buttons, I couldn’t help it, Jerry.
Jerry: Well, I still think it’s wrong.
Kramer: Alright, alright, fine. You take the monkey’s side, alright, go ahead.
Mr. Pless: Ah, Mr. Kramer?Kramer: Yes.
Mr. Pless: Thanks for coming.
Kramer: So, uh, what did you want to see me about?
Mr. Pless: Well, Mr. Kramer, to get right to it, we’re having a bit of aproblem with Barry.
Kramer: Barry?
Mr. Pless: The chimpanzee.
Kramer: Oh. Well, uh, what’s the problem?
Mr. Pless: Well, he’s not functioning the way he normally does.
He seems depressed.
He’s lost his appetite.
He’s even curtailed his autoerotic activities.
And we think this is directly related to the altercation he had with you the other day.Kramer: So, so what do you want me to do?
Mr. Pless: Well, frankly we’d like you to apologize.
Kramer: Yeah, well he started it.
Mr. Pless: Mr. Kramer, he is an innocent primate.
Kramer: So am I.
What about my feelings?
Don’t my feelings count for anything?
Oh, only the poor monkey’s important.
Everything has to be done for the monkey!…
This essay is copyrighted by Mariano of the “Atheism is Dead” blog at http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com.
It may be republished in part or in its entirety on websites, blogs, or any print media for whatever purpose—in agreement or in order to criticize it—only as long as the following conditions are met:
1) Give credit to “Mariano of the ‘Atheism is Dead’ blog at http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com”
2) Inform me as to which essay is being reproduced and where it is being reproduced via the comments section at this link
I have been following the recent upsurge in anti-Christian activity on the part of the Moroccan authorities; here and here.
Following is an excellent cross-post by Elizabeth Kendal
As Reuters reports: “Morocco has expelled up to 70 Christian foreign aid workers since the start of this month, saying they were abusing its tradition of religious tolerance to try to convert local Muslims.”
According to Compass Direct News, “A Moroccan pastor, his wife and a relative were arrested on Wednesday [March 10] and released on the next day, raising fears among local Christians that the wave of intolerance may spread to the country’s small but growing church of nearly 1,000 believers.
“An expert on religious freedom in the Middle East who requested anonymity said that attacks on the church are inevitable even in a Western-looking, modern country like Morocco, as the church grows and becomes more visible.
“‘Because conversion is a taboo, if the government looks like it is doing nothing in regard to all the foreign missionaries that are coming and “corrupting” the country and its “national soul,” it gives credit to Islamists who could challenge the “Islam-ness” of the Royal Family and the government, and that’s just what Morocco can’t afford,’ said the expert.
“The clampdown on foreign workers could signal government malaise toward the growing church. ‘The more they grow, the more visible they become, the more they’ll attract this reaction,’ said the expert. ‘And that’s why they’ve been so quiet with house groups. It’s just a matter of time.’”
Commenting on the deportations in relation to the closure of a Dutch-run orphanage, Morocco Board News Service writes: “It is puzzling what the Moroccan authorities are trying to achieve by this latest wave of deportations from the country. In addition to giving the country a bad image, it also negates a long cherished claim by Moroccan authorities that the country is a bastion of religious freedom.”
See: Morocco: Orphanage shut down and Missionaries Expelled. 9 March 2010
Deportations by Morocco Causes Outcry in Holland. 10 March 2010
See also: Morocco clamps down on foreign Christians
Mission Network News. 10 March 2010Morocco defends expulsion of Christian workers
BBC 12 March 2010Morocco warns of tough line after missionaries expelled
AFP 13 March 2010
(This AFP article includes strong condemnations of “proselytism” from Morocco’s Communications Minister Khalid Naciri , as well as leading Catholic and Jewish dhimmi voices.)
While the mass expulsion of foreign Christians does indicate a dramatic shift in policy, it should not come as a total surprise.
In September last year, the government moved against a new local civil liberties group known as the Alternative Movement for the Defense of Individual Liberties (MALI) when they attempted to stage an act of civil disobedience in protest of Article 222 of the Moroccan Penal Code which criminalises public eating during the fasting hours of Ramadan.
MALI’s founder, Ms Zineb El-Rhazoui (a young female journalist and dual Moroccan-French citizen) has stated that MALI’s objective is to defend ‘all freedoms. Including freedom of worship’.
In September 2009, Zineb El-Rhazoui appealed through the group’s Facebook site for supporters to join her on 13 September 2009 for a fast-breaking public picnic in the woods outside the town of Mohammedia.
However, when MALI supporters arrived at Mohammedia railway station they were met by a large contingent of some 100 police, who recorded the names and details of the religious dissidents.
Outraged Islamic clerics responded angrily, labelling MALI as “agitators” and demanding punishment. Subsequently MALI’s leaders began receiving death threats.
(See: Mohammedia: An Abortive Attempt to a Public Breakfast in Ramadan. 16 Sept 2009
Public fast Breaking Protest during Ramadan in Morocco. 17 Sept 2009
Death Threats and Arrests for Facebook Ramadan Fast Break Protesters. 17 Sept 2009)
According to Human Rights Watch, MALI explained its objectives in a statement issued on 17 September 2009:
“MALI is not a group that is against Islam. We are for freedom of religion: In calling for the abrogation of a repressive article of the penal code (article 222), we also support Tunisian women who are attacked for wearing the headscarf. … MALI is not an organization that seeks to provoke any community. Our goal is to draw attention to contradictions between international law, Morocco’s constitution, and the country’s laws, contradictions that are costly to Morocco’s citizens and that undermine collective and individual freedoms.”
The Moroccan Association of Human Rights is very concerned about Ms Zineb El-Rhazoui, who has been ‘disappeared’ since 17 September 2009.
Public fast breaking Protest leader Disappeared. 27 Sept 2009
The persecution of MALI indicates that the issue goes deeper than state anxiety over conversions and church growth. It is quite common to find governments seeking to contain Islamists, appeasing Islamists. It is like a barter system: if you do this for us, then we’ll do that for you. In fact this system of costly containment is utilized widely from London to Riyadh, Amsterdam to Algiers, Brussels to Jakarta etc etc etc. So quite possibly, this is what is happening in Morocco.
ANALYSIS-Moroccan political elite moves to thwart Islamists
By Lamine Ghanmi
RABAT, 5 March 2010 (Reuters)
The Ugley Vicar has blog posted his thoughts on an article that appeared in the Independent yesterday entitled: Johann Hari: The Pope, the Prophet, and the religious support for evil.
One commentator wrote on his blog:
Er … what wories me, John, is that you spend so much time on an article by a writer who (you seem to show) is biased/one sided, confused as to exact meanings of what he claims to espouse (“What exactly does he mean by ‘inherently’?”)
[.....]
Such writers are never going to change their stance anyway. I’m sure there are better things to do/write about.
Personally I disagree and deem it important to fisk the mainstream media when it’s called for. In this instance it is called for, because as Cranmer mused on Twitter yesterday in relation to this article:
Johann Hari on ‘the religious support for evil’ http://bit.ly/9hC6co Or is he just inciting religious hatred?
Cross-post Ugley Vicar
I’ve just been reading Johann Hari’s online article The Pope, the Prophet, and the religious support for evil, and wondered at the juxtaposition of two somewhat contradictory attitudes. First, he poses his opening question:
What can make tens of millions of people – who are in their daily lives peaceful and compassionate and caring – suddenly want to physically dismember a man for drawing a cartoon [...] ? Not reason. Not evidence. No. But it can happen when people choose their polar opposite – religion.
So it is religion – specifically Islam in the case of the cartoons – which makes people behave badly. Moreover, he continues, Muslims have a thing or two to learn from Europeans, who have been mocking religion for centuries and now enjoy all the benefits. In fact, he suggests,
It will be a shining day for Muslims when they can do the same.
So three cheers for the Danish cartoons about the prophet! Well, actually no, just two cheers, because,
Some of the cartoons were witty. Some were stupid. One seemed to suggest Muslims are inherently violent – an obnoxious and false idea.
So, according to Hari, Muslims – that is to say, those who, as a result of the unreasonability of Islam, want to physically dismember a man for drawing a cartoon and should instead take the European rationalist ‘chill pill’ – are not ‘inherently’ violent, just violent in their “tens of millions” when it comes to their religion.
Hari’s target is respect for religions – respect which he feels should be accorded to no idea or institution:
Nobody says I should “respect” conservatism or communism and keep my opposition to them to myself – but that’s exactly what is routinely said about Islam or Christianity or Buddhism. What’s the difference?
Now Hari is right about the fact that terrible things are done in the name of religion, but I have two questions. The first is why the exemption of Muslims from the very thing that you are writing an article to critique, namely the power of religion to motivate people to do bad things? Hari says Muslims are not ‘inherently’ violent. What exactly does he mean by ‘inherently’?
If he means ‘as human beings, rather than as Muslims’, then he is stating either a truism: “the human material from which Muslims are drawn is no worse than that for the rest of us,” or, on the face of it, a falsehood: “human beings are not inherently violent”.
If, however, he means by not ‘inherently’ that Islam does not, as a religious belief, incline people to violence, then surely he is stating a conscious falsehood (compare his opening paragraph) and, moreover, he is doing this out of ‘respect’ for Islam.
The other question is this: if all religion is false (which he clearly believes it is), then what would he blame for human violence?
In many cases, of course, it is the role of an ideology to move us to violence, but it is the human material which is surely the underlying problem. One may take, for example, the violence in Northern Ireland, carried out by ‘Catholics’ and ‘Protestants’, many of whom clearly had only the most tenuous adherence to Christianity (in evidence of which, note that the levels of churchgoing in Northern Ireland, whilst higher than in the rest of the UK, were never staggering during the recent ‘Troubles’). Indeed, in some cases it was the more openly ‘secularized’ (but ideologically highly motivated) personalities who were at the forefront of the ‘struggle’.
You can, it seems, take a number of different – and even contradictory – ideological positions and evoke the same violence in human beings. Animal liberationists, Green activists, hunt saboteurs, environmentalists are all, it would seem, capable of being people who are happy to create a spot of ‘bovver’ in the name of a ‘good cause’, despite the popular image of wearing sandals and living on tofu.
One thing is sure. When we have eliminated religion, we will not have eliminated the human factor, and the the truly inherent violence it entails. Indeed, since religion is, according to people like Hari, just a projection of the human imagination, it is we who have caused even all the violence done in the name of religion.
Damian Thompson Telegraph:
Benedict XVI has just published a pastoral letter in which he says “I openly express shame and remorse” for the Irish paedophile clergy scandal – and announces “an Apostolic Visitation of certain dioceses in Ireland, as well as seminaries and religious congregations”.
Here is the full text the letter, seeking forgiveness for the abuse of children by Irish clergy and religious, and for the elaborate cover-ups that followed. It’s an unprecedented document, in which the Pope lets us see his anger at the gross crimes with which we are confronted. The visitation will be a grisly affair, I predict.
But the Pope has done the right thing. This is no half-hearted response. More later, when Cardinal Sean Brady has made up his mind whether to resign. (I think he should.)
PASTORAL LETTER OF THE HOLY FATHER POPE BENEDICT XVI
1. Dear Brothers and Sisters of the Church in Ireland, it is with great concern that I write to you as Pastor of the universal Church. Like yourselves, I have been deeply disturbed by the information which has come to light regarding the abuse of children and vulnerable young people by members of the Church in Ireland, particularly by priests and religious. I can only share in the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so many of you have experienced on learning of these sinful and criminal acts and the way Church authorities in Ireland dealt with them.
As you know, I recently invited the Irish bishops to a meeting here in Rome to give an account of their handling of these matters in the past and to outline the steps they have taken to respond to this grave situation. Together with senior officials of the Roman Curia, I listened to what they had to say, both individually and as a group, as they offered an analysis of mistakes made and lessons learned, and a description of the programmes and protocols now in place. Our discussions were frank and constructive. I am confident that, as a result, the bishops will now be in a stronger position to carry forward the work of repairing past injustices and confronting the broader issues associated with the abuse of minors in a way consonant with the demands of justice and the teachings of the Gospel.
Further Links:
Telegraph – Whoops! The anti-Catholic Times jumps the gun over Pope’s letter
The Church Mouse – Reacting to the letter from the Pope to the Church in Ireland
Catholic News Service – Excerpts from the pope’s letter on sexual abuse
BBC – Pope Benedict XVI has apologised to victims of child sex abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland.
Archbishop Vincent Nichols – Pastoral Letter for the 5th Sunday of Lent
Polycarp – Pope to sex abuse priests: Submit to ‘justice’ – Kudos to the Pontiff
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it – “You must answer for it before Almighty God”
I love this series of posts from the Rosh Pina Project written by Levitt, a Messianic Levite, sharing his thoughts on the priesthood:
As a descendant from the priestly tribe of Israel, I find the person of Melchizedek fascinating, I can understand why people think of him as mythological, but I don’t see him as a half-truth or fictious person. I see him as real person who was a forerunner for Moshiach. The first mention of him in scripture is in Bereshit (Genesis 14:18):
v18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. v19 And he blessed him and said: “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; v20 And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” And he gave him a tithe of all.
The writer in Bereshit is short and sweet on the description of Melchizedek. Just three verses! The writer of Hebrews gives us more tantalising clues:
Hebrews 7:1 For this Melchizedek, King of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, v2 to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated “king of righteousness,” and then also king of Salem, meaning “king of peace,” v3 without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.
There are some striking similarities between Melchizedek and Yeshua HaMoshiach. Here are some observations.
Firstly in Hebrews 7:1 and Bereshit 14:18 Melchizedek is shown to be a priest-king, that is, he was both priest and king. He was King of Salem, and Priest of the Most High God. Melchizedek means King of righteousness, and Salem means peace. This is interesting as these two descriptions are used in Isaiah 9:6-7 to describe Moshiach; “Prince of Peace” and “To order it and establish it with judgment and justice. From that time forward, even forever.”. Those of us who believe in Yeshua HaMoshiach believe he is righteous, attributing righteousness to us. Further He will establish a Kingdom of peace and give us peace with God.
Secondly, Melchizedek blessed Abraham (Bereshit 14:19; Hebrews 7:1). Likewise, we who believe in Yeshua as a Priest of the Most High God receive spiritual blessing from Him.
Thirdly, Abraham offered a tithe to Melchizedek (Bereshit 14:20; Hebrews 7:2). The giving of tithes by Abraham is an acknowledgement of submission to a superior. Those of us who believe in Yeshua as the Priest of the order of Melchizedek recognise and acknowledge the superiority of Yeshua’s Priesthood over the previous Levitical Priesthood.
Fourthly, Melchizedek’s priesthood had no beginning or end. In Bereshit there is no mention of Melchizedek’s genealogy. The writer of Hebrews continues this theme in v3 writing that he had no mother, or father, with no beginning or end. The Priesthood of Melchizedek was not based on ancestral claim, unlike the Levitical Priesthood which was of the Aaronic and Levitical descent. The Melchizedek priesthood is timeless, without beginning or end. Those of us who believe in Yeshua HaMoshiach accept that His Priesthood had no ancestry and that he was not descended from an Aaronic or Levitical line, and that His Priesthood is eternal from ever lasting to ever lasting.
Fifthly, it should be noted that Levitical Priesthood only ministered to the nation of Israel, the Jewish people. The Melchizedek priesthood ministered to those who were outside of Israel, as Abraham existed before Israel. Those of us who believe in Yeshua HaMoshiach accept that His Priesthood is universal to all who will accept Him, and not just national.
Interestingly, Melchizedek brought bread and wine. Unleavened bread and wine are the components Yeshua took on the night of Pesach before his crucifixion, and associated with His Body and Blood. Those of us who believe in Yeshua HaMoshiach accept Him as Priest and as the sacrificial lamb of Passover (Korban Pesach) represented in the communion by bread and wine. In His death he overcame all our enemies, the Serpent of old was overthrown.
To conclude there are striking similarities between the Priesthood of Melchizedek and the Priesthood of Yeshua HaMoshiach. Yeshua HaMoshiach brings us a universal, eternal, superior Priesthood. But how much more amazing is the Priesthood of Yeshua HaMoshiach, is to find that the Priest was also the Korban Pesach cleansing us of our sin once and for all and giving us righteousness and peace with God forever and ever!
