I’ve just heard that composer Henryk Górecki died a week ago today.
(December 6, 1933 – November 12, 2010)
Here’s the piece he’s probably best remembered for, and over which I’ve shed many tears….
According to Sharenator
I dunno maybe I am a prude, but this one sickened me.
I’ll let David of Anglican Samizdat fill you in and you can find more over at Christian Today.
The most recent atrocity committed against Christians in Iraq is that of An Iraqi Christian and his 6-year-old daughter, who were killed in a bombing in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, a day after two Christian men were killed in their homes by intruders.
I have recently read of the French, Italian, Turkish and Kurdish offers of refuge and safety for Iraqi Christians, but what about the US and UK?
William Dalrymple over at the Guardian lays out the disturbing and troubling details surrounding the plight of Christians in Iraq since we first sent troops there.
Lisa Grass interestingly notes the Vatican position on the war in Iraq:
It should be noted that the position of the Vatican was that we should not have gone to war in Iraq under the circumstances. The reason for that is that we weren’t attacked by Iraq. The decision by the Bush White House was made primarily to prevent attack, and that doesn’t fit under the Catholic “just war” view. Once the war began, the position of the Vatican was that we should not leave until the nation is stable. After all, if you’re going to make a mess, you need to clean it up. In regard to the Christian population in Iraq, it does appear that a mess was made that has worsened exponentially. Christians were worshipping in peace under Saddam Hussein, and he even had a Christian foreign minister. It’s become virtually impossible for Christians to worship freely in Iraq now. It’s important that we look at things objectively here. Bush was wrong to go in. Obama was wrong to pull out so quickly. In regard to the Christian population, it seems the forces of democracy did far more harm than good.
In view of all of this, I wholeheartedly support this statement from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales:
The Bishops of England and Wales express their deep sadness at the attacks on Christians and other Iraqis that have taken place over the last few weeks, in particular, the massacre at Our Lady of Salvation Cathedral in Baghdad. Our prayers and solidarity are with all those who died or suffered. We also think of those Iraqis who now live in the United Kingdom and who have lost loved ones or are separated from their families.
Archbishop Vincent Nichols, president of the Bishops’ Conference, will be the main celebrant at a Mass in Westminster Cathedral on Friday 26 November at 7pm for all those who have been killed during those recent atrocities.
The Bishops’ Conference urges Her Majesty’s Government to take what measures it can to assist the Iraqi authorities in improving security for all citizens. The Bishops also ask Her Majesty’s Government to review its treatment of asylum seekers to ensure that those who have suffered persecution are given the protection that they deserve and to increase its assistance to those Iraqis who have fled to neighbouring states.
Source: Catholic Hearld
The President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has also urged the US government to “redouble its efforts to assist Iraqis” in providing safety for its citizens, especially religious minorities.
We should be proactively rescuing these brutalised Christians and bringing them to safe haven here in the UK, along with the other nations who – to our shame – have already begun this process.
A few links I found interesting for one reason or another:
Crimperman – The silly season has started or How political correctness is not going mad
The Venacular Curate – Why I Couldn’t Be a Humanist
From the blog of Dr Peter Saunders of the Christian Medical Fellowship:
I have previously blogged about Margo MacDonald’s End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill which seeks to legalise both assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia and Scotland. I argued that Margo Macdonald has been seriously misleading both the Scottish people and Parliament itself about its likely effects.
The Committee scrutinizing the bill has now published its Stage 1 report and has emphatically recommended the Bill should be rejected.
MSPs will debate the bill next week at 2.55pm on Thursday 25 November with a vote late that evening. If voted out at that stage the bill will fall.
Doctors’ leaders and campaigners have united to urge MSPs to reject controversial proposals to legalise assisted suicide.
The British Medical Association Scotland was among those who made the plea after a Holyrood committee said the case has not been made for changing the law to allow the practice.
Margo Macdonald MSP, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, originally introduced the bill with the intention of legalizing so-called ‘assisted dying’ in Scotland but had faced widespread criticism over the scope, clarity and lack of safeguards in the proposed legislation.
The rejection of the bill by the committee, which was established in February this year to consider the general principles of the Bill and report on them to the Scottish Parliament, is the latest step in a long-running saga.
On 3 March 2010, the Committee launched a public call for evidence, inviting individuals and organisations to make written submissions with their views on the Bill. The consultation closed on 12 May 2010.
Of the 601 people and organisations who gave written evidence to the consultation on the Bill, only 6.5 per cent (39) were in favour of it. Scottish Parliament then called for and received Oral evidence.
The full report of the committee, which reviews and considers all this evidence, both written and oral, has now come to the conclusion that the bill should not proceed.
US science Professor and intelligent design advocate, Michael Behe, is about to tour in the UK. I first heard about this from the Premier forum, as Premier are sponsoring the London engagement.
It would seem that the new Centre For Intelligent Design in Glasgow – which I blogged about here – are also involved in the tour.
Michael – himself a geologist – had this to say over on the Premier forums:
Why do Premier support someone whose alleged “scientific” claims were refuted 15 years ago?
Why do they wrongly talk of evolution as an accident?
And
In the UK today ID is used as a cloak for YEC and if you consider the groups pushing “ID” eg Truthin science (sic) Centre for Design etc they are all YEC but don’t have the guts to admit it.
It is a clever ploy but rather dishonest.
ID in its original form had nothing to commend it as in Behe’s Irreducible Complexity and fantasies over flagella or Dembski’s sums or Johnson’s Wedge. The Disco Tute [Discovery Institute] is now a right-wing anti-environmental pressure group working with YECs to destroy all science.
One of the features of the tour is the opportunity to ask questions live from the floor and engage personally with Mike Behe.
Clayboy notes the New Humanist blog has picked up on this and their recommendation of questions to ask Behe as suggested – somewhat ironically – by the British Centre for Science Education.
WE BELIEVE in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
Interesting article in the Chronicle written by a guy specialising in ghost writing academic pieces for students to pass off as their own.
This part caught my attention:
I do a lot of work for seminary students. I like seminary students. They seem so blissfully unaware of the inherent contradiction in paying somebody to help them cheat in courses that are largely about walking in the light of God and providing an ethical model for others to follow. I have been commissioned to write many a passionate condemnation of America’s moral decay as exemplified by abortion, gay marriage, or the teaching of evolution. All in all, we may presume that clerical authorities see these as a greater threat than the plagiarism committed by the future frocked.
The following is a cross-post from CIFWatch:
This is a guest post by Bataween of Point of No Return
The atrocity at Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad in which 52 Christians were murdered has set off a flurry of articles about Christians under threat of extinction in the Middle East. Al-Qaeda has declared Arab Christians a legitimate target. Even Robert Fisk of The Independent is sounding the alarm about a flight of Christians of Biblical proportions – and that was before the massacre.
First the Saturday people – now the Sunday people. Jews have been virtually wiped out in Muslim lands. Now it’s the turn of the ancient Christian communities. Forty percent of the Assyrian Christian population of Iraq has fled since the fall of Saddam.
“Shhhh! “– whispers Middle East analyst Chris Phiillips on CIF. Reports of the death of the Christian communities of the Middle East are greatly exaggerated: they will only ’ escalate fears of potential persecution’. Let’s not talk about the imminent demise of the Christian minorities, or radicals will start believing in the ‘clash of civilisations’.
I hate to break it to you, Mr Phillips – but radicals already believe it. They virtually shout ‘clash of civilisations’ from their mosques and minarets. Their ideology pits Dar-al Islam in a holy war or jihad against the infidels of Dar-al Harb. And in case Philips had not noticed, it is radical Islam which has declared war on non-Muslims, not the other way around. Radical Islamists have been around since the 1930s, burning down Coptic churches and Jewish homes and shops in Egypt. The massacre of Christians is not new either – some 3,000 Assyrian Christians were murdered in Iraq in 1933. Since then the Assyrians have thought only of emigrating.
The gist of Phillips’ argument is that not all Arab countries should be tarred with the brush of intolerance:
“Though anti-Christian feeling may be rising on the extreme radical fringe of sole Arab societies such as Iraq, this should not obscure the harmony that has long been a characteristic of other parts of the Arab world.”
‘Secular’ Arab regimes in particular treat their Christians as well as any totalitarian dictatorships could, it is claimed. As evidence, Phillips cites the fact that most of Iraq’s displaced Christians have fled not to the West but to Arab states, notably Syria and Jordan. It is true that the ruling Alawite minority – considered heretical by Sunni Muslims – likes to show solidarity with the Christian minority in Syria. Ten percent of Syria’s population are Christians, religious festivals are observed and the state even gives free electricity and water to churches, Phillips tells us.
In spite of Syrian ‘tolerance’, Philips does recognise that numbers in Syria have been dwindling. But he does not say that since the late 1960s private Christian schools have been suppressed, nor that the Armenian Christians of Syria are leaving at a particularly high rate: the government has banned their associations, publications, the teaching of their language and their political party.
Philips tells us that in Jordan, the monarch sees itself as the protector of the six percent of Jordan’s population who are Christians; they are given limited political rights. However, there is plenty of evidence that displaced Iraqi refugees view Jordan as a way-station to a third country of asylum – namely, the US. The refugees – and by no means all are Christian – complain bitterly that as non-residents they are not permitted to work or are paid exploitative wages. Only those with $100,000 to spare can obtain Jordanian residency rights.
It was the ‘secular’ regime under Gamal Abdul Nasser which did most to marginalise the Copts, now barely 10 percent of Egypt’s population. They are not allowed to repair their churches without government permission, let alone build new ones. Ever since the 1950s, the Copts have been persecuted, murdered, their women kidnapped and forcibly converted. Copts have been leaving Egypt for decades.
It is fashionable to claim that the Christians were well treated under the ‘secular’ Baathist regime in Iraq. Saddam Hussein did appoint the Chaldean Christian Tariq Aziz as foreign minister, but he was an exception. Christians have long ago been on the political margins in Iraq: the National assembly of 1984 included just four Christians among 250 members.
The apologetics kick in big time when Philips picks up Fisk’s spurious argument that demographics could explain the flight of Christians: they tend to have smaller families than Muslims – and in any case, they have been emigrating from the Middle East since the 19th century. Does Philips stop to ask why? Could the D-word have something to do with it?
The D-word is not one you’ll see much on Comment Is Free. ‘D’ stands for Dhimmi, a term designating the inferior status of Christians and Jews under Islam. It is a status that accounts for the fact that dirty jobs were the preserve of the dhimmi: Christians alone were assigned the task of clearing septic tanks in Iraq and still today, the task of collecting the rubbish in Egyptian cities is reserved for the Christian Copts. They would feed the rubbish to their pigs, until the latter were recently culled in a spiteful measure to eradicate swine flu. In Yemen, where there were no Christians, it fell to the Jews, until their mass flight in 1949 – 50, to clean the public latrines.
No matter how many Jordanians, according to Chris Phillips, say they don’t feel Muslim in a poll, Islam is a major source of law in all Muslim-majority countries. This puts all non-Muslim minorities at a disadvantage. Even in Jordan a Christian woman married to a Muslim cannot inherit from her husband, for instance, and Christians are subject to a raft of other inequalities. While Christians are given every encouragement to convert to Islam, the traffic is strictly one-way. Last week, ‘secular’ Pakistan became the latest country to sentence a Christian woman to death for blasphemy.
While the spectre of belligerent Islamism hovers over the Middle East and North Africa, non-Muslims are at terrible risk. Neither will they ever be treated as equals as long as discrimination against non-Muslims is institutionalised. That’s why the Chris Phillipses of this world, with their delusions of Muslim-Christian harmonious coexistence, are whistling in the wind.
