St Paul on Our Love for Others

For John, BLUF:  Respond to others in love.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Today's Second Reading Here is Saint Paul's Letter to the Ephesians (4:1-6e):

Brothers and sisters:
I, a prisoner for the Lord,
urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace:
one body and one Spirit,
as you were also called to the one hope of your call;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all.

I was especially struck by the line "bearing with one another through love".  Yes, there are irritating people out there.  People who are ignorant or stupid or overly self-centered.  But, St Paul calls us to love them, in Christ.  Every morning is a new day and a new chance to act in love.  Yes, if Person X is out to knife you, you have the right to protect yourself from damage, but you need to be open to the idea that today may be different and Person X may have turned over a new leaf.  And when you must respond, do it in love.

In responding to someone who is against us our response must reflect truth and support justice.  We are not dealing with a space alien, but with a fellow human being, although perhaps one we find grating, "striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace".

Regards  —  Cliff

Conversion

For John, BLUF:  To steal from the British, we are a land of hope and glory.  I am happy that Ms Ayaan Hirsi Ali decided to come to our shores and I appreciate her contributions to our nation.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Why I am now a Christian

Here is the sub-headline:

Atheism can't equip us for civilisational war

From UnHerd, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, November 11, 2023.

Here is the lede plus three:

In 2002, I discovered a 1927 lecture by Bertrand Russell entitled “Why I am Not a Christian”.  It did not cross my mind, as I read it, that one day, nearly a century after he delivered it to the South London branch of the National Secular Society, I would be compelled to write an essay with precisely the opposite title.

The year before, I had publicly condemned the terrorist attacks of the 19 men who had hijacked passenger jets and crashed them into the twin towers in New York.  They had done it in the name of my religion, Islam.  I was a Muslim then, although not a practising one.  If I truly condemned their actions, then where did that leave me?  The underlying principle that justified the attacks was religious, after all: the idea of Jihad or Holy War against the infidels.  Was it possible for me, as for many members of the Muslim community, simply to distance myself from the action and its horrific results?

At the time, there were many eminent leaders in the West — politicians, scholars, journalists, and other experts — who insisted that the terrorists were motivated by reasons other than the ones they and their leader Osama Bin Laden had articulated so clearly.  So Islam had an alibi.

This excuse-making was not only condescending towards Muslims.  It also gave many Westerners a chance to retreat into denial.  Blaming the errors of US foreign policy was easier than contemplating the possibility that we were confronted with a religious war.  We have seen a similar tendency in the past five weeks, as millions of people sympathetic to the plight of Gazans seek to rationalise the October 7 terrorist attacks as a justified response to the policies of the Israeli government.

The author is a very intelligent and accomplished woman, arriving in the United States after being born in Somali and living in Saudi Arabia, Etheopia, Kenya, Germany and the Netherlands, where she served in Parliament.  Today she works at the Hoover Institute and is associsated with the American Enterprise Institute.

Ms Ali's movement to Christianity is not of the type of a good old fashioned revival, complete with Alter Call.  Rather, it is an intellectual journay.  As a Roman Catholic, I am not bothered by that path.  The journey is not as impoortant as the goal, the end state.

further down in the esssay, Ms Ali quotes G K Chesterson:

The line often attributed to G.K. Chesterton has turned into a prophecy:  “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”

We are a land of immigrants, of colonizers if you are an extreme Progressive.  That is our strength, and liberty to grow is our promise.  We are foturnate to have Ms Ali as one of us and I wish her well.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Repent!

For John, BLUF:  God is a reality.  Everything to see here; don't just move along.

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ASH WEDNESDAY

Let's face it.  We all have sinned, and fallen short of the Glory of God.

Regards  —  Cliff

Donut Tuesday

For John, BLUF:  Fastnacht, Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Lent is Coming

Then Easter!

What are you giving up for Lent?  Or, aren't you?

Regards  —  Cliff

Boko Haram Kills in the Name of God

For John, BLUF:  Nationhood requires a degree of unity, something Nigeria struggles with.  Boko Haram, a terrorist group, infamous for kidnapping school girls, is not willing to compromise for national unity.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Archbishop Says Christians Slaughtered ‘Like Chickens’ in Nigeria

Here is the sub-headline:

A Nigerian archbishop has decried the slaughter of Christians in his country and the media silence surrounding it, declaring that “Christians are being killed like chickens.”

This is from last year, but Boko Haram is still out there, enforcing its view of God by killing those who do not agree with them.

From 30 April 2019, in Breitbart, by Mr Thomas D Williams, PhD.

Here is the lede plus four:

Archbishop Matthew Man-oso Ndagoso told LifeSiteNews said that in the Muslim-dominated northwest of the country people live in constant fear, especially in the state of Kaduna where he resides.

“It is one of the states where everybody walks around afraid.  There are kidnappers and bandits and they are killing people.  Villages are being burned down,” Archbishop Ndagoso said in an article published Monday.

“In other parts of the country if something happens, the president shows up. But here people are being killed and nothing is being done about it,” he said.

Ndagoso says there is “a systemic persecution of Christians in these states” but the nation’s leaders “do not have the political will to address the issues, to enforce the provisions of the constitution regarding the equality of religions and the equality of citizens before the law.”

Since last October, the archbishop says, “there have been serious attacks in villages especially in my archdiocese of Kaduna.  Hundreds and hundreds of villagers have been killed.”

The term Boko Harem is usually translated as "Western education is forbidden".

It is one thing to think that everyone else's vision of God a flawed.  It is another to slaughter such people for their supposed error.  This is the kind of ideology which should not be allowed to spread.  But, it must be treated as a criminal activity, as it is, what with depriving others of their lives (civil rights), without conviction in a court of law.  If their law, in territory they control, allows it, it is one thing.  It is another to use force of arms to expand that territory.

Cameroon is not the only African nation with persecution.

Hat tip to my wife, Martha, who found this article.

Regards  —  Cliff

Friday Food During Lent

For John, BLUF:  This is a little late for today, unless you are going to have a little nighttime snack, but it does show flexibility in thinking.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Cardinal OKs meat on Fridays for remainder of Lent

Fromo the Boston Pilot, by Pilot Staff Member Gregory L Tracey, 27 March 2020.

Here is the lede plus three:

As the people of Massachusetts find themselves under a stay-at-home advisory and are being urged limits trips outside -- even to the grocery store -- Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley has lifted the obligation for Catholics in the Archdiocese of Boston to abstain from meat on Fridays for the remainder of Lent.

In a message to the people of the Archdiocese of Boston sent March 26, Vicar General Bishop Peter Uglietto said, "One of the effects of the current events is uncertainty regarding what food products are available on any given day.  At this time, we are called to make the best of what we have at hand or is available for purchase.  Many people are using what they have stored in their freezers and on their shelves.  Others are depending upon pre-packaged meals or food delivered through support agencies, which are providing an important service for individuals and families in our communities, especially for children and our senior citizens."

"In light of these circumstances, Cardinal Sean is dispensing all Catholics in the Archdiocese from the obligation of abstaining from meat during the remaining Fridays of Lent," Bishop Uglietto added.

In the U.S., Catholics aged 14 and over are required to abstain from eating meat on Ash Wednesday and each Friday during Lent, and those who are 18 to 59 are required to fast as well on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

As these are disciplines, or practices, rather than doctrine, they can be waved at the local level, and were.  However, if you live outside the Boston Archdiocese you need to check with your local Ordinary to see what action has been taken in your Diocese.

On the other hand, this is no reason to abandon the seafood dinner you had planned for Good Friday, if you have the fixings, in my humble opinion.

Regards  —  Cliff

Ignoring Human Rights

For John, BLUF:  It used to be we, as a nation, worried about the downtrodden of the world.  It now appears the bureaucrats are against such thinking.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Career Officials Thwart Aid to Christian, Yazidi Genocide Victims

From Real Clear Politics, by Ms Susan Crabtree, 11 December 2019.

Here is the lede plus four:

In the summer of 2014, the vicious Islamic State campaign against Yazidis and Christians in Iraq convinced President Obama to order airstrikes to try to save them from extermination.  The Obama administration would officially declare the ISIS slaughter of those same religious minorities a “genocide,” a State Department designation that conveyed the urgency of protecting these groups and maintaining religious freedom and pluralism in Iraq and Northern Syria.

Five years after those ISIS massacres, however, bureaucratic factions within the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development are acting as though the genocide declaration never occurred – even though it made the survival of these religious minorities in the homeland they’ve occupied for more than a thousand years a clear U.S. foreign policy priority.

During the Obama administration career and political appointees shared an aversion to awarding government assistance to local faith-based groups. They largely channeled U.S. funds for rebuilding efforts in Iraq and Syria through the United Nations Development Program, or UNDP, which maintains a “religious-blind” policy that bars funds going to faith-based organizations.

These U.S. officials also aggressively opposed efforts to direct some U.S. funding to help local Catholic Church groups and other religious organizations that were providing almost all of the subsistence assistance to the Christian, as well as Yazidi, communities.  The resistance has continued three years into the Trump administration – despite a presidential directive to fund faith-based groups and a year after the unanimous passage in both the House and the Senate of bipartisan legislation requiring the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, to channel some existing funds directly to these religious minority communities.

That legislation, HR 390 – The Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act, co-authored by Reps. Chris Smith, a Republican, and Anna Eshoo, a Democrat -- had 47 co-sponsors in the House, including seven Democrats, attracting such political opposites as conservative GOP Reps. Jeff Fortenberry and Mark Meadows, as well as liberal Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who is leading the House impeachment charge, and fellow California Democrat Brad Sherman.

The story goes down hill from there.

This is the Deep State saying my way or no way, and being in your face about it.

A longish article, because the Reporter did her homework.  Are we becoming a Bureaucracy with an unruly Citizenry, a disobedient Legislature?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Known by the Friends One Keeps

For John, BLUF:  Proverbs 13:20:  "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed."  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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WaPo Begins Krauthammer’s Obituary By Blaming Him For The Iraq War

Posted at the Red State blog by Ms Sarah Rumpf, 22 June 2018.

Here is a key segment of the story:

The obituary also knocks Krauthammer for occasionally taking “a corrosive tone” about President Barack Obama:

He called President Barack Obama “a man of first-class intellect and first-class temperament” but took jabs at his “highly suspect” character, citing his friendships with his “race-baiting” pastor Jeremiah Wright and the “unrepentant terrorist” Bill Ayers.

I have seen the tapes of the Reverand Jeremiah Wright preaching.  Yes, he did seem a "race-baiter".  I am glad he was able to lead then Mr Obama to Christ.♠  But, some day those Wright chickens will come home to roost.

For me, more concerning, is the relationship with the unrepentant Bill Ayers.  Mr Ayers participated in or inspired a number of domestic terrorist events, including one that resulted in the death of someone I had met, leaving a widow, who I had met, before the bombing, and after.  Forgive Mr Ayers?  Yes.  Forget?  Not yet.

The Washington Post Editors are ignorant ideologies.

Rest In Peace, Charles Krauthammer.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Finding Jesus, as your personal Lord and Saviour, is the most important move of one's life.

The Value of the Free Market

For John, BLUF:  If you want to know what could go wrong without free markets, think of Venezuela.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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My Middle Brother, the Progressive, was conducting an EMail exchange with his younger and older Brothers and one of the points he made was that when he listened to the readings at Mass they didn't seem to talk about Capitalism.  I think the point he misses is that the freedom provided by Christianity, halting though it may have been in implementation,♠ allowed for the growth of free markets.  And, the Protestant Reformation was a further impetus to economic growth.  While this article in Bloomberg View doesn't approach the question from a religious point of view, it does make the point that poverty is reduced through free markets.

Free-Market Failure Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

The sub-headline is:

Few things in human history have done so much to reduce absolute poverty.

The author is Professor Noah Smith.

Here is the lede plus one:

Harvard economist Dani Rodrik has a long and thoughtful essay about the shortcomings of neoliberalism -- the economic program of free markets and free trade. He writes:

Economists’ contributions to public debate are often biased in one direction, in favor of more trade, more finance, and less government.  That is why economists have developed a reputation as cheerleaders for neoliberalism, even if mainstream economics is very far from a paean to laissez-faire.  The economists who let their enthusiasm for free markets run wild are in fact not being true to their own discipline.

As someone who has done decades of pioneering work in the field of trade and growth, and who has been intimately involved in practical policy-making, Rodrik is as much of an expert on this topic as anyone.  But although his criticisms are accurate, he overlooks much of the good that neoliberalism has done.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Implemented by men, all of whom have fallen short of the Glory of God.

Knowing When to Resign

For John, BLUF:  Polarization won't end well  I will say this for Ms Lynne Lupien—she knewknows how to cut a political deal to make things happen.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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UK Party Leader Steps Down, Citing Christian Faith

This is from The [Boston] Pilot, for Monday, 19 June 2017. It is about British Liberal-Democratic Party Leader Tim Farron.

Here is the first part of the article:

London, England, Jun 17, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- After facing backlash for his Christian faith, the head of the UK’s Liberal Democratic Party announced his resignation on Wednesday, claiming that leading the party was becoming incompatible with living his faith.

“To be a political leader – especially of a progressive, liberal party in 2017 – and to live as a committed Christian, to hold faithfully to the Bible's teaching, has felt impossible for me,” said Tim Farron, noting he would hold his position until the parliamentary recess begins next month.

Farron’s announcement follows significant media attention surrounding his answers to press questions on abortion and homosexuality.

During the recent election, Farron had been asked repeatedly by reporters about his views on the morality of homosexual acts.

Earlier this week, the party's home affairs spokesman Brian Paddick – a prominent gay politician – resigned abruptly, citing concerns over opinions held by the party’s leadership.

Despite the Liberal Democrats gaining several parliamentary seats under Farron, he faced opposition from within his own party. According to the Telegraph, one senior Liberal Democrat said Farron was “unhelpful during the campaign.”

He also said Farron’s “views [were] not compatible with being the leader of the Liberal Democrats.”

That was not the only mention of the resignation.  There was this:

"Tim Farron:  Christian Canary In The Coalmine"

This is from The American Conservative, posted on 16 June by Mr Rod Dreher.  Mr Dreher includes Mr Farron's resignation speech.  He also notes the following, which is the critical point for all of us, even Progressives, as Progressivism progresses and gets ahead of those who thought they were orthodox progressives, but didn't advance with the time.

Farron supports same-sex marriage and supports abortion rights, but that was not enough for his media inquisitors.  They wanted to know if he thought those things were sinful.  It wasn’t enough for him to pledge to defend gay rights and abortion rights.  It wasn’t even enough for him to clarify that no, he doesn’t think that gay sex is a sin (a heterodox position for a Christian to take, but he took it.)  No, Farron had to think correct thoughts, and to have thought them at all times, clearly, or be shamed and hounded out of public life.  As he has been.

At least in the end, he learned that it profits a man nothing to gain the world if he loses his soul.

There appears to be no compromise with the Progressives, no making a deal.  The likes of Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi aren't about the deal.  They are about "the truth" as they understand it.  I used to think the political solution to abortion was to go with Roe v Wade and pick 20 weeks as the point after which abortions of choice would be banned.  However, with people who think abortion should be allowed in the fourth trimester there is no cutting a deal, no recognizing that not everyone is in lockstep.

It is a sad day.

Regards  —  Cliff

Christians Are Not Safe in Middle East

For John, BLUF:  This isn't a war between Islam and the rest, but there are some out there killing Christians.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Gunmen Attack Coptic Christian Convoy in Egypt, Killing at Least 26

From The Old Gray Lady, this morning, by Reporters Declan Walsh and Nour Yussef.

Here is the lede plus two (Photo at the Link):

Gunmen opened fire on vehicles carrying Coptic Christians in southern Egypt early Friday, killing at least 26 people, according to a church official, in the latest deadly assault on the country’s embattled religious minority.

Bishop Makarios of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Minya Province said the assailants, traveling in three sport utility vehicles, had opened fire on a pickup truck carrying workmen, and two buses transporting worshipers, as they traveled in a convoy to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor.

Bishop Makarios said many of the victims had been shot at close range. The dead included children, elderly people and laborers, he said, and 23 others were wounded.

A friend of mine commented:

If we wanted to “get tough” on ISIS, on radical islamic extremism, we need to go beyond simple condemnation and “our prayers go out to the families.”

I think the President needs to talk about the attack today and pose these questions:

1. Do blasphemy laws ( in most of the Muslim world) contribute to these attacks?  What do these laws do to stifle debate and encourage hatred?
2. Do Muslim majority countries, including Egypt, place discriminatory restrictions on the building of Churches? Why? (it is prohibited in Saudi)
3. Are other holy books, the Bible, the Torah, etc… allowed in Muslim majority nations?  If they are forbidden, does that contribute to hatred?
4. What are the efforts by each country to check hate talk, sectarian division?

[Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-]Sisi has called an emergency meeting, and I am sure there will be calls for more security. But do Egyptians think that is enough?

These are important questions for the region.  I agree with the President that we should not lecture, not impose our system on others.  But it is time to go beyond the platitudes and get to the factors underlying the atmosphere that tolerates terrorism.  It is time to put this on their plate.

Note the comment, "It is time to put this on their plate."  That is to say, the Sunni majority countries need to own this as their own problem.  This is not the last vestiges of colonialism but a modern day phenomenon that needs to be dealt with by the people living in the area today.

From the American Magazine (with web presence) Defense One we have an April article on ISIS and Egypt, "Why ISIS Declared War on Egypt’s Christians".

If this war spreads, to be neutral will be to be to be complicit.

Regards  —  Cliff