Abe Lincoln, the Religious Wacko Fundamentalist (and what it may teach us about Sarah Palin)

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The ignorance of the press when it comes to religious matters is astounding. People of faith are too often treated as if they come from an alien planet and have habits normal mortals can never hope to understand. I've often referred to the GetReligion blog as an excellent site for cataloging much of this cluelessness - and pointing out the praiseworthy exceptions when they do occur.

Sarah Palin is being pilloried by some who see her as a Christian incarnation of a Muslim fundamentalist. And this is in the mainstream media. See, for example, Juan Cole's column on Slate.com.

One Palin comment raising eyebrows came in her address to graduating students at her former church, when she said, "Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

Now, every "normal" evangelical, especially those who listen to the message in context, will understand her to be saying that our leaders should ask for God's guidance as they make decisions about (the) war, and that every citizen should beseech God to guide those leaders. Praying for our leaders is, in fact, a Scriptural injunction (see, for example, 1 Timothy 2.1-3). But the rigid secularists see her as claiming divine mandate for every decision that she might make. Then they take it even further and warn that she may singlehandedly attempt to usher in the Apocalypse in order to hasten the return of Christ. I'm sure such religious wackos do exist, but there's no sane reason to believe that Sarah Palin is one of them.

Somehow, this leads to Abraham Lincoln. I was remembering how he said that we should "do right, as God gives us to see the right," and how that statement wasn't much different than Palin's. And that got me to looking at Lincoln's second inaugural address. It's only 700 words long - if only today's political speeches were so short! - and the most notable aspect is that almost 2/3 of it reads like a sermon. I'll reprint that portion below. There's more theology in this civic address than I've heard in a lot of sermons. What was Lincoln's view of God's will? Of divine Providence? Of prayer? Of the attributes and character of God? Is this the kind of relgious wacko who should be entrusted with leading a nation at crisis?

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Once Commissioned, Never Content

"It is interesting to note that once Moses climbs Mt. Sinai and talks to God there is never contentment for him again. That is the way it is with us. Once we talk to God, once we get his commission to us for our lives we cannot be again content. We are happier. We are busier. But we are not content because then we have a mission — a commission, rather.”

— Charlton Heston, on how his life was influenced by playing Moses in “The Ten Commandments,” The Los Angeles Times, October 28, 1956

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(Thanks to getreligion.org)

Mother Teresa, Part 3

GetReligion.org had a writeup about Time Magazine's Mother Teresa article. Their posting was fine, but the readers' comments to the posting were particularly good. Check it all out here.

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If you don't want to read all 23 comments, and you trust my judgment, you can just read #3, 5, 7, 11, 12, 13, 20, 21.

The indications of her struggles with spiritual doubt and aridity are truly valuable and even inspirational. In a world of overweight “prophets” who prance the stages of high-tech evangelical superchurches shouting fundamentalist doctrine, or pompously robed automatons droning liturgical rite to snoozing masses, Teresa’s practice of the hard-core Christian Gospel remains an absolute beacon in the murk.

If her inner-faith had been marked by constant, rapturous encounters and visions in some cloister, how could she have ever torn herself away to care for the poorest of the poor? Therein lies both the heartache and the ineffable beauty of Teresa’s spiritual journey.

Elimination, Selective Reduction, Deletion - Murder?

If you can read this GetReligion post without being repulsed and at least a little sick, then you deserve my admiration or pity. The Washington Post article it's mostly about discusses the murder of selected fetuses when the mother is carrying more than one at a time. Pregnant with 3, but only have room at home for 2 more? There are doctors who can help you with that.

It's astonishing to me that the Washington Post would run an article such as this, which hardly helps to forward the pro-choice agenda. Here's an excerpt that gives you an idea of what you're getting into:

Evans prepared two syringes, swabbed Emma with antiseptic, put the square-holed napkin on her stomach. Then he plunged one of the needles into Emma’s belly and began to work his way into position. He injected the potassium chloride, and B, the first fetus to go, went still.

“There’s no activity there,” he said, scrutinizing the screen. B was lying lengthwise in its little honeycomb chamber, no longer there and yet still there. It was impossible not to find the sight affecting. Here was a life that one minute was going to happen and now, because of its location, wasn’t. One minute, B was a fetus with a future stretching out before it: childhood, college, children, grandchildren, maybe. The next minute, that future had been deleted.

Evans plunged the second needle into Emma’s belly. “See the tip?” he said, showing the women where the tip of the needle was visible on the ultrasound screen. Even I could see it: a white spot hovering near the heart. D was moving. Evans started injecting. He went very slowly. “If you inject too fast, you blow the kid off your needle,” he explained.

If a nation ever deserved God's judgment, isn't it ours?

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(Please read the whole GetReligion post here.)

Why American Newsmagazines Suck

The May 21 issue of Newsweek has an article (review?) pertaining to the Pope's new book, Jesus of Nazareth. It's pretty disgusting - the review, that is, not the book. It reads more like a piece of advocacy than as anything designed to inform. And, of course, it calls into question every aspect of orthodox Christian belief it possibly can.

I don't subscribe to Newsweek, but I do subscribe to U.S. News & World Report. Since they have a reputation for being more conservative than Time or Newsweek, you might think they'd be more sympathetic to those who hold to orthodox beliefs. But no. Their religion articles are so bad I read through them as quickly as I can - hoping, as when visiting an outhouse, to get in and out before the stench becomes overwhelming.

OK, I overstated that. But I do like the word picture.

In any case, the moral of the story is this: Do not expect to learn anything about religion when reading an American newsmagazine. Do expect the magazines to turn over every rock to find some crackpot who can deny any Christian belief mentioned in the article, and expect that person's position to be presented as respectable, even if he's the only person who holds to it.

GetReligion.org has a worthy diatribe against Newsweek's "review." Please read it; it'll give you a better understanding of what I'm ranting about, with several specific examples.

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(You can read Newsweek's full book review/article here. And you can read an excerpt from the Pope's book here. That Pope guy has some good thoughts. Maybe we should invite him to preach at my church, some time.)

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And lest you think this post is a "minority report," here's a first person account (found here) from a professor at Notre Dame who was contacted for the Newsweek article. Very enlightening . . .

Readers may be interested in this bit of background to the risible article by Ms Miller. The person who is acknowledged as helping with the article called me a few weeks before this article appeared doing “research.” She wanted the names of famous books on Jesus and a description of their contents beginning with Reimarus. When I told her gently that the history of the “higher” criticism was a tad complicated she soldiered on asking about Schweitzer (the only name she seems to know) and then, jumping ahead nearly a century, something about the Jesus Seminar. When I told her about some sources she might consult she said that she was on “deadline.” Not to put too fine a point on it: she did not have a clue. Lesson to be learned: read these articles in the popular press with a shovel full of salt. As for the Miller piece itself: patronizing and snarky about sums it up. Oh, how I miss the days when Ken Woodward (Notre Dame - Class of 57) wrote on religion.