Mid-June snippets

While the explosive growth of Christianity in sub-saharan Africa is a fairly new development, there is one country in that continent boasting ancient christian roots, as reported in this fascinating article: Living history in Ethiopia. An intriguing excerpt:

The 11 rock-hewn churches in the town of Lalibela have often been called the "Eighth Wonder of the World." Like the monoliths at Axum, they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And, according to legend, they were each carved out of a single piece of rock at record speed, "as angels worked on them during the night." The churches, many carved in deep trenches with only their roofs exposed, others cut directly into the rocks of caves, are all connected by a labyrinthine series of tunnels, paths and steep steps. Each has been used continuously since the beginning of the 13th century. Most are decorated with a Star of David, underscoring the church's close kinship with King Solomon. One displays a very old painting of a black Jesus.

This is a grizzly story that I would not otherwise flag, save for its legal ramifications: London autopsies reveal 3 babies may not have been full-term. A woman has been arrested in this case, but if it turns out the infants were aborted before birth, will they drop the charges and let her go?

While we're on the subject, it is helpful to remind ourselves occasionally that the early Christians, contrary to their pagan neighbours, strongly disapproved of exposure of infants and abortion. David W. T. Brattston gives us a summary of ancient sources on the subject: Early Christians and Abortion.

I recently discovered, much to my surprise, that the tune to Go Tell Aunt Rodie, played by every young violin student of the Suzuki method, was composed by none other than Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the Presbyterian hymnal the tune is called ROUSSEAU, while Cyberhymnal calls it GREENVILLE. Sensing a paedagogical opportunity here, I have set the opening words of Rousseau's Social Contract to this tune, which is available here exclusively and for the first time.

What? I'm shocked, shocked! at the vicious rumours that the Iranian president might have rigged his country's recent election: Iran protest cancelled as leaked election results show Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came third.

Could Canada's foremost cranky conservative really be flirting with the likes of Noam Chomsky? Read it here: Popular theatre.

Happy 794th birthday to Magna Carta. I hope a big celebration will be planned for six years hence.

Twilight Zone: The After Hours

Nancy and I have recently been watching old episodes of The Twilight Zone on youtube. We were reminded that there was more than one series with this title on television, the first running from 1959 to 1964, the second from 1985 to 1989, and the third in the 2002-2003 season. Here are two versions of the same episode, The After Hours, the first of which aired in 1960 and the second of which was first broadcast in 1986. Watch both and see which you think is the better version. I have my own preference, and you may be able to guess which it is.





Incidentally, while viewing the first version, pay attention to the music, which was scored by the incomparable Bernard Herrmann, who was in the middle of his famous cinematic collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock. Everyone knows the theme that the programme eventually settled on (listen to the arrangement of it in the colour episode above), which has become a musical cliché. But Herrmann scored the theme for the first season and, as expected, did a terrific job.

Managing decline

Though we North Americans tend to think of cities as permanent and expanding features on our landscape, it is a fact of life that, like everything else in the world, they wax and wane and may even die. Timbuktu was once a great centre of culture and learning, but is now a shadow of what it was half a millennium ago. There is no reason to think that our own cities are exempt from this process.

Indeed there are a number of American cities that have not fared well with the shift from an industrial to a service economy. The one with which I am most familiar is just over the border: Detroit. Now there is a co-operative effort by more than one level of government to manage the decline of such urban centres: US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive. Given my deep familial roots in southeastern Michigan, I am saddened at the decline of urban life in the region.

Yet all periods of mourning must end, and life must go on. For the city of Flint, Michigan, 60 miles north of Detroit, this means effectively abandoning up to 40 percent of the city's built-up land in a necessary downsizing effort.

Flint, sixty miles north of Detroit, was the original home of General Motors. The car giant once employed 79,000 local people but that figure has shrunk to around 8,000. Unemployment is now approaching 20 per cent and the total population has almost halved to 110,000. The exodus – particularly of young people – coupled with the consequent collapse in property prices, has left street after street in sections of the city almost entirely abandoned.

Durant Hotel
In the city centre, the once grand Durant Hotel – named after William Durant, GM's founder – is a symbol of the city's decline, said Mr [Dan] Kildee [Genesee County Treasurer]. The large building has been empty since 1973, roughly when Flint's decline began. Regarded as a model city in the motor industry's boom years, Flint may once again be emulated, though for very different reasons.

But Mr Kildee, who has lived there nearly all his life, said he had first to overcome a deeply ingrained American cultural mindset that "big is good" and that cities should sprawl – Flint covers 34 square miles. . . . But some Flint dustcarts are collecting just one rubbish bag a week, roads are decaying, police are very understaffed and there were simply too few people to pay for services, he said. If the city didn't downsize it will eventually go bankrupt, he added. . . .

The local authority has restored the city's attractive but formerly deserted centre but has pulled down 1,100 abandoned homes in outlying areas. Mr Kildee estimated another 3,000 needed to be demolished, although the city boundaries will remain the same. Already, some streets peter out into woods or meadows, no trace remaining of the homes that once stood there.

Choosing which areas to knock down will be delicate but many of them were already obvious, he said. The city is buying up houses in more affluent areas to offer people in neighbourhoods it wants to demolish. Nobody will be forced to move, said Mr Kildee. "Much of the land will be given back to nature. People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow," he said.

Mr Kildee acknowledged that some fellow Americans considered his solution "defeatist" but he insisted it was "no more defeatist than pruning an overgrown tree so it can bear fruit again".

Given that growth and decline are facts of life, and given that political authorities are under a divine mandate to do public justice, how do they manage decline in a just fashion? It is easy to distribute the pieces of an ever-expanding pie, but what happens when the pie is contracting? The corporate private sector has had to face these sorts of issues for decades, but now municipal governments are having to make similar tough decisions. Are there equitable ways to do so?

King of glory

Seven whole days, not one in seven,
I will praise thee;
in my heart, though not in heaven,
I can raise thee.
Small it is, in this poor sort
to enrol thee:
e'en eternity's too short
to extol thee.

George Herbert, 1633

Becoming adult

Writing for Breakpoint's Worldview Magazine, John Stonestreet explores Our Adolescent Culture. Taking as his springboard Diana West's The Death of the Grown-Up: How America’s Arrested Development Threatens Western Civilization, he suggests that, whereas adolescence as a distinct stage of development was unknown before the mid-20th century, what was originally seen as a transitional phenomenon has overtaken the entire culture such that our social and political institutions nurture a kind of permanent immaturity. Take note of Stonestreet's six marks of an adolescent culture, which seem all too evidently applicable to North America.

I have little to add to his analysis. Nevertheless, as an instructor at a post-secondary institution, I have sometimes wondered whether universities really help young people move into adulthood, or whether they inadvertently prolong adolescence beyond what is healthy for the student and the society at large. I ask this as someone who was not fully self-supporting until well beyond 18 years of age, due entirely to my pursuit of graduate studies towards a PhD.

But there's another factor. Forty years ago my own baby-boomer generation, under the cover of a radical critique of society, coined such terms as "the establishment" and "the system," and put retreads on "status quo," "capitalism," "patriarchy" and "military-industrial complex," all terms of opprobrium describing forms of society to be opposed. To be sure, there was an element of truth behind these labels, though they were too easily tossed about as means of discrediting a complex network of social patterns which such simplistic terms could never hope to capture in their entirety.

Could the use of such language have been the first signs of a society refusing to grow up? If one can blame "the system" for every personal failure, one is perhaps implicitly absolved from having to take responsibility for rectifying it. Far from empowering the young, as some would have it, such an attitude is more likely to nurture resentment and stifle initiative, the very things we expect adolescents to outgrow. Perhaps it's time, if not to abolish adolescence, at least to recover its original meaning: becoming adult!

Thomas Nelson's bad idea

Americans have the reputation of being one of the most bible-reading nations on earth. There is a huge market in that country for specialty or niche bibles, which cater to certain sectors of the reading public. Some months ago I wrote of The Green Bible, which prints in green letters passages having to do with creation. Now Thomas Nelson has published The American Patriot’s Bible, something which, admittedly, makes my skin crawl:



One could pinpoint numerous errors and one-sided assertions in such a project, for example, the facile overstating of the christian beliefs of the founders. (The inclusion of Thomas Paine here is little short of ludicrous.)

But the principal reason this is such a misguided project is that it is based on a severe misunderstanding of the biblical covenant. In the Old Testament God entered into a special relationship with the children of Israel, promising them a homeland at the crossroads of three continents and giving them a law by which to order their lives as his peculiar people. When the psalmist says: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!" (Psalm 33:12), he obviously has Israel in mind.

In the New Testament God continues to choose a people for himself, but on a different basis: the shed blood of Christ and his victory over death for their sins. The Apostle Peter says: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (I Peter 2:9). The holy nation is not ethnic Israel, but the church, the Body of Christ, whose members are drawn from every nation on earth. One tires of having to remind people of this.

Perhaps it's time for a moratorium on niche bibles of all kinds. From now on there should be the biblical text only, bound in a plain black cover.

Torture and the rule of law

The following is my regular Christian Courier column dated 8 June 2009:

At one time it was a commonplace occurrence to see convicted criminals treated in painful and humiliating ways. Grisly penalties were applied to murderers, pickpockets and heretics, and ordinary people turned out in large numbers to witness these spectacles, apparently learning the hard lesson that, to coin a cliché, crime does not pay. However the English Bill of Rights of 1689, adopted after the previous year’s ouster of King James II, prohibited the application of “cruel and unusual punishments,” in language that would eventually find its way into the US Bill of Rights and our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms, where the word “treatment” was notably added.

What then of pre-trial treatment? What means are permitted in questioning a suspected criminal, that is, someone who has not yet been found guilty of a punishable crime? Since ancient times brutal means have often been employed to elicit a confession or incriminating information from a defendant. Such means are still used throughout the globe, despite the existence, among other similar treaties, of the 1985 United Nations Convention Against Torture, of which Canada and the United States are signatories.

Arguments against torture are based on two types of reasoning, principled and pragmatic. On the principled side, it is argued that human beings have an intrinsic dignity that ought not to be violated through mistreatment, even if it is in the interest of a larger good, for example national security. An argument can also be made that those who engage in torture must suppress their own humanity to bring themselves to commit such an act. In short, torture is unjust.

Those of a more pragmatic bent insist that, even if torture were not morally wrong, its use is not effective, as the victim could easily confess to something he did not do in order to end the ordeal. Even if the suspect is guilty of harbouring information about fellow conspirators that might be crucial to stopping a terrorist act, he could just as easily give false or misleading information to his interrogators, who would not necessarily know the difference.

Nevertheless, the temptation to torture is one that many officials find irresistible when confronted with a threat to the lives of innocent people, much as in wartime a country’s government will be tempted to retaliate in kind against an attack on civilians. There can be no doubt that al Qaeda and similar organizations have employed unjust means, precisely to entice their opponents to respond in illegal ways and thereby discredit themselves.

Admittedly the United States was in a difficult international position as it sought an effective response to the 9/11 attacks. The Bush administration severely botched the public relations side of this as it needlessly alienated otherwise friendly governments needed to mount an effective multilateral defence.

Moreover, the fact that Washington claimed to be waging a war on terror was, from the outset, deeply misguided. It is precisely because this “war” has such a nebulous and unattainable aim that the government prosecuting it will tend to lose sight of which means are appropriate in its pursuit. If our aim is to eradicate terror, residual bourgeois sympathies, schoolyard bullying or something similarly unrealistic, any effort to do so will almost inevitably tempt us, in our choice of means, to flirt with the edges of legality and rectitude. Why? Simply because no means whatever will enable us to reach a goal so vague as to lack a reasonable chance of success.

Better to keep a feasible goal before us and to choose methods proper to its accomplishment, avoiding those that corrupt us and transgress the norms of justice.

Cardus' coursepack

My good friends at Cardus have come up with something that looks like an invaluable resource for teachers, students and other Christians wishing to know how their faith impacts life. I've not yet seen a copy, but judging from their past work, I hope this gets wide circulation.



We also take note in passing that Cardus is now on youtube. I must admit to being puzzled at some of the so-called related videos shown at the lower right of the screen. Exactly how "Hitler Finds Out Canucks Sign Sundin" and "Original Alex Rios Video 'You are a bum!'" relate to the new Cardus video is not altogether clear.

On this day

More resignations from Order

The fallout continues from last year's controversial award of this country's highest honour to abortion doctor Henry Morgentaler: Resignations from the Order of Canada. One of those whose resignation the Governor General accepted is Jean-Claude Cardinal Turcotte, Archbishop of Montreal.

June snippets

I am a bit late with this, but congratulations are due to Redeemer's class of 2009, which graduated a week ago saturday. May the Lord guide them as they seek to serve God and neighbour to his glory. Congratulations are also due to Redeemer itself, as indicated in this news item, dated friday, 29 May:

In a joyous ceremony in Redeemer’s Commons, David Sweet, Member of Parliament for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale announced today that Redeemer University College will be receiving a $2.9 million investment from the federal government’s Knowledge Infrastructure Program (KIP).

Unfortunately, plans for the construction of a new political science building were not included in the grant.

Mixolydian Knight has caught the Associated Press in a rather careless error: AP misinformed. The Church of Scotland will be surprised — not to mention disconcerted — to hear that it is part of the Anglican Communion.

The lituus? What's that? The BBC's Pallab Ghosh tells us: 'Lost' music instrument recreated.

The 2.4m (8ft) long trumpet-like instrument was played in Ancient Rome but fell out of use some 300 years ago. Bach's motet (a choral musical composition) "O Jesu Christ, meins lebens licht" was one of the last pieces of music written for the Lituus. Now, for the first time, this 18th Century composition has been played as it should have been heard.

Listen for yourself here. This would seem to put to rest the urban legend that the lituus fell out of use due to parents' inability to fit it in the family car when driving the children to their music lessons.

More often than not my home state of Illinois makes headlines due to some questionable activity on the part of its politicians. Now we learn, courtesy of the Chicago Tribune, that admissions staff have been pressured by trustees, state legislators and other powerful people to admit specific academically unqualified students to the state's best-known public university: University of Illinois admits it bowed to clout on admissions. Perhaps it's time to admit that, after nearly two centuries, Illinois is a failed experiment and that its territory and people should be distributed among the surrounding states.

Just when it seemed that there was nothing left to discover, meteorologists are reporting the discovery of a new type of cloud. It's being called the asperatus, and it's the first new cloud to be named since the well-known argentonimbus, which is distinguished from other clouds by its conspicuous silver lining.

Psalm scores posted

Ten years after I posted my Genevan Psalter website, I have now uploaded printable scores in PDF format for virtually all of the psalms, canticles and hymns I have written or arranged. In some cases these may not be precisely the same arrangements as the midi files. It will take me some time to go through these one by one to bring some consistency to them, which is a project for another day. For those wishing to sing them in formal or informal settings, I have posted at the bottom of the front page of this site my terms of use, along with the copyright information.

Michigan Central Station

When driving into Detroit from Windsor over the Ambassador Bridge we have often puzzled at the identity of the abandoned multi-storey building off to the right, which seems to embody the sorry state of the once thriving Motor City. I have recently learnt that it's the shell of the Michigan Central Station, an architectural landmark built in 1913 and closed in 1987. Efforts to refurbish the old station have thus far been unsuccessful, stymied by the lack of available funds.



Here is a tour of the building made the year it closed:



I am not at all keen on the casino idea mentioned in the first video, but perhaps the example of LIUNA Station here in Hamilton offers some promise for MCS. This was the old Canadian National station on James Street north, which operated between 1931 and 1993. In 2000 it was reopened as a banquet hall by the Labourers' International Union of North America. Trains may once again use the station as part of a long-term transportation plan for Ontario's Golden Horseshoe, and a platform is being built to accommodate them. Detroiters should take note.

Obama at Notre Dame

Whether or not it can justly be called America's premier Catholic university, Notre Dame has nevertheless made a unique place for itself in the country's educational landscape. Unlike many vestigially Catholic institutions, Notre Dame prides itself on its Catholic identity and commendably seeks to maintain it. This is what I found during my years there as a graduate student in the early 1980s. What happens at Notre Dame is often a bellwether for American Catholic culture at large.

Nevertheless, a quarter century ago my impression of the university's administration, then headed by its long-serving president, Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, was that, while it tried its best to hold the line on its Catholic identity, it did so with some embarrassment, seeking respectability with the larger educational establishment and even with the popular media. Against the background of an establishment that traditionally viewed Roman Catholics as un-American, Notre Dame has coveted a place for itself as a genuinely American university. Of course, sport has played a big role in this, as any collegiate football fan knows.

As part of its persistent effort to fit in, Notre Dame has invited six US presidents to speak at commencement and has conferred honorary degrees on nine. During my time there Ronald Reagan spoke in 1981, his first public appearance after the attempt on his life nearly two months earlier. In 1984 New York Governor Mario Cuomo, then a presidential aspirant, spoke at Notre Dame, making his notorious "I'm personally opposed, but. . ." speech with respect to abortion, thus antagonizing serious Catholics but receiving Fr. Hesburgh's blessing.


It is thus not surprising that Hesburgh's successor, Fr. John Jenkins, would invite the newly-elected president Barack Obama to speak at commencement this year. What he did not foresee is the controversy this would engender, thus bringing unwelcome negative publicity to the university and to him personally. Initially the Bishop of Fort Wayne and South Bend, John D'Arcy, signalled his disapproval and his intention to absent himself from the event, due to Obama's personal and political support for the pro-choice position on abortion. Many, if not most, of the other American bishops followed suit. Most dramatically, Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon, former US Ambassador to the Vatican, refused the Laetare Medal which she had been offered by the university.

Obama's address can be seen here in full at Notre Dame's website. To those watching it, the audience's excitement at his presence was obvious. Some 54 percent of Catholics seem to have voted for Obama, and this is reflected in the enthusiastic reception he received. As is his wont, Obama gave a great speech and, knowing his audience, mentioned the 91-year-old Fr. Hesburgh's role in President Eisenhower's Civil Rights Commission and in the eventual passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This magnificent gesture could only endear him to the Notre Dame community, which responded with applause throughout. As for the pro-life protesters who disrupted the event, they came off looking very rude indeed.

The controversy raises at least three issues worth addressing here.

First — and I say this as a Reformed Christian — it is not especially healthy for a university's decisions to be subject to a bishop's veto. A university, even an overtly confessional university, has its own authoritative sphere that ought not to be confused with that of the institutional church. I am with Abraham Kuyper in believing that a christian university best functions free from the unwarranted interference of church and state alike. That said, in this case the diocesan bishop made no pretence of vetoing Jenkins' decision; he simply elected to stay away.

Second, at one time Notre Dame was controlled by an otherwise little known order, the Congregation of the Holy Cross (CSC). Although the university is now governed by a lay board, its self-definition as a Catholic university implies a fidelity to the teachings of Rome. Up to now the president has always been a CSC priest. The very nature of Roman Catholicism implies, not just a confessional orientation, but fidelity to the claims of a particular institutional manifestation of the church. That church has made clear its teachings on the sanctity of human life, and thus the university is presumably bound by them. At the very least, Fr. Jenkins put the American Catholic bishops in a difficult position and forced them to respond in some fashion. Had he invited Obama to speak without offering him an honorary degree, he might have avoided the fuss.

Third and finally, in trying to solidify its place as an American university at home with the larger educational establishment, is Notre Dame in danger of losing its soul, if I may be permitted that overused cliché? Might its quest for respectability come at the expense of its Catholic identity? Of course, Notre Dame is not alone in this, as there are many christian universities in North America, some church-related and some not, that must daily confront this very issue. Shall such universities, for example, simply accept the larger definitions of the academic disciplines, their subject matter, their preferred methods, their general orientations, and so forth? Or are they obligated to subject even these to a biblically-shaped worldview? From my own experience at Notre Dame, it's not clear to me that this way of phrasing the issue would make much sense to people there. In a Catholic milieu the question would once again revolve around church teachings, which, as noted above, are clear on this particular issue while remaining silent on much else.



Whither Notre Dame? I think we can safely say that it will continue to be a force to contend with in the world of football. It is also likely to keep the undying loyalty of Domers past and present, who give generously to their alma mater. But it's an open question whether Notre Dame will survive over the long term as a genuinely Catholic university or, in the short term, whether Fr. Jenkins will keep his job after his inept handling of this fiasco.

Desktop publishing?

Here is something that could conceivably remake academia as we know it and much else as well: Fit to print: Will the Espresso book machine revolutionize the publishing industry?

Kuyper and the psalms

The famous Dutch polymath stands corrected: Kuyper on the Genevan melodies

Electoral reform failure

Efforts at electoral reform in British Columbia have received a severe setback as residents of that province decisively defeated proportional representation in yesterday's referendum: B.C. voters turn thumbs down on STV. It may take a political crisis similar to the one in New Zealand to galvanize the electorate to do something about our current first-past-the-post system.

From CLAC to CPJ

Here is the official announcement from the Center for Public Justice on the appointment of its new head: Gideon Strauss Appointed New CPJ President. In anticipation of assuming these responsibilities, Strauss has begun a new blog: http://cpjustice.org/gideonstrauss/. Although we will certainly miss his presence with us here in southern Ontario, we wish him the best as he takes up this fresh challenge south of the border. May God grant him wisdom and courage.

May snippets

Our family recently heard the wonderful jazz guitar music of Michael Maguire, who plays on a seven-string guitar. He's definitely worth listening to. I especially appreciated his renderings of Antonio Carlos Jobim's music.

The next stage in the deconstruction of marriage has come a little sooner than some might have expected, but it cannot be doubted that it's the logical outcome of recent trends: Threesome Marriages. The time may not be long in coming when the Toronto Symphony Orchestra will show up at city hall to apply for a collective marriage licence. Couldn't happen, you say? Don't be too sure.

Some months ago I reviewed Philip Jenkins' Lost History of Christianity for Christian History. Now my friend Paul Marshall has reviewed the same book for the Assyrian International News Agency: The Disappearance of Christianity in Its Homeland. While we're on the subject, Random House has just published the newly translated 1922 first-person account of the Armenian genocide by Grigoris Balakian, Armenian Golgotha, which is reviewed here by Andrew G. Bostom. We should remember to pray for our brothers and sisters in that troubled part of the world.

When I was a young man I experienced something of a second conversion in the form of a renewed awareness of the comprehensive claims of the gospel. This led me towards the Reformed tradition, especially as mediated by Abraham Kuyper and his successors. However, I can well understand that someone reading this inspiring address by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput might be attracted to Rome: New Life in Christ: What it Looks Like, What it Demands. Catholics and protestants alike should read it and take it to heart.

What would it be like to live in a city without vehicles? I'd love to find out for myself. There is at least one place in the western world where this is a lived experience: In German Suburb, Life Goes On Without Cars. Now if only we could do something like this in Hamilton.

Congratulations are due to my sometime co-conspirator Gideon Strauss, who has just been appointed president of the Center for Public Justice in Annapolis, Maryland, succeeding the retiring James W. Skillen. We are happy for the Center but sad for the CLAC and Cardus, where he has made such a profound impact. Strauss will continue to edit Cardus' journal, Comment, after he takes up his duties with the Center in October.

Spengler emerges

The man who has written for the Asia Times under the pseudonym "Spengler" for the past dozen years has dropped his persona: Confessions of a Coward. And what a colourful past he has had!

Late April snippets

The reverberations from Notre Dame's decision to award Barack Obama an honourary degree continue, as Mary Ann Glendon, one time US Ambassador to the Vatican, has written a public letter to Fr. John Jenkins declining the university's award to her of the Laetare Medal.

In my Canadian government course I always ask my students when Canada became independent. It's a trick question really, and one that does not admit of a simple answer. The truth of the matter is that there were a number of stages along Canada's path to nationhood, the most recent of which was patriation of the constitution in 1982. Yet my friend and colleague, Janet Ajzenstat believes that, as each British North American territory received responsible government, it ceased to be a dependency and effectively became self-governing, i.e., independent. This occurred as early as 1848 in Nova Scotia and the united Province of Canada. There is undoubtedly some validity to Ajzenstat's argument, though when Britain committed Canada to war in 1899 and 1914, Her/His Majesty's Canadian subjects may not have felt particularly independent.

It is a mark of our times that someone could cause controversy by claiming that the sky is blue when, of course, everyone knows that the very concept of blue is a social construction. Miss USA contestant Carrie Prejean found this out to her own disadvantage. The Mixolydian Knight wonders whether one of her First Amendment rights is not at stake: Religious freedom at risk? I suppose a case could be made for it, except that the American founders probably never intended it to apply to beauty contests.

Did American interrogators really torture suspected terrorists? Russell E. Saltzman is appalled by the Red Cross reports on the subject, which suggest that, yes, they did indeed: The Mental Murder of Torture. Saltzman:

By any standard, the treatment reported amounted to torture—strenuous enough, brutal enough, as to require medical personnel in attendance as the suspects were subjected to it. . . . Most people should be able to figure it out: If a doctor is needed during questioning, the means used in the questioning is morally suspect. The use of medical personnel reminds us of how susceptible medicine is to the contortions of nationalism, ideology, national security, even popular demand, and how difficult it may be for people of ordinary moral impulse to resist pressure from superiors.

If perpetrators are brought to trial, one suspects that we will hear what we heard sixty years ago at Nürnberg: "I was following orders."

Columbia University's Mark C. Taylor argues that we should End the University as We Know It. While he may be guilty of a certain degree of rhetorical overkill, I heartily approve of his emphasis on what might be called interdisciplinary renewal within the university:

There can be no adequate understanding of the most important issues we face when disciplines are cloistered from one another and operate on their own premises. It would be far more effective to bring together people working on questions of religion, politics, history, economics, anthropology, sociology, literature, art, religion and philosophy to engage in comparative analysis of common problems. As the curriculum is restructured, fields of inquiry and methods of investigation will be transformed.

It seems we need more institutions like Redeemer University College and fewer like . . . well, I won't name names.

Comment has recently posted on its website Susan Boyle and YouTube: A Symposium. Scroll down to the bottom to read my own contribution.

Smetana's inspiration?

While we're on the subject of Czech musicians, Bedřich Smetana is well known at home and abroad as the composer of Má vlast (My Fatherland), the most famous movement of which has to be Vltava, or Die Moldau, as it is better known elsewhere. This movement is often recorded and performed alone, which is how I remember hearing it as a child, when it became one of my favourites. In general, I'm not a fan of the romantic era, but Smetana's piece deserves a place in anyone's repertoire. Here it is performed by the legendary Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra.



The Vltava flows through the Czech capital Prague, easily the most beautiful city in Europe. I was privileged to visit this remarkable place in 1976 and thus saw for myself the river celebrated in Smetana's piece. From Prague it flows into the Elbe and eventually into the Baltic Sea.

According to a humorous Czech television advertisement, Smetana may have been inspired to write Vltava by the bubbles in a glass of the country's most famous beer, Pilsner Urquell. If only Canadian beer commercials featured such fine music!

Janáček and Dvořák

Last week, while driving to and from Grand Rapids, Michigan, I listened to a CD containing the music of the great Czech composer, Leoš Janáček. My favourite of his pieces is easily the rousing Sinfonietta, the first movement of which I linked to on the first day of the year. This time I listened to his Lachian Dances, which he published shortly before his death in 1928 but began working on as early as 1888. Though I've heard them many times over the past three decades, it was only during my recent automobile trip that it finally dawned on me that they are obviously inspired by Antonín Dvořák's better known Slavonic Dances. I was surprised that I hadn't before noticed this.

While I appreciate the Lachian Dances, they are not amongst Janáček's better compositions, in my opinion, and they certainly cannot compare with Dvořák's Slavonic Dances. Listen and decide for yourself. Immediately below is the second movement of the former, titled Pozehnany ("Blessed"), followed by Slavonic Dance number 5, my personal favourite:

American Babylon

Philip Marchand reviews the final instalment in an extensive corpus: Richard John Neuhaus’s last sermon.

Prosecuting torture?

It is difficult to imagine two articles more opposed to each other than these: Prosecuting Bush: On Second Thought...., by Ben Johnson (no, not that Ben Johnson), and Steve Chapman's Waking up to torture truths. Did the Bush administration sanction torture of prisoners in violation of both domestic and international law? If so, why should those responsible be exempt from prosecution? Even if it did produce "high value information" (which Chapman doubts), is torture ever justified? Johnson's case would be more persuasive if he would move beyond charging his opponents with weakness and "Carterism" and clearly address the justice of such tactics as waterboarding and sleep deprivation.

Canada's Grant family

Yes, after more than two decades, I still have my Canadian politics students reading George Parkin Grant's Lament for a Nation. It's not that I agree entirely with his argument. In fact, I think he severely shortchanges Canada's political institutions, as I wrote here five years ago: George Grant and the Primacy of Economics. Nevertheless, his views are worth taking seriously and grappling with.

It just so happens that Grant's nephew is the leader of the federal Liberal Party, a certain Michael Ignatieff, who has just published a book on his maternal ancestors, True Patriot Love: Four Generations in Search of Canada, an excerpt of which is published in Maclean's: Nation in progress. Robert Fulford thinks, not unreasonably, that Ignatieff is repackaging himself for the voters in this book: Ignatieff gives a shake to the family tree. Writing for Maclean's, John Geddes praises the book, perhaps too obsequiously: Michael Ignatieff’s ‘True Patriot Love’. In the Financial Post, Terence Corcoran claims that neither Ignatieff nor his late uncle had a real grasp of economics and markets: A true patriot of megaprojects.

Will this latest book endear Ignatieff to the Canadian public? Will he successfully convince them that his days as a rootless cosmopolitan are over and that he's finally returned to his roots? Or will they see this as a cynical ploy to gain political power in a country that has not been his for most of his nearly 62 years? Time will tell.

Χριστός ανέστη εκ νεκρών

Redeemer in the Post

One of my colleagues has merited mention in yesterday's edition of the National Post: Private school loyalty defies poor economy.

Easter's origin

Monastery of Chora,
Constantinople

Anthony McRoy asks: Was Easter Borrowed from a Pagan Holiday? That's what the Venerable Bede thought, but McRoy adduces evidence to the contrary.

This provides a good occasion for me to republish something I wrote nearly two decades ago and published here for the first time three years ago, titled, Easter: What's in a Name?

In most western languages the word for the day which we English-speakers know as Easter derives from the Hebrew pesach, or passover, usually by way of its Aramaic equivalent, pascha. Only in German (which calls it Ostern) and English is the Paschal feast called by a name sounding more like a direction on a compass than a christian holiday. Where does our word Easter come from?

When I first planned to write on this subject, I intended to argue that we Anglo-Saxons should adopt "Pascha" in place of "Easter." I still think it would not be a bad idea. In fact in some nonstandard English dialects it is already known as Pace or Pasch, and in Old Scots (the language of Robert Burns and Auld Lang Syne) as Pasche or Pash.

At first glance the origin of "Easter" looks suspect. There is a long tradition, going back to the early English church historian, the Venerable Bede (673-735), that "Easter" derives from Eastre, pagan goddess of spring and of the dawn. Although most Christians are probably aware that many of the days and seasons of the church calendar were taken over and adapted by the early Christians from their pagan neighbours, many will find it offensive to think that the day itself could still bear the name of a false deity. English-speaking Christians might well look with some envy on their fellow believers whose languages give the day of Christ's victory over death a name with more obviously biblical and christian roots.

For example, in most of the Romance and Germanic languages, as well as in Greek, the name for this day is some variation of pascha. Many of the Slavic and Baltic languages appropriately call it the Great Day or Great Night. And some of the Finno-Ugric languages (for example, Estonian and Hungarian) call it the Feast of Meat, a reference to the end of the long Lenten fast. (Perhaps it also refers to the tradition that at least on Easter all Christians were expected to receive the elements of the Lord's Supper — that is, the body and blood of Christ — even if they had abstained during the rest of the year.)

In English we are stuck with the apparently tainted "Easter." But twentieth-century scholarship has called into question Bede's interpretation. There is still no general agreement on the origin of the word, but it has been suggested that it may come, not from the name of a goddess, but from eostarun, the Old High German word for the dawn itself. (Our word "east" obviously has similar origins.) In fact there are some remarkable similarities between the words for "resurrection", "Easter" and "dawn" in several Indo-European languages. The common meaning underlying these words is a "rising" of some sort.

If our own word Easter originally meant sunrise, then perhaps it was fittingly applied to the Rising of the Son of God from the dead by our Teutonic forebears. And if this is so, then it seems that we English-speakers do after all have a most appropriate name for the feast of Christ's Resurrection.

From Geneva to Constantinople, continued

Here's an additional post from my Genevan Psalter blog on the subject: More psalms of Ali Ufki.

Redeemer on Spec's front page

Redeemer University College made the front page of the Hamilton Spectator after yesterday's visit from Canadian singer Chantal Kreviazuk: Redeemer students meet Kreviazuk's challenge for kids.

When Timothy Epp sent an e-mail inviting Chantal Kreviazuk to come to Redeemer University College to speak to his sociology class about her charity work, he knew it was a long shot. But to Epp's surprise, the popular Canadian singer-songwriter responded with a challenge -- raise $2,500 to help children in war-torn countries and she'd come.

Epp, a professor of sociology and pop culture, passed the challenge along to his students and they got to work. They held loose-change drives, offered fellow students discount haircuts and gave faculty members cut-rate pedicures. Some even shaved their heads. Yesterday, their efforts paid off when Kreviazuk stood on the stage of Redeemer auditorium and accepted a cheque for $5,056.01.

Tax deductions and the public good

As the United States is now officially in recession, could one of Barack Obama's proposals have the unintended consequence of obstructing efforts to help the poor, who will suffer most from its effects? Ryan Messmore argues, with some plausibility, that this could be the case: Obama's Proposal to Reduce Charitable Deductions Would Hurt Civil Society, Expand Government. According to Messmore:

The President claims that his tax plan will only have a small negative effect on charitable giving. Percentage-wise, this may be true, but the estimated reduction in giving means billions of dollars less each year for charities, especially if weak economic conditions continue.

Scholars at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University estimated that, had Obama's proposed changes been in place in 2006, total itemized contributions from wealthy households would have dropped almost $4 billion.

While this amount is only a small percentage of total charitable donations given each year, it represents more than the annual operating budgets of the American Cancer Society, World Vision, St. Jude's Children's Hospital, Habitat for Humanity, and the American Heart Association combined. Moreover, other scholars estimate that under Obama's proposal charitable organizations would see donations drop possibly by as much as $9 billion every year.

In addition to receiving less money from wealthy donors, charitable organizations under Obama's plan could face a more subtle yet significant challenge: government crowding them out of social welfare provision. This phenomenon occurs when government claims increasing responsibility for tasks once performed by civil society, absorbing a larger percentage of the resources dedicated to carrying out those tasks.

There is another important factor that Messmore does not mention. If the reigning ideological perspective holds that government is intrinsically secular and that whatever government funds must be free from the taint of "sectarian" religion, then the expansion of the public sector must necessarily come at the expense of those initiatives with an overt confessional basis. The result might be what the late Richard John Neuhaus famously called the naked public square, except that in reality it is nothing of the sort, because it is inevitably infused with religious conviction of some sort, even if the latter amounts to the belief that the cosmos can be understood without reference to God.

This secular religion comes now to be given a privileged status and a continually growing political and economic space, before which all the particular beliefs held by flesh and blood people — including Christians, Jews and other adherents of traditional revealed religions — must give way. That this effectively erodes religious freedom would seem evident, but many are ready to acquiesce in this for the apparent pragmatic benefits associated with government action. Yet if Messmore is correct, the expected benefits will prove illusory: little will be gained, but much will be lost.

If anything, the administration should be moving in the opposite direction. Recognizing that government cannot bear the entire burden of ameliorating the effects of a sluggish economy, it should instead be raising the charitable deduction rate for taxpayers to encourage a multiplicity of efforts at seeking the public good, leaving ample space for believers to put their faith into action in concrete ways that accord with their own traditions.

Palm Sunday

Niebuhr revisited

As promised, I am linking to my review of Donald A. Carson's recent book, Christ and Culture Revisited, which appears in Comment today: Christ, culture and Carson. Here's an excerpt:

Without a solid creational and biblical foundation for our efforts, any attempt to transform culture will amount to little more than trying to impose our own subjective aspirations on everyone else, whether or not they are willing, or—more significantly—whether or not those aspirations conform to the normative order of creation as understood in the light of Scripture. Moreover, given the encompassing presence and sheer power of the cultures of which we ourselves are part, there is every possibility that they will transform us first, even as we claim the opposite. If we should become comfortable with our surrounding culture, it may be because, by God's grace, the latter will have responded to our successful efforts and become more congenial to true faith. Yet it is just as likely that we will have been unknowingly co-opted by the culture. How can we tell the difference? It will not be easy, but the place to start is by immersing ourselves in God's written word and indwelling its story, as Lesslie Newbigin puts it. In any event, we should make every effort to remain vigilant and to keep our eyes continually on the cross of Jesus Christ.

April snippets

Reports like this used to appear more frequently some decades ago, but they continue to pop up occasionally as we near the end of the first decade of the century: Earth population 'exceeds limits'. This is from Dr. Nina Fedoroff, science and technology advisor to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. One wonders whether she has read this: Age-Quake: Say Hello to Under-population. Of course, policy-makers will have to decide which scenario for the future they find more credible.

My alma mater, the University of Notre Dame, has been embroiled in controversy since it was announced last week that President Barack Obama will be speaking at commencement next month and will be awarded an honorary doctorate of laws. Here Stephen Barr comments on Notre Dame’s Faustian Bargain, while Francis Beckwith, himself a subject of controversy a few years ago, writes on Barack Obama and Notre Dame: Juris Doctor Honoris Causa? How, they ask, can a Catholic university honour someone who has openly worked to remove the few legal protections the unborn still enjoy?

Not surprisingly, Jim Wallis approves of Notre Dame's invitation to Obama, going so far as to mobilize support for it: Obama at Notre Dame: Continuing a Tradition of Dialogue. César Baldelomar, also writing for God's Politics, agrees: The Obama Notre Dame Controversy. Wallis and Baldelomar believe that the likes of Barr and Beckwith (and perhaps even Bishop John D'Arcy) are being divisive and disruptive. Wallis' blog didn't exist back in 2005, when President George W. Bush spoke at Calvin College's commencement, though Wallis himself was at Calvin a few weeks earlier. One wonders whether he thought Bush's presence would continue a tradition of dialogue or whether Wallis might have expressed support for those members of the Calvin community protesting the visit.

While we're on the topic of abortion, the Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, who has been appointed president and dean of Episcopal Divinity School, preached this sermon nearly two years ago: Our Work is Not Done:

And when a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion – there is not a tragedy in sight – only blessing. The ability to enjoy God’s good gift of sexuality without compromising one’s education, life’s work, or ability to put to use God’s gifts and call is simply blessing. These are the two things I want you, please, to remember – abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.

There is little to add to this, except to say that, where a church has lost its way in so fundamental a fashion, people will seek the light of the gospel elsewhere. (Hat tip: Rod Dreher)

Cousin Obama? "On Facebook, various applications posted joke alerts like 'Barack Obama confirmed you as a cousin'." I was one of those who received this message today. Or perhaps the President read my 6-year-old post on statistical genealogy?

Speaking of April Fools Day, this is a rather elaborate prank that I would love to have seen in person:

The films of Hitchcock

Readers of this blog are aware of my longstanding interest in the films of Alfred Hitchcock, some of which I have reviewed here and others on the Internet Movie Database website. Writing for Breakpoint's Worldview magazine, Gina R. Dalfonzo has her own take on Hitch's cinematic oeuvre: Crime and Punishment: Christianity in the Films of Alfred Hitchcock.

One scene I have yet to see commented on in this vein is that in Foreign Correspondent in which Edmund Gwenn's cheerful but sinister character takes Joel McCrea to the top of London's Byzantine-style Westminster Cathedral, from which he intends to dispose of him. As they are about to ascend the tower, we hear through the open door of the church a choral rendition of the haunting Dies Irae from the older version of the Requiem Mass, a tune that has found its way into numerous musical compositions over the centuries. The allusion to impending death is obvious here, as is Hitch's debt to his Catholic upbringing and education, though it would almost certainly be lost on non-Catholic audiences.

Russian Orthodoxy

When our family received the new issue of National Geographic, we were pleasantly surprised to read this photographically rich article on the Russian Orthodox Church. The author, Serge Schmemann, is the son of the late Orthodox theologian, Alexander Schmemann.

New province recognized

The reconfiguration of the Anglican Communion continues apace as its largest province, boasting fully a quarter of the world's Anglicans, has now recognized the new Anglican Church in North America: Church of Nigeria Formally Accepts Emerging Anglican Province.

King David, a flawed ruler

I have always had an affinity for the biblical David, who is second only to Moses in the esteem of the people of Israel down through the centuries. Initially, of course, this personal affinity had everything to do with my sharing his name, an awareness that came already in early childhood. Furthermore, David not only founded a dynasty that ruled for some five centuries, but he was also the ancestor of Jesus himself, "great David's greater Son." 

Moreover, I have a great love for the Psalms, many of which are ascribed to David, who, like me, was a poet and musician. The struggles David expresses in these heartfelt stanzas are ones with which most of us can identify in some measure. Finally, I have inherited my namesake's interest in politics. Throughout much of scripture, David is seen as the paradigmatic monarch, a man after God's own heart (I Samuel 13:14), who sang God's praises and led his people to victory against their enemies. 

But as I've been reading through the Davidic episodes in I and II Samuel in recent weeks, I've been struck by the recognition that, in many respects, David was not that good a king. His reign was an exceedingly turbulent one, marked by warfare, rebellion and filial betrayal. He was a poor administrator and appears to have been propped up by his powerful nephew Joab, to whom he owed his political position. David loved his sons deeply but seemed unable to control them or to command their loyalty. He allowed his personal affections and private allegiances to overwhelm his public duties, especially as his mourning over Absalom's death appeared to manifest an ingratitude to those who had risked so much to save his throne. Once more Joab had to rescue him from his poor judgement (II Samuel 19:1-8). 

Worst of all, David had one of his own soldiers killed so he could take his wife for himself, which incurred the wrath of God as expressed through the prophet Nathan (I Samuel 11-12). Yet David repented and sought forgiveness (Psalm 51 is associated with this incident), which God freely granted while not exempting him from the consequences of this flagrant infraction of his law. 

Finally, David appears to have been given to snap judgements based on hearsay, as seen in the case of Ziba's slander of Jonathan's son Meribaal (II Samuel 16:1-5, 19:24-30). In short, even the justice of David's rule is in doubt, in stark contrast to the evident wisdom of his son Solomon (I Kings 3).

Nevertheless, somehow, through all this David remained a man after God's own heart. Despite his evident flaws, he was still chosen by God to rule his people, "for the LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart" (I Samuel 16:7). Though most of David's descendants were wicked rulers, God remained faithful to his promise to him, maintaining a dynasty that would culminate in the King of kings, whose suffering and death we remember during this season of Lent. 

Of course Lent also reminds us of our own sins, which weigh upon us and poison our actions and relationships with others. I personally find it comforting that, if God could love so flawed a servant as David, he can and will love us too, despite our failings. It is this hope of salvation in Christ that sustains us as we near the feast of his Resurrection.

Advertising and the virtues

Here is Canada's foremost naysayer, David Warren, on advertising:

The secret of advertising, in a largely post-Christian society, is to use a semblance of the theological virtues against the actual cardinal virtues. That is to say, the advertising propagandist must try to convince the prospective purchaser of mass-market goods that he may enjoy a mild parody of faith ("it's the real thing"), hope ("you can lose 10 kilos"), and charity ("make them smile"), if he will only abandon the sales resistance that comes from prudence, justice, temperance and courage.

Second thoughts

During last year's presidential election a number of prominent evangelicals openly aligned themselves with Barack Obama's campaign, claiming, somewhat implausibly, to have succeeded in toning down the Democratic Party's pro-abortion position and to have moved the future president towards an abortion reduction strategy — all of this while claiming the prophetic mantle. As readers of this blog know, I myself was sceptical of these claims, persuaded that these well-intended Christians had allowed themselves to be used for partisan political purposes while receiving little if anything of substance in the exchange.

One of these pro-Obama leaders, ethicist David P. Gushee, is now having second thoughts, as expressed here: Mr. President, we need more than lip service. Gushee writes:

Mexico City, conscience clause, Sebelius, embryonic stem cells. In each case, I have been asked by friends at Democratic or progressive-leaning think tanks not just to refrain from opposing these moves, but instead to support them in the name of a broader understanding of what it means to be pro-life. I mainly refused.

But I do confess that my desire to retain good relationships with the Obama team has tempted me to give what was asked in return for the big payoff of a serious abortion-reduction initiative that I could wholeheartedly support.

But this kind of calculation is precisely what has gotten Christian political activists in trouble in the past, not just for 40 years but for 1,600 years. We gain access to Caesar in order to affect policy; we hold onto access even if it involves compromising some of what we want in policy; in the end, we can easily forget what policies we were after in the first place. I think this definitely happened to the Christian right. It doesn't need to be repeated by the Christian center or left.

Once again, the danger is that, in our efforts to transform the world, we ourselves will be remade into its image. Gushee is perhaps more clear-seeing about this than some of his associates surrounding the new president who have refrained from criticizing him, even when this is obviously called for. Let us hope Obama will read and heed Gushee's frustrated plea for action.

The new Calvinism

A number of my blogging friends have picked up on this surprising TIME Magazine story. Under the general heading of "10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now," number 3 is titled, The New Calvinism. Cardus's Ray Pennings has twice commented on this story: Time Magazine thinks Calvinism is Changing the World?, and Time's Ten Ideas Through the Lens of Number Three. Pennings believes that within a Calvinist framework christian faith can never be merely private but has public significance:

When Calvinism takes hold, it is not just something that impacts Calvinists. It has comprehensive implications for a society when it is consistently lived out. Last week, I was trying to explain to someone why what I believed mattered to my neighbours, and was not simply a private matter that they could live with out of respect for my religious freedom and because "I'm happy it works for you -- I'll find truth in my own corner." I used an ecological metaphor. When we live together, we share the air and water -- they don't respect the boundaries of private and public we set between us. So it is that personal religious beliefs, when taken seriously, end up not being all that personal. That is not just true for Calvinism -- it is as true for secularist belief, Islamic adherence, or new age philosophy. Our beliefs impact the social ecosystem in which we live and ultimately, the purity and health (or lack thereof) of the prevailing belief systems that shape our politics, economics, culture and every other aspect of society are impacted.

Not all professed Calvinists are necessarily keen on what they see as this "worldly" vision of transformation. The Acton Institute's Jordan J. Ballor cites a recent article by Calvin Van Reken analyzing the changes in hymns sung in the Christian Reformed Church over the decades: ‘Calvinism’ Transforming and Transformed.

[Van Reken] gives Rev. George Croly’s “Spirit of God, Who Dwells within My Heart,” which dates from 1867, as an example. When Croly wrote the song, it began, “Spirit of God, who dwells within my heart, / wean it from earth.” In its current form, the song begins, “Spirit of God, who dwells within my heart, / wean it from sin, through all its pulses move” (emphasis added).

Van Reken concludes that “Rev. Croly was praying in particular for grace that would help him be weaned from attachments to this world. In Reformed churches today, this is rarely sung or spoken. After all, because our world belongs to God, should we not feel at home here?”

As Van Reken also notes in the article, in his book The Jesus I Never Knew Philip Yancey passes along the words of his former minister Bill Leslie, who “told him that as churches grow wealthier and wealthier, their preferences for hymns changes from ‘this world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through,’ to ‘This is my Father’s world.’”

It’s worth considering as “The New Calvinism” becomes a force for changing the world the extent to which “Calvinism,” or better “Reformed theology,” is also changed, and not always for the better. Van Reken’s critique and engagement with the “new” view is an important one that ought to be thoughtfully considered by all proponents of “The New Calvinism.”

There are some real positives in the new vision, and some correctives to the old vision that need to be taken seriously. But as Van Reken summarizes, “The new vision can also generate a real problem: It focuses all our attention on this world and the good we can do. In so doing, the hope of heaven can be diminished, with the result that some come to love the world and the things in it. In a word, it helps us become worldly.”

There is, of course, a genuine danger that, as Christians undertake to transform the world for the cause of Christ, they will themselves be transformed by the world. We are always in danger of loving the creation more than the Creator. Yet the way to combat this is not to reject God's good creation but to love it ordinately as the gift of God's grace, and to do the hard work of grappling with the very spirits that would deform our affections and obstruct the culmination of God's kingdom and the redemption of that creation. With due respect to Croly, it is precisely from sin that we seek freedom in Christ, not from our created corporeality and its attendant responsibilities, which will be transformed and redeemed in the promised resurrection of the righteous.

I will take up this issue again in a review article forthcoming in Comment on Donald A. Carson's Christ and Culture Revisited. Stay tuned.

Creation Regained

From Geneva to Constantinople

The Genevan Psalms in Turkish? Read about it here.

Rights, freedom and justice

The following article appears in the new issue of Christian Courier dated today:

In our postchristian society, appeals to human rights have become the functional equivalent of the biblical prophets’ “thus saith the Lord.” They are treated as the final word on a subject, and those disputing such appeals are likely to be marginalized as heretics. In such a climate, some people are tempted to give up altogether on the concept of rights, simply because so many tend to use it as a justification for subjective wants. Yet the abuse of something cannot rule out its legitimate use. There are two foundational problems with the current legal climate surrounding rights.

First, we tend to assume that all rights are justiciable, that is, properly to be brought before a judicial or quasi-judicial body to be settled in case of a claimed violation. However, this is an erroneous assumption that is incompatible with constitutional government and a recognition of the legitimate multiplicity of legal spheres. Matilda can be said to have a genuine right to her husband Frank’s love. Yet the state cannot force Frank to love his wife, because spousal love lies outside the proper competence of governmental authority.

So how would a violation of such a right be addressed? Primarily within the marital context itself. If Matilda feels that Frank is not paying enough attention to her, she does not complain to a human rights commission; she takes it up with Frank by reminding him of his responsibilities as husband. If this has no effect and if Frank stubbornly refuses to listen to and love her, there’s always the possibility of divorce. Yet even in this case the state has not really forced Frank to love Matilda; it has simply recognized the dissolution of their marriage. To be sure, the state has stepped in here, but only as a last resort. Respecting and protecting spousal rights properly belong to the spouses themselves, and perhaps to those who witnessed their vows. Government does not create these rights; it only provides a legal backup in case the marital community irreparably breaks down.

Second, the late Sir Isaiah Berlin famously distinguished between negative and positive freedoms, between “freedom from” and “freedom to.” In the past most bills or charters of rights limited themselves to protecting certain negative rights, including those to freedom of speech, religion, press, association and the like. Such rights call on government simply to refrain from breaching them. No extra expenditure of funds is required. In fact, a government may actually save money by closing down an agency responsible for censoring books, periodicals and broadcasting. In so doing it is recognizing that there are certain activities lying beyond its normative competence.

When we get into the realm of positive freedoms the issue of rights becomes more complicated. In a democracy, of course, government undertakes to protect the right to vote, which is the most basic positive right. However, “freedom to”, if wedded to an expansive notion of rights and their justiciability, is incompatible with a recognition of limits to government. If I claim to have a right to nourishment, does that obligate government to force the local grocer to provide me with food?

If I claim a right to have my idiosyncratic lifestyle choices affirmed by society, does this entail government forcing others to express support for me and shutting down all expression of disapproval? If so, that does not fit at all well into a robust notion of constitutional government. Yet this is where much of North America appears to be going at present.

Repealing our Charter of Rights and Freedoms is not the answer. What needs to be changed is the willingness of our courts to treat mere policy aspirations as potential rights; instead they should return them to the ordinary deliberative processes crucial to representative government.

March snippets

Michael Jansen reviews Martin Packard's Getting it Wrong: Fragments from a Cyprus Diary 1964: How big-power agendas and 'green lines' have kept Cyprus divided. I've not yet seen the book, but the review leads me to conclude that reading it would not be good for my blood pressure.

Christian History has just published my review article: Foreign Policy as Spiritual Warfare. The book under review is Malcolm Magee's What the World Should Be: Woodrow Wilson and the Crafting of a Faith-Based Foreign Policy, a fascinating account of an American academic and statesman who was gripped by the conviction that the christian faith has implications for all of life, including politics.

I have just posted on my Genevan Psalter website and blog a video of Psalm 23 sung in Spanish. Some time ago I also posted a non-Genevan metrical versification of Psalm 95, set to an old Cypriot folk tune. My sister and I recorded this back in 1993 at St. Barnabas Church, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. (Text copyright © 1986 by David T. Koyzis; recording copyright © 1993 by David Koyzis and Yvonne Koyzis Hook)

In 1913 the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution provided for direct election of Senators to the upper house of Congress. Prior to then they were elected by the state legislatures and could thus be seen to represent the state governments. However, the democratization of the Senate increased the possibility of deadlock between the two chambers, because both could now claim a mandate from the electorate. One side effect has been an increase in the use of a tactic that was once rare: Filibusters: The Senate’s Self-Inflicted Wound. Some constitutions, e.g., Australia's, provide mechanisms for breaking a deadlock between two parliamentary chambers. Yet the chances of passing another amendment to rectify this problem in the US are slim, in my estimation.

Did Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal inadvertently prolong the Great Depression, and are there parallels to today? Listen to this and see what you think.

My friend, the Rev. Chuck Huckaby (aka Hukabyi Károly Pál), a minister in the Hungarian Reformed Calvin Synod, maintains a website devoted to his Heidelberg Catechism Project. With the author's permission, he has posted on this site my own metrical rendition of question and answer 1 of the Catechism: I Belong. I doubt that any historic catechism can equal the Heidelberg in terms of its beauty and winsome teaching of the message of the gospel.

Every academic discipline has its intellectual gate keepers, who undertake to determine who is in and who is out. The field of biblical studies is no different in this respect. Where it does differ is in the reality that its subject matter is considered by huge numbers of people to be sacred writ and the very Word of God. This poses difficulties to those for whom a certain conception of science demands that this Word be treated like every other word. The ensuing controversy can be traced through this recent exchange. First, R. R. Reno: Recovering the Bible. Second, John W. Martens: No Country for Biblical Scholars. And finally, Reno again: Whither Historical Criticism? Is it possible to bridge the peculiarly modern and postmodern cleavage between those who explore the historical settings of the biblical texts and those who focus on the redemptive meaning of Scripture as a whole?

This isn't really news: U.S. supports creation of Palestinian state: Clinton. Successive American and Israeli governments have claimed to favour this in recent years, and concrete moves have been made in this direction. Unfortunately, Palestinians have not been well served by their own leaders, who have repeatedly squandered opportunities aimed at an admittedly less-than-perfect solution.

Which brings us back to Cyprus. . . .

Brubeck's asymmetrical rhythms

Has it really been 50 years since the Dave Brubeck Quartet recorded and released Take Five, composed by the group's saxophonist Paul Desmond? In the ensuing decades, this piece, written in 5/4 time, has become a jazz classic.



Two years later the group recorded Unsquare Dance, composed in 7/4 time.



I've always had an affinity for Brubeck's music, not only because it's great music, but because of his affection for asymmetrical rhythms, which are very common in Greek and Greek Cypriot folk music. Much of the music I have composed over the years is in similar rhythms, which are fairly rare in western music.

Brubeck is in his 89th year. Long may he continue to make music.