Singing the liturgy

From Zenit: "Gregorian chant has been unjustly abandoned and its place in the life of the Church should be recovered, says a Vatican aide." I wonder what Monsignor Grau would think of the Genevan Psalter?

Cyprus decision

One awaits the long-range implication of this for the continuing division of Cyprus: Turkey faces huge payout for homes in Cyprus. According to the Guardian Unlimited report, "Turkey will have to pay hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Greek Cypriots who lost their land and homes during the invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974, the European court of human rights ruled yesterday." The European Court of Human Rights is, incidentally, an institution of the Council of Europe, not the European Union.

What shall we make of this story: How the U.N. betrayed Cyprus? Is there really hard evidence "that Turkey launched its invasion of Cyprus only after [US Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger gave the OK"? Did he also threaten "to have the U.S. Sixth Fleet sink a naval armada sent by Greece to defend Cyprus after Turkey launched its invasion"?

The Council of Europe has spoken

One senses that this document, produced by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, is directed primarily at Islam: Resolution 1464 (2005): Women and religion in Europe. All the same, what is undoubtedly a well-intended effort to protect the rights of women in the member states of the Council of Europe risks making the state a dangerous arbiter of what can and cannot be believed by adherents of virtually every historic faith tradition, including Christianity and Judaism. The Assembly shows its hand in the second paragraph, which asserts that the influence of religion on women is "seldom benign." In response, the Moscow Patriarchate has published its own statement, affirming much of the document while questioning its more dangerous implications. (From Orthodoxy Today)

The Annunciation


Theresa Koyzis, 2005

Pro-life is not enough

As promised, I am posting a slightly altered version of my column for the 21 November issue of Christian Courier:

For just over three decades now – for as long as I have been aware of the abortion issue – I have considered myself pro-life. The premature birth of our daughter 7 years ago reinforced this conviction, due to our experience of her pains and joys when she should still have been in the womb. Nevertheless, I have opposed the argument that one should vote only for the obviously pro-life candidate at election time. Why?

To be sure, I do not accept the reasoning of those who, following the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago, claim to adhere to a “seamless garment” approach linking together abortion, capital punishment, warfare and poverty as pro-life issues. Good people can disagree on the best way to address poverty, on whether to wage war in contingent circumstances, and on whether the death penalty is proper retribution for those who have taken innocent life. However, the abortion issue is qualitatively different. Here disagreement revolves around, not how best to protect the unborn child, but whether to do so at all. For this reason those attempting to tie such different issues together sow confusion.

At the same time, there are professed pro-lifers who are so preoccupied with this single issue that they are in danger of overlooking the intrinsic worth of political order itself as a gift of God's grace. Some would seemingly risk bringing down this order if it would serve to prevent one more abortion. Yet John Calvin writes of civil government that “Its function among men is no less than that of bread, water, sun, and air; indeed, its place of honour is far more excellent.” Even when government tolerates specific injustices, it nevertheless plays a crucial larger role in the maintenance and flourishing of human social life. Although it would take too much space to recall every possible way it does this, it is worth pointing out six basic tasks: (1) to uphold the public legal framework within which a variety of human activities take place; (2) to defend life, liberty and property; (3) to protect the diversity of human communities; (4) to care for the commons, that is, the shared patrimony of the body politic; (5) to temper the harsh edges of the economic marketplace; and (6) to assume some responsibility for the economically disadvantaged.

The fact that a given government fails to, say, defend the lives of all the unborn or to protect marriage as a distinctive institution cannot by itself vindicate the single-issue voter, especially if the chosen issue is detached from a recognition of the larger task of government to do public justice. The 17th-century political philosopher Thomas Hobbes was arguably pro-life in the sense that he believed the chief task of the sovereign to be the protection of his subjects’ lives. Yet he also believed that the most effective government to this end was one ruled by a single will unconstrained by law. In short, Hobbes may have got that one issue right, but his overall understanding of government and its role was severely defective.

Fortunately, the vast majority of pro-lifers understand this and respect the institutions of government as the good gift of God. But when some ask their supporters, as one website does, to sign a pledge that they will vote only for pro-life candidates, they effectively ask them to overlook the importance of a variety of issues that may impact the well-being of the constitution as a whole. They ask them to overlook corruption, greed, incompetence and bad domestic and foreign policies, any of which might adversely affect the general functionality of the political system. This is far from adequate as a coherent political agenda.

Of course, we have every reason to call ourselves pro-life and to defend the unborn to the best of our abilities. But we shouldn’t use this label as an excuse to avoid the necessary but difficult job of thinking and working communally through the larger task of the state to do public justice. Nor should we allow it to shortcircuit the needed effort to discern the spirits behind the ideological visions that people bring to the public square.

Limbo to be abolished?

This story is likely to puzzle protestants: Roman Catholic Church Considers Abolishing Limbo Theory. It raises at least two crucial questions: How can one infallible pope abolish a doctrine seemingly affirmed by a previous infallible pope? And what is the source of authority for judging the veracity of such a doctrine or the lack thereof?

By the way, it was Pius X, not Pius V, who reigned from 1903 to 1914.

The perils of the internet: another viewpoint

Controversy notwithstanding, perhaps there's something to be said in its favour: A Vote of Confidence in Wikipedia. But I still don't like to see my students quoting it in their written work.

Lessons and carols

This sunday, 18 December, at 7 o'clock pm, there will be a Festival of Lessons and Carols at the Church of St. John the Evangelist, at the corner of Locke and Charlton Streets in Hamilton. Come one and all. Here is something I wrote two years ago about this annual event.

Candidates' debate: en français

The four party leaders went head to head last evening in the first verbal contest of the election campaign: First debate produces few fireworks. Tonight they go at it again, but in English.

The Iraq election

Pray for its success, and for peace, order and good government in that troubled country.

The election campaign: reform promised

On the campaign trail, Conservative leader Stephen Harper has promised a number of constitutional reforms, including an elected Senate and fixed election dates. What about proportional representation?

In a highly unusual move, a former representative of the Queen, Ed Schreyer, plans to run for the New Democratic Party in Manitoba. That will raise more than a few eyebrows, I should think. Perhaps even at Buckingham Palace.

Social conservatism

The most recent Comment carries an article by Paul Tuns, Social conservatism's Canadian barriers. The responses to Tuns by John Kamphof and Stephen Vander Klippe raise the larger issue of the proper relationship between a normative understanding of politics in God's world and the so-called "hot moral issues" of the day. Unfortunately, as I have argued elsewhere, there is a pronounced tendency towards moralism amongst North Americans, and perhaps especially among Christians. What is the antidote? I will address this soon by posting here a recent Christian Courier column of mine, titled, "Pro-life is not enough."

Today's health news

Fibre's benefits questioned in fight against colon cancer. So much for our daily dose of porridge. Back to steak and eggs for breakfast.

Deutero-Isaiah?

For at least two of the sundays in Advent, the three-year lectionary prescribes Old Testament readings from Isaiah, chapters 40 and following. In our church the past two sundays, the bulletin printed the following preface: "A reading from the second book of Isaiah," which the reader was expected to say aloud before reciting the passage itself. This struck me as odd. To be sure, many if not most biblical scholars believe that chapters 40 through 66 (or possibly only through 55) were written by someone, usually called Deutero-Isaiah, living centuries after the 8th-century prophet himself. Yet the church has always understood the book to be a canonical unity, and indeed there are a number of elements, such as the uniquely Isaian reference to God as the Holy One of Israel, tying together its chapters. The last two sundays' bulletins struck me as the product of a misguided effort to imbue a fallible and highly contestable scholarly theory concerning authorship with something approaching canonical status itself.

This past sunday, however, the reader (who is the husband of a Redeemer colleague) chose to ignore the word second and simply said, "A reading from the book of Isaiah." Good for him.

Post-abortion trauma

This news is hardly surprising: 'Anguish of abortion is worse than miscarriage'.

The election campaign: childcare policy

The Prime Minister's Office is in damage control mode today after Scott Reid's ill-considered criticism of the opposition: Tory plan is 'beer and popcorn' money.

The perils of the internet, continued

The prankster who authored the false biography of John Siegenthaler has been unmasked. In the meantime, Wikipedia has come off looking very bad indeed. Some months ago someone went so far as to post a biography of me on Wikipedia, but it was subsequently deleted by a Wikipedia administrator who judged that the subject of said biography was a "nonnotable." That's fine with me.

As for that ancient question, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, here is a possible candidate: Wikipedia Watch.

Last interview

Glenn Friesen has posted on his website an English translation of Herman Dooyeweerd's last interview, conducted by lawyer Pieter Boeles in 1975, the very year I first learned of Dooyeweerd's philosophy.

Zionism with a bolshevik twist

Iran's outspoken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made yet another less than fully helpful foreign policy initiative by urging that Israel be relocated to Europe. One safely predicts that, after careful deliberation, the Israeli government will decline his generous offer.

While we're on the subject, few people are likely aware of the other Jewish homeland. It's called the Jewish Autonomous Republic of Birobidjan, established by the Soviet Union in the far east of Siberia along its sometimes tense Amur River border with China. A veritable promised land, if there was one.

The end of an era

For those of us who grew up in the Chicago area, the name Marshall Field & Co. has more than a familiar ring. It calls to mind the big clock at the State Street store in the Loop; the elaborate, animated Christmas displays in the windows along that same street; a meal at the foot of the giant Christmas tree in the Walnut Room; and waiting in a ridiculously long line to sit on Santa Claus's lap. I have especially fond memories of my mother's best childhood friend driving us into the Loop in her Volkswagen Beetle around 1960 and our lunching in the Walnut Room. But this is Fields' last Christmas. Next year all Fields stores will become Macy's, a result of the company's purchase by Federated Department Stores. Another link with the past – my own past – will be gone.

Photo: Bill and Jill Haueisen