Crocodile tears.

Or, "Progressives pretend to be upset about the iconoclasm they've tried to ram down everyone's throats since 1965."

The merry band of lassies and lads at the Reporter claim to be appalled--just appalled!--by a pastor's decision to cover a mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I agree--it's a horror. The Archbishop is screwing this one up.

But...color me skeptical that the folks at the Reporter are truly upset by the actual covering, though. The Reporter piece reeks of opportunism, getting the chance to rage at a despised bishop to their right (which, yes, is most of them). I mean, how can the same people who rip out baldaccinos, high altars, altar rails, statuary, crucifixes, etc. at the drop of a hat really be upset by the covering of a mural above the altar? Or am I to believe that the Reporter crowd suddenly got the bulletin from II Nicaea, rekindling that ol' time religion?

Even better: there's evidence for the opportunism. From right here in Michigan, when some of the late bishop Untener's apparatchiks did the exact same thing to a Hispanic parish in Saginaw, removing the statue of the Guadalupana commissioned by the Mexican families in the parish back in 1961. Reporter coverage of that abuse of the religious sensibilities of Hispanic parishoners? Zilch. Try it yourself. I used "Guadalupe statue" and "rainbow parish."

Can't embarrass the administration of a late progressive hero, can we? But the Devil Chaput? Avengers assemble!

Nice bit of canned outrage by the folks in KC. Need to work on making it less transparent next time, though.

Adjectives.

There's one glaring problem with this otherwise-laudable statement from a Catholic perspective.

What is it?

How about this:

The threatened burning of copies of the Holy Qu’ran this Saturday is a particularly egregious offense that demands the strongest possible condemnation by all who value civility in public life and seek to honor the sacred memory of those who lost their lives on September 11.

The problem is with the word "Holy." If you're a Catholic, the Koran doesn't get that adjective. Period. I understand the need to be good neighbors, and I'm actually a fan of civility, if haphazard in my observance. But grownups understand that faithful members of one religion can't call someone else's holy book "Holy."

Muslims know this, as this Muslim interfaith outreach demonstrates, reserving the adjective only for references to the Koran, even though it respectfully quotes the Holy Bible. Which is perfectly fine--it was written by Muslims, and they can label as they like. No offense intended or taken.

But. If it's an interfaith statement, then make it neutral. Or be a grownup and politely object. Alas, the Archbishop Emeritus of Washington is best known for his efforts to be the ecclesiastical version of Spinal Tap bassist Derek Smalls.

"We're very lucky in the band in that we have two visionaries, David and Nigel, they're like poets, like Shelley and Byron. They're two distinct types of visionaries, it's like fire and ice, basically. I feel my role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water."

Sounds like another one of those interfaith "dialogues" described by a rather hardbitten Vaticanista to the noted polemicist Ibn Warraq:

Nearly ten years ago, I was the guest of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) of Rome. PISAI is dedicated to interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims. But as the director at the time said to me, “There is no real dialogue, since Muslims never reciprocate the goodwill gestures made by the Christians. The result is we sit down together, and the Christians say what a wonderful religion Islam is, and the Muslims say what a wonderful religion Islam is.”

A disturbing story.

A more accurate description would be "one evangelical," because the case for Mr. Lively's foreknowledge of the scope of the law looks pretty solid.

Any advocacy of the death penalty for homosexuals is horrific. It should go without saying, you'd think.

Thank you for letting me borrow the Sponger for a while.

The Rev. John Shelby Spong simply couldn't care less about the Catholic provision for the Anglicans.

Which is why he wrote 400 words about it and called people who disagree with his secular hard leftist worldview segregationists and whatnot.

Both of these church leaders seem to me to be lost in the fog of antiquity. For that reason it matters little to me or to most of the world that they continue to play their ecclesiastical kindergarten games. I am quite simply not interested in this debate.

Untruer words were never spoken. *Sure* you don't care, John. I mean, *everyone* cranks out 400 words about something they could care less about, flinging the schoolyard insults all the while.

Don't worry, though--I have every confidence you'll be called for comment when the Episcopalians consecrate a Playstation as Bishop. Then you can wax flatulent about how the "truly enlightened" jettisoned such "obsolete" notions as "organicentrism" *ages* ago...

TEC-tual healing, oh baby...

Miami's Fr. Oprah pulls the ripcord and jines the Piskies.

Here he stan--...uh, whoops...never mind.

He's going to have to do something really interesting before he's considered miter material, though.

Not so BTW, a hearty round of applause for all the priests who adhere to their vows with honor. I appreciate it, and I know I'm not alone.

Myself, I'd go, run around the house chanting in Latin, spitting dyed creamed corn at everybody and generally have a good time with the family.

But that's just me.

My father's family, by contrast, sees mental illness as a stigma and has always disagreed with my approach to treatment. Recently, they invited me to my grandmother's birthday party. When I arrived, everyone was sitting solemnly around the living room, and the local pastor was there. He calmly explained to me that I was not actually mentally ill but possessed by agents of Satan and in need of an exorcism. I choked back tears as I explained to them that I did not need any demons driven out, and the evening ended awkwardly. Now they've invited me for Thanksgiving...

Help Heather win a contest!

Over at the MCJ. She's captioned this picture of Episcopal overseers:

She'll have the salad.

What did Churchill say about fanatics?

Someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject?

Meet Jennifer Thornburg.

Remember, she's just 19 so it's hopefully just a phase.

Sometimes a water tower is just a water tower.

Then again, there's Ypsilanti:

No sniggering.

Thanks to Zach for the reminder, as we are informed that "the fullness of the faith" resides in the American Episcopal church.

It's kinda cute, really--like watching a snail having a hissy fit and proclaiming itself "king of the jungle."

"Make sure you're not bashing Muslims. Never say Muslims are evil. They're just like you and me."

So speaks Jay Smith, an English Christian who routinely debates Muslims in Hyde Park and elsewhere.

Western seminaries taught Smith "friendship evangelism" as the primary way to share Christ with Muslims. Nothing should offend. Never point out contradictions, inconsistencies, or historical inaccuracies in another person's religious beliefs. Everything aims to convert. Judge results by the number of conversions.

Smith decided to take an alternate approach:

Defend historic, orthodox Christianity.

Answer untruths that Islam proclaims about the Bible, Jesus, and Christians.

Hold Islam itself accountable for the actions of its followers.

"We have to start taking Christ back to his Mediterranean roots," says Smith. "True love confronts friends when they go wrong. Paul certainly argued. Jesus certainly argued. That's the kind of love Muslims need to hear.

"Propositional truth confronts," he argues, in fundamentalist fashion. "If there's not a reaction, we're not preaching the gospel."

In most Muslim-Christian dialogue, Smith believes Christians typically concede on points of orthodox doctrine to make the faith palatable to Muslims. Smith asks: Why should Muslims respect any Christian who distances himself from what he claims to believe?

Read the whole thing.

Greetings, fellow polytheists.

U.S. Commission reiterates call to close Islamic school in Fairfax, Virginia.

Textbooks at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia teach students that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam, according to a federal investigation released Wednesday.

Other passages in the school's textbooks state that "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people" and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed "polytheists."

* * *

The commission said it obtained 17 of the academy's textbooks through a variety of channels, including from members of Congress. The texts did appear to contain numerous revisions, including pages that were removed or passages that were whited out, but numerous troubling passages remained, according to the panel:
_ The authors of a 12th-grade text on Koranic interpretation state that apostates (those who convert from Islam), adulterers and people who murder Muslims can be permissibly killed.

_ The authors of a 12th-grade text on monotheism write that "(m)ajor polytheism makes blood and wealth permissible," meaning that a Muslim can take with impunity the life and property of someone believed guilty of polytheism. According to the panel, the strict Saudi interpretation of polytheism includes Shiite and Sufi Muslims as well as Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists.

_ A social studies text offers the view that Jews were responsible for the split between Sunni and Shiite Muslims: "The cause of the discord: The Jews conspired against Islam and its people. A sly, wicked person who sinfully and deceitfully professed Islam infiltrated (the Muslims)."

More generally, the panel found that the academy textbooks hold the view that the Muslim world was strong when united under a single caliph, the Arabic language and the Sunni creed, and that Muslims have grown weak because of foreign influence and internal divisions.

Note the highlighted section because it's true. Consider this telling passage from an ex-Methodist's conversion to Islam, which I read about a year ago:

He immediately cut me off with a simple statement: “You finally couldn’t stomach the polytheism anymore, could you?” He knew exactly why I was a Muslim, and he didn’t disagree with my decision!

More joy--he's a very prominent proselytizer (use the keyword "Dirks"), as far as these things go.

Yes, I know--Methodists will convert at the drop of a hat to anything (even Catholicism), but it's food for thought, especially when considering the happy-clappy one big Abrahamic family line that gets the most publicity.

Four. Years.

Texas authorities knew about this abusive polygamist cult for that long and didn't act until now.

Doran said it was not until after the raid began that he learned that the sect was, in fact, marrying off underage girls at the compound and had a bed in its soaring limestone temple where the girls were required to immediately consummate their marriages. Also, investigators say a number of teenage girls there are pregnant.

Authorities in Texas suspected there would be trouble ever since members of the renegade Mormon splinter group - the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - bought an exotic game ranch in Eldorado in 2004 and began building the ranch.

Warren Jeffs, the sect's prophet and spiritual leader at its longtime headquarters in the dusty, side-by-side towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., was charged in 2005 and 2006 with forcing underage girls into marriages there. He was convicted in September in Utah of being an accomplice to rape and is serving up to life in prison.

Doran had been making occasional visits to the Eldorado compound - he even called to tell members of Jeffs' capture in 2006 - but he said he saw nothing to warrant a criminal investigation. Most of those milling around the compound would scatter when he and a Texas Ranger visited, he said.

"You can only press someone so far without having a criminal investigation going on," the sheriff said. "This group doesn't openly talk and they do not openly answer questions."

SOUNDS LIKE YOU'VE HAD PROBABLE CAUSE FOR AT LEAST TWO YEARS, YOU JERK. MAGISTRATES WILL FLING SIGNED SEARCH WARRANTS LIKE GIs THREW HERSHEY BARS.

Hope you can live with all those shattered girls' lives on your conscience, you horse's ass. Push your legislator, notify the feds. DO SOMETHING.

Yeah, yeah--stale evidence, etc. The point is, nobody even tried to address it until one of the girls made a rape accusation. A collective looking the other way by a whole lot of people tasked with the job for looking out for the girls' welfare. Sickening.

Fun with the time machine!

On a lark, I decided to take the temporal Camaro to the near future, specifically the next Lambeth Conference being held by the Anglicans.

I snapped a couple of shots of Archbishop Williams while I was there. He was really upbeat and positive, reminding the attendees to "Remain calm" and that "All is well!"

So, brothers and sisters of the Anglican world, you've got that going for you.

[H/t to Chris for the inspiration.]

Lord Kitchener would have other ideas, I think.

Continuing insanity in the Sudan. "Guilty of inciting religious hatred."

Naming a teddy bear Muhammad. Gotcha. I suppose seeing it through ninth century lenses helps it make sense.

However loosely you need to define that last word, of course.

Hey, at least they didn't beat her savagely. And it's not like the genocide in the Darfur region.

Progress...

Now, to be fair, it is comparable to the reactions we Christians have to that whole omitting "Merry Christmas" thing, so glass houses and whatnot.

[Update: her former pupils are supporting her. Death threats also abound, which is forcing the closing of the school in question until things "blow over."]

Update 2: Welcome and scathing common sense from the Supreme Muslim Council of Ireland (emphasis in original):

The Irish Supreme Muslim Council vehemently abhors and deplores the verdict of guilt issued by a Sudanese Court against the British school teacher Gillian Gibbons for allegedly "insulting religion".

The Council believes that a full criminal trial and now custodial sentence over the naming of a classroom toy is abominable and defies common sense.

Indeed it has been clear from the outset that Ms Gibbons did not in anyway desire to malign the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and that the choice of name for the teddy bear had come from the children themselves.

The only thing to come from this affair is for the name of Islam to be dragged through the mud yet again by bigots.

For Muslims across the world, education is of paramount importance particularly because the Prophet Muhammad himself commanded Muslims to seek knowledge wherever they can.

Ms Gibbons was indeed a part of such a noble tradition of teaching others and we are appalled by her treatment and note that Sudanese Courts do not speak for true Islam, or Muslims in Ireland and Europe.

We are saddened that the Muslim world is silent on issues such as these and the punishment of the Saudi girl, but they are quick to issue decrees to justify and appease their political rulers.

We call on the Azhar, who does not hesitate to issue decrees to appease Hosni Mubarak, and the Saudi scholars to forth-rightly condemn such unbecoming behaviour.

We also call on the Sudanese regime to resolve the Darfur crisis rather than concerning themselves with teddy bears.