Saturday, January 20, 2007
Random Musings for the Week ending January 20, 2007 – On Obama, Marriage, and Global Warming
This is a new post type. As any reader of this site knows, I write really long posts in general, which means that I don’t post as often and topics go flying by. So from now on at the end of the week I will do a post that captures random thoughts for the week. Here goes issue #1.
Obama and the Madrassa – So someone tracked down that Barak Obama attended a madrassa (a type of religious school in Muslim communities that are focused solely on the Koran http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrasah). Is this a big deal?
Not really, since he is now a member of the Untied Church of Christ (the UCC, or as the old joke goes among UCC members, Unitarians Considering Christ). Though as an evangelical UCC isn’t exactly a “recommendation.” The only real issue here is his decision to cover-up the fact. Evidently in his biography he says he attended two schools, “a predominately Catholic one and a predominately Muslim one.” Reality time – Catholic and Protestant schools around the globe are almost entirely non-sectarian. They take kids of any faith because a) they see blessing people with education regardless of their faith part of the calling to love our neighbors and b) it’s a great way to evangelise the children (hey, as long as its not done in a manipulative way, that is great). Madrassas are not “primarily Muslim” – they are Muslim and are used for the teaching of the Koran. So why does Obama hide this truth? What does this say about his character? That is the real issue – tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. That is the kind of character we need in elected officials.
Islam: A One Way Door – As any reader here knows I have a great and deep respect for Islam and Islamic culture (in other words, sorry, I am about as far from an Islamiphobe as you can find). I have often said that, were it not for the person a truth (as evangelicals believe it) of Jesus Christ (which, granted, is a big “if”) I would be a Muslim. Having said that, the real issue with Islam as a member of the global community is that it is a one way religion. One can choose to become a Muslim, but there is no provision within Islam for leaving the faith. To be fair for centuries there was an implied “One Way Only” sign within Christianity, though we did practice ex-communication, since the Christian faith was supposed (sigh) to be a community of faithful. Thankfully the emphasis on “no compulsion in faith” and the idea that we must be in active fellowship with the Triune God through our relationship with Jesus Christ has made the idea that someone “cannot stop being a Christian” ludicrous.
In Islam, whether born into the faith or choosing it by one’s own free will, once a Muslim always a Muslim. That means that you have closed off of the ability for people to freely pursue truth. They can never, regardless of what their search for truth has shown them, align fully with their perception of truth by becoming a Buddhist, Hindu, Sihk, Christian or atheist. You are forever a Muslim, and attempts to formally leave are either illegal in many Muslim countries or result in potential death sentences for apostasy. And yes, this happens all over the world every year, and, I know of cases myself through contacts in the Christian missions community. For Islam to truly become a member of the global community, there has to be an exit door constructed into the edifice of Islamic theology. The best treatment of this from a fictional perspective I have found is in the Mormon sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card’s (my personal favourite Sci-Fi writer) Shadow of the Giant.
The Marriage Lie – Oh boy, don’t I feel silly. I heard the news account, “For the first time more American women living outside of marriage than in” and thought it was true. I thought it was some new Census report. Nope. It is manipulation of census data for the purpose of scoring points politically. I am not a big fan of Michael Medved, but he does a great job of breaking down the actual data here (http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/MichaelMedved/2007/01/18/journalistic_malpractice_in_marriage_is_dead_report).
This is the problem with a semi-scientific culture. We hear statistics and think they are indicative of reality. We trust things that sound scientific. The truth is that the old adage, “there are lies, damn lies, and statistics” is still true. Any piece of data can be cut, parsed, and stretched to say just about anything. Oh, and it is not just the secular media that does this. The Barna Organization, the “leading” Christian polling agency is equally guilty of manipulating data. For a great treatment on the using statistics to scare people in the Church, see this one by Christian Smith in the latest issue of Christianity Today’s magazine, Books and Culture (http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/001/5.11.html)
The NY Times piece is simply propaganda, the desire to see marriage go away as an institution in order to bring freedom and liberation to people, especially women (doubt it, read the article and count the number of sad unmarried women stories). That may be your desire, but the fact is, people still love the “commitment” and joys that come with being married.
Global Warming Fascism – You probably have already heard about this, but the host of The Weather Channel’s “The Climate Code,” Dr. Heidi Cullen has said this week that any meteorologist who does not agree with the idea of man-made global warming should have their American Meteorologists Society certification taken from them. After all, its not “scientific consensus.”
Okay, several points on this. The ideas that the “world is flat,” that “the earth is at the center of the universe,” the existence of ether in outer space, were at one time all “scientific consensus.” Folks, “scientific consensus” is entirely meaningless. Truth is what essential. And you know what, when people really have truth on their side, they don’t have to resort to tactics like “pulling people’s certification” from them. They present their data and know that those who oppose them will be found wanting (by the, way this is part of the reason why we don’t believe in compulsion in faith in Christian theology).
The fact is that there are lots of scientist, including lots who are not being funded by the oil industry, that do not agree that humankind is the cause of the present change in weather patterns or, in some cases, that we are actually seeing any long-term warming trends.
For a great read on this from a meteorologist, see James Spann’s blog (he is a weather guy in Alabama) or this article from newsbusters.org (yes, I know they are right wing, but in this case it is a good summary of the argument) - http://newsbusters.org/node/10260
The global warming debate is actually very similar to the “Christianity is going to die in America” debate that Christian Smith discusses in his article. Where there is crisis there is money – follow the dollars. Now, that does not mean that just because someone is making money on a topic means that they are disingenuous, but you do need to take their words with the appropriate grain of salt.
Look, I am not scientist, but I have studied the data on global warming and walked out half way through An Inconvenient Truth (can one say, junk science). The fact is that there is no “normal Earth weather.” Patterns are in constant flux, always have been. Now, that does not mean that we should not try and find alternatives to fossil fuels (there are many good arguments for doing this), or that we should encourage people to treat the creation poorly. Quite the opposite – it is part of our creation mandate to care for our fellow-Christian (J.R.R. Tolkein always called creation not our mother, which is blasphemy and pagan) but our sister). But the solutions (i.e., Kyoto Protocalls) are both unrealistic, as well as anti-Western (can you ignore India and China’s pollution and think you are going to make a difference in climate change?).
When I was in Oxford, U.K. on January 1, 2006, I watched this Channel 4 special on what human beings needed to do to stop climate change – can you say no cars, no boats, not a single luxury (wait, that is Gilligan’s Island), and massive pulling back in living standards. Guess what this will mean – devastation of the global economy and the worsening of poverty (which really has been severely cut back in the past 30 years), and millions of deaths among the worlds poor. Sorry, as a Christian, that is not acceptable. And it certainly isn’t something I can vote for to fix a problem that is neither proven nor proven to be a cataclysm worse than the global re-introduction of massive poverty.
Well, that about covers it for this week. See ya’ next week to discuss the world as it plays out this week.
PS – Didn’t discuss it this week, but next week will address the entire anti-Bush surge argument (waiting for the vote). For great coverage, see http://www.hughhewitt.com, the best darn radio talk show host in the world. Let me just say this to all those who oppose the surge – what is your plan? If we cannot reinforce our troops, and doing what we are doing is “losing” then are you for losing? If not, tell me your plan. Email me –
Only those who pose alternative should be listened to when they complain about the present.
Theological Musings on Important Topics • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
