More Reflection On Rilke

Rilke wrote,

Nothing good, once it has come into existence, may be suppressed. It assumes reality like a tree, on its own; it is, and it flowers, and it bears fruit. Nothing is lost: everything is passed along.

Do you believe that? Or, perhaps, is this more optimistic than you can accept? I struggle with subscribing to this view. It may be that I more readily see the power of those who oppose the good and who create their own reality to suppress the good. But then, as a Christian, I remember Easter. I affirm the good in the life and teaching of Jesus. I read in the Biblical account of the attempts to suppress that good. And, I see how that good has continued, despite times of it being diluted and perverted by human beings.

As we move into the climax of this Christian observance, reflect on Rilke's writings. Maybe, share this section with others. Commit yourself to helping create something good that will have long-lasting effects.

Wisdom from a Hindu perspective

While I was teaching at Piedmont College in Demorest Georgia, I purchased items from a Hindu Monastery in Hawaii. Thus, I got on their mailing list. The folks there have a daily posting of various quotations from Hindu masters. Two of the early ones seemed quite appropriate for this day and time:

He alone is trustworthy who fully possesses these four:
kindness, intelligence, assurance and freedom from greed.

Pick that man who passes a four-fold test:
how he handles virtue, wealth, pleasure and loss of life.

Judging Marriages

An Italian news agency has reported that an Egyptian cleric has issued a fatwa, a ruling based on religious interpretations, that gives the neighbors of a couple the right to bring them to court to dissolve the marriage.

Here is the news story:

Cairo, 13 March (AKI) - A fatwa or religious edict issued by a senior Egyptian cleric invites people to end their neighbours' marriages if they can prove they are collapsing from irreconcilable differences.

"If the evidence that the neighbours present is verified, the court has the right to make the couple divorce," said Sheikh Jamal Qutb, cited by Dubai-based TV network Al-Arabiya.

Qutb, an Islamic scholar and former head of the fatwa committee at Egypt's most prestigious religious institution Al-Azhar, said that a community, including family members or neighbours, should have the same right to end a marriage as the couples themselves.

However, he said neighbours should try to intervene and solve a couple's differences. If they fail, they can then go to court and present evidence that the marriage cannot be saved.

The cleric also said that a couple's refusal to divorce may be for several reasons, and that a judge should investigate whether these reasons are valid.

In Islam, a man has no right to go back to his wife if he has married and divorced her three times unless she has remarried and divorced from her second husband.

In Islam, only a qualified cleric can issue a fatwa, but, because there is no real centralized ecclesiastical authority, other clerics can issue competing fatwas that countermand the original one. Thus far, there is no way to determine whether other Muslims will abide by this ruling.

It does raise some interesting thoughts, though. I will confess that I have the image of Gladys Kravitz from Bewitched peering through her curtains watching her neighbors, but, what if your neighbors had the right to bring you and your spouse into Divirce Court, would your marriage stand the scrutiny? Do you think such a ruling would help or hurt marriage? What about those who see marriage as a divinely ordained institution? Would they support such a ruling that would allow and encourage them to intervene to help the marriage survive?

Much Ado About Numbers

With the publication of the recent study by ARIS, the American Religious Identification Survey, which shows an increase in the number of folks who claim to have "no religion" and a corresponding decline in the overall religiosity of Americans, the 'survey' wars have heated up.

The news headlines reporting the ARIS results shouted that America was losing its reeligious tilt. Then came stories suggesting that all polls really show are the biases of its authors. Others, wisely so I think, pointed out that no poll can capture the complexity of the religious orientation. Finally, in a column on Religious Dispatches, Konstantin Petrenko states his belief that all the ARIS survey shows is the new American apathy toward religion and things religious.

This is not the first tempest to be found in the religious tea pot. Earlier in the year, a group published a study that charged the people at Baylor University, a school associated with Southern Baptists, with manipulating data. The Baylor poll showed an increase in the religious orientation of America. Of course, there then followed days of rebuttals by the Baylor folks and then rebuttals of the rebuttals.

My questions about all of this are simple: If a person is asked, "Do you consider yourself to be a religious person?" and answers either "NO" or "YES", does it really tell us anything? If it does, does it matter whether 12% or 15% or 25% of the population answers "NO"? Do you care if you live in a country in which only 76% of the people identify themselves as Christian? If you do care, does it then matter whether those people understand Christianity in the same way you do?

Apocalyptic Warnings

On Saturday, March 7, David Wilkerson, he of The Cross and The Switchblade fame from the 1960's, sent out a warning to all of the people who were part of his blogosphere contacts. I have copied the first part of his blog below:

AN URGENT MESSAGE
I am compelled by the Holy Spirit to send out an urgent message to all on our mailing list, and to friends and to bishops we have met all over the world.

AN EARTH-SHATTERING CALAMITY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN. IT IS GOING TO BE SO FRIGHTENING, WE ARE ALL GOING TO TREMBLE - EVEN THE GODLIEST AMONG US.

For ten years I have been warning about a thousand fires coming to New York City. It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires—such as we saw in Watts, Los Angeles, years ago.

There will be riots and fires in cities worldwide. There will be looting—including Times Square, New York City. What we are experiencing now is not a recession, not even a depression. We are under God’s wrath. In Psalm 11 it is written,

“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (v. 3).

God is judging the raging sins of America and the nations. He is destroying the secular foundations.

Wilkerson closes his blog with these words:
Note: I do not know when these things will come to pass, but I know it is not far off. I have unburdened my soul to you. Do with the message as you choose.

Needless to say, this has created quite a firestorm among the religious blogging community. There has been enough controversy that, a week later, on Friday, Mar 13, Gary Wilkerson defended David's choice to share his message of impending doom in this way:
It is the task of a true prophet to warn. We have recently heard such a clear warning of perilous days just ahead of us. The prophet is like a man who comes to warn a shepherd that ravenous wolves are approaching.

How do you react to such things? Do you give the message enough credibility that you would look to leave the Northeast, just in case? Does a message like this from a minister like this have more truth than the messages of impending doom from Nostradamus recounted in the supermarket tabloids? If you are a part of a church, how would you respond if someone asks you, "What do you think about this?"

More Liberal Bashing

In my last post, I drew attention to the claims made by Tim LaHaye concerning the Satanic origins of FDR's New Deal and how the liberals in America are promoting an "anti-Christ" like agenda. These "apocalyptic, end of the world, good versus evil, people of faith versus Godless heathen" type warnings about non-conservatives seem to be all the rage.

Back in December I came across a piece written by Matt Barber who is affiliated with Liberty University Law School. In it, he recounts how he heard a sermon at a local church in which the pastor linked the ancient principles of Baal worship to modern society, including among liberal Christians.

Here are some quotes:
In his sermon, Pastor Mabray illustrated that, although they've now assumed a more contemporary flair, the fundamentals of Baal worship remain alive and well today. The principal pillars of Baalism were child sacrifice, sexual immorality (both heterosexual and homosexual) and pantheism (reverence of creation over the Creator).

...

Modern liberalism deviates little from its ancient predecessor. While its macabre rituals have been sanitized with flowery and euphemistic terms of art, its core tenets and practices remain eerily similar. The worship of "fertility" has been replaced with worship of "reproductive freedom" or "choice." Child sacrifice via burnt offering has been updated, ever so slightly, to become child sacrifice by way of abortion. The ritualistic promotion, practice and celebration of both heterosexual and homosexual immorality and promiscuity have been carefully whitewashed – yet wholeheartedly embraced – by the cults of radical feminism, militant "gay rights" and "comprehensive sex education." And, the pantheistic worship of "mother earth" has been substituted – in name only – for radical environmentalism.

...

Nonetheless, the aforementioned pillars of postmodern Baalism – abortion, sexual relativism and radical environmentalism – will almost certainly make rapid headway over the next four to eight years, with or without help from the Christian left. The gods of liberalism have a new high priest in Barack Obama, and enjoy many devout followers in the Democratic-controlled Congress, liberal media and halls of academia.

So, anyone who suggests that human beings need to be good stewards of creation or that adequate and comprehensive sex education is important to curb unwanted pregnancies, especially among teenagers or that the law of the land now allows safe and accessible abortion are in actuality seeking to destroy Christianity and substitute this ancient pagan cult. Are you guilty of any of these?

In Case You Were Wondering

Sarah Posner of The American Prospect does a "this week in religion and politics" column entitled The FundamentaList. In commenting on why the conservative movements see President Obama as a socialist, she referenced an article from the PublicEye.org which quotes Tim LaHaye - he of the Left Behind Series of books - on the Satanic origin of Roosevelt's New Deal. I am including the salient quote and the references. I will confess that I tried to check the primary sources, but they were evidently too dated. From The Public Eye:

Christian Right leader Tim LaHaye, for example, claims it was the Satan himself who engineered the “crafty election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as president for twelve years.”

This was part of a secret conspiracy to turn the “American constitution upside down,” in order to “use our freedoms to promote pornography, homosexuality, immorality, and a host of evils characteristic of the last days,” states LaHaye, in an open reference to the apocalyptic End Times prophesied in Revelation. 9 In another article, LaHaye also believes that the “Anti-Christ philosophy already controls America and Europe.”10

LaHaye asserts that: “All thinking people in America realize an anti-Christian, anti-moral, and anti-American philosophy permeates this country and the world.”11 The subversive conspirators include godless secular humanists and others who secretly manipulate the news media, the entertainment industry, the universities, and even the court system. These evil forces have turned the “American constitution upside down,” warns LaHaye.12 “I have no question the devil is behind what the apostle Paul called ‘the wisdom (philosophy) of this world’ and controls many of our courts and other areas of influence,” LaHaye writes.13

According to LaHaye, the liberal, secular humanist, antichrist conspiracy: dominates the public school system from kindergarten through graduate school. It controls the media from the daily print press to popular magazines (from porno to mainline), the six major TV networks, most of all cable TV; it dominates the entertainment industry, and it elects a predominance of liberals to both parties in our national government.

This alien philosophy does not come from the Bible, but is antithetical to it. In this country it flies under the banner of “liberalism,” but in reality it is atheistic socialism at best and Marxism at worst.

We are the only nation that can halt the socialist Marxist enthronement of the UN as THE GLOBAL GOVERNMENT of the world, but it will require a conservative administration and Supreme Court committed to judicially interpreting our nation’s laws that were originally based on moral Biblical principles.14

9 LaHaye, (T.) “119 Million American Evangelicals in these Last Days?” Pre-Trib Perspectives, Vol. 8, No. 1, (April 2003), pp. 1-3, quote from p. 2.
10 LaHaye, (T.), “Anti-Christ philosophy already controls America and Europe,” Pre-Trib Perspectives, (September 1999), http://www.timlahaye.com/about_ministry/pdf/sept.tim.pdf, (accessed July 4, 2006).
11 Ibid.
12 LaHaye, “119 Million American Evangelicals in these Last Days?” p. 2.
13 Ibid.
14 LaHaye, “Anti-Christ philosophy already controls America and Europe.”

I guess I have been found out. Either I am not a "thinking person" or I am not "in America" or I am already in the clutches of the Satanic socialists.

Now, I was not alive during FDR's terms, but it seems to me that a lot of people were saved from starvation because of his policies, that people finally were able to have some guarantee of money when they retired, and that people were put back to work - among other things. So, this is Satanic? What do you think?