Shire Network News #156 has been released. We’re back and better than ever at our new website SNNSite.com.  The feature interview is covers anti-Jewish violence and intimidation on Canadian university campuses. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary.

Hi, this is Doug Payton for the "back and better than ever" Shire Network News asking you to "Consider This!"

Muzzammil Hassan founded the network "Bridges TV".  According to their web site’s Mission page, Bridges TV…

…aims to foster a greater understanding among many cultures and diverse populations.Through our high-quality, informative, 24×7 programming in English; we seek to become a unifying force that can help people understand our diverse world through education and entertainment.

Given Muzzammil’s background, many of the shows on the network, and other statements from the network, this was mainly an attempt to improve the image of Muslims in the United States.  Irony of ironies, then, when he was arrested on February 12th for admitting to beheading his wife.

Let me ask you something; how much coverage of this have you seen in the news?  As of this SNN episode, it’s been over 3 weeks since the arrest and it’s been "vewy, vewy qwiet" out there.  Mark Steyn noticed that, while the mainstream media love a good hypocrite — just ask Ted Haggard or, for those old enough to remember, Jimmy Swaggart — they’ve been incredibly reluctant to expose the hypocrisy of "Mr. Moderate Muslim".   

Now why would that be?  Well, could it be that this is just another case of domestic violence, and that it doesn’t rise to the level of national news coverage?  After all, people are beheaded all the time in lover’s spats, right?  Oh, wait, no they’re not.  In fact, among even such things as honor killings — primarily done by Muslims — beheading is a very unusual way to die.  The jury’s still out on whether or not this was an actual honor killing, but beheading has become an almost exclusively Islamic radical MO of choice. 

So the idea that this is just another run-of-the-mill domestic violence case (although, in fact, none of them really are) doesn’t exactly pass muster.  It’s not just that Mr. Hassan founded a TV network dedicated to removing the stigmas stereotypically assigned to Muslims, and then proceeded to demonstrate one of those very stereotypes, but also that he basically signed it, "Love, Radical Islam" in bright, red letters when he used that calling card.

But the media?  The media leaves us with nothing but dry recitations of facts, and op-eds from other moderate Muslims who, while outraged at this "domestic violence", ignore the method of the madness.  Even non-Muslim feminists, who are rightly decrying the violence, don’t want to consider that angle, or in some cases excuse it.  Some think we just need to be understanding and raise awareness of other cultures. 

I think some awareness-raising needs to be done, too.  It’s just that the media don’t seem up to the task.  Ya’ think perhaps if Ted Haggard had beheaded someone that the ripples in the news pond would have been this small?  We know more about who Haggard and Swaggart had affairs with than we know about Hassan himself.  If you’ve not heard much, if anything, about this story, consider this.

Don Sensing has noted in the past how the environmental movement morphed from a Teddy Roosevelt conservation into Earth worship, to the detriment, in this case, of highly unemployed Latinos.  Rev. Sensing also observes that the increase in this idolatry seems to coincide with its economic decline.

God is not mocked. 

I wasn’t a big fan of Dubya’s faith-based initiatives.  Well, I was at first, but I was later convinced that, since whoever pays the bills makes the rules, that having government pay the bills was a bad  idea for churches.  It opened them up to having to do things their faith told them not to in order to keep the money coming in.

Of course, there’s another more general reason to avoid new government programs; they expand to fill whatever void the government finds; real or perceived.  And President Obama is busy looking for voids.

President Barack Obama on Thursday signed an order establishing a White House office of faith-based initiatives with a broader mission than the one overseen by his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush.

Obama said the office would reach out to organizations that provide help "no matter their religious or political beliefs."

Obama is calling his program the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

(I would have put this in another ChangeWatch entry, more of the same alleged "theocracy" that Bush was supposedly foisting on us, yet continued and expanded under Obama, but thought it could use its own post.)

I wasn’t aware of a doctrinal test for Bush’s faith-based initiative, but Obama is claiming credit for expanding the reach.  Nifty sleight of hand there.

But the most notable expansion of the program is the addition of the word "Neighborhood".  The partnerships are "faith-based and neighborhood", not "faith-based neighborhood", meaning the neighborhood partnerships don’t have to be faith-based.  This turns the program into an untargeted channel for any and all grassroots groups.  As Warner Todd Hudson notes, sounds like yet another vector for funds to ACORN. 

Hudson also wondered (last Saturday, when he wrote his piece) whether the Left, and the Kos krowd in particular, will give Obama a pass on this, unlike the screams of "church and state!" they gave Bush when he created it.  Well, as of today, if you search Daily Kos back two weeks for the phrase "faith-based", you get exactly one hit, and that article still raps the GOP for it.  Yeah, still OK if their guy does it.  It’s still all about politics.  Such blind partisanship.

Preaching through the Ten Commandments, our pastor came to the 6th.  One of things I found fascinating is that there are quite a number of words for "kill" in Hebrew, and the King James translation doesn’t do much to get across this particular word.

Lo ratzach; don’t murder.

There is a word in Hebrew for killing an animal.  This is not that word.  You can be a vegetarian or vegan if you like, but you can’t use this verse as Biblical backup for your position.  (Actually, the Bible has a number of references showing that God’s OK with meat-eating.)

There is a word in Hebrew for killing in battle.  This is not that word.  You can be a pacifist if you like, but you can’t use this verse as Biblical backup for your position.  (Actually, the Bible has a number of references where God commands his people to make war on those God wishes to punish.)

There is a word in Hebrew for killing in self-defense or defense of another.  This is not that word.  You can be a police officer and kill someone in the line of duty while protecting yourself or others and you will not have broken this commandment.  You can protect an intruder with deadly force, and not be guilty of breaking this commandment. 

There is a word in Hebrew for the purposeful taking of an innocent life.  This is that word. 

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This is a meme that blazing through Facebook; you write 25 random things about you and tag 25 other people to do it themselves.  Usually these are short, 1-sentence items, but, hey, I blog; I can’t just do a quick list.

For your information, here’s what I wrote:

Personal note: This is probably longer than the usual response to this meme. I’m like that (and it’s one of the 25 items below).

I’m a Christian, I love Jesus, and I don’t apologize for it. I won’t beat you over the head with it, but I certainly won’t hide it, either. If you ask, I’ll answer.

The way I met my wife Susan is one of those small-world stories. While working at a summer camp after my senior year of high school, I met her sister, Joy, who was also a counselor. She was going to be a senior at the same college I would be a freshman at; Asbury College. So I got to know her to find out more about Asbury. Then, my senior year, as I was bringing my sister to the school (her freshman year) I saw Susan and though, “I either know her, or someone related to her.” They looked very much alike. Separately, I got to know a guy named Kevin who was also a freshman and was taking computer classes (as was I). Turned out that Susan and he went to the same missionary boarding school in Malaysia (Dalat International School).

My first car was a 1976 Dodge Coronet Crestwood station wagon, which was already rather old by the time I purchased it in 1983 from Zikakus Chevrolet (Ithaca, NY). It was so big, I named it the Battlestar Galactica. Its size came in handy, from carting a carload for camp staff breaks, to hauling all the luggage back to school after a van accident at an Asbury College SASF retreat, to hauling everything I owned in the world to my first job in Atlanta, GA. Sometimes, in order to start it, I had to take the air filter cover off, put something in the “butterfly” flap to keep it open (like a stick), and then it would crank up. Susan and I went on our honeymoon in it because the Ford Escort I had purchased in Atlanta was stolen shortly before the wedding. More and more started going out on it (power steering pump, radiator) that, in 1987, I finally gave it to the auto mechanic who’d worked on it for so long so he could scrap it for parts.

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David Henson at the blog Unorthodoxology posted a terse thought last Friday, "Sin is the beginning of empathy."  I’ve been reading a bit of Dave’s blog ever since, I believe, Mark linked to something of his.  Dave, and the commenters that frequent there, are of the "many paths lead to truth" school of thought, and are not very much in agreement with my ideas about the exclusivity of Jesus as "the Way, the Truth, the Life".  (See the comments to this post for examples.)

So this "empathy" post showed up, and I could see what Dave was getting at, and I made short comment about it myself, that perhaps this could also be said of pain.  Pain, whether caused by sin or not, can make us empathetic to others in the same situation as well.  But that thought, too, didn’t seem complete.  After 24 hours of having that roll around in my head, here’s what I came up with.

If sin causes no pain, then it does not bring empathy. If cheating old ladies out of their social security makes me "happy" (or at least doesn’t hurt in the short term), no empathy comes with it. It’s not until the pain that there’s a chance that empathy will develop. And even then, sometimes the consequences don’t quite get things rolling, but without the pain, it won’t happen.

So perhaps "sin is the beginning of pain which is the beginning of empathy."

Well, ‘cept that you can have pain that leads to empathy but that did not originate with sin. I could say "Getting laid off from your job is the beginning of empathy" and it would be just as true, yet you don’t have to do anything wrong to feel it. But then what if you hated the job and are happy that you got laid off, because you have a back-up plan (or some similar situation)? No pain, and thus you probably can’t empathize with a co-worker who desperately needed that job and has nowhere else to go. So getting laid off, for you, isn’t the beginning of pain.

There are so many things that may or may not lead to pain for you, but until you feel that pain you can’t empathize with someone who has. So perhaps the phrase should be, "Pain is the beginning of empathy."

Or is even that right? Can we really not empathize with a drug addict until we get high ourselves? Can we really not empathize with a murderer unless we kill someone ourselves? Sympathize, perhaps, but maybe not empathize. Still, is that such a bad thing; not being able to empathize? Granted, a drug addict might be more inclined to accept help from former addict, but many times this happens without dealing with someone who is a peer at that level. Someone who never took one drink can be merciful and helpful and caring to the alcoholic. Sympathy is just as potent.

Additionally, one can have the pain, but refuse to be empathetic to anyone in a similar situation. It isn’t always a given.

So what is beyond pain that would lead to empathy? If you don’t care about your fellow man, you’ll never empathize with him, no matter how much sin you commit or pain you experience or whatever bad circumstances come your way. You can only truly have empathy when you love your neighbor as yourself.

So sin might lead to pain, or it might not. And pain might lead to empathy, or it might not. But neither is necessary for love, and love is the beginning of empathy.

Here’s a video giving us a timeline of what happened when in the story of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapse.  Take special note of who was for regulation and who was against it. 

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Congressman Chris Murphy (D-CT) is championing his support of what’s called the Protecting Patient and Health Care Act of 2009.  From his website:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – With the clock ticking down on the implementation of a sweeping Bush Administration rule that will deny vital health services to Americans, today Congressman Chris Murphy (CT-5) joined a group of colleagues to introduce the Protecting Patient and Health Care Act of 2009 to stop it.

In late December, the Bush Administration finalized the "refusal clause", which would cut off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, health plan, clinic, or other entity that does not accommodate employees who refuse to participate in care that they find ethically, morally, or religiously objectionable. Set to take affect on Sunday, this sweeping change in access to vital health services, including birth control, abortion, HIV and STI testing, end of life care, and fertilization treatments, trumps current practices that accommodate health care providers’ religious beliefs while also providing their patients with access to care. It even goes as far as to allow whole hospitals or health plans to refuse services even if individual doctors and providers are willing to perform them.

What’s missing in this description is the reason the "refusal clause" was needed.  It’s really only emphasizing how the law currently is, because a number of court cases, and the judges of those cases, have shown that apparently the judicial system doesn’t quite understand the concept. 

I’ve touched on one example last August where a pair of doctors in California were sued successfully when they declined to give their services to a lesbian couple.  (Actually, they did everything but the physical insemination, which is all they declined to do.)  Acting as though they were the only option in the state, the couple took the case all the way to the State Supreme Court and won.  This was an elective procedure, and the State Supreme Court seemed to think they were obligated to do it if asked.  (And as noted in the original post, the CA Medical Association was on the side of the doctors until they got bullied by the gay-rights community, and they caved.)

So the action by the Bush administration was simply to reiterate that this refusal is legal, and put some oomph behind it.  The whole idea the people have no where else to go for these treatments, elective or otherwise, is absurd, but the danger to a guaranteed constitutional right is real. 

But Democrats, who insist that they’re just as concerned about religious freedom as anyone, put the lie to that by making the First Amendment a second-class citizen.

Sally Quinn and Jon Meacham, she of the Washington Post and he of Newsweek, have sort of a point / counterpoint set of articles in the "On Faith" section of the paper’s and magazine’s combined website.  Quinn argues that the tag "so help me God" shows "contempt for non-believers, while Meacham argues that the oath to God shows "regard for church and state".  Read Meacham’s piece first, as Quinn responds to specific points in his article.

The foundation of Quinn’s argument is that she thinks that religion should be compartmentalized.

Much good is done in the name of religion and there are many wonderful, intelligent and honorable people who are believers. I simply think that it doesn’t have a place in the public square.

And why is that?

My problem is with God. Actually, my problem is with the concept of God. I don’t know what "God" means.

But it’s not readily apparent that, because of her ignorance, why she might think that discussion of such a topic shouldn’t be allowed in public.  And just because, as she asserts, previous Presidents who invoked God had moral failings, it doesn’t invalidate their God. 

At one point, Quinn confesses confusion over Pascal’s Wager, but her reaction to it only points out her ignorance on this whole "God" thing.

Pascal’s wager never made sense to me. If there is an omniscient and omnipotent God and we believe in him we’re good to go. If there’s not and we don’t believe in him we don’t have a problem. If there is and we don’t believe in him, it’s because he doesn’t want us to and therefore we are following his will.

If you don’t know what "God" means, then how can you possibly draw the inference that if we don’t believe in him it’s because he doesn’t want us to?  How could you possibly assert that?  Isn’t it equally as likely an explanation that we’re not looking for him?  Or perhaps we’re simply on a quest to find out facts about God, but not get to know him.  Or that we’re afraid to find out about him because of what we may find out about ourselves?  Or that we refuse to believe in a God that permits evil in the world?  There are as many reasons to not believe in God as there are human beings. 

Meacham’s argument for "…so help me God" is less about religion and more of a case of "hey, what can it hurt?"  He at least does make a good show of dealing with that Jeffersonian phrase that has been elevated to "founding document" status by some.

The secular nature of the American government is one of its abiding strengths, but moments of prayer or a "So help me, God" here and there are no threat to the wall of separation Jefferson spoke of in his New Year’s Day 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. We can keep church and state separate, and we should. But as a matter of history and human nature, we cannot keep politics and religion separate, and we should not try. For politics and religion are both about people, about their hopes and their fears and their values and their sense of destiny and of duty.

We’re running a poll on this topic at the group blog Stones Cry Out.  Pop over and let us know what you think.

President-elect Obama has invited Saddleback pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation (i.e. opening prayer) at the inauguration.  While Obama and Warren disagree on some issues, Obama says he wants to "create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable."  In fact, this follows in the footsteps of Bush’s choice in 2004, as the Huffington Post notes.

At his 2005 inaugural, George W. Bush tapped Rev. Dr. Louis Leon to deliver the invocation. Like Obama and Warren, the two shared a commitment to combating AIDS in Africa, as well as a friendship from time spent in each other’s company. But Leon was and is a progressive voice. And his selection in ’04 sparked a lot of interest, though little of the outrage that we see with Warren.

Indeed, the "tolerant" Left side of the blogosphere didn’t seem to get the "disagree without being disagreeable" memo.

Americablog: “Great, then where are the racists, Mr. Obama?"

Markos himself at Daily Kos: “Yeah. Where is David Duke’s invitation? Or as Blue Texan notes, when do Phelps and Hagee get their invitations? Heck, throw up Tom Tancredo up there for good measure, so us Latinos can feel some of the hate!”

Atrios: "Wanker of the Day: Barack Obama."

Firedoglake: "President-elect Obama chose eliminationist hate preacher Rick Warren to give the invocation at Obama’s Inaguration. With this choice, Obama sends three destructive messages. Number one: In Obama’s America, equal rights and reproductive freedom aren’t for everyone. Number two: President-elect Obama likes sharing the national stage with hate. Number three: While Obama enjoys his equality before the law, LGBT Americans can go to Hell. Literally. Gee. Is this change we can believe in?"

Andrew Sullivan: "…pandering to Christianists at his inauguration is a depressing omen."

Think Progress:  "…he laughs off accusations of being ‘homophobic’ because he ‘talks to’ gay people and served protesters water."

(A tip of the hat to Don Surber and John Hawkins, from whom I got much of this list, and who have even more examples.)

Once again, we have examples of liberals, who tout their "tolerance" and "acceptance", being wholly unable to handle any sort of deviation from the orthodoxy.  Additionally, as even the Huffington Post notes, the folks they claim are the intolerant ones actually were more accepting when they were in the same situation. 

Tolerance.  You keep using that word.  I do no think it means what you think it means.