Senator Barack Obama gave a speech in Philadelphia yesterday on race issues. The speech was precipitated by connections being drawn between Obama and his black liberation theology pastor of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Many people have been turning to the Internet to view statements by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who suggested in one sermon that the United States brought the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on itself and in another said blacks should damn America for continuing to mistreat them.

Obama rejected Wright’s divisive statements but still embraced the man who brought him to Christianity, officiated at his wedding, baptized his two daughters and inspired the title of his book "The Audacity of Hope."

Not disown, perhaps, but much of that association has been scrubbed from Obama’s website and elsewhere on the Internet. And that’s begging the question; are Rev. Wright’s view extreme for black liberation theology? See here for Mark Olsen’s look into this. If they are extreme, what does it say about the candidate who supports that church by his attendance and, likely, his money? If they aren’t extreme, what does it say about the theology, in addition to the candidate?  [UPDATE: James Taranto reports that they may be more mainstream than some would like to think.]

So then, are a candidate’s pastor’s views fair game for consideration on the campaign trail? Before you answer, consider how the occasional words of Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell have been used to paint evangelical Christians with a broad brush, both in the media and in the blogs. But Falwell wasn’t, and Robertson isn’t, the pastor of the vast majority of those people for whom the Left likes to suggest they speak for. Obama, on the other hand, attends by personal choice. If the Left wants to make Robertson the spokesman for millions who may have not heard him speak, doesn’t that standard then apply to someone with a 20-year, close association with a presidential candidate?

Or is there one standard for the Religious Right, and another for the Religious Wright?

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, race issues, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Religious Right, Christianity

He was captured at 16 years of age and forced to be a slave in a foreign country.  He was a herdsman for 6 years until he believed God told him to escape, which he did, back to England.  A few years later, he had a vision of someone from that foreign country asking him to return to spread the Gospel of Christ, which he did.

As you wear your green today, spare a thought for the country of Ireland, the country to which Saint Patrick was taken, and back to which he went to lead them to Christ.  St. Patrick’s Day isn’t about shamrocks and green beer any more than Christmas is about reindeer and Christmas trees.

Technorati Tags: Saint Patrick, Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day

An Israeli researcher, Benny Shanon, claims that Moses was doing drugs on Mount Sinai when he heard God tell him the Ten Commandments.  We find the crux of the matter in paragraph 3.

"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don’t believe, or a legend, which I don’t believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

Essentially, this "research" started from a conclusion and worked its way back to the explanation.  It’s "very probable" because the researcher dismisses everything else out of hand.  No evidence, just inference based on his own presuppositions.

Oh, and there’s also a bit of projection going on there, too.

He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil’s Amazon forest in 1991. "I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations," Shanon said.

He did drugs, so Moses must have.  There’s "research" for you.

Technorati Tags: Moses, Mount Sinai, drugs, Benny Shanon, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Judaism, Christianity

I understand that schools should and do determine what’s appropriate to be said during school hours, but with all the other speech and such that they do allow, this prohibition looks rather targeted.

A federal judge has rejected a claim that the Poway Unified School District violated a teenager’s First Amendment rights by pulling him out of class for wearing a T-shirt with an anti-gay slogan.

Tuesday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge John Houston reaffirmed an earlier decision in which he found the school district’s policy on hate speech lawful.

Tyler Harper sued the school in 2004 after the district said he could not wear a shirt printed with a Bible verse condemning homosexuality. His younger sister, Kelsie, was named as a plaintiff after he graduated.

Via Stop the ACLU.

Technorati Tags: Bible, Poway Unified School District, hate speech, homosexuality

Shire Network News #115 has been released. The feature interview is with Mark Steyn, talking about all the ways in which he is currently under investigation. In the first of a two part interview Mark joins us again and unleashes a torrent of witty and clever observation.. 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.

I did not submit a commentary for this week, but there are other good ones, including Meryl Yourish, who has found some fishy Scientology goings on in Sderot.

A very interesting article in Asia Times about 60-year-old documents, hidden away for all that time, that could shake Islam to its core. If it can be proved that the Koran’s origins are not what is claimed, it would be monumental. First, some background on why it would be so.

No one is going to produce proof that Jesus Christ did not rise from the grave three days after the Crucifixion, of course. Humankind will choose to believe or not that God revealed Himself in this fashion. But Islam stands at risk of a Da Vinci Code effect, for in Islam, God’s self-revelation took the form not of the Exodus, nor the revelation at Mount Sinai, nor the Resurrection, but rather a book, namely the Koran. The Encyclopaedia of Islam (1982) observes, “The closest analogue in Christian belief to the role of the Koran in Muslim belief is not the Bible, but Christ.” The Koran alone is the revelatory event in Islam.

The Koran is Islam. The question then is…

What if scholars can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Koran was not dictated by the Archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Mohammad during the 7th century, but rather was redacted by later writers drawing on a variety of extant Christian and Jewish sources? That would be the precise equivalent of proving that the Jesus Christ of the Gospels really was a composite of several individuals, some of whom lived a century or two apart.

The documents in question, hidden by the Nazis, and who’s photographs are now in a Berlin vault, do exist. That’s apparently not in question.

It has long been known that variant copies of the Koran exist, including some found in 1972 in a paper grave at Sa’na in Yemen, the subject of a cover story in the January 1999 Atlantic Monthly. Before the Yemeni authorities shut the door to Western scholars, two German academics, Gerhard R Puin and H C Graf von Bothmer, made 35,000 microfilm copies, which remain at the University of the Saarland. Many scholars believe that the German archive, which includes photocopies of manuscripts as old as 700 AD, will provide more evidence of variation in the Koran.

The question is, do they damage the Koran’s authenticity or claim of origin? That’s a question that may not be answered soon, as access to the photographs is being heavily restricted. And then there’s always the reluctance on the part of Muslims.

Apart from the little group at the University of the Saarland and a handful of others, though, the Western Academy is loathe to go near the issue. In the United States, where Arab and Islamic Studies rely on funding from the Gulf States, an interest in Koranic criticism is a failsafe way to commit career suicide.

And perhaps, not just their career, either.

Technorati Tags: Islam, Koran, DaVinci Code, Mohammad, Berlin, Yemen, Gerhard Puin, H C Graf von Bothmer, University of the Saarland

3 of my kids, some more from our church, and a bunch more from homeschool classes that meet at our church, have formed 4 teams of Bible quizzers. These kids read and study the year’s text from which questions will be asked (this season it’s Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians), and compete with teams from other CMA churches in our zone in monthly quiz meets.

This weekend is the Southeast District Bible Quiz Invitational. It’ll be a great time for all the kids to really see what they know. The zone to our northeast, the Tri-State zone, has some really serious competition for us, and since many of the kids on our teams are new, this’ll be an eye opener. Some of those Tri-State kid can answer questions after little more than a burp from the Quizmaster.

Scripture memorization is a great way for kids (and adults) to get the Word in their hearts. My family has a number of passages we’ve memorized around the dinner table, but add a little friendly competition and some recognition, and the kids can really get motivated. (And really show up the adults.)

I’d recommend it if it’s available in your denomination. There are a number (Christian Missionary Alliance, Salvation Army, Nazarene to name a few) that offer it, so see if yours does. The Bible Quiz News website, sponsored by a quiz materials supplier Acme, is a good site for news and schedules.

Technorati Tags: Bible quizzing, scripture memorization

The next phase of the presidential campaign season began yesterday as Iowans held their respective caucuses (caucii?). Some surprises, and some expected results

Democrats

This is the “surprise” category. While only 1% behind the guy in front of her, and while getting 29% of the vote, Hillary Clinton (The Inevitable One(tm)) placed a disappointing 3rd behind Obama and Edwards. For a campaign machine that has been essentially running non-stop since 1992, this must be a serious blow. I heard on the radio this morning that she arrived in New Hampshire at 5am, apparently bailing out of Iowa as soon as she could. It ain’t over by any stretch of the imagination, but this is an upset.

As a blow against identity politics, which I’ve covered before, Barack Obama’s 38% victory shows that white folks will indeed vote for a black man with whom they agree. I think this goes for members of either party frankly. (I personally wished J. C. Watts had decided to run when I watched him during the Bill Clinton impeachment debate.) Iowa has a lower percentage of blacks than in the country in general, and yet Obama won handily. I don’t agree with Obama’s policies, but I’m glad to see this result. Hope the girls at Spelman College take a lesson from this and vote policy and position rather than color.

Republicans

Huckabee picked up the win here, as expected. Well, as most recently expected, not as anyone expected 4 months ago, which points out that polls really are just barometers of how people think or feel now. Iowa GOPers are 60% evangelical, so quite likely identity politics did play a part here. See Bryan at Hot Air, who notes that this is “a reversal in the way the two parties tend to think and choose their respective leader”. Indeed, and I really hope this isn’t a new trend. I do generally want a candidate that shares my values, but I’m not necessarily going to get hung up on their religion. However, religion tracks quite closely with positions I want to see, so it does play a large part.

I don’t agree with the Article VI blog that evangelicals will never vote for a Mormon. Some won’t, I’m sure, but one caucus does not a trend make, and Romney’s flip-flopping on hot-button issues like abortion and gay rights likely have more to do with his 2nd place finish than his religion. He was only 9% behind Huckabee, so this isn’t quite the blow they’re making it sound like. While Iowans, according to a poll noted on Article VI, generally do consider religious belief high on the list, I think (and I hope) that identity politics play less of a role as time goes on.

Read the whole Article VI post. Even though I disagree with the thrust of the post, it has a lot of good information on this identity issue with Republicans. Includes this from Albert Mohler being interviewed by Hugh Hewitt:

AM: Well, let’s put it this way. Evangelical Christians are very much committed to a Christian worldview that reaches every aspect of life. But there really isn’t an Evangelical foreign policy. There’s really not an Evangelical tariff or tax policy. And I think when everything’s identified that way, well, I’m going to be honest, there’s a bit of self-protectionism here.

HH: Yup.

AM: I don’t want to get blamed for everything that a supposedly Evangelical president might do that in terms of policy would be disagreeable.

Technorati Tags: Iowa Caucuses, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, J. C. Watts, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, identity politics

WorldNetDaily has part 2 of a 3-part series up on their site today interviewing Rick Warren. This article touches on fame, megachurches, and Warren’s trip to Syria, among other things.

On fame and fortune:

After the windfall from sales of his books – “The Purpose-Driven Life” is regarded as the best-selling hardback of all time – Warren dropped his salary and paid the church back for 25 years of wages. He and his wife, Kay, give a “reverse tithe” of 90 percent of their income and live on 10 percent.

But with 22,000 filling the 120-acre Saddleback campus on weekends, ministries in 167 countries and a global “P.E.A.C.E. plan that aims to conquer the world’s five biggest problems, he’s aware of being perceived as an “empire builder.”

“If I wanted a big name I would have gone on TV,” he said, arguing Saddleback “may be the only church of the 10 largest in the country that doesn’t televise its services.”

When Saddleback was founded in 1980 with just seven people, he “didn’t want to turn the church into a studio.”

“I don’t want to be a celebrity,” Warren said. “And on top of that, if I put my sermons on television, I compete with other churches, I don’t help them.”

On Saddleback being a megachurch:

Many learn about Saddleback from secular journalists, he said, who assume the big crowd on weekends is “what we’re all about.”

But the thousands who come Saturday and Sunday are just a “funnel,” he said, to small-group ministry. Warren said his aim was to create something inexpensive and reproducible – evangelism-oriented meetings that would draw the unchurched. The current goal, he said, “is to reach 10,000 more people for Christ in the next 40 months here by the end of 2010.”

“A crowd is not a church,” he said. “A crowd can be turned into a church, and you have to have a big crowd to get a big church. But a crowd is not a church. So we don’t kid ourselves.”

On meeting with rogue state leaders:

The fundamental reason he is willing to meet with the leaders of rogue states such as North Korea or Iran, he said, is “because Jesus said, ‘Go into all the world.’ Not into all the politically correct world. But he even said, ‘Love your enemies.'”

He cited the Apostle Paul, who said, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.”

“I know people, bloggers, who think that’s heresy,” he said referring to online critics. “I know people who if I wrote that – and they didn’t know it was in the Bible – they would say the guy is a chameleon.”

Paul, he argued, was not a chameleon, he was being strategic.

“Jesus said be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. And what the church is, usually, is harmless as a dove,” he said. “A lot of things that are being done today in the name of Christ are very unwise. Rather than opening doors for the Gospel, they are closing doors for the Gospel. They are giving us a black eye.”

On bad press he got in WorldNetDaily itself:

Warren insisted the only mistake he made in Syria during his November 2006 visit was that he should not have allowed a photo op at the end of his meeting with Assad.

The state news agency issued a report that Warren contended was not accurate. It read: “Pastor Warren hailed the religious coexistence, tolerance and stability that the Syrian society is enjoying due to the wise leadership of President al-Assad, asserting that he will convey the true image about Syria to the American people.”

Warren also was quoted saying, “Syria wants peace, and Muslims and Christians live in this country jointly and peacefully since more than a thousand years, and this is not new for Syria.”

But Warren’s critics say, regardless of whether the state Syrian report was true, he was captured on a 50-second home video walking down a Damascus road mentioned in the book of Acts, Straight Street, saying Syria is “a moderate country, and the official government rule and position is to not allow any extremism of any kind.”

In the video, which was briefly posted on YouTube, Warren said, “Syria’s a place that has Muslims and Christians living together for 1,400 years. So it’s a lot more peaceful, honestly, than a lot of other places, because Christians were here first.”

Warren argued that when he suggested there was freedom of religion in Syria, he didn’t mean everyone had the freedom to convert to Christianity.

Christians are “actually meeting above ground, they are not in secret, I’ve been in their churches,” he said.

“The problem is we’ve got to get them moved to the next step, which is the freedom of conversion,” he contended.

“It’s quite different than in many places I’ve been … I won’t mention the countries, but I’ve been in those countries where you can’t even meet above ground,” Warren said. “Every time I go to those countries, I have to go in secret.”
[…]
Warren said there were no photographers there during the meeting with Assad, but film crews were brought in at the end for a photo op.

“And then the government agency, of course, put out their pro-Syrian statement, ‘Rick Warren thinks we’re sliced bread,’ you know, that kind of stuff,” he recounted.

Warren said WND editor and CEO Joseph Farah then wrote an initial column based on information from the Syrian state news story.

“I happened to be in Rwanda from there,” Warren said. “I wrote Joseph and said, ‘Joseph that’s just not true. I didn’t say those things. You’re reading a statement.’ And he wrote back in a very accusatory letter that said, ‘Well, I can’t wait to see the video.’ In other words, he didn’t believe me.

“I didn’t lie at all. He didn’t stop to check it out,” Warren insisted. “And so he then writes six columns on the basis of his assumption. There was no video of that meeting. At the end, they took a picture, so he chose to believe what the government said, instead of believing me.”

Farah said he stands “by every word I wrote in those columns.”

“After all this time and all these different explanations, I am 100 percent convinced everything I wrote was accurate,” Farah said.

Again, this is just a small portion of the article. There are more details regarding church discipline, his ministry at Saddleback, and the Syrian trip. I encourage you to read the whole thing and decide what you think about Rick Warren for yourself.

Technorati Tags: Rick Warren, WorldNetDaily, The Purpose-Driven Life, Christianity, Syria, Bashar Assad, Joseph Farah, megachurches

WorldNetDaily has part 1 of a 3-part series up on their site today interviewing Rick Warren. It looks to be an opportunity for Warren to answer his critics, and he’s certainly using it that way, although it muddies some waters, while clearing others up,. It’s a very good interview, regardless of your views on him. Below are some excerpts but please read the whole thing.

Regarding mistakes:

“Without a doubt,” he told WND. “I make mistakes all the time.”

But he added, “I always own up to mistakes that I actually do. I just won’t own up to mistakes that weren’t really a mistake.”

On apologizing:

Last month, Warren drew some fire for signing a dialogue-seeking letter in which Christian theologians and ministers responded to an initiative by 138 Muslim leaders by apologizing for the medieval Crusades and “excesses in the war on terror.”

Asked specifically which excesses he had in mind, Warren replied:

“Ahhh, you know what … I have no idea,” he said. “Because I didn’t sign it sentence-by-sentence.”

Similar to his endorsement of an initiative acknowledging man-made global warming, Warren said, “There might have been statements there I didn’t agree with, but generally I’m saying, I think it’s a good idea to get people talking.”

“It comes back to,” he said, referring to the letter to Muslims, “I am a pastor, not a politician. And what I’ve learned is that, in marriage if I’m trying to keep a divorce from happening … I’ve found as long as I can get the husband and wife talking, they’re not going to divorce. The moment the talking stops the divorce is inevitable.”

(My suggestion is not to dilute the value of your signature by not reading or agreeing with everything you sign. Keeping the conversation going is admirable. Compromising on what you believe is not. Warren makes a good point, and defends it well, that he’s a preacher, not a politician. On the other hand, you can only cry “Wolf!” so many times before your support is both meaningless and misinterpreted.)

More on apologies:

Warren said apologies actually are an important part of his evangelism strategy, noting how the approach can disarm antagonism.

He pointed to one of the speakers at Saddleback’s AIDS conference, David Miller, a founder of ACT UP, who he “led to Christ, simply because I started with an apology.”

Two years ago, at the first “Global Summit on AIDS and the Church,” Warren recalls Miller came up to him “spittin’ nails.”

“He was so angry, he was ready to knock my head off,” said Warren, who remembered Miller telling him he had always hated the Christian church.

“Now, I could have been defensive back, but I said, ‘David, I’m sorry, I want to apologize to you for any meanness that’s been said to you in the name of Christ,'” Warren said.

“And it was like I punched him in the gut,” Warren continued. “You could have knocked the wind out of his sails. Like I just popped the balloon. And then, here, two years later, after this relationship, I’m going to baptize him.”

On climate change:

On global warming, Warren said he didn’t endorse the “Evangelical Climate Initiative,” as others did, to assert humans are causing it.

“I don’t even care about that debate so much as I care that Christians should be at the forefront of taking care of the planet,” he said.

“And actually, you tell me which side you want to be on, and I’ll tell you which reports to read. OK. I can show you noted scientists who tell you we are near disaster, and I can show you noted scientists you say there is no problem at all.”

Warren said he does not support the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement rejected by the U.S. requiring radical emission reductions opponents say would destroy economies and harm the poor – “not at all do I agree with it.”

“I didn’t sign on to say, I believe all things that the radical environmentalists believe. Not at all,” he said. “I just thought Christians ought to be saying, We care about the planet too.”

(I agree with his stance, though that being the case he shouldn’t have signed the ECI. (Full disclosure: My brother-in-law Jim does PR for the ECI. And I’m still invited to his house for Christmas. Right? >grin<))

On rumors:

Warren said some criticism is simply baseless, charging many “don’t do their due diligence on research.”

The Robert Schuller “mentorship,” for example, likely originated with a statement the Crystal Cathedral pastor made on CNN’s “Larry King Live.” But Warren said he’s met Schuller only a couple of times and never had a one-on-one conversation with him.

The claim was furthered by author George Mair in a biography of Warren called “A Life with Purpose” then spread like wildfire among Internet blogs.

“In the first place, this guy is not even a Christian, never talked to me, never talked to any staff member, never talked to any member of my family, and in the book claimed that he did,” Warren said. “He flat-out lied.”

More tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Rick Warren, WorldNetDaily, The Purpose-Driven Life, global warming, Christianity, Muslims, AIDS, David Miller, ACT UP, Evangelical Climate Initiative, Kyoto Protocol, Robert Schuller, Larry King, CNN, George Mair, A Life with Purpose