A very sad note

The wife of Christopher Reeves has died

Wow, life really brings to some people more than their share of hardship. What does you theology say about such a turn of things?

Small Town Voter Fraud

. . . . .in my home town no less.

I grew up in a little coal mining town in southwestern Virginia named Appalachia, appropriately enough. Well, some of the folks I knew growing up there, have been indicted for rigging an election. 14 people and over 900 counts in the indictment. Here's the story for those who are interested in the impact of corruption even in small out of the way places that the rest of the country rarely thinks about.

Conservatisism and Christianity!!!

For those who are conservative by political intuition or considered opinion, you really should pay attention to the brewing cauldron of debate going on at Nation Review online The CRUNCHY CON BLOG.

Rod Dreher and his compadres are suggesting that political and economic conservativism, in and of themselves, are inadequate for the life of a people and a nation. Jonah Goldberg does not like it.

My take on this is that Dreher and others are contending for a Christian view of the world that is more in keeping with the New Testament scriptures. They see need for God in all of life, for community as a value in itself, and simplicity rather than consumption as the style of life.

Political and economic conservatives don't share that view as a matter of principle. Of course, some political and economic conservatives might embrace something like those principles. But those principles are no more a part of P & E conservatism per se than the Apostle's Creed is its ethos.

So, the so-called "Crunchy Con" phenomenon is, I think, uncovering the reality that evangelical and traditionalist Christians cannot make unqualified cause with political and economic conservativism.

FOR SHAME

Rabbi Berel Wein hits the sweet spot, to use a golfing metaphor in THIS article on the proper place for shame in a culture and a person's life.

However, over the last half century, the Western world has pretty much abandoned any sense of shame in public or private behavior. Thus, the current slogan of all malefactors caught in shameful behavior is "to tough it out" and brazenly ignore one's own shameful deeds. There is very little sense of shame left in public or political life, in academia and the arts or even in the religious leadership sectors of our society.

Shame has fled from the scene in the entertainment industries. There is no longer shameful speech or attire, attitude or even behavior. We have no longer any higher expectations of our leaders so therefore they have no sense of shame when they actually meet our very low expectations of them and their personal and public behavior. The sense of honor and pride so necessary for effective and inspired public leadership has disappeared from our world to be replaced by a crassness and insensitivity to moral standards and to a traditional sense of selfless purpose.

And Peggy Noonan in THIS article on being a lady in the moder world of American values is speaking to the same loss.

In a post-Christian therapeutic culture that has been thoroughly Oprahized and has been desensitized by the likes of Jerry Springer and is lectured about the importance of healthy self-image, the concept that SHAME could be a good thing is a hard sell. But, it is, nonetheless, true.

Shame, far from being a negative thing, can be a reminder of two ennobling thoughts about ourselves. 1) We are more than animals and have a God-given dignity that means some behaviors should give us, at least, serious pause. 2) We do not live and act in an isolated vacuum, but instead have an impact on others with all our actions and attitudes. Both things remind us, we are not alone! God is with us and calls us to holy things. Others depend upon us.

Of course, for those who think anything that limits their own desires is a negative thing, none of that is good news.

The Face of EVIL

Charles Cullen is being sentenced Thursday to life in prison for 22 New Jersey murders and attempted murders of three others.

Cullen has pleaded guilty to a total of 29 murders and six attempted murders in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and has told investigators he might have killed as many as 40 people.

That's what this report says. I

I was struck by one of the things that was said in another article:

Thursday's hearing was the first chance for victims' relatives to confront Cullen in court, and about 60 appeared. Many were also hoping to hear Cullen explain why he committed the crimes, but his public defender has said that was unlikely.

Cullen, wearing a black sweater over a collared shirt, sat quietly with his arms folded in front of him after he was brought into the courtroom. As relatives of victims spoke, he kept his eyes closed, frustrating some of the relatives.

ME: There are people who must be labeled evil in this world. For those of us with a Christian worldview, that does not mean that they are worthless or inhuman. It means that they have become something that no human being is meant to be come. That is what causes us to recognize the evil that is in them. Shutting eyes and folding arms is the posture of one who says don't bother me with your petty emotions.

The question is what is society to do with these evil persons. This guy is probably the poster child for death-penalty advocates.

Mississippi and Abortion

You're going to be reading a lot about THIS in the next several weeks and maybe months. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the legislature acts toward this committee vote and the presentation of a bill banning abortion in Mississippi except for cases where the life of the mother is at risk.