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December 31, 2003

God, What Were You Thinking?

The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, Bishop of Washington and Dean of the National Cathedral, considered the meaning of the Christmas miracle in his Christmas Sermon.

And what was God thinking... when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the Law to Moses?

And what was God thinking... when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the sacred Quran to the prophet Muhammad?

And what was God thinking... when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?

Were these just random acts of association and coincidence or was the Angel Gabriel who appears as the named messenger of God in the Jewish Old Testament, the Christian New Testament Gospels, and the Quran of Islam, really the same miraculous messenger of God who proclaimed to a then emerging religious, global community and to us this morning that we are ALL children of the living God? And as such we are called to acknowledge that as Christians, Jews and Muslims we share a common God and the same divine messenger. And that as children of the same God, we are now called to cooperatively work together to make the world a haven for harmony, peace, equality and justice for the greatest and least among us.

We can figure out what was God thinking in the very pronouncement that Bishop Chane speculates upon. In Luke 2:13-14 (NIV) it says:

13Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

So, was God saying there all people should be in a world of harmony because we are all God's children? I am afraid not. It is those whom God's favor rests who receive peace. The great monotheistic religions of the World claim different ways a person receives God's favor. We either must pick one or reject all of them. The "feel good" option — we are all God's children — is not on the table.

December 19, 2003

New Images from Spitzer Space Telescope

NASA is posting images on their web site of their new infrared space telescope. Below is four of the new images.

Top left: The dusty, star-studded arms of M81, a nearby spiral galaxy similar to our own, are illuminated in unprecedented detail. The image reveals Spitzer's ability to explore regions invisible in optical light.

Top right: A massive disc of dusty debris encircles a nearby star called Fomalhaut. Such discs are remnants of planetary construction; our own planet is believed to have formed out of a similar disc.

Bottom left: Resembling a flaming creature on the run, this image exposes the hidden interior of a dark and dusty cloud in the emission nebula IC 1396. Young stars previously obscured by dust can be seen here for the first time.

Bottom right: This Spitzer image transforms a dark cloud into a silky translucent veil, revealing the stellar winds from an otherwise hidden newborn star called HH46-IR. Spitzer's remarkable capacity to peer through cosmic dust allowed it to unveil this never-before-seen star.

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December 18, 2003

Variable Speed of Light Now More Unlikely

Update 01/01/2004:The paper referred to this in this article can be found here.

Lorentz invariance, the theory that space-time is uniform, places important constraints not only on quantum gravity theory but also on variability of the speed of light. Varying speed of light theories are all the rage. But, we have seen earlier this year hard limits to possible Lorentz invariance violations as I commented on here. Now even harder limits on Lorentz invariance violations and thus limits on the variability of the speed of light have been reported by NASA:

A fundamental variation in light speed would violate Lorentz invariance, the basic principle of special relativity. Such a violation could be a clue to unification theories. Scientists have hoped to find Lorentz invariance violations by studying gamma-rays coming from the farthest reaches of the visible universe, where the quantum foam of space may act to slow light traveling to us for billions of years.

Stecker looked much closer to home to find that Lorentz invariance is not being violated. He analyzed gamma-rays from two relatively nearby galaxies about half a billion light-years away with supermassive black holes at their centers, named Mkn 421 and Mkn 501. Some of these galaxies' gamma-rays collide with infrared photons in the universe. These collisions result in the destruction of the gamma-ray and infrared photons, as their energy is converted into mass in the form of electrons and positively charged antimatter-electrons (called positrons), according to Einstein's famous formula E=mc^2.

Stecker and Glashow have pointed out that evidence of the annihilation of the highest-energy gamma-rays, obtained from direct observations of Mkn 421 and Mkn 501, demonstrates clearly that Lorentz invariance is alive and well and not being violated. If Lorentz invariance were violated, the gamma-rays would pass right through the extragalactic infrared fog with insufficient energy to cause annihilation.

"The implication is if Lorentz invariance is violated, it is at such a small level -- less than one part in a thousand trillion -- it is beyond the ability of our present technology to find," Stecker said. "These results may also be telling us the correct form of string theory or quantum gravity must obey the principle of Lorentz invariance."

2003 has been a very good year for Einstein.

Bush marriage stance not 'clear'

I have stated in other forums that the Bush Administration was ambivalent towards the issue of gay marriage and civil unions. The following Washington Times story is further proof.

Pro-family groups said yesterday that President Bush "drove a wedge" into their efforts to protect marriage by seeming to accept homosexual civil unions, even as he said he could support an amendment defining marriage as solely between a man and woman.

"We need clear leadership in a time of judicial tyranny, not politicians who don't have the spine to stand up for something as basic as marriage," said Robert Knight, director of Concerned Women for America's Culture and Family Institute.

"Let's be clear: Creating counterfeits is no way to protect marriage, no matter what you call them," he said.

Mr. Bush, in an interview with ABC News that aired Tuesday night, said, "If necessary, I will support a constitutional amendment which would honor marriage between a man and a woman, codify that."

But he also said he will leave to states "whatever legal arrangements people want to make." Asked specifically about civil unions, he said it is a state issue "unless judicial rulings undermine the sanctity of marriage."

What this shows is that the President is for both defending the traditional definition of marriage and attempting to protect the rights of those who disagree with him. Proponents of the extremes on both sides are asking for him to choose between them and he is wisely refusing to play that game.

December 09, 2003

U.S. News: Evangelicals defy easy labels.

Jay Tolson has done a truly excellent job in surveying the modern evangelical scene. He has also asked an excellent question, what would have Jonathan Edwards thought?

What would Jonathan Edwards think of suburban Chicago's Willow Creek Community Church, where every weekend some 17,000 congregants arrive in their Chevy Tahoes and Toyota minivans to worship in the enormous brick-and-glass auditorium? More specifically, what would the 18th-century Puritan preacher who penned the fire-and-brimstone sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" make of "seeker-friendly" services that use "drama, multimedia, and contemporary music" to serve "individuals checking out what it really means to have a personal relationship with Jesus"? Gazing across the packed rows, would Edwards recognize the modern face of the religious movement that he played such a key role in launching?

On the 300th anniversary of the great theologian's birth, the questions are hardly academic. From Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., to Bellevue Baptist Church outside Memphis, evangelical megachurches dot the American landscape like the Wal-Marts, Home Depots, and other big-box stores that so many of them resemble. But this is only the most visible sign of the growing sway of evangelical Christianity, a tradition that includes both the Pentecostal and Southern Baptist churches, as well as an ever growing array of nondenominational and even some mainline Protestant congregations.

Edwards for the most part would be generally pleased. He would be pleased with evangelicalism's emphasis on authentic experience (cf. Treatise on Religious Affections) and also its theory of engaging contemporary society (cf. On Being where Edwards took on Locke and Berkeley). Edwards would not be as pleased with Fundamentalism.

Starting in the late 19th century, however, waves of new immigrants and an assortment of intellectual challenges from Darwinism to "modernist" theology began edging evangelicals from their place at the center of American life. In reaction, a core of the faithful adopted a hypermoralistic, biblically literalist, and anti-intellectual stance that came to be known as fundamentalism. In the 1940s, more open-minded carriers of the torch, including Billy Graham and Carl F. H. Henry (founding editor of Christianity Today), broke with the bunker mentality and attempted to reconnect with the larger culture. Abandoning the apocalyptic scenarios of the fundamentalists and much of their anti-intellectual baggage, they broadened their appeal, often reaching out to Christians in mainline Protestant churches and even to Catholics. Fundamentalism didn't just disappear; many highly visible leaders and televangelists remain of that tendency. But it is now only one current within a larger movement. "We are back to a situation in which evangelicalism dominates our culture," says Wolfe. "But that doesn't mean `fundamentalist.' It means revivalist, personalist, therapeutic, entrepreneurial--the megachurch."

The anti-intellectualism of Fundamentalism would have driven Edwards batty. There are those who are historians of evangelicalism that charge that it also eschews the intellectual. For example:

Evangelical scholars and intellectuals especially lament the decline of the evangelical mind since the generation of Edwards. During the last century in particular, says Wheaton College's Noll, "Christian reasoning as a whole, through use of the Bible, theology, and doctrine, simply hasn't measured up. The scandal of the evangelical thinking is that there is not enough of it, and that which exists is not up to the standards that Edwards established."

I think that assessment is a little harsh. Noll is thinking of such popularizers as Rick Warren (The Purpose-Driven Church). But, Edwards was also a popularizer. Edwards believed that the faith should be understandable. This resulted in the vivid metaphors in Edwards' most famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Noll and Marsden want an academia-friendly evangelicalism. Edwards wants something that the people could get (contrast his sermons to the Native Americans in Western Massachussetts with those in Northampton).

Tolson concludes that evangelicalism is quite healthy and that health is at least partially attributed to a man born three hundred years ago. Rick Warren notes that his life verse is Acts 13:36 where David served God's purposes for his generation, combining the eternal with the contemporary. That is the challenge of modern evangelicalism.

For all the faults that Edwards might have found in them, however, contemporary evangelical Christians continue to exhibit a quality that he would have considered paramount: They are serious about their religion and seriously concerned about the authenticity of their faith. Listen to Nick Giordano, 46, a pork-industry lobbyist who lives in Northern Virginia and is a member of an evangelically oriented Episcopal congregation. This father of three prefers not to quibble about the label "evangelical" but says there is something about his practice of Christianity that demands taking the example of Christ seriously. "It's impossible to do that if you don't hang out with him, and you can't do that unless you read the Bible. And you don't hear from him through the Holy Spirit if you are selectively cutting things out of your Bible."

Such seriousness about the business of faith may be one reason why evangelical churches are expanding while many mainline Protestant churches shrink. "I think what is happening within the Christian world," says Solomon of McLean Bible Church, "is that going through the motions of being a Christian is something that is passe, outmoded, and no longer necessary. Increasingly, there is evangelicalism and secularism, and if you're not going to be evangelical, why play the game at all?"


Religious watchdog drops trip to China

Religious watchdog drops trip to China - The Washington Times

A visit to China by the U.S. government's religious rights watchdog was foiled yesterday for the second time in four months after Chinese officials threw in a last-minute objection forbidding the group to talk with dissidents in Hong Kong.

In protest, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) canceled its trip.

The dispute occurred on the eve of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's visit to Washington today, during which he is scheduled to meet with President Bush at the White House.

"We'd really like it if President Bush brought this up with the premier," said Eileen Sullivan, a USCIRF spokeswoman.

Fat chance. In order to get extra pressure on North Korea the Bush Adminstration sold Taiwan down the river. The same will most likely occur here for religious dissidents in China.

U.N. control of Web rejected

U.N. control of Web rejected - The Washington Times

GENEVA — The United States, backed by the European Union, Japan and Canada, has turned back a bid by developing nations to place the Internet under the control of the United Nations or its member governments.

But governments, the private sector and others will be asked to establish a mechanism under U.N. auspices to study the governance of the Internet and make recommendations by 2005.

We dodged the bullet this time. Hey U.N. butt out! If you want to see what the U.N. does to things see my post on how well (cough, cough) they dealt with SARS.

December 01, 2003

Women and the Bible

This week's issue of Newsweek explored the issue of women in the Bible. This was prompted by the popularity of the novel the Da Vinci Code. In it the author theorized that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus. This is highly unlikely. On the other hand this reexamination of Mary Magadalene provides a useful opportunity of undoing the conflation of Mary with the unknown prostitute in Luke 7. The origin of this error was a sermon by Pope Gregory in the Sixth Century.

Feminist revisionists look to the so-called Gnostic Gospels to find freedom from patriarchical oppression. However, this is not necessary. The role of Mary Magadalene in the canonical Gospels provides a model for the role of women and shows how women are valued in the Christ's Kingdom. Ken Woodword, Newsweek's Religion Editor, notes the following:

Every act of reading, of course, involves interpretation. Your Don Quixote or Molly Bloom is not mine because we bring different expectations and experiences to the text. But the Bible presents a particularly difficult world to enter into because it is internally self-referential: the later books of the Hebrew Bible reinterpret passages from the earlier books, just as the New Testament advances reinterpretations of the Old. It is also, in key passages, self-correcting from a gender perspective. Thus, to approach this world as if it were all a patriarchal conspiracy is to miss those texts that reflect a gynocentric point of view. Among the most important for Christians are those Gospel passages in which women—including Mary Magdalene—discover the empty tomb and deliver this good news to Jesus’ fearful male Apostles. Even a male reader like myself can’t miss the implication: 12 men formed the inner circle of the Jesus movement and got titles to go with that privileged access, but it was women who were rewarded at the Resurrection because they were more faithful to Jesus. So much for patriarchal titles.

It was Mary and not the Apostles who had faith when Christ was resurrected. The Jews of the time thought wrongly that ethnic heritage saved us. Others have thought power and titles saves us. What Mary Magdalene teaches us is that it is none of that. Rather, it is faith that allows us passage into the family of God and that in that family we are all brothers and sisters.