Choosing Barabbas over Christ

I first came across this essay way back in my college days, in 1990 or so. It's a nice piece to trot out as Easter approaches, to stop and reflect on what happened on Good Friday.


"Not this man, but Barabbas!"

It is often said that Christianity is at its roots anti-Jewish, that it encourages hatred for Jews by teaching that they are responsible for the death of Jesus. Moreover, it is said, this is not just a distortion of the Christian faith by a few misguided fanatics -- it is the teaching of the New Testament itself. In this essay, I should like to examine in what sense, if any, this is so.

Before examining the question of how the Christian scriptures interpret the events, where they lay the blame for the events connected with the death of Jesus, let us consider how they report the events themselves, their account of what happened, and the role of the Jews in it.

It seems to me that some aspects of the trial of Jesus are often misunderstood, and that it is important to clear up the misunderstandings, both because they cause ill will between Jews and Christians, and because they keep us as Christians from understanding clearly what the Scriptures have to teach us.

In the gospels, we read that Pilate was willing to release Jesus, but that the crowd shouted, "Crucify him!" and that Pilate gave in rather than risk a riot. From this, many readers infer that the overwhelming majority of Jews hated Jesus because he rebuked them for their sins, and were determined to see him dead.

Occasionally, the moral is drawn that the crowd was not so much consistently malicious as hopelessly fickle, so that the same tongues that shouted, "Hosannah, Son of David! Welcome in the name of the Lord!" on Palm Sunday were ready to shout "Crucify him!" only five days later.

Now the first thing to be noted is that the gospels plainly declare that Caiaphas and his associates were determined to kill Jesus, not because he was unpopular, but precisely because he was popular. They were afraid that the people would hail him as the messiah, and start an uprising against Rome, which the Romans would crush without mercy, as they had similar uprisings in the past (John 11:47-50).

And so they decided to have him arrested, but not when there were people about, because of the danger of a riot in his favor (Matthew 26:5); hence the usefulness of Judas, who could lead them to him at a time and place where he was alone and could be seized quietly.

It is highly probable that they made arrangements with Pilate ahead of time, explaining the situation to him and receiving his assurance that when they brought him the prisoner at the crack of dawn, he would ratify the judgment of the Jewish tribunal immediately and automatically, without re-examining the case, so that the prisoner could be sentenced at daybreak and nailed up within the hour, before the people knew what was happening. The following points favor this theory:

1. If Pilate had received an advance visit, he might well have told his wife what it was about, and so it would have been natural for her to dream of Jesus and her husband on Thursday night, and to wake in the morning knowing that he had gone to sign an execution order.
2. The accusers could not enter the courtroom, lest they become ceremonially unclean and unable to celebrate the Passover. This required Pilate to be continually going outside to hear what they had to say, and back in again to confront the prisoner. This is a ridiculous way to conduct court, and presumably court would not ordinarily have met that day at all. That Pilate consented to hear the case under the circumstances suggests prearrangement.
3. Pilate, having got a note from his wife, changed his mind and decided to re-examine the case after all, instead of simply glancing at the warrant and signing it. When he says to the chief priests, "What is the charge against this man?" They answer, "If he were not a criminal, we would not have brought him here." In other words, "Never mind the details, just sign."

This is an incredible piece of insolence, explicable only if they were relying on an explicit promise that this case would go through without a snag. Caiaphas presumably had explained that Jesus was a dangerous man, and unless he were dealt with swiftly and without giving his followers a chance to react, there was danger of a major uprising.

So here they were, delivering the prisoner at the crack of dawn as arranged, to be sentenced and nailed up before most of the city was stirring. And now Pilate was, for no apparent reason, having second thoughts. No wonder that his accusers feel double-crossed, and that their response betrays their indignation.

Pilate delays, sending the prisoner to Herod in the hope of not having to make a decision himself. And by the time that Herod sends him back, there is a crowd. They have come to demand the release of the Passover prisoner.

Now few if any have come to demand the release of Jesus. Except for the disciples, who have fled in disarray, and the arresting party, almost no one in Jerusalem knows that Jesus has been arrested. Nor is someone likely to show up who has no particular prisoner in mind that he wants released, but who plans to vote for someone or other when he gets there. In fact, most of the crowd consists of partisans of Barabbas, and have come for the express purpose of getting him released.

Years ago I heard a sermon in which the preacher spoke of how the crowd chose Barabbas over Jesus, and reminded us that Barabbas was a murderer, and that it was as if the crowd had a choice between Jesus and George Sidney Sitts (a then-famous multiple murderer -- today he would have said Ted Bundy).

But surely this misses the point. Barabbas was condemned for murder and insurrection. In the eyes of those who favored armed resistance to Rome, he was a freedom fighter -- less a Ted Bundy than a Nelson Mandela, or, if you like, a Joe Hill.

The English writer Dorothy L. Sayers, in her radio play The Man Born to be King, suggests an Irish parallel. Suppose that in the days before Irish home rule, during "the troubles," you are an Irishman in Dublin, and it is St. Patrick's Day. Suppose for the sake of illustration that it is the custom that every year on that day, the English governor general must release a prisoner selected by the Dublin crowd.

This year, good old Paddy Murphy is in jail, sentenced to be hanged because he blew up a bridge that a British troop train was crossing. So we are all going down to Government House this morning to shout, "Free Paddy Murphy! Free Paddy Murphy!"

Here we are now, at the back of the crowd, almost a block away from the balcony on which the governor general (may his bones rot!) has just made his appearance. A great roar has gone up from the crowd. "Free Paddy Murphy!" On the balcony, the governor general (may his bones rot!) is waving his arms and trying to get the crowd to quiet down so that he can speak. People are quieting down a little, expecting him to announce the freeing of Paddy Murphy. But no, he is saying something to the effect that he has another prisoner in mind that he would rather free instead.

Now the crowd is really roaring, and we are shouting along with everyone else. The nerve of the fellow! The rule is that he has to free the man that we pick, and does he think that he can take the choice away from us and set someone else free instead? If he can get away with that, we might as well not have the St. Patrick's Day Amnesty at all. But in fact he is not going to get away with it. If he tries, we'll see to it that he has a riot on his hands. Altogether now, boys. "Free Paddy Murphy! Free Paddy Murphy!"

Fine. The governor general has backed down. I knew he would. He doesn't want a riot on his record. So Paddy Murphy is free and the other fellow is to be hanged. Who was the other fellow? I didn't quite catch his name, and it really doesn't matter. I suppose it is a shame that he's got to hang, but it was him or Paddy, and what counts is that Paddy got off, and that we showed the governor general (may his bones rot!) that we know our rights and that he can't bluff us out of them.

All this, of course, takes Pilate completely off-balance. He has managed the whole thing badly. When the case first came to him, he could have ordered the prisoner released on the spot. Instead, he has the brain-wave about passing the buck to Herod. When Herod simply sends the prisoner back, the crowd has assembled by this time. Knowing (if he was in Jerusalem the previous Sunday he could not help knowing) that Jesus was extremely popular with the people, he assumes that he can talk the crowd into choosing Jesus for the Passover Amnesty.

When this blows up in his face, he has effectively tied his own hands. By offering the crowd a choice between Jesus and Barabbas, he has said, "We have here two prisoners, both condemned to death." Having said that, he cannot turn around and say, "I was just kidding about Jesus of Nazareth. Of course he is innocent and I never intended to sentence him to anything."

To do that would be to acknowledge to the crowd that he had tried to cheat them, had tried to get them to waste their vote on a man who did not need it. Pilate has already convicted the prisoner and passed sentence without noticing it, and there is no way out.

***

What is the practical application of these considerations? What do they do for our practice, as opposed to our historical curiosity?

First, they guide us in making statements about the Crucifixion and the role of the Jews therein that meet the tests of truthfulness, fairness, and goodwill. Christian statements on the subject have not always done so, and it is important that they should.

Second, they guide us in our own thinking about the Passion of Our Lord. It is easy to think of history and conflict in terms of good guys and bad guys. Why did Nero persecute the Christians? Because he was one of the bad guys. Period. Why did Caiaphas want Jesus dead? Because Caiaphas was a wicked man. And of course this means that we would never behave like Nero, or Caiaphas, or Pilate, or Herod (either Herod Antipas or his father Herod the Great at Bethlehem a generation earlier). We may cut a few corners every now and then, but sheer wickedness for its own sake is not our style.

In fact it is not as simple as that. Let us look at the record:

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, "What are we to do? For his man performs many signs. If we let him go on thus, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation." But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation should not perish." (John 11:47-50)

There you have Caiaphas' motives plainly set forth, and they are defensible and in some respects praiseworthy. Many times in Caiaphas' lifetime men had risen up and incited the Jewish people to strike a blow for national independence. Some of them had claimed to be the messiah. Some had performed, or were believed by many to have performed, miracles. All had ended in disaster, with severe repressions from the Romans.

Caiaphas had every reason to fear that with the next uprising all traces of Jewish liberty would be stamped out. Certainly he had grounds for arguing that it was better to kill one potential leader of a rebellion than let him survive to lead thousands to their deaths. A general who will not sacrifice one man to save a battalion has no business in uniform.

Do we ever reason like this, concentrating so on the big picture that we neglect the immediate issues of right and wrong that are before us? Perhaps not. Most of us are not in a position to be faced with policy decisions on a large scale.

Very well then, let us look at the crowd. If they had assembled that morning out of sheer malice and wickedness, because they had heard that a completely innocent man was on trial and they wanted to make sure that he was convicted, then their actions would have no lesson for us. But in fact they were there for the perfectly legitimate purpose of getting a freedom fighter out of the clutches of the occupation troops.

Intent on their purpose, they did not stop to think when Pilate put forward an alternative. They simply thrust it aside and demanded what they had come to demand, seeing in Pilate's suggestion only a distraction from the business at hand.

Are we ever like that? Do we ever pursue a goal with a single-mindedness that keeps us from stopping to consider who might get hurt in the process? If so, then let us remember Our Lord's words: "What you have done to the least of these, you have done to me."

***

We have seen how the Holy Scriptures narrate the events leading up to the Crucifixion. Now, what do they say about blame for the events?

On two occasions, Peter, addressing Jewish audiences, speaks of them as involved in the killing of Jesus:

"Men of Israel, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works which God did through him in your midst, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men." (Acts 2:22-23)

"Men of Israel, the God of our fathers glorified his child Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him."

(Acts 3:12-13)

However, when Paul is addressing a synagogue audience in Pisidian Antioch, he says:

"Brethren, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you that fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him or understand the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning him. Though they could charge him with nothing deserving death, yet they asked Pilate to have him killed." (Acts 13:26-28)

The distinction is clear. Peter is addressing crowds in Jerusalem, the first address less than two months after the Crucifixion, and the second shortly thereafter. It is probable that both audiences included persons who had been present when Jesus was condemned. But Paul, addressing Jews outside Jerusalem, says, not "You killed him," but "They of Jerusalem killed him."

There is no suggestion in the New Testament that "the Jews" as a body were responsible for the Crucifixion. The most that can be argued is that the writers think that "they of Jerusalem" were responsible.

Now Christians have been accustomed to view the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the second temple in A.D. 70 as a punishment for the Crucifixion. And in support of this, we have Christ's own words as he wept over the city (Luke 19:41-44 and Matthew 23:37-39). What are we to make of this?

I reply that a historian who refused to put any religious interpretation at all on his data nevertheless would have good grounds for connecting the crowd's choice of Barabbas over Jesus with the fall of the city a generation later.

The people were offered a choice between two leaders, one offering spiritual renewal and the other political and military action aiming at national independence. They chose the latter. Given the strength of Rome, and Rome's willingness to use that strength, the choice was suicidal. A purely secular historian might have listened to the crowd that day and said, "Now I know that the sack of this city by the Romans is inevitable."

A Jewish friend to whom I made this point asked, "But why do you blame the Jews of that day for aspiring to political freedom and national independence? In what other people would such a goal be considered anything but admirable?"

I said: "One answer would be that the Jews had a calling not to be like the other nations, and that therefore what is allowed to other peoples might not be allowed to them" (1 Samuel 8:7,19-20).

It is not that political aspirations are wrong in themselves, but that they cannot take first place with those called to serve God. But in fact, I remind you that our hypothetical historian is carefully steering clear of religious and moral judgments. He is not saying that it is wrong for the Jews to fight Rome for their independence. He is only saying that if they do, they are bound to lose -- which they did.

***

So, when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but that a riot was about to begin, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves." And all the people answered, "His blood be on us and on our children." (Matthew 27:24-25)

Here we have the people solemnly cursing themselves. But one thing is missing -- a voice thundering from heaven, "So be it!" It is written: "How can I curse whom God has not cursed?" (Numbers 23:8). A curse, even on oneself, is powerless if God does not ratify it. Jesus, as He was being crucified, said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Does anyone suppose that his words carried less weight with the Father than theirs did?

I regret to say that I have heard one person argue that this prayer was spoken only on behalf of the Roman soldiers, not on behalf of the Jewish rulers, since they knew what they were doing. This contradicts the words of Peter: "Brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers" (Acts 3:17).

On the other hand, the fact remains that Matthew has preserved for us the words of the crowd. Since he clearly did not preserve every word spoken that day, it appears that he thought these words significant. What then is their meaning?

There are no grounds for applying them to the Jewish people as such. The application must be narrower, to the then inhabitants of Jerusalem and their immediate offspring, the next generation; or broader, to all the peoples of the earth.

As we have already noted, they are applicable to the sack of Jerusalem, and it is largely the crowd front of Pilate's hall, and their children, who would bear the brunt of that sack when it came a generation later.

On the other hand, they are applicable to the whole human race. In the Law of Moses, we find that blood is taken as a symbol of guilt. To say that A's blood is on B is to say that B bears the responsibility and the guilt for the death of A. But blood is also taken as a sign of purification. When a leper is declared to be well again, and clean of his former disease, he is smeared and sprinkled with blood (Leviticus 14:6,7,17). When the covenant is ratified at Sinai between God and the people of Israel, they are sprinkled with blood (Exodus 24:8). When a priest is consecrated to the service of the Lord, he is smeared and sprinkled with blood (Exodus 29:20; Leviticus 8:23,30) In like manner the blood of Christ is on every member of the human race, either for guilt and condemnation, or for cleansing, incorporation into the covenant, and consecration.

May God grant it to each of us to receive it for the latter.

elmo the outlaw

Today I read my daughter and foster son a Sesame Street book featuring You Know Who giving safety tips. A dull book, despite the writers' halfhearted attempts to make it humorous with silly safety tips and illustrations.

The story became a lot more interesting when I started making up my own story, one only loosely connected with the pictures. It appears Elmo is in the middle of an attempt to destroy the world, and only the concerted efforts of the other Muppets thwart him, although he he still sends rampaging pachyderms down Sesame Street, launches an all-out assault on the planet from orbit and sics a pack of wolves on Bert at the zoo. (Best part is when I do Elmo's voice and say, "Now Elmo will launch his suborbital bombs! Hee hee hee hee hee!")

My daughter loved it, and asked me to read it to her three times.

sesame street in heaven

PBS will still have Sesame Street in heaven, but the Count will be gone to remove his occultic influence on the show, and Elmo will be digitally removed as well (and digitally cast into the Abyss). Less annoying Muppets will be inserted in his place.

Once you understand ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ it’s not so bad

For some reason — I suspect it's because of the overly saccharin flavor of the 1939 MGM Studios movie — "The Wizard of Oz" has become almost as popular on the children's stage as it has for TV.

Watching the movie with my 4- year-old daughter recently, I think I made it as far the Munchkins before 1 became hyperglycemic and collapsed on the floor.

My wife found me about an hour later, deep in a coma, when she came to investigate the fruity smell that had begun to permeate the house. She had to play "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Brazil" for seven days straight before she could revive me.

As it was, some smart aleck had switched the DVD for "Brazil" with "It's a Wonderful Life," and she nearly lost me.

The truth is, watching "The Wizard of Oz" doesn't have to be a nearly fatal experience for anyone.

The first thing to consider is the nature of villainy. It's easy to peg the Wicked Witch of the West for the villain because we've been brought up on a steady diet of antagonists who look evil.

Today's children are used to deformed dark lords like Voldemort and giant flaming catseyes like Sauron. The Wicked Witch of the West not only is green, she has a pointy hat and a broomstick, and she has a wicked cackle. Cruelest of all, in Baum's book, she threatens to make Dorothy do housework.

Pish-posh, I tell you. We should be so lucky to live in a world where evil has bad breath and can be identified so easily, or where the bad guy always has horns on his head. The world isn't that simple. Even the Devil himself, when he can't appear as an angel of light, usually can manage at least to look like a newspaper editor or the secretary of education.

If you look at the witch's motivation, she's actually very harmless. All she wants is the ruby slippers that belonged to her sister, the Wicked Witch of the East, the poor woman who had the misfortune of standing where Dorothy's house landed.

That seems like a harmless enough request. If a house landed on my brother, I think the least someone could do would be to give me the shoes he was wearing at the time, as a keepsake.

(I might not be too keen on wearing them myself if they were ruby red, or even silver like the shoes in the book, but it doesn't seem likely the witches were called wicked because they had impeccable fashion sense.)

Be that as it may, the witch wants her sister's slippers. But for reasons not readily apparent, Glinda, who has been introduced as the Good Witch of the North, decides to put the slippers on Dorothy's feet.

It's important to note that there's no discussion here. Glinda doesn't ask Dorothy if she wants to wear the slippers. She doesn't even check to see if the colors will go well with what Dorothy is wearing. She just twinkles her magic wand, and voila! Dorothy is now wearing the ruby slippers of a dead woman.

In the process, she also receives the enmity of the Wicked Witch of the West, who is prepared to make Dorothy fold the laundry to get them back, if it comes to that.

Now you might think that since all Dorothy wants is to go home and that since Glinda is a good witch, she might be willing to give her a hand. But no, Glinda insists that the only person who can help Dorothy is the Wizard of Oz, the ruler of a far-off city.

So Dorothy has to trek all the way to Oz, picking up help as she goes from such unlikely sources as the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man and Elton John. In the movie, she has the added travail of hair that can't decide how it's supposed to be done, with pigtails that change their length at regular intervals and frequently don't match.

When Dorothy finally does reach Oz, with the bad hair days and terrible songs now just painful memories, the wizard reveals that he has a longstanding grudge with the wicked witch himself and sends Dorothy to get the witch's broomstick.

It's during this point of the story that Dorothy is captured, and her friends muster the courage, compassion and musical talent no one ever knew they had to rescue her. They not only rescue her, they get the broom and kill the Wicked Witch of the West in the process.

By now, it should become increasingly clear why Glinda gave Dorothy the slippers. When she landed in Oz, Dorothy killed the Wicked Witch of the East. Now she and her friends have killed the Wicked Witch of the West Once they return to Oz, Toto the annoying yipyip dog reveals to everyone that "Great and Powerful Oz" is a con man who has been using his razzle-dazzle and flair for the theatrical to lord it over the superstitious residents of Oz. Disgraced, he leaves Oz in a balloon and is never seen again.

At this point, with two wicked witches dead and the wizard exposed as a charlatan, Dorothy unknowingly has created a tremendous power vacuum in the political and magical structure of Oz.

Who is left to fill that vacuum? Glinda, obviously. The Good Witch of the South is mentioned but never appears. One can only imagine how Glinda dispatched her other rival before dropping a house on the Wicked Witch of the East.

Dorothy, dupe that she is, laments that she has no way to go home. But the truth is that she could have gone home any time, as every fan of the story knows, by clicking her heels. That is exactly what she does, and she remains blissfully unaware of the horrors she has unleashed upon Oz.

With Dorothy now gone, we can only imagine how Glinda has enslaved the Munchkins, melted the Tin Man for spare parts, and sicced flying monkeys on any who dare to oppose her iron-fisted rule.

I've shared my vision for "The Wizard of Oz" with several friends and co-workers, and none of them has been able to find any holes in my thinking. Several have remarked that they never will be able to see the movie the same way again.

I hope you have a similar experience the next time a small child convinces you to pop the movie into the DVD player. If not, make sure you have a copy of "Brazil" handy

motherhood

Got the kiddies to sleep again today, after my wife tried unsuccessfully for close to an hour to get Evangeline to take a nap.

This is coming with increased frequency of late, which has me concerned ...

When did I stop being a dad and become a mom?

reporting the news

There are several ways I've seen reporters gather news, some of which I think are more credible and more responsible than others, at least used as a primary news source.

The first is to gather news that comes to you. When you work at a newspaper -- and, I imagine, at any other news outlet as well -- you are bombarded by news releases, announcements, reports and sniping, all clamoring for your attention and all claiming to be the most important thing in the history of Western civilization. Lazy reporters rely on these for their news stories, which gets really bad at the upper levels, since releases are so doctored ahead of time and so manufactured that the truthfulness of the claims is questionable at best.

Second is to cover news conferences and government meetings in general. News conferences usually are manufactured events with used for cheesy photo ops and -- in my opinion -- short on actual news content. The only news conferences I ever gave a flying patootie about were the ones held by the prosecutor's office or the police. Of course I'm referring to the local level, which is where I've worked.

The problem I see with chasing meetings and news conferences for stories is that before long you end up thinking like a politician and not like the people you're supposed to represent; i.e., the public, your readers. While I'm sure many politcians in New Jersey -- and many of the commentators as well -- thought Bob Franks had a nifty-neato idea in the gubernatorial primary in bringing back the state auditor, it wasn't an issue that mattered much to Joe and Jane New Jersey, nor did it really support his claims to be a political outsider.

The thing I found gave me some of my best news stories, and what I always urged my reporters to do, was to get out of the stinking office, away from the phones, and meet the people. I talked with residents at least as much at a municipal or school board meeting as I did with their elected officials.

After all, what it really boils down to is "Who gives a flying patootie?" Let the planning board members get worked up over zoning issues, lot size and minimum lot frontage. That doesn't fly the patootie of my readers, and it doesn't fly mine. What does fly them is "If you make this change, I can't sell my land for as much money" and "The car dealership is too close to the road."

I also got a lot of my story ideas by getting to know the residents. That's how I found out about the lady who was trying to save an old cemetery, another lady who was working for preserving the township's history, some of the conflicts within the police department, a good bit of information on a teachers strike, and so on.

Of course, a lot of news judgment comes in the form of "Does it interest me?" and "Can I convince my editor it's a good story?" I once read a fascinating story about personalized license plates. Most writers couldn't have found the story there.

eric clapton

A friend of mine asks, "Is there anything Eric Clapton can't do on guitar?"

Puh-lease. As if he's so special. I can think of plenty things Clapton can't do on guitar:

Sound like a tuba.
Summon a herd of elephants from deepest Africa.
Direct traffic.
The backstroke.

Come on and impress me.

unhealthy speech

The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

Contrarily, the French have lots of fat in their diets and also suffer fewer heart attacks than either the British or Americans.

Conclusion: Eat what ever the heck you want. It's speaking English that kills you.

faith and reason

I just took an interesting if slanted quiz intended to measure the internal consistency of a person's belief system, particularly where it pertains to the existence or nonexistence of God. I got to bite the bullet on the evolutionary question, but I do have to disagree with two of the tenets of this quiz (where it claims I took a hit):

1) I do not believe that it is a choice of God either arbitrarily defines good and evil OR God follows a moral code greater than himself. My understanding is that God himself is the basis for our delineations of good and evil; therefore, it is not logical to say that he could turn the standards of good and evil on their head.

The question as it was posed in the survey reminded me of the Aristotlean question about whether deeds were good because God declares them so or whether God declares actions good because they are. The latter suggests that there is a moral standard higher than God to which he can be held accountable; the former, that God is essentially capricious in his declarations.

The answer, I believe, is neither: God himself is the standard from which we derive our notions of morality. Since God is not a capricious being, I cannot picture him creating a world that does not follow his character.

Of course, it's probably a false dichotomy to say the moral laws are derived from God's character but the physical laws are not. The Bible even suggests that the two are intertwined, when God declares of the pagan peoples inhabiting Canaan before the Israelites arrive that "The land will vomit them out before you."

2) Some things, by their very definitions, are impossible. Saying that God is omnipotent and can do whatever he wants does not mean that he can make square circles or make 1+1=72, at least not without rewriting the entire universe and thereby rendering the current sense of the question moot. Thus the authors of the quiz are engaging in a bit of sophistry rather than logic.

things my daughter has said

One day last week, I took Evangeline and her foster brother, Isaac, out on a few errands. As I took off her sweatshirt after we had returned, I inadvertently pulled her shirt sleeve off her arm as well.

Evangeline looked down at her arm, which was now sticking out from under her shirt, and at her sleeve, which was now hanging loose from her shoulder and called out, "Daddy, help! My arm fell off."

On Friday, we were in the car again when I was checking on the kids through the rear-view mirror. Evangeline had made eye contact with me, so when I flipped the rear-view mirror back up so I could watch the vehicle behind me, she said, "Uh-oh! Daddy's turned off. Turn Daddy back on!"

Then there's the time she called 9-1-1 while I was in the bathroom ...

what's opera, doc?

Our daughter is a little over 2 years old, and is learning new words, skills and songs at a prodigious rate. Recently she introduced us to her newfound appreciation of Wagner's "The Ride of the Valkyries" by singing the lyrics:

Kill the wabbit!
Kill the wabbit!
Kill the wabbit!

It's a good thing I wasn't driving at the time, or I would have wrapped our car around a tree I was laughing so hard.

on my bookshelf

I'm reading a book by Gina Kolata about the 1918 Flu (also called the "Spanish Flu"). Epidemiology long has been an interest of mine, so despite the dry-sounding topic, it's really quite fascinating.

I think it was something that grew out of reading "The Canterbury Tales," actually. Craig Rustici, our Chaucer professor, explained that England in Chaucer's day was experiencing massive social upheaval owing to the new upward mobility experienced by laborers, whose skills suddenly were in demand, owing to the effects of bubonic plague.

In other words, a disease that made its way from China to Europe along trade routes was a major contributor to the end of the Dark Ages, along with more conventional means of social change such as shifting philosophies and wars.

So while my interest is definitely a layman's -- I can't begin to tell you the molecular biology at
play in chickenpox, let alone in plague -- I can't help but find massive outbreaks of disease interesting because of their social consequences. In the case of the Spanish flu, it led to an entire generation overdosing themselves and their children on antibiotics, affected commerce and transit -- people avoided large crowds, where the risk of exposure to the killer flu was increased -- and also led to the Ford presidency imbroglio of vaccinating everyone to avoid a return of the Spanish flu, even though there was no scientific reason to fear such a return. (The specter was that powerful.)

Kolata's been reviled by those covering the newspaper industry and science reporting for her brias and inaccuracies in her reporting, and deservedly so, but she writes engagingly and captures the personalities of the people she's writing about in this book. I have another book of hers here about the events leading up to the cloned sheep Dolly, but haven't read it yet.

top 10 olympic judge excuses

From an e-mail I received today:

Top Ten Excuses of the French Olympic Skating Judge

10. Thought she was voting for Al Gore
9. Forgot that bribery was only for Olympic officials, not judges
8. Thought Canada was part of the "Axis of Evil"
7. Bribe included autographed Jerry Lewis coffee mug
6. Used Arthur Andersen to tabulate her score
5. Wanted to hear Scott Hamilton throw a hissy fit
4. Mistook Russian stumbling for exciting new choreography
3. "Sale and Pelletier? I thought they said bin Laden and Omar."
2. You think hockey dads are rough, try dealing with Russian figure skating dads.
1. "I'm French."

istari rank

Here's a poser for you. The Simarilion describes Olorin as the wisest of the Maiar, and certainly when you consider what happens to the other Istari by the end of the Third Age -- two Maiar lost without a trace, Radagast off playing with animals and generally uninvolved in the affairs of the intelligent races, and Saruman corrupt -- Gandalf clearly does the best job at following Eru's purpose.

That being so, why was Saruman made the head of the order, and why does Gandalf generally defer to him?

I suppose one could argue that Saruman's desire to lead the White Council was a portent of how the passage of time eventually would lead him astray into seeking temporal power as well, but then that leads me to wonder where Curunir was standing in relationship to Melkor when Eru led them in the symphony that created the universe.

A scenario that involves Curinir jockeying for power because he desires it, and Olorin being content to let someone else have it, seems to match their personalities by the end of the Third Age, but one wonders what they would have been like at the start of the age, when Eru had just sent them into the world.

kinsey report

I might be wrong, but I believe the Kinsey Reports or Kinsey Institute also defined a homosexual encounter very loosely, including merely seeing another another person of the same sex naked.

If that's the case, then I'd have to admit to having a homosexual experience with about 15 other boys back in the middle school gym class showers, but I'd also have to classify it as rape.

writing and journalism

Journalism is a great field to pursue. It pays little -- I made $40K a year only after being in the field for five years and making what proved for me to be an ill-advised move into copy editing -- but in terms of job satisfaction, I have found it to be more than fulfilling. What a journalist does matters, which is one of the reasons we get so upset when they do it wrong. There is no feeling like writing a news story and then seeing it used by both sides in a debate to support their cases.

I also found that being a reporter was a tremendous asset to me in terms of creatve writing. Because I had to write constantly to meet deadline, I learned that it didn't matter if I felt "inspired" or not. Deadline waits for no one, and if today you turn out crap, you can rest assured your editor will hand it back to you to improve. Being a reporter has boosted my understanding of the way people think, it's increased my knowledge of government at all levels (and therefore made me more effective at getting attention as a private citizen since I know which buttons to push), it's improved my sense of good and corny dialogue, and it's generally made me a better creative and nonfiction writer.

For someone planning to pursue writing as a career but not necessarily in journalism, I would recommend going somewhere other than journalism school, especially if she already has clips from the area newspaper. This will give her a broad background to draw from, rather than just journalistic writing, and will make her a better-rounded person.

In my experience, not having a degree in journalism is not a liability for getting a job in that field. I didn't have such a degree, nor have some of the best reporters and editors I've worked with. Conversely, some of the worst ones I have, do.

As to who writes better, a lit major or a J-major, that's one of the major unsettled debates of our time. J-school teaches word economy, which is essential for good writing, while most academics teach their students to write long. On the other hand, many news articles are about as exciting to read as the ingredients on a can of pop, though that may be due as much to the writer's inability to understand what counts as news and what's merely political preening as to anything else.

Back when I was managing editor at a local newspaper, I hired two full-time reporters. My interest wasn't in their college degrees -- in fact, I can't even remember for certain if my second hire had one. What mattered to me was whether they could write well enough that I wouldn't be coming back to them with oodles of questions and essentially writing the stories for them.

My first hire had a journalism degree from Columbia University, and his writing was dry, flat and lifeless. He also had, in my estimation, a skewed judgment of what made news (too much on meetings, not enough on people).

I don't recall what my second hire had her degree in; to be honest, I can't even recall that she had a college degree. But she could write. The only published piece she had before she came to the paper was a piece of fiction she had written, but it was engrossing.

Incidentally, when the New Jersey Press Association handed out awards for the 2000 press year, she picked up a first-place award in breaking news coverage and I think another award as well. The journalism grad got zilch.

mark one

My wife and I are starting a Bible study in our house next Tuesday with the twin goals of encouraging other Christians to deepen in their faith and bringing nonbelievers into the fold. The study will be bi-weekly, and will begin with the gospel of Mark.

We'll be going through one chapter every meeting, beginning with Mark 1. What follows are my notes and questions, not necessarily what I will be sharing during the actual study. I myself don't necessarily plan to post finished thoughts or conclusions here, except as part of an ongoing discussion.

1. Why does Mark describe John the Baptist's clothing and tell us what he ate?
2. Why is John's arrival significant and worth mentioning?
3. If John's baptism was for forgiveness of sins, and Jesus was sinless, why did he get baptized?
4. Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness is suggestive of Moses' time on Mount Sinai and Elijah's time fleeing to Mount Horeb. (Elijah even called Elisha to follow him after he returned.) Why does Jesus spend this time out in the wilderness? And then why does he do it again after he's been healing people?
5. How do you interpret Jesus' statement that "The time has come, the kingdom of God is near?" (After all, if the time has come, why isn't the kingdom of God here already? Seems kind of an oxymoron.)
6. When Jesus begins teaching in the synagogue, why does the unclean spirit identify him for everyone else -- after all, wouldn't it prefer people not know who Jesus is? -- and why does he command it to be silent? And why does he do the same thing with the leper?
7. Given that Jesus teaches with authority and demonstrates authority over unclean spirits and illness, why does Mark say he was unable to enter a town? Wouldn't people be opening up the city to him to heal their sick?
8. The chapter quotes from the Tanakh in several places, describing John the Baptist (Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3) and during Jesus' baptism (Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1). WHat do these references suggest about Jesus?
9. Characteristics we see of Christ in this chapter: his goals are bigger than those of his disciples, his compassion for the sick, his authority, and his respect for the law (cf. his instructions to the leper to present himself to the priest.
10. Areas we can draw lessons from: time in the wilderness to get our heads on straight, exercising authority properly, attitudes toward others' authority, taking opportunities afforded us to teach, people's faith and how we respond to it.

Touching on No. 6, my study Bible also notes that it was a common occult belief in the Middle East that knowing a person's name gives you power over them. In other words, by naming Jesus, the spirit could have been trying to gain authority over him, an attempt Jesus dealt with quickly by commanding the spirit to silence and ordering it to come out of the man.

Since Mark deals substantially with Jesus' authority, this reading also makes some sense.

am i getting cited for this?

I wrote an article on "Lord of the Rings" that was published online by Focus on the Family. At the bottom of the article was my Yahoo! spam catch-all address, where I have received about 20-odd comments on my article, from Tolkien devotees to teeny-boppers to this and that.

Yesterday, I received my first request for help on a term paper.

Here's a copy of the e-mail I sent her. (I think I might drop the university a line just to let them know to check her paper to make sure she doesn't plagiarize me. That's been done to me before, and I can't say I appreciate it much.)

Dear Dr. Learn,

Thanks for the honorific, but I assure you it's not deserved. I have a bachelor's degree in English literature from Lafayette College, but have not continued my education beyond that.

I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions regarding Tolkien and mythology in relation to Christianity. Thank you so much for your time. If you simply don't have the time, I perfectly understand.

Wellll ... I think you can understand when I say I'm a little reluctant to answer these questions at great length just now, since by your own admission you're in the process of writing a term paper on this subject, especially since I'm a professional writer and have been plagiarized before.

If you do use my thoughts remember to attribute them in your paper, even if you don't quote me directly.

1. In my research so far, I have found many Christians to be reservedly open to C.S. Lewis, but not to Tolkien. Why do you think this is?

Because Lewis' writing is blatantly Christian and allegorical, and because Lewis is known primarily in Christian circles as an apologist, and deservedly so. It was Tolkien's example and faith that eventually led Lewis to become a believer, but Tolkien "despise[d] allegory in all its forms."

You can find more about that in various biographies about Tolkien. The one I have is "J.R.R. Tolkien: Architect of Middle-earth."

2. In general Christians shun fantasy novels, and fairytale stories. One Christian told me that we as Christians don't believe in fantasy. They felt reality dealt more with Christian values. How do you feel about this statement?

I'd say they'd have to discount a large portion of the New Testament, since Jesus taught in parables. So did some of the prophets and judges.

Stories are stories, and as such they all present a window to truth; Calvary is the point at which all stories become True.

3. Tolkien once said that the Bible was the ultimate example of a myth. A true myth. Many Christians would take offence at this statement. In what way (if any) could the Bible be seen as a myth?

Tolkien was using the academic, rather than popular definition, in which "myth" refers to a story that is essentially true in an existential sense, regardless of whether it is factual. In that sense, yes, the Bible is a very mythical book. Another term used to describe this sort of mythic stature is "archetype."

4. Why don't Christian institutions/families encourage this type of genre? If you look at the media, it is everywhere, and is often the most popular median for children. Wouldn't open discussions of materials such as Harry Potter and LotR be more helpful than to have kids reading the books on their own?

Absolutely.

Many Christians fear what they don't understand, and as such they feel threatened by something as wildly popular as Harry Potter (when I was a teen the bogeyman was Dungeons & Dragons), especially since it makes use of magic as a vehicle for its storytelling.

5. Do you feel Tolkien is a predominately Christian book that is well written with obvious Christian undertones? If so, why is it so often overlooked?

"The Lord of the Rings" is a thoroughly religious book. Tolkien himself said that Gandalf and the other Istari are angels sent into the world at the start of the Third Age to battle Sauron's evil. The elvish waybread the fellowship receives in Lothlorien is representative of the Eucharist; the elvish heroine Elbereth is analagous to the Virgin Mary.

Then there's Tolkien's symbolism, such as Gandalf dying and returning to life more powerful than before and dressed in white; Aragorn having authority over illness because he is the true king, and so on.

6. Many Christians would say that Harry Potter and LotR are more related than LotR and Chronicles of Narnia. Does Harry Potter seem to express the same values as LotR?

I have no idea what J.K. Rowling believes spiritually (I am told she does not believe in magic), but her book contains many positive elements. Harry, Ron and Hermione understand the importance of friendship and loyalty; they display courage against incredible odds and risk their lives and reputations time and again to help each other and other people. Evil is punished, good is rewarded, and her imaginary world is essentially a moral one.

On top of that, if you've read the first Harry Potter book, you're aware that Harry's mother died saving him from Voldemort. The result of her sacrifice was that Voldemort's power was broken and he is unable to harm Harry. Since you go to a Seventh Day Adventist university, you should be able to see a very strong parallel to the gospel there.

cats and the devil

Theologians traditionally have believed that Lucifer was thrown out of heaven once it was discovered that he had a pet cat.

New study of the tradition, however, reveals that he wasn't thrown out of heaven for having a cat, as much as for being a cat. The emerging consensus is that he jumped up and made itself at home on God's Throne when God stood up.

the church politic

The gospel inevitably touches on political matters, but it itself is not essentially political. The church politic fails for the very reason that the church is not supposed to be a political entity, but a spiritual one.

If we retain a focus on Christ, we will change society because we'll be changing the building blocks of society, even if we never get involved in the political arena.

What I'm saying is:

• The church can be content to be a Sunday-morning phenomenon (with extra services, radio shows and what have you thrown in). This is one of the pitfalls we often fall into. It leaves us with a message but no audience.
• The church can see the Sunday-morning option as no option at all. "By making ourselves irrelevant and uninvolved with the larger society, we forfeit leadership in our society to people with no desire to honor Christ," the reasoning goes. "Therefore we must reinsert ourselves and bring Christ back into the schools, the courts, the legal system." This often gets us focused on gaining power and results in us reminding ourselves and the world how evil the world is and how much more righteous we are. We have an audience now, but no message, and soon we don't have an audience either.
• The church can be involved with people on an individual basis, helping them buy food, pay the rent, repair their property, provide for their children, find ways to live peaceably, and so on. We not only have Christ's message, we also have people's full attention.

lobbying for righteousness

I think we should just outlaw crime and sin, and then we'll be in an earthly paradise.

But seriously: The Civil Rights Movement represented a major paradigm shift in our society's way of thinking about segregation and race relations. That shift bore fruit in people's unwillingness to tolerate racism any longer, and their willingness to be beaten (and worse) for crossing the segregation line in the South. Those actions had political significance but what I'm saying is that they are where the real breakthrough happened, not in legislation that Congress signed.

The lobbying effort to change the law must follow the change in society, or it is doomed to failure. During the GOP primary, Bush said he would not support a constitutional amendment to ban abortion on the grounds that a nation that could pass one wouldn't need it. Though his performance during much of the rest of the primary branded him a yogurt-head, I do have to agree with the wisdom of that remark.

If we want abortion to end -- and I'm sure many of us on this forum do -- we need to bring a paradigm shift to society at large, not send high-power lobbyists to Washington.

Politics has its place in church-world relations, but I think it's a much smaller place than we've allowed it to be in the United States. It's also unclear exactly how directly we can apply the example of Israel to the United States since Israel was, in no particular order, a monarchy, a theocracy, called to be a peculiar people different from the surrounding pagan peoples as the church is called to be today.

The United States is a democracy -- a concept not even found in Scripture -- pluralistic, and very much like its neighbors. How the church interacts with it must necessarily be different from how Israel interacted with itself.

The government has chosen (wrongly, I would say) to recognize neither the humanity of the unborn, nor the sanctity of their life. This does not alter the sanctity of unborn life, nor does it release us from our obligation to save those lives.

What I am saying is that our efforts at saving those lives are best oriented at a personal level to the women most likely to get abortions and to the doctors most likely to perform them.

As we effect a social change, we will see our leaders begin to follow.

language reform

In order to facilitate communication and cross-cultural understanding, as soon as I take over the world, English will become the official language of the world. Schools everywhere will be required to teach English as a subject at all grade levels, and all official government business will be done in English.

True, there are easier languages to learn, but it's no fun to be world ruler if you don't get to be petty every now and then.

In addition to the English-language requirements, students also will be taught Spanish and Arabic for four years each, while maintaining proficiency in their native tongue and learning one other living language in use in a neighboring country. (Languages like esperanto, Quenya, Latin and Klingonaase will not count for the fifth language, though people are of course welcome to learn them.)

Additionally, languages with a non-Roman orthography will be allowed to keep that alphabet because of its cultural significance, but they must also adopt a standardized Roman alphabet in order to boost literacy and make the migration of words and concepts across linguistic barriers easier. (If there is a sound in the language in question, like the Spanish eñe that cannot be duplicated with the American Roman orthography, speakers of that unofficial language will be allowed to add the appropriate letter from their own alphabet to their language's new Roman orthography.)

Local languages will not be suppressed. Owing to their importance to maintaining local cultural identity, these languages may continue in printed and spoken form for as long as there are people who want to use them.

The goal of these reforms is the eventual emergence of a new global English not tied primarily into any specific nation. And then, once we all speak the same language, we can begin the second stage of my plan, with the construction of a mighty tower on the plains of Shinar so that we can make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the earth.

Of course, the sticking point in my plane is becoming established as absolute ruler of the earth, since I personally find military conquest an odious route to building a power base, I don't go for Machiavellan manipulation to obtain my ends, and I don't see hordes of followers lining up to recognize my sovereignty.

Alas for the best-laid plans of mice and men...

i didn't marry my mother

Do other guys get an odd feeling when they get married and find that their girlfriend now has their mother's name? ("I'm married to Mrs. Learn? But that's mom!") I can't speak for other guys, but that particular problem has never arisen for me, even though my parents are still together after 34 years and four sons.

It was difficult for me to think of my wife as "Natasha Learn" instead of "Natasha Henson," but that has come with familiarity and practice. My sister-in-law Rhonda, however, I still call "Baz" since her maiden name was Bazzo.

I did find it a difficult adjustment to make when I became a teacher and everyone started calling me "Mr. Learn." After all, that was my father's name. The sobriquet soon grew on me, though, and I now introduce myself to small children as "Mr. Learn" and actually instruct my daughter in the ways of Mr. and Mrs.

Never thought of myself as a traditional sort of guy, but it DOES seem more respectful than having her call adults by their first name. I make an exception for friends who become Mr./Mrs./Miss or in the case of close friends, Aunt/Uncle.

'the meaning of life'

Several months ago The Times of Trenton carried a political cartoon in which a rather large figure representing the state (I think) was being given a small after-dinner mint by a waiter who was protesting that the mint was "wafer thin."

The actual political message of the cartoon was lost on me. I, and I imagine just about every other Monty Python fan who saw the cartoon, was too busy laughing at the allusion.

So what's everyone's favorite part of "The Meaning of Life?" I'd say one of the best scenes is where everyone dies during the dinner party because of the poisonous salmon mousse, and as they all get up to leave for the afterlife, Michael Palin's character says, "Hey, wait a minute! I didn't eat the mousse."

Both versions of childbirth (the modern world and the -- ahem! -- Third World) were hilarious, and I enjoyed the live organ donors too, but I have to admit I found Terry Jones' explosion just a little too disgusting for me. The whole restaurant sketch actually was too much. (Though I still enjoyed the reference in the Times' cartoon.)

But the chapel service at the British boarding school was classic, the scene in the World War I trenches was unforgettable, and actually much of the rest of the movie was good.

Still love the death scene. "You come in here uninvited, break our glasses and now you calmly announce that we've all died. I should like to remind you that you are a guest in this house!"

the greatest evil

I believe Leviticus uses the same Hebrew word to describe beastiality as it does homosexuality (toe'bah, detestable), but in any case, as sins go in the Bible, homosexual intercourse gets very little press compared to sins like greed, oppression of the needy, injustice, and so on. Put another way, Jezebel is described in the Bible as the epitome of evil women. No one ever said she was a lesbian. That's why I get so angry with people who act like homosexuality singlehandedly will be the downfall of America.

And on a somewhat related side note, did you know that the Talmud breaks people into three groups:

1. What's mine is yours, and what's yours is yours (the saint);
2. What's mine is yours, and what's yours is mine (the simpleton); and
3. What's mine is mine, and what's yours is yours (the sodomite)

Yowch.

dominion theology

Thinking about this subject more last night while I walking the dog.

In addition to the example of Christ refusing earthly dominion over the nations when Satan offered it to him, and in addition to the clear teachings of Christ that his kingdom is "not of this world" and manifests itself within people's hearts (as opposed to their legal, economic or political systems), we also have the account of the Israelites.

For those not familiar with the establishment of the Davidic dynasty in Israel, essentially the Jews were upset that while other nations had a king, the closest thing they had was a crazed lunatic who lived in a cave and came out every now and then to rout the Phillistines.

When they requested to go from a theocracy to a monarchy, the Bible says that God grew angry with the people, that their request for a king was a rejection not of the judge Samuel but of God himself. I would posit that this was so -- even when the king was faithful to God, as Saul initially was, and as kings like David and Hezekiah generally were -- because the nation was putting its trust in something tangible and "real," rather than in an unseen deity.

That's often the same pit Christians fall into when we start relying on political means to improve society or to stave off something we consider sinful. The idea is that if abortion is outlawed, if gays are not afforded special protection, if school-sponsored prayer is allowed again, somehow our nation will be more godly and a better place to live.

That is, of course, utter nonsense. We're relying on external criteria to measure what only God can perceive, because he weighs our hearts and that is where he jduges. When we focus on bringing those external appearances into conformance with our expectations instead of dealing with the underlying problem -- people are disconnected from God -- we sell our soul for a misplaced relevance, and lose the moral and spiritual authority the church has.

Our responsibility as Christians is to model Christ's character. That means bringing people to him through sharing the gospel, through feeding the poor, through visiting those who are sick or in prison, through clothing the naked, and generally coming to the aid of those in need.

If we do that, we're going to see a lot of changes happen in our society whether we engage in political activism or not. I would contend that we would in fact see more changes because people would be seeing the gospel being lived out all around them instead of listening to well-paid, finely dressed lobbyists who claim to represent the disadvantaged. More than that, when the church gets into the streets of the cities and engages the people there, they change: crime drops, drug use drops, recidivism drops, and so on.

Sometimes being a watchman simply means making people see what they don't want to. Wasn't it William Booth who forced England to see the illegal traffic in children by carefully documenting the steps he took to buying a child to have sex with him? He personally didn't engage in any political manuevering, but England changed pretty dramatically overnight.

That, I think, is how we're supposed to treat the ailments that sin has afflicted our world with. We get involved in people's lives and get them to see the abhorrence of what they're doing. Abortion will drop much faster if only one in ten people who claim to be pro-life takes in a teenager in crisis pregnancy or pledges to take financial responsibility a child of a woman who "can't afford to have a baby," than if we continue to lobby Washington to rewrite the nation's abortion laws.

tax-exemption for churches

Saw a recent column by Cal Thomas on a measure that would repeal the law that prevents churches from dabbling in politics. From the column:

Though the measure is rarely enforced, the political activism of some conservative Christians over the past two decades has caused religious and political liberals to demand that the tax-exempt status of some conservative ministers be revoked. These same people are mostly silent about the political activism of liberal clergy, especially those who are African-American who preach politics, lobby Congress and endorse candidates from the pulpit. Jones is right when he complains that the Internal Revenue Service applies a double standard to the law.

Read the whole column

To the best of my knowledge, nothing about the rules governing 501c(3) organizations forbids them from taking a stand on issues. What is forbidden is lobbying for specific political candidates or parties. That is, I think, as it should be, as long as it goes across the board. If churches choose to endorse politicians, that's their right: But they should have no tax-exempt status that other organizations lack.

At the Assembly of God church I attended while a college student, the church regularly had information posted about abortion, gay rights, and so on. If the pastor had said from the pulpit that he was voting for George Bush, that would have been crossing the line and could have cost the church its nonprofit status.

In my opinion, the whole thing is a red herring anyway. Our focus shouldn't be on upending Roe v. Wade or undermining the Vermont Supereme Court's decision on gay unions but on reaching the lost and demonstrating compassion to those who need it. If we make the wholesale commitment -- not just monetarily, but personally, in a relationship -- to help women and teenage girls in "crisis pregnancies" by taking them into our homes, giving them unconditional emotional support, and so on, we'll see abortion rates drop. All politicking has accomplished in 31 years has been to get us labeled as obsessed with issues the larger society considers to have been largely resolved, created enmity between us and the people who need Christ's love, and spawned all sorts of lunatic-fringe movements like God's Army. Similar solutions and problems exist along the church's attitude toward gays.

Remember, Christ was offered political power, but he told Satan where he could stick it.

My concern is that too often politics has become the preferred means of saving the world the evangelical church has chosen. Christians have the same right to a voice in the political process as any other group, but we should also be enlightened enough to realize that the power to realize the level of change we want does not lie in political parties, legislation or voting blocs.

I'll stick with the abortion issue because it's one we hear a lot about in Christian circles. That one child in three is killed in utero is appalling, to put it mildly, and I've taken part in my share of the protests and marches to end abortion.

That said, I don't think it's a fruitful use of energies and effort to fight on the legislative front for the end of abortion. Why? Because changing the law -- which we have been unable to do after 31 years -- is not going to change the underlying problems with the American culture that led to Roe v. Wade in the first place. To do that, we need to engage our culture on a person-by-person basis and bring a spiritual -- not a political -- revolution to our nation.

That requires personal commitment of time, energy, and a commitment to love. Relationships are nowhere near as easy to maintain as political zeal.

Political zeal also necessarily has the consequence of villifying our opponents, with the result that our opportunity to display Christlike character is diminished. In the situation with abortion, it's also impossible for the two sides to agree on what the debate is over. It came as a complete shock to a pro-choice co-worker of mine that I'm "pro-life" and not "anti-choice"; Jennifer always had considered the issue to be one of choice.

But then, there are many other reasons besides abortion that the judgment of God could come on the United States: arrogance; hoarding wealth; worshipping the bottom line; failing to reach the lost of the world with the gospel, even when they come here; and so on.

Abortion and homosexuals often are just popular whipping-posts for preachers because they don't make as many parishoners uncomfortable.

in recovery

I generally bill myself as a recovering Pentecostal or recovering evangelical. The difference from fundamentalism is a slight one in terms of most doctrine, but an important one in terms of interaction with society at large.

And of course I mean the part about being in recovery. I fell off the wagon so to speak a few weeks ago when my daughter had a fever of 105.1 degrees. I lapsed into full-fledged Pentecostalism, invoking the Resurection power, rebuking the illness, and claiming healing for her by the blood of Jesus. (I'm not an idiot, though: She was in the bathtub while I did this, and then we rushed her to the emergency room.)

exiling new jersey

The reason I want to exile New Jersey to Siberia is to make way for the imperial palace and imperial grounds. Since my lovely and talented wife is an ecologist, she'll be allowed to oversee a restoration project of unprecedented size as New Jersey is restored to pristine wilderness through phytoremediation and careful, deliberate cultivation of new forests where once shopping malls, factories and roadways gathered beneath the moon. So no, we wouldn't be exiled to Siberia, especially as we're not really from New Jersey anyway. We just live there at the moment.

duh, gee, tennessee

Today my wife and I each received a piece of mail from Prudential. According to these letters, Prudential has noticed that my wife and I have the same last name and live at the same address; therefore, in order to save printing costs and paper, they will be consolidating our statements and mailing us only one copy ....

... provided we each fill out a form at the bottom of the letters and mail the forms in so they know it's okay.

greeting cards

Here are a few cards you will never see in a Hallmark store:

1. So your daughter's a hooker,
and it spoiled your day.
Look at the bright side,
it's really good pay.

2. My tire was thumping.
I thought it was flat.
When I looked at the tire.
I noticed your cat. Sorry!

3. You had your bladder removed
and you're on the mend.
Here's a bouquet of flowers,
and a box of Depends.

4. Happy vasectomy!
Hope you feel zippy!
Cause when I had mine
I got real snippy.

5. Heard your wife left you.
How upset you must be.
But don't fret about it,
She moved in with me.

6. Looking back over the years
that we've been together,
I can't help but wonder:
What the HELL was I thinking?

7. Congratulations on your wedding day! Too bad no one likes your wife.

8. I must admit, you brought religion into my life. I never believed in hell until I met you.

9. As the days go by, I think of how lucky I am that you're not here to ruin it for me.

10. As you grow older, Mom, I think of all the gifts you've given me. Like the need for therapy...

11. Congratulations on your promotion. Before you go, would you like to take this knife out of my back? You'll probably need it again.

12. When we were together, you always said you'd die for me. Now that we've broken up, I think it's time you kept your promise.

13. You are such a good friend that if we were on a sinking ship and there was only one life jacket... I'd miss you heaps and think of you often.

14. Your friends and I wanted to do something special for your birthday, so we're having you put to sleep.

15. Happy Birthday, Uncle Dad!! (available only in Mississippi and Arkansas)

anti-superbowl party

There are three kinds of people in the world:

• Those who play professional sports
• Those who watch professional sports
• Those who know that professional sports are nothing but a thinly disguised attempt by large corporations to subjugate the masses, but still enjoy watching the overpriced commercials and laughing at the frogs.

(There is a fourth type that desires nothing but to see Britney Spears in various stages of undress, but this type needs little discussion here.)

So if you can think of nothing better to do than to sprawl in your Lay-Z-Boy ("The New Look of Comfort") recliner, eating Doritos ("For the Bold and Daring"), guzzling Coca-Cola ("Enjoy Coca-Cola Classic"), and cheering as a bunch of multi-millionaires in ridiculously thick padding ("United We Stand") stretch sixty minutes of game time into three or four hours of nonstop ho-hum, then read no further.

BUT! If you're put off by pigskins and sick of Superbowl Sunday, then you need to organize an anti-Superbowl party. God knows we need more of them.

taxes

Around here, we call You Know Who the 1040 Bandit. I usually threaten to secede from the Union every April. Irony is probably best defined as the excitement we feel over getting a refund when the truth is that it's our money in the first place.

naps

Yesterday my foster son refused to take a nap at all, despite three hours of trying on my part, making him an absolute bugbear all day yesterday and today. I had to try for an hour to get him to take a nap today.

And of course Evangeline desperately needed a nap today, but wouldn't take one.

Perhaps I should be a Hindu; at least the notion of karma would explain this whole thing.

prepositions

The nonexistent rule that always has driven me insane is the insistence that sentences cannot end in prepositions. I'm aware of no grammar textbook that claims that rule, nor of any style manual that does, but as a teacher and a newspaperman I continually ran afoul of idiots who insist that we follow that rule.

Fine, if I speak Latin, I'll be sure to observe it. Otherwise, don't be ridiculous. It makes sentence structure too pain-in-the-neck and ruins the smooth flow of a thought.

book of revelation

In a discussion about the Rapture, a friend of mine argued that the book of Revelation is a book of prophecy concerning the events that lead up to the Second Coming. This is an interpretation I'm familiar with; it essentially holds that the letters to the seven churches each refer to a different period in the church age, Laodicea being the church of the Last Days. After that letter, there is no more mention of the church, just one judgment or act of God after another. So clearly, the church is Raptured or removed from the world, and everyone else is left to face the wrath of God.

The problem is that this assumes that many of the events in Revelation are not already fulfilled, as at least one school of thought claims. (Mr. 666 would be Nero Caesar, using a form of letters-for-numbers familiar to Jews of the day; Babylon was a codeword for Rome, as supported textually in one of Peter's epistles, and so on.) In this reading, it was a book written primarily to Christians experiencing persecution in the first century.

Another view is that Revelation is a recap of God's actions throughout biblical history when his people were persecuted, hence the parallels with writings by other prophets, major and minor, and various other O.T. Scriptures.

In either case, the verses of Revelation stand to support a belief in the supremacy of Christ and the triumph of his kingdom over adversity and affliction, no matter the source. So as I think we're all agreeing, the actual foretelling significance of the book is less important to our daily living than its revelation of Christ through apocalyptic imagery.

(It's rather ironic, isn't it, that "apokalypsis" means "unveiling," but many Christians view the book's meaning as veiled?)

I think the "apocalypse" of the book's title is the unveiling of our hope in Christ, within that book; i.e., the book's main themes are quite plain and evident.

Nearly everyone concedes that some of the events described in the book of Revelation have not yet been fulfilled, although I'm aware of one school of thought -- which I do not subscribe to, incidentally -- that holds that Revelation 19 refers to the triumph of Christianity over the paganism of Rome, with chapters 20-22 being the only unfulfilled prophecy. And those, of course, are waiting for the church to accomplish its purpose.

peace candle

About ten years ago in Easton, Pa., the mayor decided it was time to do something to put the city back on the map. Like the entire Lehigh Valley, Easton had been in an economic downturn ever since the steel industry was hit by the recession in the early 1980s. (A situation popularized by Billy Joel's "Allentown.")

What better way to boost Easton's image than to enter the Guiness Book of World Records and bring in tourism? The city for each year had been erecting a large, hollow plastic peace candle in the middle of its traffic circle at the heart of town, over its war memorial. The mayor decided that by spending several thousands of dollars, he could get an even bigger candle, and beat the current record.

Getting into the Guiness book is no easy feat. It also requires money, and a lot of work, and as I said, the city had been low on cash for ages. He still managed to get it done.

The Guiness man came out, took one look at the candle, and said, "That's not real wax, is it? Doesn't count."

The mayor, amazingly enough, was replaced at the next election.

the rapture

Can't speak for the others, but I make wisecracks about the Rapture precisely because it's been used to justify all sorts of self-indulgent behavior, because it fuels people's escapist interpretations of Christianity, and because the more I understand Scripture and the history of eschatology, the less I believe in a Rapture occurring at any point in church history.

The principal verses for the doctrine of the Rapture are in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, where the dead and the living meet Christ in the clouds; and in Matthew 24:36-41, where Jesus speaks about some being taken and others left. Of course, Jesus never says that believers are taken and unbelievers are left behind, nor does Paul give any timeframe in reference to the rest of his eschatology when the Parousia was to occur.

Historically, the doctrine of the Rapture is fairly recent, coming out of a revival in Scotland in the 19th century, making it just a decade or so older than the "We will usher in a reign of peace, and then Christ will come" teaching. The relative newness of such teachings, while by no means disproving them, does make them a *little* suspect, I think.

In any event, it's a pretty silly doctrine to base (or wreck) one's whole life on. As you say, Christ is more concerned with what we do with the times we are given.

vocabulary

My brother Ward was helping his son Caleb work on new vocabulary some time ago. One troublesome word was "elaborate." Caleb defined it as "something you need to survive," so Ward used it in a sentence for him: "The plane was going down over the South American jungle. I though that even if I survived the crash, I would surely die. Thank God I had brought my trusty elaborate!"

m*a*s*h

My wife and I were given the new release of the first season of M*A*S*H for Christmas. I can't think of a funnier gift. I've long remembered the series as one of the few shows worth watching on TV, but I had forgotten just how hilarious the early episodes are. (As well as sad. I don't think I'll ever forget the closing line in the Henry-Blake-goes-home episode.)

In the second episode, Henry is transferred to Tokyo. Burns is given command of the unit, and proceeds to drive everyone crazy. He gives Radar a list of changes to post, and the dialogue goes like this:

Radar: They're not going to like this, sir.
Burns: I didn't join the Army to be liked, corporal. Radar: Yes sir. Well, you've certainly come to the right place, sir.

In truth, I had forgotten what a great actor Gary Burghoff is/was. Radar was so underplayed he honestly steals the scene from the others quite a lot.

By the time I started watching M*A*S*H, it was around 1980 or 1981, with the result that it was nearly over, and I was watching new (to me) episodes in syndication at the same time I was watching the actually new episodes.

It's only with the release of the series on videotape that I'm starting get a clearer sense of the early chronology and seeing some of the character interplay begin that bore fruit later on. Even in the first season there were signs of stress fracture in Hot Lips and Frank's relationship, though I never would have known that before.

To the best of my knowledge, the series finale is the only episode I haven't seen. Of course, I said that before we watched the entire first season straight through and I discovered three other episodes I had no recollection of.

Of course, I haven't seen it, but plenty of people have ruined it for me by telling me about the chicken that wouldn't stop making noise while Hawkeye and the others were trying to hide from the North Koreans. Rather like the time I was working in the newsroom and someone said, "You know, I had no idea that he [Bruce Willis' character in The Sixth Sense] was a ghost." Gee, thanks, Vic.

a poem

There is a note on my brother's refigerator from about one year ago. It is a handwritten poem to his wife from their son. It reads:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue.

I hope you will forgive me,

You did not deserve that.

mousetraps

The cruelest mouse traps I have ever heard about supposedly work but are very painful and inhumane. I do not recommend using them, even though I read about them in one of Cecil Adams' first Straight Dope books.

The first: Plug up extant mouse holes with steel wool. The mice will eat through the steel wool to get back into the house, and in the process swallow tiny bits of steel that will slice their insides to ribbons.

The second: Leave out bait -- ground up cereal or something similar -- thoroughly mixed with cement powder. The mouse eats both, and in the course of the next day, begins to experience severe abdominal pains as its intestines turn to concrete.

Those, I think, match the criterion "diabolical."

Also cruel and unusual punishment: Catch the mice in a cage and read them "Jane Eyre" until they begin to commit suicide, one after the other. This one has the drawback that if the mice don't die, they might team up to plot your destruction.

Another possibility: Acquire an atom bomb, connect it to a circuit that prevents the bomb from detonating as long as it remains intact. Coat the circuit with peanut butter. The ensuing explosion will end your mouse problem for some time.

Lastly, might I suggest an important first step? Don't let geneticists make the mice smarter.

tragic antichrist

Of course, the Antichrist could be a tragic figure, not wanting to rule the earth, trample God's people beneath his feet, and drink the blood of infants, but the situation could force his hand. The entire role could be thrust upon him.

elmo, bane of sesame street

I'm not alone. According to a popular web site, more and more of the public agrees that Elmo has caused Sesame Street to jump the shark.

Admittedly, one poster in particular has it right: A lot of us don't like Elmo because he wasn't on the show when we were kids and we don't want to accept that the show has evolved over the past 30 years. Some of the Elmo routines I've seen are quite good, though I'm afraid many of the Elmo videos are tedious. That, at least, is due more to the quality of the writing rather than Elmo himself. (One of the comments might have been correct in its comment that the genius of Sesame Street died, or at least took a serious beating, with the death of Jim Henson.)

The Onion had an unforgettable infographic on "The NEW Sesame Street." It includes changes like "More of that f****** Elmo's 'Elmo like this!' and 'Elmo like that!'" and my own favorite, "In sensitive segment, Bob, Susan, and Maria explain why change is good to distraught 30-year-old viewers."

barking to wake the dead

It is 4:09 p.m., and our dog barks at anything and everything. She's a great dog, and very patient with the kids, but her barking is enough to drive me batty.

Sandy barks at pretty much anything and anyone outside. Since we live inside the city limits, not far from a university, and with a sidewalk fewer than 15 feet from our front door, she gets provoked into barking quite a lot.

A Chien melange by pedigree, she looks like a cross between a Siberian husky and a German shepherd, and has a tremendously loud bark, with the result that she can be very intimidating to people who don't know what a friendly pooch she is. This is all very good since we bought her as a burglar deterrent, but it does get annoying when the kids are taking their naps.

I should add that another nice thing about Sandy is that she puts some teeth into our "Beware of Dog" sign.

children and religion

We had our 2-year-old daughter at the hospital a couple days ago after her temperature hit 105 degrees. After we had been checked in and after the initial round of professional poking and prodding, an administrative type asked, "What religion is she?" My response: "I don't think she's decided anything yet, but we're Christians."

i believe in miracles

How else would I be able to get two 2-year-olds to sleep within 30 minutes of each other?

looking back at the times

I used to work at The Times of Trenton, until Oct. 2, 2001, as a copy editor. I enjoyed working with the others on the copy desk, as well as the editors and reporters I got to know during my time there, I enjoyed the pay -- a $10K jump from my previous job -- and the medical benefits were fantastic. From those standpoints, I have nothing bad to say about The Times.

I did think the condition of the building and our equipment was subpar. The news department was using the ATEC system, a fairly antiquated system that predates PCs. No joke. From what I remember, it was installed back in the 1970s when The Washington Post bought the newspaper. The physical appearance of the building on the inside wasn't much better, which gets demoralizing after a while.

I also thought the newspaper did too much to make advertisers happy and didn't engage in enough hardline journalism. That unfortunately seems to be par for the course these days for many newspapers, but it shouldn't be.

Overall, I would say the newspaper is one in decline, despite the often tremendous things accomplished by staff like Joe Dee, Mark Perkiss and various other reporters.

My biggest problem, though, was my own doing: I took a job as a copy editor, which took me a step further from the reasons I had become a journalist in the first place. No writing, no meeting the people on the street, no giving a voice to the little guy. (I know some people disagree with me on this one, but I think it's an admirable goal for a jorunalist to leave the world a better place than the way he found it; while it can lead to other problems when your perspective gets skewed, it's the heart and the motivation that matter most.)

off to siberia

When I rule the world, I shall begin exiling undesirable populations to Siberia, there to pass out the remainder of their natural lives without offending me with their presence further. I was giving this some thought, and here are some of the people I would exile:

• Everyone responsible for the XFL or its predecessor, the USFL
• Bill Gates
• Michael Eisner
• People who like Cheez Whiz
• People who think plastic flamingos make nice lawn ornaments
• N'Sync
• Britney Spears
• The contemporary Christian recording industry (a few individual artists, like Mike Card, will be granted immunity owing to their talent, integrity and legitimacy, but I expect most artists and recording executives will be enjoying the snow for a long time)
• Advertising writers who create commercials that don't say a thing about what they're trying to sell you
• New Jersey

Journalists will be among the best-respected professionals during my regime. Lazy journalists and those who don't bother actually to research something before they write, or who aren't willing to consider multiple sides to the same issue, will not be exiled to Siberia. They will get to be the vanguard of the new space program and will help to launch the colonization of space.

global domination agenda: names

In order to prevent unnecessary overuse of given names, as one of my first acts as World Ruler, I will order a global database of names created. This database -- I think I'll keep it Belgium -- will keep an exhaustive directory of all the first names in use, and will check all new entries against that list.

That way, if a parent picks a name that already is in use, the computer will spot the overuse and suggest an alternative, viz., "We're sorry, but that name is already in use. Can we suggest Dave3124?"

After all, what's the point in ruling the world if you can't be petty every now and then?

I think I also will institute a fine on parents who give their child a perfectly acceptable name only to always call the child by a derivative of that name, and then complain when the child refuses to go by the proper name. Such is the situation with my wife, whose birth name was "Anastasha" She has never been called "Anastasha" in her life -- not by anyone left alive, anyway -- and when we married, she had her married name set as "Natasha," since that's what she's always been called.

Upon reflection, I think I'll also have to mandate penalties on parents who don't consider the ramifications of initials when they name their children. Quick example: A friend of mine has a foster son named Christian Antonio Jones. Take his first two initials and his last name, and he could start signing things C.A. Jones. Very bad in areas with large Hispanic populations.

Addendum: There will be a $1,000 cash stipend awarded to people who name their children after adverbs, in honor of our trusted minister, Respectfully Brian P. If there is a new global currency, the payout will be one thousand of those units.

drawing monsters

I'm not an artist, but I can imagine the monsters in my mythology books must have posed some challenges for the artists. Take the hydra. How easy can it be to place nine heads on a single creature and have it appear to be natural? How do you find space for nine necks on the same piece of paper?

And yet a nine-headed hydra must be easy compared to some of the monsters the Greeks came up with. Remember Typhon? He was one of the creatures who opposed Zeus when the gods overthrew the Titans. If I remember correctly, he had 100 heads, and some of his siblings had even more.

I wonder how the heads reached an agreement. Did they argue back and forth like the three-headed knight in "Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail," was it a simple majority rules, or did each head control a different part of the body?

Then there was hundred-eyed Argus. I can only imagine the headaches he got with that many eyes. And can you imagine what would happen if he were cross-eyed or some of his eyes got glaucoma? His optometrist must have loved sending *him* bills.

(I would wager he was available to watch Io for Hera because he never had a girlfriend. After all, would you want to date someone who poked you in the eye every time they hugged you?)

when i rule the world

When I rule the world, everyone with a yard will be required to grow a garden therein. There will be some freedom on what people grow -- flowers and shrubberies (nice ones, but not too expensive) will be permitted, as long as vegetables are consistently raised and harvested -- but the garden itself will be mandatory.

Apartment-, condo- and townhouse-dwellers will be permitted to settle for window planters, but I expect the landlord or owners association to maintain regular gardens for everyone to enjoy. Perhaps sharecropping arrangements could be worked out. Actually, they will be, on penalty of having to watch Ralph Bakshi's 1978 "Lord of the Rings" movie until the situation is remedied.

Businesses with spacious, sprawling lawns will have to lease part of their land to local farmers and agricultural co-ops, and will have to have their landscaping done by someone who knows how to do it in a way that helps to recreate the natural ecology that was present before the developers came in and built everything.

Moreover, all gardens and farms will have to be kept in strict adherence to the principles of organic gardening. No pesticides or chemical fertilizers. Everything will be done through natural means, to rekindle humanity's ties to the earth, to keep the soil healthy and vibrant, to reduce the incidence of chemical pollution in the waterways and food chain, and to give farmer's co-ops lots of business.

The air will be fresher, the produce better-tasting, and all this fine real estate will not be wasted on foolish grass. A much larger portion of it will be put into fighting hunger and helping people stretch their paychecks further, since their grocery bills will drop.

All this shall be done when I rule the world.

Addendum: I suppose when I rule the world I might allow farmers to cultivate cannabis, but it would have to be the nonmarijuana variety, since marijuana addles people's wits and makes them look and act like morons and has few merits.

Regular cannabis -- the kind that gives people severe headaches when they smoke it -- has many useful qualities. It is good for the soil, provides a cheaper and sturdier paper than wood fiber, can provide a healthy cooking oil when its seeds are pressed, and can even be made into clothing. And if you don't want to use it for any of those things, you can always compost it and help it aid the soil that way.

Unfortunately, both strains of cannabis belong to the same species. The difference lies in the cultivation, but both strains are outlawed under existing federal law. (Similar problems exist with the opium poppy, which actually produces a rather beautiful flower, but not worth risking having the authorities seize your property.) Leave it to the potheads to ruin a perfectly good plant.

zombies

The only zombie I've ever met was too brain-fried to be considered bad -- he just walked up and down the road, day in and day out. I understand he used to be a singer with a promising career ahead of him until a rival musician arranged to have the bokor curse him with a powder on his microphone.

golden compass again

We have about 50 pages to go in "The Golden Compass." Natasha has given up on glaring when I read the name of Lyra's mother as "Ann Coulter." We have concluded that Lucy Pevensie from "Narnia" would not have made it even half as far as Lyra has, and while we do see some similarities between Lyra and our children, I don't think either of them is capable of the wholesale devastation Lyra wrought at the Arctic facility.

The panserbjorne king, Iofur Raknison, seems pretty unlikely and hastily thrown-together as a character, but aside from that, the story has been incredible.

I suspect the reason for my disquiet over Raknison is that he is a bear who wants to a human, when Pullman is merely using the bears as a representation of one Icelandic race or another in a pagan state that is crossing over to Christendom for political reasons, as surely was the case for some courts as the Catholic Church expanded into predominantly pagan areas in Northern Europe.