Bartholomew's Notes

It’s Christmas in Japan:

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Part One

This is curious. Some of Doug Giles’s Townhall/Clash Radio “Clashpoints” are syndicated for the benefit of British fans (!) on a Charismatic Christian website called Cross Rhythms. However, his latest Townhall/Clash Radio piece, on “Christianity and the Arts” appears to be a bit different on the Cross Rhythms site.

For a start, there’s the title, and an opening quote. Here’s the Cross Rhythms version (in green):

Christianity and the Arts: Our Current Commitment to Kitsch

“Whenever Christians, and evangelicals in particular, have attempted to ‘reach the world’ through the media — film, publishing and so on — the thinking public gets the idea that, like soup in a bad restaurant, Christians’ brains are better left unstirred.” (Frank Schaeffer)”

Whereas the US version has just:

Christianity and the Arts

Wording has been changed here and there throughout, but a few alterations are more substantial.

UK:

Art itself needed no justification, and for 400 years killer art emerged from the Church.

US:

Art itself needed no rationalization, and for 500 years, brilliant art emerged from the Church.

Well, what’s a hundred years? Here are some more examples:

UK:

This incredible compilation of literary genius spanned the entire gamut of human emotions—highs, lows, lust, betrayal and sodomy. God created the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful. If it were truly represented on celluloid, there is no question the film would be rated R, showcasing characters that make the bar scene in Star Wars look like a Young Republican staff meeting.

US:

This incredible assemblage of literary genius spans the entire gamut of human emotions—highs, lows, lust, love, loyalty, and betrayal, to name a few.  The scripture showcases the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful.  If it were truly represented on film, there is no question the movie would be rated R, since the Bible is filled with characters that make a bar on South Beach look like a Young Republican staff meeting.

No sodomy in Townhall’s Bible, it seems. And I’m sure South Beach is just like Tattooine.

UK:

God dumped on us a lot of “useless beauty,” expressly for our enjoyment. And you know what – this freaks the altar call driven number crunching, pragmatic, utilitarian, no taste fundamentalist because it seems that such expenditure is a waste of time, space and energy.

US (ellipsis in original):

God dumped a lot of unnecessary splendor on us, expressly for our enjoyment.  And you know what…this freaks out the altar-call-driven, number-crunching, pragmatic, no-taste Church-goer because it seems that such expenditure is a waste of time, space and energy.

Nothing wrong with being a US fundamentalist, it seems.

Other “Clash Points” have been edited for Cross Rhythms, usually to remove cultural references that the average Brit would not understand. There also seems to be a question of Christian taste. From the Townhall version of “Barbarians R Us”:

Even though this “tissue” has a recognizable heart beat at six – 6! – weeks, and brain activity at ten – 10! – weeks: it’s not a human according to these wizards until it breaches the mother’s womb.   Hey, secularists, help us ignoramuses out would you?     If it’s not a human being, then what is it?  A Michael Jackson?

The UK version baulked at the Jackson reference.

Part Two

But there is something even stranger about the new column. The website of Kaleo Fellowship carries an article by their worship leader, Brian Thomas, called…er…”Christianity & the Arts“. It’s dated 1 December, 17 days before Giles’s piece. Here are some choice passages that are suggestive of Jungian synchronicity (in purple):

As British satirist, P.G. Wodehouse said [as quoted by Frank Schaeffer], “Whenever Christians, and evangelicals in particular, have attempted to ‘reach the world’ through the media – TV, film, publishing and so on – the thinking public gets the firm idea that, like soup in a bad restaurant, Christians’ brains are better left unstirred.”

Sounds familiar. Now, some direct comparisons:

(1) Thomas:

The support for the arts and man’s creativity comes very early in Scripture. In the book of Genesis you see the Master Artist creating ex nihilo (out of nothing). At the very onset of creation the prerequisites for art are established – light, space, and unity. God then created the details, calling forth earth, vegetation, water, and finally human beings…Humans were created in the image and likeness of God, who were themselves empowered to create.

Giles:

…The believer in the biblical account of creation also believes that he is an image-bearer of his Creator, that he, too, has creative juices coursing through his veins.  Thus, being veritable Mini-Me’s of Jehovah, we should be brimming over with creative, artistic life…Part of God’s personality is his ability to create, a capacity inherent in those who are his image-bearers

(2) Thomas:

…man’s creativity as God’s image-bearers have been relegated to the basement of Christian consciousness, often looked upon as a worldly pursuit. I believe this has been one of the major contributing factors leading to Christianity’s ineffectiveness upon our culture.

Giles:

The Church’s view of art as unspiritual, or even idolatrous, has created an aversion and an antagonism to art which has effectively alienated us from the world that God has made and the society he wants us to reach.

(3) Thomas:

The universe God created is not only functional; it is also beautiful…We have the ability not only to perceive beauty, but also to create and enjoy God through our creations.

Giles:

God dumped a lot of unnecessary splendor on us, expressly for our enjoyment.

(4) Thomas:

Some of the world’s greatest paintings, sculptures, architecture, and music have been inspired by the Christian faith.

Giles:

…Where is the mind-blowing stuff…y’know, the paintings, the sculpture, the architecture and the music that makes you drool your Slurpy down your shirt?

As well as the Wodehouse quote used by both, Franky Schaeffer’s book Addicted to Mediocrity (Franky is the son of Francis – click here for a sympathetic review) provides further unattributed inspiration for Giles. Here’s a section from Schaeffer (in tourquoise), followed by the Giles remix:

In looking at the diversity of the Scripture itself as well as its content and form, one can hardly imagine that the Bible has anything to do with the present narrow sloganeering aspects of evangelical Christianity. It seems to me that if it had been written along the lines of what much of evangelical Christianity represents today—it would be a three page pamphlet printed probably in words of one syllable,

Giles:

If it were up to some our anti-art religious leaders, the Bible wouldn’t need all that literary fluff at all.  We could put our deductions on a 4 x 6 postcard, devoid of art, narrative and design, with the Ten Commandments on the front and the address of where to send your tithe on the back.

Yes, Doug. Thank you for telling us about the importance of creativity. That’s “creativity”.

UPDATE (26 December): Today Doug turns motivational speaker and tells us about the “Pit Bull Attitude”, contrasting it with the “Poodle Attitude”. Here are some aspects of the former:

1. Do you have a definite purpose backed up by a burning desire to see it fulfilled?

2. Are you continuously in action working on your plan?

3. Is your mind closed towards all negative and discouraging influences from foes, “friends,” dysfunctional parents, music, books, tapes, T.V. etc?

4. Do you hang out with people who are greater than you in what they have accomplished and who utterly challenge you to excellence?

Now compare that with this piece by business motivator Ann Rusnak:

1. Have a definite purpose backed up with a strong desire to obtain it. Write it down. 2. Have a plan of action. How are you going to make it happen. What do you need to do. 3. Close your mind to negativity and discouraging influences. Self talk can be the most damaging. Watch which were saying to yourself. 4. Develop a group of people who will encourage you but also hold you accountable to follow through on your actions.

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The New York Times brings some Japanese wingers to our attention. But first, their victim:

Toru Kondo, an English teacher at a public high school here…was recently required to take a two-hour “special retraining course,” lectured on his mistaken ways and given a sheet of paper on which to engage in half an hour of written self-examination.

His offense was to defy the Tokyo Board of Education’s new regulation requiring teachers to sing the national anthem while standing and facing the national flag.

The regulation (which I looked at previously here) was brought in by Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, but has wider political support:

Takayuki Tsuchiya, a Tokyo assemblyman, said the new regulation was necessary to counterbalance decades of leftist lectures by teachers, especially members of the Japan Teachers’ Union.

However, the actual enforcer is Kunio Yonenaga, who made a bit of a faux pas a couple of months ago when he met Emperor Akihito and related his achievements:

Mr. Yonenaga, who had expected encouragement, was instead rebuked by the emperor, who said, “It’s not desirable to do it by force.” Taken aback, Mr. Yonenaga…interrupted the emperor and blurted out, “Thank you for your wonderful words.”

Tsuchiya, though, has an explanation for why the emperor’s nationalism is weak:

Asked why he thought the emperor held such a view, Mr. Tsuchiya mentioned the influence of Elizabeth Vining, a Quaker schoolteacher from Philadelphia, who tutored Akihito, then the crown prince, from 1946 to 1950.

Well, Akihito seems to have turned out better than the USA’s only Quaker president, at any rate (some obits for Vining have been collected here)…

Yonenaga is a former shogi (Japanese chess) master. He is also a member of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, responsible for a textbook that allegedly features the Nanking “Incident” as just a minor blip in Japan’s efforts to liberate Asia (I wonder if he got tips from Douglas Wilson?). Back in 1998 the Weekly Shincho apparently exposed his “shameful private life”, but there are sadly no details on-line (at least in English).

The new regulation must have American wingers green with envy, judging from this report in the Hampton Union:

A Pledge of Allegiance issue at the Seabrook Middle School has been dropped by the School Board, to the dissatisfaction of parents who turned out Monday night to protest one teacher’s refusal to stand during the morning recitation.

“…If we go any further with her it’s going to be another lawsuit,” said [school] board member Jim Fuller. “I’ll go out on a limb here. She knows how to play the game. I’d like to tell her how to operate, but I can’t do that.”

Go west, Mr Fuller, go west…

(Thanks to History News Network for NYT link; Jesus’ General for Hampton Union and Douglas Wilson links)

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Back on December 8 the American Enterprise Institute hosted Rocco Buttiglione, the Italian politician who failed to become an EU Commissioner after expressing his views on homosexuality and is now considered the leader of the nascent European “theo-con” movement. Buttiglione was in Washington to receive an award from the Acton Institute, whose founder Fr Robert Sirico (profiled by Bill Berkowitz here) blends conservative Catholicism with Ayn Rand.

As I blogged previously, I have a certain amount of sympathy for Buttiglione, who only revealed his views because he was asked directly by the European Commission Committee on Legal Affairs. What’s more, his statement was not all that shocking or remarkable: he affirmed that although, as a Roman Catholic, he considered homosexuality to be sinful, he did not believe that the law should enforce morality. However, based on his ill-considered musings at the AEI, available to view here (a transcript is promised for the near future), one cannot feel that the EU Commission has missed out on a great talent.

The American Christian right (and I use the term advisedly – I don’t mean thoughtful Philip Yancey-type Evangelicalism) is currently in a bit of a bind: while enjoying more political and cultural power than it has had for a long time, the language of victimisation remains a useful rallying tool. So what better way to feed Christian resentment than to wheel out a European Christian victim of secular persecution to show them what American liberals really want? And Buttiglione obliges perfectly, with a presentation on Europe that seems tailor-made to massage the prejudices and misconceptions of American conservatives, and consisting mainly of a softly-spoken but nevertheless demagogic whinge.

First, Buttiglione diagnoses the root of the problem – moral relativism:

There is another idea of democracy that is growing in Europe…that is linked to the so-called multiculturalism…If you look at Derrida’s works you see there another idea of democracy. The idea of democracy is that nobody has the right of making a distinction between good and evil, right or wrong…There are no values…Man should not search of truth.

…what they want is a society in which there is a new religion, a new official religion, a new civil religion…a religion that forbids to have values. This new religion is not based on the liberty of the other…If you are not a moral relativist, you are a second-class citizen.

He returns to this theme at the end of his talk, adding:

…we have a consistent trend, mainly of Marxist religion…Look to Derrida, to the intellectual history of Derrida.

This is, of course, complete bunk. Most Europeans who object to anti-homosexual attitudes do so not because of moral relativism, but because they believe that such attitudes are an irrational prejudice that is itself immoral, as with racism. This may clash with traditional Christian teaching, and it may (or may not) be unfair to the real concerns of religious conservatives, but it is an ethical position, not a relativist one. And the claim that Jacques Derrida is behind it all is absurd. I’m far from being a Derrida fan (Zizek is more my cup of tea as far that kind of thing goes), but as someone who wrote on religion and ethics he deserves better than to be cast in the role of evil nihilist mastermind. Besides, there’s plenty of relativism emanating from religious conservatives in the US; particularly the idea that the naturalistic method of science is just some kind of bias that should be balanced with Creationism.

Buttiglione’s second theme is anti-Catholicism:

Do you what is the greatest danger to human freedom according to the European Parliament? Do you know what is the country that has been condemned more often by European Parliament for violation of human rights?…the state of the Vatican. You have thirty resolutions against the state of the Vatican…they see the defence of objective truth, of objective human values, as the main enemy.

Buttiglione notes the recent prosecution and jailing of a (Pentecostal) Swedish pastor who condemned homosexuality (the case of Ake Green: see here) as an example of this new trend against Christianity. But this is extremely over the top. Just what are these “thirty resolutions against the state of the Vatican”? It is true that the Vatican’s stance on birth control and abortion is somewhat out of kilter with mainstream European thinking, but that hardly amounts to the rabid anti-Catholicism Buttiglione would have his credulous neo-con audience imagine. I was unable to find anything about these “thirty resolutions” on the internet, although I did find this on Catholic News from 2002:

EU parliamentarians mount attack on Holy See

Radical elements of the European Parliament have sponsored resolutions attacking the Catholic Church’s moral authority on abortion and demanding that all church influence on temporal matters be brought to an end.

Maurizio Turco, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Italy’s Radical Party and the sponsor of the resolutions backed by 10 other MEPs, accuses the Catholic Church of a “desire to lay down the law” and meddling with “national legislations on sexual and reproductive health.”

One would have thought the report would have mentioned a history of anti-Catholic resolutions if these existed. Instead, we only have an unspecified number of resolutions proposed by what appears to a fringe anti-clerical MEP (actually, the most vitriolic anti-Catholicism in the EU Parliament comes not from the moral relativists, but from Ian Paisley, the Presbyterian fundamentalist MEP from Northern Ireland. When the Pope visited the Parliament in 1988 Paisley heckled him as the anti-Christ).

During the question-and-answer section, he adds that

in Europe it is fashionable to be anti-Christian…

But how, exactly, is being anti-Christian “fashionable”? It’s true that sex scandals in the Catholic Church have likely reduced respect for the clergy, and that many people no longer respect traditional teachings about homosexuality. But most people are simply indifferent to religion. It is not “anti-Christian” not to know that the Bible teaches that Jesus was born in Bethlehem (a fact unknown to 28% of Britons, according to a new survey) – it’s simply ignorance, and most likely the result of a diverse entertainment culture (a culture created by the free market rather than a Derridan conspiracy).

He then turns to the most notorious anti-European stereotype, that of anti-Semitism:

…and it is fashionable to be, not anti-Semite, [but] anti-Zionist; but anti-Zionism has become the new name of anti-Semitism. You start condemning the Israel government, for good reasons or for bad reason, it does not matter, and you end up reconstructing all the justification of anti-Semitism.

Yes, even if you have a good reason for not being a fan of Ariel Sharon, “you end up reconstructing all the justification of anti-Semitism”. I’ve touched on the subject before, when the Institute on Religion and Democracy produced a report that considered the topic. Of course anti-Semitism exists in Europe, just as it does in the USA – but most criticism of Israel that is part of the public discussion is based on the facts about how it treats the Palestinians. And there’s certainly less anti-Semitism in Europe than there is anti-Arab racism and excessive anti-Muslim rhetoric in the USA.

The frustrating thing is that Buttiglione was badly treated by the EU Parliament. Further, how protecting groups and individuals from “incitement to hatred” should be balanced against the free expression of religious values (and with anti-religious scepticism, as it happens) is extremely problematic and needs urgent consideration. But giving paranoid talks about Derrida and frothing secularists to American right-wing ideologues is hardly a serious contribution to the discussion.

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Back in September Reuters reported on a clash at the Holy Sepulchre (or the “Anastasis” in the Orthodox tradition):

Fistfights broke out on Monday at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre between Christian sects that jealously guard their hold on sections of the shrine built on the traditional site of Jesus’s crucifixion.

“There was lots of hitting going on. Police were hit, monks were hit … there were people with bloodied faces,” said Aviad Sar Shalom, an Israeli tour guide who witnessed the fight.

The tussle between Franciscans and Greek and Russian Orthodox clerics erupted during a procession through the church on Holy Cross Day marking the fourth century discovery of the cross which some faithful believe was used in the Crucifixion.

I lived in Jerusalem a few years ago and I have to say that the Holy Sepulchre must be the most fascinating building I have ever been inside. The structure itself, rebuilt and damaged many times since the Fourth Century, is a rambling mess of Byzantine, European, African and Russian architecture, and is divided between six different Christian groups in accordance with an arrangement decreed by the Ottoman authorities in 1757 called the status quo. The Greek/Russian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches have the largest shares, but the Armenian Orthodox Church has two decent sized-sections. Around the back of the actual supposed tomb of Christ (an ornate cupboard-like building beneath the main dome) are small areas belonging to the Syriac Orthodox and Coptic Churches, while the Ethiopians have a monastery and a small chapel on the roof. A Muslim family has the key to the front gate, which is locked nightly with various priests and nuns inside.

So it’s a bit odd when into this extremely fragile religious ecosystem is injected Rev Moon’s Unification Church. John Gorenfeld links to this page from the Church’s website, a photo gallery of a pilgrimage last year during which the “burial of the cross” took place. This is a ceremony that reflects Moon’s decree that Christians should remove the symbol of the Cross from their churches. Apparently, part of this ceremony took place at the actual entrance to the site regarded as the tomb of Christ. One assumes that the various Christian groups within the building were so busy eyeing each other suspiciously that they overlooked what was going on.

An account of the Unificationist pilgrimage during which this event took place can be read here.

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Ultra-modern Shinto in Osaka:

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A snippet from The Revealer about the Antony Flew interview in Biola’s University’s Philosophia Christi journal:

Christian media junkies have recently been gloating over the news that longtime atheist philosopher Antony Flew had changed his mind. Now atheists strike back, with the latest bulletin of Rationalist International declaring that their man remains a defender of the unfaith. Sounds like a he-said/she-said to us, but if Flew really didn’t confess, why did Christian media grab hold of thin evidence to declare that he had?

But what the Rationalist International actually writes is:

This is not the first time that Professor Antony Flew’s atheist position is attacked. In reaction to an internet campaign in 2001 that tried to brand him a “convert” to religious belief, Professor Antony Flew made the following statement. In 2003 he answered yet another campaign in this direction with the same statement. It is still now his latest official position in this regard.

So the RI posting draws on a source that predates the interview by a year, which I would see as a serious weakness. But it is true that in the new interview Flew only says that the evidence for God is “stronger”:

Well, I don’t believe in the God of any revelatory system, although I am open to that. But it seems to me that the case for an Aristotelian God who has the characteristics of power and also intelligence, is now much stronger than it ever was before.

I think that the most impressive arguments for God’s existence are those that are supported by recent scientific discoveries. I’ve never been much impressed by the kalam cosmological argument [see here], and I don’t think it has gotten any stronger recently. However, I think the argument to Intelligent Design is enormously stronger than it was when I first met it…we can be sure that they [Russell, Mackie, or Ayer] would have examined these new scientific arguments.

However, when the interviewer says that Flew “affirms” the Aristotelian concept of God, Flew does not contradict him.

What the significance of Flew’s statement may be is another matter. He talks of Intelligent Design very casually, and shows no knowledge of the many scientific criticisms of the ID movement  (for example, the work of Matt Young and Taner Edis). But Flew feels quite qualified to pronounce on other matters of which he has little understanding. Towards the end of the interview he turns Middle East pundit:

It was because the whole of Palestine was part of the land of Islam that Muslim Arab armies moved in to try to destroy Israel at birth, and why the struggle for the return of the still surviving refugees and their numerous descendents continue to this day.

Yes, Palestinian refugees don’t want to return to their homes for any natural reason that you or I could relate to: their desire must be a manifestation of a bloodthirsty fundamentalism. And the whole Arab-Israeli conflict can be reduced to Muslim irrationality. What is it about Anglo philosophers and a complete inability to actually understand people?

UPDATE: The Church Times (in an article written by my old undergrad chaplain, as it happens) has more details:

Professor Flew, the son of a Methodist minister, agreed that the first life was breathed by God. “Well, I suppose so, yes,” he said on Wednesday.

The theory that the enormous complexity of a living thing that was able to reproduce genetically could happen by accident was “just not on”. “No one has produced any theory for the origin of life, and this [reproduction] is much more complex than that…Yes, life was started by an intelligent being…”

Professor Flew has been to New York to record a video of his new-found belief “under the auspices” of the Christian author Roy Varghese, whom he described as having written “very powerful books on theism”.

Earlier, he attended a symposium in the United States at which he said he had been impressed by the Orthodox Jew, Gerald Schroeder, author of The Hidden Face of God: Science reveals the ultimate truth. This book outlines statistical evidence pointing towards a creator.

References that critique Schroeder’s work are provided by The Panda’s Thumb.

UPDATE 2: The Panda’s Thumb now reports that Flew has distanced himself from Schroeder’s work, although he remains a deist.

UPDATE 3: Flew now says he has “made a fool” of himself. See today’s entry.

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On several occasions, this blog has taken aim against Islamophobia – the absurd decision to ban Tariq Ramadan from the USA on the word of Daniel Pipes; the inflammatory and racist rhetoric to be found at Little Green Footballs and JihadWatch; the way newspapers ask nutty fringe Islamist groups for their opinions and then present these as “the Muslim view”.  I have also defended Palestinian rights and, while I was living in London, I was involved with anti-war activism.

But the heart sinks when I read this, on the website of the Muslim Association of Britain (emphasis added):

In one of the most repulsive and disgusting attacks on Islam and Muslims, Charles Moore wrote in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph in defence of those who wish to suggest that the Prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him, was a paedophile.

…Anas Altikriti, speaking on behalf of MAB, commented early this morning: “…Almost 15 years on from the infamous Salman Rushdie affair, one would have thought that the likes of the Daily Telegraph and its editors would have known better than to allow such filth and drivel to adorn their pages. Unfortunately not. “More than a billion people around the world will be shocked and horrified by this attack, and every single Muslim in Britain and beyond will feel deeply offended by the remarks made by Moore”.

There are two issues here. Firstly, Moore’s article is seriously misrepresented in the MAB piece. Moore is discussing the proposed law against incitement to religious hatred in the UK, and uses the example of Muhammad’s marriage to the nine-year-old Aisha:

To me, it seems anachronistic to describe Mohammed as a child-molester. The marriage rules of his age and society were much more tribal and dynastic than our own, and women were treated more as property and less as autonomous beings. Aisha was the daughter of Mohammed’s right-hand man, and eventual successor (caliph), Abu Bakr. No doubt he and his family were very proud of the match. I raise the question, though, because it seems to me that people are perfectly entitled – rude and mistaken though they may be – to say that Mohammed was a paedophile, but if David Blunkett [the British Home Secretary] gets his way, they may not be able to…Incitement to violence, after all, is already an offence, and so it should be.

Moore follows this up with a survey of the treatment of non-Muslims in various Muslim countries, which, although polemical, is not inaccurate.

But more alarming is the reference to Salman Rushdie. Altikriti appears to be saying that because Rushdie was forced into hiding for daring to criticise Islam and offending so many people, the Telegraph should have known better than to risk the same fate. This is shocking not just because it is totalitarian, but because Altikriti is a fairly well-known Muslim spokesperson in the UK. He is a former chair of MAB, and he has written articles for the Guardian. He has also stood as a European Parliamentary candidate for Respect, a recently-formed anti-war political party that is supposed to be broadly socialist (George Galloway is perhaps its most famous representative). Respect sees the MAB as efficient at mobilising British Muslims, and has been allied with them for some time. There have been complaints in the past that this has meant overlooking unpalatable aspects of MAB, such as homophobia, but the general view seems to have been that of you are going to have an anti-war coalition involving immigrants, you have to deal with religious people who have a few unfortunate views from a progressive perspective. OK – but just how much of a platform can you give to a demagogue and bully-boy before he undermines everything you stand for?

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Once again, Doug Giles asserts his manliness and heterosexuality with a call for men to accept independence and responsibility: a point Giles demonstrates by, er…whining about men who are different from him (or, at least, different from his self-image). Doug is fascinating for three reasons. Firstly, in his weekly column he consistently reveals his insecurities with a complete lack of self-awareness (last week it was a complaint about the “culture of castration”). Secondly, there is the massive disjunction between the man and the message: while obsessive-compulsively asserting rowdy masculinity week after week, in his photo he appears preened and coiffured, while his church meets in a plush hotel in a rich part of Miami.

But thirdly (and this is why I keep coming back to him), Giles likes to appear as a regular guy putting commonsense ideas before the conservative public, when in fact his role to promote specific ideological trends within Christian fundamentalism. Giles himself is a hack with little of his own to say – all of his ideas are derived from others.

As noted previously, Giles’s views on masculinity derive from both the Charismatic and Reformed traditions. His brother-in-law, Mell Winger, is a Charismatic, and is the author of Fight on Your Knees: Calling Men to Action Through Transforming Prayer, which appears to bring together ideas of Christian masculinity with “spiritual warfare” ideology. Giles has also studied at James Kennedy’s Calvinist Knox Theological Seminary.

Today, Giles presents us with a reading list which takes us further into the world of the Christian masculinists:

It is up to us middle-aged old boys to preserve and perpetuate the grand testosterone fog God created us to live in for the next generation of young warriors.

One great way to do this is by buying these killer books:

Future Men by Douglas Wilson
The Church Impotent by Leon Podle
Raising Modern Day Knights by Robert Lewis
The Code of Man by Waller Newell

Well, I won’t go that far, but I will check them out.

First, Leon Podle. In fact, it’s “Leon Podles”, not “Podle”. The full title of his book is The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity, in which he argues that changes in Roman Catholicism in the Twelfth Century have made Christianity more attractive to women (and, his articles suggest, homosexuals) than to most men. A review in John Neuhaus’s conservative Christian First Things journal (not my usual reading) had this to say:

Masculinity is not a mere function of biological maleness, Podles tells us…Boys become masculine only if they break this oedipal attachment, thus opening a “psychic wound” that is the basis of their inchoate masculinity. If a boy fails to “dis–identify” with his mother and identifies instead with his father, he fails to achieve masculinity, and is likely to become homosexual, masochistic, misogynistic, or pedophilic…Podles takes these scientific conclusions and misapplies them, essentially arguing the following: Psychoerotic separation is characteristic of the masculine; a psychoerotic separation is a separation; therefore, separation itself is characteristic of the masculine. He implausibly generalizes that any separation of any sort indicates masculinity—and he perpetuates this logical error throughout the book, reducing his argument to a kind of caricature: Because He transcends creation, “God is, therefore, utterly separate from creation…A transcendent God is a masculine God.” Podles claims that God’s separating the light from the dark proves his masculinity. The Israelite patriarchs sinned whenever fleshly “communion with the wife” led one of them to “feminization, to the loss of separation that makes him a man,” as with Adam, David, and Solomon. Abraham “fell prey to uxoriousness” and had to recover his separation by sacrificing Isaac. In Exodus, God makes a distinction between the Israelites and Egyptians, continuing “to act in a masculine way.”

One might think that the unprecedented “communion” of the persons of the Trinity might indicate that the New Testament offers a less separate, more “feminine” version of God. Not so, says Podles. The New Testament tells us explicitly that God is Father and Son, and that we are all called to “initiation” (i.e., baptism) and martyrdom. Jesus introduces “a new principle of separation: no longer observance of the Law, but faith in him,” and takes the cross like a man. (“Masculinity entails initiation; initiation involves pain—the greater the pain, the more profound the initiation.”) In the Apocalypse, we discover that Christ’s enemy is Satan, and the true Christian life is shown to be spiritual warfare (a masculine image).

This is pretty silly stuff. Podles has other historical missteps as well, too numerous to mention here.

Here is Podles’ bio:

Leon Podles is president of the Crossland Foundation and a contributing editor of Touchstone magazine. Among the numerous journals for which he has written are America, The American Spectator, Crisis, and American Enterprise…He earned his doctorate at the University of Virginia and his bachelor’s at Providence College. He has also studied Old Icelandic at the University of Iceland.

Other bios add that he used to be a federal investigator. Touchstone can be seen here. The Crossland Foundation appears to be some sort of regular charity.

Second, Robert Lewis. Lewis’s book is published by Focus on the Family. He runs the Men’s Fraternity, which sells “Proven Manhood Resources” with titles like The Quest for Authentic Manhood and The New Eve. To make sure only real men come to his weekly meetings, he holds them at 6:00am.

Third, Waller Newell. Newell is a sort of Canadian Mike Adams, based at Carleton University. His website has a blurb for the book Giles recommends:

The Code of Man examines and answers a little understood yet pivotal conundrum facing Americans today: why, after winning the Cold War and defeating the evil empire, American men began to wage a war on themselves. Newell uses scores of fascinating sources to explore the variations of how the manly heart has been understood throughout recorded history. He discovers a fundamental consistency to how, until quite recently, our ancestors understood manly honor and pride.

Newell has been interviewed by the Dallas Morning News, and the interview has been archived on Free Republic. His thesis seems to be usual one that everything was great until the 1960s. However, many of the Freeper commentators were offended by his positive words about John McCain and Nelson Mandela.

Finally, Douglas Wilson. As it happens, Wilson is currently echoing around the blogosphere, following an article in the North Carolinian News Observer (link snagged from Steve Gilliard’s News Blog and Jesus’ General):

Students at one of the area’s largest Christian schools are reading a controversial booklet that critics say whitewashes Southern slavery with its view that slaves lived “a life of plenty, of simple pleasures.”…One of the authors, Douglas Wilson, a pastor in Moscow, Idaho, wrote a book on classical education upon which the school bases its philosophy. Wilson’s Association of Classical and Christian Schools accredited Cary Christian, and he is scheduled to speak at the school’s graduation in May…

“Doug Wilson and Steve Wilkins have essentially constructed the ruling theology of the neo-Confederate movement,” said Mark Potok, editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report.

Wilson runs Credenda Agenda, and seems to be a kind of Christian Reconstructionist (although he dislikes Gary North). According to the publisher’s blurb for Future Men:

Future Men is a Christian guide to raising strong, virtuous sons, contrary to the effeminacy and sentimentalism of contemporary culture.

As we look to Scripture for patterns of masculinity for our sons, we find them manifested perfectly in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who set the ultimate pattern for friendship, for courage, for faithfulness, and integrity.

A philosophy professor who has had dealings with Wilson gives his account here. Wilson is a contributor to the work of Coral Ridge ministries (e.g. here, and here), which is run by James Kennedy, the man who awarded Giles his MA at Knox.

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From the AFP, at bit of irony from Bauchi State in Nigeria:

An Islamic Sharia court in northern Nigeria has overturned a death sentence imposed on a 29-year-old woman, who gave birth after a divorce and was convicted of adultery.

Daso Adamu was acquitted by the upper Sharia court after the judge, Yusuf Suleiman, ruled that her being pregnant was not enough evidence to warrant a sentence that she be stoned to death.

…Under the interpretation of Sharia, which is in force in much of northern Nigeria, it is regarded as possible that a “dormant pregnancy” might last up to five years from the end of a marriage.

Perhaps the next venture for the Sharia courts will be stickers on biology textbooks, warning that the dogma of nine-month human pregnancies is a theory, not a fact, and should be critically considered. But what about the man Adamu was accused of committing “adultery” with? Reuters quotes from an earlier hearing:

“There is no evidence to link him with the allegation and consequently the court acquitted him for lack of evidence.”

Sharia has been enforced in Bauchi since the end of March 2001, after governor Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu (or Ahmadu Adamu Muazu) signed the Sharia Bill. The Guardian suggested last month that:

Appeal judges and state governors have proved reluctant to sanction stonings, floggings and amputations in the face of outcries from the federal government and foreigners, and also because the political value of such sentences has dwindled. Analysts attributed the rise of sharia partly to northern politicians seeking to tap Muslim discontent with Christian elites and a slow, corrupt judicial system. As those politicians became less popular, so did the sharia they championed.

However, This Day Online (also writing last month) has a different perspective:

Bauchi State Governor Alhaji Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu has restated his administration’s commitment to strengthening the Sharia legal system in the State, maintaining that the Islamic legal code has come to stay.

The Governor said that contrary to the erroneous impression in some quarters that Sharia had been scrapped its implementation would continue to receive full backing of the present administration.

…He added that his administration would render financial support to clerics to correct the moral decadence in the society, noting that its level among the youths was a reminder that all hands must be on deck to correct the ills through the Islamic legal system.

The Christian Post also reported in September that:

The Bauchi District Church Council of Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) has called on the Nigeria state government to withdraw the bill it sponsored to the state House of Assembly on the compulsory teaching of Arabic language and the establishment of Arabic/Islamic Board in the state.

In a letter to the state governor and signed by the chairman and secretary, ECWA Bauchi district, Rev. Dauda Gambo and Dauda S. Galadima, the council said the move was meant to consolidate Sharia in the state.

Well, given that ignorance of basic biology appears to be saving people’s lives just now, perhaps emphasising Arabic language teaching instead would not necessarily be a bad thing…

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