The Reformed Pastor

Today in the “On Faith” column at the Washington Post, Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson turns to the New Testament, and unfortunately starts off by embarrassing himself. He begins with this:

What Jesus Says about Homosexuality:

 

That’s right. Jesus is not recorded as having said anything related to intimate sexual relationships between people of the same gender. One has to wonder, if homosexuality is such a heinous sin against God, why does Jesus himself never refer to it? One cannot extrapolate affirmation of such relationships from that silence, but still, why no mention of an issue now causing entire churches to split?

This is just sad. It is the kind of “argument” used by people who literally know nothing about the Bible, not to mention the basics of logical reasoning. Though it is absurd to have to do so, let’s recall some of the other things about which Jesus said nothing that are explicitly condemned elsewhere in Scripture: incest, bestiality, communicating with the dead, child sacrifice, consulting with mediums, etc. For goodness sake, Jesus never in so many words condemned idolatry! Why do you suppose He wouldn’t have mentioned an issue that would come up so frequently in the life of the early church? Might it not be because it was simply assumed that any Jew worthy of the name would have nothing to do with idols, or any of the other sins I mentioned? Paul dealt with several of these because they came up in the churches to which he ministered, but Jesus had no need to deal with matters about which there was no controversy in first century Judaism, so He didn’t. I’m glad Robinson doesn’t “extrapolate affirmation” from silence, but even mentioning this lowers the quality of his case to that of the ignorance often found in “On Faith” comment threads.

Well, from this he moves on to Romans 1, and takes on Paul’s use of homosexual behavior to illustrate the fallen state of humanity:

The Romans passage states that God has turned his back on the ungodly and wicked – most especially those who have given up the one true God for idols. Because of their idolatry, “God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men.” (Romans 1:26-27)

Once again, we ask the question of context. This passage must be read as part of Paul’s general observations and admonishments to the Christians living in Rome.

Excuse me? This is actually part of a sustained theological argument that extends for much of the letter. Anyway, do go on:

Paul is making the point that Jew and Gentile alike need the Gospel, since all are unrighteous and in need of God’s saving grace. In particular, Paul is singling out the misguided practice of idolatry, rampant in the ancient world and contrary to God’s will, in which “they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.” (Romans 1:23) In response to their devotion to idols, says Paul, “God gave them up to degrading passions.”

More broadly, this first part of Paul’s argument is about the wrath of God, which “is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” (v. 18) Idolatry is the pre-eminent symptom of that ungodliness and unrighteousness, of the futility of their thinking and darkness of their hearts. (v. 21) That spiritual condition expresses itself in a wide variety of ways, including “covetousness, malice…envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (vv. 29-31), not simply or solely in terms of homosexual behavior (“degrading” or “dishonorable passions”).

Paul would have been very aware that some idolatrous cults practiced temple prostitution as one of its devotional activities. Temple prostitutes were used for sexual acts – by both men and women – as an act of devotion to the idol. It is not clear that this is what Paul was referring to, but it is a practice which would have been familiar to him and denounced by him.

That last is true, but irrelevant. There is no hint here that Paul is referring only to homosexual behavior that takes place in pagan temples. In fact, given the Old Testament background, which doesn’t distinguish between religiously motivated homosexual acts and any others, it is far more plausible that Paul is referring to all homosexual behavior.

Note that these same-gender acts are a result of idolatry, not the cause of God’s anger. Once again, as in the Old Testament, when Paul uses the word “nature” he “apparently refers only to homosexual acts indulged in by those he considered to be otherwise heterosexually inclined; acts which represent a voluntary choice to act contrary to their ordinary sexual appetite.” Paul is referring to people who have “exchanged” or “giv[en] up” their true – and therefore heterosexual – nature. The words “exchanged” and “gave up” clearly indicate that these were people presumed to be heterosexual by “nature” who were turning their backs on their true nature.

Here again, the idea of sexual orientation–supposedly unknown to Paul–slips in anachronistically. If Paul doesn’t know the idea of sexual orientation, he can’t be basing his argument on the idea that all people are “naturally” heterosexually oriented. His reference to “nature” in this passage has to do with God’s design for sexual expression, in which any sexual activity–heterosexual or homosexual–outside the bonds of marriage is considered illicit.

Imagine this: a person claims that he is sexually attracted to children. He’s always been sexually attracted to children. He is not attracted to adults of either gender. If they have sex with adults, he feels awful, even guilty, because he did something he didn’t really want to do. By Robinson’s argument, biblical strictures against sex with children wouldn’t apply to this person, because it would be denying his true nature to have sex with adults, so he should be allowed to have sex with children.

Now, please don’t complain that I’m comparing gays with child molesters. I’m not. I’m simply offering an analogy that is based on the argument regarding “nature.” If you prefer, think in terms of the alcoholic who, with more justification than the homosexual, can claim that his alcoholism is genetically based, and so releases him from the biblical injunctions against drunkenness. If you don’t like that one, come up with your own. But the point is that Robinson is claiming that orientation excuses actions, when it doesn’t, and is seeking help from Paul, who won’t cooperate.

Finally, just following this passage (in chapter 2), Paul chastises his readers for any sort of judgmentalism on their parts: “Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.” (Romans 2:1) While Paul has harsh words for idolators, he seems quick to point out that judgmentalism is to be avoided. Paul seems to be saying that using his words to judge homosexuals (or anyone else) in our own day would be a grievous error.

This is simply absurd. So is Paul also saying that we may not judge murderers, slanderers, gossips, or others who he lists in verses 29-31? Of course not. He is referring to the universality of sin, which renders us incapable to judging the person; he himself judges various forms of sin repeatedly, not just in Romans but throughout his letters, and even calls on churches to expel those who are guilty of sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 5). Saying I may not judge the homosexual as a person is not at all the same as judging the homosexual act and warning that it is sin that God condemns. But that’s a distinction that I suspect Robinson would reject, despite the fact that without it, no moral judgment of any kind is possible.

In short, we are not certain what sexual practices Paul has in mind in this passage. He simply does not tell us. What is clear is that these practices are related to the worship of idols – and clearly not what we are talking about today. Our questions involve a modern understanding of human sexuality in which a small minority of people – by their nature – are affectionally oriented toward people of the same gender, a concept unknown to the ancient mind. And we are not talking about temple prostitutes, but rather two people of the same gender who are drawn into a faithful, monogamous, life-long-intentioned relationship. Not much help here on answering the questions we are asking.

Actually, Paul is pretty clear about what sexual practices he’s condemning, and those practices are related to the worship of idols, which is as relevant today as it was then. Verses 24 and 25, which Robinson neglects to mention, make that clear:

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Idolatry is, at its root, about worshiping the creature, namely ourselves. When we dishonor our bodies (as virtually all of us do at times, whether through forbidden sexual practices, use of pornography, gluttony, drug use, etc.), we engage in idolatry, and incur the wrath of God for which the only refuge is Jesus Christ. That is indeed what Paul is talking about, and we ignore him or twist the meaning of his words at our peril.

Today’s will be a much shorter post, since (surprise!) I agree with much of what Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson has to say about Genesis 19, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, in his third post on homosexuality in the Bible at the Washington Post. He writes:

In the Genesis story of Sodom after welcoming two men (whom the story identifies as angels) into his house, Lot is confronted by all the men in the town, who surround the house and demand, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.” There is some debate about the word “to know” here. Most scholars would agree that it has the sexual meaning here – but it is very clear that we are talking about homosexual rape, a violent act of aggression – and clearly something we would all condemn and deem worthy of God’s punishment.

I think that’s right, and as such it doesn’t directly bear on the issue (especially since Lot’s sending his daughters out to be raped is just as reprehensible). I do disagree that this is primarily about “inhospitality,” which seems like an extremely weak term for acts embodied in sexual violence, but the primary point is that the Sodom story is about a constellation of sins, including but not limited to sexual immorality (Ezekiel 16:49 explicitly says, “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” Jude 1:7 mentions sexual immorality and pursuing “unnatural desire,” but that’s not enough to hang an ethics of sexuality on by itself. So I’m going to let this one pass, let those who disagree fight it out in the comments, and move on tomorrow to his next passage.

The PCUSA’s Israel Palestine Mission Network wants Presbyterians to believe that it is in accord with the denomination’s stated positions regarding possible solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The official position of the PCUSA is that peace will be be achieved through a two-state solution that secures Israel’s sovereignty and grants the Palestinians a state of their own. “Breaking Down the Walls,” the 2010 report of the Middle East Study Committee, stated as passed:

Given the daunting and mounting obstacles to the viability of a “two-state solution,” and following from the above principles, the 219th General Assembly (2010) affirms with greater urgency our historic Presbyterian stances with specific regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling for

j. the immediate resumption by Israel and Palestine of negotiations toward a two-state solution.

Today, IPMN communications director Noushin Framke makes clear that in fact what the network wants to see is the destruction of Israel, its incorporation into a single state of Palestine, and the domination of Israeli Jews by the Palestinians. Writing at Ecclesio:

As we Americans prepared to travel for Thanksgiving week to gather with family and friends and give thanks for our many blessings, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) delivered the final nail in the coffin for the two-state solution on Israel/Palestine. The Knesset voted 65 to 33 to require a national referendum vote on handing over any “annexed” territory. That sounds democratic, what’s wrong with that, you ask? Well, it’s about who gets to vote. You guessed it; not the Palestinians.

This is the latest bit of hysteria going around the anti-Israel sites. Before handing over annexed territory, Israelis will vote, which means the end is here. Apparently Framke doesn’t realize that the annexed territories include only the Golan Heights (which was Syrian, not Palestinian) and East Jerusalem, which is going to be the subject of an extraordinarily complicated deal in any case. Why this is so much worse than just the Knesset voting on something–last time I checked, West Bank Palestinians didn’t have any votes there, either–I’m not sure. But this is typical: Framke is upset because people who are not citizens of the country giving up the territory in question don’t get to vote. As I recall, there was no Palestinian vote when Jordan annexed East Jerusalem back in 1948, either.

As it has become painfully clear for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, the historic land of Palestine was never “a land without a people for a people without a land,” even if there are still people who believe Golda Meir’s abhorrent and distorted quote that there’s no such thing as a Palestinian. On the other end of the spectrum, Israeli historian, Shlomo Sand said in his best-selling book The Invention of the Jewish People, that it is highly likely that today’s Palestinians are in fact the descendants of those Jews from the biblical era who stayed in the holy land and converted first to Christianity and then to Islam. Whether you agree with Golda Meir or Shlomo Sand, both positions are contentious and controversial.

Funny thing about that link to Meir’s quote. It’s from a letter to the New York Times explaining and defending her! Seems she was saying something that would universally recognized if there was any honesty in the world: that there is no ethically distinct “Palestinian people.” Rather, there are Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews, which is to say that the residents of the area called Palestine fall into two categories, Jewish and Arab. Before 1967, everyone knew that; after 1967, there was suddenly a distinct people called “Palestinians,” who all happened to be Arabs, who had a claim on the land. As for Sand, his book has already been debunked as politicized pseudo-history, but it keeps turning up on the anti-Semitic sites as “proof” that “the Jews” are really “Khazars” with no historic connection to the Holy Land, which presumably is why Framke mentions it.

I prefer to look through the lens provided by historian Tony Judt who was the longtime director of the Remarque Institute at NYU and who recently succumbed to ALS Disease….Judt famously called Israel an anachronism, saying it was a good idea for the nineteenth century but an idea whose time had passed in the 21^st century. Judt said Israel arrived too late: “The very idea of a ‘Jewish state’—a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded—is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism.”

Judt’s article was roundly criticized at the time for its ideological rather than factual description of Israel, and the quote Framke takes from it is a perfect illustration of why. The expression “from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded” is internally self-contradictory, as well as shown to be nonsense by the facts. Palestinian Arabs who are citizens of Israel have the right to vote, have served as ambassadors, members of the Knesset, and cabinet members. They have free speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Does that mean there’s no discrimination or racism in Israel? Of course not. But the claim that Israeli Arabs are the victims of some kind of apartheid regime is nonsense. Oh, and here’s a message to Framke and her anti-Israel buddies: just because a Jew says something bad about Israel doesn’t mean it’s right, and doesn’t give you license to repeat it as though it is.

Today, the question is no longer where the borders will be for the two states, but rather what kind of rights the populations will have in the defacto ONE state. The fact of the matter is that Israel and the Occupied Territories are in fact one state, controlled by one group. Furthermore, nobody in their right mind believes Israel is going to remove up to half a million Jewish Settlers from the Palestinian West Bank. Realpolitik dictates that these settlers will stay put.

Here’s where she starts making the argument that a single state is what’s needed. But notice the reference to the settlers. She assumes that two states are impossible, because there’s no way the settlers will leave. So, how about giving them the option: stay in a state in which they are a minority, or move to Israel? But no, there’s no way the settlers can be allowed to stay in the West Bank. The Palestinian territories, if they are to become a state, must be Judenrein. It’s not apartheid, but….

Unfortunately, Israel has already wiped The West Bank off the map – politicians, government agencies and school textbooks do not use the term “West Bank” which is officially called Judea and Samaria by Israel. In the minds of Israelis, it’s a done deal. The question is how long Israelis, and their supporters, the American taxpayer, are willing to maintain a segregated state with unequal rights. As many Israelis and Palestinians are saying now, the “one state solution” is not a solution but a consequence of killing the two-state solution. When Israel refuses to declare its borders, by definition we are left with one state. When Israel doesn’t give the Palestinians their civil rights, we are left with an apartheid state. This is not a sustainable situation.

Leaving aside the repeated, incorrect, and inflammatory use of the word “apartheid” (officially rejected by the PCUSA General Assembly as a description of the situation in the Holy Land), she is correct. This situation can’t go on forever, which is why so many Israelis, up to and including the Prime Minister, have concluded that it will be necessary to give the Palestinians a state of their own. But Framke is headed down the road of rejecting that, thinking that the Israelis will never give in to every single Palestinian demand, which is correct. In short, she doesn’t want negotiations, she wants capitulation. Since that won’t happen, another road will have to be taken.

In 1948 at the founding of the state of Israel, David Ben Gurion famously said that Israel, the dream, was three things: All the biblical land, a democracy, and a Jewish state. But in 1948, Ben Gurion also said that Israel could only have two out of these three at the same time. Right now, it has control over all the land and it is a Jewish state, meaning Jewish citizens have more rights than others do. (Contrary to popular myth, since not all the people who live in the land have the same rights, it cannot be considered a democracy).

More nonsense. What she is saying here is that Israel is not a democracy since the West Bank Palestinians don’t have the full rights of Israeli citizens, even though they are not citizens of Israel and most have no desire to be. What she has done is set up a construct in her mind that goes like this: Israel controls the West Bank, so the land from the Med to the Jordan is essentially one state, but since Palestinians on the West Bank aren’t treated identically to Israeli citizens, Israel is actually an apartheid state. This is like saying that because the residents of the American zone of occupation in post-World War II West Germany couldn’t vote in American elections, America was therefore an apartheid state.

The rubber hits the road with the next quote:

Again, by definition, as Prof. Walt Mearsheimer says, Israel is a de facto apartheid state: “Regrettably, the two-state solution is now a fantasy.  Instead, those territories will be incorporated into a ‘Greater Israel,’ which will be an apartheid state bearing a marked resemblance to white-ruled South Africa.  Nevertheless, a Jewish apartheid state is not politically viable over the long term.  In the end, it will become a democratic bi-national state, whose politics will be dominated by its Palestinian citizens.  In other words, it will cease being a Jewish state, which will mean the end of the Zionist dream.”

Going back to the Ben Gurion prophecy, unless Israel wants to remain an apartheid state and since it will not give up any land, then it will have to give up being a Jewish state. [Emphasis added.]

So this is where Framke, and presumably the IPMN for which she speaks, wants to head: a single national entity in the Holy Land, dominated by the Palestinians, in which Jews will be at the mercy of their rulers. Given the history of Jewish communities in the Middle East under Muslim rule, it’s fair to say that the end result of that will be the expulsion of all or most of the Jewish population, just as was the case over the twenty or so years after the founding of Israel in 1948. This time, Jews will be told to go to the United States, or perhaps back to Europe, as Helen Thomas so famously said they should (the Sephardis, who would not be allowed back to their homelands in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, and so on, would presumably be on their own).

I applaud Framke for her honesty. Now all members of the PCUSA can see whether the IPMN is in fact working at cross purposes with their denomination or not.

PS–Given the trajectory of this article, I had to laugh to note that three times in the last few days, the IPMN has trumpeted on its Facebook page the news that nations outside the Middle East (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and now France) have “recognized” an “independent Palestine.” No word yet on when said independent state will be swallowing Israel whole.

Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson again hits the pages of the “On Faith” column at the Washington Post, today taking on Leviticus 18:22 (“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination”) and 20:13 (“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them”). He begins this way:

The context of these two passages are the holiness and purity codes set down for the people of Israel – rules set forth both to define what was clean and unclean before God, as well as what set the Hebrew people apart from their heathen neighbors who worshiped gods other than the one true God. In a memorable speech on homosexuality at Trinity College in 1992, The Rev. Dr. Frank G. Kirkpatrick put the biblical code in context: This “purity code assumes a ‘normal’ or natural state for things, any deviance from which is abnormal, deviant, and therefore unclean, impure, and polluting. Menstruation is not ‘normal’ for women (since it occurs less frequently than periods of non-menstruation): therefore when women are menstruating they are regarded as unclean. Blemishes [including blindness and lameness] are abnormal, therefore unclean.”

The expression “holiness and purity code” as used by Robinson is an anagram for “outdated passages we can now safely ignore.” It is true that Leviticus 17-26 seems to form a unit within the Torah, and part of that purpose is to define cleanliness and secure Israel’s separation from its neighbors. Saying that, however, says nothing about the moral content of these chapters. There are dozens of commands that are framed in terms of holiness or purity that no one in his right mind would suggest refers to practices that would otherwise be morally acceptable. For instance, the verse preceding 18:22 tells Israelites, “You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.” Somehow I doubt that Robinson would argue that because this prohibition against child sacrifice is in the context of pagan worship, therefore it would be OK as long as it was Christians sacrificing children to Yahweh!

His appeal to Kirkpatrick also achieves nothing. Kirkpatrick’s claim that the holiness code is prohibiting what isn’t “normal,” which is simply ridiculous. For instance, the making of idols (19:4) was perfectly normal for every people in the Middle East at the time; prohibiting idols was a call to Israel to be abnormal. Again, the call to allow gleaning of fields by the poor (19:9) was contrary to accepted practice of the time, and certainly runs counter to our instinct to look out for ourselves first. Circumcision was hardly normal for the times, but was rather a special practice of Israel. And certainly the command regarding the sojourner (19:33-34) was anything but normal, and had nothing to do with cleanliness or distinguishing Israel from its neighbors; rather, it was a command regarding what was right, a kind of Golden Rule instruction based on Israel’s own history of mistreatment when sojourning in Egypt. So talking about standards of “normal” when talking about the commands in Leviticus 17-26 is not only silly, but simply incorrect.

Oh, and there’s a theological problem with all this in any case, which is that it presumes that the holiness code was simply a human invention reflecting limited human knowledge and human prejudices. Clearly, anyone who believes in the inspiration of the Old Testament would reject assumption.

Kirkpatrick further explained: “Men who act like women are abnormal, therefore unclean. Now the assumption here is that to be a man is to desire women. Anything else is acting against one’s nature. Thus when a man lies with another man he is acting contrary to his own nature. It was inconceivable in this context that a man could be genetically or biologically predisposed to desire other men. To be engaged in homosexual activity therefore was to do what one was literally not inclined or predisposed to do. Thus it was acting against one’s own conscience and predispositions. This is what made it unnatural and therefore a violation of nature.”

The fact that ancient Israel knew nothing about modern notions of sexual orientation (duh) cuts both ways. Because they didn’t think in terms of orientation, they also couldn’t and didn’t condemn homosexual orientation. They thought in terms of acts, and it was those that are condemned. What’s more, if we hold to the inspiration of Leviticus, given that God would have known about modern notions of sexual orientation and yet still condemned, not orientation but acts, we can conclude that these two verses reflect His mind, and not just that of the writer.

This is an important point, difficult for the modern day mind to grasp: homosexuality as a sexual orientation was unknown to the ancient mind. Same gender, intimate physical contact was not unknown, of course, but everyone was presumed to be heterosexual. In his book Embodiment, An Approach to Sexuality and Christian Theology, James B. Nelson wrote, “It is crucial to remember this, for in all probability the biblical writers in each instance were speaking of homosexual acts undertaken by person whom the authors presumed to be heterosexually constituted.” Therefore, any man who lay with another man as with a woman was considered to be a heterosexual man acting against his true nature.

There are a couple of problems here. First, notice how the notion of sexual orientation slides back in under the radar: “everyone was presumed to be heterosexual.” That speaks to orientation, a notion that Robinson claimed in the previous sentence was “unknown to the ancient mind.” The fact is that advocates of accepting homosexual behavior have a tendency to bounce back and forth on this question depending upon what is most advantageous at any particular moment. Those who oppose it have no such problem: we agree that the idea of sexual orientation, as formulated in late modernity, was unknown in biblical times, meaning it was acts that were problematic, not orientation. Keep in mind that the Old Testament, in a passage that Robinson apparently won’t deal with, lays a foundation for sexual ethics in Genesis, which says nothing about what we would call sexual orientation, but makes clear that there is a divine pattern for sexuality and marriage that we are not free to ignore. All of the commands in the holiness code that have to do with sexual behavior are built in one way or another on that foundation.

Second, notice that the quote from Nelson contains a weasel: “in all probability.” Robinson would like for us to jump from that “probability” to certainty, which even scholars who agree with him won’t do, at least not when they are being careful and honest.

In practice, we modern day Christians have regarded most of the injunctions in the Holiness Codes of Leviticus and Deuteronomy as culturally bound to the ancient times of the Hebrews–but not binding on us. These same purity codes forbid eating shellfish, planting a field with two different kinds of seed or wearing simultaneously two kinds of cloth. They would prohibit us from ordaining to the priesthood any handicapped person – not to mention women. We cannot, then, isolate these passages about homosexual acts and impute to them the kind of enduring authority which we ascribe to nothing before or after these passages. One has to wonder why the biblical literalists who cite this passage against homosexuality don’t seem to go all the way and advocate for death as the punishment for homosexual behavior! We cannot have it both ways.

Let’s start with a couple of basics:

1) Within the Torah, there are three kinds of law. One is the ceremonial law, and it has to do with worship regulations and ritual cleanliness, neither of which have to do with the prohibition on homosexual behavior. The second is the national law of Israel, which has to do primarily with the penalties that the nation was commanded to impose for a violation of the Mosaic law. The third is the moral law, which has to do with what God has revealed as right and wrong behavior.

2) The Old Testament law cannot be isolated by Christians from the New Testament. It must be seen in light of the new covenant instituted by Christ and authoritatively explained by the apostles.

These two basics are why no one except those seeking to score points rather than make serious arguments use what is sometimes referred to as the “shellfish argument.” By feigning a simple-minded literalism, it asks the question, “why homosexuality and not kosher laws?” The reason, of course, is that these are two different kinds of law that are treated very differently in the New Testament. Because of what Christ has done in His death and resurrection, the ceremonial law–shellfish, anyone?–has been set aside. Paul makes that explicit in his letters, as does Acts in the vision of Peter in chapter 10. (The fact that the kosher law is so specifically dealt with in Acts makes the invocation of it in the context of the debate over a moral issue all the more absurd.) The national law is set aside because the church is not a nation-state, and has no penalty at its disposal save those that involved moral and spiritual suasion. The moral law, on the other hand, still applies to Christians, as Paul makes crystal clear in every one of his epistles.

Please note the weasel in the paragraph: “we modern day Christians have regarded most of the injunctions…” Of course–many of the commands in Leviticus 17-26 have to do with matters such as the calendar of festivals, regulation of priests, offerings, Sabbath, and the like, and other have to do with stuff like redemption of lands and the Jubilee that was specific to the circumstances of ancient Israel. But the use of that word “most” is Robinson’s concession that there are moral commands in the holiness code that we may not blow off (the prohibition on child sacrifice mentioned above would be one, prohibitions on incest and mistreatment of sojourners would be others). He simply refuses to believe that the prohibitions on homosexual behavior could be one of them.

Robinson then goes on to look at what he terms the holiness code’s “bias against women” and “‘science’ of conception,” but to tell the truth I’m really not sure what these have to do with the discussion at hand, other than as an effort to reinforce the “ancientness” and irrelevance of the code to modern Christians. He comes to this conclusion:

Oddly enough, we have relaxed these “rules” against a man “spilling his seed” through masturbation and birth control, yet we hold onto “a man shall not lie with another man as with a woman” as if it were eternally binding on believers. Such an inconsistency simply does not make sense.

Once again, there’s a real myopia here, as he seems unwilling to recognize that there are lots of Christians, maybe most, who would disagree with his dismissal of the prohibitions on masturbation and birth control, much less homosexual behavior. Be that as it may, please note that Robinson himself is guilty of this “inconsistency,” inasmuch as he concedes (that weaselly “most” again) that there are moral commands in the holiness code that continue to be binding on Christians. That fact that there are commands in the code that are not proves nothing.

Given these changes in our modern understandings and contexts, it is no longer appropriate for us to condemn men who have intimate sexual relationships with other men based on this proscription in the Leviticus Holiness Code. Either all of these proscriptions must be tossed out as binding on us, or they all must be adhered to. Biblical “literalists” cannot have it both ways, picking and choosing which proscriptions are still appropriate.

But of course the prohibition on homosexual behavior is not “based on this proscription” in Leviticus. The basis for it is far broader than just this, and includes the Genesis account of the divine plan for sexuality and the New Testament teaching as well. And given that Robinson is unable to say that every injunction in the holiness code is culturally bound and not binding on Christians, the either/or that he sets up in this conclusion is itself invalid, undermined elsewhere in his presentation, in the New Testament treatment of the commands, and even in the exercise of reason.

Billionaire motormouth Ted Turner, an enthusiastic supporter of population control, would like to see China’s one-child policy–as fine an example of tyranny as humanity has ever devised–extended to the entire planet. He peddled this fish to the global warming bitter-enders now gathered in Cancun, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail:

Climate change and population control can make for a politically explosive mix, as media mogul Ted Turner demonstrated Sunday when he urged world leaders to institute a global one-child policy to save the Earth’s environment.

Mr. Turner – a long-time advocate of population control – said the environmental stress on the Earth requires radical solutions, suggesting countries should follow China’s lead in instituting a one-child policy to reduce global population over time. He added that fertility rights could be sold so that poor people could profit from their decision not to reproduce.

“If we’re going to be here [as a species] 5,000 years from now, we’re not going to do it with seven billion people,” Mr. Turner said.

There’s no point in arguing with this kind of incipient totalitarianism (not to mention the racism and disdain for the impoverished expressed in the notion that poor people–mostly people of color in the Third World–would get paid not to reproduce, presumably freeing rich white people to do so), so I’ll just go straight to the punchline:

Turner has been married and divorced three times: to Judy Nye (1960–64), Jane Shirley Smith (1965–88), and actress Jane Fonda (1991–2001). He has five children.

No one ever said Israel is perfect, but this story reported on by the Washington Post is the sort of thing that makes you wonder if the worst enemy of Israel isn’t within its own borders:

Three dozen top Israeli rabbis threw their support Tuesday behind a religious ruling barring Jews from selling or renting homes to non-Jews – an indication of growing radicalism within the rabbinical community at a time of mounting friction between Israeli Arabs and Jews.

The action by the clerics – chief rabbis in some of Israel’s largest cities and influential among the devout – fueled charges of racism.

Ya think?

The religious opinion first became a focus of controversy last year when the chief rabbi of Safed – a town in northern Israel that has a large concentration of devout Jews – urged that it be applied specifically to Arabs.

Nitai Morgenstern, an aide to Safed’s chief rabbi, Shmuel Eliahu, said the town has “a problem of a lot of people renting and selling to Arabs, and that destroys the city’s social fabric.”

In other words, “we can’t have those people coming into our town!”

Mordechai Nagari, chief rabbi of Maaleh Adumim, a large West Bank settlement outside Jerusalem, defended the letter, which he signed. “The rabbinical ruling is that you cannot sell houses to gentiles, and its purpose is to protect the Jewish identity of the state of Israel,” he told AP Television News.

No, it isn’t. The Jewish identity of Israel is not harmed in any way, shape, or form by its own Arab citizens being able to rent or purchase housing wherever they want. Unless, that is, Nagari is an advocate of the idea that Israel should be Arab-free, in which case he’s just as bad as they Palestinians who want the West Bank to be Judenrein. Fortunately, the political leadership is not on board with this nonsense:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the initiative. “Israel categorically rejects these words” against its Arab citizens, Netanyahu said in a speech Tuesday evening in Jerusalem. “This must not happen in any democratic nation, and certainly not in the Jewish and democratic state” of Israel.

Darned tootin’. The nutballs on the Israeli, European, and American left are constantly making the charge that Israel is a racist, apartheid state. People like these rabbis seem intent on proving them correct. Thank God there are people in authority to put the lie to the charge by making clear that the presence of racists among the Jewish population doesn’t make Israel racist as a state (or the Jewish population as a whole, either). All I can say is, I hope Bibi and the other leaders of his government will remain vigilant in opposing and doing everything they can to stop the spread of this kind of garbage.

The “On Faith” column at the Washington Post has started a series of articles on homosexuality by Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson. (I’m sure they’ll be having Robert Gagnon do a counterpoint series when Robinson is done. /sarc) The Bishop, of course, is best known as the first gay prelate in the Episcopal Church, so he obviously has a particular point of view on the subject. He also claims to be basically evangelical in his theology. I’m going to follow these articles and offer a critique, beginning with the one that appeared today.

Robinson begins this way:

Let’s begin. But before we begin with any one text, let us ask the most basic question of all: How are we to regard the Bible?

Be assured, I believe the Bible to be the Word of God – but not the “words” of God. That is, I do not believe that the Bible was dictated by God and written down by scribes of one sort or another, unmediated by the scribes’ own life experiences, culture, religious belief and context.

Well, yes, of course. The view he is rejecting is a caricature, held by virtually no one. The one exception is that those who hold a high view of Scripture would say that the Bible contains the “words of God” as well as the Word of God, but that those words–inspired by the Holy Spirit–were nonetheless also the words of men, who brought their own experience, cultural setting and so on into the writing process without at the same time despoiling what God wished to convey. But the truth is that this leads to a far bigger problem for Robinson.

I believe that the Bible is many accounts, by many writers, over a thousand years time, of their experience of the Living God. Their accounts were heard (more often than read) as an experiential guide on how one accesses God (or how God accesses humankind) and discerns God’s will. The Bible is a collection of first-hand encounters with God, as experienced through the faithful (and sometimes unfaithful) people of God – from the Israelites in the Hebrew Scriptures (somewhat condescendingly referred to by Christians as the “Old” Testament) and the Christian scriptures of the early Church in the “New” Testament.

As such, it is the place we always begin. In reading these holy texts, we learn the ways that people of faith have historically come to know God and God’s will. They are enormously instructive, and over several millennia, these texts have served as a guide for pilgrims of faith in their encounters with the Living God.

What’s missing from this is any sense that the Bible constitutes God’s revelation of Himself (in other words, that it is the “Word of God”). Everything is filtered through human experience, human perceptions, and human limitations. The key is the sentence, “Their accounts were heard (more often than read) as an experiential guide on how one accesses God.” This makes Scripture into nothing more than a devotional manual, or perhaps a guide to spiritual direction. It is both of those, but before it is those it is a record of God’s disclosure of Himself and His truth to humanity. Robinson puts the emphasis in exactly the wrong place, and in the process leaves us wondering “why the Bible, as opposed to any other human manual of devotion or spiritual direction?”

Some of these texts are history, some are poetry. Some are fables and myths, meant to teach an important truth. Some are personal accounts of individuals, and some are communal accounts of a nation. All are set in a particular historical and cultural context. And context is the central key in understanding these texts, and the all-important task of determining whether the wisdom contained therein is applicable to all people for all time.

Context is key, but it needs to be noted that there is more to context than culture and history. There is also theology, and Robinson gives a sign of what theological context he’s using with that last phrase. If you come at Scripture seeking to determine which parts or passages don’t apply to you, you’re going to find them every time, and chances are pretty good that they are going to match up well with whatever sin you are seeking to justify.

So, first and foremost, in reading texts from the Bible, we must ask, “What did these words mean to their author?” and “What did these words mean to the community for which they were written?” Once the context has been understood, then we ask the question, “Is the message of this text eternally binding on all people of faith, or, has something changed in the context between then and now, which renders this text ‘culturally bound’ and not applicable in the same way to our current situation, given the knowledge and understandings of the present time?”

The first part of that is correct, and I’m glad to see Robinson not indulging in the kind of deconstructive nonsense that would allow us to take all of Scripture and turn it into whatever we want it to be. With regard to the second part, we have to be extremely careful.

For one thing, we have a tendency to think that we’re a lot smarter than the people of the ancient world, and that even goes for our understanding of human nature. There are a lot of things that we think we “know” that in fact we don’t know. For instance, if as I expect him to, Robinson eventually makes the argument that we “now know” that homosexual orientation is genetic and unalterable, he will be illustrating my point. We do not, in fact, “know” any such thing, if by that we mean that there is incontrovertible scientific evidence to prove it. There are a handful of scientific studies, all of which have methodological flaws, and lots and lots of politicized assertion. So any attempt to evade the meaning of Scripture by invoking “the knowledge and understandings of the present time” should be looked upon with extreme skepticism.

Second, we must remember that while culture changes, human nature doesn’t. First century Israel is not 21st century America, but human beings are still the same in their nature. In particular, human beings have an inveterate desire to twist the revelation of God into a shape that they can use for their own purposes, including the justification of their favorite sins. That those who do so in order to justify the conclusion they hold a priori regarding homosexual behavior as being approved of by God are among them is a certainty.

Finally, it is important to keep in mind that even if the details of a given biblical command do not directly apply to us, there’s a virtual certainty that there is a larger principle at work that does. For example, I don’t worry too much today about food sacrificed to idols, about which Paul had so much to say to the Corinthians. But the principle that he was expounding in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 regarding love for the weaker brother in matters adiaphoristic is highly important to the life of the church, one we can’t ignore by saying, “well, we don’t eat meat sacrificed to idols any more, so this must not apply to us.”

Not even the strictest fundamentalist or Biblical literalist gives the same authority and moral weight to every word of scripture. Few of us would hold Paul’s injunction against women appearing in church with their heads uncovered to have the same moral weight as Jesus’ injunction to forgive our enemies. Few of us are willing to be bound by all the commands given to us in the Biblical text – otherwise, we would give all we have to the poor to follow Christ, redistribute all the land every 50 years, refuse to charge any interest on our loans/investments, share our worldly possessions communally as did the early Church, and refuse to support our nation’s defense budget in accord with Jesus’ commandment not to resist evil.

He’s certainly right that no one gives exactly equal weight to every verse. Even if we say, as I do, that every word of Scripture is inspired by God, that doesn’t mean I don’t spend a lot more time and effort pondering the meaning and application of John 1:1 or Romans 3:25 as opposed to 1 Chronicles 5:12 or Matthew 1:15 (though it can be surprising what even genealogies can say to the right person at the right time). But the commands of God and of Christ are ignored at our peril, even if the literal command may not apply in our case. As Robinson has been saying, context makes all the difference, and if a command was given to theocratic Israel as part of its national or ceremonial law, we abuse Scripture trying to make it apply to a Christian or a church. Christ’s commands have a context as well–for instance, the command to sell all and give to the poor was given to a specific man under specific circumstances. But that doesn’t mean we can simply ignore it, or the law given to Israel, for that matter. Each have something to teach us, each apply in some way to us, and our task is to discern how that is. Interesting thing about the examples he gives, though: every one of them (with the possible exception of the Jubilee redistribution of land, which was in any event a national not personal undertaking) has been held by some Christians at some time to apply to them, and perhaps even to all Christians. So they obviously can’t be, and shouldn’t be, dismissed so easily.

We have come to understand certain things as acceptable in the Biblical culture and time, but not in our own – among other things, polygamy and slavery – which few Christians would promote despite their acceptability in Biblical times. As we approach the Biblical texts about homosexuality, we must not conveniently change our stance to one of asserting that every word of scripture is inerrantly true and universally binding on all people for all time.

If I haven’t already, allow me to make this clear: I do in fact believe that Scripture is universally binding on all Christians for all time, and that what it teaches is true no matter what the date on the calendar is. I also believe that within Scripture there is a principle of “progressive revelation,” that God doesn’t unveil everything at once, but rather reveals His truth in stages throughout the life of His people. And so, for instance, polygamy was acceptable under certain circumstances for the people of the Old Testament, but it is laid aside in the New as marriage is seen in light of God’s original design, rather than in terms of the distortions introduced because of sin (the teaching on divorce works the same way). Slavery, as well, while acceptable under limited circumstances under the old covenant, is never spoken of with approval in the New; rather, masters and slaves were instructed to transform their relationship into that of brothers, even if they made no effort to overturn the societal norm. (As an aside, I’ll mention that slavery is usually brought up by folks such as Robinson because of a tendency to make the American experience, where antebellum Southern Christians sought to use the Bible to justify slavery, normative. In fact, throughout the church’s history, when it has spoken on slavery, it has generally been with disapproval, even if it didn’t seek its abolition.)

Understanding scripture in its contexts is no easy task, and it is fraught with potential misuse. All readers of scripture are subject to self-deception – that is, the temptation to interpret the scriptures in a way that satisfies our own selfish desires and biases, rather than hearing the truth of the passage which may challenge, condemn and call into question those desires and biases. That is why scripture must always be studied and understood in community. The temptation is too great to interpret scripture in our own image to attempt it alone. One must always be subject to the larger community’s understandings to guard against only hearing what one wants to hear.

I think he is correct about this. One thing, though: don’t define your community too narrowly. Our community for biblical interpretation should never consist just of people who agree with us, or with the members of a small group, or our own church, or even our own denomination. Instead, we should see the community in which Scripture is to be read and understood as the whole church in every age.

Part of the community whose voice needs to be considered, is that of the Tradition – that is, what has been said over the years about any given passage of scripture. We, in the present time, are not the only ones who have struggled with these passages, and our own understanding needs to be informed by the larger community of the faithful in the past.

Quite so.

And third, we need to use our own reason and experience in interpreting these scripture passages. Our knowledge of science, psychology, and modern scholarly understandings need to inform our approach to these passages. Our knowledge about common allusions in scripture – from leprosy to demon possession, from conception and birth to race and gender realities – will inform our interpretation based on new findings from the secular realm.

This is a common trope among some Episcopalians and lots of Methodists. The latter even refer to it with doubtful accuracy as the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral.” There is some truth here, inasmuch as it is inevitable that both our reason and our experience are going to play a role when we interpret Scripture. There’s simply no way for us to avoid some measure of subjectivity. These need to be put in their proper place, however, and that can only happen when we recognize both reason (even in its “scientific” form as it pertains to Scripture) and experience as idiosyncratic. Every person’s mind works a little bit differently, even when he or she is seeking to operate logically, and certainly every person’s experience of life is different. That being the case, neither reason nor experience can ever be put on the same level as Scripture, nor should they be employed to stand judgment on Scripture, as if our highly limited experience and fallible reason can ever be said to be capable of sorting out truth from falsity in the Bible, or to be able to judge what constitutes God’s revelation and what doesn’t.

One final and important note: I do NOT believe that God stopped revealing God’s self with the closing of the canon (officially sanctioned as “holy” and official) of Scripture. Some would argue that God said everything God needed and wanted to say by the end of the first century of the Common Era (a less condescending way of referring to that time since the birth of Christ). They would posit a God who, when the scriptures were “finished” bid the world a fond farewell and went off to some beautiful part of God’s creation (the Bahamas, Patagonia, Nepal?!!), leaving us to our own devices, given that everything had been said that needed to be said. I don’t believe that.

And here is where Robinson completely falls off the turnip truck. It is one thing to say that God continues to speak to His people–that’s certainly true. It is another entirely to say that revelation continues. Not only is that a reprise of the Montanist heresy of the 3rd century, it is the way of fanaticism and ecclesiastical disintegration, not to mention moral chaos. That is especially the case if we have no qualms about saying that God is contradicting Himself, saying that what was previously wrong is now right, which is where Robinson is going.

In John’s Gospel, which is largely made up of the conversation Jesus has with his disciples at the Last Supper [sic], Jesus says: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16: 12-13a) I take this to mean that Jesus is saying to the disciples, “Look, for a bunch of uneducated and rough fishermen, you haven’t done too badly. In fact, you will do amazing things with the rest of your lives. But don’t think for a minute that God is done with you – or done with believers who will come after you. There is much more that God wants to teach you, but you cannot handle it right now. So, I will send the Holy Spirit who will lead you into that new Truth.”

Robinson rather slickly slides from “all the truth” to “new Truth.” (Why the capitalization? Because apparently the approval of homosexual behavior is the biggest thing since sliced bread, I suppose.) What he means by this sleight of hand is that the Holy Spirit is going to offer up something that contradicts what God has said in the past, now that we are mature enough and have enough scientific knowledge to handle it. Unfortunately, there is no standard by which to measure that “truth,” so what we are left with is nothing more than warmed-over Gnosticism.

The Church used scripture to justify slavery until the mid-nineteenth century, when the Church acknowledged that it had gotten this all wrong, and began to change itself and the culture into a more inclusive community. Was that not the Spirit leading us to a new truth about people of color?

No, actually it wasn’t. The basis for that “new truth” was always in Scripture (for instance, in Paul’s declaration that the walls between Jew and Gentile had come down, or in his statement that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek”). He’s simply wrong about slavery, as the Rodney Stark article linked above shows, and continuing to repeat the incorrect assumptions by American mainline liberals doesn’t make it so.

For centuries, and still to this day in some quarters, scripture has been used to denigrate and subjugate women. But many of us have come to know the error of those ways as we experience the gifts for ministry that women have been given. Is that not the Spirit leading the Church to say “we got it wrong” all these years?

In most of the church, no He isn’t. And to the extent that the American mainline churches (a very small portion of world Christianity) are now ordaining women, they’ve done so on the basis of biblical data that has been there all along. Whether I agree with them or not isn’t the point. The point is that there is a case to be made from Scripture, one that isn’t dependent on “new revelation” or political correctness, that women may be ordained. It’s true that a lot of the supporters of women’s ordination have never bothered to make that case, believing that getting in touch with their inner feminist was more important, but there are those who have, and they are the ones we should be listening to, not the folks who simply take it for granted in this egalitarian age that the church “got it wrong.”

And now, in these times, we are swept up in the holy chaos of asking, “Could we, people of faith, have been just as wrong about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people? Might it be the Holy Spirit leading us to a new truth about homosexuality? Do we have the courage to admit we were wrong all these years? Are we open to being led by the Spirit to a new place?

Once again, the answers to Robinson’s questions are no, no, no need to, and not if it means proclaiming a God who contradicts Himself. Once again, there is no “new truth.” There is only carnal desire combined with lousy theology. The Holy Spirit simply is not going to “reveal” something that contradicts the plain message of Scripture. That being the case, it’s going to be necessary for Robinson to make the case that we’ve misunderstood the Bible all these centuries, and that in it God actually approves of, or at the very least does not disapprove of, homosexual behavior. We’ll see what he does with the biblical material in the weeks ahead.

Here we go again. James Wall, again channeling his buddies at Veterans Today, buys into bizarre conspiracy theories regarding WikiLeaks and Israel, and in the process defends the Iranians’ drive for nuclear weapons. The PCUSA’s Israel Palestine Mission Network, led by admirers of Wall and his VT friends, posted a link to it.

So here’s the deal: anti-Semitic cesspool Veterans Today has been obsessing this week over an imagined link between the WikiLeaks State Department document dump and Israel. Supposedly, Israel is behind the web site and using its “leaks” to manipulate world opinion and governments to do its nefarious bidding. No evidence necessary, of course; the accusation is more than enough proof:

There are two opinions of Wikileaks.  The worlds intelligence services all, every single one, believes Wikileaks is simply an intelligence agency playing games.  They say this to each other, Vladimir Putin and  Zbigniew Brzezinski have announced it to the world and others are following suit.

Nobody, at least nobody typically “answerable” will say the word “Israel” but it is what they mean when they say “intelligence agency.”  They mean Israel.  Every Wikileak does something to help Israel in a different way at a different time.  If Israel has a problem, a Wikileak is there, part of the solution.  This time, Secretary Clinton was in the way and Wikileaks showed up to gut the State Department and give Israel the usual “buff and polish” job they usually do.

Read Gordon Duff’s column in its entirety. It’s nothing more than speculation driven by his hatred of Israel. Wall jumps on this conspiratorial approach and asks ominously, “Could Israel be using Wikileaks to prepare the US for an Israeli air strike against Iran?” (Cue James Bond music.) He then connects this to Iraq:

This nation is moving toward a repeat of the US rush to invade Iraq in 2003. Mass media coverage of the Wikileaks story is performing the same function the media played to make the case for the 2003 US invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.

I’m not sure what nation Wall lives in, but in the one I inhabit, the press has been pretty blasé about the latest from WikiLeaks, taking the line that there’s not much that’s new in terms of hard news. I really don’t know what he’s talking about in terms of some kind of Hearst-like beating of the war drums in connection with Iran–there are few voices on the right calling for such action, much less in the overwhelmingly left and center-left mainstream media. Wall goes on to quote one of his new friends:

Jeff Gates argues in Sabbah Now that Wikileaks is being used as part of Israel’s game theory warfare:

You can ignore the quote, which is fact-free (though it does include the idea that Israel “fixed” the intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to get the U.S. to invade Iraq, which is also fact-free). But who is Jeff Gates? Well, he’s a staff writer for Veterans Today. He’s suggested that Israel stages mass murder of its own citizens in order to blame it on “terrorists,”; that Israel gave nuclear technology to North Korea; referred to the Jewish people as “mythical,” etc. You know–a reliable source.

What is sobering about Gates’ argument is the reminder that the campaign to present Iran as a nuclear threat to the region duplicates the campaign waged to win US public opinion through a series of Bush-Cheney lies and deception about non-existent WMDs leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Right. The two “campaigns” are exactly the same, except that Iran refuses to help those who would defend it:

For the first time since the expansion of Iran’s nuclear program was exposed in 2002, the Iranian government is dropping the pretense that it is developing nuclear technology purely for peaceful purposes. Iran has developed nuclear war plans to deter U.S. and Israeli aggression and retaliate against it, a top adviser to Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi announced in a strategic analysis.

Defense Ministry analyst Alireza Saeidabadi’s detailed analysis, published last week on a website that Iran’s intelligence ministry runs, examines several scenarios in which Iran could become embroiled in a shooting war with the United States or Israel….

[I]n the event Israel uses unconventional weapons against Iran, “then Iran should employ a nuclear strategy.”

Similarly, if Iran and the United States get engaged in naval clashes in the Persian Gulf, Iran should “use its sea power for hit-and-run attacks, commando attacks, and use anti-shipping missiles” against U.S. naval vessels.

“But if the United States launches an unconventional attack, Iran needs to respond with a nuclear strategy,” the Iranian defense ministry analyst contends. (October 5, 2010)

Wall then goes into a weird tangent about the recently released movie Fair Game, a fantasy based on books by serial liars Joe Wilson and wife Valerie Plame, which Wall somehow thinks vindicates his conspiracy theories regarding WikiLeaks, Iran, and Israel:

We are reminded of the American pro-war enthusiasm and our public resistance to criticism of the war in the years leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, by the arrival of the movie, Fair Game, which opened in US theaters in early November.

The film’s release could not have been better timed to warn the American public of the old saying: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”.

Wilson and Plame are perfect poster children for the Walls of the world: unscrupulous self-promoters who distorted and even fabricated facts in the pursuit of their political agendas. (Even the Washington Post says that “it was long ago established that Mr. Wilson himself was not telling the truth – not about his mission to Niger and not about his wife.”) So after his side-trip to the multiplex, Wall returns to his real theme–evil Israel.

He quotes a Huffington Post column from Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, claiming that Dershowitz “writes as if it is a fact that Israel plays a major role in pushing US policy in the Middle East,” despite the fact that the quote in question says nothing of the sort. He quotes Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, saying that WikiLeaks “it may be getting stuff at the same time from interested intelligence parties who want to manipulate the process and achieve certain very specific objectives,” a speculation without substance that proves nothing, but sounds portentous. He quotes an Iranian professor of linguistics defending his country as a harmless fuzzball while complaining that the WikiLeaks documents don’t deal with Israeli settlements or nuclear weapons.

So, to sum up: James Wall buys into the fact-free conspiracy theories of his friends at Veterans Today that Israel is behind WikiLeaks, and is using it to gin up war fever against Iran. And the IPMN apparently buys into that same lunacy.

I am on my way to my highest hit total for any day since I started this blog almost four years ago. That sounds great, but in fact is an indication that something is suspiciously amiss. See, the reason for my high hit total is because a post from a year ago, entitled “U.S. Obstructing God, He Sniffed,” is getting record traffic, and has been for a couple of days. If StatCounter is correct, none of that traffic is coming from Iran (the post of about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), but from the United States. Does anyone out there have any idea if, and if so how, I can find out whether this is a matter of a spambot or some other malicious Interweb thingy trying to do some damage to my site, or if this is just a window sash-type anomaly? (If you don’t get the reference, it’s to On the Beach, where in the aftermath of a nuclear war a broken window sash repeatedly and obviously mindlessly striking a telegraph key causes a U.S. submarine to make a months long trek to Seattle to find out if anyone is still alive.)

Aslan symbolises a Christ-like figure but he also symbolises for me Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries.

‘That’s who Aslan stands for as well as a mentor figure for kids – that’s what he means for me.

–Liam Neeson, the voice of Aslan (you know, the lion who dies and rises again the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) in the Chronicles of Narnia movies, demonstrating that being able to speak the words others have written for them doesn’t necessarily mean that actors actually understand those words

(Via Hot Air.)