This past Sunday, I continued my series on contemporary fiction in Christian perspective by focusing on Wm. Paul Young's The Shack in my adult Sunday School class. Here is a brief outline of that presentation.
The Shack has been an incredible publishing phenomenon. Originally self-published, it has sold over 5 million copies in the first two years. It has been translated into dozens of languages and a major movie is in the works. Where did this book come from?
The author was a missionary kid who suffered child abuse and later had a crisis of faith & found healing outside the institutional Church. (He is not a member of a Church today. He is "spiritual" but not "religious.") He wrote it to explain his faith to his children and never expected it to be widely read.
What is it About?
A man named Mack receives a note in his mailbox from God inviting him to visit a shack in the woods where Mack’s daughter Missy had been brutally murdered by a sociopathic killer two years previously.
He goes and meets the Trinity in the form of “Papa” (a large African-American woman), Jesus (a middle-Eastern man) and Sarayu (a slight Asian woman) and he spends a weekend being healed of his grief. On the way home he is in a car accident and gradually recovers – eventually leading police to his daughter’s buried body.
That is the bare outline, but what is really about?
It is really an invitation to think about religion, God, evil, salvation & church in a whole new way. Some say that we should not expect consistent or correct theology from a novel but this is disrespectful to the power & potential of fiction, not to mention the stories of the Bible itself. But the author admits explicitly that his intent is to teach people better theology than they now have. Evangelicals are split on this novel with some calling it heresy & others embracing it. So what do we make of the theology in this novel?
The Good
1. It presents theology as relevant, interesting and well worth discussing by ordinary people.
2. It stresses and makes powerfully apparent the wonderful love of God.
3. The novel presents the doctrine of the Trinity in ways that make us think without necessarily falling into outright heresy.
4. It takes seriously the reality of evil & all the problems that arise from that recognition.
5. It is not afraid to admit that there is such a thing as mystery (eg. why God allows evil & what good will ultimately come out of it) & the need for faith.
The Bad
1. The book rejects all hierarchy and submission in God, the Church and the world as inherently evil rather than seeing it as redeemed in Christ.
2. The idea that we are all forgiven already and the only issue is whether we accept that forgiveness places all God’s work in the past. This renders God passive in salvation and makes salvation into a human work. There is no room for calling or regeneration.
3. The rejection of the idea that God judges sin and the effective elimination of the wrath of God.
4. The teaching that the Father suffered along with Christ on the cross instead of turning his back on the Son as the Son bore our sins decenters (or possibly eliminates) the penal substitutionary understanding of the atonement.
5. The denigration of the institutional Church as if Christ rejects it is inconsistent with the New Testament.
An Example of a "Third Way" Movement
It appears to mingle elements of conservative Evangelical and liberal Protestant theology together in a “new” recipe. As such, it is part of what I call “Third Way Movements” along with such movements as the Emergent Church and Open Theism.
Third Way movements are usually pursued by Evangelicals who have become dissatisfied with their traditional theology. They accept at least part of the liberal critique of Evangelicalism – often beginning with politics. Then they seek to blunt the rough edges of traditional theology where it clashes with the world. Some of the most common issues they focus on are:
(1) the penal-substitutionary doctrine of atonement
(2) the wrath of God, judgment and hell
(3) the social gospel and poverty,
(4) evolution and Genesis 1-11
(5) feminism, equality of the sexes and egalitarianism
(6) biblical inerrancy and authority
(7) re-thinking homosexuality
As can be seen from this list, the agenda is taken from the world; it focuses on points the contemporary world had difficulty accepting. The issue is more social acceptance by the world than intellectual difficulties as such.
The Shack attacks hierarchy instead of seeking the redemption of hierarchy. It minimizes or defines away the wrath of God on sin and makes it unclear why Jesus had to die. It makes salvation into a human work in which we must respond to a passive God and what He has done in the past. It is anti-institutional and reduces the Church to the level of a human institution and it promotes individualism over community.
What can we learn from The Shack?
1. We can learn to read critically & carefully
2. We can gain a new appreciation for the love of God – we agree with The Shack’s view of God’s love as far surpassing our expectations
3. We can gain deeper insight into the nature of God as Trinity
4. We can learn how to understand people in grief
5. We can learn how to trust God even when we don’t & can’t understand why certain things happen.
What do we need to beware of?
1. Not to lift up the love of God by downplaying the wrath of God
2. God is not a “buddy” or an “equal” but the High & Holy One
3. Hierarchy & authority is being redeemed not destroyed
4. Salvation is faith in what God is doing now as well as what He did in the past
5. The cross is about Jesus bearing our sin, not just about revealing God’s forgiveness
6. The Church is necessary for salvation & the Christian life: where else do we hear the Gospel?
Friday, June 11, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Freedom and Equality: Contested Ideas in the Modern World
I find that in talking to people about ethics and politics, there is a lot of fuzzy thinking about certain key concepts. Many people have a vague idea that socialism is about sharing and capitalism is about the strong exploiting the weak and that is about it. Cultural Marxism has so infiltrated our institutions in the contemporary Western world that our Western intellectual heritage is in the process of being overwhelmed. Freedom and equality are two key ideas in modernity that need close definitions.
Freedom #1: There are two very different ideas of freedom abroad today. First, there is the classical/Christian definition of freedom as the ability to realize one's telos, to actualize one's true nature, to attain one's potential. This idea of freedom requires that the rational part of one's being control the appetites so as to direct us toward the goal of becoming all that we can be. Self-discipline, the cultivation of the virtues and practical wisdom are necessary here and, in a Christian perspective, heeding Divine revelation is necessary as well.
Freedom #2: The second idea of freedom is the late-modern degenerate concept of freedom as the ability to do whatever I feel I want to do at the moment: freedom from constraint. This idea of freedom is what is left when political liberalism is practiced in a totally secularized context by a post-Christian culture. Freedom from constraint is highly individualistic and practically indistinguishable from slavery to one's irrational appetites. It is a self-contradictory notion of freedom because it tries to expand personal freedom in such a way as to destroy freedom by allowing the strong to prey upon the weak with no moral constraints.
Equality #1: The first concept of equality is equality before the law, the idea that there is not one law for the rich and another law for the poor, but one law over all. This is the idea of the rule of law, which is seen as more objective than merely the will of the strong. This idea has deep roots in Western culture: in the Old Testament where even the king was under Torah and in republican Rome where all were under the law. The rule of law is incompatible with absolute monarchy or dictatorship.
Equality #2: The second concept of equality is the animating principle of the French Revolution and was formulated by the theoretician of the French Revolution, J. J. Rousseau. This concept of equality sees equality as equality, not of opportunity, but of outcome. It is equality not under the law, but equality of income under the administration of the bureaucratic state. This kind of equality is not found in nature; it must be created by rational, bureaucratic state.
In order to understand modern politics, it is necessary to distinguish clearly between these two sets of ideas. Freedom #1 and Equality #1 are rooted deep within Western culture and are held by conservatives. But Freedom #2 and Equality #2 are held by progressives, the heirs of the French Revolution. Extreme individualism (in the name of Freedom #2) and extreme statism (in the name of Equality) go together. The all-powerful State becomes the only limitation on the social Darwinism in which the strong prey on the weak. Intermediate institutions like the family are seen as ineffective and the State becomes that Protector of the Individual and Guarantor of Freedom and Equality.
What is confusing is that the progressive agenda is often pushed in the name of freedom and equality and Christians rightly believe that equality and freedom are good ideals, so they do not oppose the progressive agenda. But Freedom #2 and Equality #2 lead to statism, slavery and the loss of personhood, whereas Freedom #1 and Equality #2 lead to democratic governance, personal freedom, the rule of law, limited government and free enterprise.
Christians should seek a politics in which Freedom #1 and Equality #1 are the basis of public law. This is not to impose a theocracy, but merely to cultivate a humane and just politics.
Freedom #1: There are two very different ideas of freedom abroad today. First, there is the classical/Christian definition of freedom as the ability to realize one's telos, to actualize one's true nature, to attain one's potential. This idea of freedom requires that the rational part of one's being control the appetites so as to direct us toward the goal of becoming all that we can be. Self-discipline, the cultivation of the virtues and practical wisdom are necessary here and, in a Christian perspective, heeding Divine revelation is necessary as well.
Freedom #2: The second idea of freedom is the late-modern degenerate concept of freedom as the ability to do whatever I feel I want to do at the moment: freedom from constraint. This idea of freedom is what is left when political liberalism is practiced in a totally secularized context by a post-Christian culture. Freedom from constraint is highly individualistic and practically indistinguishable from slavery to one's irrational appetites. It is a self-contradictory notion of freedom because it tries to expand personal freedom in such a way as to destroy freedom by allowing the strong to prey upon the weak with no moral constraints.
Equality #1: The first concept of equality is equality before the law, the idea that there is not one law for the rich and another law for the poor, but one law over all. This is the idea of the rule of law, which is seen as more objective than merely the will of the strong. This idea has deep roots in Western culture: in the Old Testament where even the king was under Torah and in republican Rome where all were under the law. The rule of law is incompatible with absolute monarchy or dictatorship.
Equality #2: The second concept of equality is the animating principle of the French Revolution and was formulated by the theoretician of the French Revolution, J. J. Rousseau. This concept of equality sees equality as equality, not of opportunity, but of outcome. It is equality not under the law, but equality of income under the administration of the bureaucratic state. This kind of equality is not found in nature; it must be created by rational, bureaucratic state.
In order to understand modern politics, it is necessary to distinguish clearly between these two sets of ideas. Freedom #1 and Equality #1 are rooted deep within Western culture and are held by conservatives. But Freedom #2 and Equality #2 are held by progressives, the heirs of the French Revolution. Extreme individualism (in the name of Freedom #2) and extreme statism (in the name of Equality) go together. The all-powerful State becomes the only limitation on the social Darwinism in which the strong prey on the weak. Intermediate institutions like the family are seen as ineffective and the State becomes that Protector of the Individual and Guarantor of Freedom and Equality.
What is confusing is that the progressive agenda is often pushed in the name of freedom and equality and Christians rightly believe that equality and freedom are good ideals, so they do not oppose the progressive agenda. But Freedom #2 and Equality #2 lead to statism, slavery and the loss of personhood, whereas Freedom #1 and Equality #2 lead to democratic governance, personal freedom, the rule of law, limited government and free enterprise.
Christians should seek a politics in which Freedom #1 and Equality #1 are the basis of public law. This is not to impose a theocracy, but merely to cultivate a humane and just politics.
Are Sarah Palin and Carly Fiorina Feminists?
Cathy Young, in an article on the Boston Globe's online site entitled "Right to be Feminist," argues that Feminism must not exclude right wingers like Sarah Palin from the feminist label as most leftist feminists are doing. The issue turns on whether a left wing (neo-Marxist) view of the world is essential to the meaning of feminism. She says:
Young concludes by arguing for a conservative feminism:
The latest Sarah Palin controversy has to do with feminism. In a recent article in the Washington Post, feminist author and blogger Jessica Valenti blasted the former vice presidential candidate for “adopting the feminist label.’’ Valenti believes that any talk of a conservative version of feminism is a cynical right-wing ploy to fool women into supporting reactionary antiwoman policies. But while Palin may be far from the best spokeswoman for conservative feminism, the idea itself is essential to feminism’s health.Young appears to be thinking pragmatically and strategically about a political movement based on what she says next:
If feminism is typecast as a left-wing movement, this automatically limits its appeal in a country with center-right politics. Feminist writer Naomi Wolf noted this nearly two decades ago when she urged the movement to drop litmus tests that excluded millions of women because of their positions on environmental policy, guns, gay rights, or abortion. Wolf argued that the beliefs of conservative and Republican women who champion female autonomy and achievement should be “respected as a right-wing version of feminism.’’Here "female autonomy" seems to function as the ideological heart of feminism. But later in the article she gets down to the real heart of the controversy:
Above all, Valenti is incensed that women who don’t believe women are oppressed dare call themselves feminists. Feminism, she says, is “a structural analysis of a world that oppresses women, an ideology based on the notion that patriarchy exists and that it needs to end’’ — presumably in America and not, say, Afghanistan. But this definition dismisses out of hand the can-do feminism that celebrates female strength and achievement and appeals to vast numbers of women. It also suggests that feminism has an interest in portraying women as oppressed to perpetuate itself.This worldview that sees women as oppressed virtually by virtue of being women is the real, beating heart of contemporary feminism. To the extent that it is such, Sarah Palin (or any other high achieving woman under the current system) could never be a feminist. Her success is not based on manipulating her victim status, so it threatens the worldview that women cannot succeed because of "patriarchy."
Young concludes by arguing for a conservative feminism:
Yet the audience for a different kind of feminism — one that seeks individualistic and market-oriented solutions, rather than big-government-driven ones, and focuses on women’s empowerment rather than oppression — is clearly there. The women who embrace it are likely to transform both feminism and conservatism. The feminist movement ignores them at its peril.It seems to me that the contemporary feminist establishment espouses an ideology that is so different from this conservative vision that no useful purpose is served by calling them by the same label. Feminism is simply out of date, out of touch and out of time. Sarah Palin and Carly Fiorina are successful, accomplished and conservative, so it seems more than a bit odd - maybe even patronizing - to call them "feminists."
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Euthanasia and Contempt for Human Life
Wesley J. Smith has a good post here documenting how legalizing euthanasia leads to an increasingly callous attitude toward human life. Euthanasia was legalized in the Netherlands in 1973 and by 2010 the Dutch Medical Society is lobbying for the complete legalization (i.e. removal of all prohibitions of) non-voluntary euthanasia. It is already widely tolerated and goes unpunished.
Self-delusion is rampant in the euthanasia movement. Most proponents recognize that it is inherently dangerous to legalize killing. But they desperately want to believe that they can control the grim reaper. Thus, they continue to peddle the nonsense that "guidelines will protect against abuse" despite overwhelming empirical evidence to the contrary.Euthanasia has been around long enough and practiced sufficiently enough for us to detect a pattern. Killing is sold to the public as a last resort justified only in cases where nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering. But once the reaper is allowed through the door, the categories of killable people expand steadily toward the acceptance of death on demand.
The classic example is the Netherlands, where doctors have been allowed to euthanize patients since 1973. Dutch death regulations require that euthanasia be strictly limited to the sickest patients, for whom nothing but extermination will alleviate overwhelming suffering — a concept in Dutch law known as force majeur. But once mercy killing was redefined as being good in a few cases rather than being bad in all circumstances, it didn’t take long for the protective guidelines to be viewed widely as impediments to be overcome instead of important protections to be obeyed.
Thus, supposedly ironclad protections against abuse — such as the doctrine of force mejeur and the stipulation that patient give multiple requests for euthanasia — quickly ceased meaningfully to constrain mercy killing. As a consequence, Dutch doctors now legally kill terminally ill people who ask for it, chronically ill people who ask for it, disabled people who ask for it, and depressed people who ask for it.
Euthanasia has also entered the pediatric wards, where eugenic infanticide has become common even though babies cannot ask to be killed. According to a 1997 study published in the British medical journal The Lancet, approximately 8 percent of all Dutch infant deaths result from lethal injections. The babies deemed killable are often disabled and thus are thought not to have a "livable life." The practice has become so common that 45 percent of neonatologists and 31 percent of pediatricians who responded to Lancet surveys had killed babies.
It gets worse: Repeated studies sponsored by the Dutch government have found that doctors kill approximately 1,000 patients each year who have not asked for euthanasia. This is not only a violation of every guideline, but an act that Dutch law considers murder. Nonvoluntary euthanasia has become so common that it even has a name: "Termination without request or consent."Despite this carnage, Dutch doctors are very rarely prosecuted for such crimes, and the few that are brought to court are usually exonerated. Moreover, even if a doctor is found guilty, he or she is almost never punished in any meaningful way, nor does the murderer face discipline by the Dutch Medical Society. For example, in 2001, a doctor was convicted of murdering an 84-year-old patient who had not asked to be killed. Prosecutors demanded a nine-month suspended probation (!), yet even this brush — it can’t even be called a slap — on the wrist was rejected by the trial judge who refused to impose any punishment. Not to worry. The appellate court decided to get tough: It imposed a one-week suspended sentence on the doctor for murder.
Even such praising with faint damnation isn’t enough for the Dutch Medical Association. As a result of this and the handful of other non-punished murder convictions of doctors who engaged in termination without request or consent, the organization is lobbying to legalize non-voluntary euthanasia. Along these same lines — and demonstrating that the culture of death recognizes no limits — the day after the Dutch formally legalized euthanasia, the country’s minister of health advocated the provision of suicide pills to the elderly who do not qualify for killing under Dutch law.
Read the rest here. Euthanasia breeds pride and contempt for our fellow human beings. It is a deeply corrupting and evil practice and will destroy societies in which it is permitted.
Obama's "One Tough Hombre" Act Falls Flat
This story, "Obama, Pressed to Get Tough on Oil Spill, Talks About ‘Kicking Ass’" shows a pathetic little Obama trying to pretend he is tough.
After all the photos of him bowing to Saudi Kings and Japanese Emperors and hugging thuggish dictators like Hugo Chavez and all the "I join you in blaming America" speeches on his world apology tour during his brief time in office, I'm sorry but talk like this only produces giggles.
Even the media recognizes the obvious spin involved in this posturing:
If all Obama can do after 50 days is to claim to be talking to people in order to find out "whose ass to kick," I'm afraid that doesn't seems very, shall we say, substantial.
President Barack Obama says his talks with Gulf fishermen and oil spill experts are not an academic exercise. They're "so I know whose ass to kick."Ike was tough. Nixon - love him or hate him - was a street fighter. But Obama? He is not tough and his acting skills need work. In Chicago politics he was always the front man. He always had "people" to take care of the knee cap breaking type of work.
After all the photos of him bowing to Saudi Kings and Japanese Emperors and hugging thuggish dictators like Hugo Chavez and all the "I join you in blaming America" speeches on his world apology tour during his brief time in office, I'm sorry but talk like this only produces giggles.
Even the media recognizes the obvious spin involved in this posturing:
It was part of a stepped-up White House effort to show Obama is actively engaged in dealing with the worst oil spill in the nation's history, and to distance itself from the London-based oil giant, formerly known as British Petroleum. Polls have shown a majority of Americans believe Obama has handled the crisis poorly.It is as if some handler pushed the "Get tough for the camera" button on the Obama Robot. But with or without the teleprompter, it just doesn't work for me. How about you?
If all Obama can do after 50 days is to claim to be talking to people in order to find out "whose ass to kick," I'm afraid that doesn't seems very, shall we say, substantial.
Helen Thomas Drops Into the Obscurity She So Richly Deserves
The Hearst newspaper chain has dropped the openly anti-Jewish, Helen Thomas, and so her long career of Jew-bashing comes to an end and not a moment too soon. A lot of anti-Israel bigots and Arab terrorist sympathizers will be upset by this development. See this story for some comments from Ari Fleisher, who called earlier for her firing.
This is not the dawn of the kingdom of God or anything, but the world is bit more civilized today. At least open Jew-baiting is not acceptable in polite society to the extreme and wild extent she engaged in the other day. Vicious Jew-haters at least have to hide their true feelings in order to be in the White House press corps. It is a small victory for tolerance and reason, but it is a start.
This is a good thing.
This is not the dawn of the kingdom of God or anything, but the world is bit more civilized today. At least open Jew-baiting is not acceptable in polite society to the extreme and wild extent she engaged in the other day. Vicious Jew-haters at least have to hide their true feelings in order to be in the White House press corps. It is a small victory for tolerance and reason, but it is a start.
This is a good thing.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Gimme That Old Time "Middle Ground"
Don't you just love the way that radical revisionists stake out a revolutionary, anti-Christian position way out there on the left and then send their institutional enablers out to proclaim the necessity of the Church occupying the middle ground between orthodoxy and heresy?
The Rev. Fred Hiltz of the Anglican Church of Canada, which is an organization for people who get vertigo when they sense themselves standing on one side or another of an issue, was at it again this week in the run-up to the Church's triennial meetings in Halifax. As this story from Virtue Online reports:
The worst thing you can be called these days is an extremist, so whoever gets to define the extremes wins automatically. In my student days in parliamentary debating it was a huge advantage to be able to define the terms of the debate and we took delight in doing so unscrupulously to our opponents' disadvantage. In church politics it is a huge advantage to be able to define the extremes and the radicals have a built-in unfair advantage. The conservatives have a basically fixed (or in some cases slow moving) position, but the radicals have a very easily movable one. Therefore, it is easy to take up a pose to the left of what you really want and then compromise at the last moment, thus simultaneously attaining victory and appearing moderate, because the most important thing (other than winning) is to be "moderate."
When you can no longer sing "Gimme that old time religion" with conviction, you begin to sing "Gimme that old time middle ground" instead. But it just doesn't have the same ring to it.
The Rev. Fred Hiltz of the Anglican Church of Canada, which is an organization for people who get vertigo when they sense themselves standing on one side or another of an issue, was at it again this week in the run-up to the Church's triennial meetings in Halifax. As this story from Virtue Online reports:
The head of Canada's Anglican Church appealed Friday to hundreds of bishops, priests and laity not to let talks on the thorny issue of same-sex unions further divide the church or take on the rancour of the past.It seems that the Rev. Hiltz is under the impression that with enough respect, charity and patience, it is possible to sanitize heresy, apostasy, sodomy and schism. The important thing is to do it "with a degree of grace." Just be civilized about it; sure we are in the process of undermining traditional marriage and handing a propaganda victory to those who wish to destroy the family, but this can only be pulled off if enough passions can be sufficiently "dulled." True that.
Most Rev. Fred Hiltz said at the opening of the General Synod that there are still varying opinions in the church about homosexuality, but that a new, more conciliatory approach might dull the passions around it.
"My hope clearly is that we will be able to continue this conversation, live with some difference and to do it with a degree of grace," he said at the triennial gathering in Halifax.
"I know that our deliberations on these matters will be watched by many within Canada and around the world. I hope they see no evidence of rejection, condemnation or demonization but every evidence of respect, charity and patience."
The worst thing you can be called these days is an extremist, so whoever gets to define the extremes wins automatically. In my student days in parliamentary debating it was a huge advantage to be able to define the terms of the debate and we took delight in doing so unscrupulously to our opponents' disadvantage. In church politics it is a huge advantage to be able to define the extremes and the radicals have a built-in unfair advantage. The conservatives have a basically fixed (or in some cases slow moving) position, but the radicals have a very easily movable one. Therefore, it is easy to take up a pose to the left of what you really want and then compromise at the last moment, thus simultaneously attaining victory and appearing moderate, because the most important thing (other than winning) is to be "moderate."
When you can no longer sing "Gimme that old time religion" with conviction, you begin to sing "Gimme that old time middle ground" instead. But it just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Who Lost Turkey?
This week has witnessed an earthquake in international relations as Turkey has come into the open as being on the side of Iran and Hamas in trying to open the naval blockade of Gaza so Hamas can be armed. A NATO member is threatening to go to war with Israel. How did this happen? Turkey has been a staunch ally of the US and Israel and something radical has changed. How and why?
Mark Steyn discusses this issue in a recent column in National Review entitled "Israel, Turkey and the End of Stability." It all comes down to demographics plus the spread of radical Islamofascist ideology by Saudi oil money. Speaking of the recent flotilla flap, he writes:
This is how the world changes. Demographics alone is never a sufficient explanation for social and political change, but population growth creates a bubble of a large number of young people who naturally are searching for meaning and a purpose. Combine population growth with a radical ideology that seems to be ascendant and the potential is there for a revolution.
Turkey looks around the world and sees the rise of the worldwide Caliphate as the future, so it wants in on the ground floor. This is a bet on American/Western decline. Turkey believes Israel has no future and neither does America. Do we realize that the Muslim world increasingly believes that the West is in decline? Pooh-pooh it all you like; the placing of such a bet by a nation of 70 million is disconcerting for anyone with a realistic respect for how the hinges of history can swing in unexpected directions.
The actions of Turkey have made a major war in the Middle East more likely than it has been for decades and the Western liberal "peace activists" are pushing the region toward war as well. If Israel cannot prevent Iran from supplying missiles to Hamas and to Hizbollah in southern Lebanon, it may well soon face a two-front war for survival. The two-state solution is dying a slow death as the world community, (and really this means the US for the UN is little more than a debating club for dictators), refuses to guarantee Israeli security. Israel will only withdraw from the West Bank if there is a way for it to control the Eastern border with Jordon to ensure that arms do not flood into the West Bank, especially missiles against which Israel cannot defend itself.
So if the "world" (meaning Iran, Turkey, Syria, Hizbollah, Hamas and their Western liberal allies) insists on breaking the blockade, what chance is there that the trust necessary for a West Bank withdrawal will be viable? None. Zero. Nada.
The Obama administration either does not understand that the Islamist goal is the complete destruction of the Jewish state and a second holocaust or it does. If the former then it is incompetent and stupid; if the latter it is complicit. Obama is the Neville Chamberlain of our day. Hopefully, he is just naive. God help us all if he understands what he is doing and means to do it.
Mark Steyn discusses this issue in a recent column in National Review entitled "Israel, Turkey and the End of Stability." It all comes down to demographics plus the spread of radical Islamofascist ideology by Saudi oil money. Speaking of the recent flotilla flap, he writes:
Much of what went on — the dissembling of the Palestinian propagandists, the hysteria of the U.N. and the Euro-ninnies — was just business as usual. But what was most striking was the behavior of the Turks. In the wake of the Israeli raid, Ankara promised to provide Turkish naval protection for the next “aid” convoy to Gaza. This would be, in effect, an act of war — more to the point, an act of war by a NATO member against the State of Israel.Read the rest here.
Ten years ago, Turkey’s behavior would have been unthinkable. Ankara was Israel’s best friend in a region where every other neighbor wishes, to one degree or another, the Jewish state’s destruction. Even when Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP was elected to power eight years ago, the experts assured us there was no need to worry. I remember sitting in a plush bar late one night with a former Turkish foreign minister, who told me, in between passing round the cigars and chugging back the Scotch, that, yes, the new crowd weren’t quite so convivial in the wee small hours but, other than that, they knew where their interests lay. Like many Turkish movers and shakers of his generation, my drinking companion loved the Israelis. “They’re tough hombres,” he said admiringly. “You have to be in this part of the world.” If you had suggested to him that in six years’ time the Turkish prime minister would be telling the Israeli president to his face that “I know well how you kill children on beaches,” he would have dismissed it as a fantasy concoction for some alternative universe.
Yet it happened. Erdogan said those words to Shimon Peres at Davos last year and then flounced off stage. . . .
As the think-tankers like to say: “Who lost Turkey?” In a nutshell: Kemal Ataturk. Since he founded post-Ottoman Turkey in his own image nearly nine decades ago, the population has increased from 14 million to over 70 million. But that five-fold increase is not evenly distributed. The short version of Turkish demographics in the 20th century is that Rumelian Turkey — i.e., western, European, secular, Kemalist Turkey — has been outbred by Anatolian Turkey — i.e., eastern, rural, traditionalist, Islamic Turkey. Ataturk and most of his supporters were from Rumelia, and they imposed the modern Turkish republic on a reluctant Anatolia, where Ataturk’s distinction between the state and Islam was never accepted. Now they don’t have to accept it. The swelling population has spilled out of its rural hinterland and into the once solidly Kemalist cities.
Do you ever use the expression “young Turks”? I heard it applied to the starry-eyed ideologues around Obama the other day. The phrase comes from the original young Turks, the youthful activists agitating for reform in the last decades of the Ottoman Empire. The very words acknowledge the link between political and demographic energy. Today, the “young Turks” are old Turks: The heirs to the Kemalist reformers who gave women the vote before Britain did are a population in demographic decline. There will be fewer of them in every election. Today’s young Turks are men who think as Erdogan does. That doesn’t mean Turkey is Iran or Waziristan or Saudi Arabia, but it does mean that the country’s leadership is in favor of more or less conventional Islamic imperialism. As Erdogan’s most famous sound bite puts it: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldiers.”
This is how the world changes. Demographics alone is never a sufficient explanation for social and political change, but population growth creates a bubble of a large number of young people who naturally are searching for meaning and a purpose. Combine population growth with a radical ideology that seems to be ascendant and the potential is there for a revolution.
Turkey looks around the world and sees the rise of the worldwide Caliphate as the future, so it wants in on the ground floor. This is a bet on American/Western decline. Turkey believes Israel has no future and neither does America. Do we realize that the Muslim world increasingly believes that the West is in decline? Pooh-pooh it all you like; the placing of such a bet by a nation of 70 million is disconcerting for anyone with a realistic respect for how the hinges of history can swing in unexpected directions.
The actions of Turkey have made a major war in the Middle East more likely than it has been for decades and the Western liberal "peace activists" are pushing the region toward war as well. If Israel cannot prevent Iran from supplying missiles to Hamas and to Hizbollah in southern Lebanon, it may well soon face a two-front war for survival. The two-state solution is dying a slow death as the world community, (and really this means the US for the UN is little more than a debating club for dictators), refuses to guarantee Israeli security. Israel will only withdraw from the West Bank if there is a way for it to control the Eastern border with Jordon to ensure that arms do not flood into the West Bank, especially missiles against which Israel cannot defend itself.
So if the "world" (meaning Iran, Turkey, Syria, Hizbollah, Hamas and their Western liberal allies) insists on breaking the blockade, what chance is there that the trust necessary for a West Bank withdrawal will be viable? None. Zero. Nada.
The Obama administration either does not understand that the Islamist goal is the complete destruction of the Jewish state and a second holocaust or it does. If the former then it is incompetent and stupid; if the latter it is complicit. Obama is the Neville Chamberlain of our day. Hopefully, he is just naive. God help us all if he understands what he is doing and means to do it.
Are the Dirty 30's Back Again?
Who was it that said "History does not repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes"? I'm pretty pessimistic these days compared to the "Progressives" who currently run most of Western civilization, but of course I call it "realism" because a Christian can't be pessimistic long term. But once you have rejected the idea that the world is getting better and better all the time, to think that we are replaying a previous era in significant ways is not really a sign of pessimism, but of optimism. Let me explain.
I see four major parallels with the 1930's in our contemporary situation (the beginning of the 10's).
First, there is another outbreak of the pathology from which Western civilizations has suffered throughout its history: Anti-Semitism - or more accurately: Jew-hatred. For about half a century the liberal side of the spectrum was opposed to Jew-hatred and most North American Jews are well to the left of the political spectrum. Anti-Semitism was something associated with the Right. But in recent years anti-Jewish sentiment - from boycotts of Israel to rejection of biblical morality to (especially in Europe) pro-Arab sentiment - has been growing like a cancer. Now it falls to conservatives - especially member of the much maligned "Religious Right" - to defend Jews.
Second, we are witnessing a huge resurgence of eugenic thinking and behavior. From New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's glowing approval of China's repressive, one-child policy to the anti-natalism of the new environmentalist religion, we see a greater and greater openness to government dictated policies concerning babies and families. We also see bolder and bolder forays into new reproductive technologies such as cloning, babies with three parents and so on. The ability of the political class to "manage" the population like a herd has grown far beyond the wildest imagination of a Huxley or an Orwell. And, ominously, at this precise moment the idea that human beings are unique beings made in the image of God with an immortal soul is dying out in the West.
Third, we see growing economic crises enveloping the Western world. The European social democratic model is unsustainable and the Obama administration's suicidal economic policies are scaring the wits out of the moderate, independent American voter. We shall see how much progress we have made and to what degree history is over once employment jumps and recession lengthens.
Fourth, we have a fascist, totalitarian, fanatical group of extremists trying to overthrow Western governments and impose their will on the population. This time it is not the Nazis but Islamist terrorists. No one takes them seriously at the moment, just as Hitler's movement was dismissed in the early 30's.
This is a pretty depressing list; so on what basis can I claim to be an optimist instead of a pessimist? Well, it is clear that we have big problems and yet we have faced big problems like these and survived before. So it is not time to get out the "The End is Nigh" signs just yet.
The important thing is to ask how we, as Christians, can live faithfully in such times? And the answer must be that in season and out of season we must proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I see four major parallels with the 1930's in our contemporary situation (the beginning of the 10's).
First, there is another outbreak of the pathology from which Western civilizations has suffered throughout its history: Anti-Semitism - or more accurately: Jew-hatred. For about half a century the liberal side of the spectrum was opposed to Jew-hatred and most North American Jews are well to the left of the political spectrum. Anti-Semitism was something associated with the Right. But in recent years anti-Jewish sentiment - from boycotts of Israel to rejection of biblical morality to (especially in Europe) pro-Arab sentiment - has been growing like a cancer. Now it falls to conservatives - especially member of the much maligned "Religious Right" - to defend Jews.
Second, we are witnessing a huge resurgence of eugenic thinking and behavior. From New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's glowing approval of China's repressive, one-child policy to the anti-natalism of the new environmentalist religion, we see a greater and greater openness to government dictated policies concerning babies and families. We also see bolder and bolder forays into new reproductive technologies such as cloning, babies with three parents and so on. The ability of the political class to "manage" the population like a herd has grown far beyond the wildest imagination of a Huxley or an Orwell. And, ominously, at this precise moment the idea that human beings are unique beings made in the image of God with an immortal soul is dying out in the West.
Third, we see growing economic crises enveloping the Western world. The European social democratic model is unsustainable and the Obama administration's suicidal economic policies are scaring the wits out of the moderate, independent American voter. We shall see how much progress we have made and to what degree history is over once employment jumps and recession lengthens.
Fourth, we have a fascist, totalitarian, fanatical group of extremists trying to overthrow Western governments and impose their will on the population. This time it is not the Nazis but Islamist terrorists. No one takes them seriously at the moment, just as Hitler's movement was dismissed in the early 30's.
This is a pretty depressing list; so on what basis can I claim to be an optimist instead of a pessimist? Well, it is clear that we have big problems and yet we have faced big problems like these and survived before. So it is not time to get out the "The End is Nigh" signs just yet.
The important thing is to ask how we, as Christians, can live faithfully in such times? And the answer must be that in season and out of season we must proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Helen Thomas Will You Please Go Now! Just Go, Go, Go. I Don't Care How.
I must confess that I never really noticed Helen Thomas before. I know she has been around since forever, but she was just another lefty, anti-Jewish journalist before this week. But her remarks on the White House lawn the other day got my attention just because she moved the boundary markers back a few yards on how open you are allowed to be in the American political and establishment about your Jew hatred.
Her website has a mealy-mouthed apology, but this is not an incident but rather a long-standing pattern with her.
Ed Morrissey, at Hot Air, discusses the growing number of calls for her resignation:
In the words of the immortal Dr. Seuss: "Helen Thomas, will you please go now? Just go, go, go - I don't care how."
Her website has a mealy-mouthed apology, but this is not an incident but rather a long-standing pattern with her.
Ed Morrissey, at Hot Air, discusses the growing number of calls for her resignation:
Her employers, White House press secretaries who take her questions, people who defend her in any way - all of them are tainted with the most horrific, most primitive, and most despicable anti-Jewishness.Sam Stein at the Huffington Post reports on an e-mailed statement from former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who apparently had the same reaction to Helen Thomas as just about everyone else in the US. After telling a reporter on camera that the Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine,” and then apologizing, Fleischer says that any kind of endorsement of ethnic cleansing would have resulted in an immediate firing for anyone else in the White House Press Corps. So why should Helen get a pass? (via Newsbusters)
But even as she was trying to walk back the remarks, calls for her firing mounted. Among the more vocal was former Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who claimed to have a close relationship with Thomas when he was manning the daily briefings.
“She should lose her job over this,” Fleischer said in an email. “As someone who is Jewish, and as someone who worked with her and used to like her, I find this appalling.”
“She is advocating religious cleansing. How can Hearst stand by her? If a journalist, or a columnist, said the same thing about blacks or Hispanics, they would already have lost their jobs.”
Helen Thomas has been a national joke for years, at least since Tony Snow thanked her once for providing the “Hezbollah view” in the daily briefings, but people rolled their eyes at her cranky, off-topic commentary for years before that. Stein says that her more “filtered” questions — really just rants about Israel dressed up as Jeopardy-style answers in question form — were popular with some of the “political and foreign policy observers” (presumably, Stein means in the press corps). Yeah, I’ll bet.
Now that Thomas has expressed her true feelings on ethnic cleansing — and remember, Jews have lived in “Palestine” for millenia and got kicked out of other old Ottoman cities well before Israel came into existence — will those observers stand up to defend Thomas and those views? Will they just keep silent? Or will they call for an action that is probably at least 20 years overdue in asking for Thomas’ expulsion from the WHPC and asking for someone to replace her and her exhausted anti-Israel hobby horse? For that matter, will the Hearst chain endorse Thomas’ views on Israel by keeping her employed, or will they cut her loose?
In the words of the immortal Dr. Seuss: "Helen Thomas, will you please go now? Just go, go, go - I don't care how."
Anti-Christian Madness on Parliament Hill
Barbara Kay's column in The National Post, "Gilles Duceppe Owes an Apology to Catholics," names and shames the extreme anti-Christianity of Gilles Duceppe and the dominant political class in Quebec.
This mentality is the same as that which characterized the madness of the French Revolution. No literal guillotines yet, but the level of rhetoric is getting pretty violent and, of course, violent speech prepares the way for violent acts. When secularists start calling for the dissolution of the Church and for the painful death of Cardinals, we have passed way beyond liberalism and tolerance into a dark space that reeks of fascism and irrational fanaticism.
Secularism has become a new religion and, like many new religions, its zeal, if not checked, can lead to a kind of violence that most of Christianity has outgrown. If Marc Cardinal Ouellet is an extremist then practically every religious leader, political leader, great artist, humanitarian and scientist who lived prior to 1968 was also an extremist. So who is the real extremist here?
Kay is right that these people would not dare criticize Islam. I am growing weary of journalists insulting and bashing Christians and holding back from saying anything critical of Islam. Let's be honest: they are cowards and eventually cowards are conquered and dominated by the strong. To be blunt: they are crazy in the sense of not recognizing their own enlightened self-interest.
This mentality is the same as that which characterized the madness of the French Revolution. No literal guillotines yet, but the level of rhetoric is getting pretty violent and, of course, violent speech prepares the way for violent acts. When secularists start calling for the dissolution of the Church and for the painful death of Cardinals, we have passed way beyond liberalism and tolerance into a dark space that reeks of fascism and irrational fanaticism.
Read the rest here.On May 27 Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe tried to set a witch hunt in motion with a political drive-by shooting of several completely innocent people:
“Mr. Speaker, Ottawa’s bishop stated yesterday that a sizeable pro-life caucus is working behind the scenes within the government. The Prime Minister, who controls everything, must know about this caucus.” With McCarthyite melodrama, M. Duceppe then intoned the names and positions in the Conservative Party of three practicing Catholics, as if that were proof of the ominous “caucus.”
These Catholics are all members of Opus Dei, a prelature of the Catholic Church, a group I am very familiar with, and amongst whom I count some of my closest friends. Opus Dei means in Latin “God’s Work.” Members of “the Work” believe that holiness is something to be strived for in one’s daily life: in one’s job, however important or however humble, in one’s friendships, one’s family life and civic obligations.
Opus Dei does good works all over the planet (I have seen documentaries on their projects in the hellholes of the world, bringing aid, comfort and social assistance to the poorest and most forgotten, without fanfare or publicity-seeking or missionary profit), punching far above their demographic weight. Few in number – about 85,000 world-wide and only a few thousand in all of Canada – they are immersed in public life in the most positive and benign ways. And of the more than 100,000 members of the Conservative Party, why yes, there are probably two or three members of Opus Dei.
But the back-story to Duceppe’s naming (and by implication shaming) of these three good people (two of whom I know well as ideal Canadian citizens and warm, engaging, admirable human beings ) is not his apparently high-minded upholding of the division of church and state. It is his loathing for the Catholic Church, a loathing he is at small pains to conceal. In this he is entirely representative of the media and political elites that dominate Quebec’s public discourse. And that is the real story here.
Look at the reaction to Cardinal Marc Ouellet’s call for public debate on the morality of abortion. Note: he did not call for legislative change. He called abortion a “moral crime.” In response the francophone media went ballistic. Would Patrick Lagacé of La Presse have dared to curse any non-Catholic religious leaders? It is unthinkable that any Canadian pundit would say of an imam, as Lagacé did of Cardinal Ouellet: “We must all die. We are all going to die. Cardinal Ouellet is going to die one day. I hope he will die of a long and painful sickness…Yes, the paragraph I have just written is vicious. But [Cardinal] Marc Ouellet is an extremist. And in this debate, all blows are permitted against religious extremists…the Cardinal is a fundamentalist. This is a known fact. From there on, whoever agrees to share a political podium with him should be treated like an accomplice to the fanaticism of Kazem Ouellet… “
(By “Kazem” he refers to Kazem Sedighi, an imam in Teheran who declared that recent earthquakes had been caused by certain women’s indecent wardrobe.)
Similarly, would any Canadian journalist call for the dissolution of Islam because parts of shariah law run counter to Canadian gender values? Yet on May 28 Le Devoir published an op-ed written by a sociologue who calls for the dissolution of the Church and its transformation in Quebec into a network of cooperatives : “This cooperative network, based on modern values of equality and non-segregation of the sexes, of anti-racism and the rejection of homophobia, would permit us to experience together, socially and ceremoniously, the great moments of life between birth and death. This project of modernization of the Catholic institution seems to me, moreover, completely compatible with the fundamental secularity of the state which is indispensable to social peace.”
Secularism has become a new religion and, like many new religions, its zeal, if not checked, can lead to a kind of violence that most of Christianity has outgrown. If Marc Cardinal Ouellet is an extremist then practically every religious leader, political leader, great artist, humanitarian and scientist who lived prior to 1968 was also an extremist. So who is the real extremist here?
Kay is right that these people would not dare criticize Islam. I am growing weary of journalists insulting and bashing Christians and holding back from saying anything critical of Islam. Let's be honest: they are cowards and eventually cowards are conquered and dominated by the strong. To be blunt: they are crazy in the sense of not recognizing their own enlightened self-interest.
Friday, June 4, 2010
"The Christian Case against Contraception" by Bryan C. Hodge: A Review
The Christian Case against Contraception: Making the Case from Historical, Biblical, Systematic, and Practical Theology and Ethics (Wipf and Stock, 2010) is a defense of the anti-contraception position of the historic Church against the overturning of that position during the past 100 years.
Most people have no idea what a recent innovation is the view that contraception is morally acceptable. The whole contraceptive mentality, in which procreation is divided from sex, is as old as the Fall, but Christians accepting this mentality is a recent thing. The idea that sex can be used for pleasure with no expectation of children coming from it is the basis for promiscuity, pre-marital sex, open marriage, homosexuality and many other perversions. The whole assumption that we can and should control fertility as human beings leads to infanticide and abortion, which become necessary when contraception fails (as all contraceptive methods often do). That this mentality exists among the pagans is nothing new, but for Christians to accept it is scandalous and novel.
Bryan C. Hodge has written a straight-forward book which will introduce the modern Christian to the way that traditional Christians from the Fathers to the early 20th century reasoned about contraception. They were pretty much unanimously opposed to it as a form of murder and a form of idolatry. For Hodge, God gives children and every conception is God's will. Since God decides how many children a couple will have, our responsibility is simply to obey the command to be fruitful and multiply.
The interesting thing about Hodge is that he is not a Roman Catholic. As a conservative Presbyterian, he is sympathetic to the Quiverfull Movement, which views children as a blessing from the Lord and rejects all forms of birth control. Hodge even rejects the position of the modern Roman Catholic Church that natural family planning is morally acceptable as long as it is not used to avoid having children altogether. NFP basically involves a woman observing signs of her own fertility and the couple avoiding intercourse during fertile parts of the month. To do this, says Hodge, is as bad as using contraception.
Hodge accuses those who advocate for contraception of having a naturalistic concept of procreation. He argues that, since a new human being with a soul is created each time an egg is fertilized, God is involved in that process and it cannot be reduced to a physical process alone. He argues for a supernatural view of the whole conception event and he contends that the Bible clearly teaches that God can and does both open and close the womb according to His sovereign will. He views the human attempt to utilize contraception as rooted in a naturalistic view of conception in which it is within the power and authority of humans to cause or prevent.
In a short review it is impossible to do justice to the complexity of the arguments of a nearly 300 page book. However, I want to consider one of his most significant points. He argues that we, as humans, do not have the right to allow or prohibit a person from coming into existence and that to do so is to commit something much to like murder for comfort: not by killing an existing person, but by preventing that person from coming into existence. His argument is that it is God's prerogative to give life and to take it away. We want to argue this at the other end of life against euthanasia, so why is it different at the beginning? Is giving and taking life not God's prerogative?
The modern idea that we have total control over our own bodies and can do whatever we want with them is in conflict with the idea that we belong to God and He is sovereign. Reproductive rights don't stop with contraception; they logically extend to abortion as well and it is only a matter of time before they extend further to infanticide. On what grounds can we, as Christians, challenge the idea of our having control over our own bodies when we approve of contraception? Is the number of children we have not up to God? Is God not in control? Can we not trust Him as people have for millennia?
In modern medical ethics, the idea of patient autonomy is practically the only moral principle left in operation and it is a slender reed. Without a belief in God and Divine commandments that we must obey, such as "Do not commit murder," our medical ethics slides into anti-human, ultilitarianism that permits horrors like cloning individuals for body parts and creating children with three biological parents and so on.
Clearly, Christians have to invoke the sovereignty of God at some point. Bryan Hodge says it begins with marriage and the sexual embrace, which must always be open to children. On this point, he and John Paul II are in agreement. Openness to God's creative act through us is fundamental to Christian morality and to any kind of humanism that respects the dignity of the person created in God's image.
Most people have no idea what a recent innovation is the view that contraception is morally acceptable. The whole contraceptive mentality, in which procreation is divided from sex, is as old as the Fall, but Christians accepting this mentality is a recent thing. The idea that sex can be used for pleasure with no expectation of children coming from it is the basis for promiscuity, pre-marital sex, open marriage, homosexuality and many other perversions. The whole assumption that we can and should control fertility as human beings leads to infanticide and abortion, which become necessary when contraception fails (as all contraceptive methods often do). That this mentality exists among the pagans is nothing new, but for Christians to accept it is scandalous and novel.
Bryan C. Hodge has written a straight-forward book which will introduce the modern Christian to the way that traditional Christians from the Fathers to the early 20th century reasoned about contraception. They were pretty much unanimously opposed to it as a form of murder and a form of idolatry. For Hodge, God gives children and every conception is God's will. Since God decides how many children a couple will have, our responsibility is simply to obey the command to be fruitful and multiply.
The interesting thing about Hodge is that he is not a Roman Catholic. As a conservative Presbyterian, he is sympathetic to the Quiverfull Movement, which views children as a blessing from the Lord and rejects all forms of birth control. Hodge even rejects the position of the modern Roman Catholic Church that natural family planning is morally acceptable as long as it is not used to avoid having children altogether. NFP basically involves a woman observing signs of her own fertility and the couple avoiding intercourse during fertile parts of the month. To do this, says Hodge, is as bad as using contraception.
Hodge accuses those who advocate for contraception of having a naturalistic concept of procreation. He argues that, since a new human being with a soul is created each time an egg is fertilized, God is involved in that process and it cannot be reduced to a physical process alone. He argues for a supernatural view of the whole conception event and he contends that the Bible clearly teaches that God can and does both open and close the womb according to His sovereign will. He views the human attempt to utilize contraception as rooted in a naturalistic view of conception in which it is within the power and authority of humans to cause or prevent.
In a short review it is impossible to do justice to the complexity of the arguments of a nearly 300 page book. However, I want to consider one of his most significant points. He argues that we, as humans, do not have the right to allow or prohibit a person from coming into existence and that to do so is to commit something much to like murder for comfort: not by killing an existing person, but by preventing that person from coming into existence. His argument is that it is God's prerogative to give life and to take it away. We want to argue this at the other end of life against euthanasia, so why is it different at the beginning? Is giving and taking life not God's prerogative?
The modern idea that we have total control over our own bodies and can do whatever we want with them is in conflict with the idea that we belong to God and He is sovereign. Reproductive rights don't stop with contraception; they logically extend to abortion as well and it is only a matter of time before they extend further to infanticide. On what grounds can we, as Christians, challenge the idea of our having control over our own bodies when we approve of contraception? Is the number of children we have not up to God? Is God not in control? Can we not trust Him as people have for millennia?
In modern medical ethics, the idea of patient autonomy is practically the only moral principle left in operation and it is a slender reed. Without a belief in God and Divine commandments that we must obey, such as "Do not commit murder," our medical ethics slides into anti-human, ultilitarianism that permits horrors like cloning individuals for body parts and creating children with three biological parents and so on.
Clearly, Christians have to invoke the sovereignty of God at some point. Bryan Hodge says it begins with marriage and the sexual embrace, which must always be open to children. On this point, he and John Paul II are in agreement. Openness to God's creative act through us is fundamental to Christian morality and to any kind of humanism that respects the dignity of the person created in God's image.
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