Steve Hall's List: Culture War Issues

•  Classical music with religious names was banned at graduation by Everett School District No. 2 in Washington state. The school ordered that only "secular" music would be allowed even though there were no lyrics or words spoken, and a federal court held against the students.

   Judge Robert S. Lasnik, who was appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton in 1998, wrote the decision. Lasnik was the same judge who struck down a Washington state law banning video games that demonstrated how to kill policemen and wrote in his decision that violent video games are "as much entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature."

   The intolerance of atheists and their allies has now placed the "best of" music off limits to public school performers. Goodbye to many of the great works of Bach, Haydn, Handel, Beethoven and Mozart.

  • <b><i>Steve's comment:<br>The problem of intolerant Christian-phobic judges has not gone away. Pray that these judges will be replaced with saner ones.<br></i></b><br>

• Similar to Chariots of Fire and Shadowlands in tone, Amazing Grace balances faith and filmmaking in a historical drama that depicts an ordinary Christian doing extraordinary things because of his beliefs.

  • <i>Steve's comment:<br>This is a tremendous movie! Wilberforce was a powerful example of a Christian who refused to quit--who doggedly persevered through a hugely difficult (and humanly unwinnable) battle. He's a great example for us all.<br><br></i>

• Under assault by Muslims and multiculturalists, free speech and freedom of the press are dead in Britain. The same sorts of people who killed them in Britain are killing them in Canada.  They and their allies are using the British and Canadian courts and tribunals to bury our First Amendment rights in America.

  Muslims -- individually and in pressure groups -- are using British libel laws and Canadian “human rights” laws to limit what is said about Islam, terrorists and the people in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere who are funding groups such as al-Queda. The cases of Rachel Ehrenfeld and Mark Steyn prove the point.

  • <i>Steve's comment:<br>Muslims are not stupid. They know how to use our stupidity to their advantage.<br></i><br>

• On Monday, Russia announced it was sending 80 tons of uranium fuel to Iran to help that Islamist dictatorship build a "peaceful" nuclear reactor in Bushehr. Russia has an interest in building the power plant: It stands to gain $1 billion, since the plant is to be constructed by the Russian state-owned Atomstroyexport. Iran also has an interest in building a power plant: pursuit of nuclear weaponry.

  • <i>Steve's comments:<br>It is probably good for us to stay alert what's happening in the alliance between Russia and Iran. Their strengthened ties may not be good news for the rest of the world.<br></i><br>

• Russia has an agenda of its own. For years, the Russians have strengthened bonds with our enemies. Just before the invasion of Iraq, Russia inked an enormous financial deal with Saddam Hussein. Russia does huge weapons business with Syria. And Russia's involvement with the Bushehr reactor dates back years.
  

  Russia has two strong motivations to aid Iran: cash and nationalism. Iran provides the Russians with billions of dollars in income. And Russia sees itself as a power on the rise -- a potential challenger to the hegemony of the United States over the long haul.
  

  Russia's suggestion that the West ought to sign off on the Bushehr reactor based on IAEA oversight is simply absurd. The IAEA has proved to be a hollow shell time and time again. Pre-invasion Iraq, Iran and North Korea have all barred IAEA inspectors on a regular basis.
  

  The release of this month's National Intelligence Estimate, which claimed that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program, provided Russia with the opportunity it needed to openly contribute to the Iranian nuclear agenda. With the Bush administration hemmed in by domestic naysayers, Russia is now free to pursue its own goals in the Middle East.
  

  Over five years ago, in August 2002, I penned these words: "We must act quickly in opposition to those countries that would constitute a new Russian sphere of influence: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria and others. We cannot allow Moscow to ally with these countries, creating a new Russian satellite system." That warning went unheeded. We cannot continue to ignore Russia's rogue nationalism. There is a bear in the woods again.

  • <i>Steve's comment:<br>When the Soviet Union collapsed, we rejoiced in the defeat of an old enemy. But the "new" Russia may not be as friendly to us as many had hoped.<br></i><br>

•  Russia is selling Iran a new and sophisticated air defense system that experts say is capable of dealing a serious blow against would-be attackers. >  

   The new S-300 air defense system signals growing miitary cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said Wednesday. >

  • <i>Steve's Comment:<br>It's hard to imagine that Israel will allow this to go on very long without a preemptive strike.</i>

• The S-300 is much more powerful and versatile weapon than the Tor-M1 missile systems supplied earlier, which were capable of hitting airborne targets flying at up to 20,000 feet.

    

  The S-300 is capable of shooting down aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missile warheads at ranges of up to 95 miles and at altitudes of up to 90,000 feet. Russian military officials boast that it excels the U.S.-built Patriot missiles currently being deployed in Israel.

  • <i>Steve's Comment:<br>&nbsp;Wow. This seems like more serious "preparation for war" stuff. Maybe the news media have made a big deal of this, but somehow I've missed it. It seems ominously significant to me.<br> </i>

• There should be no question what the top story of the year was: America's counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq, the Democrats' hapless efforts to sabotage it, and the Western mainstream media's stubborn refusal to own up to military progress.

  • <i>Steve's comment:<br>The liberal media is VERY good at distracting us from facts like these.</i>

• the struggle for academic freedom is not limited to professors being denied tenure or government scientists facing persecution. It extends to college and high school classrooms, affecting students as well as teachers.

    

  Now the people behind "Expelled" have launched a new feature at their website to expose the depth and breadth of this campaign to deny academic freedom to Darwin-doubters:
   

  
   Ever sat in class and had your professor straight up challenge your intelligence for suggesting even the possibility of an intelligent design in the universe?  

  Tired of being labeled merely for questioning aspects of the Darwinian theory of evolution?? Ever been scoffed at or ridiculed in front of your peers?

  • <i>Steve's comment:<br>A new movie </i><i>supporting Intelligent Design </i><i>is scheduled to be released in theaters in February.<br>&nbsp;For years, darwinists, losing the battle of actual evidence to those of us who realize that life had a Designer and Creator, have ridiculed, brow beat, and academically persecuted those who did not toe the darwinism line. This new movie ("Expelled") may help expose some of their tactics!<br><br>The trailer is worth watching. You can see it here:<br>http://www.expelledthemovie.com/playground.php<br><br><br></i>

• “Whoever, therefore wishes to ruin a nation, has only to get this vice introduced; for it is extremely difficult to extirpate it where it has once taken root because it can be propagated with much secrecy… and when we perceive that it has once got a footing in any country, however, powerful and flourishing, we may venture as politicians to predict that the foundation of its future decline is laid and that after some hundred years it will no longer be the same…powerful country it is at the present.” (Sir John David Michaelis, Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, 1814.

  • <i>Steve's comment:<br>Amazing quote about effect of Homosexuality in society from almost 100 years ago!</i>
• In 1988, 74.9% of the American Public thought that sex between two people of the same gender was always wrong. By 1998, the percentage had fallen to 54.6% (National Opinion research Center, The University of Chicago.)

  • <i>Steve's comment:<br>The media has been INCREDIBLY effective in changing our mind set. This was nearly 10 years ago. It's certainly under 50% today.<br></i><br>

• LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--The release of "The Golden Compass" as a major motion picture represents a new challenge for Christians -- especially parents. The release of a popular film with major actors that presents a message directly subversive of Christianity is something new. It is not likely to be the last.

  • <i>Steve's Comment:<br>The "Golden Compass" issue may be a good example of a situation where parents need to understand the reasoning behind the objections, then be able to articulate the reasoning and have open discussions with their children! <br><br>These things can be VERY subtle!<br></i><br>
• the movie is based in a story that is captivating, sophisticated, and truly interesting. Philip Pullman is a skilled writer and teller of tales. His invented worlds of The Golden Compass and the entire His Dark Materials trilogy are about as good as the fantasy genre can offer.
• Philip Pullman has an agenda -- an agenda about as subtle as an army tank. His agenda is nothing less than to expose what he believes is the tyranny of the Christian faith and the Christian church. His hatred of the biblical storyline is clear. He is an atheist whose most important literary project is intended to offer a moral narrative that will reverse the biblical account of the fall and provide a liberating mythology for a new secular age.

  • <i>Steve's comment:<br>Better read that paragraph twice!<br></i><br>
• Pullman's attack on biblical Christianity is direct and undeniable. He once questioned why his books attracted little controversy even as the Harry Potter books attracted so much. He told an Australian newspaper that what he is "saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God."
• The direct attack on Christianity and God is toned down in the movie. But any informed person will recognize the Magisterium as representing the church and Christianity. Of course, in our world the Magisterium is the authoritative leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. In Pullman's world it represents Christianity as a whole.
• The most direct attacks upon Christianity and God do not appear until the last book, The Amber Spyglass, in which Lyra and Will (a boy her age who first appears in the second book) eventually kill God, who turns out to be a decrepit and feeble old imposter who was hardly worth the killing.
• IS PULLMAN'S ATTACK ON CHRISTIANITY EXAGGERATED BY HIS CRITICS?
  
  No -- his attack is neither hidden nor subtle. The entire premise of the trilogy is that Lyra is the child foretold by prophecy who will reverse the curse of the Fall and free humanity from the lie of original sin. Whereas in Christian theology it is Jesus Christ who reverses the curse through His work of atonement on the Cross, Pullman presents his own theology of sorts in which the Fall is reversed through the defiance of these children. As Pullman insists, Eve and Adam were right to eat the forbidden fruit and God was a tyrant to forbid them the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
• IS THERE MORE TO THE LARGER STORY?
  
  Yes, and it has to do with sex. Surprisingly graphic and explicit sex. Pullman believes that the Christian church is horribly repressive about sex and that this is rooted in the idea of the Fall. As he told Hanna Rosin of the Atlantic Monthly, "Why the Christian Church has spent 2,000 years condemning this glorious moment, well, that's a mystery. I want to confront that, I suppose, by telling a story that the so-called original sin is anything but. It's the thing that makes us fully human."
• In The Amber Spyglass, Lyra and Will reverse the story of the Edenic Fall by consummating a sexual act in the garden.
  
  Again, Pullman is not subtle. Keep in mind that this is a series of books marketed to children and adolescents. Lyra puts a red fruit to Will's lips and Will "knew at once what she meant, and that he was too joyful to speak." Within moments, the 13-year olds are involved in some kind of unspecified sexual act.
  
  "The word love set his nerves ablaze," Pullman writes of Will. "All his body thrilled with it, and he answered her in the same words, kissing her hot face over and over again, drinking in with adoration the scent of her body and her warm, honey-fragrant hair and her sweet, moist mouth that tasted of the little red fruit."
• WHAT IS IT ABOUT PULLMAN AND C.S. LEWIS?
  
  Put simply, Pullman hates C.S. Lewis's work "The Chronicles of Narnia." He told Hannah Rosin that Lewis's famous work is "morally loathsome" and "one of the most ugly and poisonous things I ever read." Narnia, he said, "is the Christian one ... And mine is the non-Christian."
• SO, WHAT SHOULD CHRISTIANS DO?
  
  A good first step would be to take a deep breath. The Christian faith is not about to be toppled by a film, nor by a series of fantasy books. Pullman has an agenda that is clear, and Christians need to inform themselves of what this agenda is and what it means. At the same time, nothing would serve his agenda better than to have Christians speaking recklessly or unintelligently about the film or the books.
• When the movie is mentioned in the workplace, in school, on the playground or in the college campus, this is a great opportunity to show that Christians are not afraid of the battle of ideas.
• We should recognize that the Christian church has some very embarrassing moments in its history -- moments when it has failed to represent the truth of the Gospel and the love of Christ. Authors like Philip Pullman take advantage of these failures in order to paint the entire Christian church as a conspiracy against human happiness and freedom. Of course, that charge will not stand close scrutiny, and we can face it head-on with a thoughtful response.
• We are responsible to show them, in so far as we are able, that the Magisterium of The Golden Compass is not a fair or accurate representation of the Christian church.
• I can only wonder how many parents and grandparents will allow children and young people to see the movie and then buy them the books -- blissfully unaware of what is coming in books two and three.

  • <i>Steve's comment:<br>Not to mention blissfully ignorant teachers who encourage (or even require) students to read the books.<br><br></i>
• We should arm our children to be able to talk about this project with their classmates without fear or rancor.

  • <i>Steve's comment:<br>Obviously this series has the potential to confuse a lot of kids (and adults). If parents choose to try to protect their children from Pullman's atheistic propaganda, I would urge them to be prepared to DISCUSS fully with their children the answers to the "Why" questions.<br><br>To simply say, "It's bad!" without explanation will cause children to feel very curious and confused when other kids, adults, teachers, etc. are telling them that it is harmless.<br><br></i>

14 more annotations...

• • <i>Steve's comment:<br>If you want to read this entire article, after you click on the link, use "previous" to go back to page one.<br></i>

• I love Lee Strobel's ministry, maybe in large part because I began my spiritual journey as quite the skeptic as well, but also because I believe he has the unique skills, intellectual curiosity and personal integrity that position him to stand on the front lines defending Christ against today's puffed-up assailants. 

  Will you take Strobel's challenge and read the results of his study? As he says, "In the end, we'll discover together whether the Jesus of historic Christianity manages to emerge intact from the crucible of twenty-first-century skepticism."

  • <i>Steve's comment:<br>Rush Limbaugh's brother, David, gives a great plug here for Lee Strobel's newest book! I haven't read it, but if it is anything like his previous books, is should be great!</i>