Mere Christianity

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost laments the fact that so many Christians see it as their God-given mission in life to rip apart the theological beliefs of other Christians. It's not that beliefs aren't important, but some beliefs are very important and some are not. It's unfortunate that Christians too often can't tell the difference.

Which are the important beliefs, the ones that we really can't be Christians without believing? Well, I wouldn't want to argue about the list, but I'll suggest these seven propositions are pretty much the sine qua non of Evangelical belief. It would be hard to maintain a muscular Christian faith while denying any one of these seven affirmations.

1. God exists

2. Scripture is authoritative

3. Man is fallen

4. Death is not the end of our existence

5. Jesus is in some sense divine

6. Jesus' death on the cross is essential to our eternal life

7. Jesus rose literally and historically from the dead

The reader may disagree with some of the above or, more likely, may wish to include other propositions in addition to these seven. That's fine, but this is what I consider to be the core of Christian belief, what C.S. Lewis called "mere Christianity," and over the days leading us to Christmas I wish to elaborate on each of these claims and explain how and why I believe each is essential to Christian faith.

More Good News From Iraq

Despite the impression the MSM strives to create of an Iraq in chaos and on the brink of civil war, that's not the perception of most Iraqis according to this ABC/Time poll:

Surprising levels of optimism prevail in Iraq with living conditions improved, security more a national worry than a local one, and expectations for the future high. But views of the country's situation overall are far less positive, and there are vast differences in views among Iraqi groups - a study in contrasts between increasingly disaffected Sunni areas and vastly more positive Shiite and Kurdish provinces.

An ABC News poll in Iraq, conducted with Time magazine and other media partners, includes some remarkable results: Despite the daily violence there, most living conditions are rated positively, seven in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve in the year ahead.

Not all the results are good, of course, Iraqis are less positive about the outlook for the country as a whole than they are about their own lives, for example, but the fact that most Iraqis are optimistic about their future is an important bit of news. We'll be interested in how the evening news shows and the nation's pundits spin it.

Reform or Disband the U.N.

Here's another reason, if one were needed, why the U.N. cannot be trusted to arbitrate the world's conflicts: At a public meeting celebrating the International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People held at U.N. headquarters on November 29th, the three top U.N. officials, including Kofi Anan, appeared on a platform on which was displayed a map of the middle east. The map was a pre-1948 edition which does not show Israel. What message do you suppose the leadership of the U.N. is sending by that little gesture? Lest there be any doubt, those assembled also observed a moment of silence for Palestinians who died as suicide murderers.

The U.N. has become a society of thugs, tyrants, and thieves - third world petty crooks and dictators masquerading as statesmen. The organization is a charade, pretending to be devoted to settling disputes when in fact it's dedicated to plundering the wealth of the developed world and facilitating the demise of Western values and civilization. It's past time to pitch it into the Atlantic and start over with nations that share a common commitment to the principles upon which the U.N. was originally founded.

No Clemency For "Tookie" Williams

We take no pleasure whatsoever in the fact that Stanley "Tookie" Williams is apparently going to be executed tomorrow morning. We do take some measure of satisfaction, however, in the fact that justice is finally going to be done, at least in part, for the families who have suffered so much because of this man.

Williams had nothing but contempt for the lives of his victims and those who loved them. He held their lives so cheap that he laughed about how one of them died. It would be a gross miscarriage of justice were he allowed to live out his years at taxpayer expense while the families of his victims live everyday with the pain he so callously and savagely inflicted.

Mr. Williams will die tomorrow. What will be done to him is just. The manner in which it will be done, having given him every opportunity to convince an entire series of courts that he doesn't deserve to die, will be compassionate. The state of California is giving Tookie Williams far, far more than what he gave those four innocent, terrified victims in 1979.

He should be executed as painlessly as possible and then completely forgotten. He should expect no better and indeed deserves far worse.

Embarrassment to Our Children

Chris Wallace thinks its time for daddy to recuse himself from offering political opinions according to this NewsMax article:

Fox News Sunday anchorman Chris Wallace says father Mike Wallace has "lost it" - after the legendary CBS newsman told the Boston Globe last week that the fact George Bush had been elected president shows America is "[expletive]-up."

"He's lost it. The man has lost it. What can I say," the younger Wallace lamented to WRKO Boston radio host Howie Carr on Friday. "He's 87-years old and things have set in," the Fox anchor continued. "I mean, we're going to have a competence hearing pretty soon."

Wallace Jr. quickly dispelled any notion that he was joking. When Carr suggested that his comments were likely to be covered by NewsMax, he responded: "You know what? Fine. Go ahead. Call them. That's fine. I'll stand by that."

Returning to the topic of his father's competence, Wallace Jr. explained: "He's checked out. I don't understand it," beyond the fact that Wallace Sr. has "problems with the war."

"I don't know why he said what he said," he added.

On Thursday, the elder Wallace told the Boston Globe that if he had the chance to interview President Bush, he'd ask: "What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn't want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn't have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?"

Still, despite his criticism, Wallace Jr. seems to have inherited some of his father's shoot-from-the-lip-style. Asked about DNC chair Howard Dean's recent prediction that the U.S. would lose the war in Iraq, Wallace told Carr:

"We are in a war. We do have 150,000-plus American soldiers over there. I mean, it's Tokyo Rose, for God sakes, going on radio saying we can't win the war."

We guess parents are always an embarrassment to their off-spring.

Down the Rat Hole

Think about Live 8 and all the warm feelings it produced because we knew we we're doing something good for the poor people of Africa. And then read this:

"It is widely reported that an African child dies of hunger and malnutrition every three seconds while in the same period African leaders steal $14,000 from their people and put it in foreign bank accounts. In the words of Milovan Djilas, they squander the nation's wealth as though it was someone else's and dip into it as if it were their own. Isn't it strange that exactly two weeks after the G8 deal that wrote off 80 percent of my country's debt, all our parliamentarians, who earn $300 per month, are to receive $25,000 each in free car loans and $60 a day in rent allowance? I call it free car loans because five years ago they each received $20,000 but have yet to pay it back.

It is insulting that the bill for this lavish behavior is passed on to the disrespected poor as they struggle to pay a 40 percent tax on fuel that is used to support, among other things, government entities that consume almost one-third of the country's fuel. One would have thought that African leaders would be better advised to use resources to build the infrastructure that will increase the volume of trade within the continent and thereby improve economic activity." - Franklin Cudjoe, Ghanaian libertarian advocate

When will we ever learn that the worst way to address poverty is to throw money at it? This will be a good lesson to keep in mind as pressure mounts to "do something" about the awful condition of the poor in New Orleans and other major urban areas. People should be helped, of course, but help should be contingent upon a willingness to make changes in lifestyle choices. If people are to receive public assistance they should be expected to foreswear the behaviors that perpetuate their poverty. To expect the taxpayer to fork over a significant portion of his/her earnings to people who feel no obligation to do anything in return helps no one and is successful only in generating resentments.

Perhaps this sounds harsh, but if so, it's the sort of harshness with which people need to be more frequently confronted. Too often the poor in this country are impoverished because throughout their lives they rejected the advice of others who urged them not to have sex and babies until they were in a committed marriage and once they were married to stay that way. They rejected the advice of others to shun drugs, alcohol, and other dysgenic behaviors, and to do all they could to get a good education. They rejected the advice of others to build their lives around their children and not around their own wants and desires. They rejected all of this and more, and now they demand the tax-payer pay the bill for their lack of wisdom so that they don't have to bear the full brunt of the consequences of their foolish choices themselves.

It's past time to tell people that if they want what you have they should adopt the same values and virtues of education, fidelity, hard work, etc. that enabled you to acquire what you have. If they're unwilling to do that then they shouldn't feel entitled to much help from society at large.

Countdown to March

The Israelis are planning an attack on Iran's nuclear production facilities by the end of March according to this report in the London Sunday Times:

Israel's armed forces have been ordered by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran, military sources have revealed. The order came after Israeli intelligence warned the government that Iran was operating enrichment facilities, believed to be small and concealed in civilian locations.

The crisis is set to come to a head in early March, when Mohamed El-Baradei, the head of the IAEA, will present his next report on Iran. El-Baradei, who received the Nobel peace prize yesterday, warned that the world was "losing patience" with Iran. A senior White House source said the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda and the issue now was: "What next?" That question would have to be answered in the next few months, he said.

Defence sources in Israel believe the end of March to be the "point of no return" after which Iran will have the technical expertise to enrich uranium in sufficient quantities to build a nuclear warhead in two to four years. "Israel - and not only Israel - cannot accept a nuclear Iran," Sharon warned recently. "We have the ability to deal with this and we're making all the necessary preparations to be ready for such a situation."

A "massive" Israeli intelligence operation has been underway since Iran was designated the "top priority for 2005", according to security sources. Cross-border operations and signal intelligence from a base established by the Israelis in northern Iraq are said to have identified a number of Iranian uranium enrichment sites unknown to the the IAEA.

Since Israel destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, "it has been understood that the lesson is, don't have one site, have 50 sites", a White House source said. If a military operation is approved, Israel will use air and ground forces against several nuclear targets in the hope of stalling Tehran's nuclear programme for years, according to Israeli military sources.

It is believed Israel would call on its top special forces brigade, Unit 262 - the equivalent of the SAS - and the F-15I strategic 69 Squadron, which can strike Iran and return to Israel without refuelling. "If we opt for the military strike," said a source, "it must be not less than 100% successful. It will resemble the destruction of the Egyptian air force in three hours in June 1967."

Aharon Zeevi Farkash, the Israeli military intelligence chief, stepped up the pressure on Iran this month when he warned Israel's parliament, the Knesset, that "if by the end of March the international community is unable to refer the Iranian issue to the United Nations security council, then we can say the international effort has run its course".

The March deadline set for military readiness also stems from fears that Iran is improving its own intelligence-gathering capability. In October it launched its first satellite, the Sinah-1, which was carried by a Russian space launcher. "The Iranians' space programme is a matter of deep concern to us," said an Israeli defence source. "If and when we launch an attack on several Iranian targets, the last thing we need is Iranian early warning received by satellite."

Russia last week signed an estimated $1 billion contract - its largest since 2000 - to sell Iran advanced Tor-M1 systems capable of destroying guided missiles and laser-guided bombs from aircraft. "Once the Iranians get the Tor-M1, it will make our life much more difficult," said an Israeli air force source. "The installation of this system can be relatively quick and we can't waste time on this one."

The date set for possible Israeli strikes on Iran also coincides with Israel's general election on March 28, prompting speculation that Sharon may be sabre-rattling for votes. Benjamin Netanyahu, the frontrunner to lead Likud into the elections, said that if Sharon did not act against Iran, "then when I form the new Israeli government, we'll do what we did in the past against Saddam's reactor, which gave us 20 years of tranquillity".

The Iranians seem determined to push the world toward more war in the Middle East. They believe that it is their destiny, foreordained by Allah, to impose Islam on the entire world and that it is their divinely mandated duty to begin this process by exterminating Israel. The Israelis see this clearly, even if many in the West do not or are indifferent to the threat, and they refuse to place their future existence in the hands of those who care so little about it.

It is frightening to think what forces might be unleashed by an Israeli strike against Iran, but it is far more frightening to think what could happen were the chief sponsors of Islamic terrorism around the world to begin producing nuclear weapons.

Narnia

Just got back from seeing Narnia with my fifteen year old daughter. Maybe I'm too hard to please, but although I thought it was good, and in some ways excellent, I can't really rave about it. Part of the problem, perhaps, is that we watched the film in a theater full of adolescents of varying chronological ages which was somewhat distracting, at least early on.

The movie gets off to a sluggish start (after the opening sequence of a WW II bombing raid over English city), taking a bit too long to set the stage for the four Pervensie children's introduction to the land of Narnia. Once there, though, the story picks up the pace and remains quite faithful to Lewis' tale.

I was impressed, in fact, by the fidelity of the film to Lewis' Christian imagery. The theme of redemption, substitutionary atonement, and the sacrificial death and resurrection of Aslan, who destroys the wicked witch in the final conflict of good vs. evil are all pretty explicit. So, too, is the centrality of humanity to God's plan to redeem the cosmos.

It's a good family film with generally outstanding cinematography (some scenes appear to be deliberately shot in a retro fashion which reminds the viewer of older filmmaking) and adequate acting on the part of the main characters. The girl who plays Lucy (Georgie Henley)is talented, but Jadis the White Witch (Tilda Swinton) seems a little unconvincing in the role of incarnated evil.

The computer generated images are fantastic. You cannot tell whether the creatures you see in the film are real or products of computer wizardry, and in fact the beavers are among the movie's highlights. The final battle scene, similar in some ways to The Lord of the Rings' visual effects, is amazingly realistic.

I have never seen a movie in which the resurrection of Christ was depicted in a way that does the event dramatic justice. Unfortunately, this one doesn't either. One moment Aslan is dead, then there's an earthquake and he's alive, but the filmmakers don't really capture the awe and incredulity that would accompany such an event. Maybe it's asking too much for any movie to capture something of what that would be like.

Nevertheless, seeing Narnia is a fine way for kids to be exposed to the romance of redemption in the Christian gospel. It'll fire their imaginations, and they'll see a portrayal or aspect of Christ (unintended by the film's creators or not) that is not usually emphasized in films with religious overtones - Christ the Warrior-King.

My daughter gives it five stars (out of five). Her curmudgeonly father gives it four.

The Case For Resolve

Military historian Frederick Kagen has an article on Iraq in the Weekly Standard which is nothing short of excellent. He examines the arguments for pulling out of Iraq now and finds their premises either foolish, mistaken, or if correct, then nevertheless not warranting the conclusion that America should withdraw. Here are a few paragraphs from the piece that might afford a good overview:

The irony is that demands for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces do not spring from any particular recent bad news from Iraq (there has been little) or justified alarm about the Army's ability to sustain itself (high levels of retention continue to make up for problems with recruitment). On the contrary, the most recent news from Iraq is promising. American strategy has improved, and prospects for success are better than they have ever been.

Since early September, coalition efforts along the Syrian border to clear towns of insurgents have not generated anger, violence, and outbursts--on the contrary. The clearing of Tal Afar in mid-September by a combined American and Iraqi force followed a request by the citizens of that town for an American intervention. Operations in villages in the upper Euphrates since then have generated limited and sporadic resistance, mainly from cornered insurgents. The lessons of the October referendum are very clear, moreover: Dramatic and aggressive joint action by U.S. and Iraqi forces to preempt and defeat the insurgents' attempt to derail the election worked spectacularly well. The truth is that calls for a precipitous retreat from Iraq, or for setting arbitrary deadlines or milestones for withdrawal, now threaten to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The urgency of an American withdrawal from Iraq is no greater now than it has been for some time, and those most loudly demanding immediate withdrawal have no convincing evidence to support their demands.

We should interject that that's because the urgency does not stem from any threat to American forces but rather to the fear that the Bush administration is actually going to be vindicated in Iraq and the use of military force as an instrument of foreign policy will be validated. The Left, as they see matters, simply cannot allow this to happen and their only realistic hope at this point is to pressure the United States into quitting the effort before it succeeds.

The situation in Iraq presents a firmer basis for optimism today than it ever has before. The challenges remain great, and failure will continue to be a real possibility for months if not years to come. The greatest danger to success in Iraq now lies on the American home front, in the danger that misrepresentations of Iraqi reality, politically motivated policy demands, and simple fear, exhaustion, and confusion will undermine the commitment necessary to succeed. The other danger is that those who do want to succeed--the Bush administration, CENTCOM--will inadvertently undermine our commitment by continuing mistakenly to emphasize the damage the American presence does to the prospects for success.

The goal of a counterinsurgency is to defeat the insurgents militarily and politically. In the long run, of course, the Iraqis themselves will have to maintain order in their own land. That does not mean that they can defeat this rebellion alone. The U.S. military has capabilities to locate targets, move forces rapidly to their locations, strike them with precision while minimizing collateral damage, and begin reconstruction far beyond anything the Iraqi military will have for a long time. In addition, American soldiers and marines have a much higher level of professionalism and detachment from this struggle. They have been playing a vital role in suppressing the rebellion, and they will have to continue to play that role for the foreseeable future. Continued U.S. military engagement is needed for success in Iraq--success that seems now to be closer than it has ever been--if we hold fast to the sound strategy for victory that has recently emerged, and do not lose our nerve.

Between these selected paragraphs Kagan lays out a series of arguments that everyone interested in what's going on in Iraq will want to read. Somebody at the White House should hire this guy because nobody there seems able to articulate the case this well.

Eternal Recurrence in the Democratic Party

Ed Morrissey has a column at the Daily Standard that certainly lends weight to the adage that history repeats itself. Here are a few nuggets:

The good news for the Democrats is that their leadership has settled on an electoral strategy for 2006. The bad news is that they have cribbed their game plan from one of the most disastrous campaigns in their history. The Democratic leadership has decided to elevate surrender to a party platform for the upcoming elections, with their national chairman, House leader, and last presidential nominee all running up the white flag as the Democratic war banner.

When was the last time that an entire political party stood for backpedaling the way the Democrats have in the past two weeks? Since Rep. John Murtha made his supposedly stunning announcement that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of all troops from Iraq, the Democrats have embraced surrender.

Not even during the Vietnam War did a major American party position itself to support abject retreat as a wartime political platform. For that, one has to go back to the Civil War, when the Democrats demanded a negotiated peace with the Confederate States of America and a withdrawal from the South. Celebrating the popularity of former General George McClellan, who had come from the battlefield to represent a party whose platform demanded a negotiated settlement (which McClellan later disavowed), the Confederates assumed that the war could be over within days of McClellan's presumed victory over the controversial and hated Abraham Lincoln. Even some Republicans began to question whether Lincoln should stand for reelection--until Sherman took Atlanta and exposed McClellan as a defeatist and an incompetent of the first order.

Murtha's demand for a pullout gave the party's leadership a chance to openly embrace defeatism, much as McClellan did for Northern Democrats in 1864, using McClellan's field experience for the credibility to argue that the American Army could not hope to defeat the enemy it faced.

Of course "redeployment" by disengagement with no intent to return to the battlefield has another term in military parlance: full retreat.

More than 140 years after McClellanism first raised its ugly head in the Democratic party, it has returned to drive party descendants into a frenzy of confusion and defeatism. Just as Iraq has begun to establish its democratic structure and its troops have begun to show progress towards organizing for their self-defense, the Democratic leadership is frantically looking for ways to bug out. Not even the courageous voices of Joe Lieberman and Steny Hoyer in opposition to their party leadership appear able to stop the panicked rush of the Democrats to claim defeat as their standard. The distaste of watching the Democratic leaders try to top one another in declaring America the loser in Iraq will convince voters to keep Democratic hands off the levers of national security for the foreseeable future.

Well, at least we should hope so.

The Republicans, inspired by Dennis Hastert's bold call for a vote on an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, have finally roused themselves from their torpor and decided they're tired of being the supine party. These new ads they're launching should be good for a few chuckles.

Got Gold?

From the link:

The dramatic rise in the gold price over the past two weeks caught even the gold bulls by surprise. Many in the slowly growing ranks of gold enthusiasts had been expecting a short-term decline in the gold price, as a punctuation in a long-term rise.

Well, it may be more accurate to say "most of the gold bulls were caught by surprise". I never doubted for a moment that something like this would happen. To me, it was inevitable. Like the sun rising tomorrow.

That gold blew through the $500 mark to $530 and settled at $525 per ounce for the week was simply a confirmation of what I have been saying all along. The world is awash in fiat currency as never before and prudent investors are beginning to react to the fact as any thinking person would.

Sure, gold seems "expensive" now compared to what it was last month or the months before but one needs to consider the bigger picture - the global condition we are in, and if one looks at this thoughtfully, they will realize that the price of gold is going to go much, much higher.

The recent developments are because the people in one country, Japan, have come to this awareness. The article linked above mentions that the last upturn in the gold price was because Europeans came to the same conclusion. Country after country will reach the same point eventually at an accelerated pace and the price of gold will be reflected accordingly.

In 1980, gold was $800 per ounce. Adjusted for inflation, that is approximately $2,300 per ounce today. In other words, gold at $525 is cheap and, as I see it, an incredible bargain. I have droned on in the past about how our government steals the wealth of the citizens through the hidden tax of inflation but there is a "silver lining" to this and that is that since gold is denominated in U.S. dollars, gold becomes a better investment each and every day.

Sure, if you wait for a pullback, you might be able to save $10 - $20 per ounce but there are many people who subscribed to this thinking lately only to end up standing at the station and find the gold train has pulled away without them.

Here we get some insight into the near-term future:

The trend is expected to continue in 2006 too and $850 an ounce is not an impossible level in 12-18 months, say analysts. Physical markets have also been supporting the price rise, a trader said. The physical demand is expected to rise to 3,957 tonne in 2005 from 3,840 tonne in the previous year. Mine production is expected to see a marginal increase to 2,495 tonne from 2,461 tonne.

Gold looks like a "no-brainer" to me.

Gospel? What Gospel?

The creators of the new Narnia movie are either dumb, disingenuous, or they have a very low opinion of the degree of open-mindedness of non-Christians:

Disney's holiday season release of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" is set for this weekend -- and some Christians are worried the media giant is more intent on cashing in on the faithful, rather than sharing the film's Christian message.

The Disney backed film is based on one of C.S. Lewis' "Narnia" books. Lewis was a noted Christian apologist, and his Narnia books have been viewed as religious allegory about the life of Christ. While Disney clearly hopes to tap into the same audience that made Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" a huge box office hit, the same people behind the firm version of "Narnia" are vocal in downplaying its supposed links to Christianity.

"Faith is in the eye of the beholder," declared one of the movie's actresses, Tilda Swinton, who said Lewis' original book is more "spiritual" than religious. "You can make a religious allegory out of anything if that's what you're interested in," she told BBC News.

The $150 million film, made by Walden Media and distributed by Disney, is the story of a struggle between good and evil in the snowy kingdom of Narnia. Four English siblings enter the enchanted land and discover talking animals who await the return of the lion king, Aslan. The inhabitants believe he will free them from the tyranny of Jadis, the White Witch.

Aslan sacrifices himself to save the life of a human boy, or "Son of Adam." He later rises from the dead to lead his troops in a battle against the witch's forces. But the film's director, Andrew Adamson, also has pooh-poohed the idea that the allegory reveals Christ's resurrection, saying that concept is a common theme in the fantasy genre.

"The religious aspect is something the press is more interested in than the world at large," he told the BBC. Said "Narnia's" producer, Mark Johnson: "When I read the book as a child, I accepted it as a pure adventure story. It never occurred to me Aslan was anything more than a great lion" rather than a Christ figure.

"Christian themes were very important to C.S. Lewis and imbued everything he did, but he himself denied any religious implications."

Despite those comments from the movie's creators, the film has already received pledges of support from evangelical groups in the United States, many of whom say Lewis - who wrote seven books in the "Narnia" series - did create the story as an allegory about the life of Jesus.

Reportedly, elementary schoolchildren and teenagers in Bible study groups are booking theaters to see the PG-rated movie, which opens Friday. "We believe that God will speak the gospel of Jesus Christ through this film," said Lon Allison, director of Illinois' Billy Graham Center.

But a Hollywood insider who has dealt with Disney's marketing executives told NewsMax that the media giant has had great apprehension promoting the film to Christian groups and has done so only in a low-key manner. "Disney is loathing the idea that the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or a preacher like Jerry Falwell will actively promote the film. They want the Christian community's money, but not their viewpoint," the source said.

Last year, Hollywood witnessed the Christian zeal for Gibson's "Passion" movie, which has grossed anywhere from $400 million to more than $600 million worldwide, depending on the source. The producers of "Narnia" have generated advance buzz among Christians by showing previews to Christian leaders, preachers and evangelical organization, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

USA Today asked: "Is the world created by C.S. Lewis a rip-roaring piece of fantasy - or a fairy tale suffused with Christian imagery? "The answer is both, and that raises a related question: Can Disney succeed by selling the movie on two tracks - as a sort of cross between 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Passion of the Christ'? If so, 'Narnia' figures to be a holiday blockbuster."

Said producer Johnson: "We're not selling the movie to any particular group. With a movie this size, we're trying to sell it to everybody." Put another way, Disney would like to sell "Narnia" minus Christ - but still have Christians pay the bill.

Let's see. The most famous Christian apologist of the twentieth century writes dozens of books and essays on Christian themes both subtle and overt. He also writes a series of books in which a lion dies for the "son of Adam", comes back to life, and leads the forces of good in a final conflict against evil. But this should not be seen as Christian imagery according to the actress, producer and director. Right. And Star Wars should not be seen as a movie about intergalactic conflict. Next thing they'll be telling us that the Bible should not be seen as carrying any particular religious significance.

The creators of the movie are so afraid to state the obvious for fear that they'll alienate potential viewers among secularist bigots. Nor do they wish to turn off the Jewish audience by showing a movie that has Christian themes. It's a good thing for film and literature that Christians aren't as religiously xenophobic nor as philistine as non-Christians are apparently thought to be by the Disney folks. If they were, Chaim Potok would never have produced a best-seller and Fiddler on the Roof would've flopped.

For more commentary on Narnia see the 12/9 edition of National Review Online, especially the column by Catherine Seipp who catalogs some excruciatingly silly examples of PC carping about the movie.

All The Left Has Left

Why does the Left fear free speech? Once again the port-side brown-shirts have tried to shout down a conservative speaker on a college campus. This behavior seems to be pretty much exclusively a tactic of the Left which has swung 180 degrees from it's Berkeley free-speech days in the '60's. Today it's the Left which preaches tolerance of diversity but which cannot tolerate open discussion of opinions which differ from their own. It's the Left which decries hate-speech while constantly practicing it. It's the Left which has attacked campus speakers with pies, shoes, obscenities, and insults throughout the past year. It's primarily the Left which frequently abandons all pretense of civility and courtesy in our public discourse.

They have to do this, perhaps, because they understand that it's the only way they have a chance of prevailing in the struggle of ideas. They realize that their nostrums and policies cannot compete with those of conservatives in an open, polite forum. They intuitively recognize the intellectual blandness and bankruptcy of what they have to offer, so their only hope for success is to suppress the competition. When you don't have a compelling argument you raise your voice and shout down or drown out your opponent. That's the only recourse that the Left has left and every time they resort to it they announce to the world that their ideological cupboard is bare.

Iraqi Political Landscape

Pajamas Media has a special report from Iraq the Model's Mohammed who offers a good overview of the political lay of the land in Iraq as next week's national elections approach.

Curiouser and Curiouser

We noted a few days ago that Kansas University's Paul Mirecki, the atheist who headed the religious studies department, had planned on teaching a course on "Creationism, Intelligent Design and Other Mythologies" until e-mails were uncovered in which he used insulting language to describe his potential students. Since then he's lost his position as head of the department and now he's claiming to have been beaten severely by a couple of toughs in a pick-up truck along a lonely road. The attackers made it clear, he maintains, that the beating was in retribution for his contemptuous views on intelligent design.

Well, the fundamental premise here sounds highly dubious. The number of people likely to stalk a university professor and beat him "to within an inch of his life" because of his views on ID seems to us to be asymptotically close to zero. Such thugs are not usually conversant with the term "intelligent design" or the debate between ID and Darwinism, much less do they give a rip about it, so we have our suspicions.

So, evidently, does Michelle Malkin who has done the legwork and has the whole story, so far as it's known at this point, here. Take a look and see whether you don't think Mirecki's story smells just a wee bit fishy.

Fundamentalist Sumbitches

William Dembski posts Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga's well-known discourse on the definition of "fundamentalist" found in his Warranted Christian Belief:

We must first look into the use of this term 'fundamentalist'. On the most common contemporary academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like 'son of a bitch', more exactly 'sonovabitch', or perhaps still more exactly (at least according to those authorities who look to the Old West as normative on matters of pronunciation) 'sumbitch'. When the term is used in this way, no definition of it is ordinarily given. (If you called someone a sumbitch, would you feel obliged first to define the term?) Still, there is a bit more to the meaning of 'fundamentalist' (in this widely current use): it isn't simply a term of abuse. In addition to its emotive force, it does have some cognitive content, and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative theological views. That makes it more like 'stupid sumbitch' (or maybe 'fascist sumbitch'?) than 'sumbitch' simpliciter.

It isn't exactly like that term either, however, because its cognitive content can expand and contract on demand; its content seems to depend on who is using it. In the mouths of certain liberal theologians, for example, it tends to denote any who accept traditional Christianity, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Barth; in the mouths of devout secularists like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, it tends to denote anyone who believes there is such a person as God. The explanation is that the term has a certain indexical element: its cognitive content is given by the phrase 'considerably to the right, theologically speaking, of me and my enlightened friends.' The full meaning of the term, therefore (in this use), can be given by something like 'stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are considerably to the right of mine'.

Of course a fundamentalist is one who emphasizes and remains loyal to the basics, the fundamentals, of his craft or his convictions and is loath to be cajoled away from them. In that sense, there are fundamentalists in every endeavor, and in every ideological, political, and religious quarter. Since the word has pejorative connotations, however, it's used frequently by people who are given to the use of polemical abuse as a way of insulting people who are conservative in their religious or political views without having to resort to calling them a sumbitch.

Grounding Natural Rights

Carlos Alberto Montaner considers himself to be an agnostic but he nevertheless writes an essay whose point is that God is a sine qua non of moral judgment, a theme we have often written about ourselves here at Viewpoint. Montaner argues that human rights are contingent upon a transcendent moral authority and that if there is no such entity the whole notion and discussion of rights, as well as, we might add, right and wrong themselves, are little more than subjective blathering about personal preferences and arbitrary tastes.

Here are two paragraphs from Montaner's column:

The whole philosophical and juridical structure that supports liberal democracy hinges on the existence of a superior being from whom emanate the ''natural rights'' that protect individuals from the actions of the state or from the will of other people. If the premise of God's existence disappears, the theory of the existence of natural rights is automatically eliminated and the door is flung open to all kinds of abuses.

It's just that simple. If there are no natural rights, it may be acceptable to enslave prisoners, discriminate against women and execrate foreigners or homosexuals. All that's required is a decision by a legitimate source of power, such as a majority in numbers, for instance, or a group of notable and petulant wise men.

And, of course, if there is no God then there is no such thing as a natural right. Everyone would have the "right" to do whatever he or she has the power to do. Might would make right. If right is not grounded in something objective and transcendent, it simply doesn't exist other than as a matter of mere personal predilection.

You can read the rest of Montaner's article here.

Iconoclasm

Some readers may be familiar with Jonathan Wells and his book Icons of Evolution which drove the Darwinists into paroxysms of vein-popping rage. It was a good book.

The web site Intelligent Design: The Future is running Wells' response to his critics. Part I is up, and if you've never read it before and you're interested in the sorry legacy of Darwinian duplicity in high school biology textbooks, you might wish to check it out.

Total Depravity

Michelle Malkin notes how the fine human beings at Democratic Underground are responding to the news of Margaret Thatcher's failing health. It's hard to believe that people could sink as deep into the sewer as some of the people at that site who consider themselves compassionate, humane, and sophisticated liberals. If this is what liberalism and liberals have become then it's time to start treating liberals like the moral basket-cases they keep showing themselves to be and ostracize them completely from our political discourse.

If you have the stomach to visit the link be sure to scroll down through the comments to get a real sense of the degeneracy that resides on the left. It'll make you a convert to the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity.

And then there's Pat Oliphant, perhaps the most untalented, unfunny, immature political cartoonist, after Ted Rall, to disgrace the pages of our national newspapers. It astonishes me that any paper carries this guy. Does anyone who has attained adulthood think he's anything but an insipid, juvenile sleaze merchant?

Terrorists' Dream, America's Nightmare

We have written on this subject before, but it bears repeating. The most horrifying threat we face today is a single blast from a nuclear weapon detonated at high altitude over the North American mainland. Here's why:

EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse) is produced by atmospheric detonation of a nuclear device. The nuclear explosion sends out a spike of electromagnetic pulse - a wave - that shocks electronics and creates electrical currents in the earth. Effects are direct and indirect. The electrical devices themselves are rendered inoperable. This begins what the Commission report calls "unprecedented cascading failures of major infrastructures." In other words, if a power grid is fried, then systems depending on that power grid: lighting, water purification and delivery, communications, banking, hospitals, emergency - all these and more are affected. If the initial explosion is large enough, the Commission concludes, "the degradation of infrastructure could have irreversible effects on the country's ability to support its population."

This means mass starvation because food deliveries cease, urban deaths by dehydration as water systems fail, collapse of medical systems, breakdown of police functions, ineffectiveness of firefighters, loss of bank records, inability to move physically other than by foot, and a return of America to a "pre-industrial age" state. Americans who live in rural environments might survive. The larger the cities and the more densely populated they are, the greater the probability of mass death. An EMP attack, in other words, could be many times worse than nuclear explosions at ground level that intend to use explosive force to kill. Such an attack is indeed a terrorist's dream - and an American nightmare.

It's not like we're just learning about EMP. Soviet and American nuclear scientists first discovered this effect during atmospheric testing in the early 1960s. An American detonation, Starfish, over Johnson Island, had the unpredicted side effect of knocking out street lights, alarms, and power generation facilities in Oahu almost 100 miles distant. As recently as 1995, a Russian general threatened EMP attack during raucous negotiations with US representatives, noting that it "would only take one" weapon to knock out America.

Technically, a large enough weapon detonated at 75-400 kilometers above the US would induce serious EMP damage. The larger the weapon and the higher the detonation, the greater the circle of damage emanating from it. Only a single large weapon detonating over mid-America could permanently cripple the country. The result would be direct and indirect deaths of millions of Americans and the transformation of the US in an eye-blink to a pre-19th century environment.

So why is this a terrorist threat? Isn't EMP attack something that would come from a more sophisticated country, one, like Russia or China, that stands to lose as much as we do by such actions? And should we more properly worry about suitcase nucs and such from terrorists? The alarming answer is that delivery of an EMP weapon requires less than state-of-the-art technology. A rocket simply has to carry a nuclear payload to altitude and detonate it. Aiming can be very general, unlike targeting an installation or even a city. Alarmingly, such missiles exist, engineered by North Korea and sold to countries like Iran, Syria, and - we fear - soon to Venezuela.

The missiles do not have to be launched from land. They could, with rather conventional engineering modifications, be launched from the deck of a freighter off-shore from the American coastline. Terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda already possess a modest fleet of merchant ships. Both Iran and North Korea are furiously working to develop deliverable nuclear weapons. In the opinion of many, it is not a matter of if we are attacked by EMP but when. America has a surfeit of capable enemies - communists, dictators, and terrorists - and they form a deadly connection committed to our demise.

How do we stop this threat? There is no simple answer. America does not possess anti-missile capability of significance. If a Navy Aegis-class ship was in the neighborhood it might be able to intercept the terrorist missile attack. But to rely on such serendipitous circumstances to protect this country is madness. We could harden our infrastructure and try to protect against EMP attack, but because of magnitude that would be a futile undertaking.

The only sure defense, as General George Patton said is a "good offense." And, he concluded, "the quality of that offense depends on the warlike souls of those conducting it." As a country we need to make certain that we have sufficient steel in our backbones to take on and to defeat the threat from Islamofascists and rogue states before they are able to launch a missile at this country. In short, we need to change our mentality from that of complacent peacetime and assume an aggressive War Footing. And we need to do so before our enemies can exploit our weakness.

For more info go here and click on "view video." While you're watching it bear in mind that Iran is currently building two nuclear reactors that will enable them to produce nuclear weapons.

The Iranians simply can't be permitted to develop the capability of destroying the United States with a single strike. If they have it they will surely use it. I think President Bush and his team understand this. I doubt very much if the Democrats do.