A guest article re:parking

(The Rev. Know-it-all is making a trek to the north woods. In his place a pastor addresses a local situation.)

Friends,

I have been asked if we are going to share the parking lot with our new neighbors, the  Al Suffah mosque. No, we are not. The Episcopalian church at 8201 Karlov Avenue had been for sale for quite a while. One morning, I saw someone taking down the for sale sign. I asked the fellow taking down the sign to whom the building had been sold. He said that he really would rather not say.

I said,” Oh, you sold it to Muslims.”

He said again, “I really can’t say.”

I then said, “I’m the pastor across the street.”

He brightened and said, “Oh, then I can tell you. Yes, we sold it to Muslims and I’ve wanted to talk to you about letting them use your parking lot.”

I said, “That will never happen.”  

Suffah Educational Guidance (School) and Masjid (Mosque) was formerly located in a rental property on Devon Ave. in Chicago. It is not originally a local congregation. Why would they purchase a facility that had no parking? I can only surmise that they assumed, or were told, that they would be able to use the large parking lot at St. Lambert’s. I was never consulted about the situation; it seems the whole transaction was rather secret.

I suspect that the realtor assured the buyers that they would be able to use the parking lot. I also suspect that the Muslim community had no idea that the people who had sold them the church were a different group than the members of St. Lambert’s. They told members of our staff that they had good relations with the diocese. They were surprised to learn that the Episcopal diocese is not the same as the Catholic archdiocese. If the building was sold as including parking, or even hinting that a deal had been made with St. Lambert’s that would seem to me to be fraud. It makes no sense that a congregation based in Chicago would purchase a facility here without parking included.

Parishioners, staff and neighbors have been approached by members of the mosque to ask about the parking lot. I had a brief e-mail correspondence with a member of the masjid staff, in which I said that I would be interested in dialogue, but collaboration was not possible unless I could agree with the aims of the school and mosque. I have managed a lot of parking lots in my life as a priest. I have actually had to go to parking lots to arbitrate fights and direct traffic while still wearing vestments.

 When a parking lot is open to shared use, it becomes the property of no one, and all feel they have rights to it, but have no responsibilities for it. To allow someone the use of the parking lot is to take on a legal liability and an insurance liability. Even if disclaimers are posted and waivers are signed, a decent lawyer can overturn them and drag things out in court for months. No one has permission to use St. Lambert’s parking lot, except on church business. Two large congregations simply cannot share the same space. Even if someone says, it will only be occasionally, it will inevitably become the mosque’s regular parking lot. We need to know exactly who is in our lot and why. When neighbors stake out territory and there are a 5 or 10 extra cars in the lot regularly, we find that odd things start happening. Drug dealers start meeting in the lot because among all those cars they have some anonymity.

I remember at another parish having to regularly clean up used condoms and syringes from the lot. No one worried about a few extra cars, no one except me. This was starting to happen here at St. Lambert’s, but because we were on it right away it stopped. For the good of the neighborhood, I refuse to lose control of the lot.  These are the practical reasons for my decision.  There are other reasons that, for me, are perhaps more important.

Suffah is an interesting word.  In the far end of the mosque in Medina there was a suffah, a raised platform for sitting or reclining at the north end of the mosque. This is where Muhammad and his companions met as exiles from Mecca.

The English word sofa is derived from suffah. So in effect the name of our new neighbors is “Masjid e Suffah,” means the mosque of the sofa, and perhaps implies that its members are the close companions of Muhammad in a new and strange land.  The new mosque on Karlov is more than a mosque. It’s a “hifz” school. Urdu is the common language of Pakistan and a number of northern Indian states. Hifz is the Urdu word for rote memorization.  From the literature I could find on the web the purpose of the school includes introducing young people to Muslim tradition, to train young Muslims in the memorization of Quran and in the implementation of its principles. Frankly, there are some Islamic principles that I find questionable.

I have a hard time with the Quranic injunctions regarding women. For instance, regarding inheritance: (Qur'an 4:11) "The male shall have the equal of the portion of two females."  Regarding divorce: “And due to the wives is similar to what is expected of them, according to what is reasonable. But the men have a degree over them.” (Qur'an 2:228) regarding legal testimony (Qur'an 2:282) "And call to witness, from among your men, two witnesses. And if two men be not found then a man and two women.”  The veiling of women seems to be demanded by Quran 33 59 “O Prophet! Tell to your wives, and daughters and Muslim women, that they should keep putting a part of their wrapping covers over their faces.”  The most startling is An-Nisa 4:34 “Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has made one of them to excel the other, and because they spend from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in the husband's absence what Allah orders them to guard. As to those women on whose part you see ill-conduct, admonish them, refuse to share their beds, beat them but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means. Surely, Allah is Ever Most High, Most Great.” 

Modern Muslim apologists say that the context of the verb “daraba” is shun or advise, but in his farewell sermon Muhammad would seem to indicate otherwise. “Allah permits you to shut them in separate rooms and to beat them, but not severely. If they abstain from [evil], they have the right to their food and clothing in accordance with the custom. Treat women well, for they are [like] domestic animals with you and do not possess anything for themselves”.

 Beyond the Quran, in the sayings of Muhammad we read, “Umar ibn al-Khattab told that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said, ‘A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife.” (Sunan Abu Dawoud 11:2142)

If you think I am making this up, or exaggerating it, look it up for yourself. Do a web search for “How to beat your wife, YouTube”. I dare you to do it. You will find videos discussing the virtue of moderate wife beating. If you think I am impolite or intolerant to mention this, you are a fool. Your wanting it not to be true changes nothing. I cannot in good conscience help a school where young men will be taught that under, certain circumstances, women should be beaten. I just can’t do it.

Two more verses in the Quran trouble me. Surah 3:28 teaches, “Let not the believers take the unbelievers for friends rather than believers…but you should guard yourselves against them, guarding carefully.”  In Islamic law the doctrine of kitman (secrecy or, concealment) is part of ‘iyal, the art of deception. To make ambiguous statements, to pay lip-service to authority is perfectly acceptable in Islam. One is even expected to conceal one's religion when it is to the advantage of Islam or when the individual Muslim facing persecution. This is called “taqiyya.” No Muslim owes an infidel the truth when it comes to matters religious.

If you have a Muslim friend, he is either not a very good Muslim or not a very good friend. Close friendship with non-Muslims is forbidden. No matter how polite or friendly, a good Muslim should not let a non-Muslim into his deepest confidence. 

"Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful" Quran 9:5

It is the goal of the orthodox Muslim to enforce Islamic law, sharia, on the entire world. Under Islamic law, we Christians, Jews and one or two other religions may practice our religion privately, provided we pay a special tax. When we pay the tax we must be made to feel that we are subjects. We are to be humiliated. Atheists, Hindus, Wiccans, Shintoist, Daoist, practitioners of any folk religion or nature worship, anyone who is not in a “religion of the book” must convert to Islam or be killed.

One more verse, "Bedizen not yourselves with the bedizenment of the Time of Ignorance.” 33.33 (al-Ahzab) There are only two eras in Islam, the time of Islam and the time of darkness. Muslims have a reputation for scientific advancement in the middle ages. The case can be made that many of the Muslim advances in art, architecture and science were the product of the conquered Non-Muslim people among them. Whether or not that is fact the door to science slammed shut around the year 1100 when the Islamic jurist Muhammad al-Ghazali rejected Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and other Greek thinkers because they were infidels. He taught that natural law is a restraint on Allah, and thus could not exist.  All things are caused by the sovereign will of Allah, and thus are not the result of natural processes.

Most of the Islamic world accepted al-Ghazali’s teachings and his view that the sciences are pointless and even unlawful. In Islamic law all forms of human art are discouraged except calligraphy and the use of Quran verses as ornamentation. Wahhabism, the strict form of Islam practice in Saudi Arabia, and the inspiration for the current Islamic movements advocates a return to the primitive life of seventh century Arabia, and absolute Sharia. There is nothing worthwhile beyond Quran and the will of Allah, and thus art and science and the use of reason are pointless. Music is discouraged as well as non-Quranic study except for the sake of the advancement of Islam. My entire culture should be dissolved. Goodbye to Mozart, Michelangelo, the great Buddhas of Bamiyam, and the treasures of the Louvre. Even grape vines must be uprooted by the true believer because wine is evil. (Qur'an 5:90) Goodbye to the Napa valley, Au revoir to the vineyards of Bordeaux.

I will not cooperate with an institution that by teaching Quran, if I understand correctly, hopes to teach young men to limit the freedom of women and to beat them on occasion, holds that under certain circumstance it is proper to deceive me, that wants to take away my freedoms as an American citizen and to subject me to its legal code or kill me, and wants to eradicate my culture and my way of life and my religion. 

Added to all this, we are a congregation that includes Arab, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians who have fled Islamic initiated violence. We are a congregation whose members are Africans, Filipinos, and people from Sri Lanka and India all of whose countries of origin are suffering or have suffered conflict with Muslims. Why would I want to help a school that teaches anyone to memorize Quran and to use it as a guide for their lives?

Rev. Richard T. Simon

Letter to Hiram “Hi” Horst - postcript

A Postscript to the Letter to Hiram “Hi” Horst:

Just to be fair, let’s take a look at all the smiting and crusading that has gone on in the name of the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, and of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, whom I firmly believe to be His Son.

In the Old Testament there were quite a few wars of extermination, none of which were very large or very successful.  The Lord drove “out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you-…. you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy (Deut 7:1-3). The Amelekites were also on the divine hit list. Why did God have such a thing about Amelikites, Girgashites and Jebusites etc.? Simple. They did things that were detestable to the Lord such as child sacrifice and witchcraft.

“When you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, …or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD; and because of these detestable things the LORD your God will drive them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God. For those nations, which you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice witchcraft and to diviners, but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do so.” (Deuteronomy 18:9ff)

God doesn’t seem to have cleared the land out to make a place for Israel, but rather seems to have raised up Israel in order to end the abominations of these child murdering, spell casting nations. He makes the point that if the Israelites take up the practices of these nations they will receive the same treatment. 

 “It shall come about if you ever forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish. Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so you shall perish; because you would not listen to the voice of the LORD your God.”  (Deuteronomy 8:19-20)

So, how many people perished in this proto-jihad? Probably not a lot. These were small hill country city states. It is generous to estimate their numbers at 20,000 each. So the Canaanites amounted at most to a population of about 100,000 to 150,000 people most probably. Add to that Israelites’ failure to do a very good job at exterminating. It was an Amalekite who helped King Saul commit suicide and later King David bought the site of the temple that his son would eventually build from Araunah the Jebusite (2Sam.24:18-21).

Remember that David conquered the Jebusite city of Jerusalem around 1,000BC two or three centuries after the Lord had commanded the Israelites to exterminate them. Even then, David didn’t do much exterminating or smiting. He bought real estate from them! I bet that not much more than a handful actually perished.  More likely having similar languages and culture, Israelite probably married into the Canaanites and therein was the problem. They gave in to polytheism and some kings of Israel actually practiced child sacrifice in the worship of Canaanite gods. The Lord, faithful to His promise, exiled them from the land.  A lot less smiting probably went on than one would be led to believe from the text. On to Christianity!

First came the attempt by Emperors of Constantinople to enforce orthodoxy in the Empire in the fourth century to the sixth century. Probably fewer than 1,000 perished. Second, the Emperor Charlemagne’s attempt to convert the Saxons by force, also called the Massacre of Verden. Maybe 5,000 killed. Third, the Crusades! Much of the Middle East was thoroughly Christian in the year 600. That’s 500 years of Christianity.

When the Muslim Arabs charged out of the Arabian Peninsula around 650 AD, they occupied Christian lands and limited freedom of religion. At first Islam was not too restrictive, but by 900 AD the pressure to convert to Islam intensified. In 1009, Caliph al-Hakim began an intense persecution of Christians and Jews in the Holy Land, forbidding pilgrimage and destroying all Christian churches including the church of the Holy Sepulcher. The crusades were a response to the renewed persecution of Holy Land Christians and the encroachment of Islam on the Christian Romano-byzantine Empire, Pope Urban called for a war to liberate the Christian majority population of the Middle East, having been asked to do so by the Byzantine government. There followed a succession of very limited, poorly run and mostly unsuccessful wars
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The People’s Crusade started in 1096, in response to the pope’s call, 20,000 people started marching east despite the pope’s telling them this is not what he had in mind. All but 3,000 were slaughtered by the Muslim Turks in western Turkey.

2) The First crusade, also in 1096, actually succeeded in capturing Antioch and Jerusalem and establishing a Crusader state. Unfortunately it was also the occasion of first outbreak of major anti-Semitic violence in Europe. The crusaders along with mobs killed thousands of Jews, especially in the Rhine valley, on their way to the embarkation points in southern Europe.

3) The Second crusade in 1187 was meant to shore up the crusader domains as they started to fall to Muslim encroachment.

4) The Third crusade in 1189 was a response to Saladin’s retaking of Jerusalem in that year. Richard the second of England, the “Lion Hearted” failed in his attempt to conquer Saladin and retake Jerusalem for the Christians.

5) The 4th crusade called for in 1198 never even reached the Holy Land. It was sidetracked to Constantinople, the capital of the dwindling Romano Byzantine Empire at the insistence of the doge of Venice against the wishes of the pope. 

The Byzantines had recently slaughtered all the Latin Christians in the city and Venice was out for revenge. It’s a complicated story. In early 1171 the Venetians destroyed most of the Genoese trading colony in Constantinople. The Byzantine Emperor retaliated by arresting all of Venetians throughout the Empire and seizing their assets. One thing led to another and eventually all the Italians in Constantinople, perhaps 60,000 Venetians, Pisans and Genoese were slaughtered and around 4,000 were sold as slaves. So the venetians sidetracked the 4th Crusade to Constantinople which was captured and was sacked. The city never really recovered from the attack. In lamenting the 4th crusade, the slaughter of the Italians is never mentioned for some reason. 

6) Likewise, the Fifth crusade 1213-1221) was a complete flop and never even made it to the Holy Land
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7) The Sixth crusade (1228) managed to get to the Holy Land. No actual battles were fought and a peace treaty allowed the crusaders to rule the Christian parts of Jerusalem. This happy compromise ended in 1244, when Jerusalem was sacked by the Islamic Khwarezmian Tartars, who decimated the city's Christian population drove out the Jews.

And finally, the 7th, 8th and 9th crusades (1248-1272) accomplished nothing to speak of and after the death of St. Louis, crusading king of France, in North Africa in 1270 the crusades to regain the Holy Land ended.

There were a lot of incidental crusades during the era including the recon quest of Spain, from 718 to 1492. Spain had been conquered by the Muslim in 712 and had reached central France when they were finally turned back. There was also the Wendish crusade against the pagan Slavic Wends in Germany (1147). There were northern crusades to subdue the fierce pagan Lithuanians who make really good potato kugelis and bacon buns.

There was the crusade against the Albigensians who on the other hand didn’t approve of eating at all in 1208. All these wars killed about 3 million people over the course of around 200 years, not counting the length of the crusade in Spain which lasted on and off for 700 years. Compare this to the 3 million estimated killed in only 8 and a half months in Bengal as the Pakistani government tried to put down an independence movement in what is now Bangladesh and to cleanse the country of all Hindus and other non-Muslims. It’s as if the crusaders weren’t really trying.

It is curious that people can wrap their minds around the defense of home, family and country, but not the defense of religious and intellectual liberty. The crusades are always said to be a disaster and a failure. I’m not so sure.

The Crusades stopped the seemingly unstoppable advance of the armies of Islam and rolled back the Islamicization of large parts of the world. The territory of 12 or 13 modern countries, Russia, India, Greece and all the Balkan countries as well as Spain, southern France, Sicily, southern Italy and the Philippines were all under Muslim domination at one point but are not at the current time. Even in the Holy Land we Christians currently have the right of pilgrimage and Christian control of the Christian shrines, which was all we were really after in the first place. We have managed thus far to keep Europe a continent where Christians are more or less free to publicly practice their faith.

The last serious attempt to break into Europe by a Muslim Army was the second siege of Vienna on September 11, 1683. Europe was saved by a hairsbreadth when Jan Sobieski, King of Poland rode to the rescue just in the nick of time.  This last nearly successful attempt by Muslim armies to conquer Europe was a little more than 3 centuries before September 11, 2001 (also known as 9-11). Both September 11ths are just two salvos in a war that has never really stopped since the Al-Is Caravan raid ordered by Muhammad in 623, or Year One of the Muslim era. 

Just a week before this writing, the revived Caliphate (ISIS) posted “We are coming, O Rome, we are coming with slaughter!” The crusades were a success after all, though tragic mistakes were made. They succeeded in stopping and even turning back the Islamic military juggernaut. 

​Who will stop them this time?

Rev. Know-it-all

Thoughts on Prayer Breakfast - part 3

Continued from last week

Scroll down a few centuries to 1398 and we find Timur destroying the city of Delhi, but before the battle, Timur executed more than 100,000 captives from the city of Tulamba. A century later, Timur’s descendant, Babur, founded the Mogul dynasty that ruled most of India as a Muslim domain until 1862.

Certainly such wholesale slaughters are a thing of the past! Look again. In 1971 well after independence and the partition of India, West Pakistan tried to stamp out an independence movement in East Pakistan by initiating a crackdown on Bangladesh’s aspirations for independence. Pakistani military and supporting militias killed as many as 3,000,000 people and raped as many as 400,000 Bangladeshi women. One million fled to India. This is admittedly political violence, but can you conceive of a current western army raping 400,000 women?

These are certainly not isolated incidents. Just three months before this writing, in November 2014, Jihadists killed around 5,000 people in Syria, Africa and elsewhere, according to best estimates. THAT’S FIVE THOUSAND (5,000) IN ONE MONTH.  ONE MONTH!!! A good rule of thumb is that Muslim armies and individuals kill 170 people a day in obedience to what they claim is the command of God. There are about 25 wars currently raging; 21 involve Muslims. These things are all easily verifiable. Look it up. Let’s look at the score.

There has been only one Islamic war against the rest of the world. It has lasted 1,400 years. In the 1,400 years of continuous Jihad 80 million Hindus, 60 million Christians, 10 million Buddhists and 120 million Africans have perished for a grand Islamic total of 270 million.

In the Crusades 1096 - 1272, perhaps 3 million died. That’s it,  3,000,000 in 2,000 years. These are the only wars waged by Christians as religious wars against non-Christians. The other wars of Christianity have been mostly directed against fellow Christians and have been largely political.  In the peasants’ revolt in reformation Germany approximately 150,000.  In the Thirty Years war between German Protestants and German Catholics, maybe 6 million died. The French wars of religion killed just short of 3 million. In the English Puritan war against fellow Protestant and the Catholics of Ireland (1642–1651) about 700,000 died and let’s throw in the witch burnings for good measure (about 50,000 in the 1600’s) and the ever popular Spanish Inquisition which comes in at a disappointing 3,000 in the four centuries of its existence between 1478 and 1834. Incidentally the Spanish Inquisition burned almost no witches. They mostly thought it was nonsense. (I have not included the Indigenous American Holocaust in the total. It is impossible to sort out the horrific death toll, but the vast majority of it was due to disease brought by European contact with indigenous Americans who had no resistance to European disease. It can be argued that, in most cases, in Latin America, Catholic missionaries struggled to save the indigenous populations from economic and political oppression. The same cannot be said of English speaking America. So the death toll of all Christian religious wars whether waged against non-Christians or fellow Christians comes to a grand total of 12,953,000.

So, by the numbers it seems that Islam is 20 times more violent than Christianity.  I am not trying to say that we Christians, having the lower score have won as if in a horrific game of golf. I am horrified that almost 13 million people have been killed to defend a religion that had no armies and fought no wars for its first four centuries. These numbers horrify me because I am a Christian and I deplore unnecessary violence.  The Gospel of Christ was spread very successfully by an evangelism that involved preaching, teaching, exorcisms and charismatic healings. Violence was abhorrent to the first followers of Jesus and was never part of the first spreading of the Gospel. It was most certainly NOT abhorrent to the first followers of Mohammed. Religiously motivated violence seems integral to the development of Islam. Muhammad had about 100 followers until he took up the sword in Medina to spread his new faith.

I resent being told that Christianity is as violent as Islam. It just isn’t true. Muhammad was a conqueror. Jesus was a carpenter. I suspect that non-Muslim apologists for Islam say what they wish were true, as if saying it made it so. When will we stop kidding ourselves?

Rev. Know-it-all

P.S. As to the general horribleness of the human species I refer you to:  “Rev. Know-it-all “Isn't religion the reason for war?”

Next week: a handy guide to Christian wars of religion

Thoughts on the President's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast

A very sincere warning: Some will find this offensive and Islamophobic. Facts are not phobic. Facts fear nothing. They simply are. If you find this offensive, I implore you, refute it. If you think it untrue, research it. I would be happy to be wrong about these things.

I had a friend named Alex von Doernberg. I was twice a guest in his home. He enjoyed speaking English with American and British visitors to his castle, Burg Herzberg. He was the descendant of Junker Hans von Doernberg, the man who took charge of our town in Germany after a shooting war between two bishops in 1465. The 20th century Von Doernberg, my friend died in 1983. He had lived a long life as a Hessian nobleman, a hereditary baron under the Kaiser, then he had been part of the Weimar government after the first world war where he learned his craft as a German jurist, diplomat and, after joining the SS, as Head of Protocol Department of the Foreign Office from 1938 to 1945. His English was perfect and he put it to good use as Von Ribbentrop’s adjutant in London. He became a member of the SS in order to continue at his post in the German diplomatic corps. He testified at the Nuremberg trials for the prosecution and the war was a distant memory by the time I met him. I got to know him because he always liked to talk to Americans.

He had served at the German embassy in Washington DC in 1926. Von Doernberg with his splendid English helped make British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain more pliable during the negotiations over the Munich Agreement. In August 1939, he accompanied Ribbentrop to Moscow to sign the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Convincing Chamberlain that German intentions were good and reasonable was the work of my friend, Alexander von Doernberg. The refusal to see past the sweet words and urbanity of my friend convinced the world that Hitler had nothing but the best of intentions. People like that surly, difficult, unattractive Winston Churchill would have none of it. Regarding the Munich Agreement, Churchill told the English Parliament, “England has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame, and will get war.”

Chamberlain’s good intentions paved the way for the next big accomplishment of my friend the baron. In August 1939, he accompanied Ribbentrop to Moscow to sign the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact by which Stalin and Hitler carved up Europe and untold millions were consigned to violent deaths. Our world was devastated by the Nazi horror of the last century, followed by the tyranny of Marxism. The death toll of these two anti-Christian movements was somewhere around 300 million. 

My friend, the Baron von Doernberg was a delightful man; polished, polite and well educated. I was glad to be counted as his friend and to have been his guest I imagine that Neville Chamberlain was just as delightful. Churchill was a disagreeable, ugly, little man who wore as little clothing as possible and smoked a big stinking cigar. Definitely the Baron von Doernberg was the nicer fellow. Nonetheless he was one of the handful of men at the center of the storm that swept away Europe and the culture of the West. For the sake of niceness, Chamberlain, von Ribbentrop and von Doernberg had hands that dripped with the blood millions. The moral of the story is, as I have heard from a great American philosopher, “Better a Churchill than a Chamberlain.”

Dear Rev. Know-it-all,

I have just read President Obama’s speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, the speech criticized by so many non-believing Christians. To my mind it is perhaps the most moving and meaningful speech since Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream…”  It is a true call to what faith in God is about, no matter our religion or lack of it. It is a call to live up to the promise of our country. This speech has made me an Obama fan and, hopefully, a more humble believer in our loving God.

Yours,

Hiram “Hi” Horst

Dear Hiram,

Yes it was quite a speech. The President reminded us that we have been just as violent as Muslims. Allow me to quote his text: 

“We see sectarian war in Syria, the murder of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, religious war in the Central African Republic…. Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”

Herein I think we see some assumptions. Unspeakable things have admittedly been done by Christians for revenge, for profit and for a host of ungodly reasons, but have any of these things ever been done at the behest of Jesus of Nazareth? 

The 4th crusade in which the Venetians got the Franks et al. to divert their expedition to the Holy Land in order to conquer the Byzantine-Roman capital, Constantinople in 1202 was certainly shameful and denounced by the pope in Rome as such. The attack was, in part, revenge for the Massacre of the Latins in which the citizens of Constantinople killed as many as 50,000 western Christians in 1182 (look it up.) 

Was this done in the name of Christ who said, “Turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39) and “Love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44)? If you listen to the Prince of Peace, Jesus of Nazareth, you don’t take revenge, though you may possibly defend the weak. 

On the other hand, regarding religiously inspired violence, Muhammad, the prophet of Islam said, or Allah said through him in the Quran, “…slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush.” Quran 9:5

If you are listening to Jesus of Nazareth then aggression and violence are forbidden to you.  Perhaps you have read some verses that seem to favor non-Muslims in the Quran. To understand them in their context you need to know about “abrogation.” This Islamic doctrine holds that the later verses of the Quran, cancel out earlier verses that seem to contradict them. It is as if Allah broke the hard truths to us slowly. This particular verse, the verse of the sword, (Quran 9:5) abrogates around 120 verses of the Quran according to most Islamic theologians. Modern apologists for Islam claim that this verse calls only for internal, spiritual struggle. This is a very recent interpretation. Far more typical is the interpretation of Ismail Ibn Kathir (1300-1373) an influential Muslim theologian. “Do not wait until you find them. Rather, seek and besiege them in their areas and forts, gather intelligence about them in the various roads and fairways so that what is made wide looks ever smaller to them. This way, they will have no choice, but to die or embrace Islam.”  

Didn’t the God of the Bible order such things when He put certain nations under the ban? When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you- and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy (Deut 7:1-3).

 

Add to this the Amalekites and in all 8 specific groups were put under the ban; that is slated for obliteration. Why these specific peoples? There are a number of sins of which they were guilty. The one that is most striking to is the worship of Moloch, (sometimes called “Chemosh” or addressed by the title “Baal”)

"'Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.”

Continued next week………..

Is Charismatic Renewal for Real? part 7

(Letter to Kerry Zmatick continued)

Once again, I apologize to my faithful readers (a group of about eight, two of whom are canaries anxiously staring at the bottom of their cages.) You probably have no interest in all this nonsense, but I think it may be of some importance.

The  Charismatic movement is bigger and more dynamic that most people think. It has lost a lot of steam here in the USA where it started, but among African, Asian, and Latin American Catholics it is huge and very influential. Years ago, in 2002 in his article “The Next Christianity”, (Atlantic Monthly October 2002) Phillip Jenkins claimed that the future of the world is the southern hemisphere, it is Christian and it is Charismatic. This was before the recent explosion of Christianity in China. He challenges the much touted claim that Islam is the fastest growing religion. It seems that in terms of adult conversions to the faith, Charismatic Christianity is the wave of the future. We don’t see that here because not only is the “American” church dying, America is dying. The vitality of the Church in this country is pretty much found among immigrants from Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Face it. If this is true, then we Catholics had better make sure we get it right and continue to offer the unchanging truth of Catholic Faith and its two thousand years of unbroken tradition. That means that those who are Charismatic had better do their best to understand what the Holy Spirit is doing among them and to integrate what they have received into the whole Church for the well being of the whole Church. To summarize the axe that I have been grinding for the past few weeks, I will try to get it into a sentence so simple that even the two canaries above mentioned and I can understand. Here goes:

About a hundred years after the Reformation, there was a reaction to the dryness of classical Protestantism that resulted in the Pietist movement (1725). This in turn resulted in the Methodist movement (1800) which in its turn engendered the  Pentecostal movement (1900) now called the Charismatic movement. This world-wide movement is thus an odd hybrid of Catholic spirituality clothed in definitions and theology taken from Protestantism. Such phrases as “Are you saved?” and “Have you been baptized in the Holy Spirit?” are understood more in terms of Reformation legalism than Biblical conversion. The terms in which these realities are described are important.

The movement is important and so the terms are important. To inaccurately define these experiences limits and even diminishes them. If for example you have a forensic -- that is legal -- understanding of salvation, you will answer certain questions differently. To the question, "Are you saved?"  You might answer, “Yes, I am saved and  I needn’t do anything more until Jesus comes except go to the occasional prayer meeting.”  If you have a Catholic, i.e. Biblical, understanding of the question, you might answer, “Yes, I am being saved, changed day by day into the image of Christ for the salvation of the world.” 

If you have a forensic understanding of this outpouring of the Holy Spirit you might say “Yes, I have the Baptism in the Holy spirit. I know because I have the gift of tongues as evidence and I have the other gifts of the Holy Spirit.” Remember, as mentioned earlier, the phrase, “Baptism in the Holy Spirit” appears nowhere in the Scriptures, and speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing discernment of spirit, are never called gifts. They are charisms. So what’s the difference? You can have a gift (in Greek: “dorea”). You can only receive a charism (in Greek “charisma”).

If I give you the gift of a large picture of dogs playing poker, it is yours. You may keep it. Please do. The word charism has the sense of a favor, a blessing. It is related to the word for grace, “charis” It is grace operating in you, not a trophy to be displayed on your mantle. A charsim would be if I extended you the honor of representing me at the Frostbite Falls Religious Broadcast of the Week Award Banquet were I to receive the “Loony” (the coveted plastic trophy that depicts a loon holding a microphone). That would be a charism. Were I to say, "Keep the trophy," that would be a gift. 

They are different. A gift is mine. A charism is not mine. It is God’s favor, allowing me to be used for the preaching of His kingdom and the up building of His Church. It proves nothing about me, except that God loves me and is generous to a sinner. Gifts are to own. Charismata are to use. This is at the heart of the Charismatic problem. For many of us, to be Charismatic is to go to a wonderful prayer meeting where I really feel the presence of God and there is a really good music ministry and the speaker is dynamic and there is healing and people falling out in the Spirit, and then we go to Bakers Square afterwards for coffee. Hallelujah. For some people, the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a kind of hobby.

To be baptized in the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. “Huh?”  I can hear you say. “Now Father! You are just being irritating.” That may be true, but I have a point. Let us look at the text. The verb phrase “to baptize in the Holy Spirit” appears only twice in the new testament, both times referring to the same sermon of St. John the Baptist. (Cf. Matt 3:12 and Luke 3:17)

“The ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not produce good fruit is cut down, and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water for the sake of  repentance. but He that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to carry. He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

To make bread before this marvelous mechanized age, you started by cutting wheat and throwing it onto a threshing floor, which was usually a large flat stone on top of a hill. You brought up oxen, harnessed to a heavy sledge. The oxen would then tread out the grain, going in circles dragging the sledge behind them. The crushing of hooves and sledge broke open the hulls of the grain and separated the grain from the chaff. Then you would take a large flat wooden shovel and toss the crushed wheat into the air until the wind separated the lighter chaff from the heavier grain. Two piles would form, a large one of chaff, then a small one of wheat kernels. The chaff would be burned and the wheat ground once more to make flour which was once again subjected to fire in order to make bread. 

The temple was built over what had once been the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. The rough stone of the threshing floor was the very floor of the Holy of Holies where rested the ark of the covenant. The center of Israelite worship was a threshing floor like the one John spoke of. This Baptizing in the Holy Spirit was symbolized in the very heart of the old covenant and there was to be a new temple and new threshing floor to make a new bread for sacrifice when the old covenant was at last fulfilled. Threshing involves crushing and burning and the separation of chaff from wheat by the wind. It is telling to realize that in Greek and in Hebrew “wind” is the same word as “Spirit”. Crushing, burning, separation from what is useless. Does this sound like what most people mean when they talk about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit? No, they mean a seminar after which there is usually coffee and cookies. The immersion in the Divine Presence is not an experience. It is a roaring and mighty wind that separates one from what one holds dear. It is a fire that purifies by steady and repeated  burning away of whatever is useless.

That is certainly what started in my life on January 24, 1968.  I cannot say that I have the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. I have been Baptized in the Holy Spirit and that night so long ago was when the fire was lit, that continues to burn and crush and purify, if I let it. To be washed in the Divine Presence is a fearful thing. It is not some kind of merit badge or graduation ceremony. It is a like the wrestling match between Jacob and the angel of God.  There is joy, but it is hardly an entertainment. It is fire and it is a mighty wind that will take you away from all that you thought was important to you. It is not given to anyone to make life better. It, like love, makes life in this world much more difficult and at the same time infinitely more purposeful. To be Baptized in the Holy Spirit is to offer yourself on the altar of the new temple, and having passed through the fire in the altar of sacrifice, to enter the threshing floor, the true Holy of Holies.

Next week: so what about the gifts of the Holy Spirit that you say aren’t gifts?