The Evil at Beslan

For those who remain confused about whether the terror perpetrated at Beslan was evil…

They Knifed Babies, They Raped Girls

Nothing justifies or excuses this. No “cause” can explain or soften the brutality displayed. In Orthodox theology evil has no ontological reality, it does not exist as an entity unto itself. It cannot be rationalized or explained. It can only be named. Evil is moral chaos, represented in scripture as the swirling waters that drown life. (Now we may begin to understand what Christ entering the waters at baptism is really about.) Beslan is complete and utter moral chaos, a depravity drawn from the dark nights of Dachau, Lubyanka, or the killing fields of Cambodia.

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Pro-Life Group: Partial-Birth Abortion Decision Shows Need for Fetal Pain Bill

Unborn children feel pain during the abortion.
Steven Ertelt
September 2, 2004

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A leading pro-life organization says that the recent decision by a federal judge in New York calling the ban on partial-birth abortions unconstitutional points to the need for a bill to help women considering abortion understand the pain such abortions cause unborn children.

The National Right to Life Committee sent a letter to members of Congress on Wednesday urging them to support the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act (H.R. 4420).

“[E]very day in the United States unborn children are subjected to trauma that causes them excruciating pain, and that would be illegal if inflicted on animals in commerce or research,” the letter says.

When a woman is considering an abortion “20 weeks after fertilization,” abortion practitioners are required to provide women with information about the pain an unborn child experiences during an abortion.

The woman can then request that the unborn child be given pain medication prior to the abortion, the letter explains.

Read the entire article on LifeNews.com.

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Thoughts on Orthodox Stewardship

George Strickland, Ph.D.
http://directionstoorthodoxy.org

Orthodox Christian stewardship is the free and joyous activity of the child of God and God’s family, the Church, in managing all of life and life’s resources for God’s purposes.

SEPTEMBER is a time of year when churches resume many of the activities that may have been put on hold during the summer months. It’s a time when planning turns into implementation. That makes it a perfect time to tap into the rich resources that are found in the talents of members and provide them opportunities to put their time and talents to work in the Lord’s kingdom.

As God’s caretakers, Orthodox stewards should care about the government God has entrusted to them. The Scriptures encourage Christians to respect government authority, obey laws, pay taxes, and be influential for good in the context of responsible citizenship [Matthew 22:21; Romans 13:1; Titus 3:1; 1 Peter 2:13].
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Understanding the religious roots of America

Francis Asbury.

300,000 miles on horseback, from the Atlantic to the Appalachians, from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, for forty-five years, he spread the gospel.

This was Francis Asbury, Methodist Circuit riding preacher who was born this day, August 20, 1745.

When the Revolution started, he refused to return to England:

“I can by no means agree to leave such a field for gathering souls to Christ as we have in America.”

He befriended Richard Bassett, a signer of the Constitution, who converted, freed his slaves and paid them as hired labor.
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Bar might tell judges to quit anti-gay groups (including the Boy Scouts)

Orlando Sentinel, Saturday, August 7, 2004, Gina Holland

Atlanta — Judges are on the front line of battles about legal rights for same-sex couples and should never belong to an organization that discriminates against gays, supporters of a proposed change to American Bar Association ethics rules argued Friday.

Judges are already prohibited from joining clubs that discriminate based on race or sex. An ABA panel is debating whether to make groups that discriminate against gays off limits as well.

The ABA, the nation’s largest lawyers’ group, with more than 400,000 members, writes conduct rules for judges and lawyers. States and federal courts generally adopt them, with some changes.
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Secularism and the moral tradition

I just finished an article for Again magazine on Orthodoxy Christianity and the public square. They asked four or five authors to contribute articles on this theme, and it promises to be an interesting issue. Again is repositioning itself for a larger audience and wants to move into examing current issues from an Orthodox Christian perspective. They’ve totally revamped the visuals as well. It looks very promising.

I met the new editor, Doug Cramer, in New York at Clergy Laity who was representing Conciliar Press in the exhibit area. He’s a bright and engaging person. We ended up leaving the Congress for an hour and had coffee on the street somewhere to talk about the magazine and more. Nothing like sitting on the sidewalk talking and drinking coffee. It’s great.

Anyway, you never really know where a piece will end when you start out, but I devoted over half of it to a discussion about secularism vs. the Christian moral tradition, ie: the culture war. As I was discussing that theme here, I was also working on the article. One feeds the other I think. My final conclusion, not definitively proven but explained well enough to be compelling I think, is that secularism in the end is a Christian heresy.

Unfortunately I can’t post it until it is published which will be in September sometime.

Overall the week has been great and also liturgically full. Paraklesis on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening. Vespers of the Transfiguration last night, and Liturgy this morning. I always like this day, particularly the relationship between the Transfiguration and the ancient Jewish Holy Day of the Feast of Booths. The Transfiguration of course occurred on the feast which is why Peter wanted to construct a booth.

By the way, the only place in Matthew where the Greek word describing the light of glory of Christ occurs again is in the description of the garment of the angel that sat on the stone after the resurrection.

I’m also busy working on building up the infrastructure of the parish. I am fortunate in that a professor of patristics just joined the parish who will be teaching at the new Catholic college (Ave Maria) being built nearby. He will help me with adult education. Today another family came by with four children from 5 to 16 years old. They moved here last week. I’m told that during “season” (the time when all northerners come back down south) attendance exceeds 400 people or so. It’s going to be busy.

We need a new web page. GOA internet services has a new program called web-builder, a point and click operation of sorts that lets you pull together a pretty decent looking site in half-a-day or so. I could build one, but I just don’t have enough time for it. I could get someone to build it, but it would take a whole lot of time explaining how I want it done. I just might try the point and click.

They also have a new service called bulletin builder. Basically you download a preformatted bulletin with all the relevant info already included — scripture readings, apolytikia, kontakia, everything . Nice. We’ll switch to that too.

It rained almost all week. Usually when it rains here is drives down hard but ends in an hour or two and then the sun comes back out. This week it rained for hours, and there were almost entire days with no sun. My car ended up getting soaked. It turns out a seal along the floor somewhere was never installed and will all the puddles water worker its way up. I ended up with almost a half inch of water on the floor. I took the car in Monday and got it back today. They ended up resealing the area in the body shop and replacing all the carpeting. Fortunately it was all on warranty. I even got a loaner. All in all, the hassle factor was minimal.

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Where We Begin

A reader submitted:

In protecting human life we must begin with a commitment never to intentionally kill, or collude in the killing, of any innocent human life.

Some today are fond of saying that we have to consider “a wide range of issues” when we vote — which is true as far as it goes — but then go farther and say that all the issues are of equal weight — which is not only false, but offensive to common sense.

Take, for example, the “scorecard” that that is periodically put together by lawmakers, summarizing their voting record on a variety of issues and then giving each a score. There’s no problem, of course, in reviewing and summarizing how public officials vote. In fact, the public deserves more of that information. The big problem with the scorecard, however, is that all the issues are assigned equal weight, so that no distinction is made between the importance of banning partial-birth abortion and the regulation of mercury levels in thermometers.
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