Author: BrJames

25Mar

What is ISIS?

On the heels of the attack by terrorists upon the airport in Brussels, it seems a good opportunity to revisit the question, “what is ISIS?” I recall a very good article by Graeme Wood in the Atlantic which lays out a lot of information on ISIS. One of the points that struck me was this one:


The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.

This echoes the assessment of former Muslim Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, who is a speaker with Ravi Zacharias Ministry, and wrote a recent essay for USA Today:


This is not at all to say that most Muslims are violent. The vast majority of Muslims do not live their lives based on chapter 9 of the Quran or on the books of jihad in the hadith. My point is not to question the faith of such Muslims nor to imply that radical Muslims are the true Muslims. Rather, I simply want to make clear that while ISIL may lure youth through a variety of methods, it radicalizes them primarily by urging them to follow the literal teachings of the Quran and the hadith, interpreted consistently and in light of the violent trajectory of early Islam. As long as the Islamic world focuses on its foundational texts, we will continue to see violent jihadi movements.

In order to effectively confront radicalization, then, our tools must be similarly ideological, even theological. This is why I suggest that sharing alternative worldviews with Muslims is one of the best methods to address radicalization. Indeed, this is what happened to me. As I faced the reality of the violent traditions of Islam, I had a Christian friend who suggested that Islam did not have to be my only choice and that there were excellent reasons to accept the gospel.

20Mar

England Afraid of “Muscular Christianity”

Apparently a new “muscular” Christianity is threatening to shake the teacups out of the hands of our genteel British brethren.

The BBC’s head of religion has warned that Britain needs to address its “chronic lack of religious literacy” if it is to accommodate the rise through new immigration of “more assertive” forms of Christianity with “conflicting views” on same-sex marriage and other human rights issues.

Aaqil Ahmed, writing for The Independent, identifies a “more muscular Pentecostalism” emerging among African immigrants and an “upsurge in Catholic numbers” from Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. “Christianity may have been pronounced to be at death’s door in the last century but now it’s firmly back in the public space and how we deal with that is the real battle for Christianity here in the UK.”

You can read more at The Independent.

18Mar

St. Patrick’s, Imogene, Iowa

This was a heartwarming article:

How an Iowa Church Helped Save Its Small Town.

For decades, rural towns in America have struggled to survive. Imogene has, too. The ranching community from the 1860’s soon turned to the railroad boon. “The daughter of one of the railroad engineers had the name of Imogene and that’s where it got started,” said 70-year-old Joe Cheney, who was baptized in the church.

Five years ago, Imogene city leaders discussed whether the town should cease from being a town anymore, meaning no local government. Imogene needed inspiration.

“With the church and rich heritage and the nearby Wabash Trail, proud people of Imogene, I was never worried about it,” said Becca Castle who helped start the Sons & Daughters of Imogene, a community betterment organization.

You have to click the link or search images of this church; due to copyright uncertainty I did not reproduce the pictures. The interior is spectacular.

01Mar

Textual Criticism and the Donation of Constantine

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(A 13th-century fresco of Sylvester and Constantine, showing the purported Donation. Santi Quattro Coronati, Rome; public domain)

Someone at a satellite music channel has declared March to be “Bible appreciation month”. Of course, we ought to appreciate (and read and study) those remarkable writings year round. I am going to stray a bit to comment on one of the ways the Bible has been studied and scrutinized, namely the discipline of textual criticism. Textual criticism entails the careful examination and comparison of manuscripts and copies. I was recently reminded of one of the earliest examples of textual criticism, being used to demonstrate that a medieval document was a forgery.

In the western half of the Roman Empire, as the remnants of political power crumbled into the chaos of the “dark ages”, the papacy emerged as an energetic contender. The bishop of Rome had originally been one among many sources of authority within the church in the immediate post-apostolic period. His power grew over time, and the Pontiff began to claim temporal authority as well as spiritual primacy.

Pope Innocent III (1160-1216) had this humble impression of his role as not just a spiritual leader, but as one to whom kings are subject:

Just as the founder of the universe established two great lights in the firmament of heaven, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, so too He set two great dignities in the firmament of the universal church…, the greater one to rule the day, that is, souls, and the lesser to rule the night, that is, bodies. These dignities are the papal authority and the royal power. Now just as the moon derives its light from the sun and is indeed lower than it in quantity and quality, in position and in power, so too the royal power derives the splendor of its dignity from the pontifical authority…
(Letter to the prefect of Aserbius and the nobles of Tuscany, available online at this Fordham University site).

By the end of the 13th century Pope Boniface IV was claiming ultimate authority on earth. His papal bull Unam Sanctam insisted that

“We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal.”

And of course, the papacy claimed both. The document concluded:

“Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.

(The text may be read here.)

I might pause and note that Boniface was unable to wield anything like the power he claimed to have. In his dispute with King Phillip IV of France, whom he excommunicated, he ultimately lost out to such an extent that mercenaries loyal to Phillip attacked his palaces at Anagni and kidnapped the pontiff, nearly killing him. Although he survived, he died just a few weeks later, in October 1303. Upon reading of the “two swords” in the Bull, one of Philip’s ministers is alleged to have remarked, “My master’s sword is steel; the Pope’s is made of words” (Ruggio 51).

One of the sources upon which this kind of papal authority and power was justified is the so-called “Donation of Constantine.” This document appears to have been “discovered” conveniently in the ninth century. The document purports to be by the emperor Constantine the Great in 315, and “donates” the western empire, including Rome and all lands to its west, to Sylvester, bishop of Rome, supposedly out of thanks for curing him of leprosy at his baptism. (Portions of the Latin and English texts may found at Hanover.edu).

The Renaissance, with its flourishing of scholarship in ancient latin texts, spelled the end of this forgery. In 1440, the priest and humanist scholar Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457), in De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione declamatio, demonstrated that the donation was a more recent forgery (text available here). To be fair, by the time of Valla, the document was no longer as important as it had been in prior centuries.

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Valla began his discourse by noting that Constantine wasn’t the sort to enter into this kind of agreement, and furthermore all of the historical evidence would suggest that he continued to reign over the western Roman Empire, while there is no evidence that Sylvester had done so. He then analyzed the language of the document, showing that terms used, such as “satrap” were not from the 3rd century, but rather much later in the 8th century. The terms “consul” and “patrician” were misused in a clumsy way that would not have happened in ancient Rome. There is reference to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, at a time when the city of Byzantium was neither the seat of a patriarchate nor even yet renamed “Constantinople.” His other arguments can be read in the site which was linked at the end of the previous paragraph.

The work of Valla did much to fuel the anti-papacy furor of the Protestant Reformers. The work was apparently read by Martin Luther in 1519. He described his reaction to discovering the truth about the forgery to his friend Spalatin:

I have at hand Lorenzo Valla’s proof (edited by Hutten) that the Donation of Constantine is a forgery. Good heavens! what a darkness and wickedness is at Rome! You wonder at the judment of God that such unauthentic, erass, impudent lies not only lived but prevailed for so many centuries, that they were incorporated in the Canon Law, and (that no degree of horror might be wanting) that they became as articles of faith. I am in such a passion that I scarecely doubt that the Pope is the Antichrist expected by the world, so closely do their acts, lives, sayings, and laws agree. (Martin Luther, Letter to Spalatin, Feb. 24, 1520., as recounted in epistole blog).

In 1534, Valla’s work was translated by William Marshall for Thomas Cranmer in England, where it was used to bolster claims of independence of the English church (Parrish, 119).

For further reading:

  • “Donation of Constantine” in Wikipedia
  • Pearse, Roger. “The Donation of Constantine”, online at his blog, Tertullian.org.
  • “The Donation of Constantine” in Catholic Encyclopedia, online at newadvent.org.
  • Lorenzo Valla,
    Discourse on the Forgery
    of the Alleged Donation of Constantine    , In Latin and English translation by Christopher B. Coleman
    (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922). Available online at Hanover College
  • Whitford, David. “The Papal Antichrist: Martin Luther and the Underappreciated Influence of Lorenzo Valla”, Renaissance Quarterly, 61 (2008): 26-52; abstract online here)
  • Lorenzo Valla, a review of his life and works online at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

01Mar

The Tao of Christianity

I knew a Taoist engineering professor, who often repeated the phrase: “He who knows the priority–what comes first and what comes second–knows the Tao, or the way that he must go.”

Christianity could almost be summed thus: “He who knows the Way (Christ), knows the priority.”

24Feb

100th Post

In honor of this milestone, I’ll share some of the lovely comments that have filled my inbox. I’m sure real people will read this stuff eventually, and leave comments, but for now…

If I judged solely on responses, I would categorize my “readership” into a few categories:

1. Site Engine Optimization companies trolling for business. This is the most common reply.

Hi my name is Sandra and I just wanted to drop you a quick note here instead of calling you. I came to your The Black Paternoster – Brother James’ Airs page and noticed you could have a lot more traffic. I have found …

or

Hello Web Admin, I noticed that your On-Page SEO is is missing a few factors, for one you do not use all three H tags in your post, also I notice that you are not using bold or italics properly in your SEO optimization. On-Page SEO means more now than ever

2. Viagra or cialis resellers. This is probably the second most common.

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3. A lot of messages about weight loss advice.

These target your abs so well you will likely be sore for your first week.

An effective and balanced meals are important for your system to operate efficiently and you may also feel more energetic.
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4. Word salad generated by robots. This can be quite fun to read sometimes.

No litigation to find out who gets what for his role in the venture was ever instrumental in aiding an undertaking succeed.

If you have a place that other people are feeding, you will not ought
to wait long. There are portable finders such as
the Fishin’ Buddy Series and also the Smart – Cast series. Nevertheless, it
is really an excellent reputation for this kind of incredible
little bird, now don’t you think.

Almost done. Got image instead of imago and failed on taboos but quite pleased with myself as the best for a while. Don’t get why “Bravo” is “bee on the radio”

Every once in a while you get a random pshcyo in the middle of a break-up ranting and raving against women on here .it’s a little funny but mostly I feel bad for them because I can tell they’re just having a bad time with women bacause they’re mysogynists

I got a little fed up with that anecint language that, beautiful though it may be, has little relevance to our modern age. Lines like:Christ in the fort,Christ in the chariot seat,Christ in the poopWhile working on The Dark Sacrament, a book I co-authored in 2006, I decided to do a fresh translation for the 21st century. Here it is.

Great list Hans! Let’s see .don’t shoot the messenger here ok? The first Transformers movie has a great scene on Air Force one..does that count? What about We are Marshall? I know it’s desserping that they all die on the plane but what a great movie! Does Independence Day count as that flight with Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum is..well kind of funny anyway. I know it is not a movie but I cannot help but mention the Airport episode of Seinfeld Elaine gets stuck in Coach while Jerry rides first class .it’s hilarious.

Speaking as a heterosexual man, and being quite faiilmar with the human bone structure, the “gap” is not an indicator of sexual prowess nor medical abnormality ladies. Please don’t obsess over it. While some men may see it as a sexual “feature” ..unlike a smile, collar-bone, breast size or even IQ, many do not. (me included). I’ll do my best as a Chiver to uphold the “tight-end” versions.I really do need to pop over here occasionally. Quite an eye-opening discussion. Kcco everyone.

Hi Melissa! Thanks for the kind words; late or not, so glad you stopped by. I love that rush and sirpruse too when I read some of the stuff that comes out of me, truly mystifying and oh yes, very powerful incentive to continue showing up to write more hoping it happens again.I just told Cinnamon he has a new admirer and he’s struttin’ around here all full of himself tonight That little guy is truly a precious soul and has encouraged me more than words can say. Did you perchance notice that the background wallpaper to my website is a picture I took of his fur?

21Feb

Reflections on the Selfie Stick

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(photo by “R4vi” from London, UK, obtained from Wikimedia Commons and used in accordance with Creative Commons 2.0 license)

“Would you like me to take a picture for you?” I asked a group of 20 somethings, who seemed to be struggling to get a picture. I was at the Grand Canyon, snapping photos with my family. “No thanks,” one replied, “we’ve got a selfie stick.”

At every turnout, the magnificent colors and jagged contours of the canyon were a backdrop for people who seemed to be standing, alone or in groups, wielding their telescopic wands with smartphones stuck on the end. It looks goofy to my old fashioned eyes (I still lug a cumbersome DSLR around when I go to places like the Grand Canyon). But I must grant that it is simple and effective. It’s a brilliant invention. I will probably own one at some point.

The selfie stick has exploded in popularity in the past couple years. “Invented” in 2014 (though similar devices date from many years ago), it is now ubiquitous. The selfie is ubiquitous. According to Travel Weekly, 300 million selfies have been uploaded to Instagram as of June 2015. Never has snapping a pic of yourself been easier.

And just like that, one more way of interacting with others is gone. No one needs an outside person to stop and do an act of kindness–“no thank you, we have a selfie stick.”

As a society this may be seen as emblematic of a fundamental problem with our growing addiction to mobile technology: as individuals we are self absorbed (these tools have apparently been dubbed “narcissticks” according to this New York Times editorial), and some would say that we now have a “selfie culture”. Technology has allowed us to become increasingly disengaged from others, even as ironically we are addicted to the facebook posts and Twitter feeds of countless “friends” scattered across the globe. Unless we fight it, our focus is ever drawn down into our devices, into an endless reverberation of our own likes, thoughts, and desires.

By the way, I mean it when I say “we”–I am no cyber saint here. I must cry “mea culpa” as well: I take selfies. I have had dates with my wife in which I can’t resist the urge to get out my iPhone–and that isn’t because she is not lovely and interesting (she is!). My own kids tend to spend most of their vacation days looking at their devices regardless of how breathtaking the scenery around them may be.

If this self absorption is a problem, it is not new. Self-centeredness is a primordial element of the human story (recall the tale of that wretched apple seized by a man who wanted God’s knowledge for himself). The selfie is but a new and more democratic iteration of the time honored self portrait, or the bust, or the thrill of being on-stage. Although, given its intentional impermanence and nonchalance, it might be more accurate to say that the selfie is reminiscent more of “Kilroy was here”, scratched on pixels rather than walls (variants of this sort of thing can be found in antiquity). It is humans saying, “look! I was here! I matter!”

This brings suddenly to my recollection the fallen statue of King Ozymandias, whose decaying selfie was powerfully memorialized by poet Percy Bysshe Shelley:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear —
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’

Most of us (fortunately) aren’t tyrants. We know that our selfies are destined for nowhere glorious. Our “friends” will glance past them in a microsecond, or maybe linger long enough to click the “like” button. If really fortunate maybe someone will pause and comment, perhaps just to say, “OMG I was at the Canyon a week ago!” Then they will move on. It will take seconds, not centuries, for the significance of the selfie moment to fade. We know this but can’t resist the urge to keep doing it. It is the way of the self absorbed. It is our way. “Look, I was here. I matter!”

This is why Christians have a story to tell. Have you become a Christian? Have you been adopted into God’s family? If so, you matter, because you have God as an audience. When you become a Christian, your cosmic portrait will never fade. Unlike your snapshot of yourself against the Grand Canyon, you won’t disappear from God’s in-basket in a few minutes. Your name won’t be blotted from the great Book of Life.

But, the next time you are at the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls or wherever, if you see a handsome bearded 40-something with a charming family approach you at a scenic overlook, don’t run. Instead take pity on us and agree to snap our picture. I’ll show you how my clunky DSLR camera works.

21Feb

Harper Lee Taught us to Stand for What is Right

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One of the memorable educational moments of my junior high years was reading Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, then watching in class the 1962 movie with Gregory Peck. The powerful portrait of racial division and the intricacies of southern life were fascinating then and remain so today. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel has been called “The novel of the century” in a poll by The Library Journal.

Her portrait of Atticus Finch resonated through the culture and created an archetypical modern hero. Atticus is an object lesson in integrity, and inspires us to stand up for what is right despite the cost. A great quote has Atticus telling his daughter, Scout, “This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience-Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.”

After writing her great novel, Harper Lee shunned publicity and lived a life of semi-seclusion. We know little about her private life and thoughts, other than what she chose to share. One of the reasons she gave for not publishing more novels is “I have said what I wanted to say, and I will not say it again.” (Interview available here).

She died this week at age 89. She was a lifelong Methodist.