Culture
Clips —
December 12, 2006
Jews for Christmas
"Being Jewish, I should report, Christmas was never celebrated
by my family. But what was there not to like about the holiday?
... The decorated trees were nice, the lights were beautiful,
It's a Wonderful Life was a great movie, and some of
the best Christmas songs were even written by Jews. ...
"I am getting the idea that too many Jews won't be happy
until they pull off their own version of the Spanish Inquisition,
forcing Christians to either deny their faith and convert to agnosticism
or suffer the consequences.
"I should point out that many of these people abhor Judaism
every bit as much as they do Christianity. ...
"This is a Christian nation, my friends. And all of us are
fortunate it is one, and that so many millions of Americans have
seen fit to live up to the highest precepts of their religion.
... Speaking as a member of a minority group — and one of the
smaller ones at that — I say it behooves those of us who don't
accept Jesus Christ as our savior to show some gratitude to those
who do, and to start respecting the values and traditions of the
overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens, just as we keep
insisting that they respect ours.
Burt Prelinsky
The Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/culture/
20061207-114443-8404r_page2.htm
The Bloomberg Diet
You might think that officials in
New York City, which has more people than all but 11 states, had
enough to do providing basic city services. But Mayor Michael
Bloomberg believes that what New Yorkers really need is a better
diet, and he's just the man to order it. A politician's work is
never done.
At the mayor's urging this week, New York's Board of Health voted
to ban restaurant use of artificial trans fats, those liquid oils
made solid through hydrogenation and found in all manner of fried,
baked and processed foods. Many of these products aren't particularly
healthy, but then neither are many products people enjoy that
contain sugar and caffeine, substances that New York hasn't outlawed.
At least not yet.
"We're just trying to make food safer," said Mayor Bloomberg,
who nixed smoking in bars a few years back. The city's concern
for the health of residents is understandable, but trans fats
are not E. coli (or even secondhand smoke), and the federal Food
and Drug Administration still considers these chemically modified
food ingredients perfectly safe for consumption. Could it be that
Mayor Mike has been taken in by activist Gotham health czars and
national Naderite "watchdog" outfits like Michael Jacobson's
Center for Science in the Public Interest, among others pushing
a larger agenda?
Opinion Journal
http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110009366
A Deepening Split in the
Episcopal Church
The Washington Post gave
its Dec. 4 Page One lead-story position to a deepening split in
the Episcopal Church. Two Fairfax parishes with 3,000 members
between them — Truro Church and The Falls Church — will vote next
week whether to remain in the Episcopal Church U.S.A. Other Virginia
churches have held similar votes or soon will.
At issue is the deepest sort of human
emotion and inquiry (what is my faith, my church?), the disposition
of $25 million in church property (who owns it, diocese or parishioners?),
and considerable history. Both churches date from the 1700s; George
Washington, for Heaven’s sake, was an early Falls Church vestryman.
Three other northern Virginia churches have departed the 111-diocese
ECUSA and the 193-parish Diocese of Virginia, the country’s largest.
What is happening in Virginia, arguably
the U.S. episcopate’s ground zero, is a reflection of widening
chasms in Protestantism nationwide. With parishioners turning
off or departing the pews for sleep, golf, or Sunday-morning TV,
U.S. Episcopal membership long has been stagnant at about 2.2
million — if not actually in decline.
Rising numbers of Episcopal churches,
weary of hierarchical arrogance and inflexibility, are affiliating
with other federations or dissolving and starting anew. An entire
California diocese — San Joaquin — soon may be the first to pull
up its tent stakes and move on.
In turn, this developing schism in
American Episcopalianism reflects what is happening in mainstream
Protestant denominations across the landscape. As with Episcopalians,
so with Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc.:
All have their anger and fractious controversies about scripture,
doctrine, liturgy, hymnals and ordination. Congregationalists
et al have resolved their disputes in gadarene plunges over the
edge.
Those looking superficially at these
fights — and they are fights — too often see them in political
terms (the religious left, the Christian right). Political sentiment
is a concomitant part of it, but hardly the whole part. These
days dominant issues among Episcopalians are scripture and whether
practicing homosexuals should be elevated to the bishopric. With
their 2.2-million denomination getting knuckle-rappings from its
parent 77-million Worldwide Anglican Communion, many Episcopalians
quizzical about their church justifiably wonder whether they are
leaving it or it is leaving them.
Ross MacKenzie
Townhall.com
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/RossMackenzie/
2006/12/07/reflections_on_the_
prospect_-_reality_-_of_a_third_great_awakening
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