Religion

Beauty and the Beholder

I read this article in World‘s print version. I’m quite impressed by it:

Acquired taste
Beauty is more than in the eye of the beholder

Christians have to battle the mindset that insists “there are no absolutes.” But Christians often do not realize what the absolutes are that they need to defend. The classic thinkers spoke of three kinds of absolutes: the true, the good, and the beautiful.

Often, Christians reject the claims that truth and morality are relative while agreeing with the postmodernists that beauty is relative. But to think that beauty is nothing more than a subjective preference — unconnected to standards that originate in God Himself — is to buy into a foundational principle of today’s anti-Christian worldview.

The Bible tells us to set our minds on “whatever” is “excellent” and “of good report” (Philippians 4:8). Beauty does involve personal taste, but our tastes need discipline. Growing in taste means learning to take pleasure in what is objectively good.

Christianity 101: God defines that which is good. And that is absolutely so.

However, I was disappointed in what struck me as an apples-and-orangesutans comparison in the third paragraph from the end.

There is nothing wrong with an occasional indulgence in junk food, though if all you eat is sugar and French fries, you will be malnourished. Similarly, there is nothing wrong with an occasional indulgence in junk culture. But just as you need the nutrition found in a home-cooked meal, you need the cultural nutrition that comes from enjoying the best.

I submit to you that “there is nothing wrong with an occasional indulgence in junk culture” flies in the face God’s thoughts in Philippians 4:8 (which Mr. Veith even references in his third paragraph above!).

Christianity 101: “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” (Galatians 5:9) and “approve things that are excellent” (Philippians 1:10).

Despite that, I think you should read the entire article. (It has an interesting challenge regarding music.) Update, October 27, 2012: I see it’s now available only to subscribers; too bad.

VW, Continued

Vietnam War, Revised:

ChristianToday reports that the Vietnam War is still rumbling on – with Christians now regarded as the enemy, says one of the leading persecution watchdogs, Release International.

Christians in Vietnam are being targeted as ‘agents of America’. They describe torture and near starvation as the authorities threaten to kill them slowly.

North Korean Christians

From The Voice of the Martyrs, this:

NORTH KOREA – The Voice of the Martyrs is calling on the Communist North Korean government to immediately release 10 college students in Ham Kyung Book Do Chung, North Korea, who were investigated and arrested for reading a Bible and watching a video CD about the Bible.

According to Free North Korea Broadcasting, Mr. Jung, former vice-president of GumRung Company of the Rodong Dang Labor Organization Department, reported the case and has since escaped to China to avoid arrest by the National Security Agency (Bowiboo). “In March 2006, 200 Life Bibles and several hundred CDs were purchased in China and secretly placed in flour bags before being smuggled into North Korea. This huge Bible smuggling case was headed by GumRung Company employees who were influenced by Christianity in China and underground Christians in Nasun City. All the leaders have been arrested and are being severely tortured. If I am caught, I will be sent to a prison camp for political criminals. I didn’t want to die in prison camp, so I escaped,” Mr. Jung said.

In the Free North Korea Broadcasting report, Mr. Jung added that most of the arrested students attended ChungJin College. “These students shared the Bible and video CD with their friends. They also distributed the Bibles and video CDs to the other college towns,” he said.

And what were you fussing about earlier today?

“Disseminating Fantasies”

Gorbachev dispels ‘closet Christian’ rumours; says he is atheist

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev made clear this past weekend that he is an atheist after European news agencies last week claimed that he had confirmed his Christian faith during a visit to the tomb of St Francis of Assisi in Italy.

Gorbachev, the last communist leader of the Soviet Union, confronted speculations that he had been a closeted Christian during an interview with the Russian news agency Interfax.

“Over the last few days some media have been disseminating fantasies – I can’t use any other word – about my secret Catholicism, citing my visit to the Sacro Convento friary, where the remains of St. Francis of Assisi lie,” Gorbachev said, according to an Interfax article posted Friday.

“To sum up and avoid any misunderstandings, let me say that I have been and remain an atheist,” he stated.

So I should have filed my original post on this subject under Suspension of Disbelief as well.

Fine. At least I asked some good questions.

But tell me, why do you think I filed this one under Lessons for Living?

Gorbachev a Christian?

Admits, huh?

I wonder if that word choice is supposed to be significant. As in, The Telegraph has suspected it for quite a while and now, finally, Mikhail owns up to the error of his ways. (Or something like that.)

Whatever the case, here are some excerpts from their story:

Mikhail Gorbachev admits he is a Christian

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Communist leader of the Soviet Union, has acknowledged his Christian faith for the first time, paying a surprise visit to pray at the tomb of St Francis of Assisi.

Accompanied by his daughter Irina, Mr Gorbachev spent half an hour on his knees in silent prayer at the tomb.

[…]

Mr Gorbachev’s surprise visit confirmed decades of rumours that, although he was forced to publicly pronounce himself an atheist, he was in fact a Christian, and casts a meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1989 in a new light.

Mr Gorbachev, 77, was baptised into the Russian Orthodox Church and his parents were Christians.

In addition, the parents of his wife Raisa were deeply religious and were killed during the Second World War for having religious icons in their home.

Oh, is that what he thinks makes him a Christian?!

Here’s a bit more from the story:

Ronald Reagan, the former United States president, allegedly told his close aides on a number of occasions that he felt his opponent during the Cold War was a “closet believer”.

Mr Reagan held deep religious convictions himself. However, until now Mr Gorbachev has allowed himself to express only pantheistic views, saying in one interview “nature is my god”.

Well, that sounds very suspect to me.

Mr. Gorbachev, what makes you a Christian?

Christian Teen Girls?

Here’s the news:

More than one in four U.S. teen girls is infected with at least one sexually transmitted disease, and the rate is highest among blacks, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

An estimated 3.2 million U.S. girls ages 14 and 19 — about 26 percent of that age group — have a sexually transmitted infection such as the human papillomavirus or HPV, chlamydia, genital herpes or trichomoniasis, the CDC said.

Forty-eight percent of black teen-age girls were infected, compared to 20 percent of whites and 20 percent of Mexican American girls. The report did not give data on the broader U.S. Hispanic population.

[…]

About half reported ever having had sex . . . .

And here’s more news (although almost four years old by now!):

About one-third of American teenagers claim they’re “born again” believers, according to data gathered over the past few years by Barna Research Group, the gold standard in data about the U.S. Protestant church, and 88% of teens say they are Christians. About 60% believe that “the Bible is totally accurate in all of its teachings.” And 56% feel that their religious faith is very important in their life.

Here’s the question about the teen girls in the first article: What percentage of these profess to be Christians?

(And, as a Mennonite, a sub-question: How many of them are Mennonites?)

As one who doesn’t live that way, maybe I should stop identifying myself as a Christian, eh? 🙄 (After all, so many people are giving Christian a bad reputation, a bad connotation, a bad name, etc.)

Oh, for the Christianity 101 comment, read this: God says the human body is for Him to inhabit and not to be used immorally.

In CA: Homeschooling

California to Homeschoolers: Nyet No

A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution.

The homeschooling movement never saw the case coming.

“At first, there was a sense of, ‘No way,’ ” said homeschool parent Loren Mavromati, a resident of Redondo Beach (Los Angeles County) who is active with a homeschool association. “Then there was a little bit of fear. I think it has moved now into indignation.”

[…]

The Second District Court of Appeal ruled that California law requires parents to send their children to full-time public or private schools or have them taught by credentialed tutors at home.

[…]

Yet the appeals court said state law has been clear since at least 1953, when another appellate court rejected a challenge by homeschooling parents to California’s compulsory education statutes. Those statutes require children ages 6 to 18 to attend a full-time day school, either public or private, or to be instructed by a tutor who holds a state credential for the child’s grade level.

“California courts have held that … parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children,” Justice H. Walter Croskey said in the 3-0 ruling issued on Feb. 28. “Parents have a legal duty to see to their children’s schooling under the provisions of these laws.”

Parents can be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply, Croskey said.

“A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare,” the judge wrote, quoting from a 1961 case on a similar issue.

[…]

Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said the ruling would effectively ban homeschooling in the state.

“California is now on the path to being the only state to deny the vast majority of homeschooling parents their fundamental right to teach their own children at home,” he said in a statement.

“They” have long said that California leads the way for the nation. 😯

If you’re a homeschooling California parent, what are your plans?

Above all, love God!