Historical History

As we left the local library and museum today, we stopped at the new Oxfam bookshop. Until recently, Oxfam had a few used books for sale in their main shop. The selected is now expanded, but still quite limited.

Nonetheless, I have a hard time passing up a used bookstore, especially if I haven’t visited it before. I saw several things that interested me. One I couldn’t pass up. For £3.99 I picked up a copy of The Life and Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. It is 632 pages, in almost perfect condition and was published in 1885. It’s not a reprint. It came off the press when William Gladstone was Prime Minister and Queen Victoria still had 16 years left on the throne.

I don’t know when I shall read it cover-to-cover, but it is nonetheless a jewel on the bookshelf and no doubt a useful Church history resource.

Catholics Avoid Hell

 Five-year-old Max Hell, that is. Max, who has a perfectly fine German surname, was not being allowed to enroll in St Peter Apostle School in Melbourne, Australia unless he used his mother’s maiden name of Wembridge.

You would think Catholics would be keen on the importance of carrying a father’s surname and that using a mother’s maiden name would only raise unnecessary questions.  You would also think they would want to help a child who was bullied because of his name in the state school he attended.

The school has now relented because Max’s father complained to the media.

Catholic Church Favours Birthing Hybrid Humanoids

I don’t know how I missed this when it was announced, but the Catholic Church in England and Wales has said women should be allowed to give birth to human-animal hybrids created in the laboratory. The bishops said this in a submission related to the Draft Tissue and Embryos Bill, which overhauls the law regulating fertility treatment and embryo research.

The bishops have said there should be no ban on implanting hybrid embryos in the womb of the woman who supplied the egg. According to their statement: “Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should she have a change of heart and wish to carry her child to term, she should not be prevented from doing so.”

This is not to say that the bishops are in favour of hybrids. They oppose creating them, but say if hybrids (or chimera, as they are called) are allowed to be created then they have to be allowed to live. The Church had to make this distinction because one aspect of the legislation that is not up for change is the requirement that any embryos that undergo experimentation must be destroyed within 14 days of fertilisation.

Chimera are not true hybrids of the sperm of one species with the egg of another. This would still not be allowed under the draft legislation. The proposal allows for the introduction of non-human DNA, but the embryo would still be 99.9% human. Perhaps when they are allowed to be 1% non-human and then 5% non-human and then whatever percent can be technologically managed, the Church will have to modify its position. Or not. The current position of the bishops is based upon the view that “At very least, embryos with a preponderance of human genes should be assumed to be embryonic human beings, and should be treated accordingly.” So a 50.01% human should still be carried to term.

The full response to the draft bill can be downloaded from here.

Invasion, Please

What with all the problems in Iraq, invading other countries is not a popular option these days. So it just goes to show you how bad things are in Zimbabwe when the head of the Catholic Church there is asking for Britain to topple Robert Mugabe from power.

Pius Ncube, the Archbishop of Bulawayo is asking for Britain to invade Zimbabwe before millions die of starvation. There has been 95% crop failure in some places. Inflation is currently at 15,000% and it predicted by the American ambassador to reach 1,500,000% by the end of the year. Most people are living less than £1 per week, yet Mugabe just spent £1,000,000 on equipment to monitor telephone calls and emails.

Though the Catholic Church is not usually big on military intervention, Archbishop Ncube said, “People in our mission hospitals are dying of malnutrition. We had the best education in Africa and now our schools are closing. Most people are earning less than their bus fares. There’s no water or power. Is the world just going to let everything collapse in on us?”

He said that people within Zimbabwe cannot rise up against Mugabe because there is too much fear. “I think it is justified for Britain to raid Zimbabwe and remove Mugabe. We should do it ourselves but there’s too much fear. I’m ready to lead the people, guns blazing, but the people are not ready. How can you expect people to rise up when even our church services are attended by state intelligence people?”

Church is not a particularly safe place to be in Zimbabwe. The most recent time Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested and beaten to the point of hospitalisation he was attending a prayer meeting.

Can’t Apologise for the Truth

The Venezuelan dictator Huge Chavez has demanded that the Pope apologise for comments he made in Brazil.

I haven’t seen the exact words the Pope said, but news reports indicate that he opined that the Roman Catholic Church had purified the South American Indians and that a revival of their pre-Christian religions would be a backward step. Whether Chavez likes it or not, the Pope can’t take back his words. He simply spoke the truth.

The Catholic Church brought the Gospel to the Indians. Without Christ they were in sin. Reverting to non-Christian religion is to reject the Gospel of Jesus, Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Jecinaldo Satere Mawe, chief coordinator of the Amazon Indian group Coiab, said, “It’s arrogant and disrespectful to consider our cultural heritage secondary to theirs.” It’s nothing about cultural heritage. The Gospel cuts across cultures. It’s about salvation.

Indian leaders rely on the revisionism of leftist historians who have tried to portray the conquistadors as evil, genocidal maniacs. There certainly were many deaths – more from disease because of the lack of understanding about this in the 16th century – but the priests who accompanied the expeditions did not do this just to pronounce blessings upon the European soldiers. They were in the business of saving souls.

There were mistakes made and the previous pope apologised for those in 1992. But this doesn’t change the spiritual reality of evangelisation. Nor does it mean that Indians should reject Christianity for demon-inspired pantheistic or polytheistic religions.

Protestant Pontiffs

In a bit of an ironic follow up to my previous post, I discovered on Clifton Healy’s blog that Dr Francis Beckwith, president of the Evangelical Theological Society, has been received back into the Roman Church.

I have to admit that I didn’t know who Dr Beckwith is. I’m not really up on Evangelical leaders like I used to be. But still, this seems to be big news. I clicked from Clifton to Dr Beckwith’s blog, where there were what seemed to be hundreds of combox theologians, some welcoming him home, but others telling him how he had forsaken the faith, offering prooftexts (like he is unfamiliar with Scripture, or suddenly forgot it all because he returned to Rome).

It reminded me of how it is that some of the most simpleton Protestants accuse Catholics of being simpletons. Then there are some guys out there who are supposed to be theologians, like Doug Groothuis or James White. After taking Beckwith to task on Beckwith’s (shared) blog, Groothuis posted this bit of nonsense on his own:

Frank has done some excellent work over the years, but was apparently never well-grounded in the essential doctrines of the Christian faith, as articulated by the Five Solas of the Reformation.

The Five Solas are the essential doctrines of the Christian faith? Whatever happened to the Nicene Creed? Herein is the essense of the difference. Both sides (regardless of what some idiots who refer to things like the Council of Trent without any understanding of the theological nuances involved) believe the Scripture to be the Word of God written. Admittedly, the Catholics (like the Orthodox) use the same OT canon as Jesus, whilst the Reformers chopped out a big chunk, but as to the concept of Scripture being the Word of God there’s no actual debate.

I suppose it comes down to whether you get your essential doctrines formulated from the Church Fathers, particularly those participating in the Ecumenical Councils, or a French lawyer, a German monk, and a Swiss priest with a concubine.

It’s fun to read all the Protestant pontificating about Beckwith. It makes me realise that I might listen to Evangelical music more than I do Orthodox music (I’m just not into the octoechos on my car stereo on the way to work – I need a bit of Geoff Moore or Delirious? to get me pumped for the day) but while I’m evangelical (and every Christian should be, because we have good news to tell) I’m not an Evangelical. I’m glad I don’t have a dog in this fight.

Mugabe on Prayer

Whatever the faults of the free world – and they are many, for even the free world is a sinful world – it does have advantages over living under an openly oppressive regime like Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. The elections in the UK yesterday may have experienced technical problems, but they were open and fair.

The Church is turning more and more on Mugabe and he is not happy. The Roman Catholic bishops published an open letter at Easter insisting on free elections. Mugabe has responded by saying, “Once [the bishops] turn political, we regard them as no longer spiritual and our relations with them would be conducted as if we are dealing with political entities and this is quite a dangerous path they have chosen for themselves.” Yes, it is dangerous to be a political enemy of Mugabe. Very dangerous.

He has already had prayer meetings broken up. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was at a prayer meeting where police left two people dead. He was arrested and assaulted in custody. So were a large number of other people. Mugabe said they deserved the beatings because they had ignored police warnings that the meeting was illegal.

Catholic Britain

Thanks to massive immigration of Poles to Britain, the Catholic Church is booming. Some parishes in London are having to added more and more masses on Sundays to cope with the demand.

Attendance in the Church of England continues to decline. With a formal split in the Anglican Communion looming on the horizon, this looks to continue.

Catholicism as not been the dominate religious practice in this country since the death of Bloody Mary. Charles I was suspected of it and lost his head. James II converted to it and fled in the face of the Glorious Revolution. Even a Holford (though no relation of which I’m aware) was a martyr to it in the year after the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Even though there will be no formal church-state reunion with Rome, the Catholic Church may become the de facto church of England. The Archbishop of Westminster speaks on behalf of more people than the Archbishop of Canterbury. This is all the more true because there are most British Catholics follow Catholic doctrine and belief, especially immigrant Catholics. Anglicans have such a spectrum of doctrine and belief that it would be impossible for Rowan Williams to speak for very many of them on any particular issue.

Even though the Cabinet thumbed their collective nose at Catholic protests over the impact of equality legislation on adoption agencies, they were put on notice that they can expect Catholics to express their concerns en bloc. With more and more Catholics settling here with EU rights of residence, many will become citizens. They will become harder to ignore.

Sadly, the influx of Christians will do little to offset the overall godlessness of this country. However, the light shining in the darkness may be just a little brighter, and the darkness will not overwhelm it, even if it doesn’t comprehend it.