Chapter Five is where David Gelernter and I part company most drastically, for reasons easily anticipated. In this chapter, Gelernter tackles the subject of Abraham Lincoln, “America’s last and greatest founding father.” As usual, Gelernter is uncannily accurate in his description, and flies wide of the mark in his evaluation. Lincoln was the great founder …
Heaven Forbid
“However strange it may seem to Westerners, the much-publicized virgins promised to Islamic martyrs in Paradise is no myth or distortion of Islamic theology. Muhammad painted a picture of a frankly material and lushly sensual Paradise for his followers—containing everything a seventh-century Arabian desert-dweller could possibly dream of: gold and fine material things, fruits, wine, …
Self-Authenticating Ultimacy
“Hence the late-romantic tendency to insist on a total separation between the aesthetic and the moral; and finally the modernist tendency to grant art the ultimate legitimacy and authority that were previously reserved for morality” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, pp. 389).
It Shouldn’t Be Either
“Jesus tells us that the hireling does not care for the sheep the way a good shepherd does. In saying this, the Lord was teaching in effect that the ministry cannot be allowed to become a profession. Despite this severe warning, the modern Church has steadily drifted into a compromise with what we might call …
Taking Temp Work to Extremes
“Shi’ite Islam, the dominant form of Islam in Iran, also allows for ‘temporary wives.’ This is a provision for men to gain female companionship on a short-term basis. In a temporary marriage, or mut’a, the couple signs a marriage agreement that is ordinary in every respect except that it carries a time limit. One tradition …
Let’s Do the Lurch
“. . . it is hard not to see a dance floor as a paddock for musical philistines” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, pp. 383).
Some More Wishful Thinking
“PC watchdogs, both Muslim and non-Muslim, have virtually ruled out any dissent from the idea that Islam is peaceful, benign, and tolerant to a degree that will present no problem whatsoever for Western societies. They depict Islam as akin to Judaism and Christianity and, like them, liable to be ‘hijacked’ (through no fault of its …
Now There’s a Thought
“The abiding weaknesses of country music are two: love of sentimental cliché, rooted in its turn-of-the-century link with Tin Pan Alley, and fear of polyrhythm, rooted in white racism” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, pp. 380).
A Busy-Pants Foreign Policy
In his fourth chapter, Gelernter addresses the rise and development of the American religion in the course of our war for independence. “The American Creed [liberty, equality, democracy] combined with American Zionism [residue of postmillennialism] yielded a full-blown American belief system. These beliefs would be refined further; they would eventually supersede Puritanism and become the …
Like West Virginia Needs Coal
As just about everyone knows by now, Sen. Larry Craig was arrested in a public lavatory in June at the Minneapolis airport, and subsequently pled guilty to a misdemeanor — for disorderly conduct. The news just hit the fan yesterday, and our Boise paper, The Idaho Statesman, ran with a story on it. In his …