While giving a history lesson to around 1500 Catholic theology students the Pope, reading from a 14th century document, quotes the words of Emperor Palaeologos: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” Two Muslims responding in outrage storm a Catholic hospital in Somalia and shoot a 65 year old nun 3 times in the back, killing her and then her body guard. Others burn Catholic churches, threaten death and violence towards the Pope, and Islamic clerics say he must step down from office. A hardline cleric, Sheikh Abubakar Hassan Malin, also in Somalia, told worshippers at his mosque to hunt down and kill whoever offended the Prophet Mohammed. The Pope has said in a statement that he was “deeply sorry” for the reaction to his comments, and that the emperor’s words did not reflect how he himself felt. He said the intent of his remarks were to call for a dialogue on the role of religions in modern life.

But Sheikh Abu Saqer, leader of Gaza’s Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement which seeks to make secular Muslims more religious, is now calling for holy war against “this little racist” Pope. He rejects the Pope’s stated apologies. “He did not apologize. He said everything but an apology, which proves these are diplomatic acts and not a feeling of being sorry.” Of the Muslim reaction he continues, “We are deeply sorry for these acts that we condemn. But I am sorry that this little racist did not think of the consequences upon the Christians in the Arab world when he insulted our Prophet. It is an open war - the Muslims against all the others.” (Er, deeply sorry for those violent acts but calling for jihad, more violent acts?)

I personally have tremendous regard for Pope Benedict. I like him a lot. I believe he is a Godly man, and in so many ways a Godsend to us all. This whole terrible debacle has saddened me greatly. Muslims and Christians are forever speaking past each other as they have such different mindsets, entirely different worldviews. To me it is unspeakable, unconscionable, outrageous and outlandish, that anyone could go and kill another human being as retaliation for something read aloud from a history book. The reaction surely only goes to prove the truth of the Emperor’s words if Muhammad is their role model as he is claimed to be. But to a Muslim it is a capital offence to say anything at all, repeat anything at all, that maligns Mohammad - unfortunately the truth included. He is to be considered above all criticism. They will defend and avenge his “honour” with the sacrifice of lives if necessary. That is really hard for us to understand, most especially given our knowledge of Mohammad’s life and teachings. We are simply poles apart on this.

It saddens me that there has been so little overt support for Pope Benedict from other western leaders. The west is cowering before militant Islam, vainly hoping that appeasement will lessen the threat and turn it back from its encroachment. Instead we are to apologize for speaking what we believe to be the truth, and as well as that, to make it our own responsibility when others commit crimes in protest of such truth. Muslims will indeed be our conquerors if this is allowed to continue, and what we know as truth will be overturned, replaced with their ideology alien to our culture. How long before a Pope may no longer preach Christ crucified, nor resurrected, as the Qur’an says that never happened? Our dhimmitude will be the death of us.

Why does Pope Benedict seem to be backing down? Is he losing his honesty and courage? Somehow I don’t think so. He is a very learned man, and one of great integrity as well. As a Christian he will want to work very hard for peace - at least give it his very best shot - but not peace at any price. I discern in him a great strength of character as well as love for truth. We do not know what goes on behind closed doors, nor within a person’s heart. He has a very hard job to do and my prayers are certainly with him.

Postscript:
Yashiko Sagamori has written an especially erudite essay entitled Silence of the Sheep in which she asks “What should have been the appropriate response to Pope Benedict XIV after he recklessly quoted a dead Byzantine emperor?” and discusses the responses from the various different groups to Pope Benedict’s use of the quotation from Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (1350-1425).

Two entries ago, back on September 16, I made the statement that in this current age many have adopted a religion of equality, and of human rights; that we have this new religion of Human Rights where, unlike Biblical Christianity, equality and inclusiveness are both virtues to embrace. Looking a little closer at this exaltation of equality, I can see at least two basic underlying cultural constructs which help foster it.

They are:
1. The notion that no one is better than anyone else - and being created equal means we ought to stay equal.
2. The notion that everyone is entitled - and that they are entitled equally.

These ideas may be rather fashionable at present but they present me with a few concerns. Equality has spawned a child called Mediocrity, and together they are the enemy of Excellence.

Once upon a time there was an interesting thing called a Bell Curve. It probably still exists somewhere in modern life, but there are places where I just don’t hear it ringing anymore. One such place is in education. No longer is it politically correct to have minorities either end of the curve, flunkies two or three stanines to the left, whiz kids way over to the right, and most of the rest of us forming the body of the bell. If we are to be consistent with the notion of equality, then the bell just has to go. Passing some and failing others is like saying that some are better than others. Same with giving some top grades and most only average grades. And in this country, you do not fail - you simply have not yet achieved. To help solve this little problem of inequality, we have seen a “dumbing down” so that the majority under the bell can be given top grades for being what they are - ordinary and average, mediocre. There is no encouragement for excellence, no responsibility for doing better, as mediocrity - the child of equality - will bring the same reward.

The idea of entitlement also undermines excellence. Human Rights are becoming legion. We are all entitled to rights, things that are to be ours based on the fact that we are able to breathe. It might be fun to list them, but my list would drop right off the end of the page, on to the floor, extend out the door and way down the street. Not only do we have all these rights based solely on nothing more than our ability to breathe, but everyone deserves the best to be given to them as well. What has this to do with the death of excellence? Being given things without working for them, striving for them, earning them, making sacrifices for them, makes excellence quite meaningless - it doesn’t mean anything as it is defunct, deposed by the little goddess, mediocrity.

However, sheer common sense tells me something else. It simply is not true that no one is better than anyone else. We all have differing talents, natural abilities, “smarts” if you like. Some are just smarter than others. Some are more motivated than others. Some work harder than others. However you look at it, we are simply not equal in our performance, and pretending that we are, worshipping this notion of equality and extolling the virtues of mediocrity, is cultural idolatry.

We are not entitled to equal shares. The rewarding of excellence must be encouraged to defeat this politically correct notion before we lose our inspiration, waste ourselves and all that is superlative.

In a representative democracy the people do not vote on most government decisions directly, but select representatives to a governing body or assembly in order to do so for them. In contemporary usage, the term “democracy” refers to a government chosen by the people, whether it is direct or representative, liberal or illiberal. The danger of democracy is that the rule of the majority will marginalize the few, but where there is a sense of justice the few must be considered and their concerns dutifully addressed.

Here is my description of democracy that is befitting of the times.

Three wolves and one sheep are voting on what to have for lunch. The wolves, being a product of this postmodern age, have found a conscience committed to the fostering of pluralism and protection of minorities, especially those that bleet the loudest, and so will denigrate their own lupine cultural heritage while allowing the sheep to usurp the balance of power and manipulate the wolves to ravage themselves apart.

But tarry here a moment and consider this, that as the sheep devoured three wolves, the wolves in turn are destined to wander through the countryside clothed in the body of their diner, searching for a way back but finding only the path leading to the middens of some scattered memories among the new injustices of a most uncertain future.

The wolves had a commitment to each other also, and sacrificing cultural integrity for the sake of political correctness was a dereliction of their duty. Tearing up firm foundations to replace them with the fubbery of fashionable philosophies will serve us all quite badly in the end. From here and now to where? The desolation of a darkness gathering momentum and assembling itself in order to engulf and overwhelm is already at the door and the lair is left wide open.

Recently the Archbishop of Canterbury hopped off the fence where he had been perching for quite some time and landed with his feet on the side of “inclusiveness is not a Christian virtue”.

In this current age many have adopted a religion of equality, and of human rights. This modern religion abhors the fact that the Christian God is an absolute monarch who demands to be honoured as supreme. In these postmodern times the meaning of the word “honour” has made a subtle shift from “respect given for superiority, for having greater qualities” to something more like “grant acceptance for being similar”. For instance, I respect and honour your differences not necessarily because they are superior in some way to mine, but because we have an equality one with each other. We shall celebrate pluralism and multiculturalism in such a way that we become an amorphous mass of individual differences bobbing around in a plasmic sea of universalism - as all of us are equal. Today the message is to believe in yourself, to worship your self. Your own perception is the truth, as truthful to you in equal amount as mine is to me. Objectivity went out the window as relativism came in the door. The great human melting pot, with evil intolerance neutralizing as it bubbles and brews, gives off the aroma of a new spirtuality that all can accept and thus we will all be One with each other and with the gods.

Considering universalism in its more religious context, it is the unbiblical doctrine that states that God will eventually bring everybody who has ever lived into a saving relationship with Him. In other words, it states that everybody will be saved, and that God will condemn nobody to Hell. It is understandable how such a doctrine could gain wide acceptance among today’s pluralistic, liberal society, but it is not in any way compatible with Biblical Christianity.

While Biblical Christianity does not have “inclusiveness” as a Christian virtue, it is true that we are to love one another including our enemies - it is most certainly inclusive as to whom we are to love. But otherwise it is exclusive at its very core. It is unique. That is an objective fact.

So today we have the new religion of Human Rights where, unlike Biblical Christianity, equality and inclusiveness are both virtues to embrace. Since the attempt to strip the God of Love of all other aspects of His character we are now left with the proposition that He is merely something ineffectual that must be improved upon by human hands. Human Rights will mend the errors of that God. Forget it if you choose, but the God of Love is also the God of Truth, that He is holy and righteous, and as Monarch reigns over an exclusive hierachy of inequality. Although He is supremely just, He is far from politically correct. Forget and you will be sorely in need of His forgiveness.

With rights come responsibilities. Responsibilities? What are those? Yes, and just one small reason why this new religion is far from whole.

That companion volume was nudged off the shelf quite long ago, left to be swept up and thrown out with litter from the new adulescent twixter generation. Those young golden people are now plump and sadly clever from suckling on the rewards of work-worn parents. But Justice, these days mistaken for Revenge, will one day exercise this given alter-ego and take exactly that for having been so wrongfully reframed. Father Time still wraughts woes on Mother Nature just as it was before, these little gods and godesses returning to the dust with souls lost forever to their damnation. Pity them, but spare a thought for what it was that brought them to that place. Christians must turn about and tear asunder the modern philosophical backdrop of their lives, and standing in His scorching light with sword unsheathed do battle for their very souls. The myriad myths of wanton mischief spawned by our modern notions move stealthily afoot. Under whose banner next will we find them ready to unfurl their lies?

So, strangely I heard no great applause when the Archbishop finally decided just which way to jump. They who would ordain as clergy those living unrepentantly in sin must surely be dismayed, yet all others would be quite relieved. But wait… with both Judaism and Islam hovering in the wings, I wonder has our Rowan changed his heart and soul or merely just his mind, and what allegiances are now forming together with the shuffling of ecclesiastic slippers before the burning logs of Lambeth’s hearth?

The First of September is the first day of Spring down the bottom end of the planet. NZ’s national tree is the Kowhai which comes into bloom around now with masses of yellow flowers often photographed against an azure sky, a spectacular curtain fall to the last dreary days of winter.

These images are my own, photos I have taken of the tree outside the window of my Happy Room. Those who know me personally know that my Happy Room is also my quilt studio and from where I write to my friends around the world. Judah’s Journal has been a little neglected as of late with the pressure of real life events taking up time and leaving little space for much else. It is still nice to see that visitors have continued to call despite no new postings, and they often come as a result of searches on a wide range of subjects, Professor Google frequently pointing them this way. Of note has been the interest in Mother Teresa and her lovely simple little poem to be found here. Mother Teresa was a very special person, a saint by virtue of her salvation in Christ, a saint in modern secular terms, and a Saint by recognition of the Church. If you have not seen it yet, there is a DVD worth watching that tells the story of her life.

Spring is the season of new beginnings, new life and new hope. There is much in the world that is wrong, a source of gloom and despair for those serious thoughts when it seems nothing will stop “the forces of darkness” from overwhelming and taking over. I’ve noticed a new definition by some regarding whom they think is “the Anti-Christ” and where once many said it was the Pope or the Roman Catholic Church (which I have always privately thought rather silly) now I am hearing that it is Islam instead. I am not clued-up on these matters and prefer to stay out of the debate.

I notice that there are visitors to Judah’s Journal from several different Islamic countries ~ I have counted 16 so far, Islamic countries that is, and there may be more. If you are a Muslim reading these pages, then please know that they are not written with any hatred towards you as a person. An objective study of Islam does give much cause for alarm. Any belief system forced on another is a violation of that person’s freedom to choose. If you as a Muslim were forced to abandon your dearly held beliefs and made to confess those of another under pain of torture and death, would that not concern you as well? But the verse of the sword in your Qur’an says “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)…..” (Surah 9:5) and “O ye who believe! Fight the Unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him” (Surah 9:123). These verses abrogate the gentle verse you prefer us to know, namely “But there is no compulsion in religion” (Surah 2:256). Christianity is never to be forced on another. That goes against everything that it is about. The freedom to choose gives one personal responsibility, and the denial of that is to take it away making one less of a person.

But what of new beginnings? It is hard sometimes to shelve these considerable concerns; they are weighty to bear. But in many ways they are like everything else in that too much of something causes a shift in balance that may not be helpful. We need some respite from the weariness of the journey, the anxieties and fears that would soon have us depressed and unable to go on. Like reading a book all weekend and not looking beyond will have your vision so fuzzy that you can’t see to drive. Or too much candy which will make you as sick as green apples, or too much sun burns and blisters your skin. With all the concerns around us, there is a great need to be able to “take time out” and put it aside for a while. For me there is nothing like being out in the garden early in the morning as the little dewey buds spread their new petals to greet the sun that rises each day. Yay, that’s me, a nature junkie!

And a poetry junkie as well. The following is one of my most loved poems of all time, written by my favourite poet of all time: