Dominion Journal Sept/Oct 2012

America’s Journal of Apologetics . . . proving the truths of Christianity ISSUE 2- 2012 www.dominionjournal.com

A Designer Universe

. . . do you see the hand of God in creation?

How to Read the Bible Thanksgiving & Revisionism at War What do Presbyterians Believe About EVIL?

F E AT U R E A RT I C L E S 6 14 18 22 24 36 43

How to read the Bible . . . — by Orthodox Bishop Kallistos of Dioklea To Halloween or Not to Halloween? — by Steve Russo and Kenneth Samples Thanksgiving and Revisionism at War — By Mary L. Chapeau A Designer Universe — by Dinesh D’Souza Taking the Pulse of Armageddon as Israel-Iran Showdown Looms — by Paul Alster What Presbyterians Believe About Evil — by Susan R. Garrett The Counter Reformation: Ignatius & the Jesuits — by Father Charles Connor

D E PA R T M E N T S THE WATER COOLER 11 Top Ten Reasons Why Christians Should Vote 12 Presidential Candidate Platforms: Presidint Barak Husain Obama Senitor Mitt Romney CHURCH LIFE 16 “I Ain’t Afraid a No Ghosts” THAT’S 21 21 52

ENTERTAINMENT Thanksgiving Quotes & Notations How Much Do You Know About the 1st Thanksgiving?

The Great Dominion Reformation Quiz

HISTORY & RELIGION 29 Major Archeological Find in Jordan 49 Reformation Spotlight: Martin Luther 50 Marten Luthers 95 Theses tacked to the Wittenburg door FOOD FOR THOUGHT 33 A Veteran’s Day Salute 53 Jesus Statue War Memorial Doesn’t Violate the Constitution 54 Think Before You Donate MERE CHRISTIANITY 40 Calling All Saints, Calling All Souls 30 Forgotten History Reminds Us That . . .

Christians Were the First to Insist on Separation of Church and State INSPIRATION 19 A Thanksgiving Prayer 34 Psalm Corner — Waiting on the Lord www.dominionjournal.com

Dominion — Journal 2012

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From the Editor-in-Chief A publication of the PRAXIS Society for Human Integrity Publisher PRAXIS, Inc. Editor-in-Chief Alan Waite Art Director Mary L. Chapeau Graphics Chapeau Graphics Managing Editor CJ Walker, PhD, PMP Column Editor Vicke Pugil Production Kathie Nute Advertising Paul Whitfield

CONSULTING EDITORS Education Danny Williams Food Curtis Eakins, N.D. Paula Eakins, M.S. Family/Children Audrey Williams

COLUMN/GUEST EDITORS James A. Strickley, Jr. • Kelley N. Walker

PHOTOGRAPHERS Bill Mahon

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Dominion — Journal 2012

As we “go to press,” which in our case means posting our second edition online; perhaps the most important presidential election of our lifetimes approaches. Having worked on numerous political campaigns and followed presidential politics closely for forty years, I can only remember one election that compares in its ferocity, intensity, negativity, and divisiveness: 1968.

In 1968, the nation saw the War in Vietnam move from imminent victory to “no end in sight.” As a result, the incumbent president, Lyndon Johnson, decided not to run again. America’s streets were filled with anti-war protests, racial rioting, and battalions of police and National Guardsmen.

First Martin Luther King, then Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, and violence racked the Democratic National Convention while millions watched on television. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey and the “New Richard Nixon” fought bitter intra-party contests to win their nominations, only to pull out all stops to win the presidency.

It was the ugliest and most chaotic year in domestic American life during the 20th century – and the presidential election was very close, reflecting the widespread division and acrimony within our society.

Today, amidst massive unemployment, economic stagnation and growing inflation, war and civil unrest, renewed racial tensions and growing anger across the nation, and clearly different world views between the two major parties, 1968 does indeed seem an apt comparison.

So, it seems, Christians face the same challenges as in 1968 – to exercise our enfranchisement responsibly and as followers of Jesus Christ, our Lord. We are called to vote – not to “sit it out.” But we are called to listen, to be thoughtful, to speak honestly and without rancor, and rather than vilify those who disagree with us, affirm their right to disagree.

While both the Obama and Romney campaigns declined to provide an article about their candidates, we hope that what we provide in this edition of Dominion is insightful and helpful, and that all of us who claim the name of Jesus Christ approach this election as our Lord would wish – mindfully, lovingly, and boldly.

Letters to the Editor

Dominion Editors, Your Premiere Issue came to my inbox as a pleasant surprise. I had no idea anyone was putting together a “magazine” as you call it which brings together different points of view across the whole Christian community.

Thank you for taking on this important task.

— J.D. Cantwell Seattle, WA Dear Dominion Magazine, There is an error in your article, “Christianity World’s Most Prolific Killer?” What about people killed in Asia by Asians in the name of their gods? You only counted those killed in religious wars or for religious purposes in Europe and Africa. I think that millions of people should be added to your totals and you might want to add the numbers up again.

— Shaun Lowery Santa Clara, California Dear Shaun . . . please note that the article sighted covered Christianity not all world religions, as Christianity is falsely blamed for being the most prolific killer worldwide.

Dear Editor, Loved your journal! Great article on the PC problem in the world of Physics. Look forward to your next issue.

— Sandra Carlson-Bent Tacoma, WA www.dominionjournal.com

How To Read the Bible

by Orthodox Bishop Kallistos of Dioklea

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God . . .”

— 2 Timothy 3:16

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Reading the Bible with Obedience FIRST OF ALL, when reading Scripture, we are to listen in a spirit of obedience. The Orthodox Church believes in divine inspiration of the Bible. Scripture is a “letter” from God, where Christ Himself is speaking. The Scriptures are God’s authoritative witness of Himself. They express the Word of God in our human language. Since God Himself is speaking to us in the Bible, our response is rightly one of obedience, of receptivity, and listening.

As we read, we wait on the Spirit.

But, while divinely inspired, the Bible is also humanly expressed. It is a whole library of different books written at varying times by distinct persons. Each book of the Bible reflects the outlook of the age in which it was written and the particular viewpoint of the author. For God does nothing in isolation, divine grace cooperates with human freedom. God does not abolish our individuality but enhances it. And so it is in the writing of inspired Scripture. The authors were not just a passive instrument, a dictation machine recording a message.

Each writer of Scripture contributes his particular personal gifts. Alongside the divine aspect, there is also a human element in Scripture. We are to value both.

Each of the four Gospels, for example, has its own particular approach. Matthew presents more particularly a Jewish understanding of Christ, with an emphasis on the kingdom of heaven. Mark contains specific, picturesque details of Christ’s ministry not given elsewhere. Luke expresses the universality of Christ’s love, His allembracing compassion that extends equally to Jew and to Gentile. In John there is a more inward and more mystical approach to Christ, with an emphasis on divine light and divine indwelling. We are to enjoy and explore to the full this life-giving variety within the Bible.

Because Scripture is in this way the word of God expressed in human language, there is room for honest and exacting inquiry when studying the Bible. Exploring the human aspect of the Bible, we are to use to the full our God-given human reason. The Orthodox Church does not exclude scholarly research into the origin, dates, and authorship of books of the Bible.

Alongside this human element, however, we see always the divine element.

These are not simply books written by individual human writers. We hear in Scripture not just human words, marked by a greater or lesser skill and perceptiveness, but the eternal, uncreated Word of God Himself, the divine Word of salvation. www.dominionjournal.com

When we come to the Bible, then, we come not simply out of curiosity, to gain information. We come to the Bible with a specific question, a personal question about ourselves: “How can I be saved?”

As God’s divine word of salvation in human language, Scripture should evoke in us a sense of wonder. Do you ever feel, as you read or listen, that it has all become too familiar? Has the Bible grown rather boring? Continually we need to cleanse the doors of our perception and to look in amazement with new eyes at what the Lord sets before us.

We are to feel toward the Bible with a sense of wonder, and sense of expectation and surprise. There are so many rooms in Scripture that we have yet to enter. There is so much depth and majesty for us to discover. If obedience means wonder, it also means listening.

. . . the first requirement, as we read Scripture, is to stop talking and to listen . . . to listen with obedience.

We are better at talking than listening.

We hear the sound of our own voice, but often we don’t pause to hear the voice of the other person who is speaking to us. So the first requirement, as we read Scripture, is to stop talking and to listen - to listen with obedience.

When we enter an Orthodox Church, decorated in the traditional manner, and look up toward the sanctuary at the east end, we see there, in the apse, an icon of the Virgin Mary with her hands raised to heaven – the ancient Scriptural manner of praying that many still use today. This icon symbolizes the attitude we are to assume as we read Scripture – an attitude of receptivity, of hands invisibly raised to heaven. Reading the Bible, we are to model ourselves on the Blessed Virgin Mary, for she is supremely the one who listens. At the Annunciation she listens with obedience and responds to the angel, “Be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). She could not have borne the Word of God in her body if she had not first, listened to the Word of God in her heart. After the shepherds have adored www.dominionjournal.com

the newborn Christ, it is said of her: “Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart“ (Luke 2:19). Again, when Mary finds Jesus in the temple, we are told: “His mother kept all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:5l). The same need for listening is emphasized in the last words attributed to the Mother of God in Scripture, at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee: “Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it” (John 2:5), she says to the servants — and to all of us.

In all this the Blessed Virgin Mary serves as a mirror, as a living icon of the Biblical Christian. We are to be like her as we hear the Word of God: pondering, keeping all these things in our hearts, doing whatever He tells us. We are to listen in obedience as God speaks.

Understanding the Bible Through the Church IN THE SECOND PLACE, we should receive and interpret Scripture through the Church and in the Church. Our approach to the Bible is not only obedient but ecclesial.

It is the Church that tells us what is Scripture. A book is not part of Scripture because of any particular theory about its dating and authorship. Even if it could be proved, for example, that the Fourth Gospel was not actually written by John the beloved disciple of Christ, this would not alter the fact that we Orthodox accept the Fourth Gospel as Holy Scripture. Why? Because the Gospel of John is accepted by the Church and in the Church.

It is the Church that tells us what is Scripture, and it is also the Church that tells us how Scripture is to be understood.

Coming upon the Ethiopian as he read the Old Testament in his chariot, Philip the Apostle asked him, “Understandest thou

what thou readest?” And the Ethiopian answered, “How can I, unless some man should guide me?” (Acts 8:30-31). We are all in the position of the Ethiopian. The words of Scripture are not always self-explanatory.

God speaks directly to the heart of each one of us as we read our Bible. Scripture reading is a personal dialogue between each one of us and Christ – but we also need guidance.

And our guide is the Church. We make full use of our own personal understanding, assisted by the Spirit, we make full use of the findings of modern Biblical research, but always we submit private opinion – whether our own or that of the scholars – to the total experience of the Church throughout the ages.

The Orthodox standpoint here is summed up in the question asked of a convert at the reception service used by the Russian Church: “Do you acknowledge that the Holy Scripture must be accepted and interpreted in accordance with the belief which has been handed down by the Holy Fathers, and which the Holy Orthodox Church, our Mother, has always held and still does hold?”

We read the Bible personally, but not as isolated individuals. We read as the members of a family, the family of the Orthodox Catholic Church. When reading Scripture, we say not “I” but “We.” We read in communion with all other members of the Body of Christ, in all parts of the world and in all generations of time. The decisive test and criterion for our understanding of what the Scripture means is the mind of the Church.

The Bible is the book of the Church.

To discover this “mind of the Church,” where do we begin? Our first step is to see how Scripture is used in worship. How, in particular, are Biblical lessons chosen for

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reading at the different feasts? We should also consult the writings of the Church Fathers, and consider how they interpret the Bible. Our Orthodox manner of reading Scripture is in this way both liturgical and patristic. And this, as we all realize, is far from easy to do in practice, because we have at our disposal so few Orthodox commentaries on Scripture available in English, and most of the Western commentaries do not employ this liturgical and Patristic approach.

As an example of what it means to interpret Scripture in a liturgical way, guided by the use made of it at Church feasts, let us look at the Old Testament lessons appointed for Vespers on the Feast of the Annunciation. They are three in number: Genesis 28:10-17; Jacob’s dream of a ladder set up from earth to heaven; Ezekiel 43:2744:4; the prophet’s vision of the Jerusalem sanctuary, with the closed gate through which none but the Prince may pass; Proverbs 9:1-11: one of the great Sophianic passages in the Old Testament, beginning “Wisdom has built her house.”

These texts in the Old Testament, then, as their selection for the feast of the Virgin Mary indicates, are all to be understood as prophecies concerning the Incarnation from the Virgin. Mary is Jacob’s ladder, supplying the flesh that God incarnate takes upon entering our human world. Mary is the closed gate who alone among women bore a child while still

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remaining inviolate. Mary provides the Testament is used for a festival or a saint’s house which Christ the Wisdom of God day. We can then discuss together the rea(1 Cor. 1:24) takes as his dwelling. Exploring sons why each specific passage has been so in this manner the choice of lessons for the chosen. Others in the group can be assigned various feasts, we discover layers of Biblical to do homework among the Fathers, using interpretation that are by no means obvious for example the Biblical homilies of Saint on a first reading.

John Chrysostom (which have been transTake as another example Vespers on lated into English). Christians need to Holy Saturday, the first part of the ancient acquire a patristic mind.

Paschal Vigil. Here we have no less than Christ, the Heart of the Bible fifteen Old Testament lessons. This sequence of lessons sets before us the whole scheme THE THIRD ELEMENT in our reading of sacred history, while at the same time of Scripture is that it should be Christ-cenunderlining the deeper meaning of Christ’s tered. The Scriptures constitute a coherent Resurrection. First among the lessons is whole because they all are Christ-centered.

Genesis 1:1-13, the account of Creation: Salvation through the Messiah is their cenChrist’s Resurrection is a new Creation. tral and unifying topic. He is as a “thread” The fourth lesson is the book of Jonah in its that runs through all of Holy Scripture, entirety, with the prophet’s three days in the from the first sentence to the last. We have belly of the whale foreshadowing Christ’s already mentioned the way in which Christ Resurrection after three days in the tomb may be seen foreshadowed on the pages of (cf. Matthew 12:40). the Old Testament.

The sixth lesson Much modern recounts the crossing critical study of A Biblical Christian of the Red Sea by the Scripture in the Israelites (Exodus West has adopted is the one who, wherever 13:20-15:19), which an analytical anticipates the new approach, breaking he looks, on every page Passover of Pascha up each book into whereby Christ passes different sources. of Scripture, finds over from death to life The connecting (1 Corinthians 5:7; links are unraveled, everywhere 10:1-4). The final lesand the Bible is son is the story of the reduced to a series Christ. three Holy Children of bare primary in the fiery furnace units. There is (Daniel 3), once more a “type” or prophecy certainly value in this. But we need to see of Christ’s rising from the tomb. the unity as well as the diversity of Such is the effect of reading Scripture Scripture, the all-embracing end as well ecclesially, in the Church and with the as the scattered beginnings. Orthodoxy Church. Studying the Old Testament in this prefers on the whole a synthetic rather than liturgical way and using the Fathers to help an analytical approach, seeing Scripture as us, everywhere we uncover signposts pointan integrated whole, with Christ everywhere ing forward to the mystery of Christ and of as the bond of union.

His Mother. Reading the Old Testament in Always we seek for the point of converthe light of the New, and the New in the gence between the Old Testament and the light of the, Old - as the Church’s calendar New, and this we find in Jesus Christ. encourages us to do - we discover the unity Orthodoxy assigns particular significance to of Holy Scripture. One of the best ways of the “typological” method of interpretation, identifying correspondences between the Old whereby “types” of Christ, signs and symand New Testaments is to use a good Biblical bols of His work, are discerned throughout concordance. This can often tell us the Old Testament. A notable example of more about the meaning of this is Melchizedek, the priest-king of Scripture than any Salem, who offered bread and wine to commentary.

Abraham (Genesis 14:18), and who is seen In Bible study as a type of Christ not only by the Fathers groups within our but even in the New Testament itself parishes, it is helpful (Hebrews 5:6; 7:l). Another instance is the to give one person the way in which, as we have seen, the Old special task of noting Passover foreshadows the New; Israel’s whenever a particular deliverance from Pharaoh at the Red Sea passage in the Old or New anticipates our deliverance from sin www.dominionjournal.com

through the death and Resurrection of the Savior. This is the method of interpretation that we are to apply throughout the Bible.

Why, for instance, in the second half of Lent are the Old Testament readings from Genesis dominated by the figure of Joseph?

Why in Holy Week do we read from the book of Job? Because Joseph and Job are innocent sufferers, and as such they are types or foreshadowings of Jesus Christ, whose innocent suffering upon the Cross the Church is at the point of celebrating.

It all ties up.

A Biblical Christian is the one who, wherever he looks, on every page of Scripture, finds everywhere Christ.

The Bible is Personal IN THE WORDS of an early ascetic writer in the Christian East, Saint Mark the Monk: “He who is humble in his thoughts and engaged in spiritual work, when he reads the Holy Scriptures, will apply everything to himself and not to his neighbor.”

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As Christians we are to look everywhere in Scripture for a personal application. We are to ask not just “What does it mean?” but “What does it mean to me?“ Scripture is a personal dialogue between the Savior and myself – Christ speaking to me, and me answering. That is the fourth criterion in our Bible reading.

I am to see all the stories in Scripture as part of my own personal story. Who is Adam? The name Adam means “man,” “human,“and so the Genesis account of Adam’s fall is also a story about me. I am Adam. It is to me that God speaks when He says to Adam, “Where art thou?” (Genesis 3:9). “Where is God?” we often ask. But the real question is what God asks the Adam in each of us: “Where art thou?”

When, in the story of Cain and Abel, we read God’s words to Cain, “Where is Abel thy brother?” (Genesis 4:9), these words, too, are addressed to each of us. Who is Cain? It is myself. And God asks the Cain in each of us, “Where is thy brother?” The way to God

lies through love of other people, and there is no other way. Disowning my brother, I replace the image of God with the mark of Cain, and deny my own vital humanity.

In reading Scripture, we may take three steps. First, what we have in Scripture is sacred history: the history of the world from the Creation, the history of the chosen people, the history of God Incarnate in Palestine, and the “mighty works” after Pentecost. The Christianity that we find in the Bible is not an ideology, not a philosophical theory, but a historical faith.

Then we are to take a second step. The history presented in the Bible is a personal history. We see God intervening at specific times and in specific places, as He enters into dialogue with individual persons. He addresses each one by name. We see set before us the specific calls issued by God to Abraham, Moses and David, to Rebekah and Ruth, to Isaiah and the prophets, and then to Mary and the Apostles. We see the selectivity of the divine action in history, not as a

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scandal but as a blessing. God’s love is universal in scope, but He chooses to become Incarnate in a particular comer of the earth, at a particular time and from a particular Mother. We are in this manner to savor all the uniqueness of God’s action as recorded in Scripture. The person who loves the Bible loves details of dating and geography. Orthodoxy has an intense devotion to the Holy Land, to the exact places where Christ lived and taught, died and rose again.

An excellent way to enter more deeply into our Scripture reading is to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Galilee. Walk where Christ walked. Go down to the Dead Sea, sit alone on the rocks, feel how Christ felt during the forty days of His temptation in the wilderness. Drink from the well where He spoke with the Samaritan woman. Go at night to the Garden of Gethsemane, sit in the dark under the ancient olives and look across the valley to the lights of the city.

to become a bishop within the Orthodox Church since the eleventh century, and appointed one of the assistant bishops of the Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

He served as chair of the board of Oxford’s theology faculty from 1992 to 1994. Long active in the work of Christian unity, Bishop Kallistos was a member of the Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Discussions for eleven years, and for much of that period, he served as the Orthodox theological secretary to the commission. He also has served as the Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia (Timothy Orthodox co-chair of the Preparatory Ware) was the Spalding Lecturer in Commission for the Orthodox-Methodist Eastern Orthodox Studies at Oxford Theological Dialogue. A moderator of the University for thirty-five years until his Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin, retirement four years ago. Educated at he is a vice president of the Fellowship of Westminster School in London and at St. Alban and St. Sergius Magdalen College, Oxford, and serves as a member of where he took a double Bishop Kallistos . . . the editorial committee of first in classics and then the fellowship’s journal, studied theology, he joined has served in many Sobornost. He was formerChristian disciplines the Orthodox Church in ly an editor of the Eastern 1958. He studied at including hilosopher, Church Review.

Princeton University on a In addition to publishTheologian, Author, graduate fellowship and ing articles in scholarly went on to earn a Lecturer, Scholar, journals, Bishop Kallistos Doctorate of Philospophy Deacon and follower is the co-translator of two from Oxford in 1965, the Orthodox service books of Jesus Christ. In same year he was ordained and of The Philokalia, a a deacon and given the retirement hes still collection of texts written new name of Kallistos. seeks His face. between the fourth and fifIn 1966, the year he teenth centuries by joined the Oxford faculty Orthodox spiritual masters. He is the of theology, he was ordained to the author of four books, including The priesthood. He took monastic vows at the Orthodox Church (1963; revised edition Monastery of St. John the Theologian in 1993), a work considered throughout the Patmos, Greece, and remains a member English-speaking world as the standard of that community. After founding the introduction to Eastern Orthodox Greek Orthodox Parish of the Holy Christianity. The Inner Kingdom, the first Trinity in Oxford, Bishop Kallistos was of six volumes of his collected works, was promoted to the rank of archimandrite. published in 2000 by St. Vladimir’s In 1970, he was named a fellow of Seminary Press.

Pembroke College.

In 1982, he was consecrated titular Biography is reprinted form reachurce posted on the Bishop of Diokleia, the first Englishman John Templeton Foundation’s Web page.

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Experience to the full the reality of the historical setting, and take that experience back with you to your daily Scripture reading.

Then we are to take a third step.

Reliving Biblical history in all its particularity, we are to apply it directly to ourselves. We are to say to ourselves, “All these places and events are not just far away and long ago, but are also part of my own personal encounter with Christ.

The stories include me.”

Betrayal, for example, is part of the personal story of everyone. Have we not all betrayed others at some time in our life, and have we not all known what it is to be betrayed, and does not the memory of these moments leave continuing scars on our psyche? Reading, then, the account of Saint Peter’s betrayal of Christ and of his restoration after the Resurrection, we can see ourselves as actors in the story. Imagining what both Peter and Jesus must have experienced at the moment immediately after the betrayal, we enter into their feelings and make them our own. I am Peter; in this situation can I also be Christ? Reflecting likewise on the process of reconciliation – seeing how the Risen Christ with a love utterly devoid of sentimentality restored the fallen Peter to fellowship, seeing how Peter on his side had the courage to accept this restoration - we ask ourselves: How Christ-like am I to those who have betrayed me? And, after my own acts of betrayal, am I able to accept the forgiveness of others – am I able to forgive myself? Or am I timid, mean, holding myself back, never ready to give myself fully to anything, either good or bad? As the Desert Fathers say, “Better someone who has sinned, if he knows he has sinned and repents, than a person who has not sinned and thinks of himself as righteous.”

Have I gained the boldness of Saint Mary Magdalene, her constancy and loyalty, when she went out to anoint the body of Christ in the tomb (John 20:l)? Do I hear the Risen Savior call me by name, as He called her, and do I respond Rabboni (Teacher) with her simplicity and completeness (John 20:16)?

Reading Scripture in this way – in obedience, as a member of the Church, finding Christ everywhere, seeing everything as a part of my own personal story – we shall sense something of the variety and depth to be found in the Bible. Yet always we shall feel that in our Biblical exploration we are only at the very beginning. We are like someone launching out in a tiny boat across a limitless ocean.

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 118 [119]:105). www.dominionjournal.com

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According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, there are over 240 million adult Americans who self-identify as Christians. Sadly, less than half that number voted in the 2008 General Election. As the 2012 Election approaches, Dominion Journal seconds the notions shown below – reasons why Christians should vote.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Voting publicly recognizes that we submit to the authority of the political system in our nation as established by God. Romans 13:1-7 Voting recognizes the equality of all people and their right to speak and be heard.

James 2:1 Voting is one way that we can obey God’s command to seek the good of those around us and our nation as a whole.

Philippians 2:3 Voting shows that we care deeply about who our leaders are as we are urged to offer prayer and intercession on their behalf.

1 Timothy 2:1,2 Voting is a simple yet significant way we can do something about politics in our nation. “All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke.

Psalms 34:14 Voting makes a difference in the same way a grain of salt makes a difference, and that is how we are to influence our society for good.

Matthew 5:13 Voting is a privilege not to be taken for granted. Those of us who reap the benefits of living in a democracy should play a part in upholding democracy.

Not voting is a form of voting, as it will influence the outcome. We need to take responsibility for our actions, as well as our lack of actions. I Peter 1:13 Voting is part of our stewardship to use all the resources we have been given in ways that honor God; to waste a vote is to squander a gift.

Voting is Biblical. Jesus commands us to fulfill our responsibility to the civil authority.

Matthew 22:21

So, what say ye, readers?

Source: DefendChristians.org. in story adapted from Let Freedom Ring, Inc. whose original source was: ‘Factfile: Top Ten Reasons to Vote’ by Kandiah Krish in ‘Just Politics.’ www.dominionjournal.com

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President Barack Hussein Obama, II’s Vision for America . . .

A plan to grow the economy from the middle out.

Economic Plan

• President Obama has a long-term economic plan to invest in education, small businesses, clean energy, infrastructure, and tax cuts for companies that bring jobs back to the U.S. • Under President Obama, we've seen 32 straight months of job growth, adding 5.4 million private sector jobs, including nearly 479,000 manufacturing jobs since 2010 • Cut taxes by $3,600 for the typical middle class family making $50,000 a year over his first term - find out how his plan impacts your taxes

International Relations

• Responsibly ended the war in Iraq, is bringing our troops home from Afghanistan, and will use half the savings to reduce the deficit and the rest to engage in nation-building here at home

National Healthcare

• All of the above — strategy to develop every available source of American made energy—including oil, gas, clean coal, wind, solar, biofuels, nuclear - and taking steps to protect our climate

• 100 million Americans saw lifetime caps on coverage lifted, so that families have the security of knowing that their insurance will cover them when they need it most • Believes a woman’s health care choices are personal decisions, best made with her doctor—without interference from politicians • Improved Medicare by adding free preventive care, closing the “doughnut hole” saving seniors an average of $600 last year, and extended the life of Medicare by 8 years by eliminating $716 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse

Education Plan

Imagration Plan

Energy Plan

• Set a goal to cut tuition growth in half over the next decade with a plan to double campus based student aid and incentives for schools that are successful at keeping tuition growth down

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• Is lifting the shadow of deportation from young, hardworking immigrants who were brought here as children, and is committed to comprehensive immigration reform

www.dominionjournal.com

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Mitt Romney’s 5 Point Plan for a Stronger Middle Class . . .

A plan to Create 12 Million NEW Good-paying Jobs Energy Independence

• Increase access to domestic energy resources • Streamline permitting for exploration and development • Eliminate regulations destroying the coal industry • Approve the Keystone XL pipeline

The Skill To Succeed

• Give every family access to a great school and quality teachers • Provide access to affordable and effective higher education options • Focus job training programs on building valuable skills that align with opportunities • Attract and retain the best and the brightest from around the world

Trade That Works For America

• Curtail the unfair trade practices of countries like China • Open new markets for American good and services • Build stronger economic ties in Latin America • Create a Reagan Economic

Cut The Deficit

• Immediately reduce non-security discretionary spending by five percent • Cap federal spending below twenty percent of the economy • Give states responsibility for programs that they can implement more effectively • Consolidate agencies and align compensation of federal workers with their private-sector counterparts

Champion Small Business

• Reduce taxes on job creation through individual and corporate tax reform • Stop the increases in regulation that are tangling job creator in red tape • Protect workers and businesses from strong-arm labor union tactics • Replace Obamacare with real Health care reform that controls cost and improves care www.dominionjournal.com

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To Halloween or Not to Halloween?

Each October, many Christians wonder if it is proper to participate in Halloween. Does the Bible prohibit or discourage Christians from participating in a “holiday” with clear pagan roots, or are admonitions against Halloween much ado about nothing?

In this article, Dominion will briefly explore each perspective, and you, the reader can decide.

At a minimum, it will give you some takeaways that might help if and when the topic pops up.

A Case Against — By Steve Russo Like the dates of a number of major holidays (including Christmas), Halloween can be traced, at least in part, to an ancient pagan celebration. The winter festival Samhain was celebrated on or near October 31st by the ancient Celts. Samhain was a pagan tradition that commemorated the end of harvest, the beginning of winter, and the recognition of the physical cycle of death of crops, animals, and humans.

Scripture does not speak at all about Halloween, but it does give us some principles on which we can make a decision. In Old Testament Israel, witchcraft was a crime punishable by death (Exodus 22:18; Leviticus 19:31; 20:6,27). The New Testament teaching about the occult is clear. Acts 8:9-24, the story of Simon, shows that occultism and Christianity don't mix.

The account of Elymas the sorcerer in Acts 13:6-11 reveals that sorcery is violently opposed to Christianity. Paul called Elymas a child of the devil, an enemy of righteousness and a perverter of the ways of God. In Acts 16, at Philippi, a fortune-telling girl lost her demon powers when the evil spirit was cast out by Paul.

The interesting matter here is that Paul refused to allow even good statements to come from a demon-influenced person. Acts 19 shows new converts who have abruptly broken with their former occultism by confessing, showing their evil deeds, bringing their magic paraphernalia, and burning it before everyone (Acts 19:19).

Is there anything evil about a Christian dressing up as a princess or cowboy and going around the block asking for candy? No, there is not.

Are there things about Halloween that are anti-Christian and should be avoided? Absolutely!

If parents are going to allow their children to participate in Halloween, they should make sure to keep them from getting involved in the darker aspects of the day. Children’s attitude, dress, and most importantly, their behavior should reflect a redeemed life (Phillipians 1:27). Halloween for Christians?

Only if carefully managed.

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A Case For — By Kenneth Samples) While Halloween has distant connections to ancient pagan beliefs and practices, the holiday has also been strongly influenced by Christian belief and practices. The word “Halloween” comes from “All Hallows’ Eve,” a reference to the evening before the Christian celebration of All Saints' Day (Nov.1st).

The so-called hall of fame for the faithful in the book of Hebrews (11:1-40) initiated All Saints' Day, which was (and is) devoted to remembering Christian believers who have died, sometimes suffering as martyrs.

By overlapping this practice of honoring and thanking God for the example of faithful believers with the Samhain festival, the church attempted to counteract heathen thought and influence. This was especially true in areas of Europe where Samhain was popular.

Christian apologists Bob and Gretchen Passantino note the church’s apologetic reasons for doing so: The Church not only sought to give Christians an alternative, spiritually edifying holiday; but also to proclaim the supremacy of the gospel over pagan superstition. Historically, Halloween has been influenced by both pagan practices and Christian devotion. Therefore, to view Halloween as only a pagan holiday is inaccurate.

Christians need to use good reasoning to support their moral and/or spiritual convictions. Drawing and applying biblical inferences to life's questions and challenges takes intellectual skill and care. To condemn the practice of trick-or-treating outright on the basis that Halloween has certain pagan origins is, in this author's mind, to come perilously close to committing the genetic fallacy. The genetic fallacy is committed when an idea, person, practice, or institution is evaluated solely in terms of its origin, without giving appropriate consideration to how it has changed or evolved in contemporary practice . . . While the Bible expressly forbids a believer’s involvement in certain pagan and/or occult practices (Deut. 18:9-13), for the vast majority of American families Halloween has nothing to do with the practice of, or belief in, occultism . . . Rather, this celebration gives children an opportunity to dress up in funny, spooky, and/or outrageous costumes and accumulate candy by the pillowcase full. The door of the occult world must be entered through human interest and initiative. General Halloween activities do not draw people in.

Personally, it seems hard not to treat a child dressed up as “Captain America” or “Snow White.” Even the recognized Christian authority on the cults and the occult, Walter Martin, said, “If Big Bird comes to my door, he’s definitely going to get a treat.”

Halloween? Yes, if carefully managed.

Kenneth Samples is a Christian scholar, and an avid speaker and debater who has appeared on numerous radio programs such as Voice America Radio, Newsmakers, The Frank Pastore Show, Stand to Reason, White Horse Inn, Talk New York, and Issues Etc, as well as participated in debates and dialogues on topics relating to Christian doctrine and apologetics.

Steve Russo is a best-selling author, internationally known communicator, drummer, evangelist and host of radio show Real Answers on 1000+ stations.

He has spoken at Prison Fellowship and Promise Keepers conferences and has been featured on ABC, CBS and NBC news broadcasts as well as The O’Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel.

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C H U R C H

L I F E

“I Ain’t Afraid a No Ghosts!”

by Rev. Robin Swope

As the popularity of Ghost hunting spreads it forces many people to take a hard look at their views of the afterlife and re-examine them in accordance with their long held traditions and religious faith.

To many there is a conflict between the way they view subjects of the paranormal and what the teachers of dogma within their faith dictate.

A few weeks ago I received a letter from a woman who felt conflicted with her beliefs in the paranormal and her church’s view on the supernatural:

I have known many Christians who struggle with their belief in the paranormal and church teachings. But what does the Bible say about Ghostly apparitions? What are they? Is it heresy to believe such things?

Many Evangelical and Fundamental Christian writers (I would call them Theologians but with many it is quite evident that they have not had training in Biblical Scholarship past Sunday morning Bible School) claim that the popular concept of a ghost and spectral hauntings are unbiblical. Many Catholic Theologians would agree with this view. But in the whole of Christianity these beliefs vary quite broadly. I have many friends and associates that think all ghosts are actually demonic spirits mimicking the behavior of expired human beings in order to lead people astray from “pure” Christian faith.

Others believe that Ghosts are merely residue of a past life and does not have anything to do with the actual person’s soul or spirit. And I have a few friends who are avid

Pastor Swop e, I have been s paranormal, truggling with my be believe that ie. ghosts, spirits, demo liefs in the energy and e after death, we go some ns… I truly higher plain, nergy cannot die, our so where, we are Catholic and albeit, heaven or hell. uls evolve to a teachings fo consider myself Christ I was raised they insist a rbid any affiliation or be ian. Some Christian your belief isll is demonic. I would lik lief in ghosts, show G" hosth on this subject. I am a e to know what am I sinning? unters"and never miss a huge fan of the n episode, ... I dont" wa nt to anger G od with my b eliefs!

Sincerely, K.B. 16

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Ghost Hunters in their own right and can determine true hauntings from apparitions and discern wayward spirits from demonic entities.

It all comes down to what view the person has on the afterlife. Where do we go when we die? There are many references in the Bible that points to the destination of the person after death.

Let’s first look at these.

2 Corinthians 5:1,6-8 “For we know that if our earthly house this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

“We are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”

Many people who argue against Ghosts as unbiblical point to verses 6-8. When we are dead, we are with God in heaven.

So according to this view, there can be no such thing as a real haunting because the soul and spirit are in heaven at the point of death.

However that would be taking the scripture out of context. The Apostle Paul is writing this in a Roman jail. He is about to die. Christianity is an illegal religion at this time and those who align themselves with the group face torture or even death. Paul talks to the church at Corinth to ease their troubled hearts.

Our lives are

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C H U R C H but passing, but the afterlife is eternal.

Our mortal body will die, but we will be given a new one that is immortal. The Apostle Paul desires to be in that new immortal body so he can physically be with the Lord. According to Systematic Christian Theology this new body is not given to us at death, but rather at the resurrection of the just or the ‘rapture.’

The rapture is the Christian theological belief that Jesus will descend from heaven at the end of days and resurrect all His followers just as He was resurrected after He died. The mortal body will be replaced with a supernatural immortal body. Two of the main Biblical passages that give details about this are 1 Corinthians 15: 50-58 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. These passages are lengthy so I will not include them in total here, if you wish to read them in their entirety please click on the passage and you will be redirected to them. But these passages are telling when it comes to what happens to the persona after death.

1 Corinthians 15:51 reads “Behold, I will tell you a mystery; We shall not all sleep but we shall be changed.”

1 Thessalonians 4:13 reads “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.”

The term ‘sleep’ is a euphemism for death in Christian Scripture (John 11:1114). The writer for all of these books is the Apostle Paul, so rather than supporting the idea that when we die we are with God in heaven he states that those who die ‘sleep.’ What does this mean? It refers to the body, not the spirit or soul.

The body

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L I F E

sleeps at death until it is changed into a new supernatural one at the end of days.

So what happens to our invisible part, the spirit or soul after death? Can the spirit still roam the Earth after death?

The Bible does talk about Ghosts, and the spirit of the dead returning to the earth. In the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel chapter 28:7-25 we see Saul King of Israel visit a medium when God does not answer him when war approaches. The prophet Samuel has died and King Saul asks the medium to bring up Samuel from the dead. The Ghost of Samuel talks to the King and tells him his fate is sealed just as he told him while he was alive. Verses 11-15 talk about the appearance of the Ghost of Samuel: Then the woman said, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” And he said, “Bring up Samuel for me.” When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman spoke to Saul, saying, “Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul!”

And the king said to her, “Do not be afraid.

What did you see?” And the woman said to Saul, “I saw a spirit ascending out of the earth.” So he said to her, “What is his form?”

And she said, “An old man is coming up, and he is covered with a mantle.” And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed down.

Now Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?”

The Bible clearly states that this is the Ghost of the prophet Samuel. Nowhere in the text does it state that he is otherwise.

The spirit is the disembodied essence of the man, and he is recognizable. He is ‘brought up’ from the earth by the witch of Endor, brought from the grave to their presence.

According to the Old Testament, the concept of a Ghost or disembodies spirit of a deceased person is not only real, it is Scriptural.

What about the New Testament? A lot of Theological concepts evolve between the Testaments, such as Grace, Forgiveness and a host of others. What about the concept of a Ghost? Does this evolve as well after the teachings of Jesus?

Almost everyone has heard the story of Jesus walking on water, and if you ever went to

Sunday School as a kid I am sure you additionally heard about Peter attempting to do the same and failing. This tale of trust and faith has been used for millennia to teach and encourage Christians. But just before the text talks about Peter’s attempt to come to Jesus on the water the text tells us something unusual: Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea.

And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”

Matthew 14:25-27 The disciples thought Jesus was a ghost.

And they were afraid. Now if ghostly apparitions are all demonic presences as some Christians report, why were the disciples afraid? Just a few chapters earlier Jesus had demonstrated how to exorcise evil spirits and then commissioned the disciples to go all over the land and do so. (Matthew 8:2834, Matthew 10:1-4) Although not implicit in the text it would seem that they should have had some personal experience in exorcism by themselves. So why were they afraid? Because they believed in Ghosts-the disembodied spirits of the dead who still roam the earth. And not only that, Jesus did not rebuke them for thinking he was a Ghost, instead He just calmed them down and let them know it was Him. If the concept of a disembodied spirit is so unbiblical why did Jesus let his disciples believe such things exist without correction?

Christian Scripture itself attests to the validity of Ghosts, and supports the idea that they are the disembodied spirits of the dead. Later Bible readers and teachers have read into the text their preconceived notions instead of reading from the texts and basing their ideas from the Scripture itself. Cults do the same thing to make their religious claims seem legit.

But let no one fool you. Belief in Ghosts is Scriptural. And to turn a phrase . . . I would say, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it!”

Rev. Robin Swope has been a Christian Minister for more than 20 years in both Mainline and Evangelical Denominations. He holds a B.A. in Biblical Literature from Nyack College and an M.Div. In Pastoral Ministry with an emphasis on Pastoral Counseling from Alliance Theological Seminary.

He is currently the Pastor of St.Paul's United Church of Christ in Erie, Pennsylvania.

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Thanksgiving

&

Each holiday season, we can count on clashes erupting in various places

between revisionists and traditionalists over the appropriateness of celebrating Thanksgiving.

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Revisionism

by Mary L. Chapeau

Two Points of View

@ WAR

showing its gratitude for God’s mercy, favor, and protection in spite of all our individual mistakes and sins, and all of the wrong turns our nation has taken.

For traditionalists, Americans can acknowledge the tragedies that millions of native peoples endured, even while thanking God for the bounty He has provided our country—the two are not mutually exclusive understandings. In fact, they are mutually empowering.

Revisionists charge that the “Thanksgiving story” is far from accurate.

Rather than a story of bold religious pilgrims risking their lives to worship freely, nearly starving, then feasting in gratitude with native people who showed them how to grow a bountiful harvest, the real story is much more tragic, they .

To revisionists, Thanksgiving has its roots in unbridled colonial exploitation that ultimately led to 250 years of inexThanksgiving “Facts” orable genocide. Native peoples do not Oddly enough, of celebrate this “traditional all of the national European-centric” holiday “myths” that permebut proclaim instead a . . . observing ate our society, the “National Day of story of the first Mourning” and they grieve Thanksgiving has no Thanksgiving is closfor the loss of their lands, deliberate connection est to actual fact. the decimation of their ancestors, and the near Many who built to the tragic plight extermination of their Plymouth Colony did of Native American cultures. indeed flee religious persecution at the Traditionalists counter peoples . . . It is not risk of their lives, that America’s observing meant to celebrate though by the first Thanksgiving has no delibThanksgiving of erate connection to the conquest . . .

October 1621 nearly tragic plight of Native half of the remaining American peoples as colonists were not the nation expandSeparatists, but Anglican. ed. It is not meant to celebrate conquest, exploitation, and the The history of the Plymouth Colony’s supremacy of European culture. failure to stock sufficient non-perishable In fact, they state, it is quite the foodstuffs, its failure to hunt and fish duropposite. ing the killing winter of 1620-21, and the “godsend” intervention of Squanto, the Thanksgiving is a time when Native American who showed the colony the nation bows its head in what and how to plant, is factual. humility, acknowledging the supremacy of God, not human As for the Thanksgiving feast of legend beings or human cultures, and and lore, there is actually little legend or www.dominionjournal.com

lore connected to it. Over ninety Wampanoag people did in fact attend, at the invitation of the Plymouth settlers, that feast. The feasting lasted three days, and included turkey, fish, corn, scallops, deer (provided by the Wampanoags), and other fowl.

Celebrants participated in games and displays of warrior prowess, song, dance, and story-telling. It was a brief moment time of connection between Native Americans and Europeans, and it created a peace between the Wampanoag and Narragansett peoples and the Plymouth colony which lasted for half a century.

It took two generations and an influx of thousands of Europeans unconcerned about the needs of Native Americans to destroy that peace.

Revisionists, whose influence reigned in academia and literature for almost 30 years provided a well-needed look at the native American perspective on Thanksgiving, though their often times radical impulses led to a rejection of the holiday within their own ranks. Ultimately, revisionism underwent its own scrutiny, and was found lacking in perspective.

Traditionalists reminded us that revisionist rejection of European settlement was tossing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. Rather than embracing

both historical trajectories as valid and worthy of study, understanding, and celebration, revisionism ignored anything “Euro-centric” as “oppressive” and “Genocidal;” essentially replacing one myth with another.

Spiritual Correctness

Today, the pendulum has swung to a synthesis of revisionist cautions and a traditionalist celebration of Thanksgiving.

The holiday is indeed not about us, any specific culture, or any specific ideology. It is simply a bended knee of thanks to the God who gives us the overflowing bounty of life, liberty, and happiness— the cornerstones of an imperfect nation of peoples collected from all over the planet.

Thanksgiving is about humility and, if even only for one day each year, regaining

perspective about the fragility of life and our ongoing need for God’s protection and blessings.

This is why presidents since George Washington have proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving, and why all people should participate in this celebration of our Creator.

A Thanksgiving Prayer According to tradition, the following prayer was offered at the first Thanksgiving in1621 . . . perhaps you would like to offer the very same prayer this year?

“ Bless us, Oh Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive in all humbleness from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord, who is ever present with us in all places and times, Amen.” www.dominionjournal.com

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T H AT ’ S

E N T E R TA I N M E N T

Thanksgiving Quotations & Notations “It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

— Abraham Lincoln “Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the act of highest appreciation is not to the utter words, but to live by them.”

— John Fitzgerald Kennedy “Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes . . . half-times take twelve minutes . . . this is not coincidence.”

— Erma Bombeck “Do not forget to give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.”

— Lakota Saying “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good...”

— Psalm 100:4, 5a

“Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday.

People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year.

And then discover once a year is way too often.”

— Johnny Carson “Thanksgiving should remind us that we are dependent on God for everything — our freedoms, our resources, our families, everything.

As the Bible says, ‘Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand’ (1 Chronicles 29:14). This is one reason the Bible says, ‘Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good’ (Psalm 136:1).”

— Billy Graham

How Much Do You Know About the 1st Thanksgiving?

True or False?

1. The First Thanksgiving was held in Jamestown, Virginia.

2. Samoset was the sachem or spiritual leader of the tribe that participated in the feast.

3. Only four women survived the first year and were present at the feast.

4. The feast lasted for an entire day and night.

5. The most prevalent food at the first Thanksgiving was deer and seafood.

6. The tribe that participated in the feasting was called “Wampanoag” which means “people of the dawn.”

7. The first Thanksgiving was most likely held in November.

8. Squanto, who taught the colonists how to plant crops, lived in England earlier and was the last of his tribe.

ANSWER KEY 1. False – Plymouth Mass. 2. False – Massasoit was sachem. 3. True – Sadly. 4. False – 3 days and 3 nights. 5. True. 6. True. 7. False – Most likely, the first Thanksgiving was held in early or mid-October. 8. True. www.dominionjournal.com

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by Dinesh D’Souza

It is difficult to imagine, but there is a small number of Christians who do not see the hand of God in the creation of the earth, and in particular, human life. No, not Christians who are evolutionists, but adhere to an understanding of human existence that is more accidental and unintentional – in direct conflict with the foundational proclamation of the Bible that God intended for “man” to have a special place in the universe. Noted and sometimes conterversial author, Dinesh D’Souza, makes the biblical case for man’s unique role in creation – the “anthropic princicple.”

It is a core belief of the world’s major religions — and specifically Judaism, Christianity and Islam — that man occupies a privileged place in God’s creation.

In their view, the universe was made with us in mind — or even for our sake. How can these traditional beliefs be reconciled with the discovery that we live in a vast universe with innumerable other planets and galaxies, and hundreds of billions of stars, some of them so far away that they have completely burned out by the time their light reaches Earth?

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In recent years, physics has given this question a resounding answer that affirms man’s special place in the cosmos. It turns out that the vast size and great age of our universe are not coincidental. They are the indispensable conditions for the existence of life on Earth. In other words, the universe has to be just as big as it is and just as old as it is in order to contain living inhabitants like you and me. The entire universe, with all its laws, appears to be a conspiracy to produce the human race.

Physicists call this incredible finding the “anthropic principle.”

Fine-Tuned For Life Physicists stumbled upon the anthropic principle by asking a simple question: Why does the universe operate according to the laws it does? They arrived at a remarkable conclusion. In order for life to exist — in order for humanity to exist — the gravitational force has to be precisely what it is.

The Big Bang had to occur exactly when it did. If the basic values and relationships of nature were even slightly different, our universe would not exist and neither would we. Fantastic though it seems, the universe is fine-tuned for human habitation. We live in a kind of Goldilocks universe in which the conditions are “just right” for life to emerge and thrive. As physicist Paul Davies puts it, “We have been written into the laws of nature in a deep and, I believe, meaningful way.”

Physicist Stephen Hawking gives a telling example: “If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe

would have recollapsed before it even reached its present size.” So the odds against us being here are, well, astronomical. And yet we are here. Who is responsible for this?

Leading scientists have acknowledged the far-reaching implications of the anthropic principle. “A commonsense interpretation of the facts,” writes astronomer Fred Hoyle, “suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with the laws of physics.”

Physicist Freeman Dyson says, “The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.”

. . . you cannot explain an improbability of this magnitude by simply pointing to our presence on the scene to ponder it. You must still account for the massive improbability.

We Are No Accident As you might expect, the anthropic principle has provoked a huge debate and a strong reaction. Astronomer Robert Jastrow observes that the anthropic principle “is the most theistic result ever to come out of science.” Yet atheist scientists and pundits typically attribute the fine-tuning of the universe to incredible coincidence. Physicist Victor Stenger, in www.dominionjournal.com

his book Not By Design, writes, “The universe is an accident.”

An accident? Physicist Steven Weinberg and biologist Richard Dawkins are not impressed by the improbability of this explanation. According to Weinberg, “You don’t have to invoke a benevolent designer to explain why we are in one of the parts of the universe where life is possible: In all the other parts of the universe there is no one to raise the question.” Dawkins concurs: “It is no accident that our kind of life finds itself on a planet whose temperature, rainfall and everything else are exactly right. If the planet were suitable for another kind of life, it is that kind of life that would have evolved here.” In science this is called a “selection effect.” Since we are here, we know that — whatever the odds — the game of cosmic chance must have worked in our favor.

There is a problem with this reasoning that I would like to dramatize by giving an example from the philosopher John Leslie.

Imagine a man sentenced to death standing before a firing squad. The shooters discharge their rifles. Somehow they all miss.

They shoot again, and again fail to hit their target. Repeatedly they fire and repeatedly they miss. Later the prisoner is approached by the warden who says, “I can’t believe they all missed. Clearly there is some sort of conspiracy at work.” Yet the prisoner laughs and says, “What on earth would make you suggest a conspiracy? It’s no big deal. Obviously the marksmen missed because if they had not missed I would not be here to have this discussion.” Such a prisoner would immediately, and rightly, be transferred to the mental ward. www.dominionjournal.com

Simply put, you cannot explain an improbability of this magnitude by simply pointing to our presence on the scene to ponder it. You must still account for the massive improbability. Remember that the anthropic principle does not say that, given the billions of stars in the universe, it is remarkable that life turned up on our planet. Rather, it says that the entire universe with all the galaxies and stars in it had to be formed in a certain way in order for it to contain life at all.

The ‘Depths Of Nature’ The atheist viewpoint is not only unable to explain the fine-tuning of nature, it cannot explain the profound lawfulness of nature itself. Davies writes, “If the divine underpinning of the laws is removed, their existence becomes a profound mystery. Where do they come from? Who sent the message? Who devised the code?”

Indeed the question can be posed in a deeper way: How can inanimate objects like electrons follow laws? Our experience as humans is that only rational and conscious agents can obey instructions. It remains deeply mysterious how atoms and molecules can do anything whatsoever, let alone abide by mathematical rules. And what rules! Throughout the history of science, its practitioners have found that

anomalies in known laws are usually accounted for by even deeper and more beautiful laws that seem to underlie the workings of nature.

This is what biologist Ursula Goodenough has called “the sacred depths of nature,” and even nonreligious scientists are awed by this idea.

Here, I believe, is where many believers and nonbelievers can find common ground: in their shared reverence for the grandeur of creation.

Yet the mind that reflects on nature’s intricate order is irresistibly propelled to ask how this order came to be. Why is reality structured in this way? Doesn’t the lawful order of nature require some ultimate explanation? If it does, then clearly the best explanation for why the universe is so orderly and intelligible and favorable for life is that an intelligent being made it that way.

Dinesh D’Souza is the author of many books, including What’s So Great About Christianity (Regnery). View his Web site www.dineshdsouza.com.

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Taking the Pulse of Armageddon as Israel-Iran Showdown Looms

By Paul Alster

Reprinted from FOXNEWS August 25, 2012

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HAIFA, Israel – It is just an 18-mile journey from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in luxurious Caesarea on the shores of the Mediterranean, to Har Megiddo – Armageddon, the hilltop ancient ruins of one of King Solomon’s palaces from where the Bible suggests the final battle between good and evil will be viewed.

The road between the two points is populated

by Israeli Jews and Arabs of widely differing religious beliefs and political opinions, and the No. 1 topic of conversation these days is whether Israel should bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. The people who live in the small, picturesque villages along the route recently

talked to FoxNews.com about the looming showdown.

“Israel must not allow another Holocaust to happen. We must act first.”

— David, in the Israeli city of Har Megiddo, or ‘Armageddon’ A man who identified himself as Mordechai, who was giving away copies of a free newspaper outside local shops in Caesarea, said he fears the seemingly inevitable confrontation.

“I’m frightened” Mordechai said.

“I don’t think we should attack Iran; it will start another world war. It’s also a big mistake to be talking about it here in the media.”

Haya, a well-dressed elderly lady, took a paper from him and offered a different view. “I’m happy with Bibi,” she said. “He won’t make the decision alone. He’ll listen to his advisors then he’ll do what he has to do.”

Route 65 is the "Road to Armageddon,"

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and a few miles east of Caesarea, it passes Kibbutz En Shemer, where Itti Moshiach, (his surname appropriately enough means Messiah), a former tank gunner who fought in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, offered his opinion.

“He (Netanyahu) should resign," Moshiach said. "I know he doesn’t want peace; the price is too heavy for him. He doesn’t want to give back the West Bank. As for Iran, they won’t use the bomb against us

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because they know full well our retaliation would be 100 times worse. We hear the government complaining that there is too much talk about this, but most of the talk comes from the government.”

Yehuda Zarka knows this part of the country as well as anyone. He is the base commander for the Border Police and famously foiled a Palestinian bomb plot in 2002 when he intercepted a half-ton bomb being delivered to a target in a local

Jewish town. He was commended for his bravery by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and by the current Israeli president, Shimon Peres.

“The people of the Middle East only understand strong leaders, and Bibi isn’t a strong leader,” Zarka said. “He talks too much and does nothing. (Menachem) Begin hit Saddam in 1981, and (Ehud) Olmert took out the Syrian facility in 2007 without any prior public discussion.

If Bibi had shown years ago – the moment the first missiles hit Israel from Gaza and Lebanon – that he would respond with real force, the Iranians wouldn’t have dared risk putting Israel in this position.”

Just a short drive down the road, in the Arab village of Baqa-Al-Gharbieh, few people were prepared to speak their mind.

‘Eid’, a shopkeeper, gave an insight into local Arab opinion.

“If he (Netanyahu) attacks Iran it will be a very big mistake,” Eid said. “The Jewish people don’t want to face facts. If the Palestinian problem was solved, Iran would have no reason or support to threaten Israel. We (Arabs) want peace. In life it is give and take, not like the Israelis, who take and take.”

At a gas station in another Arab town of Umm El Fahm, Samir bemoaned what war

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could do the already high cost of a gallon of gas. “If Netanyahu starts a war, $8 will seem cheap!” he observes. “It would be an economic disaster.”

Finally, in Har Megiddo, the view unfolds of the Jezreel Valley, where the final battle is forecast to take place. On the left side of the valley is Nazareth, while on the right – on the other side of the separation fence – is the Palestinian city of Jenin, which proudly proclaims itself the "martyr’s capital." The name reflects the city's having dispatched more suicide bombers into Israel than any other Palestinian town. In the souvenir shop ‘Maya’ and ‘David’ (not their real names), gave the perspective of 30-something Israeli Jews.

“I believe Iran is close to getting the bomb,” David said. “Israel must not allow another Holocaust to happen. We must act first.”

Maya agreed: “I do” she said. “We must be sure though to bomb Iranian military targets and not civilian areas. And we must do it soon; before it’s too late.”

Paul Alster is an Israel-based broadcast journalist who blogs at www.paulalster.com and can be followed on Twitter @paulalster.

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Iran Says . . .

Nuclear Equipment Was Sabotaged

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS — Published: September 22, 2012 TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran on Saturday accused the German technology company Siemens of planting tiny explosives inside equipment Iran bought for its disputed nuclear program, a charge Siemens denied.

Aladdin Boroujerdi, a prominent lawmaker, said Iranian security experts discovered the explosives and removed them before detonation. The authorities believe that the booby-trapped equipment was sold to derail uranium enrichment efforts, he said.

Siemens said its nuclear division had had no business with Iran since the1979 revolution.

Any sale of nuclear equipment to Iran is banned under United Nations sanctions, raising the possibility that if the country indeed has some, it was acquired through third parties. Mr. Boroujerdi did not say when or how Iran had obtained Siemens equipment.

Despite a wide array of international sanctions, Germany remains one of Iran’s most important trading partners.

The United States and its allies suspect that Iran’s nuclear work is aimed at producing weapons. Iran says it wants to enrich uranium only for peaceful purposes, and asserts that it has been the target of a concerted campaign by Israel, the United States and their allies to undermine its nuclear efforts covertly.

Some Iranian officials have also suggested that specific European companies sold faulty equipment to Iran with the knowledge of American intelligence agencies and their own governments, since the sales would have harmed the country’s nuclear program.

Fereydoon Abbasi, Iran’s most senior nuclear energy official, said on Monday that separate explosions — which he attributed to sabotage — had cut power supplies to Iran’s two main enrichment facilities.

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Major Archeological Find in Jordan “May be the most important discovery in the history of archeology.”

A group of 70 or so “books,” each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007.

A flash flood had exposed two niches inside the cave, one of them marked with a menorah or candlestick, the ancient Jewish religious symbol. A Jordanian Bedouin opened these plugs, and what he found inside might constitute extremely rare relics of early Christianity.

rings. Their leaves – which are mostly about the size of a credit card – contain text in Ancient Hebrew, most of which is in code.

If the relics are of early Christian origin rather than Jewish, then they are of huge significance.

Incredible claims The director of the Jordan's Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, says the books might have been made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately following his crucifixion.

“They will really match, and perhaps be more significant than, the Dead Sea Scrolls,“ says Mr Saad.

“Maybe it will lead to further interpretation and authenticity checks of the material, but the initial information is very encouraging, and it seems that we are looking at a very important and significant discovery, maybe the most important discovery in the history of archaeology.”

The books, or “codices,” were apparently cast in lead, before being bound by lead

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Christian origin lies in the images decorating the covers of the books and some of the pages of those which have so far been opened.

Elkington says the relics feature signs that early Christians would have interpreted as indicating Jesus, shown side-by-side with others they would have regarded as representing the presence of God. “It’s talking about the coming of the Messiah,” he says.

"In the upper square [of one of the book covers] we have the seven-branch menorah, which Jews were utterly forbidden to represent

One of the few people to see the collection is David Elkington, a scholar of ancient religious archaeology who is heading a British team trying to get the lead books safely into a Jordanian museum.

He says they could be “the major discovery of Christian history,” adding: “It’s a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church.”

He believes the most telling evidence for an early

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because it resided in the holiest place in the Temple in the presence of God. “So we have the coming of the Messiah to approach the Holy of Holies, in other words to get legitimacy from God.”

Evidence of Christian Origin Philip Davies, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament Studies at Sheffield University, says the most powerful evidence for a Christian origin lies in plates cast into a picture map of the holy city of Jerusalem.

“As soon as I saw that, I was dumbstruck. That struck me as so obviously a Christian image,” he says.

“There is a cross in the foreground, and behind it is what has to be the tomb [of Jesus], a small building with an opening, and behind that the walls of the city.

There are walls depicted on other pages of these books too and they almost certainly refer to Jerusalem.”

It is the cross that is the most telling feature, in the shape of a capital T, as the crosses used by Romans for crucifixion were. “It is a Christian crucifixion taking place outside the city walls,” says Mr Davies. Margaret Barker, an authority on New Testament history, points to the location of the reported discovery as evidence of Christian, rather than purely Jewish, origin.

“We do know that on two occasions groups of refugees from the troubles in Jerusalem fled east, they crossed the Jordan near Jericho and then they fled east to very approximately where these books were said to have been found,” she says. “[Another] one of the things that is most likely pointing towards a Christian provenance, is that these are not scrolls but books. The Christians were particularly associated with writing in a book form rather than scroll form, and sealed books in particular as part of the secret tradition of early Christianity.” The Book of Revelation refers to such sealed texts.

Another potential link with the Bible is contained in one of the few fragments of text from the collection to have been translated. It appears with the image of the menorah and reads “I shall walk uprightly,” a sentence that also appears in the Book of Revelation.

While it could be simply a sentiment common in Judaism, it could here be designed to refer to the resurrection. It is by no means certain that all of the artifacts in the collection are from the same period. But tests by metallurgists on the badly corroded lead suggest that the books were not made recently. The archaeology of early Christianity is particularly sparse.

Little is known of the movement after Jesus’ crucifixion until the letters of Paul several decades later, and they illuminate the westward spread of Christianity outside the Jewish world.

This article is reprinted from author Barry L. Brumfield’s website, which chronicles recent biblical archeological finds in the Middle East www.israelsmessiah.com

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“The Flag-Draped Coffin” Do you know that at military funerals, the 21-gun salute stands for the sum of the numbers in the year 1776? Further, have you ever noticed the honor guard pays meticulous attention to correctly folding the flag of United States of America 13 times? You probably thought it was to symbolize the original 13 colonies, but we learn something new every day. Each fold has a special, and primarily Christian meaning attributed to it by military tradition that stretches back over two centuries: The 1st fold of the flag is the symbol of Life.

The 2nd fold of the flag is a symbol of the belief in eternal life.

The 3rd fold is made in honor and remembrance of the veterans departing the ranks who gave a portion of their lives for the defense of the country to attain peace throughout the world.

The 4th fold represents the weaker nature, for as American citizens trusting in God, it is to Him we turn in times of peace as well as in times of war for His divine guidance.

The 5th fold is a tribute to the country, for in the words of Stephen Decatur, “Our Country, in dealing with other countries, may she always be right; but it is still our country, right or wrong.”

The 6th fold is for where people’s hearts lie. It is with their heart that they pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

The 7th fold is a tribute to its Armed Forces, for it is through the Armed Forces that they protect their country and their flag against all her enemies, whether they are found within or without the boundaries of their republic.

The 8th fold is a tribute to the one who entered into the valley of the shadow of death, that we might see the light of the day.

The 9th fold is a tribute to womanhood, and mothers. For it has been through their faith, their love, loyalty and devotion that www.dominionjournal.com

the character of the men and women who have made this country great has been molded.

The 10th fold is a tribute to the father, for he too, has given his sons and daughters for the defense of their country since they were first born.

The 11th fold represents the lower portion of the seal of King David and King Solomon and glorifies in the Hebrew eyes, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The 12th fold represents and emblem of eternity and glorifies in the Christian eyes, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The 13th fold, when the flag is completely folded, the stars are uppermost reminding them or their nation’s motto, “In God We Trust.”

After the flag is completely folded and tucked in, it takes on the appearance of a cocked hat, ever reminding us of the soldiers who served under General George Washington and the sailors and marines who served under Captain John Paul Jones, who were followed by their comrades and shipmates in the Armed Forces of the United States, preserving for them the rights, privileges and freedoms they enjoy today.

So in the future, when you see flags folded you can better understand the special meaning of the centuries old flag ceremony before it is delivered to the families of those who died for their country.

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Waiting on the Lord I N S P I R AT I O N

PSALM CORNER

By Vicke Pugil, Contributing Editor “Save me, O God, for the waters have Pray more, do crossword come up to my neck.” — Psalm 69:1 puzzles, fidget, worry – it is like standing in a long line; The people of the Psalms were not some people give up and leave, so very different from us. They called others might complain about out to God in prayer and praise, the slow service. in illness and anguish, in Perhaps the best thing we joy and can do while we wait on the Lord is thanksgiving, to act as if our prayers are already in anger and answered. Start the ball rolling – frustration, take the initiative. After all, do we have and fear when faith in our God or not? So, if we need danger and enea job, we’ll throw all of our efforts into mies were at the gates. Just as we do, finding one. Do we need to climb out of they would make their plea for help, and debt? Why not find a debt counselor and then wait and hope for an answer. find out what we need to know to move “But you, O Lord, do not be far from ahead? Have we problems with relationme; O My Strength, hasten to help me . . .” ships? We might use the time to mull — Psalm 22:19 over our errors of judgment and ask forgiveness and for There are nine other The best thing strength to improve ourselves.

Psalms which include Or we might look around and pleas for help and salvawe can do while see who needs help with a tion. There are six Psalms heavy burden they can't lift, which tell of “waiting on we wait for the or offer an encouraging word, the Lord.” But there are or give up our place in line no Psalms that tell how long to “wait on the Lord.” Lord is to act as and practice humility and love so that we can better live out And that is the frustration if our prayers those qualities within our own of it all. relationsips.

We live in a world of are already While waiting we can grow instant gratification. Got a our confidence in the Lord, headache? Take this pill. answered . . . and might begin to see our Don’t want to wait in line? problem differently and be Go online instead. Don’t more open to the ways of the Lord. want to cook tonight? How about Burger Then, through faith, we can transform King? You want it? You’ve got it. Except, the long line, or the ‘waiting room,’ where it really matters…with those pieces from a space filled with worry and of life that have value, meaning, and lasting darkness to a space of blessing, consequences…in other words, the parts of understanding and joy. life over which we have little or no control.

If we act as if God has already And so, we turn to the Lord when the answered our prayer, we create so many waters come up to our necks, and ask our more ways for God to do just that – and God to save us. From our foolish creation we find the answers to our prayers may of debt, or from our failure to have not always be what we first imagined, healthy relationships, or from a sudden but God does not fail to answer us . . . illness, unemployment, or significant loss.

“O my strength, hasten to help me…”

Interesting idea: to wait on the Lord Then we wait. means taking action. Chew on that one for awhile!

So, what should we do while we wait?

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One of these is the great lack of Bibles.

Millions of Christians living with restriction and persecution pray daily for someone to bring them Scriptures.

God has given all of us an opportunity to be an answer to their prayers. Consider if you will, what Isaiah said . . .

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What do Presbyterians Believe About

EVIL

When something terrible happens, many Christians comfort themselves by saying, “God is in control” or “Everything happens for a reason.”

But is this really what the Bible and our Presbyterian tradition teach us?

Today, with hundreds of thousands killed by the war in Iraq and the tsunami in Southeast Asia, age-old questions about evil seem more pressing than ever.

Who calls the shots?

?

By Susan R. Garrett Reprinted from Presbyterians Today March 2005 36

Dominion — Journal 2012

When New Testament authors tried to explain why things happen as they do, they often referred to unseen forces at work in the world. Terms they used for these forces included “principalities,” “powers,” “authorities,” “rulers,” “kings,” “angels,” “demons,” “spirits,” “thrones” and “dominions.”

They applied the terms sometimes to heavenly or spiritual realities, sometimes to earthly officeholders or structures of power, and often to both at once. For example, when Paul wrote that the “rulers of this world” had not understood the secret wisdom of God or else they would not have crucified Jesus (1 Corinthians 2:7-8), he was apparently referring both to the human “rulers of this world” who killed Jesus and to the spiritual forces that drove them.

Today many evangelical Christians (including some Presbyterians) stress the invisible, spiritual side of the powers and downplay or ignore their worldly dimension.

Such Christians understand the powers, rulers, angels, etc., as spirit-beings, each with unique intelligence and supernatural abilities, and each committed to serving either Satan (understood as chief of the fallen powers) or God. According to this interpretation, much of the world’s evil stems from an ongoing effort by the fallen powers to undermine God’s aims.

But the Reformed tradition (which includes Presbyterianism) has insisted that the powers’ earthly, human dimension be kept in view. We take the New Testament’s language about “powers and principalities” to refer not (or not exclusively) to spirit-beings but (also) to social entities, and norms for behavior. Whether or not one understands the powers as spirit-beings, it is important to recognize the systemic dimensions of sin that they foster. www.dominionjournal.com

once we are saved, all is right with us. We can safely pass the buck because the evil has been expelled from our individual “Rulers and rules” are often intended for good, as with souls. We needn’t worry about evil deriving from the social legitimate governments, the medical establishment, the famsystems we support. ily, a college honor code, or the Geneva conventions. But in Because LaHaye and Jenkins view evil powers as separathe Reformed view, all worldly powers are prone to sin. Even ble from people and institutions, they fail to see that the powers with good intentions at times put selfish goals (such powers are embodied in all our institutions, including the as profit or pleasure) ahead of the interests of God or fellow church, and that humans are comhumans. The prison abuses at Abu plicit in them. They fail to see how Ghraib by members of the United even churches are still prone to States armed forces illustrate this believe sin's twisted promises of sort of gap between professed intenwell-being and to heed its words tion (spreading freedom) and actual of flattery and enticement. practice. So does the sexual abuse of youth by clergy.

Bringing good out of evil In some cases the rulers and How did we come to inhabit a rules seem designed for evil, as with world controlled by the powers? And a cartel of drug traffickers, or a where is God in the mix? The Apostle gang's expectation that its members Paul traced our “present evil age” act violently. Some “powers and (Galatians 1:4) back to the time of principalities” are definitely worse Adam. When Adam sinned, a cosmic than others, seeking only to enhance shift occurred: powers called “Sin” their own position. They consistently and “Death” entered into the world. reject rules and standards meant to God relinquished a measure of conprotect the rights of others, and trol over the world to these and to devotedly serve a lesser god. all the powers, which now determine Examples include the child pornogthe outcome of many earthly events, raphy industry (where the “god” is both natural and human-caused. The money) and the Ku Klux Klan. powers, fallen as they are, exercise Even powers with good We readily absorb and reflect the control because God lets them do so. corrupting influences of our social intentions at times put But always God looks ahead to and cultural worlds. If I discriminate the Day of Resurrection, when the against someone, it may be that my selfish goals . . . ahead dead will be raised and Christ's lordfamily, peers, and culture have blindship over the powers—initiated at ed me to my own privilege, and of the interests of God his resurrection—will be complete. convinced me that certain classes of The Presbyterian Study Catechism people deserve lesser treatment. Or a or fellow humans. says Christians share this “resurrec"suicide bomber" may have been pertion hope.” We hope not simply that suaded by the members of a militant we as individuals will live again, but group to see acts of violence as that all of creation “will be set free from its bondage to decay expressing loyalty to God and to the attacker’s own people. and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of Humans sometimes sin because forces larger than they God” (Romans 8:21). On that day, God will truly “be all in blind them, deceive them, subjugate them. We are accountall” (1 Corinthians 15:28). able before God both as individuals and as members of From Paul's perspective God does not directly will bad sinful communities whose biases and perversions we learn, things that happen. At the creation God gave the powers act on, and pass on to others. genuine authority, and they determine the shape of many events, including many instances of evil. Sometimes the 'Left Behind' theology powers work against God, just as we as individuals someSome popular explanations of evil are inconsistent with a times work against God. God does not directly will those Reformed view. Consider, for example, the Left Behind novthings to happen, though God in God's sovereignty does els, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. This set of 12 novallow the powers to have their way. els, which have sold over 62 million copies, depicts events On the other hand, Paul writes, “all things work together expected by many evangelicals: the rapture of the saints, for good for those who love God, who are called according to seven years of tribulation, and the Battle of Armageddon. his purpose” (Romans 8:28). Paul is saying that God regularEvil, in this understanding, comes from outside humans, ly turns even bad things to good ends. When we affirm God’s indeed from outside the world: it is a supernatural force that providence, we are announcing our confidence that “God blinds people as if by magic and indwells them by possession. provides for the world by bringing good out of evil, so that LaHaye and Jenkins ignore evil’s systemic dimension. nothing evil is permitted to occur that God does not bend Such a view promotes the dangerous assumption that,

Sinful systems

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finally to the good” (Study Catechism, question 22). Thus God permitted Joseph's brothers to take him captive, but though they meant it for evil "God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20).

Fire-power vs. resurrection power Full and final redemption from the fallen powers will not come until the Last Day (1 Corinthians 15:28). The good news of the gospel is that at his resurrection Jesus Christ became “first fruits” of the coming redemption, and Lord over the powers (1 Corinthians 15:23; Ephesians 1:20-21; 1 Peter 3:22).

Christians already share in this authority when they call upon Jesus’ name: “See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you.” (Luke 10:19; cf. Ephesians 6:10-17; Philippians 2:10). But what does this “authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy” look like in practice?

Jesus’ lordship over the powers, and our authority as his disciples, is not manifested in supernatural protection of the saints as much as in the divine strength we are given to persevere in the midst of this fallen world. This is the same strength that enabled Jesus to endure (not escape) the crucifixion and so to undermine the powers as they sought to obstruct God's reign.3 Jesus promises us real power—"power at work within us" by which God “is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20).

In the final volume of the Left Behind series all the vengeance envisioned in the later chapters of Revelation is carried out. Here LaHaye and Jenkins understand divine power as just like worldly power, only more so. “Power” in their view means fire-power, the power to destroy. So, at his glorious appearing Jesus slays millions of non-Christian storm troopers by the sheer power of a spoken word, and then causes their bodies to be instantly decomposed.

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This is an image of Jesus wielding the power of death. But it is a false and idolatrous image. God's power is not the power of death, for death is “the last enemy,” which will itself be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). God’s power is the power to create, the power to endure, the power to forgive, the power to love. God’s power is resurrection power. It is the power of life. Such power, freely given, is God's answer to the problem of evil, until that great day when all creation is set free from its bondage.

“And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new’” (Revelation 21:5).

How Jesus helps We are not alone in our struggle against evil The Spirit of Jesus enables us to persevere in our grappling with the sinful and sorrowful conditions of human existence, in ways that we never could by our mortal strength alone. Christ frees us from the dominion of the powers and shows himself to be their Lord by: • Healing our blindness. Jesus gives us eyes to see when sin seduces us with its wily and deceptive promises.

• Undergirding us when death buffets and torments us.

We conquer our fear by trusting in the God who raises the dead, and by drawing on strength conferred by the Holy Spirit.

• Forgiving us when we fail morally. By accepting us, even running to meet and embrace us when we are dragged down with shame, he enables us to triumph over the forces that tempt us to despair.

Empowering us to love and to serve people we have wronged or hated. Jesus enables us to forgive those who have wronged us, and to call those wrongs to mind no more.

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Calling All Saints, Calling All Souls . . .

Just what do these days mean to Christians?

Is there a pagan connection?

by Father William Saunders

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Both the Feast of All Saints and the Feast of All Souls evolved in the life of the Church independently of paganism and Halloween. However, elements of pagan practices were perhaps “baptized” by some cultures or attached themselves to the celebration of All Saints and All Souls.

Let us first address the Feast of All Saints. The exact origins of this celebration are uncertain, although, after the legalization of Christianity in 313, a common commemoration of Saints, especially the martyrs, appeared in various areas throughout the Church. For instance in the East, the city of Edessa celebrated this feast on May 13; the Syrians, on the Friday after Easter; and the city of Antioch, on the first Sunday after Pentecost. Both St. Ephrem (AD 373) and St. John Chrysostom (AD 407) attest to this feast day in their preaching. In the West, a commemoration for all the saints also was celebrated on the first Sunday after Pentecost. The primary reason for establishing a common feast day was because of the desire to honor the great number of martyrs, especially during the persecution of Emperor Diocletion (284-305), the worst and most extensive of the persecutions.

Quite supply, there were not enough days of the year for a feast day for each martyr and many of them died in groups. A common feast day for all saints, therefore seemed most appropriate.

In 609, the Emperor Phocas gave the Pantheon in Rome to Pope Boniface IV, who rededicated it on May 13 under the title St. Maria ad Martyres (or St. Mary and All Martyrs.) Whether the Holy Father purposefully chose May 13 because of the date of the popular celebration already established in the East or whether this was just a happy coincidence is open to debate.

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The designation of November 1 as the named, was the Celtic lord of death, and his Feast of All Saints occurred over time. Pope name literally meant “summer’s end.”

Gregory III (731-741) dedicated an oratory in Since winter is the season of cold, darkness the original St. Peter's Basilica in honor of and death, the Celts soon made the connecall the saints on November 1 (at least tion with human death. The eve of according to some accounts,) and this date Samhain, October. 31, was a time of Celtic then became the official date pagan sacrifice, and for the celebration of the Feast Samhain allowed the of All Saints in Rome. St Bede souls of the dead to The Scots (AD 735) recorded the celebrareturn to their earthly tion of All Saints Day on homes that evening. walked through November 1 in England, and Ghosts, witches, goblins, such a celebration also existed and elves came to harm fields and in Salzburg. Austria. Ado of the people, particularly villages carrying those who had inflicted Vienna (AD 875) recounted how Pope Gregory IV asked harm on them in this life. torches and lit King Louis the Pious (778-840) Cats too were considered to proclaim November 1 as All sacred because they had bonfires to ward once been human beings Saints Day throughout the Holy Roman Empire. who had been changed as off witches and Sacramentaries of the 9th a punishment for their and 10th centuries also placed on this earth. other evil spirits. evilTodeeds the Feast of All Saints on the protect themselves liturgical calendar on from marauding evil spirNovember 1. its on the eve of Samhain, the people extinAccording to an early Church historian, guished their hearth fires and the Druids John Beleth, Pope Gregory IV (827-844) (the priests and spintual teachers of the officially declared November 1 the Feast of Belts) built a huge new year's bonfire of All Saints, transferring it from May 13. sacred oak branches. The Druids offered However, Sicard of Cremona (AD 1215) burnt sacrifices — crops, animals, even recorded that Pope Gregory VII (1073-85) humans — and told fortunes of the coming finally suppressed May 13 and mandated year by examining the burned remains.

Nov.1 as the date to celebrate the Feast of People sometimes wore costumes of animal All Saints. In all, we find the Church estabheads and skins. From this new fire, the lishing a liturgical feast day in honor of the home hearths were again ignited. saints independent of any pagan influence.

Particular ethnic groups developed their Now for the pagan connection: own lore which was merged with the celeNovember 1 marked Samhain, the beginbration. In Ireland, people ning of the Celtic winter. (The Celts lived as held a parade in honor of early as 2,000 years ago in England, Muck Olla, a god.

Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and northern They followed a France.) Samhain, for whom the feast was leader dressed in a

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white robe with a mask from the head of an animal, and begged for food. (Ireland is also the source of the jack-o’lantern fable: A man named Jack was not able to enter heaven because of his miserliness and he could not enter hell because he played practical jokes on the devil; so he was condemned to walk the earth with his lantern until Judgment Day.) The Scots walked through fields and villages carrying torches and lit bonfires to ward off witches and other evil spirits.

In Wales, every person placed a marked stone in the huge bonfire. If a person’s stone could not be found the next morning, he would die within a year.

Besides the Celtic traditions in place, the Roman conquest of Britain in AD 43 brought two other pagan feasts: Feralia was held in late October to honor the dead.

Another Autumn festival honored Pomona, the goddess of fruits and trees; probably through this festival, apples became associated with Halloween. Elements of these Roman celebrations were combined with the Celtic Samhain.

With the spread of Christianity and the establishment of All Saints Day, some of these pagan customs remained in the English speaking world for All Hallows Eve (or Halloween, All Saints Eve), perhaps at first more out of superstition and later, more out of fun. Nevertheless, All Saints Day clearly arose from genuine Christian devotion.

Along with the Feast of All Saints developed the Feast of All Souls. The Church has consistently encouraged the offering of prayers and Mass for the souls of the faithful departed in Purgatory. At the time of their death, these souls are not

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M E R E perfectly cleansed of venial sin or have not atoned for past transgressions, and thereby are deprived of the Beatific Vision. The faithful on earth can assist these souls in Purgatory in attaining the Beatific Vision through their prayers, good works and the offering of Mass.

In the early days of the Church, the names of the faithful departed were posted in Church so that the community would remember them in prayer. In the 6th century, the Benedictine monasteries held a solemn commemoration of deceased members at Whitsuntide, the days following Pentecost. In Spain, St. Isidore (AD 636) attested to a celebration on the Saturday before Sexagesima Sunday (the second Sunday before Lent, the eighth before Easter in the old calendar). In Germany, Widukind, Abbot of Corvey (AD 980) recorded a special ceremony for the faithful departed on October 1. St. Odilo, the Abbot of Cluny (AD 1048), decreed for all of the Cluniac monasteries that special prayers be offered and the Office of the Dead sung for all of the souls in Purgatory on November 2, the day after All

C H R I S T I A N I T Y

Saints. The Benedictines and Carthusians Other customs have developed regardadopted that same devotion, and soon ing All Souls. In Mexico, relatives make November 2 was adopted as the Feast garlands, wreathes and crosses of real and of All Souls for the whole Church. paper flowers of every color to place on the graves of deceased relatives the morning of Other customs have arisen over time All Souls. The family will spend the entire in the celebration of All Souls Day. The day at the cemetery. The Dominicans in the 15th will visit the cemecentury instituted a custom All Souls Day and All pastor tery, preach and offer of each priest offering three Masses on the Feast of All Saints Day are rooted prayers for the dead and then bless the individual Souls. Pope Benedict XIV in Christian belief and graves. “Skeleton” candy in 1748 approved this pracis given to the children. tice, and it rapidly spread arose in this life of throughout Spain, Portugal Similar practices occur and Latin America. During the Church through a in Louisiana. The relatives World War I, Pope Benedict whitewash and clean the healthy spirituality, XV, recognizing the number tombstones and prepare of war dead and the numergarlands, wreathes and despite some pagan ous Masses that could not crosses of real and paper be fulfilled because of trappings that may flowers to decorate them. destroyed Churches, granted In the afternoon of All have survived . . . all priests the privilege of Saints, the priest processoffering three Masses on All es around the cemetery, Souls Day: one for the particular intention, blessing the graves and reciting the Rosary. one for all of the faithful departed, and one Candles are lit near the graves at dusk, for the intentions of the Holy Father. one for each member of the deceased.

On All Souls day, Mass is usually offered at the cemetery.

In the Middle Ages, superstitious belief, probably influenced from Celtic paganism, held that the souls in purgatory appeared on All Souls Day as witches, toads, goblins, etc. to persons who committed wrongs against them during their lives on earth.

For this reason, some ethnic groups also prepared food offerings to feed and to appease the spirits on this day. These practices are probably remnants of the Celtic Samhain festivities.

Nevertheless, All Souls Day as well as All Saints Day are rooted in Christian belief and arose in this life of the Church through a healthy spirituality, despite some pagan trappings that may have survived and have remained attached to their celebration.

Father William Saunders is dean of the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College and pastor of Our Lady of Hope Parish in Sterling, Virginia. The above article is a “Straight Answers” column he wrote for the Arlington Catholic Herald. Father Saunders is also the author of the book Straight Answers.

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M E R E

C H R I S T I A N I T Y

Forgotten History Reminds Us That . . .

Christians Were the First to Insist on Separation of Church and State Many of our forefathers came to these shores in order to worship the Lord in the manner they deemed most proper. Indeed, the European experience up to the Reformation and from that point forward was one of wars, persecutions, and a constant struggle against a Church/State Goliath for religious liberty.

While our nation was the first to write into its foundational documents guarantees that government cannot infringe on the free exercise of religious freedom, nor establish a state church, the concept of separation of state and church is not uniquely American.

In fact, it was the German reformer, Martin Luther who first made popular the notion that there are two kingdoms on earth: one representing the Law, the other the Gospel – the first Kingdom being government, which yields the sword of God’s justice and maintains order in the world, the second Kingdom being the Church, which feeds the soul and holds the Office of the Keys.

To Luther, the two are and must ever be separate, although the Christian lives within both kingdoms and serves each rightfully and dutifully.

Luther’s idea was nothing short of radical in the 16th century, but by the

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18th century Enlightenment, it had so Oddly enough, then, and Christians gained acceptance that its influence can be today would do well to remind secularists clearly seen in the writings of philosophers of this fact, the idea of separation of church of human liberty like John and state was well established Locke and John Stuart long before Jefferson first Mill...and their influence the term in 1803, and Luther’s idea of used eventually reached as far as it came from Christian Independence Hall. thinkers, not secularizing Church / State purists. Its intention in The presumption that as it remains today, permeates the writings of Separation was 1789, is as Luther understood it the 18th century political in the 1520’s – to protect the philosophers is that humans nothing short Church from the State, and establish government in of radical in the protect the State from the order to live ordered lives, Church. It was never intendprotect themselves from ed to protect citizens from 16th century. injustice, and preserve their religious persons exercising freedoms...and the most the free expressions of their critical freedoms to 17th and faith, or cleanse the public square from 18th century Europeans were both economthe open acknowledgment of God. ic and religious. The European experience of Church and State entanglement, which So as we approach the 500th anniversary had controlled the daily lives of Europeans of the Protestant Reformation (in 2017), for nearly 1000 years, was instrumental in let’s say a small prayer of thanks for Martin fueling the German Reformation. The Luther’s sagacity. Religious freedom is, reformers were able to achieve significant after all, a very rare blessing in the history social and political traction because they of the human race, and has yet to be built upon an already emerging separation achieved for billions of people across between the German princes and the Holy our planet, even today.

See in Rome.

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AN EXCERPT FROM DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH IN WORD AND DEED

The Counter Reformation: Ignatius and the Jesuits

By Fr. Charles P. Connor

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Defenders of the faith have been raised up in every era of the Church to proclaim fidelity to the truth by their words and deeds. Some have fought heresy and overcome confusion like Athanasius against the Arians and Ignatius Loyola in response to the Protestant reformers. Others have shed their blood for the faith, like the early Christian martyrs of Rome, or Thomas More, John Fisher and Edmund Campion in Reformation England.

Still others have endured a “dry” martyrdom like St. Philip Howard, Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty and Jesuit Walter Ciszek.

Intellectuals have been no less conspicuous in their zealous defense of the faith, like Bonaventure, Albert, Thomas Aquinas, or Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The stories of all these,and more, are told here in Fr. Charles Connor’s Defenders of the Faith in Word and Deed. Here is the story of the Society of Jesus.

On October 31, 1517, an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther, long fearful for his own salvation, seemed to unleash tremendous personal hostility when he nailed his famous Ninety-five Theses to the door of the cathedral in Wittenburg, Germany. This single action has traditionally been viewed as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Before it ended, several new theologies were formulated by at least two generations of reformers, causing Christianity to fall into centuries of division.

The term sola fide (“faith alone”) is often associated with Luther. It was a belief that provided him a great deal of inner tranquility. Once, while meditating on Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Luther came to the verse that states that “man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” [1] Luther took this to mean that a person does not have the capability to work out his own salvation because of his sinful human nature. Instead, God gives his free gift of grace, which stimulates faith and leads to salvation. Luther rejected, it appears, the admonition of the Apostle James that faith without good works is dead,[2] preferring to concentrate only on that which gave him inner peace.

Luther also opposed the buying and selling of indulgences, a practice quite rampant in the western Europe of his day. The Church has always taught that an indulgence is a remission of the temporal punishment due to sin, and Luther correctly pointed out that such forgiveness cannot be purchased. The abuse of selling indulgences www.dominionjournal.com

and the erroneous attitudes it created are well illustrated by the slogan of a preacher in Luther's time: "Another soul to heaven springs when in the box a shilling rings.” [3] While justification and indulgences are the issues for which Luther is best remembered, many more grievances comprised his Wittenburg list. Some two years after he had posted them, he confided in writing to a friend that the idea of the Pope as the antiChrist, once repellent to him, now seemed to have more plausibility. Luther at first had no intention of beginning a new ecclesial body. As he meditated on Scripture, however, he began to think that the Church should return to the gospel in its purest form as he envisioned it, eliminating what he regarded as unnecessary liturgical ceremony, hierarchical structure, and the like: For Luther everything began from his fundamental experience . . . salvation comes [to human beings] from God through faith alone. God does everything and they do nothing. Good works do not make people good, but once people have been justified by God they do good works . . ..

So Luther turned his back on everything in tradition which denied the preeminence of scripture and faith. He rejected what appeared to him as a means, a claim on the human side to deserve salvation: the cult of the saints, indulgences, religious vows, those sacraments which [he could not find] attested in the New Testament. Anything not explicitly set out in scripture was worthless.

All that counted was the universal priesthood of the faithful.[4] In 1520, the papal bull Exsurge formally condemned forty-one of Luthers propositions, and he was given two months to submit to the authority of the Church.

In December 1520, he publicly burned his copy of Exsurge, and excommunication followed one month later.

Closely akin to Luther was Ulrich Zwingli in Switzerland. A former priest and student of the Renaissance scholar Erasmus, Zwingli was based in the city of Zurich, having moved from Glavis, the scene of his former priestly labors. He was, from all accounts, a more inwardly secure man than Luther. His preoccupation was not so much his own eternal destiny as it was freeing his disciples from the shackles of Rome's domination. Following this view and a Lutheran disposition toward “gospel purity,” reformed churches were established in Switzerland.

These congregations established vernacular liturgies, in contrast to the Latin liturgy of www.dominionjournal.com

the Catholic Church. They also removed statues of the saints, secularized convents, and followed other practices emerging in neighboring Germany.

The French layman John Calvin brought a nonclerical background to Reformation theology and represented a younger generation of reformers. Calvin was also based in Switzerland, though in the city of Geneva.

In fact, his grave can be seen there to this day. It consists of a single pole, atop of

turned to the English clergy with the same request and subsequently declared himself head of the church in England. Henry's Six Articles, promulgated in 1539, kept the essentials of the Catholic faith (even though failure to take the Act of Supremacy recognizing Henry's headship of the church led most often to execution). it was not until his death that Calvinistic theology began to find its way into the Book of Common Prayer. When Henry's daughter Mary Tudor became monarch in 1553, she briefly restored Catholicism and carried out over two hundred executions of In response to Protestantism Protestant heretics. Upon the accession of her half-sister Elizabeth (the and to the problems it sought daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn), Anglicanism was officially to address, the Catholic renewal established as the state religion and the Thirty-nine Articles spelled out or Counter-Reformation the particulars of belief. They did not rid the Church of England of as many became a reality. vestiges of Romanism as some would have liked. It seemed to be a theology very close to neighbouring Calvinism which are the initials “J. C.” This protrudes which maintained traditional forms like the through some greenery and is surrounded episcopate and liturgical vestments. Both by a small iron fence. The grave is reminisCatholic and Protestant dissidents were cent of the stark nature of ecclesial architecmercilessly persecuted. [5] The Reformation was, to be sure, no isoture in Calvinistic churches, if not the lated event, but a series of movements in severity of Calvin's thought. several European countries that in varying Calvin was obsessed with the sovereign ways departed from Catholicism. In nature of God. In his Institutes of the response to Protestantism and to the probChristian Religion, he develops the theory lems it sought to address, the Catholic for which he is best remembered: predestirenewal or Counter-Reformation became a nation. All creatures merited damnation, reality. One of the magnificent fruits of that but God in his mercy chose some for salvarenewal was the establishment of the tion. These, in turn, needed the vehicle of a Society of Jesus, founded by the Spanish church in which to express their faith.

Basque lgnatius of Loyola.

Calvin's emphasis was very much on the Loyola is a castle at Azpeltia, located in church as a local community of believers in the Pyrenees Mountains. It was there that whom power rested. His unique brand of Iñigo, as he was then called, was born, in theology was gradually adopted by religious 1491. His background was military, and he groups identified as Presbyterians, fought briefly against the French in Huguenots, Puritans, and Pamplona. A serious battle injury brought Congregationalists. His ideas spread quickly to England and to its colonies in him back to his native castle and confined North America. Also, they found their way him for weeks. He was a worldly sort and to Scotland in the person of John Knox, as would love to have occupied his hours readwell as the Low Countries of Europe, ing romantic novels. Instead, only two Holland in particular. books, on the lives of the saints and the life In England, despite the fact that Henry of Christ, were available. The biographies of VIII was given the title Defender of the Faith the saints began to fascinate him, make him by the Holy See for a book published under think of the uselessness of his own life up to his name, the monarch was anything but a that point, and provoked the interior question: If such acts of spiritual heroism were theologian, and the Reformation in England possible in the lives of others, why would was not theological in origin. Henry's wife Catherine of Aragon gave him no male they not be possible in his? heirs. Wishing to have his marriage A hunger for God began to overtake him by degrees, and after a time he resolved to annulled, but refused by the Church, he Dominion — Journal 2012

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go on pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Montserrat. Sometime during the course of that visit he determined that thenceforth he would lead a penitential life and his stay in the nearby small town of Manresal where he experienced solitude and prayer, confirmed his desire all the more. He made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and then studied in Barcelona, Alcala, and, finally, at the University of Paris, where he received the Master of Arts in 1534. Still his fervor did not slacken. At Paris he was to meet companions who were like-minded in spiritual outlook and whose names would become well known in Jesuit annals: Francis Xavier (a Spanish Basque like Ignatius), Favre, Laynez, Salmeron, Rodriguez, Bobadilla.

Together they would become "the Company", the first Jesuits, defenders of the faith in heretical times.

On the feast of Our Lady's Assumption, August 15, 1534, these men professed their vows in the chapel of Saint Denis on the hill of Montmartre in Paris. They vowed to work for the glory of God. They agreed that when they finished their studies and became priests, they would go to Jerusalem together, but if they could not go there in a year, they would go to Rome and offer to go anywhere the Pope deemed necessary.

Their hopes of going to Palestine would not be realized, but other needs quickly became apparent.

There being no likelihood of their being able soon to go to the Holy Land, it was at length resolved that Ignatius, Favre, and Laynez should go to Rome and offer the services of all to the pope, and they agreed that if anyone asked what their association was they might answer "the Company of Jesus", because they were united to fight against falsehood and vice under the standard of Christ. On his road to Rome, praying at a little chapel at La Storta, Ignatius saw our Lord, shining with an unspeakable light, but loaded with a heavy cross, and he heard the words, Ego vobis Romae propitius ero, "I win be favorable to you at Rome." [6] Eventually they became a religious order and took formal vows. The members of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, truly were men of the Church. The papal bull of institution, promulgated in 1540 during the pontificate of Pope Paul III, stated the Society's purposes. The document "Rules for Thinking with the Church" is also illustrative. It was composed by Ignatius himself as an addition to his Spiritual Exercises. It represents a reply to the Protestant challenge, affirming many long-established practices that were under severe criticism and attack. It is a document "characterized more perhaps by its balance www.dominionjournal.com

and moderation than one may at first think". [7] Rule Thirteen initially appears anything but moderate: If we wish to proceed securely in all things, we must hold fast to the following principle: What seems to me white, I will believe black if the hierarchical Church so defines. For I must be convinced that in Christ Our Lord, the bridegroom, and in His spouse the Church, only one Spirit holds sway, which governs and rules for the salvation of souls. For it is by the same Spirit and Lord who gave the Ten Commandments that our Holy Mother Church is ruled and governed. [8] In addition to absolute loyalty, Ignatius in the Constitutions leaves no doubt that it is to be interpreted as willingness to carry out the wishes of the Holy See: All that His Holiness will command us for the good of souls, or the propagation of the faith, we are bound to carry out with neither procrastination nor excuse, at once and to the fullest extent of our power, whether he sends us among the Turks, to the New Worlds, to the Lutherans, or any other manner of believers or unbelievers.... This vow may scatter 'us to the distant parts of the world.[9] The work of the Jesuits in defending the faith must be looked at in the context of the Counter-Reformation. The times called for a spirited defense of faith; it was the time for Catholic renewal; the Church had been weakened from within by the laxity of her own; she had been weakened from without by the strong theological dissent of the various reformers. The Church had to respond adequately, and the Jesuits found themselves part of this response. In all manner of response, however, Ignatius was quite insistent that charity prevail and that the integrity of the Church not suffer because of the misdeeds or poorly contrived statements of those attempting to defend it: Great care must be taken to show forth orthodox truth in such a way that if any heretics happen to be present they may have an example of charity and Christian moderation. No hard words should be used nor any sort of contempt for their errors be shown. [10] A man can be charitable as he clearly, unambiguously teaches Catholic truth. This was Ignatius' aim, and education was to play a key role. If men were adequately trained, the Church would be better served; such motivated the opening of the Roman and German colleges in the Eternal City. The former was established primarily though the largesse of the family of Saint Francis Borgia, the man who would become Ignatius' successor as third General of the Society; the latter was an educational bastion for students from all countries affected www.dominionjournal.com

by the Reformation.

Although an educated Jesuit was always to exercise charity, his response to heresy must be firm and decisive. One of the truly great Jesuits to receive instruction from Ignatius before undertaking his mission was Saint Peter Canisius: Once a man has been convicted of heretical impiety or is strongly suspect of it, he has no right to any honour or riches: on the contrary, these must be stripped from him . . . If public professors or administrators at the University of Vienna or the other univer-

sities have a bad reputation in relation to the Catholic faith, they must be deprived of their degrees. All heretical books must be burned, or sent beyond all the provinces of the kingdom. [11] Canisius' record of educational beginnings is impressive: Ingolstadt, Vienna, Prague, Strasbourg in Alsace (where he was involved in the opening negotiations), Innsbruck (where he introduced the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary to collegians), Dillingen, and Fribourg. In addition, he managed time at the Council of Trent,

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where his very practical advice to the years later there were 1,111 Jesuits at work Council Fathers about the Reformation in in the country.[13] Germany was highly regarded. Strong as his Germany was, of course, not the only defense of Catholicism was in day-to-day scene of the Reformation. Jesuits labored in relations with German Protestants, he many countries on the Continent, and also favored the approach of peaceful coexisin England. Even before the English mistence. Some saw this as betrayal, but sion was a reality, Ignatius ordered prayers Canisius felt (and later convinced Rome) for the conversion of England and for the that a calm, firm, and educated approach English and Welsh martyrs of penal times, would help Catholics win an intellectual twenty-six of whom had been Jesuits. battle they had previously been losing. All of Centuries later Henry Edward Manning, this is not to suggest that Cardinal Archbishop of his career was solely acaWestminster, himself a demically oriented. His convert to Catholicism They preached sojourn in Vienna proves (and from his tone no the contrary: Many particular friend of the ‘Jesus Christ and parishes were without Reformation), wrote clergy, and the Jesuits had about the work of the Him crucified.’ to supply the lack as well English Jesuits: It was as to teach in their newlyexactly what was wanted This had been founded college. Not a sinat the time to counteract gle priest had been the revolt of the sixtheir central ordained for twenty years; teenth century. The monasteries lay desolate; revolt was disobedience message, and members of the religious and disorder in the most orders were jeered at in aggressive form. The by it they have the streets; nine-tenths of Society was obedience the inhabitants had abanand order in the most deserved and won doned the faith, while the solid compactness . . .. few who still regarded They also won back souls the confidence themselves as Catholics by their preaching and had, for the most part, spiritual guidance. They and obedience ceased to practice their preached 'Jesus Christ religion. At first Peter and Him crucified'. This of Souls.

Canisius preached to had been their central almost empty churches, message, and by it they partly because of the genhave deserved and won eral disaffection and partly the confidence and obebecause his Rhineland German grated on dience of Souls.[14] the ears of the Viennese; but he found his Jesuit missionary activity was strongly way to the heart of the people by his indeinfluenced by two sources: Ignatius' fatigable ministrations to the sick and dying Spiritual Exercises and the Imitation of during an outbreak of the plague. The enerChrist by Thomas a Kempis. The Society's gy and enterprise of the man was astoundfounder tried to induce in the life of each ing; he was concerned about everything and Jesuit a peaceful state of mind without inoreverybody, from lecturing in the university dinate attachments. Such inner tranquility to visiting the neglected criminals in the would help one in moments of crisis and in jails.[12] the major decisions of life. With a peaceful Such accomplishments could, no doubt, mind, each of life's situations could be have been recounted in any of the cities assessed in the light of God's glory and the where Canisius spent any length of time. salvation of one's immortal soul. The Christopher Hollis, in his study of the Imitation spoke to the heart of the disciple Jesuits, sums up the work of this saint, now and always tried to elicit a generous venerated as a Doctor of the Church: The response. It is in this context that all Jesuit general effect of Canisius' work was renewal should be judged. British historian immense. He turned the course of history.

Thomas Macaulay, writing in grand style, In each of the great colleges he built there captures these grand men: were up to a thousand students. He was the The order possessed itself once of all the first Jesuit to enter Poland. By 1600, there strongholds which command the public were 466 Jesuits there. When he entered mind, of the pulpit, of the press, of the conGermany in 1550, he entered with 2 Jesuits fessional, of the academies. Wherever the as his companions. When he left it over 30 Jesuit preached, the church was too small 48

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for the audience. The name of a Jesuit on a title-page secured the circulation of a book.

It was in the ears of a Jesuit that the powerful, the noble, the beautiful, breathed the secret history of their lives. It was at the feet of the Jesuit that the youth of the higher and middle class were brought up from childhood to manhood.[15] It was to be the lot of Ignatius to spend most of his Jesuit life in Rome, so vast an undertaking was it to direct the Society's business. He saw the Society of Jesus grow from the original company to one thousand members in nine countries and provinces in Europe, India, and Brazil. His death came suddenly on July 31, 1556, in Rome. One may still see the room, along with the adjoining quarters, where he wrote his Society’s Constitutions. His tomb is venerated in the magnificent church of the Gesù on Rome's famous Corso Vittorio Emmanuele.

His was a life lived for Christ and in defense of his Church, or as one commentator has put it, “To gain others to Christ he made himself all things to all men, going in at their door and coming out at his own.”[16] ENDNOTES: [1] Rom 3:28. [2] James 2:17. [3] Jean Comby with Diarmaid MacCulloch, How to Read Church History (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 2:11. [4] Ibid., 13. [5] Ibid., 21. [6] Herbert Thurston, S.J., and Donald Attwater, eds., Butler's Lives of the Saints (Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1988), 3:224. [7] John C. Olin, The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), 202. [8] The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. Louis J. Puhl, S.J. (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1951), 160. [9] Jean Lacouture, Jesuits: A Multibiography (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1995), 76. [10] Thurston and Attwater, Butler's Lives of the Saints, 3:225-26.

[11] Ignatius of Loyola to Peter Canisius, August 13, 1554, cited in Comby and MacCulloch, How to Read Church History, 2:30. [12] Thurston and Attwater, Butler's Lives of the Saints, 2:168-69.

[13] Christopher Hollis, The Jesuits: A History (New York: Macmillan Company, 1968), 25. [14] Thurston and Attwater, Butler's Lives of the Saints, 3:225. [15] Thomas Macaulay, Essay on Von Rank's History of the Papacy, cited in Hollis, Jesuits, 27. [16] Thurston and Attwater, Butler's Lives of the Saints, 3:227.

Father Charles Connor is the historian of the Diocese of Scranton and pastor at St. John the Evangelist Church, Susquehanna. He is the host of several programs on EWTN and author of Classic Catholic Converts. www.dominionjournal.com

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Reformation Spotlight: Martin Luther

“those followers of that deranged monk . . . those Lutherites!” Supporters began to call themselves “Lutherans.”

• Luther referred to the reformers as the “Evangelicals,” a term taken from the Greek word evangelion meaning “Good (eu) News (angelion).” The term “Evangelical” is still the proper name for the Lutheran Church in Europe today.

(and a Good Night’s Sleep?)

The Christian Church catholic (small “c” meaning “universal church”) annually recognizes

Luther Talks About A Good Night’s Sleep

October 31 as Reformation Day, commemorating Martin Luther’s nailing 95 objections to certain practices of the Roman Catholic Church to the doors of the castle cathedral in Wittenberg, Germany.

Germany, already a political and religious powder keg, soon erupted, leading to 500 years of breakaway Protestantism. Just who was this obscure professor/priest?

Here area few interesting facts about the “monk who launched a thousand denominations” • Luther was approximately 5’6” tall.

He was considered slightly taller than average.

• He was said to be extremely intelligent and he initially studied law.

• Luther won an oratorical contest when he was young and possessed a strong, baritone voice.

• Luther was born and returned to die in Eisleben, Germany.

• He was a staunch believer in demons, evil spirits, and the Devil, as were nearly all his Medieval contemporaries. He was also noted for his love of beer!

• During a portion of his life, he was violently anti-Semitic. National Socialists (Nazis) used his anti-Semitism in their www.dominionjournal.com

political propaganda and quoted his anti-Semitic remarks extensively.

• Luther never intended to break away from the Roman Catholic Church — he intended to reform it.

• He led the way for priests to marry – marrying Katherina von Bora, a former nun whom he had helped smuggle out of a Cistercian convent in a herring barrel. She was 26, while he was 41.

Wittenberg celebrates the wedding each year in a giant city-wide Renaissance festival.

• The term “Lutheran” was given to followers of Martin Luther not as a description, but as an insult. Roman Catholic officials derided reformers as

Ever find the quiet of the night a time when your thoughts turn not to the joy of living and blessings God has provided, but the things you’ve done wrong, unsolved problems, and feelings of inadequacy? Do you ever dwell on mistakes, sins, and foibles rather than how much your life has changed for the better over the years, perhaps losing a good night’s sleep?

If so, you are not alone.

Unresolved self-condemnation is one of the largest stumbling blocks to growing in faith. You might find this quote of Martin Luther’s about his nightly struggles with the Devil of interest: “When I go to bed, the Devil is always waiting for me. When he begins to plague me, I give him this answer: ‘Devil, I must sleep. That’s God’s command, to work by day and sleep by night, so go away!’

“If that doesn’t work, and he brings out a catalog of my sins, I say, ‘Yes old fellow, I know all about it, and I know some more that you have overlooked. Here are a few extra. Put them down.’

“If he still won’t quit, and presses me hard, and accuses me as a sinner, I scorn him and say, ‘St. Satan, pray for me. Of course, you have never done anything wrong in your life. You alone are holy! Go to God and get grace for yourself. If you want to get me all straightened out, I say ‘Physician, heal thyself!’ ” Dominion — Journal 2012

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The 95 Theses Martin Luther nailed to the Wittenburg church door 1. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, "Repent" (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

2. This word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.

3. Yet it does not mean solely inner repentance; such inner repentance is worthless unless it produces various outward mortification of the flesh.

4. The penalty of sin remains as long as the hatred of self (that is, true inner repentance), namely till our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

5. The pope neither desires nor is able to remit any penalties except those imposed by his own authority or that of the canons.

6. The pope cannot remit any guilt, except by declaring and showing that it has been remitted by God; or, to be sure, by remitting guilt in cases reserved to his judgment.

If his right to grant remission in these cases were disregarded, the guilt would certainly remain unforgiven.

7. God remits guilt to no one unless at the same time he humbles him in all things and makes him submissive to the vicar, the priest.

8. The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and, according to the canons themselves, nothing should be imposed on the dying.

9. Therefore the Holy Spirit through the pope is kind to us insofar as the pope in his decrees always makes exception of the article of death and of necessity.

10. Those priests act ignorantly and wickedly who, in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penalties for purgatory.

11. Those tares of changing the canonical penalty to the penalty of purgatory were evidently sown while the bishops slept (Mt 13:25).

12. In former times canonical penalties were imposed, not after, but before absolution, as tests of true contrition.

13. The dying are freed by death from all penalties, are already dead as far as the canon laws are concerned, and have a right to be released from them.

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14. Imperfect piety or love on the part of the dying person necessarily brings with it great fear; and the smaller the love, the greater the fear.

15. This fear or horror is sufficient in itself, to say nothing of other things, to constitute the penalty of purgatory, since it is very near to the horror of despair.

16. Hell, purgatory, and heaven seem to differ the same as despair, fear, and assurance of salvation.

17. It seems as though for the souls in purgatory fear should necessarily decrease and love increase.

18. Furthermore, it does not seem proved, either by reason or by Scripture, that souls in purgatory are outside the state of merit, that is, unable to grow in love.

19. Nor does it seem proved that souls in purgatory, at least not all of them, are certain and assured of their own salvation, even if we ourselves may be entirely certain of it.

20. Therefore the pope, when he uses the words "plenary remission of all penalties," does not actually mean "all penalties," but only those imposed by himself.

21. Thus those indulgence preachers are in error who say that a man is absolved from every penalty and saved by papal indulgences.

22. As a matter of fact, the pope remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which, according to canon law, they should have paid in this life.

23. If remission of all penalties whatsoever could be granted to anyone at all, certainly it would be granted only to the most perfect, that is, to very few.

24. For this reason most people are necessarily deceived by that indiscriminate and high-sounding promise of release from penalty.

25. That power which the pope has in general over purgatory corresponds to the power which any bishop or curate has in a particular way in his own diocese and parish.

26. The pope does very well when he grants remission to souls in purgatory, not by the power of the keys, which he does not have, but by way of intercession for them.

27. They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory.

28. It is certain that when money clinks in the money chest, greed and avarice can be increased; but when the church intercedes, the result is in the hands of God alone.

29. Who knows whether all souls in purgatory wish to be redeemed, since we have exceptions in St. Severinus and St. Paschal, as related in a legend.

30. No one is sure of the integrity of his own contrition, much less of having received plenary remission.

31. The man who actually buys indulgences is as rare as he who is really penitent; indeed, he is exceedingly rare.

32. Those who believe that they can be certain of their salvation because they have indulgence letters will be eternally damned, together with their teachers.

33. Men must especially be on guard against those who say that the pope's pardons are that inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to him.

34. For the graces of indulgences are concerned only with the penalties of sacramental satisfaction established by man.

35. They who teach that contrition is not neceswww.dominionjournal.com

H I S T O RY sary on the part of those who intend to buy souls out of purgatory or to buy confessional privileges preach unchristian doctrine.

36. Any truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without indulgence letters.

37. Any true Christian, whether living or dead, participates in all the blessings of Christ and the church; and this is granted him by God, even without indulgence letters.

38. Nevertheless, papal remission and blessing are by no means to be disregarded, for they are, as I have said (Thesis 6), the proclamation of the divine remission.

39. It is very difficult, even for the most learned theologians, at one and the same time to commend to the people the bounty of indulgences and the need of true contrition.

40. A Christian who is truly contrite seeks and loves to pay penalties forhis sins; the bounty of indulgences, however, relaxes penalties and causes men to hate them -- at least it furnishes occasion for hating them.

41. Papal indulgences must be preached with caution, lest people erroneouslythink that they are preferable to other good works of love.

42. Christians are to be taught that the pope does not intend that the buying of indulgences should in any way be compared with works of mercy.

43. Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better deed than he who buys indulgences.

44. Because love grows by works of love, man thereby becomes better. Man does not, however, become better by means of indulgences but is merely freed from penalties.

45. Christians are to be taught that he who sees a needy man and passes him by, yet gives his money for indulgences, does not buy papal indulgences but God's wrath.

46. Christians are to be taught that, unless they have more than they need, they must reserve enough for their family needs and by no means squander it on indulgences.

47. Christians are to be taught that they buying of indulgences is a matter of free choice, not commanded.

48. Christians are to be taught that the pope, in granting indulgences, needs and thus desires their devout prayer more than their money.

49. Christians are to be taught that papal indulgences are useful only if they do not put their trust in them, but very harmful if they lose their fear ofGod because of them.

50. Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the indulgence preachers, he would rather that the basilica of St. Peter were burned to ashes than built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep. www.dominionjournal.com

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51. Christians are to be taught that the pope would and should wish to give of his own money, even though he had to sell the basilica of St. Peter, to many of those from whom certain hawkers of indulgences cajole money.

52. It is vain to trust in salvation by indulgence letters, even though the indulgence commissary, or even the pope, were to offer his soul as security.

53. They are the enemies of Christ and the pope who forbid altogether the preaching of the Word of God in some churches in order that indulgences may be preached in others.

54. Injury is done to the Word of God when, in the same sermon, an equal or larger amount of time is devoted to indulgences than to the Word.

55. It is certainly the pope's sentiment that if indulgences, which are a very insignificant thing, are celebrated with one bell, one procession, and one ceremony, then the gospel, which is the very greatest thing, should be preached with a hundred bells, a hundred processions, a hundred ceremonies.

56. The true treasures of the church, out of which the pope distributes indulgences, are not sufficiently discussed or known among the people of Christ.

57. That indulgences are not temporal treasures is certainly clear, for many indulgence sellers do not distribute them freely but only gather them.

58. Nor are they the merits of Christ and the saints, for, even without the pope, the latter always work grace for the inner man, and the cross, death, and hell for the outer man.

59. St. Lawrence said that the poor of the church were the treasures of the church, but he spoke according to the usage of the word in his own time.

60. Without want of consideration we say that the keys of the church, given by the merits of Christ, are that treasure.

61. For it is clear that the pope's power is of itself sufficient for the remission of penalties and cases reserved by himself.

62. The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God. 63. But this treasure is naturally most odious, for it makes the first to be last (Mt. 20:16).

64. On the other hand, the treasure of indulgences is naturally most acceptable, for it makes the last to be first.

65. Therefore the treasures of the gospel are nets with which one formerly fished for men of wealth.

66. The treasures of indulgences are nets with which one now fishes for the wealth of men.

67. The indulgences which the demagogues acclaim as the greatest graces are actually understood to be such only insofar as they promote gain.

68. They are nevertheless in truth the most insignificant graces when compared with the grace of God and the piety of the cross.

69. Bishops and curates are bound to admit the commissaries of papal indulgences with all reverence.

70. But they are much more bound to strain their eyes and ears lest these men preach their own dreams instead of what the pope has commissioned.

71. Let him who speaks against the truth concerning papal indulgences be anathema and accursed.

72. But let him who guards against the lust and license of the indulgence preachers be blessed.

73. Just as the pope justly thunders against those who by any means whatever contrive harm to the sale of indulgences.

74. Much more does he intend to thunder against those who use indulgences as a pretext to contrive harm to holy love and truth.

75. To consider papal indulgences so great that they could absolve a man even if he had done the impossible and had violated the mother of God is madness.

76. We say on the contrary that papal indulgences cannot remove the very least of venial sins as far as guilt is concerned.

77. To say that even St. Peter if he were now pope, could not grant greater graces is blasphemy against St. Peter and the pope.

78. We say on the contrary that even the present pope, or any pope whatsoever, has greater graces at his disposal, that is, the gospel, spiritual powers, gifts of healing, etc., as it is written, 1 Co 12[:28].

79. To say that the cross emblazoned with the papal coat of arms, and set up by the indulgence preachers is equal in worth to the cross of Christ is blasphemy.

80. The bishops, curates, and theologians who permit such talk to be spread among the people will have to answer for this.

81. This unbridled preaching of indulgences makes it difficult even for learned men to rescue the reverence which is due the pope from slander or from the shrewd questions of the laity.

82. Such as: "Why does not the pope empty purgatory for the sake of holy love and the dire need of the souls that are there if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a church? The former reason would be most just; the latter is most trivial.

83. Again, "Why are funeral and anniversary masses for the dead continued and why does he not return or permit the withdrawal of the endowments founded for them, since it is wrong to pray for the redeemed?"

84. Again, "What is this new piety of God and the pope that for a consideration of money Dominion — Journal 2012

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H I S T O RY they permit a man who is impious and their enemy to buy out of purgatory the pious soul of a friend of God and do not rather, because of the need of that pious and beloved soul, free it for pure love's sake?"

85. Again, "Why are the penitential canons, long since abrogated and dead in actual fact and through disuse, now satisfied by the granting of indulgences as though they were still alive and in force?"

86. Again, "Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?"

87. Again, "What does the pope remit or grant

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to those who by perfect contrition already have a right to full remission and blessings?"

88. Again, "What greater blessing could come to the church than if the pope were to bestow these remissions and blessings on every believer a hundred times a day, as he now does but once?"

89. "Since the pope seeks the salvation of souls rather than money by his indulgences, why does he suspend the indulgences and pardons previously granted when they have equal efficacy?"

90. To repress these very sharp arguments of the laity by force alone, and not to resolve them by giving reasons, is to expose the

church and the pope to the ridicule of their enemies and to make Christians unhappy.

91. If, therefore, indulgences were preached according to the spirit and intention of the pope, all these doubts would be readily resolved. Indeed, they would not exist.

92. Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Peace, peace," and there is no peace! (Jer 6:14) 93. Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Cross, cross," and there is no cross!

94. Christians should be exhorted to be diligent in following Christ, their Head, through penalties, death and hell.

95. And thus be confident of entering into heaven through many tribulations rather than through the false security of peace (Acts 14:22).

T H AT ’ S E N T E R TA I N M E N T

The Great Dominion Protestant Reformation Quiz Since Reformation Day is observed by Protestant Christians each October 31, your editors challenge you with a Reformation quiz. If you score less than 5 correct on this quiz, no worries… our staff averaged 4.

Match the following reformers (left colum) with the denomination (on the right) associated with their names . . .

Anglican

Menno Simons Phillip Melancthon

Methodist

Desiderius Eramus

Anabaptist

John Knox

Quaker

George Fox

Congregationalism

John Calvin

Catholic Reformed

Thomas Cranmer

Presbyterian

John Wesley

Lutheran

Robert Browne

Menno Simons: Anabaptist, Phillip Melancthon: Lutheran, Desiderius Eramus: Catholic, John Knox: Presbyterian, George Fox: Quaker, John Calvin: Reformed, Robert Browne: Congregationalism, John Wesley: Methodist, homas Cranmer: Anglican

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Legal Battle Looms Over Montana WWII Memorial Statue As a sign of the continuing struggle within American society over the proper role of religious expression in the public square, an atheist organization filed suit in federal court this year to remove a Montana Knights of Columbus memorial to WWII 10th Mountain Division veterans because the statue, the group claims, violates the constitutional protection of church/state separation. The statue, which sits on the side of a small mountain and is visible from a main highway near Whitefish, Montana, is of Jesus Christ.

The atheist group, Freedom From Religion Foundation argues that the war memorial, which was erected on public land, must be neutral in regards to religious symbolism even though the monument was built in the immediate post-war era when the nation was overwhelmingly religious and routinely touted prayer, symbolism, and ideas in national, state, and local public affairs.

The Wisconsin-based FFRF has a supporting base of 20,000 individuals nationwide and has been active in its advocacy for secular causes including eliminating religiously-based holidays (Good Friday) and civic Christmas display since the early 1980’s. The group gained national notoriety when it posted a sign in the Wisconsin State Capitol during Christmas recently which reads, “At this season of the Winter Solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angerls, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world.

Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a conservative first amendment “free exercise clause” legal group, responded in August, filing an amicus brief on behalf of 18 members of Congress and nearly 100,000 Americans urging a federal court to reject the lawsuit filed by an atheist organization.

“This is another example of an atheist group using the court system to impose its troubling strategy of attempting to remove any religious reference from our history,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. “We’re pleased that we’re joined by members of Congress and nearly 100,000 Americans who understand that this war memorial represents the history and herwww.dominionjournal.com

itage of the region. It’s a constitutional display that does not reflect a government endorsement of religion. And, we’re hopeful the court will conclude what we are arguing – the atheist group lacks standing and the lawsuit should be dismissed.”

The ACLJ represents itself and 18 members of Congress including Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg and the following: Dan Burton (IN), Michael Conaway (TX), Chip Cravaak (MN), J. Randy Forbes (VA), Virginia Foxx (NC), Vicky Hartzler (MO), Bill Johnson (OH), Walter Jones (NC), John Kline (MN), James Lankford (OK), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), Jeff Miller (FL), Sue Myrick (NC), Alan Nunnelee (MS), Dennis Ross (FL), Steve Scalise (LA), and Lynn Westmoreland (GA).

At the same time, the ACLJ represents more than 96,000 Americans who signed on to the ACLJ’s Committee to Defend the Jesus Statue War Memorial – Americans who support veterans’ memorials and who oppose efforts to strip from public property recognitions of history and heritage that contain religious symbolism.

The ACLJ has been aggressively working to defend this memorial for more than a year, including sending a letter to the National Forest Service on behalf of more than 70,000 Americans urging the Forest Service to renew the lease. Following a decision by the Forest Service to keep the statue in place, the FFRF filed a federal lawsuit earlier this year in an effort to have the memorial removed.

The Knights of Columbus asked the U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont. to allow it to intervene as a defendant in the case Freedom from Religion Foundation vs.

Weber, in order to protect its First Amendment rights — and those of its members in Montana — as it seeks to continue honoring the memory of the soldiers who gave their lives for our country.

“The idea that a war memorial containing a religious symbol on a remote piece of public land somehow establishes religion in this country is at odds with the historical record, the vision of our Founding Fathers enshrined in the First Amendment and the extensive jurisprudence in this area,” said Supreme Knight Carl Anderson. “It is sad that some in America have become so intolerant of religion that they are willing to remove longstanding memorials to America’s war heroes to enforce their narrow view on the rest of us.”

Nearly 60 years ago, Kalispell Council 1328 of the Knights of Columbus leased the 25-foot by 25-foot plot of land on Big Mountain, which lies within a commercial ski resort, from the U.S. Forest Service, to erect a memorial honoring fallen soldiers from World War II. A ruling is expected by the end of the year. Either way, the case will be appealed, and may find its way to the Supreme Court.

In the mean time, the statue of Jesus still adorns the mountainside near Whitefish, and as one 10th Mountain Division survivor noted early this year, “They say there ain’t no atheists in foxholes when the shells start droppin’ in. Maybe that’s true, I don’t know.

Some of the guys yelled for their mothers when they got hit, but most of us asked Jesus to protect us and the padres were always there prayin’ with us to Jesus in the worst of it all. So I just don’t see why he can’t be part of our memorial since he was there when so many of us died…”

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Think Before You Donate It is important to us all to be mindful of those in need either by health issues or circumstances of life. Every year americans give millions to charities who clam to be helping the needy or furthering research in some aria that will some day help all mankind but in all things we need to be wise as a serpents yet genital as a dove.

Some of the biggest well thought of charities in the United States and a few International charities are not as charitable as we have all been lead to believe.

So as you open your pockets to do a good thing please keep the following facts in mind:

The Veterans of Foreign Wars — National commander receives a $0.00 zero salary.

Your donations go to help veterans, their families and youth programs!

The American Red Cross — President and CEO Marsha J. Evans’ — reported salary for the year was $651,957 plus expenses (this is a very loose description of the slush fund he manages) If you are compelled to give to this type of charity there are local churches and synagogues doing this work on a local level. Even with the devastating storm that hit the east coast the first responders were local churches and charities.

The Disabled American Veterans — National commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations go to help veterans, their families and youth programs!

March of Dimes — It is called the march of dimes because only a dime for every dollar donated makes its was to the needy they report they are helping.

The United Way — President Brian Gallagher — receives a $375,000 base salary along with numerous expense benefits.

Unicef — CEO Caryl M. Stern receives — $1,200,000 per year (100 thousand per month) plus all expenses including a rolls royce.

Less than 5 cents of your donated dollar goes to the cause.

Goodwill — CEO and owner of Goodwill Industries — Mark Curran profits $2.3 million a year. Goodwill is a very catchy name for his business. You donate to his business and then he sells the items for profit. He pays nothing for his products and pays his workers minimum wage! Nice guy. $0.00 goes to help anyone!

You may want to put your money where it will do the most good . . . the following charities are actually doing the work they claim to be doing: The Salvation Army — Commissioner, todd bassett receives a small salary of only $13,000 per year (plus housing) for managing this $2 billion dollar organization. 96 percent of every donated dollar go to the cause.

The American Legion — National commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations go to help veterans, their families and youth programs!

The military order of Purple Hearts — National commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations go to help veterans, their families and youth programs!

The Vietnam Veterans Association — National commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations go to help veterans, their families and youth programs!

Make a Wish Foundation: for children's last wishes — 100% goes to funding trips or special wishes for a dying child.

St. Jude research Hospital — 100% goes towards funding and helping children with cancer who have no insurance and can not afford to pay.

Ronald McDonald Houses — All monies go to running the houses for parents who have critical children in the hospital. 100% goes to housing, and feeding the families.

Lions Club International —100% of donations to the charity drives go to: help the blind, buy hearing aides and support medical missions around the world. Their latest undertaking is measles vaccinations (only $1.00 per shot).

Bible Couriers International (BCI) — Is 100 percent volunteer staffing. The founder and all staff members work on faith that their needs will be met. They never ask for donations nor do they send out fundraising requests for anything. Every dollar donated bci is used for the designation you determine. Bible delivery, bibles, staff support or office needs.

They have delivered 100’s of thousands of scriptures to areas where bibles are restricted. China, vietnam, cuba and to many other threatened or restricted countries around the world.

Please share this with everyone you can.

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Protecting your investments over the next four years!

The Dominion Journal will host several FREE financial seminars throughout the United States in 2013 . . .

Watch for locations, dates and guest speakers in the next several issues.

Upcoming events will be announced at www.dominionjournal.com.

Check the website frequently to see when we will be in your area.

First key cities will be Seattle & Sacramento.

www.dominionjournal.com

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