Murmurs of reason coming from the Netherlands?

I almost can't believe it. Could this be the beginning of a belated attempt to bring Europe back from the perilous process of Islamization? I'm not sure how much it will help, if they don't start having more kids it won't make a difference. I'm telling you, think Lebanon in the 80's, urban fighting, stuff like that.

Indeed, Ploumen says, "Integration calls on the greatest effort from the new Dutch. Let go of where you come from; choose the Netherlands unconditionally." Immigrants must "take responsibility for this country" and cherish and protect its Dutch essence.

Not clear enough? Ploumen insists, "The success of the integration process is hindered by the disproportionate number of non-natives involved in criminality and trouble-making, by men who refuse to shake hands with women, by burqas and separate courses for women on citizenship.

"We have to stop the existence of parallel societies within our society."

And the obligations of the native Dutch? Ploumen's answer is, "People who have their roots here have to offer space to traditions, religions and cultures which are new to Dutch society" - but without fear of expressing criticism. "Hurting feelings is allowed, and criticism of religion, too."

The whole article is at IHT. And this is coming from the Left--not some ultra conservatives.

Maybe the intercession of St Plechelm, patron of the Netherlands, is having some effect?

The Curious Case of the Married, Roman Catholic Bishop

Wow, we all know about married Roman Catholic priests (formerly Anglicans) but I didn't know about this at all. From VirtueOnline:

Married ex-Anglican bishops functioning as Roman Catholic bishops would not be unprecedented, however. In December 1959, Pope John XXIII received a married ex-Anglican priest, who had been consecrated as a bishop of the schismatic Igreja Católica Apostólica Brasileira, into the Roman Catholic Church.

Married with seven children, Bishop Salomão Barbosa Ferraz was not re-ordained upon his reception in the Catholic Church. Upon being named Titular Bishop of Eleutherna on May 10, 1963, he was not re-consecrated. Active at the Second Vatican Council, Bishop Ferraz appears to have been the only modern day married Roman Catholic bishop. Ferraz was ordained a priest and then a bishop by Bp. Duarte Costa who was validly ordained by Rome. "Rome simply does not accept the validity of Anglican orders so why would they accept Anglican Bishops, should they go over...married or not? Therefore the situation you cited would not be a precedent," Anthony said.

CNN on Arab Reactions to the latest situation in Gaza

Saudi Jeans on the Judicial System in KSA

Saudi Jeans is one of the most famous blogs in the the Arab blogosphere (AKA البلوغوسفير العربي) and he has some interesting comments on the state of the Saudi Judicial system. There are some hopeful stirrings. But hope in KSA is like water poured onto desert sand more often than not.

I mention the topic since there was so much discussion on the recent post about the eight year old girl and 47-year old man being married and then the little girl being denied a divorce requested by her mother.

Here is the whole post from Saudi Jeans:

Court of Embarrasment

Not so long ago, criticizing the judiciary was a taboo in this country. But with more people learning more about their rights and finding new outlets to express their dissatisfaction, they began to clearly show their impatience with the performance of the justice system. The system has become a battlefield between reformers who demanded change and conservatives who defended the judges fiercely, arguing that since their verdicts are based on Sharia then they should be unquestionable.

Luckily for the rest of us though, the complaints did not fall on deaf ears. In October 2007, King Abdullah announced a $2bn plan to overhaul the legal system. It is a large undertaking and it will certainly take a long time to see the effects of this plan. The resistance of the old guard in the system will only make this process slower and more difficult. But one of the good immediate effects of this plan is that it has placed the judges under increased scrutiny. The past two years have witnessed a number of high profile cases that attracted much attention from people and the media, not just in Saudi Arabia but around the world.

I think that last week’s case in Onaiza, where a court rejected a divorce petition filed by the mother of a an eight-year-old girl whose father married her to a 58-year-old man, should be seen in that context. Sure, the verdict is outrageous and unfair, but hey, this is the K of SA, a country where judges are not tied to written laws and justice is a subjective matter that pretty much depends on their whims. Does Sheikh Habib al-Habib know that his government has [signed] the international Convention on the Rights of the Child since 1996? I don’t think he does, and I think he does not care because such international laws are made by mere mortals while he probably believes that he is applying God’s laws.

Abdullah Al-Jutaili, the lawyer representing the girl’s divorced mother, said he was going to appeal the verdict. Let’s hope judges at the appeals court will be wiser than their colleague here when they deal with this case that not only exemplified the kind of injustices the people of this country have to go through when their [misfortune] leads them to a court, but also further tarnished the already distorted image of Saudi Arabia in the world.

Reasons for Demographic Superiority of Islam

How did Islam grow so quickly for so long?

Other methods have been employed by Mohammedans for propagating their faith, such as the purchase or forcible seizure of non-Moslem children in times of plague, famine, war and massacre, or even in times of no special disturbance, and rearing them in the Mohammedan faith. The Janissaries at Constantinople are a case in point. The children of Christians were taken regularly to replenish the ranks of this special body-guard of successive Sultans of Turkey. Another method employed to increase the number of Moslems was the plurality of wives and the use of captive women of non-Moslem races as concubines. These two methods of propagation were conspicuously employed[.]

--James Levy Barton

Ramon Llull (Raymond Lully) on the Incarnation

Appropriate during this season of Christmas:

But as you are the God man and since your physical humanity naturally participates with all physical creatures, all creatures find rest in you like things that are likened find rest in their likeness, for you as a human are their ultimate purpose and end.

De contemplatione Raymundi

New Link: Lullian Arts

Well, I have gained a good deal of experience finding obscure links and titles on the internet, and I wanted to share with you two of them:

First, Lullian Arts, which is a fine English-language site for downloading some of the main works of Blessed Raymond Lull. It lacks, however, his greatest apologetic work: The Book of the Three Wise Mean and the Gentile, which you can purchase from Amazon in the Bonner's Reader. You can also find it online in Latin I think, though I haven't looked for it.

Anyway, here you go for the site in English:

Lullian Arts

If you want to start out with something short (but difficult) try out his ars brevis.

Second, the complete text in Catalán of libre del gentil e los tres savis is HERE.

CNN: Saudi Judge Refuses to annul marriage of girl, 8

Actually, if you read the legal aspects of the case everything is indeed according to shari'a as far as I can tell. The mother does not have a right to file this case, and as long as the little girl's husband agrees to wait until puberty to have sex with her then he has fulfilled his obligations. Also, the giving of a daughter in marriage to settle a debt is entirely permissible in Islamic law. The fact that the man is 47 and the girl is eight is not material at all. The girl is a minor and so she has no say in this matter. Her father is her guardian, and then her husband is after the marriage.

Anyway, read it all here:

CNN: Saudi Judge Refuses to annul marriage of girl, 8

Clement of Alexandria on the Perpetual Generation of the Son

For when he says, "That which was from the beginning," he touches upon the generation without beginning of the Son, who is co-existent with the Father. There was[,] then, a Word importing an unbeginning eternity; as also the Word itself, that is, the Son of God, who being, by equality of substance, one with the Father, is eternal and uncreate.

St. Clement of Alexandria (d. circa 215)
Commentary on 1 John

Gregory of Nyssa on the Holy Trinity

Now the fact that there is no distinction in the operations we learn from the community of the attributes, but of the difference in respect of nature we find no clear proof, the identity of operations indicating rather, as we said, community of nature. If, then, Godhead is a name derived from operation, as we say that the operation of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one, so we say that the Godhead is one: or if, according to the view of the majority, Godhead is indicative of nature, since we cannot find any diversity in their nature, we not unreasonably define the Holy Trinity to be of one Godhead .

St Gregory of Nyssa
On the Holy Trinity

Anglicans in N America evangelizing Muslims?

Wow, this is cool. The new Anglican province in N America will, it appears, have Islam and evangelism as a main topic of its forthcoming synod in 2009. And the nice thing is that these Anglicans have intimate ties with those in Africa who know Islam in a very, uh, realistic sort of way, ie, my house and cathedral church were burned down by a mob of angry Muslims.

This is very encouraging. I write this as I hear the call of the minaret wafting over the hills and of my city here. Either the West will be laregly Christian with freedom for all, or largely Islamic with freedom for none. Thus saith the Lord. Quote me on that.

Task forces on prayer book and common worship, ecumenical relations, evangelisation and Islam, as well as committees on education and on mission are carried over from Common Cause days.

Lesslie Newbigin Prophecies: the failure of the secular model

Thus spake the prophet of the Lord, Lesslie Newbigin, in 1996 in Brazil:

The secular model has claimed to provide freedom but it cannot sustain that claim. It has been successful only insofar as it has been sustained by the remaining power of the Christian tradition; and as that tradition weakens, the secular society is unable to defend itself either against the rising religious fundamentalisms or against dissent [sic] into moral anarchy and hopelessness.

(p. 120, delivered in Dec. 1996)

Newbigin, Lesslie. 2003. Signs amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History. ed. Geoffrey Wainwright. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Organic Churches, the NT, Constantine, and the Bishops

The article that provoked this is here: The Assembling of the Church. Read it and chime in with your thoughts. It's an interview.

I have recently been returning to the question of the formation of the NT canon, which seems to be a disastrous weakness in the common evangelical mind. Without bishops (or some form of making regional and inter-regional decisions) and a theology to back them up, I don't see how you can come out with a NT canon. Indeed, the alternative is to leave that tradition (what is in and out of the NT) up to each congregation. I can't see why a congregationally-oriented church (and such are the organic churches, simple churches, and home churches) would opt to adopt the judgment of the archaic Synod of Rome in 382--a synod which took place after bishops had been given corrupting power by the infamous (among evangelicals) Constantine.

Why in the world would a congregational evangelical trust these men, who met under the leadership of Pope Damasus, and had been according senatorial power as bishops by Constantine? To give you an idea of the changes that had taken place I quote Nathan Howard:

Constantine wanted to effect a more efficient government with the help of the church after he emerged the sole emperor in 324. By assigning to the bishops juridical power and by diverting to them patronage resources, the emperor unwittingly allowed them to establish political networks that rivaled the local elites and the emperor himself. The inevitable result was that the bishops now commanded the emperor's deference, much as the senators once had. Churchmen soon became active players in formulating the emperor's religious policies, thus placing them in a position through which they might later suppress vestiges of pagan culture.

And evangelicals have opted to follow these men in their judgment regarding the inspiration of the many texts in use as the 4th C. was closing?