The Holy Thursday hook

My (close) paraphrase of the beginning of the homily from Father Dan at tonight's Mass of the Lord's Supper:

"A few years back, there was a saying popular with our Protestant brothers and sisters that even made it into the rest of the culture after awhile. You probably remember that the initials 'WWJD' stood for 'What Would Jesus Do?' 

Well, I want to propose to you something much less popular, but much more useful. We are here tonight to celebrate not what Jesus would do, but what He actually did and does do. Moreover, He expects us to emulate His example."

Appreciating the pope emeritus

David Warren does appreciate Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), and in two different places.

I particularly like how Warren develops this thought:

"It is in Ratzinger’s nature to review events of the last fifty years in the light of the last five hundred: he cannot be satisfied with the immediate. Nor did he ever respond in the “media” way, to events of the last five hours or five days. First, he examines.

This is precisely the virtue — prudence in its essential form — that seems most absent from contemporary life...

We, today, as men in all ages, cannot do without the anchoring of faith, which begins in an attachment to the unchanging. The detachment from “breaking news” follows from this. I pass by the profound theological observation, that underlies all faith — that it originates in the grace of God, not in some human intention — only because I am giving an external description. A man of any culture — East or West — who is not by desire rooted in the unchanging, is not rooted at all."

Joseph Ratzinger's tenure as Pope Benedict XVI continues to influence even non-Catholics in good ways.

And as my friend John might put it, prudence is a prerequisite for thinking long-term.

Nate has a point

And by "Nate," I mean Nathan Hale, writing at In from the Cold:

"In the wake of the massacre in Brussels, some American counter-intel types were shaking their heads about the "poor tradecraft" exhibited by their Belgian counterparts.  That little exercise in self-congratulation is not only delusional, it's hypocritical to boot.  To be fair, there are hundreds of dedicated CIA and FBI agents and analysts who have prevented countless attacks since 9-11.  But those successes must be squared against failures at places like Fort Hood, Chattanooga and most recently in San Bernardino.  In each case, clues were missed and innocent Americans paid with their lives.

Then again, it's hard for the security and intel agencies to get the resources they need when the commander-in-chief spends barely a minute addressing the Brussels attack, and adjourns to a baseball game with Raul Castro."

Andrew McCarthy has related thoughts at Imprimis that are also well worth reading, either at the original site maintained by Hillsdale College or in this handy one page format.

Always entertaining

The Gravy Boys played on a makeshift stage behind the Raleigh Beer Garden this past Saturday, adding a little Celtic flavor to their high-energy set in honor of that Irish-American holiday just around the corner.

Although you might not know it from the surname shared by the men in the rhythm section, they can claim some Irish heritage. Even if they couldn't claim such an affinity, however, that band does right by everything it plays.

If you want a little thinking with your music, you could do far worse than mull over what Scott Kirwin has to say about "cultural appropriation." Kirwin writes thoughtful stuff.

His essay reminded me why it's a shame that so many of the people who get intermittently but righteously indignant over cultural appropriation do not recognize that phenomenon as a collective salute to Sir Isaac Newton. Newton famously opined that if he saw farther than others, it was because he was "standing on the shoulders of giants." Fittingly, Wilkiquote asserts that Newton was himself paraphrasing the 12th-century philosopher Bernard of Chartres when he said that.

Contra Wirzba (On national character)

Duke Divinity School professor Norman Wirzba wrote recently about why he thinks we ought to declare the end of “Christian America.”  A link to that essay was emailed to me by a friend who thought it was an EXCELLENT read (the capital letters are his), but I was underwhelmed by the work. Wirzba opened with a basic grammatical error, and never really recovered. He is, it seems, disappointed with the country to which he moved 30 years ago. More specifically, the long run-up to the election has drained Wirzba of whatever tolerance he once had for the hypocrisy of American voters.

“Though voters may speak piously and rather vaguely about Christian values and ideals,” he wrote, “polls and election results communicate clearly that this is a nation consumed by fear, anger and suspicion, none of which are Christian virtues.” 

“Consumed” seems a dire verb in this context, but even if he's right, Wirzba's thesis only lends an academic gloss to the “Hate is not a family value” bumper sticker that retired to the Straw Man Hall of Fame a few years ago [Brief recap for leftie friends: 1) Nobody said it was; and 2) To decry something that other people see no problem with does not mean you “hate” those other people].

Wirzba wants Americans to “paint with the colors of love, joy, peace, and patience,” and he means that as an alternative to opposing truly progressive policies, or supporting any of several mean, dishonest people now vying for spots atop the Democrat and Republican tickets.  He does not think we will take his advice, which is why we he says we ought not be calling ourselves a “Christian” country. 

Remembering the “Judgement of the Nations” verses in the gospel according to Saint Matthew, Wirzba wonders how we will fare before the throne of God, “especially when we admit as evidence the millions of Americans (many of them children and the elderly) who do not have enough good food to eat, or the millions of Americans who have to drink water polluted with lead and industrial/agricultural pollutants.” 

To ask the question is to answer it. If the Last Judgement is collective rather than individual (something  that Wirzba does not get into), then we have reasons to be nervous, even without mentioning such blots on our national character as legally permissible abortion. But conspicuous failure to live up to a Christian moral code is not reason enough to abandon all thought of the American religious heritage when we describe ourselves. 

After all, it wasn't Muslims, Buddhists, or Sikhs who first fled England for the New World, or left comfortable lives in France to preach the gospel to indigenous people near the Canadian border as Isaac Jogues and his companions did. To whom besides Christians would Wirzba attribute the missions built up the length of California, or the religious heritage of cities as different as Philadelphia and Santa Fe?

Following Wirzba's advice would accelerate a kind of collective amnesia about those parts of American history, not to mention both the Civil War and the civil rights movement, each of which were attempts to find and secure a durable interpretation of the principle that “All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” 

Thomas Jefferson's magnificent preamble for the Declaration of Independence was the only part of that document that his colleagues in the Continental Congress let stand unedited, and they were all educated enough to recognize that his paraphrase of “Enlightenment” values had Christian roots. Even the “wall of separation” between church and state to which Jefferson later gave voice in a  letter reassuring nervous Baptists in Connecticut has Christian antecedents. What could that wall be, other than a Constitutional blueprint for working out how a free people might enjoy liberty enough to “Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but to God what is God's”?

“What matters is not what you say, but how you live,” Wirzba asserts. In that, he is partly right. But he forgets that words mean things, and that how you live is shaped by what you say. Christianity itself understands that those of us who identify with it do not always live the way Jesus says we should. But that means we are sinners; it does not give Wirzba or people like him license to decide who is or is not Christian. 

If, demographics aside, we are not now a Christian nation, then let us at least remember that we once aspired to be. Laying that dream aside would douse the last embers of American exceptionalism for no good reason.

A slightly modified version of this essay was also published on March 8 by American Spectator Online, under the heading "The End of Christian America?"

Postscript: Matt Walsh makes the case that we are not a Christian nation, but he does not also make Wirzba's mistake of suggesting that hypocrisy ought to silence history.

Rooting for the "old" guy

He's not actually old, except by comparison with some of the other people auditioning for this year's edition of "The Voice." The guy can rock. Go, Laith, go!

Antonin Scalia, R.I.P.

First, the quote of the day, from CatholicVote.org, amended only slightly by your blogger:

"If you read anyone who treats [the late, great] Antonin Scalia as an ideological conservative scoring points for his 'side' of a power struggle, you can be sure you are reading someone who doesn't know what [he or she] is talking about."

Next, what Justice Scalia accomplished, in a nutshell from the same site:

"It's not hyperbole to acknowledge that Antonin Scalia sparked a renaissance in Constitutional law. Before Scalia, the legal philosophy en vogue was viewing the Constitution as a "living, breathing document" which could be adapted whenever judges saw fit.

Justice Scalia argued instead for originalism, which meant judges must restrain themselves and interpret the Constitution by looking to what was actually written and intended, not what we want it to mean today. While Scalia didn't secure a majority of justices to agree with him in every case, his understanding of the Constitution led to a renewed defense of our most cherished rights, judicial restraint, limited government, including religious liberty."

And, finally, a few words from Scalia himself.

In June, 2010, he delivered a commencement address for Langley High School in Virginia because his granddaughter was graduating from there. This is part of what he said:

“[A] platitude I want discuss comes in many flavors. It can be variously delivered as, ‘Follow your star,’ or ‘Never compromise your principles.’ Or, quoting Polonius in ‘Hamlet’ — who people forget was supposed to be an idiot — ‘To thine ownself be true.’ Now this can be very good or very bad advice. Indeed, follow your star if you want to head north and it’s the North Star. But if you want to head north and it’s Mars, you had better follow somebody else’s star.

Indeed, never compromise your principles. Unless, of course, your principles are Adolf Hitler’s. In which case, you would be well advised to compromise your principles, as much as you can...

I am here to tell you that it is much less important how committed you are, than what you are committed to. If I had to choose, I would always take the less dynamic, indeed even the lazy person who knows what’s right, than the zealot in the cause of error. He may move slower, but he’s headed in the right direction.

Movement is not necessarily progress. More important than your obligation to follow your conscience, or at least prior to it, is your obligation to form your conscience correctly. Nobody — remember this — neither Hitler, nor Lenin, nor any despot you could name, ever came forward with a proposal that read, ‘Now, let’s create a really oppressive and evil society.’ Hitler said, ‘Let’s take the means necessary to restore our national pride and civic order.’ And Lenin said, ‘Let’s take the means necessary to assure a fair distribution of the goods of the world.’

In short, it is your responsibility...not just to be zealous in the pursuit of your ideals, but to be sure that your ideals are the right ones.”