Free Republic

Clearly, this lady has, as they say, "issues". Does one see a trend here? From Campus Crusade for Christ to the PCUSA to Catholicism. What's next, Scientology?

I do think that anti-port advocates are being racist and nativist.

It is hard to cut through the fog on both sides. Here's the issue -- and it is neither racist nor 'nativist'-- this is a corporation wholly-owned by one of the few governments in the world that actively supports Wahabi Mohamedanism -- the strain of this primitive religion which actively supports 9-11 style attacks on non-Mohamedans.

By means of this deal, the corporation will gain access to several hundred new visas for their 'managers' by reason of their new role as 'managers' of the ports. While it is true that they will still have to play 'catch us if you can' with US Customs and DHS, their ability to station Wahabist Mohamedans in the infrastructure of our major ports will at a minimum complicate the Customs/DHS task.

It is not their 'race' (ie your 'racist' charge) or their country of origin (ie your 'nativist' charge) which gives concern, it is their government's active support for the very philosophy which caused the loss of life on 9-11.

This is not the NFL or MLB where we give the last place team the first draft pick to make the contest more competitive. We do not want the Mohamedan terrorists to become more competitive. If the UAE government were to openly renounce Wahabism in favor of some 'live-and-let-live' form of Mohamedanism, I would allow the deal to go through. But they won't and so I wouldn't either. I believe in self-defense.

My screen namesame once defined a 'liberal' as one so broadminded that he could not take his own side in a quarrel. Let us hope we will not be so 'liberal' in this instance.

Fr. Drinan is a "devout Christian" as well ...."

No, Father Drinan may be a devout Catholic, but that is certainly no guarantee that he is a Christian. He may or may not be (some RCC adherents are), but his 'devotion' to the RCC doesn't do it. A Christian is one with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ; commitments to ceremonial observances and/or human organizations have nothing -- absolutely nothing -- to do with it.

Same is true with Harriet Miers. Her affiliation with a Bible-oriented church makes it more likely that she is a Christian, but still no guarantee. But, assuming arguendo that she is, it makes all the difference. Ideas have consequences and we haven't had an evangelical Christian on the Court in at least half a century.

It is ironic that liberals are (so far) ignoring her (apparent) Christian commitment. Trust me, when it becomes apparent that she is a Christian, they will swing round on her with all the rage that heathens can mount.

I believe this is why this President feels confident in selecting her -- she is a sister in Christ and the Pres knows it.

Looks like Earl realized that the first indictment would never make it past a judge so he decided to up the ante.

Yes, but to paraphrase the old aphorism about the smell of a rose and its name, "A non-existent rose by any other name has the same non-existent smell."

Earle is casting about for a way to describe a legal transaction in an illegal way.

WC: Yes, I think some female who has consciously chosen for (apparently) careerist reasons never to marry or have a family would likely produce policy choices very similar to the goofy New Hampshire bachelor (already on the Court) who chose never to marry or have a family.

GM: This is like saying that two people who love to play golf are likely to produce similar policy decisions. Or two people who decided to be lawyers. Or two people who decided to move to New Mexico. (snip) Regardless, there's no logic in what you're saying. "Singleness" is a broad category, encompassing all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons, and to infer policy decisions from it stretches credulity.

Not quite. In 1998 (the latest year for which I can find data), 4% of men and 5% of women over 65 had never married. Thus, that is quite an unusual decision. Not quite like taking up golf.

Thus, the reasons for her decision are quite important. Some here have suggested she is a Christian (drawing the inference from her (apparent) service on the Board of a Christian organization). If that is true, that would be wonderful and would certainly overcome all my concerns.

However, we have a woman here who has made the decision only 1 in 20 women make and at the same time devotes herself (and apparently endless hours of her life) to a law firm. Certainly, absent Christian motivation of some sort, that combination leads to a reasonable inference she made the unusual decision for careerist reasons.

[You raise the option of sexual perversion, but I discount that possibility. I doubt the President would put her up in such a circumstance. She could conceivably have sexual identification issues, but it seems highly, highly doubtful to me that this President would nominate anyone engaging in homosexual behavior.]

So, in the absence of a Christian commitment, I would assume careerist motivations -- and that would be very dangerous.

First point. She led the Exodus Ministries, whose expressed purpose is to lead others to Jesus Christ while attending to their needs and restoring them to living constructive lives. I don't know many people who do that, who aren't Christians, do you? I know plenty of fine Christian women whom God called to be single, and have done marvellous things for Christ because they didn't have a family to worry about. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with her ability to make policy.

As I posted above, I agree IF she is a Christian. Obviously, being a Christian changes everything. Are you sure that she was in fact a director of this organization?

One more point. It is not that choosing to remain single and renounce a family is unimportant, but that the reasons for doing so are all important. If she did it for liberal, secularist, careerist reasons, it speaks volumes about her policy choices. If she, instead, did it for Christian reasons, it also speaks volumes in a different direction.

WC: First, there is no evidence -- zero -- that this woman is a Christian.

LL: From Exodus Ministries web site (the Ministry of which Miers was a Director): (snip) It would be downright peculiar for a person to serve on the Board of Directors of this organization and not be a Christian. Possible, sure, but it wouldn't make much sense.

I agree. If it turns out that she served on the Board of a Christian organization, that would be strong evidence that she is herself a Christian.

IF she is a Christian, I wholeheartedly change my expressed doubts. We don't have an evangelical Christian on the Court (and to my knowledge haven't had for at least half a century) and I would turn cartwheels to get one.

WC: This time, a 60-year, post-menopausal female who has chosen never to marry, never to have a family and, instead, work long hours devoted to a law firm. Surely, this must tell us something of her life priorities. Is this not relevant in divining her predictable policy preferences?

OWF: Once again............what if it was GOD'S WILL for her to be single, like it was for the Apostle Paul? Or is it just your misogyny peeking out, winston? Is it only women who have to be married to be trustworthy? Paul was OK being single because it was God's choice for his life? But Harriet will be a bad judge because she is single? Is that how it works?

Two points.

First, there is no evidence -- zero -- that this woman is a Christian -- let alone that she made a choice to remain single to better serve Christ -- Paul's purpose. Your Chistian analogy to the Apostle Paul is inapposite.

However, even assuming arguendo that she is a Christian, do we really think that she couldn't find a Christian man to marry? No, she made a conscious choice. Precisely the kind of choice we don't want advanced by the so-called 'policy choices' of the Supreme Court.

Second, at the SC level, we are selecting a 'policymaker' not a 'judge' in the true sense of following precedent. [Since the liberals have set the SC 'precedents' in their policy choices for the last three-quaarters of a century, Heaven help us if we get some faithful 'precedent follower' on the SC!]

Yes, I think some female who has consciously chosen for (apparently) careerist reasons never to marry or have a family would likely produce policy choices very similar to the goofy New Hampshire bachelor (already on the Court) who chose never to marry or have a family.

She's effing 60 and never married....

You need to knock that off.

I disagree. For appointments to subsidiary courts, how good a lawyer one is can be the predominate question, because the task is to take superior court precedents and mold a decision. But the liberals (with the acquiescence of the conservatives) have converted the Supreme Court to an on-going, unelected legislature, expressing preferences for various 'policy' options. According, how good a lawyer one is is almost irrelevant at the Supreme Court.

It is no good to say that "a new conservative majority will change that," any more than a new conservative majority in Congress has changed the preference for pork and unrestrained spending. It will not. Whomever is appointed and confirmed will be another vote in the 9-man legislature we call the "Supreme Court" for the rest of his (or her) life.

No aspect of a person is a better indicator of their likely policy preferences than their choices in life experience. Are we really surprised that a goofy, hermit-like bachelor from the wilds of New Hampshire has his head turned by the flattering chatter of Washington social life and votes a straight liberal line once he is voted to the SC?

Now, we get another one. This time, a 60-year, post-menopausal female who has chosen never to marry, never to have a family and, instead, work long hours devoted to a law firm. Surely, this must tell us something of her life priorities. Is this not relevant in divining her predictable policy preferences?

Finally, remember, after eight years of the overwhelming, breathtaking evidence of the correctness of Ronald Reagan, this female supported Bentsen and Gore.

_______________

Most important to me in this appointment -- and the point many here miss -- is that Bush has now confirmed Clinton's fondest hope -- the establishment of a second set-aside female seat on the SC. So we will now have, going-forward, one set-aside 'black' seat (the Thurgood Marshall - Clarence Thomas seat), two (2) female seats (the Sandy O'Connor-Harriet Miers seat and the Ruth Ginsberg seat) and soon we will have the compulsory 'Hispanic' seat (the Alberto Gonzales seat?). So, we will now have only five members of the Court selected primarily on ability even in a Republican administration. This is truly tragic.

Headline: "Frozen Chosen to Mount New Evangelism Push; To Unlock One Church Door to Await Pre-Determined Arrival"

So Jesus died for theological anarchy? Jesus also prayed so that all may be one. It certainly isn't one. And belonging to an organization is not some trivial matter that's so easily overlooked. There are some serious differences between the [Protestant denominations]. I'm talking canon of the Bible, the nature of Christ or whether there is even a Trinity, salvation, the [Lord's Supper], free will vs. pre-destination.

Yes, belonging to an human organization is a trivial matter. The Bible says "...He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." It doesn't say "...so that everyone who belongs to the Mormon Church or the RCC will not perish ...." Only our individual relationship to Christ matters. [Even the RCC purports, at some level, to believe that, I think.]

Yes, there are important differences among the Protestant denominations. The topics you mention (with the exception of the canon) are among them. [I know of no dispute among Protestant denominations on the canon.] But what better way to keep the interpretation of the Bible free of error than to maintain the free marketplace of ideas? Certainly that is better than a lot of political decisions by corrupt 'popes.' Centralized decision-making is always dangerous.

For example, did you ever wonder why Michaelangelo's ceiling in the Sistine Chapel contains so many depictions of pagan oracles indiscriminately interspersed among the Biblical figures? It is because the then-pope, Julius II, in addition to fathering several little bastards out-of-wedlock and repeatedly cheating Michaelangelo on his contract for the ceiling, was a big believer in pagan divination. Follow the money. He was a real scumbag. So much for 'papal infallibility.'

Jesus called us to follow Him and honor His teachings and His Father's Commandments. He didn't say 'believe whatever you want; it doesn't matter.'

Here you are right. That's why we must follow the Bible and not the man-made inventions of the accretionist organizations. That is why the invention of doctrines such as the 1950 invention by the RCC of the 'bodily assumption' of Mary without even a pretense of Biblical authority is so very, very dangerous. The RCC is simply making it up as it goes along -- and misleading millions as it goes.

Hell, we wrote the New Testament, compiled it, codified it, and canonized it. You Protestants just took it and tore 7 books right out of it. Thankfully someone stopped Martin Luther before he tore Revelations and some of the Epistles out too.

I know Biblical literacy is not highly valued within the RCC, but the last book of the Bible is named "Revelation" (singular), not "Revelations" (plural). Sorry about that.

Your claim that the RCC "wrote the New Testament" is amusing. Is no arrogance too much? Did the RCC, like the Soviet Union of old, also invent the telephone and the telegraph? Since Al Gore is gone from the national stage, you could probably also claim that the RCC invented the Internet. That would fool the masses, wouldn't it?

Now a few facts.

Even under the RCC's view, the apocryphal books were never in the NT (the RCC puts them in the OT. The reason that when the Council of Trent added them -- 29 years AFTER the Reformation had begun -- they called them "deuterocanonicals" is because they were never part of the Jewish OT. [BTW, the RCC's Council of Trent also uncritically picked up (and made mandatory on RCC adherents) three of the least manuscript-supported portions of the NT (including the disputed ending of Mark and the pericope of John). As ever, they were politicians, not scholars.]

Because Jerome translated his Bible from the intervening Greek translation of the Septuagint, not the original Hebrew manuscripts, he inadvertently picked up the deuteros which the Septuagint translation had included. [Although Jesus and the NT writers occasionally quoted from the Septuagint and quoted from the Hebrew version of most of the OT books, neither Jesus nor the writers ever quoted from any of the deuteros.] When, as a result of the Reformation, the RCC found itself scurrying to try to defend its accretionist doctrines for the first time in the marketplace of ideas (with millions of people reading the Bible for the first time as a result of Luther), the deuteros became important in trying to provide a basis for accretionist concepts like 'purgatory.'

So, even though the apocryphal books were not in the Hebrew canon, the Council of Trent added them to the RCC Bible for defensive reasons. In sum, Luther didn't 'rip them out' of the OT, he merely refused to follow the later RCC decision to add them. Just another evidence of RCC accretionism.

27,000 Protestant sects. End of story.

It's only the 'end of the story' if you think that Christ died to save organizations. He did not; He died "... so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life" whether they belong to any particular organziation or none at all. That, my friend, is both the beginning and the end of the story.

Neither the Chamber of Commerce or the RCC nor any other human organization can save you. Good wishes.

Christ did not leave us a Bible. He left us a living Church.

I thought the RCC accepted the Bible as the Word of God. I agree that Christ established His living church as a body of true and living believers, but they are not found exclusively in any organization of men, most assurredly not the RCC.

That's why the Catholic Church is fortunate to have the Holy Spirit guiding her.

Others would suggest perhaps another 'spirit' is 'guiding' it.

The Holy Spirit does not guide any other Church.

The Holy Spirit guides individual believers, not organizations. All human organizations are corrupt (certain the RCC is far from an exception); only the relative degree varies. The RCC's recent scandals with pedophilia and homosexuality reflect upon the corruption of the organization, but of course not upon the Holy Spirit or those RCC adherents who are Christians (and I believe there are some).

Could you please cite when the Roman Catholic Church has ever changed its belief structure in 2000 years?

On this topic, to name a just a couple of the hundreds or perhaps thousands, 1854 (adding the 'immaculate conception' of Mary) and 1950 (adding the 'bodily assumption of Mary'). The text of the papal documents themselves demonstrate by their terms that the respective popes were adding these rather unusual doctrines to the pantheon of RCC dogmas. Before the respective pronouncements, they were not part of the belief structure of the RCC (although a few individuals may have theretofore held to them personally), but afterward, they became mandatory parts of the belief structure of the RCC on pain of 'legal' punishment. That's what accretionism is.

Nothing wrong with believing that, just like there's nothing wrong with believing kaballah (sp?) or Mormonism either (apart from the fact they may not be true), but none are Biblical Christianity. "You takes your choice" -- and (I believe) you bet your eternal future on the efficacy of that choice. That's the only point.

WC: The RCC, like the Mormon church, is unabashedly accretionist, i.e. their respective organizations have established mechanisms to add to (or change)their belief structure. as time goes along, beyond those concepts found in Scripture.

C: Protestants do the same thing, all the time. Study up on the history of premillenial dispensationalism sometime.

Actually, I agree with you on dispensationalism, but it does not make Protestantism in general accretionist, because Protestant churches have not set up mechanisms as the RCC and the Mormons have (the papacy and the president of the council of the twelve, respectively) to provide additional (or revised) dogmas for their respective churches.

But I do agree that Bible-faithful churches must be continually sensitive to the possibility that their mutual efforts at systematic theology (purportedly drawn from the Bible) can nonetheless amount to 'accretions by common consent.' Placing dispensational theories and 5-point Calvinist theology on a par with the Bible itself are good examples of this problem in Protestantism.

... that old complaint that these dogmas were not provable by scripture will disappear,'' Carnley said ...

This, of course, is ultimately the issue. Most RCC adherents will readily concede that their devotion to/worship of Mary is based upon their organization's 'tradition' and not upon the Scriptures. The RCC, like the Mormon church, is unabashedly accretionist, i.e. their respective organizations have established mechanisms to add to (or change)their belief structure. as time goes along, beyond those concepts found in Scripture.

The risks of an accretionist church, of course, is that, like the old children's game of 'telephone', by the time the story gets filtered through the 'tradition' of each of the carriers on its way around the circle, it bears little or no resemblence to the original message. The advantage of the accretionist approach is that it can readily adapt to cultural and scientific developments, but the disadvantage is that no effective mechanism has been found to keep the accretions 'tied to' and limited by the original message.

The Anglicans have always muddled along somewhere in the middle between the accretionists and the non-accretionists, granting some (undefined) role to 'tradition'. All that is changing here is that (apparently) some segment of the Anglican church is swinging toward complete accretionism.

For those of us with a high view of Scripture (versus man-made accretions), this is sad. For the accretionists, obviously, it is a cause for celebration and an old-fashioned "I told you so."

Rick Warren is the most inspiring pastor of our time...provided one is dean of the Harvard Business School. He's turned "church success" (as opposed to expanding devotion to Christ) into a business methodology, completely divorced from the need for the Holy Spirit's direction and anointing. Uh huh. Except for the fact that 4,200 people accepted Jesus Christ into their lives in the last several weeks. God is using this church and moving through it. What many Christians do realize over a period of time (hopefully), is that God uses everything, and denouncing that which God uses, is unfruitful and divisive.

Yes, I am one (as several above) who finds many of the current 'fads' incredibly superficial. BUT, these mega churches are having a positive introductory impact on their communities, successfully inviting thousands to "meet the Master." It is my sense that many (most) of these converts will move on to 'more meat' after a couple of years in these largely formulaic megachurches. But they are the functional equivalent to a semi-permanent Billy Graham Crusade for our time. And I think that, viewed as such, it is a good thing.

I belonged to one of these megachurches for about three years and found that, in the leadership of the church, the greatest continuing frustration was the inability to 'bridge' or 'grow' their huge (really huge) coterie of young believers into mature Christians. Most were moving on to other, more traditional churches after 2-4 years. And that too is a good thing.

it is true that no one should get whacked out over the 'defilement' of some printed books (particularly when they belong in the 'hallucinatory tales' part of the library -- but that's another topic). If a Bible gets burned or defiled, a Christian's attitude would be: 'that's a pity - but its your loss. It is God's Word, no amount of burning, ridicule, defacement, watering down is going to stop it. You'll have better success telling the ocean waves to stop coming ashore, than in stopping God's Word'. One has to be very insecure about their deity, or their 'book' if they get worked up into a froth just because someone used it for kindling or tissue paper...

I think this is an important point. I think it points to the great frailty of the Mohammedan religion -- and the major reason for the intense frustration among its followers. It is fundamentally a very tangible religion, i.e. (apart from the "72 virgins" for their crazies), it's primary appeal is as a 'prosperity' religion. "Go through our little prayer rug rituals and the moon god will reward you in the here and now."

The problem, of course, is that the society with the greatest percentage of Christians is also the world's most materially successful and the Mohammedan nations, despite unprecendented natural resources (read, oil), are among the poorest and most backward.

In short, Mohammedanism isn't delivering (and never has) on its major promise. Much like the communists of yore, the only explanation (to its frenzied supporters) is some form of conspiratorial 'sabotage' by those pesky Christians. If they were only 'eliminated' all would function as it was supposed to. Thus, the Mohammedan 'fundamentalist' movement.