CADRE Comments

Long time readers may have noticed that I occasionally mention Charlie Brown in these pages. I do so because I love Peanuts. Charlie Brown remains in my opinion the hallmark of what makes a great comic strip.  In fact, I have decorated my office with several choice items of Christmas memorabilia. What makes Peanuts so special? I think that a lot could be said about why Peanuts is so appealing to so many people. For one thing it really does capture the innocence of youth – or, at least, the innocence that society formerly associated with youth; back in the days before children decided that being cool trumped learning to be an adult. The last I can recall, Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and the gang never showed any real concern about being gunned down at school, buying drugs or engaging in any number of other activities that seem to be bogging down our youth. Charlie Brown was concerned about winning the baseball game (which he finally did), kicking the football (which I cannot rec...

So, back around 2000, some smugglers were caught smuggling antiquities around Turkey, and a quite interesting text was picked up while raiding them (or so the story goes), written in gold(ish?) ink in Syriac on leather. Now it's mid-December 2015, and more importantly Christmas time, and more importantly than that it's time to generate some hits on websites y'all! So let's see just how much anti-Christian conspiracy we can wring out of this curiosity! Or maybe get some web-hits out of pouring cold water on the feverish fires of anti-Christian conspiracy. Y'know, whichever. Option 2 sounds more fun, so let's go with that. • SO IS THIS A 1500 YEAR OLD BIBLE?! No, because it isn't a "Bible". It's one text. Which would still be pretty interesting, but don't be fooled by hysterical claims of it being a "Bible" (except in the sense of it being a book, loosely speaking). There are actual collections of scriptural texts that are 1500...

So HúmanLíght has cóme and góne (or stíll perháps is hére), to célebráte "compássion, hópe, and reáson" fór the yeár. The chíldish mÿth and sélf-decéptive fíction hás been húrled, repláced by gládsome trúth of háppy fúture fór our wórld: a fúture buílt by peóple whó exíst as fleéting líghts, snuffed oút at lást and fínallÿ by dúmb amóral níght(s) -- peóple whó in trúth and fáct agaínst that chíldish mÿth are útterlÿ and ónly máde of... whát the héck is thís?! "Compássion, hópe and reáson?" Nó. They thréw that "mÿth" awáy. And yét still wánt to célebráte those thíngs on Chrístmas Dáy, forgétting theír own teáchings thát they wánt to teách at schoól: they woúld have dóne much bétter tó keep Ódin ín their Yúle! A troúblemáking wánderér, whose ónly sácrifíce reveáls a cóming tríumph óf brutálitÿ and íce all reáson ánd compássion, hópe and jóy destróyed at lást and nóthing úp abóve him knóws or cáres of jústice pást. To strúggle éven hó...

At Christmastime, people often begin to look into the facts and theology surrounding the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The CADRE has several interesting blog posts about Christmas that are well worth reading. Some are oriented as apologetics tools while others are more reflective. Among them are: How Many Children in Bethlehem did Herod Kill?  The Meaning of the Manger Was Jesus Born in Nazareth or Bethlehem?           Part I – Introduction            Part II - Was Bethlehem Named for Theological Reasons?            Part III – Do Mark and John Imply a Birth in Nazareth?           Part IV – Jesus’ Birthplace in the Non-Canonical “Gospels”            Part V - What about Bethlehem of Galilee? Christmas, Charlie Brown and a time of receiving December 25 and the myth of the pagan C...

This morning, I received my favorite Yuletide publication – my email of the American Humanist News. It caught my attention because the title of the email was “The Secular Holiday Issue (Part  1).” In the email was the link to an article entitled “ How To Celebrate Humanlight, A December Holiday For Humanists. ”  Humanlight? What in the world is Humanlight? Well, according to the article, Humanlight is a new holiday (first celebrated in 2001) that may have been set for December 23 so that Humanists can have a holiday to celebrate around Christmas. Why do I say it "may have been set for December 23"? That's a long story. Here’s what the article says: HumanLight is a secular holiday on December 23rd. It’s designed to celebrate and express the positive, secular, human values of reason, compassion, humanity and hope. HumanLight illuminates a positive, secular vision of a happy, just and peaceful future for our world, a future which people can build by working toge...

With the recent school shooting in Connecticut, I wouldn't be surprised if Christmas sermons leaned a little more than usual this year on the incident of Herod slaughtering the baby boys in Bethlehem. I would however be surprised if many Christian sermons bothered to talk about the Old Testament verses being referenced by Matthew (or whoever authored/compiled/redacted/whatever the Greek text of The Gospel According to Matthew --but for ease of reference I'll go with Matthean authorship hereafter). That's because many Christian preachers would have good reason to be nervous about looking into why Matthew cites this incident as fulfilling a prophecy from Jeremiah. I on the other hand think Matthew's reference is hugely important and relevant, not only in regard to Christian hope for innocent victims, but also in regard to Christian hope for those who slaughter the innocent! ...what? Hope in Christ, and in the grace of God, for Herod and for his murderous thugs?! ...

The 14th verse of the second chapter of the Gospel According to Luke is, frankly, kind of hard to translate. The classic English translation works well enough: “Glory to God in the Highest! And on Earth, peace, goodwill to men!” Strictly speaking, though, the Greek reads... well, it could read several things. A number of rather different things in fact. {Doxa} ‘glory’ {en} ‘in’ or ‘among’ {huposistois} ‘(the) highest’ {the(i)o_} ‘to God’ {kai} ‘and’ or ‘now’ or even ‘but’ or ‘yet’ {epi} ‘upon’ {ge_s} ‘(the) land’ or ‘earth’ {eire_ne_} ‘peace’ {en} ‘in’ or ‘among’ {anthro_pois} ‘men’ or ‘mankind’ {eudokias} or {eudokia} ‘of his delight’ or ‘delight’ Does “highest” mean that glory is given among the highest angels to God? Or is the highest glory being given to God? Both of course would be true. Is the glory being also given to God upon the earth or land? And if so, is the glory on the land, or is God upon the land as well as in heaven?! Either or both could be true!--if the Incarnation i...

Yep, doing that already, thanks! {ironic g} Reason, by the way, tells me it isn't a myth. Not in the limited sense of 'fictional' being implied by the atheist group who sponsored the billboard. C. S. Lewis, the famous convert from atheism, the most famous proponent of the Argument form Reason, and arguably the greatest apologist of the 20th century, was very favorably impressed by the mythical characteristics of that story: the myth was as important to him, in his conversion to Christianity, as the history. But anyone putting up that billboard is more interested in rhetoric than reason anyway (billboards not being very conducive to reasoning in the first place, admittedly.) And it should be noted that we Christians put up signs at least as annoying to atheists and others--there's a good chance this is a satiric echo of such advertising or promotion. Still, their ad campaign at Christmas (is this the third year in a row now?) is always amusing, if not always in the way ...

...who not only believe that the single fundamental ground of all reality is rationally active; but who also believe that this independently existent Fact (upon which, or rather Who, all other reality--including us, all our readers, and the evident natural system around us--is dependent for existence) is a self-existent eternally coherent interPersonal relationship... ...and who believe that tomorrow at least represents the day in history when the living Action of this essential Love, having descended into the Nature He loves and for which He gives His own life, was born of a woman; in order to give His own life with utter completeness, fulfilling all fair-togetherness (or 'righteousness' as we tend to translate it in English)--not only for those who love Him, and not only for those who don't know Him, but even for those who are outright His enemies-- --to all our readers throughout the world, whether or not you believe a single word of what I just wrote: REASON'S GREE...

The latest newsletter from the Associates for Biblical Archaeology contains a very interesting article about Matthew's account of the birth of Jesus entitled, The Slaughter of the Innocents: Historical Fact or Legendary Fiction? by Gordon Franz, M.A. In the article he notes the objection by skeptics that the lack of a secular account of the slaughter makes it unlikely that it ever occurred, then begins to piece together a very good article explaining possible reasons for such secular evidence (which means "anything but the Bible") to be absent. In the course of the article he discusses the fact that Herod was a bad guy (which is an understatement even using the secular records) and the fact that the event was not so great as many think. The slaughter was not a huge blood bath with hundreds of babies brutally murdered in their mothers arms. Rather, it is likely that only a few mothers had their babies murdered at that time. Second, the massacre might not have been as larg...

Back in the 1980s, I first became involved in the issue of the Christian foundations in the United States from reading two books, The Separation of Church and State by Robert L. Cord and The Myth of Separation by David Barton (a book I believe is now out of print). While I haven't seen much further out of Robert Cord other than some Political Science textbooks, David Barton has gone on to expand on his original book in creating Wallbuilders , an organization dedicated to publicizing information demonstrating our nation's clear Christian roots. In the spirit of the Christmas season, David Barton and Wallbuilders have just published a very interesting article entitled Christmas with the Presidents in which he reviews the way in which Presidents of the United States have recognized the holidays -- including a surprising number of items that demonstrate the faith and devotion of various Presidents to Christ. Naturally, the details of the celebrations of the first few presidents ...

Just for the fun of it, I would be interested in hearing suggestions for both your favorite and least favorite Christmas songs with brief explanations as to why you like or don't like them. Choose as many as you like, but I think no more than three in each category should suffice. Sometimes, the only good version of a song is by a particular musical group or singer, so please point that out when it happens. Since I am suggesting this, let me give my choices: Favorites (in no particular order): "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" -- What's not to like about this song? In a minor key with a haunting melody, I love singing it throughout the Christmas season. (Yes, I know it's really an Advent song, but Advent and Christmas are one season to me.) It has meaningful lyrics and has the right message for the season. "Do You Hear What I Hear" by Third Day -- While this song is obviously not Biblical, I like the idea of all of creation praising the baby Jesus. Third Day...

Barry Carey at withallyourmind.net has found a singularly interesting article heading into the holidays which he has posted in an post entitled For Goodness' Sake . Here's what Barry found: I read with a slight chuckle this recent news story about the bus ads planned for the Christmas season by the American Humanist Association. Starting next week and running through December will be ads placed on the sides of buses which state, “Why believe in a God? Just be good for goodness’ sake.” Of course, the reference is to the lyrics of the children’s holiday song, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” It seems the athiests and agnostics are feeling a little left out and lonely during the Christmas holidays. According to a spokesman for the humanist group: We are trying to reach our audience, and sometimes in order to reach an audience, everybody has to hear you… Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheist...

Here's a story that I find very difficult to understand -- apparently, the Archbishop of Canterbury made some comments that questioned some of the details of the Christmas story and has been criticized for doing so. According to Archbishop of Canterbury's Comments on Nativity Spark Debate Among American Christians , Archbishop Rowan Williams called portions of the Christmas story "legend" and is described as actually "debunking" portions of the story. According to the article: In an interview with BBC Radio Five earlier this week, Archbishop Williams debunked various details Christians have come to associate with the birth of Jesus Christ — including the number of wise men, whether they were kings, the snowy weather and the Dec. 25 date. In the full text of his interview , the Archbishop's comments cover the full range of the usual events surrounding Christmas -- the manger, the birth by the Virgin Mary, Joseph, snow on the ground, the visit by the three...