History Repeats Itself: Abortion

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. We honor, today, the countless infants, younger than 2 that Herod murdered brutally, seeking to rid the world of its Savior. This is an important Feast Day for the Church, especially in the modern era. What’s interesting is that history has repeated itself. Today, we find ourselves killing our unborn much the same way that Herod killed those innocent children in the first century. But even Herod’s act parallel’s another act by another ruler. Remember Pharaoh?

Pharaoh, in the time of Moses, decided that the Hebrew’s grew too numerous and too threatening. He decided to rid the world of Hebrew male children. However through the ingenuity of one Hebrew woman, the salvation of thousands of Israelites was made possible. Ultimately, the little child who’s life was preserved shamed the Egyptian gods by calling down 10 plagues, thus leading the Israelites out of bondage. The death of thousands of innocents was avenged. But among those thousands, one was saved, and preserved the life of the nation.

Sounds very familiar to the Herodian infanticide. Herod, afraid that he will lose his political power kills all Hebrew infants. Mary and Joseph escape with the child to Egypt. They wait in Egypt until Herod dies. Ironically, this ends the reign of power he worked so hard to maintain. This child grows up to lead everyone from death into life. He doesn’t question political authority at all. In fact when the subject is brought up, he simply says, “You would have no authority over me if it hadn’t been given to you by my Father.” However, what the Messiah does do, is to lay down a list of shoulds and should nots, giving us a New Law to follow. Ultimately, though he pays the ultimate price, being crucified for our sins.

Now we face a similar situation. Millions of women, because they are afraid that they’ll lose their freedom have decided that they will end their pregnancies. Others advocate abortion, thinking that they can cut down on the population, fearing that bringing just one more kid into the world will destroy us. Society, while not actively fearing the power of the unborn, fears the implications that children will mean in their lives. Big families only cause problems, so we favor smaller families or no families at all. Babies are punishments and so thousands are slaughtered day in and day out. But history has repeated itself, once again. Look at the people who have escaped this Holocaust. Many of them have lived extraordinary lives, becoming role models, leaders, celebrities. Yet society hasn’t learned this lesson, it doesn’t realize that every life is a gift. Choice has nothing to do with it. Carry on this infanticide, and we may not be so lucky. We might have just aborted our savior, the one who is able to fix the environment, or the economy. History has repeated itself, and every single person who has killed their child/ fetus/ embryo or whatever they wish to call it, is doing the same injustice to them that Herod and Pharaoh did in their times. May God Help us all!

The Joy of Christmas

Thank you Servus for such a wonderful Blog about the truth of Christmas. I pray that peace and joy will be spread in the hearts of all this Christmas.

I pray that that Glynn Cardy will experience the joy and truth of Christmas.

Christmas time is a time of year which western society together takes a break. In the Northern hemisphere it is all about fighting of the winter cold with warm food and good company. In the southern Hemisphere it is all about sharing summer with family and friends. So often we spend time criticising the fall of Christian culture in the west and noting the sad disregard for the truth of the gospel. I am thankful that most in the west have time for family, for pausing and hopefully reflecting at Christmas time. I am glad that our society did not vote to take that time or our other shared Christian holiday away from us.

Long may we hold this holy day as a public celebration of Christ in the mist of our culture. This Christmas I am proud to call myself a Christian in a society which has set aside time for us to celebrate that.

I pray that is Christmas that you all will come to know Emanuel.

God bless you all and thank you for reading this year.

Relation between Christmas, Easter, and Christian Life

The title makes this post seem so obvious. Before, I even got to the first sentence, I know that someone could sum up the title by saying “Because of Christ coming down to earth at Christmas, Easter happened. And because Christmas happened and Easter happened, we now are able to lead Christian lives.” But there is a deeper connection between Christmas and Easter, and it is very key to our lives as Christians.

The connection is the Paschal Mystery. The Paschal Mystery can be seen throughout Salvation History, in the types of Christ. Isaac can be considered as a form of the Paschal Mystery, by allowing himself to be sacrificed out of obedience to his father Abraham. The Passover Feast (which is where we derive the word “Paschal”) is also a form of the paschal mystery. But the clearest place that we see the Paschal Mystery, is at Easter. The God-man suffered and died to free man from sin, and was then subsequently glorified by God through his Resurrection. The mystery of how something so evil can bring about something good is what the Paschal Mystery is all about. The sacrifice of the God-man, and his glorification, all for our salvation is the Paschal Mystery.

What does this have to do with Christmas? In order to suffer and die, Christ had to become man. But this event, Christmas, in and of itself, is a type of Paschal Mystery. For Christ, in obedience to His Father, came down from Heaven and became Man to redeem the nature of that which he assumed. As Paul says in Phillipians 2: 6-7, Christ was made with human likeness, taking on the form of a slave (humanity), and was obedient to His Father until His Crucifixion and Death on the Cross. This man, though, did not come as a glorious political leader, let alone a deity that brought everyone under his submission. No, he came as a humble child, born of a humble, virgin mother, in a stable. His first bed was a feeding trough. Not only did he come as a human, he didn’t even come as an elite human. He’d be considered as an undesirable, one of those who some doctors and politicians (hint, the American President) would think should be killed because it’s obvious that he wouldn’t amount to much in society.

But what does God do? He glorifies His Son, on the day of His birth. This is the continuance of the Paschal Mystery; the glorification. For a little Child, who would be considered as an undesirable, angels were sent to shepherds. These hosts sang, “Gloria in the Highest! Peace to men of goodwill!” God’s Son has come into the world! Maybe His life wouldn’t amount to much, but in the end God will reconcile man with Himself. The plan for salvation has begun. Now, you could raise the objection that God’s plan was still greater; that He shouldn’t have sent His angels to shepherds. Which is why he didn’t just send his angels to shepherds, but used natural signs to lead the magi to His Son. And when they get to Jerusalem, and ask for the “King of the Jews” they scare King Herod. Herod is scared of a little child who is lying in a feeding trough! Even though God’s Son comes in the most humble way, he is already making an impact on the world.

What does that mean for Christian Living? We live the Paschal Mystery, every day. Every day, we die to ourselves, participating in our own sufferings. But through the grace given by God, through the unity of ourselves with Christ, and through our participation in the sacraments, we are also making ourselves available to participate in the glorification of God through the glorification of our very selves. And once that is done, it is necessary to spread the word to others, in order that they might experience the same thing.

Thus, the Christmas message is this: Glory to God in the Highest! Peace to men of good will! Men of God’s will. Men who are willing to live as Jesus did, obedient until death. For it is in this death to our will, and birth to God’s Will, that we become like God. This is why there is so much truth in the saying, “God became man, so that man might become God.”

Merry Christmas!!!

Of fusses about buses

Here in New Zealand there has been too much fuss over the atheist bus campaign (including me even bothering to post  this). What is the big deal? Catholic Archbishop John Dew is bang on the money when he says he doesn’t understand why an atheist organisation seems to spend most of its time talking about God. Surely ignoring God altogether would be a more effective way of making people stop believing in Him?

Any how, the other bloggers have been bugging me for not posting a while (and rightly so!), so I chose this because it doesn't require much time or brain power and I got to draw a cool picture with my crayons for you all:

Hopefully you can all see that. Also hat tip to whoever made the AGW spoof (Anthropogenic Global Warming).

There, you all happy?!?!?!

Manhattan Declaration- a call to stand with those who fight for life

I am sometimes a little behind the news but when I stumbled over this it blew my mind. A document was drafted by 3 leading Christian thinkers and put forward for the Amercian people to sign. This is a great call to stand from within the American nation. It is a united Christain stand. It is a stand for those who cannot stand for themselves.

We live in times which are in some ways wonderfully great. We have access to technology, freedom of travel, amazing health care and opportunities to always to work to aid our fellow man and ourselves. Indeed great wealth that we have inherited from those gone before us. In New Zealand we are a blessed nation. But we also live in time when evil still walks the face of the earth. We stand against a dark despair, a hopelessness which threatens the lives of so many of our countrymen. I appeal to all my brothers and sisters in Christ and all those of good will to join this stand.

Let us work against the great evils of our times, let us continue to work for good in the face of evil that is often begun in the human person. It can seem like there are many evils in the world and I know that I will not be able to bring an end to all of them, but let us work to bring about a change for the better. A change of culture, a change of legislation, and most importantly a change of heart. Let us dream of a culture without abortion, euthanasia and disrespect of religious freedom. Let us dream so that we can then share that dream with others. Let us push forward a revolution of hope, a desire to change. Lets us stand for people of faith and good will. Let us stand for the desire to know the truth.

Reading this document I was inspired and I hope that it inspires you to take the time to ask the questions, to engage in the conversations and to inform yourself. For those of you who have worked for the advancement of the cause of protection of life from the start I say thank you for your hard work and please continue to challenge us. Let us call humanity on to a greater good. But let us go together, Catholic, Protestant , Jew and Atheist , all men of faith, let us go together, stand together and let us not stop at mere words to bring about the change we wish to see. Lets us be the change we wish to see.

Sex,religion according to shakira

Shakira talking about sex is probably not that uncommon but then she starts advising us on religion. I feel this south Amercian pop star has strayed a little too far from the fold. She probably only spread a myth that someone else had told her but it really gets on my nerves this one. Why the hell did they name them the dark ages? I mean did they all blow out their candles for a time? did the art of making fire leave the continent of Europe? Did the sun stop rising? I think we can safely say no to all of these questions. The history of Europe is not worse for the presence of God but better. She is wrong about the history and taking a brief read of Historians like Norman Cantor will show you there is more to the dark ages than just "the darkness"... I will have to send her an email, but I do think Shakira is onto something when she says that libido drives the world.

What is that I hear you say? I am no nymph, nor am I suggesting Freud is entirely right with man being entirely sexual, but sexuality is an important part of being human. The expression of human sexuality is both a deeply personal experience and a force for change in people, therefore it can be a force for change in the world and for love. However this is as close as Shakira and I come to agreeing. Is the Church out to destroy sexuality? Restrict the expression of oneself? Never! The Christian God is the God of the Song of Songs, He takes sexuality and it's expression very seriously and this is a good for which his creation has been made (see Adam's first blessing). This God of love is not just about feeding the poor and loving enemies he is also a huge promoter of love between a man and a woman.

I heard a great quote the other day, "pornography has achieved something the church has failed at for centuries, put men off having sex with their wives." This statement reveals a great truth that the sexual "liberation" has enslaved so many to misery and unfulfillment that it is turning some off sex. It is really sad watching men and women become enslaved, and it is a tough reality which leads people to some sad places. The misery of abortion and unwanted children generally starts with undesirable sex. So I say to Shakira we are not freed but hurt by those who would cast off the "shackles" of religion and find themselves in a deep pit of despair. Marriage helps to protect people from the evil that is often found inside of them because the root of sin is found in the selfishness of the individual.

Shakira, your hips may not lie but your history and understanding of sex sure do.

Free Market Environmentalism: The Common Good Part 2

Three words you don't often see together "Free Market Environmentalism" are what many believe to be an oxymoron, but which are really the most powerful means of protecting the environment. Environmentalism is an area which showcases how the free market unleashes the hidden powers of individuals to work towards the common good, and how it motivates people to want to do so. It shows how the free market digs down to the grass roots to deal with problems, but also how it neutralises the threat of large groups.

The very sorry fact about humanity is that most of us are only motivated by selfless benevolence some of the time, but all of us are motivated by self interest all of the time. This means that any system intended to bring about the common good needs to exploit maximally the self-interest of individuals and not rely on their selfless benevolence. Charities know this, that is why they hold auctions, have dinners with high powered guest speakers, and utilise all manner of innovative methods to return more than simply self satisfaction for donations. The free market liberates self interest to work towards the good of the environment through closely protected private property rights.

When a society upholds private property rights it means no one is allowed to interfere with one's own property nor disposal thereof except if it violates someone else's rights. This means that any pollution which passes from one property to the next by any means including atmospherically constitutes a violation of property rights, and in a free market system the polluted could then sue the polluter to have them cease and pay compensation. For instance say a corporation were polluting the ground water, the land owners affected could sue the corporation for compensation for damages and force them to stop polluting. Their motivation to do this is that the corporation is reducing the value of their land and possibly interfering with it's use. Even if the polluted choose compensation instead of ceasing the pollution they cause the corporation to pay the full cost of it's pollution and trying to maximise profits it will be forced to find cleaner methods of production in future.

Another example is land-fill usage, currently land-fills are almost exclusively owned, operated or at least regulated by local governments. Currently disposing of a plastic bag costs no more than biodegradable non-toxic cardboard yet plastic causes a lot of damage to the environment and biodegradable packaging causes none. If this regulation were lifted and land-fills were privately owned then they would have a vested interest in retaining the maximum value of the land once it's been sufficiently used for land-fill and avoid the lawsuits from adjacent land owners due to pollution across property boundaries. This means that items more damaging to the environment would either be banned altogether or at least be charged much more to dump due to the greater compensation required. This means that the cost of dumping plastic would go up for the dumpers which means they'd have a vested interest in choosing clean packaging and reducing plastics. At the same time businesses which choose clean packaging will gain customers and unclean producers will lose customers, which means that businesses will turn to clean packaging to gain market share and maximise profits. This in turn means that harmful packaging will reduce over time and the environment will be increasingly better taken care of.

In these situations we have the polluter being regulated by the cost of the pollution, policed fastidiously by the property owners affected. This is contrasted against the current situation of being regulated by stale, inadequate and geologically slow to develop government regulation and policed by disinterested and often incompetent public servants. Take climate change, assuming it's being caused by human pollution then it has been more than 20 years of political inaction to bring us to the point of having vague promises of inadequate responses to the threat. A free market response would have caused such a rash of lawsuits that economies could not have avoided setting up effective carbon trading schemes and setting actually realistic carbon reduction targets years ago. At the same time there would have been a great deal of investment put into getting the science correct by both sides of the argument, so if anthropogenic climate change proved to be a false concept then we could avoid the expense and turmoil of radically transforming our entire economy. So the free market system helps correct for errors in environmental forensics also.

Due to having to pay the full cost of pollution individuals, businesses and corporations, seeking their own benefit are then forced to avoid pollution and invest in cleaner technologies. A truly free market system would therefore be a boon for the "green economy" and clean sustainable technology. In a free market system the mighty and ever present force of self interest is turned towards the common good.