Category: Uncategorized

In the bonds of Death He lay,
Who for our offense was slain,
But the Lord is risen today,
Christ hath brought us life again.
Wherefore let us all rejoice,
Singing loud with a cheerful voice
Hallelujah!

Of the sons of men was none
Who could break the bonds of Death,
Sin this mischief dire had done,
Innocent was none on earth;
Wherefore Death grew strong and bold,
Death would all men captive hold.
Hallelujah!

Jesus Christ, God’s only Son,
Came at last our foe to smite,
All our sins away hath done,
Done away Death’s power and right,
Only the form of Death is left,
Of his sting he is bereft;
Hallelujah!

‘Twas a wondrous war, I trow,
When Life and Death together fought;
But life hath triumphed o’er his foe,
Death is mocked and set at nought;
Yea, ’tis as the Scripture saith,
Christ through death has conquered Death.
Hallelujah!

Now our Paschal Lamb is He,
And by Him alone we live,
Who to death upon the tree,
For our sake Himself did give.
Faith His blood strikes on our door,
Death dares never harm us more.
Hallelujah!

On this day most blest of days,
Let us keep high festival,
For our God hath showed His grace,
And our Sun hath risen on us all,
And our hearts rejoice to see
Sin and night before Him flee.
Hallelujah!

To the supper of the Lord,
Gladly we will come today,
The word of peace is now restored,
The old leaven is put away;
Christ will be our food alone,
Faith no life but His doth own.
Hallelujah!

–Martin Luther

I just noticed that Democrats for Life has provided a link to this humble site under “Progressive, Liberal and/or Democrat Oriented Pro-life Blog Sites.” Though I’ve expressed qualms with the “progressive” label in the past, I do adhere to what I hope is a consistently pro-life view (a.k.a. the “seamless garment” perspective). And I certainly support the mission of DFL in trying to make the Democrats more friendly to pro-life views (and a sidebar link to DFL has been duly added).

Good post at Here We Stand on the question of the soul and the “intermediate state.”

I generally try to remain agnostic about such after death matters, though I did find this book pretty persuasive. Best, though, to remember that our hope is in the promise of the Resurrection and God’s love, not in some metaphysical property we may or may not posses.

Interesting.

Ralph Nader, Wesley Smith call Upon Florida Courts, Gov. Bush, Citizens to Take any Legal Action Available to let Schiavo Live
Thu Mar 24, 6:49 PM ET

To: National Desk
Contact: Ralph Nader (news – web sites), 202-387-8034; Wesley Smith, 510-886-8609
WASHINGTON, March 24 /U.S. Newswire/ — Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader and Wesley J. Smith, author of the award winning book “Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America” call upon the Florida Courts, Governor Jeb Bush and concerned citizens to take any legal action available to let Terri Schiavo live.

“A profound injustice is being inflicted on Terri Schiavo,” Nader and Smith asserted today. “Worse, this slow death by dehydration is being imposed upon her under the color of law, in proceedings in which every benefit of the doubt-and there are many doubts in this case-has been given to her death, rather than her continued life.”

Among the many injustices in this case, Nader and Smith point to the following:

The courts not only are refusing her tube feeding, but have ordered that no attempts be made to provide her water or food by mouth. Terri swallows her own saliva. Spoon feeding is not medical treatment. “This outrageous order proves that the courts are not merely permitting medical treatment to be withheld, it has ordered her to be made dead,” Nader and Smith assert.

The medical and rehabilitation experts are split on whether Terri is in a persistent vegetative state or whether Terri can be improved with therapy. There is only one way to know for sure- permit the therapy. That is the only way to resolve all doubts.

The court is imposing process over justice. After the first trial in this case, much evidence has been produced that should allow for a new trial-which was the point of the hasty federal legislation. If this were a death penalty case, this evidence would demand reconsideration. Yet, an innocent disabled woman is receiving less justice.

The federal and state governments are spending billions on what we are told will become miracle medical cures for people with all sorts of degenerative conditions, including brain damage. If this is so, why not permit Terri’s parents and siblings who want to care for her do so in the hope that such cures are discovered?

Benefits of doubts should be given to life, not hastened death. This case is rife with doubt. Justice demands that Terri be permitted to live.

UPDATE: My favorite lefty Alexander Cockburn agrees with Nader, but not without getting some swipes in at the GOP:

Now for hypocrisy, as with the Republicans and Terri Schiavo. Here are the crusaders for states rights rushing to federal courts. I said as much to Ralph Nader the other day, after congratulating him for putting on an excellent show on CNN’s “Crossfire,” making an a– out of Bob Novak. Nader agreed. “Here you have Republicans pouring out speeches on the Hill expressing deep compassion for human life, and yet these same speechmakers are mostly savage opponents of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Highway Safety Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, and of regulations designed to reduce the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are killed, injured or sickened through medical malpractice, occupational disease and traumas, air pollution and raw poverty.”

Maybe some of these cold-hearted Reps, having gone through their Terri Schiavo epiphany, will expand their newly discovered compassion for adult human life.

So as the rights and wrongs of the Schiavo case are concerned, I think Nader has it right. “Her parents want to take care of Terri. There is no state interest in letting her die. As far as the ‘persistent vegetative state’ is concerned, Terri is not on life support, heart pump or ventilator. If her biological family wants to take care of her, why should Michael Schiavo retain the power to pull the feeding tube from his spouse? For the last 10 years he has been living with another woman — essentially, his common law wife — who has brought him two children. So it seems to me that the equity of the situation is to have Michael withdraw as guardian and let Terri’s parents be guardians and take care of her. That’s the crux.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s no legitimate state interest. Why is it assumed that her spouse has the right to pull the plug?

Nader faults the Republicans. “They should have pushed for legislation to allow removal from state to federal courts, as with criminal law habeas corpus suits. Instead they wrote this specific bill and somehow left out the kind of certainty they wanted. They should have let her parents have the right to have standing to file in federal court and above all to have a de novo review of the case. By leaving that out they insured what the federal district court judge did on March 22, which was to decline to hear the case.”

A few things worth reading:

• “Which Enlightenment?” by Keith Windschuttle. Discusses the differences between the French and British-Scottish versions of the Enlightenment, including how the latter was far more favorably disposed toward religion.
• “How Liberalism Failed Terri Schiavo” by Eric Cohen. Procedural liberalism, ideological liberalism, and what we owe to those who can’t make their will known.
• “Elite Protectionists” by William Greider. Is protectionism making a comeback in Washington?

Surprisingly good article on the Resurrection in Newsweek by Jon Meacham (via Get Religion):

Yet the journey from Golgotha to Constantine, the fourth-century emperor whose conversion secured the supremacy of Christianity in the West, was anything but simple; the rise of the faith was, as the Duke of Wellington said of Waterloo, “the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life.” From the Passion to the Resurrection to the nature of salvation, the basic tenets of Christianity were in flux from generation to generation as believers struggled to understand the meaning of Jesus’ mission.

Jesus is a name, Christ a title (in Hebrew, Messias, in Greek, Christos, meaning “anointed one”). Without the Resurrection, it is virtually impossible to imagine that the Jesus movement of the first decades of the first century would have long endured. A small band of devotees might have kept his name alive for a time, even insisting on his messianic identity by calling him Christ, but the group would have been just one of many sects in first-century Judaism, a world roiled and crushed by the cataclysmic war with Rome from 66 to 73, a conflict that resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem.

Just a thought: would all the proponents of the “secularization” thesis during the 20th century (i.e. the idea that religion would inexorably die out and be eclipsed by secular ways of understanding the world) possibly have predicted that in 2005 a major newsweekly would carry a story strongly implying that the Resurrection is the most rational explanation of the rise of Christianity?

My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
Why are You so far from helping Me,
And from the words of My groaning?

O My God, I cry in the daytime,
but You do not hear;
And in the night season,
and am not silent.

But You are holy,
Enthroned in the praises of Israel.

Our fathers trusted in You;
They trusted, and You delivered them.

They cried to You, and were delivered;
They trusted in You, and were not ashamed.

But I am a worm, and no man;
A reproach of men, and despised by the people.

All those who see Me ridicule Me;
They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,

“He trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him;
Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!”

But You are He who took Me out of the womb;
You made Me trust while on My mother’s breasts.

I was cast upon You from birth.
From My mother’s womb
You have been My God.

Be not far from Me,
For trouble is near;
For there is none to help.

Many bulls have surrounded Me;
Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me.

They gape at Me with their mouths,
Like a raging and roaring lion.

I am poured out like water,
And all My bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It has melted within Me.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
And My tongue clings to My jaws;
You have brought Me to the dust of death.

For dogs have surrounded Me;
The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.
They pierced My hands and My feet;

I can count all My bones.
They look and stare at Me.

They divide My garments among them,
And for My clothing they cast lots.

But You, O LORD, do not be far from Me;
O My Strength, hasten to help Me!

Deliver Me from the sword,
My precious life from the power of the dog.

Save Me from the lion’s mouth
And from the horns of the wild oxen!
You have answered Me.

I will declare Your name to My brethren;
In the midst of the assembly I will praise You.

You who fear the LORD, praise Him!
All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him,
And fear Him, all you offspring of Israel!

For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;
Nor has He hidden His face from Him;
But when He cried to Him, He heard.

My praise shall be of You in the great assembly;
I will pay My vows before those who fear Him.

The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
Those who seek Him will praise the LORD.
Let your heart live forever!

All the ends of the world
Shall remember and turn to the LORD,
And all the families of the nations
Shall worship before You.

For the kingdom is the LORD’s,
And He rules over the nations.

All the prosperous of the earth
Shall eat and worship;
All those who go down to the dust
Shall bow before Him,
Even he who cannot keep himself alive.

A posterity shall serve Him.
It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation,

They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born,
That He has done this.

–Psalm 22

CT has an excerpt from Stanley Hauerwas’ latest – Cross-Shattered Christ: Meditations On the Seven Last Words.

The Gospel of John makes explicit what all the Gospels assume—that is, the cross is not a defeat but the victory of our God. Earlier in the Gospel of John a voice from heaven responded to Jesus’ request that the Father’s name might be glorified through his obedience, saying, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” Jesus tells us this voice came for our sake so that we might know that “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:28-32). That “lifting up” is the cross, the exaltation of the Son by the Father, making possible our salvation.

This is, moreover, as Pilate insisted, the King of the Jews. That kingship is not delayed by crucifixion; rather, crucifixion is the way this king rules. Crucifixion is kingdom come. This is the great long-awaited apocalyptic moment. Here the powers of this world are forever subverted. Time is now redeemed through the raising up of Jesus on this cross. A new age has begun. The kingdom is here aborn, a new regime is inaugurated, creating a new way of life for those who worship and follow Jesus.

For what it’s worth.

Here’s Jacob Hornberger (okay, he’s really more of a libertarian, but still):

The issue in the Terri Schiavo case is not whether the Florida district court originally entered a correct judgment or not. The issue is whether this is a nation in which the American people are going to continue permitting their Washington politicians and bureaucrats to continue trampling on the Constitution and the rule of law, even while these people go abroad and hypocritically preach the importance of these principles to authoritarian regimes around the world.

Come on now, Mr. Hornberger, tell us what you really think!

He goes on:

Thus, since the Schiavo case did not involve a federal or constitutional issue and did not involve citizens of different states, if one of the litigants had filed his suit in federal court rather than state court, the federal judge would have dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, no matter how much he felt that one side or the other deserved to prevail.

This is an example of the “rule of law” – where a judge follows the law rather than deciding on his own to let the case proceed out of sympathy for one of the parties. In fact, it’s a commitment to the rule of law that motivated the U.S. district judge in the (new) Schiavo case to deny injunctive relief and the federal court of appeals to affirm that judgment, effectively rejecting Congress’s unconstitutional actions and despite any sympathies these federal judges might have for Terri Schiavo and her parents. As the majority opinion put it in the federal court of appeals case:

There is no denying the absolute tragedy that has befallen Mrs. Schiavo. We all have our own family, our own loved ones, and our own children. However, we are called upon to make a collective, objective decision concerning a question of law. In the end, and no matter how much we wish Mrs. Schiavo had never suffered such a horrible accident, we are a nation of laws, and if we are to continue to be so, the pre-existing and well-established federal law governing injunctions as well as Pub. L. No. 109-3 must be applied to her case. While the position of our dissenting colleague has emotional appeal, we as judges must decide the case on the law.

That’s how our system of government is supposed to work. When we pervert the process in an attempt to achieve a just result in a particular case, we inevitably end up with long-term bad results. That’s why it has been said that “hard cases make bad law.”

He also questions the bona fides of the “pro-life” members of Congress who are intervening:

This raw exercise of power is comparable to that being exercised by the Pentagon and the CIA, with their intentional and knowing denial of the principles and protections of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to Americans and others who have been seized, tortured, sexually abused, and murdered, all with the silent and cowardly acquiescence of the so-called pro-life members of Congress. Or even the president’s waging of war against Iraq without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war, again with the silent and cowardly acquiescence of Congress. Do you see now what happens when people meekly permit their government officials to begin violating the Constitution? The path toward the tyranny of omnipotent government quickly becomes a slippery slope.

Is that what we’ve actually come to in this nation? A nation of meek lambs who permit these power-hungry wolves to once again scoff at and scorn the supreme law of the land – the law that our ancestors had the wisdom, foresight, and courage to impose on our government servants? A people who meekly permit such servants to trash our form of government under a purported “pro-life” mindset, a mindset that has sat silent and comatose during the entire time that an estimated 100,000 innocent Iraqi people have had their lives snuffed out by an unconstitutional war that lacked the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war?

Meanwhile, paleo-conservative Thomas Fleming takes on the Christians:

Hard cases make bad law. They also cause people to lose their moral bearings and their political principles. The case of Theresa Schiavo is no exception. Like many controversial issues, the Schiavo case pits states’-rights/limited-government Republicans against big-government Democrats who want to take power away from families and give it to federal judges. In this case, however, it is Barney Frank who is arguing for states’ rights and the entire Republican congressional caucus that is empowering judges. To take the irony one step further, President Bush—who, as President, has done next to nothing to protect innocent life—is now emerging as the spokesman for a “culture of life.” As governor of Texas, however, he signed a bill turning over the power to make decisions in apparently terminal cases to a medical-ethics board, which could authorize a hospital to end life support for a terminal patient even against the wishes of the next of kin. Under Texas “Advance Directives Act” of 1999, a children’s hospital, over the objection of the mother, removed a five-month-old boy from a ventilator. I should like to hear the President explain this away to the pro-life evangelicals he has betrayed at every turn.

[…]

Liberal nonbelievers, who believe that “this is all there is,” may be pardoned for their hysterical attachment to physical life. This makes the non-Christian willingness to practice abortion and euthanasia all the more terrifying in its implications. For them, other people’s lives are mere commodities to be used when they are convenient, discarded when they are not.

Christians know better. They know, not only that life is a precious gift, but also that it is not all there is. There was a time when believers gratefully accepted even martyrdom because it was a chance to live and die for their faith. Life can and ought to be beautiful, and we who believe that God looked at His creation and saw that it was good cannot contemn the joy and beauty of everyday life. But we also know that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world. We are sojourners here, like the Hebrews in the land of Egypt. Our home is elsewhere.

Mrs. Schiavo’s parents have the right and duty to do what they can for their daughter, but the rest of us—and, by the rest of us, I include Bill Frist, Tom Delay, George Bush, and the Vatican spokesmen who so cavalierly intrude themselves into legal and constitutional matters they do not understand—have no business. Playing politics with a dying woman, even if it advances the pro-life cause or expands the electoral base of the Republican Party, is contemptible.

Another item from today’s Inquirer: Santorum shifting on a key issue:

Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa), a longtime supporter of the death penalty, says he is reexamining his stance but not to the point of saying it is wrong in all cases.

“I still support the death penalty, but what I’m suggesting is, number one, we have to be more cautious,” he said Tuesday, saying capital punishment should be limited to the “most horrific and heinous of crimes.”

Santorum, who is running for a third term, said he was “not saying that I fundamentally believe the death penalty is wrong.”

In an interview published in Tuesday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Santorum, a Roman Catholic, said he agreed with the Pope that the use of the death penalty should be limited.

Some thoughts:

• The Catholic bishops have recently stepped up their advocacy for ending the death penalty. Is Santorum worried about getting the Kerry treatment in ’06?
• Bob Casey, Jr. is both anti-abortion and anti-death penalty. Does Santorum thinks that this consistent ethic of life approach will play well with voters?
• What does it really matter if a U.S. Senator is against the death penalty anyway? Federal death penalty cases are rare, and the Supreme Court has ruled that the states can deploy it pretty much at their discretion (with certain exceptions like juveniles).