Render unto Caesar... and only unto Caesar

Melancholicus received the following by e-mail, and thinks it worth sharing with his readers:

This is a statement that was read over the PA system at the football game at Roane County High School, Kingston, Tennessee, by school Principal, Jody McLeod:

"It has always been the custom at Roane County High School football games to say a prayer and play the National Anthem, to honor God and Country. Due to a recent ruling by the Supreme Court, I am told that saying a prayer is a violation of Federal Case Law. As I understand the law at this time, I can use this public facility to approve of sexual perversion and call it "an alternate lifestyle", and if someone is offended, that's OK.

I can use it to condone sexual promiscuity, by dispensing condoms and calling it, "safe sex". If someone is offended, that's OK.

I can even use this public facility to present the merits of killing an unborn baby as a "viable means of birth control". If someone is offended, no problem...

I can designate a school day as "Earth Day" and involve students in activities to worship religiously and praise the goddess "Mother Earth" and call it "ecology..."

I can use literature, videos and presentations in the classroom that depicts people with strong, traditional Christian convictions as "simple minded" and "ignorant" and call it "enlightenment...."

However, if anyone uses this facility to honor GOD and to ask HIM to Bless this event with safety and good sportsmanship, then Federal Case Law is violated.

This appears to be inconsistent at best, and at worst, diabolical. Apparently, we are to be tolerant of everything and anyone, except GOD and HIS Commandments.

Nevertheless, as a school principal, I frequently ask staff and students to abide by rules with which they do not necessarily agree. For me to do otherwise would be inconsistent at best, and at worst, hypocritical... I suffer from that affliction enough unintentionally. I certainly do not need to add an intentional transgression.

For this reason, I shall "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's", and refrain from praying at this time.

"However, if you feel inspired to honor, praise and thank GOD and ask HIM, in the name of JESUS, to Bless this event, please feel free to do so. As far as I know, that's not against the law — yet."

One by one, the people in the stands bowed their heads, held hands with one another and began to pray.

They prayed in the stands. They prayed in the team huddles. They prayed at the concession stand and they prayed in the Announcer's Box!

The only place they didn't pray was in the Supreme Court of the United States of America — the Seat of "Justice" in the "one nation, under GOD."

Somehow Kingston, Tennessee, remembered what so many have forgotten. We are given the Freedom OF Religion, not the Freedom FROM Religion. Praise GOD that HIS remnant remains!

JESUS said, "If you are ashamed of me before men, then I will be ashamed of you before My Father."

No comment necessary, except to say Ms. McLeod is a brave woman. Someone could have denounced her to the Gestapo.

Or worse, to the ACLU.

Pat Condell on Rowan Williams

Christopher Johnson on Rowan Williams

Melancholicus has no personal animus against his Lordship’s Grace of Canterbury, but he has a very keen interest in seeing to it that even the remotest possibility of sharia being recognised by British law is ruthlessly and immediately crushed.

Hence he has chosen to dwell on this topic a little longer, and he regrets if the patience of his readers is unduly taxed thereby.

Here is the reaction of the redoubtable Christopher Johnson, of the excellent Midwest Conservative Journal (to which Melancholicus links all too infrequently, alas). Melancholicus could not have said it better than this:

Dr. Williams has no business being shocked by this controversy. Rightly or wrongly, the Archbishop of Canterbury is still one of the most important religious figures in the world so that anything he says is going to paid attention to even by non-Anglicans.

What's tough to understand is Dr. Williams' obtuseness about all this. One reason, I think, has to do with the fact that my gracious lord of Canterbury is a liberal Anglican. Liberal Anglcans believe that all men, regardless of their religion, are reasonable and civilized and that all problems can be solved over a glass of really good Port.

So if the Muslim scholars with whom he regularly confers assure him that sharia is actually gentle and benign, Dr. Williams will be inclined to believe them. He will also be inclined to believe that Great Britain will easily be able to pick and choose which aspects of sharia will apply and which will not.

Confront him with the way that what sharia there is in Britain actually functions and he will profess to be horrified and tell you that "Muslim scholars" view such applications as distortions. Perhaps Dr. Williams and his defenders can explain what comfort the opinions of "Muslim scholars" will be to a Muslim woman dragged into a sharia court and then kicked to the curb by her abusive husband with the approval of such a barbaric "court" for I certainly cannot.

The other reason is much simpler. The idea of calling Muslim savagery what it is, the idea of standing up for the religion he claims to profess and the idea of telling Muslims that they are, well, wrong are ideas too terrifying for men like Rowan Williams to contemplate.

So it is much easier to have "interfaith" meetings than to confront the truth. It is far easier to believe the honeyed words of "Muslim scholars" that sharia doesn't really mean that.

Because if you know what sharia really is and how it is really applied, you have to speak out against such an evil. Unless you value the opinion of the world more than the opinion of your God. Or unless you are a moral coward.

Or both.

Mr. Johnson also links to Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, writing in The Independent, giving a Muslim woman’s perspective on the practice of sharia, and an article which Melancholicus recommends to all his readers.

Pat Condell on the Muslim Council of Britain

That doesn’t sound quite right, does it? No, Melancholicus doesn’t mean to infer that Pat Condell has actually joined the Muslim Council of Britain (that would be one for the books!). Rather, we present here a video of Mr. Condell offering his (rather strong) views on the Muslim Council of Britain.

Melancholicus was prompted to post this video owing to the brouhaha that has erupted over the timely warnings of Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali, bishop of Rochester, in The Sunday Telegraph of 6th January last (see here for more details). In the wake of the bishop’s comments, a variety of Mohammedan organisations complained publicly about Dr. Nazir-Ali’s brazen political incorrectness; the response of the Muslim Council of Britain may be read here.

Melancholicus has observed, however, that the MCB are just as ready to give offence as to take it. Their current leader, one Muhammad Abdul Bari, accused the British Government last November of stoking Muslim tension owing to the concerns expressed by MI5 about the grooming of future suicide bombers from within the Muslim community in Britain. This man seems to be more concerned about “Islamophobia” and about the public perception of his community (article in The Telegraph here) than he is about the horrendous problems within that community — religious extremism, forced marriages, abductions, honour killings, and suchlike outrages. Is this man not aware that the way in which certain Muslims behave has caused far more “suspicion and unease” than anything ever said or done by the Government or MI5? And then there is the bare-faced arrogance; this same man, among numerous others, has had the gall to suggest publicly that Britain should adopt Islamic values. Of course if this madness were actually implemented by the dhimmis currently ensconced in the House of Commons, the number of Islamic “values” adopted by British society would continue to grow and expand until in the end Britain would be a sharia state, hardly distinguishable from Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under the Taliban. Which of course is precisely what the good old boys of the MCB want.

Melancholicus could go on at length, but he will allow the much more eloquent Pat Condell to speak on his behalf. Some readers might be upset that Melancholicus has invited this gentleman to appear on Infelix Ego. But the prosecution has called this particular witness precisely because Mr. Condell despises all religions indiscriminately, and consequently cannot be accused of criticising Muslims or Islam on foot of any Christian bias. Aside from the off-colour remark about Catholic clergy and a somewhat earthy turn of phrase, Melancholicus considers that his readers will find much wherewith to agree in Mr. Condell’s comments, and will certainly support his robust opposition to the creeping islamicization of the west.

Time now for some Muslim-baiting.

Now this is REAL ecumenism

From Catholic World News. Melancholicus has taken the liberty of editing the original to remove spelling errors.

Orthodox prelate faults Catholics on politically-correct approach

Moscow, Nov. 13, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The top ecumenical-affairs officer of the Russian Orthodox Church has criticized Catholic leaders for bowing to popular opinion in their public statements.

"More than one generation of Roman Catholic hierarchs have been taught with the political-correctness idea," said Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk, speaking to a group of students in Moscow. The Russian prelate said that in ecumenical talks, Orthodox leaders have sought to warn Catholic bishops that if they become overly concerned about public opinion, "then one might turn traitor to his own identity;."

Bravo Papa Kirill! The Orthodox can usually be relied upon to inject a dose of healthy realism into such situations. And it seems to be a truism that the perspective of one on the outside can reveal faults in a system that are invisible to insiders.

Of course what the archbishop says is perfectly true. If our bishops have not internalised political correctness or are swayed by public opinion and the media, they are nonetheless adept at appearing to be so. A cynic might say that most Catholic bishops are more concerned about the opinion of the godless secular world than about safeguarding and transmitting the depositum fidei, and since Melancholicus is a cynic, he would concur.

Let the bishops take note of Kirill’s remarks, and let them take his words to heart, for Kirill has done greater service to the Church with these few words of criticism than a hundred years of meaningless ecumenical pleasantries.