This and That No. 15

My last essay, Christian Orthodoxy Versus the Gnostic Heresy of The Suicide Cult, was the final essay in my 2011 theological series. It is also the sequel I promised back in February to The Suicide Cult. This series has taken longer than I expected or wished to complete. I had planned on posting the final essay on Trinity Sunday. This is the Fifth Sunday after Trinity.

My next series of essays, on the topic of Arts and Culture, will begin with a review of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards a Definition of Culture. Before writing the review I intend to re-read it, although my most recent reading of it was less than half a year ago. I will start my next reading of Eliot's book once I am finished one of the books I am currently reading, Charles Williams' Descent into Hell. I am down to the last few pages of this book so I expect to be finished it, and starting on Eliot's book again tonight. I am also currently reading Simone Weil's Waiting for God and Paul Johnson's Art: A New History. I might review the latter in my Arts and Culture series.

Charles Williams is an author I have intended to read for quite some time but have until recently had difficulty finding copies of his works. I read his War in Heaven last week - which I recommend to anyone who likes C. S. Lewis' space trilogy. Williams was a friend of Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and was with them and a number of others part an informal club of sorts that met at a pub called the Bird and Baby to read and discuss their writings. Like Lewis and Tolkien he was a traditionalist Christian (he was orthodox Anglican) whose views are reflected in his books. He wrote seven novels in total. I hope to read the other five soon.

The news this weekend has been full of the tragic massacre and bombing in Norway. The newsmedia has been placing a great deal of emphasis upon the madman's blond hair and blue eyes. Ordinarily they try to under-emphasize the ethnicity of criminals and terrorists. I wonder why that is?

In case you failed to pick up on it that last question was written with a heavy dose of sarcasm. In this sick-minded murderer the "Great White Defendant" sought after by the Bronx D.A. in Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities has finally materialized. He is a bit out of the Bronx D. A.'s jurisdiction however.

The media is reporting that the killer is a "Christian" even a "Christian fundamentalist". That is a curious way of describing someone who said "I’m not going to pretend I’m a very religious person as that would be a lie", described himself as "pro-gay" and was apparently a Freemason. "Christian fundamentalist" appears to be a more inclusive label than we had previously realized.

Whatever the killer's religious views actually were this was, of course, a terrible tragedy and a horrible atrocity. Norway needs our prayers in this time of suffering.

Mark and Connie Fournier of Free Dominion also continue to need our prayers as their legal battles against their persecutors continue. This past week their motion to dismiss the libel suit against them by left-wing blogger "Dr. Dawg" was heard. Dr. Dawg sued the Fourniers because one of their posters, the venerable Peter O'Donnell, called him a Taliban supporter or something to that effect over his position on the Omar Khadr case. If such name-calling now counts as libel, then surely countless people such as Free Dominion's Maikeru, who have been falsely labelled "Nazis" by Dr. Dawg in the past have a case for a libel suit against him. So, for that matter, do I. Dr. Dawg called me an "apartheid supporter". I have declared on many occasions, my sympathy for the Afrikaner people, my disgust with the dishonorable and cowardly Western governments that betrayed the Afrikaners and forced them into their present plight, and my absolute contempt for the ANC, their Communist ideology, and the white-washed former leader of their militant wing the Umkhonto we Sizwe, Nelson Mandela. I never supported their policy of apartheid, however, which I considered unjust but also none of my business, none of the business of the self-righteous, progressive, do-gooder, busy-bodies who were determined to end it, and a lesser injustice to that which was brought about by the rise of the ANC. I suppose Dr. Dawg would call that a "distinction without a difference". Whatever. I have no intention of suing him and if he has any decency he will drop this silly lawsuit against the Fourniers.