Politick

The Da Vinci Code and the Second Coming

The critics thought it murky, and the acting reactive - with no chemistry between the leads. (How could there be, when it turns out that one of them has the Blood Royal - the bloodline of Christ? A bit calming of ardor, meditating on that legacy.) The movie has done well so far, despite the critics - better opening than The Passion. $225m worldwide in the first weekend.  Yet it is a mediocrity, and may lack legs.

We enjoyed the movie, and also enjoyed rapping with the protestors out front, who asserted that the Catholic Church had a monopoly on truth, and the movie was blasphemous. The alternative 'truth' of the movie is a bit much, based on a known fraud. Also, knowing he was going to be crucified, would the Son of God have left a pregnant wife behind?

Yet the incredible interest in the book is based on a widespread feeling in Christendom is that the message may have been hijacked by the early Catholic Church, especially when it became the State Religion of the Roman Empire. Is there a great conspiracy, just not the one of the book & movie?

The critics thought it murky, and the acting reactive - with no chemistry between the leads. (How could there be, when it turns out that one of them has the Blood Royal - the bloodline of Christ? A bit calming of ardor, meditating on that legacy.) The movie has done well so far, despite the critics - better opening than The Passion. $225m worldwide in the first weekend.  Yet it is a mediocrity, and may lack legs.

We enjoyed the movie, and also enjoyed rapping with the protestors out front, who asserted that the Catholic Church had a monopoly on truth, and the movie was blasphemous. The alternative 'truth' of the movie is a bit much, based on a known fraud. Also, knowing he was going to be crucified, would the Son of God have left a pregnant wife behind?

Yet the incredible interest in the book is based on a widespread feeling in Christendom is that the message may have been hijacked by the early Catholic Church, especially when it became the State Religion of the Roman Empire. Is there a great conspiracy, just not the one of the book & movie?

View From The Mount of Olives

The Mount of Olives overlooks the Old City of Jerusalem.  Prophets would come up from the desert and crest the Mount of Olives before walking into the Jerusalem.  The view is spectacular - but for prophets and pundits, there is no better place to cast a vision than from the Mount of Olives, and no better time than during Easter - especially this Easter, sandwiched between the release of the latest Gnostic Gospel, The Book of Judas, and the worldwide launch of The Da Vinci Code.  Both pose an enigma wrapped in a riddle inside a mystery: was the real message of Jesus co-opted when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire? Our pilgrimage to answer that question sheds more light on the human condition than on the religious one. 

View From A Hilltop Near Jerusalem

Looking down into a wooded valley and seeing a 1500 year old monastery led to some meditations on what they must have been contemplating all these centuries.  Jerusalem has that effect.  What does God want from us?  Moses in the Old Testament boiled it down to Ten Commandments.  The first half were about our relationship with God; the second about our relationship with each other.  Jesus in the New Testament simplified it down to two rules: Love God, and Love Thy Neighbor.  A bit hard to match these talents.  Best I could do was three rules, or maybe four:

View from Via Dolorosa - Musings on Easter

This is a sign along the Via Dolorosa, the walk that takes you to the fifteen Stations of the Cross. The events are graphically portrayed in the Mel Gibson movie, The Passion of the Christ. The walk is much more prosaic, but at the same time much more profound. It provides the occasion to ruminate not just on the meaning of the Passion, but the reality of it.

More on the Christmas Star

Some non-Christian Yelnick readers found the Star of Bethlehem post too cryptic, as lacking a lot of background that people raised in Christian countries take for granted. Let me try to make amends.

Was the Star of Bethlehem the Shekinah?

One of the odd pleasures of traveling is to find books with ideas that are not common in the home country. My first vacation to Australia brought me into the very active subculture of British investigation of the Freemasons, and their connection to the mysterious Knights Templar of the Great Crusades. On my return to NZ, I found a further work by the same authors, exploring even earlier connections between the Freemasons, the Templars and Solomon's Temple. (This is about to be brought into the popular imagination, as the same topics are rumored to be the subject of the sequel to The Da Vinci Code.) In the course of their analysis, they propose yet another candidate for the Star of Bethlehem, one that ties much better into Jewish tradition than the mainstream candidates.

View From London at Christmas

After all the hard core political mumbo jumbo about elections and war, it is time for some kinder, gentler political posts. And what could be more wonderful than Christmas in London?  It is said in song and movies that the place to be from Thanksgiving to Christmas is New York City, which comes alive during the holidays.  London gives 'ole New York a run for the money. The atmosphere is festive, the crowds enormous, and the decorations sparkling.  One can easily imagine the arcades, such as Piccadilly Arcade, being garlanded and lit down the ceiling.  Scale this up, and image whole streets dressed up like this little arcade.  Regent Street in particular was arched by blue and red lights all the way from Oxford Street to Piccadilly Circus. 

The concept of seasonal window displays was started at Selfridges.  We visited there first.  We also went on to Harrod's and Fortnum & Mason, but Selfridges won hands down. Particularly nice was the seasonal music provided by the venerable Salvation Army Band. 

And this leads into the soft political message of the season.  Political correctness is denuding Christmas of its festive spirit, by removing its spiritual core.  Without the seasonal hymns, the Salvation Army becomes just another peddler one must block and tackle through to shop in the crowds.  A lot has been written on this topic, and no more will be added today, except to say it was a refreshing change to still experience what in the US is fast becoming lost: a Christmas with Happy Christmas not Happy Holidays, a season which respects the traditions and does not replace them with a Disneyfied amalgam of marketing iconography stripped of any intrinsic meaning or values other than be happy, buy more!

Evangelicals Led the Charge

Now that he has calmed down a bit, out guestblogger A Conservative California Republican notes that Evangelicals say they led charge for GOP: "By throwing their considerable weight behind him thereby handed big business their grand slam win of this century.  How can fundamental Christian people so well meaning create so much pain and suffering for the poor, the helpless, the infirm, and the aged by giving big business their mandate?  These down trodden souls are the very people that Jesus would have been defending and supporting against the ravages of the wealthy.    This infamy will long be remembered by the secular citizens of the Blue states, who supply the majority of the children sent off to fight the war in Iraq, champion by the evangelical Christians of the Red states, who seem insensitive to the real meaning of the teachings of Jesus Christ." 

Over to you, Howard ...

The War Prayer

Howard has stirred up the faithful.  Our curmudgeonly guestblogger  'A Conservative California Republican ' takes issue with Howard's thesis that "Evangelical Christians were a reason but not the main reason Bush won. " After shouting (all caps is SHOUTING on email), ACCR provides a perspective on religion befitting our most astute observer of the American psyche, Mark Twain.  One must always be careful with prayer.  If asking the Lord to perform a just act, why then is the supplicant doubting Him?  And if asking the Lord for an unjust act, why is the supplicant insulting Him?  This is especially true of a war prayer, as pointed out below.  Better to hope one is on God's side than ask God to be on one's side.  Enjoy, and use ear plugs!. 

HOWARD, YOU MUST BE HIGH ON HOLY WATER IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE THAT THE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE OUTCOME OF THE ELECTIONS. WITHOUT THEIR BLOCK VOTE AND THE SUPPORT OF THEIR EVANGELICAL MINISTERS, THE OUTCOME WOULD HAVE GONE TO KERRY IN A BIG WAY.  LOOK AT THE RED STATES AND THEN THE AT THE BLUE STATES AND IT IS CLEAR THAT THIS WAS AN ELECTION THAT PITTED THE SECULAR CITIZENS OF THE BLUE STATES AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS OF THE RED STATES.  REMEMBER THAT THE OUTCOME OF THE ELECTION HUNG ON THE VOTES OF LESS THAN 135,000 VOTES IN OHIO.  I'M AMAZED THAT YOU DON'T WANT TO GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE.

Why the Election is So Heated

This election is apparently so heated not because of Iraq, nor the economy; instead, it's the cultural war, stupid! A good summary is at electoral-vote.com:

A new LA Times poll shows Bush doing well among lower and middle income whites, whereas Kerry leads among whites earning more than $100,000 a year despite his promise to roll back the Bush tax cuts for people making more than $200,000 a year. As president, Bush has enacted big tax cuts for the rich but the rich are voting for Kerry. What's up here? The same poll shows that 2/3 of the people who attend a house of worship at least once a week are voting for Bush, whereas 60% of those who attend religious services less than once a week are voting for Kerry, in part because these voters recoil at Bush's constant use of religious imagery. Lower income whites like Bush's proposal to ban gay marriage but only a quarter believe his policies have been good for the economy. In contrast, affluent whites who have benefited the most from the Bush tax cuts believe Bush's policies have hurt the economy. In short, far more than in previous years, economic policy is taking a back seat to cultural issues. The real divide seems to be between deeply religious lower income, lower education, voters living in small towns and rural areas who have conservative values on abortion and gay marriage versus higher income, higher education, secular, urban voters who have progressive views on cultural issues.

This election may complete a political realignment of profound proportions. Yelnick has previously noted that such realignments happen every 36 years, with major ones every 72 years. The last one was 1968, when, following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Nixon took the south from the Democrats, who had owned the south for 100 years, since the Civil War. This started a transition of the electorate from the Repubs being the party of Hamilton (think: Country Club Republicans) and the Demos being the party of Jefferson (think: farmers, merchants and the independent-minded ScotIrish), to a mixture; now we may be seeing a further realignment to the opposite positions! Developing ...