Tony Campolo isn't making sense:

In Campolo’s fervid “imagination,” Christians are disliked in the Middle East because Anglo-American intelligence sided with the mobs who supported the Shah against the mobs who supported the Iranian premier who had attempted to topple the Shah, and all this over half a century ago. The toppling of governments in the history of the Middle East is so very unusual, that the Shah’s restoration in 1953 after a few days exile is uniquely notorious among Muslims, Campolo insisted, accurately representing the mythology of the Western Left.

“It baffles me as to how the same evangelical Christians who are committed to spreading the gospel in the 10/40 window support with enthusiasm support military actions and diplomatic policies that make evangelizing those who live in that part of the world nearly impossible,” Campolo mourned. “Perhaps in the long run they put nationalistic jingoism and our lust for oil above the call of Christ to go into all the world and preach the gospel.”

How generous of the evangelist to ascribe “jingoism” and oil “lust” to fellow Christians who do not share the Religious Left version of America as chief pariah in modern world history. Sanctimoniously, Campolo concluded: “We Red Letter Christians…must act quickly to not only stop an immoral war and end the oppression of Arab peoples, but to help our missionary-minded evangelical brothers and sisters understand that America’s militarism is curtailing our capacity to spread the gospel.”

By “oppression” of Arab peoples, Campolo naturally was not referencing the monarchies, dictatorships and theocracies that corruptly govern almost all Arab countries. Apparently he is uniquely referring to the elected government of Iraq and also to democratic Israel, which the evangelist presumably sees as simply an arm of American imperialism against the Palestinians.

The Religious Left in America, like the international secular Left, tragically believes many of the hateful fables that radical Muslims perpetuate about America. They can never admit that radical Islam itself is innately violent and spiteful, and would remain so, even if the United States were to curl up and die a quiet death. Campolo, of course, wants to blame the current U.S. administration for Islamic hatred of America. But why not blame the Carter Administration, whose refuge for the Shah provoked the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis? Or blame the Nixon administration for rescuing Israel during the 1973 war? Or blame the Truman Administration for supporting the creation of Israel? For that matter, why not blame the Jefferson Administration, for warring against Islamic pirates who governed North Africa 200 years ago?

It's sort of odd, isn't it, that conservative Christians are so easily accused of selling out to the Republican party and turning their religion into politics, and yet those on the religious left, who (IMHO) are more transparently political and sold out to the Democrat party, never hear that criticism?

Sorry, Catholics, but this is just creepy.

The body of the popular Italian saint, Padre Pio, has gone on display in a glass coffin in southern Italy.
Padre Pio was said to have had stigmata, or bleeding wounds of Jesus, on his hands and feet.
His body was exhumed in March on the 40th anniversary of his death. He was canonised by Pope John Paul II in 2002.
More than a million people are expected this year to see his body, which is said to be well-preserved. But there is reportedly no sign of the stigmata.

It's a corpse, people. Seriously, nothing to see here.

Update: Like I said, creepy.

It's a sad thing to see a promising young preacher reduced to this. Like it or not, Rob, Christianity is an exclusive faith, life certainly does have a destination for the Christian, and it's neither enlightened nor profitable for a Christian pastor to participate in an interfaith dialogue of this type if it means shutting up about fundamental truths of the faith.

FREEDOM! TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE FREEDOM!

Couples who live together are gambling and losing in 85 percent of the cases. Many believe the myth that they are in a “trial marriage.” Actually it is more like a “trial divorce,” in which more than eight out of ten couples will break up either before the wedding or afterwards in divorce. First, about 45 percent of those who begin cohabiting, do not marry. Those who undergo “premarital divorce” often discover it is as painful as the real thing. Another 5-10 percent continue living together and do not marry. These two trends are the major reason the marriage rate has plunged 50 percent since 1970. Couples who cohabit are likely to find that it is a paultry substitute for the real thing, marriage.

Of the 45 percent or so who do marry after living together, they are 50 percent more likely to divorce than those who remained separate before the wedding. So instead of 22 of the 45 couples divorcing (the 50 percent divorce rate) about 33 will divorce. That leaves just 12 couples who have begun their relationship with cohabitation who end up with a marriage lasting 10 years.

Turns out there's a reason for that whole "wait 'til marriage" thing...

Hugh Hewitt has a good post this morning on Obama's "bitterness" comments:

Obama doesn't understand a great deal of America. He has no experience with it other than as a politician looking for votes, and even that experience outside of Chicago has been accumulated only since he began his run for the U.S. Senate in 2003. His life has made him keenly aware of urban dysfunction and of African-American issues even as it has exposed him to the Third World in a way that very few American officials have been.

But he is blind to what makes most American communities work. His family experiences and his work experiences have never immersed him in the majority of America that not only functions but indeed thrives. His projection on to that America of his own beliefs -- that odd mix of the beliefs assembled during his very unusual childhood, in Hawaii's most privileged school, on Chicago's south side, and at Columbia and Harvard Law School and Trinity's congregation-- has opened a lot of eyes to just how different Obama's vision of America is.

The more I hear Obama talk, the more I believe that he sees the state as the true provider of spiritual fulfillment for individuals. After all, if people weren't embittered by failures of government, they wouldn't have to turn to guns or God or anything else to fill that spiritual void. It's a pretty sad vision in the end, and one I hope enough of America isn't dumb enough to buy into.

More: Ace is a bit more negative in tone, but right on in analysis:

His remarks were indefensible and unspinnable, which is why the media is in such a rush to 1) claim that the only dispute is over "bitter" and 2) end discussion on the flare-up entirely.

Even his liberal defenders cannot agree on an actual defense -- they alternate (sometimes in the same sentence) between claiming that of course Obama could not have intended to say such an offensive and condescending thing, and also that he was 100% right to say such an offensive and condescending thing -- hey, it's just a fact that hicks vote on guns, God, and racism because they don't have enough money to rise above their petty resentments and childish faiths!

Coptic priest Zakaria Botros is causing a stir in the Muslim world:

A third reason for Botros’s success is that his polemical technique has proven irrefutable. Each of his episodes has a theme — from the pressing to the esoteric — often expressed as a question (e.g., “Is jihad an obligation for all Muslims?”; “Are women inferior to men in Islam?”; “Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be stoned?” “Is drinking the urine of prophets salutary according to sharia?”). To answer the question, Botros meticulously quotes — always careful to give sources and reference numbers — from authoritative Islamic texts on the subject, starting from the Koran; then from the canonical sayings of the prophet — the Hadith; and finally from the words of prominent Muslim theologians past and present — the illustrious ulema.

Typically, Botros’s presentation of the Islamic material is sufficiently detailed that the controversial topic is shown to be an airtight aspect of Islam. Yet, however convincing his proofs, Botros does not flatly conclude that, say, universal jihad or female inferiority are basic tenets of Islam. He treats the question as still open — and humbly invites the ulema, the revered articulators of sharia law, to respond and show the error in his methodology. He does demand, however, that their response be based on “al-dalil we al-burhan,” — “evidence and proof,” one of his frequent refrains — not shout-downs or sophistry.

More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence — which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers. The ulema who have publicly addressed Botros’s conclusions often find themselves forced to agree with him — which has led to some amusing (and embarrassing) moments on live Arabic TV.

More of this, please.

Mark Steyn, commenting on the disturbing trend in the UK:

Thatcherism liberated the British economically and, despite ten years of Blair and Brown, they still pay less tax than most of their Continental neighbors. But, lacking any meaningful equivalent to America's social conservatives, values voters, small-government types, Second Amendment gun nuts and other familiar figures of the US scene, Britain has become a land of economic plenty with a welfarist sensibility. The "yobs" who rampage through town shopping centers turn out to be not downtrodden and impoverished but living in suburban cul-de-sacs with two-car garages. This is a very contemporary problem: an underclass that's too rich.

Geert Wilders' film on Islam is out. I find it hard to see the film as "controversial" unless one defines controversial as quoting Islamic leaders and their holy book accurately and showing the logical conclusion of their statements. It's odd to think that this film is likely to get Wilders killed, and yet I fear that is the most likely outcome of all of this.

No thanks, of course, to the GOP, but more due to the Democrat Party's uncanny ability to shoot itself in the head:

Just a few month after all the worry on the right about Democratic turnout, the fracturing of the Republican coalition, the lack of exciting Republican candidates...it turns out the Democrats intend to commit collective suicide with a final nod to the "reasoning abilities of the American public."

If this happens, it certainly won't be the most satisfying way to win, but hey, at least we won't be thrust completely into nanny-state fascism.

Mark Steyn, as usual, is correct:

My book's thesis — that most of the Western world is on course to become at least semi-Islamic in its political and cultural disposition within a very short time — is "alarmist."

The question then arises: fair enough, guys, what would it take to alarm you? The other day, in a characteristically clotted speech followed by a rather more careless BBC interview, the Archbishop of Canterbury said that it was dangerous to have one law for everyone and that the introduction of sharia — Islamic law — to the United Kingdom was "inevitable." No alarm bells going off yet? Can't say I blame you. After all, de facto creeping sharia is well established in the Western world. Last week, the British and Ontario governments confirmed within days of each other that thousands of polygamous men in their jurisdictions receive welfare payments for each of their wives. Still no alarm bells? I see female Muslim medical students in British hospitals are refusing to comply with hygiene procedures on the grounds that scrubbing requires them to bare their arms, which is un-Islamic. Would it be alarmist to bring that up — say, the day before your operation?

Well this is interesting:

On Tuesday the pontiff canceled a speech scheduled for today at Sapienza University of Rome in the wake of a threat by students and 67 faculty members to disrupt his appearance. The scholars argued that it was inappropriate for a religious figure to speak at their university...

...La Sapienza -- which means "wisdom" -- was founded by one of the pope's predecessors in 1303. Another unappreciated irony.

It's now inappropriate for the Pope to speak at a university founded by... a Pope?