The Secular Taliban

Think anti-religious bias isn’t a problem in tolerant, 21st century America? Consider these recent comments from elite members of the secular Taliban:

· “They believe that they answer to a higher power, in my opinion,” said Joe Cook, Louisiana director of the American Civil Liberties Union, on efforts by Christians to have more prayer in schools and school board meetings. “Which is the kind of thinking that you had with the people who flew the airplanes into the buildings in this country, and the people who did the kind of things in London.”

· When asked whether one can be a good scientist and a believer in God, world-renowned chemist Herbert Hauptman said at a conference reported on by The New York Times that not only do science and theism not go together, but that “this kind of belief is damaging to the well-being of the human race.”

But taking the cake in this regard are scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Last year, Richard Sternberg, managing editor of the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, accepted a paper defending the theory of Intelligent Design ("The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories," by Stephen Meyer, Ph.D., of Cambridge University).

ID holds that Darwin’s theory of natural selection cannot explain the complexity of life—as seen at the cellular level or in marvelous structures such as the human eye—and that creation bears the marks of a Creator.

Classical evolution, at least as accepted by many scientists and secular philosophers, holds that life—indeed, all of nature—is the result of unguided and random combinations of matter, energy, and physical law. (Some Christians, of course, believe that evolution is the process God used to create and maintain life.)

Evolution, at least as understood by the secular Taliban, is a materialistic philosophy that specifically excludes God. As the late Carl Sagan famously said, “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”

By agreeing to publish a different viewpoint, Sternberg quickly found out he had transgressed secular orthodoxy, and an inquisition ensued. According to the Washington Post:

“Within hours of publication, senior scientists at the Smithsonian Institution—which has helped fund and run the journal—lashed out at Sternberg as a shoddy scientist and a closet Bible thumper.

“`They were saying I accepted money under the table, that I was a crypto-priest, that I was a sleeper cell operative for the creationists,’ said Steinberg, 42, who is a Smithsonian research associate. `I was basically run out of there.’”

Of course, Sternberg is nothing of the sort. A self-described evolutionary biologist, he is nevertheless open to considering the evidence presented by proponents for ID—which, after all, is what the scientific method is supposed to be all about.

“I am not convinced by Intelligent Design, but they have brought a lot of difficult questions to the fore,” Sternberg said. “Science only moves forward on controversy.”

Apparently, scientists at the taxpayer-funded Smithsonian believe that some controversies are more equal than others. Facing an intellectual hazing there, Sternberg asked the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency, to investigate. An August 5 letter to Sternberg from OSC attorney James McVay stated:

“Our preliminary investigation indicates that retaliation [against Sternberg by his co-workers] came in many forms. It came in the form of attempts to change your working conditions. . . . During the process you were personally investigated and your professional competence was attacked. Misinformation was disseminated throughout the SI [Smithsonian Institution] and to outside sources. The allegations against you were later determined to be false. It is also clear that a hostile work environment was created with the ultimate goal of forcing you out of the SI.”

When looked at with an open mind (The New Republic’s recent cover story, “The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name,” a case not in point), ID is a compelling theory to many people. Antony Flew, a well-known atheist, recently told Christianity Today that such evidence has made him a theist.

Earlier this month, when pressed by reporters over whether children in the public schools should have an opportunity to learn about ID, President Bush responded, “You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is Yes.”

However, it’s an open secret that scientists who have staked their careers on atheistic evolution are doing everything they can to exclude different ideas about it from the scientific discourse. One of their most effective criticisms—that ID proponents are not publishing in peer-reviewed journals—is self-fulfilling.

At Iowa State University, more than 120 professors recently signed a statement trashing ID and calling on other professors not to treat is as science. Guillermo Gonzalez, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy there who has publicly supported ID as a scientific theory, last week told The Chronicle of Higher Education that the statement is “an attempt to silence talk of ID by definitional fiat.”

As long as institutions such as the Smithsonian and Iowa State act like a secular Taliban, this intellectual censorship will continue—and so will the anti-religious bias.

The Price of Oil

With the price of gasoline flirting with $3 a gallon, it’s time to think seriously about energy independence for America. We need this not only for our economy, but for our national security.

Among those who benefit from the current skyrocketing prices are the oil-producing Arab nations so prominent in spreading an ideology of hate worldwide. The prime offender in this regard is that prominent “ally” of the United States: Saudi Arabia.

We’ve known for years about the hate spewed out of mosques in Saudi Arabia. Now we know they are exporting their bilge here. It’s the kind of Wahhabi-style ideology that motivated the 9/11 hijackers, most of whom were Saudis. It’s worth remembering that Osama bin Laden is a Saudi who has become the worldwide champion of this kind of vicious propaganda.

According to an 89-page report released last January by Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom, “Saudi-connected resources and publications on extremist ideology remain common reading and educational material in some of America’s main mosques.”

Who pays for these mosques and their hateful literature? Saudi Arabia. Where do they get the money? At the pump.

The report, Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Invade American Mosques, is based on research at a dozen mosques or Islamic centers in Los Angeles, Oakland, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Washington, and New York. Researchers uncovered a vast corpus of hate literature—about 200 books—promoting hatred of Jews, Christians, and American society in general. Because most of these writings are in Arabic or other tongues unfamiliar to most Americans, they have been little noticed in our free and tolerant society.

But not any more. According to Freedom House, the Saudi materials:

· “assert that it is a religious obligation for Muslims to hate Christians and Jews and warn against imitating, befriending, or helping them in any way, or taking part in their festivities and celebrations”;

· “promote contempt for the United States because it is ruled by legislated civil law rather than by totalitarian Wahhabi-style Islamic law. They condemn democracy as un-Islamic”;

· “stress that when Muslims are in the lands of the unbelievers, they must behave as if on a mission behind enemy lines. Either they are there to acquire new knowledge and make money to be later employed in the jihad against the infidels, or they are there to proselytize the infidels until at least some convert to Islam. Any other reason for lingering among the unbelievers in their lands is illegitimate, and unless a Muslim leaves as quickly as possible, he or she is not a true Muslim and so too must be condemned.”

Thankfully, such beliefs are not monolithic in the American Muslim community. In fact, in July U.S. Islamic leaders issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, against terrorism. According to press reports, the document received the endorsement of 120 Muslim leaders and organizations. Issued by the Fiqh Council of North America, a judicial body, the fatwa was blunt.

“Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives,” the council said. “There is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism. Targeting civilians’ life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is haram—or forbidden—and those who commit these barbaric acts are criminals, not martyrs.”

That’s a good first step. Another would be to ask the Saudis to declare which side they are on. If the United States is driven from the Middle East, it’s a safe assumption that the Islamists would not be kind to the decadent Saudi royal family.

The price of gas makes the case, in more ways than one, for American energy independence.

The Dread Jurist Roberts II

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. In my July 25 posting, I said that the Sexual Left would try to paint John Roberts, President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court, as the “dread jurist Roberts.”

As if on cue, NARAL Pro-Choice America created a 30-second television spot claiming Roberts supported abortion-clinic bombers while arguing a case as a government lawyer in 1991. The advertisement, complete with pictures of a mangled clinic and the emotional words and image of a victim, accuses him of “supporting . . . a convicted clinic bomber.” It brands Roberts as someone "whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans.”

Like much of the information produced by NARAL (see my July 18 posting, “Keeping Sex ‘Real’”), the ad is a lie. That’s not just my opinion. The nonpartisan FactCheck.org notes that "the ad is false," the images “misleading.” FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, says the NARAL ad "uses the classic tactic of guilt by association.”

To review, in 1991 Roberts argued for the first Bush administration that abortion opponents who blockaded clinics could not be prosecuted under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, saying that blocking access to a clinic was not discrimination against women, thereby not violating their equal protection rights under the Constitution. Indeed, Roberts argued that state law was sufficient to prosecute the blockaders. Roberts’s reasoning was so radical that the Supreme Court agreed with him, in a 6-3 vote.

This case, Bray v. Alexandria, actually had nothing to do with attacks on abortion clinics. The bombing the ad refers to occurred in 1998, a full seven years later. Previously, in fact, Roberts had written a memo while working for the Reagan administration in which he had called bombers “criminals” and “misguided individuals.”

Why the smear job? Here’s a guess: NARAL knows it can find nothing substantial against Roberts, so it is making stuff up. NARAL also knows that it can’t simply say it opposes Roberts because he would likely vote against Roe v. Wade.

According to an excellent summary of the ad flap in The New York Times, NARAL’s wild, irresponsible charges (which were accepted for airing by CNN) sparked “considerable uneasiness” among pro-abortion allies. Linda Greenhouse of the Times could find only one pro-choicer willing to defend the ad: Nancy Keenan, NARAL’s president.

Greenhouse did, however, find one willing to criticize it: Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice. Kissling, who sought out the newspaper to express her views, said the ad "deeply upset and offended" her. Kissling called it "far too intemperate and far too personal."

Kissling said the ad "step[s] over the line into the kind of personal character attack we shouldn't be engaging in."

"As a pro-choice person, I don't like being placed on the defensive by my leaders,” Kissling said. “NARAL should pull it and move on."

Facing public ridicule and scorn, late last week NARAL finally announced it was pulling the ad. But expect the Sexual Left to fire other muddy salvos at the “dread jurist Roberts.” After all, their pro-abortion ideology apparently trumps any obligation they might feel to tell the truth.

Camping Trip Observations

Campers are a different breed. For 5,000 years of recorded history, humanity has been seeking to escape a hand-to-mouth existence. But campers actually like foraging for food, roasting their meal over a fire, and skipping showers.

Pretension is one of the first things to go on a camping trip. People may start with a manicure, designer sandals and a latte from a name brand coffee company. After a day or two, though, the hair is wrapped in a towel and flip-flops are on the feet.

You should bring a towel every time you go to the community bathroom. You’ll need it to kill the mosquitoes.

Men, keep your hair short before going on a camping trip. You may need to comb it with your hand.

Yes, God really did make all those stars.

There is something profoundly Christian (or at least pre-modern) about camping. You voluntarily give up smaller things (convenience and privacy, for instance) in the service of a larger purpose (such as community and nature’s beauty).

There is little difference between the sound of thunder and the sound of distant fireworks. Experienced campers know the difference.

Embers really do burn. Avoid them.

You know you’re camping when after taking a refreshing shower you immediately cover every square inch of your body with bug spray.

The bugs were here long before you arrived and will be here long after you’ve left. So be humble.

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of choosing to leave your watch off.

Camping is a lot like life. You have to improvise, improvise, improvise.

If you drop a marshmallow, pick it up. Better that you eat it than the raccoons.

In camping, “clean” is a relative term.

When camping, keep your use of laptops, PDAs, and cell phones to a minimum. Otherwise, why did you come?

Antonyms: camping and personal space.

One of the benefits of camping is simply the knowledge that you survived.

Don’t go camping just to save money on your vacation. You won’t.

If you go camping voluntarily, don’t complain about the singing of the birds in the morning.

There’s something primal about sighting a doe and her fawn in the woods.

Just as in modern, everyday life, there is a system of social stratification at the campground. At the top are those with RVs and the rare electric site. Next are those with trailers or pop-up campers. Holding up the rear are those who choose to camp (gasp!) using, of all things, a tent.

Platform sneakers and hiking don’t go together.

When camping, keep in mind that everything will take just a bit longer, and plan accordingly. Okay, a lot longer.

Next year, we’re thinking of staying in a motel.

Embarrassing Condescension

Its reputation in tatters over the Jayson Blair scandal and combating a widespread perception of being out of touch, in May the liberal New York Times presented editors with recommendations from an internal committee on how to restore its credibility among readers. Among the recommendations for the “newspaper of record” was this one: “Increase coverage of middle America, rural areas and religion.”

Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof didn’t need the advice. He’s been following evangelicals for years, at one point dubbing us the “new internationalists,” in recognition of the powerful Christian focus on global human rights and religious liberty over the last decade.

But something tells me Kristof’s recognition of our achievements in these areas of mutual concern is less than enthusiastic—kind of like finding out that you and David Duke share a favorite hobby. It may be a fact, but you hope no one finds out about it.

Kristof writes in his July 24 column, for example, “[T]hese days liberals should be embarrassed that it’s the Christian Right that is taking the lead in spotlighting repression in North Korea.” Two days later, Kristof wrote, “Time magazine gets credit for putting Darfur on its cover—but the newsweeklies should be embarrassed that better magazine coverage of Darfur has often been in Christianity Today.” (Disclosure: As an editor at CT, I’ve played a small role in coordinating some of that embarrassing coverage.)

Do you detect a pattern here? Acknowledging that theologically conservative Christians have been pivotal in fighting and spotlighting human rights abuses worldwide, Kristof nevertheless expresses an unconscious elitism. Being beaten by a presumed equal is no shame. But losing to an inferior is necessarily an embarrassment.

Kristof seems shocked, shocked, that evangelicals don’t fit the standard liberal stereotype. He shouldn’t be. Our engagement on issues of wide social and global significance has a significant pedigree. Kristof needs to do some more reading.

William Wilberforce, an evangelical parliamentarian, was instrumental in abolishing the British slave trade. The English preacher John Wesley did more to socially uplift the poor than any government program could ever dream of.

In the United States, Bible-believing Christians played prominent roles in the abolition movement. Despite the ingrained racism of many Christians, others marched alongside Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for civil rights.

In more recent decades, evangelicals have spoken up for Jews in the Soviet Union, fought sexual trafficking, supported legislation against prison rape, pushed for an end to civil war in Sudan, worked tirelessly to provide pregnant women with practical options to abortion (which even Hillary Clinton now says is a “tragic choice”), and helped bring down the national abortion rate. According to Ram Cnaan of the University of Pennsylvania, the value of social services provided by the average North American church annually is $184,000.

Overseas, Christians in India are seeking to end social and legal barriers that have crushed the nation’s despised Untouchables for centuries. Christians, after a slow start, are playing a vital role in slowing the spread of AIDS in Africa. While not all evangelicals agree on the particulars, we are now even speaking up about diverse issues such as poverty and global warming.

Last year, prominent human rights leader Michael Horowitz, who is a Jew, unabashedly told me that evangelicals played “the central role” in passage of the North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004, saying, “It was the evangelical passion in the Wilberforce spirit that was the powerful animating force, the energizing force, around this issue.”

If advocates such as Horowitz aren’t embarrassed by our involvement, why should Kristof be?