On the day we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, the words of the late E. V. Hill are truly inspiring:

It greatly saddens me tonight to hear that Sir Arthur C. Clarke has passed away at age 90. If you, like me, have a robust notion of the Reformed doctrine of common grace, then I think it is safe to say that the cup of such grace was overflowing in Clarke's life. He was a prophet of the imagination, a man whose sole joy in life was to drink the wine of the beauty and mystery of the cosmos, and to share that draught with the rest of humanity. I have not read the majority of his over 100 books, but his major works affected me with a strange force that I can still feel to this day. Books like Rendezvous with Rama and Childhood's End are examples of Clarke's most visionary and inspiring work, and those who are not too uppity to read paperback science fiction will tell you that Clarke raised the medium to new heights. Some might even call it art.

Unlike more "literary" authors, Clarke was not obsessed with the human condition, but with the vast universe with which the human condition must contend. I do not know much about his religious views, but in my mind he was always a naturalist, albeit a naturalist who, like Carl Sagan, looked to the stars for mankind's salvation. He held a lifelong awe at the universe that could almost be called religious. Clarke found a deep and abiding beauty in the mysteries of creation, and when reading him I always got the sense that he regretted being born in what he considered the infancy of human progress. He envisioned futures where men stretched out across the stars, found wonders and terrors there, and ultimately realized that they were at the mercy of greater powers than themselves. But, unlike Sagan, I do not know that Clarke was ever overtly hostile to Christianity. It's true that in some of his books one can detect subtle arguments for atheism, but Clarke was also friends with C. S. Lewis and wrote stories with religious themes. At any rate, he is one of the few members of the human race worthy to bear the overused title of "visionary." He determined how orbital satellites could work decades before they actually did. The most recent novel of Clarke's that I had the pleasure of reading was The Fountains of Paradise, which tells the story of the world's first space elevator. Clarke later wrote an interesting article detailing the challenges and possibilities of building a real space elevator. The idea sounds silly when you first think of it, but contemporary scientists take the idea very seriously and, just as it was with satellites, one day the strange possibility that Clarke envisioned could become a reality.

Clarke will be missed. He was a giant of the human imagination. For Christians interested in how Clarke interacted with Christianity and theism, you might want to pick up the recent volume of his collected short stories and read "The Star" and "The Nine Billion Names of God."

How do you interpret Scripture? Take Scot McKnight's Hermeneutics Quiz here. I scored a 57, which is in the "moderate" range.

[HT: Nihil Fit]

I think there is a natural tendency in most people to let affluence and privilege weaken their character. Hence I have to say that I am greatly impressed with the news today that Prince Harry has been on duty in Afghanistan since late December. Harry's status in life represents the pinnacle of human privilege: not only are all his material needs met, he has the additional advantage of being a member of the near-mythological British royal family. He has the adulation of the British masses (despite some of his youthful faux pas), and he could literally pick from a thousand wonderful futures for himself.

Yet he volunteers for the military, and apparently jockeys heavily for a position on the front lines of combat. Contrast this selfless and courageous behavior with the vapid wanderings of that other child of privilege whose worthless doings are plastered all over the media for no apparent reason. I salute you, Harry. This decision shows there is potential greatness in you, and I for one hope that potential is fulfilled.

Also, for those interested in that sort of thing, in most of the images that have been released Harry is using an SA-80 assault rifle, an old 5.56 mm standby for British forces. But there are some who say the Brits need an update.

[HT: Drudge. Again.]

Here is a fascinating article by Bob Geldof about his time spent with President Bush in Africa. Geldof is a reasonable liberal: he is strongly opposed to the Iraq War but he does not think Bush is evil. He recognizes the good the president has done in the world, even if he holds a fierce opposition to the war. Here is a lesson in wisdom: be charitable to those with whom you disagree, even if you believe they are doing great harm to the world. Do not turn them into a villain in your eyes unless you have no other option. This is a simple principle of prudence that seems impossible for millions of ideologically-blinded Americans to recognize.

Since my last post was (somewhat) about politics, I thought I'd keep the political train moving along here at ChristianThinker.net. Reuters has a story about how much adulation George W. Bush has received on his recent trip to Africa:

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete poured praise on Bush in Dar es Salaam on Sunday, the second day of his five-nation African tour, each compliment applauded warmly by members of the east African country's cabinet ...

Kikwete told Bush: "The outpouring of warmth and affection from the people of Tanzania that you have witnessed since your arrival is a genuine reflection of what we feel towards you and towards the American people."

In a reference to Bush's domestic problems, Kikwete added: "Different people may have different views about you and your administration and your legacy.

"But we in Tanzania, if we are to speak for ourselves and for Africa, we know for sure that you, Mr. President, and your administration have been good friends of our country and have been good friends of Africa."

Although many Africans, especially Muslims, share negative perceptions of Bush's foreign policy with other parts of the world, there is widespread recognition of his successful humanitarian and health initiatives on the continent.

Bush has spent more money on aid to Africa than his predecessor, Bill Clinton, and is popular for his personal programs to fight AIDS and malaria and to help hospitals and schools ...

Because of the U.S. anti-malaria program, 5 percent of patients tested positive for the disease on the offshore islands of Zanzibar in 2007 compared to 40 percent three years earlier, the Tanzanian leader said.

Bush's legacy in Africa would be saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of mothers and children who would otherwise have died from malaria or AIDS and enabling millions of people to get an education, he said.

"I know you leave office in about 12 months' time. Rest assured that you will be remembered for many generations to come for the good things you've done for Tanzania and the good things you have done for Africa," Kikwete said.

Now wait just a minute! Whenever I read the geniuses at The Huffington Post or Daily Kos, all I hear is that conservatives are selfish, warmongering, fascist, theocratic capitalists who oppress the poor, hate non-whites, and don't give a flip about third world countries. Oh, and by the way, the rest of the world hates us because of George W. Bush!

Apparently not. I've had my problems with the presidency of Bush 43. I voted for him twice, but I've become a bit disillusioned with some of his decisions. Mismanagement of the war, bad picks for senior leadership positions, and a balloon in federal spending during his tenure have contributed to my current Bush malaise. But my biggest beef with ol' W. is the starting of an extremely expensive and deadly conflict that, in hindsight, seems entirely unnecessary.

Still, I am willing to let history judge the merits of the Iraq War. And there are things about Bush that I admire. Whatever his vociferous and rabid detractors may say about him, he is not evil. Neither is he Hitler, a fascist, a theocrat, a liar, or an unthinking ignoramus. He is, by many accounts, a man who has a singular moral vision for the world, a man who - although making mistakes along the way - has set his gaze toward the achievement of that vision in the face of a monstrous and well-organized opposition. It should be clear by now that Bush takes his responsibility as the most powerful man in the world very seriously. His decision to invade Iraq was not due to some geopolitical ambition to expand America's "empire," and neither was it to bolster the bottom line of the oil companies. I think that he firmly believed then (and now) that it was the best thing for the world that the regime of Saddam Hussein be dismantled.

We are now in the last year of the Bush presidency. I can only hope that history will judge him more kindly than the American mob is now judging him. I also hope that, when he lies on his death bed weighing the merits of his life, he will not see the angry faces of those uncharitable fools who suffer from the worst cases of Bush Derangement Syndrome. I hope rather that he sees the smiling faces of the Tanzanian people, thanking him for making their world a better place.

I generally refrain from posting on issues relating to politics or the media on this blog, but some stories are just too odious to ignore. Breitbart ran this piece from the Agence France-Presse. The story portrays itself as an objective report about the U. S. military, but in reality it is little more than a cleverly-constructed theological hit piece. The premise is that there are individuals in the U. S. Armed Forces who feel they have suffered religious discrimination from some overzealous evangelical officers:

Since his last combat deployment in Iraq, Jeremy Hall has had a rough time, getting shoved and threatened by his fellow soldiers. The trouble started there when he would not pray in the mess hall.

"A senior ranking staff sergeant told me to leave and sit somewhere else because I refused to pray," Hall, a 23-year-old US army specialist, told AFP.

Later, Hall was confronted by a major for holding an authorized meeting of "atheists and freethinkers" on his base. The officer threatened to discipline him and block his re-enlistment.

I have no doubt that there are instances of this sort of bad behavior on the part of Christians. Every socio-political-religious group has its fools. The Christian church has them, so do the Muslims, as well as the atheists. Heck, I'd be willing to bet that you could even find a few Unitarians who like to bust heads every now and then. No group is comprised of flawless members, and hence this is not controversial. In an organization as large as the United States Armed Forces (about 2.9 million strong), it is not surprising to find all sorts of unacceptable behavior, even among Christians.

The story portrays this to be a widespread phenomenon. For example, the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation claims to have 6,800 accounts of this sort of abuse at the hands of Christians in the military. The MRFF and some of the offended soldiers that are quoted in the piece seem to think that a military coup by evangelical soldiers is close at hand. But a Pentagon spokesperson says that there have been only 100 formal complaints about religious harassment filed over the past two years. Let's crunch the numbers here. If the higher number is correct (and I do not concede for a moment that it is), then of the 2.88 million members of the U. S. military, less than a quarter of 1 percent of them have suffered harassment at the hands of these dastardly fundamentalists. If the lower number is correct, then it's about .0035 percent. You will forgive me if I find incendiary remarks drumming up fears about those who want to "create a fundamentalist Christian theocracy" in the military a bit hyperbolic. Perhaps the MRFF has been studying the Joe McCarthy playbook.

But the AFP story holds its cards until the very last sentence. The unnamed journalist interviews a former chaplain who says he was harassed for not towing a certain theological line. The final quote belongs to the anonymous chaplain:

"As a soldier, many times you want to believe you're fighting on the right side. It's easy to kill someone if you believe that they're going to hell and that they are religiously opposed to you."

Of course! If you hold to the exclusivity of salvation through Christ, you may become a murderer! I'm sure all the evangelicals in the military are constantly engaged in a vicious internal battle, struggling to will themselves not to cut the throats of their unbelieving comrades in their sleep.

I do not give the AFP a pass on this issue simply because the quote comes from a source that was interviewed and not the actual author of the story, just as I would not give them a pass if they were to give the final word to someone who said that holding Jewish beliefs might cause someone to want to drink human blood. That this statement would even be quoted is unconscionable, and it only serves as an illustration of the schizophrenia that surrounds the notion of "tolerance" in contemporary western culture. To the anonymous former chaplain (and to the AFP) I would say: you do not show the dangers of religious intolerance by making equally egregious and inflammatory statements about the beliefs of evangelicals. That's like trying to spread the virtues of pacifism by randomly kicking people in the groin.

Therefore, those who have no experience of reason or virtue, but are always occupied with feasts and the like, are brought down and then back up to the middle, as it seems, and wander in this way throughout their lives, never reaching beyond this to what is truly higher up, never looking up at it or being brought up to it, and so they aren't filled with that which really is and never taste any stable or pure pleasure. Instead, they always look down at the ground like cattle, and, with their heads bent over the dinner table, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. To outdo others in these things, they kick and butt them with iron horns and hooves, killing each other, because their desires are insatiable. For the part that they're trying to fill is like a vessel full of holes, and neither it nor the things they are trying to fill it with are among the things that are.

- Socrates, in Plato, The Republic, Book IX, translated by G. M. A. Grube

In other words, it's better to spend your life seeking the true, the beautiful, and the good, th