Forward to the Kingdom!

Interesting commentary just posted with the following question:

When did the Christian Church first commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ on Dec. 25?

• Was it during the time of the New Testament apostles?
• Was it in the second century when Christmas was first celebrated?
• Was Dec. 25 sanctioned as an official celebration of the church sometime in the third century?
• Was it none of the above?

See “The First Christmas in Rome and What It Means to Us” for the answer.

Thanks to Matthew Fenchel, who just sent a message pointing out a new policy statement from the University of Cincinnati that will be beneficial to college students who observe the Feast of Tabernacles and other biblical festivals. My kudos to UC for putting together this policy.

Religious Observances and Class Attendance

Statement of Principle

University of Cincinnati holds to the principle that an institutional climate of respect for cultural and ideological diversity extends to the variety of religious practices in our community.  Religious practice is for many individuals an important element of personal identity, intellectual development and psychological well-being, and is in many cases inseparable from cultural identity.  UC considers each individual’s decision to either engage in or refrain from religious worship to be worthy of respect and consideration.  As the diversity of our community has increased, additional religious holidays now affect a significant number of students.  Consistent with our commitment to creating a Just Community that is respectful of and welcoming to persons of differing backgrounds, University of Cincinnati believes that every reasonable effort should be made to allow members of the UC community to observe their holidays without jeopardizing the fulfillment of their academic obligations.

Any UC student who is unable to attend classes or participate in any examination, study or work requirement on some particular day(s) because of his or her religious belief should be given the opportunity either to make up the work that was missed or to do alternative work that is intrinsically no more difficult than the original exam or assignment—provided that the makeup work does not create an unreasonable burden upon University of Cincinnati and its faculty.  Upon request and timely notice, students should be provided reasonable accommodation.

As has become traditional at each hundred posts (100, 200 and 300), here is a brief update on the state of the blog.

At post 400, we have just past the nine-month mark, and have accumulated 838 comments. There have been 28,502 total views, and here are the top 20 blog posts:

Finally, what search terms brought people to the site? Here are top ones, though they aren’t really representative of the site:

• Question marks (from “question of the week,” I guess): 350
• Kennedy family: 251
• Passenger pigeon: 155
• Peacock feathers: 123 (some might say this blog is for the birds!)
• Following Jesus: 65 (finally one we are shooting for!)

Thanks to all the readers, writers and reviewers who make this blog possible!

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Seems like every year the Halloween displays around our neighborhood are getting bigger or more elaborate, with bodies hanging from trees, gravestones in the yard and huge spiders on the garage. Do you notice the same in your area?

I guess it was only a matter of time for a big mistake to occur. The LA Times reports that neighbors in Marina del Rey, California, mistook a 75-year-old man slumped over on his apartment balcony for a Halloween dummy.

They noticed Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed’s body on Monday, but authorities weren’t notified till later in the week.

Stories like this make me wonder: What makes such ghoulish and morbid displays acceptable to the modern American mind? Would Jesus celebrate Halloween?

What do you think?

When you are dealing with the volatile and polarized Middle East, news reports may contain more propaganda than truth. So it always pays to read the reports critically. Have you seen additional info to confirm or clarify these shocking items?

Abbas pushed the war in Gaza:

The Palestinian Authority has delayed the UN vote on the Goldstone report (the one that accuses both Israel and the Palestinians of war crimes in Gaza) because of a video that showed Mahmoud Abbas trying to convince Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak to continue the war on Gaza. Aljazeera reports protests by Hamas officials and in the West Bank city of Ramallah against the delay in the vote on the report.

“Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past:

“Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vitriolic attacks on the Jewish world hide an astonishing secret, evidence uncovered by The Daily Telegraph shows.

“A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.”

(See my review of an earlier book about Ahmadinejad here.)

Tired?

Two recent items caught my tired eyes.

Barnes and Noble sent me an e-mail pitching the book (I’m not making this up!), I Can Make You Sleep.

Now, I can think of a number of books that have nearly put me to sleep, but I wouldn’t necessarily use that as a selling point. But I guess since the author previously did well with the title I Can Make You Thin, he decided to try it again. (And, they got me to write about it, so maybe it’s not a bad marketing ploy…)

Then USA Today surprised me with their “snapshot” (Sept. 22) of how many adults are napping during the day.

• Men, 38%.
• Women, 31%.

Wow! I can understand the need, but I just find it hard to imagine that many people find a time and place to catch a few Zs! Personally, I can’t remember laying down any time I wasn’t sick…

Judging by all the ads for sleep aids, the Sleep Industrial Complex is big business! It seems to me Americans rush from our long hours of work and chores, to our hours of entertainment to “unwind,” to our short nights in bed, where we often toss and turn and…repeat.

Here are a few things I’m going to try:

• Turn off the computer earlier!
• Stop reading magazines while getting ready for bed. The combination of bad news, and my drive to keep up to date are keeping me up!
• Set myself a bedtime–and stick to it.
• Pray for God to “build the house” and give the peaceful sleep Solomon wrote about in Psalm 127:1-2.

How about you? What do you suggest for the sleep-deprived masses?

The April 8, 1966, cover of Time magazine screamed in large red letters, “Is God Dead?” I know this because the Sept. 21, 2009, issue shows that cover along with an obituary of John Elson, who wrote that 1966 cover story.

According to the obituary, “In his four decades at TIME, Elson wrote more than a dozen cover stories and edited hundreds more… Elson once said the process of editing was the opposite of the American jurisprudence system, in that every writer was guilty until proved innocent.”

I would agree with him there. Having not read his “Is God Dead? cover story, I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt. Still, hearing about the controversy it stirred up, I imagine there is some small irony to the fact that the subject of his cover story is very much alive, while he isn’t.

And to the fact that God promises that all who have ever lived will be resurrected to meet their Maker (John 5:29). That should be an interesting meeting!

You’d think I’d get tired of this, but since I marked post 100 and post 200, here are some quick stats to mark post 300.

• 16,099 views.
• 539 comments.
• 888 tags.

I wanted to get some mugs or flashlights or something with “Forward to the Kingdom” printed on them to offer to you, but my wife just gave me the look. Maybe for the 500th post? Would you believe, 1,000th?

Your ideas, suggestions and comments are always welcome!

Auschwitz, scene of untold atrocities...

Sept. 1, 1939, World War II started. The nonaggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union allowed Hitler to overrun Poland. Britain and France, who had guaranteed Poland’s independence, declared war, officially beginning the war that engulfed the world and claimed 50 million lives.

The deaths included 6 million Jews who were systematically killed in Hitler’s diabolical scheme to exterminate the entire race. The Holocaust started even before the war, with the Dachau concentration camp beginning in 1933.

After seven decades, as the few remaining survivors die, are we in danger of forgetting?

Yesterday, USA Today had a piece showing how “Holocaust Education Faces Cuts in Recession.” A few highlights:

“Many of my students, they arrive with basically no knowledge of the Holocaust,” Jill Coble, a middle school teacher in Smyrna, Tennessee, told the paper.

USA Today described cuts in funding to Holocaust education programs in Tennessee, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania. “‘Everything is being cut back,’ said Abraham Foxman, a Holocaust survivor and national director of the Anti-Defamation League.

“Teaching history becomes more challenging. As survivors disappear, he said, ‘the only way to do it is through the education system.’”

I am not putting budget cuts on the same level as the Holocaust deniers like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But they are a symptom of the kind of forgetfulness that Americans, and others, can be prone to.

Let us not forget.

Read some related posts on World War II and our prayers for peace:

War and Peace

Hallmark’s Irena Sendler: What Did You Think?

Epic Battles: D-Day and Today

On V-J Day, a Veteran Reflects on War and Peace

Remembering Hiroshima