RIP Matt Maupin

Ohio Soldier's Remains Found in Iraq

In a war filled with sad stories, this one is especially wrenching. Losing a spouse, a parent, or a child is never easy. Until now Matt Maupin's family has been in a special kind of hell, without even the small comfort of knowing whether he was dead or alive. For four years they knew only that he was in the hands of a cruel and ruthless enemy.

It is worth noting that this young man was a reservist - a citizen soldier who worked at Sam's Club until his nation needed him elsewhere. Whether the U.S. has any business fighting in Iraq is beside the point. Matt Maupin answered the call that many refuse to hear.

We will probably never know exactly how Matt died. Yet we know he died as an American soldier. Having lived through war, now he is at peace.

Terri's Day

Today is the third anniversary of the death of Terri Schindler Schiavo. Her family is calling it "Terri's Day" and asking people to remember what happened to her, and to help keep other defenseless people from facing the same fate.

Terri's death was, in my view, nothing less than premeditated, state-sanctioned murder. This was (and still is) a minority view among Americans, including American Christians. Their moral senses dulled by decades of culture rot, tepid preaching, and the unending demand for "tolerance," most people simply decided it was none of their business.

Guess what, folks: there's a good chance this sort of thing will be your business someday. Put these two facts together: 1) we have a health-care funding crisis that begs for a solution, and 2) we've established that it is OK to ease the burden of sick people by slowly and painfully starving them to death.

The answer is obvious, yes? So far, no politicians are saying it out loud. They will.

Join Terri's fight.

The Useful Dead VIII

We pro-lifers spend a lot of time talking about when life begins. Another important question is when life ends. Zach Dunlap almost found out the hard way.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Four months after he was declared brain dead and doctors were about to remove his organs for transplant, Zach Dunlap says he feels "pretty good."

Dunlap was pronounced dead Nov. 19 at United Regional Healthcare System in Wichita Falls, Texas, after he was injured in an all-terrain vehicle accident. His family approved having his organs harvested.

As family members were paying their last respects, he moved his foot and hand. He reacted to a pocketknife scraped across his foot and to pressure applied under a fingernail. After 48 days in the hospital, he was allowed to return home, where he continues to work on his recovery...

Dunlap, 21, of Frederick, said he has no recollection of the crash.

"I remember a little bit that was about an hour before the accident happened. But then about six hours before that, I remember," he said.

Dunlap said one thing he does remember is hearing the doctors pronounce him dead.

"I'm glad I couldn't get up and do what I wanted to do," he said.

His father, Doug, said he saw the results of the brain scan.

"There was no activity at all, no blood flow at all."

I have a vague memory that there was once a Twilight Zone episode along these lines; I think they found out the man was alive by seeing a tear roll down his cheek. This case, however, is real. Zach actually heard himself pronounced dead. It's a chilling thought.

I must say I'm confused about this concept of "brain death." If the test shows no blood flow to the brain, it seems to me either the test must be wrong or the human brain is capable of things we don't understand - like surviving without a blood supply. Obviously Zach wasn't dead, but he was about to have his organs harvested anyway.

The AP story fails to point out that the person who scraped the knife on Zach's foot was not part of the medical team. It was a cousin who had a feeling that Zach wasn't gone just yet. The other doctors and nurses who were supposed to know what was happening clearly did not. The big question is whether this was simple mistake, or a more sinister attempt to acquire Zach's organs for other patients. I have nothing against organ transplants. In fact, I know someone who desperately needs one right now. I'm pretty sure my friend would not want someone else to die needlessly in the process.

So, when does life end? How do we know? And how can we acquire organs for people who need them without taking life away from people, like Zach, who might be able to recover? All good questions, and I don't have answers. Here's one more question: how many other people have heard themselves pronounced brain dead, and gone on to actually feel their organs being cut out? There's a Twilight Zone story to think about.

A Revival For Islam

The story I mentioned a couple of days ago about the Pope baptizing Magdi Allam, a Muslim convert, is getting a lot of play. Someone, and I can't remember who right now, cautioned against taking a triumphant tone. I think this is good advice. Yet I think we may look back on this someday as a very significant event.

One article you must read comes from the mysterious Spengler (via Rod Dreher). Spengler thinks the door is opening for widespread conversion of Muslims to Christianity, and this may change the entire equation of Islamic-Western relations.

Muslims suffer from a stultifying spiritual emptiness... Muslim traditional society cannot withstand the depredations of globalized culture, and radical Islam arises from a despairing nostalgia for the disappearing past. Why would Muslims trade the spiritual vacuum of Islam for the spiritual sewer of Dutch hedonism? The souls of Muslims are in agony. The blandishments of the decadent West offer them nothing but shame and deracination. Magdi Allam agrees with his former co-religionists in repudiating the degraded culture of the modern West, and offers them something quite different: a religion founded upon love.

Over a year ago, I mentioned stories about a quickening of conversions in Islamic countries. Chuck Colson (via Leticia) confirms it is still happening. Some Muslims and Christians are finding common ground in resisting the Culture of Death. I'm still cautious, but a lot seems to be happening under the radar.

Think about this: the combined efforts of Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher brought down the Soviet Union in only a few years. Can the same happen with radical Islam? It's a different kind of war now, obviously. We are in a struggle for the hearts and souls of men. Spengler argues that if Benedict can create an environment in Europe that allows Muslims to convert without risking their lives, the dam could break.

Today's Europeans stem from the melting-pot of the barbarian invasions that replaced the vanishing population of the Roman Empire. The genius of the Catholic Church was to absorb them. If Benedict XVI can convert this new wave of invaders from North Africa and the Middle East, history will place him on a par with his great namesake, the founder of the monastic order the bears his name.

This is bold talk, but stranger things have happened. In the 1980s I was a young Army officer, and I can assure you that none of us expected the Soviet Union to simply crumble away. Yet a few years later it did. We also did not have to wonder whether that evil empire had weapons of mass destruction; we knew what they had, and we knew they could be launched our way any time. If a threat that great can disappear so quickly, anything is possible. We have a Pope who is ready to lead this Crusade. I won't be surprised if it costs him his life. Yet he will press on.

So what can we do to help? Pray. Hope. And if you know any Muslims, show them the love of Christ. We can win this war - one soul at a time.

Who Needs Symbols?

Steven Greydanus responds to a woman who dislikes pageantry and symbolism as practiced by the Catholic Church:

Ritual and ceremony are not contrived and unnecessary, except in the sense that all human culture and experience is contrived and unnecessary. Wedding rings, shaking hands, Christmas trees, birthday cakes, napkin on the left, pallbearers, tuck the children in at night, floral arrangements in church or at a wedding or a funeral, Easter eggs, “Hail to the Chief,” bride and groom cut the cake, stand up for the judge, mortar boards at graduation, hold the door for the lady, kiss each other hello and goodbye and good morning and good night — none of these are pragmatically necessary, and all of it is how we human beings order our lives — if not with these symbols, then with something else.

In ordinary life, what the particular symbols and gestures are often enough doesn’t matter. But to be Christian is to believe, first of all, that the Creator of the world happened to make contact with our race within the context of a specific cultural milieu, in a specific symbolic world sovereignly chosen and carefully shaped and guided for millennia by His Spirit. From circumcision to Passover, from the annual chanting of the psalms of ascents on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to the vestments of the Aaronic priesthood, the world into which Jesus was born was full of pageantry and symbolism.

And then, when our Creator favored our race by taking on our flesh and offering us so great salvation, He left us with symbols and gestures chosen by Himself and not matters of human convention. He took bread and broke it, and wine, and pronounced them to be His body and blood. He commissioned His disciples to go about immersing people in water in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit fell on Pentecost, He did not proceed to liberate the people from pageantry and symbolism: Three thousand people were ceremonially dunked in water on the first day alone, and they immediately proceeded to devote themselves to the business with the breaking of the bread, along with the apostles’ teaching, fellowship and the prayers (Acts 2:42), particularly on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7).

The Lord left His church in the care of apostles who went about laying their hands on chosen men and appointing them to continue the ministry of the church. The New Testament also mentions anointing with oil and laying on of hands for the sick. The Gospels record set words given by Jesus: This is my body; in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; Our Father who art in Heaven. Given by Jesus, not made up by us.

The book of Revelation describes pageantry and symbolism even in the worship of Heaven itself: thrones, crowns, robes, antiphonal exclamations, prostration. Why should the twenty-four elders not only fall down before the throne of God, but also throw their crowns at His feet, of all things? Does God need or require such lavish outward gestures of worship and self-abnegation? No. But we creatures of bodies and senses and imagination find in such outward acts and symbols the crown and completion of the worship in our hearts.

(Mr. Greydanus is a film critic and the proprietor of decentfilms.com.)

Benedict Baptizes A Muslim

Both the news media and religious blogs are chattering today about Pope Benedict's baptizing of a prominent Italian Muslim named Magdi Allam. Reaction is all over the board. Some call it a provocative move that might derail the ongoing Catholic-Islamic dialogue. That may be, but if so it will be because the Muslim side makes that choice.

I heard some people on Fox News wondering whether the Vatican made a public relations "blunder" in having the Pope publicly baptize Allam. This is, to put it lightly, absurd. The Pope is completely aware of how Muslims react to these things and is not afraid to face it. Benedict is a shepherd, and he was doing what shepherds do: welcoming new sheep into the flock. The decision to convert was made by Mr. Allam himself. He wasn't kidnapped by Swiss Guards and forced into the baptismal font.

One point that is at least partly valid, however, is what kind of challenges this action will create for Christians who live in Muslim countries. Abu Daoud has a good response:

But will this bring persecution on the Christians in [Middle East/North Africa]? Well, the honest answer is they already have it. Living fearfully and sheepishly and hiding our lights under baskets is not the way of the Kingdom of God. Good for el papa. Let your light shine before man. Allam is a Christian now, and a son of the Catholic church. That is good news and we are to shout it from roof tops if at all possible. In Rome it is still, for now, possible. The day is coming when it may not be...

Christians in MENA will indeed live with this for years. They will live with the image of the best known Christian in the world baptizing a Muslim. It will give them hope. It will encourage other Muslims to convert. It will, in a few Muslims' minds, occasion the question, "What if I left?" Most of them have never even considered the possibility. Many of them don't even know that people DO leave Islam.

This is great news for the Catholic Church as well as the mission to Muslims. Muslims respect the Catholic Church and the pope because he is powerful. That is a language that they can understand. They know that he holds more sway around the world Christians than does any single person in Islam. They know he has a country of his own. They know his office is very ancient. These things, to the Muslim mind, and specifically to the Muslim Arab mind are often attractive. Becoming a non-denominational Christian with no clear affinity or relation to anyone else is not always appealing to a Muslim considering conversion.

So yes, will there be persecution? Of course, but at least this time it will be for a good and glorious reason: the public confession of faith of a Muslim hajji in the best-known church in the world on the holiest day of the year by that city's bishop.

I would be very interesting in knowing if the decision to have Allam baptized on worldwide TV by the Pope himself was made before or after this week's Osama bin Ladin tape. The Al Qaeda leader accused the Pope of taking part in a "crusade" against Islam. If this was the Vatican's response to Bin Ladin, then they are clearly willing to play rhetorical hardball.

In any case, it was most definitely not a P.R. blunder. Welcome to Christianity, Mr. Allam. Your example will bring much good into the world.