SelwynDuke.com

American Arrested for Anti-homosexual Statements

By Selwyn Duke

What does the Islamic world and Europe have in common? There are actually many similarities, but one is this: in neither place are Christians allowed to fully express their beliefs without fear of persecution.

As for Eurasia, its Ministry of Truth’s latest handiwork is the arrest and punishment of an American street preacher who dared speak of sin in that land once known as Scotland. The victim is 47-year-old New Yorker Shawn Holes, who was on a UK tour when he was arrested in Glasgow after running afoul of UK hate-speech laws. Writes Pink News:

Is Pope Francis Liberal or Conservative?

By Selwyn Duke

With the election of Pope Francis, there has been an almost "catholic" attempt to determine if he is liberal or conservative. CBS claims he is a "staunch conservative" based on the fact that, as correspondent Allen Pizzey put it, he "opposes abortion, supports celibacy, and called gay adoption discrimination against children," not to mention his opposition to faux marriage. Tingle Central's Chris Matthews said that the new pontiff is economically "progressive," which, if we were to be informed by actual statistics, should mean he wouldn't give one red cent to anybody. But none of these analysts will peg the pope because they're using the provisional to understand a man defined by an institution based in the perpetual. And the reality is this: the terms "liberal," "conservative," and "moderate" are, in the truest sense, meaningless in Catholic circles. And understanding why holds a lesson for all of us.

What the Greatest Catholic Thinker Says about the Latest Catholic Pope

By Selwyn Duke

With the election of Pope Francis, there are the usual complaints about how the Catholic Church has got to get with the times. The Huffington Post ran the headline, “Pope Francis Against [sic] Gay Marriage, Gay Adoption,” which is much like thinking it newsworthy to write, “New Pope Believes in the Divinity of Jesus.” Mother Jones laments the “missed opportunity to bring the papacy closer to where the people are.” And Forbes’ John Baldoni  dishes the baloney, writing of “a Catholic Church that is resistant to change but one that must certainly adapt (and rather radically) if it is going to continue to attract well-intentioned men and women who adhere to its faith but also are willing to devote themselves to its perpetuation” (hat tip: Drew Belsky). Yet this misses the point that it is creatures who must adapt to their ecosystem, and the Church is the moral ecosystem. Our modernistic culture is simply a pretender to that throne.

Unmasking the Grim Reaper’s Foot Soldiers

By Selwyn Duke

One day back in high school, a very interesting English teacher asked our class a moral question: if you could press a button and get a million dollars, but a little old man — with no family, friends, or ties of any kind — in the backwoods of China would die, would you push that button?

Approximately a third of the class raised their hands in the affirmative.

This story always comes to mind when I ponder the abortion question. The old line of the pro-abortion lobby was that they wanted abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare,” implying it’s some sort of necessary evil. Their reasoning always was, “Well, we don’t know when human life begins, so whether or not to end a pregnancy should be the woman’s choice.” Of course, this position was never morally or philosophically sound. After all, if what lies within the womb is just an “unviable tissue mass,” why worry about abortion being “rare”? Oh, yes, the pro-aborts aren’t sure about the intrauterine being’s status. All right, then what they’re essentially saying is that they’ll err on the side of recklessness. It may be murder, you know — so we’ll just do it a little bit.

Piers Morgan Takes Aim at the Bible

By Selwyn Duke

You’ve got to hand it to bloviating Brit Piers Morgan. While he got most of the facts wrong in his recent targeting of the Second Amendment, it hasn’t stopped him from moving on to even more formidable targets.

Such as the Bible.

He says the book is “inherently flawed” — and needs to be amended.

What Would Jesus Shoot?

By Selwyn Duke

A co-religionist friend of mine asked some years ago, “What is the [Catholic] Church’s teaching on firearms…?

Does it recommend an assault rifle or a shotgun?”

He was kidding, of course, but not so funny are some recent attempts by liberal “Christians” to turn Jesus into Sarah Brady. Motivated by their unique brand of religiosity in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, they say that the Lord would never condone gun ownership. Why, didn’t He state, “[A]ll that take the sword shall perish with the sword”?

The End of the World

By Selwyn Duke

This is the piece that will never be published. Haven’t you heard?

The world’s going to end on December 21.

End-of-the-world hysteria is rather interesting. The Argentine government has restricted access to a mountain over a mass “spiritual suicide” threat associated with it, and the Chinese regime has responded to a doomsday cult by staying true to form: it arrested people. And all this based upon an interpretation of the Mayan calendar that predicts a Winter Solstice apocalypse.

Of course, every age has its end-times expectations. Martin of Tours predicted that the end would come by 400 A.D.; many believed, not surprisingly, it would happen on Jan. 1, 1000; perhaps a tad more scientific, mathematician Michael Stifel predicted that at 8:00 am on Oct. 19, 1533 Judgment Day would begin; and, more recently, radio personality Harold Camping prophesied a 2011 demise, which turned out to be as accurate as a 2012 Dick Morris election prediction.

Another Victory for the Anti-Christian Grinches

By Selwyn Duke

The Salvation Army has long been a holy-day season fixture in front of my local supermarket, providing some Christmas sounds and cheer as it raises money to serve the poor. But when I went grocery shopping a couple of days ago, a difference was apparent: there was an SA volunteer and collection pot on the premises, but no trademark bell-ringing. So I asked the man why — even though I already knew the answer.

Black Friday’s Black Hearts

By Selwyn Duke

“As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.” So said the Frank Costanza character on Seinfeld, as he described a toy-store struggle with another man over a doll during the holiday season. It was comedic fiction, but, lamentably, it is also art that has been imitated by life.

Most of us have heard the Black Friday stories. Two men viciously beat another man over shoes in a Sacramento mall; two people were shot over a parking spot at a Florida Wal-Mart; there was a brawl over women’s underwear at a California Victoria’s Secret; and a man punched another while trying to cut in line at a Texas Sears, prompting the victim to pull a gun. I guess you don’t mess with Texas shoppers. These incidents are nothing unusual, either, as Black Friday — the mad shopping day after Thanksgiving — is now associated as much with bad behavior as good deals.

It’s ironic, too. A day originated for the purpose of giving thanks for what we have is now followed by one devoted to aggressively seeking what we do not. And while it’s fashionable to bemoan the commercialization of holidays, we ought to wonder how we got to this point. Because it didn’t happen overnight.

Ever since “holy days” was contracted into “holidays,” there has been ever less holiness in them. This is no coincidence.

Read the rest here.

What do We Have to be Thankful for?

By Selwyn Duke

Among the beautiful messages in the 1937 film Captains Courageous is one relating to thankfulness. When spoiled rich kid Harvey says to Portuguese fisherman Manuel about Manuel’s father, "[H]e didn’t do much for you; I mean, he didn’t leave you anything,” it evoked quite a reaction. Manuel passionately replied in his broken English:

He leave me this hurdy-gurdy [a musical instrument] that his grandfather leave him. He teach me how to fish, how to sail a boat. He gave me arms and hands and feet, feeling good outside... and he teach me how to feel good inside. My father do all this; he have 17 other kids, beside. What else a father do, huh?

This dialogue presents two very different perspectives. One always wants more; the other knows we have already gotten more. And don’t we see both — one perhaps all too frequently — represented in our society today?