Boo, Blasphemous Index of Pre-Rapture Events! Hooray, Bible!

Our SWNIDish attention was recently drawn to the "Rapture Index." Styled by its author as a "Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity" or better as a "prophetic speedometer," the Rapture Index quantifies forty-four categories of events seen by its author--with many of his dispensationalist brethren, we assume--as precursors of the Secret Rapture of the Church and the beginning of the Great Tribulation.

We observe the following:

• The index currently stands at 156, which falls under the "fasten your seat belts" designation. We're not sure how effective seat belts will as protection in case of "rapture."
  
• The all-time low of 57 (well within the "slow prophetic activity" range) was December 12, 1993. We conclude that Clinton was more effective than anyone had imagined.
• The all-time high of 182 was September 24, 2001. We think we remember what brought that on.

So why do we boo this spiritual resource? Well, we think it's maybe mildly blasphemous to claim to do what Jesus said he couldn't. We admit that the author of the Rapture Index insists that he is in no way predicting the event. Rather, he says, his index indicates whether we are moving toward the end slowly or quickly. Well, we're not sure how that business of time moving fast or slowly actually works. So we're back to the conclusion that this thing offers at least a weak, relative prediction of the day and hour that Jesus says he himself doesn't know.

We'll leave it to others to repeat again all that is wrong exegetically and theologically with the dispensational eschatology that grips so many American evangelicals. But we will here assert our own Index of Jesus' Return.

Our scale runs from zero to one thousand. And it currently stands at one thousand. The world is a mess, what with wars, disasters, genocide, disease, crime, hatred, persecution and the designated-hitter rule. So the index is maxed out.

Actually, it's been stuck on one thousand for roughly a couple of millennia now, thanks to the perpetually messed-up state of things.

The God of Israel is fed up with the world. And he has been for a very long time. He won't tolerate it forever. All that keeps him from ending this mess now is his desire that all should turn to him.

"So when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates."

Rep. Foley Resigns Before Most People Know Why

Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned today just hours after ABC reported that he had sent sexually explicit instant messages to female congressional pages under the age of 18. Ironically, Rep. Foley was chair of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.

We observe again two truths, the first seemingly permanent:

1. Politicians tend to be a corrupt lot, regardless of party or ideology.
2. Republicans, whatever their faults, have for the last couple of decades expected those proved to be bad apples to quit immediately, whereas Democrats have proved determined to rally around the indicted forever.

This episode raises to a new level Republican immediacy on dealing with scandals. Meanwhile, we remind Rep. William Jefferson to call his lawyer.

Update: Thanks to JB in CA for the correction: later reports note that the person in question was a 16-year-old boy and the medium in question was email.

Thanks to Guys Like Calvin Johnson

Yesterday my place of Christian Higher Education honored our city's public safety officers for their self-sacrificial work in serving others.

Today the Cincinnati Enquirer does the same with a fine article about Calvin Johnson, police sergeant at Cincinnati's District 3 (including CCU's Price Hill neighborhood) and head football coach at Western Hills High School.

We commend the article to gentle readers and commend Mr. Johnson to everyone.

Weirdest Combination of 2006: U. of Phoenix Accused of Pro-Mormon Bias

Of all the things we've ever seen together, we never thought we'd see these.

The University of Phoenix, the Wal-Mart of higher education, is the object of a class-action suit alleging religious bias.

It's pro-religious bias.

Pro-Mormon bias, to be exact.

The allegation is that employees in Phoenix's admissions office get better treatment if the are Mormons. Seems that a lot of the admissions executives are Mormons, and they're perceived as favoring their brothers and sisters in the faith.

So we nominate the combination of the University of Phoenix and the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints as the Weirdest Combination of 2006. And we invite gentle readers to suggest other weird combinations.

National Intelligence Estimate: Machiavelli Redux

The Ds' attempt to disarm the Rs with a leak of the National Intelligence Estimate has backfired. Bush's declassification of a section of the report has turned the NIE into another Republican weapon against the Democrat rhetoric of surrender and appeasement.

Of course, all the NIE does is note that the Iraq war has inspired more to join the jihadists (the Ds' talking point) but that prevailing in Iraq will seriously reverse jihadist recruitment (the Rs' point). Both parties have their points here, but the Rs win politically because their point is grounded in hope while the Ds are grounded in despair.

There remains nothing new under the sun. This question is a variant on Machiavelli's classic question whether the prince is better off being loved or being feared (note to present and former students of SWNID: "yes" is often a good answer to questions with "or," and Machiavelli notes that being both loved and feared is the most excellent outcome, but he avers that both are not always possible). The answer is that for the prince love is nice but fear is necessary. Bush's comment that the Ds' reading of the NIE leak is "naive" reminds us that the adjective is synonymous with "not having read and understood Machiavelli."

The fact that this sophisticated intelligence document merely reflects a classic work of Western literature leads us to agree with the sentiment, though not every aspect of the diction, of Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit:

We should probably also fire whoever wrote this -- for producing a meaningless document full of empty bureaucratic twaddle. If the jihadists win, they'll have more prestige! And they will probably use the internets [sic]! Do tell. [Blasphemy deleted], if this is the quality of intelligence we're getting, no wonder we haven't won yet.

But there are some intelligence data out there, at least in raw form. The NY Sun has published a report of a letter from a senior Al-Qaida operative, captured with al-Zarqawi's ambush in June, loudly decrying the weakness of Al-Qaida and allies in Iraq and Afghanistan. We'll see if that other paper in NY picks up on this, giving permission to the rest of the media to cover it.

On Tempers Real and Actual

For those who think that Hot Springs' most famous citizen simply lost his temper with Chris Wallace, Vast Right Wing Conspirator Bill Kristol has an alternative.

Kristol suggests that the calculating Clinton blew up on Wallace to (a) help Democrats, who are perceived as weak on terror, in the November elections; (b) help Hillary; (c) intimidate other reporters who might ask the same questions.

Remembering that no politician takes a breath without calculating its political impact, least of all this one, we think Kristol might be on to something.

We just don't think it will work. Clinton's act is getting old. The very sight of him reminds too many people of things they'd like to forget, just as the sight of Bush does for many others.

That's probably bad for all Democrats, but it's especially bad for one who's had a lot of bad news lately.

UC Named Official NCAA Football Team of Democrat Party

After consecutive losses to Ohio State and Virginia Tech in which they unexpectedly led until finally succumbing to superior talent, the University of Cincinnati football team has defined itself as the Team that Loses by Less Than Expected.

And so it comes as no surprise today that Democrat chairman Howard Dean has named UC's football team the Offical NCAA Football Team of the Democratic Party.

"Understand this point," said Dean. "No one expected UC to do as well as they did. All the momentum lies with them. The American people have had enough of these big-time college football programs with their recruiting scandals and players who don't graduate. Right-wing media sportscasters may represent them as the best teams in America, but Americans know otherwise.

"Just like Paul Hackett, just like John Kerry, UC has beaten everyone's expectations as to how well they'll do," Dean explained. "That's the Democrat way. It's our strategy to retake the Congress and the White House, by continually losing elections by smaller margins than expected."

Asked to comment about the Democratic Party similarly endorsing an NFL team, Dean replied, "The first three weeks of the season leave us in a quandary on this point. In the NFL, we're looking for a former champion, like the Democrats, that can't reclaim its former glory. So we don't know whether to go with the Pittsburgh Steelers or the New England Patriots."

Short Take on Baylor God-Poll

Gentle readers interested in a succinct summary of the recent Baylor University poll of Americans' views of God, with cautious analysis, will find it at, of all places, the Christian Science Monitor. It's rife with the CSM's usual pale optimism, but leaves room for important observations like these:

The study found that even people within the same denomination hold different concepts of God - which may explain schisms over dogma. Evangelicals and black Protestants, however, hold the most uniform views (a majority sees God as authoritarian).

It also found that the "four Gods" track more closely with political and social attitudes than do traditional indicators such as church attendance. The study found, for instance, that the closer one moves toward the authoritarian model, the more likely one finds abortion and gay marriage are "always wrong."

Sociologist of religion Rodney Stark got clobbered a few years ago for suggesting that in the study of religion, what matters most is how adherents view god (with N. T. Wright, we use lower case here deliberately, since human views of deity[ies] vary so greatly that it's absurd to assume that everyone is really talking about the Same Being when we reference many or all such views). That such patent verities prove controversial reminds us of how much more significant the Baylor poll is than, say, the generic party-preference polling that occupies considerable media attention these days.

The Take on Slick W's Finger-Wag

Chris Wallace's interview with ex-POTUS and current rock star William Jefferson Clinton is now a matter of public record and public discourse.

To those like gentle reader Micah who feel that Clinton did his best to get Osama and has been mischaracterized by right-wing opponents, we urge a reading of Howard Kurtz, who does media and politics at WaPo, and Byron York, White House correspondent for the National Review.

The former is no right-winger, but he happily chronicles Chris Wallace's innocence of the charge of "right-wing hit job." The latter relies not on his own avowedly partisan evaluation but the sympathetic chronicle of Richard Clarke, Clinton national security staffer famous for resigning in protest from the Bush administration. Per Clarke, Clinton avoided confronting the military about its Osamic recalcitrance, to put it mildly.

Note well what we say here: neither President and neither party was sufficiently active against Islamofascism before 9/11. What bugs us and others on this score is not Clinton's failure but his incessant self-righteous posturing and self-serving, moralistic accusations against anyone who disagrees with him or suggests that he might have been less than fully correct about everything. He lacks standing on such matters.

Or more simply, we remember seeing that fat finger wagging at the camera when Clinton was in office, and it makes the same impression now that it did then.

Grim Reminder of the Past Also Welcome Reminder of Present

Fox News is showing a teaser, available also on YouTube, of its upcoming interview with St. William of Dogpatch. The specter of Slick W shaking his finger at the camera in moral indignation over the fecklessness of "right wingers" who dare criticize his presidential potency is, to say the least, a contrasting reminder of the fresh wind that has blown since January of 2001.

Latest Offense: NAE, YWAM Pray for Muslims

The AP is reporting this morning on Islamic reaction to a campaign initiated by Youth With a Mission and taken up by the National Association of Evangelicals to encourage Christians to pray for Muslims during Ramadan.

Predictably, the AP is noting that some Muslims are meeting the campaign with equanimity:

Jamal Badawi, an Islamic scholar and professor emeritus at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said he cannot deny Christians the right to pray for him, since he also prays that they embrace Islam.

But just as predictably, the bulk of reaction is reported to be negative:

Imam Yahya Hendi, Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University, said he believes that true followers of Jesus would not pray for conversion, but would instead demonstrate their faith through good works.

Kudos to AP reporter Rachel Zoll for making this important observation:

Like Christianity, Islam is a missionary faith, teaching that Muslims are following the true path and directing them to introduce others to their beliefs.

Of course, Muslims are not the only ones to express ironic objections to Christian missionary efforts. Just about all non-Christian groups do. Christianity is so essentially missionary, absolutist (cf. "For there is one God and one mediator between God and human beings, Christ Jesus, himself human") and imperialistic (cf. "kingdom of God") that anything not manifesting those offensive characteristics is not Christianity, or at least isn't for very long.

But here's the irony about all objections to Christian missionary efforts, not just those offered by religious adherents who are also intent on converting the world. Let's say you don't believe in the Christian gospel. Maybe you're some kind of theist, maybe not. If not, you shouldn't think that there's anything persuasive about a god-message and certainly nothing effective about prayer. If you've got a god in your system, you still don't think that the Jesus-message is persuasive, and you certainly don't think that any god will listen to a prayer offered on Jesus' authority.

This, of course, is why Christian narratives are very glad to note the fearful responses offered by persistent unbelievers to Christian "proselytizing" (e.g. here and here). There's no need to fear something that has no power. The presence of fear is evidence of some belief in the power of the object of fear.

And so it is for offense as well. Especially when it comes from an adherent of a differently situated monotheistic, imperialistic, absolutist faith.

Christian readers should note well that this observation carries with it the corollary that the Christian faith provides a perpetual "fear not" for its adherents.

Great Promises Made Again

The AP this morning offers the following title: "Analysis: Democrats Vow to Get Tough." With less than seven weeks to go until the election, Ds are adopting the JFK playbook. Those who remember Camelot for what it was will remember that Kennedy ran against the ace anticommunist Nixon by (a) alleging a "missle gap" created by the Eisenhower administration that left the US underarmed against the nuclear USSR; (b) insisting that JFK would be a more effective anticommunist than Nixon.

The missle gap never existed, of course. In fact, it existed even less than WMD in Iraq, for Kennedy didn't even have the support of intelligence data, flawed or unflawed, for the allegation. As to the effectiveness of Kennedy the anticommunist, let's just say that in Cuba and Southeast Asia, things were much diceyer after 1961 than they had been under Ike's steady hand. We'll defer to Christopher Hitchens to evaluate further the Kennedy anticommunist legacy.

But enough history. Now to behavioral science. We nominate "Democrats vow to get tough" for permanent display in the Museum of Perpetually Unfulfilled Promises, along with:

• The check is in the mail.
• I'll respect you in the morning.
• Runs good.
• There's never been water in the basement.
• The assignment was done, but my computer crashed.
• I forgot to put in the quotation marks and footnotes before I printed the paper.
• I can quit anytime.
• Our tanning beds use the latest technology to eliminate the danger of skin cancer.
  
• Yes, we're living in the same apartment and sleeping in one bed, but we're not having sex.
• Using my system, you'll build wealth by buying real estate with no money down.
• That outfit does not make you look fat.
• I just drink socially.
• Our church is really committed to growth.
  
• Adding this formula to each tank of gas will improve your mileage by 20%.
• I just gamble for recreation.
  
• This machine will give you a lean, toned body in just fifteen minutes a day.
• I didn't inhale.
  
• I don't have a racist bone in my body.
  
• This is the natural product that the drug companies don't want you to know about.
• I can't believe that you're that old.
• I am not a crook.
  
• No, I don't think you're naive and credulous. What makes you think that?
  

Gentle readers may offer additional nominations in the comments. N.B. that brilliant singer/songwriter Dave Frishberg did all this first, and we swear that we didn't look up his classic lyrics until after we assembled our list.

French "Intelligence" Leak: Osama at Cave Temperature

The news services are abuzz with the rumor that terrorist godfather Osama bin Laden may have initialized biodegradation thanks to typhoid. If this is the case (and who knows what to make of a French intelligence [insert joke] leak of a Saudi intelligence report?), and if it can be to any degree confirmed in the next seven weeks, we hereby prognosticate the political fallout.

This will hurt the Ds on November 7 with their lukewarm strategy of nationalizing the congressional elections. Rs will say with some justification that their policy of dogged, unrelenting pursuit of terrorism continues to show incremental progress.

Ds will be forced to say something like: (a) the Rs didn't kill him; (b) the Rs made him an iconic martyr; (c) the Rs created a thousand Osamas before the first one died.

But this rhetoric will have little short-term effect because (a) dead is dead, and dying of typhoid in a filthy cave because one is not safe to travel and can't get even the most basic medical care is among the genuinely bad ways to die; (b) Osama is no less iconic dead than alive, and many more Muslims seem to be put off by the effects of Osama-style bloodletting these days; (c) the Ds drumbeat of defeatism takes awhile to root itself in the public consciousness by means of unrelenting repetition--longer than the time left before the election--and tends to be set back by any additional good news.

So while Republican and Bush administration strategy is to be unrelenting in the pursuit of terrorists, Democrat opposition strategy is to be unrelenting in interpreting every event as negative for US interests. Both strategies require considerable time to take effect. But the Rs have the advantage of being able to show tangible effects occasionally, while the Ds can only show passing effects in public opinion polls.

Dionne: Momentum with Rs

E. J. Dionne is perhaps the last surviving organism of what has been for a long time an endangered species: a readable and rational columnist from the political left. So it's no surprise that today he is writing that circumstances are now boosting Republican prospects in November.

However, we think Dionne is a little slow to pick up on how far things have gone up for the Rs and down for the Ds. He cites the generic-party-preference polls as still favoring the Ds and says that at this point in the cycle, that should mean that the Ds will win. But gentle readers will remember that polls of likely voters are now even, that generic party preference is never as important as sentiment toward the incumbent candidate in a congressional district, and that most polls since 1994 have overestimated Democrat voters (Zogby seems more or less alone in adjusting for this).

Still, we agree with Dionne that much will hinge on the direction of news just before the election (as in 1864, for instance). And so we affirm his closing paragraph:

The paradox is that the survival chances of a Republican Party led by a former oilman from Texas will depend in large part on whether gas prices keep falling.

D'Souza: Appeal to "Traditional" Muslims

Gentle reader Danny Joe points us to an essay by the always stimulating Dinesh D'Souza, who argues that, despite the reaction to the Pope's comments, most Muslims belong not to the "radical" category but the "traditional" category. The former D'Souza characterizes as violently opposed to Christianity, Judaism and the West, whereas the latter tends toward accommodation and toleration.

Hence, it must be the goal of Western policy not to drive people from the traditional camp to the radical one.

We agree. However, we're not sure that it's as simple a matter as merely avoiding inflammatory statements. The most egregious or foolhardy provocations should be eschewed. But radicals can find almost anything inflammatory, it seems.

With D'Souza we note that traditional Muslims have been reluctant to voice their dismay at the radicals' intolerance and violence. But from that we do not conclude that the traditionals have become radicals. Rather, we conclude that they are even more afraid of the bully of radicalism than is the West.

And for good reason. Traditionals who speak up will be the first targets. Just ask Salmon Rushdie.

We still conclude, therefore, that the only effective and humane response to radical Islamic intimidation is a robust assertion of human rights and the expansion of liberal democracy backed by the threat of military power. Only those Muslims who have the freedom from fear of reprisal can speak up for the containment of Islamic radicalism.

From another source we are reminded that not all Muslims are anti-American. Kosovar Muslims, liberated from the Serbs by American and Western European military force, recently held solemn public observances of the anniversary of 9/11. What makes them love America, and even William Jefferson Clinton? Liberty, and the nation that helped secure it for them.

Hanson Handicaps November: Advantage Rs

Proving once again that an education in the arts and sciences can pay off, classicist Victor Davis Hanson today offers a most trenchant analysis of November electoral prospects. Unlike just about every other person doing that, however, his is based not merely on the Republican rise in the generic Congressional preference polls or Bush's surging job approval figures. He's looking at circumstances and policies.

We quote briefly:

Democrats denounce the conduct of the war against terror. All well and good - but they also must explain how they would snatch Osama Bin Laden from his friendly tribes in Islamic and nuclear Pakistan. They rail against the Iraq war, but they cannot agree on when - not to mention whether - to depart. They lament appeasement of Iran, but they offer no military or political alternative to the ongoing multiparty negotiations.

The Democrats claim that Bush is not protecting us at home and is battling the wrong enemies abroad. But even of those sympathetic to such a message, how many believe that Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy are better suited to fight a war against terror? And where the president is vulnerable - illegal immigration, continual energy dependence, spiraling debt and profligate federal spending - the Democrats' solutions are even more at odds with public opinion.

Another Pronouncement on Papal Free Speech

We thank gentle reader MattC for forwarding to us a not-so-long-ago column by World's Smartest Person Christopher Hitchens, in which Hitch weighed in on the spineless response of Western governments, more specifically the Bush White House, to the violent response to the Danish cartoons. Response to the Pope has been, of course, no different, and underscores the need of the Islamists to keep their followers stirred up about something more or less constantly.

But to the sublime Hitchens. Here's a tasty morsel from the meal:

Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet who was only another male mammal is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.

Hitch goes on to explain how, as a devotedly non-religious person, his principles derived from the Enlightenment still prevent him from reacting violently toward religious people.

We think that Hitch is unfair in lumping all religions together as sources of prejudice. Briefly we'll say that Christianity has at its core a message that critiques all human prejudices, including those harbored by Christianity's practitioners. But it would nevertheless be nice if religious people could extend the same treatment to nonadherents as Hitch does to adherents.

Chavez to UN: Bush "the Devil"; Bush to Demand Apology, Burn Chavez in Effigy

The AP reports from the UN that Hugo Chavez, buffoonish president of Venezuela, referred to American President George W. Bush as "the devil" in a speech to the General Assembly. The AP further reports that Chavez's remarks provoked giggles at some points and some applause from a few delegates at others. There's no indication as to whether Chavez's speech was better attended than the one yesterday by Iran's President Ahmadinejad, reportedly heard by only a few delegates willing to postpone their evening meal to learn that Iran's nukes are "peaceful" (like its rhetoric).

Meanwhile, SWNID has it from our usual sources that at the White House, President Bush has proclaimed that, following the example of Islamists, he will demand an apology from Chavez, express his disappointment at any statement of apology issued, adorn Marine One with signs reading "Chavez Go to Hell" and burn Chavez in effigy in the White House Rose Garden.

Rs Even With Ds in Gallup

It looks like James Carville may have to act on his remark that if Dems can win the Congress in 2006, they need to rethink the whole idea of their party.

Gallup reports that among likely voters, preference for Republicans and Democrats in Congress is even. Registered voters show a preference for Ds, but recent polls show that likelies matter more than registereds, and even the polls of likelies tend to overestimate Democrat votes.

Maybe worse for the Ds is that Bush's approval ratings are up to 44%, the highest in a year. So much for nationalizing the campaign. The Bushies look really tired these days, but momentum is pushing the elephants forward. Or maybe the donkeys are still stuck in the leftist mud.

Rs still may have some losses, and they've got a lot of work to do. But with lower energy prices, low unemployment, stable interest rates, and no plan from the left on Iraq or Islamofascism save surrender, it could be worse for the party in power.

Many November elections will be close. Turnout will be crucial. The Rs have been very strong on turnout for the last few cycles, conservative churches apparently having more ardent members than trade unions these days.

Still More Popapalooza

At WaPo Anne Applebaum offers this most apt observation about the reaction to Pope Benedict's quotation of a Byzantine emperor's negative remarks about violence in the religion of Islam:

But we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech -- surely the pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts -- and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns. By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde and Fox News -- Western institutions of the left, the right and everything in between. True, these principles sound pretty elementary -- "we're pro-free speech and anti-gratuitous violence" -- but in the days since the pope's sermon, I don't feel that I've heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus. A lot more time has been spent analyzing what the pontiff meant to say, or should have said, or might have said if he had been given better advice.

All of which is simply beside the point, since nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn't the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain's chief rabbi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them -- simultaneously?

As we've said before, Islamists are playing the role of Playground Bully, and the West continues to try to play the role of Nice Kid Who Avoids Trouble. The problem with that playground strategy is that it only works for awhile. Eventually, the Nice Kid has to tell everyone loudly and clearly that the bully is a bully and rally his resources to restrain the bully.

Nothing illustrates the failure to do that more than the West's criticism of the remarks of the gentle, scholarly priest who said something that riled up the bully. To change the metaphor, we've seen a lot of blaming of the victim in the abusive relationship here.