So you’ve heard it, “The Reformers didn’t do missions.” I’ve heard it. I believed it. I defended it by saying that they were busy with other things and couldn’t do it all. Well it turns out that it just isn’t true. From a very old edition of St. Anne’s Pub comes this (1MB MP3). Proof that Calvin actually did send out missionaries and was interested in sending out more.

This is good news. The Reformation and the Reformers were the most thorough Biblicists, examining and applying the Word to life and the Church. For them to somehow miss missions is inconceivable. ¹Yes, the word does mean what I think it means. I’m glad to hear that they didn’t.

Added: Here is the article they refer to in the MP3.

Update: MP3 link is fixed (sorry Cartee!)

I listen to NPR all the time. I love NPR. They are accused of being liberal and there is a bit of a leftward lean but they tend to be much more moderate then anything else. Also, I like the fact that they don’t spend only 5 sentences on a news story. They try to dig into it a little and let you know what’s going on. Often they will bring in two different perspectives and let us hear from them.

The one topic that they most often bother me about is religion. Not just Christianity, but religion in general. Whenever someone they are speaking to is strongly religious, they always seem to somehow imply that there is a reason for it other than sincere belief. The one I’ve picked up on more often than not is when they imply that some personal trauma has lead to the individual’s deep religious belief. In other word, the person has a crutch. Another motive they seem to insinuate is that religious convictions are held for sociological reasons. For example, a person opposes abortion on religious grounds because they have an agenda for women. NPR will usually repeat that what the person believes, that is that life begins at conception, but somewhere along the way, the commentary will imply that there are other reasons as well.

What really bothers me is the personal trauma one. People only turn to religion in response to crisis, they seem to think. But we don’t always or necessarily often. I didn’t respond to the gospel because of a crisis. My life was going pretty well at the time. I had just gotten married, was doing well at work, I was happy. I responded to the gospel, well, I’m not sure why. I had heard it often enough growing up and never really got it. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t respond to it either.

I can’t think of any particular NPR story that illustrates my point, it is more of a general observation. But I’ll be listening and when I come across a story, I’ll post a link and analysis.

So a Danish newspaper ran some cartoons of Muhammad and Muslim’s are really angry. There are rules, I hear, against depictions of the “Prophet” and the Danish have violated them. When I first heard I thought that it was mighty insensitive of the normally liberal Danish society. The reaction in some Muslim nations has been intense including the most effective boycott I’ve ever heard of. Don’t forget that Danish filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered for his work showing Muslim mistreatment of women. So there appears to be some existing tension between the Danish media and Islam already.

Well, as the title of this post (and the title of the BBC News headline it comes from) things have gotten kicked up a notch. The Western media has bent over backwards to portray Islam as a “peaceful religion”. Heck, our own President, ostensibly a Christian, called Islam a “noble religion” during the State of the Union address. Anyway, I have been amazed at our generally liberally-inclined media’s response to a religion that subjugates women. I thought they would be ill-disposed to it but they haven’t been. Till now. Newspapers in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain have all run the cartoons! What a shocker! I mean France??!!

Here’s some helpful quotes from this BBC News article:

Reporters Without Borders said the reaction in the Arab world “betrays a lack of understanding” of press freedom as “an essential accomplishment of democracy.”

In Berlin, Die Welt argued there was a right to blaspheme in the West, and asked whether Islam was capable of coping with satire.

Islam was given a pass on the feminist test for Western media but when it comes to their Sacred Cow, free speech, it appears that they can let things can only go only so far. So I wonder if this is the beginning of the end of the romance the Western media has had with Islam, portraying it as a misunderstood and persecuted religion. Christianity, of course, is the bad guy.

Somehow, I don’t think this tiff will last too long. Even with the media affirming their rights to say whatever they want, I think the lure of Islam will over come their political agendas. Can’t pass up a good story.