Early in 2007, Bryan Ferry released Dylanesque with his versions of eleven Dylan songs.  The results were mixed, IMHO, but he does a fine job of “All Along the Watchtower” in this performance originally broadcast on BBC.  Oliver Thompson, who was then only 20 years old, plays the scorching lead guitar.

The tapping high heel at the beginning is a classic Ferry touch.

In one of the great tragedies of church history, one of the most ancient Christian communities is being destroyed before our very eyes. The Assyrian, Chaldean, and Orthodox churches of Mesopotamia appear headed for a bloody end. As recently as 1970, Christians made up 5-6 percent of Iraq’s population; today, they are less than 1 percent and dwindling rapidly.

Philip Jenkins, author of The Lost History of Christianity, outlines the story in Christianity Today online.

[U]nderstanding the history of Iraq’s churches should make us still more keenly aware of the tragedy we see unfolding. Not only are these churches — Chaldean, Assyrian, Orthodox — truly ancient, they are survivals from the earliest history of the church. For centuries indeed, the land long known as Mesopotamia had a solid claim to rank as the center of the church and an astonishing record of missions and evangelism. What we see today in Iraq is not just the death of a church, but also the end of one of the most awe-inspiring phases of Christian history.
[…]
When the Roman Empire became Christian, Mesopotamia became the main refuge for those theological currents that the empire now labeled heretical: the Monophysites or Jacobites, and the Nestorians. Ultimately, most of the Christians of modern Iraq look to one of these movements as their spiritual ancestor.
[…]
These Mesopotamian monasteries were also the base camps for one of the greatest missionary enterprises in Christian history. Especially between the 7th and 9th centuries, the Church of the East was establishing bishoprics and metropolitans across Asia — through Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, into Tibet and Kyrgyzstan, and as far as India and China.

Looking at the world in 850 or so, few observers would have doubted that the Christian future lay in the Middle East and Asia, rather than in the barbarian-ravaged lands of Western Europe.

But it was not to be. Muslims began systematically persecuting Christians in the 13th and 14th centuries, obliterating the church across the Middle East and Central Asia. That persecution has continued to the present day, even intensifying during the 20th century, thus bringing us to what appears to be the impending destruction of Christianity in Iraq.

h/t: Sanctus

The Supreme Court of India has told the Orissa state government that, if it cannot protect Christians from mob violence, then it should resign.

The Supreme Court today said it would not allow “persecution” of minorities and asked the Orissa government to resign if it was unable to protect Christians who were targeted in recent riots that followed the assassination of a VHP leader.
[…]
“It is the duty of the state government to protect the minority community. You (State) have done only after 50,000 people of the minority community fled to the jungles,” the Bench said when senior advocate K K Venugopal said that the Orissa government has complied with the orders of this court.

“We will not accept the persecution of minority. If the state government is unable to protect them it should resign,” Justice Katju observed and added, “we have to protect the minority. No minority community should be insecure in the country,” he said.

As cold winter weather arrives in Orissa, hundreds of Christians are still hiding in forests in fear of violent persecution if they return to their homes. 8000 more are living in relief camps, while 15,000 who fled the district altogether have not returned.

A new article published in a peer-reviewed academic journal corroborates earlier studies showing that children do best when raised in a stable and supportive family environment. The researchers pinpoint an important but often-overlooked factor in healthy adolescent development: the child’s relationship with the opposite-sex parent.

[A] child’s relationship with his or her parents is the single most important factor in predicting that child’s long-term happiness, adjustment, development, educational attainment, and success. […] [F]ather-daughter and mother-son relationships tend to have greater impact on a child’s future intimate relationships than their relationship with the same-sex parent.
[…]
While family communication and interaction is critical to high-quality relationships for children and adolescents, this study suggests that the opposite-sex parent is especially important in making children feel validated and encouraged. This is true of boys as well as girls, but it is especially true of daughters. Fathers have the greatest impact on their daughters’ vitality as an adolescent college student. Daughters with a strong relationship with their father are more self-confident, self-reliant, and are more successful in school and career than those who have distant or absent fathers.

The study, published in the November 2008 issue of the Journal of Communication and Religion, does not appear to be available online, unfortunately.

Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East comments on the reaction of some church leaders to the current Middle East conflict.

Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East (”Fair Witness”) is greatly disturbed by the escalating violence in Israel and Gaza and the tragic loss of innocent Palestinian and Israeli lives. As many church leaders in the U.S. demand an immediate cease fire however, we challenge them to acknowledge not only the human suffering, but the political realities in the region.
[…]
“Maybe people don’t realize what has been going on in Israel for the past seven years,” says Rev. James Noland, Senior Pastor of Reveille United Methodist Church in Richmond, Virginia. “I was in Sderot in October 2007. Six Qassam rockets hit the town just before we arrived. We saw three blimps in the air that circulate 24 hours a day seven days a week to detect incoming rockets. When the sirens go off people have twenty seconds to get into a bomb shelter. Kids couldn’t sleep, everyone was afraid to leave their homes, people died, people had their legs blown off. It was especially disturbing to see these Qassams up close — they were built not to cause damage to structures, but to kill and maim human beings. It was terrifying. How many years are people supposed to live like that before putting a stop to it?”

Sounds like a good question to me.

The leadership of Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East includes Roman Catholics, Jews, and mainline Protestants. Most are ordained ministers.

h/t: Brutally Honest and Alice the Camel

In a decision with far-reaching implications, a Swedish court has approved an application for asylum made by an Iraqi Christian family, despite an agreement signed by Sweden and Iraq designed to obviate such applications.

In early 2008, Sweden and Iraq signed an agreement under which the Iraqi government pledged to protect religious minorities and returning refugees from ethnic and religious cleansing. Since then, Iraq failed to prevent Islamists from driving thousands of Assyrian (Chaldean and Syriac) Christian families from Mosul. The city is reportedly on the verge of being emptied of non-Muslims.

After being denied asylum by the Migration Board, the family (identified only by the father’s name, Harout) went to Sweden’s Migration Court, which found that the family is not safe anywhere in Iraq and granted permanent residency.

From the court’s decision:

Harout and his family belong to the Christian minority in Mosul, which according to country reporting in the case is a group subject to a high risk of threats and assaults. It has htrough [sic] the investigation come to light that Harout was running a garage and at a few occasions repaired military vehicles belonging to the American forces. After this he became victim of telephone threats and was accused to be a Christian traitor on three different occasions. The person or persons who threatened him urged him to leave the country instantly or else he would be killed. Besides this, Harout’s garage was destroyed in a bomb attack. It has, however, not been possible to establish whether the attack was attempted towards Harout personally or not. The Migration Court nevertheless finds the threats towards Harout are to be considered as severe assaults in terms of what is dictated by the Aliens Act and it is probable that he and his family, if they are forced to return home, will experience well-founded fear for repeated assaults. Futhermore, [sic] the Migrationsdomstolen [Migration Court] finds that they cannot profit from the protection the authorities in the country. It is neither a reasonable to expect them to be able to settle down in another part of Iraq. Harout, his wife and two children as people in need of protection are therefore granted permanent residency according to Chap 4, paragraph 2 first part 2 Alien Act.

The ruling would appear to imply that no threatened Iraqis can be deported, apparently rendering the Swedish-Iraqi agreement a dead letter.

In a rare legal victory, a Pakistani court has ordered police to rescue a Christian teenage girl held against her will by a Muslim woman.  Police even carried out the order.

Police carried the order out on December 13th, successfully returning Nousheen Bibi to her parents after three months as a hostage to her former employer, a Muslim woman from Shahzad Park town in Sargodha, Pakistan.

Nousheen’s mother, Asmat Bibi, had submitted a case in court against the Muslim woman, Mehnaz Begum, for keeping her daughter as a maidservant in her home two months beyond their agreement. The two women had initially agreed to have Nousheen work for one month as a maid at Mehnaz’s house in exchange for a set payment. However, Mehnaz refused to either pay Nousheen for her services or allow her to return home when the month was over.

Surprisingly, Asmat did not encounter any opposition at court. Mehnaz thought she could get away with enslaving the Christian girl because Christians in Pakistan are considered to be very weak both financially and socially.

Thank God for a judge who dispenses justice.

Last April, when gasoline prices were sky high, Premier Rodney MacDonald said this to reporters outside the provincial legislature.

“I think the most important thing we as a government can do, and all Nova Scotians can do, is to purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles, to take up the opportunity for transit.”

The premier later objected to this headline in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald:

Premier to drivers: Take the bus

Premier MacDonald was so upset that he sent a letter to 24 Nova Scotia newspapers, maintaining that he did not say that.  The Chronicle-Herald was not among the 24.

A few months before, the premier had travelled from Halifax to his home in Mabou in a government helicopter at a cost of $2200.

I came across this disconcerting passage in How To Read A Church by Richard Taylor.

Images of Jesus with a beard may also have developed through a wish to symbolize ugliness. There was some debate in the early Church as to whether Jesus was in appearance the most handsome, or the most repulsive of men. One view was that since God is supremely beautiful, and Jesus was God on earth, so Jesus too must have been supremely beautiful. The opposing view was that God the Son took on himself all human misery when he entered the world, and so had a horrible, diseased appearance. This ‘ugly’ view claimed support from the Prophet Isaiah: ‘he had … nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others … surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases’ (Isaiah 53:2-4). Bearded and unbearded images of Jesus appeared concurrently until around the eleventh century. The theory runs that during this period, if an artist wanted to emphasize Jesus’ divinity then he would take the ‘beauty’ side of the debate, and symbolize this by having Jesus beardless, whereas he would portray him as bearded if he wanted to emphasize Jesus’ humanity and supposed ugliness. From around the eleventh century, images of Jesus with a beard took the ascendance.

Images of a bearded Jesus originated from a need to represent human ugliness? Surely not.

“When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy” — St Matthew 2:10

This morning’s recessional hymn on The Second Sunday After Christmas at Christ Church, Windsor. Hymn #97 in The Book of Common Praise (1938), official hymn book for the whole of The Church of England in Canada (later Anglican Church of Canada).

As with gladness men of old
Did the guiding star behold,
As with joy, they hailed in light,
Leading onward, beaming bright;
So, most gracious Lord, may we
Evermore be led to thee.

As with joyful steps they sped
Saviour, to thy lowly bed;
There to bend the knee before
Thee whom heaven and earth adore;
So may we with willing feet
Ever seek the mercy-seat.

As they offered gifts most rare
At that manger rude and bare;
So may we with holy joy,
Pure and free from sin’s alloy,
All our costliest treasures bring,
Christ, to thee our heavenly King.

Holy Jesu, every day
Keep us in the narrow way;
And, when earthly things are past,
Bring our ransomed souls at last
Where they need no star to guide,
Where no clouds thy glory hide.

In the heavenly country bright,
Need they no created light;
Thou its Light, its Joy, its Crown,
Thou its Sun which goes not down;
There for ever may we sing
Alleluias to our King.

Words: William Chatterton Dix, 1860.
Music: Dix, Konrad Kocher, 1838, adapted by William Henry Monk.

William Chatterton Dix wrote this hymn on the festival of Epiphany, 6 January, while sick in bed. During his lifetime, he wrote over 40 hymns, many for Christmas and Easter, including “What Child Is This”.

The collect for today, the Second Sunday After Christmas, from the 1962 Canadian Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

For the Epistle: Isaiah 9:2-7
The Gospel: St Luke 2:15-21
Artwork: Nicolaes Maes, Adoration of the Shepherds, c. 1660. Oil on canvas, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

A Turkish colonel has been charged with dereliction of duty for failing to protect Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was shot dead outside his Istanbul office in January 2007. If found guilty, former Trabzon Gendarmerie Commander Colonel Ali Öz could be sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. Several other soldiers face the same charge.

In July, the testimony of an ex-gendarmerie officer indicated that Öz disregarded information related to the murder of Dink, a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor, before the assassination.
[…]
Facing an investigation over suspicions of “hiding information and failing to act” on reports that Dink was in danger, Öz gave his testimony on July 21 and responded by stating either “I don’t remember” or “I don’t know them” when asked about the intelligence information related to Dink’s murder and the two gendarmes who said they had informed him about the murder.

At least two other gendarmes testified that Öz was informed of a plot to kill Dink six months before the murder, but did nothing.

Things got a little out of hand at New Year’s Eve festivities at the Cunard Centre, Halifax. Around 1:30 am on New Year’s Day, hundreds of people helped themselves to coats because coat check clerks were retrieving them too slowly. Or maybe there weren’t enough clerks. Or maybe some of the party-goers had had too much to drink. (I suspect the latter.)

[V]iolent revellers dismantled the coat check at a New Year’s Eve event at the Cunard Centre in Halifax.
[…]
“There was probably a dozen people that jumped over the coat racks and just stormed the coat check area and tipped over a bunch of coat racks,” said Robert Risley, president of RCR Hospitality Group, which runs the Cunard Centre, near Pier 21 on the waterfront.

It may have started with a dozen, but it quickly escalated.

About 3,500 people attended the party, Mr. Risley said by phone on Friday.

There were 15 people working the coat check and 33 security guards on duty.

According to several witnesses, the “security guards” didn’t actually do anything to restore order or protect bystanders when the melee broke out.

Christina Copps, 26, still hadn’t returned to her apartment Friday morning because her keys were in the coat she lost at the New Year’s Eve party.

“People were punching each other; staff were crying,” Ms. Copps said in a phone interview. “It was absolutely insane.

“I was almost knocked out by two guys. They were punching (each other) and I had to duck.”

Today’s Halifax Chronicle-Herald carries a lengthy front-page report on the ruckus, complete with photos of erstwhile carousers who returned to the Cunard Centre on Friday to line up once again for their coats.

Two weeks ago, the province imposed a minimum drink price of $2.50 in hopes of curbing public drunkenness. I’ll bet the Cunard Centre charged a lot more than $2.50 for its New Year’s Eve drinks.

Click here for the “Cunard Centre 08/09 New Year’s Fiasco” Facebook group.

On 19 September 2008, Dina Cohen, a 22-year-old mother living in Sderot, Israel, asked that question of the UN Human Rights Council.  Her statement is in French; an English translation is posted below.

Thank you, Mr. President.

All human lives have equal value and all innocent suffering is tragic. Permit me to present my story, in the context of paragraphs 14 and 18 of the report.

I am a young mother who lives in Sderot, Israel. Every night, before falling asleep, I face the same dilemma. What will happen if a rocket falls on my son’s room? This crazy scenario is my daily life.

We have fifteen seconds between the alarm and the explosion. Fifteen seconds to run to the closest shelter. In which direction to go? How to react?

Every day the same thoughts haunt me. Will my son, who is only a year old, be safe at the nursery school during the day? And will I, his mother, be able to protect him at home?

A few months ago, I had an experience that I will never forget. That weekend, the attacks were incessant. And when the alarm sounded again, my husband and I, with our son in our arms, ran to the shelter. This is when the rocket hit the ground, only a few meters from our home.

The windows exploded, the walls trembled, and suddenly, we heard piercing screams. The leg of our eight-year old neighbour, Osher Twito, was instantly torn off. His eighteen year old brother was also seriously wounded. I will never forget their cries.

We are a city in shock. At school, at home, at the supermarket, 24 hours a day we are ready to run to the shelters or to throw ourselves on the floor as a way of protection.

In 2005, Israel fully withdrew from the Gaza Strip, in the hope of peace. In return, Palestinians chose the Hamas who, since that time, launched 4,637 rockets targeting innocent civilians, like me and my family. This is the root cause of the problem we are discussing today.

I would like to ask: Does my baby not have the right to be protected? Does he not have the right to life?

Thank you Mr. President.

Would any other Western country tolerate even a single rocket fired toward its territory?

h/t: A Deeper Look

A 17-year-old Iraqi girl who has been abused and exploited for much of her young life celebrated a very happy new year in Canada.

From a report by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHRC), datelined 31 December:

For any refugee, the chance to begin a new life in Canada is a coveted prize. But for Hiba [not her real name], wearing a huge smile as she approaches the departure gate at Damascus airport, the plane she’s about to board means leaving behind the unimaginable horror of rape, exploitation, human trafficking and prison – a lifetime of torment lived by the age of 17.

Hiba’s fate seemed to have been sealed when her mother left her with her father in Baghdad when she was just seven. When she was 15, he forced her into a mutaa marriage, or temporary marriage, with a cousin.

Under this traditional local custom, Hiba was informally married to her cousin for 48 hours, but he abandoned her after satisfying his lust. Her father refused to take her back.

Hiba’s father tricked her into going to Syria where, unbeknownst to her, he had sold her to a stranger who forced her into prostitution. When she became pregnant, she was tossed out on the streets of Damascus. She wound up in a rehabilitation centre for minors and then came to the attention of the UN Refugee Agency.

When the UNHRC sought a country to take Hiba in, Canada responded. That makes me proud to be a Canadian.

The story doesn’t specify anyone’s religion but mutaa, or temporary, marriage seems to be a custom unique to Islam. So, apparently, Hiba’s father is a Muslim.