The Episcopal Church

Infinita Highway

When I lived in Brazil, there was a very popular song by a group called Engenheiros do Hawaii that became something of a standard for a generation. The lyrics are not particularly deep nor the tune particularly complex, but the song has the classical four chords and some very nice alliterations that sound particularly good in Portuguese, with something of a modern angst message, couched in a love song, as many Brazilian popular songs were at the time.

Here are two versions, the first, by the original band, a very good "MTV Unplugged" version done in 2004, seventeen years after the original release. They sound like a mix of Sister Golden Hair America and Legião Urbana around the time of O Descobrimento do Brasil.

The second is a pretty awful distorted-guitar motion-sickness-inducing version by some nerd monkey who almost gets the lyrics right...

I'll have the definitive version with a slideshow next week.

Homosexuality, Abortion and Contraception

In a culture of contraception, we're all sodomites.

Anyone wishing to fight abortion and the homosexual agenda must fight from a position that fully embraces the Scriptural and Natural Law principles of the Culture of Life, and God's Will for families and human sexuality. Homosexual acts are condemned in Scripture and Christian moral theology because they violate Natural Law. Any non-procreative sex violates the purpose of sexuality in God's Plan and also violates Natural Law. Therefore any Christian living a lifestyle that embraces non-procreative sex has no moral standing from which to condemn other forms of non-procreative sex, such as homosexuality. Like homosexual acts, contraceptive sex is inherently sinful because it is inherently not open to life. Any pro-family or pro-life Christian that at once condemns homosexual sex yet permits contraceptive married sex as licit will fail in their ministry. They have no moral ground on which to stand.

The Protestant Reformers called contraceptive married sex, even by Christian couples, a Sodomitic Sin. Martin Luther and John Calvin are recognized as fathers of the Protestant Reformation, and John Wesley was the founder of Methodism. Their comments on Genesis 38 illustrate how far removed modern Christianity is from a proper understanding of the gravely sinful nature of contraceptive sex.

Martin Luther (1483 to 1546) - "Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest or adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes into her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed."

John Calvin (1509 to 1564) - "Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. This wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and as cruel as shamefully has thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race."

John Wesley (1703 to 1791) - "Onan, though he consented to marry the widow, yet to the great abuse of his own body, of the wife he had married and the memory of his brother that was gone, refused to raise up seed unto the brother. Those sins that dishonour the body are very displeasing to God, and the evidence of vile affections. Observe, the thing which he did displeased the Lord - And it is to be feared, thousands, especially single persons, by this very thing, still displease the Lord, and destroy their own souls.

Contraception was considered by all of Christianity to be as atrocious as incest, adultery, and sodomy itself. For Christians to justify "contraception" they must embrace a philosophy that is unscriptural and inherently "against life." Further, as the Supreme Court admitted in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, "in some critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraceptives...people have organized intimate relationships...in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail." The Supreme Court at least understood that contraceptives will always fail, and abortion was necessary in a nation living under the contraceptive mentality, in order to "fix" the "failures."

http://www.marysremnant.org/Friends/DBK/BKHomoCondone.html

See also:

Children of the Reformation:
A Short & Surprising History of Protestantism & Contraception
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=20-04-020-f

Birth Control and Genesis 38
A look at Onan's sin and punishment
http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/birthcontrol.html

In A Nutshell

At some point in time, maybe I'll take the time to write about what an utterly disastrous pick Sarah Palin was for McCain, fatal to his chances.

In the mean time, here's a photo that probably captures at least part of the dynamic involved in his choice...

Frank Sinatra: Summer Wind

Frank Sinatra: Under My Skin

Domino, Lewis and Charles: Jambalaya

DOMINO, J.L. LEWIS, R. CHARLES Jambalaya
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