Agape Love in Psalm 22

This Psalm was authored by David about 1000 years before Christ.

For the director of music. To the tune of "The Doe of the Morning." A psalm of David. 

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?

My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, 
by night, but I find no rest.

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the praise of Israel.

In you our ancestors put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.

They cried to you and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

But I am a worm, not a human being; 
I am scorned by everyone, despised by the people.

All who see me mock me; 
they hurl insults, shaking their heads.

"He trusts in the LORD," they say, 
"let the LORD rescue him. 
Let him deliver him, 
since he delights in him."

Yet you brought me out of the womb; 
you made me feel secure on my mother's breast.

From birth I was cast on you; 
from my mother's womb you have been my God.

Do not be far from me, 
for trouble is near 
and there is no one to help.

Many bulls surround me; 
strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

Roaring lions that tear their prey 
open their mouths wide against me.

I am poured out like water, 
and all my bones are out of joint. 
My heart has turned to wax; 
it has melted within me.

My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, 
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; 
you lay me in the dust of death.

Dogs surround me, 
a pack of villains encircles me; 
they pierce my hands and my feet.

All my bones are on display; 
people stare and gloat over me.

They divide my clothes among them 
and cast lots for my garment.

But you, LORD, do not be far from me. 
You are my strength; come quickly to help me.

Deliver me from the sword, 
my precious life from the power of the dogs.

Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; 
save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

I will declare your name to my people; 
in the assembly I will praise you.

You who fear the LORD, praise him! 
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! 
Revere him, 
all you descendants of Israel!

For he has not despised or scorned 
the suffering of the afflicted one; 
he has not hidden his face from him 
but has listened to his cry for help.

From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; 
before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows.

The poor will eat and be satisfied; 
those who seek the LORD will praise him—
       may your hearts live forever!

All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before him,

for dominion belongs to the LORD 
and he rules over the nations.

All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; 
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him— 
those who cannot keep themselves alive.

Posterity will serve him; 
future generations will be told about the Lord.

They will proclaim his righteousness, 
declaring to a people yet unborn: 
He has done it!

(Posted by Trask)

Good Friday Prayer of Love

In recognition of Good Friday, this is a wonderful prayer from the Catholic Doors Ministry.

O Jesus,
it is not the heavenly reward You have promised
which impels me to love You;
neither is it the threat of hell
that keeps me from offending You.
It is You O Lord,
it is the sight of You
affixed to the Cross and suffering insults;
it is the sight of Your broken body,
as well as Your pains and Your death.
There is nothing You can give me
to make me love You.
For even if there were no heaven and no hell
I would still love you as I do!

(Posted by Trask)

Violence and Respect

In a recent episode of South Park, a title card explained: "Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network." "In light of recent events, we feel we made the right decision," Comedy Central said in a statement Thursday.

Without going too far into the debate over free speech v. respect for persons deeply held personal beliefs, I would like to point out that in the U.S., we tolerate disrespectful, offensive, and hateful speech in order to preserve truthful, wholesome and democratic speech. etc. etc. So its clear that Comedy Central, as well as South Park has the right to either air or not air these episodes.

Of course in my eyes, it is pretty mean spirited to constantly attack other persons beliefs. There are better ways of doing it than having cartoons of a menstruating statue of the Virgin Mary and all of the Jesus episodes too numerous to count. But you know what, those types of episodes make it on the air. sometimes people protest so much (as the catholics did because of the Virgin Mary episode) that the network won't replay it. It will be interesting to see if this episode that merely shows the Mohammed handing a football to someone will be replayed later when the muslim world is not paying attention to stupid cartoons and have better things to worry about.

Now the crux of this post: Should Comedy Central prevent material that is offensive to one group or another only when violence is threatened. Or if violence is threatened that the U.S. legal system has no control over? Remember, I'm not saying that they should have aired these cartoons! I question one thing though. In terms of making things in the international scene worse, Media (I'm grouping Comedy Central with CBS now) has a double standard. Maybe its justifiable. When violence is the result of our speech, we should step back a bit. It does not mean that people should act violently to get what they want, even though this is the message that comes across on the surface. There is another message that comes across though. The fact that true Christians do not riot and kill persons when they are angry about something is exactly how Jesus taught us to act. That message rings loud and clear to anyone watching.

There is another double standard besides offensive activity to christians v. muslims. It is the double standard of censoring some acts which might cause violence and promoting others. Why would media refuse to show mohammed cartoons, yet publish and distribute widely pictures of what a few prison guards did in Iraq? Why would they continuously use the word torture to describe acts in our prison in Cuba when it is clear that the word is way to expansive to cover the activity going on there. (ie: forcing somebody to eat in Guantanamo when they are on a hunger strike is not even remotely close to slashing someone's head or starving someone, yet somehow using the expansive word torture to describe what occurs at Guantanamo is acceptable to U.S. media elites and Academics). If they were truly worried about harm from riots or even to those persons in Guantanamo (prisoners and prison guards), then they would also refrain from showing these pictures. What occured in the prisons in Iraq was wrong, and there are ways to stop that without publishing the pictures. Some in the media and academia feel they have love for the enemy by striving to ensure they are treated properly and are not disrespected as human beings. I applaud that. But they need to learn that having love for their (the mainstream media's) enemies includes loving those who fight for the United States.

Posted by Summa Theologiae

An Agape Solution: Market-Based Universal Health Care

The Washington Times is reporting that the governor of Massachusetts has just approved legislation that will require mandatory health insurance in the state.

Gov. Mitt Romney yesterday signed a sweeping health care bill that will require every Massachusetts resident to be insured, a move that has divided conservative policy strategists.
    The new law will set up a market-based universal health care system that will require everyone to carry a minimum level of insurance from a large number of private companies, enforced through the state tax return.
    Premiums would be set on a sliding income scale beginning as low as $10 per week for the lowest income groups among the state’s estimated 550,000 uninsured, with full subsidies for those who cannot afford it.
    Mr. Romney says the plan will create a larger insurance risk pool that will lower premiums for all and offer broader consumer choices among private-sector products that will be “nearly 50 percent less expensive” than existing plans.
    Everyone “must either purchase a product of their choice or demonstrate that they can pay for their own health care. It’s a personal responsibility principle,” he wrote Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal.
    Others have compared the new law to state requirements that all drivers have auto insurance, laws that coexist with a free market in auto insurance.

I will first provide a definition of an Agape Solution. An Agape Solution is an attempt to deal with some important social problem out of love for neighbor, which uses the free market to solve the problem. Both libertarians and liberals are incorrect in their approaches to social problems. Libertarians are wrong because they generally oppose taking collective action to assist people who are in need. However, according to Christian ethics, just taking actions that do not harm other people is grossly insufficient.

In the Old Testament law, there were numerous requirements for people to take affirmative steps to assist those in need: (1) “Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan.” (Ex. 22:22); (2) “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not treat it like a business deal; charge no interest.” (Ex. 22:25); (3) “If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it.” (Ex. 23:24); (4) “For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it . . . . ” (Ex. 23:10-11); (5) “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the LORD your God.” (Lev. 19:9-10) (6) “Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.” (Lev. 26:10) (7) “At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.” (Deut. 15:1) (8) “If any of your people, men or women, sell themselves to you and serve you six years, in the seventh year you must let them go free.” (Deut 15:12).

Jesus also revealed to us the importance of assisting the those in need in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:30-37)

Assisting people who are in need is a necessary element of the command to lover others, and there is no reason why in the context of government there is any less of a need to take active steps to assist people in need than there is for private actors.

Liberals are just as bad as libertarians in their approach to social problems. Liberals claim that they are concerned about these problems, but they propose solutions that only make the problems worst. They believe that it is possible to expand the size of government indefinitely without producing problems. They do not understand that the free market is the only effective means of ordering a society since in the world that we exist, people will only be productive if they are provided with an incentive to be productive. The experiments of Soviet Communism and European Socialism have revealed that radical government regulatory schemes and price controls will only produce more problems than they attempt to solve, which is why the unemployment rate is always infinitely higher in these nations than the United States. Liberals also believe that the government is often better suited to solve problems than the market, which is why, for example, they oppose school choice. However, the government will almost never be able to operate as effectively as the private sector since the government will never have the same amount of accountability as the private sector because it does not have to compete for its survival.

The mandatory health insurance plan adopted by Massachusetts is an Agape Solution since it attempts to solve an important social problem out of love for neighbor by using the free market to solve the problem. It is a very simple plan that is similar to what state governments already require for car insurance. The government requires that everybody have health insurance, and the government provides assistance based on income level to those people who do not have the resources to purchase their own health insurance. The government does not create its own solution by creating a government run system. It just requires all people to get private coverage, and it provides enough resources for low-income people to be able to afford the private coverage. Therefore, everyone is covered by health insurance, and it is accomplished in the most efficient way possible since health insurers in the free market will now have to compete to provide the best services. The expansion of government will be limited since the benefits are means tested, and the government allows the private sector to do most of the work. The best solutions use logic to increase love. As Bono (U2) says in Miracle Drug, “I am you and you are mine / Love makes nonsense of space / And time… will disappear / Love and logic keep us clear / Reason is on our side, love…”

(Posted by Trask)