Philosophical (and Theological) Classifications
"Philosophical classifications are not like labels for political parties that people officially join; at best, they point to a salient feature that systems that differ in many other ways have in common. Such groupings fail to rise to the level of natural kinds; they are closer to what Wittgenstein thought of as concepts based upon family resemblances. They should be understood as handy devices for abbreviated referenced rather than as the product of a deep analysis of a philosophical tendency.
Charles Landesman, Skepticism – The Central Issues, 2.
A Sermon for the President
From Blog and Mablog:
Ascension Sunday 2009
This Lord’s Day is Ascension Sunday, the day we have set apart to commemorate the exaltation of Jesus Christ to the right hand of the Ancient of Days. This was the day upon which He was given universal and complete authority over all nations and kings, when He was given all rule and authority, dominion and power. Our Lord’s name is the name which is high above every name, and His is the name that, when spoken, will cause every knee to bow, and every tongue to confess, that He is indeed Lord of heaven and earth. And, as we cannot emphasize too much, or say too often, this is no invisible spiritual truth. It is simply, undividedly, true. This means it is true in a way that makes it true on the most practical levels. It is true when church is over.
"It came to pass also in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit. Whom dost thou pass in beauty? go down, and be thou laid with the uncircumcised. They shall fall in the midst of them that are slain by the sword: she is delivered to the sword: draw her and all her multitudes. The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword" (Eze 32:17-21).
One of the visions that the prophet Ezekiel was given was that of a parliament of dead kings, assembled in the nether regions of Sheol—the Greek word for this place is Hades. The prophet was speaking of nations which had had their time of great glory under the sun, but which, inevitably, had descended below to an empty governance of shades and shadows, the empty governance of nothing that mattered. This reality is inescapable—in Augustine’s trenchant phrase, among the nations of men, the dead are replaced by the dying, and however splendid an empire might be for the moment, there is no future for any nation outside of Christ. History occurs on the inexorable conveyor belt of moving time. There is nothing that will shut this conveyor belt off, and so there is no device to allow one nation’s day of glory to be forever fixed. Glory cannot be kept or retained in that way at all. There is no future glory for any king or president, for any nation or people, outside of Christ. So for those who reject Christ, below the earth in the nether regions, we find nothing but wisps of lost glory, and above ground at some future date talented archeologists might be able to find the remnants of an Ozymandian ruin.
European Noblesse: France
Yet we must hang on to this proposition of historical fairness with our very teeth, defending it against momentary appearances: European noblesse—of feeling, of taste, of manners, taking the word, in short, in ever higher sense—is the work and invention of France; European vulgarity, the plebeianism of modern ideas, that of England.—
Friedrich Nietzshe, Beyond Good and Evil, section 253 (p. 192).
Speed and Time
Like many modern advances, the domination of time turns into its opposite; absolute control of time through absolute speed, speed for its own sake, leaves us feeling we have no control of time.
Peter Leithart, Solomon Among the Postmoderns, 42.
More than Salvation
This whole notion is rooted in the realization that Christianity is not just involved with “salvation” but with the total man in the total world. The Christian message begins with the existence of God forever and then with creation. It does not begin with salvation. We must be thankful for salvation, but the Christian message is more than that.
Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible, 89.
Gothic Africans??
Why did we ever force the Africans to use Gothic architecture? It’s a meaningless exercise. All we succeeded in doing was making Christianity foreign to the African. If a Christian artist is Japanese, his paintings should be Japanese, if Indian, Indian.
Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible, 76.
The Letter that got Mr. Stephen Boissoin in Big Trouble
The Following is the actual letter written by Rev. Stephen Boissoin who was at the time National Chairman of the Concerned Christian Coalition (now Concerned Christians Canada Inc.) It is this letter that has the Rev. Stephen Boissoin and Concerned Christians Canada Inc., (CCC) appearing before The Alberta Human Rights Commission.
Homosexual agenda wicked
Rev. Steven Boissoin
Central Alberta Chairman Concerned Christian Coalition
6/17/02
The following is not intended for those who are suffering from an unwanted sexual identity crisis. For you, I have understanding, care, compassion and tolerance. I sympathize with you and offer you my love and fellowship.
I prayerfully beseech you to seek help, and I assure you that your present enslavement to homosexuality can be remedied. Many outspoken, former homosexuals are free today.
Instead, this is aimed precisely at every individual that in any way supports the homosexual machine that has been mercilessly gaining ground in our society since the 1960s. I cannot pity you any longer and remain inactive. You have caused far too much damage.
My banner has now been raised and war has been declared so as to defend the precious sanctity of our innocent children and youth, that you so eagerly toil, day and night, to consume. With me stand the greatest weapons that you have encountered to date: God and the “Moral Majority.” Know this, we will defeat you, then heal the damage you have caused.
Modern society has become dispassionate to the cause of righteousness. Many people are so apathetic and desensitized today that they cannot even accurately define the term “morality.”
The masses have dug in and continue to excuse their failure to stand against horrendous atrocities such as the aggressive propagation of homo- and bisexuality. Inexcusable justifications such as, “I’m just not sure where the truth lies,” or “If they don’t affect me then I don’t care what they do,” abound from the lips of the quantifiable majority.
Face the facts, it is affecting you. Like it or not, every professing heterosexual is having their future aggressively chopped at the roots. Edmund Burke’s observation that, “All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing,” has been confirmed time and time again. From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.
Our children are being victimized by repugnant and premeditated strategies, aimed at desensitizing and eventually recruiting our young into their camps. Think about it, children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.
Your children are being warped into believing that same-sex families are acceptable; that men kissing men is appropriate.
Your teenagers are being instructed on how to perform so-called safe same gender oral and anal sex and at the same time being told that it is normal, natural and even productive. Will your child be the next victim that tests homosexuality positive?
Come on people, wake up! It’s time to stand together and take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness that our lethargy has authorized to spawn. Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds.
Regardless of what you hear, the militant homosexual agenda isn’t rooted in protecting homosexuals from “gay bashing.” The agenda is clearly about homosexual activists that include, teachers, politicians, lawyers, Supreme Court judges, and God forbid, even so-called ministers, who are all determined to gain complete equality in our nation and even worse, our world.
Don’t allow yourself to be deceived any longer. These activists are not morally upright citizens, concerned about the best interests of our society. They are perverse, self-centred and morally deprived individuals who are spreading their psychological disease into every area of our lives. Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them, are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities.
The homosexual agenda is not gaining ground because it is morally backed. It is gaining ground simply because you, Mr. and Mrs. Heterosexual, do nothing to stop it. It is only a matter of time before some of these same morally bankrupt individuals such as those involved with NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Lovers Association, will achieve their goal to have sexual relations with children and assert that it is a matter of free choice and claim that we are intolerant bigots not to accept it.
If you are reading this and think that this is alarmist, then I simply ask you this: how bad do things have to become before you will get involved? It’s time to start taking back what the enemy has taken from you. The safety and future of our children is at stake.
Rev. Stephen Boissoin
Central Alberta Chairman
Concerned Christian Coalition
The Glorification of Saint Thomas Aquinas
"This picture establishes the direct relationship between vision and knowledge for which the Dominican 
Aquinas had argued in his Summa Theologica. Just as we still use the phrase "I see" to mean "I understand," For Aquinas the word visio meant more than just vision. "This term," he writes, "in view of the special nature and certitude of sight, is extended in common usage to the knowledge of all the senses and it is even made to include intellectual knowledge, as in Matthew 5:8: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.'" The Pisa altarpiece, like most Gothic images, was not considered primarily as a work of art by its contemporaries, but as something far more powerful and instrumental, because of its capacity not just to reflect the world, but to reshape it in God's image."
-Michael Camille, Gothic Art - Glorious Visions, 25.
Illuminated Manuscripts
This brings us to the true function of decoration in a twelfth-century book. It was clearly not just because it was pretty. The twelfth century was an age which delighted in classification and ordering of knowledge. Its most admired writers, men like Peter Lombard and Gratian, arranged and shuffled information into order that was accessible and easy to use. Twelfth-century readers loved encyclopedias...Les us then consider book illumination in these terms. It suddenly becomes easy to understand. Initials mark the beginning of books or chapters (PL.85). They make a manuscript easy to use. It helps classify the priorities of the text...A newspaper does this today with headlines of different sizes...any reader of a modern newspaper will fiercely defend his choice of paper by praising the text, not the layout or illustrations. It is not surprising that the twelfth-century chroniclers from St. Albans, Lincoln, and Canterbury complimented the accuracy of manuscripts when what they meant was that they liked using them.
Christopher De Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts 99.
Cicero on the Sea
How beautiful again is the sea, and how splendid in its entirety, with its crowd and variety of islands, its picturesque coastlines and beaches! It is the home of so many different species of marine life, partly dwelling under water, partly floating and swimming on the surface, and partly encrusted on the rocks with its shells. The sea itself in its longing to embrace the land, sports on its shoreline, so that the two elements seem to merge into one.
Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book II
The Study of History
The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things rotten through and through, to avoid.
Livy, Roman historian
More Malmesbury
The early years of instruction he passed in liberal arts, and so thoroughly imbibed the sweets of learning, that no warlike commotions, no pressure of business, could ever erase them from his noble mind.
William of Malmesbury, book V, 125. said of Henry the I.
Indeed it is known, that, at the siege of Antioch, with a Lorrainian sword, he cut asunder a Turk, who had demanded single combat, and that one half of the man lay panting on the ground, while the horse, at full speed, carried away the other: so firmly the miscreant sat. Another also who attacked him he clave asunder from the neck to the groin, by taking aim at his head with a sword; nor did the dreadful stroke stop here, but cut entirely through the saddle, and the backbone of the horse.
William of Malmesbury, book IV, 394.
Being reproved and excommunicated for this [wife stealing] illicit amour, "You shall curl with a comb," said he, "the hair that has forsaken your forehead, ere I repudiate the viscountess;" thus taunting a man, whose scanty hair required no comb.
William of Malmesbury, book V, 469.
Here, also, the excess of your learning appears ; for, whilst you love books, you manifest how deeply you have drunk of the stream. For many things, indeed, are eagerly desired when not possessed, but no person will love philosophy, who shall not have imbibed it thoroughly."
William of Malmesbury, book V, 478. Said of Earl Robert.
Baptism of Clovis
The Franks "born with the baptism of Clovis" are not the Franks of Charlemagne or those of the French people Jean Le Pen hope to really around his political movement...The peoples of Europe are a work in progress and always will be.
Patrick J. Geary, Myth of Nations,157.
Patriatism in Gaul’s civitates
The cultivation of a provincial identity is most obvious in the literature composed in Gaul in the fourth century through the early sixth century...--and Sidonius (ca. 430-484)--an aristocrat from Lyon--expressed their deepest feelings not for Rome, or even for Gaul, but for their particular cities. Ausonius sings the praises of his beloved Bordeaux while Sidonius focuses on the Auvergne. Across Gaul, expressions of love for the patria focused not on Rome or even the chimeric "Gaul," beloved of French nationalist historians, but, rather, on Marseille, Narbonne, Trier, Lyon, or other civitates.
- Patrick J. Geary, The Myth of Nations - The Medieval Origins of Europe, 104.
Urban Civilization
In the High Middle Ages--the twelfth and thirteenth centuries--the towns would become the foci of a rich, vibrant culture. Two of the greatest glories of the high medieval civilization, the cathedral and the university, were both characteristically urban.
C Warren Hollister, The Making of England, 79.
William of Malmesbury
The industry and forbearance of this man, any one will admire who reads the book which Bede composed concerning his life and those of the succeeding abbats: his industry, in bringing over a multitude of books, and being the first person who introduced in England constructors of stone edifices, as well as makers of glass windows ; in which pursuits he spent almost his whole life abroad : the love of his country and his taste for elegance beguiling his painful labours, in the earnest desire of conveying something to his countrymen out of the common way ; for very rarely before the time of Benedict were buildings of stone seen in Britain, nor did the solar ray cast light through the transparent glass.
- William of Malmesbury, Book II, chapter III
It has been made evident, I think, what disgrace and what destruction the neglect of learning and the immoral manners of degenerate men brought upon England! These remarks obtain this place in my history merely for the purpose of cautioning my readers.
- William of Malmesbury, Book II, chapter III
The searcher of my heart is witness that it was not for lust of gold that I came to France or continued there, but for the necessities of the church.
-Alcuin, William of Malmesbury, Book II, chapter III
