Isn't it ironic?

From Fox News (read Fox Sports), this non-news story: NFL, Giants Stadium in Hot Water for Breast-Baring Ritual Among Fans. Male fans have apparently made a ritual out of yelling at women to lift their shirts. In its comprehensive coverage, Fox News trots out an expert on who-knows-what for a statement:

Feminist writer Naomi Wolf lambasted the "Girls Gone Wild" types of stadium shenanigans as "barbaric" and "reprehensible," and said the practice could lead to sexual violence.

"This is a sign of the degradation of public morality in America," the "Beauty Myth" author fumed during a FOX News Channel panel discussion. "I don’t want my daughter to be exposed to this."

Wolf is fuming for good reason, and her observations hit the nail on the head. It's a "barbaric" and "reprehensible" practice, and "a sign of the degradation of public morality." But this is not some unexplainable phenomenon. Let's look at what these males and females have been told over and over by the feminist agenda as they were growing up.

Males, you're a bunch of dummies who can't be expected to keep your sexual urges in check.

Females, your sexuality is your power as a free woman - your body is yours to do what you want with.

This kind of behaviour is a result (at least in part) of the free sexuality preached by feminists. Wolf can not stomach the logical result of her own faith. Let's not even go into the irony of a feminist worrying about public morality.

Infidel: On Women

Hirsi Ali hates and fights against the oppression of women in Islam. Based on the Qur'an, a woman's life in Islamic society is owned and directed by her husband or, if she is unmarried, her father, brothers, or the next closest male relatives. Beatings have precedence in the Qur'an, so she may be subject to physical abuse. Contact with men from outside her family is not allowed. It is forbidden and dangerous to be in public without the escort of a male family member. Men and women are not considered to be equal in the eyes of Allah.

Ah, yes - equality. A word so twisted by people in order to shut down debate that it is misunderstood. The fact is that women and men are not equal, just like apples and oranges are not equal - they're different. That's not to say that there are no aspects of equality; Apples and oranges are equal with respect to their being fruit. The questions are: How different? Different In what ways? How equal? Equal in what ways?

With regard to creation and salvation, there is no difference between man and woman.

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26-28)

With respect to almost everything else, man and woman are unequal. This is not a surprise to anyone. In many ways, they're aliens to each other, from different planets - as the saying goes, Men are from Mars, women from Venus. Man and woman are physiologically, psychologically, and socially very different. The Bible also says that they were created with different roles:

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Ephesians 5:22-24)

So one is a leader, the other a responder. This does not make one superior and the other inferior. There is no room in the Bible for a male superiority complex. How is a man to relate to his wife? The very next verse says:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her... In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. (Ephesians 5:25, 28)

The relationship is exemplified by Christ - "love your wives just as Christ loved the church" - and is characterized by sacrifice - "and gave himself up for her". Not domination, but sacrifice. A biblical burden is here placed on man - to follow the example of Christ, the leader of the church. And his relationship with the church is one of love, service, and sacrifice. There is no room for selfishness or abuse.

In addition, the Bible describes women as active in the home, the church, and in society. She is not hidden. Proverbs 31 describes "the wife of noble character". Among her many good attributes and actions is this:

She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. (Proverbs 31:16)

She is active in commerce as well. Of course, this is kept in balance with her other responsibilities:

She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls... She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. (Proverbs 31:15, 27)

And this is the rub for Hirsi Ali and others who subscribe to the feminist philosophy. They don't want to accept the biblical roles. Yet, this is the way God created it, and he saw that it was very good (Genesis 1:31). As Proverbs 31 shows, this arrangement is to the praise of God, to the benefit of man, woman, and children, and to the benefit of society.

Just a Harmless Kids' Book

J.K. Rowling, author of the very popular and successful Harry Potter series of books, announced Friday that master wizard Albus Dumbledore, a prominent character in the series, is gay, FoxNews.com reports in this article.

Many people will shrug their shoulders and say, "Why is this even news?" Many more will say, "It's just a harmless kids' book. We're talking about a fictional character here!" Indeed, if some far-right extremist fundamentalist Christian would dare to mention it, he or she would be accused of making mountains out of molehills, looking for fights to pick.

But those homophobes are too late. Those comfortable with promotion of homosexual behaviour beat them to the mountain-making. In case we were naive enough to think that this is an inconsequential fictional event, they make it quite clear:

"Jo Rowling calling any Harry Potter character gay would make wonderful strides in tolerance toward homosexuality," Melissa Anelli, Webmaster of the fan site http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org, told The Associated Press. "By dubbing someone so respected, so talented and so kind, as someone who just happens to be also homosexual, she's reinforcing the idea that a person's gayness is not something of which they should be ashamed."

The fact that these advances of the homosexual agenda are taking place in a book for children don't make them insignificant; they are by that fact the more insidious. I can not comment on Rowling's motivation, but it certainly can't hurt to have this influential lobby line up behind her new book.

Infidel: On Submission

Islam means "submission", and Hirsi Ali's experience of Islam was one marked by submission in many aspects of life. In the first place, this submission refers to the relation of the individual Muslim to Allah.

In Islam, unlike in Christianity and Judaism, the relationship of the individual to God is one of total submission, slave to master. To Muslims, worship of God means total obedience to Allah's rules and total abstinence from the thoughts and deeds that He has declared forbidden in the Quran. (p. 313)

"Unlike in Christianity"? No way - the God of the Bible also requires no less than total submission and total obedience:

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7)

Do not be stiff-necked, as your fathers were; submit to the LORD. Come to the sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever. Serve the LORD your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you. (2 Chronicles 30:8)

You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 18:4)

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. (Romans 6:22)

The relationship between God and the individual is indeed one of master and slave. So what's the difference? It is at the same time a relationship of mutual love, even between a Father and His children.

Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. (Exodus 19:5)

Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always. (Deuteronomy 11:1)

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:11)

This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven...' (Matthew 6:9)

How is this possible? Jesus says:

I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. (John 8:34)

One is either a slave to sin, or a slave to God. God's slaves have to keep his entire law. But no mere man can:

There is no one righteous, not even one. (Romans 3:10)

Who could fully submit to and obey the laws of the almighty God in our place? And who could pay the penalty for our sins and earn his love for us? Jesus Christ, the Son of God born as man:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. (John 6:38)

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. (Hebrews 2:9)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

So there is no tension between an almighty, holy, demanding God, and a loving, forgiving, and merciful Father. And there is no tension between loving and serving Him.

Infidel: Conclusion

In the end, Hirsi Ali's legitimate questioning and objections with regard to her experience of Islam lead her too far to the other side. She hated the oppression of women in Islam, so she embraced feminist philosophies. She took her experience of Islam to be indicative of a problem with all organized religions, and thus embraced a supposed non-religious view a la Freud et al. And this overreaction brought her further from the truth.

But there are answers to her questions. There is truth; there are absolutes. They are from one Source, and one Source only. That Source is perfect, consistent and true. He is more powerful, more mighty, more holy than Allah in all the glory she previously attributed to him. And His Word allays all the fears and silences all the objections raised by Hirsi Ali with regard to Islam and organized religion in general. I hope to work this out in a series of blogs on what the Bible has to say about a few of these fears and objections.

Infidel: On Religion

Hirsi Ali's many nagging questions about the truth of Islam eventually led her to atheism. It's interesting that as she describes giving up on religion, she makes this statement:

From now on I could step firmly on the ground that was under my feet and navigate based on my own reason and self-respect. My moral compass was within myself, not in the pages of some sacred book. (p. 281)

Hirsi Ali, like everyone else, can not go into some sort of religious vacuum. We can't empty ourselves of religion. Humans come with a sense of morality, eternity, and the existence of God built in. God's Word says:

He has also set eternity in the hearts of men. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

So Hirsi Ali is not really giving up on religion; in the place of one god, she sets up another. Where she once worshipped at the altar of Allah, she now worships at the altar of earthly reason and "self-respect". She closed the Qur'an - "some sacred book", only to open Spinoza, Locke, Kant, Mill, Voltaire, Russell, and Popper - the Qur'ans of humanism. She professes the ridiculously oxymoronic creed of relativism: "There are no absolutes." And so the religious vacuum is filled.

Infidel: Logical Disconnect

While working for a think tank of the Dutch Labor Party, Hirsi Ali delved into the patterns of immigration, integration and assimilation in Holland. She recognized a real problem with the way the Muslim immigrants were withdrawing themselves into closed communities and disproportionately taxing the welfare system and committing crime. And she noticed that this pattern of living was being propogated by independent Muslim schools. And so she suggested abolishing Article 23 of the Dutch Constitution, which permits faith-based schools (p. 280).

This is a clear example of Hirsi Ali throwing out the baby with the bath water. Were all faith-based schools guilty of the same things? This seems also to be a point of inconsistency in Hirsi Ali's logic. Much of her research indicated that there was a particular problem with Islam and Muslims. She acknowledged this fact. She passionately wanted to show that the Muslim situation was different than others. Yet, in the case of faith-based schools, she attributes the particular problems of Muslim schools to all other faith-based schools by seeking to abolish the provision under which they were established.