A USA Today editorial (June 1) referred to the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” tactic as a “prejudicial policy.” Perhaps so, but the armed forces live by a set of rules designed for their particular needs and purposes, not society’s with its democratic guidelines.

There is an alternative solution to the military’s homosexual dilemma overlooked thus far. I’m referring to the Sacred Band of Thebes, made up of 150 pairs of male lovers, judged to have been the finest fighting force in the ancient world.

They were unbeatable for forty years (378-338 BCE), during which time Thebes became the most powerful of the Greek city-states. With the Sacred Band, Thebes defeated a Spartan army three times its size at Tegyra in 375 BCE. The Battle of Leuktra, fought in 371 BCE, saw the Thebans once again defeating the Spartans.

For the record, Sparta was in its glory a century earlier. Schoolchildren, at least in my day, learned about King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans holding off the vast Persian army under Xerxes at the pass of Thermopylae in 480 BCE.

The Sacred Band was finally annihilated by Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander at the Battle of Chaeronea  in 338 BCE.

In the current climate, the mere idea of  segregated military units, i.e.,  homosexual and lesbian brigades, would have the homosexual community, and the Left, up in arms. Yet, it would be a step back to normalcy.

The secular humanists and their allies, which includes the homosexual/lesbian groups, have been chipping away at our American  Judeo-Christian worldview since the ’60s. Our society is heterosexual, with a homosexual representation  of about 2-3 percent. However, the homosexual/lesbian element is inching its way toward cultural parity. Integrating them in the armed forces would, like same-sex marriage, be a giant step toward their goal. We have our own pass of Thermopylae to defend.

Then there is the not so unrelated issue of whether women in the military should be limited to support roles or be allowed to serve in direct combat.

Militant feminists push for the latter. They charge that male-only combat forces are discriminatory, reminiscent of the racial segregation of the armed services before Truman integrated the ranks in 1948 with Executive Order 9981.

They point to Israeli women who engaged in combat during the Independence War of 1948, ignoring the fact that since then women, although drafted along with men into Tzahal, the Israel Defense Forces, have been limited to support roles. The Israelis learned quickly that the male-female combat mix was not a good idea.

Women, of course, have distinguished themselves in wars down through the ages. In Islamic history, the celebrated woman warrior Nusaybah bint Ka’b helped save Muhammad during the bloody Battle of Uhud in 625 CE.

The judge Deborah, another warrior-woman, with her general, Barak, led an army that defeated Sisera’s Canaanites in 1125 BCE.

Boudicca (or Boudica) a Celtic warrior queen, led the last revolt against the Romans in Britain (60-61 CE). She burned Londinium (now London) to the ground and also Camulodunum (today’s Colchester in Essex) and Verulamium (near today’s St. Albans in Hertfordshire), before she and her army were defeated.

Christendom has Saint Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans, who led the French army to several key victories during the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453).

Besides accounts of women fighting alongside men and leading men into battle, there are tales of entire fighting forces composed solely of women.

Most intriguing are the stories about the Amazons. The eminent historian Edith Hamilton (The Greek Way; The Roman Way) considered them to be legend.

Elizabeth E. Bacon, in Central Asians Under Russian Rule, rejected the idea that there ever was a tribe of women warriors (in Scythia, now Ukraine), but points out that women have functioned in supportive roles on the battlefield.

On the other hand, we know that Dahomean women served as warriors. Sir Richard Burton, in the 1860s, documents this for us, and stories of Dahomean women’s ferocity in battle have been recorded by French soldiers who had to fight against them early in the 20th century. (Dahomey is now part of the Republic of Benin in West Africa.)

Whether or not women should be given a combat role depends on how a particular society decides to socialize its women.

During his time in office, President Bill Clinton integrated the sexes in the armed forces. Perhaps he had acquired an androgynous vision of our species, surrounded as he was by militant feminists, which included wife Hillary.

But then again, our society has been masculinizing females and demasculinizing the male for several decades; so what Clinton did wasn’t unexpected in our changing times.

In our new world, women are given little or no preparation for marriage and motherhood, ignoring the fact that motherhood is Mother Nature’s design for the distaff side of our species.

Margaret Mead, one of the grandes dames of Women’s Lib, would be ecstatic to see how women now place career above all else.

National Public Radio has as one of its sign-offs: “A great nation deserves great art.” That’s something our nation doesn’t have. What we do have is pedestrian art, gutter art, protest art…

In music, George and Ira Gershwin, Samuel Butler, Irving Berlin, Aaron Copland, John Philip Sousa, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, et cetera, have given way to rappers and other junk music composers.

Literature has yielded to grade-school scribblings and scatological tales, while poetry has been stripped of rhyme and meter. Once we had Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melvlle, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Emily Dickinson….

Classical art (painting) has been replaced by modern art, e.g., the abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and his action painting. His No. 5, 1948 sold for $140 million in 2006, demonstrating once again that people no longer know the value of things.

And Harry Moses’  2006 documentary film Who the Fuck Is Jackson Pollock? re-affirms that the f word, like bacteria on our skin and in our large bowel, thrives everywhere in our culture.

We’re back to the f word, which launched the two previous blogs.

The f word, after all, is protected, like the bald eagle, Southwestern willow flycatcher, and Salt Creek tiger beetle, not by the Endangered Species Act, of course, but by the majesty of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech….” And the free speech clause trumps just about everything.

We once had obscenity laws – before the current fanatical devotion to (and abuse of) the free speech clause – which kept the f word out of public discourse. The laws went out when the new paganism came in.

If a great nation deserves great art but doesn’t have it, what does that say about that nation? Perhaps it has lost its claim to greatness.

Part I concluded with Rhett Butler, in Gone With The Wind, uttering the earth-shattering, or rather Hays Code-shattering, “damn.” Will Hays’  hallowed censorship code had been pierced. Gradually, it would be ripped to shreds.

“Damn,” as in ESPN’s The Best Damn Sports Show, is at one end of the foul language spectrum, with robust obscenities at the other. “Darn” was what one articulated when angry or frustrated during America’s age of innocence.

Expressions like “Screw you!” pass under most people’s radar, as does Bernard Godlberg’s use of “screw” as a verb in the title of his book, 110 People Who Are Screwing Up America. Half a century ago, Goldberg’s title would have been something along the lines of: 110 People Who Are Befouling America.

When civility and good taste still prevailed, a screw was something found in a hardware store; its employment as a sexual verb was reserved for private conversation.

Along came the revolution, the great adolescent rebellion of the ’60s, which produced a social upheaval of monumental proportions.

Centuries of struggle to dignify the American branch of our species suddenly went into reverse. In Freudian language, it was the triumph of the id over the superego.

Freud is a name that holds little meaning for most young people of this age, even though they may be using such terms as ego, id, and superego; these are constructs Freud  introduced to divide up the mind in his structural theory.

The id is the mind’s pit, the reservoir of our base instincts and primitive drives. The superego is the moral/ethical component of the personality. Ego, the I, what one is, does a balancing act between the id and superego. Hopefully, the superego, one’s conscience, will grow at the expense of the id. “Where id was, there shall ego be [a well-rounded I],” wrote Freud in 1923. But you have to work at it to make it happen. Superego development is essential to the ego’s growth.

In the past, societal edicts, stemming from superego-derived controls, kept foul language in check and out of public discourse. But the national superego isn’t what it ued to be.

Today we hear the f-word and the s-word on radio, television, and in the movies. And the a-word, b-word, c-word…

The a-word was never uttered in polite circles in my day. When referring to the gluteal region, “buttocks” or “behind” were the words generally chosen. The four-footed jackass, Equus asinus, was invariably called a “donkey,” but Matthew’s wording of Jesus entering Jerusalem “riding on an ass” was accepted, since it came out of Holy Writ.

The c-word, by the way, is “crap,” a synonym for the s-word. I recall when Laura Ingraham (Laura Ingraham Show on radio) cut a caller off because of his repeated use of the c-word. She was irate.

Several years ago, Rush Limbaugh exchanged “You’re a bastard!” outbursts with a hate-Rush caller who wasted no time launching into an angry tirade against the radio talk show host.

Limbaugh, who used to drop a “hell” here and there, now does so more frequently; and the anger in his voice is plainly evident.

Then there’s the p-word, “pissed off.” Ugh! Since when does urinary flow reflect one’s emotional state? The baby boomers, who gave us this vulgarism, never got over their infantile/childish fascination for body fluids (and body orifices).

It is the stored-up anger behind the use of off-color words that we should be paying attention to. In psychiatry, we have a term that is a propos: lalochezia, emotional relief stemming from the use of indecent language.

We, the elders of America, weren’t Little Lord (and Lady) Fauntleroys in our youth. We acquired the same street vocabulary that all generations do, except we learned to curb our tongue. We were taught to do so.

The widespread use of foul language is one symptom of an unhealthy society. The Founding Fathers who fashioned our Constitution were aware that the document they were creating would only work for a virtuous people.

PostScript: The dictionary defines virtue as “moral excellence and righteousness.” To quote Edmund Burke (18th cent.): ” But what is liberty without… virtue? It [becomes] the greatest of all possible evils….”

Isaac Rosenbloom, a 30-year-old student at Hinds Community College in Jackson, Mississippi, was miffed that he got a lower grade on a speech assignment than he had expected.

In his frustration, he sounded off with the f-word. His professor, within earshot, was more than mildly irritated on hearing the expletive and remanded him to the dean’s office.

Wet-noodled by the college’s doyen, the unhappy Rosenbloom turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education  (FIRE) to defend his right, as an adult, to use off-color words.

FIRE raised the question, “Is it constitutional for an institution of higher learning to impose a limit on speech for its students or employees?”

A few days later, on Sunday, May 23rd, which was Pentecost in the Christian world, I was listening to Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion on National Public Radio while on a long drive.

He was doing his weekly monologue on the latest news from  Lake Wobegone, his fictional home town somewhere in the depths of Minnesota. Across the street from the village’s most prominent hash house was an old relic of a telephone booth, he was saying, seldom used anymore for its designed purpose, but a haven for guys who dart into it to — prepare for another f-word — “fart.” (Howls of laughter from the audience.)

Yes, Garrison Keillor, too, makes use of his right to speak freely. You might think, though, that an “English major,” as he reminds listeners regularly, and someone who at least gives the impression of being in possession of manners, would choose a more appropriate expression for flatuence, such as “pass gas” or “break wind.”

There are, of course, many other such everyday illustrations of foul language spouted throughout the realm. What the issue boils down to  is: free speech rights versus verbal decorum [from L. decorus, "right, proper"].

It’s a far cry from the good old days at the local Bijou. When Rhett Butler uttered his memorable exit words to Scarlett O’Hara in 1939’s Gone With The Wind, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” a nation gasped.

The Production Code (Hays Code), film land’s guardian of celluloid purity, was then amended to make room for such words as “hell” and “damn” for what the movie moguls termed “special considerations.”

Creeping linguistic freedom would wear down Hollywood’s censorship barriers over the ensuing years, until finally profanity would become one of the staples of movie making.

Hardly anyone gives the matter of crass language a second thought nowadays, whether in film, TV, radio, or everyday conversation. What’s even more frustrating for the few purists, the young, in particular, aren’t even aware of what constitutes coarse, vulgar, and offensive language.

Well, maybe there are more than a few among us who do fret over America’s descent into a culture of profanity.  Part II of “Watch Your Language!” will illustrate how the Great Depression-World War II generation handled — or avoided – common obscenities.

A 2003 Harris Poll estimated that 16% of Americans had one or more tattoos. With a population of roughly 300 million, that would be about 48 million people.

According to a 2006 Pew Research Center study, 36% of Americans between 18 and 25, and 40% between 26 and 40, had at least one tattoo.

Pollster Mark Penn, in his 2007 book   Mirotrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes, came up with a figure of  30-million tattooed Americans, adding that one in three of those living in the country between the ages of 25 and 29 has a tattoo.

Compare the above figures with the number of tattooed Hebrews comprising the 12 tribes at Mount Sinai: zero. Moses was quite clear on the matter. In the Book of Leviticus 19:28, he wrote: “You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you.”

The first of these two body disfigurements referred to a mourning ritual found among pagans of the day. The prohibition against tattooing is clearly worded in the second half of the Leviticus quote.

God took a long time bringing  our species, Homo sapiens,  into being, and He did not intend to have us disfigure the body He had in mind. Paul makes the divine point in 2 Corinthians 6:16: “We are a temple of the living God.” One does not defile a temple.

We can deduce that something on the order of 48-million Americans are either ignorant of or indifferent to the tattooing proscription in Leviticus.

Regardless of whether the ballpark figure is 30 million or 40 million, Mark Penn’s point about microtrends should not be ignored: 1%, or 3 million of the nation’s population, can start a trend, and a trend can lead to a movement.

Tattooing is well beyond the  microtrend level. Where it is going, no one can say. Perhaps it will turn out to be a fad, reminiscent of the goldfish swallowing craze of 1939 and the telephone booth packing of the 1950s.

Psychologists say that body modification, that is, tattooing and piercing, is for many of today’s young adults a form of self-expression, and who they are is locked up in the designs they choose.

In our culture of heterodoxy, we are prey to secular microtrends and their consequences.

Since there always are statistics gatherers, perhaps one of them will find out for us how many of the tattooed attend a place of worship regularly or irregularly.  It would be safe to hazard a guess: the figure will be close to zero. And if there should be any such individuals, they would be advised to consult Leviticus 19:28.

PostScript: We get the term “saint” from the Latin sanctus [and Greek hagios] meaning “holy.” In 1 Peter 1:16, God says: “Be ye holy, because I am holy.” Mother Angelica, who founded the Eternal Word Television Network, has said: “We are called to be saints. Don’t miss the opportunity.”

In the 1981 Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire, Scottish track star Eric Liddell [pronounced liddle, as in fiddle], a  devout Christian, refused to compete in a 100 meter qualifying heat scheduled for a Sunday at the 1924 Paris Olympics.

A teammate would swap his 400 meter slot with Liddell, and Liddell, known as “the Flying Scotsman,” would go on to win the gold in record-breaking time.

The movie ended there, with a graphic stating that he then had a career as a missionary in China. 

Liddell had been born in Tietsin in North China to Protestant missionary parents. At the age of five, he, along with his older brother, was sent to England for schooling, and in due course he attended the University of Edinburgh. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree the year following the Olympics, he began his life’s work as a missionary teacher in the north of China.

In 1943, Japanese forces occupied  the rural mission station in Shaochang where he was working, and he was interned at the Weihsien Internment Camp in Weifang. Death came early to him: he died of a brain tumor in February 1945.

During his time as a track star, he had said, “I believe that God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. When I run, I feel His pleasure.”

His chief competition in the ‘24 Olympics was another fleet-footed runner, Harold Abrahams, who wasn’t quite the Jewish outsider as portrayed in the film.

He was the younger brother of Olympic long jumper Sir Sidney Abrahams and Sir Adolphe Abrahams, a gastroenterologist, considered the founder of British sports medicine.

Harold Abrahams was a long jumper as well as a sprinter. Prior to the ‘24 Olympics, he had set the English record in the long jump (24 feet, 2-1/2 inches).

It was Liddell who introduced Abrahams to professional coach Scipio Africanus “Sam” Mussabini. With Mussabini’s coaching, Abrahams went on to win the 100 meter dash, the center-of-attraction race in Chariots of Fire.

Arthur Porritt finished third in that event, which took place at 7 p.m. on July 7, 1924. (July, remember, is the 7th month.) The two would dine together at 7 p.m. on July 7th every year until Abrahams death 53 years later.

Mussabini had said to Abrahams: “Only think of two things: the gun and the tape. When you hear the one, just run like hell until you break the other.”

Abrahams studied law after the ‘24 Games, but spent the greater part of his adult life as a sports broadcaster. He was the timekeeper on May 6, 1954, when Roger Bannister ran the first sub-4 minute mile — 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.

Abrahams ran for glory, which is fine. But how I admire Eric Liddell, who ran for the glory of God…and died in His service!

Roy Hanu Hart, M.D.

I begin with a statement that will raise, perhaps even sear, eyebrows among my Jewish co-religionists: Jesus of Nazareth, the 1st-century rabbi from Galilee, was the noblest example of someone devoted to “social justice,” tzedakah in Hebrew.

How many really dare to emulate him in this role? A few have. Francis of Assisi, for example. Like Rabbi Jesus, he gave himself completely to God — and to a suffering humanity.

Unlike the Galilean rabbi, Francis came from great wealth and in his youth lived the life of a wastrel. But he had a spiritual awakening.  He gave all he had to the poor; and when he had parted with his last shirt, he turned to a friend and exclaimed gleefully, “Today I am married!” “To whom?” asked his companion. “To Lady Poverty” [an abstract personification, the "bride of Jesus," husbandless for eleven hundred years until wooed by Francis; described in Dante's Divine Comedy, Canto XI].

Francis then began an extraordinary life of service to the needy. (After the Wikipedia biography of St. Francis, read G.K. Chesterton’s Saint Francis of Assisi.) Less than two years after his death in 1226, Pope Gregory IX proclaimed him a saint.

He knew the meaning of tzedakah even if he didn’t know the word. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was another magnificent practitioner of tzedakah.

As Lawrence H. Fuchs pointed out in The Political Behavior of American Jews (1956), tzedakah, translated as “charity,” derives from the same root as the word for “justice” and also signifies “righteousness.” Integrating these, tzedakah has come to mean ”social justice.”

Jews have always known its meaning and have adhered to it throughout their long and difficult history.

For nearly two thousand years, Jews, beginning with Rome’s death blow to Jerusalem in 70 CE  followed by centuries of being a people without a country, have had to pay the price for being powerless.

Whenever relief or help did come, it came from what we would consider the Left. But since 1967, the time of the Six-Day War, support has been coming not from the Left but from the Right. Sad to say, but most American Jews do not see the change.

In a 1999 Azure magazine essay, “On the Political Stupidity of the Jews,”  an exasperated Irving Kristol wondered how Jews manage “to combine an almost pathologically intense concern for politics with a seemingly equally intense inclination toward political foolishness, often crossing over  into the realm of the politically suicidal…”

Kristol, the original godfather of neoconservatism, gave us the memorable definition of a neoconservative as “a liberal who has been mugged by reality.”

Another founding father of neoconservatism is Norman Podhoretz, for 35 years the editor of the liberal magazine Commentary, until he underwent a gradual political conversion of his own.

He, too, scratches his cranium as he ponders that, despite the obvious changing socio-political milieu, American Jews continue to adhere to liberalism and remain glued to the Democratic Party.

Podhoretz  concurs with Irving Howe, who labeled liberalism the “secular religion of many American Jews” (Commentary, January 1980).

In Why Are Jews Liberals?  Podhoretz lays it on thick: “To most American Jews, then, liberalism is not… merely a necessary component of Jewishness: it is the very essence of being a Jew…it is a religion in its own right…”

Rabbi Sidney Schwarz, founder of the Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values, like so many voices from intellectual Jewry, stresses social justice: “…social justice is the primary mandate of Judaism” (quoted from Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice).

I am not at odds with the rabbi’s call for social justice, but I am uneasy with his use of the word  “mandate” (from L. mandare, to put into one’s hand; manus, hand).

Let me turn to what those who gave us the Faith consider the essence of  our religion: Judaism is the mystery of Mt. Sinai, where God put into Moses’ hands His Ten Commandments.

The Hand of God cannot be overlooked, or ignored, in human events. Jewish liberalism manages to do just that. We either believe in salvation history or we do not. We are either living in God’s time or we are not. Judaism says we are.

The 11th-century wasn’t such a bad time, if you asked Anselmo de Candia Ginevra (1033-1109), more familiar to us as (Archbishop) Anselm of Canterbury.

Anselm, as prelate and philosopher, played a dominant role  in helping  lift Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the second phase of the Middle Ages. (See the Addendum for definitions of these terms.)

He is best known for his ontological [from Gk. ontos, being + logia, writing about, study of] argument for the existence of God.

Anselm’s starting point was the premise that God is “that than which nothing greater can be thought.” Or, the idea of God’s existence is greater than the idea of God’s non-existence. He then built on his premise using logic: he reasoned his way to his “proof.”

His approach is laid out in Proslogion (Discourse on the Existence of God). Proslogion wasn’t written to convince the non-believer of God’s existence, but rather to bolster the faith of the believing Christian. The original title of the work was to have been Faith Seeking Understanding.

We all know that if you let go of an apple in your hand, it falls to the ground. We have faith [from L. fidere, to trust] that it will do just that.  Newton, the great scientist-theologian, discovered why the apple falls. The law of gravity provides the understanding to justify our faith.

I have slipped into the God argument. Whether or not God exists is one issue. Whether we need God to sustain us in this life is another.

The celebrated English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, an evolutionary atheist, or someone we might consider a religious atheist, finds God in the natural laws that run the universe. So did Einstein. They speak for perhaps 0.0001 percent (600,000 people) — is that too high an estimate? —  of the world’s population of 6 billion, while the bulk of humanity lives at another intellectual-spiritual level.

Anselm considered atheists to be fools, fondly quoting Scripture: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 53:1).

For Sam Harris (The End of Faith) and Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great), the fools are those who, in this scientific age of ours, seek to prove God ’s existence using primitive and outdated methodologies.

Anselm did the best he could within the confines of his time, and history has good reason to remember him. He was the force behind scholasticism, the teaching that aimed at uniting Greek philosophy with medieval Christian doctrine.

Scholasticism was a method of learning which emphasized dialectical reasoning to resolve contradictions. Anselm’s heirs — Peter Abelard, Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas — helped prepare Europe for the modern age.

Addendum: The Middle Ages are generally considered the period in European history between classical antiquity and the Italiam Renaissance, usually dated from 476 to 1453.  In 476, the Western Roman Empire collapsed when Romulus Augustus was forced from his throne by the Germanic general Odoacer. The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire came to an end in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople to to the Ottoman Turks under Fatih Sultan Mehmet.

The Dark Ages refers to the earlier part of the Middle Ages, from 476 to  about the end of the 10th century, a time characterized by widespread stagnation.

Roy Hanu Hart, M.D.

Glenn Beck, stalwart champion of self-empowerment and the entrepreneurial spirit, considers “social justice” and “helping the poor” code language for the redistribution of wealth: “If you have more than I do, share!”

The 46-year-old Beck, a hyper-mobile, fast-thinking, word spouting radio/TV “performer,” as the trade magazine Talkers refers to him, is the ultimate capitalist. According to Forbes (April 26), his various enterprises, which are constantly expanding like the universe itself, bring in more than $30 million a year, which he shares, not necessarily equally, with his staff of 34.

He sees President Obama salivating at the thought of biting ino a larger slice of his income, as well as the average working American’s, to satisfy his redistributionist hunger.

Karl Marx should be amoulding in his grave by now, along with his failed economic theories, but in the eyes of the Beckmeister, Barack “Robbin’ Hood” Obama, still believes it’s okay to take from those who have to give to those who don’t have.

The struggle to eliminate the Unterklasse and create a truly egalitarian society is the favorite theme of liberal social theorists. It’s not so difficlt to do, that is, on paper and in college schtuss (Yiddish, “bull”) sessions. Utopians, with all sorts of well-meaning schemes, have had their go at it for centuries, but poverty remains a part of the human scene.

The 1st-century Galilean rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, understood the human drama well enough to say: “The poor you will always have with you…” (Matthew 26:11; John 12:8). Some Christian apologists try to say that’s not what Rabbi Jesus really meant. But he said what he said.

He was on his way to a death he dreaded, and anxiety had crept into his marrow. Perhaps he did speak from out of his desperation. Nevertheless, we have his words. Two thousand years have passed and the poor are still with us, as he knew they would be.

Jesus had a respect for money (see Matthew 18:23-34; 20:1-16; 25:14-30). He came from poverty and never rose above it. His apostles were no better off, save for Judas Iscariot, the group’s treasurer, the sly one who knew how to misappropriate what funds they had.

On today’s political front, we have the Left and the Right, and the Left lives with the dream of finally overcoming poverty. This is the moment for them to have their glory, for now there is a postmodern utopian at the nation’s helm who is determined to make the dream of his fellow Leftists a reality — in the name of social justice, Glenn Beck’s bete noire. (Beck speaks of it as “collective redemption through the government.”)

The redistributionists Beck opposes are bull-dozing their way ahead in their campaign  to “transform” America. Undermining faith and religion, it should be noted, is part of  the process.

Roy Hanu Hart, M.D.

My organization, InfoFaith Communications (IFC), was founded with the idea of trying to do something to improve Jewish-Christian relations.

I should hasten to add that Islam isn’t entirely ignored at IFC, nor are Buddhism and Hinduism.

For instance, in writing Faith in a Hurting World last year, I reached into the subject of cosmology and, by an odd stroke, my research brought me into contact with Creation and Evolution of the Universe, written by Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr. Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, a Pakistani, who now lives in Canada. (Westerners are more familiar with the variant spelling “sheik” for “shaykh.”)

Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri has been described as a “mega-Imam” and “a loud voice of the hitherto silent [Muslim] majority” by Dr. Muqtadar Khan, Director of  Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware. The “mega-Inman” has emerged as the most acclaimed voice of the Ummah, the worldwide Muslim community of believers.

The West first heard of him early in 2006 following the publication of a dozen editorial cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten (The Jutland Post) caricaturizing Muhammad.  These cartoons, viewed throughout the Muslim world as blasphemous and Islamophobic, led to widespread mayhem.

Qadri jumped into the fray with a sober-minded article for Media Monitors Network titled “A Call to Prevent a Clash of Civilizations.” In it he stated, “I expect that common sense will prevail and responsible leaders will rise to the occasion and repair the damage that has been done to inter-civilization relations.”

At  a recent three-day retreat for young Muslims he organized in England, he was quoted as saying, “I feel it is my duty to save the younger generation from radicalization.”  Women especially appreciate Qadri’s emphasis on female equality, an issue most other Islamic scholars tend to shy away from.

He has faith that reason will eventually overcome extremism.

Qadri, critical of the religious fanaticism of  the Saudi Arabian Wahhabists (founded by Abdul Wahhab in the 18th century),  was the first widely known Muslim leader to condemn Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

This March, Qadri issued a 600-page  fatwa (religious judgement based on Islamic law) condemning terrorism outright and denouncing terrorists and suicide bombers as “unbelievers,” destined not for Paradise, but for hell.

In Creation and Evolution of the Universe, Qadri quotes a familiar hadith (one of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad). Muhammad is asked what was the first creation. He answered, “Allah Almighty made light…before he made anything else, from the reflection of his own light.” How reminiscent of Genesis 1:3: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”

Dr. Qadri, however, isn’t all sweetness and light. There is a dark side to this story — if you’re Jewish or a friend of Israel.

Although his work in general is admirable, I cannot, as a Jew, overlook the fact that the organization he founded, Minhaj-ul-Quran International, MQI for short, despite its avowed mission to “spread the message of peace,” is extremely and actively pro-Palestinian.

True, MQI has initiated interfaith dialogues with religious minorities in Pakistan, but not with Jews. No surprise!

At a January 2009 conference in Gaza organized by MQI and one of its branches, the Minhaj Welfare Foundation, its literature noted that this “was the first rare occasion when 170 million people of Pakistan expressed their solidarity with their Palestinian brethren.”

Qadri, who was not in attendance, but was piped in from Canada, accused “Israel of engaging in state terrorism on the hapless Palestinians.”  There’s more, but this is enough.

Peace remains a will-o’-the-wisp, which in its original usage referred to a ghostly light sometimes caught sight of at night or twilight in the swampland of the mind, but always recedes when approached.

PostScript: For those readers interested in learning the basics of Islam, there is a 12-page chapter, “Islam 101,” in my book, Faith in a Hurting World.

Roy Hanu Hart, M.D.