Confessing Evangelical

Great post from Rob, in which he develops further the theme of "the medium and the message". Key quote:

"In Jesus Christ, there is no separation or distance between the medium and the message; it is the one case where we can say that the medium and the message are fully one and the same."

Rob goes on to contrast what we might call the "generic evangelical" approach to the Word/preaching with the Lutheran approach (and how tragic that it should need describing as the "Lutheran" approach, when the Word, and particularly the Gospel, is Christ's gift to the whole church).

The fundamental difference is this: other evangelicals are often very good at communicating information about the Gospel in their preaching, and indeed there's a lot that Lutherans can learn in this area from the best evangelical preachers and teachers: the likes of John Stott, Dick Lucas, Don Carson and Phillip Jensen. But even the best evangelicals can miss the real heart of preaching: the actual presence of the incarnate Christ "in, with and under" the preaching of the Gospel, for the forgiveness of our sins, received as the Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts.

This is another reason for liturgical worship: in the first part of the Divine Service, we are not only getting ourselves into "the right frame of mind" for the sermon; we are preparing to receive our Saviour and King in the preaching of Law and Gospel. We then respond with our prayers and offerings before preparing to receive Christ again, as He comes to us in His true body and true blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. We are then sent out into the world to respond to His grace in lives of loving service before Him.

Was reading Jonah 2 this morning, for the first time since becoming a Lutheran. This was always a favourite passage of mine when I was a Calvinist, because of the ringing statement at the end of verse 9, "Salvation belongs to the LORD!" (described by Spurgeon as "an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of it. If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, 'He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord.'")

But reading this morning, I realised that by zeroing in on this (admittedly wonderful) statement in v.9, I'd missed the baptismal undertones in the rest of the passage:

The waters closed in over me to take my life;
    the deep surrounded me...

Jonah loses his life when hurled into the sea, but is then brought through death to new life by the grace of God:

I went down to the land
    whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit,
    O LORD my God.

In response to this, he is freed to live in new obedience to God, bringing forth the fruit of good works:

But I with the voice of thanksgiving
    will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.

It is only in the light of all this - this baptismal dying to sin and rising to new life - that Jonah can declare that:

Salvation belongs to the LORD!

It's not that Jonah is perfect after this - you only need to read chapter 3 to see Jonah's "old Adam" reasserting himself - but his "baptism" is the turning point of his life. Jonah may be one of the great biblical embodiments of simil iustus et peccator - at the same time both justified and sinful - but let's not miss the fact that he is indeed iustus; and equally, let's not miss the baptismal nature of his transformation.

So too for us. As St Paul writes:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

And as Martin Luther expresses it in the Small Catechism:

What does such baptizing with water indicate?

It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

I've previously held back from blogging about the travails of Boris Johnson, sacked from the Conservative front bench in circumstances too sordid, tedious and (for one person involved, as will become clear) tragic to recount in detail here. But Nigel Farndale in the Sunday Telegraph zeroes in on the moral confusion surrounding the whole sorry saga:

Apparently the Tory leader did not mind that a member of his shadow team had committed adultery and, it was alleged, arranged for his mistress to have an abortion. He minded that Boris had lied to the press...

Farndale points out one aspect of the scandal that has been neglected by most of the mainstream media:

Should the Tory leader ever find himself in a moral pickle such as this again another thing he might consider is that it is against the law to have an abortion for "social" reasons, in other words because the baby would be an inconvenience to the parents ...

It says much about our morally ambiguous attitudes to abortion that this point has not been raised by either the media or the Tory party. To be honest it didn't occur to me either until I was listening with my wife to the reports about the sacking. "Poor old Boris," I muttered. "And poor Mrs Boris. And poor Petronella." In that brutally concise way that some Catholics have, my wife said: "Poor baby."

Came across this wonderful quote from Benjamin Disraeli recently, one which still has great applicability to contemporary politics - particularly on the day after the "illiberal ... petty ... vindictive" Hunting Act 2004 finally slouched into law - but also in many other areas, including the issue of "contemporary" vs "traditional" worship:

In a progressive country, change is constant; and the great question is, not whether you should resist change which is inevitable, but whether that change should be carried out in deference to the manners, the customs, the laws and the traditions of the people, or in deference to abstract principles and arbitrary and general doctrines.

Chris Atwood has helpfully pointed out to me on several occasions the limitations of the word "conservative", which tends to be used as a catch-all term for the two very different philosophies of Whiggery and Toryism.

But perhaps Disraeli's comments demonstrate the usefulness of an approach which seeks to avoid the excesses both of "devil take the hindmost" Whig radicalism and "back to the 1950s/19th century/Middle Ages" reactionary Toryism. And perhaps "conservative" is a useful term for that approach.

The subject of anti-liturgical and anti-sacramental tendencies among evangelicals (see Monday's post, "The medium, the message and the Divine Service") provides a good opportunity to return to the subject of Lollards and Lutherans. Before returning to the subject of the parallels between Lollardy and much of contemporary evangelicalism, here's a link to a modern-English translation of the Twelve Conclusions, which representatives of the Lollards presented to Parliament in 1395.

It makes for interesting reading. Apart from the parallels with many Reformation themes - though the Reformation's recovery of justification by faith was nowhere to be seen at this stage - the eleventh "Conclusion" is well worth looking at, particularly following the recent attempts by members of something called the Religious Coalition for Moloch Worship Reproductive Choice to claim that the "mainstream religious community" is pro-abortion.

In their eleventh Conclusion, the Lollards condemned putting women under vows of chastity on the grounds it led to "slaying of children ere they be christened, abortion, and destroying of kind by medicine" - in other words, infanticide and abortion, including the medieval version of RU-486. This constituted, in the Lollards' eyes, the "most horrible sin possible to man kind". Quite.

I've been trying to resist the temptation to blog too much on politics, having splurged a bit on political posts in the week of the US election. And this isn't really supposed to be a political blog as such. But I couldn't resist posting this brilliant, if depressing, insight from Janet Daley, writing on how "Europe doesn't believe in democracy":

Europe (particularly in the incarnation of Mr Chirac) does not have a deep commitment to democracy, at least not in the sense that the English-speaking tradition understands it.

The American Constitution may have borrowed much of its frame of reference from French revolutionary ideals, but the historical outcomes parted company pretty quickly. The United States ended up with a federalised system and an iron-clad Bill of Rights while France was descending into the Terror. We do not have a shared reverence for the robustness of democratic institutions because, in continental Europe, democratic institutions have been anything but robust. That is why the EU is busily moving away from the idea of government being directly and transparently responsive to the popular will.

The monstrous global crimes of the 20th century - the collective guilt of which is still the motor force of European political consciousness - were all thought to have been generated (or at least condoned) by popular will. The political instincts of the people are far too inflammable and mercurial to be trusted. Better leave the serious business of law-making and governance to a professional class of administrators, an enlightened elite who will not be subject to the whims and volatile passions of the mob whose vicissitudes have brought such disgrace on our countries.

Public opinion manipulated by national political leaders has to take the rap for the hideous events of the two world wars and the Cold War that followed them, and so they will all be cut down to size. Democracy is all well and good in its place, but the power of the people must be sieved, regulated and heavily supervised if it is to come to the right conclusions.

That certainly goes a long way to explaining the European Constitution, which - in contrast to the US Constitution - goes far beyond merely setting out mechanisms for the exercise and distribution of power, and instead enshrines a wide range of "European values" which are thus placed beyond the bounds of political debate.

There is clearly a terror among the European political elite that their populations cannot be relied upon to vote in favour of "diversity", positive discrimination, workplace consultation, compulsory limits on working hours, preventive health care, access to vocational training, or fair trade. So all these (and many more similarly fashionable causes) are now set out in the constitution as inviolable rights and principles, rather than being the subject of ordinary legislation which can be amended in the normal course of political activity.

And in case anyone is tempted to vote for a political party that has failed to "get with the programme", the Constitution states that "the Member States shall facilitate the achievement of the Union's tasks and refrain from any measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the objectives set out in the Constitution." This is especially the case for foreign and defence policy, where "Member States shall actively and unreservedly support the Union's common foreign and security policy in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity...".

In fact, best all round to make provision for some new political parties that can be trusted not to mess things up: "Political parties at European level contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of Union citizens", declares the Constitution.

So much so that the European Union is prepared to lob them some cash, to help them along (thus giving them an advantage over those nasty old national political parties, especially those who refuse to sign up to the European vision): "A European law shall lay down the regulations governing political parties at European level referred to in Article I-45(4), and in particular the rules regarding their funding."

As Janet Daley concludes:

It may sound apocalyptic, but I do believe that the democratic experiment in continental Europe, begun just over 200 years or so ago, is coming to a close. The European Union is creating what it hopes will be a benign oligarchy. Real political power will reside once again within elite circles (as it does already in France) which will conduct their business in the corridors rather than in the assemblies.

Meanwhile, the United States will persevere with the belief, which Europe regards as crass, that giving ordinary people power over their governing class is the only hope for peace and security.

"Over-used in-speak babble" it may have become, but Marshall McLuhan's phrase, "the medium is the message", is one I've always found useful. Perhaps because I'm overly susceptible to over-used in-speak babble, but perhaps also for good reasons. It seems a particularly useful phrase to keep in mind when considering the various debates over "contemporary" versus "traditional" worship.

One of the key arguments used by advocates of contemporary worship styles is that changing the style of worship does not mean you are changing your doctrines. But like "lex orandi, lex credendi" (of which it is really a modern, secularised version), "the medium is the message" reminds us that when you change the way you worship, it is almost impossible not to change people's perception of the God you are worshipping. And that means a change of doctrine, however subconscious and unintended.

Almost every change in worship over the past 50 years - whether it's the new liturgies in the Church of England and other Anglican churches, or the ubiquitous singing of Graham Kendrick songs to strummed guitars in non-conformist churches that would previously have considered Augustus Montague Toplady a bit racy - has presented us with a God who is more approachable, less threatening, less "dangerous". Less likely to need propitiating by the death of His Son. You might almost say, a tamer Lion.

I think it was in 17th century Russia that the Orthodox Church underwent a schism occasioned by a change in the number of fingers the priest used when making the sign of the cross (whether it was from two to three, or vice versa, escapes me at present). This may strike us as a bit of a thin reason for instigating a schism, but Timothy Ware points out in his book Orthodoxy that this dispute at least demonstrates the seriousness with which Eastern Orthodoxy takes the proposition that a change in worship is equivalent to a change in doctrine.

To hear some people speak, you'd think that Christian doctrine is like a liquid that can be poured into any size or shape of container while remaining essentially the same thing. But that's not true even for a liquid: whether you're drinking water, beer, Coke or coffee, it makes a big difference whether you drink it from a paper cup, a child's plastic beaker, a glass or a bone-china cup. (A point eloquently expressed by John Travolta's character in Pulp Fiction, when describing how you can buy beer in Amsterdam cinemas: "And I don't mean just like in no paper cup, either. I'm talkin' 'bout a glass of beer.")

And all this neglects the fact that how we worship is itself a doctrinal issue. In the Augsburg Confession, Article IV (On Justification) is immediately followed by Article V (Of the Ministry), which makes it clear that the Gospel confessed in Article IV is not an abstract fluid that can be decanted into whatever liturgical vessel we choose, but is something concrete which we receive in the church's ministry of Word and Sacrament:

So that we may obtain this faith, the ministry of teaching the gospel and administering the sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and the sacraments as through instruments the Holy Spirit is given, who effects faith where and when it pleases God in those who hear the gospel, that is to say, in those who hear that God, not on account of our own merits but on account of Christ, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace on account of Christ. (AC V, Latin text, Kolb edition, emphasis added)

Then there's Article XXIV (Of the Mass), with its bold opening statement:

We are unjustly accused of having abolished the Mass. Without boasting, it is manifest that the Mass is observed among us with greater devotion and more earnestness than among our opponents.

My big fear is not that the Lutheran Church will, outright, abandon biblical doctrine in so many words. Rather, that we will be drawn away from the Divine Service which we have received, in the name of "seeker-friendliness", or just because of a vague feeling that times have moved on and, after all, it doesn't really matter how you worship provided you hold to the same doctrines, does it?

But to the extent the Divine Service is lost, to that extent the Gospel will be lost or at best impaired.

Here's the essence of "What it means to be a Christian", according to the new Church of England website. I know this is meant to be a very basic introductory summary, and I don't mean to be unduly negative, but is this (i) borderline modalist; (ii) half-hearted at best about the doctrine of the Incarnation; or (iii) just plain lame?

For Christians God is understood and known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

...Father... God is love, caring for creation and for every human being as God's beloved child.

...Son... God is as he has revealed himself to be in the historical person of Jesus Christ. Jesus' life, death and resurrection holds the key to knowing and loving God, and to making sense of life, before and after death.

...and Holy Spirit... God is alive, loving and active today, inspiring faith, justice and truth, sustaining the life of the world, giving spiritual gifts to the church and bearing his spiritual fruit in the world - changed lives and a transformed society.

As a basic presentation of the Gospel, Two Ways to Live - though far from perfect - would have been a huge improvement. Given the number of people who are likely to visit the C of E's website, this seems like a wasted opportunity.

That said, I'm pushed to think of many outstanding examples from Lutheran churches of presentations of Christian basics pitched at the "unchurched". I'd welcome any pointers to suitable material, not least since I'd like to include something like that on our own church's website, once I get round to starting work on it.

On a happier note than the previous post, last time I looked the Sad Penguin was dancing a little jig and considering a change of name...

Indeed, not since I started a blog called Confessing Anglican about three weeks before becoming a Lutheran has a blog been so short-sightedly mis-named. :-)

Update: It's looking quite likely that getting my modem to work may wipe the smile off that Penguin's face for a few days...

The "navbar" is the blue bar at the top of this page, and Blogger include it automatically on all blogs.

The default navbar includes a "Next Blog" item which takes you to another recently-published blog. It's come to my attention (mainly through some unguarded clicking of entries on my referral logs) that this can result in being taken to some pretty inappropriate content.

So I've attempted to remove the "Next Blog" button from my own navbar. The only way to do this is by overwriting the default bar with the amended version, so it may be that on some browsers you get the bar twice. If this applies to you, please let me know in the comments, since if it happens on a wide scale then I may have to bow to the inevitable and go back to Blogger's default. (Once I get my modem working at home, I'll at least be able to test it on Mozilla).

More on the contrast between US and UK conservatives, this time from Mark Steyn, who points out that unfortunately it is not the Republican Party whom the Conservatives most resemble at the moment:

[W]hen you're cursed to live in "interesting times", a party has to have something interesting to say. It has to stand for something; it has to have a core identity, not just wonkish programmes. The Dems do have core beliefs - abortion, racial grievances, gay marriage, etc - but unfortunately they're not the kind of thing you can talk about at election time.

In Britain, alas, it's the Tories, under their current Kerrykaze pilot, who are distressingly Democrat-like: full of itsy-bitsy policies for this and that, irrelevant on the big picture, deeply evasive on Europe. They're also far too timid on the British equivalent of America's "cultural values" - crime and the other "quality of life" issues.

George Trefgarne also weighed in against Tory torpor yesterday:

Conservative MPs as a group are seemingly reluctant to undertake serious political action. What is more, if you talk to some of them, you would be surprised how unapologetically Left-wing they are. On the evening I went canvassing last week, I had actually turned down a kind press invitation from the US embassy to attend an election night party in Grosvenor Square (I'm afraid I couldn't face the crowds). But it was reportedly full of Tory MPs, devouring the free hot dogs and sporting pro-Kerry and Democrat badges, even as the conservatives of America stormed to victory. The fact that the party's foreign affairs spokesman, Alan Duncan, had been on the radio to say he supported John Kerry lends credence to that tale.

Meanwhile, back in Avonmore and Brook Green ward, and indeed up and down the country, local Conservative parties are in the ascendant. The Conservatives already have more councillors than any other party and there are plenty of young people involved. And the parliamentary candidates are incredibly impressive. The problem is they are being let down by certain MPs, drifting amiably along in Westminster.

My record on calling elections is dire (ever since I confidently expected, and campaiged for, a Labour victory in 1992), but I wouldn't put much money on anything other than another large Labour majority next spring. As I said in my previous post, the Conservatives aren't ready, aren't credible, aren't serious and give the impression of not even really caring all that much whether they win or lose.

Pr Joel Humann, who turns out to be a Canadian - which would be why he's settled in so well to a remote town in the far north :-) - recommended the American's Guide to Canada in the comments to my earlier post. Reading the page on "How to tell you're in Canada", one thing I found quite reassuring was how English Canada is. Apart from the French bits of course, he added hurriedly. Particularly the following items (my comments in italics):

• Restaurants serve vinegar with French fries.(ah, but do they call them "French fries" or chips, that's what I'd like to know)
  


• The CBC's evening news anchor is bald and doesn't wear a toupee.
  


• Contests run by anyone other than the government have "skill-testing questions" that winners must answer correctly before they can claim a prize. These are usually math problems, and are administered to get around the law that only the government can administer lotteries. (In the UK, the "test of skill" is normally a trivia question, such as this actual example I once saw: "What is the capital of the USA? A. Washington DC; B. New York; C. Seattle")
  


• Having Esso garages instead of Exxon.
  


• The beer is stronger and tastes better.
  


• Coke and Pepsi use real sugar instead of corn syrup. (Corn syrup? Ye gods...)
  


• Nobody worries about losing a life's savings or a home because of illness.
  


• Any conversation will inevitably include a brief discussion of the weather.
  


• Teenagers can drink legally. (The legal drinking age in the UK is 18; or 12, if you live in Chatham)
  


• Potato chips come in flavo(u)rs such as salt and vinegar...
  


• People ask whether you'd like "a coffee" rather than "some coffee."
  


• Canadians tend to use British spelling. They write about "colour," "cheques," "theatres," and so forth.
  


• "Lieutenant" is pronounced "leftenant."
  


• Most Canadians will tell you that the last letter of the alphabet is pronounced "zed."
  

But the clincher was this one:

• When you step on someone's foot, he apologizes. (This really happened.)

This stunned me. You mean Americans don't do this??? Wow.

As a simple guide to any US citizens planning to visit the UK in the near future, the title to this post is the correct response to make when someone spills a pint of beer over you while pushing past you in the pub, or walks into you, or stands on your foot, or knocks your toddler over, or lets a door swing shut in your face. It is also the correct thing to say to a lamp-post (or other inanimate object) which you've just walked into.

It is not, however, the correct response to make when someone rear-ends your hire-car: our lawyers and insurance companies take a most un-English attitude to the word "sorry" in those circumstances, actually treating it as an admission of liability, rather than as merely a polite way of saying, "You schmuck!" (which I believe to be the American for "Oops, sorry!").

Our church had a spare PC which they've kindly given to me (on the basis I can then use it to sort out the church's website - currently not in any condition to be linked to). It's an old Dell from around 1997, 32 MB RAM, Pentium II processor, running Windows 95 and (aargh!) IE3, and I've set myself the task of installing Linux on it.

To avoid clogging up my blog with lots of achingly tedious posts about root directories, disk partitioning and the like - and to hide away my ignorance somewhere which can be safely deleted later on ;-) - I've set up a separate blog at which to record my progress: Sad Penguin.

There are about 7 or 8 main areas in which things are not yet working properly, with a post for each topic. If any of you Linux types out there have any suggestions/advice, feel free to leave it in the comments. Thanks!

I now promise never to mention Linux on this blog ever again, except maybe to highlight new posts over on Sad Penguin.

Update: The "7 or 8 main areas" have now been consolidated down to one main area of difficulty. Namely, I've now managed to comprehensively bugger up the whole thing...

Many observers of the Episcopal Church, USA, have had to cause to wonder in recent months whether the concept of "repentance" is still recognised in ECUSA. It often seems as if the contemporary version of absolution is not, "Your sins are forgiven!" but rather, "What you did wasn't a sin in the first place!". Similarly, "repentance" seems to have been replaced by vague expressions of "regret", or psychological categories of "healing" or "closure".

So it might have been expected that the "Episcopaganism" scandal - centering on two ECUSA priests, husband and wife, who had been engaging in Druidry - would follow the usual script: stonewalling accompanied by honeyed words from the Episcopal hierarchy about the need for "reconciliation", "openness" and "dialogue".

But instead, the angels in heaven are rejoicing, because the individuals involved have publicly and unequivocally repented. The Revd William Melnyk writes, in an open letter to his bishop:

I was wrong. I repent of and recant without qualification anything and everything I may have said or done which is found to be in conflict with the Baptismal Covenant, and the historical Creeds of the Church. With God as my witness, I reaffirm my belief in the historical creeds of the Church, and the Baptismal Covenant, and reaffirm to you my faith, as expressed in that covenant. I am resigning my membership in the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids, as a sign of my repentence.

I have been a follower of Jesus Christ since my Baptism in 1947, and a faithful Deacon and Priest of the Church, with the exception of the error admitted above, since 1981. It is my desire to continue as such, and I ask for the mercy of the Church, and of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is pretty moving stuff to read, a reminder that the Holy Spirit is at work even where we might least expect Him. Certain figures within ECUSA are fond of saying that the Holy Spirit is leading the church to realise that certain activities are not, as was previously supposed, sinful. Here's a glorious reminder of what a true work of the Spirit looks like, what the Gospel is really about, and what a glorious and merciful God we have.

Of course, as the Pontificator pointed out recently, the Melnyks were only ever a symptom of a deeper problem of syncretism and pantheism within ECUSA. So as well as rejoicing for and with the Melnyks and their congregations, let's also hope and pray that others are led to the same repentance and to return, like the Melnyks, to the faith and communion of Christ's church.

Great graphic from Get Religion (right), as it reports on "The great New York Times freak-out", in which the NYT's op-ed page is transformed into a Wailing Wall for bereaved Democrats.

The word "jihad" is being thrown around a lot to describe the motivations of conservative Christians who voted for Bush. So much for Democrats learning from this election that they need to turn away from 25 years of simply expressing denigration and contempt towards "the religious Right", and instead find ways to reach out to voters in the sea of red states now covering the US map.

As Jeremy Lott at Get Religion points out:

There was no holy war. There was an election and your side did badly. Sorry about that. That's how democracy goes sometimes.

But over at MCJ, Chris Johnson quotes the St Louis Post-Dispatch which, in between NYT-style hand-wringing, poses a "very profound question" that has also been nagging away at me for the past few days:

An unanswered question is whether the powerful wave of voters who sent Mr. Bush back to the White House to protect morality are fighting a rear-guard, faith-based action against the worst excesses of modern society, or are in the vanguard of a new wave of voters alienated by secularism, pop culture and the ethical thickets at the cutting edge of scientific discovery.

As Chris Johnson points out, that's a genuinely interesting question, and one which is difficult to answer at this stage. Part of me wonders whether the US is simply 40 years behind Europe when it comes to the collapse from a broadly Christian consensus into an almost-completely secularised public culture. Or whether, conversely, we'll look back in 50 years time and see European secularisation as the truly exceptional event, rather than the "natural trend" which America has somehow managed to buck.

Update: The map shown above is in fact a bit over-simplified in its depiction of Canada. The map on the left is taken from Kevin Steel's guide to Canada for despairing Democrats looking to flee the Bush Terror, and it's interesting to see how "red" Canada and "red" America match up.

Indeed, a few months ago Mark Steyn could be heard thinking aloud about the possibility of "red" Canada (though the Canadians, like the British, would say "blue") calling Quebec's bluff by seceding from Canada themselves and joining the USA...

It feels a little odd for my political views when it comes to the US to be so much more clearly-decided than they are on the domestic front. That's partly because it's always easier to have strong views about an election which doesn't directly affect you, and partly because the political choices in the US have, sadly, become more Manichaean in recent years (reflected in the apparent importance in this election of "values" in shaping people's voting choices).

But it's also because American conservatism is in far better shape, with a clearer message and stronger political organisation, than its confused and enervated counterpart in the UK.

Charles Moore (yes, I know, him again - the guy's on a bit of a roll at the moment) wrote an excellent article yesterday on what the Conservative Party - currently "cowering in no-man's-land" - needs to learn from George Bush's victory.

For starters, they need to un-learn almost all the current myths and delusions about US politics in general, and George W in particular:

First, Mr Bush may not be intellectual, but he is not stupid. Second, the American people are not stupid, either: whether or not you agree with their choice, it is based on reasoned thought just as much as that of any electorate. Third, the campaign was not a battle between independent-minded, modern people and "the religious Right". Fourth, the Republican Party is properly organised, and it taps into a strong conservative culture.

Mr Bush won because he has an idea about what threatens America - and the whole of Western civilisation - and what to do about it. Mr Kerry didn't. All he knew was that he didn't like Mr Bush's idea. The Bush view may, of course, be mistaken, but a positive rival analysis has yet to emerge.

Moore goes on to look at some key differences between the US and in the UK from a conservative perspective. The big difference is the status of Christianity in the US:

The point about Christianity in America is not that it is extreme or fundamentalist (though such people certainly exist), but that it is pervasive and people seriously try to live by it. They therefore respond favourably to someone such as Mr Bush who, they believe, tries to live by it, too.

This doesn't mean that all conservative Christians wish to impose religious law on others, or even that they all vote Republican ("many, because of their Christian abhorrence of inequality, vote Democrat"). But it does mean that "a leader who is both a Christian and a conservative can speak a language that resonates".

While this continuing influence of Christianity appears rather "old-fashioned" from a British perspective, US conservatives are also "much more at ease with the benefits of technology" than their UK counterparts, with the US being a society:

...in which the internet is used on a colossal scale to exchange ideas and information among like-minded people, helping them to organise over the huge land-mass.

By contrast, Moore describes receiving a fund-raising letter earlier this week from the leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard: "Nowhere does it give an e-mail address."

He continues:

In short, what you have in America is something Britain has lost – a big, respectable, well funded, socially concerned, up-to-date, frequently religious conservative culture that knows how to concert itself politically. This culture is actually growing. Tories should be learning from it, not looking down their noses at it.

The big difference is that religion is less important in the UK than in the US, though even then Conservatives manage to underestimate its influence. But nevertheless:

...the similarities with American conservatism are greater than the differences. Tories and Republicans both want free, strong, low-tax, proud nation states that make their own decisions through their own institutions.

The problem is that, at the moment, the Conservative Party is struggling even to be convincing as a serious political party full stop, let alone as a potential party of government.

Turn the page from Charles Moore's intelligent and convincing analysis, and one finds a perfect illustration of Conservative un-seriousness, as Tory MP Boris Johnson chooses the aftermath of George Bush's convincing re-election to repent of the support his magazine, The Spectator, expressed for Bush last week.

Great timing, Boris. That'll work wonders for your party's relationship with the most successful conservative party in the world and with the man who has just amassed more votes than any other conservative politician in history.

Like I said, they're just not serious.

One of the more entertaining subplots from the election is the outcome of the Guardian's Operation Clark County, where Guardian readers were invited to write to registered voters in Clark County, Ohio, urging them to vote for John Kerry.

Some people considered the Guardian's campaign to be an unwarranted interference in another country's election (as one Clark County official put it, "the American Revolution was fought for a reason). And some people considered the letters written by Guardian readers, and by "the great and the good", to be rather, how shall we put this, condescending (you can judge that for yourself here).

But no-one can claim that the initiative lacked impact. And here are the heartening results of that impact:

Clark County, 2000: Gore beats Bush by 324 votes.

Clark County, 2004: Bush beats Kerry by 1,620 votes (51% to 49%).

However, like John Kerry, the Guardian can be good losers - and you know how we Brits love a good loser - and Martin Kettle writes a gracious comment piece in today's paper in which he tells the Democrats to "Deal with it".

"The Democrats should acknowledge that this time around George Bush and his party have won a legitimate mandate," writes Kettle, and (while hoping that Bush will be govern more consensually in his second term than in his first) he concludes:

Bush's opponents should be wise too. Bush won. They lost. It's time for the Democrats to get back to the drawing board.

John Kerry to concede at 5 pm GMT.

Update (4.45 pm): the BBC, teeth audibly grinding, reports that Kerry has already telephoned President Bush to acknowledge defeat, and will make a formal statement at 6 pm.

Go, Spidey, go!

Alert readers will notice that I've re-ordered my posts from yesterday, as I think the issue of "soft persecution" in the EU is a little more important than my Eeyore-ish maunderings about the election.

Anyone who knows me personally will probably be aware of my occasional - OK then, frequent - tendencies towards Eeyore-ishness:

"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"And freezing."
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately."

At the moment, it remains to be seen whether Eeyore will be vindicated, though as things stand things seem to be edging in a more positive direction (though whether Bush can escape from the "margin of lawyer" remains to be seen). Who knows? I may end the day as happy as a tiny, camp, dancing Spiderman...

Some people have suggested that the controversy over Rocco Buttiglione - a Roman Catholic who has been forced to stand down as Italy's nominee for the new European Commission after his description of homosexuality as a "sin" caused a political furore, with the European Parliament on the verge of rejecting the entire Commission in order to get rid of Mr Buttiglione - means that Christians who hold to biblical teachings on sexuality, as confessed by the church for 2,000 years, are facing exclusion from high political office in Europe.

I had been thinking of posting something along the same lines myself, but in the end I couldn't find a way to do so without sounding a bit hysterical and paranoid. But as the old saying has it, just because you're paranoid, that don't mean they're not out to get you, and in the Times last week, Matthew Parris rather gave the game away when he wrote:

I say: enough of tolerance. I do not tolerate religious superstition, not when it refuses to tolerate me. Sweep it from the corridors of power. I do not pay my taxes for a Europe which can "tolerate" a hardline Italian mate of Silvio Berlusconi and the Pope who takes to his job as Justice Commissioner the belief that tens of millions of Europeans such as me are sinners because we are gay, or that single mothers are "not very good" — or who adds that women should spend less time working and more time having babies.

Kick him out.

Parris went on to describe Mr Buttiglione as a "bad apple" who, in view of his stated beliefs, could not be trusted to come out with the right answers on abortion, divorce, contraception or the immigration rights of same-sex partners. He continues:

Signor Buttiglione claims that he has been the victim of anti-Christian discrimination. This brings us to the ethical battle. I shall take sides, no doubt demonstrating my own unfitness for the role of Justice Commissioner. I think Signor Buttiglione has indeed been the the victim of anti-Christian discrimination, and that such discrimination is now in order.

Parris makes it clear that liberal Christians who take a more enlightened view on these issues may be tolerated in the new European order ("there are Christians and Christians"), though it seems that even they will need to be subjected to "special scrutiny". However, within the mainstreams of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism "are to be found core beliefs which now lie right outside the mainstream of modern European thought":

Catholic, evangelical Christian, Orthodox Judaic and Muslim teaching on homosexuality and divorce; much Muslim practice as to the status of women; some Hindu teaching on caste; and Catholic teaching on contraception and abortion are unacceptable and insulting, not only to me but also to the majority of Europeans, and the overwhelming majority of educated Europeans.

Charles Moore in the Telegraph responded to Parris' uncharacteristic diatribe (uncharacteristic because, as Moore points out, Parris is "a brilliant writer and usually a thoughtful, humane man").

Moore argues that the Buttiglione affair shows how the European Union is increasingly coming to bear not only on the economic issues for which it was originally founded, but also on cultural and moral issues. The aim is not merely to create a free-trade area or to promote cooperation between nations; it is to create a new pan-European culture in which anything contrary to "European values" is excluded.

The new European Constitution (signed on Friday) will entrench a human rights culture whose cardinal points Moore summarises as follows:

[It] obsesses about wheelchair access but not about abortion, about asbestos but not pornography. [Its proponents] like positive discrimination (the charter explicitly says so), dislike national independence.

Some people have complained about the refusal to recognise God in the new European Constitution (though "humanism" gets a lot of positive mentions in the preamble). Charles Moore disagrees:

[A]s a Christian, I feel relief that the judges and officials imposing this rule on us will not be acting in the name of my beliefs. The enemy is in plain view. Some regret that God has been given no place in the European Constitution, but I have a lot of respect for Him, and my guess is that He will be able to get over the disappointment.

Some more light relief - Bunnie and Devona have already linked this, but who cares, it's awesome: Swift Geese Veterans For Truth reveal the shocking truth behind John Kerry's involvement in the War on Waterfowl.

"How do you ask a goose to be the last goose to die for a mistake?"

David, in the comments to my earlier post, suggests that the US election should be held "under the auspices of the U.N." to ensure improved fairness (before you hit the comment button in rage, he's joking).

At least, I thought he was joking. Reading the ongoing reports from Wannabe Newbie Anglican, I'm not so sure. Newbie is a former election judge, and so he has some interesting insights into apparent instances of voter fraud and violation of electoral law going on right now - MoveOn.org posters in polling stations, Democrats posing as Republican volunteers, Republican campaign vehicles having their tyres slashed, that sort of thing. At least the earlier reports of ballot-stuffing appear to have been cleared up.

So perhaps sending in UN observers would be a good plan, after all. Is Jimmy Carter available?

Anyway, whatever underhand things may be going on, I'm already working on the assumption that Kerry's going to win by a nose. But that may just be auto-expectation management...

In the interests of posting something a bit more cheerful than the last couple of items - and early reports from the US suggest that some of us (2% of the UK population, for starters) may need a lot of cheering up over the next couple of days - kudos to Al for linking to these pictures of key scenes from the Reformation, lovingly depicted in Lego®.

Johannes Koehler's tableaux concentrate on the early years of the Lutheran Reformation, beginning with Luther's posting of the 95 Theses (right), through to the Diet of Worms, including the dramatic moment (left) when Luther announced:

Unless I am convicted by scripture and plain reason - I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other - my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.

(Whether or not Luther went on to say "Here I stand; I can do no other" depends on which historian you read. Perhaps those words were just fed to a friendly journalist in the "spin room" following the Diet.)

And be sure not to miss the pictures of Luther throwing his ink-well at the devil.

On a similar theme: I loved The Reformation Polka, as posted by Twylah the other day. The version I've linked even includes musical accompaniment, for your pleasure and delight.

Next Tuesday an unhappy choice confronts the American people. To suffer a gloating Mark Steyn. Or to endure the sight of a jubilant Michael Moore thumping the air in the belief that he has just personally saved the world from military and ecological disaster. Grim though these alternatives are, with heavy heart we are minded to favour the first, and urge Americans to vote for Bush.

So begins this week's leading article in the Spectator, and by and large that reflects my own view. That puts me in a very small minority over here: Brits for Bush.

Here's the official Brits for Bush campaign poster, by the way:


If you think I'm kidding, then you should take a look at the opinion poll published in last week's Spectator (analysis available here, but the actual figures are only in the print edition).

According to this, only 15% of British voters would vote for Bush, compared with 47% support for Kerry. And not only did Kerry beat Bush among Conservative voters, but he was even more popular with Conservative voters than with Labour voters: 45% of Conservatives backed him, compared with 43% of Labour voters. Only 15% of Conservative voters would vote for Bush. Even Conservative MPs were split 50/50.

But even more striking were the figures for how people would "feel" depending on what the result was. Only 11% would feel "delighted" or even merely "happy" if Bush wins, with 53% being "unhappy" or "miserable". Conversely, 44% would be "happy" or "delighted" if Kerry were to win.

So how come I've ended up in this tiny minority - 2% - of British voters who will be delighted if Bush wins? Especially given how dismayed I was when he won in the first place. Well, it's hard to know where it start, but I recommend you read the Spectator piece in full, since I agree with most of what it says, including the reservations about Bush's economic policies (particularly his willingness to engage in protectionism).

Terrorism is a major factor: for all Kerry comes out with macho talk about "killing the terrorists" (yawn), his real attitude is probably revealed by his comments about wanting to revert to a situation in which terrorism is seen only as a "nuisance", like prostitution or organised crime. In other words, he wants to return to September 10th. Bush's response to terrorism may not have been perfect, but at least he gives the impression of genuinely understanding what is at stake.

But what pushes me from the 9% of Brits who would be merely "happy" to see Bush win, to the 2% that would be "delighted" is, quite simply, his opponent. Basically, I think John Kerry's a fake - all those shots of him playing football with his staff or going out hunting, just to show what a "regular guy" he is. All that self-aggrandising "I served" stuff. His hypocrisy and evasion on issues such as abortion (which, as everyone knows, he "personally opposes", though not enough to do anything to stop babies being cut to pieces in their mother's wombs). And of course, his swaying in the breeze over whether to be pro-war or anti-war (though, as the Spectator points out, those supporting John Kerry as the anti-war candidate are probably in for a very rude awakening if he wins).

Perhaps, as happened with Bush, I'll find myself warming to President Kerry over time (if the American people - or Kerry's army of 10,000 lawyers - force that unpleasant necessity upon me). But for now, I still find myself nodding vigorously in agreement with Tom Utley's summary a few months ago, when he said that (lacking any real knowledge about Kerry) he could only judge by appearances. And he didn't like what he saw:

What does [Kerry's] face tell us about him? If you ask me, he looks rich, humourless, ambitious, ruthless, vain and slightly dim. My guess is that he has a guilty secret of some sort, but I have no idea what it is. All this may be terribly unfair ... But I don't like the cut of the man's jib.

That's pretty much it. "I don't like the cut of the man's jib."