Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner

Thursday, August 8, 2013 09:38 PM

By: Dr. Alveda C. King
I have a prayer and a word of encouragement for Pope Francis and all world leaders:

In the wake of the Martin/Zimmerman tragedy — in the face of the looming human sexuality debate, on the wings of the promised 50th Anniversary Celebration of the historical “March on Washington” and “I Have a Dream” speech by my famous uncle.

Yes, we are facing difficult days. Yet there is hope ahead.

Have faith and love for every member of the human race. It is time to hate the sin and love the sinner. We can set the example with personal and communal repentance, revival, restoration, rebuilding, recovery and renewal.

It’s all about redemption.

My uncle once said: “We must discover the power of love, the power — the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way.

We need a proverbial eraser to set the record straight. Erase the old ways and let our minds be renewed. Replace the word tolerance with the expression of genuine compassion. Override judgment with mercy and divine Justice.”

Somehow we have forgotten or perhaps never known the purpose for human life on this planet.

The Bible warns us of the challenges of uncontrollable lust unleashed by human sexuality gone amuck.

Generally, people involved in sexual activity springing from fornication, adultery and even same-sex liaisons do not experience the lasting fulfillment that monogamous heterosexual couples do.

This is why it is written:

“Matthew 19: 4 “Haven’t you read the Scriptures?” Jesus asked. “From the beginning ‘God made them male and female . . . This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined (sexually) to his wife, and the two are united into one . . . Divorce was not what God had originally intended. 10 Jesus’ disciples then said to him, “If this is the case, it is better not to marry!”

Yet in 1 Corinthians 7:8, it is written that “it is better to marry than to burn with lust.”

Again Jesus also goes as far as to speak to those who are either born without a sexual desire for members of the opposite sex; forced into an alternate lifestyle or choose a life without sexual desire for someone of the opposite sex.

Matthew 19:11:11 “Not everyone can accept this statement,” Jesus said; “only those whom God helps. 12 Some are born as eunuchs, some have been made eunuchs by others, and some choose not to marry for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.” (In the original translation the term eunuch includes castration and other limiting factors surrounding heterosexual sexual unions.)

In error many have misunderstood these sayings to mean that God is in favor of sexual relationships that interrupt his original plan for procreation.

We forget that God doesn’t create sin, sickness and unnatural human circumstances. If someone is born a certain way, say with an infirmity, a misshapen limb, an unnatural sexual desire — that does not mean that God desired for them to be born that way. That’s why John 3:16 is so important.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that all who believe in Jesus will have eternal life.”

Sadly, many have not known of or accepted the precious gift of Jesus and His blood which corrects and eliminates human sin and sadness. Even sadder is that those who have accepted this gift are not willing and humble enough to share this gift with this world, because to share it we must be repentant, transparent, and nonjudgmental.

I’ve said many times that we are dealing with a three-headed monster with racism as the first head. Racism is a sin, because it is a deception in that we are not separate races. We are all of one blood.

“And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth . . .” Acts 17:26

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish as fools,” explained MLK.

The second head of the monster is reproductive genocide. The directive to be fruitful and multiply is a blessing not the curse reflected in the error of artificial and harmful contraceptives and abortion. There are healthy options such as abstinence and natural family planning that do not involve killing women and children.

The third head is sexual perversion with all of its trappings.

Somehow we tiptoe around the obvious, never genuinely seeking to separate the sinner from the sin. We can love the one and hate the other.

“Jude 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. 22 And have mercy on those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.”

For me, life is a journey and the Bible is my roadmap.

“The paths and trails have pitfalls, but as long as the light of the glorious Gospel shines, we can see. We may stumble, but we don’t go over a cliff because God’s love, his son’s blood and his holy spirit all keep us safe.

Now is the time to erase fear, hatred and strife. Time is short so we must be bold. Change and tolerance are steps along the way, but it will take transformation and compassion to get us across the finish line.

My parents Rev. A. D. King and Naomi King joined Uncle M.L. and the hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C. 50 years ago.

He had a prayer on his lips and a dream in his heart. As we approach the 50th Anniversary of the march on Washington, I plan to observe August 28th with members of my family, friends and the world while praying in my heart that we will all come away transformed by God’s love.

Dr. Alveda C. King grew up in the civil rights movement led by her uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She is a pastoral associate and director of African-American outreach for Priests for Life and Gospel of Life Ministries. Her family home in Birmingham, Ala., was bombed, as was her father’s church office in Louisville, Ky. Alveda herself was jailed during the open housing movement. 

Buddhist Extremism?

Posted By Raymond Ibrahim On August 2, 2013

Originally published by CBN News.
A recent New York Times article titled “Extremism Rises Among Myanmar’s Buddhists” offers important lessons on common sense and nonsense. Witten by one Thomas Fuller, it begins by telling of how

After a ritual prayer atoning for past sins, Ashin Wirathu, a Buddhist monk with a rock-star following in Myanmar, sat before an overflowing crowd of thousands of devotees and launched into a rant against what he called “the enemy”—the country’s Muslim minority. “You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a mad dog,” Ashin Wirathu said, referring to Muslims. “I call them troublemakers, because they are troublemakers.”

While the article is meant to highlight the supposed “intolerance” of Myanmar’s Buddhists, for those who can read between the lines—or who are familiar with Islamic teachings, history, and current events—it is clear that Buddhists are responding to existential threats posed by the Muslims living among and around them.
Here is the first lesson: unlike the West, Buddhist monks, despite their reputation as devotees of peace, are still able to accept and respond to reality; are still governed by common sense. Unlike the West, whose sense of reality has been so thoroughly warped by a nonstop media propaganda campaign emanating from ubiquitous TVs and computer screens, conditioning Americans how to think and what to believe, “third world” Buddhist monks are acquainted with reality on the ground. They know that, left unchecked, the Muslim minority living among them—which began hostilities—will grow more aggressive, a historically demonstrative fact.
As in other countries, the Muslims of Myanmar have engaged in violence, jihadi terror, and rape of Buddhist girls. And that’s as a minority. Myanmar’s Buddhists are also cognizant that, in neighboring nations like Bangladesh where Muslims are the majority, all non-Muslims are being ruthlessly persecuted into extinction. But even in bordering Thailand, where Buddhists are the majority and Muslims a minority, in the south where Muslims make for large numbers, thousands of Buddhists—men, women, and children—have been slaughtered, beheaded, and raped, as separatist Muslims try to cleanse the region of all “infidel” presence. Click here for graphic reports and images of Muslim atrocities committed against Buddhists that may shed light on why Myanmar Buddhists are wary of Muslims.
Accordingly, Wirathu, the “radical” Buddhist monk is quoted in the NYT article as saying: “If we are weak, our land will become Muslim.” The theme song of his nationalist organization speaks of people who “live in our land, drink our water, and are ungrateful to us”—a reference to Muslims—and how “We [Buddhists] will build a fence with our bones if necessary” to keep supremacist Muslims out. His pamphlets say “Myanmar is currently facing a most dangerous and fearful poison that is severe enough to eradicate all civilization.” Another senior and apparently “radical” monk concurs: “The main thing is that our religion and our nationality don’t disappear.”
From here we come to lesson two: if Buddhists understand what is at stake—their entire civilization—the NYT report is a testimony to why the West still cannot face reality. Fuller’s article carries all the trademarks—moral relativism and pro-Islam bias, and that dangerous mixture of confidence and ignorance—that characterize the mainstream West’s inability to acknowledge and respond to Islam, but rather to sprout sentimental, nonsensical platitudes.
For starters, Fuller doesn’t seem to comprehend why Myanmar’s Buddhists are worried about disappearing , saying that “Buddhism would seem to have a secure place in Myanmar. Nine in 10 people are Buddhist… Estimates of the Muslim minority range from 4 percent to 8 percent of Myanmar’s roughly 55 million people while the rest are mostly Christian or Hindu.”
Indeed, in neighboring Thailand Muslims also make for about 4% but have, as mentioned, been engaging in genocide against Buddhists in the south where Muslims are concentrated. Moreover, an acquaintance with history—real history, not the whitewashed versions currently peddled in American schools—proves that for 14 centuries, Islam has, in fact, wiped out entire peoples and identities: what we today nonchalantly refer to as the “Arab World” was neither Arab and almost entirely Christian in the 7^th century, when Islam came into being and went on the jihad. Fuller also seems to miss the significance of the fact that there are more Christians and Hindus in Myanmar than Muslims—yet Buddhist hostility only extends to Muslims. If indigenous Buddhists are simply becoming nationalistic radicals, as Fuller suggests, how come they are only attacking Muslims, not Christians and Hindus?
Then there is the clear bias. While regularly decrying the Buddhist treatment of Muslims, including by giving several anecdotes, Fuller does not mention the jihadi terror and murder that Muslims have visited upon Buddhists. He condemns Buddhists for reportedly displacing some 150,000 nonindigenous Muslims, without seeming to be aware that, all around the Islamic world, Muslims are displacing hundreds of thousands of non-Muslims, leading to a mass exodus of Christians. If Fuller is unaware of the significance of this fact, Myanmar’s Buddhists are not—hence their very real concerns of being swallowed up by Islam if they don’t act now when they’re in the majority in their own homeland.
But these objective facts are apparently not relevant to the NYT’s readership, which has been more conditioned to subjective talk of “feelings” and other therapeutic nonsense. And here Fuller certainly delivers: the entire tone of the article is one of disappointment at the Buddhists and how “many Muslims are worried.” His closing paragraph is of “a Muslim vendor in the city’s central market” who spoke “in a whisper” saying “I’m really frightened. We tell the children not to go outside unless absolutely necessary.”
Thus while Myanmar’s Buddhists fight for their right to survive against an ever encroaching Islam, the NYT does what it does best—distort reality to make it fit the mainstream media’s world of make believe, in this case, that Muslims are always innocent and misunderstood victims.
Postscript: Ralph Sidway reminds me that Indonesian priest, Fr Daniel Byantoro, has written the following applicable words:

For thousands of years my country (Indonesia) was a Hindu Buddhist kingdom. The last Hindu king was kind enough to give a tax exempt property for the first Muslim missionary to live and to preach his religion. Slowly the followers of the new religion were growing, and after they became so strong the kingdom was attacked, those who refused to become Muslims had to flee for their life to the neighboring island of Bali or to a high mountain of Tengger, where they have been able to keep their religion until now. Slowly from the Hindu Buddhist Kingdom, Indonesia became the largest Islamic country in the world. If there is any lesson to be learnt by Americans at all, the history of my country is worth pondering upon. We are not hate mongering, bigoted people; rather, we are freedom loving, democracy loving and human loving people. We just don’t want this freedom and democracy to be taken away from us by our ignorance and misguided ‘political correctness’, and the pretension of tolerance.

Chaplain Ordered to Remove Religious Essay From Military Website

By Todd Starnes

A chaplain at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska was ordered to remove a religious column he had written titled, “No Atheists in Foxholes: Chaplains Gave all in World War II,” because it allegedly offended atheists serving on the Air Force base.

Col. Brian Duffy, the base commander told Fox News the column was removed “out of respect for those who considered its title offensive.”
“The 673d Air Base Wing does not advocate any particular religion or belief set over another and upon learning of the complaints from some readers, the article was promptly removed,” he said. “We regret any undue attention this article may have brought to any particular group or individuals.”
Lt. Col. Kenneth Reyes confirmed to Fox News that he wrote the original essay that appeared in his “Chaplain’s Corner” column on the base website.
Reyes recounted the origin of the phrase “There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.” Father William Cummings has largely been credited with uttering the phrase in Bataan during World War II.
President Eisenhower referenced the phrase during a speech to the American Legion in 1954, noting “I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives. In battle, they learned a great truth that there are no atheists in the foxholes.”
Reyes ended his essay with a reflection on faith.
“Everyone expresses some form of faith every day, whether it is religious or secular,” he wrote. “Some express faith by believing when they get up in the morning they will arrive at work in one piece, thankful they have been given another opportunity to enjoy the majesty of the day, or express relief the doctor’s results were negative.”
Reyes did not attack or insult atheists or non-believers in his column.
However, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation accused Reyes of going on an “anti-secular diatribe” and publicly denigrating “those without religion.”
They fired off a letter to the Air Force base allegedly on behalf of 42 anonymous airmen who allegedly complained.
“In the civilian world, such anti-secular diatribe is protected free speech,” wrote MRFF’s Blake Page in a letter to Col. Duffy. “Beyond his most obvious failure in upholding regulations through redundant use of the bigoted, religious supremacist phrase, ‘no atheists in foxholes,’ he defiles the dignity of service members by telling them that regardless of their personally held philosophical beliefs they must have faith.”
The Air Force agreed and approximately five hours after the MRFF complained, they removed the chaplain’s essay.
“While certainly not intended to offend, the article has been removed from our website,” Col. Duffy wrote in an email to the MRFF. “We remain mindful of the governing instructions on this matter and will work to avoid recurrence.”
But that’s not good enough for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. They want the chaplain punished for what he wrote.
“Faith based hate, is hate all the same,” Page wrote. “Lt. Col. Reyes must be appropriately reprimanded.”
Ironically, the Air Force left six complaints about the essay on their website.
Ron Crews, the executive director of Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, told Fox News the chaplain was well within his duties to write an article about faith.
“To say ‘everyone has faith’ is correct,” Crews said. “For Weinstein to say, ‘I do not have faith’ must mean he has never flown because to step in an airplane is to have faith in a pilot’s ability and faith that mechanics have properly maintained the plane.”
Crews said the incident is yet another example of chaplains facing attacks for expressing their religious beliefs.
“Chaplains have religious liberty as well to speak to issues,” he told Fox News. “Mr. Weinstein appears to want to silence any speech of faith in the military. It is a sad day for the Air Force and for our country when officers obey every command from Weinstein to silence even chaplains from talking about their faith.”
Gen. Jerry Boykin (Ret.) told Fox News the action taken by the Air Force is “discrimination against Christians.”
He said the “climate of intimidation within the Air Force has worsened to such an extend that even chaplains now fear carrying out the most basic duties of their job.”
“In this case, a chaplain has been censored for expressing his beliefs about the role of faith in the lives of service members,” said Boykin, executive vice president of the Family Research Council. “There has to be a recognition that this is discrimination against Christians. Chaplains are placed there for a purpose. Why do we have chaplains if they aren’t allowed to fulfill that purpose? When anti-Christian activists like Mikey Weinstein are dictating the rules for what chaplains are allowed to do, then why we must ask the question why we have chaplains?”
Following is the column that the Air Force censored:

“Chaplain’s Corner: No Atheists in Foxholes: Chaplains Gave All in World War II”
By Lt. Col. Kenneth Reyes
Many have heard the familiar phrase, “There is no such thing as an atheist in a fox hole.”
Where did this come from?
Research I verified in an interview with former World War II prisoner of war Roy Bodine (my friend) indicates the phrase has been credited to Father William Cummings.
As the story goes, Father Cummings was a civilian missionary Catholic priest in the Philippines.
The phrase was coined during the Japanese attack at Corregidor.
During the siege, Cummings had noticed non-Catholics were attending his services.
Some he knew were not Catholic, some were not religious and some were even known atheists.
Life-and-death experiences prompt a reality check.
Even the strongest of beliefs can change, and, I may add, can go both ways – people can be drawn to or away from “faith.”
With the pending surrender of allied forces to the Japanese, Cummings uttered the famous phrase “There is no such thing as an atheist in a fox hole.”
In one of my many discussions with Roy, he distinctly remembered a period on the “Hell Ships” – these were ships the Japanese used to bring POWs from the Philippines back to Japan.
They were unmarked and thus ‘fair game’ for attacks from the allies from the air and sea.
Of the 3,000-plus POWs listed on the ships, only 180 survived the journey.
“When our own planes were attacking us,” Roy said, “I remember Father Cummings calming us down by reciting the Lord’s Prayer and offering up prayers on our behalf.
For a brief moment I did not hear the yells and screams of dying men as our boat was attacked by our own men.”
He went on to say, “There was a peaceful quiet during the attack that I cannot explain nor have experienced since.”
Later on during the trip to Japan, Cummings, after giving his food to others who needed it more, succumbed to his own need and died of starvation.
Everyone expresses some form of faith every day, whether it is religious or secular.
Some express faith by believing when they get up in the morning they will arrive at work in one piece, thankful they have been given another opportunity to enjoy the majesty of the day; or express relief the doctor’s results were negative.
The real question is, “Is it important to have faith in ‘faith’ itself or is it more important to ask, ‘What is the object of my faith?’”
Roy never affirmed or expressed whether his faith was rooted in religion or not, but for a moment in time on the “Hell Ships,” he believed in Cummings’ faith.
What is the root or object of your faith?
Is it something you can count on in times of plenty or loss; peace or chaos; joy or sorrow; success or failure?
Is it something you can count on in times of plenty or loss; peace or chaos; joy or sorrow; success or failure?
What is ‘faith’ to you?

Loving God’s Law: the Key to A Flourishing Society?

By Gabrielle Jackson August 2, 2013

I grew up listening to Tina Turner, and one of her famous songs was “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” As Christians, we understand that our primary calling is to love God, and our secondary calling is to love others. Turns out, love’s got everything to do with it.
In fact, the four-chapter gospel can really be read as a love story between God and man. We see throughout Scripture God’s incredible love for us as individuals created in his image. Michael Goheen writes,

For the one who has heard Jesus’ call to follow him, the call comes with a summons to enter the story of which he was the climactic moment–the story narrated in the Bible. It is an invitation to find our place in that story.

So it comes as no surprise that love plays a significant role in how we build social structures such as the family, the church, our business, and our economy. But what does love have to do with the law? And if the rule of law is an essential pillar of a flourishing society, how should Christians think biblically about law?

God’s Law

I spent this summer reading through the Psalms. I’m amazed at the references to the law woven throughout a book of praise. The Psalmist time and again shares his love for the law and his longing to obey it as an act of worship.
We read in Psalm 119 the importance and beauty of God’s law.

“Your rules are marvelous. Therefore I observe them. Your instructions are a doorway through which light shines. They give insight to the untrained. I open my mouth and pant, because I long for your commands” (Psalm 119:129-131).

When I think of the law, it does not trigger an emotional response like this, at least not a positive one.
Yet the Psalmist in Psalm 119 gives us a picture of what it means to not only recognize, but also love the law as put forth by God.

“Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble. I hope for your salvation, O Lord, and I do your commandments. My soul keeps your testimonies; I love them exceedingly. I keep your precepts and testimonies, for all my ways are before you” (Psalm 119:165-168).

Through creation, we see how God designed an ordered environment to help us achieve flourishing and ultimate freedom. In Genesis 1:28, God introduces the cultural mandate to man, commissioning him to be fruitful, multiply and subdue the earth, with the only stipulation that he was not to eat of one tree. Here we find one of the primary ingredients for flourishing: freedom through the law.

From Biblical Law to Political Law

The law enables freedom rather than prohibiting it. We are taught to love the law because when we follow the law, we receive joy. Anyone who has ever tried to assemble a bike understands you cannot enjoy the thrill of flying down the road with the wind on your face, unless you first follow the assembly instructions. Just one missed step could lead to serious injury. Similarly, you cannot experience the joy of winning a tennis match unless you follow the rules of the game, practice the right strokes, and apply the correct technique.
When law is grounded in biblical truth, it becomes a portal to reflect the glory of God. It is not a tool of control or mechanism to manipulate others, but something to be obeyed and respected. Through adherence to the law, we are able to create a society where each of us has the freedom to be all that God created us to be. An ideal society is not one where the law is absent, but one where the law protects individual liberty.
Our fallen nature wants to reject structure, but it is within the bounds of the law that we can truly prosper. The law was never intended to be a punishment, but a framework in which man can thrive. Obeying the law is a choice, but as Scripture teaches, it brings great blessing. A society that does not have right or just laws lacks the foundation upon which to build a community that enables flourishing.
I went for a run by the Jefferson Memorial last week. While sitting under its epic dome, I read the inscription:

The God who gave us life gave us liberty-can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?

It is not only this liberty, but also the law, which is a gift from God reflective of his love.

Re-Interpreting the Koran

Posted By David Solway On August 1, 2013

As I’ve written on several previous occasions, there exists a sect of reformist Muslims who believe that the Koran has been grievously misread by cavilers and doubters who are convinced that Islam is not a religion of peace, but a violent and imperialistic faith intent on world conquest. The passages in the Koran—and the environing literature as well—that give rise to the animosity of nit-pickers and quibblers, the enlightened Muslims claim, require to be re-interpreted so that their temperate and merciful essence can be made plain to all. Embarking on the process of re-interpretation can be a salutary and liberating task, one that we spurn at the peril of darkest ignorance and counter-productive rancor. Eventually the detractors of Islam may realize that they have failed to grasp the beauty, elegance and rhetoric of conciliation that animate the holy texts and be moved to make amends for their anti-Islamic vitriol and stubborn recidivism.
To consider only a few salient instances of controversial passages that have been consistently misapprehended.
Koran 2:191, speaking of infidels who do not accept the word of the Prophet, commands us to “kill them wherever you may find them.” Here we must be particularly alert, subtle and astute, for killing the unbelievers does not mean to slay them bodily, but to kill them with kindness, in other words, to shower the candy of life upon them, to reward them with prestigious appointments and lavish emoluments, to bow before them in the streets and welcome them into the homes of the devout, to address them with profound respect, to decorate them with titles and ply them with accolades—until, bedazzled by the nobility and magnanimity of Islam, they are ready to convert.
Similarly, in Koran 2:216, where we read that “fighting is prescribed” for the faithful, we are to understand that the battle is enjoined to vanquish the evil impulse in Muslim and non-Muslim alike, until universal harmony and jubilation dominate the world. This is the true meaning and purpose of the Caliphate.
When Allah warns in Koran 3:56, with regard to those who reject the faith, “I will punish them with terrible agony,” the supreme Lord does not propose insupportable physical torment but, rather, the moral suffering that comes from the recognition of apostasy or denial, which can only strengthen the fibre of a mortified conscience.
Koran 5:33 informs us that “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement.” Admittedly, this is hard verse to fathom; however, as is often the Prophet’s wont, he is not targeting body parts but engaging in graphic allegory to impress upon both believers and unbelievers the self-torture they will feel, smitten by their higher selves, should they curse the Almighty.
In the same way, Koran 8:12, which reads: “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them,” is not meant to be taken literally. The true meaning is: browbeat them tactfully and lightly slap their wrists if they persist in their folly and continue to rebuff your acts of philanthropic munificence. This is the Islamic version of tough love.
Koran 18:65-81 is often taken to condone honor killing, since what appears to be the senseless murder of a young man is only meant to spare his parents the trauma of his imminent misdeeds and to prepare the way for a successor. Of course, one knows that killing is frowned upon in Muslim culture, and this apparent killing of the young man is nothing but the symbolic correlate of expunging his “disobedience” and mischief-making and replacing his wayward sensibility with contrition and the promise of rehabilitation.
Koran 47:35 adjures: “Be not weary and faint-hearted, crying for peace, when you should have the upper hand, for Allah is with you.” The “upper hand” (Arabic: shakir) refers not to arrogant predominance or to the hand the strikes downward from the crown to the jaw, cleaving the skull in two, but to the hand that is raised heavenward in prayer. Nor should the Muslim “cry for peace,” that is, for relaxation or diversion or couch-potatohood, but should be above all triviality in his desire to know the peace of exaltation. Genuine peace can only be found in the bosom of God
The same procedure leading to the extraction of authentic purport applies, for example, to the Hadith (sayings and acts ascribed to Mohammed). For example:
When, in Bukhari 11:626, Mohammed discloses that “I decided to order a man to lead the prayer and then take a flame to burn all those who had not left their houses for the prayer, burning them alive inside their homes,” he does not envision the burning of the flesh but the inward fire of self-contempt that slackers and tergiversators will eventually experience. The pain of remorse can indeed be searing.
In Bukhari 52:177, we read that “the Hour [of Resurrection] will not be established until you fight with the Jews.” This admonition obviously has nothing to do with anti-Semitism; the idea is to engage in playful sparring and amiable argumentation with Jews in order to reveal the high spirits, good humor and self-deprecating modesty of Islam, thus impressing the initially skeptical Jews with the genial nature and friendly feelings inherent in the faith.
Analogously, when we find in Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 9:90 the divine behest that “A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives,” neither the term “slaughter” nor “captives” connotes anything malevolent or untoward. “Slaughter” refers to animal sacrifice in homage to the deity; “captives” alludes not to slavery, an abomination which critics of Islam unfairly accuse it of practicing even to this day, but to the human heart binding itself in the golden chains of celestial beatitude.
Thus, when Mohammed, in Tabari 9:69, is reported as saying that “Killing unbelievers is a small matter to us,” we come to understand that this is among the most pacific of passages in the Hadith. By “unbelievers,” Mohammed is once again drawing attention to animal sacrifice on the altar of devotion, for animals do not believe or worship. And by “a small matter,” Mohammed, a master ironist, is merely being facetious. The “small matter” is clearly of gravest importance, the carrying out of certain ritual decrees regarding the treatment of animals, which today justify the custom of halal cuisine.
Again, those who are strangers to nuance will misconstrue a text like Muslim 19: 4294, in which we are told that “When the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) appointed anyone as leader of an army or detachment he would especially exhort him [to] make a holy war.” A reset is needed if we are to grasp the Prophet’s tenor, for by prosecuting holy war, we are to understand righteous preaching for the benefit of the human soul. No one is to get hurt for Islam is the religion of peace, amity and concord.
I have isolated merely a sparse handful of the myriad comparable passages and tropes that proliferate throughout the Islamic canon. The same habit of re-interpretation—which is actually proper interpretation—of the scriptures is the sine qua non for reading and understanding the traditional texts of Islam. Indeed, every venomous, inflammatory or disturbingly ambiguous passage in the entire range of Islamic writings, counsels, messages and prescriptions, when placed in the appropriate light, can be seen to denote the opposite. We are all dhimmis, second class beings, compared to the Creator. We must all pay the jizzya, or tribute tax, of genuine worship to the Lord of the Universe. We discover our freedom in “perfect slavery” (a term popularized by the medieval Islamic scholars al-Qushayri and Ibn Arabi) to the dictates of an enlightened conscience and ethical behavior. Life is a blessing and a miracle, which the Sharia, by ordering our activities down to the minutest details, confirms and extols—Sharia may look like totalitarian compulsion but it is really perfect love. “Submission” is the triumphal assertion of the sanctified will, that is, submission to our best selves, aka our Islamic selves. Beheading (“smiting of the neck”) is only a metaphor for changing one’s mind about first and last things. And so on.
It is only the literalists, the barbarians, the uneducated, and the unevolved among Muslims who will act in defiance of their sacred texts, even if they happen to constitute a majority. They are patently unable to process what any sensitive and informed person among the ummah—or for that matter, among Jews, Christians and secular Westerners—recognizes immediately: the Koran and its outriders are not what they appear to be to primitive, malicious and uninstructed minds. What seems opaque or problematic becomes instantly transparent to an agile and sympathetic intelligence. For there is no violence or niggardliness in Islam, only light, majesty and infinite tolerance for suffering mankind. This is the charm of the initially paradoxical passage in Koran 5:54: “O believers, take not Jews and Christians as friends; they are friends of each other. Those of you who make them his friends is one of them. God does not guide an unjust people.” By which Mohammed means that one should embrace the foreigner not simply as a friend but as a more-than-friend, a brother, a soul mate, in short, as one cherishes one’s own spirit. Otherwise, one will be in dire want of divine guidance.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the school of Muslim thinkers, editors and redactors without whom we would remain trapped in a tangle of misconceptions respecting the religion of peace.

Obama and Marx’s Ten-Point Platform

Posted By Mark Hendrickson

It can be startling to realize how much of Karl Marx’s ten-point platform to socialize an economy (set forth in Chapter Two of “The Communist Manifesto”) has been implemented in the United States. I even wrote a book about it in 1987.[1] Never before Barack Obama’s presidency, however, has a president pushed so assiduously to advance all ten points in Marx’s plan. Is it just a coincidence that Obama’s mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was a card-carrying Communist and that Obama gravitated toward radicals such as alleged Cuban agent of influence Bill Ayers? Or, as the following synopsis shows, is Obama’s economic agenda is actually Marxist?
This cursory examination of Obama’s Marxian policies will be presented in two parts. The first part below will cover Marx’s first five points, and Part Two will review the second five points. The two planks in Marx’s platform that pose the greatest threat today are Numbers Five and Ten, so I will cover those in greater detail.
Here is a brief summary, with Marx’s wording being edited for simplicity’s sake:
#1. State control of territory.
On repeated occasions, Team Obama often has thwarted the development of domestic energy supplies through arbitrary regulatory control over massive tracts of federally owned land and restricting drilling in American waters off our coasts.
#2. Progressive income taxes.
Obama has an Ahab-like obsession with further raising taxes on “the rich” even though the top 1% of earners already pays almost as much of the federal income tax as the bottom 95% of taxpayers combined.[2]
#3. Abolition of inheritance.
Obama has succeeded in reinstating federal inheritance taxes and recently proposed raising them further by reducing the dollar threshold at which the tax kicks in and no longer allowing that amount to be indexed to inflation.[3]
#4. Confiscation of the property of emigrants and rebels.
The US has long been one of the few countries to tax its citizens on income earned abroad (a tax that applies to incomes above $95,100). In 2010, Obama won passage of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which orders foreign financial institutions to provide information to the IRS about Americans’ offshore holdings.
#5. Centralization of the country’s financial system in the hands of the state.
Certainly this trend was well established before Barack Obama became president. Thanks to decades of deficit spending, enabled by an accommodating central bank willing to help underwrite the federal government’s chronic over-spending, Big Government and Big Finance have become joined at the hip. This was dramatically demonstrated in 2008 when George W. Bush gave his blessing to a federal bailout of Wall Street. By that time, the heavily indebted federal government had grown far beyond Main Street banks’ ability to finance its massive fiscal operations. Only the colossal financial infrastructure of the megabanks and other gigantic financial institutions was sufficient to maintain an orderly market for the federal Treasury’s seas of red ink, and so federal intervention to rescue Wall Street was an inevitable act of self-preservation on the part of Uncle Sam.
Yet, even though in some ways Obama is merely continuing in the direction charted by his predecessors, he has found a way to accelerate the centralization of credit in the hands of the state. I am referring to the 2010 Dodd-Frank bill—both its content, which Obama supported, as well as the aggressive ways in which he is having it implemented.
Dodd-Frank established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and designed it in such a way that its director would be completely unaccountable to congressional or judicial review while giving the director the power to set its own budget. It is difficult to imagine a less democratic, more autocratic power than that wielded by the director of the CFPB. The word “czar” has been used to describe certain presidential appointees, but the CFPB director has such broad powers and is so insulated from checks and balances that the description “czar” seems to be literally true.
While the stated purpose of Dodd-Frank was to reduce dangerous degrees of financial leverage, the larger import of the bill is the way it increases the government’s political leverage over a wide range of financial firms. President Obama, Sen. Dodd, and other supporters of the bill assured us that this law would protect Americans from the financial fallout of major bankruptcies by authorizing federal regulators to shut down financial institutions “in an orderly fashion” when they start to fail, or to bail them out. [Although Obama himself insisted that Dodd-Frank didn’t contain bailout provisions, two members of the president’s own party did. Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) stated that the bill expands “the safety net … to cover ever-larger and more complex institutions heavily engaged in speculative activities,” thereby “sowing the seeds for an even bigger crisis.” Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) categorically declared, “The bill contains permanent bailout authority.”][4]
Such life and death power, of course, gives the CFPB tremendous leverage over financial institutions. It doesn’t require a lot of imagination to anticipate how such immense power could be used as leverage (what in the private sector might be called “extortion”): “Listen, Ms. CEO, the guys at Treasury think you should do A, B, and C. You’re free to do what you want, but if you don’t do what they suggest, we at the CFPB may pull the plug on you. On the other hand, make them happy and they’ll name you ‘systemically important.’” The Dodd-Frank law has the potential to make vassals and serfs out of all financial institutions, which is exactly what Karl Marx wanted.
Lest you think Barack Obama wouldn’t use the powers of the CFPB to promote his own agenda, he couldn’t even wait until the director of CFPB, Richard Cordray, was duly confirmed (which the Senate finally did earlier this month) before the abuses started. As reported by Paul Sperry in Investor’s Business Daily on July 3, the Obama administration already was using the CFPB to “compil(e) a massive database of personal information” about “your bill-paying and spending habits.”[5] In the context of a presidential administration that already has given ominous indications of being of the Big Brother type (e.g., NSA and IRS data collection) it seems that the Obama administration is moving in the direction not only of total financial control over financial institutions, but over all of us as individuals, too.

Notes:

[1] Mark W. Hendrickson, America’s March Toward Communism, Libertarian Press, 1987.

[2] Mark J. Perry, “The top 1% of US taxpayers pay almost as much in federal income taxes as the entire bottom 95%, and half of that bottom group paid no taxes at all in 2010,” Carpe Diem blog, December 27, 2-12, 11:37 am;
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/12/top-1-of-american-taxpayers-pay-almost-as-much-in-taxes-as-bottom-95-and-half-of-that-group-paid-nothing-in-2010/

[3] http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20130411/FREE/130419987#

[4] Mark W. Hendrickson, “Sen. Dodd’s Financial Reform Bill: The Problem of Leverage,” posted on Visionandvalues.org, April 28, 2010; www.visionandvalues.org/2010/04/sen_dodd_s_financial_reform_bill/

[5] Paul Sperry, “bama Credit Watchdog Snoops Personal Financial Data,” IBD Editorials, posted on investors.com, 07/03/2013 6:59 PM ET.

Having gone over, how far President Obama has gone to implement the first five of Marx’s ten points for how to convert a society to socialism, let’s pick up the narrative by reviewing the other five points.
#6. State control of means of communication and transportation.
Team Obama has attempted to cow conservative media outlets like Fox News into submission through denunciation, has suggested reviving the so-called “fairness doctrine,” and has expressed hostility toward free speech, seeking to use regulations to shape and limit the public. In the area of transportation, Obama insinuated government into the auto industry, has favored the high-speed rail boondoggle, and wishes he could compel us all to convert to “green transportation,” such as electric cars and biofuels.
#7. Increase state control over means of production.
Besides increasing government control of financial institutions (including having virtually nationalized the mortgage industry by taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) Obama has moved to centralize control of health care and insurance; has dictated policies, and even hand-picked a CEO, of American automobile companies; and has done his best to increase government power over the energy industry through his green energy subsidies, his failed cap-and-trade scheme, and via EPA regulation.
#8 Establishment of workers’ armies.
Obama has ramped up the number of Americans working for Uncle Sam by securing a large expansion of Americorps and winning passage of his Serve America Act. He also has done everything he could to strengthen labor unions.
#9. Control over where people live.
Under Obama, The Department of Housing and Urban Development has launched a plan to change where some people live to achieve an indefinite goal of a more even racial distribution of the population.[1]
One of the implications of cap & trade or other attempts by Obama to regulate how much carbon dioxide Americans emit via fossil fuel consumption is the prospect of government limiting human mobility by raising the cost (even to the extent of imposing financial penalties) for exceeding government-determined limits on how far a person may travel.
In Brian Sussman’s book, Eco-Tyranny, you can read an executive order that Obama signed on October 5, 2009 that would “divide the country into sectors where all humans would be herded into urban hubs” while most of the land would be “returned to a natural state upon which humans would only be allowed to tread lightly.” (Marx wanted more equal distribution of the human population between town and country, whereas Obama favors urban concentration, but both want to control where people live.)
#10. Education for all children in public (i.e, governmentally controlled) schools.
Marx’s tenth point is the most far-reaching and potentially dangerous of all. It’s target—control over how and what people think—is the ultimate tyranny. That is why every communist state uses schools as institutions of indoctrination, just as they use media outlets as instruments of propaganda. That is why George Orwell featured “Newspeak”—the mutilation of truth and reason by distorting the meanings of concepts. Every illiberal regime seeks to impose mental programming that produces “the new Soviet man.”
Obama has done more than any previous president to centralize control over education in Washington. He has essentially nationalized the student loan market.[2] He has repeatedly tried to limit school choice, instead siding with would-be teachers’ union monopolists.
In his 2012 State of the Union address, which I attended, he called for additional funds for new federal education programs, including mandatory nationwide schooling for everyone up to age eighteen, regardless of aptitude, interest, or willingness.
Obama has sought to extend the tentacles of federal control over how state education policies by arbitrarily granting waivers exempting some states from George W. Bush’s misguided No Child Left Behind Act. In doing so, Obama has trampled on the principle of federalism and most assuredly granted waivers with strings attached, thereby reducing states’ independence.
Most recently, Team Obama has been pushing the Common Core State Standards—a follow-up to his “Race to the Top” program that spent over $4 billion to induce states to switch to federal standards for curricular guidelines. While Race to the Top and Common Core may sound innocuous or even reasonable, the actual effects are deleterious. Both programs essentially bribe states to replace their existing standards with federal standards, even though, as California has found out, states have had to “dumb down” their standards to conform to federal standards that are lower. [3]
More ominously, the Obama administration is using the Common Core program to invade privacy (think NSA, IRS, and the CFPB — see Part One of this article). In 2011, the Department of Education unilaterally, without congressional approval, altered the regulations based on the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974—loosening them so that mounds of personal data about students may be collected. The personal data include not just academic records, such as grades and whether students complete homework assignments, but also disciplinary records, Social Security numbers, records of discussions with school counselors, as well as information about families’ voting status, religious affiliations, medical history, and income.
As the obnoxious cable TV commercials say, “But wait, there’s more!” If that isn’t invasive enough, the intrepid Michelle Malkin has reported that Team Obama’s Department of Education is preparing to use the most advanced technologies (e.g., cameras to judge facial expressions, electronic seats that report posture, a pressure-sensitive computer mouse, biometric wraps on wrists, etc.) to assess a wide variety of student attitudes—“appreciation for diversity,” “empathy,” “bias,” “cultural awareness,” etc.[4]
You can imagine the mischief to which such data-mining could be put—a “brave new world” in which the government uses the data collected in schools to single out “right thinkers” for the fast track to the best schools and key government positions, and putting dissidents from the desired orthodoxy on black lists. You can see the totalitarian potential of such data mining performed under the pretext of “education.” Surely Comrade Marx would commend Barack Obama for his diligent efforts in the field of education.
The bottom line in all of this is that if Barack Obama is not an economic Marxist at heart, he is doing a superb imitation of one. The fact that he enjoys such unflagging support for his agenda from a significant part of the population shows just how far our country has gone in forsaking our founding principles for the siren song of socialism.

 

Notes:

[1] “HUD Launches Scheme To Racially Diversify Suburbs,” IBD Editorials, posted 07/22/2013 06:55 PM ET.

[2] Andrew Clark, “”Obama’s Risky Plan: Government Takeover of the Student Loan Business,” Politics Daily, January 26, 2010; www.politicsdaily.com/2010/01/26/obamas-risky-plan-takeover-of-the-student-loan-busi/

[3] Mytheos Holt, “New Whiteboard Video Attacks ‘Obama’s Education Takeover,’” theblaze, Feb. 17, 2012; www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/02/17/new-whiteboard-video-attacks-obamas-education-takeover/

[4] Michelle Malkin, “Time To Opt Out of Creepy Fed Ed Data-Mining Racket,” Accuracy In Media guest column, posted March 18, 2013 @ 2:50 am; http://www.aim.org/guest-column/time-to-opt-out-of-creepy-fed-ed-data-mining-racket/

The Military Order of Santiago

© Guy Stair Sainty

The Order of Santiago (Sant'Iago), more properly the Military Order of Saint James of the Sword, was originally a small military brotherhood based near Caceres in Estramadura. [1] Their initial purpose was to provide protection for the pilgrims traveling to and from the tomb of Saint James at Compostella, the most important pilgrimage center in Western Europe, who were frequently harassed by Moorish bandits. Between 1164 and 1170 the thirteen founder knights [2] had attached themselves to the order of regular canons of the monastery of Sant'Eloi at Lugo, on the Mino in Galicia, promising to give them military protection and adopting their rule of Saint Augustine. The knights brought a considerable endowment to the new combined Order, [3] and the monks soon assented to sharing their common revenues and agreed to provide hospital services to the knights, their serving brothers and sick pilgrims. The 1173 concordat between the Master of the knights, D. Pedro-Fernándo de Fuentes Encalada and the Prior of the canons, Dom Fernándo, which regulated the terms of this agreement, was approved by the Papal legate, Hiacinto Cardinal Bubo (later Pope Celestinus III), in early 1175 and later that year Fuentes traveled to Rome, where he was received in audience by Pope Alexander II, who approved the new Order in the Bull Benedictus Deus of 3 July 1175.

The knights made similar vows as the members of the Hospitaller and Templar Orders, although only taKing the lesser vow of "marital chastity". They were not only required to provide hospital services, however, but like the Teutonic knights in Prussia also undertake the evangelisation of the citizens of their new territories. The head of the Order, accorded the title of "Master", ruled with a Council of Thirteen (the Trecenezago), while the religious members (the Canons and Canonesses) were headed by their own Prior. The Master's deputy (a member of the Trecenezago), was accorded the title of Grand Commander (Commendador Mayor) and subsequently the responsibilities of this office were divided between five Grand Commanders, of Castille, León, and Montalbán (or Aragón) - which still exist - and two others, Portugal and Gascony, which have been dissolved. [4] The council of thirteen was replicated in the Order's principal fortress communities (or encomienda), each containing thirteen knight brothers.

The Order had immediately obtained the support of King Ferdinand of Aragón who, in 1171, had granted it title to the original headquarters, the town of Caceres and, over the next two years, they captured Badajoz, Mora (near Toledo), and Fuentiduena (near Aranjuez). In 1174 they were granted the castle of Uclés (between Toledo and Cuenca) by King Alfonso IX of Castille, where they established their principal seat following the loss of Caceres and Badajoz. Within ten years they had founded hospitals at Toledo, Avíla and Talavera and, in 1188, at Cuenca. In 1186 they inaugurated the convent of Santa Eufemia of Cozolos for the Canonesses attached to their Order and soon afterward opened a leper hospital at Villa San Martín, near Carion. They were granted extensive properties in Portugal, including the town of Palmella, and later acquired properties in France, Italy, Palestine, Carinthia, Hungary and England (given them by grateful pilgrims). [5]

Unfortunately, the Christian Kingdoms of Spain were frequently at odds with each other. The loyalty of the military Orders to one or other of the protagonists further weakened the Christian cause, delaying the ultimate victory over the Moors. In 1176 the knights had joined the King of Castille against Sancho VI, King of Navarre, giving the Moors an opportunity to attack Uclés, seriously damaging its defenses. Master Fuentes died in 1184 leading to a schism in the Order - the knights in León electing (at the instigation of King Ferdinand), D. Sancho Fernández while those in Castille (encouraged by King Alfonso), elected D. Fernándo Díaz. The latter is generally regarded as the legitimate Grand Master but Díaz, anxious not to perpetuate the schism, resigned in 1186 and his knights accepted the authority of Fernández.

Like the Templars and Hospitallers, the four Orders rapidly assumed extensive feudal powers and this was never more evident than in the widespread territories of the knights of Santiago. When acquiring new estates, whether by gift or conquest, the Order would typically establish some kind of defensible buildings and, in larger towns, build substantial fortresses. The area around would necessarily be dedicated to the production of food for the garrison and networks of villages and peasant communities would be joined by primitive roads radiating from the center. Each of the principal castles would necessarily have their own administrative systems, subordinate to the local Commander, with groups of knights, sergeants and foot soldiers. Gifts to the Orders from each of Spain's several Monarchies and from individuals meant that their territories were widely scattered and this was particularly true of the heavily endowed Order of Santiago. Unfortunately, the distance from the central leadership contributed to divisions within the Order as poor communications and divergent interests made consensual decision making extremely difficult. The various Crown grants to the Orders tended to be on frontier areas bordering the Moorish settlements and these were sometimes made in exchange for towns or castles now situated well behind the lines. Typical of such grants were the gifts by Sancho IV of Castril in exchange for Libriella in 1282 and Orcera for Amusco (near Monzón) in 1285; both these bordered the Kingdom of Granada. [6] To help support the Order, royal grants were sometimes made of monopolies or other forms of income; in 1246 Santiago's monastery at Segura was given an annual rent of 2,000 maravedís from the salt mines at Belinchón by Ferdinand III. [7] A further aspect of the Order's responsibilities - and one which was likewise consigned to Calatrava and Alcántara - was assisting in resettling land captured from the Moors with Christian populations from the north.

In 1195 the knights, joined with those of Calatrava and Alcántara, suffered a bitter defeat at Alarcos; their Grand Master was fatally wounded and many of their number killed. War broke out soon after between Castille and León and the knights, who owned territories in both Kingdoms, were forced to elect two Masters once again - this second schism ended with the submission of all the knights to Gonzálo Ordóñez in 1203. Over the course of the next century the knights were engaged in war with both Moors and fellow Christians, generally supporting the Kings of Castille and Aragón against Navarre. As the Moors were steadily driven southwards, so the knights of Santiago acquired more extensive territories and increased their numbers - despite a further schism in the Magistery during the 1220's and quarrels between the knights and the religious brothers and sisters headed by the Prior.

In 1312 the knights established a seat at Salamanca and soon after built a convent in Seville. They had signed a formal alliance with the King of Castille in 1226 but the Crown was anxious to further strengthen its control over this powerful, and potentially disloyal, military power. To ensure the loyalty of the Order King Alfonso XI of Castille persuaded the knights to elect one of his natural sons, the ten year old D. Fernándo, as Grand Master, requiring a Papal dispensation. However, on the death of the King and the succession of the Grand Master's half-brother Pedro the Cruel, relations between the knights and Crown deteriorated when the new King, as one of his first acts, ordered the execution of his father's mistress, the mother of the Grand Master. Pedro, faced with revolt by his grandees and the knights of Santiago, commanded the deposition of the Grand Master, which the knights refused and, with the assistance of a small group of knights, obtained the schismatic and illegal election of his own mistress's brother as Master. In 1357, having persuaded the Master that he was prepared to recognize his sole authority over the Order, Pedro summoned him to Seville where he promptly had him murdered, leading to a further schism, only ended by the election of the Infant Henry of Aragón at the end of the century.

In 1445 the Order elected Alvaro de Luna, Constable of Castille, but he too was faced with a rival in the person of Rodrigo Manríquez, the candidate of the King of Aragón, leading to a bloody war between the knights and, in 1453, to the eventual arrest of Luna, who had entered into a secret agreement with the Moors. After a brief period of royal administration and a further disputed succession, the King permitted the knights to elect D. Juan Pacheco [8] in 1467. Pacheco attempted to restore discipline but his death in 1474 led to a further schism, this time with three Masters. With the conquest of Grenada the importance of the knights declined and, within a year of the death of the schismatic Master Alfonso de Cardenas in 1493, Ferdinand V of Aragón obtained the "Administration" of the Order of Santiago in the Kingdoms of Spain by a Bull of the Spanish Pope Alexander VI (Borgia). The knights in Portugal, with their seat first at Alcazar d'Ozal and later at Palmela, had had their own Grand Master since the early fourteenth century, while the administration was annexed to the Portuguese Crown by Pope Julius II. In 1515 Ferdinand's grand-son and eventual successor, Charles I (the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V), the first Habsburg King of Spain, obtained confirmation of the royal administration of the Order, which was permanently conceded to the Crown in 1523 (see above).

To qualify for membership candidates had to prove four noble quarterings, but until 1653 it was only required that the nobility of the paternal line should be of any antiquity. [9] An obligation was imposed on the novices to serve in the galleys for six months and live in the Convent of the Order to study its rule for one month, but these relatively modest duties could be dispensed with by payment of a sum of money and by the eighteenth century was purely nominal. Permitted to marry by the terms of Pope Alexander III's 1175 Bull, although obligated to "marital chastity", [10] they could only do so with royal permission, which had to be transmitted in writing. Without this dispensation they were obliged to a year of penance, or a financial penalty - if members of the Trecenezago they were deprived of their office. The wives of knights were obliged to make the same noble proofs as their husbands - thus the son of a knight need only proof his legitimate birth to qualify. [11] When making profession the knights were required to take the vows of poverty, obedience and marital chastity, and by a decision of the Chapter-General in 1652 (also in Calatrava and Alcántara), they added, with royal approval, a fourth vow to defend and sustain the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.

The knights of Santiago have left an architectural legacy of some considerable importance, indeed in building churches and fortresses and enlarging the towns and cities in their control each of the Orders have left a permanent remembrance of their power. Not suprisingly, some of the greatest such structures were either not begun or were substantially remodeled after the Reconquista was completed, particularly as the defeat of the Moors rendered the defensive character less significant. A recent study of three of Santiago's principal buildings in Uclés, San Marcos and Calera de León illustrates the history of different aspects of the architectural heritage of the Order. [12] Each of the buildings examined by these scholars retained the existing system of cloister and communal buildings attached to a splendid church. They already anticipate the baroque style but combine elements from the gothic and renaissance - each of which post date comparable periods in Italian architectural development. The historic buildings associated with the four Orders mostly now belong to the Spanish state, but several are used today in ceremonies honoring their patrons or commemorating the great events of their history.

By the fall of the Monarchy in 1931 the Order was much reduced in size, with less than thirty professed and thirty-five novice knights. The President of the Trecenezago was the Infant D. Ferdinand of Bavaria, Grand Commander of León and there were several other royal princes among the novice knights - including Prince Adalbert of Bavaria and the Duke of Parma, while in 1941 the Infants Luis-Alfonso and José-Eugenio, sons of the Infant D. Ferdinand, were admitted.

Today the Commendador-Mayor of Castille is the Prince of the Asturias, heir to the Spanish Throne (who entered as a novice knight in 1986, making profession immediately, and was appointed to this post the following year), the Commendador-Mayor of León is a Grandee, the Count of Bornos, and the Commendador-Mayor of Montalbán is now D. Alfonson de Zuleta y Sanchiz, (Secretary of the Order and successor to the late Duke of Alburquerque). There are thirty-five other professed knights and thirty novices. [13] The Cross of the Order is a red latin cross with flory ends to the three upper arms (a cross flory fitchy), and the lower arm being shaped like a sword; the knights wear white robes resembling a monks habit with the cross sewn on the left side; the gold red enameled badge may be suspended from a red ribbon and worn around the neck, or it may be sewn onto the left breast. The historic name of this badge, the Espada (Sword) was nicknamed the Largetto, or Lizard. [14] Novice knights are required to prove the nobility of each of their four grandparents, that they and their parents and grandparents are legitimate and not descended from non-Christians (or heretics, although a protestant ancestor has not been considered an obstacle to membership for many years), and that they are practicing Catholics in good standing. Petition for admission is made to President and Dean of the Council of the four Orders and proofs are examined by the fiscal. Generally only one ceremony admitting new knights is held each year and subsequently novices may make profession, in accordance with the ancient statutes.

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Footnotes

[1]Romanticised histories of the Order claim that it was founded by Ramiro, 1st King of Galicia, in the year 846, but there is no documentary evidence to support this theory.

[2]The number thirteen was intended to commemorate the twelve Apostles with Our Lord Jesus Christ.

[3]According to Helyot, op.cit., Volume II, p.257, some twenty castles.

[4]By 1553 the province of Castille had forty-three commanderies, that of León had thirty-five while that of Montalbán had seven - excluding the convents and hospitals. A survey of the Order in 1772 disclosed that the Order had declined in size, having a total of sixty-seven commanderies with annual revenues of 250,000 ecus per annum.

[5]See Seward, op.cit., p.142.

[6] See José Vicente Matellanes Merchán, Organization of Land in the Peninsular South-East: the Commandery of Segura de la Sierra of the Order of Santiago, 1246-1350, in The Military Orders, edited by Malcolm Barber, 1994, p. 300.

[7] See J. González, Reinado y diplomas de Ferando III, I (Cordoba 1980), pp. 310-311. Noted in Matellanes, Op. cit. supra, p. 299, note 21.

[8] 1st Marquess of Villena and, as Grand Master, given the title of Duke of Escalona in 1472

[9]It was also required that candidates prove that each of their four grandparents were neither Jews, Moors or heretics, that they had not suffered indictment or punishment by the inquisition, and that they were of legitimate birth. The present-day requirement that the baptismal certificate of each candidate be presented for the candidate, his parents and grandparents ensure both that candidates are legitimate and of Christian (if, not necessarily, Catholic) ancestry.

[10]As part of their vow of marital chastity the knights were required to abstain from carnal relations on the feast of the Virgin, of Saint John the Baptist, the feasts of the Apostles, and on every fast day required by the rule of Saint Augustine, namely every Friday from the first of September through Pentecost and for the entire period from the 8th November until Christmas. Pope Innocent IV dispensed them from the full rigours of the latter rule by lifting the fasting requirement from the 8th November to the first Sunday of Advent if they were at war, and Pope Martin V made voluntary the requirement that they spend those days when they were required to abstain from carnal relations in the convent of the Order. Pope Innocent VIII in 1486 relieved them of all fasting obligations at time of war and also declared that other breaches of the rule would not be considered mortal sin.

[11]Since the early nineteenth century, knights of Santiago have not been obliged to seek permission to marry and there is no longer an obligation for their wives to prove nobility - thus it is no longer sufficient to be the son of a knight of Santiago to be exempted from noble proofs on applying for membership.

[12] See Aurora Ruiz Mateaos, Jesús Espino Nuño and Olga Pérez Monzón, Architecture and Power: the Seats of the Priories of the Order of Santiago, in The Military Orders, edited by Malcolm Barber, 1994, pp. 302-309.

[13] Including the Dukes of Ahumada, San Carlos, and Luna, the Marquesses of La Guardia, and Bendaña, and the Counts of the Cañada, Murillo, España, and Real, and the Señor de la Casa de Rubianes, all Grandees of Spain.

[14]See Seward, op.cit.. p.144.