In 1984, to remember the 11th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Ronald Reagan declared January 22 National Sanctity of Human Life Day.  Until this week, I was entirely unaware that such a day existed. It makes sense, of course. I’ve participated in the March for Life, which is a massive annual protest for the sake of the unborn, and it occurs ever year in Washington D.C. right around this time. (This year’s March is tomorrow, January 23rd.)

This year, the Sanctity of Human Life Day was brought to my attention at my church, where the President of a local crisis pregnancy center spoke to all of the congregants about the plight of thousands of local mothers who undergo abortions every year, and the thousands of babies who are killed in the procedures. Especially touching was the story of Mia, printed on a bulletin insert and courtesy of The Life Network:

Single, with a five-month-old son, Mia found herself in what seemed like a catastrophic crisis. “Choice” implies a range of alternatives, but for Mia, the only alternative was abortion. She saved her money, scheduled an appointment, and looked forward to the relief an abortion would bring. Pregnancy over, crisis averted.

But the relief she anticipated turned into anxiety and unrest as the day of her scheduled abortion approached. At her appointment, an ultrasound was performed to establish the age of her preborn child and determine which abortion procedure would be used. Noticing Mia’s uneasiness, the ultrasound technician said, “You don’t want to do this, do you?” She turned the ultrasound display and Mia was able to see the beating heart of her child.

Mia felt the fear of God come over her, and she knew that she couldn’t go through with her choice to abort. With tears now streaming down her face, and armed with a new resolve, Mia halted the preparations and walked out of the clinic, confident that God had used the technician and the ultrasound to speak to her about her preborn child.

Upon leaving the clinic, Mia noticed a sign directly across the street for the local pregnancy center. It was also a sign of hope. Unsure of what to expect, Mia walked in and asked for help. Soon she was speaking with a compassionate volunteer, who counseled Mia with life-affirming options for her pregnancy, prayed with her, and offered her the opportunity to receive mentoring and education to help her walk through the days ahead.

Through the ministry she received at the center, Mia found a hope that came to her in her moment of greatest need. Mia named her beautiful baby girl Lucy–whose name means light. Mia continues to attend the center’s mentoring program, where she receives ongoing support as she parents her little ones by herself, but knowing that she will never be alone again. Mia now describes Lucy as one of her greatest blessings from the Lord–the “light” of her life given to her by the Light of the World. (For Mia’s story in audio, visit here.)

Too often, the cause of the unborn is forgotten in the wake of economic upsets, discussions on defense, and turbulent social policy. Even though today features the NFC and AFC championship games, take a moment to contemplate those who never made it out of the womb alive. Tim Tebow did, but just barely.

Pray for those who are currently at risk of being killed in utero, and pray for the success of those who wage the battle for the unborn every day of their lives. It is one of the most important battles of our age.

For a change of pace, check out these pictures of New Year’s Eve celebrations from some neat places:

Sydney, Australia

Beijing, China

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

London, UK

Happy New Year!

Z

Part of the reason that I describe myself as a communitarian conservative is that I place a very high premium on the value of human life and, consequently, I view human relationships as an aspect of society that we should value very highly.

Communitarians understand that, and are willing to sacrifice for the good of a community. I’m not talking about communism. I’m not even talking about egalitarianism. Communitarianism is about buying coffee from the local coffee shop. It’s about knowing the name of your mechanic, and having the same doctor as all your neighbors.

David Brooks (you’ll probably see me refer to his work a lot) wrote a column today that talked about a conservative blogger named Rob Dreher who was contently living the metropolitan lifestyle in Philadelphia…until his younger sister Ruthie was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

He blogged about her plight and detailed the progression of her illness and the community support structure that sprung up around her.

As Ruthie’s illness worsened, Dreher’s grief would be mixed with something else. “The outpouring — an eruption, really — of goodness and charity from the people of our town has been quite simply stunning,” he blogged. “The acts of aid and comfort have been ceaseless, often reducing our parents to tears of shock and awe.”

On September 15, Ruthie succumbed to her illness. A thousand people from the small community attended her funeral, including Dreher and his wife. They saw a group of people united in purpose and dedicated to each other in a way that they had scarce seen before.

Rod Dreher and his wife packed up their Philadelphia home and moved to that community in Louisiana. There he stays now, living the communitarian conservative life that he continues to advocate in his writings.

Z

Today David Brooks ran a column in the New York Times declaring the need for a ” productive midlife crisis” in America. He articulates the apparent parallels between our current era and the Progressive one (in which FDR and the “New Deal” dominated headlines), but systemically dismantles these parallels by showing how we are in a very different state today. His points are spot on.

The first difference is that our economy now is mature and middle-aged, in need of rejuvenation. Eighty years ago it was hitting puberty, developing a deep booming voice and gaining brawn and mass every quarter. Our current system is one in need of skin toner and Rogaine,  not amateurish discipline.

Second, the governmental problem in the Progressive era was a lack of institutions, not an excess of them.  The libertarian streak in conservative politics today is evidence of how many Americans have grown paranoid at the thought of government involvement. The New Deal could never gain popular support today.

Brooks’ most poignant argument is the moral difference between the two eras. The Victorian era  of “rectitude and restrictions” is no more, replaced by a vacuous entity devoid of ethical tradition.  Case in point, Brooks says: Forty percent of American children are born out of wedlock.

Brooks summed up the problem in this way:

One hundred years ago, we had libertarian economics but conservative values. Today we have oligarchic economics and libertarian moral values – a bad combination.

It is indeed a bad combination. The conservatism is gone from the public square, replaced by economic oligarchy (or libertarianism at best) and moral libertarianism (if not liberalism).

That is something that should give us pause to think. Let’s hope that this midlife crisis can be a productive one.

Z

2011 has seen too many scandals.  To name only a few, Representative Anthony Weiner, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, half of Penn State’s leadership, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s executives, and now a GOP frontrunner have all seen their careers suffer devastating blows due to ethical scandals.  The masks that we use hide our worst wrongdoing and facilitate the gradual destruction of the public square.  What contributes to the moral demise of each face?  How are such figures able to serve under such dreadfully beautiful disguises, maintain faithful followings in the midst of disastrous personal choices, and walk superficial lines of ethical behavior when their internal compasses are so askew?

“Every profound spirit needs a mask,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche.  To him, humanity has a love affair with the disguise.  Nietzsche was on to something:  we need and love the mask.  The simplistic and elegant reality is that the mask is a pervasive part of who we are. It evolves and grows around the core of our beings—not entirely consciously—and becomes indistinguishable from our actual selves.  At the same time, our misuse of the mask has consequences for our civic society, clearly manifest in the moral vacuum that now characterizes our politics.  We are in need of a paradigm shift—one that recognizes the limited value of the mask while valuing transparency over duplicity.

This tendency causes us to accept others who are so obviously donning a mask, and is the same inclination that spurs us to look on with suspicion at the apparent absence of such a disguise.  Failing public figures capture our imaginations and conversations in ways that no amount of virtue ever can.  The failures of such leaders and executives excuse our wrongdoing and simultaneously make us more aware of the masks that we ourselves wear.  Our failures, safe in our memories, dwindle when laid alongside the exposed misdeeds of our leaders.

For every failure there is an excuse:  the pressures on political candidates cause lapses in judgment; intercollegiate athletics lends itself to systemic ethical shortcomings; the institutional structures of businesses become “too big to fail.”   We disdain these excuses, and yet prefer them to the alternative recognition that failure is endemic to human nature.  Ironically, the failures of those in power spur us on in our own duplicity, giving us hope that we too can be successful behind the mask.  The mask is what we desire.

The converse is also true:  those who do not appear to be wearing a mask make us supremely uncomfortable.  Tim Tebow hasn’t made headlines because of his athletic prowess or off-the-field behavior.  He has become one of the day’s most controversial sports figures simply because he seems to be genuine, honest about his personal life and apparently immune to the temptations of other mortals.  We don’t like that.   We want mystery and scandal.  When we place our faith in someone, we want a risk.  Masks equal risks; their absence is both dull and unsettling.

The mask is not a novel invention, and it would be ignorant to pretend that an idyllic world without the device is possible. Its mere presence, though, is not evidence of its virtuous use.  In fact, we most often use it for ill as a means of moral affirmation. When our leaders fail, our tendency is to reprimand the offender, affirm our own misdeeds and delight at the absence of our own public shame.  If instead our response were rehabilitation coupled with a sobering reminder of our moral equivalence, the limitations of the mask would be laid bare.

The beauty of the mask is that it is not a cloak of invisibility.  It does not completely hide us.  Every mask adopts at least some of the visage of its wearer.  The mask can be used for good—not to disguise our worst but to develop our best.  If we recognize the mask for what it can be, then our civic dialogue will benefit.  The problem is that we tend to place unlimited confidence in the disguise.  The mask has no ability to absolve our consciences or reorient our compasses.  It is a means of politics, not an end.

The ultimate irony is that the mask, originally intended to hide our worst, can display our best only when our worst is acknowledged.  We would do well to remember this as we embark on a new year that will surely present all the challenges of the old.

ZC

Although I am not a Catholic, I attended a Christmas Eve midnight mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul with my Roman brethren last night and was brought to tears at the majesty of the music and liturgy.

One of the most fascinating portions of the service was the recitation of the “Roman Martyrology,” a chronological record of the year in which Christ was born. The priest, to a silent cathedral filled with a thousand-strong throng, chanted the following:

In the 5199th year of the creation of the world, from the time when in the beginning God created heaven and earth;from the flood, the 2957th year; from the birth of Abraham, the 2015th year; from Moses and the going-out of the people of Israel from Egypt, the 1510th year; from the anointing of David as king, the 1032nd year; in the 65th week according to the prophecy of Daniel; in the 194th Olympiad; from the founding of the city of Rome, the 752nd year; in the 42nd year of the rule of Octavian Augustus, when the whole world was at peace, in the sixth age of the world: Jesus Christ, the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father, desiring to sanctify the world by His most merciful coming, having been conceived by the Holy Ghost, and nine months having passed since His conception was born in Bethlehem of Judah of the Virgin Mary, having become man.

What was most impressive to me was the sense of the magnitude of the birth of Christ. We tend to dismiss it amid a flurry of commercialism and gift-giving, and it becomes trivialized and insignificant. This moment changed everything. The heavens were giving worship, the angels were singing “Glory in the Highest,” the local shepherds were flocking to the manger. It was the Greek kairos, the opportune time which God had foreordained.

This Christmas season (we still have 11 more days), let’s remember that!

Cheers,

ZC

The Christmas season is an appropriate time to be reminded of the seriousness of the world in which we live. It is easy to be lost in the midst of the excessive commercialism that permeates every aspect of our culture, but much harder to step back from all of that and recognize Christ’s birth for what it is. What better season is there to embark on a new project intended to examine how God is glorified in public life?

Titus 2:6-8 reminds young men “to be sober-minded, in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.”

I want my life to model that, and I can’t be the only one. But the blog isn’t only for similarly-minded audiences. It is for all people from all walks of life – people in desperate pursuit of God, people who have clashed with God, people who are indifferent, and people who are curious.

I decided to start this in order to have an outlet for analyzing today’s culture in light of the Gospel. I hope you return to read the posts. They are bound to cover a variety of topics, including theology, politics, philosophy, current events, and entertainment. Your feedback is always welcome.

Cheers,

ZC