Reflections on the passing of Brennan Manning

 The news that Brennan Manning had died filled me with a mix of sadness and joy - sadness, because such a wonderful light has gone out of this world, joy because if Brennan Manning is right, then there is reason to hope that I will meet him again.

I met Brennan once years ago, briefly, when he came to speak at a church that I attended. He was gracious, kind, and very patient with me as I fumbled for words, trying not to gush like a giddy teenager meeting a rock star. There was a photo taken of us, but it's lost in the confusion of the years in between.

I came across this quote, which sums up the core of Brennan's teaching quite well:

Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last ‘trick’, whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school.
"But how?" we ask.
Then the voice says, ‘They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’
There they are. There we are – the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life’s tribulations, but through it all clung to faith.
My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.

Brennan told a story once of being invited to dinner at a rabbi's house. After the meal, the rabbi's young son climbed into his father's lap while he and Brennan were talking. The young boy proceeded to tug playfully on his father's beard while the discussion went on; the father tolerated the boy, and never said a word against him, while continuing his conversation.

If faith is worth anything, if belief means anything, then Brennan Manning is sitting in God's lap, tugging God's beard at this moment. I hope that one day I can join him there, and see if the two of us can distract our Father for a moment. I bet we can't.

On the "terrorist watch list" and gun background checks

The United Stated Department of Disinformation, otherwise known as NPR (link) has posted a hand-wringing report condemning the NRA for lobbying to refuse to allow the fact that a person is on an FBI or DHS terrorist "watch list" from resulting in a failed firearms purchase background check.

Let us, as NPR does, set aside the inconvenient fact that the guns used by the alleged marathon bombers were not legally obtained; even if being on the watch list was indicated by a background check, no such check is performed when an illegal firearms transfer occurs.

The truth is, the constitutionality of using these lists in any way to limit a person's rights is entirely suspect. Since there is no clear defined legal process by which one gets on or off the "watch list", legally there shouldn't be any restrictions on the constitutional freedoms of those on it. You or I could be on the watch list simply because someone in Washington picked our names out of the phone book, literally. It's that arbitrary. For those with relatives in the Middle East, it's even scarier. Consider: my children have uncles and cousins who are fighting (and dying, for what it's worth) for the Syrian resistance. If the state department decides to label those rebels as "Al-Qaeda backed groups," any one of my children could find themselves on a watch list for the mere act of posting something on Facebook or Twitter.

(The same is true for the "no-fly" list, which not only is contrary to basic freedom of movement, but also is unlawful under existing Supreme court precedent.)

The intent of the Founders with respect to the 2nd Amendment

If one actually reads the founders - Madison, Jefferson, Munroe, Hamilton, etc. - it's pretty easy to see that their intentions were to have the general population fully armed and prepared to resist tyranny, whether it came in the form of an external invasion or a hijacking of the internal political process. There is ample evidence for this in the writings and papers of those involved in drafting the Constitution. These documents are readily available to anyone via a simple trip to any reasonably stocked public library; many of them are available on the Internet. Anyone who claims the founders meant otherwise cannot produce a document that proves their claim, because such a document does not exist, unless perhaps they are citing examples out of consequence, or referring to writing where there was clearly an attempt to withhold the right of gun ownership from a particular class (namely, those of African descent.)

 One may argue that the situation is different, but the process for modifying the enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights is to introduce and pass an Amendment, not to rewrite history to support one's arguments.

Rutgers and the myth of the student athlete

Here is everything you need to know about college athletic programs: In the 1990s, Milton Friedman, an alumni of Rutgers, tried to buy an ad in several publications serving the Rutgers community. In part, the text of that ad read: "The proper role of athletic activity at a university is to foster healthy minds and healthy bodies, not to produce spectacles. Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students, and to add to the body of intellectual knowledge, not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes." The Rutgers Daily Targum, an independent student newspaper, ran the ad. The alumni magazine for Rutgers refused to run it. Friedman filed a lawsuit to force Rutgers to run the ad. The university spent nearly half a million dollars fighting the lawsuit.