Sunday, November 14, 2010
Ooo! OBL will be shaking in his leather thongs when he sees this photo! You look so powerful, you look so ‘in control’. Our adversaries will shudder at the thought of getting entangled with us.
By the way, what is that pathetic little buggy you are using for poor little Florence? Doesn’t the little might deserve something classier than that?
All self-respecting patricians use Silver Cross strollers – they used to be called perambulators, or prams, for short. Check this one out, David! – © Mark
Dave and the daddy of all cover-ups: PM takes baby Florence for a walk >>> Daily Mail Reporter | Sunday, November 14, 2010
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Pauline Hanson, the Australian politician noted for her anti-immigration outbursts, has said she is abandoning plans to move to Britain because “it’s overrun with immigrants and refugees.”
Ms Hanson, the former One Nation party chief who warned that Australia was at risk of being “swamped by Asians”, said France was also inundated with foreigners and she had decided to stay in Australia.
“I love England but so many people want to leave there because it’s overrun with immigrants and refugees,” she said.
“France is becoming filled with Muslims and the French and English are losing their way of life because they’re controlled by foreigners.” Read on and comment >>> | Sunday, November 14, 2010
* She’s right, of course! Sometimes in London one could be forgiven for believing that one were in Riyadh or Dubai! – © Mark
* * *
Pauline Hanson is right, of course. She speaks the truth. But the MSM will villify her for doing so. They’ll say she belongs to the “far-right”, and associate her with the BNP. But the hard reality is that she is RIGHT! Wherever she is on the political spectrum.
But what will be done about this sad situation? FA! Why? Because our so-called leaders have NO BALLS. Take one look at them! Has David Cameron started shaving yet? Have his balls dropped? Ditto Cleggover, though his nickname would suggest otherwise!
When are we going to be governed by REAL politicians – politicians who think more of their country and its citizens than they do of their own image? – © Mark
This comment also appears here.
LE POINT: Des centaines de milliers de fidèles ont commencé dimanche à affluer à Mina, près de La Mecque en Arabie saoudite, au premier jour du hajj, qui se déroule jusqu'ici sans incident majeur.
Le nombre total des pèlerins n'a pas été encore annoncé, certaines estimations évoquant quelque 2,5 millions de fidèles. Selon les autorités, 1,7 million de musulmans ont obtenu un visa pour le hajj, auxquels s'ajoutent 200.000 fidèles du royaume saoudien et de la région du Golfe autorisés à effectuer le rite.
Agissant avec fermeté, les autorités ont lancé une campagne de chasse aux pèlerins illégaux, arrêtant toute personne qui tenterait de s'infiltrer à La Mecque. Un chauffeur risque une amende de 10.000 riyals (2.667 dollars) pour chaque pèlerin illégal qu'il transporterait dans son véhicule.
L'affluence des fidèles à Mina marque le début officiel du hajj, au huitième jour du mois lunaire musulman de Dhou al-Hajja: c'est le jour de Tarwiah au cours duquel les fidèles faisaient, dans le passé, leurs réserves en eau en prévision de leur stationnement le lendemain sur le Mont Arafat.
La plaine de Mina, qui ne s'anime que cinq jours par an, la durée du hajj, abrite un camp de tentes blanches. Continuez à lire et réagir à cet article >>> AFP | Dimanche 14 Novembre 2010
Atlantik-Brücke e.V. >>>
Helmut-Schmidt-Universität: Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg >>>
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: The Queen led the nation in honouring the fallen at the traditional Remembrance Sunday service at London's iconic Cenotaph war memorial.
The monarch was the first to lay a wreath to commemorate those servicemen and women killed in all conflicts since the First World War.
Thousands of miles away Prince William, an RAF Search and Rescue helicopter pilot, joined the military congregation at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province for their event honouring Britain's war dead.
At the first stroke of 11am by Big Ben the two minutes' silence began. >>> | Sunday, November 14, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The new head of Britain's armed forces, Gen Sir David Richards, has warned that the West cannot defeat al-Qaeda and militant Islam.
He said defeating Islamist militancy was "unnecessary and would never be achieved".
However, he argued that it could be "contained" to allow Britons to lead secure lives.
Gen Richards, 58, said the threat posed by "al-Qaeda and its affiliates" meant Britain's national security would be at risk for at least 30 years.
The general, who will today lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in Whitehall in memory of Britain's war dead, said the West's war against what he described as a "pernicious ideology" had parallels with the fight against Nazi Germany in the Second World War. >>> Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent | Saturday, November 13, 2010
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: General Sir David Richards: Why we cannot defeat al-Qaeda – General Sir David Richards, the new chief of the defence staff, believes the bravery of British soldiers fighting in the war on terrorism has parallels those who gave their lives in the fight against Fascism in the Second World War. >>> Sean Rayment | Sunday, November 14, 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Italy and France have airlifted Iraqi Christians injured in the October 31 church attack to Rome and Paris for medical treatment, despite criticism that such actions are encouraging their exodus.
26 Iraqis were flown to Rome on Friday at the request of the Vatican, while the French government vowed to fly a further 93 Iraqis to Paris to add to the 54 already receiving treatment there.
Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has warned other countries, without naming any, not to encourage Christians to emigrate.
"The countries that have welcomed the victims ... of this attack have done a noble thing, but that should not encourage emigration," Mr al-Maliki said.
Eric Besson, the French minister of immigration, said that his move fitted France's "tradition of asylum", and that asylum would be "handed out generously" to those who sought it. >>> | Friday, November 12, 2010
THE ECONOMIST: And the world should stay open for business
IN THEORY, the ownership of a business in a capitalist economy is irrelevant. In practice, it is often controversial. From Japanese firms’ wave of purchases in America in the 1980s and Vodafone’s takeover of Germany’s Mannesmann in 2000 to the more recent antics of private-equity firms, acquisitions have often prompted bouts of national angst.
Such concerns are likely to intensify over the next few years, for China’s state-owned firms are on a shopping spree. Chinese buyers—mostly opaque, often run by the Communist Party and sometimes driven by politics as well as profit—have accounted for a tenth of cross-border deals by value this year, bidding for everything from American gas and Brazilian electricity grids to a Swedish car company, Volvo.
There is, understandably, rising opposition to this trend. The notion that capitalists should allow communists to buy their companies is, some argue, taking economic liberalism to an absurd extreme. But that is just what they should do, for the spread of Chinese capital should bring benefits to its recipients, and the world as a whole.
Why China is different
Not so long ago, government-controlled companies were regarded as half-formed creatures destined for full privatisation. But a combination of factors—huge savings in the emerging world, oil wealth and a loss of confidence in the free-market model—has led to a resurgence of state capitalism. About a fifth of global stockmarket value now sits in such firms, more than twice the level ten years ago.
The rich world has tolerated the rise of mercantilist economies before: think of South Korea’s state-led development or Singapore’s state-controlled firms, which are active acquirers abroad. Yet China is different. It is already the world’s second-biggest economy, and in time is likely to overtake America. Its firms are giants that until now have been inward-looking but are starting to use their vast resources abroad. >>> | Thursday, November 11, 2010
Tosh from ‘The Economist’! – © Mark
The following comment is being reproduced with the express permission of the author, Dr. Tawfik Hamid.
I think you will agree with me when I say that it is truly a remarkable and wonderful comment. If only more Muslims thought this way, the world would be a far nicer and safer place.
See what you think. I am sure you will agree with me.
Kudos to Dr. Hamid! – Mark:
”From the heart of a Muslim - Tawfik HamidThis excellent comment also appeared here.
I was born a Muslim and lived all my life as a follower of Islam.
After the barbaric terrorist attacks done by the hands of my fellow Muslims everywhere on this globe, and after the too many violent acts by Islamists in many parts of the world, I feel responsible as a Muslim and as a human being, to speak out and tell the truth to protect the world and Muslims as well from a coming catastrophe and war of civilizations.
I have to admit that our current Islamic teaching creates violence and hatred toward Non-Muslims. We Muslims are the ones who need to change. Until now we have accepted polygamy, the beating of women by men, and killing those who convert from Islam to other religions.
We have never had a clear and strong stand against the concept of slavery or wars, to spread our religion and to subjugate others to Islam and force them to pay a humiliating tax called Jizia. We ask others to respect our religion while all the time we curse non-Muslims loudly (in Arabic) in our Friday prayers in the Mosques.
What message do we convey to our children when we call the Jews "Descendants of the pigs and monkeys". Is this a message of love and peace, or a message of hate?
I have been into churches and synagogues where they were praying for Muslims. While all the time we curse them, and teach our generations to call them infidels, and to hate them.
We immediately jump in a 'knee jerk reflex' to defend Prophet Mohammad when someone accuses him of being a pedophile while, at the same time, we are proud with the story in our Islamic books, that he married a young girl seven years old (Aisha) when he was above 50 years old.
I am sad to say that many, if not most of us, rejoiced in happiness after September 11th and after many other terror attacks.
Muslims denounce these attacks to look good in front of the media, but we condone the Islamic terrorists and sympathise with their cause. Till now our 'reputable' top religious authorities have never issued a Fatwa or religious statement to proclaim Bin Laden as an apostate, while an author, like Rushdie, was declared an apostate who should be killed according to Islamic Sharia law just for writing a book criticizing Islam.
Muslims demonstrated to get more religious rights as we did in France to stop the ban on the Hejab (Head Scarf), while we did not demonstrate with such passion and in such numbers against the terrorist murders.
It is our absolute silence against the terrorists that gives the energy to these terrorists to continue doing their evil acts. We Muslims need to stop blaming our problems on others or on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. As a matter of honesty, Israel is the only light of democracy, civilization, and human rights in the whole Middle East.
We kicked out the Jews with no compensation or mercy from most of the Arab countries to make them "Jews-Free countries" while Israel accepted more than a million Arabs to live there, have its nationality, and enjoy their rights as human beings. In Israel, women can not be beaten legally by men, and any person can change his/her belief system with no fear of being killed by the Islamic law of 'Apostasy,' while in our Islamic world people do not enjoy any of these rights. I agree that the 'Palestinians' suffer, but they suffer because of their corrupt leaders and not because of Israel.
It is not common to see Arabs who live in Israel leaving to live in the Arab world. On the other hand, we used to see thousands of Palestinians going to work with happiness in Israel, its 'enemy'. If Israel treats Arabs badly as some people claim, surely we would have seen the opposite happening.
We Muslims need to admit our problems and face them. Only then we can treat them and start a new era to live in harmony with human mankind. Our religious leaders have to show a clear and very strong stand against polygamy, pedophilia, slavery, killing those who convert from Islam to other religions, beating of women by men, and declaring wars on non-Muslims to spread Islam.
Then, and only then, do we have the right to ask others to respect our religion. The time has come to stop our hypocrisy and say it openly: 'We Muslims have to Change'.
Tawfik Hamid"
NYC: A Rainbow in a Storm – Human Rights Coalition Against Islamic Supremacism and Violence >>>
Good for them
Dr. Tawfik Hamid’s official website is TawfikHamid.com. And Dr. Hamid’s blog.
HUMAN EVENTS: Wall Street financial scammer Bernie Madoff’s success stemmed from preying upon people’s trust, coupled with the naïve cooperation of federal regulators who failed to see what was coming. But Madoff’s scam pales in comparison to one being pulled off against unsuspecting Americans with the naïve cooperation of a President similarly disposed. The recent firing of NPR analyst Juan Williams is but one more telltale sign that the scam is working.
Formed in Egypt during the 1920s, the Muslim Brotherhood is an extremist Islamic group. Among its most revered thinkers is the martyr Sayyid Qutb who called for worldwide rejection of Western values before his 1966 execution. Ever since, his writings have radicalized Islamic thought, including that of al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
A 2007 criminal investigation into organizers of a charitable Islamic organization’s terrorist funding links yielded evidence of the Brotherhood’s strategy for implementing Sharia law in the US through gradual erosion of the Constitution. Ironically, this evidence was found in the residence of an unindicted co-conspirator in Virginia—home to many of our Constitution’s framers.
The evidence included the “Ikhwan,” a 1991 document describing the Brotherhood’s work in America as “a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." Called the “civilianization-jihadist process,” it requires a "mastery of the art of 'coalitions,' the art of 'absorption' and the principles of 'cooperation.'“ Audiotape evidence emphasized deception.
The Brotherhood’s mandate is to establish a global caliphate, governed under Sharia. The proposed infrastructure for doing this in the US is via a complex network of benign Muslim organizations, the missions of which are to spread militant propaganda and to raise money. One such group—also an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 case—is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Read on and comment >>> James Zumwalt * | Saturday, November 13, 2010
* Lieutenant Colonel James Zumwalt is a retired Marine infantry officer who served in the Vietnam war, the 1989 intervention into Panama and Desert Storm. An author, speaker and business executive, he also currently heads a security consulting firm named after his father -- Admiral Zumwalt & Consultants, Inc. He has also been cited in numerous other books and publications for unique insights based on his research on the Vietnam war, North Korea (a country he has visited ten times and about which he is able to share some very telling observations) and Desert Storm.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader, has been released after seven years in detention.
Ms San Suu Kyi appeared outside her house, waving and smiling. Someone threw her a flower which she put in her hair.
Addressing the jubilant crowd, she told her supporters: "["]There is a time to be quiet and a time to talk. People must work in unison. Only then can we achieve our goal."
She was expected to meet her party leaders inside her home on Saturday. She also invited her supporters to come to her party's headquarters on Sunday to hear her speak.
At least 1,000 people had gathered near her lakeside villa to witness her release.
Many cheered loudly and chanted "Release Aung San Suu Kyi" and "Long live Aung San Suu Kyi", as officials pulled down barbed wire and removed the concrete barricades.
Witnesses said that police were no longer stationed outside the building. >>> | Saturday, November 13, 2010
LE POINT: Aung San Suu Kyi, symbole de la lutte pour la démocratie en Birmanie, a été libérée samedi après plus de sept ans en résidence surveillée, demandant à des milliers de partisans en liesse de travailler "à l'unisson" pour l'avenir du pays. La lauréate du prix Nobel de la paix, considérée par certains comme l'unique solution face à la junte au pouvoir, est apparue souriante aux grilles de sa maison, quelques minutes après avoir pris connaissance de l'ordre de libération la concernant.
Portant dans ses cheveux une fleur lancée depuis la foule, elle a prononcé quelques mots devant des partisans en délire, la plupart de ses paroles étant couvertes par les hurlements et les applaudissements. "Nous devons travailler ensemble, à l'unisson" à l'avenir du pays, a-t-elle déclaré. "Si vous voulez entendre, venez s'il vous plaît demain à midi au bureau" de la Ligue nationale pour la démocratie (LND), son parti dissous avec lequel elle a mené tout son combat depuis son apparition sur la scène politique birmane, en 1988. "Elle est libre maintenant", avait indiqué un responsable birman quelques minutes auparavant, tandis que la police enlevait les barrières menant à la vieille demeure familiale dans laquelle elle a été si longtemps confinée. >>> Source AFP | Samedi 13 Novembre 2010
NZZ ONLINE: Die birmanische Oppositionsführerin Aung San Suu Kyi kommt auf freien Fuss. Ihr wurde am Samstag die Aufhebung ihres Hausarrest verlesen.In Burma ist die Oppositionspolitikerin Aung San Suu Kyi aus ihrem Hausarrest entlassen worden. «Sie ist nun frei», sagte ein Regierungsvertreter, der namentlich nicht genannt werden wollte.
Die Friedensnobelpreisträgerin zeigte sich danach ihren Anhängern. Die 65-Jährige erschien in Rangun am Tor ihres Hauses, in dem die sie jahrelang abgeschnitten von der Aussenwelt leben[.] >>> afp | Samstag, 13. November 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Marco Rubio, the new Florida senator and one of the Republican Party’s brightest stars, has been trying to stifle a debate over his religious affiliation amid allegations that, contrary to his claims, he is not a Roman Catholic.
Mr Rubio, 39, a darling of the Tea Party and touted as a future presidential candidate, was born and raised a Catholic by his Cuban parents. However, for the past six years he and his wife have attended the Christ Fellowship, a Florida congregation which describes itself as “non-denominational” but is affiliated to the Southern Baptist Convention, whose theology is firmly anti-Catholic.
According to the St Petersburg Times, Mr Rubio has donated much of the $66,000 he has given to charity since 2000 to the Christ Fellowship.
Alex Burgos, a spokesman for Mr Rubio, told The Daily Telegraph on Friday: “[Marco] regularly attends Catholic Mass, and he was baptised, confirmed and married in the Roman Catholic Church. On the final Sunday of the campaign, for example, he attended Mass at Christ the King Catholic Church in Tampa ... He also attends services at a Christian church with his wife and children.” Asked why Mr Rubio attended a non-Catholic church regularly. the spokesman said: “He attends both regularly.” >>> Damian Thompson | Friday, November 12, 2010
THE WASHINGTON TIMES: MONGTOMERY VILLAGE, Md. November 11, 2010 — Marco Rubio won his bid for senate for Florida this past November 2nd. He is the son of a Cuban bartender and a hotel domestic worker. Marco really embraced the American Way. He left his parents’ traditional, Roman Catholic religion to convert and attend an Evangelical community, received a law degree, and married a Miami Dolphins cheer leader. He is also articulate, apparently intelligent and good looking.
Even before the media started hinting at a possible “first Latino president”, I was thinking of this possibility. This doesn’t mean that I am smart or a personal friend of his (very far from it). With the Republican Party in need of “dream team” candidates, he will rise to the top.
I do however have a problem with Marco being the first Latino president of the United States. While in school I met and befriended several of the early arrival Cuban Americans. I remember that to a man, when asked if they were Latinos or Hispanics, they would respond, - “No, I am not, I am Cuban.” >>> Mario Salazar | Friday, November 12, 2010
THE NEW YORK TIMES: The most wanted at large Nazi doctor fled to Cairo, where he converted to Islam, changed his name and apparently died in 1992.
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Uncovering Lost Path of the Most Wanted Nazi: CAIRO — Even in old age the imposingly tall, athletic German known to locals as Tarek Hussein Farid maintained the discipline to walk some 15 miles each day through the busy streets of Egypt’s capital. He walked to the world-renowned Al Azhar mosque here, where he converted to Islam, and to the ornate J. Groppi Cafe downtown, where he ordered the chocolate cakes he sent to friends and bought the bonbons he gave to their children, who called him Uncle Tarek. >>> Souad Mekhennet and Nicholas Kulish | Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Simon Wiesenthal Center >>>
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Tribal leaders in Yemen are refusing to lend support to their government's efforts to root out terrorism, saying that handing over local al-Qaeda operatives and their spiritual leader, Anwar al-Awlaki, would be an offence to their customs.
In a severe blow to international demands for Yemen to do more to curb terrorism, sheikhs from the al-Qaeda heartlands in the country's central provinces have told The Daily Telegraph that they would not turn in members of their tribes. The government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, they said, had not done enough to bring development to their impoverished regions, making them fertile breeding grounds for disaffected radicals.
"There's no discussion with the government, nothing," said Sheikh Ahmed Shuraif, leader of the Bani Dhabyan, one of Yemen's most important tribes. He holds sway in parts of Marib, to the east of the capital Sana'a, a hotbed of al-Qaeda-led unrest. "What al-Qaeda are doing is very bad and against Islam. If we had someone from al-Qaeda we would not accept him but we would not give him to the government either."
Mr Saleh has been promising to get tough since a new branch, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was founded last year by local militants and Saudi former inmates of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility.
The West is relying on Mr Saleh to take firm action in return for aid. Washington officials have confirmed spy planes are being used as part of a Yemeni-led to hunt down al-Qaeda leaders. Read on and comment >>> Richard Spencer in Sana'a | Friday, November 12, 2010
This shouldn't surprise us. It's all a question of loyalty. A Muslim's loyalty rests with the Muslim community, or Ummah. It certainly doesn't rest with the infidel, or kafir (كافر). We need to bear this in mind at all times. Westerners seem to have a big problem getting their heads around this concept of loyalty to their Muslim brothers and sisters. Then, on top of that, you have to factor in tribal loyalties too. – Mark
This comment also appears here
THE NEW YORK TIMES: SEOUL, South Korea — President Obama’s hopes of emerging from his Asia trip with the twin victories of a free trade agreement with South Korea and a unified approach to spurring economic growth around the world ran into resistance on all fronts on Thursday, putting Mr. Obama at odds with his key allies and largest trading partners.
The most concrete trophy expected to emerge from the trip eluded his grasp: a long-delayed free trade agreement with South Korea, first negotiated by the Bush administration and then reopened by Mr. Obama, to have greater protections for American workers.
And as officials frenetically tried to paper over differences among the Group of 20 members with a vaguely worded communiqué to be issued Friday, there was no way to avoid discussion of the fundamental differences of economic strategy. After five largely harmonious meetings in the past two years to deal with the most severe downturn since the Depression, major disputes broke out between Washington and China, Britain, Germany and Brazil.
Each rejected core elements of Mr. Obama’s strategy of stimulating growth before focusing on deficit reduction. Several major nations continued to accuse the Federal Reserve of deliberately devaluing the dollar last week in an effort to put the costs of America’s competitive troubles on trading partners, rather than taking politically tough measures to rein in spending at home.
The result was that Mr. Obama repeatedly found himself on the defensive. He and the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, had vowed to complete the trade pact by the time they met here; while Mr. Obama insisted that it would be resolved “in a matter of weeks,” without the pressure of a summit meeting it was unclear how the hurdles on nontariff barriers to American cars and beef would be resolved. >>> Sewell Chan, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and David E. Sanger | Thursday, November 11, 2010
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Obama Ends G-20 Summit With Criticism of China >>> Sewell Chan | Friday, November 12, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: China believes its economic success reflects its superior culture.
The leaders of the G20 group of rich and developing nations met in Seoul this week for what might reasonably be described as their first post-crisis summit. But it also had the feeling of the first post-Western summit. China, the world’s second richest nation and its rising power, believes that the financial crisis was actually a “North Atlantic crisis”. Now that the worst of it is over, Beijing sees little reason to swallow the medicine for someone else’s sickness. The summit therefore broke up – none too amicably – without really addressing the trade imbalances that were one of the root causes of the crisis, or America’s worry that Beijing is gaining an unfair advantage by artificially keeping its currency weak. Instead, China flexed its muscles and got what it wanted: a watered-down statement that will not force it to change course. If President Obama hoped that the G20 would burnish his image as a world statesman after the disaster of the midterm elections, those hopes were disappointed.
It is inescapable that we are witnessing a historic shift of economic power from West to East. David Cameron has certainly taken this on board, judging by the caution with which he and his Cabinet members treated China during their visit earlier this week. The Prime Minister approached the subject of human rights far more obliquely than he did as leader of the Opposition. Whether this was wise judgment or a failure of nerve is difficult to say. Although China treats dissidents with gross inhumanity, the more it is lectured on the subject, the more intransigent it becomes. In a sense, that is convenient for Mr Cameron: if protesting about repression makes the situation worse, then Britain can concentrate on trade with a fairly clear conscience. Read on and comment >>> Telegraph View | Friday, November 12, 2010
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Priscilla Shirer’s marriage appears to be just the sort of enlightened partnership that would make feminists cheer. On an average morning in their house in suburban Dallas, Shirer and her husband, Jerry, are up around 6:30, fixing breakfast for their three small boys. While Priscilla, 35, settles in to work at home and care for their 2-year-old, Jerry, 42, shuttles the older two children to school and heads to his office. He spends much of the day negotiating her speaking invitations and her book contracts. In the afternoon it’s often Jerry who collects the boys from school. Back home, Priscilla and Jerry divide chores and child care equally. “He will most often jump in and do the dinner dishes,” Priscilla says. “We don’t have, ‘these are wife tasks and these are husband tasks.’ . . . Kids are not a wife-mommy thing.”Yet Shirer avoids using words like “feminist” or “career woman” to describe herself. She is an evangelical Bible teacher who makes her living by guiding thousands of women through the study of Scripture in her books, videos and weekend conferences — in which she stresses that in a biblical home and church, the man is the head and the woman must submit. She steers women away from the “feminist activists” who tell women to “do your own thing, make your own decisions and never let a man slow you down,” as she puts it. “Satan will do everything in his power to get us to take the lead in our homes,” she wrote in her book “A Jewel in His Crown: Rediscovering Your Value as a Woman of Excellence.” “He wants to make us resent our husband’s position of authority so that we will begin to usurp it. . . . Women need to pray for God to renew a spirit of submission in their hearts.”
Shirer and many conservative Christians believe that the Bible defines gender as a divinely ordained set of desires and duties inherent in each man and woman since the Garden of Eden. Gender is not an act or a choice, but a nonnegotiable gift. To these Christians, the story of Adam and Eve’s creation granted man authority over woman, and they understand the New Testament teachings of Paul and his comrades — in particular, that wives should submit to their husbands — not as cultural relics of the first century but as universal teachings that Christians apply today.
In an era when sexual liberation has saturated American culture, when women are climbing the corporate ladder and bearing fewer children, and mainline churches are ordaining women and homosexuals, conservative evangelicals are escalating their counteroffensive. Many call themselves complementarians, signaling their belief that God ordained complementary — not identical or flexible — roles for men and women. To critics, “complementarian” is code for sexist patriarchy, a license to keep women muzzled and homebound. Yet spending even five minutes with Priscilla Shirer and her husband suggests that reality is far more complicated — not only at home but also in the new “separate sphere” that this theology has spawned: a subculture of Bible studies, conferences, ministries, religious retreats and literature ranging from Christian fitness books to Christian romance novels, all produced by and for evangelical women. >>> Molly Worthen | Friday, November 12, 2010
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