Magic Statistics

That priceless and laconic remark comes from Church of England Rev Pauline Scott, Vicar at St James’, Stretham, Cambridgeshire, in response to the news that Rev David Hart has converted to Hinduism while insisting he’s still a Christian.  Rev Hart’s permission to officiate as a priest in the Diocese of Ely was recently renewed for three years.  He neglected to inform his bishop that he had embraced Hinduism, although he did write about it in a book published three months before the licence renewal.  An Anglican priest since 1984, Rev Hart is presently ministering (?) in a Hindu temple in southern India, but anticipates fulfilling the duties of an Anglican priest when he returns home to Stretham.

Mr Hart admitted on Tuesday that he had not told the Bishop of his conversion, but said that he would be “amazed” if his Hinduism “was treated with any suspicion by episcopal authority. I have neither explicitly nor implicitly renounced my Christian faith or priesthood.” His renewal of permission to officiate had been “sponsored” by the Rural Dean of Colombo in Sri Lanka, he said.
 
He believed his move “will rather be read in the spirit of open exploration and dialogue which is an essential feature of our shared modern spirituality”.

He said on Monday that he felt he could still celebrate as an Anglican priest when he visited England, although he would continue to visit a Hindu temple.

I hope someone in the C of E comes to their senses and stops this nut case Rev Hart before he has a chance to celebrate anything as an Anglican priest.

Mr Hart, who has taken the Hindu name Ananda, blesses the daily congregation of about 60 with fire that has previously been offered to Nagar, the snake god. The ritual, he said, was normally performed only by Hindu priests.

A recent issue of The Hindu, India’s national newspaper, features a short profile of Rev Hart, compete with a picture and caption reading, “PIETY: David Hart, an Anglican priest, offers prayers to a Ganesha idol in front of his house at Karumam in the State capital”.

Meet David Hart, an Anglican priest, who recites Gayatri Mantram with the same devotion with which he celebrates the Eucharist or offers namaaz at Muslim prayer halls.

He is a "religious pluralist." His fascination for Lord Ganesha has prompted him to celebrate Vinayaka Chathurthi by consecrating an idol of Ganesha at a specially-erected podium in front of his rented house at Karumam on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram. Rev. Hart is an associate professor in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Winchester in the U.K. He says his "pilgrimage to the ocean" on September 1 to immerse the idol will mark the culmination of a spiritual journey he had undertaken since his school years.

The image on the right of the Hindu deity Ganesha was downloaded from Wikipedia.

Someone who sees no contradiction between Christianity and Hinduism has no business teaching theology or religion.  Here’s one rather basic contradiction: Christianity is monotheistic, Hinduism is polytheistic.  HELLO!  His bland assertion, “I have neither explicitly nor implicitly renounced my Christian faith or priesthood”, is patently ridiculous.  Consecrating and offering prayers to an idol are clearly enacted renunciations of Christianity—and egregious violations of the first two commandments to boot.

Pauline Scott, the vicar quoted in the headline, isn’t afraid to call an apostate an apostate.

However, not everyone in the Church of England is impressed by Mr Hart’s passion for Hinduism. Pauline Scott, the team vicar of St James, in Stretham, said that she would oppose any attempts by Mr Hart to celebrate in the Ely Diocese.

“We do tend to use Christian priests, surprisingly enough,” she said.

Let’s hope the bishop of the diocese isn’t afraid to say the same, before this self-deluded twit is let loose in the pulpit of an Anglican church again.

This episode reminds me of what Mahatma Gandhi said when asked whether he was a Hindu:

"Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew."

When I heard Ben Kingsley say that in the 1982 film Gandhi, I had only been a Christian for a few months.  Nonetheless, my immediate reaction was, “Only a Hindu could say that”.  I'd say the same applies here.

h/t: Ruth Gledhill

A reporter at Radio-Canada, CBC’s French-language service, has been disciplined for (gasp!) giving our soldiers a good word.  Funny what CBC management considers "controversial".

One of Canada's top television reporters has been suspended from her job for praising the country's increasingly troubled military mission in Afghanistan, La Presse newspaper reported on Friday.

Christine St-Pierre, a veteran Ottawa correspondent for French-language public broadcaster Radio-Canada, wrote an open letter to Canada's 2,300 troops telling them to ignore mounting criticism of the mission.
. . .
"We owe you all our respect and our unfailing support … dear soldiers, your tears are not in vain, your tears are brave," St-Pierre wrote in the letter, which La Presse published on Thursday.

Radio-Canada suspended her for breaching internal rules that stipulate employees are not allowed to express their opinions on controversial issues, La Presse said. No one at Radio-Canada was immediately available for comment.

No one’s available for comment.  Whaddya bet they’re all at the NDP convention in Quebec City?

Leftist bias at Canada’s national taxpayer-funded spin-meister has been an issue in Canadian politics for years.  Conservative politicians and other citizens have repeatedly complained about CBC in the past.  Now that the Conservatives form the government, and since this reporter was suspended for supporting a cause dear to the heart of PM Stephen Harper, this may come back to bite CBC on the behind.  Let's hope so.  Stay tuned.

h/t: Dust My Broom

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A British senior citizen who has travelled the world thought she’d like to try visiting faraway places from her home via the internet.  When she went to sign up with an internet service provider, however, there was a glitch: Because of her age, the company assumed she was too dim to comprehend the contract, so they rejected her service request.

The 75-year-old would only be allowed to sign the forms for the Carphone Warehouse's TalkTalk phone and broadband package if she was accompanied by a younger member of her family who could explain the small print to her.

Mrs [Shirley] Greening-Jackson, who sits on the board of several charities, said: "I was absolutely furious. The young man said, 'Sorry, you're over 70. It's company policy. We don't sign anyone up who is over 70.'

"Later a young lady said company policy is that anyone over 70 might not understand the contract. She said, 'If you would be prepared to go to the shop in town and take a younger member of your family we might give you a contract.’”

If I were a “younger member” of Mrs Greening-Jackson’s family, I’d tell those bozos to take a hike.

Predictably, an MP is heard calling for anti-ageism legislation, and I’m not unsympathetic to that approach.  But even more fitting, I think, would be to watch the Carphone Warehouse go bankrupt as the population continues to age.  Given well-established demographic trends toward an older population, any firm that refuses to provide services to seniors is going to run very low on customers in the near future.

h/t: Michael Kruse

The federal New Democratic Party has become so consumed by anti-Americanism that it dominates the party’s every policy deliberation, says the Globe and Mail’s Jeffrey Simpson.

[T]he instinctive anti-Americanism ingrained in the NDP runs deeper than distaste for this [the Bush] administration.

Anti-Americanism reflects New Democrats' suspicion of market capitalism, transnational corporate structures, free trade, wealth and, most profoundly, the use of power in international affairs — all of which are associated negatively with the United States.
. . .
Of course, many New Democrats will take umbrage at this description, insisting some of their best friends are Americans. But even the most casual perusal of NDP speeches or review of party positions, let alone a glance at the many resolutions presented at this weekend's convention, demonstrates the fatuousness of this denial.

Case in point: NDP leader Jack Layton wants to withdraw Canadian troops from Afghanistan because he sees our presence there as aid to President Bush.  The UN has passed seven resolutions supporting creation of a multi-national NATO-led military force in Afghanistan, but the NDP wants Canada to get out now and calls instead for negotiations with the Taliban.

At the same time, however, Mr Layton has called on Canada to lead a military intervention in relief of Darfur.  As Mr Simpson points out, that is contrary to the position of the African Union, which presently has a peacekeeping contingent in place there; and it is vociferously opposed by the government of Sudan.

Why is it legitimate for Canadian soldiers to use deadly force in Darfur in an effort to protect citizens from terrorists, but not in Afghanistan?  Is it just that the former cause is not supported by the United States, while the latter is?

For access to Mr Simpson’s complete column, click here.

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This story gets more and more disturbing.  Fox News journalists Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig were abducted by jihadist terrorists in Gaza and released only after converting to Islam at gunpoint.  Get Religion reports that the conversion was not the kidnappers’ idea but rather a bit of perverse Anglican evangelism: It was suggested by an Anglican minister.  Canon Andrew White of the Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East  says his organisation proposed the conversion idea with the aim of facilitating the release of the two hostages.

Canon Andrew White, chief executive of the London-based Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East, said their conversion helped ensure their freedom.

"To be quite honest with you, that was our suggestion," White told New Zealand's National Radio. The conversion "absolutely" allowed the kidnappers to save face, he said.

Get Religion credits as its source the blog Allthings2all, run by Christian New Zealander Catez Stevens.

There is no evidence that Centanni and Wiig are Christians, so the dilemma that converting to another religion would present to a Christian apparently does not arise for the two journalists.  But why would an Anglican minister suggest that anyone embrace a religion that contradicts Christian faith and can therefore only be regarded as false and contrary to the revealed will of God?

I also note that Catez Stevens’s blog post and the New Zealand and Japanese news stories linked therein are dated to the last two or three days of August—over a week ago now.  Why was this angle not reported by American journalists?   Ted Byfield pointed out that the media neglected to ask one important question concerning this story.  Well, the media overlooked a lot of questions, proving once again that, when it comes to reporting on religion, Western media just don’t get it.

h/t: Brad Drell

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Another socially destructive anti-family proposal from ideologically blinkered UK policy wonks.

Schoolchildren should be given compulsory lessons about the benefits of abortion, ministers' advisers on sex education claim.

Abortion should be included in teaching about sex to ensure that girls who become pregnant 'can make an informed decision' about whether to have one, they said.
. . .
The recommendation from the Independent Advisory Group on Teenage Pregnancy would mean - if accepted by the Government - that pupils would be taught about abortion from the age of 11.

But they could also have abortion lessons in primary schools that teach children from the age of five.

The group, which reports to Education Secretary Alan Johnson and Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, has repeatedly called for sex education classes to be made compulsory and to include testing for all pupils down to the age of five.

At present only secondary schools need to provide sex education lessons, and parents have the right to withdraw their children. Primary schools must by law have a policy on 'personal, social and health education', but do not need to provide lessons.

This is so bonkers one hardly knows where to begin.  Anyone who thinks that teenagers know too little about abortion just isn’t living in the real world.  How about teaching school children they’re not emotionally and psychologically ready to deal with sexual relationships, never mind killing their unborn babies?

The advisory group specifies that the classes are to cover only the “benefits” of abortion, not the risks.  That belies the group’s purported desire to ensure that pregnant teens “can make an informed decision”.  Can you say “indoctrination”?

The Advisory Group report called for more state spending to make the lives of teenage single parents more comfortable. It said they should have 'personal advisers to provide an all-encompassing package of support'.

Do you think there’s any chance that someone who opposes abortion or sexual activity among unmarried teenagers would be hired as one of those “personal advisors”?

If this toxic proposal is implemented, watch for an increase in the number of British children schooled at home and other venues outside the immediate control of the government.

The Telegraph informs us of another idiotic suggestion from the advisory group:

Free condoms should be handed to children — possibly as young as 12 — in sports halls, shops and swimming baths, Government advisers suggested yesterday.
. . .
[C]ondoms should be "easily accessible to young people" and "new and creative approaches of getting condoms into the community would be the next logical step", it says.

Hand out free condoms to children in “swimming baths”?  Paedophiles will love that.

h/t: Pearcey Report.

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This was the highlight of our New York vacation last month and the reason we decided to go there in the first place.  We saw the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical “Jersey Boys” on the evening of 23 August at the August Wilson Theater on 52nd Street.

“Jersey Boys” is based on the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, one of the most popular singing groups of the 1960s and quite possibly the biggest-selling doo-wop group of all time.  They burst to the top of the pop music world in 1962.  The radio seemed to be playing one of their records every time you turned it on.  Their first three singles soared to the top of the charts overnight.  One group member, Bob Gaudio, wrote or co-wrote their songs—a rarity in the days before the Beatles.  The star was Frankie Valli, a man with the voice of an angel.

The arrival of the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion in 1964 spelled an end to the careers of many hitherto-successful pop singers, but not the Seasons.  Only three American recording artists could consistently challenge the Brits on the charts in the mid-60s: The Beach Boys, The Supremes, and The Four Seasons.

The musical tells the whole story, warts and all.  The impetus for forming the group and getting the short, insecure teenager Frankie Valli up on stage came from Tommy DeVito, a swaggering self-assured deal-maker.  Tommy’s shady mob connections returned to haunt the group after they hit it big, and ultimately broke up the original four.  Nick Massi was the bass singer and gifted vocal arranger who, in the end, just wanted to go home to be with his family.  Bob Gaudio was the only one who didn’t care about the old neighbourhood and was probably happiest to leave his past behind.  He was also the only one with no police record when they started out.

We loved the show: it was brilliant, captivating, and absolutely joyous.  For over two hours, it was as if we were seeing and hearing the original four guys from New Jersey who started out singing on street corners.  The leading actors were all excellent, both as actors and as singers; their performances were the epitome of professional entertainment.  Everything about the show was spot on: sets, choreography, script, costumes, sound, lighting.  I’d see it again in a heartbeat.

I was a huge fan of the Four Seasons way back when and had many of their albums and singles.  The first rock concert I ever attended was a 1967 show by the Four Seasons at Montreal's Expo Theatre.  By then, Tommy and Nick had been replaced by Joe Long and Charlie Calello, but it was a wonderful show regardless.  I still remember Frankie Valli, a consummate showman, had the audience in the palm of his hand from the opening song.

I first heard of “Jersey Boys” late last year while surfing the net.  An in-depth biography of the Four Seasons at a fan site (can't remember which one) mentioned that a play based on their life story had opened on Broadway to rave reviews.  A short time later, I heard that it had been nominated for multiple Tony Awards.  I downloaded the cast recording from iTunes Music Store, and was very pleased with the performances of the old songs.  The sound these new guys made was truly amazing: they had captured the original spirit behind the music, but at the same time they made the songs their own.  I enthused about it to the StatWife, so she listened as well and agreed that it was very fine indeed.  Then she said, “Let’s go see the play”.  That was not on my agenda at all, but she talked me into it.  We bought tickets to the play online and made arrangements to fly from Calgary to New York and stay in town for a few days.  (We’d already planned to drive to Alberta in August.)

Then, for the first time in my life, I watched the Tony Awards on TV last June.  “Jersey Boys” won four, including Best Musical.  We had tickets to the year’s best Broadway musical!  Unbelievable.

John Lloyd Young, who won a Tony for his performance as Frankie Valli, is a major talent.  His portrayal of the great singer’s sometimes-painful development from a naïve and anxious teen to an internationally renowned and loved show business figure, who had his share of very hard knocks along the way, is spell-binding.  The other guys are great, too.  We found out when we arrived at the theater that Christian Hoff, whose role as Tommy DeVito also earned a Tony, had the week off and his part would be taken by an understudy.  We were disappointed to hear that, but when the show started, we forgot all about it.  For Dominic Nolfi, the actor playing Tommy, was riveting and completely convincing.  The StatDaughter had the opportunity to get his autograph after the show.  (See scanned image at right.)

There are several websites on “Jersey Boys”, most with pictures and images galore.  The show’s official site is here.

Three content-filled fan sites dedicated to the musical: Jersey Boys Blog, Jersey-Boys.org, and Jersey Boys Podcast.

And here’s a great Jersey Boys page at a Four Seasons fan site.

The photo at the top was taken as we walked past the theater one evening.  The others were scanned from brochures and programs we acquired the night of the show.  (Click on images for larger views.)

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