They may not know how to make a gas pedal,

but they sure have a clever sense of consonance and assonance.

Newsflash?

Teaching kids not to have premarital sex is more effective at preventing premarital sex than teaching kids how to have sex.

I mean, is this an appropriate moment for, "we told you so?"

Or is this a moment to rejoice in the raw beauty of logic?

Or both?

Church of England and the Catholic Church Tag-Teaming?

In an unusual twist in British religious affairs, the Church of England and the Catholic Church are working together to stop Parliament from stripping critical exemptions that allow religious institutions to hire according to their doctrinal beliefs.

And now, even the Pope is chiming in.

All of this underlines a certain universality that characterizes the impact of conscience clauses in matters of employment and religious institutions. If the Church of England and the Catholic Church are buddying up, and the Pope is calling in from Rome, something serious is afoot.

Rogue in Rouge would like to point out one journalistic error in the media coverage of this issue: namely, the written concern that the Church is in danger of having to "admit women to the priesthood." The factual error is simple: women cannot be admitted to the priesthood. They can dress up in robes and swing a thurible, but they will be doing nothing more than playing dress-up. Just as a valid marriage cannot be undone, nor can two members of the same-sex enter a sacramental marriage, because both instances defy the very nature and fundamental meaning of a marriage, a woman cannot be a priest, such a concept defies a definitive element of what makes a priest a priest. A priest is first and foremost, a man. And unfortunately for other religions that like to borrow the word "priest," because Catholicism (through Christ) authored the priesthood, it retains definitional authority. Everybody else should just follow mainline Protestants and come up with another name if they want to include women in the fold.

So, the British government can do what it may to members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy who refuse to partake in a game of blasphemous dress-up and defile the priestly order, but no one need worry about women becoming priests.

Could we lose the fire and brimstone Satan talk please?

And if you are going to essentially call an entire nation evil, could you please do so with proper grammar?

Thank you.

Sometimes RogueinRouge is Social

Fêting the Daily Caller's launch with a handsome beau and...Scooter Libby?

Christianity: Inversed

Pat Robertson has done it again. He has used his position as a media mogul to proclaim a perverted and inversed theology that is profoundly sub, if not anti-Christian. A Calvinist once told me, in his defense of the concept of limited atonement (the notion that the Graces of Christ's death on the cross only extend to those predestined to salvation), that "some of us are just born damned." I replied, "if that is the case, then your god is a monster."

Robertson claims Haitians today are suffering Divine punishment as a result of a centuries old "pact" made with the devil made by some leaders trying to shirk French colonial power. This strikes me as odd, given that Evangelicals have worked so hard to divorce human action and free will from salvation and damnation in their tenets of Sola Gratia and Sola Fide. Robertson's idea that human action has somehow led Divine will seems like the ultimate vanity, and profoundly un-Evangelical at that. It seemed especially ironic to me, then, when in Mass today, the priest took great care in his homily to point out that human action is distinct from God's will. He pointed out that we may live a good upstanding life and suffer greatly, contrary to the "Gospel of Health and Wealth" that so many preach (a la Joel Osteen). Or we may live a lowly life of sin and still receive many blessings and graces. But our lives are our own, and only in committing them to Christ through the sacraments do we even stand a chance. If any of us came into this world carrying the spiritual baggage of our predecessors, we'd all surely be sunk before we took our first breath.

Robertson's god sounds a lot like my Calvinist friend's god. Robertson's god sounds like a monster. And God is not a monster; monstrosity defies the very concept of God. So Mr. Robertson, with whom then, are you making your pacts?

Tea Party - Double Entendre Intended?

Michael Steele's grim outlook on Sean Hannity's television show regarding the Republican Party's odds in 2010 prompted Rogue in Rouge to quip glibly to a coworker that we ought to scrap the entire party and start afresh, a la Whig --> Democrat. I've always imagined the end of the Whig Party as a boisterous scene with a bunch of men angrily removing their wigs, waving them with clenched fists in the air, throwing them to the ground, storming out of the Capitol and ending the party then and there. A recent WSJ/NBC News Poll hints that such a thing may be afoot. It's not a good sign when a loosely affiliated group of protesters within your party is more popular with voters than the actual party itself, right?