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In the article on icons, that I referred to previously from the Catholic weekly OSV, there was an interview with a Catholic iconographer named Marek Czarnecki. Czarnecki has been writing icons for fifteen years. For him, this is more than a simple job, it is his personal calling. He sometimes devotes whole periods of time to prayer and fasting before writing. The Connecticut-based artist studied iconography for ten years with a Russian Orthodox iconographer before he began his work. Here, to give you an idea of what such a writer of icons does, is a small part of that interview:

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OSV: How does iconography relate to art, to theology, to prayer?

Czarnecki: People think that iconography is a style of religious art, and it’s not. It’s a whole vision of reality, but we use art as a tool to scribe that reality. . . .We say icon writing instead of icon painting because what we are making isn’t just a picture but a theological text. That theological text can in no way disagree with what is the written text or what stands in holy tradition. It’s not my job to figure those things out. The church has already decided those things. My job is just to articulate them.

OSV: When you get ready to write an icon, do you have to prepare in a spiritual way?

Czarnecki: I’ve been doing this for so long it’s just an integral part of my life. I teach, and as a group we start with a prayer of consecration and a mission statement about our work. Then, while we work, we pray. That’s just as important as the preparation you do before you start working. It’s that way with the very simple Jesus Prayer. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” [I pray the Jesus Prayer every day, all day, and into my sleep at nights.] You just repeat it over and over, and it’s like a wheel that turns in your head. What it does while you’re working is that it forces you to focus on what you’re doing. It’s a real prayer, so while you’re praying it, you’re connecting yourself with God. It acts like a metronome while you’re working, too. It gives your mind something to hold on to, and it paces you while you work so that you don’t rush through your work, you connect it with your breathing, you connect it with every brush strike. Eventually it just doesn’t stop. It’s like your heartbeat.

OSV: With icons, there are certain images that would be considered classic, but you’ve also done images of St. Maria Goretti and Faustine Kowalska and others. Is iconography something that can be both classical and contemporary?

Czarnecki: It has to be both. I think one of the classic functions of the church is to work as a treasurer keeper, and the treasures of the church are the lives of the saints. The prototypes that were created for the lives of the saints, even ancient ones, have some historical truth to them, and that’s why we don’t have permission to change them. . . . These old prototypes, some of them go back to the catacombs. The icon of the nursing Virgin is the oldest image we have of the Virgin Mary historically, and we still make an icon almost exactly like that fresco. There’s a deepness to those prototypes that we can’t even begin to approach. . . . Even if you’re going to write “new” icons you have to have a grounding and a foundation in that traditional language. There’s no way you can create new icons without immersing yourself in all of that.

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I particularly note several things in this interview that intrigue me as an evangelical Protestant. While I do not invoke the saints merit on my behalf I have come to believe the saints, thus all of those who have died in the Lord, are praying and worshiping as they stand before Jesus at this very moment. They are most active in prayer and I cannot help but believe they pray for you and me. I also believe it is right we remember them in our worship and prayer given a passage like Hebrews 11. They are not dead! They are very much alive, more alive than we are really. It was D. L. Moody himself who reproached people at his death bed who felt that he was about to enter the land of the dying by saying, “No, I am about to enter the land of he living, it is you who will remain in the land of the dying.” How true. There is a great deal that we simply do not know about life after death but it seems apparent that those who die in the Lord reign with him on high right now and are as active in his kingdom as ever, more so than we on earth in one way at least. Yes, their activity is different but there are no passive bystanders in heaven. I have come to believe that it is right for us to celebrate the victorious completion of their earthly journey and to remember them in more ways than scrap-booking and biography.

Note that Czarnecki also says the church “is to work as a treasure keeper.” It seems to me that when evangelicals were pushed away from the Roman Catholic communion during the 16th century they forgot this point. We ceased being “treasure keepers” seeing this work as Roman and unbiblical. It seems that we have often forgotten much more than we can afford to forget. We despise tradition and have no collective memory of the past. So far as I can tell multitudes of evangelical Protestants will not even go back to what happened last Sunday, much less what happened in a previous century before the sixteenth. But even when we do go back we know next to nothing about any treasures of the past except those that came to us from Wesley, Whitefield, Edwards and Spurgeon. Now don’t get me wrong. I love these men, always have and always will. I have photographs of each of them around me in my library. But these are not the only great men in the treasured history of the Christian church. And this doesn’t even touch on the question of great women. Evangelical Protestants have forgotten the great women of faith even more than their Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters.

Finally, we note that in this interview Czarnecki speaks about his “not having permission” to change the old prototypes. There is a respect here for that which is ancient. Few people in my evangelical Protestant background understand this at all. It is this very kind of thinking that has deeply penetrated my own mind and heart because of my growing love for the Great Tradition of the one, holy, catholic church. May God open your minds and hearts to all of his truth, even the truth found in places you may never have expected to find it.

Right-wing bloggers and columnists have recently accused President Obama of instigating an "intifada" against Israel through his administration's criticism of Israel's announced plan to expand housing in a section of East Jerusalem or by purportedly "incentiviz[ing] Palestinian Arabs to violent uprising."

Columnist, bloggers invoke "Obama Intifada"

Shapiro: "This is the Obama Intifada." Ben Shapiro wrote in his March 17 syndicated column that "When President Obama is unhappy about his inability to convince Americans to nationalize health care, he incentivizes Palestinian Arabs to violent uprising" and that the Obama administration's response to Israel's announcement "was far too well-rehearsed for it to have been triggered by something equivalent to a Housing and Urban Development dispute in the United States." Shapiro added:

This is the Obama Intifada. It is he who has suggested that the Palestinian Arabs have legitimate grievances, that Israel is the victimizer, and that the United States will stand aside and allow violent atrocities by Arabs to go forward without comment. He wants this Intifada, and he's got it.

The Obama Intifada will serve a dual purpose: it will knock health care off the front pages, and it will provide a "crisis" for Obama to solve. If a few Jews get killed, Obama doesn't truly care. What's a few eggs if you're frying up a socialized health care omelet? What's a few Jews if you can win another Nobel Peace Prize?

Nothing, to President Obama. All that matters is his personal victory, even if America and her allies lose.

Geller issues "Call to End Obama's Intifada." In a March 16 Atlas Shrugs post headlined "Action Alert: Call to End Obama's Intifada," Pamela Geller urged her readers to "Join Christians United for Israel in their surge against the President's intifada against Israel," and quoted their statement that "the Obama Administration has reacted to this announcement by creating the worst crisis in relations with Israel in decades. First Vice President Biden condemned the announcement in unusually harsh terms. Then, over the weekend, Secretary of State Clinton and advisor David Axelrod escalated the rhetoric still further. Today, Middle East envoy George Mitchell indefinitely postponed his trip to the region. Where will it end?"

Jawa Report headline: "The Obama Intifada." A March 16 Jawa Report blog post, headlined "The Obama Intifada," included numerous links to stories and blog posts about the controversy, adding, "This too shall pass, by which I mean the current US administration." The post was a reposting of a March 15 post on the Internet Haganah blog carrying a similar "Obama Intifada" headline.

"Obama Intifada" meme first embraced by right-wingers in 2008

2008 report made right-wing rounds. Jihad Watch and NewsBusters were among the conservative blogs that highlighted a November 3, 2008, article in an Arabic newspaper by Abdelbari Atwan, the first journalist to have met with Osama bin Laden. According to Robert Spencer's translation of the French-language blog post he cited at Jihad Watch, Atwan's article carried the headline "The Historic Intifada of Obama" and claimed that with Obama's election, "the Americans thus give the kickoff of their historic Intifada against racism." In highlighting the Atwan's article, NewsBusters' Warner Todd Huston wrote: "A president Obama is no friend to Israel or the west, at least as far as Abdelbari Atwan and many of his comrades are concerned. The most pressing question that Americans have is: should we support a man for President of the United States that our enemies imagine to be on their side?"

Frédéric Thiriez, président de la Ligue de Football Professionnelle, a accepté de répondre jeudi soir aux questions de Christophe Pacaud, Christian Ollivier et Philippe Sanfourche. Il s'est exprimé pour la première fois après le décès du supporter parisien passé à tabac en marge du match PSG-Marseille le 28 février, et a réagi quant aux mesures extraordinaires prises par le club de la capitale.

Information Midi Olympique : Tana Umaga, l'actuel entraîneur de Toulon, va rechausser les crampons plus tôt que prévu. Il est en effet le joker médical de Christian Loamanu, victime d'une luxation à une hanche. Il devrait être aligné dès la prochaine journée, à Bourgoin, dans huit jours.

Yesterday I received an email from a reader of this site and today I'd like to answer it (with the permission of the person who sent it). Here is what he wrote:

Thank you so much for your booklet, "Sexual Detox." I have read it over and over, and am still very much challenged by it. I was recently married and was under the illusion that marriage would solve all of my lust problems... Even though I had been told numerous times that it would not. Now I feel that everything has come to head, I know what I must do, and I want so very badly to do it, but I feel that the devil knows this is THE deciding point in my life on this issue, and he is working hard against me. I feel more captivated and strangled by my sin than ever before, and I need you to pray for me. If you have any advice or encouragement to offer, please tell me.

Thanks for sending this note. It sounds to me like you are absolutely right when say that this is a deciding point in your life on the issue of lust and the acting out of that lust. Satan will be working hard against you and, in many ways, you will be working hard against yourself. You gave yourself over to your sin and no doubt you've become captivated by it. As sin always seeks to do, it has ensnared you. But take heart. There is hope.

To reiterate what I wrote in Sexual Detox, the fact that you feel sexual desire is a good and noble thing. God has given you that desire so you will pursue your bride. But, like all good gifts, the gift of sex is one that we are prone to pervert, turning it into a means of selfish self-fulfillment. God wants you to pursue your wife, to win her heart not just once but day-by-day; and he wants you to enjoy sex with her. But, of course, you have grown used to indulging the flesh, to giving it its desires, those desires that are perversions of the true gift. And sin rarely just goes away; it is usually a long and difficult process to put it to death.

A few days ago someone asked me, "What difference does it make that Christ is on his throne?" I had to think about that one, but when I did, the answer became clear. It makes all the difference in the world. Just this morning I read from Hebrews 1 where the author says, "After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." There is such glorious truth there.

Purification

First, Christ made purification for sins. This is the very heart of the Christian faith. Finally, after those long millenia of human history, the thousands of Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in Christ. The seed promised all the way back in Genesis 3 had come and had crushed the head of the serpent. What this means is that if you have trusted in Christ, if you have put your faith in him, you have been purified from your sin. God no longer regards you as defiled by sin, but looks at you and sees the sinless perfection of Christ. Your sin has been given to him, his righteousness has been transferred to you.

Purification is an especially important word when we discuss sexual sin, for no sin makes us feel as dirty, as defiled, as impure as sexual sin. Because sex is so deep, so intimate, it touches the body, the soul, the emotions. And so, when we sin sexually, we tend to feel a deep sense of defilement, and particularly so when we sin in spite of a convicted conscience.

And yet Christ died to purify you from even this sin. You have sinned against God and need to seek his forgiveness. I am sure you've already done this, but do go to God, even now, and confess your sin. Be reconciled to God and receive his forgiveness, his purification from sin. Christ is far more willing to forgive you than you are even to pursue your sin.

The Majesty on High

That Christ has made purification for sin is an amazing truth. But it is only half the truth of this verse. Christ has not just died, but he is risen and now reigns at the right hand of the Father. And what does it mean that Christ is on his throne? It means that Christ is ruling and reigning. It means that Christ is sovereign, that he is King, that he has power. He gives power to his people through the Spirit, his Spirit, that he has sent to be our helper. Christ has given you the power to overcome sin. What a glorious truth this is! He has given you all you need, absolutely everything you need, to overcome sin. The Spirit works with us, in us, through us, to destroy indwelling sin and to make us in practice what we are in position--pure and holy.

So there is no excuse. Christ is reigning over the entire universe; he is reigning over sin. If you are to overcome the sin of lust, if you are to turn from your lust and find sexual desire and fulfillment only in your wife, you will need to fight with his power.

Hold tightly to these two truths and never separate them. Christ has died to destroy sin; Christ has risen to reign.

What To Do

I have already encouraged you to confess your sin to God and to ask his forgiveness. And as you do that, confess your own inability to overcome this sin and ask God for his strength, his power. Be utterly dependent upon him.

Be a godly man. Immerse yourself in the Word; be faithful in prayer; be committed to your church. Live a life of godliness. Do not approach the sin of lust as an isolated sin, but approach it as one more sin that needs to be overcome as you seek to be conformed to the image of the Savior.

In committing sexual sin, you have sinned against your wife. You need to confess this sin to her, painful thought it may be, and seek her forgiveness. You will also need to seek reconciliation with her. You are much more likely to overcome this sin with her help than without it. Be very careful not to blame her in any way for your sin; do not implicate her in any way. Confess your sin and ask her to fight with you in putting it to death. As a husband you need to lead your wife. And, as you've been sinning against her, you've been leading her poorly. Part of shepherding your wife, and often the most difficult part of all, is leading in the sexual relationship. This is especially difficult when you have committed sexual sin. But lead her nonetheless, gently and kindly. And lead her by being above reproach in every way.

Understand the triggers and the warning signs that tell you that you are particularly prone to sin. And react by fleeing from those rather than waiting for the lustful act itself. Speaking personally, I look for tiny things that may be entirely amoral and seemingly insignificant, but I know that they point to a general relaxing of standards and discipline. When I eat too much junk food or drink too much Coke, I know that I'm relaxing my personal discipline and that I'm only a few steps away from committing a sin I'll regret. So I look for these innocuous things and fight against them. It sounds silly, I know, but I've studied my propensity to sin enough to know where it begins. So find those triggers in your own life, even those amoral things, and react against them. Look for situations that lead you to sin, whether that involves browsing certain web sites or being in certain places or staying up past certain hours.

And finally, seek out an older man who can mentor you. Find a man in your church whom you respect and ask if he will help you fight lust and become a better husband to your wife. Ask him to be not an accountability partner, but a mentor.

Take Heart

And take heart. Many men can testify to God's grace in overcoming sin. Scripture itself testifies that God is eager and willing to put your sin to death. Christ has died to forgive your sin and he has risen and sent his Spirit to give you mastery over it. He reigns and he is on your side. What greater hope could there be?

Three Great Reads for Easter - Earlier this week I suggested a few books that are suitable for Good Friday reading. Here's the natural follow-up: three books to read before Easter. One, two and three.

Son of Hamas - GQ (of all publications) has an interview with Mosab Yousef, the Christian author of Son of Hamas.

Heavenward - Scotty Smith has moved his blog, which is almost entirely prayers, to Gospel Coalition.

Kindle for Mac - At long last, Amazon has released their Kindle for Mac software. Unfortunately it's like the PC version in that you can view notes you've made using your other devices, but you can't actually take notes or highlight using the software.

My Daughter Abby and Me - James MacDonald shares a difficult but joyous occasion from his family. My favorite quote from the article: “Well James, when you pray, ‘whatever it takes,’ you need to take whatever it took.”

ESV App - You'll want to check out the new (and free) ESV app for iPhone.

Top 100 Church Blogs - Church Relevance offers the updated list of the top 100 Church Blogs. (I almost didn't link to this because it seemed somehow arrogant, but I do respect the amount of work CR has put into the list and thought it would be good to acknowledge it)

INTERVIEW - christian Estrosi Le ministre met en garde contre les divisions à l’UMP...

Refined Soul (http://refinedsoul.com/), an aid for Christian lifestyle and entertainment, has hit the World Wide Web. The fusion of modern faith, culture, and numerous features create an interactive site that is available 24/7 for a dose of inspiration and empowerment. (PRWeb Mar 18, 2010)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/refinedsoul/2010/prweb3741224.htm

In my previous blog on icons I have very specifically noted that icons were written, not painted. This is a distinction that has significant meaning to those who discover that icons are a “window” for prayer, meditation and worship. I count myself among such Christians now. I have several carefully chosen classical icons in my place of prayer and private worship. I have the most famous of all icons, Christopantocrator. I also have an icon of the blessed Trinity and one of Saint Benedict, a role model Christian to me. These icons help me to pray and provide for me windows into the hopes I have for my own life. I also have an icon of the Apostle Paul. The icon I most treasure, since my dear friend Father Wilbur Ellsworth gave it to me on my 60th birthday, is an icon of the Apostle John, after whom I was named by my parents. When I enter my worship chapel (an enclosed and heated gazebo that can be used 24/7) I am surrounded by these great written works alongside of my Bible(s) and prayer books. I have made it my goal to learn how to use these icons day-to-day so that I can live my ancient faith in the present moment.

I do not know if you have ever looked at an icon carefully, that you really looked at it intently and for some time. If you have you may at first have found the experience rather unsettling. I did, and sometimes still do, find them unsettling. Frederica Mathewes-Green , in her helpful new book The Open Door: Entering the Sanctuary of Icons and Prayer (Paraclete Press) urges readers to look at the Pantocrator icon from St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, Egypt. This is the oldest known icon of Christ. She urges readers to use paper to cover the picture so you can only see one eye at a time. Then switch the paper and look at the other eye while you cover the one you first looked at. You will readily see that the right eye presents a penetrating stare, a stare Mathewes-Green says will make you wonder if this person knows more about you than you care for them to know. Now when you cover the right eye and look at the left eye of the icon you will see something different. On this side Christ’s face is peaceful and serene. Christ beckons you to come to him, to embrace him and love him. I actually did what Mathewes-Green suggested and she is right. The great truth of Christ’s person pours through this amazing window into your soul.

The writer of this famous icon was clearly trying to show two great truths. First, he wanted to show that Christ knows our sinfulness and everything there is to know about us. This is what Mathewes-Green calls a “surgical aspect.” But the iconographer clearly wants us to also observe the patient, listening side of Christ as well.

Let me develop this within the context of my own evangelical Protestant background. Through words I learn great truths about Christ. But words cannot move me to holy imagination as powerfully as an icon does. This icon is so beloved in church history precisely because it is so complete, so rich. No modern portrait art, seeking to imagine in the artist’s conception of things, can so powerfully reveal the Christ of orthodox theology as this icon. I agree with Mathewes-Green when she says, “People who get acclimated to icons begin to see classic Western religious paintings as accomplished and beautiful, but noisy.” That is my own experience too.

This really explains the power of the icon for me. I love art, all kinds of art. My one exception might be some forms of modern art that are radically existential and seem to have little or no meaning except what I give to it. But a truly faithful icon is not art in this sense at all. It is a “window” through which the worshiper can see and understand the mystery of the faith. I now understand why my Orthodox friends value icons so profoundly.

Le jeu lorientais est-il aussi joli qu'on le dit, et jusqu'où le projet de Christian Gourcuff et les ambitions de son président peuvent-ils mener le club?

A WorldNetDaily article distorted a passage from a book by Rev. Jim Wallis to falsely claim that he "previously labeled the U.S. 'the great captor and destroyer of human life.' " In fact, Wallis, a member of President Obama's faith council, referred to "the powers of the world" that "demand unconditional allegiance and obedience" when he wrote that, for the Christian community, "the modern state is the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life."

WND distortion: Wallis "labeled the U.S. 'the great captor and destroyer of human life' "

WND: "Obama's new controversial pastor" has "labeled the U.S. 'the great captor and destroyer of human life.' " A March 15 article on WorldNetDaily by Aaron Klein was headlined, "Not again! Meet Obama's new controversial pastor: Champion of communism, socialism called U.S. 'destroyer of human life.' " The article reported, "Rev. Jim Wallis, a member of President Obama's 'faith council' who is described as a spiritual adviser to the president, is a socialist activist who has championed communist causes and previously labeled the U.S. 'the great captor and destroyer of human life.' " Klein appeared on the March 16 edition of Radio America's The G. Gordon Liddy Show, where he asserted of Wallis, "Jeremiah Wright is back in a new form." Klein further stated, " I started looking into him earlier this week and I found out that Wallis is a socialist activist who openly champions communist causes, and he's labeled the United States, quote, 'the great captor and great destroyer of human life.' "

Wallis did not label the U.S. "the great captor and destroyer of human life"

Wallis actually wrote that "the modern state" -- not the U.S. -- "is the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life." Contrary to WorldNetDaily's distortion of his book, Wallis did not label the United States "the great captor and destroyer of human life." From Pages 72-73 of Wallis' 1976 book Agenda for Biblical People:

When the powers of the world demand unconditional allegiance and obedience that assumes human beings should assign them ultimate value, then the worship of God and the assigning of ultimate value of God's kingdom becomes a radical act, a political threat. In fact, worship is where the vitality of the life of the Christian community is most clearly manifest and where the claims and purposes of the idolatrous powers are most clearly threatened. This is contrary to the political "use" and therefore abuse of worship which is so common to ideological religion. Rather, it is the simple, joyous, purely offered worship and praise of God who alone is the source, author, and giver of life that is the single greatest threat to the powers which worship and serve death. Biblically understood, the worship of God is to be the definition of our lives. Worship is not to be conceived as mere ritual and ceremony apart from ethics, politics, and other parts of life. Instead, worship and praise become the style of life for the gathered community living in faithful obedience to the Word of God in the midst of the blasphemy of the fallen powers [emphasis in original].

The Christian community must always be asking which of the powers are now most aggressively seeking to bring human life under their control. Discernment is the spiritual gift employed to understand where and how a particular power is on the offensive in the effort to impose conformity and slavery upon the lives of men and women. For us, the modern state is the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its totalitarian claims and designs. The state as a power or principality has subsumed and subordinated even other powers of nation, tradition, racial and ethnic cultures, common and constitutional law, local community institutions and groupings, the media, information, education, religion, the professions, movements and causes, the economic system -- other principalities which would rival and compete with the state and, perhaps, inadvertently limit its power in benefit of human life.

Right-wing witch hunt turns to Wallis

WND paints Wallis as a "controversial" figure who is connected to "radicals." As Media Matters for America noted, the right-wing witch hunt against Obama's advisers has turned to Wallis, a member of the president's faith council who has worked with numerous conservative and mainstream religious leaders. The WorldNetDaily article uses a series of falsehoods and distortions to portray Wallis as "Obama's new controversial pastor" and a "champion of communism" whose magazine "has published a slew of radicals."