Easter Sunday Scan

All We Ask For Easter

The pretty little photo above greeted me on Ask.com this morning, as a pleasant reminder that it is possible for high tech companies to acknowledge, albeit in a secular manner, religious holidays.

Over at Google, as usual, a blank screen. All we ask is that the nerds, geeks and billionaires there should acknowledge that the nation that nurtured them is a Christian nation.

Joyous Easter

Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don't know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20: 10-18

Despite all the times Mary heard Jesus say that he would go away and come back, that he would rise, she didn't believe it literally, so that when she saw the empty tomb, she lost faith.

All it took was one word ... "Mary" ... and she believed fully. The Lord spoke a word to me 12 years ago ... "Laer" ... (he didn't even have to ask where that weird name came from!) and I believed.

Easter is a beautiful day here today, with the hills bright green and the sky a deep blue. But even if it were cold and sleeting, it would be just as beautiful a day. The miracle of the resurrection creates its own beauty, for all of us.

Easter At Trinity United

As Jeremiah Wright spends Easter on Sabbatical -- "Rehab for Reverands,"' if you will -- Obama's new pastor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, led the Easter morning sunrise service at Trinity United.

He used it as an opportunity to raise money for "The Resurrection Fund," a fund-raising effort he wouldn't describe due to live video feeds, purchased DVDs of the sermon and Fox News reporters in the church, but concluded his pitch saying,

In order to crucify him you’ve got to lift him up … he had more visibility on the cross than he did during his entire ministry.

A deft analogy ... but is America ready for Rev. Jeremiah Wright's persecution for being a hateful racist to the Passion of our Lord?

Are we ready for a teacher who says America should be damned for made-up crimes against blacks while also condemning America for not being pro-choice and for trying to stop the abortion madness -- a real crime America could very well be damned for -- are we ready for such a man to be likened to Christ this Easter morning?

The congregates at Obama's church are. The "In order to crucify him ..." line above was one that drew loud affirmation, according to Fox.

(hat-tip: Gateway Pundit)

Speaking of Trinity United ...

I thought it might be fun to see if the Bush-haters at Trinity United were OK with taking Bush's money, and sure enough, they are. From a 2001 Health and Human Services report on early Faith-Based Initiative programs:

The grant program has also provided funds to the South Side HIV/AIDS Coalition in Chicago, a multi-agency group including Trinity United Church of Christ, Provident Hospital of Cook County and the Alliance for Community Empowerment, to provide culturally sensitive and responsive HIV/AIDS education and services to African-Americans.

Should God damn Trinity United for taking this evil money?

Among The Baptised

Pope Benedict baptised six new Christians at his Easter morning Mass today, among them a promient (but non-practicing) Muslim:

Italy's most prominent Muslim commentator, a journalist with iconoclastic views such as support for Israel, converted to Roman Catholicism Saturday when the pope baptized him at an Easter service.

As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Magdi Allam's head and said a brief prayer in Latin.

"We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another," Benedict said in a homily reflecting on the meaning of baptism. "Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close."

Vatican television zoomed in on Allam, who sat in the front row of the basilica along with six other candidates for baptism.

An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Allam often writes on Muslim and Arab affairs and has infuriated some Muslims with his criticism of extremism and support for the Jewish state. (Fox)

A brave man. Allam has already been sentenced to death by the Islamic fanatics of Hamas for his radical belief that a people should be allowed to live in peace.

In addition to being brave, he is educated and urbane ... a far cry from the everyday suicide bomber recruit.

Hat-tip: Jawa Report

Res-Erection!?

It wouldn't be Easter without an attack on Christian sensibilities during Holy Week, would it? This year I had to dig a little deeper, but sure they're up to their same old Christian-slamming.

On Good Friday the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel began running this ad, for the "Res-Erection Tour" of the play Puppetry of the Penis, which Badger Blogger describes thusly:

Wikipedia describes this as: “The theatrical contortion of the male genitalia (penis, scrotum, and testicles) into various positions along with comedic narration”. So basically what it is, is two guys get on stage and play with themselves in front of an audience.

He reports that a call to the vice president of advertising at the paper expressing outrage at allowing this defiling of the Resurrection during this Easter season resulted in no straight answers. He was expecting straight answers?

The play doesn't start for three weeks, so placing the ad on Good Friday was much more an anti-Christian political statement than a marketing statement.

Wimpy Anti-Christians

The U. of Virginia student newspaper, the appropriately named Cavalier Daily, since it does take a cavalier view of American society, has gotten Christians riled up before for its anti-Christian cartoons, like the one above, which ran last August.

They got slapped around for their last venture into Christian-bashing, so what did the do in 2008? They ran two cartoons:

In Thursday’s issue of the Cavalier Daily, the comic strip “TCB” featured a crucified Jesus performing stand-up comedy.

“And what’s the deal with these crosses? Was there a sale on t’s at the letter store,” Christ asks in the strip. “This whole situation makes me cross! Oh yeah, am I right? Am I right?”

The unseen crowd heckles the Christian savior, who is grinning and speaking into a microphone. “Boo,” they say. “Go back to Bethlehem.”

The comic strip drew angry responses from campus Christians, who called it offensive - particularly with Easter right around the corner. ...

Friday’s “TCB” strip ... depicts God and the Virgin Mary in a post-coital quarrel. In it, a shirtless God, smoking a cigarette and wearing sunglasses, utters a profanity, though three letters have been replaced with asterisks. (Daily Progress)

How bold! How cutting edge! How pathetically typical and to be expected on today's Secularist university campuses!

Confronted (again!) with accusations of hate-cartooning and pointed questions about why they are so willing to attack Christians on their most holy day but never to attack other faiths, the editors boldly replied:

The Cavalier Daily sincerely regrets any offense readers may have taken to two recent comics in the strip TCB published March 13 and 14. The content of the Comics page reflects neither the views of the Managing Board nor of The Cavalier Daily as an institution. When the comics were considered for publication, they were deemed to have met The Cavalier Daily's censorship criteria, which can be found at this address. It is never the intention of The Cavalier Daily to offend, and we regret having done so.

The cited censoring criteria allude to "viewpoint discrimination" as something the editors shouldn't foster. In other words, it's all right to allow someone to express a viewpoint that is deeply offensive to others, thereby discriminating against thousands or millions, but it is not all right to discriminate against the expresser of the hateful viewpoint.

So of course the editors sincerely intended to offend. They looked for viewpoint discrimination, found it, and let it go with the knowledge from previous experience that doing so would discriminate against others.

As for the cartoonists, they bravely issued this statement:

The comic artists responsible for the March 13 and 14 TCB comic strips decline to comment on their work at this time.

They couldn't even show the decency to toss out one of those lame "if we offended, then we apologize" non-apologies.