Cat Stevens is often revered because he left his career to seek a higher moral plane by becoming a devout Muslim.
He was a major recording artist as a teenager who "wanted to live larger than life and the only way to do that was to be intoxicated." After a year of the high life he suffered tuberculosis, a collapsed lung and nearly died. During convalescence he pondered spirituality and ventured into meditation, yoga, metaphysics, "peace and flower power," Buddhism, Zen, Ching, numerology, tarot cards and astrology. He "tried to look back into the Bible and could not find anything."
Stevens attended a parochial elementary school. He was successful in art but did poorly in academic subjects, which may explain his flawed understanding of Christianity. He said "I was taught that ... there was no direct contact with God, so we had to make contact with Him through Jesus - he was in fact the door to God. When they said that God is three, I was puzzled." He became "fed up with Christianity."
On vacation in Morocco he heard the Islamic call to prayer and was told it was "music for God." Stevens said "I thought, music for God? I'd heard of music for money, music for fame, music for personal power, but music for God!" He apparently forgot he had recorded the Christian hymn Morning Has Broken in 1971 and it hit #6 on the charts.
He converted to Islam in 1977, taking the name "Yusuf Islam" and stating "Now I realize I can get in direct contact with God, unlike Christianity. I read the Qur'an and realized that no person is perfect. Islam is perfect, and if we imitate the conduct of the Holy Prophet we will be successful."
His adherence has created difficulties. He was once interviewed on the BBC regarding Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa to execute author Salmon Rushdie.
Interviewer: "Would you go to a demonstration where you knew (Rushdie's) effigy was going to be burned?"
Yusuf: "I would have hoped for the real thing."
On the other hand, he allowed his first performance of "Peace Train" in 20 years to be shown on videotape at an October, 2001 concert condemning the 9/11 attacks. It was sung a cappella because he had given up his guitar, thinking that playing it was against Islam. He had also previously refused to sing in English. Revising his views, he noted "The Qur'an does not ever actually mention the words "music" or "instruments." Yusuf says he "relied on heresy." Now he's strumming and singing in English on tour.
Now I've been crying lately,
thinking about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating,
why can't we live in bliss.
Cause out on the edge of darkness,
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country,
come take me home again
-Peace Train, Cat Stevens
If he ever grasps an understanding of Christianity and fairly compares it to Islam, Yusuf may discover the peace train's engineer is a Christian.
References for quotations are available by emailing cwgalaska@triadpress.us
To add or remove an address from the Christian Standpoint mailing list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Prayer Day
It's not just at Christmas anymore. Christians have gotten used to the annual holiday objections over creches, carols and decorating with red and green in public settings. The trend is growing: this year a federal judge ruled that the National Day of Prayer was unconstitutional. In Davenport, Iowa the Civil Rights Commission prompted the City Administrator to rename Good Friday "Spring Holiday." Groups like the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which filed the Day of Prayer suit, exist primarily to finance these fights.
Court cases like this have been framed as constitutional issues with plaintiffs representing themselves as patriots defending the nation from religion. But we didn't always have these objections. Quite the opposite was true, with "under God" written into the Pledge of Allegiance, "In God We Trust" stamped into the coinage and the National Day of Prayer being created in 1952. None of these was controversial.
Now they are. Why? For people to spend time and treasure fighting these battles it's got to be a bigger issue than just resolving arcane legal interpretations. There's got to be a bigger underlying reason for them to work this hard to expunge expressions of faith from the public arena.
It's at least partially because many Christians are on the opposite side from secularists on controversial issues. Over the years differences have enraged people and Christians have been tarred as oppressive and hateful. Nobody likes hateful oppressors; maybe that's why there's such a virulent opposition to faith that's magnified by a media bent on spotlighting the acts of the most outrageous fringe elements.
The point that's never made is that Christians try to live according to biblical teachings and one of the rules is to love those you disagree with.
Unless we engage in sophistry, we have to admit abortion does result in the willful termination of life (as writer Peggy Noonan once put it, "Anyone who's ever bought a condom knows when life starts). Gay marriage also runs counter to the Bible.
They're sins. So are gossiping, judging others, arrogance, drunkenness, taking revenge, envy, folly, anger, having evil thoughts and lots of others. All of us, Christian or not, are guilty of at least some of them. The goal is to recognize our shortcomings, ask forgiveness and work to curtail them. It's not to persecute others who also miss the mark - it's to love them anyway.
All Christians are sinners of one stripe or another, and we know it. Given our imperfections we're not in a position to judge - but we can disagree. Contrary to popular opinion, disagreement doesn't equal hate.
This truth is lost amidst the turmoil. We'd understand each other better if we all assumed an attitude of prayer and reflected on what our differences really are. But discussion of polarizing hot-button issues seems impossible since hackles go up as soon as they're broached.
If we could talk, we could at least dispel the "Christians are haters" mantra. Maybe we could even make the point that Americans have freedom of religion (the right to choose any or no faith) and not a freedom from religion that seeks to destroy it.
To add or remove an address from the Christian Standpoint mailing list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
Court cases like this have been framed as constitutional issues with plaintiffs representing themselves as patriots defending the nation from religion. But we didn't always have these objections. Quite the opposite was true, with "under God" written into the Pledge of Allegiance, "In God We Trust" stamped into the coinage and the National Day of Prayer being created in 1952. None of these was controversial.
Now they are. Why? For people to spend time and treasure fighting these battles it's got to be a bigger issue than just resolving arcane legal interpretations. There's got to be a bigger underlying reason for them to work this hard to expunge expressions of faith from the public arena.
It's at least partially because many Christians are on the opposite side from secularists on controversial issues. Over the years differences have enraged people and Christians have been tarred as oppressive and hateful. Nobody likes hateful oppressors; maybe that's why there's such a virulent opposition to faith that's magnified by a media bent on spotlighting the acts of the most outrageous fringe elements.
The point that's never made is that Christians try to live according to biblical teachings and one of the rules is to love those you disagree with.
Unless we engage in sophistry, we have to admit abortion does result in the willful termination of life (as writer Peggy Noonan once put it, "Anyone who's ever bought a condom knows when life starts). Gay marriage also runs counter to the Bible.
They're sins. So are gossiping, judging others, arrogance, drunkenness, taking revenge, envy, folly, anger, having evil thoughts and lots of others. All of us, Christian or not, are guilty of at least some of them. The goal is to recognize our shortcomings, ask forgiveness and work to curtail them. It's not to persecute others who also miss the mark - it's to love them anyway.
All Christians are sinners of one stripe or another, and we know it. Given our imperfections we're not in a position to judge - but we can disagree. Contrary to popular opinion, disagreement doesn't equal hate.
This truth is lost amidst the turmoil. We'd understand each other better if we all assumed an attitude of prayer and reflected on what our differences really are. But discussion of polarizing hot-button issues seems impossible since hackles go up as soon as they're broached.
If we could talk, we could at least dispel the "Christians are haters" mantra. Maybe we could even make the point that Americans have freedom of religion (the right to choose any or no faith) and not a freedom from religion that seeks to destroy it.
To add or remove an address from the Christian Standpoint mailing list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
The Incredible Shrinking Institution
"Marriage is a great institution - if you want to live in an institution."
Wry humor has a prominent place in any marriage, and it's usually shared by both sides. My wife gave me a card for our 34th anniversary. It read:
"For the One I Love
The moment I saw you
I knew we'd fall desperately in love,
Get married, have kids...
And drive each other crazy for the rest of our lives."
So it goes, as it has to go, when independent people commit to life together. Sharp edges are smoothed and each bends to make life manageable; sometimes you change, sometimes your spouse does. But shared core values remain. Love endures, and even grows, through shared triumphs, tragedies, successes and failures.
A solid platform for bearing and raising children develops and as the kids come into your lives you both learn what unconditional love is. It's in your heart the second they take their first breaths and it never stops. Each parent contributes to child rearing and teaches lessons, providing a well-rounded, supportive upbringing. Then one day they're off, hopefully to provide the next generation with the same support.
At least that's what we aspire to. Christianity promotes these values and plenty of studies have shown that fatherless, single-parent, often poverty-stricken homes are detrimental to the kids.
The Republican in Springfield, MA sometimes runs strories about people locked in bad situations. The most recent piece was typical. An unwed mother and her two-year-old son were housed in a motel room funded by the state. She wants to get a GED, job training and off the dole. As reporter Nancy Gonter notes, "Life hasn't been easy." The 24-year-old has "had six children already; three daughters live with her mother and two sons have been adopted by other families." No mention of a husband, much less the financial and emotional support one would provide.
Vincent J. Cannata reviewed Freedom Is Not Enough by James T. Patterson in The Wall Street Journal. He notes that in 1965 a yet-to-be-famous Daniel Patrick Moynihan controversially warned about the poverty and "tangle of pathologies" caused by bearing children out of wedlock. He was alarmed by the 25% of black children in that category. By 2008 the rates were white 28%, Hispanic 52% and black 72%.
The ramifications for kids are huge. Nutrition, sleeping habits and routines suffer, not to mention a lesser interaction with good role models. Education is hurt: politicians think throwing money at schools will solve the problem, but it won't. If students don't have support, discipline and motivation from parents it doesn't matter how many computers the schools have. Worse, it's easier for them to fall in with the wrong people. Locally the police have been chasing gang recruiters off shool grounds at dismissal time.
Despite its difficulty, marriage is valued and promoted in Christianity. It glues successful societies together, but it's being jettisoned by our culture with little concern about the practical consequences.
To add or remove an address from the Christian Standpoint mailing list,which provides a link to the weekly blog, please send an email to cwgalaska@triad press.us
Wry humor has a prominent place in any marriage, and it's usually shared by both sides. My wife gave me a card for our 34th anniversary. It read:
"For the One I Love
The moment I saw you
I knew we'd fall desperately in love,
Get married, have kids...
And drive each other crazy for the rest of our lives."
So it goes, as it has to go, when independent people commit to life together. Sharp edges are smoothed and each bends to make life manageable; sometimes you change, sometimes your spouse does. But shared core values remain. Love endures, and even grows, through shared triumphs, tragedies, successes and failures.
A solid platform for bearing and raising children develops and as the kids come into your lives you both learn what unconditional love is. It's in your heart the second they take their first breaths and it never stops. Each parent contributes to child rearing and teaches lessons, providing a well-rounded, supportive upbringing. Then one day they're off, hopefully to provide the next generation with the same support.
At least that's what we aspire to. Christianity promotes these values and plenty of studies have shown that fatherless, single-parent, often poverty-stricken homes are detrimental to the kids.
The Republican in Springfield, MA sometimes runs strories about people locked in bad situations. The most recent piece was typical. An unwed mother and her two-year-old son were housed in a motel room funded by the state. She wants to get a GED, job training and off the dole. As reporter Nancy Gonter notes, "Life hasn't been easy." The 24-year-old has "had six children already; three daughters live with her mother and two sons have been adopted by other families." No mention of a husband, much less the financial and emotional support one would provide.
Vincent J. Cannata reviewed Freedom Is Not Enough by James T. Patterson in The Wall Street Journal. He notes that in 1965 a yet-to-be-famous Daniel Patrick Moynihan controversially warned about the poverty and "tangle of pathologies" caused by bearing children out of wedlock. He was alarmed by the 25% of black children in that category. By 2008 the rates were white 28%, Hispanic 52% and black 72%.
The ramifications for kids are huge. Nutrition, sleeping habits and routines suffer, not to mention a lesser interaction with good role models. Education is hurt: politicians think throwing money at schools will solve the problem, but it won't. If students don't have support, discipline and motivation from parents it doesn't matter how many computers the schools have. Worse, it's easier for them to fall in with the wrong people. Locally the police have been chasing gang recruiters off shool grounds at dismissal time.
Despite its difficulty, marriage is valued and promoted in Christianity. It glues successful societies together, but it's being jettisoned by our culture with little concern about the practical consequences.
To add or remove an address from the Christian Standpoint mailing list,which provides a link to the weekly blog, please send an email to cwgalaska@triad press.us
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Angel from Montgomery
John Prine and Bonnie Raitt soulfully performed Prine's Angel from Montgomery. The song poignantly - and maybe inadvertently - expresses the emptiness of life without faith. The lyrics:
I am an old woman
Named after my mother
My old man is another
Child who's grown old
As children we don't truly understand we're going to grow old. At a certain age we realize our physical abilities (our kids would say mental faculties, too) aren't what they used to be. And we know what's ahead because we've seen our parents lead the way. Our spirits may be young, but in every other sense we are children who've grown old.
If dreams were thunder
And lightning were desire
This old house would've burned down
A long time ago
The young see endless, exciting opportunities. Over time, we make decisions that open some doors and close others as we focus our lives and narrow down the possibilities. Some of the excitement wanes as we get beaten up by frayed relationships, deaths, illnesses, broken promises and unfairness. Life's lessons bring maturity that tempers exuberant optimism.
When I was a young girl
I had me a cowboy
He wasn't much to look at
Just a free ramblin' man
But that was a long time ago
No matter how I tried
The years they just rolled by
Like a broken down dance
Young love is exciting. We have blank slates and often fill them in with rose-colored visions of each other. Eventually we bond with a mate, our differences become apparent, and we deal with them to cobble together a good life. Romantic infatuation morphs into steadfast commitment. And the years roll by.
Make me an angel
Flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster
Of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing
That I can hold onto
To believe in this livin'
Is just a hard way to go
Good memories help us get by, bringing a smile and transporting us to a happy place that's been burnished by the passage of time. It's a wonderful game our minds play. But you can't live there, and everyday life goes on. As we get older we see our possibilities diminish as time gets shorter.
"To believe in this livin' is just a hard way to go." Without faith it sure is: it's more wearisome, less active and less forward-looking. Worse yet, it's terminal.
For people without faith, life consists of a fixed number of days, however many there may be. Every day that passes is one step closer to the end. And then it does end.
In...nothing.
We're built with a need for spiritual completeness, to fill "a God-shaped hole in our heart." A hole that can only be filled by - you guessed it - God. Faith enables Christians to live purposefully and then look forward to life after death with optimism.
It trumps "a poster of an old rodeo" or anything else the secular world can offer.
To add or remove an address from the Christian Standpoint mailing list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
I am an old woman
Named after my mother
My old man is another
Child who's grown old
As children we don't truly understand we're going to grow old. At a certain age we realize our physical abilities (our kids would say mental faculties, too) aren't what they used to be. And we know what's ahead because we've seen our parents lead the way. Our spirits may be young, but in every other sense we are children who've grown old.
If dreams were thunder
And lightning were desire
This old house would've burned down
A long time ago
The young see endless, exciting opportunities. Over time, we make decisions that open some doors and close others as we focus our lives and narrow down the possibilities. Some of the excitement wanes as we get beaten up by frayed relationships, deaths, illnesses, broken promises and unfairness. Life's lessons bring maturity that tempers exuberant optimism.
When I was a young girl
I had me a cowboy
He wasn't much to look at
Just a free ramblin' man
But that was a long time ago
No matter how I tried
The years they just rolled by
Like a broken down dance
Young love is exciting. We have blank slates and often fill them in with rose-colored visions of each other. Eventually we bond with a mate, our differences become apparent, and we deal with them to cobble together a good life. Romantic infatuation morphs into steadfast commitment. And the years roll by.
Make me an angel
Flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster
Of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing
That I can hold onto
To believe in this livin'
Is just a hard way to go
Good memories help us get by, bringing a smile and transporting us to a happy place that's been burnished by the passage of time. It's a wonderful game our minds play. But you can't live there, and everyday life goes on. As we get older we see our possibilities diminish as time gets shorter.
"To believe in this livin' is just a hard way to go." Without faith it sure is: it's more wearisome, less active and less forward-looking. Worse yet, it's terminal.
For people without faith, life consists of a fixed number of days, however many there may be. Every day that passes is one step closer to the end. And then it does end.
In...nothing.
We're built with a need for spiritual completeness, to fill "a God-shaped hole in our heart." A hole that can only be filled by - you guessed it - God. Faith enables Christians to live purposefully and then look forward to life after death with optimism.
It trumps "a poster of an old rodeo" or anything else the secular world can offer.
To add or remove an address from the Christian Standpoint mailing list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
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