Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Christianity: An Incarnational Faith

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As we come close to the conclusion of the penitential season of Advent and pass into the joyous season of Christmas, we should take some time and consider Jesus—God incarnate as man—and how his incarnation is mirrored in so many other incarnational elements of the faith. The word ‘incarnation’ derives from the Latin word for ‘meat’ or ‘flesh,’ and literally means ‘enfleshment’ or to ‘take on flesh.’

The Incarnation (capitalized) refers specifically to Jesus Christ’s divinity. God Himself condescended to become incarnate as a man, flesh and bone, just like you and me. He lived a human life and, ultimately, was put to death on our behalf. While Jesus’s death on the cross and subsequent resurrection, celebrated on Easter, make up the central celebration of the Christian faith, the celebration of Christ’s incarnation and birth at Christmas is only very slightly less important. Christ’s death and resurrection couldn’t happen if he hadn’t first been born, God incarnate as man.

But the incarnationality of the faith isn’t limited to Jesus’s Incarnation. The faith itself is incarnational—or ‘fleshy.’ While many post-reformation Christians have tried to establish an emotion-based, ‘faith alone’ head-faith that treats the flesh as something to be ashamed-of and ignored, Christianity has always been a sensory, experiential faith rich with symbols, liturgies, ceremonies, and traditions that speak both to the soul and to the body. In Catholicism (and Orthodoxy), we experience the faith ‘in the flesh’—with touch, substance, action, symbols, sounds, smells, and more. The faith touches our flesh, and our flesh touches the faith, and that’s a good thing.

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Random Photos

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Here are some random cell phone pictures I’ve taken over the last month or two. Some of them you might have seen on my Facebook wall already. Enjoy!

‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’: Repealed

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Yesterday afternoon, the U.S. Senate voted 65-31 to repeal the controversial ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy that effectively prohibits openly homosexual persons from serving in the U.S. military. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the repeal legislation last week by a similarly strong 250-175 vote. Having now been passed by both houses of Congress, the bill proceeds to President Barack Obama (D) who is expected to sign it into law.

I have discussed my views on this policy before, first in April of last year and then again back in October of this year. Without restating everything I discussed in those pieces and many others on the broader subject of homosexuality, it is worth reiterating the basics for the benefit of any new readers.

First, morally and religiously speaking, homosexual activity is sinful. I emphasize the word activity because simply being homosexual is not, in and of itself, wrong or immoral. Prevailing opinion in both the scientific and mainstream theological communities is that the vast majority homosexual persons have not chosen their attractions, and that they were either born homosexual or developed that way early in life. As such, it would be grossly unfair (and immoral) to condemn them for it, or discriminate against them for it.

Having said that, being born with (or developing) a tendency to do something does not automatically make it moral to actually do it! The attraction is not a choice, however everybody (gay, straight, or other) chooses whether to act on their attractions, and those choices can be moral or immoral. As an example, a married straight man who chooses to follow his natural attractions to somebody other than his wife has also sinned, even though his action could easily be defined as ‘natural,’ ‘something we see elsewhere in the animal kingdom,’ ‘an inborn tendency,’ ‘part of the healthy spectrum of human sexuality,’ etc., etc. Why do so many demand that society affirm one action while condemning the other?

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Speeding: The Law Must Change

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I have a pretty clean driving record. I’ve been driving almost every day for over twelve years. If I had to guess, doing a bit a quick & dirty math, I’ve probably racked up over 200,000 miles total spread across eight cars. In all those miles, cars, and years, I’ve only been in two accidents—only one of which was legally my fault—and have only been charged with two traffic citations.

As you might expect, my two traffic citations were both speeding tickets. My first was some time around November, 2000 and was for 70-ish in a 55 zone in Greene County, Virginia, on U.S. 29 south. The second, visible at right, was over ten years later on this December 3 for 69 in a 55 zone in Fairfax County, Virginia, on state route 28 south.

So what happened to break my decade-long ‘no-ticket’ streak? I had left work and was heading south on route 28 to pick up Melissa. For most of its length in Loudoun and Fairfax Counties, 28 (‘Sully Rd.’) is a straight, multi-lane freeway built to (or exceeding) the U.S. Interstate Highway standards. It has three travel lanes in each direction, broad shoulders, and no traffic lights except in a couple isolated places where they haven’t been removed yet. The stretch I was on had no lights, and the prevailing speed is in the 65-70 miles-per-hour range. This speed is perfectly safe for wide freeways.

As I passed the U.S. 50 interchange I ended up ‘on my own’; much of the traffic around me had taken the exit and I was in a ‘pocket’ between cars ahead of and behind me. I was taking the next exit, Willard Rd., and I noticed as I approached the exit that a presumably disabled vehicle was sitting in the triangular area between the oncoming U.S. 50 traffic and the main route 28 lanes. In the evening darkness, I didn’t notice that the ‘disabled vehicle’ was a Police Interceptor trim Ford Crown Victoria until I was way too close for it to make a difference. Oops.

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Support Wikipedia

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Support WikipediaIt’s very rare that I ask anything from my readers (aside their attention). For most of Off on a Tangent’s history there have been no advertisements on this site and, during those periods where there was advertising, I kept it as minimal and un-intrusive as possible. I’ve only encouraged people to donate to things on very rare occasions.

Today is one of those rare occasions.

Wikipedia is an excellent, free online encyclopedia written by volunteer contributors around the world in many different languages. It has more articles than any print encyclopedia in history and, according to a number of studies, has higher average accuracy than those bygone printed monstrosities. It’s not perfect—because anybody can edit it, it does sometimes fall victim to abuse and vandalism—but overall it’s a reliable source of information on almost any subject. On average, I use it several times daily for everything from getting musician/band discographies to historical study to religious research to biographical research and more. I’ve probably learned more from Wikipedia over the years than from any other source (including my schools).

Like Off on a Tangent, Wikipedia is not advertising supported. The vast array of servers that keep Wikipedia available instantly to millions upon millions of contributors and users are kept running by a small, lean team of employees, and the entire operation is funded only by donations. Their goal for 2010 fundraising is $16m, and today they are woefully short of that goal at $9m.

So if you, like me, use Wikipedia all the time, please consider sending them a donation—even a small one—to make sure they’re still here into the indefinite future as a completely free (and ad-free) source of knowledge and learning. You can make a donation via PayPal or credit card through its parent organization, the WikiMedia foundation.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.