All religion-related odds and ends today. (I suppose I say that so that Christopher Hitchens knows he can quickly move along.)

In an interesting essay, Peter Leithart asks “Where Are the Prophets?” — not in the sense of “Boo hoo, we have no prophets,” but in the sense of: “Where should we expect to find them?”

According to Max Weber, the authority of a prophet’s revelations flow from the power of his personal charisma, in contrast to priests, who serve a “sacred tradition.” Prophets are like magicians, whose power depends “entirely [on] his personal gifts.” Biblical scholars in the tradition of Julius Wellhausen also posit a sharp contrast between the ritualized official religion of priests and the purity and directness of prophetic experience. The “Documentary Hypothesis” that has dominated Old Testament scholarship for more than a century is founded on the supposition that priestly religion is a late and self-interested corruption of earlier, freer prophetic Judaism. Walter Brueggemann charges that liberal scholars leave the fortune-telling to fundamentalists and reduce prophecy to “righteous indignation,” which “is mostly understood as social action.”

In the Bible, prophecy often looks very different. There were, of course, lone prophets like Elijah and John the Baptist, but more often prophets were fully integrated into the “system.” Jeremiah, the paradigm of prophetic pathos, came from the fallen priestly house of Eli, and Ezekiel, Zechariah, and (possibly) Isaiah were also priests. Prophets appeared in the courts of the kings of Israel. David had his Nathan, most famous for rebuking David for adultery and murder but also capable of sly maneuvering in his efforts to put Solomon on the throne.

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A follow-up article on Magdi Allam, the Italian, once Muslim, who was baptized by Pope Benedict XVI at Easter:

To Allam, the controversy about his conversion reveals a deadly double standard.

“I am really baffled that they consider the baptism of a Muslim to Christianity a provocation, and that the image of the Pope baptizing a Muslim should make this fact even more serious,” he said. “It’s as if some think the baptism of a Muslim is something shameful, so much so that they’d have preferred it if I was baptized in a distant parish, away from the people, because it’s better that people don’t know about it. I am proud to be a convert to Catholicism and to have publicly affirmed it in a solemn way.”

He said in Europe, there are thousands who have converted to Islam and “no one says anything. No one is allowed to criticize them, or threaten them, but if just one Muslim converts to Christianity, immediately he is sentenced to death for apostasy. That’s happening now in Europe — not in Saudi Arabia. If we in Europe are not at the stage of defending religious liberty, including the right of a Muslim to convert to the Christian religion or any other faith, then I’d say we have lost our battle for civilization and liberty.”

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Jonah Goldberg writes sharply today on “Fitna”, Darwin fish, tolerance and courage.

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In the Portland Mercury, Theon Weber makes some good points about passionate versus wishy-washy gospel music (although obviously enough I don’t agree with the dismissal of Dylan’s faith-related songs as a phase). The column is entitled “Rock’n'Roll All the Way Down to the Pit!”

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