All profoundly original work looks ugly at first.
Clement Greenberg
Is Early Christian Church History of Repression
Right-Wing Revisionism?
The short answer is 'no'; Christianity wasn't legalized in the Roman Empire until the fourth century reign of Constantine I. It wasn't until the later reign of Theodosius I (whom also banned the ancient Olympics) that Christianity became the official state religion.
This is not to say that martyrdom solely came at the hands of Roman authorities; some deaths were the result of religious rivalries, and even before Christianity was legalized, certain emperors cracked down more than others, and crackdowns were sometimes unevenly distributed among regions of the empire. Other emperors saw Christians as more of a provocative nuisance, eager to earn their way into heaven through blood of martyrdom, and didn't want to give them the attention they sought, perhaps exacerbating the reach of Christianity in the Empire, more conflicts with pagans, etc.
Let me say that first of all, I am not a trained historian, and I have not read Ms. Moss' new book, but the promo she cuts for the book speaks for itself. There is no doubt that the Church honors the memory of the saints, including a number of whom were martyred for the faith; many are cited in the Mass itself, there are feast days ("The earliest feast days of saints were those of martyrs, venerated as having shown for Christ the greatest form of love, in accordance with the teaching: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." Saint Martin of Tours is said to be the first or at least one of the first non-martyrs to be venerated as a saint. The title "confessor" was used for such saints, who had confessed their faith in Christ by their lives rather than by their deaths.")
Contrary to traditional Church teaching, and popular belief, Christians were not systematically tortured and killed by the Romans merely because they refused to deny Christ.
Rather, these stories were exaggerated, revised, and forged, often centuries later, and the history of the Church was reshaped in order to combat heresy, to inspire and educate the faithful, and to fund Churches.Let's be clear: I was never taught what Ms. Moss claims. Most early Christians did not worship openly for obvious reasons: many suspected Christians were turned in by others--the accused Christian was given an opportunity to show that he was not a Christian; we have the historical facts of the catacombs, not just for Christians but Jews. Granted, there were internal disagreements whether people of faith should hide, but priests weren't leading the faithful after Mass to the nearest Roman authority to turn themselves in...
Were some accounts embellished? The devil is in the details, and Ms. Moss makes too broad a claim. Did George Washington chop down that cherry tree? Whether little George told his father the truth actually happened is not evidence against the facts of Washington's performance and leadership during the Revolutionary War and as President. To portray Church leaders as little more than propagandists is an unconscionable smear and fundamentally unjust and dishonest. Recall, for instance, in the process of His healing miracles, Jesus routinely advised the cured to show themselves to the priests of the Temple (see, e.g., Luke 17:14). The current Church has high standards for sainthood, recognition of miracles, apparitions, etc. Heresies were combated by apologetics and Church councils, not by appeal to the blood of martyrs.
Since the book is relatively new I haven't seen historian or traditionalist responses yet (I was tipped off by an email item by the Cardinal Newman Society which summarized but did not respond to it), but here's a post by Daniel Larison, whom suggests that Moss has created a straw man (and I agree):
I doubt that anyone seriously defends or teaches the idea that there was a constant, universal Roman policy of persecution that never let up, The persecutions tended to be relatively brief, sporadic, ad hoc, and reactionary moves by specific emperors, and they were irregularly enforced and the length and severity of enforcement typically depended on the attitudes of the local officials. The persecutions created deep divisions within the Christian communities affected by them, which split along the lines of those that were seen as having compromised with the persecutors and those that resisted. Of course there were people killed for their Christian faith during these persecutions. Are martyrological texts stylized and not always reliable historical sources? Well, yes, but then this is hardly news to anyone who works with or reads ancient historical materials. It doesn’t mean that most of the martyrs around whom these stories were being made never existed or that they didn’t suffer persecution and death.Why would I bring this up in a political blog? "Moss is delivering a lecture on the topic on March 21 at the Washington National Cathedral. The description of that talk says that "there is the troubling use of this heritage to silence the voice of those who act outside the perceived orthodoxies of the day."" Hmmm. Is she attempting to suggest that the Church is a vast right-wing conspiracy which arbitrarily abuses Her authority on matters of faith and morals to suppress the views of culturally-accommodating progressive Catholics? Say, for instance, on alternative lifestyles?
Public Sector Pensions: Chicago
I'm not a lawyer but what I don't understand is how it is legally possible for legislatures to make sweetheart pension deals that shift funding burdens to future years. Let me be more explicit. Suppose the pension fund is able to fund today's pension obligation of $100M. Maybe it uses $80M from a state contribution for employees and the other $20M from interest, dividends, capital gains, etc. on invested funds. In flush years (good stock market returns, tax collections, etc.), let's say that $20M goes to $40M. Do you think a legislature thinks it needs to spend that same $80M, to save for a rainy day (say, recessions)? Or do you think the legislature thinks, hey, they only need $60M to make payments; we can take that extra $20M and let me think really hard here, spend it on raises for and new hires of teachers and safety officers: I bet my constituents would really like that. Now flash foward. The pension payroll is now $120M. The economy sucks: tax collections are down, the pension only has $10M in earnings. Somehow the legislature has to come up with not only the $80M but another $30M.
Of course, it's more complicated than that. But in the shrinking private sector of pension/defined benefit plans, the level of expected fund returns is maybe half of a typical public sector fund target return of 8%. Remember there's a zero sum relationship; so private sector companies will pay more into their pension fund to make up for the more realistic returns.
In the meanwhile, sweetheart pension deals have employees earning up to 3% of their final salary base per year of service, with eligibility for some by the mid-50's, with retiree life expectancy maybe a good 3 decades or more. For many local or state budgets, the pension line item is rapidly becoming the biggest item in the budget leaving policymakers with a choice between raising taxes or cutting essential services.
From what I understand in California, the justice system is basically saying, I don't care about your budget problems, the deal the corrupt Democratic legislature made in flush times to public employees is binding on future legislatures: a deal is a deal.
Let's keep in mind Baby Boomers, born starting in 1945, started retiring from a social security standpoint, as early as 2007 at 62; for government pensioners, it started a few years earlier. This means we won't see new Baby Boomers entrants stop until 2027 or so, with government benefits tapering off around mid-century.
So Jerry Brown announced a reform, which basically grandfathers all Baby Boomers, and tweaks the system for new state employees (whom are NOT Baby Boomers) instead of putting them into a defined contribution (401K-like) plan. So, from my perspective, two major failures: (1) it doesn't do squat for the unsustainable Baby Boomer obligations, which is the real issue to address; (2) it doesn't stop the madness, e.g., why my employers (including state universities) have offered defined contribution, not defined benefit programs.
What led to this rant was a recent Chicago news story about Chicago public schools which will see its pension obligation more than triple next year due to an expiring partial pension contribution holiday and mediocre fund returns:
Presented to the board of the $9.4 billion agency today, the report discloses that on a market-value basis, the fund had a return of minus 0.4 percent on investment for the year ended June 30. But [whatever return rate is used, including up to 1%] is well short of the 8 percent return on investments that the retirement system assumes. The combination of the end of the holiday and the negative investment return means that CPS will have to come up with $600 million for pensions in the next school year — much more than the $195 million it's paying this year, and $70 million more than the $534 million that had been expected.Take a wild guess where teacher unions stand on the issue (can you say, "let the taxpayers eat cake"?):
Ginger Ostro, CPS' budget director, said the shortfall underlines the system's need for help in Springfield, meaning more state cash or, more likely, reforms that would reduce benefits to retirees.
CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said the union is “willing to have conversations,” but only if more revenue is on the table, too. “The conversations can't be just about how we cut benefits for people in their sunset years,” he said
Pension fund executive director Kevin Huber has said the fund indeed needs a steady stream of contributions to remain solvent. But he also confirmed that money that should have gone toward pensions was spent on other things, including a regular stream of annual 3 to 4 percent teacher raises in the past two decades.Expletive deleted. Note to Sharkey: your members already got part of their pension in advance: those annual 3 to 4 percent raises.
Hinz does a backup piece on how CPS got itself in this mess. It used to be teachers contributed more into the pension fund:
But the stage for future trouble was set in 1981. That's when the Chicago Board of Education, in one of its dumber moves, cut a deal in which, in exchange for no salary hikes, it agreed to begin picking up the 7 percent of salary that teachers and other members were then contributing each year toward their pension. (Teachers still put in an additional 2 percent of salary themselves.)
In 1995 at the request of the board, the General Assembly agreed to let CPS quit paying anything into the pension fund for 10 years and, instead, use the money for other things.
But when the market dropped, so did the funded ratio. By 2005, it was down to 79 percent — due not only to the market decline but to the absence of a cumulative $2 billion that the board would have had to contribute under the old policy but didn't under the 10-year payment holiday.
Ron Huberman, CPS chief at the time, went to Springfield and got another, partial pension-payment holiday. This one lasts from 2011-13 and allows the board to put in only $200 million a year — not the $600 million it was supposed to contribute.
Between 1995 and 2011, the board agreed to annual pay increases of between 3 percent and 4 percent every year. And, I stress, those were across-the-board raises, above and beyond the "step" hikes for experience, obtaining a higher college degree, etc
The funded ratio, predictably, has kept dropping and was down to a miserable 59.76 percent in 2011.Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy Michael Ramirez, IBD, and Townhall |
Political Humor
It was just announced that President Obama will speak at Ohio State’s graduation in May. The president has a lot in common with those students. He’s currently in his fifth year and swamped with debt. - Jimmy Fallon
[And they'll find employers thinking what they've done over the past 4 years hasn't adequately prepared them to deal with today's economy.]
The U.S. Postal Service is launching a fashion line. Some people think it is a bad idea. But I think if the post office gets behind something, it'll eventually turn out to be a good idea. Just look at sponsoring Lance Armstrong. - Craig Ferguson
[Order now to get it in time for Christmas. Closed Saturdays. Delivery unavailable in some areas.]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Aerosmith, "Sweet Emotion"
