Let's Not Forget Cranmer's Wife

Henry [VIII] for all his effrontery was not unmoved by the unrest among the populace, and the intransigence among the distinguished.  He resolved to hew all the more closely to the line of schism without heresy, and in the latter part of his reign enacted the Six Articles popularly called the "bloody whip with the six strings" whereby a denial of the real presence was visited with death and clerical marriage was forbidden.  Archbishop Cranmer, who had married the niece of one of the Continental reformers, was compelled during this period to keep his wife at home or when traveling to conceal her in a chest; when it was turned upside down she was somewhat inconvenienced – and ought to be included among the minor martyrs of the Reformation.

-more from Bainton's The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, Enlarged Edition, p. 198.

Books and Webplaces

Suggestions from our Friday morning group:

Gary:

Ling, Chai, A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, Her Daring Escape, and Her Quest to Free China's Daughters.

Tony:

Forsythe, Frederick, The Afghan. (A novel)

Tony:  Christian Resources Institute's webpage, The Voice: Biblical and Theological Resources for Growing Christians.

House Panel Launches Probe of Planned Parenthood

A Republican-led House committee has launched an investigation into Planned Parenthood, requesting a mountain of documents covering everything from audits to abortion-funding records to its policies on reporting sexual abuse.

In a move Democrats decried as "unfair and unjustified," Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., earlier this month wrote to Planned Parenthood informing them that the House Energy and Commerce Committee was looking at the group's "institutional practices and policies."

-from a report by FoxNews.com.

The wheels of justice grind slow, but . . .

"We just wasted so much money for a . . . girl," she said angrily. "If I had known, I would have let it die. A girl is worthless. Worthless!"

Quoted in an article in the February 12, 2011, issue of World magazine. The speaker is a young woman whose baby had just been delivered on an emergency basis by C-Section at Emmanuel Hospital Association in northern India's Uttar Pradesh province. The mother, who had neglected the advice of the hospital to come by for regular checkups after she become pregnant, had been rushed there when she began having seizures. The title of the Article is "Worthless!," the subtitle "In India, the birth of a baby girl often brings grief and shame - and murder."

The article also includes this passage:

India is scheduled to complete its 2011 census this month and the results - due in spring - are likely to reflect the effects of abortion and female infanticide on that country's culture. Studies suggest that up to 50 million girls and women are missing from India's population, according to UNICEF.

Matthew 19:13-15 (King James Version)

13Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them.

14But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

15And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence.

One of the important reasons to be faithful to the text when dealing with gender is that this passage does not appear to refer to little boys alone, but to all children. Compare Ps. 127 and 128, where the references are to sons. (We miss this contrast when we have a "gender neutral" Bible.) It is good to be under the New Covenant.

Don't Mess with a Mom

As the public mood changes [from pro-abortion to pro-life], some existing laws are now being enforced, thanks to people with determination. Eileen Smith is one of them: After her 22-year-old daughter Laura died in 2007 on the operating table of Rapin Osathanondh, an abortionist who was a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health, Smith's lawyer told her that calls to the district attorney and medical examiner were probably futile. But the mother—who was living at her sister's house and falling asleep at her computer each night in her quest for justice—persisted.

Prosecutors eventually charged Osathanondh with manslaughter, alleging that he failed to monitor her while she was under anesthesia, delayed calling emergency services when her heart stopped, and later lied to try to cover up his actions. The state Board of Registration found that Osathanondh did not have any means of monitoring the heart of Smith, who was 13 weeks pregnant, and did not have oxygen or a functioning blood pressure cuff in the room. The Board also alleged that he "failed to adhere to basic cardiac life support protocol" and did not call an ambulance in a timely manner.

Laura Smith's father, Tom Smith, described how he and his wife adopted Laura after she was left in an orphanage in her native Honduras and later abused by an American couple. He said she sang in a choral group and was in demand to sing the national anthem at school ball games.

On Sept. 13, 2010, just as his trial was about to begin, and facing a potential prison term of 20 years, Osathanondh pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He received a sentence of six months in prison and a ban on ever again working as a doctor or teaching medicine. The plea bargain required him to pay the Smiths $1 million out of his own pocket along with the $1 million the insurance company paid out.

Eileen Smith had an opportunity in court to give a victim's impact statement. She turned to Osathanondh and said that she prayed he would turn to God's mercy so that he didn't have to fall on God's justice. Smith has become a national speaker on pro-life issues: Mothers who turned against abortion after hearing Laura's story sometimes send her pictures of their babies, which leads Smith to conclude that Laura "didn't die in vain. God is using her death to save babies, and that's a comfort to me, that justice continues to be done."

-from "Red Zone Defense," an excellent report on the pro-life situation in our country (and it's not all bad) in the January 29, 2011 issue of World Magazine.

Arizona Honor Killing and its Home-Grown American (shall we say) Sister

These sorts of things are not reported much in the MSM. Is it me, or is it true that when they are reported it's the daughters who are killed? (Cf. here.) Not that the American un-culture can point any fingers, what with the government getting ready to tax all of us to fund abortions, regardless of gender. Are honor killings less honorable than economic killings (abortion to serve convenience) or quasi-genocidal killings (abortions for poor people, mainly those poor people of color) or, look, here it is again, sex-selection killings? I think it's all simply evil. But it puts the un-culture right up there (or down there) with Muslim fathers who kill their daughters. Nice.

Five Stars: "A Walk to Beautiful"

A Nova Documentary that Mary set us on.

Netflix. Or view it online.

Hell Hath No Fury

I am reading Mark Bostridge's biography Florence Nightingale: the Making of an Icon. I got onto this new bio via a review in the WSJ, and it's my first serious exposure to Nightingale.

Bostridge is not an easy author to read - none of the elegance and focus of David McCullough. But I have persisted with Bostridge's book because Nightingale is a fascinating woman.

She is about 22 years of age where I am right now, and struggling with a call she believes she hears from God to do something about the nursing situation in England, a call which, if pursued, would defy convention. Beginning on page 85, Bostridge writes of Nightingale seeking the counsel of Samuel Gridley Howe, who, with his new bride Julia Ward Howe, visited Nightingale while the couple were in England for their honeymoon.

Bostridge writes that Samuel Gridley Howe was "well known" in Britain for his work in Massachusetts teaching blind deaf-mutes. Nightingale had read "the annual reports of the Perkins Institution and State School for the Blind, of which Howe was Director."

Nightingale wrote Howe after his visit, asking him whether it would be "unsuitable and unbecoming for a young Englishwoman to devote herself to works of charity in hospitals and elsewhere as Catholic sisters do? Do you think it would be a dreadful thing?"

Howe replies, encouraging her to follow her vocation: "Act up to your inspiration, and you will find that there is nothing unbecoming or unladylike in doing your duty for the good others . . ."

Apparently, most of the biographies of Nightingale stop right there, but Bostridge writes that Howe's encouragement of Nightingale became a "festering" issue between Howe and his wife, Julia Ward Howe. Finally, after 20 years of marriage, Julia Ward Howe

rebuked Samuel Howe for having encouraged Florence Nightingale, a woman of similar age herself, to pursue a career, when he would not even allow his wife to publish a book of poems. . . [H]e responded by saying that "if he had been engaged to Florence Nightingale, and had loved her ever so dearly, he would have given her up as soon as she commenced her career as a public woman."

Julia wrote a series of poems in tribute to Nightingale, including these lines in one entitled "Florence Nightingale and Her Praisers":

If you debase the sex to elevate
One of like soul and temper with the rest,
You do but wrong a thousand fervent hearts,
To pay full tribute to one generous breast.