Here's a question

Walking up Haymarket at eight, tired but happy after an early dinner with friends including my Texas chum. I always ask her to repeat the story about shooting the intruder in the shoulder with her 38. Her latest story's great. At Madame Tussaud's, an actor jumped her and held a knife to her throat.

"I reached for my gun before I realised it was an act."
"You keep it to your side?"
"No, tucked in the back. Not when I'm here of course."

She's not five feet high. Tiny, cute little girl. But you don't mess with her.

Mobile goes. "Quick one?", "Ok, the bar of Waterstones". Not 100 yards away but she still got there before me. I can't walk quickly through a bookstore.

The shining lights of London, picture perfect with parliament and the abbey lit up just so. A glass of Clicquot and over two weeks to catch up on, so no end of things to discuss. How did we get on the subject? It's something most women I know are talking about these days.

"Have you read the Koran?"
"No"
"I have, I'll lend it to you."
"I have enough to read these days. Too much to read. Plus I don't want to read it."
"It's not very long."
"I only just read the bible at Christmas."
"You should read it. What it says about women is incredible."
"Go on then."
"Women are like orphans, they can't take care of themselves and they're unimportant anyway."
"Well that's wrong."
"Even nice, intelligent guys here in London believe that. They won't change their mind."

So the question is: if someone believes something and it's untrue, what do you do to help them realise they've got things wrong.

What do you do?

I've got a friend from Texas I'd like these guys to meet.

Hugh Hewitt had an interesting chat with Father Joseph Fessio this past Thursday on the same subject:

"Well, the thesis that was proposed by this scholar was that Islam can enter into the modern world if the Koran is reinterpreted by taking the specific legislation, and going back to the principles, and then adapting it to our times, especially with the dignity that we ascribe to women, which has come through Christianity, of course."

"And immediately, the Holy Father, in his beautiful calm but clear way, said well, there's a fundamental problem with that, because he said in the Islamic tradition, God has given His word to Mohammed, but it's an eternal word. It's not Mohammed's word. It's there for eternity the way it is."

"There's no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it, whereas in Christianity, and Judaism, the dynamism's completely different, that God has worked through His creatures. And so, it is not just the word of God, it's the word of Isaiah, not just the word of God, but the word of Mark."

"He's used His human creatures, and inspired them to speak His word to the world, and therefore by establishing a Church in which he gives authority to His followers to carry on the tradition and interpret it, there's an inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted and applied to new situations."

"I was...I mean, Hugh, I wish I could say it as clearly and as beautifully as he did, but that's why he's Pope and I'm not, okay? That's one of the reasons. One of others, but his seeing that distinction when the Koran, which is seen as something dropped out of Heaven, which cannot be adapted or applied, even, and the Bible, which is a word of God that comes through a human community, it was stunning."

Read the whole thing here.