Laudator Temporis Acti

From a Wall Street Journal article (January 5, 2006) by June Kronholz:

Insisting that God "certainly needs to be involved" in the Supreme Court confirmation process, three Christian ministers today blessed the doors of the hearing room where Senate Judiciary Committee members will begin considering the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito on Monday.

Capitol Hill police barred them from entering the room to continue what they called a consecration service. But in a bit of one-upsmanship, the three announced that they had let themselves in a day earlier, touching holy oil to the seats where Judge Alito, the senators, witnesses, Senate staffers and the press will sit, and praying for each of the 13 committee members by name.

"We did adequately apply oil to all the seats," said the Rev. Rob Schenck, who identified himself as an evangelical Christian and as president of the National Clergy Council in Washington.

The other two wacko clergy were Patrick Mahoney and Grace Nwachukwu.

Holy oil is usually applied to the head, not to the rear end. This bizarre incident got me wondering if there are scriptural examples of anointing objects rather than people. The article on anointing by A.R.S. Kennedy in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible gives the following examples:

• Genesis 28.18: And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.
  
• Exodus 30.23-29 (cf. 40.9-11): Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels, and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels, And of cassia five hundred shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of oil olive an hin: And thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary: it shall be an holy anointing oil. And thou shalt anoint the tabernacle of the congregation therewith, and the ark of the testimony, And the table and all his vessels, and the candlestick and his vessels, and the altar of incense, And the altar of burnt offering with all his vessels, and the laver and his foot. And thou shalt sanctify them, that they may be most holy: whatsoever toucheth them shall be holy.

Some claim that the Hebrew translated by "sweet calamus" (qaneh bosem) at Exodus 30.23 really means cannabis, which would thus be an ingredient of the holy anointing oil. I doubt it, but I wonder what the Three Stooge Ministers were smoking. They seem to have forgotten another passage from Scripture (John 18.36), uttered by the founder of their religion:

My kingdom is not of this world.