January 2005 Archives

I grow weary of the blindness of leaders who point out how the Koran "teaches violence", totally oblivious to the fact that the Old Testament , taken alone, does the same and just as "viciously". "Blessed is he who smashes their little ones against the rocks" comes to mind (Psalm 137:9).

Also, there are multiple passages instructing conquering Israeli warriors to spare noone, women , children, animals.

And then, for me, the clincher: How do the religions of great nations play themselves out in values expressed in the world? Is the history of the Western World, let alone that of the United States, a history of expansionism which always precedes it's conquests with a theology of manifest destiny, and "conversion of the heathen, and the ushering in of civilization"? Church history is replete with examples of people who were sent as missionaries and ended up being "seditionists"; for once they spend a bit of life within those communities and come to know the people, they see the callous greed with which their own society treats these "heathen". A more recent example of this would be the numerous missionaries to Central America in the 70's and 80's, who ended up siding with "the people". Not the Sandinistas or the Contras, but the people. The Contras, we now know, were trained by the U.S. , and mirrored the tactics of the Sandinistas; which was basically "death squads" responsible for indiscriminate wholesale slaughter of entire communities of families. The "diplomats" in place from the U.S. during that time included John Negroponte, who is now Ambassador to Iraq.

This administration marks a radical swing to the extremes of the behavior of U.S. governments to the unapologetically pro-elite status. The amount of economic draining of the populace to funnel the benefits to the top is taking place on an unprecedented scale. This includes the return of talk about the use of death squads for use in Iraq (coincidence? Negroponte in Central America, Negroponte in Iraq?)

Christian Nation. A Church perfectly willing to trumpet "freedom and liberty" while remaining blissfully ignorant of the atrocities in iraq wreaked by U.S. bombs and missiles, not to mention the gunning down of civilians becuase they were "with" a group of insurgents. I have been asked if I would protect my family if a murderous person came in my door. Yes, but I wouldn't blow up my entire street, but woudl direct it at THE guy. What if he's in a crowd? Then, ....NO. It's better for the guilty to go free than for innocents to be killed. Isn't this a cardinal point at the basic tenets of "freedom and liberty"?

Look at Iraq and ask: "Who's violent?" HOw many have insurgents killed, and how many have our troops and bombers killed? Insurgents react in defense of their country and we equate them with terrorists. If the US were under occupation, how many "insurgent terrorists" would we have, fighting for freedom?

We deceive ourselves thinking that we have righteous cause to inflict even more massive violence upon a population that ISN'T and WASN'T even involved in 9/11? We're not even supposed to, as Christians, to go as far as "an eye for an eye". And we take more than 10 to 1 if you want to look at the start of all this: the 3000+ on 9/11. We've brought 50 to 100,000 deaths to Iraq. 50,000, an almost certain underestimate, is apalling and evil. And there may well be another set of deaths equally as large.

I am constantly remembering a Twilight Zone episode where a bigot is talking in a bar to his buddies, and is loud and obnoxious, and spewing racial slurs, and after refusing to shut up after a couple of black men come over and ask him to pipe down, he is thrown out. When he gets up and brushes himself off, he is Nazi Germany, and is shot as a Jew; then he is hung by the KluKlux Klan, and then shot as a "gook" in some Asian country by U.S. soldiers. This is the "afterlife" that our Christian Church in America needs to have. Our families should be placed in Iraq and made to receive the "freedom and liberty" of the Bush administration. Or perhaps a "Christmas Carol" visitation in the night; I was thinking of this as I attended a performance of it in Cincinnati the week after Christmas. The Christmas past, a view of the last 20 years of history in Iraq, under Saddam, and under the occupation since the toppling of Saddam. Then the present, in Fallujah, in houses and neighborhoods and shopping centers hit by U.S. fire. And the future, the inevitable chaos and endless cycles of violence and accusations to set up further deceptions about new "immanent threats" which would require more "preemptive wars" and provide further econmonic benefits and "possibilities for new markets".

The love of money is the root of all evil.

Harbinger writes on liberation theology:

Harbinger: Praxis and Theory, Part 4

Gutierrez goes on to define theology, properly conceived, as "critical reflection on praxis." Such praxis involves not only the doings of Christians in church, work, and home, but also the economic, political, and socio-cultural structures that Christians inhabit. "To disregard these is to deceive both oneself and others," says Gutierrez.

Here is the crux of the matter: "The Christian community ... is--at least ought to be--real charity, action, and commitment to the service of others. Theology is a reflection, a critical attitude. Theology follows; it is the second step. What Hegel used to say about philosophy can also be applied to theology: it rises only at sundown. The pastoral activity of the Church does not flow as a conclusion from theological premises. Theology does not produce pastoral activity; rather it reflects upon it."

I then proceeded down into the comments, where I posted (at 4:12 pm)

I am drawn to the statement by Gutierrez:
Theology does not produce pastoral activity; rather it reflects upon it

I just finished a paid project where I set up a blog for a Christian organization that wanted to provide a private blogspace for a small group of people influential in media today. Soon, I hope there wil be other opportunities (and it looks as though there will be) to create a public blog space to help this organization enable numeorous connections to help grassroots movements to make a difference in their communities , and even in National politics. The online community that can be built there , and the inevitable "meetup" type collaborations that can arise from that are something which I am hoping can confront my own sense of disconnect between my theology (which, without orthopraxis becomes , as known in the blog world, as RANTING) and some "in the trenches" personal confrontation with the world and the effects of the principalities upon them.

Movable Theoblogical: An interesting WIKI: SourceWatch

This post earlier this morning caused me to think of what it might be like if the Bible (the entire text of it) were put into a blog (as one chapter or section/pericope per post), with some kind of tag for individual verses. I thought of this after seeing the Wiki done by the Center for Media and Democracy which I linked to. The "empty pages" that were offered up to the online community sparked the idea about the Bible, for here, on the CMD wiki, there were opportunities for the users to contribute entries which defined/described the various concepts of the Project for the New American Century

In the same way, the Bible could be discussed and explored, in an almost Midrash style, making "notes" on certain texts as Trackbacks from other blogs. Seminaries should have such a "base Bible blog" to which they could collaboratively enter notes and comments and reflections, and there couold conceivable be different kinds of references (personal, technical, expository, Greek/Hebrew etymology, etc., even Political).

It would be interesting to set up such a Bible Blog, even the process of getting it all into a blog format would be interesting as a theological as well as a technological and programttic enterprise/undertaking. I may be looking into how this mayight be done. I know there are ONLINE BIBLES, but none that are , to my knowledge, in Blog format to lend themselves to trackbacks and comments, and even RSS on those comments and trackbacks (which more and ore blogs are now offering --- RSS on comments and trackbacks, that is).

Then I get to thinking about how technologies such as blogging might engender a very different kind of communal record of the history of God's people. How Paul might have used blogging in relation to his missions and Church seeding. If Paul's letters could have been interactive, what would that have done to the message of the Epistles? If the Gospels had been so, what would we have there?

MY son's friend invited him to a Church Youth Lock-in at his Church, which ius the local Southern Baptist Church. When I picked him up in the morning when the event was closing down, he asked "Can we go to that Church?", and I was telling him that I am all for his being involved with a Church Youth Group, but told him about how I am not thrilled with the climate of most Southern Baptist Churches because of how pro-war and pro-Bush most of them have become.

He just left to go to a Youth Sunday School Class, and the rest of us will join him at the Worship Service an hour later. I am bringing "God's Politics" with me as a sort of "icon" like a cross on a chain, to ward off evil spirits. The level of nationalism that has crept into the Church, especially the Southern Baptist Church, is staggering and disturbing. But here goes.

Found this while looking at INformed Comment for news on Election Day events in Iraq (which is not going well, surprise, surprise), and Cole linked to Project for a New American Century in a post about the resignation of Douglas Feith, who was initimately involved with Rebuilding America's Defenses

SourceWatch - SourceWatch

Welcome to SourceWatch (formerly called the "Disinfopedia (http://www.prwatch.org/node/3205)"), a collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests. Sponsored by the Center for Media and Democracy (http://www.prwatch.org), SourceWatch was started in February 2003 and contributors are now working on 6317 articles. To learn how you can edit any article right now, visit SourceWatch:Welcome, newcomers, our Help page, Frequently Asked Questions, or experiment in the sandbox.

I found this line in the Key Positions list in the Project for the New American Century description:

Among the key conclusions of PNAC's defense strategy document (Rebuilding America's Defenses) were the following [3] (http://www.fpif.org/papers/02men/box1_body.html):

* "Develop and deploy global missile defenses to defend the American homeland and American allies, and to provide a secure basis for U.S. power projection around the world." * "Control the new 'international commons' of space and 'cyberspace,' and pave the way for the creation of a new military service--U.S. Space Forces--with the mission of space control." * "Increase defense spending, adding $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually." * "Exploit the 'revolution in military affairs' [transformation to high-tech, unmanned weaponry] to insure the long-term superiority of U.S. conventional forces."

The inclusion of "Cyberspace" as an area to bring "under control" caused me to click the link, where I was presented with a page that read something like "THis page has not yet been created." And I was presented also with an edit box, so I typed "Huh?" and now the link from cyberspace opened this page that said "Huh?", so I chnaged it to "Control Cyberspace? This is scary". I had read a couple of things on this in the past months, but not for a while. It fits the authoritarian, fundamentalist mind set of blocking free expressions, and labelling it as seditious.

Anyway, this is an intersting looking, Wiki-based project.

"I'm pretty comfortable with the record of this Administration in the first four years in foreign policy"

I don't know about you, but is saying "I'm pretty comfortable" sound like something you say when you are ACTUALLY proud of something? Do you say to your son, when he achieves something you're proud of, and want to communicate this to him, "I"m pretty comfortable" with that?

Why does Powell continue to remain silent, knowing as most of us do, how deeply troubled he was by the way the Bush administration ignored his advice, steered this country in the wrong direction, lied to them, and then quietly showed him the door. Bob Woodward captured this in his two books "Bush At War" and "PLan of Attack" (Powell's situation started off badly in the second book, which covered the Iraq developments, starting with 9/12, where Bush was already pushing everybody to focus on Iraq.

noticias - POWELL: Interview on Fox's Hannity & Colmes

And, frankly, when I look at what we've accomplished over the last four years, whether it has to do with doubling the amount of development assistance we're giving to the world, what we're doing with HIV/AIDS, the Sudan peace agreement that I witnessed the other day in Nairobi, the disarming of Libya, the way we brought attention on nuclear proliferation in Iran and Iraq, the free trade agreements we have entered into, the good relationship we have with China and with Russia, the progress we're now making in the Middle East, I'm pretty comfortable with the record of this Administration in the first four years in foreign policy and I'm pleased to have been able to play a role in that record.

KOS' post yesterday echoes the same kind of frustration with the dogged stuboorn blindness of the far right when it comes to facing reality, or looking at facts. The Fox News Channel has become something like the Scriptures to their delusional faith in the neocon dream, presenting it to them in living, arrogant, wing-nut color by icons such as Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. O'Reilly speaks for them, and he serves as surrogate to their rage against the liberals, voicing their collective "Shut UP!" to their enemies. And he supplies loads of misinformation, and feeds the paranoia about the "liberal media conspiracy" (which only serves to obscure how their campaign is only "against conspiracies by media" and not the authors of their own.)

Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.

In the feverish minds of the war apologists, it doesn't matter that no WMDs were found, that torture chambers are still open for business, that this war is now rivaling Saddam's brutality for sheer number of Iraqis killed, that the Army, Marines, and National Guard are all having trouble recruiting, that our equipment is degrading to the point where we're creating a hollow military, that the war is costing us $200 billion and counting, that Israel is not safer as a result of this war, that nearly 1,600 allied troops and counting have died on this fool's errand, that the US's original choice to lead Iraq -- Chalabi -- was an Iranian spy who told our enemies that we had cracked their communications code, that most of Iraq is not under government control, that terrorists are now using the lawlessness in Iraq to recruit and train a whole new generation of terrorists, that our "Coalition of the Willing" is now a mere shell of its former self, that the world hates the United States, that the Euro is suddenly the hot currency, that Europe and Asia are both creating security organizations excluding the US, and that tens of thousands of our soldiers are coming home physically and mentally maimed.

None of that matters to them.

Bush said on the radio today:

"There's not a democratic nation in the world that threatens the security of the United States"

No, the view of some in the United States of what this security entails, and what they will do to "defend" it, is a threat to people outside the United States (and ultimately, to that of the United States itself).

Bush got it completely backwards, as usual.

LOL...this is great!

Found this via Going Jesus, via St. Jeromes Library via AKMA

From an interesting site, The Other Journal, which I found via linkage from Harbinger:

Finally, the Anti-Manicheist drew my attention to The Other Journal, which looks excellent, if you're interested in Christian reflection on culture and politics. A recent issue has interviews with Stanley Hauerwas, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Tony Campolo.

An Interview with Stanley Hauerwas by Dan Rhoades

And I think also, George Bush, his Christian faith, is the Christian faith of Alcoholics Anonymous. You can quite understand that. It never seems to occur to him what it would mean to be a part of a Church and under ecclesial authority, and to have your language tested by ecclesial authority. I mean, I’m sure he’s very genuine in his religious faith, I just don’t think very much of his faith. For someone like me to say that, you think well that’s very arrogant. And its true, it is very arrogant. And I think that one of the things that we suffer from in America is that religious people thinking secularity is such an enemy, that any religious faith is better than no religious faith. That is a deep mistake! There are very perverse forms of religious faith, that, give me a secularist any day compared to some of the forms of religious faith. And I must say, I think that Evangelicalism bares the brunt of a lot of this. I think that it is far to a-ecclesial and Evangelicals tend to turn the gospel in a system of belief rather than a body of people through which we are embraced through God’s salvation that makes us different.

That last statement is important: "a body of people through which we are embraced". This is the glaring omission of the Church; even when all political/economic relations are left out of the equation; before I was politically aware, I was longing for the kind of place that took call seriously; took each other seriously; and lived our Church's corporate life as a journey toward finding our call; and helping one another toward that quest. Here, the minimum requirement is some sort of a radical commitment to be on a journey TOGETHER.

To find that, that is the first step. And then to find a place and a community that stands apart from the culture and sees commmon assumptions about life for what they are: fantasies; false ideologies; idolatries; quick fixes. Violence, materialism, idolatry of lifestlye. What's the Bible talking about when it talks about "Darkness"? It's part of that whole deceptive, seducing settling for the most popular ways. The true alternative, radically different, alternative life that Jesus called "abundant" is far different than the "American Dream". It is a new kind of community, living under a different reality.

I had another of those long, frustrating, seemingly hopeless debates about Politics and theology with a family member last night. They were quite willing to admit that they relied quite heavily on Fox News (but of course, also claimed that they check what they hear there against "other" sources--- although I don't know what those would be, since they also express a complete mistrust of the major networks, which they NEVER did prior to this present climate created by the extreme polarization of ideological political beliefs, which itself has been greatly increased by entities such as Fox News who take their "talking points" memos from Mr. Murdoch. I kept asking them about a recent rant by Bill O'Reilly (whom they listen to quite a bit, and react to every distortion and outright mistruth offered by O'Reilly with utter dismissal), where O'Reilly was going on about the "co-ordinated effort by the liberal media" to slam Gonzalez. This was a somewhat ridiculous theory, since the day in question when these "co-ordinated" reports ran was the day of the hearings for Gonzalez. Well, DUH! The only "co-ordination" happening there was media outlets commenting on "the news" that day. O'Reilly constantly says "I never sdaid that" in response to such things as being confronted with calling Barbara Boxer "a nut", which he did. He said "She's a nut", referring to Boxer. O'Reilly absolutely goes offf on Media Matters constantly, since they make it a point to fact-check, and O'Reilly makes their list almost daily.

Aside from O'Reilly, the whole debate last night drained me. I went home wondering what the hell I am supposed to be doing. I need some alternative to incarnate. I have gifts in the area of theology and technology; both theological and technical, with degrees in the former and 10 years experience in the latter.

I am so disturbed by the utter deception and blind obstinance to testimony from what SHOULD be credible sources, except that they are no longer considered credible if they seem to call into question some basic assumptions of the neoconservative agenda, which they have "processed" through our society VERY SUCCESSFULLY.

I get looks of utter dismay when I make any sort of comparison of Bush and his administration with Nazi Germany, and their "propaganda" and enlistment of the Churches in their cause. They simply refuse to believe that there is any possibility that this administration may be deceiving them right out of their role as free citizens and into a gang war; a culture war, on all dissent.

The worst of all is the ability to tune out the horrors of war inflicted on an innocent popultation, and refuse to stand for the cause of citizens who come under attack under this vast sweeping umbrella of bombs and missiles in the name of "freedom and liberty". Bush's inaguaral was so innocuous and hollow, and the fact that millions of American Christians see no connection to affirming the policies of this President, and consenting to the evil it is inflicting on the people of Iraq and on world stability. They have allowed this ideology to sway their theology; and it is an ideology that, in my estimaiton, they have accepted, in the vast majority of cases, based on deceptions and propaganda. And this is SO much like the people of Germany rallying behind the Nazi party, including the vast majority of the Churches. The people of the American Churches have allowed the theology of empire to become their predominant Biblical vision. And this is, not "Biblical" at all. It is a distortion of the Biblical message. I BELIEVE the Bible. JUst not the Bible as represented by Empire. Not the one George W. Bush believes. Not the one Jerry Falwell believes.

The New Yorker: Fact

THE COMING WARS
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

A good article from Eric Altermann:

MSNBC - Have death squad, will travel

One weakness of liberals is our inability to credit right-wingers with a sufficient degree of malevolence.

ICTHUS points to some McClaren comments, from which I was particularly drawn to his near the end of the response:

Brian McLaren: Brian's Annotation to "The Emergent Mystique" - CT article

In the last few years, I’ve become more convinced that “postmodern” is actually a small slice of a larger movement in social history that could be called “postcolonialism.” True, these days U.S. foreign policy threatens to return us to an ugly era that might be labeled “the return of colonialism,” but hoping against hope that it will fail, I am deeply committed to finding Christian leaders in the global south who, formerly colonized, now seek a more just and peaceful postcolonial future. I would like very much to meet these sisters and brothers, learn from them, and bring them into conversation with their counterparts in the former colonizing countries. Any future worth working for, in my opinion, is a future in which we collaborate with African, Latin American, and Asian Christians … seeking to be blessed together in order to be a blessing together to the rest of our shared world. Much of my time, travel, and energy has been invested in this project in recent years, and I expect that more will be so invested in the future, God willing

This review by Elizabeth A. Castelli
on Slate has a much better grasp of what Wallis is about. Her criticism is that Wallis is too "Christian" oriented, to which I say "How else would he express this? From what underlying belief about life does Wallis even care to write such a book? From the perpective of an evangelical Christian who does not like seeing his faith distorted and compromised by nationalism, greed, and deceit.

The Morals of the Story - Does Jim Wallis' leftist, Bible-based book get it right? By Elizabeth A.?Castelli

The best summary of Castelli's admirable grasp of Wallis' view is summed up in this:

Wallis presents "God's politics" as a politically nonaligned and non-ideological third way.

Where Castelli finds fault is expressed here:

God's Politics consistently engages in rhetorical slippages that will certainly be troubling to people outside of Wallis' Christian frame. "Religion," "spirituality," and "faith" are used throughout the book generically, but also synonymously with "gospel faith," "prophetic religion," and "Christianity." There are occasional token references to Jews (specifically Abraham Joshua Heschel, Sen. Joe Lieberman, and Michael Lerner), Islam (whose adherents are sometimes "Moslems" and sometimes "Muslims"), and a vague confraternity of "religious seekers."

And here I say, again, WHY NOT? This is, after all, Wallis' framework. His audience is, in fact, a Christian audience (he couldn't get this book published in very many "Christian" publishers, and the ones that would do not have the impact of a Harper. I also feel that there are "seekers" and "people sympathetic to an authentically compassionate activism that this book would do a good job of articulating a more accurate "Biblical Christianity".

Casteli continues to complain about Wallis "tendency" to couch social justice and activism in terms of Christian language:

Wallis states again and again his overarching perspective: "The real question is not whether religious faith should influence a society and its politics, but how." Religious faith is no generic category here; it means biblical religion.

Well, yeah. He does. And yeah, it DOES mean Biblical religion. And the left or even non-Christians have nothing to fear from "Biblical religion" as Wallis articulates it (and LIVES it, a nd expresses it politically). Castelli seems to be slipping into that trap of associating "Biblical" with the smug, arrogant, narrow, authoritarian fundamentalism that so many loud voices in the Chrsitian Right have expressed. But this one of Wallis's major purposes for the book; to provide a sound apologetic for "Biblical Faith", and he does not attack the argument about other faiths, and how they relate to this "Christian stream of consciousness" concerning social justice. I happen to believe there are many common threads of similar nature across all religions which make a case for integration into life, and dialogue with the culture.

Oh gee, here we go again. This article is pointed out by Jesus Politics, and it has the same arguments from the "keep church and state separate" folks, and a glaring cluelessness about the connection between faith and life.

Jesus Politics: Katha Pollitt, Jim Wallis and God's Politics

God's politics turn out to be curiously tailored to the current crisis of the Democratic Party.

This review by Katha Pollitt in The Nation is totally useless. She has no clue about Wallis' subject matter, and so she may has well just not tried. But Wallis' book and appearances have been making a splash, and so she took it on. I explore some of here criticisms below:

Larry Hollon blogs about something I believe gives Christianity and Evangelism a bad name, and cites several of the reasons he has and I have about why:

Perspectives

A report from Sri Lanka in this morning's New York Times about Christians from the U.S. proselytizing while offering humanitarian aid concerns me deeply. In my opinion this is not acceptable for many reasons.

Dropping into a crisis area, sharing faith in a way that is upsetting to local sensitivities, bundling faith with humanitarian aid, and flying out in a week or two is, to put it bluntly and as kindly as I am able, a bad idea. You can read into this language that I feel a bit more strongly than just "a bad idea," but I'm trying to remain charitable here.

Here's why: It's insensitive to the religious sensibilities of people who are already faithfully practicing Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other religions at a time of great vulnerability.

Whether intentional or not, such behavior connects humanitarian aid to a particular religious perspective and can leave the appearance of coercion

When I place some of my posts that deal directly with political debate in the "Democracy" category, there is always a profound crossover or overlapping to "PeaceChurch" and other of my blog categories. Bust in "categorizing", I also run the risk of associating criticism of Bush with Democracy (even though I feel that true Democratic ideals have been disdainfully shoved aside in the priorities of the Bush administration), or of equating or placing on an even plane, the categories of Democracy and the Kingdom of God. I do not hold, especially while reading A People's History of the United States, that the idea of "Democracy" as proclaimed and practiced by the Democratic Party, or even those ideals to which either party, to varying degrees pays lip service without policy implementation, is synonomus with justice or the Kingdom of God. I prefer to elevate talk of "Democracy" as MLK did, always aware that what he sought, as well as that which those who "hunger and thirst for righteousness" also seek, is something beyond what this category can encompass. The fact that , as Zinn chronicles, many if not most of the most avid "Democrats" of history have still been, at the most basic level, maintainers of the status quo; yea, even benefactors from it and products of it in their upbringing, does not for me dispel the notion that the "principles" are still lofty, and can be "enhanced" and "appropriated" by the Church to serve as a rhetorical tool to point to the values of the Kingdom of God over and gainst those of the power structures of this world. It is a given that these very powers are often pulled in both directions, but finally convinced that they represent these principles at their core.

Violence and Money (economic power) are the twin demonic influences which pull various attempts to represent democracy or justice away from purity under those ideals, and toward self-interest, and maintainence of one's own advantages (or to seek more). To fail to recognize this historic and cosmic battle for the soul is to fall prey to a variation on the old adage: "those who forget history are condemned to repeat it"

20 years ago, I wrote in a "Statement of Faith" as a part of some ordination requirements, that "God baptizes no economic system". IN the United States, capitalism is set against socialism and communism, and the educational and professinal system extols the virtues of the free market, some more than others. Some even absolutize this superiority such that the absolute righteousness of "free market" rises to the level of religious dogma, even amongst those whose dogmas include the literal interpretion of all Scripture, which itself is rife with stories and appropriate warnigs from prophets about the idolatry in trusting in ANYTHING but God. This seems to be lost on the Religious Right. It is one of those canonical adjustments that produces what Jim Wallis calls a Bible "full of holes". Instead of a "Wholistic" hermenetic, we have a "hole-istic" approach, cutting out chuunks of such massive quantities that we are left with little of the challenges to the world's systems.

Hauerwas constantly emphasizes how it is the call of the Church to, first and foremost, to BE the Church. To simply LIVE IT. He points out how Jesus is not recorded to be an outspoken critic of empire (even though, as he would agree, his very life embodied a challenge of such proportions that he was nonetheless approached as a danger by the powerful).

I was reading Harbinger's reflections on "Hauewas vs Cone" the other day:

Cone’s refusal to countenance a version of Christianity that is concerned more with its own integrity than the amelioration of dehumanizing poverty reveals the weakness of Hauerwas’ conception of political alternativity.

I don't read Hauerwas as suggesting that the Church is "more concerned" with one over the other, only that the BEING the Church, as Hauerwas places at the center, IS in fact the means in which the Church positions itself as an opponent to the world's systems, including those which so many Churches have uncritically and thus, idolatrously accepted as a major , theologically santified motif within their theology. As Hauerwas and Bonhoeffer both attest, BEING the Church, by virtue of the fact that it will abhor violence rather than glorify it and canonize it, will by nature position itself as an enemy of the state.

The final word for the Christian and the Church. therefore, should not be based on whether a society looks or sounds like capitalism rather than communism or socialism, but whether or not any of them really have a claim to success in the historical instances of their practices, and how EACH of them is susceptible to idolatrous exaltation of their grand experiments over and above a Biblical vision of a just society.

I guess the people of Iraq are no longer considered in the number of oppressed peoples. For if they were, Bush is saying that we won't make excuses for our actions. Obviously, that's not happening.

The Rhetoric of Bush's Inaugural Address versus the Reality of Bush Policy

President Bush promised that “All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors.” If this is actually the case, President Bush must immediately make it clear to all governments that oppress their own people or those under their military occupation: unless and until you respect human rights, including the rights of people to choose their own government, the United States will immediately cease all economic and security assistance, withdraw American advisors to your police and military, block all transfers of American armaments and other implements of repression, and encourage other countries to do the same. Unfortunately, there are currently no signs that President Bush is prepared to do this or that either party in Congress is willing to pressure him to do so. Unless or until that time comes, President Bush’s noble words at his inauguration can only be seen as self-serving hypocrisy of the worst kind.

The second half of Carlos's question: Hypocrisy, aptly described and analyzed in this article on Common Dreams

The Rhetoric of Bush's Inaugural Address versus the Reality of Bush Policy

Correctly recognizing the roots of terrorism, President Bush noted that “as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat.” For much of the second half of his first term, he has emphasized that as a necessary means of curbing the threat of terrorism the United States must push for reform and democratization of the autocratic governments of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, and the Palestine Authority. It is important to note, however, that none of the 9/11 hijackers came from those countries. Instead, they came from U.S.-backed dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, which continue to receive billions of dollars worth of U.S. military equipment annually. Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Tunisia and Morocco are also among the autocratic regimes in the Islamic world which continue to receive unconditional support from the United States.

It is a deception of fantastic proportions that the Bush administration has avoided (via slyly and subtly ignoring it)
and has heard hardly a peep from any other than Michael Moore and Carig Unger (author of House of Bus, House of Saud) about their letting Saudi Arabia off the hook so completely. It is a FACT that all but 3 of the 9/11 Hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. It is a fact that scores of Saudis were secretly escorted out of the country, a nd it is a FACT that money came from Saudi Arabia to finance , over the course of about a year or more, the training and preparations of 2 9/11 Hijackers, who stayed in the apartment and were known to an FBI informant (all of this was revealed in Bob Graham's Book, Intelligence Matters. Where in the hell have the American people been? When our comedians (Al Franken and Jon Stewart) have been much more adept at recognizing this BS and then having the balls to call it so, we are into this up to our butts.

It is presumably no coincidence that the only autocratic regimes toward which the Bush administration has pressed for reform have been those which have traditionally opposed American hegemonic goals in the region.

Right. No coincidence whatsoever. It is all a part of what seems to be a successfully subtle campaign to demonize the opponents as "enemies of freedom", just like the fundamentalist backlash in the Southern Baptist Church won the masses by declaring the "liberals" as "enemies of Biblical Christianity". Al Mohler still does so today, even though he and the vast majority of the Christian Right promote a Bible that has all of the "holes" in it that Jim Wallis describes as the result of the American Church fashjioning its own "American Bible", with all the references to the poor and justice cut out.

The rhetorical campaign also , as this autor sugests, serves as a means of re-focusing the perceptions of the danger away from their own disasterous policies in the Middle East.

The previous post arises out of my disgust with the lack of congruency between Bush's words, and his "deeds". It stands right up there with the level of propaganda he so ardently opposes in his rhetoric, and probably secretly admires for its level of deceit. What the Bush team really wants , is nothing they can lay claim to in public expression, for it would be shot down immediately, even by most of his "followers" and most ardent supporters. And then there are those who truly do nod in approval of neoconservative agenda, and truly believe that the U.S. has some sort of superiority claim which is the basis of its justifications for doing anything it damn well pleases.

Zinn's A People's History has been outlining how this is really nothing new, and I acknowledge this, except to say that it has reached new heights as to what is widely perceived to be "acceptable" superpower behaviour. It certainly wouldn't, even now, be considered as such if it were "someone else" carrying out such abuse, and walking so cockily across and over the rights and people of other nations.

Carlos at Jesus Politics points to this article in the NYT, and asks:
"Freedom or Hypocrisy?". Uh, B.

This eleoquent and profound anaalysis of Bush's "concept of freedom" from Orlando Miller in the NYT, also falls prey to what amounts to me as a false civility; for the sake of civility at the expense of what I consider to be the bald-faced truth: Bush's political speechifying is all rhetoric; patriotic piety. This stands out in the last line of the following quote where the writer says: "The president speaks eloquently and no doubt sincerely of freedom both abroad and at home". I'm not sure "eloquently" is the right word either. It doesn't seem an appropriate term to use in any discussion about Bush's speaking skills, and the "no doubt sincerely" is , even as this article puts forth, in grave doubt based on actions of the Bush administration that belie even the most basic understandings of those concepts.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: The Speech Misheard Round the World

The way the present administration has gone about this task, however, is likely to have the opposite effect. Moreover, what the president means by freedom may get lost in translation to the rest of the world. The administration's notion of freedom has been especially convenient, and its promotion of it especially cynical. In the first place, there is no evidence to support, and no good reason to believe, that Al Qaeda's attack on America was primarily motivated by a hatred of freedom. Osama bin Laden is clearly no lover of freedom, but this is an irrelevance. The attack on America was motivated by religious and cultural fanaticism. Second, while it may be implicitly true that all terrorists are tyrants, it does not follow that all tyrants are terrorists. The United States, of all nations, should know this. Over the past century it has supported a succession of tyrannical states with murderous records of oppression against their own people, none of which were terrorist states - Argentina and Brazil under military rule, Augusto Pinochet's Chile, South Africa under apartheid, to list but a few. Today, one of America's closest allies in the fight against tyranny is tyrannical Pakistan, and one of its biggest trading partners is the authoritarian Communist regime of China.

Third, while the goal of promoting democracy is laudable, there is no evidence that free states are less likely to breed terrorists. Sadly, the very freedoms guaranteed under the rule of law are likely to shelter terrorists, especially within states making the transition from authoritarian to democratic rule. Transitional democratic states, like Russia today, are more violent than the authoritarian ones they replaced.

And even advanced democratic regimes have been known to breed terrorists, the best example being the United States itself. For more than half a century a terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, flourished in this country. According to the F.B.I., three of every four terrorist acts in the United States from 1980 to 2000 were committed by Americans.

The president speaks eloquently and no doubt sincerely of freedom both abroad and at home. But it is plain for the world to see that there is a discrepancy between his words and his actions.

I find it well near impossible to cast any of Bush's words in any manner of positive light, based on the abject failure of his operations to embody much of anything of what he claims to be upholding. I don't even recognize that these are much "his operations" in the first place. He is a NAME and a FRONT MAN , and one of the least capable ones in our history. But it fits the conservative backlash persona. It so reminds me of the movement in the Southern Baptist Church beginning in the late 70's, and taking on such a sinister character once they took power. The same smug hypocrisy; the massive gulf between "profession of faith" and practice.

Sojourners : SojoMail : Back Issues

"A time comes when silence is betrayal. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought, within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world."
- Martin Luther King Jr.

Richard Land, in the NYTimes article yesterday, said that Wallis "conflates" efforts to alleviating poverty with "democratic" ways. NO, he DOESN'T. Wallis has the SAME MESSAGE for Presidents and administrations of BOTH and ALL Parties, and has so for 30 plus years since Sojoutners began. Land assumes that "Republican" efforts (specifically this administration, which moves everything in the opposite direction and calls it "the best for everybody". That's convenient, since it lets them TOTALLY off the hook from having to DO ANYTHING, other than what their chosen "moral" party has convinced them is the case.

BOth parties certainly have their corporate loyalties and political compromises; but no administration in this century has been so anabashed at kissing the butts of big money; and so propaganda-centered in their approach. It seems as if the real activity is the funnneling of money as quickly as possible in as many as possible ways to the top, and then cover it all in sugar and talk of "freedom and liberty", while somehow pulling off an image of being "common folks". Seeing this administration at work has sensitized me to histories such as Zinn's A People's History (in which I have reached page 250). Great book, and VERY educational. But of course, there are those who think it blasphemy against this great nation of ours (note the religious language and reverence used to defend nationalism, and how it is equated with some sort of theological blasphemy; as if God and country are the same.)

The New York Times > Washington > Democrats Turn to Leader of Religious Left

He argued that Mr. Wallis misunderstood conservative evangelical voters because he conflated the moral issue of alleviating poverty with the practical issue of whether Democratic policies are the way to do it.

Sorry for all the "windbag-ed-ness", but people like Land and MOhler just irk me to no end.

Richard Land, president of the ethics and religious liberty commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, says Wallis is essentially a compromise that the Democrats turn to.

The New York Times > Washington > Democrats Turn to Leader of Religious Left

But Dr. Richard Land, president of the ethics and religious liberty commission of the 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention, called Mr. Wallis "a left-wing evangelical" ill-qualified to instruct Democrats on conservative Christian values. "The Democrats are turning to the guy they can find that is least scary to them," Dr. Land said. He argued that Mr. Wallis misunderstood conservative evangelical voters because he conflated the moral issue of alleviating poverty with the practical issue of whether Democratic policies are the way to do it. "I don't know anybody who is in favor of poverty," Dr. Land said. "He doesn't seem to have adequately comprehended that the debate is over, based on the 30-year experiment, about whether big government or free markets work better at producing wealth for everybody."

They find him "least scary" because he makes sense, unlike the arrogant, dogmatic, holier-than-thou types the Southern Baptists apparently ike to parade in front of the media as their official spokesmen. Wallis' theological sophistication makes mincemeat out of the irrelevant, individualistic, cultural-compromising theology that is rampant in the Southern Baptist Church.

I have no idea what Land is referring to when he says "the debate is over, based on the 30-year experiment, about whether big government or free markets work better at producing wealth for everybody". What? Is he implying that Republicans create more wealth for everybody? The opposite is true. "Trickle down" feeds the media, not the bank accounts of the majority of Americans. The wealth becomes more and more concentrated, especially as the more extreme neo-conservatives unabashedly siphon National Revenue toward the top. Land is out of his mind. But that's par for the course for a Church that is sold out to right-wing ideology, and an ideology with no Christ; but an opiate-of-the-people that calls his name but cares not for the least of these.

Read your Bible, Mr. Ethics Commission man. (I wonder why they combine Ethics with "Religious Liberty"? Interesting.) But READ your Bible. Jim Wallis acts and speaks and advocates and ministers as if he has, while the Southern Baptists "read in" to it the distortions and cultural "accomodations" that make the faith more "palatable" and tone down its more socialist, radical community, revolution of values emphasis and exchange it for a chameleon faith (except for their litmus issues, to which they more of ten than not limit themselves).

Carlos at Jesus Politcs reflects on MLK's VALUES:

MLK's Moral Values

King explained that robbing the nation's treasury to fund military misadventures abroad did not fit into any definition he knew of "moral values." Indeed, he suggested, morality called Americans to oppose presidents who embarked upon careers of empire -- for the sake not just of victimized nations on the other side of the planet, but for the sake of America.

After doing some more reading in A People's History of the United States today, I find myself struggling with the pull of two powerful emotions that arise from the feelings evoked by the reading. One is the sense that forces so ingrained and powerful and insidious and , and so "culturally integrated" that we will be "stuck" in this rut for a long time; and so this is a feeling that brings me low and saps me of energy; I feel as if resistance is futile.

Then there's the sense that just as prior generations of Christians struggled under Empire, and saw Christianity lose its soul, there were people and communities that stood firm; even suffered for it (Bonhoeffer, for instance), and so I hold out hope for hope; for "delievrance"; for justice to be visitied upon us (but then, as I consider this, I wonder what kind of "armageddon" will be neccessary to bring all of the evil to light, and what form it will take. Not a "Left Behind" concept of armageddon, of course, but a great upheaval that reflects a great struggle between good and evil; (aka: On Earth As it is in Heaven"; Walter Wink describes how many apocalyptic stories are an earthly counterpart of eternal battles; a way of expressing the sense of place in a great historical drama.)

America's National Treasure is certainly its people, and the vision held by those who have responded to the call of the Almighty to be the Church in the world (therefore, to be the Church in some tangible way)

Carlos ends his post with a great quote from MLK:

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values," the Nobel Peace Prize winner explained. "There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

Bush cites warnings given prior to Iraq invasion:

Bush Says Election Ratified Iraq Policy (washingtonpost.com)

A new report released last week by U.S. intelligence agencies warned that the war in Iraq has created a training ground for terrorists. Bush called the report "somewhat speculative" but acknowledged "this could happen.

Jim Wallis and many Church leaders presented a last -ditch effort to the White House outlining alternatives to war which took Saddam Hussein seriously, as well as the phantom Weapons (since proven to be phantom, but nevertheless, their plan included collaborative international steps to aggresively shut down any remaining weapons threats). One of the warnings given was that invasion and occupation would only inflame hatred and make terrorism more likely and more widespread. It is obvious to anybody who isn't denying the realities of the past almost 2 years. Bush flippantly calls it "somewhat speculative"; any who are not waering partisan blinders see it plainly before them.

"There's no question we've got to continue to do a better job of explaining what America is all about," he said.

No, Mr. Bush, we've got to SHOW them what we're about. Actually, right now, we ARE. The point is, we have to CHANGE what we're about.

Josh points to this bit of nonsense and BS from Bush:

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: January 16, 2005 - January 22, 2005 Archives

"The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."

No, they chose what you misrepresented to them. You are a traitor to democracy, and worse, to truth itself. And then you used these deceptions for even greater evils. "History?" you said to Bob Woodward, "We'll all be dead". But what won't be dead is YOUR legacy , Mr. Bush (I refuse to call you Mr. President)....your legacy will remain in history as one of the most destructive and decetiful and most servile to the corporations whose profits are the ultimate value....of all U.S. Presidents. The scary thing is, you're not done yet. This country needs some heros to uncover your works for the rest of the world to see, so that the deception will end, and the world can move toward peace and rationality again.

JOsh points to THIS link quoting Deitrich Bonhoefer on Cheap Grace, and says that Bush brings this cheap grace into the White House. I would add that George W. Bush knows nothing of forgiveness. He credits Christ with changing his life, and yet refuses forgiveness to condemned murderers (indeed, one who testified to be a changed person via Christ, and he mocked her, in the media, with a cynical "Please don't kill me". Are these the words of a man who supposedly has had Christ "change his heart"? Seems a bit too much for a "Compssionate" man. It seems to be simply words, just like those avid Bush supporters who also put up "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" signs in their yard, while they approve of wars that have all the indications of being led by forces as "Anti-Christ" as it gets.

And this in the same week when his own administration sees the conclusion of the search for WMDs, which was the sole reason and source of warnings used to scare the American people and Congress into agreeing to it in the first place.

Does he really think (or maybe he "realizes") that Americans are idiots? How can the media let him get away with this? The election proves he was right? And all the while, the investigation that HIS administration organized is packing up its bags and closing shop: conclusion: NOTHING FOUND. And yet, the poor, deceived, right wing doesn;t even see the absurdity; so strong is their denial that their hero is a liar, a deceiver, and a manipulating pawn of the neoconservative thugs who think nothing of the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis, when they stand in the way of their empire.

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Bush Signals Steadfast Approach to Iraq

President Bush has said that his re-election in November ratified the correctness of his approach in Iraq and provided an "accountability moment" for some of those behind flawed judgments on the war there.

I was thinking tonight as I took out the trash: Instead of calliong these people "idiots" like I often do under my breath, maybe I ought to pray what Jesus prayed: "Father, Forgive them, they know not what they do". They really don't. They think they're following Jesus, becuase Jesus has become divorced from real life, and now he's a feel-good drug, and they go to Church and sing "be glorified in me", which seems to be saying "Make me feel good inside". It's an ego trip and an exercise in self-gratification, because if Jesus were really present in them, they'd be heartbroken and sick about what their President, who they say represents them and our country, is killing Iraqis by the tens of thousands for reasons he obviously doesn't want to reveal, so he made up things to deceive them. This is now proven,

Right now, I can't honestly say I want God to forgive them, but God would, if they would truly repent and listen to what the Spirit is saying to them, and how they are being called to stop this.

On "Control Room" tonight (an excellent documentary I rented from Blockbuster), an arab journalist said at the start of the Iraq war that he "believes in the American constitution", and that "American people will put a stop to it". Such idealism, and from an Arab citizen. He underestimated the level of deceit , self-deceoption, and utter sickness that has been unleashed on us by the neoconservative monsters in power.

In 1978, when I was in my Senior Year at Murray State, NBC ran a TV mini-series on the 10 year anniversary of King's assasination, entitled simply "King". It was to be a formative theological experience for me, to add into my increasing move to what was to be called "left" in the years ahead, already set in motion by influences such as the lay renewal movement, Church of the Saviour, and Clarence Jordan. I did a paper for Law and Society later that semester on King and Civil Disobedience, and
I was to enter seminary in the fall (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville), and did my Church history paper on the Southern Baptist response to Martin Luther King. Jr.

Paul Winfield looks nothing like the real King, and sounds even less like him (almnost the comlete oppostite; a somewhat high-pitched voice alongside that of the real King, but I was impressed with the delivery Winfield had...it inspired me, having rarely heard the actual King. I hope I might find this on DVD someday. (update: I just looked, and it was just released on 1/11/05)

This miniseries (which I do have on VHS) had a deep effect on me and my theology, as did later reading of King's writings, and listening to tapes of his speeches.

As in The People's History, MLK looked at history, not through a triumphalistic lens, deeply flawed in its "opressor" viewpoint, but with an empathy for the oppressed, as he had learned to do by life in the black community and in the Civil Rights Struggle.

King's observatons and concerns about Vietnam had so many parallels to the present conflict in Iraq, and I keep seeing it in the pages of A People's History of the United States

African Americans - Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Speech "Beyond Vietnam," Address delivered to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, at Riverside Church 4 April 1967 at New York City

I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and dealt death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it
must be ours.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote:

Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the hearts of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of
violence and militarism.

If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.

As this is MLK weekend, leading up to the holiday Monday (today is the actual birthday), Harbinger brings us this quote (among others):

Harbinger: Martin Luther King, Jr on charity and justice

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A commenter in a previous post where I take issue with some Mohler attitude, objects that

SBTS is owned by the SBC, which has the right to require that the programs and professors of SBC institutions actually affirm the mission statements and abstracts of principles of the seminaries themselves. That was the issue at that time.

Oh yeah, they have the RIGHT. They can do whatver they want. But people who wish to have a true education must look elsewhere. People who want to pursue Faith-based Social work must look elesewhere for social work programs that have the right to question the ethics of government, or to suggest alternative Biblical viewpoints and interpretations. That, obviously, is no longer possible at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and that is SAD. I feel for the generations of trainees there (of course, the fact that they are even going there is probably indicative of the fact that they have swallowed the whole present Southern Baptist climate, and think that this dogmatic, narrow , often "Anti-Christ" supporting theology is just what the doctor ordered.

We had many of those students there as well when I was there, but there was a place for left as well as right, and there was a sense even from the "Right" that those on the "left", like those involved in "social work" as a faith-based ministry, where responding to the call of God to reach out to those in need. That idea rarely exists today. Al Mohler casts suspicion on naybody who dares to difffer with his "biblical worldview", which seems to me to be limited to "his own little world".

RICHARD Land, that is, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, in a story in the January 2005 Atlantic Monthly. Land is the appointed mouthpiece for the public media of the Southern Baptist Convention.

He had commented, probably in response to a question about why Southern Baptists tend to be so "anti-Catholic", “I’ve got more in common with Pope John Paul II than I do with Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton,”

Welcome to Ethics Daily.com!

Further, he adds these insightful gems:

“Together we believe in the virgin-born son, who died on the cross and was resurrected on Easter Sunday—really resurrected, like The Washington Post could have reported it,” Land said. “We both say all human life is sacred, that marriage is between a man and a woman, that homosexual behavior is contrary to God’s will.”

Yeah, human life is sacred. So how come you are so quick, quicker than many "secular humanists" in our country to "exempt" Iraqi civilians frrom that category? This is what Jesus calls a "Blind Guide".

Another area where Land and the pope disagree is the war in Iraq. The pontiff has criticized both the U.S.-led war and President Bush’s policy on preventive war. On Monday he blasted the “arrogance of power” that he said should be countered with reason and dialogue.

Land, a former Bush appointee to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, meanwhile, defends action in Iraq as meeting “just war” criteria used for centuries to frame issues concerning war and peace.

No, he cannot use the "centuries old" just war criteria, for if he did, he would know that war that affects "non-combatants" does NOT qualify. Period. If he wishes to REDEFINE it, then he must cease calling it a just war, and appealing to the "centuries old just war theory", for he knows nothing of it, apparently.

Like I was saying earlier this week, Country obviously comes before Christ. They would argue, obviously, but actions speak louder than words.

Crosswalk.com - Albert Mohler's Weblog

Here Mohler is praising an article in the New Republic by Peter Beinart which asserts that the Democratic party has been : "taken over by Michael Moore and MoveOn.org and is now in the hands of leaders who refuse to support the war on terror and have instead associated the party with far left positions on social and domestic issues."

Mohler has nothing to say about war. He simply assumes that the Religious Right and the Neocons are right, and never puts them under any sort of accountability microsocope. But, if he did, he would be sure to have some hair-brained version of "The Romans 13 Justification of Capitulation to The Authorities", and give them Biblical mandate on this basis.

With Mohler, the important matters are whether or not you tow the line with the Religious Right. Anything outside those narrow boundaries, and you are aquiescing and even aiding in the decline of civilization.

Kerry's approach was dead on arrival. His nomination "was a compromise between a party elite desperate to neutralize the terrorism issue and a liberal base unwilling to redefine itself in a post-September 11 world."----

This is where Mohler is an out and out hypocrite: he rails against "re-defining" ANYTHING. But talk about opposing ANY war which has been blessed by the Religous Right, and you are not "comapssionate", but "unrealistic" and , worse, "liberal".

Beinhert is quoted by Mohler as saying:

"What they do not recognize, or do not acknowledge," Beinart laments, "is that Moore does not oppose Bush's policies because he thinks they fail to effectively address the terrorist threat; he does not believe there is a terrorist threat."

If that is an accurate quote, then he knows NOTHING of Moore's argument. Moore absolutely disagrees and condemns, as do I, the Bush administration's strategy to fight terrorism (becuase what it consists of is bombing and murdering of civilians in hopes of killing 1 terrorist out of 100 to 1000 "others"; those "regrettable, collateral damge victims". The callousness of the Religous Right is utterly mind-boggling. Here is a clear case of placing ideology over theology (their theological arguments are pre-disposed to the Romans 13 justifications, except, that is, when a political opponent is in office. Gone and totally AWOL are ethics of Jesus or the prophets.)

Mohler attacks political opponents while all the while obviously never considering the very basic question for the Christian: What would Jesus do? I am amazed and appalled by how many "Christians" equate "what woudl Jesus do?" with conventional secular wisdom, so that "Biblical wisdom" becomes synonomous with the "long term realism" and "if we don't protest ourselves we all die" and "they [the terrorists, and by inference, the Muslims] won't rest until they've killed all of us who won't convert. I actually hear that very argument from somebody I work with. There seems to be no ability (actually, willingness) to separate a worldview that permeates us that still absolutizes conventional war as an ultimate and pragmatic solution. It is neither ultimate nor pragmatic. Jesus constantly said that violence begets violence, and he who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword.

Feeding into my growing disgust and fear of this administration's evildoers, is the recent revelation of the "Death Squad" tactics being discussed, and way back then, in the early 80's, good ol' Ronald Reagan:

Billmon

The Reagan administration repeatedly insisted that the Salvadoran government and armed forces were not responsible for the violence . . . As President Reagan himself declared in a speech . . . in July 1983, "Much of the violence there - whether from the extreme right or left - is beyond the control of the government." A month later, Abrams (Elliot Abrams, the head of the State Department's human rights bureau) insisted . . . it was "unfair" to blame the military for the violence because "we really don't know who the death squads are."

I've been reading A People's History of the United States recently, which is probably held by American nationalists, especially neoconservatives, in the smae light as "The Satanic Verses" is my extremist Muslims (perhaps the neoconservatives don't really consider it "blasphemous", but merely mambt-pamby, after all, this is all done in the national interest, and what's a higher calling than that? This is the ultimate value of the neocon world). A People's History is anathema to American nationalistic conservatives becuase it DARES to call into question the American mythology of "freedom for all" and that America is about, with the aid of God and the side of right, which is the "spread of freedom and liberty". Meanwhile, The People's History examines the massive property and wealth holdings of the framers of the Constitution, and illustrates/illuminates the not-so-gallant motivations that may well have been a much more prominent impetus to the "building" of the United States (alonmg with many other Western Nations who went on expeditions to further their empires when the seas became familiar enough to explore further, and explorers theorized about alternate routes to the East (Columbus thought it would be India, not knowing that another large Continent, North America, lay in the way). Their sponsoring Empires had them seek out and plunder, and the English colonists who would become the American Revolution instigators took those lessons of nation building on into the 19th, 20th, and 21st Centuries. Today's Neocons seem to be a reincarnation of the "Narcissim of the Nation-State" (I just made that up; don't think I've heard that before...how 'bout that?)

So, the "Salvadoran Option" is a more recent throwback, and is being considered as a possible avenue for the Iraq occupation, to quell the insurgency, just as the U.S. trained forces that became the "Contras" to eliminate the Sandinistas, and became notorious for their brutality and atrocities (as did the Sandinistas as well; an awful conflict, half -sponsored and fed by the United States, a nd Reagan lied to the American people about it. (One of the very first Sojourners issues I ever saw had the front cover headline "Reagan is Lying About Nicaragua". He kept the American people (or he tried) completely in the dark about Central America. Now the talk is to train Islamic "contra-insurgents", and when I heard the news of a bomb today, that thought crossed my mind. But it crossed my mind when I realize that there is not much that surprises me or shocks me anymore about this administration, or the hideous plans it is capable of hatching and carrying out.

NOW | PBS

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on mercury in your food. (RFK Jr. wrote the book Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy )
9pm Eastern, PBS

Larry Hollon has blogged several entries in Prespectives, his blog, as he is in Indonesia
with a convoy of UMC people, observing and participating in aid efforts.

The RSS feed is here, and the blog is:

Below in the quote is the start of an email I recieved from SojoMail today. When I looked just now at the link below (Amazon's Best Seller List) , they had moved up to number 2. Great!

Amazon.com: Top Sellers

Earlier this week, we asked our loyal SojoMail readers to take a different kind of action - to help make Jim Wallis' new book, God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, a national best seller. The response has been amazing, and thousands of our readers have already ordered copies.

In fact, God's Politics was listed as #3 on Amazon.com when this e-mail was distributed! If this incredible response continues, we could even reach The New York Times best-seller list!

From UMC.org, the official Webiste of the United Methodist Church, thereis this entry under the Social Principles. If these are Christian values, and I believe them to be so, then this is yet another case of Bush the "Anti-Christ"

War and Peace

We believe war is incompatible with the teachings and example of Christ. We therefore reject war as an instrument of national foreign policy, to be employed only as a last resort in the prevention of such evils as genocide, brutal suppression of human rights, and unprovoked international aggression. We insist that the first moral duty of all nations is to resolve by peaceful means every dispute that arises between or among them; that human values must outweigh military claims as governments determine their priorities; that the militarization of society must be challenged and stopped; that the manufacture, sale, and deployment of armaments must be reduced and controlled; and that the production, possession, or use of nuclear weapons be condemned. Consequently, we endorse general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.