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.

A Generous Orthodoxy (McLaren), another library checkout: Voices of a People's History of the United States (Zinn and Arnove) and the aforementioned The Peaceable Kingdom (Hauerwas) (which I couldn't fit on my chair to photograph it last time)

McLaren I had set aside just before Thanksgiving when I picked up the Bonhoeffer books, and the Crossan book, and all the heavy duty at work in December, I kinda forgot I was still reading it (p. 116). I'll try to do a full report. The Zinn stuff is fascinating , at the same time disturbing.

KOS posts today about how he doesn't cringe, like he does when the Religious Right speaks and uses the Bible, when the Bible is the attributed source of things like concern for the poor, action against war, and against discrimination. Perhaps he heard somebody like Campolo or Wallis, or read some key blogs that have made it one of their missions to testify to a true Biblical Christianity that does not cater to the Empire.

Very glad to see it noticed in such a well-known Politically progressive blog. Of course, I've been following KOS closely ever since discovering him when all the DNC blogs were listed.

Daily Kos :: On faith and values

But I have come to a conclusion recently that has startled me, obvious as it seems to me in retrospect -- it wasn't religious language that bothered me, it was the "values" promoted couched in religious terms. I would cringe -- and continue to cringe -- when politicians and religous figures cite scripture to justify hatred towards gays or any other class of people. But I don't cringe when scripture is used to justify poverty relief, or conservation ("protecting God's creation"), or social security ("honor thy mother and thy fathers"), or oppose the death penalty, or oppose the war.

The whole entry is definitely worth a read, as are many of KOS' posts. We share a lot of basic assumptions about a just society.

Larry Hollon (who worked for 12 years for such orgs as Bread For the World and Church World Service writes about Colin Powell's warnings that this Tsunami will require long term attention, to avoid a deep rift in society that could spiral into social chaos and security problems for years to come (such as Ethiopia and Somalia, both now centers of unrest and chaos):

Perspectives

When Secretary of State Colin Powell said on CNN that long-term developmental assistance for the tsunami-struck region would be required by the United States, I stopped in my tracks. When he went on to say that food insecurity leads to civil instability and that this is a security issue for the United States, I sat down and listened.

There is so much embedded in this message that if we really hear it and act upon it, it can change how we deal with conflict resolution. It is proactive. it is solution-based. It is not reactive. It is not based on the force of arms for conflict resolution. It can be preventative of the economic dynamics that leave the poor outside the mainstream economy by providing them with resources to develop sustainable small businesses. It is rooted in providing opportunity, not in using the military to keep people down. It mitigates unrest by including people in self-development. All of that in this simple soliliquiy by Secretary Powell, you say? Yes, I say with hope. My, how things have changed.

I heard a guy on NPR this morning (Steven Radelet, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development) talking about the ways in which the U.S. Military Aid involvement could be a turning point IF it is perceived to be there for long-term , sustainable aid and not simply to keep their own interests under lock and key (IOW, don't be up and leaving after a brief "fix"; or allow the elements that do stay around to communicate some kind of strong-armed, authoritarian control). Link to NPR audio

This is a lesson in the kinds of justice work that is neccessary for avoiding the need for "defense" against the effects and results of human chaos, which tend to radiate outward to conflict with the centers of power. Hunger and desperation breed resentment. The spiral of violence begun only feeds back into the root of the problem. Tony Campolo often speaks about fighting terrorism at its roots, and likens it to fighting misquitos by attacking the breeding grounds for misquitos. Which brings us back to Iraq, and how we are widening the breeding grounds for increased terror.

I've added a script to the sidebar that Vaughn made available at ICTHUS, that displays a runnin glist for the blogring.

My previous post describes how disgusted I am with the ability of the human observer to excuse ANYTHING, even the most brutal, inexcusable horrors, as a neccessary means to an end; or else, to dismiss the possibility altogether. My disgust about this history leads me right back to Iraq and our business there today. The premise is an outright falsehood, and the result is a human tragedy that in some ways exceeds the Tsunami tragedy, not becuase of comparing lives lost, but because Iraq is a result of humans inflicting injustice upon other humans for selfish reasons, and the Tsunami, certainly as big a tragedy in terms of human life, is a result of nature (even there, who knows the extent to which this is a result global climate change due to irresponsible acts of industrial humans?) With Iraq, and the ensuing chaos caused by the invasion, we not only wiped out tens of thousands innocents, we probably paved the way for even more intense Muslim resentment and hatred, effectively cancelling out any possible "defense" this war supposedly had against terrorism (and of which we have found no evidence of ties -- and yet most Bush supporters still BELIEVE that Iraq had somethign to do with 9/11).

The idea prevalent on the Right that history such as that recounted in Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States goes hand in hand with their standard firsr loyalty to Country over God (irreagrdless what their talk says -- of course they say God, Country, but all of their philosophy side first with country, regardles of the obvious rampant evils they inflict upon whoever stood in the way of their intended conquests (ie. Columbus and other European "New World" excursions where they were charged with returning with treaures for the crown. Thier first order of business was to get the gold, and enslave the people (indeed, this was logged in Columbus' initial entry after meeting the natives -- he said they "would be very enslavable" just after observing how eager these natives were to share what they had.

Boy, the outcry I remember several years ago as alternative histories began to emerge about the massive cruelties and enslavements which wiped out 2/3 to 3/4 of the native populations in the space of 150 years! It was considered to be practially blasphemous to "taint" the origins of "ouir country" in this way. It was like the Christian Right is more upset about the loss of "imagery" about their nation's beginnings than they are about the travesty against humanity that precipitated it. This is another great example of where Country goes before God, when push comes to shove. The first rush of emotional energy gets directed at the need to defend the sanctity of the Nation than in the means used to "secure it". And this is so typical of the conceits and the deceits of Empire. Entire mythologies emerge that glorify the "achievement" (much as it still does today, in glorifying war for a cause; and that cause enlists under its banner any number of arguments to justify it.

The blindness of the "Christian" Right on this matter is revealing: the same enlistment of God in the cause and history of the Empire. It is important for a people who claim an allegiance as God's people to maintain the mythology. Notice that none of the arguments against histories such as Zinn's attempt to discredit the history itself, but the mere recognition of it as some kind of betrayal.

So many theological/political arguments pose a false dichotomy: that it is not the job of Government to care for the poor, to seek justice, to provide safety nets. Curiously, many of the same people who suggest this are also involved with Churches who do none of this either. So who is left to provide the care; the safety nets, the justice? They say the market will take care of itself. The market will set everything right. This is idolatrous; and it is naive; and it ignores a basic Biblical warning: "The Love of Money is the Root of all evil". To leave these calls to "the least of these" to "market forces" ignores the fact that whenever "trickle down economics is employed and given a chance to work during Republican administrations, the gap between the rich and poor grows, unemployment rises, and the population sees a rise in the poverty level. Trickle down seems to be the unsubstantiated dream of the powerful (and I would sugest they don't really care; that this is but an argument they use to get elected, and then the numbers are ignored as their strategies are unfurled.

No, it's not to be left to "market forces", but is the responsibility of any "citizen" of any community, and , byu inference, by its elected representatives, who are elected to help fashion a just society in its details and implementation. Many government programs are checks and balances against the abuse of power. The neoconservatives want to strip government, excdept for its responsibility of defense (which, conveniently benefits many of those neoconservatives and their alliances with forces which see America as the world's most worthy reperentative of righteousness. "Compassionate Conservatism" rings hollow in the face of actual policy implementation in this administration. And the actual numbers needed to falsify or buttress are misrepresented, distorted, avoided, and covered in a media blitz of secular equivalents of pious platitudes.

Social justice is also not the sole province of faith communities (especially when an alarming proportion of these do nothing in these areas), but a calling of any who would profess to care about fairness in a society. Wallis declares that social justice is not only the call of God to his people, to live out in the lives of their Churches, but also the civic responsibility in a secular politic whose responsibility it is to implement just structures, and work for the common good. There are certainly many points of collaboration that could be found. John DiUlio found that Bush's Faith-based initiatives to be far from priority; indeed, even a target of scorn by a administration insiders who frequently ridiculed DiUlio's role (ie "Pick a faith-based initiaitive; any initiative" was heard more than once in the White House, chiding DiUlio).

God's Politics: A Better Option, Sojourners Magazine/February 2005

Prophetic politics would not be an endless argument between personal and social responsibility, but a weaving of the two together in search of the common good. The current options are deadlocked. Prophetic politics wouldn’t assign all the answers to the government, the market, or the churches and charities; but rather patiently and creatively forge new civic partnerships where everyone does their share and everybody does what they do best. Prophetic politics wouldn’t debate whether our strategies should be cultural, political, or economic; but show how they must be all three, led by a moral compass.

It seems so plain when one looks at Scripture as a Citizen of the World and of the Kingdom rather than as a Citizen of the U.S. first, which is the sickness that has swept up the Church in the United States, and those who do not accept this compromising and dilution and distortion of the Gospel are not speaking up because they fear the impact on their Church, or the loss of friendships. The Church has sold its soul for lack of a prophetic voice, and quickly slides into a social club status.

God's Politics: A Better Option, Sojourners Magazine/February 2005

"God’s politics" are therefore never partisan nor ideological. But God’s politics challenge everything about our politics. God’s politics remind us of the people our politics always neglect - the poor, the vulnerable, the left behind. God’s politics challenge narrow national, ethnic, economic, or cultural self-interest, reminding us of a much wider world and the creative human diversity of all those made in the image of the creator. God’s politics remind us of the creation itself, a rich environment in which we are to be good stewards, not mere users, consumers, and exploiters. And God’s politics plead with us to resolve, as much as possible, the inevitable conflicts among us without the terrible destruction of war. God’s politics always remind us of the ancient prophetic prescription to "choose life, so that you and your children may live," and challenge all the selective moralities that would choose one set of lives and issues over another. This challenges both the Right and the Left, offering a new vision for faith and politics in America and a new conversation of personal faith and political hope.

The Journey Outward (the not-to-be-separated half in the duality of the Christian Journey lived in the community of the Church of the Saviour since 1947, as interdependent with the Journey Inward, which is a neccessary undergirding to supply the spiritual stamina needed to keep the Outward Journey afloat. The Church of the Saviour has also found that the Inward Journey cannot sustain itself without a calling that issues forth from the accountability practiced in the membership; that EACH and EVERY person is to commit themselves to the idea that ALL of us have a CALL; that all of us have a corporate responsibility (corporate in the sense of the body of Christ as a community) to enable the calling forth of gifts from others, and that those around us have the same responsibilty to us: to enable and confirm us in the living out of our call, discovered and called forth in this community.

All of these responsibilities outlined in Wallis' God's Politics are a point of contact between the Church and the world's need. The world needs a faithful Church to BE THE CHURCH. But Wallis also recognizes that the Progressive Church is not simply a "Progressive counterpart to the Conservative Movement", but rather, representatives of an ALTERNATIVE way.

We have been buffeted by private spiritualities that have no connection to public life and a secular politics showing disdain for religion or even spiritual concerns. That leaves spirituality without social consequences and a politics with no soul.

This hits the nail on the head, and reflects the exact same consciousness of the NECCESITY for a balance of Journey Inward, Journey Outward. I have been in Churches that have a distinct social conscience, and most of the members speak openly and often about their opposition to Bush and their agreement with democratic platform values, but are missing the Journey Inward element almost entirely (that is, as a community; sharing the journey in depth), with no STRUCTURES set up for the building of community. This is left to the individuals to extract from the existing structures, but it doesn't happen, since there is no expectation that this will require any personal work, or any in-depth sharing of journeys so that others know who we are, what we are concerned about, where we are passionate, and how and where we struggle. This has to change if there are to be Churches that live a "fourth option" (see Wallis' article)

God's Politics: A Better Option, Sojourners Magazine/February 2005

The following three "political options" are described by Wallis in his article God's Politics: A Better Option, are the ones we see "out there", listed by the media, and by political pundits, but which limit and polarize the debate, and have prompted Wallis and Sojourners to start a movement to "Take Back the Faith" and suggest a fourth option, which is , at its heart and roots, Biblical, but not "of the conservative theocratic variety" which is so often conjured up in the minds of secularists: the fundamentalists dream of a government imposing a particular worldview upon everyone, but rather, a Biblical base which confronts politics on the basis of its care for the least of these, that calls into question the rush to war, ans which calls into question the dominance of the powerful over the less fortunate.

THERE ARE NOW three major political options in our public life. The first political option in America today is conservative on everything - from cultural, moral, and family concerns to economic, environmental, and foreign policy issues. Differences emerge between aggressive nationalists and cautious isolationists, between corporate apologists and principled fiscal conservatives, but this is the political option clearly on the ascendancy in America, with most of the dominant ideas in the public square coming from the political Right.
The second political option in contemporary America is liberal on everything - both family/sexual/cultural questions and economic, environmental, and foreign policy matters. There are certainly differences among the liberals (from pragmatic centrists to green leftists), but the intellectual and ideological roots come from the Left side of the cultural and political spectrum - and today most from the liberal/left find themselves on the defensive.
The third option in American politics is libertarian - meaning liberal on cultural/moral issues and conservative on fiscal/economic and foreign policy. The "just leave me alone and don’t spend my money option" is growing quickly in American life.

The Common Good is best realized via some basic "uncommon ethics", which is Biblically based. Wallis articulates a Biblical vision which is way beyond the narrow appropriations of select Scriptures by the Religious Right to butress their causes, while the majority of Scripture is negelcted by omission; "cut out" of the canon of their "Biblical vision" by forcing it into a nationalistic theology that removes the prophetic responsibility which is clearly depicted throughout Scripture, and the confronting of Empire which has been co-opted in favor of selective interpretations which use the Romans "Ruling authorites" passage to justify a wholesale acceptance of a particular ruling elite.

NO, the "Common Good" is simply, the best possible scenario for a just society; but this is often couched in terms of those who would benefit from it. It is rarely from the perspective of those oppressed by the systems in place. It was true in days of Israel's self-rule, and it remained true as Empire after Empire became the oppressor of Israel, and Israel herself found itself in both roles: Oppressor and Oppressed. The Bible is a miraculous book, in that it tells the story from so many perspectives; when Israel was the OPPRESOR , the Prophets came forth and were heard in the Biblical narrative. When Israel was OPPRESED, we read things like "By the waters of Babylon , we hung our harps, and wept: How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"

God's Politics: A Better Option, Sojourners Magazine/February 2005

Recent polling shows that the more religious voters are, the more likely they are to vote for conservatives. Given how negatively much of the political Left seems to regard religion and spirituality, this is not surprising. But what if a new political option regarded personal ethics as important as social justice and saw faith as a positive force in society - for progressive social change. I think the fourth option could be a real winning vision and believe that many are very hungry for it. While the political elites and many special interest groups resist the "personal ethics/social justice" combination (perhaps because it threatens many special interests), countless ordinary people would welcome it.
What we need is nothing less than "prophetic politics." We must find a new moral and political language that transcends old divisions and seeks the common good. Prophetic politics finds its center in fundamental "moral issues" such as children, diversity, family, community, citizenship, and ethics (others could be added such as nonviolence, tolerance, fairness, etc.) and tries to construct national directions to which many people across the political spectrum could agree. It would speak directly to the proverb "Without a vision, the people perish," and would offer genuine political vision that rises out of biblical passages from prophetic texts. Our own ancient prophetic religious traditions could offer a way forward beyond our polarized and paralyzed national politics and be the foundation for a fourth political option to provide the new ideas politics always needs.

Simply put, the two traditional options in America (Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative) have failed to capture the imagination, commitment, and trust of a majority of people in this country. Neither has found ways to solve our deepest and most entrenched social problems. Record prosperity hasn’t cured child poverty. Family breakdown is occurring across all class and racial lines. Public education remains a disaster for millions of families. Millions more still don’t have health insurance, or can’t find affordable housing. The environment suffers from unresolved debates, while our popular culture becomes more and more polluted by debased and violent "entertainment." In local communities, people are more and more isolated, busy, and disconnected. Our foreign policy has become an aggressive assertion of military superiority in a defensive and reactive mode, seeking to protect us against growing and invisible threats, instead of addressing the root causes of those threats. The political Right and Left continue at war with each other, but the truth is that these false ideological choices themselves have run their course and become dysfunctional.

The complete text of all articles (at least for now) is online

I'm not sure if this is going to stay up (they may have put it all online and then will take it down, or they may be experimenting with showing the articles to "registered" users, which is a simple signup procedure. Anyway, I was glad to see the issue. Thanks God that Sojourners is providing a very large voice as an example to Chrsitendom; they are doing what Bonhoeffer wrote is the role of the Church: BEING the Church. Call to Renewal is Sojourners "teaching and enlisting" arm, with tours and op-eds and newspaper ads (such as the "God is not a Republican or a Democrat" ads this past fall.

My last post yesterday put me in a somber mood, and one which raises my level of frustration/disgust with what such easy prey the evangelical Church in America was for the PR machine (which included the Right-Wing's disgusting appropriation of theological language, so that their identification with that part of their "base"; the Christian Right, would be ensured).

Rove talked about how we have this "long road ahead of us but we will prevail"

September 11 changed the nature of war forever. We can go to the American people on winning this war because they trust the Republican party on doing a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might , and therebyu protecting America"

James Moore , Author of Bush's Brain (there is a book from which this DVD was based):

He had taken Septemebr 11 and turned it into a marketing device; He had said 'It was something we could "run on"'; that it was something VALUABLE for the Republican party"

Bush often remarked "I'm a War President". Apparently, he is. Apparently, he needs that 'image" to bolster his prestige. Apparently, it worked. Apparently, our society values Rambo over Jesus, Might over Right, and Violence as a Major Means of establishing our 'rightful place". But, it seems that the BIBLICAL notion of the Kingdom of God is very different.

You have plowed iniquity, you have reaped injustice, you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your chariots and in the multitude of your warriors, therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people. . ." (Hos. 10:13-14).

Some trust in chariots, some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.....Psalms 20:7

I am almost done watching "Bush's Brain" on DVD, and there's a story in it about a family whose son was one of the first killed in the first few days of the Iraq invasion. People say that this is manipulative to appeal to the emotions, becuase "this is what war is". I disagree, but I also can say that even if I did believe this, I would qualify it to say : "This does not apply to wars sought on illigitimate and unjst means. This war is based on a lie, which was defended and furthered by mass deception, corruption, and outright greed, and done so by people where NONE have themselves been sent into battle, especially including the that most visible coward and manipulator of them all: George W. Bush. He is an elitist in "common man's" clothing; and a "War President" who did all he could , and succeeded, in avoiding service himself". He disgusts me, along with his elitist cronies, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfield...NONE of whom served. NONE. This is not a democracy. That is the deception which the elite "play" on us. "Freedom and liberty" are not for us, but are manipulated to "trickle to the top" , and use the "common man" to do their "dirty work". They say "That's war", and teach its subjects to say it, all the while they are their own are exempt from the dangers in which they place their subjects, while deceiving them into believing they are fighting for something worthwhile and not killing thousands upon ten thousands of INNOCENT civilians. The father who lost his son said this,

"Anybody in combat arms are just canon fodder to the people above you,
the elitists run the wars, they start the wars, soldiers fight in them and die in them, and I don't think these elitist people give a damn, ...At all... How many soldiers are killed and what happens to their family; what happens to the people left behind."

which caused me pause the DVD and write this.

I think there ought to be a law that NOBODY; NOONE in government should have their kids exempt from service if there is a draft. They all ought to be classified A1. Then there might be some hesitancy, and some demand for accountability, and some ultimate sense of checks and balances on PERSONAL grounds, on who serves. Perhaps this would "legislate" constraint before lawmakers agree to send OTHER people's kids to die for thier decisions.

Beyond and above this, you who read here know that I oppose war, in practically every case, on moral grounds, with very few execeptions in history. It is the "elitists" in history and today, whose interest it is in to "push" for the "acceptability" of such things, in order that they get their "dirty but neccessary work" done, which would NEVER be passed if only the people who allowed it were to have to see the realities up close, or know anybody in the path of the destruction, who are later anonymously labelled "Collateral Damage", and "victims of war whgich is regrettable but unavoidable". God help us. God come to us and move us to be faithful and say no more.

Harbinger with a particularly articulate assesment of the now infamous Bush "Light of the World" Speech on the one year anniversary of 9/11

Harbinger: In the beginning was America, and America was with God, and America was God

Nothing has fostered civil religion as much as the partnership between George W. Bush and conservative Christians. Bush is frequently willing to play the role of pastor-in-chief and evangelicals in general seem to welcome this. But watch how easily this turns into idolatry:

Our country is strong. And our cause is even larger than our country. Ours is the cause of human dignity; freedom guided by conscience and guarded by peace. This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind. That hope drew millions to this harbor. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness will not overcome it. ~ George W. Bush, President's Remarks to the Nation, Sept.11, 2002

This re-writing of the first chapter of the gospel of John puts Freedom, as understood (and supposedly realized) by the US in the place of the divine Word, the very person of god. This is blasphemy. Regardless of your opinion of the President's specific policies, the assumptions that produce this sort of speech must be challenged by Christians.

Harbinger, whom I just discovered via JesusPolitics, has much to say about Civil Religion, and becries the loss of prophetic voices within mainline Christendom (and MAINSTREAM Christendom, which includes non-denominational masses that are a dream come true for the Bush administration, becuase they can be run without heirarchies that often tend, in mainline circles, to have a faithful few of their "bishops" and leaders that proclaim dissent as a Christian responsibility.

Harbinger: In the beginning was America, and America was with God, and America was God

civil religion leads to a weak ecclesiology, since if America is God's agent and the primary locus of divine activity, there seems to be little role for a church, except as a cheerleader and chaplain to a supposedly "christian nation." The result from all of this is bad politics and and an inability for the church to assume its mission of faithfulness to Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, ethnocentric policies are granted divine authorization and legitimation.

So crucial in our post 11/2 world, more than ever (since it ALWAYS been a legitimate role for the Church, but the level of Church alliance with Empire in the US today makes it CRITICAL for the survival of the Church as "faitful remnant") is this ability to stand apart from the deceptions of EMPIRE. When Empire begins to enlist Churches in its support, and political leaders like Delay and others mouth pious theocratic platitudes, and Churches say that "this election is a clear choice between evil and good" (read: Bush is the obvious Choice), then it is more citical than ever. No, check that. It is more obvious than ever; it should awaken us to the insidious deceptions employed by those in power to keep this to themselves. Bush has brought this out into the light to an extent, by their brazen, arrogant, manipulative use of language, imagery, and media.

The following from Is Bush the Antichrist? by Tim Appelo via Seattle Weekly News
is good stuff that segways nicely into Jim Wallis' exploration of the post 11/2 landscape in God's Politics, just released this week.

As a self-scrutinizing Christian, isn't Lang in danger of succumbing to hate?

Lang is convinced that secular efforts alone can't reverse the Antichrist tide. "Evangelical churches have a sense of urgency about the doing of 'good' in the world that the mainline church has lost. If the church can't show a positive, enticing, seductive vision of the future, where people fall in love with God and fall in love with this community, then it really doesn't have anything to say." Revelation teaches us what happens to lukewarm Christians.

Sojourner's Jim Wallis is one who has a track record of being truly "beyond politics". Those who would banish him to the label of "liberal" or "radical left" are the same who wish to do the same to the gospel messages that clearly call us to respond to the issue of the poor, to peace, and to the ethic of absolute love and "love your enenemies". I heard some callers on a local talk show talk about how they didn't think that God is against the use of war as a solution; effectively transplanting their own image into that of God; seemingly unable to distinguish between the prevailing Religious Right/NeoConservative philosophy and their concept of God. Of course , this is a universal problem in history; to properly dileneate the call of the Gospel from the philosophies of Empire, and its efforts to "placate the masses" with theological language that feigns support for them, even while they work in the back rooms against the interests of all but the elite.

I have been reading A People's History of the United States (which , I assume brands me as a "radical wacko") which chroncicles the manipulations of Empire in American History. Interesting stuff. Zinn sugests that the pre-Revolution elite classes that controlled the colonies, under the direction of England, began to see a way to break free of England's rule by crerating a buffer zone in the Middle Class by employing the language "liberty and eqaulity", which could "unite just enough whites to fight a revolution against England, without ending either slavery or inequality" (pp. 57-58, A People's History of the United States). Today , it is a matter of a buffer not between elite and slaves, but elite and "economic straits" being erected against "the rest of us" that are being slowly erected (and this process , in my view, is being accelerated to unprecedented levels by the Bush administration) to keep "non-elites" placated and subdued by media power the likes of which we have never seen before. This machine of persuasion, manned by the likes of Karl Rove, and gleefully forwarded and advanced by meida outlets such as Fox News, and pockets within mainstream media, backed by elites in those mainstream outlets.

The article below has some interesting points with which I agree. This deals with the article to which Jesus Politics points, and where I made a couple of comments (see below)

Seattle Weekly: News: Is Bush the Antichrist? by Tim Appelo

In the Greek, the word "anti" doesn't just mean "against." It also contains the meanings "equivalent to" or "a substitute for." Nero was anti-Christ because he falsely claimed to be God. The idea of deception is crucial. The Antichrist isn't the devil, the opposite of God. He's an evil human masquerading as a golden god. The Antichrist appears to humanity not as the hideous Beast but as handsome Nicolae Carpathia, who resembles Robert Redford without the facial erosion. "That could be our next Republican president," quips Lang.
In this sense, the Bush church is Antichristlike indeed. It is institutionalized deception, anti-American ugliness with a beguiling face, a neocon job. Only when necessary does it employ the perilous bald-faced lie, the outrageously transparent duplicity—the political equivalent of Robertson arguing that "Do unto others" indicates Christ's support of capitalist selfishness. More often, a smoothly dissembling surface is preferred. Rove notoriously emulates Machiavelli; the Christian right is a stealth movement, infiltrating school boards and mainstream churches and every institution of democracy like a thief in the night—in order to undermine, overthrow, and replace democracy with theocracy. The Union of Concerned Scientists proclaims Bush's lies about science "unprecedented." In With God on Their Side, Kaplan concludes, on mountainous evidence, "The goal is not to engage your opponents in the public square, but to kneecap them, or send them into exile."

I am reminded by this issue of The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis. In it, a demon named Wormwood assigned to a particular Christian is sent letters by his superior, Screwtape, on how to best deceive his assigned Christian. CS Lewis, whom the fundamentalists claim as their own, is anything but, and cleverly pulls off a masterpiece. The kinds of deceptions he describes through Screwtape is ingenious, and often mentions the "covert" neccssity of their schemes (and so, one of the master schmes is to clothe their efforts in religiosity, and thus mask the true evil nature of their deception. That the AntiChrist is a "religious" figure is rarely challenged. But it seems that the Religious Right is unable to recognize that the "lingo" of the Religious Right itself is a perfect cover for anyone who wishes to manipulate them; given that Religious Right persons tend to be easy prey for those using "key phrases" and "backing the right issues" such as Rove and Bush and the neocons have discovered.

I have copied my comments from Jesus Politics on this article to the Continue Reading section below:

Eric points to a Salon article that shares my disgust (and that of others) with the Fox Networks REAL goal (and its not reporting the news, but pushing partisan Republican slants on it , in their "No-Spin" Zone. But SPIN is all they have, as evidenced by their fantastic efforts to create spin and vile out of this disaster, sinhce they obviously don't see fit to devote their "precious resources" to it (ie. Like sending their A1 correspondents to report and "be there" like the obviously more legitimate news outlets do. (NOt that these "more legitimate news outlets" are class news organizations, but at least their number one goal is NOT to turn anything possible into partisan hackery (see below, and O'reilly's tirade.)

Salon.com News | Fox News gets blown away

"The most comprehensive coverage of the catastrophe last week came from CNN, which reaped the full benefits of its 24/7 news cycle, robust international bureaus and savvy field reporting by hotshot anchor Anderson Cooper."

But not Fox News. With its competitors dispatching their A-teams to South Asia, Fox's big guns -- O'Reilly, Brit Hume, Tony Snow, Chris Wallace, Greta Van Susteren -- all remained safely ensconced inside East Coast studios. That's because they're not reporters but Beltway creatures of comfort, who rarely stray beyond the 202 and 212 area codes.

top left: Crossan, In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire With God's Kingdom
top center: Zinn, A People's History of the United States(Wow, what unbelievable stuff about the lengths to which people will go for the glory of empire and wealth since 1492...and I'm only on page 35 of 700! A Library check-out)
top right: A Testament to Freedom: Essential Writings of Bonhoeffer
bottom left: Wallis, God's Politics: How the Right Gets it Wrong, and How the Left Doesn't Get It (just got it from Amazon a few hours ago, along with:
bottom center: Wallis: Faithworks (Revised and Expanded Edition)
bottom right: Yoder, The Politics of Jesus

not pictured: (No more room on my chair!) Hauerwas: The Peaceable Kingdom

Larry Hollon has a blog, where he is commenting upon faith, media and Culture, and has an entry about "Civic Journalism"; which is the approach of journalists to keep their own communities informed about what kind of dialogue is going on at the local level, or what NEEDS to be become the subject of dialogue; matters which concern the public and personal welfare of individual communities.

Dan Gillmor, author of We, The Media has recently left his position at The San Jose Mercury News to venture out into being a freelance advocate for public media and , no doubt, blogging in collaboration with traditional media sources, in order to expand the reach of the dialogue at a variety of levels.

Perspectives

Another hope is the "Civic Journalism " movement. This form of journalism seeks to generate dialogue that ultimately leads to stronger civic community. Where journalists have practiced it intentionally it has resulted in a higher quality of journalism and better informed communities. We need wider discussion and better informed conversation.

Gillmor's blog mentioned above includes this: A Newspaper Gets Serious About the People's Voices about a Newspaper getting serious about giving its readers a larger voice (see the paper's editor's blog

All good exemplary moves, and instructional for the Church (aka "following suit"). In the Church as much as (and for me, more) any institution/community/group, the idea of collaboration, dailogue, and interdependence, is paramount, and a priority. It all goes back to that "Cluetrain" principle, that what matters to people is the stuff we need to be encouraging, enabling, and eliciting, as a central effort in our mission.

I believe that the Church is suffering from a glaring lack of first steps. What I mean is that the things like Bonhoeffer's "cinema" and the political season's rash of books relaying warnings about the destructive and deceitful habits of the Bush administration are evidence of how the Church has failed to confront its station (the world -- which in our case, puts our tumultuous political and international situation front and center) with the truth with which it has been entrusted through revelation. The FIRST STEPS are perception and confrontation; speaking the truth to power. FIRST STEP is not really a chronological step, although recognition of a problem is often first; but Bonhoeffer would suggest, as I read him, that it is in the embodiment of the revealed alterbatives; the kind of life that is given to us as a Church that is to be carried out in the world, and that is to act as a living NO to the efforts of the world.

If the Church had been speaking in a clear voice for PEACE, there would have no need to even mention who was a better choice for President. On that same token, as a Christian, John Kerry failed to proclaim what I feel he knew in his heart to be true; that war, if EVER justifiable, is a last resort. But he never said that, due to "political expediency". The Church in America failed to be the Church. Plain and simple.

But FIRST STEPS implies that there are OTHER things; and there are. My friend to whom I wrote the long email yesterday replied that he has noticed how many "political activists" often run dry on the matter of connection to a body of Christ; in other words, they are all "Journey Outward" and very little "Journey Inward", which the people of The Church of the Saviour have learned via their history leads to an imbalance; a burnout. I have been in activist Churches that seem to have no interest whatsoever in knowing me; indeed, have experienced actual resistance to things I have shared concerning what my calling is (bringing to bear the resources of online community for service in the mission of the Church).

So there is the matter of incubating this Inward Journey, but also being busy with getting at what this particular community, with these particular gifts (and seeking to discover WHAT those gifts are) is being called to do in this particular time. CALL has to do with a journey of the individual, being formed IN COMMUNITY (The Church) and in that relationship, incubating and "eliciting" ("calling forth") particular gifts, joining forces with others sensing similar or complimentary calls, to form MISSION.

All of these steps result in the missing "alternative"; the mission that results is the LIVING alternative; the incarnate God in us; inviting us into, and enabling us through the Spirit, to accomplish a ministry.

Out there, in the Churches, I long for and search, and find nothing of the sort. Nowhere close. I have no choice but to continue looking, perhaps open to the idea that it may be my articulation of this concept of Church that triggers a similar longing in someone else, and that a community needs to happen "from scratch" so to speak. But I fear the arrogance in that , too, and wonder if that possibility is blinding me to joining myself to another community. But I have grave doubts about the prospects of "reforming" and existing community with ingrained membership expectations (which are basically nothing; no "accountability" exists anymore. I can be absent for months and I get zero to one call asking where I've been. And so I have my fill of it, and throw up my hands. Part of me fears there's something wrong with ME. That I irritate people, or am no fun to be around, or uninistersting, or even NURDY. I don't think I'm nurdy. Even if I was , that should be OK. I don't know what it is. I just have to proceed and assume that the place where I am meant to be is a place that first and foremost is not only going to accept me, but needs and desires the gifts that I bring.

Christian convictions do not poetically soothe the anxieities of the contemporary self. Rather, they transform the self to true faith by creating a community that lives faithful to the one true God of the universe. (Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, p.16)

As much as I endeavor to inform myself about the actual habits and aims and policies (if they can be called "policy") of the Bush administration, and strive to apply what I perceive to be my Christian theological assesments to them, in the end, it is this Christian community which is the locus. And this is the major rub for my life in the Church this past decade or more. This community is virtually non-existent in terms of practice in the world of the visible Church today.

Bonhoeffer talks about the Church as this community out of which our practice comes; it is a place of forgiveness, of celebration of the reception of God's word, and the embodiment of that Word for the world. But Bonhoeffer noticed that "the cinema meets the need to celebrate better than the Church" (from The Nature of ths Church, in A Testament to Freedom: Essential Writings, p. 85). This seems to making a similar complaint to what I expressed above. I notice how much of the political dissent which I base upon my Christian theological convictions are more often and better articulated and researched in the secular media (the "alternative media" , that is) than they are in the Churches, where it would be assumed that such ethical/moral/theological implications would be explored. But such is not the case. It seems that much of this reflective work is happening in "para-Church" or ecumenical settings (which can certainly be construed as one outpost of the Church, I suppose) such as Sojourners Community, and various blogs which I read and continue to discover, who write with the purpose of seeing this world through the lens of God's Kingdom as over and against; in contrast to, this world's attempts to order itself. Blogs such as Eric's Tasty Morsels, ICTHUS, Jesus Politics, The Village Gate (aka The Right Christians), Gutless Pacifist, Tread Lightly, A Jewish God-Fearer, Non-Violence.org., American Bodhisattva, etc.

A "truth" that must use violence to secure its existence cannot be truth. (The Peaceable Kingdom, p.15)

I spent the better part of the morning writing an email to a friend today, basically reviewing much of the rage I have written in this blog about the betrayals of democracy, the crimes against humanity and truth, and the dangers represented, all by this Bush administration. I guess I felt the need to encapsulate why I seem to have such energy to pound on this for so long.

I feel fatigued from all this, and a bit disillusioned with myself, that I am such a windbag, with very little concrete positive counter-effect work; very little contribution to something better; a true alternative. This is why I am filled with such hope when someone talks about things like a progressive blog network (even though we can't stop there, but I feel hope that in this, there can be resources for us to take action, to learn of local activity, things we can do.

But still, I long for something more. I need a Church of the Saviour near me that not only provides outlet for some mission I feel I can be good at, but also a community that takes seriously the task of the Church to be a real spirtual home and center; a third place.

To be known, and to follow through on this journey that is born and meant to be shared in community, and discover mission; a calling that is more than just a hope, but an active thing happening that is unmistakably born of the Spirit. That seems so far off, and that feeling makes me tired.

Now co-director of the Servant Leadership School, a ministry of the Church of the Saviour in Washington DC, MCGovern recalls words from Peter Storey concerning America.

Hijacking "Him" for Empire

Often it takes a compassionate but truth-telling outsider to throw light on our country, its leaders, its policies. Bishop Peter Storey of South Africa, who walked the walk in his courageous, outspoken resistance to the apartheid regime, provides this prophetic word:

Let us begin the New Year with what Scripture calls “circumcised hearts,” before we ask that God bless America

This is the moral danger in which the Christian Right places itself in today's America, under this present ruling administration. They have what I believe to be EVIL purposes; not in THEIR minds, but in their list of "acceptable means" to their ends. This is what evil is all about. Getting what WE WANT, regardless of the destructive and death-dealing consequences, never mind the absence of SEEKING JUSTICE. The opposite is in motion. It is a time for the Church to be present by BEING the Church.

I want to be involved. I believe the Internet is crucial to our sharing stories and keepin geach other informed via this alternative media, as the mainstream media becomes more beholden to pressures from those who are buying up corporate hearts and allegiances, and pressuring dissenting voices.

I just learned that the Communications program I went through in 1990-91 is being phased out, a nd no more classes being offered. What a shame. What an abandonment of a key ministry for the Church, needed more than ever in this time of cultural captivity for a scary portion of the Church in America. With atrocities such as Sudan and Iraq, and the shocking and apalling silence of the Church on both (more so on Iraq), we need resources that help us keep connected and aware of alternative resources. The blogging community that has arisen during this political season, and seen the need for progressive voices of Christianity to say a collective NO to the forces of empire that are particularly destructive in these past 4 years. May 2005 see a groundswell of renewal amongst God's people to speak the truth to power, and recognize the need and desire of many who hear God's call to do something in this time.

Wow. When I wrote about hearing of the death of Roy Honeycutt last week, I spoke of Duke McCall, the man Honeycutt replaced as President in 1978 when McCall had health problems (heart related), as if he were (as I had assumed) already dead. But the article below mentions him, now 90, and he's been the president of the Baptist World Alliance since then, a group ironically left by the Southern Baptist Convention in the past year.

I hope to hook up with the CBFers somewhere along the way, some day. I think they could use me now, but that will have to wait until the technology operations are such that they need someone like me. As for now, I'm happy where I am.

Associated Baptist Press - News

While Morris Chapman says the fact retired Southern Baptist Convention leaders are now raising money for the Baptist World Alliance from SBC churches is "astounding and regrettable," one of his predecessors as SBC chief executive, Duke McCall, says Chapman and others opened the door for those solicitations by defunding BWA.
"You should have told the SBC Executive Committee that severing connections with the BWA would leave us free to ask Southern Baptist churches and individuals to replace the funds withheld," McCall, one of the most influential Southern Baptists in history, told Chapman, president of the SBC Executive Committee, in an open letter Dec. 21.
McCall, former president of BWA and former president of two SBC seminaries, convened a meeting of retired SBC leaders Dec. 4 in Atlanta to find ways to replace the money -- until recently $425,000 a year -- the Southern Baptist Convention used to provide BWA, an international umbrella group of 211 Baptist bodies.
The SBC was a founding member of the alliance in 1905 and its largest member and fund-provider. But conservative Southern Baptist leaders who led the defunding effort say BWA harbors theological liberalism, a charge denied by BWA and many of its member groups worldwide.

Lerned via JOHO about Dan Gillmor's new frontier, inspired by his visions outlined in We, The Media, which I read at the end of last summer (boy, does time fly!)

Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism

For the first time in two decades I'm not on the payroll of a large media corporation. As of today I'm on the payroll of a one-person company, comprised of me, but media is still on my agenda.
As many of you know I'm going to work hard on a project to inspire, enable and create what many have been calling a new kind of journalism. In the new world that I and many others believe is coming, the grassroots will have a fundamental and crucial role in the process -- a change that I tried to outline in my book, We the Media, which appeared in the second half of 2004.

D.Weinberger at JOHO asks:

Joho the Blog: Forced compassion

And why the hell did it take pressure to get Bush to begin to do the right thing? It took Bush three days to announce the $35M. He is addressing this catastrophe through press releases. What does it take to make George W. Bush's heart hurt?

Sadly, I 'm afraid that political pressure is the only thing to "touch his heart", becuase that's where his "compassion" seems to be live. The upping of the ante in response to pressure bears that out. It's disgraceful, and another example of the absolute naivete that the Christian Right continues to maintain about Bush's "Christian leanings", and how his shallow mentionings and outright mispplications of Biblical verses (eg. His referring to the American people as the "Light that shines in the darkness")

That the 350 million is less than a day in Iraq illuminates the obvious, and calls into direct question the Iraq operations that inflict an ongoing and devastating death toll, not to even mention in the smae breath the enduring scars that will reap reflective violence in the years to come.

Wallis, in USA Today, gives some preview of the subject matter in his upcoming book God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It , due out in just days.

USATODAY.com

Right now, neither party gets the values question right. The Democrats seem uncomfortable with the language of faith and values, preferring in recent decades the secular approach of restricting such matters to the private sphere. But where would we be if Martin Luther King Jr. had kept his faith to himself? The separation of church and state does not require the segregation of moral language and values from public life. The Republicans are comfortable with the language of religion and values. But the GOP wants to narrow the focus to hot-button social issues it then uses as wedges in political campaigns, while ignoring or obstructing the application of such values where they would threaten its agenda

Jesus Politics linked to this:

Cost of War

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953

Apt insight for us, who spend billions on Iraq, a small portion of which could have made such a difference toward lifting up those who are hit with hardship and tragedy of unspeakable proportions, while instead, we use that money to do just the oppostite, and wreak the same upon others.

AlterNet: "Whatever Happened To Peace On Earth?"

how many of those who say "Jesus is the reason for the Season" act as though the Sermon on the Mount was delivered by victorious partisans of Capitol Hill (or the White House) as they self-righteously mix God and Patriotism in a toxic cauldron of war? We are all vulnerable to self-justifying pietism when it is wrapped in garlands of tinsel, evergreens and poinsettias. But you won't hear our flag-coccooned government resolving for peace in the New Year. Whatever happened to Peace on Earth... and to us?

Somehow , I missed this during election season. This man must have been saying some other substantial things questioning the American campaign in Iraq, but the coverage I followed was silent. Many of the blogs I now follow probably saw it, but I did not.

Kucinich has other Alernet articles here

Juan Cole, Middle East culture professor at the University of Michigan, reflects today on the relationship/intersection of issues around war and natural disaster:

Informed Comment

It is very odd that nations cooperate to help each other in the face of natural disasters. But when they become angry over some minor dispute, they are perfectly happy to inflict far more damage on each other than mother nature ever did. Pakistan and India were seriously contemplating using nukes on each other as recently as 2002. Now Islamabad is sending rupees to Delhi, and Delhi is expressing gratitude.

Now that nukes are becoming so common, humanity has to find a way to move into permanent cooperative and helping mode. War is gradually becoming unthinkable. The massive tsunami's toll has now risen to 150,000, but an Indo-Pak nuclear exchange would have killed 10 million.

This is part of my point in the previous posts calling for us to be reminded by this Tsunami disaster that war brings undeserved calmity upon thousands of innocents, and worse, this is no "Natural disaster" that we can do scarcely anything about, or prevent. This is an issue in which we certainly do have culpability; we are THE CAUSE, at least in term of who finally unleashes the most destructive forces.

In some way, we are under even more obligation to help the victims of a war WE materminded, carried out, and continue to support by such madness as reelecting Bush in November. But our guilt makes it even less likely that enough people will see it this way.

The first step is to put a stop to the occupation, to prevent continuation of the violence that is taking lives of innocents. Only then can we give aid to the victims of what we have wrought. There remains the problem of the anger and revenge raging in the families and countrymen of the victim nation? This is the ongoing and increasing danger: that the "peace" which is supposedly the goal of all this is given an increasingly lesser chance of happening, and the terrorism we seek to stop will only continue at a much larger scale than would be attempted at the hands of those we supposedly seek to punish. To find those small minorities, we create a much larger , more dangerous gang posed to explode into further violence. How in the world to people convince themselves that this is NOT the inevitable consequence of this? The rest of the world agrees. We move on into further degradation of international community (or , at best, deny our membership in the world community that seeks peace).

a quote listed in the latest (Dec. 29) issue of Prism ePistle

What does it matter to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
- Mohandas K. Gandhi

A reprise on the article by James Carroll from Dec. 21:

The Politics of the Christmas Story

This is how it came to be that Christmas in America has turned the nativity of Jesus on its head. No surprise there, for if the story were told today with Roman imperialism at its center, questions might arise about America's new self-understanding as an imperial power. A story of Jesus born into a land oppressed by a hated military occupation might prompt an examination of the American occupation of Iraq. A story of Jesus come decidedly to the poor might cast a pall over the festival of consumption. A story of the Jewishness of Jesus might undercut the Christian theology of replacement.

"Jesus is the Reason for the Season" moves me to get my own copy of that yard sign, and place next to it "War is Not the Answer" as a clarification that this Jesus does not bless us in our replacement of his life and message with that of Empire. As Carroll writes, the Aemrican occupation of Iraq is simply our acceptance of the role of the Imperial oppressor; and it is no less than that exactly, only this time it is the followers of that Jesus whose birth posed such a grave threat to Herod, the Roman puppet.

This is my major News Years Resolution, but it is also a call I am sensing. I hope that such groups as Sojourners, our blogs here, and others, can join forces and create "RSS Rings" (???) and envision actions to rally for peace in Iraq, true "Compassion" in America, and a more sacraficial giving in emergencies such as the Tsunami tragedy.

But this is an issue that has been simmering in me since 11/2. Resistance is NOT futile, but sorely needed by the Church of Jesus Christ. A new idol, the Church of America, has supplanted the Christ in much of America. They claim that Jesus is not really the Prince of Peace as peace is tradijtionally held; that desperate situations require desperate measures, and that the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount cannot be applied to international relations. To that I say "Blasphemy". Gnostic heresy, more deadly and serious than it ever was, for now we have such power to destroy life, and do it in isolation from its victims. And now, in this Century, with the great military firewall we have shielding our country from the true effects and costs of war, our citizens can be totally at the mercy of propaganda that says we are succeeding, while those who go there, and have been there, and have died there, know that we are not, and that we blaspheme the name of Jesus by claiming that he led us into this, and that our commander in chief is acting under the guidance of God. Hogwash.

So I want to DO something as an extension; as a RESULT; as an INCARNATE expression of this blog, and of any blog ring such as the one ICTHUS (Vaughn Thompson) suggests

ICTHUS: Progressive Christian Bloggers Network

if you identify with a more progressive Christianity, rooted in a politics of Jesus and the cross, or if you increasingly find your self to be a "resident alien" living in country that thinks its God's gift to the world, you probably know who you are, you probably blog about these things, and it might be good to network together. Perhaps some good could come out of this. Such a network would be "free" to join but perhaps bloggers could pimp a link back to the Network website.
This is strictly a voluntary effort and I imagine that perhaps there would be a group blog that would be in place to give some voice to Progressive Christian Bloggers. I would take care of setting up a website and other technical details. Anyone who wanted to pitch in to help out with such an effort would be welcome.

This is like the Church of the Saviour's ecclesiology: the sounding of CALL. I have attempted at various points to do this at a local level, but have not yet found the combination of supportive community (supportive at not only the theological level, but also the personal journey level, and techno-visionary level) to sustain such an effort.

If I have to move to the D.C. area to be closely connected to Sojourners, perhaps a coalition of CBF-For-Peace (the Co-oprative Baptist Fellowship, former Southern Baptists who had to shed their SBC shackles so they could be faithful to Jesus' call), I will do so, but it is also extremely possible to do this locally, from a base here in Nashville, as a calling supported by my Tent-making profession (also Web related, and hopefully soon, Blog related).

Waking up to , and drinking my morning coffee over the Silent Night/"Christmas in the Trenches" article from Jim Wallis, seems like a sign of direction for me to pursue in 2005. No more complaining and "resolved to LIMIT my concerns to blogging" (although I certainly will not relent or scale back on my efforts there). Blogging is, like the Church should also be, a center of dialogue, community obervance and celebration, and source of energy and koinonia to enable us to DO the work to which God is calling (and one of these is to help each other hear and clarify and implement the thing to which God is calling us.)

As Church related agencies gather hundreds of thousands of aid money online, there is another emergency in process over the past 2 years, and has reached such a point of desperation , and yet is still being muffled and held back by the forces afraid of what DISSENT might mean for the measures of Church success (like attendance and giving).

But it seems that , like the Tsunami disaster, the need for aid and action is obvious. The Tsunami disaster has a distinct advanatge: there is no political dividing line. No one can oppose on any grounds the rightness of sending as much aid as possible as quickly as possible.

The emergency in the Middle East , sadly, has no such universal "clearance". It is mired in shallow theological squabbles, which baffle my mind, but do not surprise me, due to experience in the evangelical Church, and familiarity withe Church history since Constantine, when the forces of Empire and Religion first made peace in Christendom.

I am saying that the Iraq War is a parallel duty, no less serious, and no less desperate. The tens of thousands (some say 100,000) deaths of Iraqi citizens , at the hands of American forces, is a moral crisis as well as a humanitarian disaster, made all the more critical on a moral scale because here, we do not have a natural disaster, but a human choice with disasterous consequences.

And politics combined with heretical Christianity keeps us from responding. The Church of the Empire has a disasterous hold on the minds and hearts of evangelical Christianity, so much so that I am at pains to insist that we are talking less about Christianity and more about a "Church of the Empire".

I am writing this not to detract from the tragedy of the Tsunami disaster, but rather to call upon people of faith to the task that has become culturally masked and muddled in many Churches: that there remains an absolute human disaster ongoing and comparatively unchecked in temrs of moral outrage by the people of the Church of Jesus Christ, and that on a relief level, if we were to respond WHOLLY to the Tsunami effort, we would be responding to but half of the deadly forces being unleashed -- and in Iraq, we have the power , as humans culpable in the progression of decisions leading to this (and in its deceptions), to DO something there as well.

Let not one disaster be a detraction from the ABSOLUTE REQIREMENT to respond to BOTH. Let one inform the other. Let one open our eyes to the other, and our role as a compassionate people.

Forrest blogs what he feels in this righteous rant against the War. Although it woudn't play in a Face to face setting as an effective subject of debate (it wouldn't sit too well with its targets, and thus cut them off from the possibility of conversion), it aptly and accurately describes my feelings when I see the yard sign down the street from our house "Jesus is the Reason for the Season", which stands in the same yard that had Bush/Cheney signs during October and November, and I am sickened and shake my head EVERY day when I pass it on my way to work, and see it in my headlights on my return at the end of the day).

Forrest, brother, I acknowledge your rage and recognize it. I was just thinking about what I should endeavor to do in 2005. It seems not enought to just blog about peace, and against the war. It is beyond the point of urgency to stop this mess; way past the point where a sane leadership would need to re-assess and admit error and change course. It's way past the point where we need to stop this sinful and willful rejection of the wisdom of "the rest of the world" as if the rest of the world is caught in some mass deception becasue they don't see things the way the pro-war Americans do. I am particularly saddened when I hear Christians joining this chorus of support for this deceptive band of renegade conservatives (the neocons); "renegade", becuase there are growing scrores of conservatives who put conscience and reason above politics and refuse to surrender their freedom to think and inform themseleves.

I wonder if the Church will begin to show signs of resistance such that the Bush administration will be forced to heed the call of their "base". I won't hold my breath, but the Silent Night trnches story reminds me there is always hope.

American Bodhisattva

I’m now to the point where I grow furious at people who claim the situation is improving in Iraq. They have nothing on which to base such assertions. The terrorists are not “getting desperate again”. They’re fighting this war the way they want to, and it gets easier for them all the time. They organize effective attacks against American forces in the more vulnerable cities, then run and begin hitting other cities when reinforcements arrive. Its guerrilla warfare, and its as effective now for the Iraqi resistance as it was for the American colonists against the British.
The so-called “Green Zone” in Baghdad used to be free from attacks and was supposedly safe. Not anymore. American soldiers are now being attacked in parts of Baghdad in which they had not been attacked since the April 2003 invasion began.
I’ve reached the conclusion placing the blame entirely on Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Bush for this war is unfair.
Those of you that voted for the jackass are the targets of my rage now. You are the reason that American soldiers will continue to be led by incompetent officials, and you are the reasons that kids my age, young parents, and even grandparents will continue to die daily in this meaningless war.
You are the un-American ones. You’re responsible for the deaths of the 135 soldiers this month. Their blood is on your hands. And like you have done for the last year and a half, you’ll probably continue to ignore whats going on. And you do it in the name of patriotism. There are not words in the English language to describe how pathetic you are.

Harsh words, but recognizable, as I fight with them every time I consider such things in the signs I see and the things I hear said by people who claim to follow Christ.

The following story from Jim Wallis in SojoMail is exactly the example of how the phrase "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" is true in a way that most who use it don't bother to consider.

SojoMail

Christmas in the trenches
by Jim Wallis
"Silent Night," by Stanley Weintraub, is the story of Christmas Eve 1914 on the World War I battlefield in Flanders. As the German, British, and French troops facing each other were settling in for the night, a young German soldier began to sing "Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht." Others joined in. When they had finished, the British and French responded with other Christmas carols.
Eventually, the men from both sides left their trenches and met in the middle. They shook hands, exchanged gifts, and shared pictures of their families. Informal soccer games began in what had been "no-man's-land." And a joint service was held to bury the dead of both sides.
The generals, of course, were not pleased with these events. Men who have come to know each other's names and seen each other's families are much less likely to want to kill each other. War seems to require a nameless, faceless "enemy."
So, following that magical night the men on both sides spent a few days simply firing aimlessly into the sky. Then the war was back in earnest and continued for three more bloody years. Yet the story of that Christmas Eve lingered - a night when the angels really did sing of peace on earth.

If only. This is the thing. If Americans Christians were forced to KNOW; yea even to MEET face to face with the people whom they given permission to the military to bomb and shoot in the streets, this would be a more difficult proposition to endure for a sane , moral, comapassionate person.

This iraq war blows to smithereens the idea of Bush's administration claims to be "Compassionate Conservatism'. I do believe that most of his most devoted supporters are, indeed, compassionate (although there are many who are NOT). But those who are normally compassionate are not allowed to see anything that might awaken them to the true costs of war. These costs come home most real in the face of humanity. The Silent Night Story above is the just the medicine needed.

If the world can rally around a tragedy, such as it has with the Tsunami disaster relief, perhaps more people may become aware of the need to fight against the whole premise, "promise" and realities of this war, and move to "correct" as much as can be "corrected", for the sake of the sanctity of life.

Listen to an NPR feature on this story here