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Judging from your comments, my piece on the passing of former president Gerald Ford seems to have rubbed some people on both sides the wrong way. Some think that by contrasting his decency and honesty to the current administration I don't realize "how rude it is to politicize someone's passing." And, comparing one Republican president to another somehow made me partisan. Then there are some who thought his pardoning of Richard Nixon was wrong and apparently wanted more criticism of Ford.
For the record, I think the news headlines these past few days, referring to his "legacy of honor," "legacy of healing," - and the editorials, "Ford and forgiveness," "reconciler-in-chief," "profile in decency," etc. are symbolic of a real yearning in the country for those qualities. Our current situation is so polarized that the decency, integrity, and honesty of President Ford, for which he is and should be remembered and honored, are seen as unusual. There are not many politicians today, of either party, who can claim those attributes.
In yesterday's Chicago Tribune, a piece by senior correspondent William Neikirk concluded, after talking with friends and associates of President Ford, along with political analysts from both parties, that "a moderate conservative like Ford would have a hard time governing in today's harsh political climate where both parties seem at each other's throats, analysts said. In the recent midterm elections, voters appeared to send a message that they were fed up with divisiveness in Washington. As a result, politicians with some of Ford's abilities for bridging the partisan divide could find greater support than once believed."
The political world in Washington has become so bitter that simple friendships between Members of Congress of different parties are almost non-existent. President Ford belonged to an earlier era where there could be vigorous disagreements, but still strong friendships across the aisle. A story in today's New York Times told how "As he helped in recent years arrange the details of his own funeral, Gerald R. Ford reached out to an old adversary: Jimmy Carter , who defeated him for the presidency in 1976. Skip to next paragraphMr. Ford asked whether his successor might consider speaking at his funeral and offered, lightheartedly, to do the same for Mr. Carter, depending on who died first."
And as for politicizing his passing, it's interesting that Ford himself gave two interviews in which he was strongly critical of the current administration, but stipulated that they be embargoed until his death. Seems to me that in doing so he politicized his own passing. In the Washington Post, Bob Woodward recounts: "Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."
As the weekend of his lying in state is about to begin here in Washi
ngton, I honor the memory of a good and decent man. His wife, four children, seven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren are in my prayers.
Duane Shank is senior policy adviser for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
People often ask me what I'm reading. This year, I read a lot of books on politics—and was impressed by a number of important books such as State of Denial, The Looming Tower, and The Audacity of Hope. But my favorite books of 2006 mostly go beyond the bestseller list and include:
The Last Week by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. Borg and Crossan's careful study of Mark's account of the Passion is one of the most interesting exegetical treatments of Jesus' death I've ever read. I taught an Introduction to the Bible for several years at an undergraduate college—but Borg and Crossan taught me things I never knew. Especially noteworthy: their exegesis of the "Render unto Caesar" passage and their discussion of Palm Sunday. Some people stereotype Borg and Crossan, but The Last Week breaks through many of those presuppositions. With its passion for personal and political transformation, this book will surprise you.
Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor. This is a wonderful, literary, and tender memoir of the pastoral life—and Ms. Brown Taylor's eventual exit from her pulpit to become a college professor. It is not, however, a story of loss. Instead, she writes of "leaving church" to find a broader participation in the priesthood of all believers, the "human church," to which we all belong. She raises some difficult questions—that will upset some readers—in an inviting and intelligent way.
Tempting Faith, by David Kuo. Not only is Kuo's book an honest assessment of religion in the Bush Administration, but it stands with Chuck Colson's Born Again and Mark Hatfield's Between a Rock and a Hard Place as a classic of evangelical spiritual memoir in relation to politics. Kudos to Kuo for both strong content and reinvigorating an important genre in spiritual autobiography.
Mind the Light, by J. Brent Bill. This is not a "big" book. Rather, it is, like Bill's earlier piece, Holy Silence, a small, gentle take on Quaker spirituality. He walks his readers through a path to encounter God's light—complete with "illuminating" exercises for individuals and groups. A refreshing book full of good news—especially in contrast to all the darkness in the world today.
Both The Shia Revival by Vali Nasr and The Faith Club by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner examine important issues in understanding tensions between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Although very different, one scholarly (Nasr) and the other deeply personal (Idliby et al), these books move from theory and theology to the impact of religious difference in
the contemporary world.
Finally, All Mortal Flesh by Julia Spencer-Fleming is the fifth in her Reverend Clare Fergusson mystery series—and it is clearly the best. Here, the priest-detective becomes a suspect in the murder of her almost-lover's wife and the narrative is full of ruminations on doubt, sin, and guilt. And the mystery is appropriately grim and grisly with an ending that I never could have guessed. Spencer-Fleming left me breathless waiting for the next installment!
the latest reports on Gerald Ford, James Brown, John Edwards candidacy, poverty and obesity, domestic violence, U.S. population at 300 million, human trafficking, Saddam Hussein, Iraq, Somalia, cloned food and select op-eds
Gerald Ford.President Declares Tuesday A National Day of Mourning - "President Bush declared a national day of mourning and ordered the federal government to close Tuesday to mark the death of Gerald R. Ford." Ford Arranged His Funeral to Reflect Himself and Drew in a Former Adversary - "As he helped in recent years arrange the details of his own funeral, Gerald R. Ford reached out to an old adversary: Jimmy Carter, who defeated him for the presidency in 1976. Skip to next paragraphMr. Ford asked whether his successor might consider speaking at his funeral and offered, lightheartedly, to do the same for Mr. Carter, depending on who died first." Ford's Michigan hometown braces for crowds - "The procession of tourists and history buffs stretched for blocks along Union Avenue SE as people flocked to the childhood home of Gerald R. Ford."
Ford, Nixon Sustained Friendship for Decades - "Months before Richard M. Nixon set a relatively unknown Michigan congressman named Gerald R. Ford on the path to the White House, Nixon turned to Ford, who called himself the embattled president's "only real friend," to get him out of trouble." For Ford, Pardon Decision Was Always Clear-Cut - "President Gerald R. Ford was never one for second-guessing, but for many years after leaving office in 1977, he carried in his wallet a scrap of a 1915 Supreme Court ruling. A pardon, the excerpt said, "carries an imputation of guilt," and acceptance of a pardon is "a confession of it."
James Brown.Brown packs Harlem's Apollo one last time - "Even in death, the Godfather of Soul still pulled out all the stops to please a crowd. So it seemed Thursday, when thousands of Brown's fans, friends and family gathered for a final public viewing and wake." A Loud, Proud Send-Off for an Icon of Soul- "James Brown gave one last show in Harlem yesterday, three days after his death, in a golden coffin lined with white velvet, on the flower-bedecked stage of the famed Apollo Theater, before a crowd of thousands who had lined up for blocks to see him."
John Edwards announces.Edwards Formally Joins 2008 Presidential Race - "Former senator John Edwards of North Carolina launched his second campaign for the White House from this flood-ravaged city with a call for the United States to reduce its troop presence in Iraq and a plea for citizen action to combat poverty, global warming and America's reliance on foreign oil." Edwards hopes persistence pays off in presidency - "With the ruins of New Orleans as his backdrop … Edwards called on Americans to take action against poverty, global warming and other troubles as he officially launched his 2008 campaign for president." Edwards takes another shot at run for White House - "Should he win the White House in 2008, John Edwards has a few modest goals: end poverty, provide health care for all, inspire Americans to help others and make his country once again "the great light for the rest of the world."
Poverty and obesity.Obesity battle starts young for urban poor - "By the time they reach the age of 3, more than one-third of low-income urban children are already overweight or obese, according to a study released yesterday that provides alarming evidence that the nation's battle of the bulge begins when toddlers are barely out of diapers." Poorer tots more likely to be obese - "Hispanic children from low-income families were most at risk, with 44 percent either overweight or obese, compared with 32 percent for white and African-American children from similar households."
Domestic violence.Domestic abuse rates drop; racial gap persists - "Domestic violence rates fell sharply between 1993 and 2004, the Justice Department said, noting that American Indian women and native Alaskan women are far more likely to be victimized than whites and other minorities."
300 million.U.S. population clock ticks to 300.9 million - "When the clock ticks over to midnight Sunday and 2007 arrives, the United States will have nearly 2.9 million more people than a year earlier."
Trafficking.50 Boys Who Were Forced to Work at Factories in India Are Freed - "For two years, Bhola worked more than 15 hours a day without being paid or allowed to visit his parents. On Thursday, a local private organization freed Bhola, now 12, and 49 other child laborers like him."
Saddam Hussein.Hussein's lawyer pleads for mercy - "Saddam Hussein's lawyer made a last-ditch effort to impede the former president's execution, beseeching world leaders to prevent the United States from handing over Hussein to Iraqi authorities who plan to hang him." Iraqi PM: no delay in execution - "The Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, said there will be "no review or delay" in the execution of Saddam Hussein." U.S. Is Told Hussein Hanging Seems Imminent - "Preparations for the execution of Saddam Hussein began taking on a sense of urgency late Thursday as American and Iraqi officials suggested that he could be hanged within a span of days rather than weeks." The Rush to Hang Saddam Hussein- "Toppling Saddam Hussein did not automatically create a new and better Iraq. Executing him won't either."
Iraq.Bush Considers Economic Package for Iraq - "Among the steps being considered are short-term jobs and loan programs aimed at winning back the waning local support for the U.S. presence in Iraq, the officials said. They described the ideas as part of a classic effort to quell an insurgency through a combination of economic, political and military means." Bush Considers Up to 20,000 More Troops for Iraq - "The Bush administration is considering an increase in troop levels in Iraq of 17,000 to 20,000, which would be accomplished in part by delaying the departure of two Marine regiments now deployed in Anbar Province, Pentagon officials said Thursday." Soldiers in Iraq say troop surge won't stop killing - "Many of the American soldiers trying to quell sectarian killings in Baghdad don't appear to be looking for reinforcements. They say the call for a temporary surge in troops is a bad idea."
Somalia.Ethiopians Help Seize Somali Capital - "Ethiopian-backed troops moved unopposed into Somalia's unruly capital of Mogadishu on Thursday, taking over from fleeing Islamic fighters as clan elders and politicians met in an effort to establish the first viable secular government in the country since 1991." Somalia Forces Retake Capital From Islamists - "Just hours after Islamist fighters abandoned Mogadishu, the capital from which they ruled much of Somalia, thousands of troops of the transitional government marched into the city in a stunning reversal of fortune." Ethiopians are split over th
eir foreign invasion - "Just as the Iraq invasion has divided Americans, Ethiopians are split over their government's decision to get involved in Somalia's brewing civil war by sending troops across the border."
Cloned food.F.D.A. Tentatively Declares Food From Cloned Animals to Be Safe- "After years of delay, the Food and Drug Administration tentatively concluded yesterday that milk and meat from some cloned farm animals are safe to eat. That finding could make the United States the first country to allow products from cloned livestock to be sold in grocery stores."
Op-Ed.Resolution for the right (Cal Thomas, Washington Times) - "With Democrats about to assume control of the House and Senate for the first time in 12 years, Republicans in general, conservatives in particular and conservative Christians especially face an important choice."
I may not have school-age kids like Bart Campolo, but this list represents pretty much everything I've read this year - as much as I'd like to pretend that these are the "best" of the many many volumes I've consumed. Maybe because I read just before bed, and tend to fall asleep after a page or two, especially when reading nonfiction... Also note that many of these books are very, very short, and almost none were published in 2006.
Monday Marriage: Celebrating the Ordinary, by Gerald and L. Marlene Kaufman. I'm getting married on March 31, and this book was a quick but helpful read in creating realistic expectations as my fiancé and I prepare to mutually submit to each other in love the wedding industrial complex.
A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. This edition includes the "lost" final chapter that was excised from all U.S. versions prior to 1987 - including Stanley Kubric's film.
Christus Victor, by Gustaf Aulén The subtitle pretty much says it all: "An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement."
Hocus Pocus, Mother Night, Timequake, and Welcome to the Monkey House, by Kurt Vonnegut. Not that his books don't tackly deadly serious themes, but it's Vonnegut's humor that prompts me to down one of his novels after some grueling theological treatise - and sends me to the "V" section every time I visit a used book store.
You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down, by Alice Walker. Compelling short stories of the complexities of overlapping racial, political, and sexual identities. Part of my self-assigned white male homework.
Black Theology and Black Power, by James Cone. More white-guy-homework, and as with Walker, this is critical education on the Black American experience.
Monnew, by Ahmadou Kourouma. A gift from my fiancé, who wrote her senior thesis on French colonialism in Africa. Kourouma chronicles the arrival of the French in a fictional African nation through the eyes of animist/Muslims who alternately resist and appease thier "Christian" exploiters. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, by William Styron. Recommended reading for anyone who has a loved one that struggles with depression - i.e., just about everyone. You will never fully understand the darkness that they grapple with, but you should at least try, and this book will help. It was also interesting to read a memoir by the author of The Confessions of Nat Turner and then read a character in You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down criticizing it. My books are
talking to each other!
Changes that Heal, by Dr. Henry Cloud. Obviously written for an evangelical Christian audience (and hence lays the proof-texting on a bit thick), this book's greatest contribution is to help remove the stigma of mental illness and affirm the value and necessity of seeking qualified therapists - when many in the church harmfully assign such problems to deficiencies of faith.
The Areas of My Expertise, by John Hodgman. You may recognize Hodgman from apperances on The Daily Show, where he's a fake expert commenting on fake news. This book is something of a fake almanac - a mishmash of one-quarter fact, two-thirds fabrication, and five-eighths hilarious hogwash. (If you're annoyed by my fuzzy math, you may not enjoy this book.)
Ryan Beiler is the Web Editor for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
The important thing about protest is not so much the short-range possibility of changing the direction of policies, but the longer range aim of helping everyone gain an entirely new attitude toward war. Far from doing this, much current protest simply reinforces the old positions by driving the adversary back into the familiar and secure mythology of force. Hence the strong "patriotic" reaction against protests in the United States. How can one protest against war without implicitly and indirectly contributing to the war mentality?
While I was doing research on the New Atheism, I had the pleasure (not) of viewing the DVD The God Who Wasn't There. As expected, the film's glowing reviews are from atheist Web sites (surprise, surprise). But regardless of one's particular beliefs, this film is to pardon the pun, godawful. In a nutshell, the director, who outed himself as a former fundy turned atheist, picked the best of the New Atheist thinkers. Meanwhile, the Christians profiled included the Branch Davidians, Charles Manson, and a woman who cut off her baby's arms for God.
The Gospel narratives were depicted through select film clips and fringe historical accounts that made Gojira (1954) seem realistic by comparison. No anti-God film would be complete without unauthorized footage from Mel Gibson's The Passion to prove that Christians just love violence. Had this filmmaker bothered to interview a single credible Christian scholar, this documentary might have been able to posses at least some semblance of street cred.
As I was goggling The God Who Wasn't There, I came across BreakPoint's announcement about The Blasphemy Challenge. Seems that right before Christmas, a group calling themselves the "Rational Response Squad" invited a hundred youths to trade in their soul for a DVD of this documentary. Yeah, this is kinda funny – I mean if you're going to commit blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, you gotta do lot more than post a video on YouTube. While I'm sure many of these kids were trying to get a rise out of their parents, I do wonder how many folks out there take this hooey at face value.
Speaking of pseudo-documentaries, so far, I haven't seen any sign that Coral Ridge Ministries' is planning a similar "salvation special" offering a free copy of their documentary Darwin's Deadly Legacy. While I haven't seen this film yet, based on what I read on their Web site, something tells me it's yet another biased bit that paints all Christians in a less than favorable light. Call it a strong hunch.
While both New Atheists (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris) and their extremist counterparts (Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and Newt Gingrich) give very distorted views of the faith, the challenge this presents for us as Christians to show a Third Way. At least for me, I found that reading Brian McLaren's recent post "The Politics of Joy" gave me some food for thought here during this holiday season.
Gerald R. Ford.38th President Leaves A Legacy of Healing - "A nation deeply polarized by war and partisanship came together yesterday to mourn Gerald Rudolph Ford as a healer during a previous era of division," Praise for 'a legacy of honor' - "The nation's capital prepared Wednesday to honor former President Gerald R. Ford with the pomp and solemnity of a state funeral," Low-Key Services Planned in D.C. And Michigan for Modest President - "The body of Gerald R. Ford will arrive Saturday in Washington and lie in repose in the Capitol Rotunda, but in keeping with the unassuming former president's style, his state funeral will be as modest as such an affair can be." After Ford's Death, Tributes Are Set for Capital- "Services for Mr. Ford, the 38th president, who died late Tuesday, will begin Friday in Palm Desert, Calif., with private prayers for the family at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church … The next day, his body will be flown to Washington. The hearse is to pause at the World War II Memorial on the National Mall in recognition of Mr. Ford's naval service in the Pacific. His state funeral is to be conducted on Saturday evening in the Capitol Rotunda, after which the public will be allowed to file by the coffin. A service will be held next Tuesday in the Washington National Cathedral."
Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq - "Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration. ... "Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said." Would today's GOP go for Ford? - "In death, former President Gerald R. Ford might be coming back into style. Friends and colleagues said that there is a yearning among many voters in his own party for the kind of pragmatic politics of compromise that Ford embodied. But internal Republican Party dynamics make it unlikely he could rise to power today. Independents and moderates would like him, but not the staunchly conservative Republican base."
James Brown. Thousands expected at Brown's Augusta service -"James Brown will get a proper Harlem farewell on Thursday, with a horse-drawn carriage leading a procession prior to a public viewing for Brown at the Apollo Theater. … A high-tech marquee at the Apollo offered: "Rest in Peace Apollo Legend The Godfather of Soul James Brown, 1933-2006." Brown's epic "Live at the Apollo" album streamed from the marquee speakers. In Augusta, preparations continued for the private service on Friday and Saturday's public service at James Brown Arena." Where Stars Have Risen, Paying Tribute to One Fallen - "Thursday, from 1 to 8 p.m., the body of James Brown, who died on Monday, will lie in state onstage at the Apollo on West 125th Street." Godfather of soul, and of our goal (Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune) - "As an impressionable student, I was changed forever by Brown's recounting in an interview in the late 1960s about his own struggles against childhood poverty. "I used to shine shoes on the front steps of an Augusta, Ga., radio station," he said. "Now I own that radio station." So could we all, he was telling our generation, if we took full advantage of the doors that were opening to us."
Murder rate.Major cities see rise in murders - "After years of decline, the number of murders climbed this year in New York City and many other major American cities, reaching the highest levels in a decade in some places."
Ethiopia/Somalia.Somali
Islamists see gains slip away but hold onto capital - "Troops from Ethiopia and Somalia's weak transitional government cornered Islamic fighters Wednesday in their stronghold of Mogadishu, setting the stage for a possible showdown over Somalia's seaside capital." Islamists desert Somali capital - "Troops loyal to Somalia's transitional government poised to retake Mogadishu after Islamist fighters abandoned the city." Islamists Seem to Give Up Grip on Somali City- "The Islamist forces who have controlled much of Somalia in recent months suddenly vanished from the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, residents said Wednesday night, just as thousands of rival troops massed 15 miles away."
Ethiopia's children.Malnutrition Is Cheating Its Survivors, and Africa's Future- "Almost half of Ethiopia's children are malnourished, and most do not die. Some suffer a different fate. Robbed of vital nutrients as children, they grow up stunted and sickly, weaklings in a land that still runs on manual labor. Some become intellectually stunted adults, shorn of as many as 15 I.Q. points, unable to learn or even to concentrate, inclined to drop out of school early."
Iran.Iran votes to review ties with UN nuke agency - "Iran's parliament voted to urge the government to re-examine its ties with the UN nuclear agency after a Security Council decision to impose sanctions against Tehran over its disputed nuclear program." Iran to 'Revise' Any Relations With Monitors in Nuclear Area- "It is unclear what "revise its cooperation" means. But the measure was considered by some moderate members of Parliament to be less severe than earlier versions proposed by conservative members, who had wanted Iran to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and ban all inspectors."
Iraq policy.Bush and Security Advisers to Meet Today on Iraq Strategy - "President Bush's top national security advisers arrived here to hone a new Iraq strategy that administration officials said seems increasingly likely to include a surge of additional troops to try to help stabilize the country." Bush, advisors gather as aide rebukes Biden on Iraq - "The White House responded sharply Wednesday to a senior Democratic senator's criticism of possible increases in the U.S. military deployment in Iraq as the president prepared to discuss the war today with top advisors." G.O.P. Senator in Spotlight After a Critical Iraq Speech - "At the close of the Senate's lame-duck session, in between formulaic tributes to s
enators departing voluntarily or otherwise, a Republican backbencher suddenly rose to give one of the most passionate and surprising speeches about the war in Iraq yet delivered in Congress. Skip to next paragraphFor a solid Republican who had originally voted for the war, the words spoken by the senator, Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, on the evening of Dec. 7 were incendiary and marked a stunning break with the president."
Boston Globe feature on interfaith dialogue- Ideas Forum contributors:
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
We first published this reflection by Jim Wallis in 2002. It has since become our Christmas tradition, kind of our own Charlie Brown Christmas special, if you will. With the ongoing conflicts raging during each passing year, it remains tragically relevant.
British and German soldiers fraternize during the "Christmas Truce" of 1914
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.
Folksinger John McCutcheon wrote a song about that night in Belgium, titled "Christmas in the Trenches," from the viewpoint of a young British solder. Several poignant verses are:
"The next they sang was "Stille Nacht," "Tis 'Silent Night'," says I. And in two tongues one song filled up that sky "There's someone coming towards us!" the front line sentry cried All sights were fixed on one lone figure coming from their side His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shone on that plain so bright As he bravely strode unarmed into the night.
Soon one by one on either side walked into No Man's land With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand We shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well And in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell. We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from home These sons and fathers far away from families of their own Young Sanders played his squeeze box and they had a violin This curious and unlikely band of men.
Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war But the question haunted every heart that lived that wondrous night "Whose family have I fixed within my sights?" 'Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war Had been crumbled and were gone for evermore."
My prayer for the new year is for a nation and world where people can come out of their trenches and together sing their hopes for peace. We here at Sojourners will carry on that mission, and we invite you to continue on the journey with us.
I'll start responding to Rabbi Stern by registering my disappointment with the sneering, self-righteous and downright offensive tone of his response to me. I don't know what "ilk" Stern comes from, but I had always been told that "rabbi" means teacher. I'm a teacher, an Israeli professor of anthropology. If I ever responded to my students or colleagues in the manner of our "scholar-in-residence," they would tell me exactly where to go, and rightly so.
Why Stern considers Dershowitz's polemics "facts," I don't know. Did Jews really live in Hebron longer than Arabs? I wonder who Abraham bought the Cave of Machpela from? And if I recall my Bible (Genesis 25:9), didn't Ishmael, Abraham's beloved son, attend his father's funeral in Hebron together with his brother Isaac? And just what Arab countries were "tens of thousands of Jews" expelled from?
I would love to respond to every "fact" Dershowitz raises. Unfortunately, in a short blog entry, that's impossible. Slogans are much more economical than nuanced discussion. But let me raise discussion on one of the issues, which Rabbi Stern has surely encountered in Berkeley. The PLO accepted the two-state solution in 1988, even before the Oslo peace process. If we place ourselves in the shoes of the Other (a talent rabbis are supposed to have – or is that only with other Jews?) we could ask: Why in the world would the Palestinians accept the 1938 Peel Commission Plan to partition the country? Palestine was Palestinian; the Palestinians had every right to expect that their country would revert to them after the colonial powers left. The Jews at that time were maybe a quarter of the population. We might think we have exclusive claim to the Land of Israel and expect everyone else to accept it, but why should they? To say "Palestinians rejected this proposal because Arab leaders cared more about there being no Jewish state on Muslim holy land than about having a Palestinian state of their own" shows an appalling insensitivity to the rights of an indigenous people and ignorance of the historical process of de-colonization.
Going back in time isn't very productive, nor is assigning blame. The central issue is: How do we help Israel get out the mess it's in? The problem, I would submit, is not with the Arabs. The Palestinians have accepted the two-state solution – but a real two-state solution, not one where Israeli settlements truncate it and Jerusalem is "Judaized." Even the mean old Arab League offered Israel peace, recognition and regional integration in return for the Occupied Territories. It is not security that holds Israel back, it's the prospect of giving up settlements and territory. Our occupation, unintended as it may have been in 1967, has ended up with a half million settlers who foreclose forever the possibility of a viable Palestinian state, and with that any hope of peace.
The point is that Israel is the strong party, the occupying power, and the o
nly one who can bring a just peace. It's telling that none of the three learned rabbis who responded to me even mention the word "occupation."
Together, we Israelis and you Diaspora Jews have got to start taking responsibility for our actions. Support for occupation, apartheid, and the oppressive policies they spawn erode the moral fabric of the entire Jewish people, as evidenced in Stern's remarks. And please, a little humility, a little derekh eretz and a LOT more learning, critical thinking, and self-criticism.
"Our long national nightmare is over." With the news of the passing of former President Gerald R. Ford, I can still hear those words.
More than thirty years later, it's difficult to remember the chaos of 1973-74. A year after winning a landslide election over George McGovern, the Nixon administration was rapidly unraveling. By the fall of 1973, a number of top White House staffers had either resigned or been fired, the battles between Richard Nixon and the Watergate special prosecutor were raging, and a special Senate committee had held extensive hearings and was seeking the release of documents and White House tape recordings. On October 20, the battle came to a head when President Nixon fired the special prosecutor and abolished the office, leading to the resignations of both the attorney general and deputy attorney general. On a parallel track, only ten days earlier, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned after pleading no contest to charges of tax evasion. In December, Gerald Ford was confirmed as vice president. By the summer of 1974, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that Nixon was required to turn over the tapes, the House Judiciary Committee passed three articles of impeachment, and within two weeks, Richard Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to resign. He was succeeded by Ford – who became the first president never elected as either president or vice-president.
The obituaries in this morning's newspapers recount his short administration – the two events at the top of my memory are his highly controversial pardon of Nixon and his presiding over the final end of the U.S. war in Vietnam. And, I remember opposing his policies on a number of fronts in those years. But it is those memorable words from his speech after taking the presidential oath of office that are the most relevant today:
I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our Government but civilization itself. … In all my public and private acts as your President, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end. My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.
As we enter 2007, our country is mired in another seemingly endless war we were deceptively led into, we have a president in a state of denial, and we live in a deeply divided country. We need once again to hear those simple, direct words from a president - "truth is the glue that holds government together," "honesty is always the best policy," and "our long national nightmare is over." They are the best legacy of Gerald R. Ford.
Duane Shank is senior policy adviser for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
Michael Battle is Vice President, Associate Dean of Academic Studies, and Associate Professor of Theology at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. He is the author of The Church Enslaved: A Spirituality of Racial Reconciliation, co-written with Tony Campolo.
Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
There have been many other good books too, but it's hard to know when to stop! The best of the best, for me, was Cry of the Earth, Cry
of the Poor, by Leonardo Boff. It filled my mind and heart with worship.
In order to send more troops to Iraq, the Pentagon is recalling many who have already served one or more tours. The human cost of that policy caught my eye in The Washington Post's Metro section this morning. This is what we’ve come to ... the madness must end.
Reservist Due for Iraq Is Killed in Standoff With Police
Army Reservist James E. Dean had already served 18 months in Afghanistan when he was notified three weeks ago that he would be deployed to Iraq later this month. The prospect of returning to war sent the St. Mary's County resident into a spiral of depression, a neighbor said.
Despondent about his orders, Dean barricaded himself inside his father's home with several weapons on Christmas, threatening to kill himself. After a 14-hour standoff with authorities, Dean was killed yesterday by a police officer after he aimed a gun at another officer, police said.
Wanda Matthews, who lives next door to Dean's father and said she thought of the younger man as a son, described him as a "very good boy."
...
Matthews said Dean enjoyed hunting and fishing but had lost much of his enthusiasm for life when he found out that he was being deployed to Iraq. She said that she had not spoken to him since he was notified but that his father was extremely worried about Dean. "He was a good country boy," she said.
the latest news on Gerald Ford's death, Darfur, the Ethiopia-Somalia conflict, Iraq, congress, Saddam Hussein, presidential politics, faith and politics, James Brown's passing, and messages from the archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope Sign up to receive our daily news summary via e-mail »
Full news summary:
Gerald Ford.Gerald R. Ford Dies at 93 - "Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr., 93, who became the 38th president of the United States as a result of some of the most extraordinary events in U.S. history and sought to restore the nation's confidence in the basic institutions of government, has died." Gerald R. Ford, 38th U.S. President, Dies- "My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," Mrs. Ford said in a statement…" Gerald Ford dies at 93 - "Untainted himself by Watergate, Ford was left the task of restoring public confidence in an institution badly damaged by the corrosive constitutional crisis…" Gerald Ford dead at 93 - "He was the only person to ever serve as chief executive without being elected president or vice president."
Darfur.Sudan's president accepts UN plan to bolster force in Darfur - "President Omar al-Bashir said in the letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that Sudan is ready to immediately implement two recent agreements endorsing a three-step UN plan to strengthen the beleaguered 7,000-strong African Union force in the vast western region of the country." Sudan May Allow U.N. Force In Darfur - "U.S. and U.N. diplomats were guarded in their reactions to the letter, which was made public Tuesday."
Ethiopia-Somalia.Ethiopians Closing In On Capital of Somalia - "Ethiopian troops fought their way closer to the Somali capital of Mogadishu on Tuesday, pushing back militias loyal to the Islamic Courts movement that has until now controlled much of the country." Islamists Retreat in Somalia - "The Islamist forces once in control of much of Somalia are crumbling faster than anyone expected and beat a hasty retreat back to their stronghold in Mogadishu," U.S. Signals Backing for Ethiopian Incursion Into Somalia - "The United States on Tuesday signaled its support for the Ethiopian offensive in Somalia, calling it a response to "aggression" U.N. envoy calls Somalia situation grim - "The conflict between Somalia's transitional government and Islamic militants has escalated dangerously, as Islamist leaders threaten a "holy war" against advancing government troops and allied Ethiopian forces, a U.N. special envoy told the Security Council."
Iraq.Democrats will soon get a say on Iraq - "After years of playing a marginal role in the Iraq war, congressional Democrats plan to move quickly next month to assert more control and undercut any White House effort to increase troop levels." Biden Opposes a Troop Increase in Iraq, Foreshadowing a Fight With the Bush Administration- "Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, rejected a troop increase for Iraq, foreshadowing what could be a contentious fight between the Bush administration and Congress." Biden to Fight Troop Buildup in Iraq - "I totally oppose the surging of additional troops into Baghdad, and I think it is contrary to the overwhelming body of informed opinion, both people inside the administration and outside the administration," Biden told reporters.
Congress.With Promises of a Better-Run Congress, Democrats Take on Political Risks- "After chafing for years under what they saw as flagrant Republican abuse of Congressional power and procedures, the incoming majority has promised to restore House and Senate practices to those more closely resembling the textbook version of how a bill becomes law:" Bracing for congressional probes, Bush hires lawyers - "President Bush is bracing for what could be an onslaught of investigations by the new Democratic-led Congress by hiring lawyers to fill key White House posts and preparing to play defense on countless document requests and possible subpoenas."
Saddam Hussein.Iraqi Court Upholds Hussein's Sentence - "Iraq's highest court upheld Saddam Hussein's death sentence, opening the way for the former Iraqi president to be hanged within 30 days, Iraqi judicial officials said."
Presidential politics.Strategy, Not Drama, in 'I Intend to Run in '08' - "… presidential announcements have become, more of
ten than not, vestigial remnants of the way presidential politics were once conducted (or at least the way they are remembered). Rather than being big moments in which candidates lay down ideological markers and discuss what they would do as president, announcements are more of a pro forma exercise of the obvious."
Faith and Politics. Consultant Helps Democrats Embrace Faith, and Some in Party Are Not Pleased - "As Democrats turn toward the 2008 presidential race, a novice evangelical political operative is emerging as a rising star in the party, drawing both applause and alarm for her courtship of theological conservatives in the midterm elections. Party strategists and nonpartisan pollsters credit the operative, Mara Vanderslice, and her 2-year-old consulting firm, Common Good Strategies, with helping a handful of Democratic candidates make deep inroads among white evangelical and churchgoing Roman Catholic voters…"
James Brown.James Brown, the 'Godfather of Soul,' Dies at 73- "James Brown, the singer, songwriter, bandleader and dancer who indelibly transformed 20th-century music, died in Atlanta." Say it loud: He gave music some new moves - "For all the impact of such towering figures as Ray Charles, Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye, no one influenced black music more than James Brown because no one mirrored black culture more than the man behind such hits as "Please, Please, Please," "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" and "I Got You (I Feel Good)."
Archbishop of Canterbury message.Archbishop fears for Middle East - "The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has given a Christmas Day sermon urging people not to forget the tragedies of the Holy Land. In an address inspired by a recent visit to the region, he said both Israelis and Palestinians feared being ignored as the world looked elsewhere." Canterbury sermon: Full text
Papal messages.Pope urges Mid-East peace efforts - "Pope Benedict XVI has called for fresh efforts to bring peace to the Middle East and Africa, in his traditional Christmas message to pilgrims in Rome. The Pope spoke of the "many grave crises and conflicts" in the Middle East and voiced "hope that the way will be opened to a just and lasting peace". He also deplored the conflicts in Darfur and other parts of Africa." In humanity's failings, pope sees need of God - " Pope Benedict XVI on Monday said a world that has achieved unimaginable scientific progress still needs God in its unending confrontation with hunger, hatred and war." Benedict XVI's Christmas Day Message "To the City and the World"
Shane Claiborne is a founding partner of The Simple Way Community, a radical faith community that lives among and serves the homeless in Kensington, North Philadelphia. He also the author of The Irresistible Revolution.
The problem evidenced by Rabbi Grossman’s response is not a disagreement over facts or even morality. The good rabbi sits on the advisory board of Rabbis for Human Rights which, in turn, was a founding member of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). The problem – a deep and worrying one – is the willingness of our spiritual leaders to justify fundamental violations of human rights in the name of “Jewish lives” and to refuse to hold Israel – the world’s fourth largest nuclear power and an occupying power – accountable for its actions.
What is missing in Rabbi Grossman’s reply? "Occupation." Never does she or her colleagues mention the “O” word. She apparently does not see the overarching political context of our conflict with the Palestinians. There is absolutely no reason why this conflict should continue. The Palestinians accepted the two-state idea already in 1988, well before Oslo. To lay the blame for the failure of the “peace process” at Arafat’s feet is simply outrageous. During the seven years of Oslo, as we were supposedly negotiating the status of the land, Jerusalem, a Palestinian state and all the rest, Israel doubled its settler population, effective foreclosing any viable Palestinian state. What would you have counseled the Palestinians to do – accept apartheid, not resist? Their offer of a two-state solution is still on the table – this is the gist of the Prisoners’ Document of all the Palestinian factions – but Olmert is talking “convergence/realignment,” annexing eight major settlement blocs to Israel, a permanent regime of apartheid in my view. And even the Arab League in 2002 offered Israel peace, recognition and regional integration in return for the Occupied Territories.
Rabbi Grossman also couches her reply in “security.” The issue is not security – Israel could have had that 20 years ago if it had relinquished its occupation; its Israeli claims to the Land. Nothing Israel has done in the Occupied Territories – not the expropriation of half the Palestinians’ land, not the building of 300 settlements and outposts, not the demolition of 18,000 Palestinian homes, not the uprooting of a million fruit and olive trees, not the construction of Israeli-only highways to link the settlements irreversibly into Israel and not the construction of the Separation Barrier with its convoluted route deep in Palestinian territory – can be explained by “security.” Security comes from peace; it cannot be acquired by force and repression.
Rabbi Grossman does not relate to the wider issues of occupation and apartheid, but relates solely to the “sec
urity barrier” – whose official name is the “Separation Barrier” because – again – its main purpose is to separate Jews from Arabs, as the Israeli government itself says. Doesn’t that sound like apartheid to you? And she is simply wrong about the wall. Except in tiny areas like Qalqilia and Tulkarm, the Wall does not separate Palestinians from Israelis but, rather, Palestinians from Palestinians. It is built inside Palestinian communities where Israelis never see it. Like in Abu Dis, where its separates grandparents from children, pupils from school, patients from doctors, customers from stores. As for snipers? In many places such as Ma’aleh Adumim the wall is actually lower than the road. No, the point of the wall is to mark borders, as Foreign Minister Tsipi Livi confessed a few months ago. “Security” might be a by-product (was the reduction in terrorism due to the barrier or to the year and half cease-fire declared unilaterally by Hamas?), but it is not the main purpose.
To call what we are doing to the Palestinians “hardship” and then to justify it as “saving Jewish lives” is truly a shanda. To call those under oppression – yes, our oppression – “bad neighbors,” shows to where we have descended as Jews defending indefensible Israeli policies of occupation and now apartheid. Its not a choice between Jewish lives or human rights; its human rights for everyone as a guarantee of Jewish lives.
I do enough heavy reading professionally - when I read for pleasure, I'm looking for a good novel, or very entertaining non-fiction. These five are guaranteed beach, holiday, or plane reading:
In the continuing The Washington Post/Newsweek online discussion “On Faith,” I was asked: Do you believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God? If so, what exactly does that mean? If not, who was he? My response follows:
Yes, as a historically orthodox Christian, I believe that Jesus was the Son of God. But the second part of the question is more interesting to me. "What, exactly, does that mean?" I'm going to even add to it a bit, "And what does it not mean."
I believe the things that Jesus says about himself in the New Testament, and affirm what the later Scriptures and church creeds say about Jesus being the Son of God. But, that doesn't mean many of the things that Christians have too often concluded, or how we have acted on the basis of our belief.
Jesus being the Son of God does NOT mean that Christians are better, more right, more righteous, more moral, more blessed, more destined to win battles, or more suited to govern and decide political matters than non-Christians. Instead, believing that Jesus was the Son of God would better mean that people who claim to believe it ought to then live the way Jesus did and taught. And on that one, many of us Christians (who believe the right way) are in serious trouble when it comes to the way we live. Those who believe that Jesus was the Son of God should be the most loving, compassionate, forgiving, welcoming, peaceful, and hungry for justice people around—just like Jesus, right? Well, it's not always exactly so.
I'll never forget hearing Billy Graham, the world's greatest evangelist, the last time he spoke at Harvard. He preached at Harvard's Memorial Church (to a huge crowd of students who had slept out all night just to get a seat), and then to the prestigious JFK Forum at the Kennedy School of Government the next night. After giving a statesmanlike address at the Kennedy School, he turned to the audience for questions. All the Christian triumphalists had shown up for their man and their night at Harvard. One young believer stood up and asked Dr. Graham, "Since Jesus said 'I am the way, the truth and the life, and no man cometh to the Father but by me,' doesn't that mean people from other religions—Jews and the rest- are going to hell?" Billy replied, "I'm sure glad that God is the judge of people's hearts and not me! And I trust God to decide those questions justly and mercifully." The student was disappointed and pressed further, "Well, what do you think God will decide?" Graham demurred, "Well, God doesn't really ask my advice on those matters." Another questioner started again, "Well, what about those who aren't even monotheists—like the Buddhists?" Graham, replied, "You know, I've been to some Buddhist countries, and so many of the people I met seem to live more like Jesus than too many Christians I've seen."
Now Billy Graham would clearly answer the question this week, "Is Jesus the Son of God," in the strong affirmative. But the man who has arguably brought more people to Christ than any other person of our time refused to join in Christian triumphalism. To answer yes to the question is to, at the same time, admit our human failings, stand under judgment ourselves, and humbly seek to follow the one we say we believe in. And that might open up a wonderful dialogue with those who believe other things.
Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills, against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence. ... Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of our generation.
Jeff Halper continues his dialogue with Virtual Talmudbloggers on the controversy surrounding Jimmy Carter's book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, this time responding to Rabbi Joshua Waxman's post titled, "Twisting the Truth."
Twisting "the truth"? Since when are polemics (repeating Dershowitz’s weird choice of the word "screed" to characterize Carter’s book) and wrong statements "the truth"?
Wrong: "The comparison with South Africa is absurd."
South Africa constructed a system of structured inequality on a racial basis and the permanent institutionalization of the dominance of one people over another. Israel has done the exact same thing. Does it really matter if separation and domination are on the basis of race or on national, ethnic, and religious lines? It is the system we are talking about, regardless of the ideology that fuels it.
Wrong: Arabs citizens of Israel “live where they want and enjoy equal protection of the law.”
Do we still have to argue that point? 93% of the land of Israel is off-limits to non-Jews: 72% is Jewish National Fund land and the other 21% is “state land”of various kinds, all “owned” by the Jewish people (like Rabbi Waxman in far-off Fort Washington, PA), not by the citizens of the country. The Arab citizens of Israel, 20% of the population, are confined to 3.5% of the land. Equal protection? An entire Bedouin village was demolished last week in the Negev, and another 40,000(!) homes of [Palestinian] citizens of Israel, residents for 60 years of “unrecognized villages,” are slated for demolition. Arab citizens of Israel cannot even bring spouses from the Occupied Territories or Arab countries to live with them in violation of their fundamental human rights. That’s not apartheid?! Oh, yeah, they are free to vote, but any government decision that lacks a “Jewish majority” is considered illegitimate.
Wrong: "Jordan and Syria refused to make peace in exchange for the West Bank and Golan Heights respectively, and so for the past 40 years these territories have remained under Israel’s control."
Israel never tried to exchange the Occupied Territories, including the Golan Heights, for peace. The great mistake of the learned rabbis on this site (and, unfortunately, pretty much everywhere) is to cast Israel’s occupation as defensive and connected to security. The occupation became a proactive claim to the Territories two weeks after the end of the war with the emergence of the Allon Plan, which scuttled peace both the Jordan and the Palestinians. To argue that Israel moved a half-million settlers into the Occupied Territories for security reasons – while still supposedly negotiating with the Palestinians over land – is, indeed, absurd. There is no evidence whatsoever, either diplomatic or “on the ground,”that Israel ever considered relinquishing control of the West Bank.
Wrong: "Hafrada, the Hebrew term that Halper tries to argue means "apartheid," in fact refers to the policy of separating the territories from Israel proper for security reasons, and not a separation of or discrimination between Jewish and Arab Israeli citizens as he implies."
Hafrada does mean the separation of populations. Listen to Olmert if you don’t believe me. Referring to the Separation Barrier he said: “We must create a clear boundary as soon as possible, one which will reflect the demographic reality on the ground.” It’s true that apartheid meant structured inequality of groups within the same state, but that
’s why South Africa tried to get out of that bind (and remain “democratic”) by creating Bantustans. Israel is doing the same from a different direction. It is expanding to include all the territory to the Jordan River, then it wants to create the Palestinian Bantustan (Sharon’s plan of “cantonization;” Olmert’s “convergence”).
Warning: It is Israel that is setting the stage for a one-state solution by foreclosing a two-state one. If they don’t want apartheid – and don’t to become apologists for apartheid – they better rag on Olmert, AIPAC and their own rabbinical associations to end the occupation totally and today. But I guess liberals can’t be “extremists” - they can’t change the system. They just try to make it a little more “humanitarian.”
For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the heart of the contrite. For I will not continually accuse, nor will I always be angry; for then the spirits would grow faint before me, even the souls that I have made.
In the days before this Christmas Day, the so-called "Christmas wars" were again in full swing. Should the clerks at Target say "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas?" Can Christmas trees be displayed in airports and other public places? Can they have religiously-themed ornaments? Lots of ink and airtime are spent debating these questions. It is actually all very humorous – the battle has long been lost, but to the forces of capitalist consumerism, not secular humanism.
Last week, I happened to come across a Census Bureau " Facts for Features – The Holiday Season" press release. Among other fascinating facts, it showed that in December 2005, retail sales by the nation's department stores totaled $31.7 billion. The nation's tree farmers received $485 million in Christmas tree sales, and $605 million worth of Christmas tree ornaments were imported from China.
Richard Dawkins, author of the bestselling book, The God Delusion, was recently quoted in a New York Times piece titled, An Atheist Can Believe in Christmas. He said, "So divorced has Christmas become from religion that I find no necessity to bother with euphemisms such as happy holiday season. In the same way as many of my friends call themselves Jewish atheists, I acknowledge that I come from Christian cultural roots. I am a post-Christian atheist. So, understanding full well that the phrase retains zero religious significance, I unhesitatingly wish everyone a Merry Christmas."
So, this Christmas as most others, rather than go to the mall, I will send special checks as gifts to organizations whose ministries I trust. Then, I'll put on Handel's Messiah, and listen to these words from Isaiah: "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." And I'll read Luke 2: "Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord."
That is the meaning of Christmas no tree can symbolize and no shopping mall can sell.
Duane Shank is senior policy adviser for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to all people!"
"O inexpressible mystery and unheard paradox: the Invisible is seen, the Intangible is touched , the eternal Word becomes accessible to our speech, the Timeless steps into time, the Son of God becomes the Son of Man!"
Fed up with the so-called "War on Christmas" craziness? One of our readers decided to fight back - with poetry:
'Twas the month before Christmas; with anticipation, I'd prayed to be peaceful, I'd felt adoration.
The Good News was soon to be shouted out loud. The Wonder, the Joy, would dispel every cloud.
The angels are singing their glorious song. And we have the gift to join in! Sing along!
So I settled my brains and typed on my keyboard. I opened my e-mail, expecting warm words.
But from my computer, there arose such a panic! I read with amazement; the writers were manic!
"They're ignoring our revels!" the fussbudgets say, "Make sure all say 'Christmas' and not 'holiday'!
There's no peace on earth; it's time to be critical! Forget joy and love! Make Christmas political!"
We used to say, "Joy! It's time to be merry," But now we are told: "We're still mad at Kerry!
It's not time for prayer; it's not time for praise! There's no time for that! We need more displays!"
Jesus says, "Love your neighbor; take that plank from your eye." But O'Reilly says "NO! Criticism must fly!"
I tried to remember something else Jesus said: "Cease your anger at brothers before offering bread."
"No, NO!" say the emails, "Make fun! Ridicule! The teachers, the storekeepers - call them all fools!
Choose your words carefully; choose what you say! Demand 'Merry Christmas,' Not 'Happy Holiday!'
Our nation's for Christians! Yes, only for they! If our guests don't like it, they don't have to stay!"
That's enough! I know better! My Lord told me true: Receive travelers and beggars, yes, foreigners, too!
He told me to love them; He told me to care. When they are with me, He said, "I am there."
I closed up the e-mail, deleted it, too. I picked up my Bible and asked what to do.
I pray the true gifts of this blessed holy-day season find their way to your home, in all the Lord's bounty, to warm your heart and to bring to you and yours Peace on Earth and Good Will for all of God's children.
Karen McKim is a SojoMail reader from Madison, Wisconsin.
I found Mark C. Taylor's New York Times op-ed, "The Devoted Student," interesting but off-base. Students exist who wouldn't know how to handle a serious intellectual engagement with ideas seemingly hostile to faith. However, though these students exist, I am bothered by Taylor's inference that he is up against a sort of "religious correctness." Anyone familiar with the world of higher education is kidding themselves if they think the academy is anything but hostile to organized religion – fundamentalist, liberal, or otherwise. This perceived animosity between what is often crudely framed as "faith" versus "science" does a disservice to both.
While I am not defending fundamentalist students who push for extreme censorship and who cannot grapple with the "difficult sayings" of science, I am not sympathetic to the professors who start crying "victim" because folks of faith are turning up again. Thus, a step toward the center – where belief in religion doesn't get one laughed off the academic stage – seems warranted, and it won't hurt my feelings if a few academic toes get stepped on in the process.
That said, I am sympathetic to Taylor's critique that the church – at least in some corners – might be raising a generation of young people who can't think their way out of a paper bag and whose first response to something contrary to their fundy roots is to go running to the First Amendment or the administration instead of to the library (see Mark Noll's classic, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, for more on this).
Personally, I enjoy the works of Nietzsche, Freud, Durkheim, Marx, Berger, and Darwin (among many others), and I agree with them on many things. I love my identity as a social scientist, and in the particular instance Taylor recalls in his article, I actually side with him. I would be equally frustrated and put out.
However, I wonder if these narrow-minded students – who have never been taught to think critically by their churches or high schools – would be less prone to yell "religious correctness" if higher education were a safer place for people of faith and if – at least from time to time – they were taught by actual people who didn't think religion was onlya socially-constructed reality, a psychological crutch, nuanced totemism, a projection of our society, etc. In this sense, I am thankful for my time at one of those "evangelical colleges" because I learned from liberally educated and credentialed professors who were real flesh-and-blood Christians at the same time. For the most part, they didn't spoon feed me fundamentalist propaganda (which certainly happens in some places, but not the good ones), but my professors believed that "all truth is God's," so studying rigorously in all fields (whether one is a Christian or not) should lead us closer to God in some way, not further away.
I am not advocating a "Christian academy" any more than a "Christian America," but just as faith shouldn't be privatized and driven from the public square in politics, it shouldn't be marginalized in the academy. The academy needs to make space again for the scholar of faith to be taken seriously (as long as their scholarship is sound, of course), but the church needs to stop turning out drones who have all "right" answers down pat and can only go running when confronted with the challenge of truly thinking critically.
Bob Francis is the policy and organizing assistant for Sojourners/Call to Renewal. He earned his bachelor's degree in Sociology and Theology at Wheaton College and his master's degree in Social Science
at the University of Chicago.
"It is unconscionable that Bethlehem should be allowed to die slowly from strangulation." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
When we hear about Bethlehem this Christmas season, what do we imagine? A town far away and frozen in time? Or security walls, checkpoints, and a place that has been home to tens of thousands of Christians - descendents of the early church? In a recent nationwide survey, carried out by top U.S. political pollsters Zogby International, it was found that only 15% of Americans realize that Bethlehem is a Palestinian city with a mixed Christian-Muslim community, lying in the occupied West Bank.
The fact is that until recently, Bethlehem has been an established town with a thriving indigenous Christian population (read: not Western converts but "original" Christians). But these people, who have been "living stones" to the life and witness of Jesus, are now on the verge of extinction. Much of this is due to the evolving political and social nightmare that makes emigration (when possible) nearly irresistible. And let's not forget the "security" wall that encloses and nearly chokes the city.
Bethlehem's Christian population has dwindled from more than 85% in 1948 to 12% of its 60,000 inhabitants in 2006.
While the Christians of Bethlehem overwhelmingly (78%) blame the most recent spike in the exodus of Christians from the town on Israel's blockade, Americans are more likely (45.9%) to blame it on Islamic politics.
And while four out of ten Americans believe that the wall exists for Israel's security, more than nine out of ten Bethlehemites believe it is part of a plan by Israel to confiscate Palestinian land.
Only 50,000 Christians remain in the Palestinian territories and within a few years there may be no Christians left in the Holy Land. (see more statistics)
At a recent conference for the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation in Washington, D.C., leaders of various Palestinian churches banded together to plead to their American brothers and sisters to help support them. It was likened to a Mother (church) asking her children for aide and support.
Will we in the West only see Bethlehem as a quaint town on holiday cards and nativity scenes? Or will we open our eyes to the present realities that affect our real, though distant, relatives?
Deanna Murshed is director of integrated marketing for Sojourners/Call to Renewal. For more information about Palestinian churches and how you can help, visit:
One of our regular bloggers, Diana Butler Bass, had the great idea to asked the Red Letter Christians group for short lists of their favorite books that they've read this year. We've gotten a great response and will be sharing them over the few remaining days of 2006.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
We Red Letter Christians (Evangelicals who don't want to be identified with the Religious Right) have long been frustrated by the fact that we haven't had the means to get out the message of who we are and what we believe. The Religious Right has controlled the microphone. There are more than 1,500 Christian radio stations, many of which blare out extreme right-wing politics during the course of the day.
But things are changing! The internet is opening up a way for us to communicate, in spite of the fact that we lack the deep pockets holding the big bucks that are available to our Religious Right friends (and God help us if we can't be friends with those who differ with us).
Howard Dean, during his ill-fated run for the presidency, proved that this new instrument can connect people who share a common mindset and value system without spending a bundle. We Red Letter Christians have learned, as of late, that we too can use the Internet in much the same way. Through the Internet we can get out our message, unifying those who agree with us into a significant social movement.
This blog is evidence of what I'm talking about. Sojourners magazine reaches tens of thousands but this blog reaches hundreds of thousands. I personally have joined up with Mark Lowry, a Christian music artist, to produce a weekly podcast—which comes across just like a television show. The show, called "Saturdays with Mark and Tony," is becoming increasingly popular and has a worldwide audience. (Go to www.marklowry.com and click on the link Saturday's with Mark and Tony.)
What's more important is that the Internet has become the dominant means by which young people are getting their news and connecting with the outside world. It is just a matter of time before we Red Letter Christians will have a communication system which will equal, and perhaps outdo, the effectiveness of the "talk radio" of the Religious Right.
Jim Wallis was right when he said that the monologue of the Religious Right is over. Not only are we Red Letter Christians coming together through Sojourners/Call to Renewal, but now, with the Internet, we can talk back to our Religious Right brothers and sisters. So let the dialogues begin.
The latest news on Iraq, draft machinery to be tested, Iran sanctions, Iran elections, New Orleans, Giulani, political ads, immigration, the farm bill, and select op-eds. Sign up to receive our daily news summary via e-mail »
Full news summary:
Iraq.4 Marines Charged In Haditha Killings Four U.S. Marines were charged with multiple counts of murder yesterday for their alleged roles in the deaths of two dozen civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha last year. Marines Charge 4 With Murder of Iraq Civiliansthe criminal charges filed reflect an unusually aggressive judicial reaction by military prosecutors to a massacre that has damaged the militarys credibility with Iraqi officials and civilians,
Draft.Draft machinery to be tested The Selective Service System is making plans to test its draft machinery in case Congress and President Bush need it, even though the White House says it doesn't want to bring back the draft.
Iran-sanctions.U.S., EU urge vote on Iran ban The United States and European Union pushed for a U.N. Security Council vote as early as today on Iran sanctions, a diluted version that drops a U.S.-backed travel ban on Iranian nuclear officials in a bid to win Russian support. UN poised to pass Iran sanctions The United Nations security council is finally expected to pass a resolution today to impose international sanctions on Iran for the first time since the 1979 revolution, a punitive move that will heighten diplomatic tensions and risks a military confrontation in the Gulf.
Iran-elections.Ahmadinejad opponents win majority of local election seats Moderate conservatives opposed to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a majority of seats in local elections across Iran, according to final results announced yesterday. They were followed by reformists, making a comeback after being driven out of local councils, parliament, and the presidency over the past five years. Iran leader unfazed by election losses President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called President Bush "the most hated person" in the world Thursday, keeping up his tirades against the West despite elections that showed Iranians want him to focus on the country's domestic problems.
New Orleans.New Orleans symbolizes U.S. war on poverty If this is ground zero for the federal government's war on poverty, it's hard
to find the front lines. Since Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005, only 94 homeowners and no tenants have received federal aid to rebuild. The poor have been treated at walk-in health clinics while a federal-state partnership struggles to finance a new medical complex.
Giulani.Star power of Giuliani may win over conservatives Social conservatives -- contrary to conventional wisdom -- will seriously consider supporting the Republican presidential aspirations of Rudolph W. Giuliani even though he's a pro-choice, anti-gun New Yorker, political analysts and operatives say.
Political ads.Court Overturns Limits on Political Ads, Part of the Campaign Finance LawA three-judge panel overturned a key segment of the campaign finance law that banned issue advertisements paid for by corporate or union money in the critical weeks before federal elections. Issue Advocacy Ads May Run During an Election, Three-Judge Court Rules the court found that the government had no compelling justification to regulate television ads such as the ones Wisconsin Right to Life Inc. broadcast in July 2004, which advocated stopping congressional filibusters against President Bush's judicial nominees.
Immigration.Immigration busts put employers in cross hairs After years of inaction or wrist slaps, federal authorities have begun to round up illegal workers, impose million-dollar penalties and threaten executives with prison.
Farm bill.Powerful Interests Ally to Restructure Agriculture Subsidies There may be no better sign of the changing debate over the nation's farm subsidies: A Midwestern governor running for president calls for cuts in a system that has steered hundreds of millions of dollars a year to his state. Politicians such as Vilsack have joined a host of interest groups from across the political spectrum that are pressing for changes in government assistance to agriculture. They want the money moved from large farmers to conservation, nutrition, rural development and energy research. Vilsack, for example, favors programs that improve environmental practices on farms. Bread for the World, an anti-hunger organization, has brought religious leaders to Washington to lobby for cuts in subsidies, which they argue can lead to a glut on world markets that hurts poor farmers abroad.
Op-Eds.
Bloomberg's Brave Bet on Innovation (E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post) In the new year, both Democrats and Republicans will have an interest in thinking about government in new ways. They will have to break the vicious cycle that blocks innovation. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a nominal Republican who doesn't care much about party labels, has some ideas about doing just that.
What We Wanted to Tell You About IranHERE is the redacted version of a draft Op-Ed article we wrote for The Times, as blacked out by the Central Intelligence Agencys Publication Review Board after the White House intervened in the normal prepublication review process and demanded substantial deletions. Agency officials told us that they had concluded on their own that the original draft included no classified material, but that they had to bow to the White House. (Flynt Leverett, former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and Hillary Mann, former Foreign Service officer, participated in the United States discussions with Iran from 2001 to 2003.)
OK. I'm going to respond to some of the rants in the blog comments. Yes, I read them, and you know who you are. There are also some very insightful comments each week on our blog, but those are not the ones I'm talking about today. As I said, you know who you are.
Every time I write about Iraq some of you go crazy. Here are your arguments:
1. Wallis just hates Bush and that's what's really behind all this anti-war stuff.
Not true. I actually know Bush, have met with him several times, and found him quite personable. He even invited me and about 20 other religious leaders down to Austin before he came to Washington to discuss poverty and his idea for a faith-based initiative. At the time I was attacked by my left-flank and Democratic friends for meeting with him and, even worse, for being open to his new faith-based office in the White House (a friend of mine, John Dilulio, was the first director of the program). The best comment I got from the left was, "This thing might really work and we wouldn't want to see that." Such wonderful bipartisanship. I told the new President that partnerships between faith-based organizations and government can be a good thing (I still believe that) but he needed to adequately fund the program, not politicize the effort and, most importantly, lead with a well-thought out and well-funded domestic plan to reduce poverty. "Surprise the nation," I told him, "Be a Republican who actually gets something done on poverty." But he didn't do that. As David Kuo's new book pointed out and all of us who worked with the effort had seen—the Republicans shamelessly politicized the faith-based initiative, grossly under funded it, slashed and burned many effective programs for low-income families, and cut taxes on the richest Americans. I was very disappointed and criticized the failure of the program after a while, but even the White House told me they were always very appreciative of the fact that I never demonized Bush (I never hated him like Michael Moore seemed to), but just disagreed with him. Bush and I actually seemed to get along, and had several personal conversations around the edges of the meetings I attended. After one, he marched down from the podium, walked right up to me, grabbed my cheeks, and said, "Jim, How ya doin, how ya doin!?" I tell the story in God's Politics about what I said after he let go of my cheeks. The press actually began asking me if Bush had a nickname for me yet, which he gave to people he liked.
But I've been kicked out of the last two White Houses—when, after being invited in to talk for the first couple of years, I started to criticize some of the administration's policies. They both showed me the door, and there were no more invitations. With Bush, yes, it was Iraq.
So, I don't hate Bush, but I do hate this war. I am very angry about this horrible, unnecessary, and stupid conflict that an evangelical mega-church pastor (and a friend of mine), calls "a senseless slaughter." Our kids are being killed and maimed unnecessarily, Iraqis are dying in untold numbers, and the region and the world are much less safe because of this war.
And don't start in about Saddam. I was against him when Washington treated him like a pal—guess who was the liason to the Butcher of Baghdad: Donald Rumsfeld. We helped Saddam in his war with Iran and even helped him target his use of WMD's against Iranians (boy, do they not want that to get out). You remember the old American foreign policy adage, "He's an
S.O.B., but he's our S.OB."
I would have supported the disarming of Saddam of whatever weapons of mass destruction he had and removing him from power by exerting both internal and external pressure in a focused campaign, but not by bombing the children of Baghdad. Church leaders even put forward a "Six-Point Plan" aimed to accomplish those two goals that got a lot of traction just before the war started. The inspections were working! Saddam could have been isolated and perhaps even deposed in time. Instead, we went to war, found no WMD's, showed massive incompetence combined with amazing arrogance (always a great mix), and threw the nation into chaos. Good job neocons! Here's the facts: half of the country was against the war before it began and the vast majority of the rest of the world's people were too—including a huge majority of British citizens (who watched in bewilderment while an otherwise pretty good prime minister ruined his career by going to war alongside Bush) and a vast majority of church bodies, church leaders, and church people—including evangelicals world-wide. I want to tell you that most people in the State Department were against it. They even brought me in to discuss the Six Point Plan just two weeks before the war, but nobody down the street was listening to them either.
2. Wallis is just against the war (because he hates Bush) but has no plan to get out.
I have been saying, over and over again, that this war was WRONG—from the very start. And I will continue to say that, because until we admit the war was just wrong, we will never find a way out. We are not winning, nor are we going to win in Iraq. We have already lost. We just made a very bad situation much worse, and have to just stop doing it some more. When a war is so wrong and so bad, there are not often any good solutions to be found. Let's just say it—there are no longer and good solutions to the war in Iraq. There is only responsible withdrawal. Of course, it is a civil war, with factions that are far less committed to a unified nation than to their own tribe (read Tom Friedman), and no number of American troops can solve a political disaster with mostly military means. I did say "responsible withdrawal" so don't give me any "cut and run" stuff—nobody is saying that. Unless the Iraqis change their behavior and unless far more international involvement is achieved, everything will just get worse and worse. I have suggested concrete things the U.S. should do to make more international engagement with establishing security and long-term stability in Iraq more possible:
1. The U.S. must announce it will retain no permanent military based in Iraq. 2. The U.S must give up any proprietary claim on Iraqi oil. 3. The U.S. must fund the reconstruction that our great damage makes us responsible for in Iraq, without control of the contracts and contractors.
The Baker/Hamilton report supports much of that, but the Bush Administration doesn't. You want concrete? There it is. And let me just offer a little hint of something in the works—perhaps another six-point plan to get the U.S. out of Iraq, offered by the religious community. Stay tuned.
So there you have it. I don't hate Bush but really hate this war. I'm not just against it, but have offered concrete ways to responsibly end this disaster—and more is on the way. So, with some of you, here is the real issue: When you talk about "victory" or "winning" in Iraq, or that your endless neocon wars against "Islamo-facism" are the best way to make my kids more safe … I JUST COMPLETELY DISAGREE WITH YOU.
The latest news on Iraq, Iran, fascinating holiday facts, top stories from 2006, minimum wage, Palestine, Africa, Darfur, North Korea, Tom Delay blogs, Taxes, Muslims in Congress, church and sexuality, and select commentaries.
Fascinating facts.Holiday Facts The holiday season is a time for gathering and celebrating with friends and family, gift-giving and general cheer and rejoicing. To commemorate this time of year, the U.S. Census Bureau presents the following holiday-related facts and figures from its data collection.
Top stories.Top stories of 2006 Here are 2006's top 10 stories as chosen by US editors and news directors in the Associated Press's annual vote:
Minimum wage.Bush Supports Democrats' Minimum Wage Hike Plan President Bush for the first time endorsed a specific plan for raising the federal minimum wage, as he embraced Democratic calls to boost it by $2.10, to $7.25 an hour, over two years. Minimum-wage battle may be brewing During his news conference, President Bush said he was optimistic about working on a range of issues with the Democrats who will lead Congress in January. He said he supported a $2.10 increase in the federal minimum wage, which is $5.15 an hour a proposal that is a top priority for Democrats. But Bush said he wanted to pair the increase with a cut in taxes and regulations to make it less costly for small businesses. Bush prepares to make deals with Democrats President Bush yesterday said his top priorities for working together with Democrats in Congress will be raising the minimum wage, renewing the No Child Left Behind education act, boosting energy alternatives to oil and completing an overhaul of the immigration system.
Iraq.Bush Asserts That Victory in Iraq Is Still Achievable - President Bush warned Americans that the war in Iraq would require difficult choices and additional sacrifices in the coming year, but he firmly rejected the notion that the war could not be won. President Confronts Dissent on Troop Levels The debate over sending more U.S. troops to Iraq intensified as President Bush signaled that he will listen but not necessarily defer to balky military officers, while Gen. John P. Abizaid, his top Middle East commander and a leading skeptic of a so-called surge, announced his retirement. Report: Pentagon's war bill grows The Pentagon wants the White House to seek an additional $99.7 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to information provided to The Associated Press. Record number of bodies turns up in Baghdad The bodies of 76 unidentified people were recovered Wednesday in Baghdad, police said, the highest 24-hour toll for the anonymous slayings that have become a grim part of life in the capital.
Palestine,'We are facing the hardest Christmas yet' In Bethlehem itself, Victor Batarseh, the mayor, looks from his office into the doorway of the Church of the Nativity. He blames the checkpoints and closures for the economic crisis that has shaken his town. Unemployment is 65%, large parts of the town's farmland have been taken up by the West Bank barrier, and a financial boycott on the Palestinian Authority has meant no salaries have been paid at the municipality for four months. "This year is I think the hardest Christmas we are facing," he said. "The wall is turning this city into a big prison for its citizens. There is confiscation of land, closure of the main entrances to the city. All this has a physical and a psychological effect. We can only hope for change."
Iran.U.S. and Britain to Add Ships to Persian Gulf in Signal to IranThe United States and Britain will begin moving additional warships and strike aircraft into the Persian Gulf region in a display of military resolve toward Iran that will come as the United Nations continues to debate possible sanctions against the country,
Africa.Pentagon plans new command to cover Africa President Bush is expected to create a new military command for Africa, for the first time establishing an independent operations headquarters that will focus on anti terrorist operations and humanitarian aid, according to administration officials.
Darfur. UN chief calls for peacekeepers in Chad as Darfur violence spreadsAn international force is needed for Chad because the violence that has spread across the Sudanese border is jeopardising the "tenuous humanitarian lifeline" to tens of thousands of people, according to the head of the UN refugee agency. U.S. gives deadline over Darfur The United States has given Sudan until the end of the year to accept a three-stage U.N. proposal for an international peacekeeping force in Darfur before resorting to a harsher "Plan B," a senior U.S. envoy said yesterday.
North Korea.N. Korea: Lift financial restraints North Korea has refused to scrap its demand that the U.S. lift financial restrictions against the communist country, but talks resumed Thursday to resolve the broader issue of persuading the North to renounce its nuclear efforts. US warns North Korea not to divert nuclear talks The US has urged North Korea to focus more on dismantling its nuclear weapons rather than on the financial sanctions imposed upon it.
Tom Delay blogs.The Hammer Strikes a Comeback BlowSix months after Mr. DeLay resigned from the House in the wake of a lobbying scandal, one month after the nations voters seemed to dismantle what was left of his political machine on Capitol Hill, he has begun his comeback. Part of it can be found in the blogosphere.
Muslim in Congress.Va. Lawmaker's Remarks on Muslims Criticized Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. (R-Va.) is coming under sharp criticism for lashing out against the decision by Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who will become the first Muslim member of Congress next month, to use the Koran during a swearing-in ceremony. In a recent letter to constituents, Goode, a five-term congressman from Rocky Mount, wrote that he does "not subscribe to using the Koran in any way" and added: "The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration, there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran."
Church and sexuality.Christian leaders seek to help pastors battle desires Recent gay-sex scandals involving evangelical pastors have prompted much soul-searching among conservative Christian leaders. No one has proposed rethinking the theology that homosexuality is a sin. Instead, there's a growing consensus that the church must do a better job of helping pastors resist all immoral desires, such as a lust for pornography, an addiction to drugs or a lifelong same-sex attraction.
Commentary.The Devoted Student At first glance, the flourishing of religion on campuses seems to reverse trends long criticized by conservatives under the rubric of political correctness. But, in truth, something else is occurring. Once again, right and left have become mirror images of each other; religious correctness is simply the latest version of political correctness. Indeed, it seems the more religious students become, the less willing they are to engage in critical reflection about faith. (By Mark C. Taylor, religion and humanities professor at Williams College)
Where would we be today if certain women, men, young people, and also children had not arisen at moments when the human family seemed destined for the worst? They did not say: "Let things take their course!" Beyond the confrontations between persons, peoples, and spiritual families, they prepared a way of trusting. Their lives bear witness to the fact that human beings have not been created for hopelessness.
- Brother Roger of Taize
from "Peace of Heart in All Things: Meditations for Each Day of the Year."
We've all heard the tired sermon cliches about the real meaning of Christmas being overshadowed by the materialism and commercialism of holiday shopping. Blah Blah Blah. Well, here's another layer of crass holiday exploitation for you: The very people claiming to be putting the "Christ" back in "Christmas" are cashing in big time on buttons, magnets, and bumper stickers. Take a deep breath, and then exhale a long exasperated sigh with me as you read this RNS report on Christianity Today's Web site:
The Mississippi-based American Family Association says it has sold more than 500,000 buttons and 125,000 bumper stickers bearing the slogan "Merry Christmas: It's Worth Saying."
The Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal aid group that boasts a network of some 900 lawyers standing ready to "defend Christmas," says it has moved about 20,000 "Christmas packs." The packs, available for a suggested $29 donation, include a three-page legal memo and two lapel pins.
And Liberty Counsel, a conservative law firm affiliated with the Rev. Jerry Falwell, says it has sold 12,500 legal memos on celebrating Christmas and 8,000 of its own buttons and bumper stickers.
...
AFA raised the flag in the "Christmas wars" in August by criticizing "holiday" catalogues. Benefiting from the early start, the association sold more than 500,000 buttons and 100,000 magnets encouraging supporters to "be an unspoken witness for Christ's birthday." The "Merry CHRISTmas" magnets were available for a $3 suggested donation; the buttons were $7 for a pack of 10. Bulk rates also were offered.
August?! It seems like the pre-emptive defensive attack against the War on Christmas just gets earlier each year. And what says "Happy Birthday Jesus" like in-your-face magnets and buttons? But wait - there's more:
The project was so successful, [Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association] said, he plans to make Easter buttons this year. ...
"I'm telling you, if you put these in the stores they could sell a ton of them," he said. "But I don't want them to do that because they'll take it away from us."
Do you think by "they'll take it away from us" he means the sacred meaning of the Christian holidays, or the cash? I'm pretty sure he means the cash.
Now, please pray with me: Dear Baby Jesus, please forgive your children for finding new and creative ways to utterly profane the meaning of your incarnation. And please, remind us all of how when you grew up you fashioned a whip of cords and drove from the temple all who tried to cash in on the sacred, saying, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!"
As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Indeed we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
Two months ago, we helped convene a group of 24 evangelical Christian leaders to launch an Evangelicals for Darfur campaign. Full-page ads ran in several national and many local newspapers around the country, along with radio ads. Articles about the campaign appeared in 167 publications. We urged President Bush to use his "personal leadership in supporting the deployment of a strong U.N. peacekeeping force and multilateral economic sanctions." That campaign generated nearly six million "impressions," and the coverage of it nearly 11 million. Our message was heard.
But while the president has consistently said the right things about Darfur, there has yet to be strong enough action. The situation in Darfur continues to get worse. News reports this morning tell of a genocide without borders as the killing is now also taking place in neighboring Chad, where 90,000 people have fled their homes to find safe shelter. Yesterday, the United Nations evacuated 71 aid workers from the largest refugee camp in Darfur after their compound was attacked. As more and more people die or are made refugees, the government of Sudan continues to block the deployment of a strong U.N. peacekeeping force authorized by the Security Council months ago to expand the existing African Union force.
In his last official news conference, outgoing U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that more could be done in Darfur: "There are measures short of force that could be used: political pressure, economic sanctions, isolation, and of course in the last resort, there is the use of force." The Bush administration must quickly move from words to real actions. Maximum political and diplomatic pressure should be used at all possible points to force Sudan to accept additional peacekeepers. Key Security Council members, especially Russia and China, are obstructing U.N. action; the U.S. needs to increase its efforts to gain their cooperation. And additional actions should be taken against Sudan, including targeted sanctions against top government officials while enforcing existing sanctions. During the recent visit of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Washington, he and the president discussed measures that included a no-fly zone over Darfur and a possible naval blockade.
As we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, let us keep in our hearts, our prayers, and our actions the people of Darfur, Iraq, and everywhere in this troubled world where there is no peace. Their lives may depend on us.
Beliefnet asked God's Politics to dialogue with a recent post by one of their Virtual Talmud bloggers, Rabbi Eliyahu Stern, which compared Jimmy Carter with Orthodox Jews who attended Iran's Holocaust deniers summit:
While Carter's new book is not half as despicable as these Jews' recent trip to Tehran, where they joined hands with Iranian President Ahmadinejad at his Holocaust denial conference, it is pathetic if for no reason other than its title, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
Israeli Jewish peace activist Jeff Halper responds:
Jimmy Carter's use of the term "apartheid" to describe what is developing in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel these last 40 years is both accurate and useful. Accurate because apartheid is emerging in Israel/Palestine.
What is apartheid? It is the forced separation of populations in which one people establishes a regime of permanent and structured domination over another (whether on racial lines as in South Africa or on national/religious lines as imposed by Israel). This is exactly what Israel is doing, from annexing its huge settlement blocs to imprisoning the Palestinians behind 26' concrete walls and electrified fences. I don't even see what the "controversy" is about. Just go to the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem and open your eyes.
Carter's use of the term is useful because it names the thing: apartheid is the only term that gets at the systemic qualities of the regime of domination Israel is establishing. Its not just a policy or a response to terrorism or occupation - it is a full-blown, thought-out, intentional system of control and domination. Indeed, Israel itself calls its policy hafrada, separation, apartheid.
Let's thank Carter for giving us a handle on this thing. Let's stop arguing about the semantics and get on with the job of stopping it. Jews as the new Afrikaners. What a chilling thought!
To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true.
- Bayard Rustin
Activist for peace and leader of the civil rights movement in America, Rustin is often remembered as the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. For more info: www.rustin.org.
With polls demonstrating the mutual enmity between the U.S. and the Muslim populations, perhaps administration pragmatists got religion (the good news kind) and decided that Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount suggestion to "do good to those who hate you" (Luke 6:27) suddenly seemed applicable to the current dispensation. Aid given to civilians in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, could turn potential enemies in the war on terror into friends. Or at least swing them to neutral.
In global public-opinion surveys, Terror Free Tomorrow, the nonprofit organization I lead, found that the US military's humanitarian missions to the broader Muslim world have directly caused a dramatic drop in popular support of terrorism and extremism.
Now I'll be the first to admit that relying on the military to deliver humanitarian aid is a mission laden with ethical and practical dilemmas - why not let the pros in the humanitarian NGOs handle it? But I'll just repeat what I said in '05:
Images of militaries engaging in rescue work may feel contrived, but they still offer a dim vision of what biblical prophets (and nonviolent activists) have long envisioned: The beating of swords into ploughshares, of spears into pruning hooks (Isaiah 2:4). It offers us a glimpse of what the best technology, supported by massive budgets, could do if put to its redeemed purpose: saving instead of destroying life.
Ryan Beiler is the Web Editor for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us - and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?
Interview with Pres. Bush.Bush Sees 'Opportunities' on Social Security, Immigration - "President Bush said yesterday that he intends to work with the new Democratic majority in Congress on a broad range of domestic issues, declaring that despite the impending power shift there are "some wonderful opportunities" to address concerns that have long festered without a political solution." 25 Minutes in the Oval Office: President Bush on Iraq, Elections and Immigration-"This 25-minute interview was conducted yesterday in the Oval Office by Washington Post staff writers Peter Baker, Michael A. Fletcher and Michael Abramowitz."
Iraq.U.S. Not Winning War in Iraq, Bush Says for 1st Time - "President Bush acknowledged for the first time that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq." President Wants to Increase Size of Armed Forces- "Bush said that the United States should expand the size of its armed forces, acknowledging that the military had been strained by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and would need to grow to cope with what he suggested would be a long battle against Islamic extremism." Repeat duty tied to acute stress - "American soldiers who serve repeated tours of duty in Iraq are more likely to suffer from acute stress, according to a mental health survey released Tuesday by the Army. Overall, 13.6% of soldiers serving in Iraq reported suffering from acute stress in late 2005,"
Top general in Mideast to retire- "Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, has submitted plans to retire and will leave his post in March, a step likely to make way for a change in military strategy at a time the Bush administration is seeking a new plan for Iraq." General Opposes Adding to U.S. Forces in Iraq, Emphasizing International Solutions for Region- "General Abizaid, who is completing the final months of a highly decorated military career, acknowledges that additional American forces, favored by some of President Bush's top advisers, might provide a short-term boost in security. But he argues that foreign troops are a toxin bound to be rejected by Iraqis, and that expanding the number of American troops merely puts off the day when Iraqis are forced to take responsibility for their own secu
rity."
New Iraq Strategy Emerges: First Security, Then Politics- "The debate over whether to increase the American military presence in Baghdad is much more than a dispute over troop levels. It reflects a more fundamental dispute over the American mission."
Iran.Blair blames Iran for Middle East conflicts - "Tony Blair today labelled Iran as the main obstacle to hopes for peace in the Middle East. Speaking in Dubai at the end of his five-day tour of the region, the prime minister called on moderate Muslim states to unite in combating Islamic extremists, such as the hardline regime of the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
Darfur.Darfur: Genocide without borders - 'this man-made inferno now sweeping across the plains is taking place across the Sudanese border in Chad. The pattern is identical to events in Darfur, where the well-armed Arab raiders allied to the Sudanese government set villages ablaze, rape the women, and leave a trail of dead black Africans in their wake. Just as in Darfur, the Sudanese government is being accused of being behind the violence in Chad, an accusation which is rejected by Khartoum." 71 UN aid workers removed after attack - "The United Nations evacuated 71 aid workers from the largest refugee camp in Darfur on Tuesday after gunmen looted their compounds, leaving about 130,000 refugees virtually without humanitarian help."
Minimum wage.Raising the Floor on Pay - "On the verge of controlling Congress, the Democrats are making a much-delayed increase in the minimum wage their signature attempt to lift incomes and quiet widespread economic anxiety. But the party's modest proposal does not catch up with what the states have already done to raise the wages of tens of millions of workers."
Hunger.Study Warns of Hunger Among Hispanics - "Nearly one in five Hispanics lacks sufficient access to nutritious food and one in 20 regularly goes hungry, posing serious health and economic risks to the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group, according to a new study."
Homelessness.Las Vegas likes boom, homeless feel broom - "This is a boom town, but it also is scattered with signs of bust -- namely, homeless people. And the city is taking a hard line against them."
Commentary.
Humanitarian aid: winning the terror war - (Kenneth Ballen, Christian Science Monitor) - " Amid the uncertainty about the best strategy in Iraq and how to answer the growing threat of terrorism and extremism in the world, there is on
e American policy of the past two years that has proven successful time and again: humanitarian missions by the US military. This policy is pro-military, pro-American, pro-humanitarian, and antiterrorist. Most important, it is actually curbing anti-American feelings in Muslim countries."
Reiterating the keys to peace (Jimmy Carter, Boston Globe) - "My book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" was published last month, expressing my assessment of circumstances in the occupied territories and prescribing a course of action that offers a path to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors."
How evangelicals can aid immigrants (William McKenzie, Dallas Morning News) - "Evangelicals are in a great place to work on this challenge, since many are politically conservative. They can show their fellow conservatives - the loudest voices opposing guest workers and legalization - how immigration doesn't have to be such a threat. Evangelicals have a reason to reach out, too. The Bible teaches Christians to comfort strangers in a strange land."
Colin Powell says we are "losing" the "civil war" in Iraq. In a Sunday morning interview with Bob Schieffer on CBS's Face The Nation, the former General, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and George Bush's first Secretary of State broke his silence and put himself at odds with his ex-boss. I watched it. Powell said, "I agree with the assessment of Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton," referring to the co-chairs of the Iraq Study Group, that the situation in Iraq is "grave and deteriorating, and we're not winning, we are losing. We haven't lost. And this is the time, now, to start to put in place the kinds of strategies that will turn this situation around."
And he clearly opposed the current White House idea of a "surge" in troops to try and secure Baghdad. The former General said that before such a decision, he would ask tough questions, "I'd want to have a clear understanding of what it is they're going for, how long they're going for. And let's be clear about something else. . . . There really are no additional troops. All we would be doing is keeping some of the troops who were there, there longer and escalating or accelerating the arrival of other troops." That means the troops already there would stay longer, and troops already going to come would come sooner. And all that means more tours of duty for already overextended soldiers, more stress for families left behind and, of course, more casualties. The President says he doesn't want to rush a decision, but what more does he need to know? Every day we just keep doing what we are doing, more Americans will die and more Iraqis will die. One may or may not agree with every recommendation of the Baker/Hamilton Report, but at least the bi-partisan report told the truth about the situation in Iraq that is rapidly spinning out of control. And telling the truth is what the Bush Administration has never done since the beginning in Iraq. This is a war based on lies, made worse by incompetence, and is pursued in sheer arrogance.
When Dick Cheney called Donald Rumsfeld "the finest defense secretary this nation has ever had" at his Pentagon farewell ceremony, he epitomized this administration's absolute defiance of reality about the war in Iraq. This morning, a report on NPR said that while just 2 months ago, President Bush declared we were winning in Iraq, the White House has now decided to no longer answer that question.
When all the generals, diplomats, and church leaders questioned this war or the way it was being conducted, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld decided not to listen. When Secretary of State Colin Powell raised questions about the wisdom of going to war in Iraq, they didn't even listen to him. And they are unlikely to listen now. Each day that goes by, it looks like the President isn't going to pay much heed to the Iraq Study Group's serious questions either. When it comes to Iraq, George Bush isn't listening. And people will continue to die—because he just can't hear. Just this morning, the Washington Post wrote that the quarterly Pentagon report on the war said violence in Iraq reached its highest level on record this fall, with a high of 959 attacks per week.
Asked about the judgment of history, Powell said, "It's history that will judge the performance of all of us in this troubling time ... and it is a history that I think will ultimately be written as a result of what happens in Iraq." And then there is the judgment of God.
Throughout his life Jesus' response to women was one of compassion and inclusion, a rare posture in his day. He was not afraid to be seen in public with the most marginalized 'sinners' - prostitutes, adulteresses, and a woman who had been 'unclean' for many years with a flow of blood. He revealed himself as the Messiah to the Samaritan woman at the well, invited Mary of Bethany to sit with him and learn, welcomed Mary Magdalene into his circle of friends, and received an anointing of rich ointment before his death, rebuking his disciples for criticizing the woman who lavished such attention on him.
Iraq.Pentagon Cites Success Of Anti-U.S. Forces in Iraq - "The Pentagon said yesterday that violence in Iraq soared this fall to its highest level on record and acknowledged that anti-U.S. fighters have achieved a "strategic success" by unleashing a spiral of sectarian killings by Sunni and Shiite death squads that threatens Iraq's political institutions." Attacks in Iraq at Record High, Pentagon Says- "A Pentagon assessment of security conditions in Iraq concluded that attacks against American and Iraqi targets had surged this summer and autumn to their highest level, and called violence by Shiite militants the most significant threat in Baghdad." Sadr army is called top threat in Iraq - "Armed militiamen affiliated with radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr pose the gravest danger to the security and stability of Iraq, surpassing Sunni Arab insurgents and Al Qaeda terrorists."
White House, Joint Chiefs At Odds on Adding Troops - "The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate." Gates warns of `calamity' if U.S. fails in Iraq - "Robert Gates assumed the helm at the Pentagon on Monday, warning in his first public remarks as defense secretary that failure in Iraq would be a "calamity" that would haunt the United States for years."
Iran.Elections deal blow to Iran's president - "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suffered an embarrassing blow in local council races, according to partial election results Monday, in voting viewed as a sign of public discontent with his hard-line stance."
Palestine.Hamas-Fatah clashes flare after truce - "New clashes broke out late Monday between the main Palestinian political groups, Fatah and Hamas, despite a tentative cease-fire that brought less than a day of relative calm to the Gaza Strip."
India.Bush signs India nuclear deal - "With goals of
ending India's nuclear "isolation" and easing world oil supplies, President Bush signed legislation Monday that will enable American companies to assist in the expansion of Indian civilian nuclear power generation." Bush Approves Deal With India for Nuclear Sales- "In return for access to American technology, India must now open its nuclear program to international inspection."
Health insurance.Health care debate to heat up in 2007 - "Many observers, such as Drew Altman of the Kaiser Family Foundation, expect Congress to focus on Medicare, prescription drug costs and safety, as well as efforts to cover the uninsured. All debate will play out against the background of the 2008 presidential election, with both parties working to lay claim to what they expect will be popular issues with voters."
Poverty.Bloomberg Plans New Office to Help New York's Poor- "The city is planning to spend an extra $150 million a year in public and private money on the core priority of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's second term: combating poverty that is hidden beneath New York's vast wealth. The office would operate in part like a philanthropic foundation and in part like a venture capital company."
Crime.Violent Crime Is Up For 2nd Straight Year - "A surge in violent crime that began last year accelerated in the first half of 2006, the FBI reported yesterday, providing the clearest signal yet that the historic drop in the U.S. crime rate has ended and is being reversed."
EditorialSubcontinental missiles (Los Angeles Times) - "A U.S. nuclear deal with India will complicate Washington's strategy elsewhere - such as North Korea. PRESIDENT BUSH signed legislation Monday to provide nuclear technology to India, a deal that critics say could do more harm than good to U.S. interests. They're wrong. It already is complicating U.S. strategy in Asia and elsewhere."
Op-Ed.'The Real America,' Redefined (E.J. Dionne, Washington Post) - "2006 is looking more and more like one of history's hinge years, a moment when old ideas are cast aside, new leaders emerge and old leaders decide to speak in new ways. The changes in politics and culture are visible in the many sudden and outright reversals of the conventional wisdom."
[M] any religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are people of "faith"! How strange that the very word "faith" has come to mean its exact opposite.
People who have really met the Holy are always humble. It's the people who don't know who usually pretend that they do. People who've had any genuine spiritual experience always know they don't know. They are utterly humbled before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at eternity and depth, and a Love, which is incomprehensible to the mind. It is a litmus test for authentic God experience, and is -- quite sadly -- absent from much of our religious conversation today.
Episcopal church.Episcopal Parishes in Virginia Vote to Secede-"Two large and influential Episcopal parishes in Virginia voted overwhelmingly to leave the Episcopal Church and to affiliate with the Anglican archbishop of Nigeria," 7 Va. Episcopal Parishes Vote to Sever Ties - "At least seven Virginia Episcopal parishes, opposed to the consecration of a gay bishop and the blessing of same-sex unions, have voted overwhelmingly to break from the U.S. church in a dramatic demonstration of widening rifts within the denomination." 8 Virginia flocks break away - "Eight Northern Virginia churches announced they will leave the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia after their congregations voted overwhelmingly to depart because of liberal trends in the 2.2-million-member Episcopal Church."
Iraq.Powell Says U.S. Losing in Iraq, Calls for Drawdown by Mid-2007 - "Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell said yesterday that the United States is losing what he described as a "civil war" in Iraq and that he is not persuaded that an increase in U.S. troops there would reverse the situation." Powell Doubts Need to Raise Troop Levels -"Powell said that the Army was "about broken" and that he saw nothing to justify an increase in troops in Iraq. The former secretary of state said the Army was "about broken" and that he saw nothing to justify an increase in troops in Iraq." US troop increase unwise, Powell says - "Powell … cast doubt yesterday on the feasibility of a plan to send tens of thousands more US troops to Iraq, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy and other Democrats vowed to oppose the idea. … Senator Harry Reid, who will become majority leader next month, said yesterday that he would support a surge in troops, as long as it were a temporary measure designed to bring US forces home by early 2008." Saudis report Shi'ite 'state' inside of Iraq - "Iran has effectively created a Shi'ite "state within a state" in neighboring Iraq, defying both Iraqi Sunnis and neighboring Sunni nations, according to a Saudi security report."
Gaza.Fighting worsens in Gaza; 3 killed - "Fighting escalated between Hamas and Fatah as the foreign minister's convoy and the president's residence came under f
ire in Gaza City a day after President Mahmoud Abbas announced that he would call early elections to try to end a political stalemate." After Deadly Clashes in Gaza, Leaders Appeal for Calm-"The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the acting speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Ahmed Baher of Hamas, appealed separately to militants of all stripes to lay down their weapons after a day of rallies and violent clashes in the Gaza Strip."
Somalia.U.S. Sees Growing Threats In Somalia - "Six months ago, the Bush administration launched a new policy in war-torn Somalia, putting the State Department in charge after secret CIA efforts failed to prevent Islamic fundamentalists from seizing power in Mogadishu. It hoped that diplomacy would draw the Islamists into partnership with more palatable, U.S.-backed Somali leaders."
Health insurance.Mass. health plan drawing interest as model for US Universal care issue reemerges - "Universal healthcare, an issue the White House and Congress have largely abandoned since the early 1990s, has reemerged as an issue on Capitol Hill and around the country, with lawmakers looking to Massachusetts' landmark plan as a political and structural model for the nation's 46 million uninsured."
Congress.Congress's Inaction Threatens Funding - "The Republican-controlled Congress's decision to adjourn a week ago before completing many of the spending bills that finance the federal government will reverberate in ways large and small,"
Faith.A new agenda for US Evangelicals - "Although embryonic, a remarkable trend is emerging among Evangelicals today: the embrace of a social agenda that includes not only abortion and marriage, but poverty, AIDS, the environment, and human rights." A witness to what faith can be - "These days, religion often gets a bad rap. It's an arrogant face of war, division and blame. But that's certainly not the only face of faith. For the beauty of what it can be, see what is happening Friday nights in Portland, Ore. Car- and vanloads of Christian volunteers swoop in with sleeping bags and coats to protect their dispossessed friends against the raw, wet weather that has moved in. They dispense hot meals and set up stations for shaves and haircuts. While a few pull out guitars and strike up their Jesus-themed songs, a small number of the volunteers commit one of the more audacious acts of compassion and humility I have ever witnessed: They wash the homeless people's feet."
Politics. Indiana Democrat Bayh Won't Seek Nomination - "Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) will not run for president in 2008, a stunning reversal that comes just 13 days after he opened an exploratory committee to consider the race. … Even as Bayh was announcing that he was getting out of the race, former vice presidential nominee John Edwards was preparing for a second bid for the White House." Romney's journey to the right Social issue stands hardened since '02 - "with less than three weeks left in office, the governor will leave Beacon Hill a far more socially conservative voice than when he arrived in 2002, and when he ran for Senate in 1994. On stem cell research, abortion, emergency contraception, abstinence education, and gay rights, Romney's shifts to more conservative positions have estranged him from a state that elected him as a moderate." A clear winner in '08: Iowa - "But it's clear that Iowa - which will again cast the first votes of 2008 - has lost none of its import. Indeed, it may be more important than ever."
Gingrich, on a Mission, Has No Time to Campaign for '08-"Mr. Gingrich's mission, as he sees it, is to save American civilization from the gravest crisis it has confronted since the Civil War. He has also set as a goal what he calls the restoration of God to a central place in American government and culture."
Nuclear weapons.Panel Seeks Consensus On U.S. Nuclear Arsenal - "A prestigious Defense Department advisory panel has determined there is no national agreement on what the nation needs in the way of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War period. In a recently released declassified version of a report on U.S. nuclear capabilities completed earlier this year, the Defense Science Board reported that its task force on the subject concluded "there is a need for a national consensus on the nature and role of nuclear weapons, as well as a new approach to sustaining a reliable, safe, secure and credible nuclear stockpile."
Editorial.Kofi Annan's tough love (Los Angeles Times) - "Conservatives aren't exactly sending warm retirement wishes to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who leaves office at the end of the month. But his focus on human rights and reform has left the United Nations a stronger institution."
Op-Ed.Reject the war James Carroll, Boston Globe) - "Bush must not be allowed to further the chaos. Having led the world into this moral wilderness, America has a grave responsibility to lead the way out. We have to cease killing other people's children, which is the way to stop them from killing ours. Stop the war by stopping."
But now you must get rid of all such things - anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!
Jim Wallis joins Anderson Cooper along with Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Rev. Dwight Hopkins, American Baptist minister and professor at University of Chicago Divinity School, as part of a focus on "What Is a Christian: Where Do You Fit?"
I know this is a "God's Politics" blog, and I know that this won't sound very political, but in the end, it sort of is, especially ten days before Christmas.
Earlier this week, I was speaking to a group of Methodist ministers and we sang the Christmas carol "Joy to the World." Two moments in the song took my breath away.
The first came when I sang "let every heart prepare him room." If the carol is right, the way earth receives God's "prince of peace" is through individual hearts like ours. By making space, by opening our hearts to Christ, by letting our lives be the stable and manger into which good news quietly comes, by rendering the vacuum and vacancy within us vulnerable to the incoming of the Spirit ... we become, like Mary, "theotokos" - God-bearers.
That might sound kind of mystical, not political, and I guess it is. It is something that I believe we all can actually experience: the possibility of preparing room in our hearts so that Christ truly comes.
That brings me to the second transcendent moment in the carol for me this week: "No more let sin and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found."
The coming of a good king in the ancient world meant a lot, and although kingly language may sound archaic today, I think we can recapture its meaning when we think of a thorny land, polluted by sin and cursed by sorrow, becoming verdant and fertile and healthy again - blessedness flowing over the land like a warm breeze.
And of course, this is where the personal and political meet. Thinking about justice, talking about peace, debating public policy, and working for social change are important ... but not as a substitute for the very personal choice to "prepare him room" in our hearts, so that (as the saying goes) we can be the change we want to see in the world.
The way "earth receives her king" (and the blessings he brings) is not by bombs and guns and wiretaps and coups; not by aggressive blog postings or passionate media pronouncements by pundits. Rather, the king (and the kingdom) come first to the quiet hearts of humble people who "prepare him room," and the joy flows to the world through them.
That's the language of spiritual formation, no doubt. But how can there be political transformation in the external world of thorns, sins, and sorrow if our inner lives don't become the manger into which hope, healing, empowerment, love, and joy are born?
What happens in the political realm - in the public world where people treat one another justly or unjustly, peacefully or violently, as neighbors or as enemies - can never be separated from what happens in the personal realm. And the reverse is true, too.
That's the source of the politics of joy.
Brian McLaren is chair of the board of Sojourners/Call to Renewal. A former pastor, he is now an author and speaker. Rumor has it that his latest book, The Secret Message of Jesus, would make a great Christmas gift.
The latest news on the U.S. Senate, U.N. General Secretary, diplomacy, U.S. Military, Iran, Children's health insurance, politics, immigration, Darfur, death penalty, and select op-eds.
U.S. Senate.Democratic Sen. Johnson in Stable Condition After Brain Surgery - "Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) was in stable condition after emergency brain surgery, prompting optimism among family and friends and at least temporarily stanching speculation that the Democrats' narrow control of the next Senate might be in jeopardy." Ill Senator Is Called Responsive - "The attending physician of the Capitol, Adm. John F. Eisold, who examined Mr. Johnson before he was sent to the hospital, said the bleeding was caused by a rare tangling of the blood vessels in the brain." Senate looks out for its own - "Never has the Senate forced a member out of office because of a physical or mental inability to serve. That hands-off protocol could be a boon to Democrats as they ponder the possibility that Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) could be incapacitated for months or more after emergency surgery to treat bleeding in his brain."
UN General Secretary. New U.N. Leader Is Sworn in and Promises to Rebuild Trust - "Ban Ki-moon of South Korea was sworn in Thursday as the next secretary general of the United Nations, and he pledged to rebuild faith in an organization that has been tarnished by scandal and riven by disputes between rich and poor nations." Ban sworn in as U.N. secretary - "Before Ban took his oath in the vaulted General Assembly hall, representatives from 192 countries gave a thundering ovation to outgoing Secretary-General Kofi Annan, 68, who will step down after 10 years in office."
Diplomacy. Rice Rejects Overture To Iran And Syria - "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rejected a bipartisan panel's recommendation that the United States seek the help of Syria and Iran in Iraq, saying the "compensation" required by any deal might be too high. She argued that neither country should need incentives to foster stability in Iraq." White House Upset by Senator's Trip to Syria - "The White House said that a Democratic senator's meeting with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria was inappropriate and undermined democracy in the region, while three more senators, including a Republican, made plans to visit Damascus in defiance of President Bush."
U.S. Military.Military Considers Sending as
Many as 35,000 More U.S. Troops to Iraq, McCain Says- "Senator John McCain said as many as 10 more combat brigades were being considered to "bring the situation under control." Army is stretched too thin - "The Army's top general said that the mission in Iraq "will break" the Army without an expansion of the size of the active-duty force or the remobilization of the National Guard and reserves." General Says Army Will Need To Grow - "Warning that the active-duty Army "will break" under the strain of today's war-zone rotations, the nation's top Army general called for expanding the force by 7,000 or more soldiers a year and lifting Pentagon restrictions on involuntary call-ups of Army National Guard and Army Reserve." Top Commanders Appear Set to Urge Larger U.S. Military - "The increase would sustain a long-term commitment in Iraq and leave the U.S. better positioned to deal with potential adversaries."
Iran.Iran vote seen as referendum on Ahmadinejad - "Nineteen months after an upset election victory catapulted him to a controversial role on the world stage, firebrand Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is facing criticism from both the left and right, much of it from Iranians who believe he hasn't delivered on his populist economic promises."
Children's health insurance.Congress targets children's health insurance - "Members of both parties in Congress have begun to discuss ways to dramatically expand the decade-old federal health insurance program for children, a debate that could move the nation closer to universal healthcare for children."
Politics.Obama on Obama - "On the cusp of a historic decision over whether to run for the White House, Sen. Barack Obama said that he believed he would be a "viable candidate" for president who could move the nation beyond the generational politics that have defined the last 40 years."
Immigration.Immigrant-rights groups put hope in new Congress - "After several stalled legislative attempts to overhaul the country's immigration system, some immigrant-rights groups say they are hopeful the new Democratic-controlled Congress will be able to pass a comprehensive immigration reform package."
Darfur.Prosecutors move closer to Darfur trial - "A proposed war crimes tribunal for Darfur moved a step closer to reality today, after the chief prosecutor for the international criminal court (ICC) said he was ready to present evidence to judges."
Op-Eds. A War Bush Wouldn't Pay For (E.J. Dionne, Washington Post) - "Believe it or not, winning the war in Iraq was never the Bush administration's highest priority. Saving its tax cuts was more important. That was once spoken of as a moral problem. Now it's a practical barrier to a successful outcome."
The System Is the Problem (Tamar Jacoby, Manhattan Institute, Washington Post) - "At dawn on Tuesday more than a thousand Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents descended on six plants owned by Swift & Co., one of the country's largest meat processors. Some 1,300 workers were arrested, and operations at all six slaughterhouses were suspended. Seen in one light, the raids were perfectly justified. Both employer and employees were breaking the law. It's a law that's being violated on a massive scale from coast to coast, and the public is increasingly upset about it. The only catch: Swift has been trying for years to comply with our poorly conceived immigration laws, coping as best it could with an impossible situation. Like a driver who finally goes through a broken traffic light, the company and its workers aren't the problem -- the system is."
Feature.Who Americans Are and What They Do - "Americans drank more than 23 gallons of bottled water per person in 2004 - about 10 times as much as in 1980. We consumed more than twice as much high fructose corn syrup per person as in 1980 and remained the fattest inhabitants of the planet, … At the same time, Americans spent more of their lives than ever - about eight-and-a-half hours a day - watching television, using computers, listening to the radio, going to the movies or reading. This eclectic portrait of the American people is drawn from the 1,376 tables in the Census Bureau's 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States, the annual feast for number crunchers that is being served up by the federal government today."
True Christians do not know vengeance. They are the children of peace. Their hearts overflow with peace. Their mouths speak peace, and they walk in the way of peace. - Menno Simons
I spent much of the summer of 2006 visiting seven countries in Latin America with theologian Rene Padilla (integral-mission.org). Among the highlights of the trip was my time in Honduras, including a stay with Kurt Ver Beek and his beautiful family. They live among the poor in Honduras and work with the Association for a More Just Society (AJS). This is a Christian ministry that aims to promote justice for the poor - a work close to the heart of God.
I just heard the news that Dionisio Diaz, a lawyer from AJS who worked to defend the rights of poor workers, was shot to death last week. He was killed Monday morning, apparently in retaliation for his efforts to provide legal services to poor security guards whose labor rights had been violated. His colleague Carlos Hernandez, president of the AJS board, then received a death threat, telling him he would be next.
This news hits home because when I was there this summer, Carlos gave Rene and I a walking tour of the poor community in Tegucigalpa where his family and Kurt's family both live. I also visited the AJS offices and met the courageous staff, who told me that they lived with danger on a daily basis because of their work against the corruption and injustice that keep so many in poverty.
I will never forget the people I met during my trip, and the good work they are doing with and on behalf of the poor.
But good work that brings justice for some frequently exposes the injustice of others in the process, and that can bring frightening consequences. As I prepare for Christmas this season, I will be thinking about how that little baby in the manger would grow up to become a man who - like Dionisios, like Carlos and Kurt and their colleagues - would bring good news for the poor and oppressed, which comes as bad news for those hell-bent on injustice and oppression. If you would like to take some concrete action in response to this situation, you can:
1. Pray for AJS, its workers, board of directors, and their families.
2. Visit www.ajshonduras.org/dionisio. From this page you can send emails to Honduran and U.S. officials and donate to support Dionisio's family and the ongoing work of promoting labor rights for poor Hondurans.
3. Tell friends, family, and media about this case. Thanks. I know that everyone is busy, but just by taking a few minutes, you can be of practical help in the struggle against injustice in a needy part of the world, among people I consider friends. Doing so is, in a very real way, an expression of the true Christmas spirit.
Last week, I participated in a Washington Post real-time online chat about divisions in the Episcopal Church around issues of church politics, sexual identity, and biblical interpretation - a combustible combination that I typically try to avoid. But the Post offered me a chance to explain contemporary change in religious communities and I saw it as an opportunity to help people see some important shifts that are happening around us.
Many people - including most of last week's questioners - assume that the Episcopal Church is engaged in an argument between two religious parties: liberals and conservatives. I have long doubted the wisdom of two-party paradigms, believing that two-party analyses primarily serve the interest of partisanship. In the chat, I responded to one participant with the following:
I do not believe that there are only two sides in this dispute - I can identify five distinct groups.
Yes, there are two parties in tension: Old-line liberals and radicalized conservatives. This is the fight we most often read about in the media. However, you point out a third possibility, a centrist party that is trying to navigate between the two extremes. The extremes aren't the whole story.
However, there are two additional groups, and these two are far less noticed. I refer to these groups (they don't have a clear "party" identity) as "progressive pilgrims" and "emergent conservatives." These two groups tend to see "issues" like this one as secondary concerns to the practice of Christian faith and are more concerned with things like hospitality, living forgiveness, practicing reconciliation, learning to pray, feeding the hungry, caring for the environment, and maintaining the Anglican practice of comprehensiveness (being a church of the "middle way"). They may lean slightly left or slightly right on "issues," but reject partisan solutions to theological problems. Both progressive pilgrims and emergent conservatives are far more interested in unity than uniformity, and they appreciate diversity in their congregations as a sign of God's dream for humanity to live in peace.
These comments are about much more than the Episcopal Church or any single issue. They are observations about the emergence of new tendencies and groupings in American religion. These groups are not some mushy middle of conflict-avoidant people. Rather, they are new positive expressions of religious identity going beyond the old definitions of liberal and conservative.
Centrists exist as a moderating group between the old partisan divides, seeking to find healthy, creative space for the common good. The two relatively new groups, the "progressive pilgrims" and "emergent conservatives" represent post-liberal and post-conservative alternatives to the older parties. These groups are not identical, but they share some common tendencies. All three attempt to resist the radical politicization that has marked American denominations since World War II while trying to reground the church on spiritual practice, serious engagement with scripture, and generous Christian tradition. They reject old arguments, old policies, old stereotypes, and old ways of doing business.
As I said in the Post chat:
If the centrists, the progressive pilgrims, and emergent conservatives can come together and offer their distinctive spiritual gifts in the midst of this conflict, I think the Episcopal Church may be able to move forward.
If these groups forge friendships, finding fellow walkers on other paths, it would do more than change the Episcopal Church - it could change both our national
religious and political conversations.
In the last year, it has become increasingly clear that Sojourners is serving as one of the places where these three groups come together around practicing justice - and learning to appreciate and hear one another's perspectives. Opening space for new conversation changes conversation. And offering new paradigms for seeing what is happening in the world around us opens our imaginations to creative solutions and new possibilities as we seek to enact God's dream for humankind.
The latest news on the senate, malaria summit, Iraq, 2008 election, FEC fines, immigration, income gap, computer games, child abuse, Darfur, and select op-eds and editorials. Sign up to receive our daily news summary via e-mail »
Full news summary:
Senator critical.S.D. Sen. Johnson in critical condition - "Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson was in critical condition Thursday after late-night brain surgery, creating political drama about which party will control the Senate next month if he is unable to continue in office." Democratic Sen. Johnson Falls Ill - "Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) had surgery after falling ill at the Capitol, introducing a note of uncertainty over control of the Senate."
Malaria summit.Laura Bush to open malaria summit - "Laura Bush will open a White House summit on malaria today to rally global partners and ordinary Americans, including schoolchildren, to work together to eliminate the scourge, which kills about 1 million people a year, mostly in Africa."
Iraq.Bush warns he won't be rushed on plans for Iraq - "The president says a delay will allow input from his new Defense secretary. He meets with the Joint Chiefs." Joint Chiefs Advise Change In War Strategy - "The nation's top uniformed leaders are recommending that the United States change its main military mission in Iraq from combating insurgents to supporting Iraqi troops and hunting terrorists, said sources familiar with the White House's ongoing Iraq policy review." Democrats Plan to Tighten Reins on Iraq Spending- "Democrats said that they would move toward integrating the war spending into the regular federal budget."
2008 election.Voters favor McCain over Clinton in '08 - "Democrats have an overwhelmingly favorable view of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, but she would be soundly beaten if she ran for president against Republican Sen. John McCain now, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found."
FEC Fines. FEC Fines 3 '527' Groups for Use of Large Donations in '04 - "The Federal Election Commission slapped heavy fines on three independent fundraising groups it said had illegally injected tens of millions of dollars into the 2004 presidential campaign," FEC fines Swift Boat, Mo
veOn - "In 2004, Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth played a highly visible role in the presidential campaign by running ads in key states questioning the Vietnam War record of the Democratic candidate, Sen. John F. Kerry, and charging that "he cannot be trusted." Likewise, the MoveOn.org Voter Fund criticized President Bush, repeatedly referring in its ads to his "failure of leadership."
Immigration.Illegal Immigrants at Center of New Identity Theft Crackdown - "Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced a broad new plan to crack down on illegal immigrants who steal the identities of American citizens to get jobs. The strategy, he warned, would likely have economic consequences for the industries that rely heavily on illegal workers."
Income gap.Rich-Poor Income Disparity Is Cause for Alarm Among Americans, Poll Shows - "Americans overwhelmingly say the growing gap between rich and poor has become a serious national concern, a sentiment that may bolster Democrats' plans to narrow the income divide when they take control of Congress."
Somalia-Ethiopia.Regional War May Loom in Africa - "Ethiopian government says it is at war with Somalia's Islamic Courts movement; all-out conflict in Horn of Africa may be unavoidable." Somalia's Islamists and Ethiopia Gird for a War- "The inevitability of war threatens to further destabilize the troubled Horn of Africa."
Feature interview.Modern 'monastery' - "Shane Claiborne, 31, the author of the new book "The Irresistible Revolution," is a symbol of a movement toward living out one's faith radically."
Computer game.Christian groups spar over video game - "Talk about warfare. A Christmas season turf war is underway over whether a new computer game, laced with violent virtual battles and spiritual messages stressing the urgent need for salvation, is authentically Christian."
Child abuse.Gonzales concentrates outrage on child abuse - "Punishing abusers has become a particular passion with Gonzales, who is emphasizing the issue like no other attorney general before him. He has launched an energetic campaign by the Justice Department to confront sexual predators with new prosecution tactics, new programs and the promise of more money to combat the problem. Arrests and prosecutions in child exploitation cases have risen sharply since Gonzales took office nearly two years ago. Federal prosecutions jumped last year by the largest one-year margin in the past decade, from 1,244 to 1,576."
Darfur.Sudan dismisses Darfur 'threats' - "Sudan has dismissed warnings of tough action by the US and the UK if it continues to block the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force.
Foreign Minister Lam Akol told the BBC that "threats, blockades and no-fly zones... would not solve the problem" but would increase suffering in Darfur". Except for Darfur, oil-rich Sudan enjoys boom times - "New office buildings are popping up across the capital, and the country's first shopping mall is packed. Nearby, cell phone and computer stores line city streets that just a few years ago were dusty lanes."
Op-Ed.America, Iran can find common ground (Reza Aslan, Chicago Tribune) - "It is true that the regional interests of the U.S. and Iran are deeply at odds, especially with regard to such thorny issues as the fractious Lebanese government and the ceaseless cycle of violence between Israel and the Palestinians. And there is no doubt that Iran has played a significant role in nurturing violence and instability in Iraq by funneling money and weapons to Shiite militias like the ghoulish Mahdi Army. However, on at least three key concerns, the U.S. and Iran are very much in agreement."
Editorials. Is resistance to Iran futile? (Chicago Tribune) - "Over the weekend, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took to his bully pulpit yet again to bluster about his country's expanding nuclear program. He has elevated defiance of the West to an art."
China and Darfur (Washington Post) - "Newspapers have been running harrowing ads on the genocide in Darfur. They feature images of suffering coupled with appeals to President Bush to halt it. But the key to this tragedy lies not in the killing fields of western Sudan nor even in the White House. It is to be found instead in Khartoum,"
...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. There is no law against such things.
You can find Calcutta anywhere in the world. You only need two eyes to see. Everywhere in the world there are people that are not loved, people that are not wanted nor desired, people that no one will help, people that are pushed away or forgotten. And this is the greatest poverty. - Mother Teresa
In my latest contribution to the The Washington Post/Newsweek online discussion “On Faith,” I responded to the following question:
Some politically conservative Christians say that America is "a Christian nation," and at this time of year, with the country saturated with Christmas imagery, it can seem that they are right. Are they? Is America a "Christian nation"? Should it be?
As a Christian, and an evangelical Christian at that, I want to say emphatically that America is not, and should not be, a “Christian nation.” While it is clear that the founders of the nation had a high regard for religion and generally believed it made an essential contribution to the well-being of society, they decided to disentangle religion from the state and thereby create a new thing in the world. As to their own faith, many were religious and some were not; but more were likely “Deists” than evangelical Christians (despite the continual and historically groundless claims by some that the founders were all or mostly dedicated believers).
What we have grown to call the separation of church and state is good for both the government and religion — that citizenship should have no religious tests and faith can’t or shouldn’t be implemented by the state. The path of Jesus, for example, could never be followed by the state and the prophetic integrity and power of religion to hold governments accountable to higher values and better behavior specifically depends on the faith community’s political independence. Neither should religion need the state’s power to enforce its language and theology, which is why the “war against Christmas” discussion is finally so absurd. Does Jesus' message really depend on our being reminded to have a “Merry Christmas” just before we plunge into shopping malls and engage in orgies of holiday consumerism that run so directly contrary to his message? Are Wal-Mart and Target to be seen as critical places of theological and spiritual reflection?
On the other hand, does the cultural visibility of religious language and visibility in holiday seasons threaten the religious liberty of diverse believers (especially if all the pluralistic faith traditions of the nation can enjoy public display at the appropriate times in their religious calendars)? I don’t think so. It is a tactic of religious fundamentalism (in all our great traditions) to try to make the state an enforcer of religious belief and practice; and it is always dangerous. And does anybody really want to say that America has behaved in the world as a “Christian nation?” I hope not for the sake of Christian integrity. It is far better to regard faith communities as essentially counter-cultural; calling us all to higher ground and challenging political and economic power when it becomes abusive of the religious values of compassion and justice. Only through its independence and separation from any state can religion exercise its vital prophetic role in every society.
Today at Sojourners/Call to Renewal we are convening a significant gathering at an important time. Nearly 50 leaders and key policy staff from national and local churches, and faith-based and community organizations are here to discuss common ground on comprehensive and just immigration reform. Many of the leading organizations are here, and we have the opportunity to bring greater energy and a larger, broader constituency to bear on this cause. It is a room full of people who yearn for justice, and who, despite disagreements on some issues, come together on this one.
We were reminded this morning that immigration is a core issue for Christians. The biblical story continually shows God’s concern for the migrant and the outcast. “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:34). Similarly, throughout the New Testament, Christians are called to care for the outcast and the stranger. Jesus identified with these neighbors when he said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35). As Christians, we support compassion and justice for immigrants and their families. Immigration is also a deeply relevant issue for all Americans. The U.S. is a nation of immigrants, one that has been continually reshaped by new groups of people bringing diverse cultures, perspectives, and resources.
Immigration issues are also poverty issues. Immigrants - both legal and undocumented - are more likely to live in families with incomes below the poverty level, with children of undocumented immigrants especially at risk. If a path to citizenship is not provided for undocumented immigrants, our country could have a permanent underclass of guest workers - people who work, live, pay taxes, and go to school in the U.S., but cannot attain better and more secure lives for themselves and their families. That’s why immigration reform is an important plank in our Covenant for a New America. Humane and holistic reform can be pro-work and pro-family, creating opportunities to strengthen the common good of families and employers alike, and enriching the vitality of America.
This morning, a panel of senior Congressional Democratic and Republican staff, from both the House and the Senate, spoke of the challenges and opportunities for immigration reform in the new Congress. With Congress closely divided, any successful legislation will require strong, bipartisan agreement. And they noted that the faith community is respected by both sides, and therefore has an important role to play. Our voices and those of our members are needed in Congress.
Then the top policy staff from the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, World Relief, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops spoke of the significance of the church. We have a unique role, they said, to lift up the moral and human aspects of immigration reform. We believe immigrants are children of God, entitled to dignity and respect. An increasing percentage of our congregations are immigrants, and our church social service agencies, schools, and health clinics work with them and their families on a daily basis. That moral grounding and day-to-day experience gives us the authority to speak to political leaders.
It is our hope that this day together will help us explore shared visions and common messages, increase and coordinate our engagement, and identify common policies and legislative strategies. The time for significant and comprehensive immigration reform is here.
The latest news on Iraq, Israel-nuclear weapons, Darfur, immigration, Iran, minimum wage in Ohio, Ethiopia, Christian shopping, Evangelicals and sexuality, and select op-eds.
Iraq.US officer spells out Iraq police training woes - "As last week's Iraq Study Group report urges President Bush to step up the training of the Iraqi Army and the police, an army captain's diary entries from his tour with the 101st Airborne Division provide a first-person view of the challenges that remain before the nation's fledgling security forces can become viable." Pentagon's plan: More U.S. troops in Iraq - "As President Bush weighs new policy options for Iraq, strong support has coalesced in the Pentagon behind a military plan to "double down" in the country with a substantial buildup in American troops, an increase in industrial aid and a major combat offensive against Muqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite leader impeding development of the Iraqi government." Iraq Army Plans for a Wider Role in Securing Baghdad - "A plan presented to the United States calls for Iraqi troops to assume the primary responsibility for security in Baghdad early next year." U.S. General Says Jobs and Services May Curb Iraq Violence - "The general in day-to-day command of United States troops in Iraq made an impassioned appeal on Tuesday for more time and money to make the American enterprise here work. He suggested that he did not favor a surge in American troop numbers, but rather a new effort to weaken the insurgency by creating jobs for what he called Iraq's "angry young men." White House to Delay Shift on Iraq Until '07 - "The White House said that President Bush would delay presenting any new strategy for Iraq until early next year, as officials suggested that Mr. Bush's advisers were locked in internal debates on several fronts about how to proceed."
Israel-nuclear weapons.PM: 'I could not have said what was written' - "The furor over Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's comments on Israeli nuclear capabilities, broadcast Monday, refused to die down during his visit to Berlin yesterday." Fallout rains on Israel's Olmert after nuclear remark -"In an interview on German television late Monday, the Israeli leader seemed to list Israel among the world's nuclear club, raising an outcry across the political spectrum here and questions about whether the long-standing policy had been abandoned."
Darfur.Annan demands action in Darfur- "His time at the helm of the world body nearing an end, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stepped up his efforts to force a halt to atrocities in Darfur, demanding the UN Human Rights Council send an independent team of investigators to the volatile Sudanese region."
Immigration.Feds raid 6 Swift meat plants - "Workers at Swift & Co. meatpacking plants in six states were arrested Tuesday by federal agents in synchronized raids aimed at nabbing immigrants working illegally with other people's identification."
Iran.Move to bring genocide case against Ahmadinejad -"The outgoing US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, is backing a call for the president of Iran to be charged with inciting genocide because of his speeches advocating the destruction of the state of Israel."
Minimum wage-Ohio.Minimum-wage bill advances - "Ohio's minimum wage will rise to $6.85 an hour on Jan. 1, but rules to enforce it might not be in place by then. The Republican-controlled Ohio House adopted language yesterday to implement the constitutional amendment approved by voters last month. However, House leaders could not muster 66 votes necessary to pass the bill as an emergency measure, which would cause it to take effect quickly."
Ethiopia.Ethiopian Court Finds Ex-Leader in Exile Guilty of Genocide - "An Ethiopian court on Tuesday convicted the former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam of genocide, but Mr. Mengistu may never face punishment, because he remains in exile in Zimbabwe."
Christian shopping.Christian lifestyle fills store shelves - "Christian consumption has gone far beyond the book as millions use their buying power to reinforce their faith and show commitment to the Christian community. Nearly 12% of Americans spend more than $50 a month on religious products, and another 11% spend $25 to $29, according to a national survey of 1,721 adults by Baylor University, out in September."
Evangelicals and sexuality.Pastors' Disclosures May Stir Empathy, Some Evangelicals Say - "Confessions by two evangelical Christian ministers to having same-sex relationships could lead evangelicals to feel greater compassion toward gay men and lesbians, especially those in their congregations, some evangelical leaders said Tuesday."
Op-Ed. Beyond Baker Hamilton (Barry McCaffrey, Washingotn Post) - "A collapse of the Iraqi state would be catastrophic -- for the people of Iraq, for the Middle East and for America's strategic interests. We need a new political and military approach to head off this impending disaster -- one crafted with bipartisan congressional support. But Baker-Ham
ilton isn't it."
The writer is a retired Army general and adjutant professor of international affairs at West Point. He served four combat tours and was wounded in action three times.
Judging from your comments, my piece on the passing of former president Gerald Ford seems to have rubbed some people on both sides the wrong way. Some think that by contrasting his decency and honesty to the current administration I don't realize "how rude it is to politicize someone's passing." And, comparing one Republican president to another somehow made me partisan. Then there are some who thought his pardoning of Richard Nixon was wrong and apparently wanted more criticism of Ford.
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People often ask me what I'm reading. This year, I read a lot of books on politics—and was impressed by a number of important books such as 
and Mark Hatfield's 
Much as I love him, the length and depth of 
"Our long national nightmare is over." With the news of the passing of former President Gerald R. Ford, I can still hear those words. 
, by Ruby K. Payne
In the continuing The Washington Post/Newsweek online discussion 
'Twas the month before Christmas; with anticipation,
by Laura Magnani and Harmon Wray
We 
Two months ago, we helped convene a group of 24 evangelical Christian leaders to launch an 
Colin Powell says we are "losing" the "civil war" in Iraq. In a Sunday morning interview with Bob Schieffer on CBS's Face The Nation, the former General, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and George Bush's first Secretary of State broke his silence and put himself at odds with his ex-boss. I watched it. Powell said, "I agree with the assessment of Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton," referring to the co-chairs of the Iraq Study Group, that the situation in Iraq is "grave and deteriorating, and we're not winning, we are losing. We haven't lost. And this is the time, now, to start to put in place the kinds of strategies that will turn this situation around."