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Friday, September 28, 2007
The news this afternoon from Myanmar/Burma is not good. A recent AP story said that
Soldiers clubbed and dragged away activists while firing tear gas and warning shots to break up demonstrations Friday before they could grow, and the government cut Internet access, raising fears that a deadly crackdown was set to intensify.
The government said 10 people have been killed since the violence began earlier this week, but British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he believed the loss of life in Myanmar was "far greater" than is being reported. Dissident groups have put the number as high as 200, although that number could not be verified.
The world is reacting with outrage. President Bush has toughened sanctions to focus on specific individuals for the first time, including a ban on travel visas. A U.N. special envoy is en route. Many other world leaders have spoken out.
Gene Stoltzfus is a friend who worked in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 70s, and then became director of Christian Peacemaker Teams, a program of Brethren, Mennonite and Friends churches and other affiliated organizations that places teams in high conflict zones to emphasize human rights protection, nonviolent action, and peacemaking campaigns. On his blog, he comments on the religious roots of nonviolence for the Buddhist monks leading the demonstrations against the military junta.
Two groups with countrywide power and influence in modern Burma are now facing each other across potholes in the streets. The military with Chinese-supplied weapons, is determined to retain the grip it has had on the nation since 1962. The Buddhist movement, with an institutional life going back more than 1000 years, is led by monks armed with spiritual disciplines and a commitment to an ethical system that combines practical living with a deep sensitivity to all of creation. The Buddhist way is nonviolence empowered by love, honed by teaching and meditation. However, this does not mean that monks are not tough, persistent, and even militant.
He ends:
In response to the world wide call of Free Burma groups we have a sign in our window, THE WORLD IS WATCHING, FREE BURMA, with a candle below the sign.
 When I got an invitation to attend the launch of New York Faith & Justice (www.nyfaithjustice.org), their mission statement caught my eye. Simply stated, their goals are: Following Christ, uniting the church, and ending poverty in New York through spiritual formation, education, and direct advocacy. Grounded in the words of Isaiah 61, this movement envisions a city where New Yorkers are released from the oppression of poverty and the poverty of riches.
I can hear the naysayers now: "Here we go again. Another PC peace and justice group that's all talk and no action. They might spout a bit of scripture but in the end, they're really just a front for the Democratic Party. Been there. Done that. Next."
I understand this kind of cynicism. I've covered too many "religious" justice-oriented gatherings that were full of sound and fury but in the end signified nothing. The power of prayer and preaching about the Risen Christ seemed to take a back seat because God forbid we talk about Jesus and offend our secular counterparts. Also, after satirizing the antics of the Religious Right for more than 12 years, the last thing I want to see is the creation of a Progressive Left counterpart.
So when I read that this group was "ecumenical," I was skeptical at first. While religious leaders whose backgrounds ranged from PCA to ECUSA were invited to participate, would they actually show up? In a post-9/11 New York City, one seldom sees Orthodox, evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and Pentecostals willing to set aside their differences and come together in the name of Jesus.
However, this movement showed all the spiritual signs of being Bible-based and truly nonpartisan from the get-go. You know something is up when 15 students from Intervarsity Fellowship and Union Theological Seminary carry a wooden cross -- literally -- for 5.3 miles, trekking from Trinity Baptist Church, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side, over to the Bronx.
This broad-based ecumenical spirit carried on throughout the evening with prayers offered by ministers representing a broad swath of the Christian faith. Liturgies, worship songs, spoken-word poetry, and visual art were intertwined with speeches by Lolita Jackson from Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office; Rachel Anderson, director of Boston Faith and Justice Network; Dale Irvin, president of New York Theological Seminary; Lisa Sharon Harper, executive director of NY Faith & Justice; and Jim Wallis. If you read the backgrounds of these spiritual seekers, you'll see that these are not cookie-cutter Christians all molded from the same batch of devotional dough.
Unlike some gatherings that talk around poverty issues without offering any concrete solutions, Harper noted how their programs are structured around the three mission points: Following Christ, Uniting the Church, and Ending Poverty. Right now, the program is far too early in its infancy to assess if these points can be sharpened into actual tools for social change. But based on what I saw this evening, I left the launch wondering if perhaps Shane Claiborne is indeed right -- that "Another world is possible." Will this ecumenical momentum continue? One can pray and hope.
Becky Garrison's upcoming book Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church (Seabury Books, October 2007) explores what it means to be the church in the 21st century.
 It's intriguing how many current films address questions of revenge and justice. Like all cinematic epidemics, this is a mixed bag, from Quentin Tarantino's alternately boring and horrifying car-crash fest Death Proof, just released on DVD, to the slasher-style terror of Death Sentence starring Kevin Bacon, to the mature and moving reflection on justice and fatherhood in 3:10 to Yuma, to the ostensibly more thoughtful treatment of vengeance in Jodie Foster's new film The Brave One.
The Brave One begins with a murder that the filmmakers show in subtle but horrendous detail. We really feel the loss of human life that occurs when her character's boyfriend is beaten to death in front of her. Her subsequent fear and desire for revenge are presented as entirely natural responses; in this regard, the film is intelligent and humane. Far too many representations of the aftermath of violence in popular culture refuse to treat it with respect. But when she actually starts killing people, despite the fact that her victims are all portrayed as evil, the movie becomes something other than the serious exploration of how to deal with violence that it purports to be. The victim becomes a perpetrator, and the audience is made complicit.
Throughout its two-hour running time, I hoped the film would suggest that the revenge Foster's character takes does her more harm than good, and certainly does not end or even come close to challenging the spiral of violence in the world. My hope was unfounded, for the film not only presents its protagonist as doing what is normal, but ultimately endorses her violence as the only way to resist evil. In a world where finding alternatives to conflict-as-usual may be our greatest challenge, we desperately need more nuanced investigations of how to respond to violent threats and injustices than this.
What's surprising is that both Jodie Foster and her director, Neil Jordan, know better than this, having between them made smarter films such as The Accused and The Crying Game. But in producing The Brave One, a film that appears to co-opt the values of the war on terror into the domestic life of a character who works for an NPR-style radio station, they have created what The New York Times has called "a pro-lynching film that even liberals can love." Of course, doing nothing in response to injustice will not make the world a less violent place, but neither will suggesting that the only thing we can do is to use the same tactics as our opponents.
 Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here.
- Annie Dillard
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
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The latest news on Burma, SCHIP, Iran, SCHIP, Jena, Republican presidential forum, Religious right, Darfur, US military, Blackwater, Climate change, and Faith-based schools-Canada
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Thursday, September 27, 2007
 Dear Mr. President,
When I first heard that you were vowing to veto a bipartisan bill to expand child health care, my immediate thought was more personal than political: What has happened to you?
I vividly remember a call at the office, only one day after your election had been secured. It was an invitation to come to Austin to meet you and to discuss with a small group of religious leaders your vision for "faith-based initiatives" and your passion for doing something on poverty. I had not voted for you (which was no secret or surprise to your staff or to you), but you were reaching out to many of us in the faith community across the political spectrum who cared about poverty. I was impressed by that, and by the topic of the Austin meeting.
We all filed into a little Sunday school classroom at First Baptist, Austin. I had actually preached there before, and the pastor told me how puzzled he was that his "progressive" church was chosen for this meeting. You were reaching out. About 25 of us were sitting together chatting, not knowing what to expect, when you simply walked in without any great introduction. You sat down and told us you just wanted to listen to our concerns and ideas of how to really deal with poverty in America.
And you did listen, more than presidents often do. You asked us questions. One was, "How do I speak to the soul of America?" I remember answering that one by saying to focus on the children. Their plight is our shame and their promise is our future. Reach them and you reach our soul. You nodded in agreement. The conversation was rich and deep for an hour and a half.
Then when we officially broke, you moved around the room and talked with us one-on-one or in small groups for another hour. I could see your staff was anxious to whisk you away (you were in the middle of making cabinet appointments that week and there were key departments yet to fill). Yet you lingered and kept asking questions. I remember you asking me, Jim, I don't understand poor people. I've never lived with poor people or been around poor people much. I don't understand what they think and feel about a lot of things. I'm just a white Republican guy who doesn't get it. How do I get it? I still recall the intense and sincere look on your face as you looked me right in the eyes and asked your heartfelt question. It was a moment of humility and candor that, frankly, we don't often see with presidents.
I responded by saying that you had to listen to poor people themselves and pay attention to those who do live and work with the poor. It was a simple answer, but again you were nodding your head. I told my wife, Joy, also a clergyperson, about our conversation. Weeks later, we listened to your first inaugural address. When you said, America, at its best, is compassionate. In the quiet of American conscience, we know that deep, persistent poverty is unworthy of our nation's promise. And whatever our views of its cause, we can agree that children at risk are not at fault ... many in our country do not know the pain of poverty, but we can listen to those who do, my wife poked me in the ribs and smiled. In fact, you talked more about poverty than any president had for a long time in his inaugural addresses—and I said so in a newspaper column afterward (much to the chagrin of Democratic friends). They also didn't like the fact that I started going to other meetings at the White House with you or your staff about how to best do a "faith-based initiative," or that some of my personal friends were appointed to lead and staff your new Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives at the White House. We brought many delegations of religious leaders, again from across the political spectrum, to meet with representatives of that office. Some of us hoped that something new might be in the air.
But that was a long time ago. We don't hear much about that office or initiative anymore. Most of my friends have long left. I don't hear about meetings now. And nobody speaks anymore about this new concept you named "compassionate conservatism." And now, you promise to veto a strongly bipartisan measure to expand health insurance for low-income children. Most of your expressed objections to the bill have been vigorously refuted by Republican senators who helped craft the bill and support it passionately. They vow to try and override your veto. During your first campaign, you chided conservative House Republicans for tax and spending cuts accomplished on the backs of the poor. Now Congressional Republicans are chiding you.
What happened to you, Mr. President? The money needed for expanding health care to poor children in America is far less than the money that has been lost and wasted on corruption in Iraq. How have your priorities stayed so far from those children, whom you once agreed were so central to the soul of the nation? What do they need to do to get your attention again? You will be literally barraged by the religious community across the political spectrum this week, imploring you not to veto children's health care. I would just ask you to take your mind back to a little meeting in a Baptist Sunday school classroom, not far away from where you grew up. Remember that day, what we all talked about, what was on your heart, and how much hope there was in the room. Mr. President, recall that day, take a breath, and say a prayer before you decide to turn away from the children who are so important to our nation's soul and to yours.
God bless you,
Jim Wallis
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Let them vie in giving one another honor. Let them patiently bear everyone’s weaknesses of body and behavior. Let them compete in obeying one another.... Let them prefer nothing to Christ. May Christ lead us together to eternal life.
- Rule of Benedict
Quoted in Essential Monastic Wisdom: Writings on the Contemplative Life by Hugh Feiss.
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To everyone who took action and emailed the Bureau of Prisons, thank you! On Sept. 14, Sojourners helped break the story that the federal government had created a list of acceptable religious books and purged all other books from the religious libraries. Often these stories fade away and are quickly replaced by the latest crisis, but because of our readers' dedication and persistence (demonstrated by sending over 21,000 emails in just over a week), the Bureau of Prisons has reversed its policy!
According to their statement provided to NPR yesterday:
In response to concerns expressed by members of several religious communities, the Bureau of Prisons has decided to alter its planned course of action with respect to the Chapel Library Project. The Bureau will begin immediately to return to chapel libraries materials that were removed in June 2007, with the exception of any publications that have been found to be inappropriate.
I received a note today from a friend who works with prison inmates that I would like to share with all of you. It states, "On behalf of all federal inmates and chaplains, I thank you for your crucial part in accomplishing this." This is not just a thank you to Sojourners, but this is a thank you to each and every one of you who took action.
Kevin Lum is the congregational network coordinator for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
The latest reports on Myanmar/Burma, Immigration, Iran, Myanmar/Burma, Ahmadinejad meets, religious leaders, Iran, Missile defense-Iran, Iraq, Iraq-Congress, Books in prisons, UAW-GM, Presidential debate, Climate change, and the Death penalty
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Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Before it began, many evangelicals were strong supporters of a war with Iraq. As the death and destruction have continued, some are rethinking that view and coming to oppose the war. David Gushee, professor at Mercer University, has an important piece – Our Teachable Moment - on Christianity Today online. Gushee writes:
Such deep public distress about the war makes this a teachable moment for all of us, as Christians and as Americans. It's not enough to find a way out of this war honorably and soon. We have an opportunity to learn some deeper lessons so that we won't repeat our mistakes.
For evangelicals, one of the groups that strongly supported the war initially, one lesson is clear: We must become more discerning when our nation's leaders advocate a military solution. We have biblical resources for doing so, if we will draw upon them.
He concludes:
For me, the next time I am asked to support a war, my default setting will be no rather than yes. As a follower of Christ, I will have to be persuaded that the particular confluence of circumstances is so grave as to require a military solution. Before Christians sign off on another war, we must do our best to figure out whether the government has done everything possible to make peace.
How do we live out God's call to prophetic witness in an apathetic and disempowered society? How can we learn from others who have remained faithful to Jesus' radical call in the midst of failure?
These don't sound like the questions you'd expect to be hearing from a van full of exhausted young adults on a 12-hour drive back from Washington, D.C.
But last March, that's exactly what happened to a group of us from Living Water Community and Reba Place Church in Chicago on our way back from the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq.
Our epiphany was not in National Cathedral or during the bone-numbing walk to the White House. Instead, it happened the following morning during a humble gathering of Mennonites in the basement of a Methodist church lit by fluorescent lights and filled with orange and red plastic chairs. We were eating bagels and juice and listening to Peter Dula, the Mennonite Central Committee coordinator for Iraq from 2004 to 2006.
Dula spoke simply and honestly about the caustic combination of guilt and disempowerment that attacks those of us living in the United States. We are complicit in horrific acts of destruction, but our leaders have largely abandoned the rusty apparatus of democracy -- a trend accelerated by Bush and company. Our protests begin to feel like empty rituals. Politicians have taken advantage of our culture's apathy and nihilism to shed the last vestiges of accountability. As Dula put it, "We are no longer enough of a democracy that the people feel empowered, but still enough of one that people feel responsible."
We left D.C immediately after Dula's talk and discovered that each of us had been electrified by what he had said. For those of us who have come of age in the Bush administration, there is the knowledge that something is deeply wrong with our country, but we remain caught beneath a crust of cynicism that permeates every corner of our mental and spiritual space.
On the van ride home to Chicago we talked about how important it is for our generation to talk honestly about our disillusionment and learn from our failure and that of those who have gone before us. As we discussed what to do next, a surprisingly concrete idea emerged. We wanted to invite Dula and others to Chicago to continue the conversation. We even came up with a title for our gathering - Cynicism and Hope: Reclaiming Discipleship in a Post-Democratic Society.
I've had epiphanies on protest road trips before, but never with so many people so committed to doing something about it. If you feel the same way, come join us in Chicago on November 2 and 3 (one year before the 2008 elections): http://www.cynicismandhope.org/
Tim Nafziger is a Web developer, activist, and writer. He helped found the Young Anabaptist Radicals blog, is a regular blogger for The Mennonite, and is a reservist with Christian Peacemaker Teams.
Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. These proclaim Christ out of love, knowing that I have been put here for the defense of the gospel; the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition.... What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice.
- Philippians 1:15-18
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Repent and believe in the gospel, Jesus says. Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is gooder than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all.
- Frederick Buechner
from Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007
 Columbia University students got it right. When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's bombastic president, told the packed university auditorium that there were no homosexuals in Iran, the student crowd burst into laughter. Humor and satire have always been good weapons against political stupidity and tyranny. The eager-to-be-provocative Iranian president said a number of stupid things yesterday, as he often does—for example, repeating that the Holocaust should be treated as a theory and not a fact—all of which were worthy of ridicule.
Instead, a growing group of political and media figures, mostly on the Right, are doing their best to use Ahmadinejad's provocations to help stoke the argument and prepare the context for U.S. military conflict with Iran. Fox News just loves Ahmadinejad.
Iran's serious human rights violations (including allegations that teenage boys were hanged for being gay), support for terrorism in conflicts around the world, support for insurgents in Iraq who are killing Iraqi civilians and American soldiers, and—most alarmingly—its development of a nuclear capacity that could easily translate into weapons, are serious problems the rest of the world is rightly concerned with.
But there are no military solutions to those problems, and potential military strikes against Iran by the United States or Israel will only make the above problems worse. A dear friend of mine, an influential rabbi, once told me that if there was a way that a surgical air strike against Iran could remove their nuclear threat, he would support it as a just use of force. But because there is no way that such a military strike could accomplish those goals, he is against such an American action. Nothing short of an American invasion and occupation of Iran might assure the destruction of Iran's nuclear program; and a second occupation in the region is hardly a practical or political—let alone moral—option.
What Fox News doesn't tell us is that President Ahmadinejad is not the supreme leader of Iran—the religious leader Ayatollah Khamenei is. The role of president in Iran is only one of many figures with political power, and not the most important one in the country's complicated political and religious system. And Ahmadinejad's clear immaturity as a leader, combined with his failure to deliver things that he has promised, has placed him in serious political trouble in his own country.
Nothing would serve the political career and purposes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad better than to be able to provoke a military confrontation with the United States which would, almost certainly, unite all the competing factions in Iran around him in a nation under attack. And that is exactly why this irresponsible and self-aggrandizing politician is being so deliberately provocative. Ahmadinejad and Dick Cheney ultimately want the same thing—another confrontation. What does that tell you?
So don't give him what he wants by bombing his country. Then take all the problems above very seriously. Enter into real negotiations with Iran, using a variety of carrots and sticks, and especially reach out to the forces of democratic reform in that country (which we would only help crush with a U.S. military confrontation). In the meantime, laugh at Ahmadinejad.
[Those] courageous in disposition and strong in will, live with the weak and share their lives in their desire to save them. And, to be sure, they are censured by people on the outside and mocked by those who see them spending their lives with people less disciplined. [Their behavior] is like the Lord’s for the Lord ate with tax collectors and sinners. Their attitude is characterized by brotherly love rather than self-love for they regard those who sin as houses on fire; giving no thought to their own interests, they apply their efforts to save what belongs to others…. Good people have placed their own possessions second to the salvation of others. This is the sign of genuine love. These people are the custodians of pure love.
- Life of Syncletica
Quoted in Essential Monastic Wisdom: Writings on the Contemplative Life by Hugh Feiss.
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The latest news on SCHIP, Ahmadinejad at Columbia, Burma, Autoworkers strike, Jena 6, Gordon Brown, North Korea, United Nations, Immigration, Presidential primaries, Income in Canada, Canadian no confidence, and Worship
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Monday, September 24, 2007
I recently posted about the purging of religious books from prison libraries across the country. Since that post and a follow-up action alert, there has been a groundswell of outrage from across the religious and political spectrum against the government's attempt to purge religious libraries. Thank you to everyone who took action. The response has been so overwhelming that The New York Times even took notice:
The bureau is hearing criticism from a broad array of religious groups and leaders. Sojourners, a liberal evangelical group based in Washington, sent an alert to its members, who within 48 hours sent the bureau more than 15,000 e-mail messages urging it to scrap the policy.
Since that article, a total of some 18,000 emails have now been sent to Bureau of Prisons Director Harley Lappin, demanding that the federal government not be in the business of providing citizens with a list of acceptable reading material.
The outrage is growing, but the Bureau of Prisons has not yet changed its policy. If you have not taken action, please email Director Lappin now and forward it to everyone you know. Let's make our voice heard.
View the Government Approved Reading Lists:
Protestant
Catholic
Judaism
Islam
Kevin Lum is the congregational network coordinator for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
In his Saturday radio address, The Washington Post reports that
President Bush again called Democrats "irresponsible" for pushing an expansion he opposes to a children's health insurance program. "Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed," Bush said of the measure.
So, one may wonder, just who are these irresponsible Democrats who are pushing the expansion of SCHIP?
"This legislation will get the Children's Health Insurance Program back on track and reclaim precious resources for low-income kids," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa.
Another Republican, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, called the agreement "an honest compromise that improves a program that works for America's low-income children." Asked whether he would vote to override a veto, Sen. Hatch, a staunch conservative, said, "You bet your sweet bippy I will."
"I am proud to support this important bill, which will provide health insurance coverage to approximately 4 million more children who would otherwise be uninsured. I'm glad my colleagues and I were able to put politics aside and do what is right for these children," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kans.
"I'm very, very disappointed," said Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore. "I'm going to be voting for it."
"I am so pleased that the Senate has passed legislation to extend and strengthen this important program. Our bill, which passed with strong bipartisan support, increases funding for SCHIP by $35 billion over the next five years, a level which is sufficient to maintain coverage for all 6.6 million children currently enrolled, and also allows the program to expand to cover an additional 3.3 million low-income children," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
There is strong bipartisan support for expanding the children's health insurance program in the Congress. But President Bush promises to veto this vital program for children's health. So, who is being irresponsible?
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