I couldn't help but be struck by a bizarre similarity in two back-to-back events this week: the YouTube/CNN Republican forum and the swearing in of Pakistan's President Musharaf broadcast by NPR. Although worlds apart, both demonstrated what happens when religion and politics mix in a less-than-productive way—the insistence on religious tests for holding office.
In the case of President Musharaf, he took the oath of office to a country with Islam as the state religion by swearing that he is a Muslim, upholding the oneness of God, and pledging allegiance to Allah. If we had formal religious tests for office holders in the U.S., this would be akin to being inaugurated as president by proclaiming one's Christianity, stating belief in the doctrine of the Trinity, and dedicating oneself to Jesus—essentially a doctrinal test for politicians.
Americans know that the second scenario is not likely to occur. Although the new president lays his (or her) hand on the Bible and references God, these ceremonial acts are interpreted according to individual conscience and imply no specific doctrinal content. Indeed, the Constitution the president swears to protect and defend outlawed religious tests for federal officials, and, during the early 1800s, individual states slowly ended local practice of religious requirements for public office. However, this formal Constitutional principle didn't stop the forum questioners from insisting upon some sort of informal religious test for their candidates. Several people asked about the theological beliefs (not even the more generic religious beliefs) of candidates on a wide range of issues and pointedly quizzed them on their views of the Bible.
Several years ago, I taught theology at a Christian college—a task that I disliked because the class almost always devolved into a sort of checklist of right opinion to get into heaven. The Republican forum reminded me of that experience. The candidates were required, down to specifically quoting scriptures, to "check off" the right religious answers in order to secure their party's bid for the nation's highest office. It is almost as if a politician will utter the magic words - "Jesus is my Savior" or "the Bible is true in all that it affirms" - millions of people will cast their vote for that candidate. While I do not doubt the sincerity of (most of) the answers, the whole exercise struck me as politically dubious.
Americans need to understand that the relationship between religion and politics is a malleable one - there are few clear-cut rules regarding their interplay. The U.S. is neither a "Christian Nation" in the way it is popularly interpreted, nor is it ruled by a rigid separation of church and state. Neither cultural war stereotype is entirely true or entirely false. Rather, when it comes to religion and politics, we live in a perpetual state of creative tension. Throughout our history, faith and politics have created an often nuanced interplay of fine and sometimes conflicting lines—an interplay that requires discernment on the part of politicians, courts, and voters.
As a serious Christian, it matters to me that the president of the U.S. is a moral person with a mature conscience, and that he or she brings broadly shared ethical insights (along with other insights) to political issues. It does not, however, matter by what tradition that moral conscience has been formed as long as the office holder supports the Constitution. In the U.S., broadly shared political ethics generally include such things as respect for all human persons, a commitment to national and global justice, and developing national capacities of happiness, freedom, and liberty for all citizens. This is not a religious creed or a Bible verse. These are commonly held values that we have struggled for throughout our history. In our context, these values arose originally from diverse Christian traditions, but today numerous American faith traditions can assent to them. Although the founders never imagined the variety of religions in the contemporary U.S., they nevertheless opened the door for a creative political pluralism in the 21st century. We should not be electing a theologian-in-chief. We need to elect a good president.
As a Christian, I also know that getting the answers right on a doctrinal test are no guarantee of a person's moral disposition or fitness for leadership. Indeed, one's orthodoxy can bear little relationship to one's practice of faith. Experience, vision, compassion, good leadership, and an ability to govern well are the only tests upon which Christians—or other religious folks—should vote.
Of course, voters have the right to ask about candidates' religious views, and politicians have the right to talk about those views. But when such rights verge on becoming a faith test, then we begin to sacrifice the wisdom of our political system in favor of a testimony that more rightly belongs in church. And a big part of that wisdom is that our president does not make theological affirmations that exclude millions of Americans on Inauguration Day.
On Dec. 1, the world commemorates World AIDS Day, a day in which we pause and remember the 25 million lives lost to the deadly epidemic. The day also challenges us to redouble our efforts to show greater solidarity with the estimated 33 million people worldwide living with HIV. The day's slogan is "Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise". This is a direct appeal to governments, policy makers, and regional health authorities to ensure that they meet the litany of targets in the fight against HIV and AIDS - especially the promise agreed to at the 2005 G8 Summit of universal access to HIV treatment, care, support, and prevention services by 2010. The 2007 theme of "leadership" highlights the stark reality that without a revolution in political will the epidemic will continue to outpace even our best response.
Dec. 1 represents a day for remembering the 2.1 million people that lost their lives this year due to this preventable and treatable disease. While we are starting to win victories in increasing access to treatment we are still losing the war to prevent new infections. Reports still show an alarming concentration of infections in the southern third of Africa, with nations such as Swaziland and Botswana reporting as many as one in four adults infected with HIV. Even closer to home, statistics released last week in Washington, D.C., reveal a state of emergency in which one in 20 residents is HIV positive - with 80 percent of cases among black men, women, and adolescents. The report shatters the common myth that AIDS is predominantly a gay disease, as 37.4 percent of newly reported cases were due to heterosexual contact. Behind these sobering statistics are real lives, real families, and real people made in the image of God.
We can give thanks to the degree to which Christians, including evangelicals, have now embraced AIDS as an urgent and legitimate cause. This weekend Pastor Rick Warren is convening thousands of faith leaders from across the country and world for his annual Summit on AIDS and the Church. I applaud his leadership in shining a spotlight on the indispensable role of the church in the fight against AIDS. However, past conferences have often shied away from the political nature of this epidemic and failed to deliver a clear call for political action to address the systemic injustices that so often fuel it. We can celebrate major advances in global treatment due in large part to increased funding through the President's Emergency AIDS Plan and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Still, only 20 percent of people in need in the developing world currently have access. Thanks in large part to activism through the 2008 Stop AIDS campaign, all three leading Democratic Presidential candidates have agreed to a bold campaign promise to increase President Bush's pledge of $30 billion for AIDS prevention and treatment over the next five years to a figure more commensurate with the global need of $50 billion. Now we must pressure the Republican candidates to follow suit.
AIDS tests our faith as well as our humanity. Applying Matthew 25 to the contemporary age of AIDS, I believe God will also ask us "when I was living with HIV, did you love me, care for me, and use your prophetic voice to help stop the epidemic?"
The gospel music artist Donald Lawrence came out with a song last year titled "I Speak Life." As Christians we must speak life by loving and supporting people around us living with the virus. We can speak life by using our voices to challenge Congress and the Bush administration to make good on their promises to achieve universal access to treatment by the year 2010. We can speak life by breaking down the walls of stigma in our churches and communities, raising awareness, and encouraging testing. We can speak life by addressing the underlying injustices and issues that so often fuel the crisis of AIDS, including intravenous drug use, poverty, sexual violence, promiscuity, and infidelity.
An old African American Spiritual says it best:
Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work's in vain. But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again. There is balm in Gilead to heal the wounded soul. There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.
Adam Taylor is director of campaigns and organizing for Sojourners.
Our final stop is Mussoorie, an hour's harrowing taxi ride up into the Himalayan foothills from Dehradun. And it's dazzling. The town spreads across the hilltops, often seeming to float above the clouds. A short walk over the hillcrest reveals a 180-degree view of snowcapped Himalayas. Beyond them lies Tibet.
Mussoorie is the opposite of Mumbai: serene, beautiful, quiet. Though we all loved our time in the cities this comes as a relief. There's a well-regarded Hindi-language school here, so the town hosts a lot of expats. (It also hosts a lot of monkeys, who tend to swoop down and steal the expats' food off the café table.) Some of them (the expats) attend the tiny church run by our friends, a couple we'll call Fred and Ethel.
Fred grew up in one of the villages that lie in the shadows of those aforementioned Himalayas. No power, running water, or driveable roads, if I remember correctly. His family's faith, while technically Hindu, might be more accurately described as animist. They worshipped household gods. They kept homemade idols.
As a teenager Fred was recruited by some missionaries to assist at a school and it was there that he came to believe in Jesus. (They thought he was already a believer. Oh, that wacky cross-cultural communication thing….) Though he'd never finished the equivalent of high school, Fred went on to get three master's degrees. Along the way he met and married Ethel, also the recipient of advanced degrees. And they felt called to Mussoorie.
If you believe in Jesus and the stuff he said, then the earthly pursuit of justice emerges from Jesus himself. It's Jesus who demands justice and it's Jesus who fulfills it, ultimately. That's a little thing they call the gospel, and what Fred and Ethel do is train guys to walk out to those inaccessible villages in the mountains and tell people about this gospel thing in their own language and cultural context. It's a job that Western folks couldn't do correctly, nor even folks from the cities in India. The villages are too isolated and their language too idiosyncratic for non-natives.
The young guys they train come from those villages and they walk for days to get back to them. Much like Paul, Timothy, and Barnabas. It's pretty grueling work. But these dudes are just filled with energy and joy, and if you ask them to dance (as we did on our final day), they throw down, Garhwali-style.
And at Fred and Ethel's church the songs are mostly in Hindi. It's a real homegrown service but the non-natives in the room are mostly trying to learn Hindi anyway, so it works out.
We had the privilege of driving out to a couple of nearby villages with Fred, Ethel, their three kids, and a few of the guys they train. Imagine unpaved one-lane roads without rails, winding above sheer drops.
Folks out in those mountains and valleys are mostly shepherds and farmers. The farming happens on terraces that stair-step the mountainsides. At one point we climbed to a peak about 12,000 feet up, which is pretty exhausting for lowlanders used to the thick air around sea level. We met a kid up there who was tending some cattle. And when he wasn't herding, he was doing his studies in a little booklet. But the place we met him had a 360-degree view of Himalayan peaks, which would be a little distracting to me if I were trying to study.
Up top there was a little shrine to some unnamed god. People had climbed up and left coins, combs, scraps of cloth and such. Halfway up we'd met a family known to Fred who had some adorable little pigtailed girls. We noticed a number of burn scars on the girls, which Fred had to explain to us. Evidently the local superstition holds that it's bad spirits that make babies cry, so you drive out the spirits with a hot brand. Some of Fred's trainees showed us their own childhood scars. One had been branded as late as age 12. The consensus was that there's pretty much no way to feel culturally open-minded about that. Yeah, don't burn kids: that's a superior idea.
But we gave the kids lollipops while Fred checked in with the parents, all of us aware that it's a long process, this spreading of good news. Note: lollipops help.
Bob's Top 5 Answers to Questions About India:
5. Yes, and don't hit the cow or you'll go to jail.
4. Every day. But Indians don't think of it as "Indian food."
3. Yogurt. Immodium.
2. Like when a ballgame lets out and everyone's fighting to leave the parking lot. But with colorful saris everywhere.
1. Once you get used to the dance numbers, they're probably no sillier than your average Bruce Willis movie.
No sorrowful tears, no beating of the breast
For a safe repose has taken me. I dance
Ring dances with the blessed saints
In the beautiful fields of the righteous.
Here's some of Krista Tippet's introduction to her interview with Jim:
I've resisted interviewing Wallis as he's risen to a new kind of fame, in part because he has had so much exposure in major media - from Hardball to Fresh Air. But now I've come to see in Jim Wallis' rise not just a story of an individual activist becoming a leader, but of the world changing around us.
...
There is plentiful evidence that younger people, including younger evangelical Christians, share Jim Wallis's concern for the poor and the dispossessed, for inequities in global economy and ecology. Half of his audiences across the country these days, as he tells it, are under 30. He does not claim to represent a majority of American evangelicals in his views and positions, but he does draw packed crowds of young evangelicals at Christian colleges. He urges them to emulate the 19th-century evangelicals who inspire him, some of whom founded today's Christian colleges — abolitionists and social reformers who took their Bibles and their God with the utmost seriousness.
After the rise of the Religious Right in the early 1980s, and again after the 2000 and 2004 elections, some prophesied that the U.S. was headed for "theocracy" — a takeover by conservative religious ruling elites. What is happening instead is what Time magazine has called the leveling of "the praying field." Conservative Christianity hasn't disappeared, but it is increasingly met, and measured, by progressive and liberal religious voices in politics and beyond.
There are also conservative evangelicals with a broadened political and social agenda and a willingness to form coalitions with diverse religious and secular others to combat urgent human crises.
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intake, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries,; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly save from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
The genocidal regime in Khartoum is, unsurprisingly, trying to undermine and block the joint U.N./African Union peacekeeping team that has been authorized to offer desperately needed protection to civilians in Darfur. As a recent article put it,
[U.N. peacekeeping chief] Jean-Marie Guehenno told the Security Council that it may face a hard choice about the 26,000-strong force scheduled to deploy in a month: to send troops that cannot defend themselves and the people of Darfur, or to not send troops at all.
Here's a better choice: the U.S. and its allies must build on the strategy of concerted economic and political pressure that has worked on Khartoum multiple times in the past. But to make this work, the U.S. can't go it alone - we must demand that the Bush administration set aside its allergy to working closely with allies.
Incredibly, the U.N. is still looking for 24 helicopters for the peacekeeping force, according to the article. Unbelievably, the U.S. diplomatic staff in Sudan is meager, when putting a few extra diplomats on shuttle diplomacy in the Darfur region could help to counteract the increasing infighting among splinter rebel groups (which is partly a result of Khartoum's divide-and-conquer strategy) and to give credence to civilian leaders who have been ignored for too long.
We cannot and must not take no for an answer, from the Khartoum regime or from our own governments.
Elizabeth Palmberg is an assistant editor at Sojourners.
When a film ends with the recounting of a dream in which a weather-beaten, life-weary man searches for the fire his father is building to warm them, it's impossible not to think of the love we all yearn for and can hopefully muster. It's also a welcome spiritual respite when that film has seduced its audience on a journey into a hell of the relentless violence that follows a man after he steals drug money in the naïve belief that its owners might ignore him, and the slow-moving chase that ensues when a truly psychopathic person pursues the man and the cash. No Country for Old Men, the new picture from the Coen Brothers, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel, is probably the most accomplished film released this year.
I'll do my best to avoid spoilers, as it would be unfair to assume that readers have seen it. So I must skirt around the issues that cause me to praise this film so highly. In short, No Country for Old Men is a slow, thoughtful, frightening, and beguiling film about the selfishness of people and the desperate need to restore the virtue of community bonds. Its central character – called Anton Chigurh, and played by Javier Bardem – is one of the most titanic characterizations of evil intent I've ever seen in a film. He simply kills what gets in his way, and even plays sport with some of his potential victims - inviting them to toss a coin to determine their fate. Josh Brolin is the man who finds the money belonging to Chigurh's employers, and Tommy Lee Jones the sheriff baffled by the trail of death that ensues in their wake.
We follow these characters - scared of the killer, ashamed of the thief, and hoping against hope for the sheriff. We look away from the screen when the violence occurs, but may perhaps feel a little horrified by the fact that a part of us still wants to watch. And when one character finally stands up to Chigurh, it is not with physical violence, but by simply speaking and refusing to accept his games, forcing him to face the fact that he, and he alone, is responsible for his murderous ways. This film does not suggest that – as some critics have implied – there is no way to stop evil, but rather that we live in an age where we need to find new ways of resisting the violence many of us face. It doesn't provide simplistic answers, but suggests that the path may be found in such things as renewing the bonds of community and mutual respect, refusing to accept the moral reasoning of those who resort to force at the drop of a hat, and embracing something like the vision of the 5th century BCE Chinese thinker Mozi:
'If every man were to regard the pain of others as his own person, who would inflict pain and injury on others?'
The country where violence is king may indeed be no country for old men; but, to my mind at least, the film that takes this term as its title offers nothing less than a prophetic reflection on the most important question facing humanity today: Where do we go from here?
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
Living as we do in a world that suffers so much, two opposing possibilities can easily tempt us: either to turn our backs and live oblivious to the pain or to allow the pain to overwhelm us and despair to take up residence in our hearts. The truly faithful option is to face the pain and live joyfully in the midst of it. Those who suffer most remind us of how tragic and arrogant it would be for us to lose hope on behalf of people who have not lost theirs. They are teachers of joy.
Leaders from some 50 countries and organizations, including 12 Arab nations, are meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, today to begin negotiations for a peace agreement in the Middle East. News reports tell of " restrained optimism" that the event could lead to a Palestinian state.
The op-ed page of The Washington Post tells the rest of the story. Columnist Richard Cohen has a poignant column on the reality of human stories with conflicting narratives. He cites a new HBO documentary, To Die in Jerusalem, the story of a March 2002 suicide bombing in which a young Palestinian blew herself up in Jerusalem supermarket, killing a young Israeli woman. The film tells the story of the unsuccessful attempt by the mothers of the two women to talk with each other. Cohen writes that the reality of the Middle East is in the story of these two mothers:
The deaths of their daughters do not unite them. They talk past each other. They are virtual neighbors, but the distance between them is huge - roadblocks and checkpoints and mentalities ossified by 100 years of bloodshed. One mother is obsessed with the Israeli occupation. The other is preoccupied with terrorism. One is right. The other is right.
Israel must relent. That's for sure. The Palestinians must forswear terrorism. That's for sure, too. The occupation has to end. Suicide bombings have to end. A Palestinian state has to be created. Gaza cannot remain a terrorist base. The West Bank cannot become a terrorist base. It's all so sensible. It's all so logical. But, really, down where it counts, the mothers of two dead daughters cannot even talk to each other.
Until the leaders of both Israel and Palestine understand both of these narratives and can negotiate a common narrative, the tragedies will continue. I pray this Annapolis conference will at long last begin that process.
A major voice in the roundtable was Jeff Sharlet, a confessed non-evangelical whom top evangelical organizations might be wise to hire - and quick - as a consultant. As an outsider, he sees what a lot that us insiders need to see: that it's time to augment our deeply-held concern for private morality with a new vision for addressing systemic injustice. I'm both hopeful and increasingly confident that for the next generation of evangelicals, this augmentation is already happening. For example, for the next generation of evangelicals, care for the planet is already a key moral issue with both personal and social dimensions, because they see in our "creation mandate" a call to steward the earth for a) our creator (not an insignificant concern!), b) our grandchildren's grandchildren (and undervalued family value to be sure), c) our poor and vulnerable neighbors from Bangladesh to Darfur, and d) our fellow creatures with whom we share the land, sea, and air.
Michael Lindsay offered an appropriate last word that implies a critical question:
If evangelicals end up merely using politics for sectarian aims, we will all be worse off. Their gospel will be less attractive to non-Christians. Other religious groups will feel increasingly marginalized. Faith will be seen as another tool for manipulating the public. So history will have to be the judge of whether this [recent resurgence of evangelical political power] has been merely the triumph of another interest group or if the evangelical ascendancy has contributed to a more enlightened democracy, where engaged citizens use their faith to serve the common good.
"The common good" – there's that phrase that seems to be coming up more and more lately. Could it be nestled, next to love for God, right at the heart of what Jesus meant by "gospel of the kingdom of God?" Could this more holistic, integral gospel be the common ground and higher ground where evangelicals and others can come together in these fractious times?
To flip Lindsay's assessment around, if evangelicals "use their faith to serve the common good," then we will all be better off. This is the hope many of us share with roundtable participant David Kuo, a hope rooted in the conviction "that the gospel of Jesus is so life-transforming, so utterly staggering, that to put that gospel into action through sacrificially loving their neighbor would change the world."
A week before Thanksgiving, I spoke in Lake Tahoe for the clergy convocation of the California-Nevada Conference of the United Methodist Church, a sprawling geography that comprises a wide array of congregations in big cities and small rural towns. The wide variety of clergy reflected that of the churches—the group included many women, persons of color, younger pastors, folks with a spectrum of theological views, and ordained and non-ordained leaders. It was obvious that this group of Methodists was working hard on issues of diversity.
But the most stunning diversity was in the presence of people from around the world, not as mission guests or visiting Methodist dignitaries. Rather, the group included local congregational leaders who hailed from the all the "souths": the South Pacific, South Africa, South Asia, South Korea, South America, and even south Jersey, South Carolina, and southern California. There, on the shores of an alpine lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, gathered the Global South and the emerging community of world Christianity in the form of Methodist clergy.
We spent the day talking about postmodern Christianity and cultural change as related to mainline churches. Early in the conversation, an Indian pastor graciously raised the relevance of postmodern analysis in relation to his community and worldview asking, "Isn't this a western phenomenon?" His questions and their implicit challenges to a western worldview drew the group into a new conversational space. We began to think about cultural change globally—looking at postmodernism and its effects through a prism of worldviews. We did not argue about issues of sexuality; we did not get into a theological fight; we never resorted to ignoring others. We ruminated on God's work in history. We talked about something important—about how the world is changing and why. We listened to and affirmed each other, hospitably opening ourselves to understand and integrate perspectives different from our own. What resulted was, for me, one of the most stimulating intellectual and spiritual days I have experienced in a long time.
I grew up United Methodist in Baltimore in the 1960s. In those years, my childhood church was nearly ripped in two by the Civil Rights Movement. Even the thought of sharing "our" church with African-American Methodists frightened much of my neighborhood to the point of fleeing both the congregation and the city. It would have been impossible to imagine that, some 40 years hence, I would participate in a Methodist community encompassing such a rainbow of ethnicities.
I am sure that good Methodists of the California-Nevada Conference will demur, saying how far they have to go and how imperfectly they practice diversity. But 40 years is a pretty short time to go from a fractured community fearful of race toward the room I experienced at Lake Tahoe. And it demonstrated to me the power of diversity as a Christian practice. If their diversity was merely a "program" of the denomination, it would breed resentment and suspicion. But the level of trust in the room (we even talked about trust) indicated that their diversity went far beyond program—that it is a genuine attempt to enact Christian community in bringing together humankind through Jesus Christ. Their diversity was a practice of faith, an action that Christian people do for the sake of God in the world.
Frankly, the world has never needed the Christian practice of diversity more than it does today. By creating global community in a room on the shores of Lake Tahoe, the Methodists of the California-Nevada Conference provided a hopeful example of what may be possible for the rest of us on a larger scale. It may not be perfect, but I can testify that for one day, we did it. We really acted like Christians—Christians of every imaginable stripe—in the same room, doing important work together. We proved—or maybe discovered—that the only limit to diversity is the love of God.
Diana Butler Bass (www.dianabutlerbass.com) is the author of six books including Christianity for the Rest of Us (Harper One, 2006), just released in paperback. She says she lives in Alexandria, Virginia. But, from her speaking engagement schedule, we think she lives on United Airlines.
To be with God is really to be involved with some enormous, overwhelming desire, and joy, and power which you cannot control, which controls you. God is a means of liberation and not a means to control others.
But Peter said to him, "May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God's gift with money! You have no part or share in this, for your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.
In the news you might have missed over the Thanksgiving weekend, Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd decisively defeated Prime Minister John Howard in an important Australian election. Howard has long been one of the strongest supporters of President Bush's policies. Rudd, on the other hand, has already made it clear that he has different priorities. In his first news conference, he committed to making climate change a priority, promising to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Rudd also announced he will withdraw Australia's troops from Iraq.
But deeper than specific issues are the principles that guide Kevin Rudd's politics. On my most recent trip to Australia, I had dinner and a long conversation with Rudd, in which I learned he is a committed Catholic Christian in a secular country and a longtime friend of Sojourners. We discussed at some length how to apply Catholic social teaching to public policy. We had a subsequent conversation in Washington, D.C., on faith and politics; and in the fall of 2006, he wrote an essay, titled "Faith in Politics," for an Australian magazine, The Monthly. He began by saying,
[Dietrich] Bonhoeffer is, without doubt, the man I admire most in the history of the twentieth century. …This essay seeks both to honour Bonhoeffer and to examine what his life, example and writings might have to say to us, 60 years after his death, on the proper relationship between Christianity and politics in the modern world.
Rudd pointed to the core principle that,
Bonhoeffer's political theology is therefore one of a dissenting church that speaks truth to the state, and does so by giving voice to the voiceless. Its domain is the village, not the interior life of the chapel. Its core principle is to stand in defence of the defenceless or, in Bonhoeffer's terms, of those who are "below". … Christianity, consistent with Bonhoeffer's critique in the '30s, must always take the side of the marginalised, the vulnerable and the oppressed.
It is unusual for a prime minister to cite Bonhoeffer as his model, but it is that principle that Rudd will bring to his new position as prime minister. Along with British prime minister Gordon Brown, he is a new kind of political leader who seeks to practice moral politics.
In light of Pat Robertson's and Bob Jones III's recent presidential endorsements – shocking or predictable, depending on your cynicism factor – and in light of the recent New York Times article on the fragmentation of evangelicalism, I'm sure we'll be seeing a growing number of assessments regarding the status and future of the evangelical Christian community in the U.S. Those interested in the subject shouldn't miss the conversation that's been going on over at the Beliefnet roundtable on evangelicals in power. Beliefnet's Patton Dodd got things rolling, and was joined by writers Hannah Rosin and Jeff Sharlet, Left Behind novelist Jerry Jenkins, sociologist Michael Lindsay, and former Bush aide David Kuo.
All participants agreed on the need for civil and substantive discourse on the relation between faith and public life. Not only did they agree on the need for it, but they practiced it. Stark disagreement didn't give way to name-calling or vilification; civility didn't generate into a surfacey niceness that fogs up disagreement. I can only hope that future conversations on this topic will follow the civil and substantive tone of this one.
I especially appreciated the fresh tone struck by evangelicals David Kuo and Jerry Jenkins. Jenkins, in particular, shatters stereotypes by what he says and how he says it; one can only hope that those who loved his novels will follow his lead when he says things like this:
The true evangelical leaders, to me, are those serving Jesus (for He said that if you feed the hungry, help the poor, etc., doing this "unto the least of these," you're doing it unto Me) behind the scenes. Fortunately, I know many such servants - sadly, or perhaps encouragingly, most of them are young people. My son and his wife (in their early thirties with three young children) have helped started a church in Venice Beach, California, that largely serves minorities and the homeless. Just a few dozen gather Sunday mornings for a joyous celebration, but during the week they are also ministered to in concrete ways. My son and daughter-in-law, despite the fact that he's a movie director and she's a full-time mom, are in the process of adopting another child (and possibly two), believing that this is another way to put their faith into action.
One feels the center of gravity shifting in a statement like this from an evangelical leader like this. I share Jerry's hope when I look at many younger leaders in what is often called "the emerging church." Guided by "true evangelical leaders" like Karen Ward, Shane Claiborne, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Rob Bell, Danielle Shroyer, Adam Taylor, Gabriel Salguero, and others, this new generation of Christian adults will not be driving their parents' generation's evangelical Buick. They'll be serving the least of these - planting churches in inner cities, adopting forgotten children, and working for justice.
There seems to be much concern lately over the people being referred to as "illegal immigrants." Let's define our terms: "Immigrant" - somebody who has come to a country and settled there. "Illegal" - forbidden by law. Concern about illegal immigrants has a familiar ring to us Native Americans. We have been empathizing with those concerns for over half a millennium.
Let's see ...Were the first immigrants to America illegal? By every definition - yes! But perhaps if they had a good reason it makes their trespass less offensive. What of their motives? The stated intent of some of the earliest European settlers in America was first to establish military superiority over the inhabitants and then "civilize" them by assimilating them into their form of government and converting them to a foreign religion. Such was the case in the earliest American colonies: From the First Charter of Virginia, April 10, 1606..."[we] may in time bring the Infidels and Savages, living in those parts, to human Civility, and to a settled and quiet Government."
And talk about attitude ... they even came expecting us to learn their language. For example, I always thought, if you come to Cherokee country, you should speak Cherokee.
Even though the European immigrants said they were fleeing totalitarianism and searching for economic freedom, they did not all come peaceably or with good intent. Attempted genocide, physical force, coercion, and the imposition of colonial structures in order to establish dominance over Native North Americans became their mode of operation. Even many early American Christians' values were evident to the indigene by the settlers' disregard for human life. This supposed Christian witness was evident in their reactions when they arrived on the eastern part of this continent and found that epidemics had wiped out several nations. Such was the case with William Bradford's infamous statement, "The good hand of God ... favored our beginnings ... sweeping away great multitudes of the natives ... that he might make room for us" (Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, page 56).
The devout Pilgrims did not weep for the lost Wampanoag, Patuxet, and Massachuset civilizations. Instead, one of their leaders, John Winthrop, made a "legal" declaration annulling any native claims to the land. "The Indians," he said, "had not 'subdued' the land, and therefore had only a 'natural' right to it, but not a 'civil right.' A 'natural right' did not have legal standing" (Zinn, A People's History of the United States, page 14).
Early American immigrants, now well established, may have conveniently forgotten that their ancestors did not come as law-abiding citizens, but were intent on making their own laws and disregarding any laws already established by the original Americans. They often justified the taking of innocent lives and the removal of the original inhabitants by their religion. I could go on ... believe me ... I could go on. Suffice it to say, when I look at the track record of the current immigrants compared to the first immigrants, I find much hope for the future of our country.
I also wonder if perhaps the earliest immigrants fear the current ones so much because they somehow understand that, historically, retribution often occurs. There is an old Indian adage that says, "whatever you do, comes back to you." I hope not ...
Instead, I would like to remind us of another old idea: "They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, "All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!" (John 8:7 NLT)
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We cannot separate ourselves from the use of power—either as individuals or as a society or as a church. It is a fact of life. Power is the ability to achieve purpose—the capability for action. Power is a gift from God. God does not intend a world where powerful suppress and oppress the powerless. Power is not meant to be the possession of a few while the majority are impoverished. Power, given by God, is meant to be shared by all. All creation is intended to participate and benefit from the use of power that has the best interest of the neighbor as its goal.
- Helen Bruch Pearson Do What You Have the Power to Do
One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, "Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people."
Back in 2004, Anthony Flew, the world’s most prominent atheist, stated he believed in God. Since this pronouncement, some of his fellow atheists treat him as though he's gone over to the dark side and literally lost his mind. In a nutshell, they feel this champion of their cause has flown the coop, as it were, and is being used as a pawn by those Christians who need someone of Flew’s stature to give weight to the entire Intelligent Design movement. (See The New York Times article, "The Turning of an Atheist").
Nadda, nope, no way. Not so fast.
Let's reflect on what Flew actually said when he came out as a theist. He told The Associated Press that "his current ideas have some similarity with American ‘intelligent design’ theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life."
As Christine Rosen wrote in The Wall Street Journal, "Mr. Flew is not quite the crusading convert his book title suggests: He did not embrace Christianity, but Deism. As he told Christianity Today, he feels more spiritual kinship with the skeptical Thomas Jefferson than with Jesus. 'I understand why Christians are excited, but if they think I am going to become a convert to Christ in the near future, they are very much mistaken,' he said."
Pick up a copy of Flew’s latest book, There is A God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, and you’ll see that a thinker of his stature can’t be painted in simple monochromatic colors. Rather, this biography, co-written by Christian apologist Roy Abraham Varghese, reveals that Flew’s lifelong mantra was to follow the policy of Plato's Socrates: "We must follow the argument wherever it leads." After this preacher’s son penned his infamous short paper,"Theology and Falsification" in 1950, he assumed the position as the leading atheist apologist. Later in life, the evidence led him to conclude that the complexity of nature and the origin of life can only be explained by the presence of a super-intelligence.
While we’re at it, let’s not pull out the ageism card willy-nilly. If the critics are correct that Flew has truly gone "off his rocker," I doubt a publisher of HarperOne’s stature would have tackled this project. I’m not about to defend any publisher’s entire catalogue but if you skim their offerings, you’ll see that except for a few bits of New Thought nonsense, they tend to produce serious scholarship, not shoddy schlock. Furthermore, as I interviewed N.T. Wright for The Wittenburg Door and spent some time with him at Soularize 2007, I can attest that he would not have contributed to this dialogue if he wasn't convinced this was a worthy endeavor.
The flurry over Flew raises this question for me. Why do we feel the need to put the other in a prescribed belief box instead of allowing space to differ and dialogue?
It's not often that something I write attracts an immediate response from one of the most famous media entities in the world, but surprisingly enough, just after my recent post calling for our popular culture to propose concrete and distinctive opportunities for progressive activism, Rolling Stone magazine published a 40th anniversary issue that includes interviews suggesting just that. It's amazing how influential the God's Politics blog is becoming, almost as amazing as how quickly RS was able to produce this issue in what was surely a response to my own article. Next month they'll be dedicating their issue to the most humble bloggers they can find.
Just kidding, of course, but until then here are some of the suggestions that the featured stars are making as predictions for "where we're going":
Meryl Streep: "It's in the power of the great universities and colleges to plant ideas and curiosity and not just be mills for turning out hedge fund managers."
Bill Maher: "Nothing will change until the 71 million people who didn't vote in 2004 start to vote."
Chris Rock: "Hopefully the new president will get the troops back. I've got a first cousin who just came home from Iraq .... There's nothing sadder than having [the] party before somebody goes off to war. That's basically what it is: 'Please don't die .... Come back.'"
George Clooney: "'My country right or wrong' is not an option anymore .... [I] don't want to be on the wrong side of history.... I'm always afraid of [saying] 'I was stoning the witches, because it was easier.'"
Bruce Springsteen: "Our moral authority to stand up and say 'We are the Americans' has been deeply damaged."
Jon Stewart: "The reason I don't worry about society is, 19 people knocked down two buildings and killed thousands. Hundreds of people ran into those buildings to save them. I'll take those odds every day."
Granted, these interviews are printed on pages squeezed between the latest "beautiful people are better than you – buy more/spend more and you will feel superior about the world – what you really need is a HUMMER" ads, but at least RS is trying.
It's good that there are figures in our popular culture who are beginning to understand that change will require something other than armchair liberalism. That the common good requires each of us to go the extra mile. Rolling Stone editor Jann S. Wenner writes in an editorial,
We cry out for good leadership. For the past seven years we have been fed a diet of fear and falsehood. We have been led into a war with neither purpose nor success .... Our president has stood numb [in the face of] evidence of catastrophic climate change .... We have watched Congress and the press become weak ... handmaidens to those who would rip apart the fabric and laws of our democratic society .... We don't need leaders who wear flag pins in their lapels, but rather men and women who have the guts to tell us the truth .... We hunger for the restoration of hope and common sense and purpose.
Could a first step toward restoring that hope be inspired by Bono's comment in the magazine: "Isn't it cheaper and smarter to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?"
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
We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead. We all growl like bears; like doves we moan mournfully. We wait for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us. For our transgressions before you are many, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions indeed are with us, and we know our iniquities: transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning away from following our God, talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.
Rest your heart in God, let yourself float on the safe waters, loving life as it comes, with all the rough weather it may bring. Give, without counting how many years are left, not worried about surviving as long as possible.
He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."
In many pulpits during this Thanksgiving season, love of our country and pride in our citizenship will be pronounced in the same breath - and often with the same intensity - as declarations of love for our God. But we must be careful, for patriotism can be destructive as well as constructive. Worse, it can become idolatrous.
Constructive patriotism, or what James Forbes, pastor emeritus of the Riverside Church in New York City calls "prophetic patriotism," is the willingness to strive in word and deed to ensure that this nation is healthy, whole, secure, and conducting its affairs at home and abroad according to the political doctrines we claim to hold dear.
Destructive patriotism, however, is primarily focused on discrediting or destroying those it perceives as opponents of America. The purview of destructive patriotism is "us" against "them" - "them" being not only foreigners, but also any American who openly disagrees with the official actions of the leaders of the United States, no matter if their policies contradict our Constitution, harm the public good, or violate the most basic ethics of the biblical faith they claim to hold dear.
If we who call ourselves patriots are to be true to our faith, our patriotism must ever be constructive, because constructive criticism of governmental policies and practices is squarely in the tradition of the biblical prophets and the gospel of Jesus. It is not only concerned with political affairs - it is also concerned with the spiritual and moral health of America. Constructive prophetic oversight is the highest and healthiest form of patriotism because it seeks to help the nation become its best and most righteous self,.
That is why true patriots will welcome prophetic critiques of our government - because they can help America become its most righteous and most just self. Conversely, the true patriot will reject uncritical abdications of our prophetic responsibility to make our nation its best self that are expressed in such slogans as "America - love it or leave it" and "Criticism of our government equals support for our enemies." To the degree that patriotism causes division and enmity between God's children, it is in opposition to the gospel, pure and simple. But when patriotism seeks to silence prophetic criticism, it is more than oppositional; it is idolatrous, because by following its own beliefs, judgments, and interests rather than the prophetic mandate, it makes an idol of them. This blind, idolatrous brand of patriotism is blasphemous because it values the welfare and even the humanity of some of God's children - that is, Americans, and not all of those, either - over the welfare and humanity of all others, particularly those who look, speak, and worship differently. In contrast, a God-centered patriotism will confess, like the apostle Peter, "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God" (Acts 10:34-35).
Therefore, if we are to be true patriots and true followers of the biblical imperative of justice on earth as in heaven, then each day before we pledge allegiance to the flag and the republic for which it stands, we must first recommit our allegiance to the gospel of Jesus, the justice of God, and the love of our neighbors it commands. We must never forget that the flag does not supercede the cross.
Thus, if it is the gospel that is truly the object of our faith and our allegiance, this Thanksgiving let us give thanks to God for the faithful voices that, despite the derision and even the personal physical harm they risk and sometimes suffer, nonetheless continue to speak out against every action, policy, and pronouncement of our leaders and our government that distances us from the liberating gospel of Jesus and the kingdom of God.
What are you thankful for? It's a question often asked this Thanksgiving holiday season. Some think it's a little sappy, but I actually believe it's a very good question. And answering it is a good reminder of what's really important. Many of us are too often focused on what we'd like to change or be different, instead of remembering and being grateful for the blessings we already have in our lives.
So, what am I thankful for? I have been feeling very blessed these days. Joy and I are celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary this year and I can honestly say that these 10 years have been the very best of my life. To have a partner who really makes you better and who helps you keep your feet on the ground is a real blessing, as is a relationship where you can both love and admire the other while helping to keep each other very human all at the same time. And Joy is the kind of person who also makes sure that you have fun! For a serious activist type like me, that is a blessing indeed.
And then there are those two boys of ours. Luke is now nine and Jack is four. I was raised in a big and close family. But for many years, my own life was consumed with mission, community, and action. But along came Joy, and then a family that has become, literally, the anchor of my life. I used to say that my work was good, but now my life is good too.
I build my travel schedule now around Little League baseball, in which I get to coach 14 nine-year-olds, whom I've had for four years. My first coaching instructions back then were things like "throw it overhand," but our kids have become a good little team and just finished another undefeated season! Our "sports Saturdays" are the best day of the week for our family - starting with soccer in the morning, finishing with baseball in the afternoon. Our team goals are three: learn to love the game of baseball, learn how to be good teammates, and have fun. Luke just loves baseball (as does his English mom), and it was very special indeed when we got to share the experience of going to this fall's World Series opener at historic Fenway Park in Boston—a dad/son moment we'll remember for the rest of our lives. Jack, who also loves going to the games and running around with all his little friends, has already started soccer himself, and will be ready to start Little League T-ball next spring. He came up to me recently and asked, "Dad, are you going to coach my team too?" What could I say? I'll be coaching two teams next spring.
Both Luke and Jack love school, and we're very lucky to have found a great public school for them to go to. Luke has joined the school spelling bee and, unlike his dad, is also good at math. Jack is just itching to read, has quite an imagination, and is learning language and vocabulary at such a pace that makes both his parents smile as he puts words together in often very funny ways. Their ever-increasing activities fill our lives with all sorts of things that we otherwise might have never known, which we both know is an amazing (if sometimes exhausting!) blessing. There is the school safety patrol, piano lessons, a weekly drama workshop called the Shakespeare Club, along with baseball, soccer, basketball, and tennis. But most importantly, they are both very happy and healthy boys - and that is the best blessing of all.
Joy calls our collection of families from school, soccer, and baseball "the village" and, in many ways, she has become "the village priest" in her relationship to many of those people. She really enjoys being so involved in the boy's school, and even loves to run the school auction, shamelessly getting all our friends to donate stuff (the most recent example was getting Bono to autograph two school T-shirts when he was in town a few weeks ago). She did a wonderful commencement address this year at Goshen College in Indiana and inspired the eager young graduates to make their lives really count for something. I am very blessed to have a wife and partner with whom to share a common vision of faith and justice, and an even deeper understanding of the things that make life so rich, human, and good—an ongoing conversation that is usually shared over a glass of wine at night. And if my priest wife is ever to go back to pastoring a church again, it would likely have to be called "grace" church, because she has the deepest theology of grace of anybody I know—a gift that comes in very handy with a husband like me who regularly needs the blessing of grace.
For many years, we at Sojourners continued on with the vision and work that we had been given three decades ago. But in the last few years, it has all broken through in ways we hadn't imagined before, and that has brought many blessings too. It seems the time is right and ripe for the message that connects spiritual renewal and social change. But we now have a new term on the staff that we call "outrageous opportunities," used as an internal reminder not to be overwhelmed by all the wonderful invitations and open doors we are presented with almost every day. Those "blessings" could well burn us out unless we learn how to be good stewards of all the new opportunities coming our way. Those blessings are now an invitation to prayerfully discern our best vocation and role, which is far better than just succumbing to the temptation of just doing more and more important things.
But as Thomas Merton once said, "In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything." And for me, the greatest blessings are clearly to be "a family" with Joy, Luke, and Jack; to have some of the best friends and companions on this journey that anyone could be blessed to have; to enjoy an extended family of brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, who still are very conscious of the legacy of love that our now departed parents left us all (my dad passing this past year); and to regularly meet people on the road who, even if just meeting them for the first time, express such a deep solidarity and kindred spirit with us in this emerging movement that marries faith and justice—especially a new generation, which gives me such hope.
So as they say in the black churches, "I'm blessed." I would humbly suggest that that you make a list of your blessings this Thanksgiving weekend, or write a little reflection like this about the ways that you too are blessed. Take a breath, or a walk, or a moment or two, and say a prayer to the God of love and grace who wants to fill our lives and our world with such rich blessings. As Joy and I have talked recently about our many blessings, we are very aware that we, our family, and our friends may well face some tough issues and painful challenges in the years ahead. But even in the face of those human realities, it's always best to begin by first remembering all the ways that we are blessed. So Happy Thanksgiving, and let us all count our blessings.
Two months ago, for the first time in my eight years living in Washington, D.C., I was mugged. Two young men rolled up in a pickup truck while I was unloading groceries from my car in the alley next to my condo building. They made me lie on the ground, held a gun to my neck as they took my money, and then locked me in the trunk of my car as they made their getaway. Fortunately I still had my cell phone in my pocket and was able to call 911 from the trunk. The police were able to free me, as well as pursue and arrest two suspects who are now in the District court system.
I was not hurt, they took little of real value, and I feel like I've done a pretty good job of refusing to let fear change the way I live. Fairly or unfairly, with my privileged status, I'm not worried about my future or my survival. I am worried about those two young men, and many others like them. What influences, role models, or lack of positive options allowed them to make such stupid and destructive choices?
In reflecting on my mugging, I've only recently begun to connect a few dots. For the past six years, I've been on the board of Urban Family Development (UFD), a nonprofit organization that currently runs programs for after school enrichment, tutoring, and mentoring - and we have lots of big dreams for expansion. However, it's always been a struggle to find funding and volunteers for this kind of work with such a great need, many worthy ministries, and a limited pool people willing to sacrifice their time or money.
I don't know what the government of D.C. is going to spend to prosecute and potentially imprison those muggers, but I'm pretty sure it would be enough to give UFD a solid financial boost - and then some. The most visible anti-crime measures in my neighborhood consist of portable floodlights rotated around sketchy street corners. A church friend who once interned at UFD and is now a D.C. policeman confirms what a band-aid these strategies are, even as he tries to do his job with integrity. Instead of high-visibility, low-impact band-aids, I want UFD to provide better options for as many youth as possible, so that fewer young men and women grow up to make stupid choices like wrecking their lives to steal my $20. I want to execute a preemptive strike on this kind of stupidity by supporting a program that provides a safe place for children, gives them mentors through the difficult years of adolescence, and then celebrates their success - all of which UFD does.
Why can't we - both as a society and as a church - do better at providing positive choices for our youth? And for me it is a both/and. I've seen more small-government conservatives willing roll up their sleeves and volunteer as tutors. Meanwhile, it's mostly the justice-minded liberals who march and lobby to end poverty and violence. How can we get more liberals to show up at UFD and more conservatives to advocate? (I know these categories are unfair and far from universal, but I've seen this dynamic over and over in my own church experience.)
Government at every level must do better at making the needed resources available, if for no other reason that the churches simply don't have the resources to do it all on their own. But the church must also be the conscience of the state - challenging not only with words, but by example in serving and caring for those at the margins of society. Conversely, the words of the prophet Jeremiah may inspire the church, but they were originally spoken to a king: "Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? says the Lord." (Jeremiah 22:15b-16)
Consider this as the onslaught of opportunities for "Canned Compassion" wash over us with the holiday season, and look for opportunities to do both justice and mercy, not with band-aids of a march here or a meal there, but with sustained service and activism that seeks real healing for our communities.
The wicked remove landmarks; they seize flocks and pasture them. They drive away the donkey of the orphan; they take the widow's ox for a pledge. They thrust the needy off the road; the poor of the earth all hide themselves.
Very often people object that nonviolence seems to imply passive acceptance of injustice and evil and therefore that it is a kind of cooperation with evil. Not at all. The genuine concept of nonviolence implies not only active and effective resistance to evil but in fact a more effective resistance... But the resistance which is taught in the Gospel is aimed not at the evil-doer but at evil in its source.
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Video production by Kaitlin Hasseler, Sojourners media assistant, Anna Almendrala, Sojourners Marketing/Circulation assistant and Matt Hildreth, Sojourners web assistant.
While volunteering in a legal clinic in my sophomore year of college, interviewing people applying for political asylum in the U.S., I heard a lot of people describe how they had had to leave everything behind and flee into the jungle, carrying children on their backs.
I interviewed lots of people and read the personal statements of cases already filed, and all the stories were sickeningly similar. The basic skeleton of their stories was this: one day, a group of "communist/insurgent/fill in the blank" guerillas passed by my village begging for food. A few weeks later, a military group from the national army stormed the community, accusing us of being part of a rebellion. After enduring the military's accusations/threats/rapes/beatings/murder attempts, we survivors melted into the surrounding mountains and jungles. We walked for weeks, living like fugitives in foreign countries until we finally collapsed within the border of California.
It was always the same story, the same timeline of events. The only deviations from the testimony were in those grisly details: "all the men in my village were shot in the head," or "all teens were forced to join the army," or "all the ladies and girls were violated." Once I interviewed a client who remembers soldiers kicking his pregnant mother in the abdomen. She gave birth in the jungle, three days later, to a stillborn baby. Another time a child returned from farming to find his entire community shot dead in the center of the village. Once, a man came into our clinic seeking help on his asylum case, and when he told about how he had helped the army gather up all the leaders of the village into a church and set it on fire, we turned him away.
It wasn't even until a few weeks into the volunteer work that someone told me about the United States' involvement in the massacres. The military dictators and officers that created the structures and protocols for combating "communism" in the 1980s and 1990s attended military training programs in the United States. Their armies are funded generously by our government. Some were politically supported in the world arena when they staged their coup d'etats against democratically elected administrations. I know that if the people of the United States heard even a few of the stories from people that had miraculously survived village massacres, they would be in Fort Benning every year en masse, protesting the School of Americas with us.
Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners.
Christianity and Islam comprise the world's largest communities of faith - 2.1 billion Christians and 1.5 billion Muslims. If these two religious traditions cannot find ways to keep peace between themselves, the world will be in very serious trouble. As Brian McLaren posted earlier on this blog, a group of 138 Muslim scholars and clerics recently sent an open letter to Christians around the world, A Common Word Between Us and You. In it, they proposed that
Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world's population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world. The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians.
The basis for this peace and understanding already exists. It is part of the very foundational principles of both faiths: love of the One God, and love of the neighbour. These principles are found over and over again in the sacred texts of Islam and Christianity. The Unity of God, the necessity of love for Him, and the necessity of love of the neighbour is thus the common ground between Islam and Christianity.
A group of scholars at Yale Divinity School's Center for Faith and Culture wrote a response, Loving God and Neighbor Together. To date, the response has been endorsed by almost 300 Christian theologians and leaders, and it appeared on Sunday as a full page ad in TheNew York Times. The response begins by acknowledging that
… we were deeply encouraged and challenged by the recent historic open letter. … We receive the open letter as a Muslim hand of conviviality and cooperation extended to Christians world-wide. In this response we extend our own Christian hand in return, so that together with all other human beings we may live in peace and justice as we seek to love God and our neighbors.
After affirming the Muslim letter's emphasis on love of God and love of neighbor as central to both faiths, the Christian response concludes
"Let this common ground" – the dual common ground of love of God and of neighbor – "be the basis of all future interfaith dialogue between us," your courageous letter urges. Indeed, in the generosity with which the letter is written you embody what you call for. We most heartily agree. Abandoning all "hatred and strife," we must engage in interfaith dialogue as those who seek each other's good, for the one God unceasingly seeks our good. Indeed, together with you we believe that we need to move beyond "a polite ecumenical dialogue between selected religious leaders" and work diligently together to reshape relations between our communities and our nations so that they genuinely reflect our common love for God and for one another. Given the deep fissures in the relations between Christians and Muslims today, the task before us is daunting. And the stakes are great. The future of the world depends on our ability as Christians and Muslims to live together in peace.
Religious communities should not resolve their differences by killing each other. We must prevent the "clash of civilizations" that some predict or even desire. Irresponsible calls to war against "Islamo-facism," even by some Christian leaders, must be countered with the spirit of the above declarations. That's why I signed this response to our Muslim counterparts and would encourage each of you to find ways to enter in to this dialogue. It's time to stop shouting and start talking. Out of that might come something even better than mere peace and dialogue - like actual interfaith collaboration in resolving some of the planet's most dangerous threats and challenges. Isn't that a better role for religion?
In the spirit of tradition and solidarity, the Sojourners interns once again traveled to the annual SOA Watch protest and vigil this past weekend to close the U.S. Army School of the Americas. Officially named the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation", the school provides combat training for Latin American soldiers at Ft. Benning in Columbus, Georgia. Graduates of the school have committed atrocities against their own people in countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, and others. This year, more than 25,000 people made the trek to the gates of the SOA/WHISC to call for the complete closure of the school and an end to the repressive policies it embodies. Two busy days of uplifting music, speakers, teach-ins, and activist networking ended with a solemn mock funeral procession honoring by name the thousands of victims who died at the hands of SOA-trained military personnel. White wooden crosses inscribed with the names and ages of martyrs were placed at the heavily secured gate on the base. The atmosphere of the vigil was saturated with holy respect for those who had gone before us in the work of peace and justice. Although the school still remains open, the ongoing work of raising awareness and political pressure are complimented by this large-scale demonstration of defiance and dissent.
The majority of our group had never attended an SOA protest, and experiencing a powerful event of this size and intensity was a bonding experience for us. In our many hours in the van, we debated issues of U.S. militarism, our nation's corrupt foreign policy with regard to Latin America, and the very nature of democracy. We also spent time evaluating what it meant for us, individually and collectively, to be present at such an event. As Sojourners, we are called to do direct social justice work from a perspective of faith, even if results are difficult to see. As Christians, we stand in solidarity with fellow believers in Latin America who were and continue to be persecuted because of their beliefs in a gospel of liberation, justice, and freedom from direct violence and structural poverty. As people of faith, we stand with the rest of the world in calling for peaceful solutions and an end to the violence taught by our military institutions. As individuals, however, we vary in our own religious traditions and perspectives.
Allison Johnson is the policy and organizing assistant for Sojourners.
Unfortunately, though we often talk about forgiveness within the church, very often by the way we deal with things—attempting to suppress conflict, not making judgments, keeping things secret, not enforcing the ethical conditions we talk about, not holding the powerful accountable—we actually create a situation that stops people from being able to forgive.
- Peter Horsfield Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Situations of Sexual Assault
Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Thanksgiving is the time of year when American generosity is clearly visible. We make donations to our local food banks and homeless shelters and volunteer in soup kitchens. But do we really believe that is the solution to hunger?
Mark Winne, former director of Connecticut's Hartford Food System, answered the question in yesterday's Washington Post. In a piece titled "Canned Compassion," he describes how what was originally intended as a temporary way of dealing with emergencies has become a multi-billion dollar industry, and how that shows the limits of charity and the importance of justice.
Winne writes:
Food banks are a dominant institution in this country, and they assert their power at the local and state levels by commanding the attention of people of good will who want to address hunger. Their ability to attract volunteers and to raise money approaches that of major hospitals and universities. While none of this is inherently wrong, it does distract the public and policymakers from the task of harnessing the political will needed to end hunger in the United States.
The risk is that the multibillion-dollar system of food banking has become such a pervasive force in the anti-hunger world, and so tied to its donors and its volunteers, that it cannot step back and ask if this is the best way to end hunger, food insecurity, and their root cause, poverty.
During my tenure in Hartford, I often wondered what would happen if the collective energy that went into soliciting and distributing food were put into ending hunger and poverty instead. Surely it would have a sizable impact if 3,000 Hartford-area volunteers, led by some of Connecticut's most privileged and respected citizens, showed up one day at the state legislature, demanding enough resources to end hunger and poverty. Multiply those volunteers by three or four - the number of volunteers in the state's other food banks and hundreds of emergency food sites - and you would have enough people to dismantle the Connecticut state capitol brick by brick. Put all the emergency food volunteers and staff and board members from across the country on buses to Washington to tell Congress to mandate a living wage, health care for all, and adequate employment and child-care programs, and you would have a convoy that might stretch from New York City to our nation's capital.
This Thanksgiving, by all means make a donation to a food bank or volunteer in a soup kitchen. And then resolve to become an advocate for policy changes that can alleviate the need for them. Wouldn't it be better if low-income families had a living wage so they could buy their food in a supermarket like the rest of us? As Winne concludes
We know hunger's cause - poverty. We know its solution - end poverty. Let this Thanksgiving remind us of that task.
Here's the good news about Darfur: we know it is doable to force the regime in Khartoum to back away from its genocidal divide-and-conquer strategies. We know this because the U.S. helped do it once already: it led international pressure that forced Khartoum to a peace accord and power-sharing agreement with southern Sudan in 2005. If we want to preserve the peace in the south, stop the genocide in Darfur, and prevent Genocide Round Three from happening in Sudan's eastern Beja region, we need to remember the lessons of the last seven years.
Here's the genocidal strategy Khartoum has repeatedly employed: when rebel groups form in Sudan's provincial areas – an understandable reaction to a government that takes callous disregard for its countrymen to new depths – it arms ethnically or regionally-based militias and turns them loose to rape and kill civilian populations, forcing millions to flee their homes. It aims to create as many splinter groups as it can, in order to keep its enemies weak.
Then, when it has managed to stir up widespread violence and human rights abuses, it cynically tries to bill the whole thing as an internal ethnic conflict, hoping to pass off genocide as anarchy. But to buy this line would be to blame the spark of pre-existing ethnic tension, rather than the truckload of gasoline which the Khartoum regime systematically poured on.
They did this in southern Sudan, against Christian and animist populations, for decades. The tide began to change just before the turn of the millennium, when the New Sudan Council of Churches initiated a people-to-people peace process (focusing on traditional leaders and civilians rather than rebel commanders) which did hard, painstaking work to heal ethnic and regional divisions within southern Sudan – divisions which had prevented the region from negotiating from a position of strength. At the same time, a wide outcry from diverse groups in the U.S., including conservative Christians and human rights advocates, motivated the Bush administration to initiate a full-court diplomatic and economic press. After a range of delaying tactics, Khartoum signed onto a peace agreement in 2005.
By that time, they were already into round two of the genocidal strategy, in Darfur: this time arming the Janjaweed militias, drawn largely from groups that consider themselves Arab, against populations that consider themselves ethnically African.
Khartoum didn't think we'd care if they slaughtered Muslims. It is a good and hopeful thing that they were wrong.
But we need not just to care, but also to remember the lessons of the last seven years. So far Darfur peace efforts have consisted of sporadic, drive-by diplomacy which has allowed Khartoum to continue fanning the violence in Darfur, while putting off the international community with false promises of reform, mixed with belligerent bluster. Exhibit A is the failed 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement, which got the buy-in of only one rebel group and gave no seat at the table to civil society.
Peace talks are re-convening in December – read this excellent, concise analysis and let your government know you want us to get our diplomatic act together, now.
Elizabeth Palmberg is an assistant editor of Sojourners.
Millions of Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving again this year with a philosophy of Manifest Destiny. Many Native Americans will not celebrate Thanksgiving at all. They will view the holiday as a national day of mourning. To them, the Thanksgiving Myth justifies the genocide of indigenous peoples and acquiesces to notions of White supremacy. They will protest at Plymouth Rock and disseminate stories of the many massacres of Native Americans.
Some of us, trying to think through our mutual history, have asked questions like: "Should we even celebrate Thanksgiving? And if so, how?" In contrast to the sanitized Pilgrim story that we all learn, and in contrast to the horror stories from our past, I suggest that we replace the dominant myth of Thanksgiving with an alternate view.
We should begin by realizing that Thanksgiving in America didn't begin with the Pilgrims. For thousands of years feasts of thanksgiving have been characteristic of our Indian people. This has never ceased. While I do not advocate we replace them with the dominant Thanksgiving Myth, I still don't want to give up any type of festival of thanksgiving to the Creator—not even Thanksgiving day. Why? The answer is simple. Everything we have comes from God. We should always give thanks—for everything! I think our indigenous ancestors would agree with this point.
I wake up every morning and give thanks to Creator-Son, Jesus, for all that I have. Each day my wife and I burn sweet grass, read a devotional and pray for many things. Most of this time we spend giving thanks. We often have guests in our home (native and non-native) who join us during these times. How can I wake up on the day that is designated "Thanksgiving," or any day, and do something different?
We know that many of the "Christian" Pilgrims did not act like it—their greed for land and false notions of superiority did not reflect Jesus. We also know there were real times of peace and friendship that did reflect the real Jesus. We should celebrate those times. But, if we are using the Thanksgiving holiday as a narrative for peace and friendship, then let's build upon that and not ignore the whole picture.
The fact remains, settlers killed a lot of Indians, sometimes without mercy even for women and children. And, they often justified it with moral superiority from a "righteous" Christian base. That march of supposed moral supremacy over Native Americans is in "lock step" with the current call to war. If you don't support the current war, (or America's feigned moral superiority), take ownership of the whole history and celebrate the times of peace.
We can also celebrate new possibilities of true reconciliation with Native Americans, Muslims, and all the "other" people who have been the recipients of the devastation brought on by the dominant myth. Our family, on Thanksgiving Day, chooses to invite non-Indians to our home to cultivate true friendship.
Our family's prayer for you is to celebrate and enjoy this time of Thanksgiving, be thankful, educate yourselves concerning the real history of America, and use this time to encourage reconciliation between your family and those who share a different history. This is the first step to healing our land.
For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
We all readily agree that God forgives sin, that Jesus brought salvation from sin, but we have a very hard time seeing ourselves as those who need forgiveness and salvation. We watch the evening news or read the newspaper and decide that we really are not so bad after all; the things we may have done—may have done!—are not anything compared to what other people are doing.... We will never have an accurate picture of ourselves and our fallen human condition until we understand that there is no sin we are incapable of committing.... [But] God has come to bring the people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. We are forgiven as soon as we grasp the fact that we need forgiveness.
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You say that your opposition is close to making Christian ministry illegal. Would you care to elaborate on this? What sorts of ministries are being made illegal? Where is this being done? What laws are being passed that would hinder ministry?
The best example is the law recently passed in Oklahoma which makes it a " felony for U.S. citizens to knowingly provide shelter, transportation, or employment to illegal immigrants." If a person comes to the door of a church-run homeless shelter, saying he is illegal and needs a place to sleep, it is a felony to offer him a bed. And churches in Oklahoma across the board have spoken against this new law.
"While we do not intentionally harbor or employ illegal immigrants in our work, neither do we screen or profile individuals before we minister to them in the name of Jesus." Robert Wilson, chairman of the resolution committee, offered an example: "If someone comes to my office and needs a ride to the hospital, my higher obligation is, 'Man, I'll give you a ride to the hospital.' It's not to say, 'Let me see your green card first before I help you.'"
Previously, the Most Rev. Eusebius J. Beltran, archbishop of Oklahoma City, and 10 parish priests signed a pledge of resistance, saying, "we are standing together in opposition and defiance of this unjust and immoral law." The evening before the law went into effect, Bishop Edward J. Slattery and more than a dozen priests celebrated a special Mass dedicated to immigrants at St. Francis Xavier Church in Tulsa. "As baptized members of Christ, we cannot be silent or complicit with those who abuse the God-given dignity of the children of God," Bishop Slattery said in his homily at the Mass.
The Oklahoma Conference of Churches, representing 16 Oklahoma denominations, called the law a "disastrous effort" in its statement of opposition. The conference includes the Roman Catholic, United Methodist, Presbyterian Church USA, Episcopal, and Evangelical Lutheran Church of America denominations, among others.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made it a crime for a citizen to harbor a runaway slave or to offer any assistance to slaves who had run away from their masters. … Many Northern clergymen had been offering assistance to runaway slaves through the underground railroad, and continued to do so after the law's enactment. … An analogy can be drawn between the Fugitive Slave Act and a recent enactment of the Oklahoma Legislature in the form of House Bill 1804. This law makes it a crime to harbor or transport illegal aliens in this state. That law serves to criminalize the work done by a variety of clergymen and women throughout the state of Oklahoma who minister to the needs, both spiritual and temporal, of undocumented workers and their families.
It's an appropriate analogy. Remember, the Fugitive Slave Act was federal law, runaway slaves in the North were illegal. But the church then, as now, answers to a higher law.
A recent post on CT's Liveblog reminded me of a thread I've been wanting to sound off on since Tony Campolo defended the concept of Red Letter Christians. Ted Olson describes how theologian J.P. Moreland challenged the Evangelical Theological Society with a session called: "How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What Can Be Done About It." (Am I the only one that's surprised he wasn't burnt at the evangelical stake for the title alone?)
As Olson notes: "ETS membership has only two doctrinal requirements: you must affirm the Trinity and the inerrancy of Scripture." (Though when I visited their site, I have to admit I dig their logo, which includes a cross breaking a sword!) Here's Olson's summary of Moreland's critique:
"In the actual practices of the Evangelical community in North America, there is an overcommitment to Scripture in a way that is false, irrational, and harmful to the cause of Christ," he said. "And it has produced a mean-spiritedness among the over-committed that is a grotesque and often ignorant distortion of discipleship unto the Lord Jesus." The problem, he said, is "the idea that the Bible is the sole source of knowledge of God, morality, and a host of related important items. Accordingly, the Bible is taken to be the sole authority for faith and practice." ...
Rather than developing a robust epistemology in response to secularism, he said, evangelicals reacted and retreated. Now evangelical theologians aren't allowed to come to any new conclusions about the truths in Scripture, and they're not allowed to find truths outside of Scripture. As a result, he said, they're engaged in "private language games and increasingly detailed minutia" and "we're not seeing work on broad cultural themes."
It's refreshing to hear such criticism coming from within the evangelical academy. I've been frustrated over the years with Christians who are unwilling to see any truth outside of scripture or who prefer to explain away rather than grapple with the Bible's internal diversity. Even pillars of the church like Martin "Sola Scriptura" Luther felt the freedom to call the book of James "a right strawy epistle" because of its teachings on works.
I may disagree with Luther about James—love James—but I also love Luther's freedom in his approach to the canon. I also love N.T. Wright's assertion regarding scriptural diversity, for example, that accounts of Christ's death and resurrection that differ in details but affirm essentials are evidence of the veracity of those essentials because in real life, multiple witnesses tend to have diversity in their testimonies—while Da Vinci Code-type conspiracies get their stories straight with rigid uniformity. Expand that concept to the whole of scripture, and you've got a diversity of authors with some very real differences that, taken as a whole, form a narrative that has integrity in essentials. We may struggle to understand the diversity at times, but we need not feel threatened by it or explain it away.
I am first and foremost a Christian. I worship, follow, and seek to imitate Christ. I am not a Biblian. I do not worship the Bible, even though it is a reliable and authoritative witness to the person of Jesus Christ, the living Word of God. It is not a question of choosing one over and against the other, but a question of priority, emphasis, and ultimate allegiance.
Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the web editor for Sojourners.
We participate in the possibility of becoming faith mentors by opening our lives to God at work in us and nurturing our own spiritual journeys. We live as if we are faith mentors, and we use our skills and faith on behalf of others in the hope that God will work through us for their growth in faith. With humility, we provide guidance and discernment for those who are seeking for meaning in their lives. And we live in the hope that others will experience us as faith mentors, knowing it is not a title we may claim for ourselves.
When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
Last spring, Sojourners helped launch Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Following Congress' failure to pass meaningful reform, we have continued to work to provide churches and clergy with effective educational materials, encouraged and mobilized congregations to oppose punitive laws, and supported a rapid response media team of religious leaders around the country to respond to reports of intolerance.
Yesterday, CCIR held a news conference to urge Americans to recall, in the week before Thanksgiving, both the blessings in their lives and the needs of "the least of these" in our nation, many of whom are undocumented immigrants working for a better life. I joined the Most Reverend John Wester, bishop of Salt Lake City, chairman, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Migration; Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and James Winkler, general secretary of the United Methodist Church, General Board of Church & Society.
The immigration system is broken. We all know that, we all agree on that. We missed a chance to fix it in this Congress and the debate since that time has gone sour. Today we are not here to advocate a bill but to share concerns about our conversation, how we are talking about people.
We've often cited Leviticus 19:34 – "The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you; you shall love the stranger as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." Or as Jesus said so clearly, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me."
This immigration policy question is for us as people of faith the "welcoming the stranger" question. How do you treat those who are strangers in your midst? There is no doubt this debate has turned toward fear and anger. There are legitimate issues at stake. The rule of law is important, the system is broken. But the tenor of the debate has gone in an alarming direction. That's why we're here today. The way we talk about people is off course. Fear and anger dominate the conversation, not a civil discussion about the legitimate issues involved. How do we protect the dignity and the lives of the weakest and most marginalized among us?
I'm concerned about the restrictions, the new legislation being passed in many places. Oklahoma is one example, where in fact assistance to people who are undocumented is being questioned. When you're reaching out to hurting people, you don't check their papers. That's not our job. We don't do government's job for the government. And so we don't want to be in a situation where Christian ministry is made illegal. We're close to that now. You will hear from people in the churches across the political spectrum that if you tell us Christian ministry is illegal, we will go ahead and do Christian ministry whether it is legal or not. I'm concerned about these harsh restrictions that are coming from the states.
I'm also concerned about the talk. Talk is important. How we talk about people is very important. So I'm concerned when I read statements like an Arizona talk show host saying, "What we'll do is randomly pick one night every week where we will kill whoever crosses the border … step over there and you die. You get to decide whether it's your lucky night or not. I think that would be more fun." Well, it wouldn't be fun. And that kid of talk poisons the body politic. We have to stand up against talk like that.
Thirdly, I'm concerned about what we call family values. The raids have been quite appalling. We are literally taking children from their mothers and fathers, we are separating families,. This is not what in our tradition we should do. To protect and support families and those relationships is crucial to us.
So this is a conversation that is quickly going bad. I read today that it's the number two issue in the Iowa primary campaign. It will be a presidential election year issue. So how we talk about undocumented people is a matter of life and dignity. In fact, Hispanics who have been here for four generations are being looked at askance now as if every Hispanic citizen was undocumented. All of a sudden, the country feels very unsafe and unwelcoming to people of Latino descent. This is something going wrong in our body politic.
We're here to say, let's pay attention how we talk about people and let's come back to the table. We're not going to have immigration reform for some time, perhaps, but let's start a new conversation about what will fix the system and how to treat people humanely in the meantime. It's a matter of life and dignity.
Our compassionate efforts toward justice guarantee a deepened faith and prayer life. They will lead us to disciplines of the spirit and of the heart. By engaging with suffering, we learn true joy. By touching despair, we discover what it means to embrace hope. By coming to know Christ crucified, we participate in his resurrection. By pouring ourselves out, we gain our lives.
They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain,
or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord--
and their descendants as well.
Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent--its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
says the Lord.
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The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is holding its annual meeting this week. They have elected a new president, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, and will vote on their teaching document for the 2008 election. Two other actions are worth noting.
The bishops approved a letter from their International Committee to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging a diplomatic solution with Iran.
Recent news accounts speculating on the possible use of force against Iran are especially troubling. From a moral perspective, in the absence of an immediate threat against the United States or our allies, military action would constitute an act of preventive war. The Catholic Church teaches: "[E]ngaging in a preventive war without clear proof that an attack is imminent cannot fail to raise serious moral and juridical questions." … The use of force must always be a last resort. In addition, the failure to be transparent about one's nuclear energy program is not grounds for military intervention, nor is the possession of nuclear weapons or the issuing of bellicose statements.
The bishops also approved a statement on a responsible transition in Iraq. They noted that the concerns they had expressed about the war before it began must "now give way to new moral questions."
Our country needs a new direction to reduce the war's deadly toll and to bring our people together to deal with the conflict's moral and human dimensions. Our nation needs a new bipartisan approach to Iraq policy based on honest and civil dialogue.
Our Conference encourages our national leaders to focus on the morally and politically demanding, but carefully limited goal of fostering a "responsible transition" and withdrawal at the earliest opportunity consistent with that goal. The moral demands of this path begin with addressing the humanitarian crisis in Iraq and minimizing further loss of human life.
And, they pointed out that
Catholic teaching has long held that peace is more than the absence of war; it is built on the foundation of justice. This moral insight means that building a just peace in Iraq requires far more than military action; it demands a comprehensive political, diplomatic and economic effort. This effort begins in Iraq, but it does not end there. For this reason, we believe sustained U.S. efforts to collaborate with the other nations, including Syria and Iran, are critically important for bringing some measure of stability to Iraq.
Both statements are in the best tradition of Catholic social teaching and are worth studying. A responsible U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and diplomacy over war with Iran would provide the opportunity for a more stable and peaceful solution to both issues.
Several weeks ago, Larry and Andrea - Christian friends who live and work among Muslims in the Middle East - sent me their reflections on the recent U.S. visit of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad which outraged so many. My friends were bothered by what transpired too, but for different reasons. I think their reflections are well worth sharing here:
Paul Gordon Chandler, in a recent book Pilgrims of Christ on the Muslim Road, describes how a young Muslim, Mazhar Mallouhi, refused to read anything about Christianity because, as Mazhar says, "Christianity was seen as the enemy. And you need your enemy to be ugly. You don't want to discover anything good in your enemy, or you will find yourself in the wrong." Mazhar eventually embraced a relationship with Jesus, and in his contact with Christians discovered that they, too, desire to regard their enemies as ugly as possible. When we portray our enemies as utterly depraved, then we feel justified in treating them however we want.
I risk stating the obvious by mentioning the less than gracious reception President Ahmadinejad received at Columbia University where he was an invited guest. He was also insulted at the United Nations when the American delegation got up to leave at the beginning of his address. It is worth noting that in the Bible, as in the Middle East today, hospitality is seen as a sacred duty. The New Testament says, "extend hospitality…" The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was seen by the ancient prophets to lie primarily in their lack of hospitality!
Contrast that with the meeting of religious leaders organized by the Quakers and Mennonites. The participants at the meeting did not shy away from hard questions about human rights or the Holocaust, but they asked them politely in an atmosphere of respect.
Interestingly, the religious leaders were criticized for being naïve in their expectations that dialogue would make a difference; some critics even considered them traitorous because they were giving the Iranian leader respect just by meeting with him. Those who choose dialogue are refusing to see only the ugliness, and this makes many people nervous because their clear-cut boundaries are being eroded. Again, this sounds familiar—didn't the Pharisees ask Jesus' disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"
In my visits to Muslim countries, I have been honored by the friendship and hospitality of ordinary people. What will ordinary Americans offer in return? Will we allow ourselves the "outrageous" experience of seeing the humanity rather than the ugliness in our enemies? Will we reach out to Muslims in our communities and in other countries, and in the process, allow our own lives to be transformed?
Perhaps it is a distant hope to see political leaders gathering around a table in a true gesture of reconciliation and respect. But it is the changed hearts of ordinary people that will help to transform both societies - and our world.
My friends are echoing something Bono said in a recent interview: "But then you've also got to try to cut off the oxygen supply of hatred, which is false ideas about who you are as an American, who you are in the West. I know that sounds like limp liberalism, but it's really not."
When we treat guests in our country with contempt, when we refuse people the dignity of speaking with them, when we focus on the ugliness of our enemies to the exclusion of their humanity, we are reinforcing a pretty ugly idea of who we are as Americans. Ultimately, we're hurting ourselves. Again, to quote Bono, "Isn't it cheaper and smarter to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?"
As we approach the season of Advent, we will recall our central story: that the holy God who created the universe was mysteriously incarnated in a vulnerable baby among an oppressed people, entering a hostile world full of vicious but beloved enemies to talk to them, walk among them, befriend them, and seek to reconcile with them. What would happen this Christmas if we applied this message to our world and its hostilities today? Preachers, there is a subject for you to work into your sermons. Don't expect such sermons to be popular, but do expect them to be faithful.
Merely to resist evil with evil by hating those who hate us and seeking to destroy them, is actually no resistance at all. It is active and purposeful collaboration in evil that brings the Christian into direct and intimate contact with the same source of evil and hatred which inspires the acts of his enemy. It leads in practice to a denial of Christ and to the service of hatred rather than love.
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You've heard about, or maybe experienced first hand, the change in pregnant women's thoughts. This was true for me, but I wasn't able to talk about it for months. This is my story as I moved into the stream of mothers who carry children amidst turmoil and a future of total uncertainty.
Journal entry:
Spark of life, you entered from the undercurrent of love and longing, deeper than fear or confusion. You answered our call to the deep. Our statement of faith, you declare that death will not have the last word. You are my defiance and hope.
Days before you came to be, our community suffered an attack that chilled me to the core— the Justapaz break-in. It reflected intimate knowledge of our organizational workings. It ripped from our staff the ability to protect the subjects and collectors of stories shared in strictest confidence. It shredded our desperate desire to believe that nonpartisan truth-telling could continue unmolested, even as the world began to pay attention and ask, "What can we do?"
You first made your presence known to me during our meeting at the vice president's office. As we talked with high level government officials about the series of robberies and their response, the director of the human rights program lit a cigarette beside me. A wave of nausea engulfed me and I felt the multiple pregnancy test results to be true.
As we responded to this crisis I have clung to the marvelous mysterious knowledge of you, little life, growing inside me. In moments of weakness when dread and fear crept into the corners of my soul, you helped me chase them away and return to the steadfast hope necessary to carry on. You are my Hebrews 11:1 baby.
New studies managed by the Pew Charitable Trusts show us how far the country still needs to go in achieving economic equality. A major finding is that the while overall incomes are rising, the income gap between African American and white families is also rising.
Incomes have increased among both black and white families in the past three decades - mainly because more women are in the work force. But the increase was greater among whites, according to the study being released Tuesday.
One reason for the growing disparity: Incomes among black men have actually declined in the past three decades, when adjusted for inflation. They were offset only by gains among black women.
Nearly half of African Americans born to middle-income parents in the late 1960s plunged into poverty or near-poverty as adults, according to a new study - a perplexing finding that analysts say highlights the fragile nature of middle-class life for many African Americans.
Overall, family incomes have risen for both blacks and whites over the past three decades. But in a society where the privileges of class and income most often perpetuate themselves from generation to generation, black Americans have had more difficulty than whites in transmitting those benefits to their children.
Along with the income gap, there is a wealth gap.
Another reason so many middle-class blacks appear to be downwardly mobile is likely the huge wealth gap separating white and black families of similar incomes. For every $10 of wealth a white person has, blacks have $1, studies have found.
After the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and Voting Rights Act in 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. next turned his attention to issues of economic justice. Forty years after his death, we still have a long way to go.
Part seven in a series of posts by Bob Massey, a Los Angeles screenwriter who is currently traveling to India with a team from Ecclesia Hollywood hosted by a faith-based human rights organization whose work in Mumbai concentrates on rescuing girls from sexual slavery. + Click here to read previous posts
You haven't lived until you've scudded through Dehradun traffic in an autorickshaw. You haven't died either - but you probably haven't come so close before. The autorickshaw is a tiny three-wheeled gumdrop taxi powered by a hair dryer, feels like. No doors or seatbelts. I joined Dr. Reeta, the co-founder of the SNEHA school, for an autorickshaw ride to her facility. The ensuing dozen mini-brushes with mortality set just the right tone for meeting schoolkids recruited from Dehradun's grim slums.
SNEHA schools unschooled kids, offers cheap health care to slum dwellers, and trains impoverished women in fancy sewing and such - dazzling embroidery being a better living than collecting plastic from the dump.
There are two kinds of kids who attend SNEHA, though both live in the slums nearby. The first kind are unwashed, underfed, and as one staffer quite seriously said, they have to be "civilized" for weeks or months before they can enter the school. So that's what happens. We brought sidewalk chalk, those twisty balloons that you make animals from, and colorful beads for bracelets. I drew big shapes - flowers, stars, airplanes, cars - on the courtyard pavement to be colored in by the kids. It never occurred to any of us that there were kids in the world who don't know how to color. I guess if you can't afford coloring books, that's the deal. Happily, they took to it with gusto once their teachers demonstrated the concept. But on the whole, these kids seemed kind of shellshocked in comparison to...
...the kids who've been in school for a while. These kids have been taught hygiene, they wear uniforms, they're super happy and polite. Basically they're kids who've benefitted from a lot of extra love. Dr. Reeta and her husband Hari have built this gorgeous facility up from swampland over about nine years (I think). Basically, they felt called to it. And what might happen is that about 800 kids per year might graduate from living conditions that do dishonor to the word "slum."
We brought jump ropes and kind of massacred the notion of double-dutching in front of them. Hopscotch was the surprise hit of the day. And their version of Duck Duck Goose. There was a lot of English practice ("Hello, my name is Shiva. How are you? I am fine.") Also about a hundred of them made us autograph their balloon animals. It was hilarious. Usually they leave at 2 p.m. The staff had to kick them out at 4 p.m., and us as well. We didn't want to leave.
We visited the neighborhood these kids live in. Over time you start to mentally filter out the ankle-deep trash everywhere, the pigs, mange-scarred dogs, mud, excretions of all flavors, even the smell. You focus on the positives: the families who manage to carve out a relatively clean corner for their family photos, sleeping mats, and shrines to Ganesh. Then you see a little girl with open sores on her head. And not to get too reductivist, but Ganesh, Vishnu, Shiva, and the whole lot are part of a system that tells these slum dwellers (along with like 700 million other Hindus) that some unknown past-life choice has caused them to deserve these living conditions. And there is no remedy within their grasp. Certainly no one bears any obligation to help them out. One can infer this is the semiofficial stance of the Hindu-flavored government as well.
(One might also observe that this is the semiofficial stance of the Christian-flavored government in the U.S., but then one might have to contend with Christian-flavored performance artists like Anne Coulter, etc., who conveniently gloss over the whole feeding the hungry / clothing the naked part of the not-so-New-anymore Testament, and, really, one doesn't want to contribute to the divisiveness industry any more than one can help. But it's SO TEMPTING.)
And then we visited a big fancy gold Buddhist temple hand painted in gorgeously rendered murals of mutilation and disembowelment because, um, life is suffering? Like we needed a reminder.
You are different. You are different because now you know that God exists, and [God] alone matters. It is an overwhelming, awesome thought.... You are different in the sense that now all people belong to you and are part of you, and you belong to all people. At the same time, you belong only to God, and you belong to [God] totally. There is a distinction between you and others, and at the same time, there is no distinction at all, but a blending of all into one. The demarcation that exists is a spiritual one, born of what you have lived and what you can never explain.
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Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: "May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers." For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, "Peace be within you." For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.
Like Logan Laituri, I spent my Veteran's Day honoring one of my favorite Veterans – Martin of Tours. I spoke at the magnificent St. Peter's Cathedral here in Philadelphia on Sunday, and did my best to honor Martin's life and remember the millions of soldiers who have felt the collision of the cross and sword. A few thoughts from those reflections…
Martin was born during a confusing and tumultuous time in Christian history, in an age when war had become normal, routine, and habitual. And God's "blessing" was all over it. Martin was born four years after Constantine's legendary conversion which would mark the time when the renegade movement became the conquering State religion. During that century Christianity spread from 5 million to 30 million – everyone was a Christian, but no one really knew what a Christian disciple was anymore. The persecuted became the persecutors … and exchanged the cross of the martyrs for the sword of the soldiers.
And into this world, Martin was born. He was named after Mars, the god of war. His dad was a veteran, in fact a senior officer, of the Roman Army. And, like many of our kids, Martin entered the service as a young teenager to fight the crusades of the empire. And then there was an interruption.
Outside the gates of Amiens in modern-day France, Martin had a human encounter that would forever change him. He met a scantly-clothed beggar and was deeply moved with compassion. With very little to give away, he took off his military cloak and cut it in half, giving half to the beggar. Then he laid down his arms saying, "I am a Christian. I cannot fight." Later he would be taken to jail, insulted, and persecuted for deserting the army.
Over and over, the wars of nations have been interrupted by those human encounters. Centuries later, another young soldier named Francis of Assisi would lay down his weapons of war in the middle of the crusades to meet with the Muslim sultan. And that encounter would forever change him and the sultan. And now that same collision is happening in soldiers all over our empire who have laid down their weapons to take up the cross, to take up the Gospel of enemy-love and follow the Prince of Peace. Logan, Jesse, Zach, Scott, Chris, Tracey … and the list goes on and on. In fact, these former soldiers of war are building an army of conscientious objectors. We have now created a resource they have creatively named "Centurion's Purse" to help soldiers who feel the same call of Martin: "I am a Christian. I cannot fight." As a son of a Vietnam vet, I can think of no better way to celebrate Veteran's Day than by honoring them.
I am also reminded that when the prophets speak of peace, it does not begin with the nations. It begins with God's people who refuse to fight the wars of nations. It is the people of God who lead the nations to peace. It is people who refuse to kill their enemies, but choose instead to love them and to feed and clothe them. And the nations will follow. It is the people who begin to beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. It is people like Martin who tear their armor in half so a beggar can keep warm.
In some senses Robert Redford is the father of modern independent filmmaking, not to mention the patron saint of Hollywood liberalism – his Sundance Film Festival has launched a couple of dozen major careers, and his concern for progressive environmental policies is well known. And United Artists used to be known for making the kind of movie that entertained and provoked at the same time – from 'In the Heat of the Night' to 'Being There' to 'Rain Man'.
After a decade or more in the doldrums, the studio has been resurrected by Tom Cruise, and the first film released under this banner is the Redford-helmed 'Lions for Lambs' – a tub-thumping intellectual thriller that pits brains against brawn as a liberal university professor, a neo-conservative senator, and a smart journalist duke it out for the prize of 'who gets to direct the war on terror' - which the film shows still to be fought by the poor.
Such a film could have been a thoughtful exploration of the nature of American liberalism post-9/11, a call to action, or an intelligent treatment of the questions of how to respond to injustice without repeating it (or overcoming evil with good, as the New Testament would have it). Yet sadly it ends up a wasted opportunity - with mostly old arguments being rehearsed once more in a film whose performances are flat and is without visual interest.
There is, however, some merit in 'Lions for Lambs'. There is a chilling moment where a missing soldier is confirmed to be alive when he fires his gun – suggesting that we live in an era where threatening the lives of others is what gives meaning to ours. There is a brief moment when two of the characters suggest that resurrecting the idea of a year's voluntary service between high school and college might be the key to developing a generation of socially engaged citizens who care more about the needs of the poor than the brand names on their shirts. And it does at least ask why it is that most of us do nothing in response to the grinding wheels of yet another empire's decline and fall except complain and go on the odd protest march. But in contending with the principalities and powers of this world, the film does not realize that there is more to be done than merely protest.
Sometimes, to be sure, we need to protest against the powers. And sometimes we need to work with the powers – for they are capable of good (such as, for instance, the fact that in some parts of the world whole cities are now adapted for the needs of people with physical disabilities, or that abandoning the death penalty has become a condition for membership of the European Union). Protesting the powers when they mediate evil, and affirming and renewing the powers when they are good are two sides of a coin. But deeper than this, and what 'Lions for Lambs' falls short of understanding, is that the prophetic incarnation of a creative alternative to economic injustice and war without end is the task of this generation. At one point Cruise's character is shown to assert, with Theodore Roosevelt, that he would choose 'righteousness' over 'peace'. The film is not smart enough to recognize that if you understand righteousness in its ancient Hebrew context as 'justice', then you don't actually have to make that choice. I don't know what level of activism Robert Redford is personally engaged in, and I welcome the fact that he did at least try to make a film about something meaningful; but 'Lions for Lambs' left me yearning for our popular culture to start asking us to actually do something instead of fiddling while the emperor burns Rome down.
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
"Going home" is a journey to the heart of who we are, a place where we can be ourselves and welcome the reality of our beauty and our pain. From this acceptance of ourselves, we can accept others as they are and we can see our common humanity.
For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
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The evening news has been filled with tragic reminders of our broken world: continued violence in Iraq, bombings in Afghanistan, and political unrest in Pakistan.
But the most devastating news of all?
Due to Hollywood's ongoing screenwriters strike, Desperate Housewives may have to go into reruns this season. Terrible news, I know. My issue is not with the screenwriters themselves (I sympathize with their efforts to get an equitable share of corporate profits). As to the content of our media culture—now that's another story.
So what will be the consequences of our nation's restricted access to Housewives? Brace yourselves. This could get ugly.
America's appetite for the scandalous, seductive, and scintillating may have to be put on hold for a time. Adultery as entertainment may have to give way to long meals around the family dinner table. On cold, dark evenings we may have to fill the void reading books in front of the warm glow of fireplaces instead of catching up on Eva Longoria's most recent escapades with her pool boy. And rather than lying in bed channel surfing the for the latest television infidelity, we married couples may actually have to turn to one another and engage in meaningful conversations (or even in committed, marital sex).
What terrible, horrible, utterly rotten, no-good news indeed.
In my post on Monday, A War Pitched with a 'Curve Ball,' I ended by saying, "And if they are found guilty of these high crimes, I believe they should spend the rest of their lives in prison -- after offering their repentance to every American family who has lost a son, daughter, father, mother, brother, or sister. Deliberately lying about going to war should not be forgiven."
Several readers have correctly pointed out that the heart of the gospel is forgiveness, and judgment is ultimately up to God. You are right, and I apologize. What I meant to say was in the legal context of "If they are found guilty," deliberately lying about going to war should not be pardoned. Remember Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon before he had even been tried for anything, or George H.W. Bush pardoning the leading Iran-contra figures? I do indeed believe in God's grace and forgiveness for anyone who repents. But the crime of lying about going to war should not be politically pardoned.
For the palace will be forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, the joy of wild asses, a pasture for flocks; until a spirit from on high is poured out on us, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
For though they cling together, no friends are true friends unless you, my God, bind them fast to one another through that love which is sown in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.
Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani for president is simply astonishing. Robertson - the television preacher who founded the 700 Club and once ran for president himself - has made opposition to abortion and same sex marriage his political north star and has been a relentless champion of traditional marriage and family values.
Remember Robertson's merciless attacks on President Bill Clinton's lapses of sexual morality with Monica Lewinsky? Or his comments about how the 9/11 attacks were the result of America's tolerance for homosexuals and abortion?
Now Robertson is for Rudy, a thrice married adulterous husband, who is estranged from his own children and is both pro-choice and pro-gay rights. According to Pat Robertson's twisted moral logic, forgiving the social conservative shortcomings of Republicans is a Christian virtue, so long as the same virtue is never applied to Democrats. But Pat thinks Rudy can beat Hillary, and Pat really cares about winning for the Republicans.
What exactly goes on in Pat Robertson's head has puzzled many of us for a long time. This endorsement ranks as one of the most unprincipled in recent political memory. Maybe principles never mattered much to Pat Robertson after all. Perhaps the pro-business economic conservatism of the Republican Party was always more important to the televangelist than saving unborn lives. Robertson's longstanding support of murderous Liberian dictator Charles Taylor and his diamond investments thanks to Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko speak louder than words when it comes to Robertson's ethic of life. And that's not to mention the more than $400 million Robertson's empire made when he sold his International Family Network to Rupert Murdoch, after building it on tax deductible contributions of thousands of CBN donors, many of modest means. He has been putting profits over principles for years.
Richard Land, spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, has taken a more consistent position. Land has clearly said that he won't support Giuliani if he becomes the Republican nominee, explaining in a recent Newsweek interview, "I'm not willing or able to violate my moral conscience. It would be like asking an African American to choose between Strom Thurmond and George Wallace, or asking Abe Lincoln to vote for a pro-slavery candidate. I personally can't do it." Land predicts that many social conservatives will just sit out this election if the Republicans decide to run Rudy. That's called standing for principle.
Pat Robertson clearly has taken another position. His endorsement of Rudy Giuliani will seem to many to be unprincipled hypocrisy.
Over 17,000 of you responded, and today Rep. Rosa DeLauro took to the House floor to read two prayers received from her district in Connecticut:
Loving God, inspire our leaders in Congress to release your spirit of wisdom, courage, and love and end the war, death, and suffering in Iraq. (Claire from Orange, CT)
I pray that the hearts and minds of those making decisions concerning the war in Iraq be opened to finding viable, peaceful alternatives to continuing the war. I pray that withdrawal of troops commence immediately, and continue steadily over the shortest period possible, to bring them all home. I pray that the light of God will fall upon the country of Iraq and bring about peace in that place. (Julie from Hamden, CT)
Thank you to those of you who offered your prayers. It's not too late to join the surge, as we continue to pray for peace and beseech our leaders to bring an end to the war in Iraq.
Michael Sherrard is the online organizer for Sojourners.
It is not easy words we say, nor is it the gifts we give that make us friends. Friendship invites us to share not only bread broken, but our brokenness. Friendship invites us to share not only wine poured into glasses, but our lives poured out.... We remember Jesus best when we are faithful to our lives and when we share in faithful friendship. This is our memorial to him, the memorial to which he calls us in each Eucharist.
This year, Nov. 11 will be a particularly joyous day for this veteran. Though I will not be attending any events, I can still reasonably expect a few pats on the back or some kind words in recognition of my six years in service to our country. Thankfully, I am past the awkwardness that used to greet me as supporters approached me with their gratitude in airports or shopping malls - seeking hugs and handshakes to express their appreciation for my sacrifice. I have overcome the demons that accompanied me back from Iraq, who insisted the strangers' thanks were idolatrous and superficial. However, I do continue to pray that well-wishers offer "welcome home" in place of "thank you" - the latter often being misunderstood, as many service members do not consider the acts they have committed to be commendable. Beside merely a celebration of patriotism, Nov. 11 is also a day to remember and rejoice in peace. Armistice Day holds a place in history as the day the Allies and Germany signed a treaty in Compiègne, France, ending hostilities on the Western Front. To this day, many people still reserve a moment of silence at 11:00 a.m. to respect the 8 million who perished in WWI.
Though for Christians, the day does not end there. This Sunday the Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of St. Martin of Tours, one of the first saints not to be martyred. In fact, St. Martin was one of many to be beatified who, by today's standards, would be identified as a conscientious objector - an individual verifiably opposed to "war in any form." At one time a Roman centurion, Martin came to a "crystallization" of conscience, laying down his sword and declaring, "I am a soldier of Christ, it is not permissible for me to fight." It has been speculated that in 1918, Nov. 11 was chosen as Armistice Day in part due to St. Martin, who is especially the patron of soldiers and chaplains. It is curious to consider that this Christian soldier in fact thought it more Christlike to return to the front lines unarmed than with the sword the empire placed in his hands. David Thoreau, an inspiration to another saintly Martin, believed that a creative, nonviolent minority could serve the state by resisting it with the intention of improving it. Could this in fact be the embodiment of service to the state Paul speaks of in Romans 13? After all, he and St. Martin both were imprisoned for their beliefs…
Finally, I come to the most celebratory story behind Nov. 11 for this war-wearied veteran. Not long after my own road to Damascus conversion experience, I miraculously found a beautiful woman as crazy about Jesus as I was (and still am). An abbreviated courtship ensued, and within seven months, I had proposed. As our relationship developed, we found that our distinct beliefs matured as well. Faced with a similar crossroads regarding her own service to God and country, she too followed the path Martin helped forge so many centuries ago. Not long ago she filed for discharge as a conscientious objector, declaring herself a soldier in Christ's nonviolent army of peace.
Left to decide our date of wedded bliss, my 'better half,' my muse, settled on an otherwise nondescript day in November. This Sunday, we will share in the sacrament of matrimony - the threefold meaning of Nov. 11 is sure to be a fitting celebration of our combined attempts at patriotism, pacifism, and piety. We have high hopes and big dreams of continuing our service to fellow centurions, and with God's grace his gift to us can continue to bless others.
Logan Laituri is a six-year Army veteran with combatant service in Iraq during OIF II and experience with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Israel and the West Bank. He is an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and currently resides in Camden, New Jersey, in an intentional Christian community called Camden House, where he continues to seek ways to wage peace wherever he goes. He blogs at courageouscoward.blogspot.com.
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At its board meeting last month, the National Association of Evangelicals formally named Leith Anderson as its president. Anderson is senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and has been serving as interim president of the NAE for the past year.
I've had the opportunity to spend some time with Leith Anderson. I believe he is the kind of leader most needed these days, both for the NAE and for the wider evangelical community. He has both the heart of a pastor and the passion of a prophet, and he finds ways to be true to his convictions and be committed to bridge-building.
There is no shortage of evangelicals that have passion about every topic in contemporary life. The challenge here is not to find people who are interested. There are plenty of people who are interested. It's, How do we unite evangelicals in understanding what the issues are and having a moral perspective in how we approach them?
And, in developing that moral perspective, he noted
We have a document that is called "For the Health of the Nation." They are seven priorities that the NAE organizes around in terms of being a public voice.
[The document] relates to religious freedom, sanctity of human life, human rights, and creation care. It was first issued in 2003 and then reaffirmed by the NAE in March of this year. What we're doing is organizing many of the activities of the Washington office and the association around each one. These are big topics like justice and compassion for the poor and the vulnerable.
On immigration reform, one of the most controversial issues in America today, Anderson said,
I'm hoping that in the future we are also going to be able to engage more on the issue of immigration in America. It's a pressing issue that the country needs to unite around. We need to have a biblical voice. We need to recognize this is a high concern for the Hispanic community, which has a large numbers of evangelicals within it. Hispanic churches are the fastest growing in the nation and immigration is a top priority. Up to this point, NAE has not made any formal statements on it. I just anticipate this will be a growing priority and concern which fits under the topic of justice.
I congratulate Leigh Anderson on his new position, and look forward to working with him.
I have had some respectful debate with Chuck Colson in the past, but I can't help but applaud - with a standing ovation, actually - his recent statement about the environment. True, his statement could be cynically judged as an attempt to help certain evangelicals save face - in particular, evangelicals who have been anti-environment on the basis of not believing the growing scientific data about global warming - too often supported by truly sketchy biblical proof texting. But in the interest of saving the planet, and saving millions of lives in it, I'm all for anyone saving face who needs to do so. We are, after all, in a faith that is all about saving love.
But for Christians, the question of global warming should not stop us from identifying a critical worldview issue here—one on which every Christian can, or should, agree: and that's the importance of good stewardship toward the rest of creation. There are things we can do now to be good stewards that do not require us to get all of the answers that are going to come on global warming.
Later, he asks:
Can you think of one instance where Scripture praises excessive consumption or waste?
And concludes:
I can't ... Working with institutions to reduce their energy usage ... is good stewardship. And it does not depend on what the scientists eventually can prove about global warming. It is all laid out for us already in the scriptures.
Chuck is spot on. The truth is, large sectors of our religion have become "worldly" in a subtle but powerful way: we have been guilty of an unholy but socially acceptable syncretism between our faith and consumerism. One can't help but applaud Colson's desire to address this compromise.
In my recent book, Everything Must Change, I describe our consumerist system as "insane and suicidal," tempting us to:
act as though the resources we consume are infinite and the wastes we produce are invisible. Just as our bodies consume food and produce excrement, in this economy we consume trees and produce smoke, consume clean air and produce smog. ...
Socially ... we consume time and produce fatigue; consume art and talent and produce entertainment and amusement; consume work and leisure and produce paychecks and heart attacks. And ultimately we consume communities and produce extended families; consume extended families and produce nuclear families; consume nuclear families and produce individuals; consume individuals and produce consumers; and finally, consume consumers themselves and produce disembodied fragments called 'wants' and 'needs' and 'markets' and segments' and 'anxieties' and 'drives' that the economy consumes and excretes and reconsumes in a kind of cannibalistic ferment or rot.
A social system thus based on consumption and excretion, I conclude, can aptly be described as an "excrement factory." One can only thank God that Colson is adding his voice and influence to a call for a better way of living - a life of careful stewardship rather than careless consumption and excretion. May we, as Colson says, "stop arguing long enough to start being good stewards today." Amen, Chuck Colson!
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
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Tuesday marked the beginning of what is likely to be a long and controversial Senate debate on the 2007 Farm Bill. People of faith around the country are waking up to realize how critical this legislation is to our goals of ending hunger and poverty in America and abroad. Unfortunately, Congress has yet to show the leadership to make this goal a reality.
The Farm Bill is a vast piece of legislation - authorizing everything from food stamps to conservation programs, from rural development to our infamous farm subsidy program. This summer the House of Representatives passed its version of the Farm Bill, with little reform to the commodity title that governs farm subsidies. Now it is the Senate's turn, and the bill they are starting with has every indication of ignoring the reform agenda yet again.
Today, I stood with African and U.S. religious leaders at a press conference to call on our senators to be true to their commitments to fighting poverty in Africa by cutting unfair and outdated subsidies in the Farm Bill. The following are my remarks from the event:
An evangelical always has a text so I'll begin with a text this morning. Proverbs 13:23: "A poor person's field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away."
The question this morning for members of the U.S. Senate is simply this: How long will you postpone justice?
Is there anybody on this hill, in this town, who believes that continuing outdated, outmoded, but enormous subsidies to the world's biggest and richest farmers at the expense of the world's smallest and poorest farmers is fair, is just, or creates global stability? I don't think so. I haven't heard that.
Unfortunately, poor cotton farmers in West Africa don't vote in races for the U.S. Congress. They don't contribute to senatorial campaigns. They have no lobbyists on Capitol Hill except for us - today. They're just too busy trying to make a living to support their families and allow their countries to earn their way out of poverty.
But they have a huge obstacle; they have a huge competitor to their efforts. Their competitor is the U.S. government; their obstacle is the U.S. government.
Everyone knows these inequitable subsidies must end. Everyone knows that by continuing them we put a gigantic obstacle in the way of the sustainable development we say we support - and then block. Everyone knows that these subsidies make a mockery of our rhetoric about caring for what happens to Africa. Everyone knows we are postponing justice again.
Seventy five percent of the world's poorest people support themselves by farming, and we stop them from doing that. Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, has said eloquently and clearly, "a world where a billion people live in extreme poverty is neither just nor secure."
We need to make the reforms in the commodities in the farm bill - now. To not do so is to be guilty of moral shortsightedness and political blindness to the real path for global security. But that moral shortsightedness and political blindness is likely to happen again on the floor of the U.S. Senate unless some senators open their eyes, develop new vision, and find the courage to lead.
The religious community is asking them to do just that.
TAKE ACTION: The Farm Bill debate is typically dominated by big agribusiness and a handful of congressional leaders from farm states. But we can make a difference – Sojourners is asking our supporters to call their senators in support of reforming the commodity title – click here to make your call.
Gaza is a place isolated and unknown. Although the small coastal strip is all too often in the media spotlight, this can be a source just as much for generalization as information.
The murder of Rami Ayyad one month ago today was a source for such confusion concerning what would have brought about such a horrendous act and who would have carried it out. It is too simple to suspect that which is unknown or those who seem to be opposing "us."
An AFP article quotes Rami's brother Ramzi explaining his reaction:
"We are not afraid of Hamas because as a government they are responsible for protecting people. We are afraid of those who are more extreme than Hamas."
Palestinian Christians number around 75,000, but there are only 2,500 - most of them Greek Orthodox - living in the Gaza Strip among nearly 1.5 million Muslims, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
Gaza has no history of tensions between the two communities, and Christians say they are bound to their Muslim neighbours by shared suffering.
The article also quotes Gaza City's only Catholic priest:
"Christians are isolated just like Muslims. They are scared just like Muslims," says Father Manuel Musallam, the head of Gaza's 200-strong Catholic community, his lips trembling with anger against Israel. ...
In a rousing sermon, Musallam - an ardent Palestinian nationalist from the West Bank who Israel has only allowed out of the Gaza Strip twice since he assumed his post in 1995 - called on his weary flock to remain strong.
"The Church has always been under threat, and it has always endured. Rami was not the first martyr, and in the life of the Church he will not be the last," he said, his soaring baritone voice echoing off the stone walls.
"To those who are scared, to those who want to flee Gaza, we must open our hearts, our doors, and our pockets ... and we must always remember the sacrifice of Christ on the cross."
Some may fear that Gaza is going the way of Iraq, spiraling into chaos and out of control. How would you and I manage in a community completely closed; isolated from the rest of the world; being barred from travel, schooling, and work opportunities; locked in an enclave of unemployment and humanitarian dependence? We need to ask ourselves what role we, our governments, have played in allowing such events. This is a question of chicken and egg and it is too simple to blame Palestinians, Muslims, or extremists without looking at the context they exist within.
If people want to take a minute to examine the complexities of Gaza's conflict, here is a 30 minute BBC documentary that is an excellent resource for this:
Philip Rizk is an Egyptian-German Christian who lived and worked in Gaza from 2005-2007. He blogs at: tabulagaza.com
Economists are telling us that people are not spending enough money this Holiday time and thus our economy will suffer. I am reminded of the president's urging after 9/11, to go out and spend money, buy things as the way to make things better. I can't believe we fall for this false assumption of economic well-being: buying things, or things themselves, will bring happiness.
A consultant in community building was invited by the South Korean government, saying, "We have money and things, but we are not happy." Bill McKibben in Deep Economy indicates the US is producing more, has higher economic incomes and more things than ever before, but we are no happier or satisfied. There is a growing dissatisfaction with all the things, a deep longing for community. Some people are shifting their priorities, working less and spending more time with family and friends.
Bishop Robinson of England, in his 1980's book, Enough is Enough, called us to a "joyful revolution" of people over things, of time spent in community and making a difference over the work-and-spend treadmill. He suggested three maxims to remember as we look at ads, walk through stores, are tempted to add a few more things to our bounty:
Who are you kidding?
You can't take it with you.
The price is too high.
In this season when we wish people Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year, and seek to create some of that happiness in our families and communities, may we prioritize actions that create and sustain life, family and community.
Mary Nelson is president emeritus of Bethel New Life, a faith-based community development corporation on the west side of Chicago. She is also a board member of Sojourners.
On that day: A pleasant vineyard, sing about it! I, the Lord, am its keeper; every moment I water it. I guard it night and day so that no one can harm it; I have no wrath. ... [L]et it cling to me for protection, let it make peace with me, let it make peace with me.
Nothing makes one so dizzy as human reasoning, which sees everything from an earthly point of view, and does not allow illumination from above. Earthly reasoning is covered with mud. Therefore, we have need of streams from above, so that, when the mud has fallen away, whatever part of the reason is pure may be carried on high and may be thoroughly imbued with the lessons taught there. This takes place when we manifest both a well-disposed soul and an upright life.
- St. John Chrysostom Homily 24 (John 2:23-3:4), A.D. 390
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Pakistan, Farm bill, North Korea, Pakistan-analysis, Pakistan-blogs, Turkey, Civil rights, Ballot referenda, Education, Iraq-diplomat, Mideast, North Korea, Evangelicals and animals, Editorials, and selected op-eds.
Diana Butler Bass (www.dianabutlerbass.com) is the author of Christianity for the Rest of Us (Harper One, 2006) and a regular blogger for God's Politics. 
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On Dec. 1, the world commemorates World AIDS Day, a day in which we pause and remember the 25 million lives lost to the deadly epidemic. The day also challenges us to redouble our efforts to show greater solidarity with the estimated 33 million people worldwide living with HIV. The day's slogan is "Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise". This is a direct appeal to governments, policy makers, and regional health authorities to ensure that they meet the litany of targets in the fight against HIV and AIDS - especially the promise agreed to at the 2005 G8 Summit of universal access to HIV treatment, care, support, and prevention services by 2010. The 2007 theme of "leadership" highlights the stark reality that without a revolution in political will the epidemic will continue to outpace even our best response. 
Our final stop is Mussoorie, an hour's harrowing taxi ride up into the Himalayan foothills from Dehradun. And it's dazzling. The town spreads across the hilltops, often seeming to float above the clouds. A short walk over the hillcrest reveals a 180-degree view of snowcapped Himalayas. Beyond them lies Tibet. 
When a film ends with the recounting of a dream in which a weather-beaten, life-weary man searches for the fire his father is building to warm them, it's impossible not to think of the love we all yearn for and can hopefully muster. It's also a welcome spiritual respite when that film has seduced its audience on a journey into a hell of the relentless violence that follows a man after he steals drug money in the naïve belief that its owners might ignore him, and the slow-moving chase that ensues when a truly psychopathic person pursues the man and the cash. No Country for Old Men, the new picture from the Coen Brothers, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel, is probably the most accomplished film released this year. 
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 
Brian McLaren (
In the news you might have missed over the Thanksgiving weekend, Labor Party leader 
There seems to be much concern lately over the people being referred to as "illegal immigrants." Let's define our terms: "Immigrant" - somebody who has come to a country and settled there. "Illegal" - forbidden by law. Concern about illegal immigrants has a familiar ring to us Native Americans. We have been empathizing with those concerns for over half a millennium.
Rev. Randy Woodley is a Keetoowah Cherokee Indian teacher, lecturer, poet, activist, pastor and the author of 
Becky Garrison is the author of 
In many pulpits during this Thanksgiving season, love of our country and pride in our citizenship will be pronounced in the same breath - and often with the same intensity - as declarations of love for our God. But we must be careful, for patriotism can be destructive as well as constructive. Worse, it can become idolatrous.
Obery Hendricks is the author of 
While volunteering in a legal clinic in my sophomore year of college, interviewing people applying for political asylum in the U.S., I heard a lot of people describe how they had had to leave everything behind and flee into the jungle, carrying children on their backs. 
Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners.
In the spirit of tradition and solidarity, the 
Allison Johnson is the policy and organizing assistant for Sojourners.
Thanksgiving is the time of year when American generosity is clearly visible. We make donations to our local food banks and homeless shelters and volunteer in soup kitchens. But do we really believe that is the solution to hunger?
Millions of Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving again this year with a philosophy of Manifest Destiny. Many Native Americans will not celebrate Thanksgiving at all. They will view the holiday as a national day of mourning. To them, the Thanksgiving Myth justifies the genocide of indigenous peoples and acquiesces to notions of White supremacy. They will protest at Plymouth Rock and disseminate stories of the many massacres of Native Americans. 
A reader asked about 
Last spring, Sojourners helped 
Several weeks ago, Larry and Andrea - Christian friends who live and work among Muslims in the Middle East - sent me their reflections on the recent U.S. 
You haven't lived until you've scudded through Dehradun traffic in an autorickshaw. You haven't died either - but you probably haven't come so close before. The autorickshaw is a tiny three-wheeled gumdrop taxi powered by a hair dryer, feels like. No doors or seatbelts. I joined Dr. Reeta, the co-founder of the SNEHA school, for an autorickshaw ride to her facility. The ensuing dozen mini-brushes with mortality set just the right tone for meeting schoolkids recruited from Dehradun's grim slums.
Shane Claiborne is a 
In some senses Robert Redford is the father of modern independent filmmaking, not to mention the patron saint of Hollywood liberalism – his Sundance Film Festival has launched a couple of dozen major careers, and his concern for progressive environmental policies is well known. And United Artists used to be known for making the kind of movie that entertained and provoked at the same time – from 'In the Heat of the Night' to 'Being There' to 'Rain Man'.
Logan Laituri is a six-year Army veteran with combatant service in Iraq during OIF II and experience with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Israel and the West Bank. He is an active member of 
At its board meeting last month, the National Association of Evangelicals formally named Leith Anderson as its president. Anderson is senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and has been serving as interim president of the NAE for the past year.
I have had some respectful 
Philip Rizk is an Egyptian-German Christian who lived and worked in Gaza from 2005-2007. He blogs at: 
Mary Nelson is president emeritus of