January 2009 Archives

Ok, I had to get a little Jeremiah Wright off my chest because the disgusting behavior of Wall Street while our economy crumbles has made it tough to maintain equanimity.  

The rip off disgrace of Bernie Madeoff, the spa adventures of government bailed-out AIG, the $100,000 office antics of Merrill Lynch's John Thain, - these have been enough to wish for some good old fashioned Divine judgment.  But now the New York Times recently reported that hefty bonuses were awarded on Wall Street. 

"Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York, the now-diminished world capital of capital, collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year.

That was the sixth-largest haul on record, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York State comptroller."

The sixth largest haul in what people are called the next great depression!  What exactly have the Wall Street empoyees accomplished for which they should be awarded bonuses?  There is a complete disconnect between the bubble of downtown Manhattan and the rest of the country which faces foreclosures, rising poverty, and unemployment figures that will likely reach double digits in the coming year. It is time for some deep soul searching among those who just got these fat bonuses in this time of crisis. 

I do not pretend to speak to people of any other faith, but as a pastor I encourage any Christians who got a bonus this year to give 100 percent of your bonus to the charity of your choice.  Maybe a job center, a foodbank or a public health care facility. Like the rich young man, you are loving money too much and your greed is a stumbling block to your own salvation.  This is your opportunity to respond to Jesus' teaching in Matthew 25 and help those who are hungry, sick, captive, and naked.  Repent, before it is too late. Save your soul, and help your fellow citizens while you are at it.

The filmmakers Abigail Disney and Gini Reticker show us how Ms. Gbowee not only rallied the women at her Lutheran church to pray for peace, but organized them into a full-blown, all-women peace initiative that spread to other Christian churches -- and then to women of the Muslim faith.

They wanted the madness stopped. They wanted an end to the maiming and the killing, especially the destruction of a generation of children. They wanted to eradicate the plague of rape. They wanted all the things that noncombatants crave whenever the warrior crowd -- in the U.S., the Middle East, Asia, wherever -- decides it's time once again to break out the bombs and guns and let the mindless killing begin.

When the Liberian Christians reached out to "their Muslim sisters," there was some fear on both sides that such an alliance could result in a dilution of faith. But the chaos and the killing had reached such extremes that the religious concerns were set aside in the interest of raising a powerful collective voice.

The women prayed, yes, but they also moved outside of the churches and the mosques to demonstrate, to protest, to enlist all who would listen in the cause of peace. Working with hardly any resources, save their extraordinary will and intense desire to end the conflict, the women's initial efforts evolved into a movement, the Liberian Mass Action for Peace.

Arianna Huffington reports that while most of the mood of the participants in Davos was grim, their was an uipsurge in religious talk:

If bankers and politicians were stocks, the people here would be shorting them (although there is definitely still a "buy" on Barack Obama, as the warm reception for Valerie Jarrett, who spoke here on his behalf, shows). But attendees would be gobbling up shares in philanthropy and faith. At today's conversation about how new catalysts -- such as the innovative use of technology and social media -- can be used to stimulate new forms of interfaith dialogue, religious leaders of all persuasions, including Jim Wallis of Sojourners, Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations in the United Kingdom, and Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia, talked about how they are seeing a surge in people turning to faith. It was interesting to watch as our moderator, Jonathan Zittrain, the Harvard law professor who wrote The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, surfed MySpace and Facebook, pointing out on a big screen group after group dedicated to faith and interfaith dialogue.

So, if I am understanding this, when times are more difficult, people turn to religon...even corporate CEOs. 

Joshua Dubois appears to have been named the director of  the Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. According to the New York Times, the President and Dubois are looking for new ways to make this organization work for the common good.  It may be especially important during this difficult economic times. 

There are still some thorny issues, as the Times explains:

The most contentious issue that Mr. DuBois will have to help resolve is whether Mr. Obama should rescind a Bush administration legal memorandum that allows religious groups that receive government money to hire only those who share their faith.

Mr. Obama said in a campaign speech last June, "If you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them -- or against the people you hire -- on the basis of their religion."

To quote myself from an earlier post:

Perhaps most sticky of all is the question of non-discriminatory hiring.  If a group maintains their right not to hire say, a Muslim or a homosexual, then the President will have to draw on his time as a constitutional law professor to either draw the line, or at least make sure that there is equitable outreach to the Muslim and gay religious communities to make sure that they realize that the Council is a resource for all Americans. 

Part 2

Transcript

This is the White House transcript of President Obama's interview with Hisham Melhem of al Arabiya television

Internal Transcript January 26, 2009

INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT

BY

HISHAM MELHEM, AL ARABIYA

Map Room

5:46 P.M. EST

Q Mr. President, thank you for this opportunity, we really appreciate it.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much.

Q Sir, you just met with your personal envoy to theMiddle East, Senator Mitchell. Obviously, his first task is to consolidate the cease-fire. But beyond that you've been saying that you want to pursue actively and aggressively peacemaking between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Tell us a little bit about how do you see your personal role, because, you know, if the President of the United States is not involved, nothing happens -- as the history of peacemaking shows. Will you be proposing ideas, pitching proposals, parameters, as one of your predecessors did? Or just urging the parties to come up with their own resolutions, as your immediate predecessor did?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think the most important thing is for the United States to get engaged right away. And George Mitchell is somebody of enormous stature. He is one of the few people who have international experience brokering peace deals.

And so what I told him is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating -- in the past on some of these issues -- and we don't always know all the factors that are involved. So let's listen. He's going to be speaking to all the major parties involved. And he will then report back to me. From there we will formulate a specific response.

Ultimately, we cannot tell either the Israelis or the Palestinians what's best for them. They're going to have to make some decisions. But I do believe that the moment is ripe for both sides to realize that the path that they are on is one that is not going to result in prosperity and security for their people. And that instead, it's time to return to the negotiating table.

And it's going to be difficult, it's going to take time. I don't want to prejudge many of these issues, and I want to make sure that expectations are not raised so that we think that this is going to be resolved in a few months. But if we start the steady progress on these issues, I'm absolutely confident that the United States -- working in tandem with the European Union, with Russia, with all the Arab states in the region -- I'm absolutely certain that we can make significant progress.

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