It's OK to be Jewish (or whatever)

Thanks to the blog of "Beach Bum," (who's been following my blog here for a short time) -- "The Life and Times of a Carolina Parrothead" -- I've also run across the blog of Karen Van der Zee, called "Life in the Expat Lane." Haven't read much of it yet, but what I've read has been more than entertaining and even a bit enlightening. She lives "abroad," and in some very strange places, and she writes about her experiences. She has written a book, available in ebook format for $2.95 (if I recall correctly [yup, just checked]) called You're Moving Where? The first chapter, "It's OK to be Jewish," is available free, and relates her experiences in her first few days living in the Palestinian West Bank town of Ramallah, where she discovers it's ok to be Jewish (which she's not).

A theme I've touched on before on this blog and on Facebook is that the Muslim faith is not "inherently violent," and that all Muslims are NOT "terrorists," etc. And it's a topic on which people like to disagree with me. Well, I think I have an advantage in this argument because I have some Muslims who are friends. In fact, I've made friends of Muslims in various places around the world -- New York, Vienna, Austria, the Philippines. The one on the train from Poughkeepsie, New York, admitted to me (in 1985) not only that he was Muslim, but "it's even worse than that," he said: "I'm Shiite." And this was only a few years after the incident in Iran during the Jimmy Carter administration. The fellow in the Philippines (on an all-night ferry from Butuan to Cebu) drank his beer and confessed to me why he was a lousy Muslim (in part because he was drinking beer!). Oh -- and I forgot the mention the guy (apparently Turkish) we shared a train compartment with in Europe who looked like Sadaam Hussein. No kidding. He gave chocolates to the kids. Nice guy! We communicated a little in broken German (well, mine was broken). And the pizza guy in Vienna who wanted to practice his English. Yada yada yada (a Hebrew expression; "yada" means "I know" in Hebrew).

So, thanks, Beach Bum -- who has some really good posts of his own.

Intervention in Libya

Just as I'm nearly always unable to watch violent crime shows (whether "reality" or merely fiction), I've been unable to pay attention to most of what is going on in Libya. Violence is abhorrent to me. I cannot stand to watch the newscasts that show bombs being dropped, and so on. Knowing that we -- the US -- had just started a THIRD war just pains me.

And it's not that I'm incapable of violence. Unfortunately, far from it. I am committed to non-violence, but in part because I know the kind of hate that I feel from time to time -- but I don't like it. I won't give you examples, but you can take my word for it.

I am also committed to human freedom, and I empathize with the folks in Libya who have suffered repression for many years. I want them to have something better. No one should have to live in terror. "Give peace, O Lord, in all the world, for only in you can we live in safety" -- this is part of one of the prayers in the Book of Common Prayer that I say almost daily. People should be able to live in peace and safety because we are all children of God.

But, though I empathize with the rebels in Libya, I cannot support the role the US is playing in that conflict. I cannot support it because, though we might regard Gadhafi and his forces as our enemies, we Christians are called to love our enemies -- even (and perhaps especially) those who would like to kill us and may be actively trying to do so at some given moment. Think Jesus here. He didn't hate (wow!) those who were beating him, spitting on him, insulting him, pounding nails through his feet and forearms, cramming a ring of thorns down on his scalp, and so on. And it wasn't just that he was the Son of God -- a ploy we sometimes use to try to keep Jesus sanitary and out of the way of any real temptation. Nope. He faced temptations with exactly the same tools available to me and to you -- prayer, fasting, scripture. He was tempted in every way just as we are. Which means he was tempted to hate those who hated him and insulted him and insulted his God!!!! Tempted; but he didn't do it. He didn't hate them. We cannot hate our enemies. We must love them. Even Gadhafi.

But, so it has been argued, if we didn't intervene, Gadhafi's forces would have overrun the rebels and made a quick end to the effort to secure their human rights. We could not just "do nothing." Intervention was the right thing to do.

This is the stereotypical argument against non-violence. Non-violence is simply equated with "doing nothing" or non-intervention, and those two (alleged) opposites are juxtaposed as if they were the only two possibilities.

That's simply a lack of imagination, at best, and at worst it is a lust for and trust in violence. Is it true that violence breeds violence? Doesn't history teach us that much? Can we really count on violence to "change the world" (as if creating more violence would really constitute a "change")? The Dr. Phil question needs to be asked here: "So, how's that working out for you?" So long as we keep our historical blinders on, we might think it's working out pretty well.

"Pacifism" does not equal "passivism." Non-violence is not non-intervention. It does, however, require more imagination and infinitely more courage. Could we have sent blue-helmeted UN troops into Libya? Could we have encouraged the rebels to follow the example of Egypt and renounce violence?

"But that wouldn't work!" I can hear the protests already. And they may well be correct. It may not, in this particular case, work. There is equally no guarantee that the violence will "work." So violence is what nations do in place of trusting God.

But it's not what Christians are called to do. We are not called to "solutions that work," or that we think we can secure under our own power. We're not called to make things work. We're called to be faithful to the one we call "Lord" -- the very one who loved his enemies.

Simon Barrow of the Ekklesia Project said a similar thing in this article. He has imagination. And courage. And he points out that it is a lie that violence was our only option. Good stuff.

Parting shot by Bob Herbert, NY Times

Thanks to Professor Mike Gipson for providing this link to Bob Herbert's last NY Times column.

I've had the idea for some time that the growing disparity between the uber-rich and the poor, with a shrinking middle class, will drive the US closer and closer toward "social unrest," which if successful might remain peaceful, but if unsuccessful might . . . well, things could get ugly. Interestingly, though, it has been the right wing folks who have been talking about "second amendment solutions." Can we read the handwriting on the wall?

Because I believe in Jesus, I believe I should love my enemies, even those who want to kill me and will do so if given half a chance. Love, not kill them. So I am not advocating revolution. But I suspect that people driven to desperation who do not share my conviction about loving enemies will at some point be willing to do things I am not. It pains me to write this, but it's a prediction and nothing more.

Of course, those folks who are the uber-rich will simply take their fortunes with them to their private islands in the Caribbean with their private armies, or run off to live in whatever nation will give them the best tax breaks and the least interference with their weapons purchases. I doubt any social unrest will greatly affect the top 10% percent income folks that Herbert talks about in his column.

Can change happen peacefully? I hope so. But it will not if the agenda of some to balance the national and state budgets on the backs of the poor is successful. Those who want to cut programs of assistance to the poor and even the elderly, and to remove health care, etc., recite the usual mantra that these programs are in essence "handouts" to the poor, and the poor are "freeloading off of hardworking Americans," etc.

Occasionally, of course, that occurs. NO ONE, not even Democrats or (gasp!) socialists, are in favor of allowing people to freeload when they are capable of contributing. BOTH SIDES of this argument are against "freeloading," and we try to set up our programs so that freeloading does not occur. People who CAN contribute MUST contribute. Again, we're not 100% successful with that, but that's the goal of even Democrats.

So please: those who think assistance programs are all about allowing "freeloading," get off it. Stop lying.

Both sides also agree that there are some people who, for various reasons, either cannot contribute (the disabled, etc.), or who have already contributed enough (such as the elderly who have worked hard all their lives, paid into Social Security, and would like to have a few years of retirement and relaxation as they close our their lives in peace). There are some elderly, however, who have such a great retirement package via their investments or private retirement programs that they don't need Social Security. If that is the case, then it would be for the best of our society as a whole for them to give it up. What that level is should be determined by a discussion at all levels of our society.

Where the disagreement seems to take place, it seems to me, is on the question of public assistance to people who are physically able to work, but have other obstacles: lack of education, children to raise, etc. Sometimes their own bad choices have contributed to their status.

Folks who typically want to cut programs for these folks tend to understand their status as completely the result of their bad choices, so completely their own responsibility. Therefore, since their status is completely their own fault, no one else has the responsibility to help them. Do they live in a depressed area where there are few jobs? Well, they should move somewhere else. Do they have too many kids to take care for, and lack education to get a job that pays well enough to support them all? Well, they should have used birth control. They should have gone to college. They should get off their rear ends and get SOME kind of job -- even if it means that they have to leave their kids in day care, and they can't really afford day care, or by the time they paid for daycare they would not have enough money left to pay rent and buy groceries. Well, it's their own fault. They could have made better choices at age fourteen or fifteen or sixteen, and their lives would have been better. It is their own fault, so no one else has responsibility to help them.

On the other side are those who can look at such situations and admit that our society does NOT give everyone equal opportunity. In theory, of course we do. But I know (and have written about it in the past) that many people -- especially people of color in America -- do not perceive that there is equal opportunity. They do not grow up with positive role models continually telling them that they can do whatever they put their minds to -- that they can go to college, grad school, or that they can achieve good things in their lives -- all the things I learned to believe about myself because I had good parents and a good social situation. There are those who believe that we as a society have contributed to this situation and as a society should address it. (Certainly there are those who grow up in negative surroundings that indeed rise above them. But, look at the statistics: there are many more who do not. ) Yes, people make bad choices. Some people, it seems to me, are probably unteachable in this regard. But as a society we have to keep trying. And the only way to do that is to have programs that the rest of us pay into, hoping that some people will find their way to "get on their feet" and eventually to contribute. It may mean we need to provide day care for their children so the adults can either go to school or get job training. If we do that, we're also going to need to find a way to guarantee them jobs after the training is done. There has to be hope. If there is no real hope of a better life afterward, the program will certainly fail.

Health care also has to be a concern. I'm baffled by our folks in Oklahoma who complain that "Obamacare" is going to cost "us" (who is that?) money. We have many more insured in OK now, so it is definitely helping some people. We've receive federal money to help with that.

But the biggest factor is this: people without health insurance will still get medical care, but it will be at the ER, and in the end it costs the rest of us much more than if they had health insurance and could go to the doctor before something becomes an emergency -- or they will not have to use the ER as their "regular doctor." Preventative medicine is cheaper in the long run than crisis medicine. So, if we take health insurance away from people covered by the federal health insurance law, we'll all still pay for their health care. It will just cost us more. The federal plan is cheaper for society as a whole.

So why is it that so many people now seem to be on the "balance the budget bandwagon"? I don't have a good answer for that. I'm in favor of balancing the budget, but not of removing the protections for the poor and elderly, and so on. So, where do we cut?

Where do we spend the most? Look it up. Here's one assessment: military spending is 54% of the federal budged, and approximately $1,449 billion. Non-military is 46% and $1,210 billion (2009 figures).

So, when Bob Herbert points out that we're trying to remove "social programs" and have entered another war, I'm depressed and even incensed. And more depressed because so many Christians think that removing the assistance to the poor and needy and carrying on three wars -- and spending the greatest part of our nation's money on them -- is somehow "right," or "righteous," or "just" or "holy." It is none of those things.

Just a few select pieces of evidence from the Bible (there are many others). The prophet Amos condemns the practices of the rich Israelites who are "building houses of hewn stone" (5.11), "lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall" (in other words, they're giving themselves great feasts), "who drink wine from bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils" (they have the very best of spa/health care -- 6.4, 6) -- who in essence are "living the good life."

But, they "trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain . . . and push aside the needy in the gate"; they "trample on the needy and bring to ruin the poor of the land . . . buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals" (6.11-12, 8.4, 8.6). In other words, though they're living the good life, they don't care for the poor among them. They enjoy the good life at the expense of the poor -- thus they trade the poor for their new pair of shoes and their comfortable houses.

You can read the judgment passages for yourself. It's harsh, to say the least. When Amos pleads: "let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" (5.24), he's pleading on behalf of the poor. He's not just saying "avoid the big sins like idolatry and adultery." "Justice" and "righteousness" are attributes of God and are frequently used either in tandem or synonymously. Also, in fact ONLY God is truly "good" (says Jesus -- Matthew 19.17, Mark 10.18, Luke 18.19). We tend to define "justice" as "getting what one deserves," and as opposite of "mercy." But in the Old Testament, especially in the prophets and the Psalms, they seem to point in another direction. Notice Psalm 72.1: "Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king's son." The writer then proceeds to describe what practical effects will ensue if God does that: "May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice. May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor" (72.2-4).

If the king does this, he should be rewarded (v. 11), "For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight" (72.12-14).

"Justice" and "righteousness," then, are not just keeping oneself away from the "big sins," nor are they the opposite of "mercy." In fact, they are the very definition of "mercy." And "mercy" is the very definition of "justice and righteousness."

This is why so many theologians have pointed out that God has a "preference for the poor." Jesus never said "blessed are the rich." He said "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6.20).

Hey -- don't blame me, I didn't make this stuff up.

I don't know if Bob Herbert would agree with all of this, but I suspect he would with good bits of it.

But in the final analysis, Christians have to be on the side of the poor. And to those who say "I AM on the side of the poor -- I just think we should do it individually, or that it should be churches that assist the poor, not government": I challenge you with history. It has never been done. It may be true that if Christians all pooled their money we could do away with world hunger. It doesn't matter if it's true or not. It ain't happening. Poverty and hunger and disease are huge problems. They will not be addressed by small institutions -- nor no institutions. I suspect that excuse is just another way for we Christians to be selfish. It may not be for you, but it is for many. So, that claim is empty and needs to be abandoned.

Others will fall back on the words of Jesus: "the poor you always have with you." I'm pretty sure that wasn't a statement of a social program, and we shouldn't take it as one. That was a statement directed toward those who grumbled about the woman who anointed him with perfume just before his death -- here was an opportunity that would never occur again, and there would be plenty of time to do good for the poor later on (Mtt. 26.11, Mark 14.7, John 12.8). That's all. He's not claiming that poverty should not be addressed or cannot be solved.

Simply put, the new budgets I'm seeing proposed are immoral. They demonstrate what we as a nation value, and they are showing more and more clearly that we as a nation are selfish, therefore immoral. Do we as Christians have the guts to stand up and tell this to our legislators? To our neighbors? To our church leaders? To our President? To our state governors? If we let this opportunity go by, we are just as guilty as the Israelites addressed by Amos.

Why support NPR?

Here's why.

Because NPR isn't owned by someone who is concerned to make money for themselves or stockholders. Profit isn't a motive. Truth is. Rupert Murdoch or the Koch brothers or the Kennedy family or whoever can't control this kind of news or analysis. If you treasure democracy, you must treasure independent sources of information because you cannot vote well if you cannot get good information.

I for one do get annoyed at NPR from time to time because it seems to me that they bend over backwards to allow some voices to be heard that I really don't want to hear. But I know they need to be heard, and I myself NEED to hear them. But as I've said on this blog before, I also consult a variety of newspapers and news sources, such as the BBC and Al Jazeera (both the online news source and the magazine -- don't be afraid, you won't get "Muslimized" or something if you go to their site. But you will definitely get a different view of the news, and your view of the US may indeed be challenged. Even if you don't agree, you'll have to do a better job of defending your point of view! If you can't take that and deal with it, you have no claim to be pursuing the truth. So stop telling the rest of us that you are.).

More on "charity"

From Slavoj Zizek, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce (p. 81):

Towards the end of 2008, a research group studying trends in tuberculosis epidemics in Eastern Europe over the last few decades made their main results public. Having analyzed data from more than 20 states, the researchers from Cambridge and Yale established a clear correlation between loans made to these states by the IMF and the rise in cases of tuberculosis---once the loans stop, the TB epidemics recede. The explanation for this apparently weird correlation is simple: the condition for getting IMF loans is that the recipient state has to introduce "financial discipline," i.e., reduce public spending; and the first victim of measures destined to reestablish "financial health" is health itself, in other words, spending on public health services. The space then opens up for Western humanitarians to bemoan the catastrophic condition of the medical services in these countries and to offer help in the form of charity.

Thomas Merton on charity and justice

Too often Christian charity is understood in an entirely superficial way, as though it were no more than gentleness, kindness, and affability. It certainly includes all these things, but it goes far beyond them. When charity is regarded as merely "being nice to" other people, this is generally because our outlook is narrow and takes in only our immediate neighbors, who share the same advantages and comforts as we. This conception tacitly excludes those who most need our love--those who are unfortunate, who suffer, who are poor, destitute, or who have nothing in this world and who therefore have a claim upon everyone else who has more than he himself strictly needs.

There is no charity without justice. Too often we think of charity as a kind of moral luxury, as something which we choose to practice, and which gives us merit in God's sight, and at the same time satisfying a certain interior need to "do good." Such charity is immature and even in some cases completely unreal. True charity is love, and love implies deep concern for the needs of another. It is not a matter of moral self-indulgence, but of strict obligation. I am obliged by the law of Christ and of the Spirit to be concerned with my brother's need, above all with his greatest need, the need for love. How many terrible problems in relations between classes, nations, and races in the modern world arise from the sad deficiency of love! Worst of all, this deficiency has manifested itself very clearly among those who claim to be Christians! Indeed Christianity has repeatedly been called upon to justify injustice and hate!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . Christian charity is meaningless without concrete and exterior acts of love. The Christian is not worthy of his name unless he gives from his possessions, his time, or at least his concern in order to help those less fortunate than himself. The sacrifice must be real, not just a gesture of lordly paternalism which inflates his own ego while patronizing "the poor." The sharing of material goods must also be a sharing of the heart, a recognition of common misery and poverty and of brotherhood in Christ. Such charity is impossible without an interior poverty of spirit which identifies us with the unfortunate, the underprivileged, the dispossessed. In some cases this can and should go to the extent of leaving all that we have in order to share the lot of the unfortunate.

Moreover, a shortsighted and perverse notion of charity leads Christians simply to perform token acts of mercy, merely symbolic acts expressing good will. This kind of charity has no real effect in helping the poor: all it does is tacitly to condone social injustice and to help to keep conditions as they are--to help to keep people poor. In our day, the problem of poverty and suffering has become everybody's concern. It is no longer possible to close our eyes to the misery that exists everywhere in the world, even in the richest nations. A Christian has to face the fact that this unutterable disgrace is by no means "the will of God," but the effect of incompetence, injustice, and the economic and social confusion of our rapidly developing world. It is not enough for us to ignore such things on the ground that we are helpless, and can do nothing constructive about the situation. It is a duty of charity and of justice for every Christian to take an active concern in trying to improve man's condition in the world. At the very least, this obligation consists in becoming aware of the situation and of forming one's own conscience in regard to the problems it offers. One is not expected to solve all the problems of the world; but one should know when one can do something to help alleviate suffering and poverty, and realize when one is implicitly cooperating in evils which prolong or intensify suffering and poverty. In other words, Christian charity is no longer real unless it is accompanied by a concern with social justice.

(Thomas Merton, Life and Holiness [Image Books, 1964], 88-90)

From Henry Nouwen:

In the sixties we were concerned with social change; we learned change comes slowly at best, and it doesn't come at all without a spiritual grounding. The real protesters, the ones who are still protesting, receive their strength and inspiration not from social theorists but from the mystics. Jim Forrest, head of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, came to see me last night. What did he talk about? He talked about Thomas Merton; he talked about prayer. We prayed more than we talked. Prayer gives him strength to continue to fight for a better world.

There is a Jewish story about a little boy who went to a prophet and said, "Prophet, don't you see? You have been prophesying now for fifteen years, and things are still the same. Why do you keep on?"

And the Prophet said, "Don't you know, little boy, I'm not prophesying to change the world, but to prevent the world from changing me?"

We must say no to war, killing, and poverty, not because people are going to listen, but because it belongs to an authentic witness of the living God. And you can do that only when your heart is rooted in the love of God. . . .

George Washington and the (inaccurately described) "Ground Zero Mosque"

From today's Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/16/AR2010081604681.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline

Please notice how so many of the "counter-arguments" (especially Newt's) follow this line of thought: since Muslims don't act "Christian," Christians don't have to act Christian. Gotta love it.

Can Muslims be good American citizens?

I published a link to this article some time ago, but it seems appropriate again now in regard to the plans to build an Islamic Mosque and community center a few blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center.

Most of us know that there are many who oppose the plan, considering it an insult to those killed on 9/11. They also usually associate all Muslims with terrorism, and believe that all or at least most Muslims are bound by their religion to kill "Christian infidels," and that therefore Islam is an inherently violent religion. Therefore, the reasoning goes, Muslims cannot be good American citizens.

That reasoning is wrong at the level of its premises, and this article (Muhammad’s promise to Christians) demonstrates that fact quite well.

Muslims have historically treated Christians very well. The fact that some Muslims now have radicalized is due to other factors, not to the Quran, not to Muhammad.

Way to a Christian Virtue

From Nietzsche, Mixed Opinions and Maxims (his sequel to Human, All Too Human, quoted from The Portable Nietzsche, p. 66):

Way to a Christian virtue. Learning from one's enemies is the best way toward loving them; for it makes us grateful to them.

What a great comment not only on loving one's enemies, but on the Old Testament command to welcome the stranger (foreigner) -- and then, of course, on our current discussion on immigration and the recent Arizona law (which just yesterday was put on hold by a federal judge).

Jesus the Politician

It's cute, quaint, and totally wrong -- but I hear it frequently when I get into political "discussions" with other Christians. At some point (I suspect it's usually when they sense they're losing the argument) they will tell me: "Well, we shouldn't be arguing about this stuff, because you didn't see Jesus making political speeches and campaigning or fighting for social causes. He was all about changing lives, one individual at a time. The important thing is getting to heaven, not politics or social justice."

Seven quick points:

1. There is no such thing as a human action that is not political. All human actions are political, because there is no human action that has no effect on fellow human beings. None. All of my actions, even if done in secret, have an effect on my identity, and unless I live in complete, total solitude somewhere, I will interact with other human beings at some later time, and I will do that on the basis of who I am, which includes every act I have ever committed. There is no such thing as a human action that is not political.
2. Jesus died as the result of a political execution. Crucifixion was reserved for enemies of the Empire. His calls for allegiance clearly were threatening to the powers that be.
3. The concept of the "kingdom of God" is not a call to have your mind drifting among the clouds. It is a call to live out the kingship or the reign of God in your life each day. "Kingdom of God" does NOT equal "church," though we would hope there would be a great deal of overlap. But, just as there are parts of my own life that are not fully under God's reign, so there are parts of his creation that are in rebellion against him. In fact, the whole creation is fallen, and "waits with eager longing" for the redemption promised to the children of God so that the whole "creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God" (Romans 8:21). Ultimately, God's plan is to bring everything he created back under his reign. That is the kingdom of God.
   
4. When Paul the Apostle tells Christians that their "citizenship is in heaven," he is not telling them to abandon God's creation as if it were worthless. After all, when God created it, he pronounced it good. Yes, it is fallen, but that pronouncement was never reversed or taken back. Even the "burn it up" text of 2 Peter 3 includes a "new heavens and new earth" clause, equivalent (perhaps) to Paul's (2 Cor. 5) and John's (Revelation 22) "new creation" concept.
   
5. Jesus' ministry is a revival of part of the Jewish tradition that seems to have been neglected in his day -- the tradition of the Hebrew prophets. That's why he uses Isaiah's text in Luke 4 as a paradigm for his ministry. The prophets, of course, were staunch advocates of social justice. Just as all human acts are political, all human sin is social sin. The Hebrew prophets address societal and systemic sin = oppressive social systems. The "system" was rigged to advantage the rich over the poor and to oppress the widows, orphans and strangers. God's "justice" isn't to give a person what he or she deserves, it is to defend the defenseless, to show mercy to the people who are disadvantaged. "Give the king your justice, O God," begins Ps. 72. When the king has God's justice, it is shown in his acts of mercy: "For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight" (Ps. 72:12-14; cf. Isa. 1:17, et al.).
6. There is no concept in the Bible that is equivalent to the modern concept of the individual. Our modern concept is just that: modern, having been invented during the modern or Enlightenment era by such philosophers as Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant. This concept was unavailable to the ancient writers, for whom the human being is always a part of some community or communities. Even in the famous "the soul that sins shall die" text of Ezekiel 18 must be understood communally. The sins Ezekiel lists in that chapter are societal and communal sins (for some, you have to check their context in, for instance, the holiness code of Leviticus 18). Yes, the "individual" will be held responsible -- for sins against the covenant people and the covenant God. To break covenant with God is to mess up the people's covenant with God (the covenant context is explicitly set up in Ez. 17). So, even here it is a mistake to read into the ancient text a modern concept of the individual.
7. Jesus, therefore, also did not have our modern concept of the individual, and salvation in the New Testament is not individualistic. Nowhere do you find one of our favorite modernistic construals of salvation: "You must have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." It's not a biblical phrase and not a biblical concept. Salvation is always corporate: it occurs "in Christ." Count the number of times in Ephesians 1 you find the phrase "in Christ" or its equivalent. All of God's blessings on Christians, including that of salvation, are said to occur "in Christ."

Summary: if you understand Jesus in the way proposed in the introductory paragraph above, you've misunderstood Jesus. That's not a judgment on your salvation, just on your scholarly preparation.

If someone were to want to do the scholarly preparation, here are three books you should start with -- all by John Howard Yoder, one of the foremost scholars of the New Testament in the last half of the 20th century.

1. John Howard Yoder, The Original Revolution (Herald Press, 1971).
2. John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (Eerdmans, 1972).
3. John Howard Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom: The Gospel as Social Ethics (Notre Dame, 1984).

Obama's Secret Prisons

Here's one that should make all my Republican Anti-Obama friends happy:

Does the Obama administration have their own "Gitmo"? If this article is true, nothing has changed except the names and locations. We're still torturing people.

The creation of a "liberal"

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/11015

Point one: I'm not a "liberal," really. I'm philosophically and morally conservative.

Point two: I get called "liberal" because I don't accept the arguments about the alleged "good" of capitalism. Of course, even "liberal Democrats" in America accept those arguments. Strange world we live in.

The root issue, it seems to me, is that I really believe that we as a society have an obligation to take care of our weakest members -- those who cannot take care of themselves. And I believe that capitalism resembles the card game we used to play: "Poverty," a game in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The game is rigged to the advantage of those who are already winning. It is VERY difficult for a person who has been dealt a bad hand to EVER rise to the top of the heap.

And that's what capitalism seems to do: those of us who grew up in privilege -- in good, American middle class homes -- have lots of advantages. I'm grateful that I received a good education, that I had enough motivation (just barely!) to work hard enough in college to succeed; that my Christian parents and my church instilled in me not only a half-way decent work ethic, but the values that made me want to do "something meaningful" with my life.

But what about the people who didn't have those advantages? Unfortunately, I've seen people -- kids from areas of New York City and Philadelphia that didn't readily welcome white people -- who couldn't see college or a successful career as a real possibility for them. Of course, when working with those kids, we tried to tell them they could be and do anything they really wanted to be or do. Many times they just didn't believe us. We could not make the possibilities we took for granted seem like real options for them. All they could see, much of the time, was a future of poverty and welfare, or crime and an early death.

What made their vision so limited? I don't know all the factors, but it just seemed to them like going to college would be like, well, hitting the lottery. Sure, it could happen. But what are the odds? So, these kids needed help in reshaping their view of the world so that they might actually attempt something we would take for granted. The world they lived in had so conditioned their view of reality and of our society that they could not see my "obvious possibilities" as real for them. The "system" of our society disadvantaged them.

And then we could talk about racism. Most of the kids I'm thinking about were black. A few were Hispanic. They were certain that college was for rich white kids. So, even if we told them that racism didn't really exist in college admissions, they weren't likely to believe it. Even if we told them that racism wouldn't keep them from getting a good job after college, they would be very skeptical. They'd seen examples. Can't argue with history, right?

So, like it or not, I came to believe that some people just really do need a "boost" of some kind, and that some of those "boosts" would have to be in the form of social programs. Not just "giving a handout," but in really trying to help people better their lives, better themselves.

But, I believe it is necessary to do this because, as a Christian, I believe we have an obligation to the poor. We have an obligation to help them help themselves, and if necessary to see to it that they have sufficient food, shelter, and even health care. Does that make me a "liberal"? Whatever. What I'm talking about is conserving a long Christian tradition of taking care of the poor and helping them help themselves. I say that makes me a conservative.

Christianity and Islam -- peaceful coexistence?

See this article in the Al Jazeera magazine:

Muhammad’s promise to Christians

President Obama and the Just War Argument

Though President Obama's decision to "surge" in Afghanistan should not have been unexpected by the American public, I was grieved to finally hear the announcement. I was surprised -- and happily -- that he enunciated a defense of the military efforts there in terms of the classic "just war" theory because it seems to me that we Americans always assume our wars to be "just" simply because they always seem to be defending "our freedoms" or "our way of life." In other words, we rarely question our nation, and we do so only on the most selfish level. Even protests against the Viet Nam war for the most part only dwelt on the issue of whether or not America had some kind of national interest at stake, so that if we did NOT have a vested national interest, then we should NOT be fighting in Viet Nam.

Such an explanation flies in the face of classic "just war" arguments. One of the primary qualifications for "just war" in those arguments is that the war CANNOT be fought for selfish purposes.

So, again, it was good to hear our President articulate a logical defense of his decision to surge. In part, it was good to hear because it may become clearer to all of us that this war and the one we are fighting in Iraq are indeed NOT "just." We are invaders in foreign countries; we are attempting to spread our empire; we are not fighting by just means. Thus our wars are not just, according to "just war" theory.

For an insightful analysis of President Obama's speech on the surge, see this short piece by Professor Stanley Hauerwas:

http://hopeofalltheworld.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-do-you-know-war-is-war.html

"Peace on earth." (unidentified angels)

Death Panels

Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, yada yada yada -- people claiming that the proposed health care reforms include "death panels" have gotten some folks pretty upset, including some people pretty close and dear to me. They cannot understand how I could support the reform of our health care system when it includes death panels = the plan to kill of the elderly because their health care would cost the system too much.

Now, I have to admit I'm insulted that someone would think I was in favor of such a proposal, since I do love my parents and want them to live as long as possible, so long as THEY are happy with their quality of life!!!! To be honest, I want them to live longer than that, but they've talked to me over the years about not wanting to live out the end of their days hooked to machines in a hospital room. It's hard for me to talk to them about it, but they have "no heroic measures" clauses in their living will statements. I will be very hard to convince that we should "pull the plug" (even writing that makes me shudder) at any time when there is still breath in them. But they have already made some decisions, far ahead of time, about their desired quality of life. And they've forced me to think about those issues for my own life as well. And though I love my parents, my siblings and I may at some point have to make some very, very difficult decisions. But we will do that with full consideration of my parents' wishes.

That being said: it is insulting to me for someone to claim that I -- or in general people who favor the reform of the American health care system -- want to kill off our parents because we don't think their lives are worth paying to preserve. But that is how some of the hate-mongers in our country have portrayed this effort, including Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. They are lying and they need to repent.

Is it even logical to think that the people who are promoting this reform all want to kill off their parents? I mean -- they're not teenagers! It just makes no sense to think that they want to do that. And they don't.

On the other hand, maybe they just don't know what's in there! Maybe the wicked writers of the bill have hidden the "death panel" provision somewhere in there, and since the bill is so long (so they criticize), people who are promoting it haven't even read it! They're just ignorant, and the wicked Obama-wizard wants to keep them that way so he can kill old people.

Ok -- really? The bill is out there for public viewing. But it's so nice and easy to assume Palin and Beck are right (because, after all, they're conservatives, and they are Christians!!!), and to attribute horrid, horrible motives to the "liberals," so, well, it MUST be true.

So I decided to check into it myself. Here's what I found.

The bill that was passed by the house ("America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009," available at http://docs.house.gov/edlabor/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf) has a provision in Section 1236 (pp. 438-443) for a "DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM ON USE OF PATIENT DECISIONS AIDS." This is the provision that has been construed as the attempt to establish "death panels."

A "patient decision aid" is defined as:

an educational tool (such as the Internet, a video, or a pamphlet) that helps patients (or, if appropriate, the family caregiver of the patient) understand and communicate their beliefs and preferences related to their treatment options, and to decide with their health care provider what treatments are best for them based on their treatment options, scientific evidence, circumstances, beliefs, and preferences.

So, what this program intends to do is to make sure patients fully understand their treatment options and have thought through them based on their OWN BELIEFS AND PREFERENCES. Now, having been a cancer patient over the last year, let me assure you of how important this is! I'm grateful for the treatment I received, but I admit I have been surprised a time or two during the process because I did NOT understand all the implications. I wish I had had better information, information I could understand, and had been able to think through it all better. But I was so overwhelmed by the thought of having cancer, and the treatment options were of a wide variety, and I just couldn't get my head around it -- and in part I didn't want to. I just wanted to get it over with. Thankfully my wife had her wits about her throughout the process, so I had good guidance even when I didn't have a clue what was going on. But I've wished I'd understood better, and this provision is trying to accomplish just that sort of thing.

And it wants to do so by establishing "a shared decision making demonstration program . . . under the Medicare program using patient decision aids to meet the objective of improving the understanding by Medicare beneficiaries of their medical treatment options."

The section says: "An eligible provider participating in the program shall routinely schedule Medicare beneficiaries for a counseling visit after the viewing of such a patient decision aid to answer any questions the beneficiary may have with respect to the medical care of the condition involved and to assist the beneficiary in thinking through how their preferences and concerns relate to their medical care." Death panel? Get real.

Now, I can see how the phrase "shared decision making" could spook someone. But here's how the bill defines it:

The term ‘‘shared decision making’’ means a collaborative process between patient and clinician that engages the patient in decision making, provides patients with information about trade-offs among treatment options, and facilitates the incorporation of patient preferences and values into the medical plan.

If the test program is established (i.e., if the bill is signed into law), it is ordered to create a final report within a year of its end. That report must "include an evaluation of the impact of the use of the program on health quality, utilization of health care services, and on improving the quality of life of such beneficiaries." In other words, the intent of the program is to make sure people understand their treatment options, make sure their own beliefs and wishes become part of the treatment plan (so that the doctors can't just push for their own preferred treatment), and in general to try to improve the quality of life of the patients.

It is NOT A DEATH PANEL. Its intent is not to counsel someone to end their life, or to tell someone that their life has become too expensive for the system to maintain. Anyone who tells you different either has not read the bill or is lying.

Some folks have insisted that this provision will result in the government sending out "little blue pills" (i.e., "suicide pills") with instructions to old folks that they have to take it because the government will no longer pay for their health care. People who make such outrageous claims are using scare tactics and lies to manipulate the elderly and the already "anti-liberal" into protesting against this reform effort. That's just plain wrong.