Thank you Jon Stewart for this gem. And thank you Fox News for keeping the Daily Show supplied with plenty of comedy. Do they even know the meaning of plagiarism?

Labels: Funny, Politics

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I went out with one of the students from our church the other day to see Iron Man. I'd heard some great reviews and the buzz surrounding Iron Man was huge. Even with all the hype, Iron Man surpassed my expectations. I was pretty unfamiliar with the story line and had only recently overheard the "origin story" where Tony Stark, über-wealthy arms dealer, is captured by the enemies of America and is able to escape by building himself a robotic suit of armor. Fast-forward to 2008, update the enemies (Viet-cong to Afghani Terrorists) and we have today's Iron Man.

[spoilers ahead] I really enjoyed Robert Downey Jr.'s performance as the self-centered billionaire, Tony Stark. He brought the kind of "rough around the edges" persona needed for this character. It also makes Stark's conversion seem believable. And speaking of conversion, I was really surprised at some of the territory this film covered. There was a healthy dose of critique for the arms industry and Iron Man wasn't afraid to portray the United States for what we are, the largest and most indiscriminate arms dealer in the world. Stark learns this when he finds that his Afghani terrorist captors are using weapons that came from his own company. While it may be public knowledge that the United States armed both al Queda and Iraq... oh, and Iran, we don't often see that in the plot line of a blockbuster summer action flick. So to the writers with the gravitas to pull that one off... bravo.

Stark comes back from his captivity and has an incredible change of heart. As the president of the largest Arms Manufacturer in the world (Stark Industries), he holds a press conference and announces that Stark Industries will no longer be making weapons. The stock takes a 50 point nose dive and people begin to speculate if he is insane. Could you imagine if Lockheed Martin did something similar? Wow. Tony tries to steer the company towards more humanitarian pursuits while he begins to build the REAL version of his robotic suit of armor that got him out of Afghanistan. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a preachy Amnesty International film disguised as a superhero movie. It is still an action packed two-hours of eye candy... with a heart.

Labels: Film, Military, Politics

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Brian McLaren was in town last night speaking about his new book Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. It was an excellent presentation, one of those "big idea" kinds of presentations that just build and build. I thought he did a great job of packing all of these concepts into a 1 1/2 hour presentation. While I felt like I was keeping up with him, tracking with where he was going, I still left with my head spinning. There was just so much that he covered and the implications are innumerable.

Later in the evening Brian joined us at the Princeton Emergent Cohort and we were also joined by the North Jersey Emergent Cohort. We packed 20+ people into a small corner of the Yankee Doodle Tap Room. It was a great time of informal conversation and we picked Brian's brain about Narrative Theology, Stanley Hauerwas, Radical Orthodoxy, global economies and local economic practices, Wendell Barry, Plato, eschatology, N.T. Wright, Andrew Perriman, terrorism, the presidential election, pastoral care, dealing with conflict in the local church and the writing process. It was a great conversation with a great thinker.

I've loved all of Brian's books that I've read so far but I had Everything Must Change on the backburner. No more. After last night I want to dig deeper into what Brian's getting at in this book because I think it's going to be incredibly important for the church as we quit playing "intramural games" as he put it, and start addressing how the Gospel frames and narrates our lives in such a way that we are sent into the world in a posture of serving, reconciling, compassion and healing.

If this stuff excites you like it does me, be sure to check out the Deep Shift tour. Brian will be in the Bronx May 2-3rd. If you can't make it to the tour be sure to check out everythingmustchange.org where people are contributing and dreaming of ways to change the world one act at a time.

Labels: Discipleship, Emerging Church, Life, Non-Violence, Politics, Theology

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A few days ago I finished Jesus for President and I've already lent it out to the first person on the growing waiting list. What a magnificent book! If you went to seminary and constantly had your nose stuck in a Hauerwas or Yoder book but wished you could lend a more accessible version to someone... this is that book. It isn't dumbed down, let me be clear about that, it's just that this book was really written for the church. This isn't the kind of conversation that takes place in the ethereal upper layers of academia, this is the best Kingdom-of-God theology taken to the streets. And what would we expect? Shane & Co aren't professors, they're subversive prophets living in the abandoned places of the empire. Making their own clothes, living with the poor, dumpster diving for food... always pointing to Jesus. They are living at the margins pointing us to Jesus. They are shouting with their lives (and this book) that the America we live in is a pitiful and fallen Kingdom not worth our allegiance.

The Eagle is fake, the Eagle is dead.

Follow the Lamb!

Labels: Books, Discipleship, Emerging Church, Military, Non-Violence, Politics, Theology

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Last week I picked up a book that I've been looking forward to reading for several months now. I didn't even know that it had been released until I was wondering the isles of my local Barnes & Noble and bumped into the display for Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw's new book Jesus For President. I'm about a third of the way through it now and it's everything I was hoping it would be. Claiborne & Co have taken theologians and biblical scholars close to my own heart and made them scandalously accessible to an general audience. The book (so far) is tackling our own ideas about empire by taking a look at God and the people of God and their relationship to empire. The book is a creative mish-mash of art and prose and Kingdom Propaganda. This book provokes us towards a Christian imagination of politics and calls us to seriously rethink where our hope and allegiance really lay. Go pick it up now!

Labels: Books, Discipleship, Emerging Church, Non-Violence, Politics, Theology

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I like Barack Obama. Since his speech about faith and politics at Sojourners Call to Renewal I have been a "supporter" of Barack's. Barack embodies a lot of things that are important to me. Things like his diverse cultural background, the way in which he's in touch with life in Africa, his honesty about his faith and even his doubts and questions, his roots as a community organizer in Chicago. His values overlap with my own more than any other major candidate I've seen in my lifetime.

I really hope that Barack is elected president.

But I won't be voting for him. I won't be voting for him because I am tempted to really believe in him. I am tempted to put hope in Barack Obama. And it's no mistake that Obama's campaign has seized on this. They constantly use the words "believe" and "hope." And if I was indignat about Bush hijacking Christian hymns for his own speeches I must deconstruct Obama's use of the words "hope" and "believe" in light of what those words mean to us as followers of Christ.


But let's be honest, we've become so cynical and polarized about politics in the US. People really do want someone/something to believe in. Obama's vision really is a fresh drink of water in the midst of the desert this country is in with all our corruption, war-mongering and trampling on our poor. Plenty of people are desperate for change. I am one of them. But that's just it - if I'm desperate for change there is but one king who can really bring about change. I'm talking about the king of kings. In all my political obsession I am so tempted to take my eyes of Christ and his project of radical change, his project of renewing creation and putting things right. I'm tempted to glance to the side and take notice of Barack Obama and maybe hope that he can change things. If I put my hope for change in Barack I'm committing idolatry. I've given up my hope in God to make things right and I've put them in Barack.

Now if I were a bit more politically detached I'd vote for him. But precisely because I am a political junkie and I am tempted to think "oh, if only Barack were president" that I cannot vote for him. For me it is a matter of spiritual discipline that I will abstain from voting in this election. My absence at the voting booth will be a tangible practice to remind me who's really in charge, who my real king is.

Now, as I've said, I'd really like to see Obama become president. But let's be honest, voting really is the laziest and smallest way to be politically active. If Barack and I are on the same page (and I hope we are) then I'll do a lot more good by working for that kind of kingdom change than I will by voting for it.

Labels: Discipleship, Politics

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So if you're like me the above image is confusing. What's a pledged delegate and what's a "superdelegate?" Turns out a pledged delegate is what all these state primaries and caucuses are about. So if we go by what the voters in the different states have done, Obama is up by 13 delegates. But that still leaves "superdelegates." Superdelegates are elected party officials, like govenors, congresspeople, ex-presidents (Bill Clinton is a superdelegate) and the like. There are a total of 796 superdelegates out of the entire 4,049 delegates up for grabs. That's just shy of 20% of the total. Securing a superdelegate means convincing powerful individuals to vote for you. Hillary Clinton is leading in superdelegates by 86!

Apparently this all came to be so the Democratic party could keep "amateurs" out of the running for the party nomination. How is this Democratic?

Labels: Politics

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Kara and other PTS students were invited to visit the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. a while back and she signed us up. Earlier this month we got on a bus with other PTS students and took the trip down to D.C.

The Holocaust museum experience was very different than what I was expecting. On the first hand I thought that it would be a lot more macabre than it actually was, but either way I thought that being faced with the horror of it all that I wouldn't be able to make it out without breaking down and crying. This was not the case, indeed I didn't see a tear shed by anyone there. Instead the overwhelming brutality and evil you see in the museum for hours and hours on end just seemed to cause us all to shut down. I for one went into a kind of emotional turtle-shell, being so shocked by an all-day exposure to the Holocaust. The museum takes you through the rise of the Nazi party on the top floor, down into the persecution of Jews and removal to ghettos on the next floor down and finally to the "final solution" on the lower floor. You literally spiral downward as you follow the time line of the Holocaust. The transition from the middle floor to the last floor is a transition of "How could people be so racist and oppressive" to "How could human beings do these unspeakable things to other human beings." It is silent. It is intensely horrifying. Kara and I sat in a room listening to audio recordings of survivors telling about their experiences during the Holocaust. Part way through one of our guides came in to sit and listen as well. He was a Holocaust survivor. I can only describe that moment as being a mix of the most reverent sacredness and the a gut-wrenching disgust.

The second (and I think regrettable) thing I wasn't expecting were the several instances in which I overheard conversations about the current violence in Israel between Israelis and Palestinians, conversation that was itself tinted with racism. In one conversation in particular a woman even shamed "the liberal media" for ever taking pictures of Israeli soldiers shooting at kids with rocks. All the while I'm thinking, "those journalists are being a witness to the lopsided violence happening in Israel, how can you honor people who had the courage to be a witnesses and tell the world of the Holocaust but demean the people who would be witnesses against your own tribe." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. As I looked around at this museum full of the testimony of some of the worst racism and suppression ever directed at one people and saw the consequences of that I was saddened to learn that not everyone there had apparently learned the same lesson.

Labels: Life, Non-Violence, Politics

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This morning I was flipping through the channels and came across TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network). TBN has a special place in my heart, ever since two summers ago when I was living with Brian Schafer in a pre-cable tv apartment and one of the only over-the-air channels we got was TBN. It was so much fun to watch because it was always so incredibly bad. It was like watching The Colbert Report... for Christians. I highly recommend this by the way, watch TBN, but don't get all riled up and take it seriously. Instead, pretend it's religious satire (a la The Door) and you'll have a hoot.

Okay, back to my story. I come across TBN and pause just long enough to see that Ann Coulter is on "Behind the Scenes" talking about her new book. I've posted a section of the interview at the bottom of this post. At one point the interviewer asks about her own background in the church. She talks about growing up in a Presbyterian church in Connecticut and how her mom didn't like the "political" sermons her pastor would preach against Vietnam. They would later leave the church later in favor of one that wasn't "political." Coulter's critique of her "political" pastor was simply, "that's not what most Christians want." The way she talks about it her mother wanted a church that would offer some kind of benign emotional therapy and nice singing, but never denounce a war. Apparently Coulter has been critiqued by some bloggers for not actually going to church, she responded by saying that 1. She does go to church but that 2. liberals are so "biblically ignorant" that they don't realize that Christians don't have to go to church. We don't have to go to church, Coulter contends, because Christ died for our sins.

What I found so surprising was just how mainstream Coulter was for a few seconds there. Coulter's understanding of the Gospel is so shaped by an American Civil Religion (coming out of... liberalism!) that God's concern is just about him and you. God doesn't get involved in politics unless we invoke him for our own cause, and there really is no need for the church since it's all about you and God to begin with. These two theological commitments I think a great deal of American Christians share with Ann Coulter.

For all of Coulter's talk of "being biblically literate" she apparently doesn't pick up on the Missio Dei (Mission of God) to renew all of creation, to redeem the world (not just you). The redemption of the world being an incredibly political kind of thing, especially because God says this redemption will take place in the life, death and resurrection of his Son and not through the war on terrorism, state welfare, the United Nations or even "taking back our Country for God." Secondly, Coulter apparently misses large swaths of scripture where God calls a people (plural) into covenant to follow him, to be a blessing to the world, and to be the vehicle for God to come and dwell among us. As the church we are the body of Christ on earth, we live in continuity with Israel as we live out the mission of God in the world. Just one reason why it is important for Christians to be a part of the church. To be a part of the church means that people like Ann would have to take communion with "liberals." Church is the place where God destroys the walls we put up between each other and since Ann's primary goal in life seems to be building those walls, it's just more convenient for her to take the "just me and God" route.

Labels: Civil Religion, Politics, Theology

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Now that I'm working in a church again I've started to think about this whole "tax exempt status" our churches have. Tax exemption doesn't really sit right with me. Here's why tax exemption makes me raise an eyebrow. I had a conversation with a pastor friend of mine several years ago about why he supported a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. In the end, the constitutional ban on same sex marriage had to do with tax exemption. That was his last straw. "You see," he said, "if they legalize gay marriage, they can force the church to start marrying gay people. And if we say no... they'll take away our tax exempt status!"

There's a big difference between the Christian rite of marriage performed by the church and that legal thing you get at the county courthouse, so I don't care too much about what's in the constitution concerning marriage, because the constitution does not determine the sacred rites of the church. I wouldn't oppose a constitutional amendment against being resurrected from the dead either, because I think God (and not the constitution) gets to determine what will and will not be for his church.

Okay, so back to tax-exemption. Does it make anyone else feel slightly icky that the church is put in this position of "owing" something to the state? I sometimes feel like the tax-exemption thing is like the "favor" that a mafia don has done for a church, and our response naturally is to not make a fuss when the don does something that doesn't sit right with us, out of our gratitude for his favor. And this is exactly how it works, when a church starts getting "to political" there are always threats of taking away the all sacred tax-exempt status. Well so what?! Martin Luther King Jr. had some pretty political things to say once upon a time. The gospel is always reaching out into culture and stirring up trouble. What if we were to scared to follow the gospel into the world because we thought it might mean we have to start paying taxes?

Now, to argue the other side for just a second... I certainly don't want a portion of my tithe money going to build fighter jets and bombs. But is this "innocence" worth the private and non-political box that the nation sticks the church in? There's got to be a better way.

What do you think? Are you for or against the tax-exempt status for churches?

Labels: Civil Religion, Politics, Theology

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Iraq for Sale is a documentary about the corporations that have been given contracts to do work formerly done by the military, and how a corporation's first priority to make as much profit as possible is in direct conflict with what is good for the American military and the American taxpayer.

I first heard about this phenomenon (specifically Blackwater's role in Iraq) on NPR sometime last year, so I was very interested when I found this documentary. Blackwater is a corporation that offers specialized military forces. They are not part of the US military, they are a private firm that can be hired to perform military-like duties. The US military out-sources a lot of work to firms like Blackwater, CACI and KBR (a division of Halliburton). These firms do a number of jobs such as providing security to top level officials, washing soldiers laundry and even interrogating prisoners at places like Abu Ghraib.

Some of these corporations are getting attention because information has come out showing that they've been ripping off the government, for example KBR was charging $95 to do a load of laundry for soldiers in Iraq. Stuff like that. These corporations are getting contracts to do things the military used to do itself and then they, like all corporations, proceed to maximize profit. You can imagine that a lot of patriotic folks are unjustifiably upset about how these corporations are putting profit over serving the military and about the cost to the American taxpayer for the incredible waste. My own anger over the issue has less to do with how this affects my taxes. What upsets me is the incredible profit war provides some corporations. This is only exponentially so in an administration so committed to the "free market" that they out-source intelligence gathering and interrogation to a private corporation. Of course this shields most of what happens in such operations from any kind of criminal prosecution. If a soldier harms an Iraqi civilian they can be court martialed. If a Blackwater employee kills an Iraqi civilian they cannot be brought to trial.

This marriage between military-corporations and the US government is a particularly horrible one. When war breaks out these corporations stand to make HUGE profits, and when the government uses these corporations there is an added "safety layer" from investigation and prosecution. These corporations are staffed by surprise... former government and military officials. This marriage only serves to make war an incredibly lucrative business to be in and consequently much more frequent.

Have mercy on us Jesus. Your ways are love and peace, but our ways are greed and violence. You are THE truth, but we are a people of deception and lies.

Labels: Film, Military, Politics

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Last night CNN and YouTube hosted an interesting debate between the democratic candidates for president. It was an interesting format. Rather than having the moderator, or audience members ask pre-screened and predictable questions CNN pre-screened 38 YouTube questions that were just slightly less predictable than usual. At least it was creative.

I blog today not to swoon over some candidate or talk about how "well" one candidate did in the debate but rather to examine a very powerful American myth we saw last night and what happened when one man challenged that myth. The myth is this, American soldiers never die in vain. To suggest that soldiers die (or have died) for no good reason cuts across many other strongly held American myths and calls into question the legitimacy of violence as a means of solving conflict. To suggest that American soldiers die in vain is to suggest that war is a mistake, or worse, sinful. And yet war, more than most things, is the glue that holds these American myths together.

And last night Mike Gravel said that soldiers (both Vietnamese and American) had died in vain during Vietnam. He continued to say that soldiers dying in Iraq today are dying for no good reason. (click for the Video here) Mike Gravel challenged the pervasive American myth that it is impossible for an American soldier to die in vain. It took only seconds for many of the other candidates to rush to the defense of this myth, Barak Obama said "I never think that troops like those coming out of the Citadel who do their mission for country are dying in vain." John Edwards said, "I don't think any of our troops die in vain when they go and do the duty that has been given to them by the Commander in Chief." After the debates Chris Dodd attacked the premise again, saying he was offended by such a statement.

As a Christian I don't hold the same assumptions that American soldiers can never die in vain. Some are saying that today we are living in the Pax Americana, or "American Peace," a notion that America's military and economic dominance is creating world peace, an idea borrowed from ancient Rome and the Pax Romana. But ancient Christians rejected the Pax Romana as a sad and twisted parody of the peace of Jesus Christ. In the same way, "American Peace" is based upon military violence, war and economic manipulation of the poor. This is a far cry from the peace of Jesus Christ, and so when American soldiers die for the Pax Americana... what in the end are they dying for? When America sends men and women to kill and die for a false "peace" that will be exposed by God and replaced by the real and lasting nonviolent peace of Jesus Christ how can we understand anything other than cooperating with God in the peace of his Kingdom today as anything other than working in vain?

We as Christians must not get caught up in these American myths, we must be people of the truth. We must tell the truth. And the truth is, God invaded this world through the quiet and humble birth of a Jewish boy named Jesus. From that day forth a Kingdom of peace has been breaking into this world. That Kingdom of God is the way of the future, but it is also happening today. We Christians are called to live today the way God would have us all live in his Kingdom. We are witnesses to the world that peace is possible now, and we are people who can say such bold things and act on them because we believe in resurrection.

There is no lasting peace other than the Kingdom of God. So when people die or kill for a false peace what can it be other than to kill or die in vain?

Labels: Politics, Theology

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Rusty was out visiting the other day and we caught a matinée of Michael Moore's new film, SiCKO. While it has become popular to criticize Moore for his bias and question the facts in his films I think, as usual, we need to take seriously the argument he makes rather than get hung up on the critiques from conservatives on his editing technique. And just to be precise, Michael Moore did not edit this film, like most films there is an editor who is assigned this task. While some are already questioning a fact here or a fact there, Moore has said repeatedly that everything in the film was based on solid research. That being said, it wouldn't be hard to find other research which contradicts his own. This does not mean he lied, this means you are consulting differing sources. Moving on.

Moore's argument isn't a surprising one. The American health care system is set up to put profit above caring for all. This means that many people just plain get screwed by the system because unlike other public institutions (Fire Dept, Library, Police, etc.) the health insurance companies' number one priority is profit. A corporation seeking profit before the good of all people no doubt cuts corners in order to maximize profit. Rather than understanding paying for someone's medical needs as the goal of business, insurance companies understand this as a "loss" and seek to minimize losses. So that's a small summary of how our system is rigged to benefit the shareholder above the insured client.

The second part of Moore's argument is that all the fear-mongering about how the rest of the western world does medicine is just plain unfounded. So we visit Canada, the UK, France and even Cuba to see what publicly held health care looks like. Conservative politicians have familiar talking points when it comes to public (or socialized) health care. They say that we won't have any good doctors left (assumption: medical professionals are all incredibly greedy people and if the government pays less doctors will quit). They say that wait times will increase (assumption: if everyone has access to health care, then when I have a heart attack I'll be told to come back in two months), but Moore's trips are full of people who are incredibly happy with the speed at which they're seen by a doctor and emergencies are treated as such. They say that the government can't handle the health care system (assumption: only corporations can be trusted to oversee such a large and complicated system), but when corporations are in charge it is profit rather than care which is the primary goal, this is fundamentally mismanagement.

I think this is Moore's best film to date and his argument is a good one. Savage Capitalism is doing to the health care system what Enron did to power in the west. Like the library or the fire department the health care system must be held by the public, not privately held by corporations.

Check out biblical scholar, Ben Witherington's take on the film here.

Labels: Film, Politics

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A while back I was riding in the car listening to NPR when they re-aired a peabody award winning broadcast of "This American Life" a favorite show of mine produced by Chicago Public Radio. The broadcast was titled Habeas Schmabeas. Here is a description of the topic "Habeas Schmabeas" tackles...

The right of habeas corpus has been a part of our country's legal tradition longer than we've actually been a country. It means that our government has to explain why it's holding a person in custody. But now, the War on Terror has nixed many of the rules we used to think of as fundamental. At Guantanamo Bay, our government initially claimed that prisoners should not be covered by habeas—or even by the Geneva Conventions—because they're the most fearsome enemies we have. But is that true? Is it a camp full of terrorists, or a camp full of our mistakes?

What followed was one of those gripping stories that makes you sit in your car outside your apartment for 45 minutes because you don't want to miss anything by running inside. You can download the entire episode for free here. What I learned offended the American side of me, to hear about how the constitution is simply ignored or put on hold when it is deemed inconvenient to those in power. Don't we write these rules specifically for hard times when we'd be tempted to abuse power?

From a Christian standpoint what distressed me even more was the de-humanizing abuse many of these prisoners are forced to undergo. Far from buying into the excuses that "this is a different kind of war calling for different kinds of tactics," I am compelled to reflect on Jesus' parable of the indebted prisoner who is freed only to turn around and put those who owed him money into prison. What does forgiveness look like in the midst of a world racked by terrorism? Would Jesus put a "temporary hold" on forgiveness in the face of terrorism declaring that new more modern tactics were needed to fight "extremism?" Or is forgiveness a form of religious extremism in itself? I certainly think so. If prisoners do indeed need to be held captive can it be done while still honoring their God-given dignity? Can their captors be committed to truthfulness and honesty instead of secrecy and deception?

We are often told that the world changed on Sept. 11th, that we now must operate in a "post-9/11" mentality. Does that apply to being a disciple of Jesus Christ? Did being a Christian change on 9/11? Do we get to temporarily set aside things like forgiveness and loving our enemies in the midst of a world filled with terrorism?

OR are forgiveness and love the very ways Jesus taught us to fight such evils?

Labels: Military, Politics, Theology

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Labels: Funny, Politics

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It wasn't until college that I met the forgotten Martin Luther King Jr. Like everyone else I had met the civil rights leader in grade school, learning about him in history texts and on MLK Jr. day. This man was so monumentally popular in US history, held up as a saint who helped make racial equality part of what it means to be an American. But I didn't meet the other MLK until years later and I've come to find out that most people never meet this other MLK. It was in his last years here on earth that Martin Luther King Jr. turned his attention towards the growing poverty in the United States and towards the systems that help cause and maintain such poverty. He turned his attention towards the growing militarism of the United States and towards the wars being fought. Indeed MLK had the courage to say that the United States was "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." It was this MLK that our country has forgotten. This MLK was assassinated. The words of this MLK still have a prophetic word for us today.

Thanks to Mark Bilby for this article about the forgotten MLK.

Labels: Life, Military, Non-Violence, Politics, Theology

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My roomate Jake made me aware of this article published on the website of his alma matter, Olivet Nazarene University. The title of the article is "Faith in the Military," which is meant to mean "A Christian's faith in the midst of the military," but I found it to be an ironic double-entendre about having faith in the military itself.

Steve Foster ’89 often works 18-hour days. He sleeps in common barracks, hundreds of miles away from his wife and two young children. Soon, he will ship out to Iraq as a chaplain, a dramatic change from the life he left behind, living in the suburbs of St. Louis and pastoring a middle-class church. Like other Olivet alumni serving in the military, Foster sees his current position as one of ministry.

“My service to country is a direct result of service to Christ,” he says in the quiet, strong tone of an enlisted man. “The Heavenly Father has broken my heart repeatedly for soldiers and their families. That brokenness is why I serve both God and country.”

Navigating Foster's comments is an exercise requiring nuance. It is entirely possible to minister to those in the military and be called by God to do so. The military is indeed a place of many broken hearts and families and Jesus Christ must be in the midst of that suffering. We would do well to meet Him and those hurting soliders there. That being said, I am left wondering what Foster means by "service to country." If by this he means that he is Christ's ambassador humbling serving those who are in the military by bringing them the gospel, then that is the kind of service "our country" needs. If however he means (and I'm afraid this is the case) that by being a chaplain he is somehow serving the goals of "our country" then I must protest!

Serving the goals of the military is nothing short of pursing an anti-gospel, of giving aid to the enemy of the Kingdom of God. The military does not have a chaplain program so that soliders may grow in discipleship. It exists instead so they might learn to kill more efficently without the crushing weight of the guilt which comes from taking the life of one of God's beloved children. Chaplains are meant by the military to be "supernatural morale boosters," whose job it is to soothe the fractured psyche of children of God who have been (re)created as agents of destruction ready to obey the State.

The article continues...

Dr. Stan Tuttle, an Olivet professor of education, had a similar motivation when he gave up 11 weeks of his summer to train soldiers in Kuwait. Unlike Foster, Tuttle’s “official” job wasn’t to minister. But living side by side with the soldiers, his faith often came into play.

What stood out to Tuttle was the selflessness of the men and women who faced imminent danger on a daily basis. “Instead of asking for prayers for themselves or their units, they’d ask for prayers for family members and neighbors. It was the attitude of service — the attitude of other — that was very present in these men and women who were soon to be in harm’s way.”

I find it interesting that there is no mention of these soliders being encouraged to pray for the people they are preparing to kill (although this does happen more often that we might think, it seems rarely to be at the encouragement of chaplains, but rather springs naturally from soliders who recognize the humanity of their enemies). I am not saying Christians cannot serve God in the midst of the military but it seems to me that the options are very very few.

A medic embodies the life and spirit of Christ in that regardless of what "side" someone is on the battlefield medic exisits within the battle simply to rescue, to heal to bring life where there is only death. This job strikes me as one of the most Christlike professions one could pursue.

The chaplain is also a role the Christian can take in the military, bringing counsel and gospel into the midst of violence and destruction and the systematic conversion of children of God into objects trained to kill. The chaplain can bring the gospel, and by this I mean the FULL gospel, not simply a private one that never conflitcs with the solider's job.

Unfortuneately I think that the Christian serving during wartime as a Chaplain will find they are quickly dismissed if they preach a full gospel. The chaplain who edits the gospel so that children of God may find a smooth fit between discipleship and killing other children of God will probably be very "sucessful" and left alone by the military as they are fulfilling their duty to the State.
[UPDATE: Through our discussion the above paragraph has come into light as pretty much false. Chaplains are aparently very hard to get rid of and preaching peace and nonviolence would not be enough to get you fired.]

The rest of the article continues much as the first, being a Christian in the military mostly means that God helps you get through Ranger training as well as remembering to do the "right thing," but from the tone of the article it seems that refusing to kill other children of God is not one of those decisions we Christians have to worry about, because we have faith in the military.

Labels: Military, Non-Violence, Politics

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Is it just me or did Scooter Libby just testify that Dick Cheney told him that President Bush authorized the Plame leak? Anyone? Hello? Oh, pardon me I didn't mean to interrupt the 24 hour news coverage of Katie Couric getting a new job. Well she's not taking it yet, not for another two months. Oh and by the way she's a woman! Fascinating isn't it! Holy crap.

Labels: Politics

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A King & A Kingdom
by Derek Webb

who's your brother, who's your sister
you just walked passed him
i think you missed her
as we're all migrating to the place where our father lives
'cause we married in to a family of immigrants

my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
it's to a king & a kingdom

there are two great lies that i’ve heard:
“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him

my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
it's to a king & a kingdom

but nothing unifies like a common enemy
and we’ve got one, sure as hell
but he may be living in your house
he may be raising up your kids
he may be sleeping with your wife
oh no, he may not look like you think

Labels: Music, Politics

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The first part of Bush's speech tonight was centered around "national security." National security as an idea and most of the points contained within this portion of the speech depend on making we the people feel afraid of "them." "They" are no longer just al Queda but "terrorists" in general. This general and undefined threat works better when it is vague, because the threats are everywhere and so the primary (if not only) goal of the government is to "protect" your "security." That's about as specific as Bush wants to get. The problems start when we ask questions, when we demand specifics for his generalities. Who is a terrorist or dangerous threat? Well Quakers are a threat for starters. Cindy Sheehan was arrested for wearing a "Stop war" t-shirt while attending the State of the Union speech. See, "national security" is really a big job! National security is all about protecting "freedom." Freedom from seeing anti-war t-shirts included!

"Freedom," as Bush uses the word might as well be a filler word. When used so often and for God only knows how many purposes it completely looses its meaning. What does "freedom on the march" really refer to? An agressive unilateral neoconservative foriegn policy? That doesn't roll off the tounge like "freedum's on the march." What does "enemies of freedum" mean? Anyone who voted against Bush's social security policy? Al Queda? Unions? Ang Lee? The only thing we are supposed to know is that freedom=good and enemies of freedom=bad. It's really that simple, so please don't go asking any pesky questions that might force him to admit what he's really talking about.

Do you disagree with Bush's policy in Iraq? Then there is a new word that they have for you, Isolationist. Awesome! New talking-points. Bush's use of isolationism was perhaps one of best examples of a straw-man fallacy I've seen. If you find 28,000+ Iraqi and 2,000+ American dead in Iraq morally indefensible you must be for "cutting and running" and "isolationism." Using the language of isolationism Bush made it clear that there is only one way to deal with the Middle East: his way. To do it any other way is "without honor."

And of course there was the constant stream of nationalism and civil religion that I usually object to in these things. As a Christian I found the whole thing to be sad and lacking any of the comitment to truth, the passion for loving others and the pursuit of justice and reconciliation that constitutes the Kingdom of God.

Labels: Civil Religion, Non-Violence, Politics

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Tonight as I settled into bed the tv was on... Rita Cosby was on MSNBC interviewing what seemed like everyone who had an opinion about the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. Those who supported Tookie's execution invoked in me a saddness. If you've ever seen or read Dead Man Walking, you have an idea of the kind of hurt that leads people to choose revenge over redemption. The families that choose vengance over forgiveness feel as if they cannot rest until the murderer is also dead, but more death never brings closure or justice. Besides my opinion that a family's need for closure is not a good enough reason to kill a human being, I am convinced that Christ teaches his followers that only forgiveness will bring healing for these families, not death.

If Tookie did commit those murders, the hurt and pain and loss that he unleashed not only on the family & friends of the victims, but moreso on our creator God are real. And our God is a God of justice, but unlike California our God's idea of justice is absorbing just such violence and hate, not returning it.

In this season of Advent we should be quick to remember that our God saw fit to "stretch Mary's womb" as my friend Lucas sings. And why did the God of Abraham decide to become God with us? Did God just need physical hands to "smack us upside our head with a 2x4" as so many people are wont to say? No, Jesus was born into this world to save it, not to condemn it (Jn. 3:17). Our God became a human being, so that through the body of Jesus all our bodies might also be redeemed. Jesus absorbed the hate and violence that this world hurled at him, and returned none. By returning only grace and love, even to his very executors, Christ gives the practice reconciliation to those who would live in his way and become his disciples. Revenge and returning evil for evil is not the way of the lamb that was slaughtered or the WORD who was born of the virgin Mary to save the world. That baby didn't save the world with atomic bombs or execution chambers, he did through his own death.

Jessie Jackson brought up something that I think is very worthy to note. Jackson reminded Christians who have allowed their hearts to deny redemption that our history is full of redeemed people. Moses, King David and St. Paul were all murderers but were also redeemed and used by God. I think that we like to hear that our saints were ex-murderers or rapists because it gives an edge to our story, makes the love of Christ seem radical. But while we quickly tell the scandalous stories of our own reformed heroes we are far less speedy to apply that radical love to our enemies. How can we marvel at Saul's transformation into Paul the Apostle but burn with hate for Tookie Williams? Oh that we would not find ourselves above our saviour and Lord, thinking that we're worthy to rescind the grace we as followers of Christ must show to others. If we who have been saved from our sin and forgiven by a gracious God cannot in humility also learn to forgive others, what faith have we?

Peace of Christ to the victims and those who loved them.
Peace of Christ to Tookie. Tonight may you be met with grace in the arms of our Saviour.

Labels: Film, Life, Non-Violence, Politics

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Tonight I saw what has to be the best movie I've seen all year (even besting Crash). Good Night, and Good Luck was written and directed by George Clooney and stars David Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow, the CBS journalist who's editorial show helped turn public opinion against Wisconson senator Joseph Mcarthy and his witch-hunt of suspected communists or communist sympahtizers during the 1950's. This film, is as much a commentary on the present state of politics and media in the United States as it is anything else. The film beigns with a speach Murrow gives in the late 50's where he prophecies the doom of televison as a medium. His chilling words are prophetic when he speaks about televsion becoming nothing more than wires and lights meant to entertain and lull the already comfortable and rich into further complacency. I was reminded of a speech I'd heard Noam Chomsky give in the Distorted Morality, when he mentioned that professional sports are a huge drain on the brains of Americans. Most of us pay far more attention to how certian sports teams are doing than we do to foriegn policy, among other issues which actually matter to the future of our society and the good of the world. Now while I will continue to watch the Broncos play on Sunday's I think I've all but renounced SportsCenter, and will certianly be trimming down my television watching to the bare minimum. I need to read more, and watch less TV. If Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam didn't convince me of that, Good Night, and Good Luck sealed the deal.



Good Night, and Good Luck.

Labels: Film, Politics

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I read an article today via Icthus. Apparently the senate voted 90-9 today in favor of banning the use of torture as a part of the new military budget. The administration is saying that Bush will veto this, and they're saying congress is trying to tie their hands in the war on terror. It looks like for once congress is trying to keep us from being terrorists! What good is it to fight terrorism if you become a terrorist? Geez Dub, whatever happened to being a Christian?! For the sake of the God who faced torture for the whole world (even you), either ban torture or reconsider calling yourself a Christian. The church has enough trouble on it's own without this billboard of heresy visilbe for the whole world to see.

Labels: Non-Violence, Politics

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Okay, so this is something that's bugged me for a long time. I took this picture at my church's INTERNATIONAL headquarters. Why do Christian churches, and institutions insist on flying the Christian flag below the US flag? It's as if we readily accept our role as chaplain to the state, an unquestioning support system to a pagan nation. We as the church are all to happy to be the "yes man" for America. If we were in prison, I'd use another term for the role the church has resigned itself to. If we're really an outpost for the Kingdom of God on earth, why fly other flags at all? What's wrong with just flying the Christian flag? This is just as offensive to me as flying the Christian flag under the North Korean flag, as if the Church was not unlike a county, province or territory under the authority of the larger more important state. Arrrrrrgh, I hate the civil religion!

Labels: Civil Religion, Politics, Theology

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As I sit here reading, a thought comes to mind: how many people would be satisfied with a justice system where 9 out of 10 people excecuted were not guilty? And yet in modern warfare 90% of casualties are civilian.

Labels: Non-Violence, Politics

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Eric just told me that, D. Brent Laytham, the author of my most recent read, God is Not, wrote an article for the Christian Century titled "Loyalty Oath: a matter of ultimate allegiance" that I thought was really good. Check it out here or read the whole article below.



Loyalty Oath
A matter of ultimate allegiance
by D. Brent Laytham
Two years ago one of my students wrote a master's thesis defending just war, then joined the U.S. Air Force to train as a fighter pilot. I suppose you could look at this as pedagogical success: I'm a teacher who helped one of my students turn the corner from theory to practice. But as a pacifist, I took it pretty hard.

Time doesn't heal all wounds, but it's a pretty good salve for injured pedagogical pride. So I hadn't given Aaron much thought until I was asked to come down to the college president's office to meet with an officer of the Department of Defense. She showed me her badge and a pile of papers, all of which asserted that she was authorized to interview me about the character of my former student. Apparently, before you can get behind the controls of a multimillion-dollar fighter plane, the U.S. runs a high-level security check.

There were a number of mundane questions about how long and how well I had known Aaron. The questions became more interesting as they turned to relationships and to character. "Did Aaron associate with disreputable people?" she asked. "Yes," I said, "he hung out with Jesus." I was thinking, of course, about Jesus' habit of associating with radicals like Simon the Zealot, cheats like Zacchaeus and riff-raff like the woman at the well. Worse, as Christopher Marshall has pointed out in Beyond Retribution, Jesus populated his parables with criminals and was finally condemned as one himself. But what would my interviewer think? "I know what you mean," she confided. "I sometimes serve meals at my church's soup kitchen." Apparently Jesus is not disreputable enough to disqualify you from being trusted with high-tech weaponry.

"Does Aaron belong to any organization that puts him in contact with foreign nationals?" she asked. "Yes, he's a member of the church." I wasn't trying to be coy, but catholic. In Christ we find ourselves placed in a body politic without territorial borders—the holy catholic church. The Letter to Diognetus puts it this way: for us "every foreign country is [our] fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign." Thus, we have no foreign nationals in the church, or we are all foreigners; either way, we cannot imagine that some of us are "us," while others are "them." At least we shouldn't be able to imagine this.

"But did he associate with foreigners?" "Well," I replied, "we have a number of international students here at the seminary. I'm sure that Aaron had classes with them." I could have added that we intentionally seek to foster an awareness of global issues, hoping students from California will get to know students from Chile, wanting students from Korea to learn with students from Kansas, expecting that Mexicans and Minnesotans will pray together in every chapel.

She pursued the question, "How closely did he associate with them? Was it more than a normal amount?" How could I answer such a question, given the church's calling to show the world that its version of "normal" simply isn't? All I said was no. But I should have added, "The church is a 'sign, herald and foretaste' of the coming kingdom; we refuse to allow national borders to be mapped onto the body of Christ."

There were many other questions, the hardest of which was, "Is he a loyal American?" I had little doubt that for Aaron the answer is yes. But what could that attestation mean coming from me, who relishes Dorothy Day's retort "Of course we're un-American; we're Catholic"? I thought of Patrick Miller's recent pamphlet on the first commandment. In The God You Have he differentiates between loyalty to others and obedience to God. Loyalty, he says, may appropriately be given to spouse, family, neighbor or country. It roots in and expands on the fifth commandment. Obedience, on the other hand, belongs to God and God alone. It is rooted in the absolutely fundamental claim of the first commandment. First commandment first; obedience before, beneath and beyond every loyalty.

The problem with Miller's categories is that, in Caesar's hands, they can too easily become a distinction without a difference. In the U.S. there is assumed to be a smooth fit between discipleship and killing. That assumption, held so easily and unreflectively, trespasses against our obedience to God alone. I wonder whether my questioner understands that for descendants of Jeremiah and followers of Jesus, obedience to God may require us to refuse the state's claim to our loyalty. Does the Department of Defense grant that my fundamental obligation is not loyalty to country but obedience to God? I doubt it. In such circumstances, where Caesar cannot distinguish between our proper subjection and our ultimate allegiance, it may be best to say bluntly, "A loyal American? Of course not. I'm a Christian!"

But Aaron is a Christian too, and there's the rub. My testimony now contributes to the testing of his discipleship. Will he manage to live by the moral restraint of just war, to embody its refusal of easy congruence between killing and Christ, to always remember that obedience to God trumps loyalty to country or comrade? I can only pray that he will.
D. Brent Laytham teaches at North Park University in Chicago. He recently edited God is Not Religious, Nice, One of Us, an American, a Capitalist (Brazos).

Labels: Non-Violence, Politics, Theology

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I was emailed this today... it blew me away. After you read it ask yourself the question... what makes us so much different that we wouldn't also buy into such a thing?

Here’s the link: http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0403/et0403s7.html

And here’s the article itself:

When democracy failed: The warnings of history
by Thom Hartmann

This 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago: February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.

It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)


But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens. They claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world.

His coarse use of language – reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state – and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.


Terrorism as a pretext

Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.

“You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history,” he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. “This fire,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion, “is the beginning.” He used the occasion – “a sign from God,” he called it – to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.

Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.

Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation – in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it – that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.


“Patriotic” legislation

To get his patriotic “Decree on the Protection of People and State” passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained. Legislators would later say they hadn't had time to read the bill before voting on it.

Immediately after passage of the antiterrorism act, his federal police agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high popularity ratings. Citizens who protested the leader in public – and there were many – quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.)

Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a “racial pride” among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as “The Homeland,” a phrase publicly promoted in the introduction to a 1934 speech recorded in Leni Riefenstahl's famous propaganda movie “Triumph Of The Will.” As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was “the” homeland, citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands. We are the “true people,” he suggested, the only ones worthy of our nation's concern; if bombs fall on others, or human rights are violated in other nations and it makes our lives better, it's of little concern to us.

Playing on this new nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the French over his increasing militarism, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He thus withdrew his country from the League Of Nations in October, 1933, and then negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Anthony Eden of The United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.


God is on our side

His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity. He even proclaimed the need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation, what he called a “New Christianity.” Every man in his rapidly growing army wore a belt buckle that declared “Gott Mit Uns” – God Is With Us – and most of them fervently believed it was true.

Within a year of the terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, particularly those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist and communist sympathizers, and various troublesome “intellectuals” and “liberals.” He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader.


Homeland secrity

He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, the Central Security Office for the homeland, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments.

His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, “Radio and press are at out disposal.” Those voices questioning the legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising questions about his checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection as his central security office began advertising a program encouraging people to phone in tips about suspicious neighbors. This program was so successful that the names of some of the people “denounced” were soon being broadcast on radio stations. Those denounced often included opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out – a favorite target of his regime and the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies.


Government and industry collusion

To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough. He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war aga