Saturday, August 12, 2006
Truce?
Well, they have a truce in place -- or will have
by Monday, when Israel says it will halt its offensive operations. But the future is up for grabs and meanwhile Lebanon
has been devastated, hundreds killed, thousands maimed, and hundreds of thousands made homeless. Troubling
questions remain.
Hizbullah leader Hasan al-Nasrallah says he will
honor the cease fire when Israeli troops leave Lebanon; but Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert says that even with a truce
Israel will not begin leaving until the new replacement force is in place. Will Nasrallah accept that? It seems
unlikely.
The new force is meant to be half international
and half Lebanese. What percentage of the Lebanese half will actually include Hizbullah soldiers? When all the
displace persons return to South Lebanon, how many anonymous Hizbullah members will be among them?
I hope U.S. secretary of state Condolezza Rice
and her advisors have done a better job of planning for the truce's aftermath than U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfield
and his advisors did in planning for the aftermath of the American "victory" in Iraq three years ago.
7:22 pm edt
Thursday, August 10, 2006
You Can Help
At least three-quarters of a million people
-- perhaps as many as a million -- have been made homeless in Lebanon during the past four weeks. Many are living in
deplorable conditions in the city parks of Beirut.
My friend Curt Rhodes, president of Questscope,
recommends sending contributions to the National Development Committee (NDC), a non-profit, non-government Lebanese organization.
Curt worked with NDC during the previous Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and vouches for them.
$30
or £16 will provide one sleeping bag or a supply
of food or medicines. Donations can be sent via Questscope, P. O. Box 88572, Carol Stream, IL 60188 USA, or P. O. Box
159, Crowborough, East Sussex TN6 3XN, U.K.
Or you might find it easier to donate
online: www.questscope.org
Sunday, August 6, 2006
Reconstructing
N. T. Wright
Many of you know that I appreciate the learned
writings of Anglican N. T. (Tom) Wright, Bishop of Durham, England. One of his latest books (he writes prolifically)
is Paul: Fresh Perspectives. Wright concludes this particular book with three tasks facing Christians today:
(1) Reconstructing our self, rooting it in the
love of God revealed in the Messiah; (2) reconstructing knowledge of the Other, affirm-
ing his or her or their otherness as well as our own involvement
in the Other; and (3) reconstructing the gospel story in terms of love rather than power.
I spent the better part of the past decade
working on precisely these three matters. All are immensely important, but in the context of our post-9/11 era, and
more particularly the current Israeli-Hizbullah conflict, the second is especially so. We need to understand those we
blithely call terrorists, and we must be convinced of our essential identity with them. Few Christians seem to
take this seriously, however.
12:39 pm edt
Friday, August 4, 2006
Workbook
You may have spotted Atonement Workbook, a new
entry in the Navigation panel to the left. This relates to my current attempt to refashion my Bible studies on the Atonement
into book form, while maintaining the occasional question and answer format, which is the reason for the label Workbook.
We'll see how it goes.
* * *
Meanwhile we appear to have survived the brutal
heat wave of the past week. Today temperatures are in the mid-80s, Farenheit, and this is a welcome relief.
* * *
A couple of weeks ago I reported the news that our
HMI Infant care-giver, Priscilla, had been shot while sitting on her front porch here in Paterson. The bullet passed
through her lower back and exited cleanly, and she is recovering nicely. One of HMI's long-time donors, Megan Cohick,
who lives in southern California, sent Priscilla a beautiful handmade patchwork quilt. I just want to publicly acknowledge
Megan's thoughtfulness.
* * *
My long time missionary friend, Roy Robertson,
founder of TEL (Training Evangelistic Leadership) is 85 years old and still ministering in East Asia. Yesterday,
he wrote to me, "My own personal philosophy as to what I can be doing at 85 is this: My most important work is to keep in
intimate fellowship with the living God. Second, I need to put into writing my basic ideas, or TEL may not continue
on into the next generation. Third, I need to spend more time in encouraging the old time Navigators and people from
other organizations."
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
World-think
A British poster 1946 offering rewards
for the capture of Israeli "terrorists".
Note circled photo of Menachem Begin,
the future prime minister of Israel.
See final paragraph below.
Some of you have expressed disappointment that
I have not had more to say on the catastrophe that has befallen Lebanon. It's not that I don't share their pain, as
best one can from afar, but it's that I have basically said in previous blogs all I can say on the subject of the conflict
and the U.S. foreign policy associated with it.
We have leaders in America who profess to be Christian,
yet in foreign policy they are syncretistically enmeshed in world-think: the foolish notion that might makes right and
all problems can be solved at the point of a gun.
In his recent speech in Miami, the U.S. president
declared that "the current crisis is part of a larger strugle between the forces of freedom and the forces of terror in the
Middle East." This is at best an over-simplification and at worst deliberate disinformation.
It has long been acknowledged that one man's "terrorist
group" is another man's "freedom fighter." The United States is not the only people in the world who are fighting for
their freedom. And it is easy to forget that virtually every effort in history to achieve independence has been labeled
"terrorist" by those in power.
Have we forgotten that in Israel's own struggle
for independence prior to 1948, their freedom fighters, the Irgun Tsvai Leumi, led by Menachem Begin, who later became Israel's
prime minister, was specified as a terrorist group by the British?
10:37 am edt
Tuesday, August 1, 2006
Gay Marriage
Gay marriage is a contentious issue, both within
the churches and in society at large. At the risk of offending friends whose opinions I respect, I offer my own
take on the subject. Though I am impressed by both sides of the argument, I have come down in favor of gay marriage.
I'll try to keep my rationale brief by dealing here with only one key dimension of the debate -- family.
Family is the basis for society. Marriage is the conventional means for creating family. And the Christian basis
for marriage is two-fold. Genesis 1 speaks of the importance of procreation. "Be fruitful and increase in number." Genesis
2 emphasizes the value of companionship. "It is not good for the man to be alone." (Oddly, marriage as an institution
is not mentioned at all in Genesis 1 and 2.) We assume that in a perfect world both conditions -- producing children
and providing companionship -- would be fulfilled in marriage.
Gay marriage will not generate children,
but many gay partners today adopt children, thereby creating family for children who otherwise would have none. And
gay marriage most certainly provides stable companionship and security. In short, it appears to
me that gay marriage is clearly pro-family.
12:24 pm edt
