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Tuesday, March 25, 2008
4000 Dead
-- and Counting. Seven
times that many have returned home severely wounded. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed. Two
million have been displaced from their homes and sent into exile to Syria, Jordan and elsewhere. Billions
of dollars have been exhausted -- money that is badly needed for aging infrastructure and social needs in an America that
is suffering an economic crisis. How in the world can all this be justified? We are told that the dictator Saddam
Hussein had to be toppled, that America was threatened by his possession of weapons of mass destruction. Then we
were told that we had to eliminate Al Qa'eda from Iraq, that this small band of terrorists was a threat to America. Now
we are told that we must continue to occupy Iraq for perhaps a hundred years -- and this by one who is the presumptive
Republican nominee for president of the United States -- a man who has nothing to suggest toward the resolution
of a financial crisis that is devastating hundreds of thousands of American families. Sometimes I think God has given
us over to a band of mad men.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Easter Bombadier
World War II was
the defining war of my generation. So I took note when I read that Jacob DeShazer, left, had died this past week.
He was the bombadier on the famed Doolittle air raid over Japan -- the first air raid after Pearl Harbor. The raid was
carried out shortly after Easter 1942. DeShazer's plane never made it to safety and he endured 40 months of torture as
a prisoner of war. Toward the end of his captivity he was given a Bible. Reading the Bible led him to forgive
his captors. After the Japanese defeat he determined to become a missionary to Japan, which he did, arriving back in
Japan in 1948. In 1950 he wrote a little tract entitled "I Was a Prisoner of Japan." As a freshman in college
that year (having spent three years in the Army Air Corps myself) I read this tract. Later that year Captain Mitsuo
Fuchida read it also. Fuchida was the Japanese naval pilot who led the raid on Pearl Harbor. He had become a rice
farmer after the war. Reading the tract ledFuchida to accept Jesus as his personal savior. Later he and DeShazer
met on several occasions, for DeShazer spent 30 years as a missionary to Japan.
12:04 pm edt
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Easter Eve
Ethiopian Orthodox
Christians celebrate Easter (left) with a Holy Fire ceremony. I attended a very moving Greek Orthodox Easter service
in Cyprus back in 1953 when I was engaged in my first missionary assignment. This Spring Cypriots have another reason
for Easter optimism. After many years Greek and Turkish leaders have agreed to restart talks on reuniting the Island.
The division of Cyprus into two independent states occured 30 years ago. A United Nations plan to reunite Cyprus failed
in 2004. I have very happy memories of my two years in Cyprus and hope the negotiations will succeed this time.
A house divided cannot stand, Jesus said.
10:49 am edt
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Cross-cultures
The group of Navigator
college students from the University of Maryland, 15 in all, have completed their time with us and are on their way home.
I enjoyed their fellowship and appreciate all their practical service with us. They played with children at Loving Care,
helped build a home with Habitat for Humanity, renovated the basement floor at Northside Chapel, fed homeless people, and
went on prayer walks through two different inner city neighborhods. Most were from small towns and rural areas, so this
was an helpful cross-cultural experience for them.
I don't know how
many of you heard or read Barack Obama's speech on race the other night. It was excellent. For once, listeners
had the feeling that they were being treated as mature adults, something we are not used to expecting from politicians.
I am slowing coming around to Obama.
He struck just the
right note at the beginning by speaking of the American quest for "a more perfect union." The United States is far from
perfect; we individuals are far from perfect; our political candidates (and their pastors) are far from perfect. But
we are surely entitled to see a more perfect union. Such an improvement in our society requires that we make an intentional
effort to transcend race (and gender), even as it requires us to face up to the sins of our past and the wounds and bitter
feelings our sins have aroused.
Whites, Blacks,
Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans have different histories, to be sure, but, as Obama noted, we hold common hopes for
a better future for our children and grandchildren. One way we can work together for a better future is by participation
in inter-racial churches such as the one Georgia and I belong to in Paterson. The university students who visited us
these past five days had a great opportunity to see how Christians of different races can work and worship harmoniously and
productively.
Obama repeated the
old canard that "Eleven o'clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America." That's one reason Obama's
pastor sounds so divisive; he pastors a church that is predominantly Black. Some pastors of all-White churches
sound just as bad. Most churches claim they welcome participants of other races. But that does not produce an
inter-racial community. What they really mean is, "You are welcome to fit in with us and adopt our style of worship,"
whether that style be Caucasian or African-American (or Hispanic or Korean or whatever).
But it takes a lot
of time and energy -- not to mention pain -- for different races to develop a worship and service style that all can own.
In the case of our Madison Avenue church, it took the better part of twenty years -- and we are still working toward "a more
perfect union."
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The Right to Bear Arms
The U.S. Supreme
Court is currently considering a Second Amendment case. The Second Amendment reads: A well regulated
Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
It is being
argued that the government of the District of Columbia violated this amendment when it passed a law banning hand guns in households.
It passed the law in an effort to diminish criminal violence, particularly murder, in the city. For awhile Washington,
DC was said to be "the murder capital of the United States."
At the practical
level, opponents of the law claim that murder has not signifi- cantly
lessened since the passage of the law, and that the presence of hand guns in a household deters criminal behavior. The DC government claims otherwise.
But the case
is not before the Supreme Court for practical reasons. Rather, it is because some feel that the Second Amendment specifically
guarantees citizens the right not only to bear arms but to keep and bear arms -- "keep" being interpreted
to mean possession in a household. Unless citizens can privately possess guns, it is said, it would be impossible to
provide for a well regulated Militia.
Of course,
that is not the case today, but in interpreting the Constitution great weight should be given to what the Founding Fathers
thought; and early America could not afford a large standing army, but had to rely on local militias in time of peril.
Early indications
are that a majority of Supreme Court members are likely to decide that in favor of the right of private citizens to keep and
bear arms. The D.C. law will be overturned. Personally, I believe that would be a mistake. My reasons are
both practical and theological.
I live in
a city that, like Washington, DC, is violent. Our church spends a lot of energy trying to rid the city streets of hand
guns -- which in practise means persuading citizens to give up the hand guns they "keep and bear." The prophet Zechariah
foretold a messianic age in which children will play happily in the streets (Ch. 8, vs. 5). No Paterson child can play
safely in our streets today. A ban on personal possession of hand guns would not eliminate the problem, but would go
far to reducing it.
People argue that
they need to have a handgun in the home in order to defend themselves against a criminal invasion of the home The burglar
is assumed to have a gun and would be deterred by the sight of the owner brandishing a gun in return. More likely, however, one
of the two would fire his/her gun and someone would be wounded or killed. Violence begets violence.
That's the
practical side. The theological reasoning is more radical. Jesus told us to defuse violence by turning the other
cheek. The notion sounds irresponsible, but it is not. If a robber invades my home and demands my money or jewels
or whatever, if I surrender them the likelihood of on-scene violence virtually disappears. Police give this very
advice all the time.
Thus the
writer of the epistle to the Hebrews reminded the early Christian community that they had "joyfully accepted the plundering
of their goods" (Ch. 10, vs. 34). The apostle Paul, writing to the Christians in Corinth, argued (the subject was expensive
lawsuits), "Why not rather be defrauded?" (I Corinthians 6:7).
The reason
Christians can have this attitude is because some things are to be valued more than others. Early Christians did not
hesitate to lose their property if it would advance peacemaking in the community. In the short run they put their faith
in the local government to provide law and order (Romans 13:4). In the long run, they trusted God to take care of them,
for "even if your suffer for what is right, you are blessed; do not fear their threats; do not be frightened. But in
our hearts revere Christ as Lord" (I Peter 3:14-15).
Monday, March 17, 2008
St. Patrick's Day Parades, Visitors, and Obama's Pastor
The huge annual
St. Patrick's Day parade will churn its way down Broadway today, cheered on by thousands. Some of my ancestors
on my mother's side were Irish. They came to America -- along with 500,000 other Irish men and women -- to escape certain
starvation in the wake of the devastating potato famine in 1845-46. One of them, my great-great-grandmother, lived to
be 98, dying in 1920.
The 15 University
of Maryland students who have been with us over this past weekend have gotten a good exposure to life in Paterson.
For the next three days now they will be ministering with us in a variety of programs designed to bless Paterson's inner city
residents. Each evening I have been giving them a set of power point presentations that provide the background to what
they are seeing up close.
Over the weekend
TV's "talking heads" focused on Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, recently retired. Dr. Wright is a typical
black American pastor. His concept of ministry is holistic. Besides preaching, teaching, and counselling, he has
inaugurated a host of practical ministries during his 30-year tenure. These include places for senior citizens to meet,
day care for the children of working parents, help for people suffering from HIV/AIDS, hospice training, prison ministries,
scholarship for students, tutorial and computer programs, domestic violence programs, and a variety of youth ministries.
It does not surprise me that Obama is a member of this church. What does surprise me, somewhat, is that TV commentators
are judging Rev. Wright on the basis of a few imflamatory remarks about the hypocrisy of some aspects of American culture,
and that Obama has been forced to publicly repudiate Wright's sound bites. The truth is, Wright's remarks,
though jarring to white people, are reflective of how many people in Paterson see things.
10:23 am edt
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Templeton Prize
Father Michael Heller
is the winner of this year's $1.6 million Templeton Prize. The prize is awarded annually to a person who has contributed
significantly to progress toward research and/or discoveries about spiritual realities. Heller is a professor of cosmology
and philosophy at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Krakow, Poland. He will use the prize money to create a
new center for the study of science and theology there. "Science gives us knowledge, and religion gives us meaning;
both are prerequisites of the decent existence," he says. Science and philosophy, he maintains, lead inevitably to theology.
Two of his own books are entitled The World and the Word, and The New Physics and a New Theology.
In these "golden"
years of my life, I continue to be supremely interested in the interface of science and faith. My recent book on the
Atonement had this in view. And the book I am currently writing, The Renewal of All Things, does the same.
My books are not pitched at the same erudite level as those the Templeton Prize winners write, but perhaps they are more accessible
to the average reader.
11:35 am edt
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
New Governor
You are looking
at the next governor of the Empire State. David Patterson, left, was born in Brooklyn and raised in Harlem, New York.
He is African-American and legally blind, but has a reputation as an astute legislator. (Before being elected Lieutenant
Governor of New York, he was Minority Leader in the State Assembly.) He will assume office next Monday following the
New York's current governor, Elliott Spitzer, who has been forced to resign because of an almost unbelievable scandal.
Spitzer made his reputation as a fiery crusading Prosecutor, yet has been implicated as a regular client in a high-priced
prostitution ring. This is the big story -- virtually the only story -- of the day in the whole New York metropolitan
area, including New Jersey. Only a couple of years ago, however, New Jersey's own governor had to resign when he was
exposed in a homosexual relationship. New Yorkers can be grateful for the fact that David Patterson will bring a totally
new and positive approach to governance. Spitzer was, in his own words, a "steamroller." Patterson looks to be
a much less partisan politician.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Sturm und Drang
We
had an unusually severe rain storm Saturday night. Blew off our front door. All the lights in the city went out
about 7:30 p.m. and did not come back on until 3:30 in the morning. So I got to bed early. Even so, I'm still
struggling to get over the flu bug, which seems reluctant to leave me. Georgia went to the doctor's office this morning
to get the stitches removed from her left shoulder. So she's on her way back to normalcy.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Current Ministry
At left is a group of
young HMI trainees in the Arab quarter of Paterson a few summers back. Next week we will be hosting 12-15 students
from the University of Maryland. Led by Navigator representative Matt Nichols, they are giving up their Spring Break
to minister with us in various ways.
Meanwhile, I have
just completed leading an 8-week workshop on Intentional Disciplemaking at our home church, Madison Avenue Christian Reformed.
An even dozen completed the sessions and are now engaged in discipling, some of them for the first time. I will be coaching
them during the months ahead and will likely conduct a second workshop later this year.
10:00 am est
9:52 am est
Friday, March 7, 2008
Obama
The respected CNN
analyst/commentator David Gergen has been complaining the past two days about Barack Obama's failure to attack Hillary Clinton
following her wins in Rhode Island, Ohio, and Texas earlier this week. He sees this as possibly indicating a fatal lack
of toughness, an essential quality for a potential commander-in-chief.
My own reaction
has been different. I find my respect for Obama has inched a bit upward. (For various reasons I have been a bit
skeptical of him to date.) I judge his failure to attack as indicating he is a person quite comfortable in his own skin.
He has aimed for a different style of politics and is not willing to change because of what appears to be a set-back.
Of course, he will
have to target Hillary Clinton more specifically in the days ahead, but I trust he will not allow his advisors to tempt him
to abandon the high road for the low road, as it were.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Testimony
As a rule I don't
frequent the web sites of political candidates. But a good friend drew my attentiion to the personal Christian
testimony of Barack Obama. If you are interested, it is available at:
If you are not familiar
with looking up web sites, please note that because of the underlining you may not realize that the URL actually reads call_to_renewal_keynote_address.php
Monday, March 3, 2008
A Dominican Novel
Schoolkids in Bani, Dominican Republic
A good novel transports you convincingly into another world. By those standards The Brief Wondrous Life of
Oscar Wao is a very good novel indeed. It's a saga about an immigrant Dominican family in Paterson, New
Jersey. Paterson's Dominican community is the third-largest in the United States. The action takes place largely in
Paterson, at Rutgers University, and in Bani, a small town on the south coast of the Dominican Republic. I've been
reading it while recovering from the flu. The author is Junot Diaz, whose first novel, Drown, was also a best-seller.
12:28 pm est
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Molokai Memorial
My poor little blog
is dying of starvation. The flu bug has floored me and I haven't been able to do much of anythng lately, much less pen
my blog.
Did get out to church this morning.
Until just 40 years
ago, people who contracted leprosy -- 8,000 in all -- in the Hawaiian Islands were forcibly removed to a barren settlement,
the Kalaupapa penisula on the island of Molokai, to live out their days in exile. I visited the Molokai encampment more
than once during my three-year tenure as president of American Leprosy Mission. Recently advocates have proposed a monument
for them at Kalaupapap. It would eventually carry the names of everyone ever exiled there. At present, only 1,300
identifiable graves remain; all the others were washed away by a tidal wave in 1946. The plan needs the approval of
Congress, which I hope will be forthcoming.
6:14 pm est
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