The jury took less than an hour to convict Scott Roeder (left) of the premeditated first degree murder of Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the U.S. still performing late-term abortions. It was an open and shut case insofar as Roeder freely confessed to the killing and justified it on the basis of saving the lives of unborn children.
          The jury might have had an alternative: voluntary manslaughter, which is the "unreasonable but honest belief that deadly force was justified." But the judge, as I understand it, refused to let the jury consider that charge. I'm not sure why.  On the surface, I would think that Roeder did have an honest belief that deadly force was justified, and that this belief, in the eyes of most of us, was unreasonable. Could it be that the law considers deadly force justified only in one-on-one confrontations, not in defense of third parties, in this case unborn children? Perhaps one of my lawyer friends will enlighten me.
          I consider myself pro-life and am skeptical of the "woman's right to choose" argument. But for me the whole issue of abortion is far more nuanced than most of my pro-life friends seem willing to admit. My views are so nuanced, in fact, that it would take a lengthly essay, not a mere blog, to expound them. So I write today only to raise the problem of the distinction between voluntary manslaughter and first degree murder. This is not a pro- or anti-abortion blog. Right now I'm only interested in an explanation, not an argument.

         


          The United States has the highest prison incarceration rate of any country in the world --  higher than Russia or China, and far higher than India or Brazil or Nigeria. At this moment, one out of every hundred Americans is or has been recently imprisoned. New prison construction is not only one of the few industries in America that has weathered the current recession and-- it has prospered mightily, a true growth industry.
          This in no way implies that U. S. citizens are the most criminally minded in the world. Rather, it suggests that America simply hasn't figured out better alternatives to prison. And despite the laudible efforts of Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship (now led by Mark Earley), churches in this country are largely silent about prison reform.
          Yet Jesus was greatly concerned about prisons and prisoners. He claimed that part of his mission was to set the prisoners free. He went further, in his story about the last Judgment, declaring that some will be condemned because "I was in prison and you did not visit me." The writer of the New Testament letter Hebrews reminds us to "continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison." Churches that "adopt" prisoners and visit them regularly do much to reduce recidivism (habitual relapse and reimprisonment).
          I commend to you a recent article in the January/February 2010 issue of Books & Culture by Jason Byassee, execultive director of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity School. The article is entitled "Prisons and the Body of Christ," and is essentially a fascinating review of three books -- Time of Grace; Crossing the Yard; and Beyond Bars -- interspersed by his reflections on his own experience in visiting prisoners over the past 30 years. 
  

          When I was in high school, back in the early 1940s, I entered a statewide contest to see who could best deliver a speech made by a famous orator. I chose to declaim William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold tirade ("You shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold!"). I recalled that last night as I was listening to President Obama's State of the Union address, Obama generally being conceded one of the better orators of our day.
          William Jennings Bryan ran for President, never made it, but did manage to do a reasonable job as Secretary of State. He was a populist, as John Edwards and Sarah Palin are in our time. Ahead of the speech many pundits were positioning President Obama as a populist also. Obama's State of the Union speech did hit a few populist buttons, but by and large it was, in my opinion, more of a smorgasborg, or wish list, than a partisan tirade.
          Populism is reductionism. Political populism reduces complex issues down to one or two easily-grasped explanations. In politics, it's usually a matter of defining the nation's situation in "us" against "them" terms. The proposed solution usually involves the "man on a white horse" who will provide revolutionary leadership. This is a powerful, but devisive, tactic. Some had expected Obama to be this man on a white horse. Instead, during his presidential campaign Obama called the nation to rise above this kind of populism. Disconcertingly, his policies in his first year of office seemed to exacerbate partisanship rather than transcending it.
          Because of its reductionism, populism is fundamentally a bad thing. However, as with all heresies, it has its nugget of truth. And the truth is, it is stupid to pretend that serious divisions do not exist within American society -- ethnic and racial divisions, economic and class divisions, religious divisions. But these divisions can only be adddressed, in my opinion, in a nuanced way, accepting their complexities. This is best done by listening to our neighbor and then, following Jesus' counsel, attempting to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

           


          You and I know our way around the Internet, and profit from our adeptness. It may interest you to learn that in our globalized world Muslims are and do too. According to a recent book by Gary Bunt, entitled iMuslims (sic) and reviewed by Dominic Casciani in the Times Literary Supplement (London), the Internet is having a profound impact on how Muslims perceive their faith and practice it.         
          Unlike Christianity, Islam has no central authority (Iran perhaps being an exception), so the Internet, being radically decentralized, is a natural home for Muslim spiritual explorers. As a consequence, the process of re-interpreting Islam has accelerated immeasurably. It is being deconstructed a thousand times a day on innumerable web sites and blogs.         
          Of course, al-Qa’eda also utilizes the world wide web to propagandize and recruit. Nevertheless, al-Qa’eda is being matched by the emergence of parallel online brotherhoods. Where Muslims once identified with a particular mosque, they now identify with a web site. And none of these web sites has a monopoly on the Qur’an’s message to humankind.

         


          Everyone agrees that it will take ten years before Haiti is back to normal. But the longest journey begins with the first step, as Confucius say. So the major international donors met in Montreal yesterday to develop some kind of structure for long-term reconstruction. First assessment, then planning, then pledging for actual contruction. The assesssment team will be made up of experts from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the United Nations.
          But needs on the ground cannot wait for assessments. The needs are too obvious. So the Haitian goverment is asking for 200,000 sturdy, family-size tents. A spokesperson for the government has said that the government hopes to house homeless people in 200 model communities compete with schools and health care centers.
          The government also is asking for one and a half million food rations immediately. But again, "immediate" is a relative word, so homeless Haitians themselves, many of them starving, are taking things into their own hands. I don't mean looting -- though that is occuring on a minor level. Instead, the ruined city is filled with foragers, most of them children. And no matter what they find and return with, they share it with others.
          In several neighborhoods of Carrefour, a poor area close to the earthquake's epicenter, small soup kitchens, subsidized by Haitians with a little extra money, have sprung up, according to a report in the New York Times. These neighborhood soup kitchens each serve 100 people or more before 10 o'clock in the morning.
          Earthquakes in general are predictable by scientists, but for folks on the ground they appear as random, inexplicable events. And while we can commend the donor nations and the Haitian government for thinking long term, the immediate damage has been done and cannot be undone. Ad hoc and poorly coordinated efforts must continue, and the poorest of the poor must help themselves, as they are doing. For most of us, our contributions are limited to modest donations and daily prayers. These are necessary, if not sufficient.
         

A "Meet the Author" session at Jaipur


          The Jaipur (India) Literature Festival is an extravaganza that has become the major annual event in the vibrant Indian and South Asian literary scene. By the time the festival ends today, some 30,000 people will have seen 200 authors, including luminaries attending from abroad. During the past five years a booming economy has created huge audiences for books which were tiny niches earlier.
          I have been reading Indian novels for some 50 years now, having begun when we were living in Lebanon in the 1960s. To a Westerner, they are colorful and exotic, but they are also psychologically insightful. Many Westerners are familiar with Salman Rushdie, of course, but it is just as rewarding to read Manil Suri (The Death of Vishnu), Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things), Thrity Umnigar (Bombay Time), Manju Kapur (Difficult Daughters), or Amitav Ghosh (The Glass Palace).
          These authors write in English but, as Vikas Bajaj reports from Jaipur for the New York Times, the Festival features Indian novelists who write solely in Hindi or other Indian languages. These are finding larger audiences both at home and abroad among Indian expatriates. An example is Omprakash Valmiki, a Dalit (the mondern name of those from the outcast caste). He told Bajaj that he was pleasantly surprised when a former chief minister of Rajasthan state stopped him and said she had bought his book and was looking forward to reading it.
           So if you haven't read an Indian novel yet, I encourage you to go to your local bookstore or Barnes and Nobel and inquire. You will not be disappointed.          

          French Parliamentarians these days are busy arguing over whether Muslim women (there are five million Muslims living in France, many of them French citizens) should be banned from wearing the tradition Muslim garb, the hijab.
Five years ago France banned Muslim girls from wearing the hijab in public schools.
          France is a decidedly secularist state, and the argument for the ban is based on the separation of church and state -- the hijab being considered by the French government as religious clothing. The president of France, and most government leaders, oppose broadening the present ban, for they rightly recognize that with increasing numbers of Muslim immigrants, a broader ban would be highly disruptive to the nation. But a vocal minority, fearful that French secularism will be undermined by Muslim immigration, keep the issue alive.
          From my perspective, this minority campaign is sheer foolishness. Just stop for a moment and ask what would happen if the same kind of restrictions were put on Westerners who live or work or visit Muslim countries. Upon arrival at Khartoum or Karachi, for example, suppose a Western woman were to be told that she must she cannot wear her customary clothing but must change into a hijab. It takes little imagination to predict the cries of outrage that would reverberate through the West.
          We live in an increasingly tighter world. Globalization is tying the world together as never before in history. Religious pluralism is a reality for virtually every country. All of us have got to learn to live with, and even honor, a variety of cultural preferences, including religious ones. This may mean that the common notions of secularism will have to be revised, not only in France but in America and throughout the world..

            My San Francisco niece alerted me to an ABC report that a military arms business, founded by a Christian, had long been embossing New Testament references on the sophisticated rifle sights it sells to the Marine Corps. The Pentagon has now put a stop to the practice.         
          A young Jewish man boarded an early flight to Louisville and, as the plane took off, began his morning prayer, which involved strapping tefillin (small leather boxes containing scripture texts) to his forehead and forearms. Fearing a terrorist attack, the plane was diverted to Philadelphia.          
          And editorials across the country are still being written denouncing the Rev. Pat Robertson’s comments in the immediate aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. Robertson, founder of the popular TV 700 Club, had suggested that Haitians, back in 1804, had made a pact with the devil in exchange for independence, and ever since had been suffering disaster after disaster.         
          All three incidents reflect good-faith actions on the part of believers. So why do they, in the first and third cases, provoke outrage on the part of Christians and non-Christians, Americans and foreigners alike and, in the second case, strike terror in the hearts of airline passengers?         
          It is, first of all, because religious faith matters to the great majority of people. And second, because faith practitioners often have a provincial mindset – prepared to express their faith, but insensible and sometimes indifferent to how their acts may be perceived by others.         
          We live in an era of globalization and in a world of religious pluralism. Religious folk like Robertson, the Jewish traveler, and the military arms businessman need to pause and consider how their speech/acts may be perceived by others. And their critics would do well to reflect that most offensive acts are made by well-meaning believers who are simply insensitive and often ignorant: in other words, human beings.

            For my overseas readers, today’s blog may not be of great interest, being concerned with a Supreme Court decision related to the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Yet the decision has global implications, for many of the world’s nations look to the USA as a model for human rights.         

            Yesterday the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, ruled that severe restrictions on corporate spending – particularly with respect to advertising during political campaigns – was prohibited by the First Amendment’s protection of political speech.

            In doing so, it made null the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002 co-sponsored by former presidential candidate Senator John McCain and Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.  McCain said he was disappointed by the Court’s decision, and Feingold said it was a terrible mistake, ignoring “important principles of judicial restrain and respect for precedent.”

            I too believe the decision was in error. The First Amendment’s protection of free speech is basic to democracy, but it was intended to protect the free speech of human beings, not corporations. Now I know that in certain respects corporation are treated in common law as persons. But this is a benign fiction, meant to enable corporations to enter into contracts, just as individual persons are so entitled.

            With regard to political campaigns, the Court’s decision opens the door for big businesses to underwrite multimillion-dollar advertising projects for favored politicians. But the executive officers and boards of directors of huge conglomerates do not truly represent the political passions of all their stockholders, for in today’s America, people of all political persuasions invest in the stock market. No one executive or group of directors can legitimately speak for all stockholders on political matters.

            In reality, the Court’s decision does not affect business only. Presumably big labor unions can also invest heavily in political campaigns. But labor unions differ from big businesses in one important respect. The membership of labor unions is homogeneous, consisting of laborers whose interests are not necessarily -- indeed, are not usually – the same as that of corporate leaders. The fact that many union members are also stockholders further complicates the problem.

            Supreme Court membership is cyclical, moving from liberal to conservative and back again over time. So my guess is that this particular Court decision will be overturned at some point in the not too distant future. This I regard as a good thing for ordinary citizens.

          The political news out of Massachusetts is beginning to overshadow news from Haiti. And that is a shame, for it becoming apparent that more people are going to die in Haiti from untreated injuries, infectious diseases, abyssmal sanitary conditions, dehydration and lack of food than were killed by the earthquake itself!
          I have been following this on CNN, where Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta are calling attention to it, but even they are having to share their time with Wolf Blitzer and "the best political team on television."  NYTimes reporter Marc Lacey writes that "in the squatter camps now scattered across the capital, there are people writhing in pain, their injuries bound up by relatives, but not yet seen by a doctor eight days after the quake struck." At some of the hospitals and clincs conditions are as basic as can be, with vodka being used to sterilize instruments and health workers running to the market to buy hacksaws for amputations.
          I'm not quite sure why I am writing this. There is little I can do about it. But I think it is important that with the passage of time we allow Haiti to drop below our horizon. The situation there is bad and is going to be with us for months to come. And they are our neighbors.

          

          Given Senator-elect Scott Brown’s stunning victory in Massachusetts yesterday, and with President Obama’s poll numbers at their lowest level since his own election, I think it best to take a contrarian stance and point out what seems to be overlooked, namely, that in his first year the President's successes have outweighed his mistakes.
          Of greatest interest to me, though not necessarily of greatest importance, is that fact that from Berlin to Cairo to Beijing to Oslo he has brought about real change in America’s posture in the world, charting a rational course between isolationism and arrogance, assuming but not boasting of America’s global leadership. America’s repute in the world today is much higher than it was a year ago.         
          His critics fault him for not focusing on health care reform at the expense of job creation, and I tend to agree with them. But over against that is the remarkable reality that he brought the nation back, and indeed the world, from the brink of financial collapse and a second Great Depression. (I lived through the first one.) Even with the unemployment rate at ten percent, we are better off than we might have been.         
          Constitutionally, the President’s chief responsibility is to provide for the country’s defense, and this, it seems to me, he has done well. He has proven to be a good Commander-in-Chief, redefining the military’s mission in both Iraq and Afghanistan, assigning skilled generals, setting reasonable goals, and providing adequate resources. On domestic security he has made welcome moves that bring back America to its fundamental moral values.         
          I think he has also made excellent moves in educational reform. Within budget restraints, he has kept his promise to make college more affordable. In addition, he appointed a capable Hispanic woman to the Supreme Court. He has properly refocused policymaking on climate change.         
          He may or may not succeed in passing health insurance reform – he hasn’t handled it with the greatest deftness -- but he gets credit in my book for making the effort. I believe this country should join the rest of the developed world in providing insurance for 30-plus million Americans who currently cannot afford it. And I further believe it is unconscionable for insurance companies to deny care for insured people with prior conditions.          
          All of this in his first year. Not a bad record. 

         


          Half a lifetime ago -- my lifetime, that is -- I was part of this crowd outside of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, as Martin Luther King, Jr.'s casket was being carried out.
          King and I were born in the same year, but his growing up years were far different than mine. Here in Virginia and points further south, children of African descent were being bussed far from their neighborhoods to preserve segregated school systems. Black people were being discouraged, often forcibly, from registering to vote. Interracial dating was taboo and interracial marriage was prohibited in some states (Virginia being one). And lunch counters generally expected black customers to order carry-out only. Widespread housing discrimination (in the North as well as South) prevailed. And no professional football team had a single black player.         
          When I returned home from my first missionary assignment in 1954, King was just getting underway in what would be his major ministry: the civil rights movement. Slowly his presence impinged on my own conscience. At first his message of non-violence seemed counter-intuitive to me. I was put off by the fact that he credited Gandhi more than Jesus for this emphasis. Time proved that my misgivings were misplaced, and when he was assassinated in 1968, I did not hesitate to defy the Christian organization I worked for to fly down to Atlanta for his funeral.          
          King’s integrity was established in my mind when he stood up for the rights of oppressed white garbage collectors, and again when he stood up again for oppressed Vietnamese. “I speak as a child of God and brother for the suffering poor of Vietnam, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted,” he declared. “I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed homes at home and death in Vietnam. I speak as an American to the leaders of our own nation.”

Manuel Roig-Franzia reports from Port-au-Prince on one of the positive outcomes of the earthquake catastrophe. Here are some excerpts:          

          At night, voices rise in Jeremy Square. Sweet, joyful, musical voices in lyric Creole, singing of God’s love. Haiti is known as a society of devout Christians: Catholics, Protestants, and followers of voodoo. But in the days since the earth pitched and rolled, pulverizing shanties and mansions alike, the religious differences that sometimes separated Haitians have come crashing down as well.         
          Port-au-Prince has become a kind of multi-denominational open air church. Tens of thousands live in the street together, scraping for food and water, swharing their misery and blending their spirituality. The women singing together in Jeremy Scquare might never have worshiped side by side before the disaster, but now their voices harmonize and soar well past two in the morning.          
          “Catholics and Protestants and other religions are praying together now,” says Father Alexander, a Haitian priest. “We are saying, ‘We don’t care about religions; we just care about the Lord.” Like almost everyone here, the woe is personal for Alexander. Beneath the broken remnants of his rectory are the bodies of at least 20 church members he must mourn alongside their friends and relatives.         
          The quake has led Alexander to what he calls a “discovery,” that God created us to be good. The neighbors he sees helping survivors, patching wounds both physical and psychological, confirms it for him.

          The temperature climbed to 50°F yesterday, still a bit chilly, but much warmer than it has been since before Christmas. I’ve been somewhat stressed by the awful news out of Haiti, so Georgia and I decided to take a drive to discover the geographic center of Virginia. We found it quickly enough (see photo), just 37 miles east by northeast of Lynchburg, at a tiny community called Mount Rush, near the junction of State route 24 and U.S. route 60.         
          Coming and going we passed by the Appomattox Court House, the famous site where General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant in 1865, ending the civil war between the northern and southern states and reuniting the American nation. God willing, we will be touring Appomattox in the near future.         
          Otherwise, things are quiet here. I’m trying to get into clear focus the main theme of my next book, which will be the third and final volume of a trilogy that began with What about the Cross? and continued with The Renewal of All Things.

          We're three days into the Haiti catastrophe, and I'm gradually absorbing the impact of it. I have nothing to add to the main themes that have been broadcast by the media: the images of dogged determination as family members try with their bare hands to dig out their trapped loved ones; doctors in makeshift clinics with few instruments and medicines working to save lives; the slow but inexorable buildup of assistance from the U.S. and many other nations. But here are a few miscellaneous observations:
          CNN, which is usually so boring, with the same anemic stories being repeated over and over again throughout the day, is actually earning its keep these days. I guess they are at their best when reporting disasters. They did well during the Gulf War and again Katrina.
          We are told that 4,500 prisoners escaped in the immediate aftermath of the prison. I am reminded of the story in Acts 16, when "suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken" and all the prisoners escaped. The warden was prepared to commit suicide until Paul and Silas intervened. I thought of that when CNN showed a brief interview with the forlorn warden of the Port-au-Prince prison.
          There has been much talk the possibility of looting and the need for enhanced "security." Much of this talk is hypocritical. It is no crime for hungry -- and soon to be starving -- people to help themselves to food and water until they become available. Jesus made this clear: check out Matthew 21. Some of the talk about looting is coming from high-placed officials, generally conceded to be corrupt, who are concerned about losing what they have illicitly taken from the poor.
          And there has been the usual muddy theology bandied about. Upon learning that an adoption home some distance from the epicenter went unscathed, a woman exclaims, "God was looking after those children!" And God was not looking after the tens of thousands of other children trapped and dying in collapsed buildings elsewhere in the city? I understand that people confronting  horror need to grasp comfort from wherever it is to be found. But surely we need clearer worldviews if we want to make sense of random nature events. 

          Many of you are busy people who do not block out long sessions for prayer, so Beliefnet.com offers 21 ways to “pray through the day.” Some of the suggestions may not be immediately self-explanatory. If so, you can go directly to Beliefnet for fuller elaboration. Similarly, some suggestions seem more practical than others, to me at least. In any event, I share them with you:

1. Pray on the move.
2. Pray over your favorite food.
3. Pray holding your pet.
4. Pray while brushing your teeth.
5. Pray listening to your favorite song.
6. Pray the ancient words of the Bible.
7. Pray on a solitary walk in Nature.
8. Pray gazing at the stars on a dark night.
9. Pray out loud.
10. Pray with a friend about a secret you have carried.
11. Pray while exercising.
12. Pray while reading the newspaper.
13. Pray with silence and with stillness.
14. Pray over a good meal with family or friends.
15. Pray on a special day.
16. Pray through a family photo album.
17. Pray during household chores.
18. Pray through written words.
19. Pray with emotion.
20. Pray with simple triggers.
21. Pray nowl

              Today most of us are still trying to relate to the awful earthquake news from Haiti, which I first visited back in the summer of 1950. This is the kind of “natural evil” that thoughtful Christians and others find so hard to understanding. For me, John Hick’s theodicy comes closest to satisfying.
          Meanwhile, I’m always concerned about things Lebanese, having lived for six happy years in that country. In many ways – economically, culturally -- it is a strong and prosperous nation; but politically it suffers from chronic fatigue, internally and externally. Internally there is the problem with Hezbullah; externally there is Israel, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. to contend with.Lebanon has a pro-U.S. administration but, apart from some financial aid, that doesn’t mean much.
          Because the U.S. is parleying with both Syria and Iran, that leaves Lebanon’s new prime minister, Saad Hariri (photo), with little leverage. Consequently he had to make a visit last week to Syria’s President Bashar Assad to mend fences – a rather humiliating trip inasmuch as Assad has been implicated in the assassination of Harari’s own father! 
          Lebanon appears to have concluded that it is essentially powerless in the present environment, and that its prospects are best served by making accommodations with opponents, without and within, and waiting to see how things develop.
          In the interim, the U.S. continues to fumble its efforts to arrange a Palestinian-Israeli settlement. The American chief negotiator, George Mitchell, insists that a settlement can be reached within the next two years. Most observers familiar with the Middle East believe this is unrealistic in the extreme. It would be great if Mitchell turns out to be right and all the rest of us wrong.

          Unlike my wife, my children, my grandchildren, and most of the rest of the world, I hardly ever watch movies. But I’m tempted to break the habit, or non-habit, when Crazy Heart comes to town a few weeks from now. (It’s already playing in the big cities.)
          Mostly this is because I’m trying to get better acquainted with this alien Blue Ridge Mountain culture I’m now immersed in. It’s a real cross-cultural adventure. The Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia are home to bluegrass music pioneers and the famed Four Highwaymen: Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash. How different from my own music preferences, e.g., Pete Tchaikovsky and Stan Getz.         
          Crazy Heart is about a washed-up county singer who finds redemption through the love of a good woman. If that sounds corny, I have a suspicion that that’s what honky-tonk music is all about. But  redemption is at the heart of the Gospel, however Crazy Heart spins it.  The movie must be good, for its star, Jeff Bridges, has been nominated for a Golden Globe award and is expected to be nominated for an Academy Award as well.

          Tiger Woods was a global icon until his recent fall from grace. Although he’s been in absentia since then, his colleagues and friends have been busy on TV and radio offering advice. One of these is Brit Hume, a Fox analyst, who suggested to Woods that he turn to the Christian faith (Woods, whose mother is Thai, is a professed Buddhist).
          Brit Hume turned to Christ himself relatively late in life, about a decade ago, in the aftermath of his son’s death by suicide. So his advice to Tiger seems genuine. The controversy centers on whether he should have offered such counsel on a public TV panel? As one of his fellow journalists exclaimed, “If Hume wants to do the satellite-age equivalent of going door-to-door spreading what he considers the gospel, he should do it on his own time, not try to cross-pollinate religion and journalism and use Fox facilities to do it.”          
          Now I’m no great fan of Fox news, but on this issue I’m with Hume, not his critics. In America we maintain a certain separation of church and state. But this does not validate the idea of banning all religious expression from the airwaves. Presumably Fox is paying Hume to express his views, whatever they are, and whether or not they offend some people. This goes on all the time, especially on Fox.         
           And readers of this blog know that in our world of religious pluralism I believe that civil tolerance is a must. But that doesn’t mean that Hume or Woods or Tom Shales (the offended columnist quoted earlier) cannot share their convictions publicly. After all, isn’t that exactly what Shales himself is doing in his Washington Post column?    

        
          Christianity Today asked five religious notables to answer the question, “What was the decade’s biggest change in Christianity?” The first three below responded from a global perspective, the latter two from a North American context.

           J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine: “The dramatic shift of the epicenter of global Christianity…the church in the developing world is now setting the pace.”         
          Marvin Olasky, editor of World magazine: “The huge surge of Christianity in China…this could make the difference down the road between world peace and war."                               
          Kevin Eckstrom, editor of Religion News Service: “The emergence and reaction against Islam as a political and religious force…we now have a more pragmatic philosophical engagement with the Muslim world.”         
          John Green, senior researcher, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: “The expansion of faith-based politics to include nearly every religious grouping in the country.”         
           John Stackhouse, professor, Regent College: The collapse of Christian consensus against homosexual marriage in North America…and the impotence of ecclesiastical authorities and theologians to stem the tide." 

          Would you care to comment on any of these?

          An old but true adage has it that our generals are always preparing to fight the last war. That’s exactly the impression I had a couple of days ago as I watched President Obama, his press secretary, and a couple of his advisors on TV outlining the Administration’s response to Abdulmutallab’s attempt to blow up an American airliner.         
           Virtually all the recommendations were related to the airlines. It seems to me that that is an open invitation to would-be terrorists to focus next on other situations where large numbers of people are massed. There is, for example, the massive subway system, and the surface bus lines in New York City – and other major metropolitan areas. There is Amtrak unready and waiting. I know from my personal experience that there is little or no security provision on Amtrak. There are huge football and other athletic events coming up. What could be more devastating than a bomb exploding in the Super Dome?         
          Perhaps all these possibilities are “under review” and steps are being taken in secret to correct deficiencies. I would like to think so, but Thursday’s reporting did not reassure me.                             

                     

             Except for my friends in the southern hemisphere, everyone seems to be complaining about the cold weather these days. Here in Lynchburg, Virginia the temperatures have been way below normal for nearly three weeks now, with no immediate relief in sight. Surely this disproves the myth of global warning -- right?          
          Perhaps. And perhaps not. Experts are saying that the present cold snap is just a blip in the long-term heat trend. Deke Arndt of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, says of the current cold wave, “We basically have seen just a big outbreak of arctic air” over populated areas in the northern hemisphere.         
          To the dismay of my contrarian friends, I tend to go along with the “experts.” I suspect things will begin to warm up to normal temperatures soon enough. And 2009 proved to rank among the top ten warmest years for Earth since 1980.

          Continuing yesterday's blog, readers of this blog will recognize that I am, like my Facebook friend, a centered-set Christian, for whom bounded-set terminology such as Evangelical, Catholic, Reformed, Charismatic, Orthodox or whatever is descriptive but not normative. But over the last decade or two I have come to realize that Christians can profit also by “fuzzy-set” thinking.         
          Fuzzy sets in mathematics and other fields are categories in which things or persons are a little this and a little that. The boundaries are unclear, although the center is obvious. From another angle, think of the difference between a curbed street and an unmowed pathway. Or think of a hybrid. Until recently Christian missionaries have required converts from other religions to renounce their former loyalty and embrace Christianity exclusively. Today, for many missionaries who are part of the “Insider Movement,” this is no longer the case.          
          The change has come about because we understand better than before that the world’s great cultures are shaped in large measure by their religious heritages and loyalties. And as St. Paul discovered 20 centuries ago, it is unreasonable to expect Gentiles to become Jews just because they determine to follow Jesus the Jewish Messiah. In the same way, it is unreasonable to force Hindu or Buddhist or Muslim converts to Christ to become “Christian,” for Christianity over the centuries has become embedded in Western culture. And many converts to Christ are intensely uncomfortable with the idea of having to become Western in order to follow Jesus.

            A Facebook friend of mine likes to ask Christians, “How many people have you led to Christ recently?” Most responders hang their heads before replying “None, I’m afraid.” My friend then invites the question to be directed at himself, to which he replies, “Everyone I meet; to whom else would I lead them?”         
          His response is a vividly clear example of a “centered-set” mentality, as opposed to “bounded-set” or “fuzzy-set.” Actually “set theory” is a foundational theory in mathematics, but it is applicable to other fields as well, notably missiology, the science of mission. I was introduced to it by the late Paul Hiebert, back in the 1970s. Hiebert was a proponent of using set theory in analyzing missionary policy and practices. (See his Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues, especially Chapter 6, “The Category Christian in the Mission Task.”)         
          A person who sees the world in bounded-set categories will define a Christian as someone who is either “in” or “out” of the faith. The boundary is clearly drawn. For centered-set persons, such as my friend above, boundaries are hardly relevant. The important question is not, “Are you in or out?” but “In which direction are you pointed?” – or being pointed toward?         
          [to be continued tomorrow…]

 
          Martin Jacques, visiting scholar at the London School of Economics, has just published a book with the provocative title, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order. Jacques argues that China will not only displace the U.S. as the world’s major superpower, but will also marginalize the West in history and reverse our core ideas of what it means to be modern.         
          Few Westerners today recall that until well into the 18^th century China was the wealthiest, most unified and most technologically advanced civilization in the world, and had been so for many centuries. Many modern Chinese learn English to compete in the world markets, but the future belongs to Mandarin, says Jacques. Today Mandarin is the national tongue of one out of every five persons in the world. In Asia it is rapidly edging out English as the preferred second language.
          Westerners commonly assume that as China grows in economic power it will become more and more like the West. On the contrary, Jacques asserts, China’s Confucian heritage and its sense of manifest destiny will cause it to see itself as returning to the center of the world, with its political and cultural impact becoming even greater than its economic prowess.         
          Is Martin Jacques correct in his forecast? And if so, what are the implications for the 21^st century? My own guess is that history evolves more slowly than the title of Mr. Jacques book would suggest, and that by mid-century the U.S., India and China will be more or less equal competitors – culturally and politically as well as economically, on the global stage. The second half of the century may be another matter, however.

          Theo Williams, left, of Bangalore, India, died a few days ago at the close of 2009. He was 73. Theo and I worked closely together during the days when I was general secretary of the World Evangelical Alliance and he was chairman of WEA's Mission commission.  Later he served as president of WEA.
          More significantly, Theo was the founder, in 1965, of the Indian Evangelical Mission. This was one of the earliest "Third World" missions. In the beginning, he was the only missionary. Today the Indian Evangelical Mission has 580 missionaries engaged in outreach to more than 50 people groups.
          As I mentioned in an earlier blog, missions from non-Western countries are the wave of the future. At last counting (Atlas of Global Christianity) there are approximately 400,000 such missionaries serving in all parts of the world. India supplies about 10,000 of these. 
          Still the question persists: Are non-Western missionaries contributing anything original to the missionary movement? Certainly in style, for they have proven to be able to live and minister far more simply and cheaply than their Western counterparts. But as yet they appear to be contributing little by way of their distinctive cultures to fresh understandings of the Gospel and Christian faith.

                  For Americans, the 20^th century began with an act of terrorism – the assassination in 1901 of President William McKinley by Leon Czolgosz (photo), an anarchist of Polish descent. Eerily, the 21^st century began in the same way, with the terrorist event of 9/11/2001. And, as we know, the first decade of this new century has concluded with a terrorist act that came very close to succeeding.         
          Consequently, many Americans are understandably preoccupied with terrorism. And some Americans charge President Obama with not being so. They say his response to terrorism is too cool, too measured, too impassionate. I personally disagree, for I am skeptical about the whole notion of a “war on terror,” a notion much too amorphous to be useful.         
          Overpreoccupation with security is self-defeating. Jesus warned, “He who wants to save his life will lose it…What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your own soul?” The warning was addressed initially to a small group of disciples, but it applies equally to nations, even the world’s only superpower.         
          America is perhaps the most remarkable nation in history. Not because of its might and wealth – there have been numerous rich and powerful empires before the emergence of America. No, America is remarkable for its “soul,” which includes not only the ideals of the Founding Fathers but those ideals that have emerged in the course of America’s history: renunciation of slavery, ethnic and religious pluralism, compassionate assistance to the poor, the powerless, and the oppressed of the world, etc. Overpreoccupation with national security should not be achieved at the expense of these equally valid ideals, though this is an ever-present temptation.     

          

          Perhaps it is not a bad idea to begin 2010 by reflecting on God’s eternal presence. The Hebrew patriarch Jacob experienced this. After a vivid night-dream he exclaimed, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” King David confirmed it as well, asking. “Where can I flee from your presence? If I go  up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”         
          St. Francis de Sales asserted, “There is not a place in the world in which God is not truly present. As birds, wherever they fly, always meet with the air, so we, wherever we go or wherever we are, always find God present.” He goes on to say (in his Introduction to the Devout Life), “Everyone acknowledges this truth, but few consider it with a lively attention.”         
          God not only meets us wherever we are and wherever we go, but God is present within us. “God saturates every cell in our body-heart-mind,” says my friend Dickson Kazuo Yagi, a former missionary in Japan, now retired. Christians believe this, but too weakly, I think. Perhaps this is a contribution that Eastern religions and New Agers, with their focus on the inner person, offer Christians today.
          For those of us addicted to international affairs, it is worth reminding ourselves that God is present not only to us and in us as individuals, but present to the world at large. In the relations between nations, and in the partisanship within nations, God is present. But God does not so much intervene in world affairs (in my opinion) as influence them. Free will is a reality, and while God makes suggestions to our leaders, and perhaps re-arranges the arenas in which they operate, they in turn are free to respond or reject his nudges.         
          So we shall see how 2010 goes.         

 

Prognosticating 2010 continued… 

     Globalization
           Continues apace. The gap between the rich and poor nations will increase in 2010, despite all efforts to the contrary. Moreover, significant increases in agriculture production and disease control will force-feed and prolong the lives of the ever-expanding global population, increasing international tensions and leading to multiple tribal and intra-national wars.
     On Matters Spiritual
            The tensions of modern life ensure that spiritual questing will remain high in 2010 in West and East and North and South alike. In the Jewish-Christian-Muslim orbit, atheism is on the defensive. Presumably of concern to Christians only, I predict that the Second Coming of Christ will not occur in 2010, at least in the manner traditionally expected J
            (A friend of mine, Dickson Kazuo Yagi, has written a poem, one stanza of which reads: He who never leaves us/has come again!/ …He must come again/and again/and again/to catch our attention.)
     Christian Missions
            Christian missionary endeavors will continue to expand (except in Western Europe and Antarctica), with much of the worldwide expansion initiated by non-Western believers (e.g., Nigerians, Koreans, Brazilians, Indians). Even so, missions in 2010 will not be able to keep up with the global population explosion. Truth is, even though invigorated by non-Westerners, Christianity is losing some of its salt. This is partly because the non-Westerners have not yet contextualized the Gospel in terms of their own cultures. They replicate the Western interpretation of the good news in much the same form as they received it.
           Further, in the West, the traditional emphasis on the exclusive nature of Christianity, with salvation from hell and the prospect of heaven reserved solely for the relatively few who accept Jesus, is steadily losing its hold. I predict that globalization and religious pluralism at our door will gradually force Christians into a more inclusive posture in 2010 and beyond. Meanwhile, more and more evangelicals will risk interfaith dialogue and, as Pastor Rick Warren has been promoting, interfaith action.