An event in Belgrade, Serbia this week illustrates how difficult reconciliation is in our world today.  Reuters television reported yesterday that after 13 hours of debate, Serbia’s parliament formally apologized for the 1995 killing of 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica, Bosnia. The massacre was Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II. (Altogether, 100,000 lost their lives in the war between Christian Serbia and Muslim Bosnia.

          “We are taking a civilized step as a politically responsible people, for the war crime that happened in Srebrenica,” announced Branko Ruzic, leader of the Socialist party that was in power during the war.

          The atrocity was either ordered or countenanced by General Ratko Mladic, commander of Serbian forces in Bosnia at the time. General Mladic, who is considered a hero by many Serbs, has been indicted by the war crimes tribunal at the Hague in Holland, but for the past 15 years he has been in hiding.

          Until the Serbian government arrests the general, passing a resolution of apology by the parliament is seen by many observers as hypocritical. Said one, “If they think they can let Mladic run free for another 15 years, it’s a grave injustice.” Serbs, on the other hand, claim that the crime was no worse than those committed by Bosnia.

          Munira Subasic, head of a Srebrenica women’s association, who lost both her son and husband in the war, maintains that apologizing for the massacre is not enough. “Justice can only be served once all the criminals responsible for the atrocity are named and held accountable,” she says.

          In my opinion, all this illustrates the inadequacy of “justice” as a solution. Pressing for human justice may bring closure to some, but it does not guarantee reconciliation, which is at the heart of the Gospel. “Mercy triumphs over justice,” James, the brother of Jesus, wrote. Working for reconciliation is much more difficult than administering justice. The “truth commissions” set up after the demise of apartheid in South Africa and after the horrific massacres in Rwanda are modern models of reconciliation.         

            According to the U. S. government’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, in 2007 more than three million Americans underwent acupuncture treatments – up from two million in 2001. My wife Georgia is one of them. About every six weeks or so she drops in to the Wellness Center here in Lynchburg where she is treated by a herbal medicine doctor and acupuncturist from Beijing, China.

          Acupuncture works by inserting very thin needles into the body at precise points. There are 365 possible points. Most common uses of acupuncture are for chronic pain problems such as arthritis, lower back pain, headaches, carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia, and for asthma, anxiety, fatigue, and digestive ailments. The Chinese have been utilizing acupuncture for 3,000 years.

          Melinda Beck, who writes for the Wall Street Journal, notes that Western doctors continue to be skeptical, believing acupuncture merely acts as a placebo. Nevertheless, neuroimaging studies show that it calms areas of the brain that register pain, and activates areas involved in rest and recuperation. Doppler ultrasound shows that acupuncture increases blood flow, and thermal imaging shows that it makes inflammation subside.
          Major medical centers, such as Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York City, use acupuncture to counter the side effects of chemotherapy. And U. S. Army doctors are using it to treat musculoskeletal and stress problems in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Georgia has found it helpful.          

           
           
         

          Gregory of Nyssa was an influential bishop who lived way back in the fourth century CE. The icon here depicts Gregory and his wife Theosebia. Greek Orthodox priests are allowed to marry, but bishops must be single. So presumably he was widowed when elected bishop.

            I’ve just finished reading From Glory to Glory, a compilation of some of his writings. Gregory of Nyssa was an administrator, theologian and mystic all in one, but Glory to Glory focuses on his mysticism. I’m not a mystic, so I didn’t appreciate Glory as much as some of his theological writings, which have contributed a lot to my own understanding of the faith.

          In reading Glory I was reminded of how differently the early Church Fathers read the Bible, compared with how many of us read it today. He tells the story (from the book of Exodus) about Moses wanting to “see” God. God agrees, hides Moses in a dark cave, covers the opening with his (God’s) hand, removes his hand, upon which Moses runs to the cave opening, only to see the backside of God moving on. Here is what Gregory says:

          “Now if we considered this merely in its literal sense, the meaning would remain very difficult for us to discover.  We would be logically forced into an absurd conclusion. Front and back are said of dimension; dimension applies only to bodies; bodies are essentially corruptible; and what is corruptible cannot  be eternal. Thus if you are dependent on the literal meaning, you will be forced to admit corruption in God.”

          Gregory goes on to say that the only way to read this story is as an allegory (an approach he picked up from an even earlier Christian scholar, Origen). Actually, neither literally or analogically are the only ways to make sense of this story, but in talking with my friends, I am startled to see how many of them still read and accept the story – and similar biblical stories – as literal.

            One of my former administrative assistants was selected, many years ago, to tutor Maya Vajiralongkorn, Thailand’s Crown Prince, at that time a young military officer and the designated successor to the current King of Thailand, Bhumibol Aderlyadej (photo). The King himself is about my age, the world’s longest ruling monarch having reigned for 64 years now. He is very popular, and is generally considered the glue that holds the country together. The Crown Prince however, now nearing 60, has turned out to be a disappointment to everyone, and the citizens of Thailand are deeply fearful for their future.

          Thailand is an important nation in southeast Asia. Slightly larger than Spain, its capital, Bangkok, is a mecca for tourists (14 million last year). Thailand has 65 million people, most of whom are Buddhist. But three southern provinces bordering Malaysia are Muslim in faith and ethnically Malay. And in those provinces a rebellion is underway. Militants have bombed markets, schools, monasteries, police stations and other public buildings, kidnapping soldiers and beheading civilians. All this is documented in a book by Duncan McCargo entitled Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand (2008).

          The Malay uprising is largely the consequence of repressive policies instituted by the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawartra, a business tycoon from northern Thailand who was ousted in a military two years ago and is now in exile in Dubai. Thaksin was popular with the rural poor of Thailand but opposed by Thailand’s elite. Thus the conflict in the south has spread to the rest of the country, and street demonstrations are now a permanent fixture in Bangkok. Thaksin’s adherents wear red; supporters of the monarchy and the business elite wear yellow.

          Thais hope that the King can somehow bring the reds and the yellows together, but this looks unlikely. The Crown Prince will be of no help, for he has become impatient at his long wait for kingship, and has allied himself, it appears, with Thaksin, the exiled former prime minister. According to Thai legend, the Chakri dynasty, founded in 1782, will perish after its ninth monarch dies. Bhumibol, known as Rama IX, is the ninth Chakri king.

          A 36 year old respected imam (religious leader) is en route to a madrasa (school) in Kabul, Afghanistan where he regularly taught 150 students. His two young sons are with him. A passing American military convoy rakes his car with bullets, ripping open his chest as his two sons watch horrified.

          Richard Oppel, Jr., reporting from Kabul, quotes General Stanley McChrystal, the senior commander in Afghanistan, as saying, “We have shot an amazing number of people but, to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat.” Failure to significantly reduce checkpoint and convoy shootings is a major frustration for military commanders who are convinced that unnecessary civilian casualties deeply undermines the campaign in Afghanistan.

          Many of the detainees at the Bagram military prison north of Kabul joined the Taliban insurgency after shootings of people they knew –this, according to the top enlisted man in Afghanistan, Command Sergeant Major Michael Hall. “There are stories after stories about how these people are turned into insurgents because of innocents being killed.”

          A village elder tells a reporter, “The people are tired of all these cruel actions by the foreigners. We do not have any other choice. We will rise against the government and fight them and the foreigners. There are a lot of cases of killing innocent people.”

          Americans don’t want to think of themselves as “cruel foreigners,” but this is what war makes of ordinarily decent men. Far too many men, returning home from combat, are haunted by the memory of what they did when blood lust was aroused. According to the biblical record, even the heroic King David was prevented by God from building the temple at Jerusalem because of the atrocities he had committed during warfare.

            In an earlier blog I noted that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was standing tough against President Obama, and asked rhetorically whether Mr. Obama was prepared to stand tough with Netanyahu in their scheduled meeting earlier this week. American media had few specifics to offer after the meeting, so I have turned to the London Times to learn what really happened.

          According to the Times, after failing to extract a written promise of concessions on building new settlements in East Jerusalem (the Arab quarter), President Obama walked out of meeting to have dinner in private. Before doing so, he reportedly invited the Israeli Prime Minister to stay on at the White House, consult with his advisers, saying “I’m still around; let me know if there is anything new.”

          What Mr. Obama meant by “anything new” included an end to the building projects in East Jerusalem and a withdrawal of Israeli forces to positions held before the uprisings of September 2000. Unfortunately, even after extending his stay another day, Mr. Netanyahu was unable to offer “anything new,” and returned to Israel – and to heavy criticism there. The newspaper Haaretz commented that “the Prime Minister leaves America disgraced, isolated and altogether weaker than when he came.”

          For some of us who have had extensive experience in the Middle East, the tougher stance exhibited so far by President Obama is most welcome, as it holds promise for a juster peace in that troubled part of the world.

            Writing in the New York Times, Peter Baker and Ellen Barry report that Russia and the USA have broken a logjam in arms control negotiations. Presidents Medvedev and Obama are preparing to sign a treaty in Prague early next month that will slash their nuclear warheads to the lowest level in half a century.
          Great news! It has been a hard slog, but the treaty is the most concrete foreign policy achievement for Mr. Obama since taking office. And the choice of Prague is significant, for it was there that the President gave his speech a year ago outlining his vision for eventually ridding the world of nuclear weapons.          
           It’s not quite a done deal, however, The treaty must be approved by a two-thirds vote in the Senate, which means the President will need to have some Republican support. The Senate leader, Mr. Mitch McConnell, has told President Obama that there must be no binding linkage between the reduction of offensive weapons and missile defense. The latter, he said, “is simply not on the table.”         
          Now, if there could be equivalent progress on the Middle East arms talks (Israel has nuclear weapons) and the Iranian nuclear project – wouldn’t that be something!

           


           “Jerusalem is not a settlement; it’s our capital,” declared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (photo) a couple of evenings ago. He was addressing the annual AIPAC meeting in New York City. AIPAC stands for American Israel Public Affairs Committee, so Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks were well received.

            Not so fast! Akiva Aldar, writing in Haaretz (“The Land,” Israel’s most influential newspaper) reminds us that: (1) Israel is the only country in the world whose “capital” is recognized by NO other country, not even the USA.  And Palestinians have long regarded East Jerusalem (the Arab sector) as the capital of their future state. (2) Israel claims that Jerusalem is “undivided” when in truth it has been divided since 1948.  Especially with regard to city services, Jerusalem is two entirely separate and alien cities.

          (3) Even “reunification” in 1967 changed nothing except allowing Jews to shop in the Old City sook (market) and enabling them to begin expropriating Arab property in the Jewish Quarter and other places in East Jerusalem. (4) The Israeli government likes to point out that it is the only authority that can be trusted to ensure freedom of access for all religions to holy places.  In truth, there is NO free access to Muslim holy places for Muslims.  No non-Jerusalem Muslims can visit the city’s holy places and only women and the elderly who are Jerusalem residents can do so.

          5) Israel’s Prime Minister claims that building in East Jerusalem is the same as building in Tel Aviv.  Not so. There is NO legal construction for Israel’s Palestinian citizens in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem or anywhere else. But Israel continues to build in current Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem and – worse yet – confiscates Arab land to do so.

            In short, the world sees no problem with West Jerusalem being Israel’s capital as long as East Jerusalem becomes Palestine’s capital. That’s the sticking point.  And as far as most of the world is concerned (a small but vocal pro-Zionist Christian element in America being the exception), Jewish construction in East Jerusalem IS settlement, despite the Prime Minister’s claim to the contrary. 

           
          From March through May huge dust storms sweep over China from the western desert lands. These storms not only cover China with a blinding dust; they move onward to Korea and Japan and – perhaps surprisingly – to the United States. The foothills of the Rocky Mountains around Boulder, Colorado,, where my daughter Melody lives, are being coated with a fine layer of dust. In fact, the layer stretches from Canada down to Arizona, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports.

          These storms have doubtless existed for centuries, but have become serious problems only in this century. “There are too many people, too many cattle and sheep, and too many ploughs,” says Lester Brown, chairman of the Earth Policy Institute. There is, consequently, a huge migration of Han Chinese and other ethnic groups from the west to the large cities in the east. This is turn has forced the Chinese government to acknowledge it can no longer feed its one and a quarter million people without importing food from abroad.

          Meanwhile, far to the south in Australia, the western city of Perth, where several of long time friends live, recently was deluged with a month’s worth of rain in just seven minutes! Go figure.

         



          Some of my best friends are Republicans, so President Obama’s health care victory last night has to be very disappointing to them. And I can empathize, for I spent a good part of yesterday watching and listening to the long floor debate in the House of Representatives. And though I am left-leaning, right now I think I could make the conservative case as well as any Republican.

          And that is the first lesson I draw from the 13-month process that has absorbed the nation. America's leaders are people who, by and large, on the big issues take stands on principle. And both conservative and liberals, each developing their convictions on the basis of their family upbringing, their education, their life experiences, and the local culture of which they are a part, have principled positions.

          Which leads to the second observation: neither side seems to know how to “dialogue” with the other. I have been so disturbed by the lack of conversational civility, even among Christians, that I have – as you may have noticed – largely opted out of the conversation during the past month or so.

          In last evening’s debate, too many speakers on both sides, resorted to mere posturing. It was especially irritating to me to listen to leaders on both sides claiming to speak for "the American people." Neither Democrats or Republicans can rightfully claim to speak for the population as a whole. Some, even at the late hour, offered misleading “facts” that I knew to be false. One pro-life congressman publicly called another pro-life congressman a “baby-killer” merely because the latter had decided to vote differently than the taunter.

          Which leads to my final conclusion. Both sides need to regain their balance in the weeks ahead. The Democrat majority needs to recall “the law of unintended consequences.” Personally, I believe many people are going to be blessed by the health care reform. But unexpected things, some of them nasty, are bound to occur, and the winners will have to acknowledge responsibility in part.           
          Republicans (and the nearly 8 percent of Democrats who voted with them), and the Cassandras who already are predicting disaster, need to admit that while America may indeed weaken in the decades ahead – all empires eventually collapse – it will not be solely because of the passage of this reform. Many other factors are at play, and some of these factors are embedded in our individualistic, capitalist, and consumer-driven way of life idolized by so many Americans.

           
          On a whim I took an online theology test not long ago. Upon reading the results I discovered that I was, among other unmentionables, a “physicalist.” A physicalist? What is that? I wondered, and had to look it up.

          In short, and in the framework of theology, it means I do not believe in the soul as something distinct from the body. Therefore I do not believe that I have an immortal soul that somehow separates from my body when I die. I believer that when I die, I die, body and soul. This is a “monistic” understanding of personhood, as opposed to a “dualistic” one.
          Most of my fellow Christians do not agree with me. They believe in the existence of a non-material conscious self, the “real” me, that endures beyond the grave. This belief is part of a very ancient worldview that has roots as far back as Zoroaster and Plato.

          Dualism suggests that we are composed of the material and the non-material (the soul, or the mind), and that these are somehow distinct and even separable: “the ghost in the machine, it has been called. By contrast, I believe that the soul, the mind, what I think of as the real me, is inseparable from my body. So when my body dies, “I” die.

          This idea is compatible with modern neuroscience and comports well with the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection, for this doctrine is concerned with the whole person, and what is the point of God’s resurrecting the body without the soul, the real me?

          On the other hand, most Christians today will ask, “If your monistic view is right, what did St. Paul mean when he said that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”? An easy answer would be, “Paul’s worldview did not include neuroscience.”

          My preferred answer, however, is: Paul was right, but not in the way you might think. When we die, God holds each one of us perfectly in his memory – in that sense we are present with the Lord – and at the day of Resurrection re-creates each of us, body and soul, to participate in his eternal community of mutual love.         

                      

Phyllis Tickle (photo) is the founding editor of the Religion Department of Publishers Weekly, the international journal of the book industry. She is also the author of The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why.

In this book Tickle suggests that in the history of Christianity there have been four major transitions. Each has occurred at approximately 500 year intervals. The first is the reconstitution of the Latin Church after the fall of the Roman Empire (500 CE). The second was the Great Schism between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic branches of Christianity (1000 CE). The Third was the Protestant Reformation (1500 CE). And the fourth is the one that she sees emerging today (2000 CE).

By transitions Trickle means occasions – decades long in most cases – where Christians have found the current state of their Christianity unbearable. So they  jettisoned outmoded dogmatic baggage, and created a significantly new approaches to the Christian faith.

No doubt this schematic is an over simplification, but I find it attractive, for I have spent most of my life – beginning in high school -- dissatisfied with the Christianity I was born into, and have consequently pursued a lifelong quest to discover the reality I believe underlies the façade. It is this quest that motivated my writing Bring Forth Justice, What about the Cross?, The Renewal of All Thing, and the book I am currently working on, as yet untitled, which focuses on religious pluralism.

          It is the reality of the Gospel’s interface with religious pluralism that is forcing us, in my opinion, to jettison outmoded church structures and dogmas and recapture the vibrancy of Jesus and his proclamation of the reign of God. This is what I see emerging in our time.

  

           

          Suppose one of my neighbors or co-workers or a person I do business with is a Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist -- what would it mean for me to be in dialogue with him or her? How would I go about it? How would I relate to him or her? To keep this blog from becoming too ungainly, let me assume my neighbor, co-worker, or person I do business with is a Muslim and male.

          First, I will be more concerned about his person than about his religion. He is a human being, made in God’s image, and loved by God every bit as much as I am. I will look for ways to befriend him at a personal level. I will focus on the things we have in common: our kids, our work, our health, our aspirations in life.

          Second, I will show respect for Islam, its prophet, its scripture, its culture. I will avoid catch questions, derogatory comments and the inflammatory language that so often appears in "letters to the Editor."  If I feel I must ask a critical question or make a critical comment, I will make sure it can be substantiated and that I use the least offensive language possible. After all, Muslims are the custodians of their own religion and the rightful interpreters of it, not I.   
          Third, I will try my best to be fair. There are many values in Islam that I can commend. I will not compare devout Christians with nominal Muslims, or ideal Christianity with extremist Islam. I will draw from my New Testament, but I will not ignore Old Testament passages when discussing issues such as holy war (jihad), polygamy, prophethood, or theocracy.
          Finally, as a committed Christian I will be alert for opportunities to share my
faith. But in doing so, I will keep Jesus, not Christianity, at the center.  I will be aware that much of which I share will not be immediately comprehensible. So I will try to avoid using specifically Christian terminology. I will be patient, not argumentative or confrontational. Few people are argued into the kingdom of God. And I will be prepared to listen appreciatively as my partner in conversation witnesses to his faith experience.
             

            

           “I’ve never understood why some people look at dialogue and mission in either-or terms.” So opines Chawkat Moucarry, Ph.D. (Sorbonne), formerly with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, and now World Vision International’s director of inter-faith relations. “Not only are the two words compatible, but they must shape each other,” he continues.
      We tend to think of dialogue as verbal engagement, and it is that. But it is much more than that. For one thing, it is a disposition, an open attitude toward the other, the stranger or antagonist in our midst. It can even be understood as a way of life. It may be what Jesus meant when he said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

          With respect to Christian-Muslim dialogue, Moucarry (photo above) likes to use the story of Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman as a model. First, they meet as simple human beings with much in common. Second, they meet as believers in the one God who share a number of common beliefs. Third, they meet as those who claim to be God’s witnesses on earth.

          Meeting one another this way, they discover their mutual differences in faith. But they discover these in a way that allows them to discuss the differences civilly, find out what is behind those differences, and – as I mentioned yesterday – even learn from each other. Such encounters not only result in better understandings, but also better relationships, greater tolerance, and occasional conversions.

          Some readers are going to take umbrage at the word “occasional” above. But the truth is that for many centuries now the percentage of conversions from Islam to Christ, or from Christianity to Islam by way of the usual confrontation and proclamation approaches has been very, very small. We live in a violent world, and dialogue is one sure way to enhance friendships and reduce violence and its consequences.

          One more blog tomorrow on this subject, and then I’ll drop it for awhile.         

             

           From 1946 through 1989 the confrontation with communism shaped America’s relationships with the rest of the world. Today the confrontation with extremist Islam colors everything geopolitical. Unfortunately, it spills over from geopolitical into religion and, worse yet, disfigures our attitudes toward Muslims in general.
          For that reason I have, for some time now, been promoting my friend Nabeel Jabbour’s book, The Crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross (NavPress, 2008), book. Nabeel demonstrates very practical ways in which ordinary Americans can build sensitive relationships with our Muslim neighbors.         
          Another of my friends, whose name I won’t mention because it might prejudice some of his relationships, is deeply engaged in Christian dialogue with Muslims. He rejects the polemics commonly used today. “Polemics just adds salt to the historical wounds inflicted on past Muslim-Christian relations,” he says. “Dialogue, on the other hand, is a sincere attempt to understand the ‘other’ before engaging him or her with the gospel.         
          A sometimes unexpected result of dialogue is that it inevitably leads to a reexamining one’s own beliefs, that is, the way one thinks about my faith, about Jesus and the gospel. As my friend rightly notes, “Islam asks questions that I don’t get asked in a Christian context. The effect of answering those questions leads me to consider things in the Bible I have never thought about before.”         
          This question of getting to know and appreciate Muslims at the personal level is crucial to our times, I believe. In tomorrow’s blog I want to share some more thoughts on the matter. 

             


          This blog may not interest too many of you, but it does illustrate my tendency to read almost any article, including those by notable experts, critically. The specific article I am referring to here is John Wilson’s interview (in Christianity Today) of Gary Anderson on the subject of Sin.         
           John Wilson is the editor of Books & Culture, and Gary Anderson, Ph.D., is Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew Bible at Notre Dame University. He is also the author of the recently published Sin: A History (Yale University Press, 2009). 
          Anderson’s thesis is simple and straightforward: In the Old Testament, the main metaphor for sin is that it is a burden that has to be borne, but in the New Testament this changes. The image of sin as a weight disappears almost completely and is replaced by the metaphor of sin as a debt (“forgive us our debts…”). And this in turn in our day has been replaced by sin thought of as a condition, something reflecting our upbringing or other formative circumstance. Anderson doesn’t think this is very helpful.         
          Anderson doesn’t mince words. “Jesus never talks about sinful individuals bearing enormous weight on their shoulders” [my emphasis]. A correlative of the weight metaphor would be the image of the virtuous individual who takes on the sin-burdens of others. But “we [Christians] don’t have that notion at all” [again, my emphasis].         
          Neither assertion is totally accurate, however. In a well known passage Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, and you will find rest for your souls.” And the apostle Paul urged Christians in Galatia, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”         
          As for the modern notion of sin as a condition, the apostle Peter describes Jesus as one who “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.” In my opinion, all three metaphors are valid and applicable to each of us. In the Christ event, God bears our burdens, forgives our debt, and heals us, body and soul.                   

          Fuller Seminary’s School of Intercultural Studies is the first theological institution in America to focus on the study of children at risk – street children, children amidst armed conflict, sexually exploited children. Currently Fuller is promoting the “4/14 Window.”
          The 4/14 Window refers to the global population of children between the ages of four and 14 years. It includes more than one billion children who suffer as slave laborers, orphans, prostitutes, and soldiers.
          We all know that Jesus did not marginalize children. He put a child in the midst of his disciples and told them to form their ministry around children. “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these,” he said. Children are everywhere the most receptive "people group" to the gospel. 85% of conversions to Christianity happen between the ages of four and 14.
          Chlldren and teenagers make up half of the world’s population, yet as little as ten percent of formal mission efforts are directed toward them. We need to change this. At the same time, as news reports from the Haitian earthquake disaster revealed, even well-intentioned Christians may unwittingly exploit children. This too needs to change.
     * Statistics in this post are based on research by Professor Bryant Myers of Fuller Seminary.

          Being an advanced senior myself, this story in the New York Times caught my eye. From Haiti Ian Urbina reports that it is the elderly survivors of the earthquake who are now by far at most risk. They are being overlooked in relief efforts because they are more frail, less mobile, and less vocal in their demands for food and water.
          A disproportionate number of the 200,000-plus people who lost their lives in the earthquake are seniors. This is because the elderly were more likely to have been indoors rather than coming home from work or school when the disaster struck. The survivors are growing old in a place where so many die young. They suffer survivors’ guilt. “You’re not supposed to outlive your children and grandchildren,” they say.
          They also suffer indignities. Living outdoors, they must bathe and defecate in public. They wait in long lines for bulk foods. “Does it really make sense to ask a 70-year-old to carry a 50-kilo bag of rice or wait in line for two hours?” asks an emergency program manager.But their age also has positive value. They are the ones who know who lived in a particular house, who was the parent of a certain child, and who owned what land. “Their memory is a national resource,” observes a United Nations spokesperson.
          With the rainy season about to commence, these seniors face unimaginable hardship. We must remember them in prayer. Rather than looking back in sorrow or ahead in fear, many look up. As one lady said, pointing to the sky: “I look to God; he keeps me here now.”

          



 
          I have been a history buff for as long as I can remember. But it’s always been difficult to find objective studies of religious history. Too often believers aren’t adequately critical, and secularists don’t develop the empathy necessary to ‘get inside’ their object of study.
          But in recent years secular historians have begun  to overcome decades of neglect. In fact, religion is emerging as the hottest tope of study among members of the AHA, the American Historical Association. “The study of religion is too important to be left in the hands of believers,” says David Hollinger of the AHA.
          Jon Butler of Yale University observes that historians are beginning to realize that “the world is aflame with faith, yet our traditional ways of dealing with modern history can’t explain how or why.”
          During my lifetime, a handful of evangelical historians have helped to legitimize the study of religious history. A recent article in Christianity Today marks out George Marsden, Nathan Hatch, and Mark Noll in particular. Mark Noll’s latest book, God and Race in American Politics (Princeton University Press) will be coming out about ten days from now.

          
          U.S. Vice President Joe Biden loves the limelight. And he had a chance to bask in it during his recent high profile visit to the Middle East for the purpose of kick-starting peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. After declaring that "everone knows that there is simply no space between the United States and Israel," Biden discovered that even in tight quarters one can still suffer a sharp kick in the groin. 
          Shortly after Mr. Biden's visit ended, Israel announced that it was beginning construction on 1,600 new homes for Israelis in East Jerusalem, which has long been home to Palestinians. Such a decision put an immediate halt to the possibility of serious peace talks, and Biden was justifiably furious, issuing a sharp condemnation of the decision. It was "precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now," he said.
          The ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is a throwback to Old Testament times. After the Exodus, as the Hebrews were preparing to invade the land of the Canaanites, Moses reported that God had told him, "Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enought to take possession of the [entire] land." This is exactly what appears to be happening today. While everyone talks about a "two-state solution," Israel steadily exapands its territory, expelling Palestinians "little by little" from their homes along the way. America's support for Israel has always been strong, but it is difficult to see how even pro-Israeli Christians can conceive of Israeli policy as being just. And without justice there can be no lasting peace.

          Hundreds of Nigerians, most of them Christian, have been killed this past week in ethnic violence near the city of Jos, capital of Plateau State in central Nigeria. The murders are said to be retaliation for the killing of Muslims by Christians a couple of months ago. I’ve written about this before, since both Georgia and I have personal ties there.

The truth of the matter is that these are not cases of religiously-motivated violence, as the press has been reporting. Rather, it is an ongoing struggle between two local ethnic groups for fertile land and other resources in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. I draw my own conclusions from reliable reports by the Anglican archbishop of Jos, and Caroline Duffield, a BBC correspondent in Nigeria.

The Central Plateau’s leading ethnic group is the Beromas, who are Christians. Nigeria classifies its citizens as “indigenese” (native to the land) and “settlers” (late-comers to a given area). Fulani Muslims in the area are classified as settlers, even though they have lived in and around Jos for generations and don’t even remember where they came from originally. Settlers are banned from some local government positions and the state does not pay for their children’s education. They feel discriminated against.

However, no one really knows (or perhaps they don't want to know) exactly who is formenting the current killings. But those who, in the past, have used violence to settle political and economic issues, and tribal differences, are not continuing to so, but this time under the cover of religious conflict.

          Part of the tension has religious roots, however, for Islam is steadily gaining popularity in the Central Plateau. Islamic values – communal living, clear roles for men and women, tolerance of polygamy – have much in common with traditional African life. For many Africans, it makes more sense to reject American and European secular values with its culture of individualism and half-naked women, by embracing Islam.      

          I gave up flying back in 1984, having become convinced that the cattlecar-like hassle involved just wasn’t worth it. I substituted the auto for the airplane – but that meant giving up overseas travel. I didn’t really mind that, for I was preoccupied with my inner city ministries, and the Internet made it easy for me to maintain overseas friendships.

          Of late, however, I am finding auto travel tiring, so I have been turning to the railroads. Ten months ago I made a 7,000 mile, month long, cross-country trip on Amtrak, visiting children, grandchildren and some friends. The trip was relatively inexpensive and, for the most part, easy, with seating more spacious than in airplanes, dining car service, opportunity to stroll around, etc.
          But It was also slow. It started out well enough, the New York-Washington, D.C. leg averaging 80 miles an hour. But D.C. to New Orleans averaged far less, and the New Orleans-Los Angeles leg was slower still.     
          So I have become a fan of President Obama’s commitment to upgrade America’s high-speed rail service. This is going to take a lot of work. Amtrak’s Acela express, as I noted above, averages 80 miles per hour between New York and Washington, but this is hardly better than ordinary trains were averaging this speed back in the 1960s, Compare this with the Paris-Marseilles high speed train that averages 160 miles per hour over its 500 mile distance.
          To bring America’s rail system up to snuff, Amtrak has to upgrade its track, straighten out its curves, improve the overhead electric wires, build dedicated lines so that high-speed trains are not routinely held up by freight trains, and revise a host of state and federal regulations. If this can be done – unfortunately, it is doubtful in the present economic climate – my grandchildren might witness the introduction of a second great American railway age.

          Tomorrow, March 8 (which has already arrived in some parts of the world) marks the 100^th International Women’s Day. So perhaps we might note the role that female peacekeepers are playing in today’s world.
          Female peacekeepers began participating in United Nations missions – so Doreen Carvajal, writing in the New York Times, tells us – in the 1990s, in the Balkans, and acting more like public servants than armed invaders. “When female soldiers are present, the situation is much closer to real life, and as a result the male warriors tend to behave,” says Professor Gerard DeGroot of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “Any conflict where you have an all-male army, it’s like a holiday from reality. If you inject women into that situation, they do have a civilizing effect.”

Nigeria and India are the top contributors of female peacekeepers. And war-ravaged Liberia, in West Africa, is one of the places where women soldiers are making an impressive contribution. Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is enthusiastic about their presence. She notes that with the arrival of female peacekeepers, the number of rapes of civilian women has been cut in half.“  I came here to make peace in this country,” says Olayiwola Olanike, 50, a staff sergeant, nurse, and mother of two. “It’s like any household,” observes Brigadier General Ebiowei Awala, the officer in charge. “When the mother culture is there, people change.”

          “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God,” Jesus declared. Amen to that!

           


          Thirty-plus years ago China abandoned the communist economic system and committed itself to a version of free-market capitalism. As a consequence its economy has developed dramatically. At the same time, the gap between its rich and the poor has steadily widened, even as it has here in the USA over the past generation.         
          So, as reported by Beijing-based Tania Branigan in The Guardian newspaper (London), in his annual policy speech earlier this week, Premier Wen Jiabao (photo) promised to increase welfare spending, especially in the rural areas, in order to halt the growing chasm between the nation’s rich and poor. “We will not only make the pie of social wealth bigger by developing the economy [along capitalist lines], but also distribute it well” [as per socialist doctrine]. Premier Wen admitted that Chinese society was “doomed to instability” if wealth is allowed to concentrate in the hands of the few.
          In order to provide the necessary funding for China’s welfare program, the premier had previously announced a sharp reduction in the rate of military spending for the coming year. Or, as the Bible would put it, the Chinese are exchanging swords for plowshares.  Would that America could do the same.       
          The tension between rich and poor in society is no new phenomenon. James, the brother of Jesus, writing to “the twelve [Hebrew] tribes scattered among the nations,” a few years after the Christ event, asked rhetorically, “Is it not the rich who are exploiting you?” He followed this up by prophesying to the rich of his day:“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. The workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter…”
          To listen to some of my Christian colleagues, one would think that the same capitalist system that creates wealth so effectively is equally effective in distributing it. “Just leave it to the market; the market will take care of everything.” In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth, from reality. That is why a mix of capitalism and socialism will always be necessary to produce the just society. America is no exception.

            Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is visiting Brazil this week. It’s about time the United States paid due attention to Latin America’s largest nation. Brazil comprises a full one-half of Latin America’s population and one-half of Latin America’s geography. It is the world’s fifth largest country in both population and geography, yet the USA has tended to ignore it, being more preoccupied with smaller nations such as Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela.         
          This decade has catapulted Brazil onto the global stage. Brazil survived the global financial crisis in good shape. It has reduced poverty and inequality significantly, improved its democratic processes, and built a growing middle class. It has a popular president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has a mind of his own – he has not hesitated to embrace Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and resist American pressure on other issues.         
          Brazil is also a spiritually vibrant country, mostly Roman Catholic, but with a rapidly growing evangelical/ pentecostal presence. It continues to receive missionaries from abroad but, significantly, it has also begun to send out missionaries itself to other countries – more than a thousand to places such as Portugal, Angola, and Mozambique.          
          In an op-ed piece, Julia Sweig, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, notes that Brazilians feel that the U.S., in spite of President Obama’s “new look,” still behaves like an imperial power toward its Latin American neighbors. Mrs. Clinton will have to overcome deep Brazilian skepticism about American commitment to genuine give-and-take.                   

            I suppose I’m not much different from most people. In some respects I am more conservative now than in my youth.  In other respects, more liberal. Theologically, from within a Christian framework, I have become more liberal as I have aged, a process that began in my ‘teens and accelerated during my years of service with conservative evangelical organizations.          
          Try to imagine, as Oliver Thomas* has suggested, an America without fair housing, equal pay, rights for the disabled, environmental stewardship, food stamps, and voting rights for southern blacks – to mention just a few of causes that liberal Christians have vigorously promoted during my lifetime. Liberal Christians have also been at the forefront of those who clearly saw the connection between peacemaking, poverty, and civil rights during the Vietnam War era.         
          It should go without saying that conservative Christians could draw up a corresponding list of contributions to the good life during the 20^th century. This leads me to observe that in America, as elsewhere, Christians can be just a partisan as politicians. The truth is that, just as a person can’t get very far on one leg, so a society cannot progress without the contributions of both conservatives and liberals.         
          Instead of demonizing liberals, as contemporary conservatives tend to do, or caricaturizing conservatives as “cavemen,” as liberals sometimes do, we both would do well to recognize that the Gospel inspires us all, and that throughout history, all over the world, God has used both liberal and conservative understandings of our faith to advance God’s reign, God’s kingdom.          
          *Thomas (photo) is a Baptist minister and constitutional lawyer who has written 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can’t Because He Needs the Job).
                    
                                                          

           I'm back home from our recent trip and ready to resume blogging. But before I get started again, I want to take a moment to remind you of two of my recently published books. If you haven't read them, perhaps you should. They will broaden your spiritual horizons in unexpected ways.
          You can order either or both from me at a steep discount, due to my own author's discount. $20 each, including shipping and handling. My email address is hmiwaldron@aol.com         
          The Navigators' John Ridgway, Ph.D.says of What about the Cross?, "This book has stimulated me to think afresh regarding God's ultimate purpose for humankind and how it is to be fulfilled." And about The Renewal of All Things, Colin Watson Sr., president of Christian Reformed World Missions, observes, "Whether you are a biblical scholar or layperson, whether you accept Scott's conclusions or not, this book will have you delving deeper into God's word to uncover its truths...a fascinating read."