Month: March 2018

US War Machine Puts Profits Above Yemeni Lives

Both White House and Pentagon officials are scrambling in order to defeat the bipartisan bill (SJ Res 54) that wants to end American’s illegal military activity in Yemen.

Recall that the US has helped Saudi Arabia create the largest humanitarian crisis in the world right now. A few weeks ago, I asked you to call your elected officials in support of SJ Res 54, insisting that the US stop arming the Saudis in violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

We are the largest weapons supplier to the Saudis government, which means billions in profits for the US military-industrial complex. Not long ago, Pentagon officials openly admitted that THEY HAD NO IDEA exactly how, when or where US bombs and missiles were being deployed!

But US military strategy is not the point.  MONEY — profiting from another war — is the point.

When the Pentagon now warns that withdrawing US support for the Saudi slaughter in Yemen will damage our relations, what they really mean to say is that American weapons manufacturers will make less money than they had otherwise hoped.  After all, Saudi Arabia is one of our “best” customers. President Trump recently announced a $350 billion arms deal with them.

There is a lot of profit to be found in butchering innocent men, women and children in the poorest nation in the Arab world!  A gruesomely devilish calculus when measured against the tens of thousands of innocent Yemenis that continue to suffer death, injury, malnutrition and starvation in yet another illegal, American proxy war.

We cannot allow Trump’s war machine to win this contest.  Innocent lives literally depend upon the outcome of this vote.  If you called previously, THANKS!  Please take a moment to call again, while we still can.

Call 1-833- STOP WAR Today. 

Israel Criminalizes Free Speech and Abuses Children

My friend, Munther Amira, is sitting in an Israeli prison cell.  His only crime: protesting to defend the rights of Palestinian children held in Israel’s military prisons.

Military courts, judges and prisons are the only options available to Palestinians in the West Bank because they live under military law and have no civil rights.

Modern Israel is a racist state, imposing a form of apartheid over the Palestinian people. The vast majority of Israelis do not care about the Palestinian children who are ripped from their families for the crime of throwing rocks at armored vehicles. Nor do they care when these children are crammed into over-crowded prison cells, having no idea when they might be allowed to return home.

But Munther cares.  So do I. And so should the church of Jesus Christ throughout the world.

Take a moment to watch this youtube video  from the independent journalist, Abby Martin, as Munther gives her a tour of his neighborhood in the Aida refugee camp.

Munther was arrested by Israeli soldiers on December 27th for the “crime” of walking down a Bethlehem street with a sign in his hands. He was marching peacefully with others who were protesting Israel’s habit of jailing Palestinian children such as Ahed Tamimi.

Hear Ahed describe her life under military occupation.  As a 16 year old advocate for Palestinian rights, Ahed had the audacity to slap the Israeli soldier who, just the day before, shot her cousin in the head.  She is now in prison, facing years of imprisonment.

Israel’s Minister of Education believes that the teenager  should receive a life-sentence.  A prominent Israeli journalist has advocated vigilante justice, saying, “In the case of girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark without witnesses or cameras.”

That’s the state of Israel for you.

My friend, Munther was sentenced to 6 months in prison and 5 years probation, for the “crime” of peacefully defending the rights of Palestinian children such as Ahed – while holding a sign with her picture on it, no less! – to be treated humanely and, most of all, justly.

I cannot think of a more noble cause. Yet, it is a cause that the United States and American evangelicalism/fundamentalism largely ignores.

At his sentencing hearing, Munther told the judge:

“[It] is my right to express and defend my people; I exercise this right in the territories of the Palestinian National Authority, and you are not responsible for me; I will not ask you to authorize me to express my point of view … I will not ask you for a permit.”

You can see why I like this man so much.  I am proud to call Munther my friend.

Munther’s cause is being supported by Amnesty International (USA), Amnesty International (UK), the International Federation of Social Workers – Human Rights Commission, the British Association of Social Workers and a number of other human rights organizations as well.

Munther’s daughter, a recent law school graduate, has written an article describing her father’s commitment to both non-violence and the continuing struggle for Palestinian equality.

Please sign the several petitions available through the links in this post demanding Munther’s immediate release.

Call your elected officials, telling them that American’s blind support for Israel’s human rights abuses must end.

Explain to anyone who will listen that Israel is a racist state that does not deserve American support, especially not the support of American Christians.

Gerson (1) vs. McKnight (0)

Michael Gerson, a Wheaton College graduate and former speech-writer for President George W. Bush, has written a very good article in The Atlantic magazine (April 28th issue) entitled “The Last Temptation.”

Gerson offers a valuable critique of both (1) the damaging Faustian bargain American evangelicals have made with the Republican party, and (2) the (now forgotten) history of 19th century evangelical social/justice activism.

Gerson laments the ephemeral, and largely reactionary, nature of evangelical social action today.  He says, rightly I think, that “[evangelicalism] lacks a model or ideal of political engagement—an organizing theory of social action…[in contrast to Roman Catholicism which] developed a coherent, comprehensive tradition of social and political reflection.”

Curiously, Scott McKnight responded to Gerson with a critical post at his blog Jesus Creed. The post is called “What Gerson Got Seriously Wrong.” McKnight begins by calling Gerson’s arguments “belabored” and “tired.”  But he takes particular offense at Gerson’s comparison of evangelical and Catholic understandings of social activism.  McKnight insists that evangelicals indeed DO have “an organizing theory of social action.” It can be found in the writings of Francis Schaeffer, who was embodying the political theology of Dutch theologian/politician, Abraham Kuyper.

But Gerson is right and McKnight is mistaken.

Let me note a few points:

First, McKnight’s arguments strike me as an odd example of straining at gnats – and bogus gnats, at that – while swallowing camels.  He focuses on a small part of Gerson’s critique while ignoring the greater substance of his article. Why the lucid restatement of a case that begs for frequent repetition should be called belabored and tired, is beyond me.

Second, McKnight’s reference to Kuyper and his American, evangelical

legacy actually underscores the oddity of McKnight’s defensiveness.

To begin with, Kuyper’s name and legacy is not widely known throughout American evangelicalism.  In fact, McKnight covertly admits as much himself.  For Kuyper’s programmatic book, _Lectures on Calvinism_, was not the book being assigned as required reading for Wheaton students when Gerson was there.  Rather, the assigned text was Niebuhr’s _Christ and Culture_.

The reason for this was simple. Kuyper’s work had minimal influence in this country beyond the Dutch Reformed church.

For McKnight to lift up Francis Schaeffer as the emissary of Kuyper’s social/political theology – a system that does indeed offer a positive alternative to the reactionary, negative politics practiced by evangelicals today – is simply not true.

Francis Schaeffer was the faithful disciple of Cornelius Van Til, not Abraham Kuyper.  Van Til is best remembered for his presuppositional epistemology.  Van Til insisted that, since Christians and non-Christians do not share the same presuppositions about life, it is impossible for us all to share in the same goals.   Schaeffer’s oppositional, us/them mentality bleeds through almost every page of his writings.

Actually, Schaeffer’s main contribution to evangelical political engagement was his laser-like focus on opposing abortion.

And, in my opinion, Gerson is absolutely correct when he includes evangelical anti-abortion folks – Schaeffer’s activist children and grandchildren – as among the most reactionary, negative, self-pitying Christian forces today.  It was Francis Schaeffer, not Abraham Kuyper, who expressed a social/political world-view that started American evangelicalism’s journey down the road of unethical, accomodationist, anti-gospel political expediency that we find ourselves traveling today.

Finally, Gerson highlights some crucial problems with today’s evangelicals.  His historical survey is an important reminder of where our evangelical roots truly lie. It should be applauded and disseminated widely. Professor McKnight’s complaints, however, are petty in comparison to the task now facing the American church, as described by Gerson.

Black Lives Matter More than Flags, Football or the Pentagon

When San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided not to stand but to bend down on one knee during the national anthem, he may not have anticipated (or did he?) that he was choosing to end his stellar career in professional football.  We now know, however, that is exactly what he did, and it is a price he was willing to pay.

Colin Kaepernick is a brave man, a man of principle and deep moral conviction who has risked more than his livelihood by standing (or kneeling) for the cause of racial justice and non-violence.

Colin Kaepernick is an American hero. Every American Christian should have rallied to his side.

In light of the stark disparity between the ways policemen often treat white suspects and people of color, Mr. Kaepernick explained,

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.”

Kaepernick wasn’t acting in a vacuum. He spoke out – and kneeled down – after a spate of videos went public showing police encounters with black citizens.  These videos, many of which I have watched, documented uncalled for deadly assaults against unarmed men, women and children whose only “crime” was being black.

Exercising both his rights and his conscience as a black (biracial) American, Mr. Kaepernick kneeled to demonstrate his solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. A movement arising in the aftermath of these shocking video revelations.

Such non-violent, racial justice movements as Black Lives Matter is something else that every Christian church in America should kneel down in prayer and repentance to support.

But Mr. Kaepernick’s acts of conscience, and the malicious character assassination he suffered afterwards, have not only shed much needed light on the ugly face of racist, police brutality. It has also helped to uncover a dark intersection between American racism, militarism and social engineering.

How many football fans recall that prior to 2009 the players didn’t come out onto the football field until after the national anthem had been sung? They simply stayed in the locker room.

What changed?

The NFL climbed into bed with the Defense Department.  That’s what changed.

The American addiction to never-ending war, a lust for money by the owners of professional sports teams, and the military’s ceaseless appetite for more young bodies to toss into war’s meat grinder all conspired to manipulate an unwitting public.  Combining this toxic brew with America’s ever-present, persistent racism turns Colin Kaepernick’s noble protest into a profound come-to-Jesus moment for the entire nation.

America’s numerous, ongoing wars are stretching our armed forces to the breaking point.  So, trusting in the nation’s near-religious devotion to weekly football games, the Pentagon set its sights on the NFL as a new recruitment bonanza.

From 2011 to 2014 the US Defense Department funneled $5.4 million to the NFL and $6.7 million to the National Guard (from 2013 to 2015) after the league agreed “to stage on-field patriotic ceremonies”in an effort to increase military recruitment.

Eventually, Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake initiated a 150-page Joint Oversight Report entitled “Tackling Paid Patriotism” condemning the Defense Department’s cozy arrangement with the NFL as a misuse of American tax dollars.

The senators declared that such “paid patriotism” must end.  Has anyone threaten to end their careers?

The Pentagon had become a massive silent partner to the NFL, and the NFL was offered a new way to become even more profitable at the expense of young, idealistic, testosterone-driven fans who could now link their favorite running back with running the bloody gauntlet of a foreign battlefield.

It is not surprising that American sports and warfare should become such comfortable bedfellows.

This convergence of professional sports and American empire followed a dog-eared script as old as the gladiatorial games of ancient Rome. It also provided a perfect platform for Colin Kaepernick to confront American racism (directly) and draw attention to the military’s cancerous infiltration of our society (indirectly).

I have no idea what Mr. Kaepernick’s religious convictions may be.  But I do know that he is extraordinarily generous with his time and his money in numerous community service programs reaching out to America’s most vulnerable members.

Colin Kaepernick offers a far more faithful model of what Christian discipleship ought to look like than any of the perfunctory end-zone prayers touted as Christian witness on ESPN.

Forget the flag and the national anthem.  All of America, beginning with the Christian church, ought to be standing with Colin Kaepernick.

Praise is Not the Same as Applause

I admit that I can be a bit quirky.  I am a news junky. I don’t eat bananas. And my wife teases me for nibbling chocolate chip cookies around the edges so as to maximize the number of chips left in the center.

Regular readers will find a lot of my personal quirks popping up in this blog.  So, if you think that my postings become an unusual stew of oddly mixed ingredients, well, you have been warned.

Some of my quirks are religious, and I want to talk about one of them today.  I happen to believe that when Christian people use Biblical vocabulary they ought to do their best to (1) understand the original Biblical sense of a word and (2) try to use that word accordingly, in ways that cohere with its Biblical meaning(s).

So, here is my pet-peeve for today: Praising God, whether in church or elsewhere, has nothing to do with raising your hands or giving God “applause,” as often happens in churches today.  If you attend a church

where the worship leader [another seriously misunderstood term, but that is for another day] concludes a song by shouting, “Give the Lord some more praise!”, and everyone understands that as code for another round of applause, then your song-leader doesn’t understand the Biblical meaning of praise.

The Old Testament book of Psalms defines praise as a public declaration of either (a) the greatness of God’s character and/or (b) the greatness of His actions/behavior. If a reader understands how to interpret the Hebrew poetic device called parallelism, even a casual reading of the Psalms will make this clear.

Here are two examples from Psalm 9:

Verse 1, I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; 

                                   I will tell of all your wonders.

Verse 11, Sing praises to the LORD, enthroned in Zion;

                                  Proclaim among the nations what he has done.

The psalmist first tells the people to praise the Lord (first line), and he then defines what he means by that (second line). The Lord is praised whenever his people, individually or collectively, “tell of all his wonders and proclaim among the nations what he has done.”

Consequently, praising God can be risky business.

It is not just a matter of being careful that we don’t hit the person standing next to us in the head as we wave our hands.  Actually, praise has little if anything to do with lifting up our hands and everything to do with lifting up our voice in public.

Praising Jesus Christ requires stepping outside of your comfort zone and running the risk of being thought a fool for sharing your beliefs and experiences with someone else about how Jesus Christ has worked to save you, heal you, guide you, answer your prayers, worked miracles, and directed you into the service of others – especially when those others are people with whom you would not naturally associate.

Yes, we praise God the Creator when we openly marvel at the fantabulousness of creation, as we stare at a

 

sunset or hike in the Rocky Mountains.  But we also praise God the Redeemer when we explain the good news of Jesus Christ with someone who has yet to experience that salvation for themselves.  We praise God when explaining to a friend how the Lord Jesus has taken care of us in troubled times.

You can do this while sitting on your hands or stuffing them into your pockets, if you like.  Or, go ahead, lift them up and wave them about if that feels better to you.  But don’t forget that this is all window-dressing and ephemera when compared to the God-stories and exclamations that we share with others.

So, go out and praise the Lord Jesus today.  Tell someone new about all of his wonders and proclaim among the nations what he has done.

Stop the World’s Largest Humanitarian Crisis

Call 1-833- STOP WAR Today. 

Tell your Senators to vote YES on Senate Bill H. Con. Res. 81, a bipartisan bill invoking the War Powers Act (1973) with regard to America’s unlawful military attacks on Yemen video link.

Yemen, the poorest Arab speaking country in the Middle East, is in the midst of the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.  At least 1 million cases of cholera, affecting over 600,000 children, have been reported with no end in sight.

According to the United Nations, 7 million people are on the verge of starvation as the country suffers the largest famine the world has seen in many decades.  One hundred thirty children slowly waste away and die every day from hunger and disease.

Yemeni children suspected of being infected with cholera receive treatment at a makeshift hospital in Sanaa on June 5, 2017.
Yemen is descending into total collapse, its people facing war, famine and a deadly outbreak of cholera, as the world watches, the UN aid chief said. / AFP PHOTO / Mohammed HUWAISMOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images
NYTCREDIT: Mohammed Huwais/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Yemen’s catastrophe is entirely man-made, and the American church ought to be leading the charge in putting an end to this grotesque proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

American hands are covered in Yemeni blood, for our government remains the primary source of military weaponry, (such as bombs, missiles and fighter planes), intelligence, targeting information, ground support and the financial backing that makes Saudi Arabia’s continuing slaughter of innocent men, women and children possible.

After Yemen’s civil war in 2015, Saudi Arabia decided that it did not approve of the winning faction, largely because they had backing from Iran.  The Saudis (who are Sunni Arabs) and the Iranians (who are Shia Persians) have long been regional antagonists, staring each other down over ethnic and religious divides.

Yemen quickly fell victim to Saudi Arabia’s hatred of Iran when the Saudi’s inserted themselves into the country’s internal affairs, choosing to slaughter and destroy anyone and everything that might assist Yemen’s pro-Iranian side of the conflict.

Tragically, Saudi Arabia’s largest ally is the United States. I say “tragically” because America’s longstanding, irrational hostility towards Iran made us the perfect willing accomplice to horrendous Saudi war crimes.

Yemen is hugely dependent on international food imports (link) to feed its people, the very people who are now dying of starvation because the US/Saudi joint military blockade (stopping all air, ground and sea transportation) is strangling the life out of an entire nation.

Yemen’s cholera epidemic is a direct result of Saudi pilots raining down American made bombs and missiles on Yemen’s water treatment plants, waste disposal facilities, pipelines, reservoirs, irrigation systems and electric grids.

Leaked! Despite War Crimes in Yemen UK Trains Saudi Pilots

This US/Saudi criminal collusion is responsible for an estimated 10,000 deaths, at least half of them civilians, including 140 mourners snuffed out at a village funeral.  While fervishly digging for survivors, rescuers uncovered the tail fin of an American-made bomb buried in the rubble – a gruesome American tombstone over one of hundreds of mass graves financed by the US political establishment.

Bodies of Somali migrants, killed in attack by a helicopter while travelling in a boat off the coast of Yemen, lie on the ground at Hodeida city, Yemen, Friday, Mar. 17, 2017. A helicopter gunship attacked a boat packed with Somali migrants off the coast of Yemen overnight Thursday, killing at least 31 people, according to a U.N. agency, Yemeni officials and a survivor who witnessed the attack. (AP Photo/Abdel-Karim Muhammed)

President Obama unilaterally began our blind support for these Saudi war crimes in 2015.  But the death toll has risen 3 times over during Trump’s presidency.  In March 2017 alone there were more bombing strikes in 1 week than during any given year under Obama.  In the first 7 months of Trump’s presidency, there have been more civilian deaths (between 3,000 to 4,500) than there were during the entire Obama administration.

Every American who claims to follow Jesus needs to rise up, filled with Christian moral indignation, and speak out against these horrific war crimes now underway at our expense.