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A Biblical Ode to America

A few days ago The Wall Street Journal published an expose revealing the Trump administration’s intention to remake Latin America in its own image, continuing to use the well-worn strategies of assassination, economic sanctions — which commonly lead to widespread starvation — and military intervention.

The headline and opening paragraph read, “U.S. Push to Oust Venezuela’s Maduro Marks First Shot in Plan to Reshape Latin America.”  

Recent assassination attempt against Maduro

“The Trump administration’s attempt to force out the president of Venezuela marked the opening of a new strategy to exert greater U.S. influence over Latin America, according to administration officials.”

Hence, I offer the following New Testament pesher (a contemporary interpretation) from John’s Apocalypse, chapter 18:

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor.  With a mighty voice he shouted:

The harvest of a US trained Salvadoran death squad

“‘Fallen! Fallen is America the Great!’
    She has become a dwelling for demons
and a haunt for every impure spirit,
    a haunt for every unclean bird,
    a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal.
For all the nations have drunk
    the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
    and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”

Then I heard another voice from heaven say:

“‘Come out of her, my people,’
    so that you will not share in her sins,
    so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
for America’s sins are piled up to heaven,
    and God has remembered the crimes of the United States.
Give back to her as she has given;
    pay her back double for what she has done.

    Pour her a double portion from her own cup.
Give her as much torment and grief
    as the glory and luxury she gave herself.
In her heart she boasts,
    ‘I sit enthroned as queen; I am the sole Super Power.
I am not a widow;
    I will never mourn.’
Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her:
    death, mourning and famine.
She will be consumed by fire,
    for mighty is the Lord God who judges her…

..Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said:

“With such violence
    the great nation of America will be thrown down,
    never to be found again.
The music of harpists and musicians, pipers and trumpeters,
    will never be heard in you again.
No worker of any trade
    will ever be found in you again.
The sound of a millstone
    will never be heard in you again.
The light of a lamp
    will never shine in you again.
The voice of bridegroom and bride
    will never be heard in you again.
Your merchants were the world’s important people.
    By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.
       In America was found the blood of prophets and of God’s holy people —  who stood to warn you but were few and far between — of ALL who have been slaughtered on the earth by your drones, your assassinations, atomic bombs, cruise missiles, special forces, cluster bombs, stealth fighters, torture programs, death squads, economic sanctions and regime changes.”

Mitch McConnell Wants to Guarantee America’s Perpetual State of War

The war in Afghanistan is the longest military action in American history, with no end in sight.

Not long ago president Trump announced his intent to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, sparking immediate criticism from both Republicans and

US troops in Afghanistan

Democrats.

More recently Trump has discussed a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, as well.

Against this background, it is downright chilling to learn that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (together with the bipartisan support of senators Graham, Blunt, Burr, Romney, Ernst, Inhofe, Rubio, Sasse, Fischer,  Grassley, Johnson, Shelby, Tillis, Cornyn, Sullivan, Wicker, Lankford, Young, and Boozman) has inserted amendment (#65) into the recently approved Senate bill 1.

McConnell’s amendment, in effect, makes it nearly impossible for any president, now or in the future, to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and just about anywhere else in the Middle East.

Among other things, the bill:

“calls upon the Administration to certify that conditions have been met for the enduring defeat of al Qaeda and ISIS before initiating any significant withdrawal of United States forces from Syria or Afghanistan.” (emphasis mine)

In other words, we will never leave these places.

Exactly what is required for such conditions to be met?  How does one “certify” that al Qaeda and ISIS have met their “enduring defeat”?

How can anyone ever guarantee the final, permanent defeat of a revolutionary movement fueled by religious commitments?

The answer is simple.  You can’t.  As all those Senators well know.

Mitch and his war-mongering cronies have passed a bill that opens a permanent line of protest for the Joint Chiefs, generals, admirals, arms manufacturers, intelligence agencies and every politician with a weapons company in their district to effectively object any time a future president tries to withdraw our troops from the quagmire of America’s wars around the world.

But cheer up.  U.S. weapons companies and civilian death rates, known as collateral damage, around the world will thrive.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: America Now Exists for a “State of Perpetual War”

Regular readers of this blog will know that I believer Col. Lawrence Wilkerson is a guy worth listening to when it comes to U.S. foreign policy.

He has demonstrated an unusually strong moral compass in renouncing his

Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson

past role working in the George W. Bush administration and serving as a consistent critic of the burgeoning American Empire.

Listen to his thoughts in a recent RT America interview regarding American policy today.  His sad verdict is that the U.S. raison d’etre of American empire is preserving “a state of perpetual war.”

Wilkerson’s remarks begin at the 1:50 mark.

Oops, Howard Schultz’s Class Consciousness Is Showing

The billionaire owner of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, has thrown his hat into the presidential ring as an independent candidate in 2020.

He has publicly declared that his singular motive for entering the race is the

Howard Schultz

recent suggestion by Democratic leaders to raise taxes on America’s millionaires and billionaires.

Does anyone else catch a whiff of billionaire self-interest in Schultz’s candidacy?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has suggested a 70% tax rate on America’s 1% (see my post discussing her ideas here).  Sen. Elizabeth Warren, not to be outdone, suggests a 2% wealth tax  on income above $50 million and a 3% tax on wealth above $1 billion.

Remember, these are marginal tax rates (see an explanation of marginal taxation here).

Such talk is down-right horrifying to Mr. Schultz.  In fact, he takes it very personally.  So much so that he deliberately misconstrues such suggestions as “personal attacks” launched against him as an individual!

Take a moment (actually 7:26) to check out this clip from The Young Turks.  It contains a slice of Mr. Schultz’s hissy fit over the idea of slightly raising his marginal tax rate together with some good analysis and commentary from Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uyger.  It’s well worth a listen.

Schultz’s candidacy is another fine example of the class war in America.

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, 2

Magic is nothing if not practical.  It focuses on immediate, temporal concerns first and foremost.

Several archaeological discoveries have unearthed large collections of magical artifacts at the bottoms of ancient wells.  For whatever reason, the chthonic deities (the spirits that dwelt below ground) were among the favorite patrons of magical practitioners, so it was common to throw magical artifacts into deep, dark places, like wells, that brought them into closer proximity with the appropriate spiritual powers.

This treasure trove of amulets, pottery shards, lead sheets, and other types of inscriptions afford some insight into the different sorts of problems motivating ancient people to consult their nearest magician.

Almost without exception, the incantations – or prayers, which is what they really were – concern requests for physical healing, business ventures, love interests, family needs, future plans, personal safety, travel, winning bets,

An ancient Jewish magical text, rolled tightly for insertion into an amulet

even cursing enemies.

In other words, the desired benefits of magic focused overwhelmingly on the material aspects of the hear and the now.

The widowed mother of a deathly ill son in John Chrysostom’s congregation (see post #1) was a stereotypical instance of the person most likely to bring prayer requests to the neighborhood witch, sorcerer, priestess or magician.

Which makes the public commendation by her famous pastor all the more significant.  She provided a brilliant example of openly, counter-cultural discipleship.

This characteristic trait of ancient magic also provides the first contrast I want to outline between magical thinking and New Testament descriptions of prayer, for the focus of Christian prayer is radically different from magic.

When you read the numerous prayers recorded in the New Testament such immediate, temporal concerns as physical healing, financial worries, business success, love interests, etc. are most noticeable by their absence.  The New Testament focus is overwhelmingly placed on the kingdom of God and the disciple’s transformation into a new creation.

Not that personal problems are explicitly excluded.  Of course not.  Paul tells the Philippians:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (4:6)

So, by all means, Christians are welcome to bring every issue, every personal problem to their Father in heaven, whatever it may be.

John Chrysostom’s elderly congregant was asking Jesus to heal her sick son.  And she is praised for turning only to Jesus with her fellow believers, rather than resorting to a magician for a little extra help.

The apostle Paul also seems to have prayed for deliverance from a physical limitation in his life when he mentions his many prayers that Jesus remove a “thorn in his flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).  But this passage also highlights the characteristic difference in Christian prayer even when it is for physical healing.

Paul’s request was not simply that “the thorn” be removed for the sake of improving his personal comfort or prolonging his life, but that its removal would somehow, he believed, allow him to become more effective in working for God’s kingdom.

Read through the many petitionary prayers recorded in the New Testament, especially in Paul’s letters.  There are quite a few.  I even went to the trouble of writing a book to help you with this assignment!  (Ha!  Aren’t I nice?)

You may be amazed at the consistent redirection of attention.  New Testament prayer requests focus like a laser beam on items like growth in personal holiness, obedience to the Holy Spirit, remaining blameless until Judgement Day, and becoming mature disciples who look more and more like Jesus.

The following two examples are typical:

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11)

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13)

I suspect that many disciples could benefit from some personal reflection on this score.

A good many of the prayer groups I’ve been a part of over the years sounded a lot more like a collection of magicians than a community of serious disciples.  And I include myself in that critique.

What is the primary focus of our prayer lives, both individually and collectively in the church?

Would an ancient eavesdropper to our prayers mark us out as practicing magicians or as devout followers of Jesus Christ?

John Bolton Comes Clean: We Want Venezuela’s Oil

National Security Adviser John Bolton came clean during a Fox Business interview, admitting that the first objective of the US coup attempt in Venezuela is getting control of that country’s oil industry.

All the talk about freedom and democracy is simply the standard, rhetorical window-dressing that US officials always pull out of the closet when justifying America’s latest illegal, imperial, typically bloody action.

Here is a clip from Democracy Now, including Bolton’s interview and a commentary from Alan Nairn, veteran investigative journalist.

Venezuelan Opposition Leader in Line to Become Another U.S. Puppet

Max Blumenthal and Dan Cohen have published an excellent piece of investigative journalism at the GrayZone entitled, “The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader.”

Remember that Juan Guaido is the young man selected by the Trump administration to be designed the real president of Venezuela, rather than the actually elected president, Nicolas Madura.

The article’s headline reads:

“Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers. While posing as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization.”

Blumenthal and Cohen have done their homework thoroughly, as always.  They detail the long history of U.S./CIA backed rebel training organizations in various parts of the world equipping people like Guaido — he an upper-crust graduate of such a program — to subvert governments that refuse to submit to U.S. foreign policy objectives.

An excerpt of the article is printed below.  I urge you to read the entire piece here.

“Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles,” Sequera remarked to The Grayzone, “He’s a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program.”

While Guaidó is today sold as the face of democratic restoration, he spent his career in the most violent faction of Venezuela’s most radical opposition party, positioning himself at the forefront of one destabilization campaign after another. His party has been widely discredited inside Venezuela, and is held partly responsible for fragmenting a badly weakened opposition.

“‘These radical leaders have no more than 20 percent in opinion polls,” wrote Luis Vicente León, Venezuela’s leading pollster. According to León, Guaidó’s party remains isolated because the majority of the population “does not want war. ‘What they want is a solution.’”

But this is precisely why Guaidó was selected by Washington: He is not expected to lead Venezuela toward democracy, but to collapse a country that for the past two decades has been a bulwark of resistance to US hegemony. His unlikely rise signals the culmination of a two decades-long project to destroy a robust socialist experiment.”  (emphasis mine)

Trump Appoints Elliott “War Criminal” Abrams Special Envoy on Venezuela — Let the Blood Bath Begin

President Trump recently appointed Elliott Abrams as his Special Envoy to Venezuela.

Abrams is an old hand in the machinations and bloody, dark-arts of

Elliott Abrams with the “exiled” Venezuelan opposition leader David Smolansky

overthrowing South and Central American governments, installing brutal, right-wing dictatorships and training death squads in mass murder, otherwise known as genocide.

I fear this does not bode well for the Venezuelan people.

If you don’t know or can’t recall the history of Abram’s involvement in war crimes, Consortium News has reposted an older article by the eminent journalist Robert Parry documenting the massive bloodshed for which Abrams shares responsibility.   It is entitled “With the US Meddling Again in Latin America, a Look Back at How Washington Promoted Genocide in Guatemala.”

Below is a clip of Robert Parry sparring with Abrams on Charlie Rose about his responsibility for genocide:

Abram’s U.S. trained death squads killed some 80,000 people in El Salvador, 200 – 250,000 in Guatemala and untold thousands in Nicaragua, most of them innocent civilians.

Journalist Robert Lovato tells about his own first-hand experiences with the

Victims_Of_The_Mozote_Massacre_Morazán_El_Salvador_January_1982

U.S.-led Salvadoran coup and Abrams himself.  Find his autobiographical article, “Elliott Abrams: An Unequivocal Sign Trump Is Preparing a Baptism in Venezuelan Blood,” here.

Here is my question:

The U.S. Secretary of State recently returned from Egypt where he proudly wore his Christianity on his sleeve, assuring his listeners that American foreign policy was safely cradled in the ever-lovin’ hands of a born-again Christian whose decisions were directed by his daily Bible reading and prayer.

How in the blazes can those same Bible-clutching fingers embrace a butcher like Elliott Abrams?

Where are all the supposed Christian advisers the Religious Right boasts about, giving Trump their wisdom and righteous advice?

Are we to understand that Jesus approves of mass murder, as long as it’s America leading the way in slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent, unarmed Central American peasants?

I guess the righteous brother Pompeo says, Yes.

 

 

 

 

Sec. of State Mike Pompeo’s Policies “a product of ideology compounded by ignorance”

Consortium News has a recent article  by Lawrence Davidson,  emeritus professor of history, discussing the role that Mike Pompeo’s zealous evangelicalism plays in shaping his policy vision as the U.S. Secretary of State.

It’s scary, folks…very scary.

The frighteningly common notion that America’s problems can be solved by placing more “Christians” (that is, my kind of Christians; not your kind of

Pompeo talks to reporters on his recent flight to the MIddle East

Christians) in government repeatedly leads to incompetent leadership and horrific policies.

But that doesn’t stop true believers in the exceptionalism of “Christian America” from committing the same mistakes over and over again.

Secretary Pompeo is yet another example of everything that can go wrong with American evangelicalism.  His corrupted theology is affected nations around the world, exposing them to the dangers I explain, condemn and try to correct in my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America.

The article is entitled, “Mike Pompeo’s Deranged Foreign Policy.”  I have copied an excerpt below.  You can read the entire article here.

“U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo started out the new year—the date was Jan. 10—preaching “the truth” about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and for reasons we will get to below, he chose to do so at the American University in Cairo. He implied that he was particularly capable of discerning the truth because he is “an evangelical Christian” who keeps a “Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and His Word, and The Truth.” This confession indicates that Pompeo is wearing ideological glasses through which he cannot possibly see the world, much less the Middle East, in an objective fashion. We can assume that the decidedly unthinking and amoral president he serves has no problem with this prophet in the State Department because Pompeo is one of the few cabinet ministers whom President Donald Trump has not fired. 

“So what are Pompeo’s versions of foreign policy truth? In terms of his Cairo pronouncements, they are twofold. First, as is to be expected of a man of his temperament (he declared: “I am a military man” who learned his “basic code of integrity” at West Point), he has identified the true enemy of the civilized world. And, again not unexpectedly given his Christian zealotry, the enemy is of Muslim origin. It is the “tenacious and vicious” cabal of “radical Islamism, a debauched strain of the faith that seeks to upend every other form of worship or governance.

“This initial “truth” is noteworthy for what it does not take into consideration, such as traditional U.S. alliances with brutal and corrupt military or monarchical dictatorships. Any move to reduce support for such regimes in the Middle East is, in Pompeo’s view, a “misjudgment” that must have “dire results.” As long as these dictatorships oppose what Pompeo opposes, their brutality and corrupt

nature can be judged acceptable. For example, Pompeo praised his host, the military dictator of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi, who is an

Secretary Pompeo with Egypt’s military dictator Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi

archetypical example of this murderous breed of ruler. He praised El-Sisi exactly because he has joined the U.S. in the suppression of “Islamists.” The Egyptian dictator, in Pompeo’s words, is ‘a man of courage.’

“Pompeo’s second “truth” is the self-evident fact of American exceptionalism. He told his listeners that “America is a force for good in the Middle East.” Pompeo does not articulate the reference, but his claim taps into the Christian image of the U.S. as “a shining city on the hill”—a God-blessed light unto the nations. This was one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite themes. 

“As proof of American’s alleged beneficence, Pompeo makes a series of dubious claims about the behavior of the United States government. Here are a few. Comments within brackets are those of this author: 

“For those who fret about the use of American power, remember this: (No.1) America has always been, and always will be, a liberating force.” [Since World War II we have been liberating dictators from their own rebelling people.] (No.2) “We assembled a coalition to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.” [The subsequent two Gulf Wars plus the U.S. imposed sanctions regime killed at least half-a-million Iraqis.] (No.3) “And when the mission is over, when the job is complete, America leaves.” [Unless the “liberated” countries’ government wants Washington to establish bases which, it seems, they almost always do. The U.S. now has some 800 military bases in 70 countries around the world.] (No. 4) The U.S. and its allies helped destroy most of ISIS, and in the process “saved thousands of lives.”[There is no official number for the civilians killed in the so-called war on terror, of which the campaign against ISIS is but a part. However, there is no doubt that, to date, it is at least in the high hundreds of thousands. ] (No.5) “Life is returning to normal for millions of Iraqis and Syrians.” [Unless you have a really perverse definition of “normal,” this is a total fantasy.]”

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, Part 1

(This is the first in a series of posts discussing the problems of confusing Christian prayer with magical incantation.)

God’s people have always been tempted to confuse prayer with magic. Bible readers will recall the Old Testament warning that the people of Israel steer well clear of witches, sorcerers and magicians (Deuteronomy 18:10).

Such warnings admit that the the temptation is real.  Impotent temptations are easily ignored, so warnings are unnecessary.  Only powerful allurements receive their own warning signals well in advance.

Magic is one of those.

Unfortunately, human nature has not changed.  Today’s church shares the same tendencies as ancient Israel in its predisposition to blend piety with (sometimes sizeable) doses of magic, to turn intercession into incantation.

The warning against magic is not only for us to stay away from the corner-store medium, crystal ball gazer or the neighborhood séance (though it certainly includes those temptations, too), but to respect the boundary separating Christian prayer from magical practices.

Human beings have always been characterized by impatience, impetuousness and an addiction to material goods such as wealth, power and success. This triumvirate of the tawdry conspire to stir up the human desire for control over God (or whatever spiritual forces we happen to believe in).

The Christian church is no different.

In any gathering of human beings, we will always find an amalgam of the good with the bad.  In any Christian congregation, we can see maturity and immaturity, faith and unbelief, genuine prayer and unadulterated magic masquerading as devotion – often as a more attuned, more insightful, deeper brand of devotion.

In my book, Knocking on Heaven’s Door: A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer (Baker, 2006), I tell the story of a fourth century church father, John Chrysostom, who publicly commends an elderly woman in one of his sermons for refusing to resort to a magician’s help as she watched her only son die of an illness.

Placing all of her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom she believed was the one and only spiritual power listening intently to every one of her prayer requests, she waited to see what Jesus would do, regardless of the outcome.

Obviously, not everyone in Chrysostom’s congregation was as single-minded in their devotion as was this grieving mother.  That’s why he held her up as exemplary, the model of prayerful devotion that every other congregant should emulate.

Here’s the question:  Will we hold faithfully to Jesus, even when he says “No” to our most feverish requests?

Every Christian in the ancient world knew exactly where they might turn for a little extra help, especially in times of crisis, if their prayers remained unanswered, if their pleadings and petitions needed a power boost, some additional “uuumph” to speed them on their way to God’s throne.

Find a magician, perhaps a “Christian” magician.

There were lots of them available and plenty (or so it seems) of Christians went to them for help, especially when God’s apparent deafness put the entire process of Christian prayer in doubt.  Check out the book Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (Harper, 1994) and read an ancient collection of magical “prayers” for yourself.

The 4th century pastor, John Chrysostom, was addressing a serious problem for his congregation.  It remains a serious problem for the church today.

The shape of modern Christian magic in the developed world may have changed, but the substance of Christian magic remains the same in both the developed and undeveloped nations.  Magical thinking permeates the church in a variety of ways, but it becomes especially evident in (a) the techniques that we teach people to use when they pray and (b) the role of faith that we urge them to embrace.

This is the first in a series of posts that I hope will help my readers to distinguish between Christian prayer as taught in the New Testament and magical prayers bastardized by the human penchant for quick solutions, visible results and the nurturing of a feeble faith that never wishes to be tested.