Literature

What do Sherlock Holmes, Eliza Doolittle, Harry Potter, Winston Smith, and Oliver Twist all have in common? The great, sprawling city of London! That's where I'll be from tomorrow until July 2nd, visiting my good friends Feike and Meredith. I may get a chance to update my blog once or twice, but don't expect the daily diet you've grown accustomed to.

Have a great summer!

Dar al-Islam

In the heart of the Islamic world - Mecca - a car chase and gunbattle broke out when security forces raided a suspected terrorist hideout.

“Security forces raided a group of terrorists... who were preparing for an imminent terror attack,” the Interior Ministry statement said. The apartment where the terrorists were living was “booby-trapped and ready to blow up,” it added.

The Saudis are firmly on our side in the fight against terror within their country. Their external commitment is questionable, since they tend to see the rest of the world as a good place to dump the folks who would cause trouble at home. With the surprising muscularity of al-Qaeda in the past five years, the Kingdom has had to deal with the results of its policies, and it's found that you really can't bargain with this type of terrorist.

Co-opted?

Ha'aretz reports that an Egyptian mediator has successfully gotten Hamas to agree in principle to a ceasefire. There was probably a combination of sticks and carrots. More sticks, I'd guess, since the mediator was the top Egyptian for "handling" Islamist groups in Egypt. And as you should know, Egypt doesn't handle Islamists very gently.

But can Hamas really be co-opted? Are these leaders scared enough for their own lives that they're willing to drop their ideological demands and settle for a PA-dominated state? I have my doubts. I think think a core group of rabid nationalists and religious zealots on both sides will continue to fight until they're forcibly stopped. But Hamas' leadership? If they're willing to give up some of their demands in exchange for the rest of the world not killing them, I think that's a pretty good bargain for us.

Back to the Conflict

Watch those hit figures plummet as they realize I'm on an Palestinian-Israeli conflict rampage and I can't be stopped...

You know how much I like Thomas Friedman. Well, he's definitely become the all-time link leader from this site, and he does the magic again by pointing out that "Ariel Sharon's two years of using the Israeli Army alone to fight terrorism have not made Israelis more secure". Of course, that's precisely what I've been saying all along, but he says it so much better, and I think he has more than 32 discrete hits today.

Have you noticed how often Israel kills a Hamas activist and the victim is described by Israelis as "a senior Hamas official" or a "key operative"? This has led me to wonder: How many senior Hamas officials could there be? We're not talking about I.B.M. here. We're talking about a ragtag terrorist group. By now Israel should have killed off the entire Hamas leadership twice. Unless what is happening is something else, something I call Palestinian math... "When self-defense becomes self-destruction, only an external force can bring people back to their senses. And that force is President Bush. I think he is the only reality principle left that either side might listen to, and I hope he understands that." ...unless the only reality principle left, the United States of America, really intervenes — with its influence, its wisdom and, if necessary, its troops.

Thank you, Mr Friedman. I'm seeing a strategery here in my mind's eye (reception is clearer if I put my cowboy hat on, actually)... I see all those 200,000 troops in Iraq leaving little by little, one humvee at a time, driving across the Jordanian desert... pretty soon you have Operation Holy Shield!

Love 2.0

This came up somewhat tangentially at a church men's meeting last Wednesday, discussing I Corinthians 16:13-14, and it deserves to be expounded in greater detail.

Undisputably, the New Testament brought a message of love that had never been seen before. The NASB translation turns up 192 instances of the word "love" in the New Testament. This was a new message for Jews and Greeks alike, and it really revolutionized the value systems in predominantly Christian areas. The foundation of modern secular humanism (the dominant ideology in the West today) is the Christian idea of individual worth, which was originally derived from the fact that God loved humans, thus imbuing us with value. Unfortunately, secular humanism has brought out Love 2.0, and it ain't the original!

Love 2.0, better known as "tolerance", is based on the idea of individual worth. If each person has value, then each person's beliefs, ideas, and physical attributes have value imbued by that person's valued personhood. Tolerance says we can't devalue anyone's idea because they are a person.

However, tolerance falls apart, because the foundation - God's love - has been removed. The result is that tolerance becomes a don't-ask, don't-tell policy. "I'll pretend I think your ideas have value if you pretend the same about me." Or "I tolerate you because you are a person, but don't tell me anything inside that might prove that you don't have the value I'm assuming you do." If we tolerate people, how do we deal with sin? Sure, most of the time we can deal with it the way this sinful world loves to deal with sin: by shrugging it off, minimizing it. But what about egregious sins - genocide, or child molestation, or Enron fraud? Where do we draw the line between people we "tolerate" and people we don't? At some point, our pretense breaks down, and someone's superficial human attributes aren't enough to gain our respect and tolerance.

This stands in sharp contrast with God's system, which has many of the same implications, but has God's love, and therefore God, as its foundation. Christ was the incarnation of God's love (and this was the original point made at the men's meeting), and He loved people even though He knew everything that would disqualify them from receiving our tolerance. Where tolerance has to remain superficial, agape love becomes more poignant the deeper it goes. As Christians, we should reject "Love 2.0". It may come with a message of tolerance - "you're alright" - but in the end it fails to give us a good reason to love or even tolerate those we really disagree with and dislike. Love 1.0, God's original, is based in the Truth:
A - You are a sinner, one who has rebelled against God. Same for all other humans.
B - God loves you and all others infinitely, despite His full knowledge of (A).
C - We are called to be imitators of God.
D - Ergo, we should love others infinitely, though we know both in a general and sometimes in a specific sense that they are sinners.

Tolerance means that blacks and whites can drink out of the same water cooler. And that's a good thing. Love means that blacks and whites can forgive one another's past sins, bear one anothers' burdens, and share the good news of Jesus Christ with one another. And that's a better thing.


On a not-really-related note, check out Mark Riddle, notably his post on "passion".

Field Trip Canceled

I had a hike today canceled by rough weather. And you thought this wasn't going to be another post about Israel/Palestine but - guess what - it is!

At about the same time my hike was canceled, a bunch of Israelis had their field trip canceled because of threats. They were volunteers from the Ta'ayush Arab Jewish partnership, Israelis who were going to help Palestinians with the harvest. Doesn't sound too controversial, does it? You know, helping with a simple task, building understanding and confidence between nationalities and races, showing that not all Israelis hate Palestinians, and vice versa. Anyway, the trip didn't happen. The volunteers had obtained permission from the army, but the army changed its mind when Israeli settlers in the area issued threats against the would-be harvesters.

Now don't give me any b.s. about the settlers being peaceful, loving, and patriotic...

Civil War?

If the Road Map to peace proposed by the Bush team is not successful in bringing peace, it will at least have been successful in reshaping the conflict in Israel/Palestine. It seems that the conflict is now a four-way fight. By sponsoring Abbas, who is more committed to U.S. approval than public approval and therefore more committed to working peacefully, the U.S. has split the Palestinians more than ever before. There has been conflict in Palestine between accommodationist and rejectionist branches since 1989 - but Arafat was such a central figure that he absorbed all the criticism from both sides. Now, with Arafat tied up in the back of the boat, the hardliners and doves are staring each other in the eye.

Likewise, on the Israeli side, the sudden American effort - the first since 2000 - to force peace has made the possibility of a nonviolent solution a lot more real to many centrist Israelis, who are willing to trade their claim to land they don't live on for security in the land they do live on. They realize that assassinations of Hamas leaders lead to deaths among Israeli mothers, fathers, babies, and friends - not among Israeli politicians or Shin Bet operatives. Hence the poll today in Israel showing that most Israelis oppose the government policy of continued assassinations.

I won't venture to guess what the four-camp situation will do in the long run, but I have to say I think it'll be better, since it'll allow both Israelis and Palestinians to side with their respective peace camps without appearing marginal or traitorous. It feels like there has to be peace, because the alternative is unthinkable, but that's what Clinton said three years ago, precipitating the worst three years of violence in Israel's history.

(Ex-)Yankees Suck

Ramiro Mendoza sucks.
Ramiro Mendoza sucks.
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Ramiro Mendoza sucks.
Ramiro Mendoza sucks.
Ramiro Mendoza sucks.
Ramiro Mendoza sucks.
Ramiro Mendoza sucks.
Ramiro Mendoza sucks.

Security?

Israel continues to fight Hamas in the name of security. Hamas continues to find recruits to kill themselves and dozens of others.

Bloody attacks happened on both sides last night. Death counts vary by news source, but a Jerusalem suicide bomber killed between 15 and 26 and wounded over 100, while an Israeli helicopter strike (planned before the bombing) killed 5 and wounded 25. Innocents died on both sides. Nothing was accomplished by either side.

"So what do we do now — tell me!" said Esther Lapian, 53, standing near the site. "Every time there is a line of hope, we get socked in the teeth," she said, her voice a mix of desperation and resignation. "This is thank you, thank you for trying?" For all her anger at Palestinians who have attacked Israelis, she still approached a group of Israelis and scolded them for chanting slogans and carrying signs advocating violence against Palestinians... "I am 20 years old, and I have seen six suicide bombings," said Aaron Batish, who works in a pharmacy on Jaffa Road. He does not believe there is any hope for the peace plan... "This is totally unjustified — so many innocent people were hurt," said Rafiq Murtaja. Two of his relatives, including a 12-year-old boy, were wounded by shrapnel. "I'm so angry I'm ready to blow myself up — not just in Jerusalem, but anywhere in the world," he said.

If this is security, I'd rather be insecure.

Blogcrawl

This is an experimental blogart form. I'm going link-to-link through blogs, pasting together text I find on each page to form something somewhat coherent. Well, that's what I'm trying to do - you be the judge.

When I take a walk around the local mall, stroll down the beachwalk on a warm spring day, or move with purpose on a college campus, I come to realize something. I always thought greyhounds were really cool dogs. But it seems like that problem isn't on the national media's mind now. And here's the worst part: they mark their territory via smelly butt glands! I'm not sure where all this will lead, mainly because the American public doesn't seem overly concerned. In fact, the Supreme Court faced this issue fairly recently. (This topic always puts me in a particularly bad mood, because I have yet to see a Muslim really acknowledge this problem; instead it's all deny, deny, deny, with Muslims).

And then this last guy (very interesting actually) doesn't link to anyone, so the story is over!

Zogby

James Zogby, the most influential Arab-American and brother to the Zogby of polls, published some recommendations for the Bush administration in ArabNews.

He says the U.S. should learn to share, listen more, visit people and talk to them, give them money, and be nice.

I had hoped the U.S. graduated from kindergarten, but obviously that's not the case.

Kassanova

InstantReplay points and laughs at both Colonel Kassem Saleh and to the 50 women whom he courted and proposed to over the internet. Clearly, Saleh has problems. Clearly, these women have problems.

This guy was good - very romantic, and he knew it. He also knew where to find women who were willing to commit to anyone who showed any interest in them at all Tallsingles.com (are you listening, David?). I can't say I pity the women, as pitiful a bunch as they make. Now they're trying to look like a picture of righteous indignation, but a few days ago they were out shopping for wedding dresses, and their arguments are pretty lame.

If Kassanova, as they nicknamed him, is found guilty of anything, I'll protest loudly - the government needs to stay way the heck out of romance. There are two appropriate punishments for him. One is that his name become VERY well known, and he become frustrated in all his future attempts at romance. The second is good, old-fashioned Arab justice. He romanticized his Arab heritage (but mistranslates the Arabic in a love note), and if I were the brother of one of these women I'd go about getting justice by revenge. Well, if I weren't Christian I would. But somebody's brother or father should meet up with this guy and leave him looking a little differently. The women should all be forced to join a convent without a phone line, as they're obviously unfit to relate to men. Anyone who can be so fooled by words shouldn't be allowed to have romantic relationships.

New Link Setup

InstantReplay has moved to a modified link structure to reflect some new additions. The "Free Speech" section is for blogs with which I have serious disagreements of opinion, but are worth reading for their style, content and character. A few old links have been axed (Brownpau will come back when he starts using his blog again).

I'll add a few more links in the next day or two, to give my readers some new resources and perspectives.

Note to Mac

God told me I could have your house. I hope you're packed up by Thursday at noon; I'll be over with my stuff in a moving van, and there's nothing more frustrating then trying to move in somewhere when the unrightful owner can't get their junk out on time.

Make sure not to take any of the good furniture or china either, I'll be needing that.

Comment on Mac's rebuttal

This is in relation to my post below on the Palestinian question

Mac -

I've never heard the word "fisk" before (except in juxtaposition to "Carlton"), so that makes us even :)

Thanks for taking my, er, fisking in the right spirit, and replying honestly. I think we've isolated our fundamental disagreement. That is, I don't believe that Old Testament promises apply to the modern, secular State of Israel. New Testament promises, such as the salvation of Jews, do apply, but the OT promises are expropriated by the New Israel - the church.

A few of your facts are still way off. The name Palestine very clearly refers to all of what is now Israel and the Occupied Territories. The name was coined by the Romans to punich Jews for rebelling, and originally indicated the entire land. Even Jews know this - before Israel was founded, they sometimes referred to themselves as Palestinians (the Palestine Symphony Orchestra was all Jews, for instance). It was just a piece of land, inhabited by Jews, Christians and Arabs.

Also, 80% is owned by Israel, not by Arabs as you claimed.

Another important note is that I'm not making a distinction between ethnic group and nation. They're not precisely the same thing, but the fact that they are total constructions applies to both. Jews are not, contrary to popular belief, genetically defined. They have genetic links, but if you look at them and you look at Palestinians, it's obvious that Palestinians are the more genetically homogenous.

You say, "if the Palestinians persist in a state of their own, it should not be carved out of Israel (Gaza City), but rather out of Jordan or Syria." WHY?????? Why not give them your house? What did the Syrians or Jordanians do to deserve this? And you don't seem to understand that the Palestinians physically owned the land before the Jews came. Before 1948, Jews bought land with money. In 1948, they confiscated it and kicked out the residents. Israel was carved out of Palestine, not vice versa. I repeat that Israel has NEVER claimed ownership of the West Bank and Gaza Strip; those are territories not included in the state's definition of Eretz Yisroel.

At Bloggerheads

Recent commenter Mac Swift posted a rather long discussion of the Palestinian question on his blog, Vessel of Honour. Since the sentiments he expresses are shared by many Americans, especially Christians, it's worth making our disagreement public.

First, Mac has some factual misinformation:
"Palestine though is INCORRECTLY used to refer to ALL of Israel, when in reality it only represents the territory once inhabited by the Philistines, which would be a little bit larger than the Gaza Strip is today." This is etymology, not geopolitics, and has no bearing on the facts. Until the 1920's, "Palestine" referred to all of what is now Israel, the Occupied Territories, and Jordan. In a similar vein, his conclusion that Palestinians were meant to be "temporary residents" because of a 3,000-year-old name is intellectually irresponsible.

The Syrian irredentist claim is also less important than face value might suggest, because it's important to remember that until recently the Arab states have wanted to take over Palestine just as much as they want to take over Israel. Also, throughout Syria the Syrian flag is never flown except when accompanied by the Palestinian one - good propaganda to keep the refugees thinking the state is on their side.

"[S]ince day one Arafat has continued to propagate the lie that the Palestinians are a distinct group rather than merely a part of Syria, and they continue to hold fast to a land already promised by God to Abraham and his seed, the Jews." This is a crucial point. Zionists often point out - correctly - that there was no "Palestinian" identity historically. However, this logic shows a serious epistemological flaw, since "nation" is an entirely constructed, according to most anthropologists. There is no genetic link in most "nations", rather a set of common experiences and a crucial self-identification as a nation is what creates that nation. Thus, if a large enough group of people begin to think they are a nation and act like one, they are one. This has grave consequences for Wilsonian nation-statism, as well it should. Nonetheless, Zionist denial of Palestinian nationhood is equal and opposite to the refusal of a few Arab states (Libya, pre-2003 Iraq) to recognize that Israel exists. Whether something should exist or not or whether it existed in the past or not is an entirely different question from "does it exist". Palestinians (who identified mainly with their city before 1917, since their state was the huge Ottoman Empire) think of themselves as such, other Arabs think of them as Palestinians (Syrians certainly don't welcome them as brothers!), and 99% of the world affirms that they are indeed Palestinians. That's more than enough for nationhood.

The second fallacy in the above statement is that the Abramic promise is valid today. God is faithful to fulfill His promises, and He did - it was fulfilled over 3,000 years ago. More importantly, if God wants to give land to one people, He can do it without our meddling. Christians are not called to elect one people over another, but rather to glorify God and let Him take vengeance as it is due. Nowhere in the New Testament are Christians instructed to help God fulfill end-times conditions or any other prophecy.

Though the Jews have been occupants of the land more or less for 3000 years, credence instead is given to the temporary sojourners, the Palestinian Arabs, whose presence in Israel (including the Gaza Strip) has transpired only in recent memory, as a result of the surrounding Arab nations refusal to taken in the refugees, exacerbating the very problem they say is the fault of the Jews! This should be an embaressment to the author. Jews have lived in the land only since 1900, and before that from 1200 B.C. or so until 135 A.D. when the Romans expelled them. A few trickled back over time, but remained a tiny minority in a few towns (Safed, Jerusalem, etc). The Palestinians are a blend of Mediterranean peoples - including Christianized Jews who lost their Jewish identity. They've been there forever in a sense, as a long series of invaders and migrators; like all peoples (including Jews) they are a mix. They've spoken Arabic since 750 or 800 A.D. To blame the other Arab states for creating the Palestinian problem by refusing to take in refugees is irresponsible as a Christian. Essentially Mac is saying that Jews - and no others - have a right to take land that's owned by other people, and those other people's co-religionists and co-lingualists should have to deal with it. That's like blaming the U.S. and U.K. for the Holocaust: yes, we should have taken refugees and that would have been a real mercy, but that doesn't mean that Hitler and others aren't ultimately to blame for the atrocities they committed.

Mac cites God promising the land as an everlasting inheritance to Abraham's descendants. However, Paul and Christ both made clear that as far as the New Covenant was concerned, Abraham's descendants were those who share Abraham's faith, not his parentage. Also, Christ told the Samaritan woman (and there are still a few Samaritans living where they have for 2,500 years near Nablus) that Jerusalem was no longer important but that true worship is in "spirit and truth." Thus, the New Covenant severs the ties of faith with both land and race. To propose that unfaithful Jews have a stronger theological claim to the Abrahamic promise than faithful non-Jews flies in the face of the New Testament.

"Yet men like Arafat claim the land was fully inhabited by Arabs in the Jews' absence! In truth, the land was so fully barren that those who risked inhabiting the land ended up leaving shortly afterwards because the land simply could not sustain their livelihood. The Arabs wanted nothing to do with this land. Temporary sojourners indeed." This is nonsense. Palestine - like most of the Middle East (and like Biblical Israel) - was sparsely inhabited, but was an urban society, not nomadic, and certainly not sojourning. Palestinians before 1900 identified strongly with their town, and families could trace their ancestory in a place like Lydda or Jerusalem back millenia. Mark Twain's quote is correct - but Mac's interpolation that "desolate" mean uninhabited is untrue.

Mac finally gets it right when he says that both Arabs and Jews need Christ. This I totally agree with - and there is nothing more beautiful (I've seen it) than Arabs and Jews gathering together on disputed land to worship their Redeemer and Messiah. Likewise, praying for peace is indeed our call, for we serve the Prince of Peace. But the peace that I know does not involve expelling people from the land of their fathers by military force.

Mac needs to wake up and smell the spiritual coffee. The New Covenant is about a people who were not a people becoming one, it's about racial unity under Christ, and it's about bringing glory to God in spirit and truth. I believe that the centerpiece of God's promises to the Jewish people in the latter days is salvation through Christ - not agnostic statehood.

My apologies to Mac for using strong language in refuting his arguments; I'm sure he's a sincere Christian and blogging what he believes to be true. Unfortunately, he is unaware of a lot of true facts, and aware of quite a few untrue facts. My suggestion is to flush the partisan sources - I read neither Israeli nor Palestinian literature. A good place to start is a textbook on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Find one by a reputable publisher, and make sure it's concerned with facts, not forming an argument. Stay away from religious authors, who usually have something besides the truth to prove (unfortunately). For a history of the state of Israel, historian Martin Gilbert's "Israel" is sympathetic to Israel but has a wealth of detail. For me, living in Jerusalem proved the crucial element in understanding the nature of the conflict and getting beyond the stereotypes. Of course, if you go there now, you might want to invest in a bulletproof vest - militant Palestinians and the Israeli army have both killed a few Americans and Europeans.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen...

You are Romans.

Which book of the Bible are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us, how will He not also with Him give us all things???

Emphasis

I've become convinced that 95% of disagreements among Christians who believe that the Bible is the infallible and complete word of God arise over emphasis. I've been in many, many churches where the statement of faith checks out just fine, they give Biblical answers to hard questions if pushed, but somehow the church seems horribly off. Generally, that's because of an unhealthy emphasis or de-emphasis on one or more of the many facets of Biblical theology or church life. Some churches marginalize themselves by focusing too much on tongues - Assemblies of God holds the Biblically untenable position that all who are baptized in the Holy Spirit speak in tongues (I Cor 12:30) - or by saying that tongues should never exist outside the New Testament (it's the same Spirit, isn't it?). That's a pretty obvious example, but the same thing can happen over any number of relatively innoccuous issues. For instance, someone in our church asked for volunteers today to join in founding a "good neighbor committee" to more effectively welcome guests and build community. Terrific idea, yet it's easy to see how too much or too little emphasis on community could hurt a church.

At risk of being awarded an M.A. in the Obvious, I'd say church life is about balance. It's about evangelism, community, spiritual warfare, worship, theology, service, discipleship, ritual, accountability, friendships, family, gifts, cultural relevance, political awareness, internationalism, global missions, ecumenity, creativity, reverence, leadership, character development, reconciliation, and I could take this list through the dictionary of churchisms and virtues.

Theoretically, you could say "it's never a bad thing to have more evangelism, so how can you say that balance is the goal?" I'm not speaking of balance within the discipline (though that's often appropriate), but among disciplines. Unfortunately, church emphasis, like economics, is about scarce resources. If members are being mobilized to hand out the Jesus video to their neighbors, half of them aren't going to have the time to cook a meal for a new mother as they had otherwise intended to do. It's not zero-sum - most churches have some idle or undeveloped resources. But it's not all about parishioner activity - it's often about Sunday services, which are zero-sum if length is constant. Fifteen minutes spent praying for the filling of the Holy Spirit is fifteen minutes that can't be devoted to expounding scripture, singing hymns, praying for missionaries, or taking communion.

Is there any application here? Certainly to identify areas of focus - in your own life as well as in ministries and church. I could list areas I believe lack focus in the church, but that would be basically representative of the few Bostonian and Maryland churches that I'm familiar with. The real application is the Holy Spirit, Who works in us to conform us to the image of Christ. Without His divine intervention, we'd be lost in a game of constant readjustment, and never making progress. Instead, let us rely on and submit to the Spirit our plans and visions, and let Him adjust us as He deems necessary.

However, be sure not to overemphasize this application!

Bleeding Congo

The UN has the nerve to call 1,400 peacekeepers entering the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) a "rapid reaction force." NYTimes carries a Reuters article that notes that "500 civilians have been massacred in inter-ethnic fighting in and around the northeastern town [of Bunia] in the past month and 50,000 have been killed since 1999." Do the math: 500 in one month versus 50,000 in 4 years. That means this past month's deaths are less than half the average monthly total since 1999, which is 1042, assuming the violence started at this time of year. And coming in now is a "rapid reaction"? Please.

Don't get me wrong - InstantReplay applauds the arrival of the French troops, if not with the mournful eloquence of the town's residents - 'Hundreds of residents...cheered and clapped as a van of French troops drove in from the airport, shouting ``Take courage!'' and ``Free us!.''' However, it will take a lot more than Rwanda-esque peacekeepers (who aren't allowed to protect anyone) to end this conflict. I know too little to say what will work, but I can confidently say that the only thing so far that promises to end this conflict is total fatigue on all sides, which will hopefully set in sooner of later.

The wider war in the DRC, now gradually subsiding, began in 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda invaded eastern Congo to help rebel groups fight the Kinshasa government, which was propped up by troops from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia. The conflict has led to the deaths of an estimated three million people, mostly through disease and starvation.

I wanna be a cowboy, baby!

When the headline in the top Israeli news outlet contains the phrase "ride herd", you know that Bush is having an impact on the Middle East.

Ha'aretz reports that Bush is gonna keep the cattle moving, and quotes him drinking something out of an opaque Diet Coke can, saying "Thurs coyot's in them hills, an' me an' mah posse's gonna bust 'em up. Evuh since Wild Bin Layden cum through this valley things ain't bin the same, an' Ah'll be durned if Ah don't put a silvuh bullet between his aahs. Ah'm the shurrif now in these pahts, an' y'all bettuh shape up, ya stinkin' jooz an' ay-rabs messin' with mah oil. Gitcherown!"

OK, not quite, but it does say 'Waving his arms, the president earlier told reporters his aim was to keep the process moving, like a cowboy on horseback herding cattle. "I used the expression 'ride herd.' I don't know if anybody understood it in the meeting today,"'

Introducing: Musings

Being really unsatisfied with my recent introduction - {Lentil Soup} - and having spent a bunch of time last night looking unsuccessfully for a new Christian blog to link to and read, I was thrilled to see someone had come here from my comment at {Mute Troubadour}, and commented on my post about Daniel Harrell's article. This professional writer is a Chinese Malaysian Christian whose first language is English...go figure. Her blog - Musings and Misadventures of IreneQ - has good discussions of Christian themes, most recently tithing, and excellent style and linkage.

One blog Irene mentioned and I looked at briefly had a very interesting theme - letters from single Christian woman (age 24) to her future husband, called "As I Wait".

And elsewhere...

In case I haven't blogged enough today! But this article deserves a link. It's not me - but it could be me. I've always been the "good kid", but fortunately I've had people telling me the "other rules" and avoided this humble pastor's mistakes.

I wasn't going to blog this, but...

I saw that it was written by a pastor at Park Street Church, Boston's most popular church among college students; a large, mostly evangelical (if that makes any sense) congregational church that's often criticized by people from small evangelical and charismatic churches.

Anyway, his article basically says that there's nothing Biblically wrong with premarital sex. He effectively argues from scripture that in God's eyes sexual intercourse is the wedding ceremony, and when the Bible says "what God has joined let no man separate", it's referring to the joining of intercourse. Reverend Harrell, of course, sees promiscuity as antibiblical, which it clearly is, and interprets even unconsensual and casual sex as "joining" in God's eyes - hence the strong imperatives against rape and casual sex. In fairness, he holds that marital sex is better, but abandons the absolute of marital exclusivity of sex, writing "As long as the couple intend to “sign” their marital love in a marriage contract...then a sexual relationship can be affirmed as good, if not yet ideal."

However, I would argue that the culturally relevant commands that Paul gives the Corinthian church (I Cor 11, I Cor 7, etc) show that some things that may not be spiritual absolutes are still binding on those who want to glorify God with their lives. In our cultural context, marriage is a definitive, public event that changes the legal and cultural nature of the couple. To tolerate premarital sex, even in "committed" relationships is a clear violation of I Peter 2:12, where we are exhorted to act in a way that sets us apart from the world.

Another argument from I Corinthians is set in more explicit Biblical terms, and specifically refutes Harrell's supposition that "it’s debatable whether wedding ceremonies as we know them even occurred in Jesus’ day". From chapter 7:

36If anyone thinks he is acting improperly toward the virgin he is engaged to, and if she is getting along in years and he feels he ought to marry, he should do as he wants. He is not sinning. They should get married. 37But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin--this man also does the right thing. 38So then, he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does even better.

There is no middle ground in this passage. People are classified as "virgin" or "married." The unambiguous language throughout this chapter on marriage in the church is indicative of the unambiguous view of marriage God holds and the church has held through for millenia. Paul says earlier in the chapter that it is better to marry than to burn with passion; clearly that passion is not to be consummated without public marriage.

It's also important to note that cohabitation was not unfamiliar to the Greeks; wealthy Greek men commonly kept mistresses as well as wives, and also frequented brothels. Yet scripture calls for monogamy, a departure from the cultural norms. Thus, Paul's stipulations were not appealing to cultural propriety, as my first argument did, but to an absolute.

Harrell would object that he was principally speaking of those who have sinned and are seeking to make their relationship public. Yes I agree there is room for redemption - in I Cor 7:36 Paul contrasts he who has "acted improperly" and should marry with he who "has control over his own will" and can choose not to marry his fiancee - but it's key to remember that the former have "acted improperly", not just "early". I do understand that sex and marriage should not be disconnected in our minds, as Harrell says has happened. But for that very reason, sex should be reserved among Christians absolutely for marriage - sex outside of a public marital commitment is closely correlated with promiscuity. For a pastor to advocate toleration of this type of irresponsible, no-controls sexual indulgence flies in the face of pastoral wisdom as well as specific Biblical evidence that public marriage is just as God-ordained and consummating as private, sexual union.

Introducing: Lentil Soup

I don't know much about this blog, but if only for the sake of variety, I'm replacing {The Edge of England's Sword} with {Lentil Soup}. Written by journalist Ray Hanania, a Chicago Arab-American, this "musing" blog (it isn't a blog in the strict sense, but in a lot of ways neither am I) focuses on life as an Arab-American post 9/11. The theme may get old real soon - we'll see. In any case, his writing quality is obviously good, and I think his site will look decent on a computer with something better than Netscape 4.8.

Four Reasons to Invade Iraq

My journalistic hero, Thomas Friedman, has another skillfully composed argument on Middle East politics, specifically on the reasons America invaded Iraq.

It's really uncomfortable when he lists what he calls the real reason (not to be confused with the right, moral, or stated reasons) that we invaded was because "after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world. Afghanistan wasn't enough because a terrorism bubble had built up over there — a bubble that posed a real threat to the open societies of the West and needed to be punctured... The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house...smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world. And don't believe the nonsense that this had no effect. Every neighboring government...got the message."

You'll have to read the article to get the other three reasons - the reasons that didn't motivate us.

Search and Destroy

I haven't run this feature in a while, but I still get plenty of hits, including from people looking for dirty pix of prime ministers. Some of the recent ones include:

# 15 for "model Arab League" and Arkansas - this was searched by someone in Israel, who spent 20 minutes in and around InstantReplay. Welcome! I'd love to get comments on some of these posts by Israelis or Palestinians.

# 2 for Malik Ali at AllTheWeb.com. This search was someone from Belgium.

# 1 for mary seacle, searched by a Jamaican. Presumably the user was looking for Mary Seacole, a famous British nurse of Jamaican origin.

# 2 for Miss Lebanon kristina sawaya, looking for my very distant relative Christina Sawaya (danger: photo makes her look ugly) who was indeed Miss Lebanon 2001.

# 28 for my most embarressing moments.

Aqaba Summit

I'm encouraged by what's going on in Aqaba. Not shocked or overjoyed, but encouraged. I must say my only reasons for hope are Bush and Abbas. Bush because he's got an agenda and he's not scared to ram anybody in his way, including Sharon, shockingly. Abbas because he knows how to say "How high?" in English, when Bush says "jump".

The full text of the leaders' speeches are on the White House website. Sharon was the only one who surprised me with his words, saying "We can also reassure our Palestinian partners that we understand the importance of territorial contiguity in the West Bank for a viable Palestinian state. Israeli policy in the territories that are subject to direct negotiations with the Palestinians will reflect this fact. We accept the principle that no unilateral actions by any party can prejudge the outcome of our negotiations." This and the other recent Israeli gestures, are important steps to convincing the Palestinian people that Abbas is not selling them out.

Also from the White House, Powell and Rice discuss the progress on the Road Map.

Naturally, the papers all have articles, saying more or less the same thing - NYTimes, Washington Post, Ha'aretz, BBC (which has a nice map showing all settlements).

Opinion and analysis are all over the place too - Arab News on Bush's priorities, NYTimes on Abbas, the Christian Science Monitor on the importance of the recent developments, and Ha'aretz with a whole resource page with dozens of opinion and background articles.

Christian Terrorism

It was bound to come up, and it has, though perhaps not as loudly as we might have feared. The Washington Post steers clear of editorializing too much in their article, which consists mainly of quotes of experts in militia groups that use Christianity as a legitimation.

Rudolph seems to have some connection to a white supremacist group called "Christian Identity." They believe that northern Europeans are descended from the 10 lost tribes of Israel, and that modern Jews are imposters. Interestingly enough, InstantReplay applauds the group's 19th-century inspiration, British ministers John Wilson and Edward Hine, who first propogated the theory as a justification for colonialism. I don't applaud their inspiring white supremacists or coming up with a crackpot theory, but for realizing that colonialism needed a justification, something that never occurred to most people out conquering the world. Of course, maybe if they'd read the Bible it would have occurred to them that sending missionaries and ambassadors is good, but sending armies and pirates is bad.

Anyway, the question stands: is Rudolph a Christian terrorist?

First of all, let us presume guilt. If he's innocent, then the answer is obviously no, but for the sake of discussion, let's violate his civil rights and consider him guilty on all counts.

What criteria do we place on labeling a form of terrorism religious? First, I would say the act must be directly motivated by religious conviction, obviously, and not just carried out by someone who happens to have been born into a specific faith. Second, I would say the individual must have a modicum of sanity; clinically insane people are a distinct issue from religious extremists. Third, and most controversially, I think that at least a good number of teachers and believers in the faith must consider him a fellow believer. If Christianity, as defined by its adherents, does not consider an individual a Christian, it is unhelpful for the rest of society to accept the individual's self-asserted association to an unwilling group. This point deserves to be qualified by noting that this does not mean that the other members of the faith support his act - they may consider him an errant believer, and it does not mean "true Christianity" or "true Islam" as defined by their respective holy texts, but rather practiced and imperfect human expressions of the faiths. Fourth, their must be at least a minority within the faith (again, accepted by the faith as belonging) who support the act.

In the case of Rudolph, we can reasonably assume that religious or other ideological conviction (the article strongly suggests racism) motivated him. If it was indeed religious, he fulfils the first criterion.

Rudolph's survival skills strongly suggest his sanity; I would question any jury that found so resourceful a man insane. Obviously he has bad judgment and some nutty ideas - the question is whether he has reason, and I think he clearly does.

I think Rudolph, however, eminently fails to meet the last two criteria. While those in his area certainly identify with him, I don't think any leaders in the country would identify him as a Christian, let alone support his act. The "Christian Identity" militia/sect is not regarded as Christian. I do not, of course, have poll stats, and most Christians do not have more than a cursory knowledge of him. Certainly a tiny minority alone support his actions.

This is not the case, however, with Islamic terrorism. Islam has a history of violence beginning well before church-sanctioned violence became commonplace in Christendom, despite Christianity's 600-year seniority. The militant spirit has survived in a number of forms within Islam, and that faith is undergoing an identity crisis that will determine whether it becomes a collaborator with the New World Order or a rejectionist opponent thereof. Many Muslims would quickly and firmly identify the September 11 hijackers, Osama Bin Laden, Palestinian suicide bombers and others as Muslims, even if they repudiated their actions and interpretations. In Christianity, I identify many as Christians - the Spanish Inquisition for instance - who are completely unchristlike and unregenerate. They are not true Christians, but in the social sense they are, for lack of a better word (well, I would use the phrase "nominal Christians"). However, in Islam, unlike in Christianity, there exists strong, measurable support for violent measures to oppose the West. Here the parallel in Christianity would be the numerous Christians - nominal and otherwise - who supported violent action in Iraq. Yes, we wore uniforms, but ultimately it was a case of deciding that it was for the greater good to kill some people. This argument is easily applied to abortionists, whose death may seem to save unborn lives. InstantReplay, however, rejects any violence in the name of Christianity, because our Bible clearly states that we don't struggle in physical but in spiritual realms, and Christ even healed one of those who came to arrest Him. I support non-violent action against abortion mills, including damage to property and illegal trespassing. However, my pro-life principles extend even to those whom I consider evildoers.

The Grass Ain't Greener Nowheres!

Even if it's homegrown, ahem, grass in the backwoods of North Carolina.

I hate to disappoint, but this is not a post about marijuana. But the willingness of the true blue Americans from Eric Rudolph's 'hood to defend him jingoistically reaffirms my belief that people are basically evil, and our sense of loyalty and pride is much stronger than our sense of right and wrong. Americans enjoy the idea that while the rest of the world has genocidal wars and terrorism, we're really civilized and above it all. But really this is no different, if you take an unsophisticated corner of the U.S.

The one thing we the sophisticated are good at is explaining things, and avoiding blame. In that sense, yes we're less blunt and honest in our support of extreme causes. But even Brookline liberals break down pretty quickly when you figure out who they really dislike. We modern sophists deceive ourselves pretty easily into thinking that we are civilized, that we have arrived, that thousands of years of human society were all unjust and violent, but we few, we happy few, have the secret of tolerance, pluralism and all the wonderful blessings of our liberal civilization!

Fact is, we're no different. We've just got a more inscrutable value system. Abortion, anyone?

Nascent

The word of the day is "nascent". I always thought it meant "not-quite-in-existent" or "about-to-be-born". It in fact means "coming or having recently come into existence." So I was definitely missing an aspect of the meaning. It comes from the Latin, and was first recorded in English in 1624.

Introducing: the Hunger Site

I've heard of this before, but being told that it's credible from my friend Meg, I decided to add a link. The Hunger Site is a website devoted to ending world hunger, and their advertizers give a few cents every time someone clicks a button on their site. Unlike the Major League All-Star Ballot, this is quick and only allows you to click once per day. So swing by when you visit InstantReplay; each click buys about 1.1 cups of staple food for hungry folk the world over. Also, you can link to breast cancer, rainforest, child health, and animal rescue websites with similar donation-by-clickage.

About 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes. This is down from 35,000 ten years ago, and 41,000 twenty years ago. Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five. Famine and wars cause about 10% of hunger deaths, although these tend to be the ones you hear about most often. The majority of hunger deaths are caused by chronic malnutrition. Families facing extreme poverty are simply unable to get enough food to eat.

Jonah's Vine

6 So the LORD God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. 7 But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered. 8 When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, "Death is better to me than life." 9 Then God said to Jonah, "Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?" And he said, "I have good reason to be angry, even to death." 10 Then the LORD said, "You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. 11 "Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not (13) know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?" - Jonah 5

God told me this story yesterday to convict me of my own petty concerns. I have been happy - but would I be if the little things that I deem so important withered away in the sun? And do I care more about the things that make my life comfortable and enjoyable than about the masses of unsaved people?

As a society, we value comfort and personal fulfillment very highly. Will we be ready when God calls us to discomfort and frustration for the sake of the Name? Jesus addressed this same issue to His disciples shortly before one of them betrayed Him. "Remember the word that I said to you, ' A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also" (John 15:20). Cryptic if taken out of context, the principle that 'a slave is not greater than his master' clearly means that we - slaves of Christ and of the gospel, as Paul says - are not greater than Christ and should not expect to be treated better than He was. But don't we?