I think it’s only fair, and correct, and in the interest of maintaining the fellowship here, that I step out from YAR. But, an explanation rather than a self-righteous “screw you guys, I’m going home!” is in order since explanations are so lacking in the blogosphere (and in my comments the last few months - Sorry Tim but I’ll send you an e-mail if I think I can answer your question about Marxism).

There are a number of things that led me in that direction, several of which I will enumerate here:

1) I’m not really a Mennonite anymore. Like, not even a little.

- The Mennonite church that shepherded me when I came to faith in 2006 closed its doors on Easter Sunday 2009. So I don’t attend there.

- I found that I don’t really have a “pacifist” position, in that if God were to order me to kill Amalekites, I would kill Amalekites (I say that knowing that I’ve said it quite bluntly, but believe me it’s not like I haven’t thought this over thoroughly).

- I don’t have a Mennonite last name (mine is Italian, and there aren’t many Italian Mennos out there). So I have no ties to Mennonite heritage.

- Mennonites tend to hold an Arminian soteriology, and I don’t. I’ve found that I’m much more Calvinist these days and becoming more so as the days go on.

- I don’t believe in that “pure church” stuff.

- I am becoming more paedobaptist than credobaptist. So that also takes me out of the Anabaptist category.

2) I have a much different political understanding than I did back in 2007.

- I don’t have a “non-violence” position.

- I don’t agree with the LGBTQ position taken by many here - though my objections are primarily theological and related to church matters.

3) I don’t have the same interests that many YAR folks have.

- The “emergent conversation” mostly bores me.

- various articulations of radical/re-defined Christianity do not interest me.

- Mennonite church issues do not interest me.

Some might think “oh boy, the fundies got to him!” or something like that. To do so would only demonstrate how little you know of me and my Christian walk thus far.

Some may want to ask questions about why I believe/don’t believe such and such. I understand wanting to do so, but I’m not interested in faceless conversations about my formative beliefs across the interweb, particularly with those who have never met me (despite what you may think, I don’t have an obligation to you).

So with all that said, I won’t be contributing to YAR anymore. Thank you to those who have welcomed me here and for the discussions we’ve had. I pray that fruitfulness comes of future discussions on this blog and that many are enriched by it.

The Holy Spirit: Lord and Life-Giver
Ivan Satyavrata
InterVaristy Press
April 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8308-3307-8
IVP
Amazon

It’s a bit of a low blow to poorly review a literary/artistic work when you are charging it with not being what you expected it to be.  For example, when I was 8, my art teacher asked us to draw and color…I think it was a landscape. Now I have never really been a great artist, mostly because I’ve been colorblind since birth (though I did have a brief phase during my adolescence in which I won a prize from a local art gallery for my pencil and black ink rendering of some shadowy, comic book-esque superhero). So when it came time for me to draw a landscape, and I spent the time grabbing any color I felt like and making scribbles all over the place, when our work was done my teacher kicked me out of class, called my mother, and had a conference that afternoon. She told my mother that my work was unbecoming of an eight-year old. My mother blinked at her and said “what’s becoming of an eight year old in art class?”

The story is not directly equivalent, but the meaning shines through ( I hope): it’s not fair for me to set expectations for Satyavrata’s book- that he had no intent of keeping - and then criticize him for not doing so. However, the marketing of this book has made it particularly difficult not to.

This book is part of an IV Press series called “Christian Doctrine in Global Perspective”, with John Stott as the consulting editor. I was excited about his role as consulting editor, given that I tend to agree with the sizable chunks of the theologies of the evangelical Anglican types (like J.I. Packer, Stott, NT Wright most notably).

Satyavrata is an Assemblies of God (AoG) pastor in India and president of Buntain Thoelogical College. AoG is a pentecostal denomination, and it is my current denomination, though I am not a pentecostal. They are kind of enough to keep me around.

So anyway, given the above, I expected that this would explain a bit about pneumatology (the doctrine of the Spirit) with a particular eye toward the Indian view of it. I expected this view to be a bit post-colonial - not sounding particularly Western in its orientation. And I expected it to be grounded in orthodoxy, given that Stott affixes his name to it.

While I can safely say that it is within the bounds of orthodoxy, I did not get a particularly “global perspective” with this book. What I mean in this: I didn’t really learn much about how the Indian church, or the southeast Asian church with whom Satyavrata is in dialogue, orients itself toward the Holy Spirit. In the few instances that Satyavrata does interact with the “third world-view” (if you’ll pardon my expression as such), it is to correct errors in it. This is helpful, since too often those who try to be sympathetic to the global church just agree wholesale with their interpretations of faith and worship. However, Satyavrata does not articulate a position that is particularly Eastern, global, or post-colonial. This could just as easily be written by an Anglo-American theologian.

What I Like about this Book

I’ll end on some thoughts about what I like about this book. I think if you are oriented toward a more “via media” (middle way) of looking at things (I use this in the place of ecumenical, since that can be too loaded), a sort of C.S. Lewis orthodoxy of “what basics can we all agree on?”, then this book is a fantastic introduction if you want to learn more about the Holy Spirit. Satyavrata is anything but sectarian. In fact, one of the most useful chapters is a historical overview of the view of the Holy Spirit since the beginning of the church. This was massively helpful for me. It might be too general for some, but I think it is a good introduction for someone like me who generally does not have a lot of pneumatology under his belt.

Here’s what he has to say about Anabaptists:

…the Anabaptists believed in an imminent age of the Spirit and also denied that baptism was a means of grace. Menno Simons, their most influential leader, regarded Christ alone as the preeminent sign of grace, and baptism as more a pledge of obedience than a rite of conversion. Water baptism must be administered only to those who have turned to Christ already and been baptized with the Holy Spirit. This marks the beginning of a life guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit, who then reproduces the nature of Christ in the life of the believer. Simons ephasized the Spirit’s anointing, through which Christians are bestowed with spiritual gifts. He also taught that the Spirit enables God’s will to be expressed through the consensus of the believing community…

…In addition to the baptism of the Spirit and by water, the Anabaptists also believed in a baptism of fire and blood. Strong emphasis began to be placed on the baptism of blood, generally referring to martyrdom and outward suffering in the world This was also sometimes applied corporately to the believing community as a whole rather than the individual, the basis of an important emphasis on the suffering of the righteous remnant.

…the various Anabaptists sects were more open to [spiritual gifts]. They witnessed many occurences similar to those observed in the Pentecostal movement today, including healings, prophecy, tongues, and dancing in the Spirit. However, despite some of these similarities with contemporary Pentecostals, there are marked differences. Most significantly, for Anabaptists, the baptism of the Spirit is primarily associated with salvation and involves suffereing; for Pentecostals, Spirit baptism is an endowment of power for ministry, a joyful experience rather than endurance under trial.

Any thoughts on that?

Satyavrata also deals with the doctrine of the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” charitably.For those unfamiliar with this concept, here’s my pathetic attempt at a definition: the baptism of the Holy Spirit is anevent, subsequent to regeneration, justification, and conversion (in whatever order you put these), in which the believer receives a greater outpouring of/blessing by the Holy Spirit. It is believed that this baptism is accompanied by spiritual gifts and tongues.

Some charismatics/pentecostals believe that one is not saved without the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (an error), others believe that the Holy Spirit is not active in you unless you have this particular baptism (an error), others believe it is simply a greater and deeper experience of the Spirit (closer to truth). While the baptism of the Holy Spirit is an individual experience (in that each believer is individually gifted), it can occur corporately since it is an event. This is why missionaries in some countries tend to be more “charismatic”, since (from their perspective) they have experienced events where thousands of believers at once are baptized with the Holy Spirit in a very Pentecost-like way. Satyavrata likens this Pentecostal distinctive to other historical understandings of the work of the Holy Spirit, such as the Roman Catholic notion of “confirmation” and the Puritan notion of the “sealing of the spirit”.

Rather than looking at the content of the book, as I am, and saying “this doesn’t seem particularly global”, one could say that an introductory text devoted entirely to the Holy Spirit is in and of itself a testimony to the global mark upon Christendom. It is no secret that the third world is more open to a charismatic understanding of the Holy Spirit than the West, even if the third world can sometimes stray toward Unitarianism of the Holy Spirit. Traditionally, Protestant theologies have tended to give more space to christology, soteriology, and theology (doctrine of God proper) than pneumatology. There are of course significant outliers to that assertion (John Owen’s work on communion with the Holy Spirit being one that comes to mind immediately). As such, one could benefit greatly from having this book on your shelf next to the Western systematics, christologies, etc. that tend to crowd the bookshelves of doctrine geeks.

InterVarsity Press
WTSbooks
Amazon

A high church Reformed Anglican bishop, NT Wright, has just written a book called Justification, which (as you can guess) is a summary of his thought on this much-debated issue within the Western Christian world.

His impetus for the book is a book published in 2007 by Dr. John Piper called The Future of Justification which probes the underpinnings of Wright’s understanding of Paul and if this is a helpful or harmful understanding.

Leaving aside the problems that Piper has elucidated (some of which Wright has not fully answered), Wright does proivde a vision of justification that - perhaps not surprisingly - is more in touch with the understanding of the 17th century Mennonite church than it is with Reformed theology. Perhaps it is a bridge between the two on this issue? Certainly, though, the doctrine of justification is not the strongest the Mennonite church has proclaimed, but it is nonetheless important and present in its confession.

What is N.T. Wright’s essential point, contra-the traditional Reformed/evangelical point of view? Because it is spread throughout the book, I will say essentially this: that the purpose of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection was not merely about individual salvation (restoring “my relationship with God” and “getting to heaven”) nor was it about fulfilling the Torah for us (the “active obedience” of Christ which is “imputed” to us,  but that it was about fulfilling the promises made from way before the law was established and then transgressed. It was about fulfilling the promises made to Abraham to restore and bless the whole world and reconcile all the children of God in an eschatological way. This, therefore, makes the scope of the Jesus story much larger than a restoration of Israel from under the law, but more broadly the fulfillment of the covenant promise to Abraham to restore the whole world into the covenant. Therefore, justification is the declaration that one has been become a member of the covenant family, not an act of God which brings you into the covenant family (the traditional understanding).For Wright, the traditional view has formed by asking and answering questions in Medieval ways, not Pauline ways.

The book is in two parts: the first is “theologizing” and providing a background the objections against Wright; the second is exegesis from Galatians and Romans. Regardless of what you think of his conclusions, the writing is intelligent and clear (even if mildly scattered, making it sometimes difficult to get the core points).

Another way of putting this:

N.T. Wright: Justification is eschatological (it looks toward the future reconcilation of the Chilren of God) and ecclesiological (through Christ, it defines who is in the covenant community and who is not)

Reformed View: justification is primarily soteriological (about my salvation) and only secondarily eschatological and ecclesiological

I’m not necessarily convinced that these two positions are irreconcilable (Wright tends to articulate “imputed righteousness” in different terms, as Doug Wilson points out) and I think Wright overstates the distinctions to the point of mutual exclusivity, which I’m not sure is necessary. There’s also some underlying questions I have about his methods, relying on the contemporaneous texts of 2nd Temple Judaism, which has been criticized elsewhere though Wright responds to this as well.

However, I find it interesting that this emphasis on covenant and a broader vision looking back to Christ’s fulfillment of the promise to Abraham vs. the fulfillment of the law is distinctly Mennonite, if we take the Dordrecht Confession with any seriousness. In Article III (”Of The Restoration of Man Through the Promise of the Coming Christ”), we have:

Concerning the restoration of the first man and his posterity we confess and believe, that God, notwithstanding their fall, transgression, and sin, and their utter inability, was nevertheless not willing to cast them off entirely, or to let them be forever lost; but that He called them again to Him, comforted them, and showed them that with Him there was yet a means for their reconciliation, namely, the immaculate Lamb, the Son of God, who had been foreordained thereto before the foundation of the world, and was promised them while they were yet in Paradise, for consolation, redemption, and salvation, for themselves as well as for their posterity; yea, who through faith, had, from that time on, been given them as their own; for whom all the pious patriarchs, unto whom this promise was frequently renewed, longed and inquired, and to whom, through faith, they looked forward from afar, waiting for the fulfillment, that He by His coming, would redeem, liberate, and raise the fallen race of man from their sin, guilt; and unrighteousness.

Later in the confession, the authors speak of justification (in regrettably vague terms). However, the framework for understanding justification, for Wright, is set in similar terms to those above. Within these terms, a biblical theology of redemption includes not only the redemption of individual believers from their particular and original sin, but the restoration of a whole covenant community, gathered under Abraham, which seeks peace with God and reconciliation among those made enemies after Adam and the sins of his sons and daughters.

It’s funny how 17th century Mennonites are all of sudden the rage (albeit perhaps unknowingly) among New Testament scholars of the calibur of N.T. Wright.

This is a great book, by the way. For an even-handed series of reviews on Wright’s book, I suggest searching Doug Wilson’s blog, linked above.

For those familiar with Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church (different from Rob Bell’s Mars Hill Church… though it is darn confusing…), they recently launched a website called Re:Sound. Their first project is a sort of indie-rock version of a lot of classic hymns such as “Softly and Tenderly”, “What Wonderous Love Is This”, “Doxology”, “Amazing Love”, “I’ll Fly Away”, etc.

If you’ve attended a Mennonite church for any period of time, you probably have sung these hymns a lot. These re-creations are really good and I highly suggest them. Through Noise Trade for a limited time, you can pay what you want for the 12 tracks, or refer 5 friends via e-mail and get it for free. It’s pretty simple. Check it out.

Colossians and Philemon
N.T. Wright
Tyndale New Testament Commentary Series, Vol. 12
Released: Dec 30, 2008
ISBN:083084242X
Available at:
Amazon
Westminster Bookstore
Christianbook.com

Since N.T. Wright’s recently released book, Justification, is currently getting a lot of attention around the blogosphere, I thought a review of a less controversial volume of his writings would be a breath of fresh air.

An oft unread - or perhaps undiscussed - letter of the New Testament is Paul’s letter to Philemon, asking him (in subtle but not uncertain terms) that he should free Onesimus, the former’s runaway slave.

It is an interesting letter to consider for those probing the social implications of the gospel message. N.T. Wright’s highly engaging and astute commentary in Colossians and Philemon recently re-released by Intervarsity Press, offers a great starting point for those consideration. I think this is one of the most engaging biblical commentaries I’ve ever read. Wright is exceptionally clear in his writing and thinking. I want to get this out of the way before I say anything more: get a copy of this book. You can find it for less than $11 at Amazon, and it’s well worth the money to better understand the Word of God from an accomplished and respected scholar like Wright. It is a part of the Tyndale New Testament Commentary series, a series of affordable and understandable (i.e., you don’t have to be in seminary) commentaries currently under the IVP imprint.

Wright’s choice of these two letters is quite appropriate, as Philemon was a resident of Colossae and it is likely that the letter to Philemon accompanied the letter to the Colossians.

The fascinating part of the letter is that Paul never explicitly commands Philemon to release Onesimus, which he certainly had the spiritual authority to do. N.T. Wright offers the following questions which we - the modern readers - are compelled to ask:

Why did Paul not simply ask for Onesimus to be released from slavery? Why (for that matter) did he not order all Christian slaveowners to release all their slaves, rather than profit from an unjust social structure? Slavery was one of the really great evils of the ancient world, under which a large proportion of the population belonged totally to another person, for better or (usually) for worse, with no rights, no prospects, the possibility of sexual abuse, the chance of torture or death for trivial offences. Some slaves were fortunate in having kind or generous masters, and by the end of the first century some secular writers were expressing disgust at the institution. But for the great majority, life was at best drudgery and at worst “merciless exploitation’. Why, then, did Paul not protest against the whole dehumanizing system?

Our natural impulse, seeking a society transformed by the gospel, is to immediately take upon ourselves the task of being prophetic…even if that isn’t really our call. We see the social implications of sinfulness and wonder at the blindness of our brothers and sisters to the oppression around them. Why won’t Christians stop this? And, when we look to Scripture, we see Paul… and we want to say “Why won’t PAUL stop this?”. N.T. Wright attempts to probe Paul’s thinking on the matter:

What alternatives were actually open to him? He was committed to the life, and the standards, of the new age over against the old (Col. 3). But a loud protest, at that moment in social history, would have functioned simply on the level of the old age: it would have been heard only as a criticism by one part of society (Paul, not himself a slave-owner, had nothing to lose) against another. It would, without a doubt, have done more harm than good, making life harder for Christian slaves, and drawing upon the young church exactly the wrong sort of attention from the authorities. If Paul is jailed for proclaiming ‘another king’ (Acts 17:7), it must be clear that thekingdom in question is of a different order altogether from that of Caesar. In addition, inveghing against slavery per se would have been totally ineffective: one might as well, in modern Western society, protest against the mortgage system.

Ouch. And the idealistic hope of a just society crumbles before us. Wright sends another hook to the gut:

Even if all Christians of Paul’s day were suddenly to release their slaves, it is by no means clear that the slaves themselves, or society in general, would benefit: a large body of people suddenly unemployed in the ancient world might not enjoy their freedom as much as they would imagine.

Ok. Now he may be getting out of hand. Really? Slaves would have preferred it? C’mon, NT, give me something I can work with here:

Paul’s method is subtler… like Jesus, his way of changing the world is to plant a grain of mustard seed which, inconspicuous at first, grows into a spreading tree. And in the meantime… he teaches slaves and masters to treat themselves, and each other, as human beings.

Hmm. I think it is the particular sin of some Christians to neglect to see the forest for the trees. They spend so much time on interpersonal relationships that they never think about the broader implications of a just society. Perhaps, for the young radicals among us, a particular sin is present: we tend to want to keep guard over the forest, hovering above in a helicopter, without ever touching down to find out the trees are dead. What good is it if Onesimus is freed under compulsion, without ever reconciling with his master, and Philemon learning and accepting that the slave is his brother? Without doing the work of glorifying Christ through sacrificial love, isn’t Philemon just another tree in the forest: seeming alive from afar but spiritually dead?

God appoints seasons. Some seasons call for seeds to be planted. I couldn’t agree with N.T. Wright more on that point - Paul plants a seed. That seed led to the freeing of one slave. That slave, Onesimus later became Bishop of Byzantium and began collecting the books of the New Testament (Wright contends that there is no evidence for this…however, the story has been preserved in tradition, and it’s a story I quite like). That New Testament led William Wilberforce to labor for decades to abolish the slave trade in England. It led Martin Luther King to fight for the right to be an equal with whites in America.

Are we young radicals crying out at a forest of dead trees, when we should set ourselves to the task of planting seeds in that forest? Or is there room for both?

We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry
G.K Beale
IVP Academic
Nov. 2008
341pp
ISBN: 083082877X

I get frustrated by books that - either intentionally or unintentionally - do the following:

1) Treat me like an idiot and suppose I will take its arguments at face value. The author barely attempts to address the natural questions that spring forth from her arguments (if she addresses them at all).

2) Treat me like an informed scholar and assume I understand the implications of the arguments without explaining them.

Too often, studies in theology and philosophy fail on either or both fronts. Not so with Wheaton College New Testament scholar G.K. Beale’s latest work We Become What We Worship. Beale sets himself diligently to the task of illustrating how idolatry affects the idolater through a foundational biblical theology. As he eloquently asserts: “What people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or restoration.”

Rather than charting a course of the biblical narrative from start to finish and demonstrating how this idea develops across Scripture, Beale uses Isaiah 6 as his locus, develops its meaning (in a way that sheds light on a text that I have never properly understood), and then explains why this text is chosen by Jesus to explain his use of parables. In essence, Beale argues that in Isaiah 6, God makes the people spiritually blind and deaf because they worship idols that are blind and deaf. They worship that which has no spiritual life, so God makes the people spiritually dead.

Beale extends his study of the effects of idolatry into other areas of the OT, particularly the golden calf episode of Exodus 32, to assert that when Moses came off the mountain with tablets, that his face was horned, not “radiant” or shining as many modern translations choose. Beale argues:

…the bright horned-like appearance of Moses’ face suggests a divine mocking of the worshippers of the calf idol, who had come to be described already in Exodus 32 as a calf. The rhetorical point accordingly is: ‘Oh, you want to worship the calf idols, do you? Then not only are you becoming like the calf idol, but in so doing you have become like my idolatrous enemies and are being judged by the only true God, who has the only true glorious power’. (p.81)

I like it when scholars can recognize God’s sense of humor.

Beale then examines how the themes developed in Isaiah 6 are given emphasis in the New Testament: how Jesus uses them (locating the “idolatry” of the 1st century Jews in the oral tradition over/against Scripture), in Acts, in Paul’s Epistles, and in the Apocalypse of John (where NT idolatry is most pronounced).

What I like:

1) Beale does not try to address the totality of scripture but where the idea bubbles most convincingly to the surface. There are a few instances that I feel he does this better than others (for example, the golden calf episode is well-examined, while his discussion of 1 Corinthians 10 could have been stronger) but for the most part I was persuaded by his assessment.

2) I liked his self-awareness of the occasional flaws in his argument which he humbly presents to the reader while still arguing for the overall trajectory he is tracing.

3) I have always been skeptical about the idea that adherence to the oral law of 1st century Judaism was “idolatry”. I did not hold much hope that Beale would persuade me. I was surprised when he did persuade me. His arguments for locating the idolatry of Israel in the adherence to the oral law are compelling. This argument alone was worth the whole book.

4) There is a practical component for pastors in Chapters 9 & 10 where Beale discusses the biblical remedy for idolatry and its subtle influence on our lives even today.

5) Though seemingly insignificant, I think the layout was exceptional - a great font used, thematically divided sections with headings, charts that compare parallel texts. These elements are important for me - as a bad font or boring layout makes it difficult for me to focus on the text.

6) Beale’s study is well-researched from a diversity of sources: John Calvin, Walter Brueggeman, D.A. Carson, N.T. Wright, Harold Attridge, Herman Ridderbos, John Piper, Jacob Neuser, and many more are cited in the extensive bibliography. No Mennos, though (oh well).

What I didn’t like:

1) I tend to be a minimalist - I don’t like to read too much into a text of Scripture. Beale, on the other hand, is a maximalist and tries to make as many connections as possible (within reasonable limits). I think he curbs this tendency to a degree by noting the arguments that are stronger than others and making the best cases for the stronger arguments. For some, this could be a problem, for others, it is a strength.

2) The chapter on Acts - while supporting the arguments of the other chapters on the effects of idolatry on the idolater - does not stand on its own. In order to make the arguments that he makes from Acts, Beale had to prove convincingly that the texts that are quoted in Acts point to idolatry. He has to explain the meaning of Isaiah 6 in Chapter 2, make the link between Isaiah 6 and Mark 7 as the oral tradition in Jesus’s day in Chapter 6, and then show how this is the same kind of idolatry in Acts in Chapter 7. I think this is the weakest chapter; however,  Beale recognizes this deficiency. All the other chapters can stand on their own.

Why YAR should be interested in this book:

While we examine the implications of empire, violence, and materialism in American culture, Beale’s study is a useful foundation for demonstrating how American empire is an idol and how we - as its constituent idolaters - are disfigured as a result. Beale’s assessment of how idolatry affects the church today is predictably conservative (and not without a great deal of truth) but I don’t think it excludes a progressive slant. Does our worship of cheap “stuff” make us spiritually deaf to the cries of child labor, blind to the sweatshops of the third world? Does our worship of militarism make us a violent, uncharitable, neighbor-hating people, and will this eventually destroy us? Does our worship of “security” makes us deaf to the cries of Iraqi and Afghan peoples, blind to the suffering of the homeless on our streets and shut away from our communities?

Beale’s study is useful for laying the foundation for these arguments and will no doubt be a dog-eared reference to which I will frequently return.

Read Beale’s book, examine the Scriptures, pray feverently, and ask that God would give the church the charisma of prophecy against empire, materialism, sexual excess, apathy, hatred, and conflict, until the fullness of God’s Kingdom comes.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Hundreds of terrified Christian families have fled Mosul to escape extremist attacks that have increased despite months of U.S. and Iraqi military operations to secure the northern Iraqi city, political and religious officials said Saturday.

Some 3,000 Christians have fled the city over the past week alone in a “major displacement,” said Duraid Mohammed Kashmoula, the governor of northern Iraq’s Ninevah province. He said most have left for churches, monasteries and the homes of relatives in nearby Christian villages and towns.

“The Christians were subjected to abduction attempts and paid ransom, but now they are subjected to a killing campaign,” Kashmoula said, adding he believed “al-Qaida” elements were to blame and called for a renewed drive to root them out.

Political and religious leaders interviewed said the change in tactics may reflect a desire on the part of extremists to forcibly evict all Christians from Iraq’s third largest city.

Earlier this week, Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako said he was worried about what he termed a “campaign of killings and deportations against the Christian citizens in Mosul.”

Mosul police have reported finding the bullet-riddled bodies of seven Christians in separate attacks so far this month, the latest a day laborer found on Wednesday. On Saturday, militants blew up three abandoned Christian homes in eastern Mosul, police said.

Father Bolis Jacob of Mosul’s Mar Afram Church said he was at a loss to understand the violence. “We respect the Islamic religion and the Muslim clerics,” he said. “We don’t know under what religion’s pretexts these terrorists work.”

The violence in Mosul occurs despite U.S.-Iraqi operations launched over the summer aimed at routing al-Qaida in Iraq and other insurgents from remaining strongholds north of the capital.

The killings come as Christian leaders are lobbying parliament to pass a law setting aside a number of seats for minorities, such as Christians, in upcoming provincial elections, fearing they could be further marginalized in the predominantly Muslim country.

Iraq’s Christian community has been estimated at 3 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people, or about 800,000, and has a significant presence in the northern Ninevah province.

In Mosul, where Christians have lived for some 1,800 years, a number of centuries-old churches still stand.

Joseph Jacob, a professor at Mosul University, said there were nearly 20,000 Christians in the city before the 2003 U.S. invasion. But over half have since left for neighboring towns, or new countries, he said.

Islamic extremists have frequently targeted Christians since the invasion, forcing tens of thousands to flee Iraq. Attacks had tapered off amid a drastic decline in overall violence nationwide, but that appears to be changing with the deaths this month.

On Saturday, Bashir Azoz, a 45-year-old carpenter, said he was forced to flee his home in the city’s eastern Noor area after gunmen warned a neighbor the day before to leave or face death.

“Where is the government and its security forces as these crimes take place every day?” asked Azoz, who is now staying with his wife and three children in a monastery in the Christian-majority town of Qarqoush, east of Mosul.

Separately on Saturday, a U.S. soldier died when a bomb exploded near his vehicle outside Amarah, southeast of Baghdad. The U.S. military said it was withholding soldier’s name until it notified next of kin.

23 About that time no little disturbance broke out concerning the Way. ²⁴A man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the artisans. ²⁵These he gathered together, with the workers of the same trade, and said, “Men, you know that we get our wealth from this business. ²⁶You also see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods. ²⁷And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her.”

28 When they heard this, they were enraged and shouted, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” ²⁹The city was filled with the confusion; and people^c rushed together to the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s travel companions.    - Acts 19:23-29 (NRSV)

(my version of Acts 19…don’t get huffy I’m not translating from the Greek)

A man named Henry Paulson, a secretary who made decisions about currencies, brought no little business to the Senate. These he gathered together, with other wealthy men, and said “Listen everyone, I don’t like to mix in the market anymore than you do. De-regulation has served us well for some time. But you see, we’ve gotten ourselves into a bit of a mess. This market, it has served us well for some time and made us all rich and powerful. But, the market needs more - it’s hurting. And we can’t lose the business. Now, a number of so-called “progressives” are concerned about the mortgage crisis - remember those mortgages? Ah, they were good for us weren’t they? Well, now they’ve gone sour. And a number of folks are concerned that everyone is going to lose their homes and be out on the street. But, really gentlemen, I’m much more concerned that, if we don’t act quickly, they’ll not only lose their homes, but we’ll lose lots, and lots, and lots of money. And we don’t want to upset the market - it gives us all that power remember? So, I need you guys to help me out: tell all those bleeding hearts to shut up for a while, scare the nation into thinking that all will be lost, and pass this bill giving me a lot more power to make you and all our friends alot more rich. I know you are concerned now, but you’ll thank me in the long run.”

When they heard all this, they agreed and said “Great are the fudamentals of our economy!” The country was filled with confusion, and bills were hastily past, and many were left wondering what protection was out there for them.

A week later, everyone forgot and Paul went to Macedonia (Acts 20:1).

Here’s one by Chanequa Walker-Barnes on New Monasticism and White Privelege

Here’s one by Anthony Smith at Emergent Village on the tendency for “not voting” in progressive circles
Here are responses by Brian McClaren and David Fitch.

Then there’s this piece by Tim Wise on how white privelege is manifesting itself in the US presidential election.

“Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.” - Romans 14:1

Mark Van Steenwyk has written a series on “hipster” culture and what he calls the “style of subversion”, over at Jesus Manifesto. It’s great and I highly recommend it, it has been helpful for me (thanks Mark).

Something that struck me was in Part I, when Mark notes:

You see, I came of age in the mid 90s. The commodification of the counter-culture was well under way, but it could hardly be called mainstream yet. Because of this, most of the “alternative” folks that I knew were social outcasts, or at least were socially akward. Like me. To put it indelicately, most of the counter cultural types I knew weren’t academic enough to be nerds, weren’t athletic enough to be jocks, and weren’t attractive enough to be popular. The counter cultural types tended to hang out together with all the other lower-order social groupings. And since I was unpopular (in fact, one poll that the girls did in junior high put me as the 3rd from the bottom in the social pecking order).

So, my brain was confounded by what I saw at PAPA Fest. Most of the 20 something crowd was attractive. There were young men aplenty with chiseled, shirtless, chest throwing footballs in a perfect spiral to other young men with similarly perfectly chiseled chests. In fact, if it weren’t for their dreads, I would swear that they were jocks.

Mark goes on to say:

Members of a majority or dominant group may (perhaps) achieve alterity by being ostracized as a subversive or deviant. However, we live in a culture where it is easy for mainstream twenty-somethings (and younger) to embrace the style of subversion. And because they speak a certain lingo, wear certain clothes, and use certain products, it is socially understood that these stylish subversives care about social outcasts, the poor, and the downtrodden, even if no tangible evidence exists of that care. In other words: it is great when people begin to challenge the status quo as they pursue justice and mercy, but how excited should we be when it is very easy in our society to look, sound, and act radical without it costing anything?

Even more, what happens when hipsterism gets so tied into consumer capitalism (you know: Messenger Bags, Hot Topic, Ipod, Apple, Moleskine, American Apparel…) that you become a radical in appearance, but a profound reinforcer of the status quo in your way of life?

I want to take this in an entirely different direction than Mark might have taken it but his thoughts got me thinking. Up until two years ago, I was a fat guy. I was 6′3 and 280 pounds. I was not healthy and it had a lot to do with a cycle of poor body image mixed with eating to feel better and drinking alcohol excessively to forget how hopelessly unattractive I felt.

But a couple of years ago, I was called by Christ, and have lost a lot of weight and stopped drinking heavily (no… this is not one of those “testimonies”, I’m just telling it like it happened).

However, I have always considered myself radical, in the sense that I have always had a pretty radical political orientation, have rarely gotten involved with liberal vs. conservative debates, I spent several fighting in the anti-sweatshop movement, battled my university administration to pay low-income janitors a living wage, and continue to fight for grassroots economic justice in one of the poorest cities in the country. And I am pretty up to speed on “counter culture” music, art, literature, movies, etc.

However, after the past few weeks, I realized something: I can’t “dress” like a radical.

There is an expectation among some radicals who are pre-occupied with personal politics that you should, ya know, support your local Amvets or Salvation Army (without realizing where they are spending their money - some of which is on sketchy right-wing political causes).  The idea being that one should not support “big business” clothing that is generally sourced from maquilladoras and sweatshops. In a strange way, this psuedo alterity has a real consequence in my life: I am expected to find second-hand clothes that fit me.

So, this past week, I went to my friendly neighborhood Amvets, which was recently rated by our city’s “hip” weekly magazine Artvoice as the “Best Thrift Store” in the city. In other words, you can find some really kitschy stuff there.

Well I went to this Amvets and attempted to find clothes. Unfortunately, I’ve never really had a sense of fashion. And I don’t consider myself sell-out bourgeois mainstream Ralph Lauren-weaing jock idiot and neither would most folks that I know. But when I see my skinny vegan friends in their women’s pants (so they can challenge gender identity) that they got in the kid’s section at Amvets and a second-hand Dickies plaid shirt, I feel the expectation to dress in the same sort of uniform. So I searched out pants, searching….searching…. and after looking for 3 hours and trying on 15 pairs of pants, I found what I thought were “cool” and “vintage” khaki pants that I would look “good” in.

Well I brought them home and tried them on for my girlfriend and a couple other friends. The fact of the matter was, the pants I bought, simply didn’t fit. I looked really uncomfortable. The pants looked shrunken and small. I didn’t look “hip”, and I certainly didn’t look mainstream, I just looked silly.

I felt really defeated. Because I tried really hard to find clothes that would be “just” and “fair” and also fit me ok.

So I went to Target (gasp!) and bought store-brand khakis for $15 a pair (gasp!) and they fit ok.

The moral of the story is this: Though I have lost about 60 pounds in the past 1 1/2 years, I certainly am not small like all those hipster boys, I don’t have that body, I don’t have that look. I look comfortable in a big button-down shirt and some regular old jeans/pants and dress shoes. I look awkward in nike shoes that are yellow, neon green and blue and a band t-shirt that is a size too small and women’s size jeans. In other words, I am an outcast from the look of the “other”.

When we tell people they should shop at thrift stores, do we pay attention to their - or our own - body size and shape? Or do we expect those who aren’t skinny and fashionable to fit an “alternative” expectation that they simply can’t meet? And would you pass judgement on a guy who wears hiked up jeans and a dress shirt, assuming he isn’t radical?

Just a few things to think about.

I am new to the Church, as many of you know if you have read any of my previous posts. Therefore, I am constantly grappling with the Church, in ways that I think are different from those of folks who are inside the Church and have grown up in it. A number of folks who have grown up in the Church have had to grapple with the way the Church has treated them in the past and heal from a lot of wounds. Often, I think those wounds stem from how the church teaches its people - as the way the people are taught guides how they act and how they respond to issues of faith.

With that in mind, I have one thing to say that I think gripes me about Church teaching: I have found that the Church teaching on the Prophets is inadequate. As I see it, either the church underteaches the Prophets, ignores them all together, or just picks out those bits which prophesize the coming of Christ. But, I mean, really, when was the last time you heard a sermon on Haggai? And if you have, please let me know so I can start visiting your church!

All that said, there is a great deal of understanding to be gleaned from the Prophets that is simply left aside by the Church. I understand the challenges of reading from the Prophets: 1) You have to talk alot about context, and some folks get bored to death by history, geography, and culture; 2) the Prophets have some really condeming language at times which doesn’t make for an uplifting Bible study; 3) the Prophets are poets and (for some reason) we think poetry is hard.

Therefore, too often our literacy with respect to the Prophets is pretty low. Rarely will someone sit down and read all of Isaiah. Wait, that’s being nice - rarely will anyone sit down and read all of Joel. Coupled with poor church teaching, one is left with little to turn to with respect to truly understanding the Prophets in relationship to the history and worship of ancient Israel.

Therefore, for those who have to supplement a lack of Church teaching - though I would appreciate thoughts on how to incorporate more sound, biblical social justice teachings into sermons - one could turn to a commentary. But commentaries can be pretty intense, and not everyone has the time to go through one scholar’s 250 pages of thoughts on a particular prophet.

Therefore, I recommend volume 4 of the Exploring the Old Testament series by J. Gordon McConville. Dr. McConville is a former professor of OT and Hebrew at Wycliffe Hall at Oxford and currently teaches at University of Gloucestershire in England. He is well known for his commentaries on Deutoronomy and the prophets, many of which have been published by Intervarsity Press.

This book is a good way to introduce yourself to the biblical books - to get some historical and cultural context along with theological grounding. Because - *gasp* - guess what? All the prophets have different themes! Yes, that’s right, kids, the Word of God is diverse - hallelujah! Each prophet spoke to a different audience (which McConville identifies) at a different time, in different places, with different messages. So, to have McConville’s explanation of these differences is helpful. He even helps you understand a bit of the redaction of the books; redaction being the idea that many of the prophetic books were edited at different times to reflect themes pertinent to the people who were contemporary to the editors. This is different than the idea that the books were changed to reflect someone else’s agenda; no, rather, the books were simply compiled and edited in such a way that they could speak idiomatically to the their audience.

McConville starts by dating the books - then takes the time to describe what is happening in different units of scripture. He will point out signiicant sections from a book - maybe 5 or 6 verses - and give a paragraph-long descritpion of what is going on in that particular part of the book.

McConville even traces the history of modern scholarship on the Prophets. In his commentary on Jeremiah in the critical interpretation section that is at the beginning of the chapter, McConville notes how modern scholars began to view Jeremiah as a collection of poems and prose sermons. This is helpful for understanding the different thematic units that emerge from the Prophetic books.

Picking out certain challenging pieces of the text, McConville puts in boxes some sections that are called “Think About” sections. These provide an opportunity to reflect on a passage of scripture a bit more deeply. This kind of formatting is also helpful for someone who doesn’t want to read lengthy chapters on these books but rather pick and choose parts of chapters and apply them to the reading of the Bible.

McConville’s commentaries are concise and also reflect a real understanding of the literature of the prophetic material. Many of these books are poems - God spoke to the prophets in poetry! He spends some chapters discussing the poetry of the differnt prophetic books, which, I think, is a good reminder that God spurs us on to artistic creativity.

A literary understanding of the books is so important for understanding the vitality and continued richness of the metaphors and symbols used by the prophets. The ancient prophets, with their use of symbolic imagery, call us to this same kind of imagery - what are our symbols today to expose war, poverty, greed, injustice? Have our symbols been lost? Has the symbol been killed by the grotesqueness of media warfare, of denuded response to poverty, of deep greed? NO! The prophets reclaim imagery to shock the people into thinking differently. For example, when Ezekiel reports that God calls Sodom the sister of Israel:

‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. (16:49)

This would have shocked the people of Israel - to be called kin to Sodom. Could we be kin to Sodom? Is this metaphor as vibrant to us as it was to the Israelites? And, moreover, God doesn’t say that he killed Sodom because they were sexually devious, but rather economically devious and arrogant. Yikes for us.

But I’ve strayed a bit. I want to come back to McConville’s text and wrap this up. Here’s what I think lacks in this “textbook” if you will:

1) Too much of a “first-world” focus. McConville provides a bibliography of other sources to turn to at the end of each chapter - almost all scholars appear to be Euro-American - which could be the limitations of English-langauge scholarship, or the limitations of McConville’s continentalism. I’m not sure which

2) Very little political commentary. When I search out the sections of scripture that speak so boldly from a social justice perspective, McConville doesn’t have much to say. Yet, this might be ok, considering I’m not sure I’d be too impressed with the political commentary of an Oxford biblical scholar.

3) This isn’t really a lack, but at times McConville spends a great deal of time talking about the “Dueteronomistic” aspects of the Prophets - meaning, the theological understanding stemming primarily from Deutronomy. This is McConville’s scholarly pre-occupation to begin with, so it’s not surprising. However, I’m not sure I’m terribly interested in the idea. Again, personal preference, it might speak to you quite a bit.

In the end, if I had to give this a rating on a scale of 1 to 5, I’d give it a 3.8. I think it’s a great introduction, and I would highly recommend it to folks intending to do some group study on the Prophets - which I would also recommend, particularly at the height of the current American empire, we could use some good study of the Prophets to find ways to enunciate a prophetic perspective to our contemporaries. A great book, but I think should be supplemented at some point with some political and theological interpretations as well. For political interpretations, investigate Daniel Berrigan’s commentaries/meditations on the prophets such as Daniel, Ezekiel, and Isaiah. He also has some commentaries on Job and Kings which I hear are quite good. And, for a good theological survey, check out Abraham Joshua Heschel’s two volumes called The Prophets.

So, if this is something you have heard before or there is some technical term for what I am describing, then just bear with me.

I found an interesting trend in the way that some folks interpret scripture. It seems to me that there are two ways of evaluating scripture that I hear often and both approaches a troubling.

The framework generally goes like this:

1) This passage of scripture says “x,y,z”, I agree with it, therefore it is true.
Here’s an example:

” Genesis 9:6 states that a man who sheds anothers blood shall also have his blood shed. Therefore, the death penalty is ethical from a Christian standpoint.”

2) This passage of scripture says “x,y,z,”, I don’t agree with it, therefore, we must look at the context.
Here’s an example:

(someone retorts to the above)
“John 8’s account of the woman about to be stoned demonstrates that Jesus is against the death penalty”
(guy for the death penalty retorts)
“We must look at the context. The woman was an adulteress, not a murderer. Therefore, the death penalty is still ok.”

Do you see what I’m trying to get at here? In the first example, the interpreter jumps past the rest of scripture to make a claim that is totally out of the context of all of scripture, but then when challenged, he appeals to the context.

And yet, some things from scripture must stand as independent truths. They may be enriched by the context, but certainly the context doesn’t need to be a necessary component. “Blessed are the peacemakers” comes to mind as a possibility.

Anyone else run into similar struggles with biblical interpretation along these lines? Or is it just me?

At any rate, if nothing else, the whole charade has produced a number of interesting responses; I was particularly struck by the series that NPR did on black liberation theology. I think it was a thoughtful way to approach the Jeremiah Wright scandal: they asked the question “where is he coming from?”, and set out to find the answer. If you are interested, I have linked below a number of radio pieces on black liberation theology, particularly interesting is the interview with James Cone, a founding thinker in the black liberation theology movement.

Black Liberation Theology, in its Founder’s Words

The Roots of Black Liberation Theology***

Religious Scholars Discuss Liberation Theology

Understanding Rev. Jeremiah Wright

And here is a great video of a Catholic priest who was stopped on the street by a Fox News team to question him about why he was having Rev. Wright speak at his parish. This priest then goes on to basically own the Fox News reporter and give one of the better interviews I’ve ever seen on Fox News.

Fox News Owned by Catholic Priest

Edit: Here’s King’s Riverside speech, which is a shining example of prophetic liberation theology.

MLK’s Riverside Speech

And here’s Archbishop Romero’s Last Speech as well.

*** I finally figured out which program it was that had this issue: check out “The Roots of Black Liberation Theology” and listen long enough for the callers. A queer woman calls around the 22nd minute and questions these theologians on how they view inclusion in terms of sexual identity.

I would like to propose that, for the mutual edification of everyone on the blog, and for my own curiousity, that we share - via comments on this post - some of the blogs we frequent.

If you have a few blogs that you think are high quality and cover issues that you think are important (or even news sites), then please share those blogs in the comments here.

I think if we all are able to know what others are reading, we will be able to better understand each other and understand what issues are important to YAR authors.

Thanks!

Many of you remember my post from a few months ago on what is currently happening in the Gaza strip in the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

The above image comes from last Thursday, when Israeli military killed over 20 people in one day during fighting in the Gaza strip. 14 of those deaths happened in Central Gaza, and five of those killed were under 16 years old. The image depicts an unnamed Palestinian boy, in what is probably the last moment in his life. He was hit by Israeli tank fire while standing amongst a Reuters TV crew - with vehicles clearly marked as a media crew - that lost a cameraman whose name was Fadel Shana.

This is a link to a video from Fadel Shana’s camera. It is of an Israeli tank in the distance firing a shell at the TV crew - again, a clearly marked vehicle. You will see, just before the video goes black, a secondary explosion in the upper part of the screen. This is the shell cartridge as it explodes, shooting thousands of lethal antipersonnel darts (”flechettes”) into the bodies of Fadel Shana and three Palestinian bystanders, two of them boys.

Here is a link to the NY Times coverage of the fighting that day. Note the comments of Israeli Army spokeswoman Leibovich:

Asked about the many civilian casualties, Maj. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli Army spokeswoman, said the military had struck an armed group. “It could be that civilians were nearby; it would not be the first time,” she said.

Major Leibovich said that if a cameraman had been killed, “we apologize for that.”

“It was not intentional,” she said, adding that journalists took a risk by operating in fighting zones.

Some may not like my reading into this, but I don’t really care. The assumptions behind the rhetoric ring true. If a cameraman dies as a result of a direct attack of a media crew - then the Israeli army is “sorry”. When civilians die, “it wouldn’t be the first time”. The Israeli army is not sorry when Palestinian boys riding their bikes in Central Gaza get killed by attacks on civilian/press targets that are in direct violation of international law.

Moreover, the killing of Fadel Shana was “not intentional” - though it would seem the video proves otherwise - yet, giving Leibovich the benefit of the doubt, what is she saying by implication? Fadel Shana’s killing was “not intentional”, but the deaths of those boys…that was intentional. Or, if I wanted to play nice about it, they simply aren’t important. They are like “refuse in the streets” (as Isaiah put it).

^1:2 Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you “Violence!” and will you not save?

^1:4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted. (Habakkuk, NJB)

I hear lots of Christians decrying violence in Kenya - cuz, ya know, there are missionaries there. It’s a “save-able” country.
I haven’t heard much Christian response to the remarks made by Israeli deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai that if Hamas does not stop its rocket fire, then it will be in for a big shoah and Israel will defend itself at all costs.

What does shoah mean? Well, it can be translated as “big disaster”. But, for most folks who speak Hebrew, shoah generally means holocaust. It is almost exclusively used to describe the mass extermination of the Jews during World War II, and certainly it would not be used by a high ranking official in public for any other reason.

Did he mean a “big disaster”? No, I don’t think so, not any more than a homophobic bigot calls someone a “fag” and means “cigarette”. He meant holocaust.

Holocaust. Just roll that around in your brain a little. He was encouraging genocide. There’s no getting around that. Israeli government officials are toppling over themselves to marginalize Vilnai, but his comments are probably much more reflective of Israeli officials thoughts then they want everybody else to know.

For those unfamiliar with what is happening, let’s start from the (most recent) beginning. Because of rocket fire that had come from Gaza last year, on September 19, 2007, the Israeli security cabinet unanimously declared all of Gaza an “enemy entity”. As a result, the Israeli Occupation Forces were given the ability to do what was basically already in place: cut off the borders and all supplies coming in/going out of Gaza.

As reported by Gaza Community Mental Health Programme Director Eyad Al Sarraj on January 17th before the IOF cut off all electric power to Gaza:

[The] Israeli military establishment decided to stop power supply and fuel to Gaza. Since Thursday, food and humanitarian aid are not allowed in. Very soon life will come to a standstill. Water will not be pumped for a even drink. My step-son is on ventilator for asthma every night. What will happen to him when our generator is not running anymore? What will happen to hospitals, vaccines and blood banks? What will happen to patients on dialysis machines, and to babies in incubators?

Before it is dark and when there is no communication with the world, I want to tell you that the current Israeli policy of squeezing [Gaza] has the aim of pushing Egypt to open its borders with Gaza and bring the situation to [Egyptian occupation as it was] prior 1967. Israel will then close its borders with Gaza, separate the Strip from the West bank, and destroy the peace proposals of one state or two states. In short, Israel is fulfilling the Sharon unilateral withdrawal strategy. If Egypt fails to open its borders with Gaza, Israel will push us through Rafah towards the Sinai desert. Wait for the exodus.

Right now, what could ostensibly be called “refugees” are flooding the border with Egypt looking for any basic supplies they can get: food, water, etc. Meanwhile, Gaza lives in darkness. And with the constant bombardment of missile-strikes

Hamas, three days ago, sent rockets into the town of Sderot, killing one Israeli student. Since then, Israeli military forces have killed 30 Palestinians. Civilians for the most part.

Perhaps, as the sun sets in Gaza, the darkness can hide the suffering of shoah. Yet, with each rising day, there is a chance to bring injustice to light in the rays of the morning sun and to demand an end to oppression and a commitment to reconciliation.

If you feel under-educated on Israel-Palestine, feel free to visit the following sites. I make no attempt at “objectivity” or comprehensiveness. I have no love for suicide bombings or rocket launchers that Hamas funds; I neither have any sympathy for a multi-billion dollar military murdering children. Yet, I think the voices of the poor, homeless, and oppressed - usually the Palestinians in this case - go unheard in the public debate.

The Gun and the Olive Branch by David Hirst - a primer on the history of Palestine-Israel since the early 20th century until 9-11.

Electronic Intifada - Updated daily with commentary from Middle East analysts and activists.

B’tselem - Israeli Human Rights Organization

Al-Haq - Documents War Crimes in Palestine

Al-Mezan - Palestinian Human Rights Organization

Edit: More Resources on Israel-Palestine below

American Evangelicals Letter to President Bush on Israel- Palestine

Human Rights Watch: Civilians Bear Brunt of Attacks in Gaza/Israel

Amnesty International: Israel Must Allow Basic Necessities Into Gaza

Amnesty International: Israeli Army Destroys Palestinian Homes

Amnesty Int. Report: Enduring Occupation, June 2007

Yesh Din: Human Rights Workers Documenting Law Enforcement and Military Law in Palestine

Sabeel - Palestinian Liberation Theology

Update, Saturday March 1: Two IOF Soliders and 59 Palestinians (at least 29 of which were civilians, 5 children) were killed today in gun fire in the streets of Jabaliya in the Gaza Strip. Go to Israeli daily news site Ha’aretz to read more.

1) Rich

2) Sheltered

3) Spiteful of “sinners”

I will, of course, say “Amen”, “Amen” and “Amen”, provided the caveat that this refers mostly to North American suburban Christians - and, in the global scheme of Christendom, this is a small portion of the body of Christ.

I mention this because I sometimes wonder when we take on a prophetic voice to critique Christians for the above errors, if not this critique itself issues forth from a privileged and ethnocentric perspective.

For example, I am a Christian living in an urban zip code where about 1 in 3 people are living in poverty (I am that 1 in the 3 as well), and much of those in poverty are concentrated in the blocks surrounding my apartment. The city where I live was declared the second poorest city in the U.S. this past August by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Christians I meet are former hustlers and addicts who were redeemed and called by Christ to live out the gospel. The Christians I meet are not rich. A lot of Christians I meet are homeless alcoholics (and that’s a small percentage of the homeless population, mind you) who preach better sermons on grace than most reformed Christians. The Christians I meet are quick to point out their past sins and are awed at the gift that Christ has given them through his death and resurrection to reconcile them to God and forgive their sins.

Therefore, if you were to say to them that the Christian “status quo” that needs to be repented from is being “rich, sheltered, and spiteful of sinners”, they would probably be curious who you were refering to. Moreover, would this critique of the Christian “status quo” equally apply to the millions of believers in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia?

I think too often North American Christians think they are the only ones out there, except maybe those Catholics in Europe (but, aren’t they a cult that prays to Mary?)

Let us not forget that the “Christian status quo” is not any of the above mentioned characteristics; and so one should be careful when applying a generalization like that upon everyone.

The Christian message must always be spoken idiomatically; therefore, the only shared truth and hope we proclaim is Christ’s crucifixion (1 Corinthians 2:2); from there, we must recognize that what is in the heart of each believer and what is in their past is different, particularly across socioeconomic divides.

Reviews are already rolling out and I highly suggest to all of you that you see the film if you are able. I have been anticipating this one for quite some time. Los Angeles Times movie reviewer Kenneth Turan describes the moral underpinnings of the film:

The story of stolen drug money and the horrific carnage it precipitates, “No Country for Old Men” doesn’t celebrate or smile at violence, it despairs of it, despairs of its randomness, pervasiveness, its inescapable nature, of the way it eats at the soul of society and the individuals in it.

No one should go into “No Country for Old Men” underestimating the unnerving intensity of its moments of on-screen violence, its parade of corpses and geysers of spurting blood. But as the story unfolds with the awful inevitability of a modern myth, it’s clear that the Coen brothers and McCarthy are not interested in violence for its own sake but for what it says about the world we happen to live in. “I got it under control,” a confident deputy says, and in moments he is dead. He didn’t have anywhere near the mastery he imagined, and in this truly despairing vision, neither does anyone else.

Commenting on the transience of life - particularly in the context of the war in Iraq, AIDS crises in Africa, and the genocide in Darfur - is an apt reflection on our current condition.
I think ‘No Country for Old Men’ will turn out to be a ghastly film filled with horrid violence. But that’s it’s exactly why it should be seen by Americans - who too often forget that war entails blowing someone’s head off, repeatedly. This is a call to renewal in our understanding of the depravity of violence, to understanding exactly what violence means: without romantic, cathartic, or exciting character.

Watch the Trailer here

I serve as a full-time volunteer with an agency that coordinates homeless services. I thought a reflection on poverty would be apt, particularly given that we don’t have a “poverty” category yet on this blog.
Nehemiah 5 (NIrV)

1 Some men and their wives cried out against their Jewish brothers and sisters. 2 Some of them were saying, “We and our sons and daughters have increased our numbers. Now there are many of us. We have to get some grain so we can eat and stay alive.”

3 Others were saying, “We’re being forced to sell our fields, vineyards and homes. We have to do it to buy grain. There isn’t enough food for everyone.”

4 Still others were saying, “We’ve had to borrow money. We needed it to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards. 5 We belong to the same family lines as the rest of our people. Our sons and daughters are as good as theirs. But we’ve had to sell them off as slaves. Some of our daughters have already been made slaves. But we can’t do anything about it. That’s because our fields and vineyards now belong to others.”

6 I heard them when they cried out. And I burned with anger when I heard what they were saying. 7 I thought it over for a while. Then I brought charges against the nobles and officials. I told them, “You are forcing your own people to pay too much interest!”

So I called together a large group of people to handle the matter. 8 I said, “Our Jewish brothers and sisters were sold to other nations. We’ve done everything we could to buy them back and bring them home. But look at what you are doing! You are actually selling your own people! Now we’ll have to buy them back too!”

The people kept quiet. They couldn’t think of anything to say.

9 So I continued, “What you are doing isn’t right. Shouldn’t you show respect for our God? Shouldn’t you live in a way that will keep our enemies from making fun of us?

10 “I’m lending the people money and grain. So are my relatives and my men. But you must stop charging too much interest!

11 “Give the people’s fields back to them. Give them back their vineyards, olive groves and houses. Do it right away. You have charged them too much. Give everything back to them. Give them back the one percent on the money, grain, fresh wine and olive oil you have charged them.”

12 “We’ll give it back,” they said. “And we won’t require anything more from them. We’ll do exactly as you say.”

Then I sent for the priests. I made the nobles and officials take an oath to do what they had promised. 13 I also shook out my pockets and emptied them. I said, “Some of you might decide not to keep the promise you have made. If that happens, may God shake you out of your house! May he empty you of everything you own! May you be left with nothing at all!”

The whole community said, “Amen.” They praised the Lord. And the leaders did what they had promised to do.

14 And that’s not all. I was appointed as governor of Judah in the 20th year that Artaxerxes was king of Persia. I remained in that position until his 32nd year. During those 12 years, I and my relatives didn’t eat the food that was provided for my table.

15 But there had been governors before me. They had put a heavy load on the people. They had taken a pound of silver from each of them. They had also taken food and wine from them. Their officials had acted like high and mighty rulers over them.

But I have great respect for God. So I didn’t act like that. 16 Instead, I spent all of my time working on this wall. All of my men were gathered there to work on it too. We didn’t receive any land for ourselves.

17 Many people ate at my table. They included 150 Jews and officials. They also included leaders who came to us from the nations that were around us. 18 Each day one ox, six of the best sheep and some birds were prepared for me. Every ten days plenty of wine of all kinds was brought in as well. In spite of all that, I never asked for the food that was provided for my table. That’s because the people were already paying too many taxes.

19 You are my God. Please remember me. Show me your favor. Keep in mind everything I’ve done for these people.

Three things strike me about this passage. The first is how similar this situation is to the situation of those experiencing poverty and homelessness in America. Often, we will look at those who achieved more than us - make more money than us - and say “oh, well, they must have had a family connection” or something of that nature. But when it comes to those who are poor we say “well, they just aren’t working hard enough”. Because we all know in our hearts how hard we work to make ends meet.

Yet, just like Nehemiah’s Jewish brothers and sisters, many people in America face rising costs of living and don’t see much of an increase in their pay. Therefore, many of them have to choose between paying for their home or paying for their food. When it comes down to it, we know which of those is going to get paid for. No matter how hard they work, they can’t make it by. Sometimes, this is the result of debt. Debt to hospitals, when trips were made for illness without insurance (because minimum wage jobs don’t provide it), student loan debt, mortgage, car loans, credit card debt, etc. And often these come with soaring interest rates. Our whole system of money is based on credit, trust, and interest. It is an evil system, it is a pagan system.
The second thing that strikes me is that Nehemiah didn’t try to just feed his brothers and sisters. He didn’t give money to charity. He went directly to those oppressing his people and said “STOP!”. He addressed those directly in power and advocated for a response. And they listened because what he said was truth.

The third thing that strikes me is just how good Nehemiah is. He wouldn’t fight the oppression of his brothers and sisters and then contribute to it by receiving the benefits of the government which taxed them unfairly. He simply did what was right in the eyes of God: just like Dorothy Day, just like Dietrich Bonhoffer, just like Martin Luther King, just like Michael Sattler and the early Anabaptists. Nehemiah refused land, food, and payment from the government he served.

Sometimes, when fighting poverty, we can get mired in a lot of theory and half-truths about the nature of the mission. It’s all about charity; or, we just need to “teach a man to fish” (nothing I hate more than that phrase). No. These answers are in the right direction, but they are incomplete. Martin Luther King once said “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar…it is recognizing that an edifice which creates beggars needs restructuring”. May we all have this compassion, God willing.

And then I spent some time in the church, and found that faith can smolder even among Mennonites. Despite a great theological understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit, I rarely hear Mennonites talk about the Spirit in their lives. Though preaching pacifism, some Mennonite lives out passive-ism. And still others cling to an ethnic identity which, while certainly important to heritage, is also exclusionary for those folks who don’t share that history.

I found this blog and thought perhaps it could be a helpful spiritual outlet for me. And, indeed, it has been.

But even us folks I think warrant a bit of constructive criticism, which I do submit comes from within my limited worldview, so take it with a grain of salt. YAR ain’t perfect. I may love this space, but I don’t unflaggingly support it. In the upcoming year, I would suggest the following to be considered by us folks:
1) Polarizing arguments are, well, polarizing and not constructive.
Polarizing arguments tend to lead to polarizing debates between two really impassioned people writing comments at 1am while they finish a paper on Russian Mennonites and their relationship to borscht. Everybody else gets drowned out or tired by the back and forth and then we have a post on the same issue two weeks later with two new people contributing their vitriol to the debate. It’s really tiring. Try to be more inviting with your debates, and never assume that your word is the final word on the subject.

2) If you are arguing something pretty conservative or pretty radical, “check yourself before you wreck yourself”.
I’ve encountered folks on this blog espousing conservative ethics and theology without feeling the need to explain themselves because their argument should be self-evident. I’ve encountered folks using incredibly radical arguments that throw scripture out the window despite the fact that, in my estimation, the supremacy of the Bible is key in the development of Anabaptist thought. Feel free to argue that one till the cows come home (because it can be argued), but you are definitely in the fringe of Anabaptists at that point. If you want your argument to be compelling for the majority of folks who don’t agree with you, at least try to reconcile your argument with the Bible in some way.And for folks with a conservative argument: you can be very selective with scripture. Don’t cite a verse and then say “see - that’s the Word, and it’s true” because I guarantee you can be proved wrong by another book. That’s the beauty of the Bible.

3) Your theology sounds great: can you help me understand it even a little?
I’m just as guilty as the next on this one: spewing forth some kind lofty theology with big words learned in a Christology class at seminary X. Dense concepts don’t need dense arguments: they need simplified arguments. If you are able to explain a dense theology with simple arguments, you’ve proven you understand it way more than if you use dense arguments. Please try to keep this in mind.

4) In the next year, do we need 28 more posts on LGBTQ?
I think Skylark noted something significant when addressing our underdeveloped topics. Most of the comments I’ve written on this blog have been defending/elaborating LGBTQ inclusion. However, there’s a great blog doing the exact same thing, and probably a lot better than we could: Coming Out Strong. Maybe we should be encouraging the work they do by engaging the issues there rather than trying to own it here. I’m not suggesting a moratorium on posting on the topic, but let’s be conscious of the fact that we may be spending so much time on this simply because it’s controversial and not because we’re getting to any productive or life-giving point with the discussion.

5) Encourage sound dialgoue, not simply controversial flaming.
I can’t think of simple tactics for this beyond real intellectual vigor, respect for others contributing on the blog, and being open to new ideas.

Given that, I’m curious what you YAR’s out there think. Here’s your assignment:

1) Find an example in our archives of what you feel was a sound, enriching dialogue on YAR
2) Post a comment with the link to that dialogue/post.
3) In the comment, tell us why you think it was a good dialogue

I’m sure among our archives we could even find one or two somewhat constructive discussions on LGBTQ. I look forward to hearing from you all.