It’s been eight years since we last looked forward to an imminent change in administration in Washington. Let’s see, Republicans were going to bring back honor and respect to the White House. Republicans would cure the recession rising out a of burst bubble on Wall Street.
Republicans would bring national security—after all, an American ship had been attacked and nearly sunk while at anchor near the mouth of the Persian Gulf just the previous year. American planes flew over Iraq day and night with the constant threat of escalation. A perfectly horrible regime had taken over Afghanistan, but it seemed to be no immediate threat to us.
There was incessant violence between Israel and the Palestinian political island on either side of it—Gaza and the West Bank. A collapse of Asiatic equities and finance had roiled the world financial markets.
Oh, yes, and eight years ago there was a whiff of political scandal. A state big enough to decide an election with a presidential candidate’s brother as governor had thrown out ballots on a scale not seen since the days of “Landslide Lyndon” in Texas (in 1948, a Supreme Court justice had ordered 20,000 paper ballots, clearly tampered with, to remain sealed—and Lyndon Johnson had squeaked into the Senate by 67 votes, as the boxes of suspect ballots lay in a Texas courtroom sealed by Federal Court order).
And, just as it had made a senator and future president in ’48, the Court of 2000 had made an immediate president. But that’s the fun of American politics—they are often more entertaining to watch than Newman and Redford in “The Sting”.
Those of us of a conservative Republican bent breathed more easily now that a respectable and decent fellow Christian Republican had taken office. Then came 911 and a clearly unthought-out military response. We were in reflex mode, writhing in pain as we watched two proud symbols of American economic ascendancy come crashing down.
Then came another economic bubble. (Oh but how the last few administrations had boasted of giving every American his own hugely overpriced and over leveraged home—whether that family could afford it or not.) And as we come to the end of this administration the whole unregulated house of cards that we had held up as a model to an envious the world came crashing down.
Decades of self-delusion (by no means exclusively Republican!!) and fantasy came crashing down upon us. Our mightiest corporations are left gasping for the last few molecules of oxygen in their air tanks. Only federal giveaways—from as laissez-faire a President we’ve had in the White House since the 1920s—seem able to delay the debacle.
But—but—but think back to the end of 2000, going into an inauguration month just ahead. Many of us were as optimistic then as many of us our now. We have a new President coming in. He will fix everything—make us safe without violating the Constitution, restore honor to the White House, for he’s a decent family man with an attractive wife and two fetching daughters.
See how he’s gathering around himself a team of experienced advisors from previous successful administrations? Surely these men will know how to reverse the damage done to the Federal Emergency Management Agency when it was folded into a bloated Homeland Security Agency! Just as Bush’s team of experienced advisors from previous administrations saved us during the past eight years.
No more Katrinas, no more collapsing banks or brokerages, no more endless war in the Middle East, no more bankrupt giants like General Motors, a return to total American dominance with unchallenged financial and military hegemony—which is what many of the miracles promised by Obama and his team will require. (Bush needed—and was cruelly denied—the same thing.)
But most importantly, most importantly of all, with such wise men in place watching over us, THIS TIME nothing unexpected like some commandeered jet liners flying into the Pentagon or the World Trade Center will ever happen.
What could possibly come out of nowhere, totally unexpectedly (expect, perhaps, for an ignored memo or two from a couple of low level bureaucrats who never caught anyone’s ear or eye) with a fine, church going gentleman like George Bu—oops, with a fine, church going gentleman like Barrack Obama on guard?
Promises get overturned by events (sometimes even by guile or what is left unsaid). Remember the three men who got elected in the Twentieth Century by the simple, clear promise to keep us safely out of war? Wilson (1916—at war by 1917), Roosevelt (1940—at war by 1941) and Johnson (1964—at war by 1965).
We didn’t know what was coming in 2000. We don’t know what’s coming in 2009. Perhaps that’s a blessing, if ignorance truly is bliss. But something unexpected will come. That is certain, that is sure. In a world full of pirates, terrorists, and competitors with economic clout like nothing we’ve seen in over a century, it may very well not be fun.
I wish I could be sure that having Barrack Obama in office is really going to make a whole, big lot of difference. I don’t honestly think that having Lincoln, Roosevelt or Washington in office next year would make a whole, big lot of difference.
Always remember what Napoleon asked when he was vetting a candidate for a job in his government. He let his underlings check into the man’s education, experience, previous successes and failures. Napoleon only had one question: “Is he lucky?”
We may need more help from Luck and Providence than we’re going to get from all the ability and experience in the world.
Happy New Year.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Monday, December 29, 2008
Slavery--Unfinished Business
Barrack Obama looks back for inspiration to Abraham Lincoln. Fair enough: the Great Emancipator and our first black president. So why doesn’t Obama take up the issue that so bedeviled Mr. Lincoln’s presidency—the issue of human slavery. After all, the Associated Press reports, there are still approximately 10,000 human slaves working in bondage in the United States.
The AP goes on to say that the State Department reports that children from 33 of Africa’s 53 countries were sent out to work as slaves just last year. Slaves from ten or more African countries were sent to work in either Europe or the US. Nobody knows exactly how many.
The United Nations, Interpol and American intelligence sources are unable to come up with a figure for exactly how large it might be. The slave dealing is done very secretively. A poor father approaches a wealthy member of his society and offers them the services of a daughter he can no longer afford to feed.
At nine or ten, the girl becomes a house slave. She may work for up to twenty hours a day, seven days a week. Her family may even be paid a pittance for her services. But she has no freedom, no education; she sometimes may not even use the same spoons her masters eat with.
She wears old castoffs, is often made to sleep in the garage with the family vehicles; the families do not even call her by name. She is simply the servant, the girl, or “stupid”. If, like a nine-year-old she makes a blunder, she will likely be beaten.
When the enslaving family moves to a western nation like the United States, she is simply brought along to do the vacuuming, washing, dish washing and cleaning in the new home. Now she will not be able to see or communicate with her real family—which stays back in Africa.
This African slave trade goes back thousands of years. The ancient Greeks had black slaves—and copied down the stories the slaves told their children. The called them Black Fables—or Aesop’s Fables. In the Eighth Century, Muslim slavers sailed down the East Coast of Africa and began the slave trade that Europeans bought into for labor in the Americas.
The French invaded North Africa to stop piracy; the British occupied the Sudan and East Africa to stop the slave trade once and for all. By 1900 they had defeated the Mahdi’s forces and his slaver allies and ended the last vestiges of African slavery—so they thought.
It didn’t stay stopped. Britain was finally forced out of its East African colonies by 1960, and slavery immediately resumed. There was an insatiable thirst among the wealthy in the Arab world for house slaves. An African Muslim parent could often pay for the family’s pilgrimage to Mecca by leaving a child behind as a slave.
Africa and the Middle East aren’t the only places where slavery is still practiced. Young girls are routinely sold as sex slaves for the tourist trade in places like Bangkok. Young children regularly work making soccer balls and other goods for the West in conditions that can only be described as slavery throughout eastern Asia.
The United Nations tried to create a legal code requiring decent treatment for slaves in the 1950s. No one seemed able to come up with a solution that pleased both master and slave. By 1956, the UN gave up on the job—and did all but nothing more about the problem.
It’s an invisible problem—when a house slave was rescued (and sent to school and given a decent home in California) the neighbors professed not to have suspected a thing. The owners simply said the girl was one of their own children doing chores. When someone realized that this girl was living in the garage, without lights or plumbing, someone called the authorities—but this was after years.
In Germany, France, the Netherlands and Britain—as well as Maryland, California and Michigan, Africans have been arrested for smuggling in slaves, all in recent years. I recall a New York case of a Saudi Princess who had a domestic slave with her about ten years ago.
Obama can’t invade Thailand to stop the sex trade, he cannot send troops into Africa or patrol the borders of France and Germany—but he can put out the word on American borders. For starters, when a wealthy African or Middle Eastern family enters the country, COUNT.
If they say they have four children and five are present, pull everybody into a separate room and start asking probing questions. These slaves are smuggled into the US in panel trucks. They come in with the families that own them. If one of the children is dressed differently or has calluses the others don’t, or seems unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes—check into it.
With the coming of “the second Lincoln”, it might be a ripe moment in American history to end slavery (at least in this nation) for good.
[Bits and pieces of this blog were taken from an AP report sent to AOL News, 12/29/08]
The AP goes on to say that the State Department reports that children from 33 of Africa’s 53 countries were sent out to work as slaves just last year. Slaves from ten or more African countries were sent to work in either Europe or the US. Nobody knows exactly how many.
The United Nations, Interpol and American intelligence sources are unable to come up with a figure for exactly how large it might be. The slave dealing is done very secretively. A poor father approaches a wealthy member of his society and offers them the services of a daughter he can no longer afford to feed.
At nine or ten, the girl becomes a house slave. She may work for up to twenty hours a day, seven days a week. Her family may even be paid a pittance for her services. But she has no freedom, no education; she sometimes may not even use the same spoons her masters eat with.
She wears old castoffs, is often made to sleep in the garage with the family vehicles; the families do not even call her by name. She is simply the servant, the girl, or “stupid”. If, like a nine-year-old she makes a blunder, she will likely be beaten.
When the enslaving family moves to a western nation like the United States, she is simply brought along to do the vacuuming, washing, dish washing and cleaning in the new home. Now she will not be able to see or communicate with her real family—which stays back in Africa.
This African slave trade goes back thousands of years. The ancient Greeks had black slaves—and copied down the stories the slaves told their children. The called them Black Fables—or Aesop’s Fables. In the Eighth Century, Muslim slavers sailed down the East Coast of Africa and began the slave trade that Europeans bought into for labor in the Americas.
The French invaded North Africa to stop piracy; the British occupied the Sudan and East Africa to stop the slave trade once and for all. By 1900 they had defeated the Mahdi’s forces and his slaver allies and ended the last vestiges of African slavery—so they thought.
It didn’t stay stopped. Britain was finally forced out of its East African colonies by 1960, and slavery immediately resumed. There was an insatiable thirst among the wealthy in the Arab world for house slaves. An African Muslim parent could often pay for the family’s pilgrimage to Mecca by leaving a child behind as a slave.
Africa and the Middle East aren’t the only places where slavery is still practiced. Young girls are routinely sold as sex slaves for the tourist trade in places like Bangkok. Young children regularly work making soccer balls and other goods for the West in conditions that can only be described as slavery throughout eastern Asia.
The United Nations tried to create a legal code requiring decent treatment for slaves in the 1950s. No one seemed able to come up with a solution that pleased both master and slave. By 1956, the UN gave up on the job—and did all but nothing more about the problem.
It’s an invisible problem—when a house slave was rescued (and sent to school and given a decent home in California) the neighbors professed not to have suspected a thing. The owners simply said the girl was one of their own children doing chores. When someone realized that this girl was living in the garage, without lights or plumbing, someone called the authorities—but this was after years.
In Germany, France, the Netherlands and Britain—as well as Maryland, California and Michigan, Africans have been arrested for smuggling in slaves, all in recent years. I recall a New York case of a Saudi Princess who had a domestic slave with her about ten years ago.
Obama can’t invade Thailand to stop the sex trade, he cannot send troops into Africa or patrol the borders of France and Germany—but he can put out the word on American borders. For starters, when a wealthy African or Middle Eastern family enters the country, COUNT.
If they say they have four children and five are present, pull everybody into a separate room and start asking probing questions. These slaves are smuggled into the US in panel trucks. They come in with the families that own them. If one of the children is dressed differently or has calluses the others don’t, or seems unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes—check into it.
With the coming of “the second Lincoln”, it might be a ripe moment in American history to end slavery (at least in this nation) for good.
[Bits and pieces of this blog were taken from an AP report sent to AOL News, 12/29/08]
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Christmas--The Dialog Killer
Pope Benedict XVI is one of the more scholarly popes we’ve seen in decades. He is also a man of reasonably good will. He began his papacy by seeking to dialog with other religions around the world. The Roman Church has been good at that during several periods of its history, for good or for ill.
About a month ago, the Pontiff (an interesting title that goes back to pagan times in ancient Rome—the Caesars carried it, it means High Priest of Rome; it predates the birth of Christ) made the statement that no meaningful dialog was possible with adherents of non-Christian faiths.
This does not mean we cannot talk to them, make a common cause in limited areas or that we ought to view them with hostility. It should be noted that the first great Christian missionary, the Rabbi Saul of Tarsus, was never guilty of talking down anyone else’s faith—he merely talked up his own.
What the Pope was finally forced to conclude is that, in the end, Christianity—like Islam and Judaism—is a highly exclusive faith. There is no way you can stretch it into a “big tent” with room for people of all faiths and beliefs. There is no way, as Bush and Obama have both said recently, that you can say, “We all pray to the same God.”
The Christmas Season highlights that fact. This may partially be why Americans of other faiths or of no faith at all are so interested in dropping the name Christmas from the season. Christmas, as the account related in the second chapter of Luke says—and as it is defined by the Nicene Creed of AD 325—is the historical moment in which God became man (the incarnation).
It is the moment in which the Second Person of the Trinity is introduced—in human form. A human mother; God himself as father. The reason for this in Christian theology is that Adam’s betrayal left the human race with an infinite debt. Only the blood of God could pay it off. (See the movie “Lion, Witch and Wardrobe”, in which Christ is portrayed as the Lion, Aslan.)
So God had to come in human form, as a Second Adam, to cover the debts of the First. Christmas becomes that momentous occasion in which our savior (debt payer) finally comes to redeem (pay off our debts) us.
This theological point was, as the Rabbi from Tarsus, St. Paul, who basically founded Christianity was quick to admit, “foolishness to the educated and a stone they could not get over to his fellow Jews”. It sounds almost as silly as saying that a solid piece of iron is actually made up of itty-bitty little atoms that actually move around. Who, holding a piece of iron in hand, could actually believe such a thing?
But if you do believe it, the doctrine of the incarnation eliminates all possibility of one big tent where all faiths can meet In harmony. Christmas kills the dialog. If you accept the notion that the baby born in Bethlehem was “very God of very God” (Nicene Creed), then you cannot be praying to him if you pray to some other deity.
Christ said some very interesting things about himself. In the Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 58, Christ says, ”Before Abraham was, I AM.” Of course his Jewish hearers understood this claim. When Moses asked God what his name was, the answer came, “I am”. (Exodus 3:14) At Christ’s claim to God’s name, the Jews were so enraged at his blasphemy that they tried to kill him on the spot.
(Philosophically, “I AM (THAT I AM) is an interesting name, unique to Judeo-Christianity. With this name, God proclaims himself the only non-contingent being in existence—he needs nothing else, water, oxygen, food, etc. etc. to exist—and he is outside of and unaffected by time.)
In John 10:30, Christ says, “I and the Father (God) are one.” In John 14:9, Christ says, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father (God). In his mind there was no doubt that he was God.
Then finally, in John 14:6, Christ makes the faith he is proclaiming, Christianity, exclusive and not subject to dialog for all time by asserting, “No one comes unto the Father (God) BUT BY ME.”
So Benedict XVI took a look at the record and, taking the Christ of Christmas at his word, admitted that there was very little spiritual point in trying to dialog with other faiths and religions.
For any Christian to suggest that we are all praying to the same God sounds fatuous at best.
About a month ago, the Pontiff (an interesting title that goes back to pagan times in ancient Rome—the Caesars carried it, it means High Priest of Rome; it predates the birth of Christ) made the statement that no meaningful dialog was possible with adherents of non-Christian faiths.
This does not mean we cannot talk to them, make a common cause in limited areas or that we ought to view them with hostility. It should be noted that the first great Christian missionary, the Rabbi Saul of Tarsus, was never guilty of talking down anyone else’s faith—he merely talked up his own.
What the Pope was finally forced to conclude is that, in the end, Christianity—like Islam and Judaism—is a highly exclusive faith. There is no way you can stretch it into a “big tent” with room for people of all faiths and beliefs. There is no way, as Bush and Obama have both said recently, that you can say, “We all pray to the same God.”
The Christmas Season highlights that fact. This may partially be why Americans of other faiths or of no faith at all are so interested in dropping the name Christmas from the season. Christmas, as the account related in the second chapter of Luke says—and as it is defined by the Nicene Creed of AD 325—is the historical moment in which God became man (the incarnation).
It is the moment in which the Second Person of the Trinity is introduced—in human form. A human mother; God himself as father. The reason for this in Christian theology is that Adam’s betrayal left the human race with an infinite debt. Only the blood of God could pay it off. (See the movie “Lion, Witch and Wardrobe”, in which Christ is portrayed as the Lion, Aslan.)
So God had to come in human form, as a Second Adam, to cover the debts of the First. Christmas becomes that momentous occasion in which our savior (debt payer) finally comes to redeem (pay off our debts) us.
This theological point was, as the Rabbi from Tarsus, St. Paul, who basically founded Christianity was quick to admit, “foolishness to the educated and a stone they could not get over to his fellow Jews”. It sounds almost as silly as saying that a solid piece of iron is actually made up of itty-bitty little atoms that actually move around. Who, holding a piece of iron in hand, could actually believe such a thing?
But if you do believe it, the doctrine of the incarnation eliminates all possibility of one big tent where all faiths can meet In harmony. Christmas kills the dialog. If you accept the notion that the baby born in Bethlehem was “very God of very God” (Nicene Creed), then you cannot be praying to him if you pray to some other deity.
Christ said some very interesting things about himself. In the Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 58, Christ says, ”Before Abraham was, I AM.” Of course his Jewish hearers understood this claim. When Moses asked God what his name was, the answer came, “I am”. (Exodus 3:14) At Christ’s claim to God’s name, the Jews were so enraged at his blasphemy that they tried to kill him on the spot.
(Philosophically, “I AM (THAT I AM) is an interesting name, unique to Judeo-Christianity. With this name, God proclaims himself the only non-contingent being in existence—he needs nothing else, water, oxygen, food, etc. etc. to exist—and he is outside of and unaffected by time.)
In John 10:30, Christ says, “I and the Father (God) are one.” In John 14:9, Christ says, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father (God). In his mind there was no doubt that he was God.
Then finally, in John 14:6, Christ makes the faith he is proclaiming, Christianity, exclusive and not subject to dialog for all time by asserting, “No one comes unto the Father (God) BUT BY ME.”
So Benedict XVI took a look at the record and, taking the Christ of Christmas at his word, admitted that there was very little spiritual point in trying to dialog with other faiths and religions.
For any Christian to suggest that we are all praying to the same God sounds fatuous at best.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Pirates and Travelers
The Associated Press reported yesterday that a German military helicopter saved an Egyptian ship off the coast of Somali from being boarded by pirates. We’re getting used to it by now—a couple of weeks ago the pirates took an oil tanker. And before that, and before that .. . It’s become the national industry of poor Somalia. (They haven’t got anything else; no government since 1991.)
The AP reports that there were 110 pirate attacks in 2008, 42 ships were hijacked and held for ransom. $30 million have been collected as ransom by the pirates; 14 ships (with over two hundred crewmen) are still being held hostage.
Piracy occurs elsewhere—in the Caribbean and the Malay Straits, for example—but the Somali attacks catch everyone’s attention. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden means much of the planet’s oil supply must risk its way through pirate infested waters –as must much of what passes through the Suez Canal. Should things get completely out of hand, gas prices would reach the stratosphere as unhappy insurers reacted to gunfire being directed against their clients.
An international flotilla of warships now patrols the oil lanes. Britain, the US, France, Germany, Iran and India all have gunboats on duty. China and Japan have contingents enroute. Not since World War II has such a conglomeration of armed ships worked together in any one sea.
But, as the AP reports, these gunboats cannot be everywhere at once. Successful pirates continue to evade them. Even as the helicopter drove them away from the Egyptian vessel, a lucky shot from a pirate wounded a seaman on the target ship. He had to be airlifted to the German boat for medical treatment. There’s likely to be another report tomorrow, or next week, or whenever.
No, boys and girls, pirates didn’t go away when they hanged Captain Kidd. For over two hundred years a confederation of naval forces from Europe (and eventually America) kept them at bay. One thing that effectively stops piracy is the colonization of their home bases.
What happened to piracy in the Mediterranean Sea is instructive. The Romans stopped piracy for much of their ascendancy—but not before Julius Caesar was captured by Balkan pirates. As the Empire declined piracy rose. When Islam conquered North Africa, Muslim corsairs used ports in North Africa and Spain to attack Christian positions all across the Western Mediterranean.
When the Muslims were thrown out of Spain (1492) they retaliated with a series of raids up and down Christian coasts. In 1575 an alliance of Christian navies wrested control of the Western Mediterranean from Islam—leaving as the only effective Muslim military force in that part of the world the Barbary Pirates (named after “Red Beard” the last successful Muslim Admiral to hold sway in the west).
They were cruel and they were skilled! Over a million Christians were captured and sold into slavery during the next few centuries. Barbary pirate raiders attacked as far west as Iceland and Ireland, capturing ports in southern France and northern Italy.
Eventually the Christian nations of western and southern Europe worked out a system whereby they paid tribute to keep the pirates from attacking their ships (while, admittedly, encouraging them to attack those of Christian rivals). But the pirates weren’t out of business.
Occasionally ships of this or that Christian nation would slip in and bombard Algiers, the major pirate port. This would calm things down for an historical moment, then back at it would go the pirates. When the United States won its war for independence from England, she lost the protection of the British Navy and British bribes.
Immediately, the Americans began losing ships to piracy. By 1800, 20% of the federal budget was being paid out as bribes and ransom for captives. But we couldn’t afford to pay enough, and many Americans remained in slavery to Muslim masters. In 1805 we sent the marines on their first foreign venture to burn an American warship that had been seized near Tripoli.
Our squadron stayed in the Mediterranean until 1830. That year the French had finally had enough. Centuries of pirate raiding were long enough (even though the French had spent long periods working as allies with these pirates and their Turkish masters). The French captured Algiers and took over all of Algeria, beginning the French Empire in North Africa. The Americans went home (for 115 years).
In 1961, the French pulled out of Algeria and it became independent. Tripoli threw American bases out in 1962. It would be nice to say that Muslim piracy in the Mediterranean was forever a thing of the past.
In 1973, an acquaintance of mine was camping along the Majorca coast (a Spanish island in the Mediterranean—and a favorite spot for pirate raids in centuries past). In the morning, she learned that Muslim pirates had come ashore and kidnapped several female European and American campers a mile or so down the beach from where she had slept.
They, like the European victims of old, would be sold into slavery, often for Muslim harems where fair haired Europeans are highly prized. The Sixth Fleet and its Christian and Jewish allies keep that sort of thing checked and very low key—for now.
Face it, boys and girls, piracy is an ancient and honorable trade among many Muslim cultures. As is slavery. The French policy of occupying pirate strongholds is the only strategy ever proven to work –and only for as long as the occupying army stayed in place.
That’s not encouraging—considering the luck we’re having in Iraq, Afghanistan—and had ten years ago in Somalia when we sent in troops.
Pulling out the troops may leave us with no alternative to paying much, much, much higher prices than we’ve ever dreamt of—far beyond the horrific vision of T. Boone Pickens.
Remember the old board game? “Pirates and Travelers.” In that part of the world, we are doomed to be forever the travelers.
The AP reports that there were 110 pirate attacks in 2008, 42 ships were hijacked and held for ransom. $30 million have been collected as ransom by the pirates; 14 ships (with over two hundred crewmen) are still being held hostage.
Piracy occurs elsewhere—in the Caribbean and the Malay Straits, for example—but the Somali attacks catch everyone’s attention. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden means much of the planet’s oil supply must risk its way through pirate infested waters –as must much of what passes through the Suez Canal. Should things get completely out of hand, gas prices would reach the stratosphere as unhappy insurers reacted to gunfire being directed against their clients.
An international flotilla of warships now patrols the oil lanes. Britain, the US, France, Germany, Iran and India all have gunboats on duty. China and Japan have contingents enroute. Not since World War II has such a conglomeration of armed ships worked together in any one sea.
But, as the AP reports, these gunboats cannot be everywhere at once. Successful pirates continue to evade them. Even as the helicopter drove them away from the Egyptian vessel, a lucky shot from a pirate wounded a seaman on the target ship. He had to be airlifted to the German boat for medical treatment. There’s likely to be another report tomorrow, or next week, or whenever.
No, boys and girls, pirates didn’t go away when they hanged Captain Kidd. For over two hundred years a confederation of naval forces from Europe (and eventually America) kept them at bay. One thing that effectively stops piracy is the colonization of their home bases.
What happened to piracy in the Mediterranean Sea is instructive. The Romans stopped piracy for much of their ascendancy—but not before Julius Caesar was captured by Balkan pirates. As the Empire declined piracy rose. When Islam conquered North Africa, Muslim corsairs used ports in North Africa and Spain to attack Christian positions all across the Western Mediterranean.
When the Muslims were thrown out of Spain (1492) they retaliated with a series of raids up and down Christian coasts. In 1575 an alliance of Christian navies wrested control of the Western Mediterranean from Islam—leaving as the only effective Muslim military force in that part of the world the Barbary Pirates (named after “Red Beard” the last successful Muslim Admiral to hold sway in the west).
They were cruel and they were skilled! Over a million Christians were captured and sold into slavery during the next few centuries. Barbary pirate raiders attacked as far west as Iceland and Ireland, capturing ports in southern France and northern Italy.
Eventually the Christian nations of western and southern Europe worked out a system whereby they paid tribute to keep the pirates from attacking their ships (while, admittedly, encouraging them to attack those of Christian rivals). But the pirates weren’t out of business.
Occasionally ships of this or that Christian nation would slip in and bombard Algiers, the major pirate port. This would calm things down for an historical moment, then back at it would go the pirates. When the United States won its war for independence from England, she lost the protection of the British Navy and British bribes.
Immediately, the Americans began losing ships to piracy. By 1800, 20% of the federal budget was being paid out as bribes and ransom for captives. But we couldn’t afford to pay enough, and many Americans remained in slavery to Muslim masters. In 1805 we sent the marines on their first foreign venture to burn an American warship that had been seized near Tripoli.
Our squadron stayed in the Mediterranean until 1830. That year the French had finally had enough. Centuries of pirate raiding were long enough (even though the French had spent long periods working as allies with these pirates and their Turkish masters). The French captured Algiers and took over all of Algeria, beginning the French Empire in North Africa. The Americans went home (for 115 years).
In 1961, the French pulled out of Algeria and it became independent. Tripoli threw American bases out in 1962. It would be nice to say that Muslim piracy in the Mediterranean was forever a thing of the past.
In 1973, an acquaintance of mine was camping along the Majorca coast (a Spanish island in the Mediterranean—and a favorite spot for pirate raids in centuries past). In the morning, she learned that Muslim pirates had come ashore and kidnapped several female European and American campers a mile or so down the beach from where she had slept.
They, like the European victims of old, would be sold into slavery, often for Muslim harems where fair haired Europeans are highly prized. The Sixth Fleet and its Christian and Jewish allies keep that sort of thing checked and very low key—for now.
Face it, boys and girls, piracy is an ancient and honorable trade among many Muslim cultures. As is slavery. The French policy of occupying pirate strongholds is the only strategy ever proven to work –and only for as long as the occupying army stayed in place.
That’s not encouraging—considering the luck we’re having in Iraq, Afghanistan—and had ten years ago in Somalia when we sent in troops.
Pulling out the troops may leave us with no alternative to paying much, much, much higher prices than we’ve ever dreamt of—far beyond the horrific vision of T. Boone Pickens.
Remember the old board game? “Pirates and Travelers.” In that part of the world, we are doomed to be forever the travelers.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
The Christian Calendar
It’s the First Day of Christmas. Okay, it’s also called December 26, Boxing Day, a day for major soccer matches or St. Stephen’s Day. But on the western Christian calendar it is universally recognized as the First Day of Christmas, with December 25 being the Feast of Christmas. On the evening of the 25th, the season of Christmas begins.
Then it rolls on twelve days until January 6th (the last day of the Christmas Season). Those are the Twelve Days of Christmas referred to in the carol that was written as an underground Catholic catechism. I find the Christian calendar a useful and happy way of keeping track of the year from a Christian point of view. So, at the risk of inflicting terminal boredom, I shall run through it for people who don’t know it.
It essentially divides the year into two halves—one celebrating the birth, life and death of Christ and the second celebrating the church he left behind. These halves are moveable, as they do not start on fixed days, unlike the secular calendar. Let’s go with the first half.
It begins four Sundays before Christmas Day. That season is called Advent, and it commemorates the long millennia of waiting for the Christ after the promise of his birth was given in Genesis 3. It is a somber season in which no public feasts or festivals are permitted. No weddings, no parties—(this is the Christian calendar). The Christian is expected to spend the season meditating on the sad state of mankind that made it necessary for God to sacrifice his own Son to redeem them.
On the Night of Christmas Eve (midnight, December 24) the mood changes to one of joy. The Christ child is born. Redemption becomes possible. A Twelve Day festival follows (which is a takeoff on both the Roman Saturnalia and the Persian celebration of the birth of Mithra.)
Christians have always felt free to take over someone else’s festivals and symbols. The concept goes back to the Book of Exodus in which the ancient Israelites “despoiled the Egyptians” before leaving captivity in Egypt. Most Christian festivals have a previous pagan counterpart.
On January 6 begins the season of Epiphany (with the Feast of Epiphany also called Twelfth NIght, which the Russian Church celebrates as Christmas)—which celebrates the revealing of the Christ Child to the “Three Kings” (or Magi, since they were not kings but Zoroastrian magicians and astrologers) who came from their observatories in Persia to honor the new King of the Jews. This season lasts through Shrove Tuesday in either February or March.
Interesting people, the Magi. I’ll talk more about them on January 6th.
On Wednesday, forty days before Easter, begins the solemn season of Lent. This is Ash Wednesday, when Christians begin another somber season of contemplating how the treachery of the first humans forced God to send his son to die for them. (The ashes come from the burning of palm leaves that were used in the previous year to celebrate Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter.)
All of these dates move. Easter is often called the moveable feast because it can be celebrated on Sundays dating from the end of March to the third week of April. (In Russia, it can be as late as May.) It is held on the first Sunday after the first moon whose 14th day (full moon) falls on or after March 21.
A week before Easter comes a feast day in Lent—Palm Sunday, which celebrates Christ’s entry into Jerusalem when he is hailed as a king. To show honor, Jewish pilgrims spread their coats and palm branches before him. Then comes holy week, the last week in Lent.
On Maunday Thursday (Holy Thursday), Christians celebrate the night when Christ and his disciples ate their last Passover together. “Maunday” takes off from the Latin version of, “”A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you.” The Roman Pope follows Christ’s example by washing the feet of several of his ecclesiastical inferiors. (Protestant divines tend not to wash anybody’s feet.)
On Good Friday, Christians of all stripes hold ceremonies to remind themselves of the day when God himself died to provide salvation for men—when God himself descended into Hell to wrench the keys of death and Hell from Satan himself. It is a celebration of the destruction of death itself.
In Christian theology everything before this would be meaningless if Christ remained dead. On Easter Sunday, the third day, Christ rises from Hell and the grave. This is the feast of Easter, the most important Christian Feast. With it begins the season of Easter which lasts 50 days.
This season is divided in two parts. The first celebrates the 40 days after Easter when Christ ascended into Heaven, back where he came from. Some churches celebrate the resurrection on a Sunday, making it the 43rd day after Easter. On the 50th day after Easter comes Pentecost (50) Sunday.
(We would call a period from Sunday to Sunday 49 days, but ancient ways of counting included the first Sunday in the count, making it 50 days.) On Pentecost Sunday begins the half the year that essentially celebrates the Church Christ left behind when he ascended.
It introduces the Third Person of the Christian Trinity—God the Holy Spirit. This is the comforter Christ promised when he told his disciples he was leaving them (Paraclete). He, Christ said, will lead you into all truth. Under his influence, Christians believe, the 27 books of the Christian New Testament were not only written but later designated as canonical in the Fourth Century after Christ.
So he creates the Christian scriptures and he leads the church. The Sunday after Pentecost is the Feast of the Holy Trinity. These are both moveable feasts—the earliest Pentecost can come is May 10, the latest June 13. Every Sunday after Trinity is numbered from Trinity Sunday. This continues until the First Sunday in Advent (four Sundays before Christmas). Obviously that, too, is a variable number.
And this, for those of you who are still awake and with me, is the Christian calendar.
Then it rolls on twelve days until January 6th (the last day of the Christmas Season). Those are the Twelve Days of Christmas referred to in the carol that was written as an underground Catholic catechism. I find the Christian calendar a useful and happy way of keeping track of the year from a Christian point of view. So, at the risk of inflicting terminal boredom, I shall run through it for people who don’t know it.
It essentially divides the year into two halves—one celebrating the birth, life and death of Christ and the second celebrating the church he left behind. These halves are moveable, as they do not start on fixed days, unlike the secular calendar. Let’s go with the first half.
It begins four Sundays before Christmas Day. That season is called Advent, and it commemorates the long millennia of waiting for the Christ after the promise of his birth was given in Genesis 3. It is a somber season in which no public feasts or festivals are permitted. No weddings, no parties—(this is the Christian calendar). The Christian is expected to spend the season meditating on the sad state of mankind that made it necessary for God to sacrifice his own Son to redeem them.
On the Night of Christmas Eve (midnight, December 24) the mood changes to one of joy. The Christ child is born. Redemption becomes possible. A Twelve Day festival follows (which is a takeoff on both the Roman Saturnalia and the Persian celebration of the birth of Mithra.)
Christians have always felt free to take over someone else’s festivals and symbols. The concept goes back to the Book of Exodus in which the ancient Israelites “despoiled the Egyptians” before leaving captivity in Egypt. Most Christian festivals have a previous pagan counterpart.
On January 6 begins the season of Epiphany (with the Feast of Epiphany also called Twelfth NIght, which the Russian Church celebrates as Christmas)—which celebrates the revealing of the Christ Child to the “Three Kings” (or Magi, since they were not kings but Zoroastrian magicians and astrologers) who came from their observatories in Persia to honor the new King of the Jews. This season lasts through Shrove Tuesday in either February or March.
Interesting people, the Magi. I’ll talk more about them on January 6th.
On Wednesday, forty days before Easter, begins the solemn season of Lent. This is Ash Wednesday, when Christians begin another somber season of contemplating how the treachery of the first humans forced God to send his son to die for them. (The ashes come from the burning of palm leaves that were used in the previous year to celebrate Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter.)
All of these dates move. Easter is often called the moveable feast because it can be celebrated on Sundays dating from the end of March to the third week of April. (In Russia, it can be as late as May.) It is held on the first Sunday after the first moon whose 14th day (full moon) falls on or after March 21.
A week before Easter comes a feast day in Lent—Palm Sunday, which celebrates Christ’s entry into Jerusalem when he is hailed as a king. To show honor, Jewish pilgrims spread their coats and palm branches before him. Then comes holy week, the last week in Lent.
On Maunday Thursday (Holy Thursday), Christians celebrate the night when Christ and his disciples ate their last Passover together. “Maunday” takes off from the Latin version of, “”A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you.” The Roman Pope follows Christ’s example by washing the feet of several of his ecclesiastical inferiors. (Protestant divines tend not to wash anybody’s feet.)
On Good Friday, Christians of all stripes hold ceremonies to remind themselves of the day when God himself died to provide salvation for men—when God himself descended into Hell to wrench the keys of death and Hell from Satan himself. It is a celebration of the destruction of death itself.
In Christian theology everything before this would be meaningless if Christ remained dead. On Easter Sunday, the third day, Christ rises from Hell and the grave. This is the feast of Easter, the most important Christian Feast. With it begins the season of Easter which lasts 50 days.
This season is divided in two parts. The first celebrates the 40 days after Easter when Christ ascended into Heaven, back where he came from. Some churches celebrate the resurrection on a Sunday, making it the 43rd day after Easter. On the 50th day after Easter comes Pentecost (50) Sunday.
(We would call a period from Sunday to Sunday 49 days, but ancient ways of counting included the first Sunday in the count, making it 50 days.) On Pentecost Sunday begins the half the year that essentially celebrates the Church Christ left behind when he ascended.
It introduces the Third Person of the Christian Trinity—God the Holy Spirit. This is the comforter Christ promised when he told his disciples he was leaving them (Paraclete). He, Christ said, will lead you into all truth. Under his influence, Christians believe, the 27 books of the Christian New Testament were not only written but later designated as canonical in the Fourth Century after Christ.
So he creates the Christian scriptures and he leads the church. The Sunday after Pentecost is the Feast of the Holy Trinity. These are both moveable feasts—the earliest Pentecost can come is May 10, the latest June 13. Every Sunday after Trinity is numbered from Trinity Sunday. This continues until the First Sunday in Advent (four Sundays before Christmas). Obviously that, too, is a variable number.
And this, for those of you who are still awake and with me, is the Christian calendar.
The Christ Mass
It’s Christmas—the Christ Mass—one of the high feasts of the Christian faith. It evokes from the faithful —from those who know much about their faith—a joyous celebration of the type to be expected from anyone who was under a sentence of death and now sees deliverance.
That is the whole point of Christmas from a Christian perspective: deliverance. It is fittingly named after the ancient church’s celebration of Christ’s death (the Mass), which is the point, from a Christian point of view, at which the deliverance was effected.
Christianity—and its celebrations—is to many a truly offensive faith. When Christ himself turns to a group of followers and tells them that, to be delivered (saved), they must eat his body and drink his blood, he suddenly finds himself alone with just his twelve committed friends.
It is also unique among world faiths. Salvation in other faiths rises out of the performance of rituals, out of leading a good life well, out of man’s pursuit of God. Christianity (and Judaism before it) is a story of God’s pursuit of man.
Ancient Jewish prophets like Hosea liken mankind to a prostitute who his pursued and constantly brought back by a husband (God) who truly loves her. That image is repeated throughout the Jewish canon. It is not one that flatters human beings. It is almost never happily accepted.
It makes foolishness of the modern claim that God is too loving to create a Hell or to punish people for their misdeeds. The Prophets—and Christ, who was well versed in Hebrew scripture—make it clear that if whoring mankind insist on going their own way, they will finally get their own way.
Hell is depicted as more of a choice than a sentence. When the Christian Bible writes that Judas Iscariot goes “to his own place”, it strongly suggests he chose it. Christ also says mankind is like “sheep without a shepherd”—that they cannot help but choose badly.
Then, in Luke 2, comes a great flash of light, spiritual and temporal. Angelic beings (they are certainly “good”, but the suggestion is more of terribly powerful; whenever humans face them, the human is stricken with terror) suddenly appear.
They proclaim peace to “men of good will” (not to everyone, please notice). They tell of a savior born in the town prophesied in the Jewish canon, Bethlehem. This, later Christian writers tell us, is the story these powerful beings have waited time untold to see and to tell.
Note something: This announcement is not made in the town itself. It is made far out in the country to some of the lowest class people of the time—shepherds who lived with and smelled like their sheep. They were generally despised by decent folk who lived in houses and had regular jobs.
The suggestion here is very strongly that God felt the townsfolk and the masses of visitors registering to pay Roman taxes would not have cared very much about the birth of some new savior. They might have been momentarily frightened by the bright lights, but it would not have impacted them greatly.
Look how Christ reacts later in his ministry: “…many [Jerusalemites] when they saw the signs which he did [the fireworks, as it were] believed on him. But Jesus did not trust himself to them, … for he himself knew what was in man.” John 2:23-5 In other words, Christ didn’t trust them as far as he could throw them.
I suspect he might feel the same way about many of the Holiday shopping partiers today. He had that uncomfortable gift of knowing what people were really thinking. So, back then, a quick announcement was made to a few sheep herders—whom no one paid any mind to. A couple of years later, no one in Bethlehem seemed to have any idea of what the Magi were talking about when they showed up.
We do well to celebrate the Christ Mass. We would do better to take a moment to at least understand what it means (even if we choose like the townsfolk of Bethlehem) to ignore or reject it.
It’s deliverance—deliverance from a fate most people would prefer to deny exists. Deliverance at an eventual cost to God Himself that most people would prefer to deny was ever necessary—or ever happened.
So we substitute Santa Claus—whose only punishment is a lump of coal (which, after all, will serve to warm us)—and ignore the implications of the Christian Christ Mass.
Today we find his message and sacrifice as offensive as his contemporaries did. So we say, Happy Holidays.
That is the whole point of Christmas from a Christian perspective: deliverance. It is fittingly named after the ancient church’s celebration of Christ’s death (the Mass), which is the point, from a Christian point of view, at which the deliverance was effected.
Christianity—and its celebrations—is to many a truly offensive faith. When Christ himself turns to a group of followers and tells them that, to be delivered (saved), they must eat his body and drink his blood, he suddenly finds himself alone with just his twelve committed friends.
It is also unique among world faiths. Salvation in other faiths rises out of the performance of rituals, out of leading a good life well, out of man’s pursuit of God. Christianity (and Judaism before it) is a story of God’s pursuit of man.
Ancient Jewish prophets like Hosea liken mankind to a prostitute who his pursued and constantly brought back by a husband (God) who truly loves her. That image is repeated throughout the Jewish canon. It is not one that flatters human beings. It is almost never happily accepted.
It makes foolishness of the modern claim that God is too loving to create a Hell or to punish people for their misdeeds. The Prophets—and Christ, who was well versed in Hebrew scripture—make it clear that if whoring mankind insist on going their own way, they will finally get their own way.
Hell is depicted as more of a choice than a sentence. When the Christian Bible writes that Judas Iscariot goes “to his own place”, it strongly suggests he chose it. Christ also says mankind is like “sheep without a shepherd”—that they cannot help but choose badly.
Then, in Luke 2, comes a great flash of light, spiritual and temporal. Angelic beings (they are certainly “good”, but the suggestion is more of terribly powerful; whenever humans face them, the human is stricken with terror) suddenly appear.
They proclaim peace to “men of good will” (not to everyone, please notice). They tell of a savior born in the town prophesied in the Jewish canon, Bethlehem. This, later Christian writers tell us, is the story these powerful beings have waited time untold to see and to tell.
Note something: This announcement is not made in the town itself. It is made far out in the country to some of the lowest class people of the time—shepherds who lived with and smelled like their sheep. They were generally despised by decent folk who lived in houses and had regular jobs.
The suggestion here is very strongly that God felt the townsfolk and the masses of visitors registering to pay Roman taxes would not have cared very much about the birth of some new savior. They might have been momentarily frightened by the bright lights, but it would not have impacted them greatly.
Look how Christ reacts later in his ministry: “…many [Jerusalemites] when they saw the signs which he did [the fireworks, as it were] believed on him. But Jesus did not trust himself to them, … for he himself knew what was in man.” John 2:23-5 In other words, Christ didn’t trust them as far as he could throw them.
I suspect he might feel the same way about many of the Holiday shopping partiers today. He had that uncomfortable gift of knowing what people were really thinking. So, back then, a quick announcement was made to a few sheep herders—whom no one paid any mind to. A couple of years later, no one in Bethlehem seemed to have any idea of what the Magi were talking about when they showed up.
We do well to celebrate the Christ Mass. We would do better to take a moment to at least understand what it means (even if we choose like the townsfolk of Bethlehem) to ignore or reject it.
It’s deliverance—deliverance from a fate most people would prefer to deny exists. Deliverance at an eventual cost to God Himself that most people would prefer to deny was ever necessary—or ever happened.
So we substitute Santa Claus—whose only punishment is a lump of coal (which, after all, will serve to warm us)—and ignore the implications of the Christian Christ Mass.
Today we find his message and sacrifice as offensive as his contemporaries did. So we say, Happy Holidays.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Divisiveness--The New Unforgiveable Sin
Last night I flicked on one of those news/talk shows that appear on News Television in the evening. Forgive me, I cannot remember which one. Nor does it matter. The subject matter was interesting only after the fact when I stopped to think about it.
Two talking heads were being interviewed. One represented the Gay community; the other was a cleric who purported to represent the views of conservative Christians. Their topic of disagreement was the selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation at next January’s inauguration.
Mr. Warren is the pastor of a mega church in California; he wrote one of the best selling non-fiction books of all time—The Purpose Driven Life. Thousands of churches have used it as a roadmap to a more effective church life and more committed congregants. He was also the first person to get Obama and McCain on TV, face to face, as opposing candidates.
There was a certain logic to Obama picking him for the invocation—it was a gesture of conciliation toward the evangelical community which had largely voted against him. The controversy came with Mr. Warren’s backing of California’s Proposition Eight (which would ban same-sex marriages).
The talking head that represented the Gay community last night made it clear that this was a well-nigh unforgiveable act on Mr. Warren’s part. It was the word he used, over and over again, that caught my attention in the hours after the television was turned off: DIVISIVE—DIVISIVENESS.
This, he indicated, was the unforgiveable sin that Mr. Warren had committed in the eyes of the gay community. “Rick Warren was divisive,” he said over and over. “He was guilty of divisiveness.” He was dividing people, one against the other. What more horrible sin could there be?
The worthy cleric seemed to duck his head and basically agree that “divisiveness” was by itself an undesirable thing. Somehow, he seemed to feel, Mr. Warren should have made his point on Gay Marriage, homosexuality and lesbianism without being divisive. He almost seemed frightened of the divisive label—the way people were scared of the “communist” label during the 1950s.
At the time they spoke, I was doing something else and paying very little attention. Later on, it came to me that neither man seemed to understand the fundamental nature of Christianity.
It isn’t a nice religion. There isn’t an ounce of niceness in the entire canon of its doctrines. Not in real, historic Christianity. Christ did not call us to be nice and conciliatory—certainly not in matters that we consider to be foundational to morality and faith.
Unfortunately for most Biblically oriented Christians, their faith makes homosexuality just such an issue. From Genesis through the letters of Paul. Rick Warren reflects that. (Yes, I read the cover piece in Newsweek a couple of issues ago. It was drivel, which is why I haven’t bothered to comment on it.)
Christianity was never intended to be home to a forum on moral or spiritual diversity. Its fundamental intent was to be a DIVISIVE FORCE in this world. (To call Mr. Warren “divisive” is to affirm the validity of his Christianity.) I would be flattered to be publicly seen as divisive in a similar sense.
Christ (the progenitor of Christianity) makes the point clearly. He asks (Luke 12:51-53) “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but DIVISION. From now on there will be five in one family DIVIDED against each other, three against two and two against three. The will be DIVIDED, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother … .”
So strongly does Christ make the case for the divisiveness (and exclusivity) of Christianity that he insists, (Luke 14:26) “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.”
There is some hyperbole there; Christ used it on more than one occasion. But no one can argue the urgency with which he was making his point: Christians are to stand firmly and be as divisive as necessary on questions of principle.
They are indeed commanded to love the sinner, but there is equal emphasis on their need to hate the sin. If that hatred makes the sinner angry, be it a mother or son or the rest of the family, then so be it—the Christian is commanded to stand firm in his divisiveness.
Christ says very bluntly that you, simply by being Christian, are going to annoy the living daylights out of other people. Christians are not permitted to cross their legs and chant mantras while smiling benignly at whatever else is going on around them. Tolerance, love of diversity in the moral arena, are not Christian virtues.
In John 15 (the Gospel of Love, incidentally) Christ warns, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. … I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” (All passages from NIV)
That’s pure, unalloyed divisiveness.
Two talking heads were being interviewed. One represented the Gay community; the other was a cleric who purported to represent the views of conservative Christians. Their topic of disagreement was the selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation at next January’s inauguration.
Mr. Warren is the pastor of a mega church in California; he wrote one of the best selling non-fiction books of all time—The Purpose Driven Life. Thousands of churches have used it as a roadmap to a more effective church life and more committed congregants. He was also the first person to get Obama and McCain on TV, face to face, as opposing candidates.
There was a certain logic to Obama picking him for the invocation—it was a gesture of conciliation toward the evangelical community which had largely voted against him. The controversy came with Mr. Warren’s backing of California’s Proposition Eight (which would ban same-sex marriages).
The talking head that represented the Gay community last night made it clear that this was a well-nigh unforgiveable act on Mr. Warren’s part. It was the word he used, over and over again, that caught my attention in the hours after the television was turned off: DIVISIVE—DIVISIVENESS.
This, he indicated, was the unforgiveable sin that Mr. Warren had committed in the eyes of the gay community. “Rick Warren was divisive,” he said over and over. “He was guilty of divisiveness.” He was dividing people, one against the other. What more horrible sin could there be?
The worthy cleric seemed to duck his head and basically agree that “divisiveness” was by itself an undesirable thing. Somehow, he seemed to feel, Mr. Warren should have made his point on Gay Marriage, homosexuality and lesbianism without being divisive. He almost seemed frightened of the divisive label—the way people were scared of the “communist” label during the 1950s.
At the time they spoke, I was doing something else and paying very little attention. Later on, it came to me that neither man seemed to understand the fundamental nature of Christianity.
It isn’t a nice religion. There isn’t an ounce of niceness in the entire canon of its doctrines. Not in real, historic Christianity. Christ did not call us to be nice and conciliatory—certainly not in matters that we consider to be foundational to morality and faith.
Unfortunately for most Biblically oriented Christians, their faith makes homosexuality just such an issue. From Genesis through the letters of Paul. Rick Warren reflects that. (Yes, I read the cover piece in Newsweek a couple of issues ago. It was drivel, which is why I haven’t bothered to comment on it.)
Christianity was never intended to be home to a forum on moral or spiritual diversity. Its fundamental intent was to be a DIVISIVE FORCE in this world. (To call Mr. Warren “divisive” is to affirm the validity of his Christianity.) I would be flattered to be publicly seen as divisive in a similar sense.
Christ (the progenitor of Christianity) makes the point clearly. He asks (Luke 12:51-53) “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but DIVISION. From now on there will be five in one family DIVIDED against each other, three against two and two against three. The will be DIVIDED, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother … .”
So strongly does Christ make the case for the divisiveness (and exclusivity) of Christianity that he insists, (Luke 14:26) “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.”
There is some hyperbole there; Christ used it on more than one occasion. But no one can argue the urgency with which he was making his point: Christians are to stand firmly and be as divisive as necessary on questions of principle.
They are indeed commanded to love the sinner, but there is equal emphasis on their need to hate the sin. If that hatred makes the sinner angry, be it a mother or son or the rest of the family, then so be it—the Christian is commanded to stand firm in his divisiveness.
Christ says very bluntly that you, simply by being Christian, are going to annoy the living daylights out of other people. Christians are not permitted to cross their legs and chant mantras while smiling benignly at whatever else is going on around them. Tolerance, love of diversity in the moral arena, are not Christian virtues.
In John 15 (the Gospel of Love, incidentally) Christ warns, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. … I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” (All passages from NIV)
That’s pure, unalloyed divisiveness.
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