Sunday, February 6th

Politics as psychopathology

When I saw this at Father Jake's site, I thought it was a satire or some other kind of joke. Jake said he saw it on Michael Moore's site, which I can well believe. It's actually by someone named Mel Giles, who is billed as an "advocate for victims of domestic abuse." It's called "Legacy of Oppressed People," an dit has to be read in its entirety to be believed:

Watch Dan Rather apologize for not getting his facts straight, humiliated before the eyes of America, voluntarily undermining his credibility and career of over thirty years. Observe Donna Brazille squirm as she is ridiculed by Bay Buchanan, and pronounced irrelevant and nearly non-existent. Listen as Donna and Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer take to the airwaves saying that they have to go back to the drawing board and learn form their mistakes and try to be better, more likable, more appealing, have a stronger message, speak to morality. Watch them awkwardly quote the bible, trying to speak the 'new' language of America. Surf the blogs, and read the comments of dismayed, discombobulated, confused individuals trying to figure out what they did wrong. Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, "Why did they beat me?"

And then ask anyone who has ever worked in a domestic violence shelter if they have heard this before.

They will tell you: Every single day. The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that they will keep hitting us and beating us as long as we keep sticking around and asking ourselves what we are doing to deserve the beating.

Listen to George Bush say that the will of God excuses his behavior. Listen, as he refuses to take responsibility, or express remorse, or even once, admit a mistake. Watch him strut, and tell us that he will only work with those who agree with him, and that each of us is only allowed one question (soon, it will be none at all; abusers hit hard when questioned --the press corps can tell you that.) See him surround himself with only those who pledge oaths of allegiance. (To him.) Hear him tell us that if we will only listen and do as he says and agree with his every utterance, all will go well for us (it won't; we will never be worthy.)

And watch the Democratic Party leadership walk on eggshells, try to meet him, please him, wash the windows better, get out that spot, distance themselves from gays and civil rights. See the Democrats cry for the attention and affection and approval of the President and his followers. Watch us squirm. Watch us descend into a world of crazy-making, where logic does not work and the other side tells us we are nuts when we rely on facts. A world where, worst of all, we begin to believe we are crazy.

How to break free? Again, the answer is quite simple: First, you must admit you are a victim. Then, you must declare the state of affairs unacceptable. Next, you must promise to protect yourself and everyone around you that is being victimized. You don't do this by responding to their demands, or becoming more like them, or engaging in logical conversation, or trying to persuade them that you are right. You also don't do this by going catatonic and resigned, by closing up your ears and eyes and covering your head and submitting to the blows, figuring that its over faster and hurts less if you don't resist and fight back.

Instead, you walk away. You find other folks like yourself, 57 million of them, who are hurting, broken, and beating themselves up. You tell them what you've learned, and that you aren't going to take it anymore. You stand tall, with 57 million people at your side and behind you, and you look right into the eyes of the abuser and you tell him to go to hell. Then you walk out the door, taking the kids and the gays and minorities with you, and you start a new life. The new life is hard. But it's better than the abuse. [Does this mean that 57 million people are going to try to emigrate to Canada?]

We have a mandate to be as radical and liberal and steadfast as we need to be. The progressive beliefs and social justice we stand for, our core, must not be altered. We are 57 million strong. We are building from the bottom up. We are meeting, on the net, in church basements, at work, in small groups, and right now, we are crying. Because we are trying to break free and we don't know how.

Any battered woman in America, any oppressed person around the globe who has defied her oppressor will tell you this: There is nothing wrong with you. You are in good company. You are safe. You are not alone. You are strong. You must change only one thing: Stop responding to the abuser.

Don't let him dictate the terms or frame the debate (he'll win, not because he's right, but because force works.) Sure, we can build a better grassroots campaign, cultivate and raise up better leaders, reform the election system to make it fail-proof, stick to our message, learn from the strategy of the other side. But, we absolutely must dispense with the notion that we are weak, godless, cowardly, disorganized, crazed, too liberal, na�ve, amoral, "loose," irrelevant, outmoded, stupid and soon to be extinct. We have the mandate of the world to back us, and the legacy of oppressed people throughout history.

Even if you do everything right, they'll hit you anyway. Look at the poor souls who voted for this nonsense. They are working for six dollars an hour if they are working at all, their children are dying overseas and suffering from lack of health care and a depleted environment and a shoddy education. And they don't even know they are being hit. [All emphases in original]

Thus does the wingnut segment of American liberalism ride off into the sunset, slamming the door behind it, wondering all the while why all the rest of those people are laughing themselves silly.
Athanasius on 02.06.05 @ 03:11 PM EST [link] [No Comments]

Saturday, February 5th

Plaything of the ideologists

Oh, my. By way of MCJ comes word of just what the world needs: another neutered Bible. Richard Ostling of AP reports:

Should the Bible call God the "Father" or "Lord"? Should Jesus be termed the "Son" of God or "Son" of "Man"? Should masculine words such as "king" and "kingdom" be allowed? Should Holy Writ have so many male pronouns?

Not if militant feminists have their way, as they do in an awkward rewrite of the complete Bible issued in four volumes: The Inclusive Hebrew Scriptures (three volumes subtitled The Torah, The Prophets, and The Writings) and The Inclusive New Testament (all from AltaMira).

These "degendered" Scriptures were produced for the liberal Roman Catholic Priests for Equality. The revisers say that "most scriptures read in worship link building services are still grossly sexist," and "the continued self-destructiveness of an all-male clergy" only worsens matters.

They don't appear to like the Bible all that much.

That's not news. What will be is if what follows is actually sanctioned by any bishop to be used in worship.

Some gleanings from The Inclusive New Testament:

Start with the Lord's Prayer--er, make that the "Teacher's" Prayer. Since God can no longer be addressed as "Father" and his--er, make that God's--"kingdom" cannot come, we get: "Abba God in heaven, hallowed be your name! May your reign come ..."

"Abba" is simply Aramaic for "father," so the change seems pointless. But it's preferable to a proposed NCC option, "O God, Father and Mother," which sounded like two gods. "Reign" is awkward for oral readings because it hits the ear like a prayer for "rain." Elsewhere, the translation invents "kindom" minus "g" to replace the supposedly sexist "kingdom."

"Kindom," when read aloud, will be universally taken to be the ecclesiastical equivalent of "bidness." Ostling's right about abba, and the use of it suggests that this is an instance where the writers assume laypeople are too biblically illiterate to know that, instead thinking that it's some kind of Hebrew or Greek honorific. Of course, if they are biblically illiterate, who do they have to thank but these priests?

Shunning "Son of Man," these Catholics came up with "Chosen One" or "Promised One." That's preferable to the NCC's "the Human One," which sounded like an utterance by the Coneheads space aliens from "Saturday Night Live."

Or take Babylon, "the mother of harlots." Please. The famous symbol of the evil Roman Empire in Revelation 17:5 is deemed "genderist" and full of "misogyny" because "male prostitution is as old as female prostitution." The squeamish substitute: "Source of All Idolatry."

That would be the human propensity for putting ourselves at the center of the universe and displacing God, of which the kind of monomaniacal feminist ideology expressed in this Bible is an example.

The revisers add words that are not in the Hebrew and Greek texts, for instance inserting women's names when genealogies name only men.

On pronouns, the revisionists de-emphasize "his" or "him" in passages that describe Jesus Christ's earthly ministry, and bar them altogether following the resurrection.

Because, as we all know, Jesus would never have come to earth as anything as brutish and uncouth as a male. There's more than a hint of Docetism in this. That's the early Gnostic heresy that Jesus didn't have a real body, because matter is evil--while I doubt that the Priests for Equality would say matter is evil, it souunds like they are looking to deny that Jesus came as a real human being, who would, sad to say, have been male or female, unless they're suggesting Jesus was transgendered.

Besides women, the inclusive Catholics are worried about "marginalized" minority groups, and gays and lesbians. They shun "slave" and change "Jews" to "Temple authorities." "The poor" become "poorer people" or "people in need."

This Bible uses "partner" in place of traditional marriage terminology "to acknowledge and value nontraditional relationships." In the list of sinners in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, instead of the usual "homosexuals" it restricts the denunciation to "hustlers" and "pederasts." In 1 Timothy 1:10, criticism of "sodomites" is rewritten to target only "men and women who traffic in human flesh."

And to think, some people only interpret the Bible in accordance with their ideological preferences. Here we have priests actually changing it to suit theirs.

Turning briefly to the Old Testament, we read of the creation of "an earth creature." Whatever this being was, it certainly couldn't be called a "man," much less a particular fellow named Adam. But when Eve--er, make that "the woman"--appears on the scene, she joins "the man," and eventually they gain their Adam and Eve monickers.

"Earth creature." I believe we're back in Coneheads territory again. Ostling goes on to point out that the total cost of the four volumes of this Bible--Torah, Prophets, Writings, and New Testament--is $160 ($120 in paperback), which suggests to Ostling that it won't be a big seller. I'm sure he's right about that, but I also suspect that the pricing indicates that they think it's going to be bought by churches as a pulpit set. Here's hoping the bishops put an end to that notion pronto.
Athanasius on 02.05.05 @ 09:17 PM EST [link] [2 Comments]

He goes into his windup, here's the pitch...

News on the polygamy front, from Utah, of all places:

Utah's highest court is considering decriminalizing polygamy. Today the State Supreme Court justices questioned the constitutionality of Utah's bigamy law.

Assistant Attorney General Laura Dupaix argued against decriminalizing polygamy. "The bigamy statute prohibits multiple marriages at the same time. Marriage is a public institution, it's not private sexual conduct."

The court took up the case of Rodney Holm, the Southern Utah police officer who was convicted of bigamy for having three wives.

Holm's lawyer Rod Parker says, "We're not seeking to reconfigure the institution of marriage. We�re not seeking civil recognition for polygamous marriages. We're simply seeking to have the conduct of these people decriminalized." Parker also argues that polygamy is a religious freedom.

He doesn't want civil recognition, he just wants it decriminalized. Good strategy: let people do it, then claim in five years that no one's hurt by it (regardless of evidence), and then ask for state recognition. Denying it would be bigotry, you see, mindless religious prejudice, violation of church-state separation, denial of equal rights, etc. These folks are nothing if not predictable.
Athanasius on 02.05.05 @ 02:21 PM EST [link] [4 Comments]

Friday, February 4th

65 million Catholics, and they could only find one?

I'd never heard of The Church Report, which bills itself as "the on-line resource for church business administrators and para church executives," until I saw a link for it on the Sojourners fast 2500 loan online site. The only reason for the link, it seems, is because the magazine named Sojourners editor Jim Wallis as one of its "50 Most Influential Christians in America" (Wallis is #43).

If I were Wallis, I wouldn't be too proud of that designation. Somehow, in compiling a list of the 50 most influential "Christians," The Church Report managed to come up with just one [schismatic] Catholic: Mel Gibson. Thus we have a list that includes the likes of apocalypse-monger John Hagee, health-and-wealth heretics Paul Crouch and Benny Hinn, a more than generous collection of mega-church pastors, newly-seated US Senator Barak Obama, and political has-been Jesse Jackson, while Bishop Wilton Gregory (who led the US Conference of Catholic Bishops through the clergy sex abuse scandal), Richard John Neuhaus of First Things, and even John Kerry are nowhere to be seen. Oh, and there is not a serious theologian in sight (big surprise).

Check out their list. It not only stands as a testament to anti-Catholicism, it gives more than a little insight into the degeneration of evangelicalism in America--if Paul Crouch (who's not only a heretic but a fashion criminal--check out the picture) is one of the ten most influential Christians in this country, then P.T. Barnum was right, and a lot of them are in the church.
Athanasius on 02.04.05 @ 08:08 PM EST [link] [No Comments]

**He's been watching Casablanca again**

Kofi Annan has discovered that there's gambling going on in the back room at the UN. The AP headline has it that the "UN is stunned by oil-for-food condemnation":

A damning investigation condemned the head of the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq over alleged underhand payments in a scandal that has tainted the image of the United Nations.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan immediately ordered disciplinary action against the oil-for-food official, Benon Sevan, who has denied wrongdoing.

Annan was "shocked" by the revelations, said his chief of staff Mark Malloch-Brown.

I guess Malloch-Brown has been hiding the newspapers from his boss for the last year. Either that or they've decided that now's the perfect time to activate the Kofi clone they've been keeping in stasis in the basement of the Secretariat building. He would have plausible deniability.

Athanasius on 02.04.05 @ 10:23 AM EST [link] [No Comments]

Thursday, February 3rd

The UN, Sudan, and the mainline churches

On a completely different note from the previous UCC post, the watchdog site UCCTruths.com raises serious questions about the lack of denominational response to the astounding conclusion of the UN that events in Darfur, Sudan don't constitute genocide:

Still Speaking? The United Church of Christ website has a nice feature on Howard Dean and SpongeBob...but nothing on the U.N.'s failure on Sudan.

In fact, on the UCC news site, there are two news releases and one newspaper story on the UCC response to the silly SpongeBob flap, but not a single item going back to the start of 2004 on Sudan. That's not to say the UCC has been totally silent (for instance, in an April 2004 column on the Rwandan genocide, Bernice Jackson mention "Dafur" and complained about the lack of action from the Bush administration, "despite the fact that the United States was virtually alone at the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission April meetings in Geneva calling for immediate action on Sudan," according to UCCTruths.com), but they've treated it primarily as a humanitarian disaster, and rather than looking to the UN for action as would normally be expected from the UCC, have instead focused on the supposed inaction in Washington.

The UN's refusal to call a spade a spade is bizarre. The UCC ought to call the Organization to account for it, but don't hold your breath. As far as it goes, the lack of response from pretty much all the mainline denominations and the National Council of Churches makes one wonder if protecting the UN's reputation is more important to the peace-and-justice bureaucrats than protecting besieged Africans.

Athanasius on 02.03.05 @ 06:14 PM EST [link] [8 Comments]

Abortion advocacy for seminarians

Looking for a course in Christian ethics that is sure to present a wide range of perspectives without trying to indoctrinate students in one political viewpoint? Then you'd want to skip this offering from the United Church of Christ's Chicago Theological Seminary:

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, in conjunction with the Chicago Theological Seminary, has launched a new curriculum, "Theology and Reproductive Choice," to teach seminary students theological perspectives on reproductive freedom as a distinct subject. Under the direction of Dr. Laurel Schneider, the course's syllabi were developed and are now available for use in seminaries. The six-part curriculum includes the topics of ethics, pastoral care, religious views on choice, and feminist theological perspectives. Throughout the course, contemporary debates about reproductive choice are examined, including issues of authority, public policy and church-state relations.

The Religious Coalition is contacting theology professors to introduce "Theology and Reproductive Choice" to their universities and students. The success of the course at Chicago Theological Seminary has spawned interest in other seminaries and additional courses are being organized.

Dr. Schneider (whose other CTS offerings include "Feminist/Womanist Theory and Hermeneutics," "Native American Religious Traditions," and "Queer Theories and Theologies") and the RCRC have, I'm sure, put together a fair and balanced curricula--from the perspective of one who is already absolutely certain that abortion is the apotheosis of progressive modern living. By the way, anyone care to comment on the ethics of a seminary working with what amounts to a political lobby to develop "course curricula"?
Athanasius on 02.03.05 @ 04:50 PM EST [link] [5 Comments]

Wednesday, February 2nd

UCC official talks budgeting, has vapors

Noted ~~economist~~ church bureaucrat Bernice Powell Jackson of United Church of Christ Justice Ministries is worried about red ink:

I'm really worried and troubled. And I don't think I'm alone. I think there are Democrats and Republicans in Congress who are very worried behind closed doors because they, too, can do the math and can see the handwriting on the wall. I think there are Democrats and Republicans behind closed doors in homes across America who are beginning to get a glimmer that there is something really wrong with our national checking account.

We don't have a "national checking account," at least not in the sense that she means it, because the federal government 1) prints money, and determines how much is needed; and 2) has an essentially unlimited ability to borrow to cover costs. That doesn't mean that deficit doesn't matter, just that if the last 25 years have demonstrated anything, it's that it isn't as important as a determiner of economic health as some folks think.

I think there are Democrat and Republican elders who remember the days of the Great Depression, when tens of millions of families were unemployed and went hungry. They also remember that was when President Roosevelt established Social Security so that never again would there be seniors who worked their whole lives and have nothing to live on.

When you want to scare people, invoke the Depression. Since she draws no connection between the 1930s and the 2000s, I assume she brought it up for no other reason than that. Why she brings up Social Security I have no idea.

Today I heard on National Public Radio that the Congressional Budget Office is estimating that our national deficit might reach $855 billion dollars. That�s $855,000,000,000 in case you need to see all the zeroes. That�s approaching $1 trillion or $1,000,000,000,000 in deficit. And I�m not even sure if that includes the new $80 billion request for the Iraq war which the White House is taking to Congress in the next few weeks.

Here she demonstrates the hazards of quoting what you think you heard on NPR. The $855 billion figure is the CBO's estimation of the cumulative deficit for the years 2006-2015. The reference to the $80 billion for Iraq makes clear that she thinks the CBO was talking about this year. In fact, the CBO is estimating that deficits will steadily drop over the next several years, turning into a surplus by 2012. Again, that's not chump change, but it's nothing like what Jackson thinks it is, and the fact that the CBO foresees the percentage of GDP that the deficit equates to dropping below 2% as early as 2007 is also a sign that the roof isn't ready to fall in.

Any of us who has the task of balancing our household checking account knows that living way, way, way above our means, even in times of family crisis, translates to big trouble. Our children and their children will be saddled with unconscionable debt for generations to come. Bankruptcy court here we come.

Once again, let's all repeat: the federal budget bears virtually no resemblance to a household budget, save that both deal with money. And the feds can't go bankrupt.

Combine those numbers with the administration's priority to radically change Social Security to the new "ownership society" by adding an additional $1-$2 trillion debt and I start to get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don't think that the word "crash" becomes an over-reaction, I think it becomes an obvious response. Everything my high school math teachers and even my high school physics teacher taught me comes back to me as I recall one of the laws of physics being for every action there is an equal and positive reaction. Or words to that effect.

Or whatever. Listening to the State of the Union address this evening, it's pretty clear that "radical" isn't a word that can reasonably used to describe the various proposals being made to change the system. The figures she quotes seem to have been picked out of the air by those throwing them around (for instance, note the lack of supporting evidence here). The warnings of enormous deficits have mostly been the results of overblown estimates of how much private Social Security accounts would take. Bush said tonight that he proposed gradually raising the amount that could be so used to 4%, rather than the 10%, 25%, or even 50% that scare-mongers are tossing out.

When I went to Europe for a meeting the summer that the euro came into being, the dollar and the euro were of equal value--$1 equaled 1 euro. Now, a few short years later, the dollar has fallen in value by about a third. Some of that is due to the fact that foreign governments and investors (our treasury notes� largest buyers, by the way) can read our national household budget numbers just like we can and they are losing confidence in the dollar. There is some speculation that even oil will soon be priced by the euro in addition to or even instead of by the dollar. Combine those almost inconceivable deficits with the continuing high trade deficit (with those lower value dollars we are buying more from other countries than we are selling to them) and with the continuing high unemployment numbers across this nation and you�ve got an economic mess and a recipe for disaster.

When I went to Europe three years ago, the euro stood at $.85 to the dollar. Now the dollar is down. That's what floating currencies do. Will the dollar bounce back? Yes. Jackson doesn't seem to understand that the standing of a currency like the dollar is never an unalloyed good or evil. There are trade-offs depending upon how things stand (for an elementary example, while it's more expensive for us to travel to Europe, it's cheaper for Europeans to travel and spend their euros here, thus boosting tourism). And I have no idea what her point about oil pricing is. Given that the European Union uses almost as much oil as the US, it makes sense to price it in both currencies. It says nothing about the respective strengths of either, or of the economies behind them (and that the US economy is much stronger than that of the EU as a whole is universally acknowledged).

This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. It�s an American issue. I�m worried for our nation. Just when will someone have the courage to say that the emperor has on no clothes--and that he is going broke?

I believe you just did--except, to mix the metaphor, there's not much point in listening to Chicken Little cry about the sky falling when it isn't, is there?
Athanasius on 02.02.05 @ 10:42 PM EST [link] [2 Comments]

Tuesday, February 1st

Rights talk

Church of England priest Giles Fraser is worried about the rights of minorities in the Anglican Communion:

The Church is currently in need of some sort of language of rights. Whatever else it might be, the Windsor report is a prescription for increasing the power of majoritarianism within the Anglican Communion. Minorities are to be increasingly under the will of the majority.

The problem with this general direction is that it is not accompanied by any equivalent sense of protection for minorities. The section "On care of dissenting groups" is one of the most disappointing, concerned only with the intervention of bishops in other provinces. There is no sense of protection for vulnerable lesbian and gay Christians, whose voices the report calls us all to hear.

He's certainly right about the need to protect minorities within the North American Anglican church, and can be forgiven for not knowing much about the situation on this side of the pond. Among Episcopalians, there is orthodox priests being inhibited or deposed, orthodox priests or their congregations being threatened with legal action by their bishops because of who they associate with, orthodox priests and congregations being forced to choose between their livelihoods and property and their consciences. So by all means, the ECUSA and Anglican Church in Canada should seek to protect minorities, but not just those favored by a majority of the hierarchy.
Athanasius on 02.01.05 @ 06:14 PM EST [link] [2 Comments]

Philosophy responds to Iraq election

PJ at Blogopotamus takes up the challenge of responding to the Iraqi elections by refusing to respond. Instead, she gets all philosophical and stuff:

Athanasius at Ecumenical Insanity finds it somehow odd and notable that there�s been no commentary on the Iraqi elections on this blog. I find it odd he expected there to be.

The S[ociety of] S[aints] B[arlaam and] J[osaphat] Constitution and Canons require Chapter Members to pledge "absolute pacifism, and conscientious objection to all military service" (VIII.2.A). So it's not like we believe that some wars could be just, given the right set of circumstances, provided that positive outcomes such as participatory democracy result from the engagement--it's that we believe that any act of violence of any kind is inherently immoral and anti-christian, no matter what the circumstances. In terms of formal philosophical ethics, that is the difference between a consequentialist and a non-consequentialist ethic; in more theological terms, it's the difference between just war (characteristic of Roman Catholics and some Anglicans) and pacifism (most characteristic of Mennonites and Quakers, but also many other Christians). In terms of the debate at First Things, it�s the difference between my friend/mentor Paul Griffiths (Roman Catholic just war theorist opposed to the war in Iraq for its purported failure to meet classical just war criteria) and his sometimes collaborator Stanley Hauerwas (a Mennonite-inspired peace theologian, and [former] member of First Things' editorial board).

It's confusing philosophical categories to think it should even remotely matter to a non-consequentialist paradigm of moral reasoning that good or bad things result from a particular action--the issue is whether the action, considered in and of itself, is right or wrong.

Well, excuuuuuuuse me. I wasn't asking for anyone to give up their opposition to the war, only to offer a response to an event of potentially historic proportions: the first free election in decades, where millions braved the wrath of terrorist fanatics and finally took a hand in deciding the future of their nation. In PJ's lingo, that would be this question: was the Iraqi election, in and of itself, right or wrong? And secondarily, was it a good thing or a bad thing for the people of Iraq? (Granted, a final answer to this question depends in part on the events of the coming months; nevertheless, it's hard to look at the faces of Iraqis as they voted and not think that they believe that good came out of it, even though the road ahead still looks rocky.)

I understand that she and lots of other opponents of the war still think it was wrong, and that there are worthy arguments (from both pacifist and just war perspectives) for thinking such. But does that mean that we can take no satisfaction that millions were freed from the spectre of arbitrary arrest, torture, and murder? That millions may now speak their minds freely? That countless people were positively intoxicated by the opportunity to have a say in their governance, a say that will be further exercised later this year? To say that it is right that the people of Iraq no longer live under the heel of a homicidal dictator?

Say it ain't so, Bloggie.
Athanasius on 02.01.05 @ 05:04 PM EST [link] [1 Comment]

Where's the other side of the story, Bishop?

Bishop Thomas Hoyt, President of the National Council of Churches, is among those traveling through the Middle East this week. He writes on the NCC delegation blog:

Observing the Church of the Nativity, Manger Square, the town of Bethlehem, and the outlying countryside brings sadness, despite the joy of being in the place of Christ�s birth. This sadness comes from the fact that Manger Square, once a bustling center of activity, is now empty of tourists and pilgrims who fear the violence that has engulfed this place. The sadness comes from the Wall that borders much of the town and, with armed Israeli guards watching over it, cuts off the Palestinians who live here from one another.

Who's committing the violence, Bishop? Who was it that took over the Church of the Nativity a couple of years ago at gunpoint?

The sadness comes from seeing Palestinian land, covered with olive groves and terraces cultivated over generations, now confiscated by the Israeli Government to make way for the continuation of the Wall. One wonders at the confiscation of so much land. It would appear that the reason given for the Wall--legitimate fear of terrorism--is not the real reason at all. This would seem to be confirmed when, at at least one point a couple of days later, we saw Palestinians moving back and forth in a gap in the Wall with Israeli soldiers standing by no more than 25 yards away.

Who committing the terrorism, Bishop? What's the rate of terrorist attacks where the wall has gone up as opposed to what it was before? And if it's really about confiscating land, why hasn't Israel just expelled the Palestinians and taken over the whole of the West Bank and Gaza? I don't like the deviations from the Green Line, but could those possibly have something to do with strategic considerations and the protection of Jewish lives?

The sadness also comes from seeing ancient olive trees, numbered with huge red, spray-painted numbers, marked for removal and probable replanting on Israeli territory. Americans will remember years ago, when we were asked to donate money to plant a tree in Israel, something we gladly did to make the desert bloom. It saddens the observer to wonder if the further greening of the desert will be done with stolen trees.

Contemplating the uprooting of those olive trees really got to you, didn't it, Bishop? Could you please refer me to the most recent public statement you made eloquently mourning the deaths of Israeli children? I've misplaced it.

Going from Bethlehem to Ramallah, we began to see the difficulty that comes with living in the midst of the Occupation. The Wall is not the only reminder of the divisions between people. The checkpoints make it difficult for people to pass from one place to another. Permits restrict the movement of people, keeping them separated from family, friends, employment, education and other things. As we prayed an a small hill overlooking one checkpoint, an Israeli jeep occupied by armed soldiers threatened to destroy a fruit-seller�s stand if he did not move it in two minutes. We also prayed at the site where house demolitions emptied an entire neighborhood.

You didn't see any other reminders of the "divisions between people," Bishop? Haven't had any of the PA's HateTV broadcasts translated for you? Haven't seen any school textbooks with their maps of the Holy Land minus the State of Israel? Haven't run across any of the guys in black masks carrying AK-47s? Look again, Bishop, look again.
Athanasius on 02.01.05 @ 03:50 PM EST [link] [1 Comment]

Monday, January 31st

I can't hear you!

Maybe they've been busy, maybe they've had other things on their minds, maybe they're simply struck dumb by the fact that it happened at all. But I can't help but notice that religious left bloggers, from Chuck Currie to John Wilkins to Father Jake to Philocrites to Blogopotamus to Dwight Welch to Heretic to The Village Gate to the Progressive Pilgrim to the Gutless Pacifist have had nothing--not a word--to say about the Iraqi elections. I can't pretend keep up with every left-wing religious blog, but I suspect that's a fairly representative sample.

Some people just don't know what to do with good news.

UPDATE: One of the few "progressive" Christians to comment (and a good post it is, too) is Bob at I Am a Christian Too. He also notes the general lack of comment in left-of-center blogs.

UPDATE: Chuck Currie has weighed in, saying "There is no reason, in my opinion, to think anything will change now in Iraq or that US troops will be coming home any sooner." Unfortunately, things have already begun to change in Iraq, and for the better, sad though that may be. A side note: Chuck posts a "talking points" statement from the Center for American Progress that claims that the Bush administration "did not want this election to begin with." In what universe? It was people on the left in this country that said for months that you couldn't have an election until the country was completely pacified, and that demanded the election be put off. It was the administration, in concert with the interim Iraqi government, that pulled off yesterday's amazing example of democracy in action.

A better response comes from Father Jake:

I am thrilled and am rejoicing with the people of Iraq.

Such an election would not have been possible without strict security. In other words, it would not have been possible without the presence of American forces. This doesn't cancel out the thousands of civilian deaths, or Abu Ghraib. So much is wrong about this invasion and occupation. But this time, it looks like we got it right.

UPDATE: The NCC delegation that is traveling in the Middle East should be added to the list of those missing in action on the Iraqi election.

UPDATE: The Heretic gets snippy with me, and rightly so. I shouldn't have included her in the list above. She points out that she hasn't had much to say about the war, and is conflicted about it. I misread the tone of a previous post entitled "Deliver us from evil," which I didn't read carefully enough. My apologies to my fellow blogger.
Athanasius on 01.31.05 @ 09:44 AM EST [link] [3 Comments]