Christian

Better Late Than Never – My take on Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” (Part 1)

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    Amid the hubbub earlier this year over Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” I had several friends who either read or commented on it (or both).  I have not been a follower of Rob Bell (although I have seen one or two of his Nooma videos) and so, despite the fuss, I wasn’t terribly tempted to read it for myself… until Pam, a Facebook friend, challenged me to read it for myself.  Up until then, I had limited myself to sharing links to some really well-researched and well-written blogs about it by folks like Ben Witherington  and Dr. John Byron  (who was my Greek professor in Seminary).  I promised Pam that I would read the book but I still didn’t want to buy it so I put my name on a list at the local library and waited.  As luck (or the providence of God) would have it, the book came in just as we were preparing to leave for our church’s Youth Annual conference.  I attend this conference with our youth, but the youth, and the youth leaders attend the business meetings and I only attend the concerts and listen to the speakers.  As a result, I was able to squeeze in enough time to read through the book.
    I was going to re-read the book and take notes but if I had, I would be writing a six part post (instead of two) and I would have been late returning the book to the library.  Besides, other writers have more ably and more thoroughly dissected it already. 
Frankly, the book made me sad.
    It made me sad because I really enjoyed reading it.  Rob Bell writes the way I talk.  He isn’t hung up in sentence structure or having perfect paragraphs but writes in a style that reflects how we speak with one another.  I find that style, occasionally, to be refreshing.  What’s more Rob Bell writes well, has many really great ideas and asks some very important questions.  Problems arise, however because of how Rob Bell proceeds after he has a good idea and after he asks a great question.
    Rob Bell seems to want to have things both ways.  He says that what Jesus did was done for us, with no exceptions, no confessions, and no believing required (p. 11), and yet he believes that this sort of Christianity should motivate us to do good.  Why?  If I believed that nothing is required of me in order to go to heaven, if I believed that I am not responsible for carrying the Good News to others (because nothing is required of THEM either), then what motivation do I have to do good or to tell others about the truth that I’ve found?
(continued in Part 2)

The Nightmare of Democracy?

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    The founding fathers of the United States often referred to it as an experiment in democracy.  These men knew that democracies often self-destruct and as I noted last week, at least one of these men (John Adams) felt that democracy required for the people to be both moral and religious in order to be successful.  In that light, I have been wondering about the current upheaval in Egypt.  Much of the world and many of my friends are rejoicing at the victory of the people in Egypt but I find many reasons to be cautious.  
   
    First, I suppose is simply that often times the devil we know is less frightening than the devil we don’t know.  Mr. Mubarak has recently been denigrated as a ‘tyrant’ but not that long ago he was a ‘valuable ally.’  I don’t keep up to date on the current events in many nations around the world so I admit that I may have missed something, but I am left noticing that there seems to be some revisionist history going on.  It is also important to remember that Egypt has technically been a democratic nation and that Mr. Mubarak was a democratically elected leader despite his recently publicized tyranny.
    Second, it is important to recall that democracy does not always end well.  Historically, there are a number of notable democratic elections that resulted in governments that were far worse than the ones they replaced.  Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party were democratically elected and used the constitution of the Weimar Republic to seize even more power.  In our lifetime we saw that the current theocratic government of Iran was democratically elected (sort of) during the Iranian Revolution but is, in many ways, worse than the monarchy that it replaced.
    Finally, we should be reminded that Americans tend to see the world as Americans who live overseas.  By that I mean that we tend to think that people on the other side of the ocean a) like us and b) want to be like us.  Those of us who have traveled abroad or who have even met people from abroad will have no difficulty in saying that in many cases, neither of these is true.  When it comes to democracy, what works for us may not work for everyone.  What we want is not what the people of Egypt want.  As a result, the government that Egypt ultimately ends up with is not likely to look anything at all like ours, democratically elected or not.
    So what do the people of Egypt want?  The Pew Research Center conducted a major survey of adults in Egypt last year and the results were summarized in Investor’s Weekly
84% favor the death penalty for person leaving the Muslim faith.
82% favor the death penalty for adultery
54% believe that women and men should be segregated in the workplace.
54% believe that suicide bombings that kill civilians can be justified.
Half support the terrorist group Hamas.  
82% dislike the United States.
95% prefer that religion play a “large role” in politics.
    If these are the prevailing opinions of adult Egyptians, then despite any claims to the contrary any democratically elected government is likely to mirror those opinions.  As a result, that government will likely not be all that we, as Americans and as Christians, might hope for.  To me, it seems that any democratically elected government that represented a people that held these values might eventually desire the following structures and policies:
–          Is likely to be highly influenced by the religion of Islam and may incorporate Sharia law.

–          It may not value the personal liberties and equal rights that we assume to be normative.  Women, minorities, and non-Muslims are likely to suffer from discrimination and perhaps even outright persecution.  Under Mubarak, Egypt has not done well in protecting the religious liberties of native Coptic Christians who represent 10% of the population.  A government that openly favors Islam cannot be expected to do better.
–          May well lend government support and financial aid to organizations that we see as terrorist groups.
–          Will almost certainly not be friendly to the interests of the United States.
–          Will likely be hostile to the nation of Israel.
    It is not a foregone conclusion that these things will happen and, in fact, I hope they do not but I realize that what I want is not nearly the same as what the average Egyptian wants.
    Today the Egyptian military officially suspended Egypt’s constitution and dissolved the parliament.  With that, what we have (so far) in Egypt is no less than a military coup.  Our founding fathers knew that democracies often self-destruct.  Democracy was (and is) a dangerous thing.  There are a thousand ways that a democratic government can go horribly wrong and history is full of examples.  Read any newspaper and you can see that it is something that we worry over constantly ourselves.
    I hope that a new government will bring the people of Egypt everything that they hope for.  My fear is that whatever form it takes may not be good news for us, for Israel, and for many Egyptians.
    Please pray for Egypt.

Laws of Man and God – Are guns evil? (Part 4 of 4)

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    There remains one aspect of this issue that is often passed over or ignored entirely and yet, in my mind is perhaps most important of all.  Earlier I said, “Most of our laws are prohibitions against actions or behavior that we commonly agree is not compatible with the maintenance of an orderly society or which or society generally agrees is immoral.”  Although many in our modern culture would like to forget it, our nation was founded on principles that were heavily influenced by the writings of the Bible and much of our legal system stems from the legal foundations of Christianity with notable contributions from other religions as well.
    The legal precepts of the Bible are largely prohibitions against actions and behaviors, not the ownership of things.  It is people who are immoral and not objects.  John Adams (second President of the United States) once said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  If we are to be truly effective in our efforts to reduce violence and to create a safer society we cannot ignore the contributions of culture and religion on morality.   As much handwringing as we do about violence and gun control, we ought to be equally concerned about declines in culture and morality.  My suspicion is that many of the very people who publicly rant in favor of gun control would be appalled by the idea of content controls on movies, television and musical artists.  I am not advocating censorship, but to me it seems that any perceived increase in criminal activity can be blamed on declining culture, politeness and morality just as easily as it can on guns and gun owners.
    
    As I said, there are no easy answers but if John Adams was right, teaching morals to our children, getting people back to church and developing a better relationship with their God will do far more than any laws that we can pass.  These are things that each of us can do and I believe that this is where we have the greatest opportunity for success. 
At the very least, that is where I intend to spend my time.   
How about you?

    (Go back to Part 3)              (Go to Part 2)             (Go back to the beginning in Part 1)

Laws of Man and God – Are guns evil? (Part 3 of 4)

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    In any discussion involving firearms or the 2nd Amendment we are almost certain to hear the phrase, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  This may be a true statement but it isn’t very helpful.  Yes, guns require that there be a person to pull the trigger.  The difficulty with placing the blame on the user is that, however mentally deranged or socially deviant the person at the trigger, guns make killing shockingly easy.  Every year people go to prison because the gun they were holding fired either accidentally or because it fired far more easily than they expected.  While many things can be used to harm others, few other weapons suffer from this trio of horrors, a) ease of use, b) devastating damage, and c) the potential for accidents. 

    On the other hand, there remains a human being who is in control, who makes a conscious decision to load, carry, and point a firearm.  Once that is done, the “accidental” nature of a discharge, intentional or not is practically irrelevant next to the intent already demonstrated and the chain of poor choices that has already been made.  The truth is that social misfits, deranged persons, and anyone who intends to do harm to another will not be deterred by a lack of access to a firearm.  Congresswoman Giffords was meeting people in a supermarket parking lot.  Without a gun, her assault could just as effectively been carried out in an automobile and the harm to innocent bystanders would have been equally great or worse. 
Congresswoman Giffords’ assailant was not unintelligent.  Without access to a firearm, it would not been difficult for him to construct an improvised explosive device (IED).  Fifty years ago construction of such a device might have taken a fair amount of research but today the Internet makes it all too easy.  Curiously, the man who disarmed the gunman credits his courage to the handgun he himself was carrying and wonders what might have happened had he not stopped for cigarettes and arrived a few moments earlier.

    If it seems that I am taking both sides in this discussion it is because I am.  Once again we are engaged in a public discussion where both sides have legitimate concerns.  There are no easy answers.  Every potential solution has potentially serious and harmful consequences, including that of doing nothing and allowing things to continue as they are.  As we move toward a solution, we must continue to have an open discussion that reveals all of our concerns because what we are ultimately choosing are those consequences with which we are most willing to live.

    It is difficult to say whether we are on the right road or the wrong one.  The statistics that are available present us with a mixed bag.  FBI statistics reveal that violent crime (in fact crime of all kinds) in the US has been falling steadily since  the early 1990’s and currently is about half the level it was in 1991.

    According to statistics from the United Nations, the United States ranks 24th  in murders per capita (behind Columbia, South Africa, Mexico and Russia but ahead of most other developed nations) but 8th in murders with a firearm (again behind Columbia, South Africa, and Mexico).  We are also 8th in total crimes per capita but this time behind nations like New Zealand, Finland, Denmark and the United Kingdom.  Finally, according to an EU  study cited in the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper,the per capita violent crime rate in the US is less than that of ten European nations of the EU and Canada (but more than Australia).  

    What I see in this data is that while we (in the US) seem to stand out in our capacity to murder, American society is less prone to violent crime overall.  For years it was assumed that violent crime was linked to population density and this was used to explain why cities appeared to have more violent crime.  Recent studies seem to refute this and show that per capita, cities are no more violent or prone to crime than other less populated areas.  How guns play into this remains unclear, at least to me.  It would be interesting to compare the rates of violent crime, murder and gun crimes in cities where strong gun controls have been enacted with cities that have none.  I favor a ‘go slow’ approach that allows local and state governments to try a variety of solutions and see what works (and what does not) before launching a nationwide initiative based on untested theories and hunches particularly when each potential solution has a consequence of its own.

Laws of Man and God – Are guns evil? (Part 2 of 4)

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So what is it that bugs me about gun laws?

    As I considered my own discomfort I might have landed on an idea.  I’ve now confused several discussions in my mind, but in one such discussion, (and of course now I can’t find it) Terry (or someone) asked, “If gun laws are irrelevant because people will break the law anyway, then why bother making laws regarding murder or rape or anything else?”  Why indeed?  What is the difference between laws against murder and laws banning guns?  This is not an easy question, at least it hasn’t been for me, but as I thought about it (and I still don’t have everything figured out) a few things began to come together.
Most of our laws are prohibitions against actions or behavior that we commonly agree is not compatible with the maintenance of an orderly society or which our society generally agrees is immoral.  Murder and rape fall into these categories.  John Adams said that in the United States we are a “government of laws and not of men.”  So what are laws?  Saint Thomas Aquinas said this… “Law: An ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community.”  As I see it, our laws are outlines which we use to describe for ourselves what constitutes acceptable behavior.  Laws are external, they do not (and indeed cannot) cause a change in that behavior.  Behavior is internal and is shaped by our character and morality.   I’m not the first person to feel this way. 
  
“You can’t legislate intelligence and common sense into people.”                                                                                          – Will Rogers 

 “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”            – Plato


 The difficulty is that gun laws would ban, not unacceptable behaviors or actions or even morality, but things… objects. 

    Somehow when we move from using behavior, actions and morality as defining characteristics of who we are as a society to determining what we may or may not own we are making an important shift.  I suppose in many respects we already do this.  We already restrict the ownership of high powered lasers and many explosives, but even then, if you really want them, there are local, state and federal permits for which you can apply that will allow you to own them (if you meet all of the necessary requirements).  Many drugs and poisons are also restricted.  Few, if any, of us would argue that individuals should be able to own nuclear materials or intercontinental ballistic missiles (although private individuals may launch really large rockets if they can afford it and if they meet stringent permitting requirements) but where do we draw the line?  

    In the discussion of gun ownership, I have heard others scoff at the idea of gun collecting, but why?  Frankly, the idea of gun collecting holds no interest for me, but then again, all sorts of people collect all sorts of things that I find to me far more ridiculous than guns.  People collect glassware, playing cards, stamps, beer cans, pop tabs, lunch boxes, Avon perfume bottles, decorative whiskey bottles and a million other things that others find to be useless or worse.  We all have dramatically differing tastes in what we find interesting and one of the strengths of our nation has been the freedom to pursue whatever interests us, regardless of what others think.  Just because gun collecting doesn’t interest me, in no way reflects on whether or not I think it ought to be legal.

    In a nation where the ownership of private property has always been an important value, how willing are we to criminalize the ownership of firearms or anything else?  How far are we willing to go?  More to the point, if our laws help us to define who we are as a people and as a nation, at what point would these changes fundamentally rewrite our understanding of our identity and how we understand our freedom itself?

    (Go to Part 3)                       (Back to Part 1)

Laws of Man and God – Are guns evil? (Part 1 of 4)

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 (Author’s Note: I started writing this two or three weeks ago, it got bigger than I expected and it just kept growing.  Because of it’s size, I am breaking this up and will post one part each day for four days.  I don’t intend for this to be a purely political forum but my hope is to discuss political events and find where they intersect biblical teaching.  That element does appear in this discussion but it doesn’t show up until Part 4 so please be patient.)


    After the horrifying shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the news was full of talking heads from every political persuasion arguing over the cause and how such a tragedy might be prevented in the future.  I have grown so tired of such talk that I mostly ignored it.  What made me stop and think was a conversation that I had on Facebook with my friend, Terry Fairfax.  Terry and I met in our high school band.  Today he is a lawyer (and remains a huge musical talent).  Terry and I are sometimes, at least politically, worlds apart but I enjoy chatting with him because we respect one another and we are both willing to consider the merits of logical arguments, even when we disagree. 

    As we often do, we came at this tragedy from different perspectives and drew from experiences of different lives.  As such tragedies often do, the discussion of Rep. Gifford’s shooting caused us to consider the need for individuals to own firearms and then, obviously, our constitutional rights to “keep and bear arms.”  Terry made me think.  His knowledge of the law and history made me dig deeper and get past a lot of the sound bites thrown out by conservatives in the media.  Eventually we agreed on some things and disagreed on others while remaining friends.  

    As I continue to reflect on our discussion, something has been bothering me.  I found myself wondering why the ideas of gun control and the passing of gun laws bothers me.  Understand that I am not (nor have I ever been) a huge proponent of gun ownership.  I have served in the military.  I have trained on and have carried an M-16 rifle for many days and for many miles.  I am comfortable around firearms but at the same time, I can see that there is a logical problem with permitting ordinary citizens to own weapons of moderate destruction.  Things like rocket launchers, tanks, hand grenades and land mines, in the interests of everyone’s safety, should belong to the military.  So what is it that bugs me about the idea of gun laws? 

(Go to Part 2)

Mosques in New York, Discrimination or Deliberate Manipulation?

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In recent weeks there has been a controversy playing out in New York City. If you somehow managed to miss it, a group, led by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (a religious leader educated in Egypt, Malaysia, England and the United States) has asked for permission to build an Islamic community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan only two blocks from ground zero. Tempers have flared over whether this group, or any group, should be allowed to build a mosque so close to the site where many Americans, including Muslims, were killed by fanatics in the name of Islam. I have been thinking about this and have been following the news as well as a few of the blogs that are being written about this. It has taken me a while to get my hands around this issue simply because I have mixed feelings and I needed time to better understand how I felt before I could say anything.

Part of my problem is that we all, myself included, have strong feelings about what happened on 9/11 and many of us have strong nationalistic feelings as well. I served ten years in the Army Reserve and my unit was called to active duty (in Kentucky) for six months during the first Gulf War. I have always felt that part of what I did as a soldier was to defend the rights of people even when their actions differed from mine. I have friends who are pacifists and who, for religious reasons, refuse to serve in the military. I have been willing to serve in order to protect their right not to serve. Flag burning offends me greatly but I will fight to protect the rights of others to express themselves in this way. Likewise, those who propose to build an Islamic Center two blocks from ground zero deliberately play upon two fundamental principles of our constitution, the right to property and the freedom of religion. The American right to property allows the owners of land or other property to do whatever they desire within the limits that the law allows and so, if you own land, you should be able to do with it as you wish. Freedom of religion tells us that we cannot deny the right to build a place of worship simply because their particular religion is unpopular or even offensive to others. For these reasons, the developers of this mosque/community center/cultural center should clearly be allowed to pursue the necessary permits and contracts to begin building, but the story isn’t really that simple.

The Imam heading this project, Feisal Abdul Rauf, claims that his mission is to develop bridges of understanding between our two cultures and his background and education would seem to indicate that he is, perhaps, in a unique position to do that. He has sometimes seemed to be a moderate Muslim who condemned the 9/11 attacks, but in the same interview where he condemned the attacks, he also declared that the U.S. was at fault for those attacks and he likewise has refused to concede that Hamas is a terrorist organization. We are told that this building is to be built by American Muslims and for American Muslims but the estimated cost of this project is over $100 million and there is a very real possibility that it may be funded by radical foreign Muslims who intend to use our system of constitutional law and justice against us in order to demonstrate what they perceive to be our weakness. It is disturbing, in light of our obvious concerns, that the developers have refused to reveal the actual funding sources.

In places like Jerusalem and Mecca, and throughout the Middle East there is a tradition of building mosques to commemorate great Islamic victories. Throughout the centuries, I do not doubt that many Christian cathedrals have been built with similar motives. In light of concerns about offending the families of the victims of 9/11 however, it may well be worth our time to discern whether this building is being built by American Muslims in order to facilitate understanding between out cultures or by foreign radicals who intend for its construction to stand as a testimony to the defeat of American imperialism.

A few other pieces that need to be fitted into our understanding: Two mosques already exist in Lower Manhattan (one built prior to the construction of the World Trade Center) and indeed an Islamic Cultural Center also exists not far away in Midtown Manhattan near Central Park. St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church stood in the shadows of the World Trade Center and was destroyed when those building collapsed. St. Nicholas church is negotiating a settlement with the New York Port Authority but although there has been some difficulty in negotiations caused by demands from both sides, St. Nicholas church, nearly nine years later, has not yet received permission to rebuild. While an Islamic group should not be discriminated against simply because they are Muslims, neither should they get preferential treatment. Just days ago, it was discovered that the developers of this proposed building do not own both parcels of land needed to build. Whether this omission was accidental or deliberate raises a whole host of additional questions.

So where does all that leave us?

Constitutionally speaking, there is no reason that this group should be singled out from any other group that wants to build any legal structure in Lower Manhattan. If the construction is legal then it should be allowed to move forward. On the other hand, a center that desires to advertise itself as a bridge for “cultural understanding” could certainly do better, and should do better than to build in this particular location. Building here would be insensitive in the extreme. It would be out of place for the nation of Germany to build a cultural center within two blocks of a Nazi death camp. The desire to build in this location seems hostile, inflammatory and deliberately divisive.

It is important to remember that Islam didn’t fly two airliners into the World Trade Center. It is unfair to condemn all Muslins for such a crime, but we remember the places where people danced in the street when they heard the news. Perhaps it is unfair to paint with a broad brush and blame an entire religion for the actions of a few, but I suspect that, rightly or wrongly, this is the memory of a majority of our nation. As people of faith, Christians should be well acquainted with the false accusations that other religions have historically directed against us and so we should be sensitive to how this might be happening to Muslims in our nation today. On the other hand, we are called to be wise as foxes and to understand our world and how it works. If our nation is being deliberately manipulated in order to make us look weak, stupid and foolish then we should have every right to say no. If our constitutional system of law and justice is being used against us in order for our enemies to celebrate our defeat, then we should find a way to say no.

I believe that too many questions remain unanswered. The events surrounding 9/11 give us every right to be suspicious and careful. It seems as if the developers of their proposed building are getting a pass so that we can feel good about not discriminating against them. In order to answer the legitimate questions that have been raised, and in order to assuage the fears of the victims’ families and indeed the fears of many across our nation, more information must be revealed and more must be understood before construction should proceed. If the developers should refuse to be straightforward and reveal this information and should they refuse to answer the difficult questions, then let them build somewhere else. Without those answers, construction of this building, in this place, would be an affront to all Americans and would desecrate the memory of the victims of 9/11. If nothing else, things need to slow down while everyone takes a second and third look at the problem and as we search for answers to unresolved questions. Until then, under our system of government, if there exists a proper and legal way for this project to be stopped, then it should be.