Peace at Any Price?

There's another place on the planet that I'd love to go back to some day with Katrina. I spent a semester studying in Israel and surrounds in the spring of 2000, just before Mr. Sharon ascended the Temple Mount and all Gehenna broke loose. I remember walking from our campus outside the Old City to Bethlehem, and from the northern suburbs of Jerusalem down the rocky canyon to the oasis of Jericho. It's a beautiful place full of beautiful people.

Beautiful but hopelessly lost.

I remember being back at school the following fall and reading the headlines of bombs exploding in markets in Jerusalem and Haifa. One in particular went off in a Sbarro restaurant in the New City not far from the hostel where I lived. Another man was fatally wounded when the building he was in (an interfaith learnng center that I had visited) was caught in the crossfire between the Arab town of Beit Jalla and the Israeli settlement of Gilo. It felt like my own memories had somehow been violated, even though I was thousands of miles away living in safety.

I guess that's why I react strongly against any one-sided view of "peace in the Middle East." My prayer is that some form of a two-state solution will eventually be palatable to all sides, acknowledging that certain injustices will go unpunished. But those who want to press the case for reparation to be made for every life lost--those are the ones standing in the way of permanent peace.

The former president Jimmy Carter is one such example. His latest book on the crisis is so full of inaccuracy, distortion, and cheap shots that it is hard to believe that he had anything to do with the Camp David Accords at all. He paints a more sympathetic picture of Palestinian suicide bombers than al Jazeera. Even the famous liberal legal scholar Alan Dershowitz was so hopping mad when he read it that he has challenged Carter to a debate. How exactly does this sort of thing further the cause of peace?

I am equally frustrated, however, when I read about well-meaning Christians who believe that the only road to peace is an unfettered, hegemonic Israel. Those are such that have recently banded together to write a Letter of Repentance to the Jewish people for all the crimes committed against them in Jesus' name. While I agree that such repentance is necessary and surely to be welcomed by those who have suffered, the letter does nothing to suggest that Christians have anything to offer Jews (or Israel for that matter) but brotherhood and good feelings. This is disingenuous, especially for evangelical Christians who believe that Jesus is the God of Abraham in the flesh and that his commands are equally binding to those found in the Torah.

Peace in the Middle East is surely an elusive hope, but one we should work for nonetheless. But it will certainly not be achieved by those who care more about being loved and accepted by one side or another more than they care about the greater good of peace itself. The path to peace is not ultimately good feelings or even tolerance. Instead, peace is the product of humiliation, sacrifice, and the willingness to overlook many offenses--past, present, and future. Peace is a by-product of love.

Love is not speaking truth to one side and not the other. Love is not a half-truth. Love is not withholding from someone their greatest good, namely, the complete knowledge of God as he is revealed in Jesus.

This is something that no "peace broker" or thinly-veiled political organization can accomplish. Love is accomplished when people who love God and neighbor more than self are willing to lay their lives on the line for those who don't know the first thing about it.

NCAA Blues 2

Tubby Smith could have been the most loved or the most hated man in Kentucky, depending on your perspective. But all the armchair coaches of the Kentucky Wildcats can breathe easier now. He's gone to Yankee land.

I wonder how many of these guys, though, will sit in their comfortable pews tomorrow morning with great hope for next season. I wonder how many of them will remember that it was Tubby Smith who agreed to participate in the commissioning of over 100 IMB missionaries in 2003 at Rupp Arena. I wonder if the previous coach would have done that.

At least that guy delivered those coveted national championships.

Religion, anyone?

NCAA Blues

Katrina and I both recently leapt on the bandwagon and signed up for both Myspace and Facebook. You can see our Myspace pages here and here. (You have to be a Myspace user and add us as friends to see our entire pages.)

Facebook enticed me last week to fill out an NCAA bracket. Since I hadn't been invited to join Dr. Mohler's pool at Southern (just kiddin!), I decided to bite. As of 2:00 pm EDT, I have accumulated a meager 30 points. Can you believe that I picked Xavier to beat Ohio State? And I was one missed call away from being a genius! According to Facebook, I am now in 1,222,376 th place. But it ain't over till it's over!

Down with 'Bucks!

I love China, just in case you were wondering. It is my second (or third) home. Some of my best friends in the world live there, and they love it, too.

And one of the reasons I love China I can't put into words. So I'll just summarize the article I linked to from above.

The Imperial Palace (otherwise known as the Forbidden City) in Beijing is one of the country's top cultural and tourist attractions. It is opposite Tianamen's Square from the mausoleum of Chairman Mao Zedong, who ruled the country from 1949 until his death in 1976. He was throughout his life vocally anti-American and anti-capitalist.

Yet today, not a kilometer from his final resting place, you will find a capitalism that is so in-your-face it almost makes you long for the pastoral life of yore. Of course there are the blaring neons of KFC and McDonalds. But there are also the ubiquitous young university students promising to show you ancient antiques and artwork, all the while luring unsuspecting tourists to charming tea rooms where they are sometimes shaken down for cash.

But has a Western corporation finally crossed the line of decency and cultural pride in China? It seems that Starbucks (the trendy and uber-sensitive hucksters of Seattle coffee) may have done just that. For not long ago they opened up a location in the Forbidden City. That's right. In the Forbidden City. As in--inside one of the ancient imperial residences-turned-museums. (Try to stop and think how you might react if say, Ellis Island or Colonial Williamsburg, became the site of a new Ikea superstore.)

And here the political and cultural elites in China are caught between a rock (patriotic pride in Chinese antiquities) and a hard place (old fashioned corporate greed). At least one politician and one media personality in China have started a campaign to give Starbucks the boot from the palace.

But my one question arising out of all this (having toured the Imperial Palace myself), what will they do about the English signs? No, not the funny mis-translated ones. I mean these:

That's right. Perfect English for tourists brought to you by none other than American Express. And there are at least 50 of these throughout the Forbidden City.

And that is one reason why I love China.

On Surrender, So to Speak

Growing up I used to love Bugs' Bunny cartoons. And I think it was Yosemite Sam or Daffy Duck that would often end up saying toward the end of a chase sequence, "Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

So lets talk politics for a minute or two. (Are you suprised?) :=)

There are a few among us who could do us all a favor by occasionally raising the white flag of surrender. I'm talking about those who use their media pulpit to supposedly speak for evangelicals so as to intimidate the other guy into submission. Think Justice Sunday. The tactic in a nutshell: get as many "big names" as possible together in one venue to breathe veiled threats at those who are standing in the way of the appointment of conservative judges. Now I agreed then, and still do, that judicial activism in the USA is not a desirable state of affairs--particularly because the American system of government was not designed to invest so few with so much power to interpret laws as they see fit (sometimes with little regard for original intent or legal precedent). But the end in this case (the appointment of strict constructionist judges) did not and does not justify the means--neither the "nuclear option" (the abolition of the filibuster in the Senate) nor the hijacking of a religious facility to broadcast a chest-pounding political agenda across the fruited plain.

In my opinion, a simple letter to the editor would have sufficed, or better yet, a renewed call among Christian educators to prepare students for the legal profession. If judges have in fact as much influence over the law as some say they do, why aren't more Christians working harder to become judges in family courts and lower courts that set precedents for the higher courts to follow? Maybe it's that a live television event takes a lot less effort and makes us feel as important as we think we should be. (And please spare me the victim mentality that evangelical Christians can't get a break in the legal profession. Give me evidence, not whining.)

(Sorry about the preceding digression for those not familiar with the U.S. political system. I have to put my degree to use every once in awhile!)

The nuclear option turns the Christian worldview into a battering ram that supposedly by the strength of our arguments and goodness of our intentions, we can push back the kingdom of darkness or at least expose its absurdities for all to ridicule. But aren't we quick to forget that God has in fact revealed Himself to those who are perishing--those who too are created in the image of God? Wasn't that Paul's point in Romans 1 (so that no man is without excuse)?

So if you can't beat em, join em. Our fellow image-bearers.

I heard recently about a professor at Harvard (a naturalist) who wrote a plea to evangelical Christians asking them to consider adding their voice to those speaking out on behalf of caring for the environment. Granted, that's not what evangelicals are known for in the political arena. But this guy believes that we have something to offer that more secular folks just can't match. And what might that be? A strong belief in a God who made it and owns it all. The Father is here, in other words, and he's told us to clean up our room. And doesn't being a good neighbor require this common courtesy after all? I mean, who wants to live next door to a guy who uses his rusty old American dreams as lawn ornaments? Isn't it possible as good neighbors, not to mention fellow image-bearers, for us to work together on something for a change?

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

And that's exactly what folks like Rick Warren and Richard Cizik, the head of the Washington office of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), have done. They've joined forces with some of the best scientists and activists from around the world to combat global warming. And even if you believe that the jury is still out on whether or not the really is anything we can do to stop it (or if we're causing it at all)--isn't that a good thing? Isn't it better to communicate to the world (a little naivete aside maybe) that we love our Father and our neighbors enough to at least try to pick up our room?

The "nuclear option" is a funny thing. It's always easier the second time around. And it doesn't matter if the target ends up being one of your own group. So this week Don Wildmon ,James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Jerry Falwell and a few lesser knowns have demanded Richard Cizik's head on a platter unless the NAE reigns him in and repudiates his public opinions on global warming. The thrust of the letter they wrote to the chairman of NAE's board is the claim that the interdenominational organization lacks the expertise (and the mandate from its members) to take a position on as controversial a subject. They argue that the issue should be addressed "scientifically [i.e. by scientists] and not theologically." (NB: The same argument can be applied to embryonic stem-cell research, but, to my knowledge, the FRC has not employed any scientists to further its position on the issue. That hasn't stopped them from making the scientific argument that adult stem cells hold more promise for research scientists.)

All of this is really a something of a smokescreen obfuscating the real issues which are that 1) Cizik has found the respect of the "liberal media" that some on the conservative right secretly crave (hence the constant harangue about its tactics) and 2) the attention given to environmental (read: liberal) issues detracts from the more black and white social issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and "the teaching of sexual abstience and morality to our children." In other words, "Thank you Mr. Cizik, but this is our turf. Please step aside. We'll mow it when we're good and ready."

Is it any wonder that the "liberal media" has so little respect for these dwindling organizations?

It is true that there are some in the evangelical community who want so much to be respected in the world that they have lost or muted their prophetic voice on issues that don't make Bono smile and take notice. I do not believe that Richard Cizik or the NAE is in their number. In fact, he is one of the solidly evangelical political activists who isn't currently collecting royalties by self-servingly complaining about his co-religionists in print. He has actually worked to build bridges on all sides. And that is something that should be applauded, not protested.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. At least when the result of such a narrow surrender just might be to shine a little bit of light in the dark (and increasingly balmy) corners of the world.