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Table of Contents - October 2002
Etica y Misiones
Ethics and missions. How do they relate? In April Audra and I visited Argentina, joining our close friends Jack and Jean Glaze. The two served as missionaries in Buenos Aires for 25 years, Jack as professor and president at the seminary, as both of them witnessed and worked establishing churches in the country. Almost 80 now, Jack is remarkably healthy and sharp as ever, the epitome of an earnest biblical scholar and a warm-hearted evangelist. Second only to ethics has been my love and commitment to
missions. Every church I pastored strongly supported mission work. Each year I have joined
congregates and students in mission trips. For eight years I served as a trustee of the
Foreign Mission Board of the SBC (now the International Mission Board) visiting over twenty
countries and working with scores of missionaries. Iraq: Don’t Go There
“Wars are not won on the defensive,” asserts Vice President Dick Cheney. “We must take the battle to enemy and, where necessary, preempt grave threats to our country before they materialize.” For the Bush administration, this policy appears to include a preemptive strike against Iraq, which is viewed as another installment in its war against terrorism. A war of preemption, advocates maintain, will bring about a highly desired “regime change” in Iraq, install a democratic government there and free the Iraqi people. By just war standards, however, a preemptive attack against Iraq must be condemned. `According to just war theory, three criteria determine whether
going to war is justifiable... Ethics of
the War on Terrorism Most American Christians have not examined the war against terrorism from the standpoint of Christian ethics. The major religious organizations have either automatically supported whatever the President has proposed or have remained silent about its implications. The American Catholic Bishops as a body announced publicly their vote (267 to 4) to support the war against Afghanistan. “Most of the heads of the other monotheistic religions in the U.S. from Billy Graham on down,” according to The Jesus Journal, did not mince words “about their desire to give spiritual and conscience comfort to the American war effort.” There is no indication that President Bush, who claims membership in the United Methodist Church, consulted Methodist leaders, or that they approached him. Without raising the
long-debated issue of whether Christians should be pacifists, it seems to me
there are several ethical issues involved in the wars already undertaken or
proposed by the President. The first is President Bush’s declaration of war
against an entire nation for harboring one man, Osama bin Laden and his agents. Just Peacemaking Initiatives Can Prevent
Terrorism A year after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the United States is still in what could be called a war of spirituality. The government has shifted $40 billion to military spending. This doesn't include special appropriations for the war on Afghanistan, special appropriations for Homeland Security, and appropriations to the Department of Energy to develop new, usable nuclear weapons and to prepare to resume nuclear bomb testing in violation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Money has been shifted away from programs for education, colleges, the needy, health insurance for children, and other human needs. State budgets are in deficit, so states are making more severe cuts in education and health care. Fear is in the back of many people's minds, and the
administration is raising momentum toward war with Iraq. The government has shifted its Middle East policy, siding more with Ariel
Sharon's military actions to suppress Palestinians and less with Palestinians'
demand for dignity, justice and a viable state. Other nations express anxiety
at U.S. unilateralism and withdrawal from
treaties.
[See related CET Article: Ethics
East of Eden When Cain killed Abel, the Genesis account says that on leaving Eden, he “went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden” (Gen. 4:16). Humanity is everlastingly going “out from the presence of the Lord.” We are everlastingly choosing to dwell “in the land of Nod.” We are everlastingly wandering around, like a drunk with one foot in a bucket, “east of Eden.” Although we know we are
supposed to love God with our whole hearts and our neighbors as ourselves, we
keep wallowing in the scandal of Enron, we keep waking up in the morning to
some new debacle like the WorldCom moral meltdown, we keep using the Arthur
Andersen recipe to cook the books, we keep sliding down the slippery slope of
the pedophile priests and the crime-coddling bishops of the Holy Roman Catholic
Church, we keep reeling under the devastating blows of terrorism, violence,
adultery, child abuse, and greed, we keep tolerating perverted justice, bought
elections, and rejection of campaign financing in the political arena, and we
keep sheltering and blessing “all the little foxes” that gnaw our vines with
their tender grapes (cf. Song of Solomon 2:15). The Tree of Double Knowledge
Evil Empire The
Neighbors Down a little narrow country dirt road, and across a creek, three miles from the small town of Edgewood was where we lived. That road was either dusty or muddy depending on the weather. Two or three times every year we had a big rain; the creek got up and flooded the roads and bridges. Then the only way we could get to town was horseback or in a wagon with the end gate out so the wagon bed wouldn’t float off like a boat. In the spring of 1932 we
lived in a different kind of world. Ours was a typical East Texas
family farm. At that time almost everyone in this area except a few merchants
and professional people, earned their living from the soil on their farm,
plowed and cultivated with horse or mule drawn equipment. If anyone today lived
as everyone in the rural areas lived then, they would be considered living in
very deprived and almost impossible conditions. Things like electricity, indoor
plumbing, refrigeration, hot and cold running water could only be dreamed
about. TV and air conditioning had not even been invented. My parents got their
first radio after I finished high school. A Triology On Practicing Your
Religion "Are you aware," the stranger said from the far end of the telephone line, "that your second-grade son is giving away his coin collection?" “No,” I responded, but not in surprise. He, like many second-born sons, was a most generous person; a giver, as they say, sent as balance for the many takers in life. "He gave an un-circulated set of silver coins to my daughter today; I thought you would like to know." I thanked her and promised to pursue the matter at the appropriate time. But it is hard to tell when such a time might be; time to explore with a child the tendencies of his own soul; time to explain to a little boy how his innocent behaviors signify who he is and who he might become. It was a long time before a similar signal in my
sixth-grade life helped me understand my own second-born self, who I was and
who I had become. A Triology On Practicing Your
Religion "We post the Ten Commandments in our school," said the principal to a church full of people, "as part of a historical display." Vigorous applause swept through the gathering as he turned to me and said, "We have good lawyers." I doubt that, I said silently to myself, thinking no lawyer could be good who advises a client to violate federal law. My baccalaureate address, square in the middle of "Ten Commandment Country," had spoken to the issue of church and state, religion and politics, the Christian faith, and American law. "Sometimes," I said, "we think judges trample our rights and distort the law when they tell us that certain prayers, readings, and displays violate the ‘free exercise of religion.’ But protecting the rights of minorities is an important element of the American way." It did not connect well with the people, although they
were exceedingly polite and gracious at the reception that followed.
Updated Wednesday, January 05, 2005 |
A Triology On Practicing Your
Religion For more than four years I have been preparing commentaries on religion in American life: first for the radio, now for the newspapers. This week, reaction to these columns went off the charts. First, I discovered that I had made the 2001 annual report of the Catholic League of America. This New York based watchdog group monitors and records all episodes of what they consider defamation of the Roman Catholic Church. I am cited by name and date for my article last summer entitled, "If I Could Pick the Pope." That piece was designed as a tongue-in-cheek probing of several critical issues in contemporary Catholic life (such as the internationalization of the papacy, the role of women in the church, and the legitimacy of celibacy). This article produced a firestorm of controversy in Nicholasville,
Kentucky,... Public School, The Pledge, and Vouchers I Am Your Public School: Embracing All Of God’s Children
I am your public school, a 200 year-old experiment giving America the strongest economy in world history. We are 88,000 buildings in more than 15,000 districts. And we are as diverse as this great country. This fall I embrace more than 46 million children; for most of them, I am their only hope for future success. When the buses roll up, my doors are flung open to children of all shapes, sizes, levels of ability, some in wheel chairs, geniuses and the retarded, average and the developmentally disabled. They speak more than 100 languages, including Mong—the Cambodian highland children who came here with no written alphabet. I represent “home schooling” at its best for I am the “home school” of 10 million latchkey children. Some of you would judge me
by test scores but I would remind you that a test only measures one dimension
of a student’s development—only in that subject on that day depending on
whether the student tests well. Name That
God Before the recent fight over the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, Americans were in conflict over mounting the Ten Commandments in publicly owned places. The God of the pledge and the commandments, advocates argue, is a generic, one-size-fits-all God, in God-blessed America. Some citizens know that
one cannot simply get away with such assertions or evasions. For example,
Commandment One is specific in its claim that God must be Number One. The
commandments are not simple moral injunctions; they are theological claims
which begin, in Exodus 20, with the assertion that “I the Lord your God am a
jealous God.” Lots of luck to those Americans who don’t have this God well
figured out. We are “under a jealous God,” so we have to get this God right. A Lesson
In School Vouchers Ok, school vouchers are constitutional but so is pounding your toes with a hammer. Neither is a great idea. Vouchers have been pitched by their fans as a surefire way to educate kids who some public schools—ant it is important to emphasize, only some—are failing to teach, but note of the several pilot programs so far has delivered. That won’t stop the folks pushing the program. The game here is political, not educational. Remember, vouchers got their first big push in the Republican Party, now the main engine of the voucher train, as a way to reward and hold blue-collar Catholics, traditionally Democratic, who had gone for Ronald Reagan and fundamentalist Protestants who at the time were becoming—and have since been regularized as—foot soldiers of the GOP. That vouchers would be a
boon to common, if no longer public, education was a late rationale for them. Standing Firm for Freedom - The
Baptist Heritage of Religious Liberty
“Freedom” is probably the word we use most frequently to describe the American experience. As Americans we enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the freedom to earn a living of our own devising. But long before “freedom” became a characteristically American word, it was a thoroughly Christian word. The earliest Christians often described their experience of God’s salvation in Christ as a passage from slavery to freedom. Salvation as
freedom from slavery is an idea that runs throughout the New Testament, but
it’s especially prominent in the letters of Paul, in particular Paul’s letter
to the Christians of the region of Galatia in Asia Minor. In fact,
Galatians has sometimes been called the “Magna Charta” of Christian freedom.[i]
What Paul has to say in Galatians about Christian freedom has significant
implications for how we live as Christian citizens, especially Baptist
Christian citizens, in a free country. Peaceful Patriotism
Paradox (a contradictory truth) is one of the most difficult aspects of the Christian faith to understand. It is paradoxical for Jesus to talk about swords in the kingdom of God. After all, peace is what Jesus was about. He taught us to love one another, to love our enemies, and to give support to both the kingdoms of the earth and the kingdom of God. In Matthew 10 he is saying he did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Now how can Christians support peace and bear swords? It
is important first to understand who bears the swords. Jesus is not admonishing
his followers to take up swords and set out to destroy their enemies. Rather,
he is suggesting that when the demands of faith he makes are placed upon us,
other people may react with violence. The faithful follower must be prepared to
endure the sword of violence and opposition. That becomes clear in verse 38,
“The one who does not take up a cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”
After all, his destiny was to become the recipient of the violence of the
cross. A Ketchup Bottle and Saint Paul - The Moral Value of Humor
Recently I shared lunch with three Christian friends at a local grease pit. Somehow during the course of consuming our burgers and fries, we found ourselves knee-deep in a debate about homosexuality. We had no idea how we had gotten into it or how we could get out of it, but it was becoming less and less conducive for happy burger digestion. Fortunately, I was finished with my meal and had focused my attention on listening to Steve. I was also unconsciously toying with the plastic ketchup bottle. Nota bene: boys are born with an excessive amount of nervous energy. They like to jiggle their legs, tap their fingers, fidget, and fiddle with things. As
Steve was passionately making the point that the sexual organs of men and women
were designed to fit together in a way that cannot be reproduced in same-sex
partnerships, I accidentally squeezed the bottle such that a tiny bubble of
ketchup burst out and sprinkled us all. For a split second we just sat there
looking at each other, the three of them in a state of disbelief and I in a
state of mortification. Then we all broke into a fit of laughter. Steve’s point
was lost, the spell of the debate was broken, and all was washed away (except
the ketchup) in our laughter. The
Fishing Trip “I would like to become a writer. How do I begin?” The young woman who stood before me appeared to be 16 or 17 years of age. She was very serious about becoming a writer. I told her I wanted her to do something for me. “Select an event that made you very happy, or very sad. Take a word picture of that event, write it down and show it to me.” “Don’t worry about writing for publication. That may happen or it
may not. ... Book Reviews Book Review Riding the Wind of God
The interestingly, understated sub-title of this book is A Personal History of the Youth Revival Movement. Don’t let this deter you from reading this genuinely exciting history, for there is far more to it than one might think. For anyone that is interested in spiritual renewal, this is your book. Additionally, for anyone who knows Baptist church life in the 1945-1960 timeframe when Southern Baptists were growing like wildfire, this delightful and powerful story is for you. Rarely does this reviewer read a book through in one setting, but this he did because it is beautifully written, skillfully crafted, and humorously presented. It depicts people, places, and principles that must not be forgotten. To those who knew Bruce McIver, the book brings into focus a whole
host of strong memories Book Review The Gospel With Extra Salt - Friends of Tony
Campolo Celebrate His Passions for Ministry
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