1. This article from the New York times is especially helpful if you want to have a beginners look into the complexities of the Middle East and espeically Saudi Arabia. The article talks about how Muslim extremists are being rehabilited in a new program in Saudi Arabia. I have always been fascinated by the idea behind jihad, and the article brings a unique perspective from Muslims.
2. I am growing increasingly frustrated, as I wrote here, with the call to bail out the auto industry. Obama’s new chief of staff, Rahm Imanuel, is trying to play a bail-out of the auto industry as a chance to help upstart and “retool” to create more energy efficient cars. What do you guys think of this? I don’t think it will make a big difference. I think that if the auto industries had looked at the rising gas prices and tried something innovative and cost effective, there would have already been more results in this industry. Am I wrong?
3. Marty notes that American companies ignored our inreasingly changing world and kept producing SUV’s, while Japanese company took stock of the world and created more reliable cars.
4. MGM is teaming up with Youtube to put full length movies and TV shows online. While the initial stages don’t sound that exciting, this is a big development for the internet world.
5. This video about “what it means to be Christian” is well made and worth looking at:
6. Over at seeking alpha, there are demands being made if an auto bail-out is to occur. What do you think of their demands?
With the era of good feelings coming with the election of Barack Obama, there are some good things like the beginnings of electricy coming to the Helmand Province.
While, such good things are happening, thanks to google blog search I was also able to find out through Michael’s blog that there is an humanitarian crisis going on in Afghanistan as a result of a coming winter famine. Approximately a third of the country will be without food and water.
The LA Times has shown that there is an increasing call to abort central government and begin working with tribal warlords:
Confronting the prospect of failure after seven years in Afghanistan, the U.S. military is crafting a new strategy that is likely to expand the power and reach of that country’s tribal militias while relying less on the increasingly troubled central government.
The solution seems relatively simple: give them food. What’s the problem? Well, taliban leaders and other people within Afghtanistan keep killing humanitarians aid workers. Michael explains further on his blog that:
Part of the reason for the increase [in humanitarian aid worker deaths] has to do with the fragmented nature of many conflicts since the end of the Cold War. In places such as Afghanistan, Darfur and Somalia, there are a bewildering array of warlords and armed groups, and community acceptance isn’t much of a security guarantee if bandits control the surrounding roads…Furthermore, many Western aid agencies have agendas, such as support for women’s rights, which put them directly at odds with religiously motivated insurgents like the Taliban – who, for instance, go to great lengths to attack girls’ schools.
What’s more? These aid workers are considered part of the occupying western forces. It is very difficult to combat these types of things in our world. There is very little you can do except try to make deals with the warlords that kills the least amount of people, but what should the Christian response to this conflict be? Over at the council on foreign relations they say:
“[David Patraeus calls for] possible government reconciliation with the Taliban; and cooperation with neighboring countries, including Pakistan and Iran. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, speaking on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Budapest in October 2008, said he favored some form of reconciliation in Afghanistan, though he acknowledged not knowing “how it would evolve.” A week later, during a speech at the U.S. Institute for Peace in Washington, Gates was unequivocal in his support of bringing tribal elements into the fold. “At the end of the day the only solution in Afghanistan is to work with the tribes and provincial leaders in terms of trying to create a backlash … against the Taliban,” the defense secretary said.”
It appears that our duty as Christians is at is has always been: to serve Christ in all things. If we go as workers to Afghanistan we will give our two cloaks until we have only one, we will take any form of persecution and return it with love, and we will LISTEN. I cannot overemphasize that we will listen instead of talking so much.
There is more talk of Amazon Kindle on the web (thanks to Jim West for pointing me to it). I think it is important for people to be up to date on issues of the e-paper revolution (see the BBC’s comments here). Microsoft is no longer in this race to try and compete with google books. Let me make a few predictions based on this latest information:
1) The richest person will be the one who combines the iPhone with the kindle and can do it at low cost.
2) Google and apple will team up to create an online library that can be accessed through their cellular device. There will be previews of books and the ability to buy books online.
3) There will be more decentralized books being written and desiminated via cellular devices than ever before. Writing will become more free-form in nature. Novels will be writen for niche audiences and complex artistic books will be much cheaper to make and print for visual enjoyment (i.e. comics)
4) Just as news has become individualized, books will also become individualized and the amount of books will increase because of the relative decrease in start-up costs.
2) Jesus manifesto is dealing with issues of dispensantionalism and eschatology. Sam argues on there that the dispensationalist view of the second coming holds a paradox: the first time Jesus comes to save the prostitute and the second time he comes to kill them. He struggles with how to make the two different missions of Jesus come together. He brings up the point that our end-times eschatology influences of practice of church (for the intellecutal: ecclesiology). Often a dispensationalist theology, he argues, makes us unconcerned with the present world. Do you agree?
3) Visit here for up to date news on decisions for Obama’s cabinet. I personally would like to see Colin Powell in his cabinet. What do others think about this? Some think John Kerry will be the next secretary of state? Really? What do you think?
4) The New York Times writes on the difficulties Obama will face after his inaguration. What is the main issue that you want to see Obama address in his first one hundred days?
5) FFF argues that education is a socialist regime. I argued in my letter that Obama should provide more reforms and more resources for schools, but do you think the federal government should just take a step back instead and let states deal with these issues?
James once said “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself form being polluted by the world” (James 1:27). This doesn’t seem like such a radical point of view until one considers the way that the Romans viewed religion. Borrowing from Richard Horsley’s Jesus and Empire, we can see just as much Romans viewed religion as an extension of the state:
“The most divine Caesar…we should consider equal to the Beginning of all things…; for when everything was falling [into disorder] and tending toward dissolution, he restored it once more and gave it to the whole world a new aura; Caesar…the common good fortune of all…the beginning of life and vitality…All the cities unanimously adopt the birthday of the divine Caesar as the beginning of the year…who was being sent to us and our descendants as Savior, has put an end to war and has set all things in order; and [whereas] having becoming [god] manifest, Caesar has fulfilled all hopes of earlier times…the birthday of the God [Augustus] has been for the whole world the beginning of good news (gr: evangelion) concerning him [therefore let a new era beginning from his birth).” –OGIS 2.#458
When James says the word “religion” and does not include the word “Caesar,” he is subverting empire and committing a crime against the crown. Not only that, but it is a commentary on the whole power structure of Rome. How did Rome perpetuate the infamous Pax Romana? The ‘peace of Rome’ was sustained by taking money from conquered people’s in the form of tribute to the capital and Rome redistributing that money to Roman legions who would, in turn, protect the crown. While Rome takes from others to protect themselves, the church, as a vital and life-sustaining force for the world, gives to others who cannot protect themselves.
But this is the way that church has always been. We have always been called to give ourselves away and to show God’s grace by helping the helpless. We have always been called to share the gospel to all, even if this means great personal loss for ourselves. We have always been called to carry our cross. We have always been called, even if it is dangerous…
I have written in the past on the emergent movement. While I have never talked in much depth about their theology, I am quite interested in the sociological trends of places like emergent village. I recieve their newsletter via e-mail and was again interested in the direction they are taking. They are suggesting four shifts in priority that generally follow the organizational structure in our changing world:
Reduce and decentralize by getting rid of the national coordinator position (this means Tony will be moving on).
Re-emphasize the importance of the website as a central hub.
To decentralize by depending on grassroot organizations to plan events rather than emergent village to plan events themselves.
To Reconfigure the board
I do not consider myself an expert on emergent (I have not read enough of the author’s who call themselves ‘emergent,’ nor do I have the time to do so), but I have been watching the conversation for some years and have been greatly interested by the sociological trends. All of their goals for the “new” emergent-village seem to be about less national presence and more presence as network node (perhapas the anti-federalists were right all along). There is a term recently introduced to me by my blogging friend Nate called subsidiarity. I am so excited by this word because it brings to term some of the ideas that have been boiling in my brain. This concept suggests that matters ought to be handled by the smallest group possible. It would probably have been the view of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy and probably embodies many of the grassroots organizations throughout United States history. There is a good conversation going on about this idea at catholicanarchy (read the comments). I want to quote one of the comments here:
I think (and I cant take credit for this) that locality is such a wonderful answer to capitalism & globalization. Wendell berry is the best critiquer of this system that I can think of. Why can’t people be happy with solving the problems and providing for the needs of their own communities? Everything is always mass produced and shipped all over whether or not its wanted/needed elsewhere. This is where advertising and the creation of perceived needs come in. What is really troubling is when we think about how this has come into Christianity in the form of evangelism.
Why join a subsidarity movement? Well, as Christians we hopefully realize that the best way to work is through the local church as an expression of the catholic church (universal, not necessarily Roman Catholic). Could we argue that God uses subsidarity? He chose a particular people group in a particular place to be the expression of his love to the world. The particularity of God in ‘choosing’ one group to, in turn, bless the wold holistically, seem to show subsidarity, or the idea that working through one group as a kind of tree that spreads its root deep, as his guiding principle. As Christians, we need to remember that bigger is not always better.
