I spout a lot of fan-atic words about Bono and his band U2. But my appreciation of him goes beyond his status as front man for the greatest rock band in the world. I also realize he does more to debunk his neo-messiah and straight-laced Christian status than anyone ever could – he is not perfect. But he has had his mind altered by a love for Africa and a passion for the plight of many Africans. And he gets the biblical concept of justice – its power and its demand to not be ignored – better than most 52-week-a-year-church-attending Christians. As Bono puts it about 1/2 way through the talk below:  “It’s a pain in the arse, this equality business.” So this study break is a little headier but just as melodic in it’s own way with a message as powerful as “Pride (In the Name of Love).” It’s Bono’s 2005 acceptance speech for the TED award.

I used to work at a psychiatric hospital. My work there included facilitating a classroom environment where kids with a variety of mental health issues from 6 to 18 could work on class skills. One of the best units I did was a historical look at the most prolific figures of the last millenium. I used a TV program put out by A & E and one of the top 5 people was George Washington (Johann Guttenberg was #1). I don’t remember which historian or celebrity narrated the brief case made for our first president. However, I remember being struck by the statement that Washington facilitated something that had never really happened before in political history: a peaceful transfer of power from one head of state to the next. The narrator talked about how Washington could have named himself king of the colonies and his popularity would have made such a power grab successful. Instead, after he felt his time was done, and despite the pleas of many to stay, he quietly rode his horse back to his farm, Mount Vernon, in Virginia and laid the foundation for what we do in the United States today: vote for another peaceful transfer of power. It’s worth noting that citizens of the U.S. today, having endured the longest, most expensive and invasive election in history, will simply mark a ballot to bring about major change in our country and the world.

I voted for Barack Obama for a myriad of reasons – his persona, his intellect, his inclusiveness, that he stood up against a war that the vast majority of his colleagues supported, his ability to inspire and create a vision for the direction of the country (something we sorely lacked th the last 8 years) etc. I wrestled with that vote for a few: his voting record on abortion, the potential that he will skyrocket spending and expand government in unhelpful ways. But in the end, after 8 years of a Republican in office who I feel has led the country down a destructive path in many areas (primarily the war in Iraq), I could not vote for John McCain. Yes, I realize that John McCain is not George Bush. But his intention to continue many of the same policies, the negative style of his campaign – it’s divisiveness, the invoking of ridiculous images of Obama by him (e.g. pal to terrorist, socialist) and his colleagues (slandering Obama by asserting he was Muslim, using his middle name as a negative, trying to portray him as ‘not one of us’ in many ways) – and his decision to have Sarah Palin as VP wore me out and disgusted me at times. I like John McCain and hope that we will see the return of the pre-campaign John McCain. I think it would be terrific for Obama to involve McCain in a high-level manner (if McCain were willing). But in the end, I voted Obama and will celebrate his victory if that happens today.

I’d like to think that George Washington would be proud that 209 years after his death we continue to transfer presidential authority without a single bullet being fired or tanks in the street or mobs beating their opposition as we see in other places. Another reason to appreciate this election is that we will make history one way or another. We’ll elect the first woman vice president in history (88 years after the right to vote is won for women) or the first black man president just 62 years after the last known public lynching. I love that history will turn a page no matter who wins. Regardless of who you vote for today, I thought these were some things worth noting.

“He loved the picture, don’t get me wrong, but he just couldn’t get over
the war,” his mother, Maureen Dwyer, said by telephone from her home in
Sunset Beach, N.C. “He wasn’t Joseph anymore. Joseph never came home.”

Dwyer’s parents said they tried to get help for their son, appealing to
Army and Veterans Affairs officials. Although he was treated off and on
in VA facilities, he was never able to shake his anxieties.

Dwyer became the ‘face’ of the rebuilding efforts in Iraq four years ago. Today, may the story of Dwyer’s life and struggles increase the aid returning soldiers who are battling PTSD deserve. You can read a full obituary on Dwyer here.

Finally, speaking for myself, I can draw a straight line from Joseph Dwyer’s story and Barack Obama’s Op-ed piece, “My Plan for Iraq,” in yesterday’s New York Times. Maybe you can too.

“Thanks for nothing, local leadership” is the phrase that came to mind. It’s a sad day in Sonic land as the trucks pack up today and head for the mid-west. As one local sports talk host said, we’ve gone from being a major league, 3 sport town to a 2nd rate sports town – how does it feel to be on par with Kansas City and Cincinnati, folks? That’s us. Frankly, it’s depressing that in a town supposedly full of innovative politicians and business leaders, we couldn’t figure out a way to keep 40+ years of civic pride around. But hey, I’m sure all the Barry Manilow concerts and environmental product conventions will replace the revenue an already sinking Seattle Center lost yesterday. Here’s a good blog entry about the politics of it at Crosscut.

Here it is, your daily dose of Reinhold Niebuhr – this from his essay Idealism and Reaslism:

“The good news of the gospel is not the law that we ought to love one another. The good news of the gospel is that there is a resource of divine mercy which is able to overcome a contradiction within our own souls, which we cannot ourselves overcome. This contradiction is that, though we know we ought to love our neighbor as ourself, there is  a law in our members which wars against the law that is in our mind,’ so that, in fact, we love ourselves more than our neighbor.”

                                                            –p. 302 in War and Christian Ethics: Classic Readings on the Morality of War

One of my assigned readings for Christian Ethics this quarter is The Massacre at El Mozote by Mark Danner (it’s in book form, but you can read the initial full article here). It is the horrific account of one of the largest massacres in Latin American history. It’s set against the backdrop of the battle between leftist guerrillas and the U.S. backed El Salvadoran army. On December 11 (day after my birthday), 1981, a unit of ‘elite’ government soldiers tortured, raped and massacred hundreds of campesinos (peasants) from infants to the elderly. It’s a story of truth-telling, cover-ups and some redemption (hope for more). Today, there is a medical clinic in El Mozote named after the only survivor of the massacre, Rufina Amaya. This article is the single hardest thing I’ve ever had to read. It’s horrible and you should know about it but be warned about reading the article – it’s graphic in its description. I think from now on, when I celebrate my birthday on December 10th, I’ll always remember that in 1981, a group of innocent men, women and children were about to experience living hell. The irony is, I’ll be thankful my family lives in a place free of such military violence but angry that my government supplied the M-16s, money and training that helped fuel this atrocity. May God have mercy on all of us.

Here is a passage towards the end of Danner’s article which includes quotes from the United Nation’s Truth Commission’s report, From Madness To Hope: The 12-Year War in El Salvador:

“Finally, in October, the experts began to dig. And there, on the third day, in the silence of the ruined hamlet of El Mozote, all the words and claims and counterclaims that had been loudly made for nearly eleven years abruptly gave way before the mute force of material fact. The bones were there, the cartridges were there; the sleeping reality of El Mozote had finally been awoken.

They dug and sifted and charted for thirty-five days, and soon the cartridges and the clothing and the bones and bone fragments, all labelled and packed away in bright manila envelopes and fresh new cartons, would depart El Mozote and travel by car to a laboratory in San Salvador, where the experts worked away into December. The following March, when the United Nations made public the Truth Commission’s report, entitled “From Madness to Hope: The 12-Year War in El Salvador,” the analysis of the evidence was there, laid out for the reader in clear, precise language, each successive sentence demolishing one or another of the myths put forward during the previous twelve years. Of the hundred and forty-three skulls found, all “were deposited during the same temporal event,” which is “unlikely to have occurred later than 1981.” El Mozote could not have been a guerrilla graveyard, as some had claimed, especially since all but twelve of the one hundred and forty-three remains identified turned out to be those of children under twelve years of age, including at least one fetus, found between the pelvic bones of one of the adults.

The cartridges recovered in the sacristy showed that “at least twenty-four people participated in the shooting,” and the distribution of the shells indicated that they fired “from within the house, from the doorway, and probably through a window to the right of the door.” Finally, of the two hundred and forty-five cartridge cases that were studied — all but one from American M16 rifles — “184 had discernible headstamps, identifying the ammunition as having been manufactured for the United States Government at Lake City, Missouri.”

From this evidence and from a wealth of testimony, the Truth Commission would conclude that “more than 500 identified victims perished at El Mozote and in the other villages. Many other victims have not been identified.” To identify them would likely require more exhumations — at other sites in El Mozote, as well as in La Joya and in the other hamlets where the killing took place. But the Truth Commission has finished its report, and, five days after the report was published, the Salvadoran legislature pushed through a blanket amnesty that would bar from prosecution those responsible for El Mozote and other atrocities of the civil war. In view of this, Judge Portillo, after allowing two American anthropologists to work in the hamlet for several weeks with inconclusive results, in effect closed down his investigation. The other victims of El Mozote will continue to lie undisturbed in the soil of Morazán.”

Well, to borrow a phrase from one of my prof’s, I got to ‘touch the velvet’ last night. That’s right, I heard in person one of my favorite celeb pastors, Rob Bell. Rob is the pastor of the other Mars Hill (for you Seattle-ites and those aware of Mark Driscoll) where you may actually experience a woman teaching you scriptures from the main stage. Rob also is the creative force and ‘host’ of one of the first set of Christian teaching videos who’s production style / quality are not embarrassing, noomas. Eugene Cho has another great and lively discussion about it on his blog that’s not worth my trying to duplicate. You can read more about the discussion between Rob and my friend Rose on women in leadership there. It seemed Rob was on the same page at a theological and ‘ecclesiological’ level as Rose (egalitarian), but there was also some disconnect. Final plug for Rob on this topic: I did value his strong statement that went something like, “In the past we used to say things like, there are two different interpretations of scripture that we have to agree to disagree on. No – now we should say, there are two ways of interpreting scripture here, and one of them is wrong.”

The evening with Rob was put on by Off the Map at VCC and included others like Doug Pagitt, Todd Hunter and Sunil Sardar. They were all in town as participants in the Seeds of Compassion conference featuring the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu. You can watch the final panel discussion of the event here. It was good to hear from them about their experiences as I found myself yesterday feeling a little jaded and even frustrated at times. Seattle has been abuzz about the Lama’s visit and really, it should. He is a towering figure in the world as a Nobel peace prize winner and has returned to the main stage with the current conflict in Tibet. But I was trying to hold in tension with the hype, the complex reality of the history of Tibet and the Lama.  I wonder if many recognize the role of the brutal caste system within Tibetan Buddhism and what life in Tibet was like prior to China’s invasion in 1950 under Mao Zedong, and the eventual “Lhasa Uprising” in 1959 that led to the current Dalai Lama fleeing to India. But among those I spoke with who attended the conference yesterday, all were very impressed with the multi-faith panel and participants – to the point of being challenged in whether or not their personal Christian faith understood concepts like compassion, righteous anger, justice, etc. as well as the Buddhists, Muslims and others they heard. As Rob said, Christians should not be afraid to go anywhere. And how refreshing that the voice of good Christian leaders were at the table! Rob expressed how wonderfully he was received; over and over hearing, “You are and evangelical Christian? We’re so glad you are here!” He also said, “People are so compelled by Jesus. They want to know about Jesus.” So, that was very helpful for my cynical-self to hear.

Finally, Rob spoke about 20 minutes on his upcoming book “Jesus Wants to Save Christians“. It’s definitely a McLaren-esque book title. Here’s the description:

“There is a church not too far from us that recently added a $25 million addition to their building.
 
Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago about a study revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty.
 
This is a book about those two numbers.
 
It’s a book about faith and fear,
 
wealth and war,
 
poverty, power, safety, terror,
 
Bibles, bombs, and homeland insecurity,
 
It’s about empty empires and the truth that everybody’s a priest, it’s about oppression, occupation, and what happens when Christians support, animate and participate in the very things Jesus came to set people free from.
 
It’s about what it means to be a part of the church of Jesus in a world where some people fly planes into buildings while others pick up groceries in Hummers.”

He talked about the bible having been written about and by a people living under the brutal thumb of military empires. The story begins in Exodus with God hearing the cry of the oppressed in Egypt - the God who always hears such cries – and bringing freedom and deliverance. And particularly in the Old Testament, we see God’s people getting themselves in trouble when they forget this and become the empire (e.g., Solomon). For those of us living in America today (particularly affluent America), Rob stated we need to understand that as the most powerful country in the history of the world who is around 8% of the world’s population but with almost 43% of its weapons, there may be some things we don’t understand about the biblical story. We need to be careful that we don’t align ourselves with ‘empire’ so much so that we cannot critique it. He is not the first to say this of course, but his popularity among young Christians, especially young evangelicals, may spread this important corrective further than it has gone before.

      

Today is Good Friday, the day when Christians like me remember Jesus giving his life over to be beaten, scourged and killed. I’ve been complaining to my wife that I haven’t felt very connected to this Lenten season which comes to a close this resurrection Sunday. The irony is, one main reason I’ve not felt in touch is having to finish up my class at Fuller - a class on Christ and the atonement. Yes, I am that thick sometimes. But one thing I’ve not been able to get away from is a sense of some connection between my studies on Christ suffering for our sins and the suffering around our five year old war in Iraq – in particular, the suffering of the Iraqi people. I’ve been frustrated that when our major media and presidential candidates talk about the cost of the war (4000 US Troops killed and close to one trillion dollars), they almost never mention the death toll of Iraqis – like somehow if we don’t give that number, we don’t actually have to feel badly about it. Opinion Research Business in London puts the death toll at over 1 million (Iraq Body Count says just under 90,000 civilians killed from violence vs. ORB puts the number at 1.2 million). Clearly, either number is horrific. Shane Claiborne went to Iraq in the midst of the invasion and “shock and awe” bombing of Baghdad as a part the Iraq Peace Team (this website is worth checking out). I realize not everybody agrees with Shane’s views and politics, but he wrote a very compelling description of a dream he had during this time in Baghdad I wanted to share:

Sometimes it is hard to sleep — so many thoughts. A bomber flew over. I looked up and could see, “U.S. Air Force” on it. I tried to think only of Jesus – the beautiful Lover of Nazareth. The other night I dreamed of Jesus. At first I could only see his back, somehow I knew it was him. His large, strong back was shirtless (and not as fair-skinned as I had once thought!). He was stooped over on all fours as if he were cradling something on the ground. I wondered what it was, so I tried to get a better glance.A little head popped out from beneath his arm, giggling hysterically. Then another squirmed out from the other side. And another. How many were there?! Still kneeling on all fours with his arms spread wide, Jesus frantically tried to keep them gathered beneath him, as if he knew danger was looming. There were hundreds of little faces [Author's note: Jesus was gigantic, not to scale. I know it's weird; it's a dream.] So there was this huge Jesus, sprawled out above all the children. He looked like a kid frantically trying to keep a litter of young puppies from scattering.And then there was a loud crack. Out of nowhere a whip struck Jesus on his back. He yelled in pain. Then again – the skin ripped open. And again. The children began to cry. A few young stragglers ducked safely under Jesus’ chest with the others. As the whip continued to strike him, rocks began to fall from the sky like hailstones – pounding on his back and bouncing off. The children huddled beneath him, sobbing. His body convulsed in agony, but he never loosened his grip on the little ones below. As the rocks kept falling, something else started to drop from the sky. These objects looked similar to the rocks, but when they hit his back they did not bounce off like the rocks had. They sunk into his skin … and then they exploded, tearing huge holes into his back, one after another. His bones became exposed, and soon his body stopped moving. Blood poured off his sides and rained down on the children.STOP! STOP! In the name of God, stop. I could not wake up. The holes continued to tear into his flesh until the body barely resembled anything human. Then, at last, there was silence. Stillness. Slowly, the children began to stir. They crept timidly from beneath the rubble, covered with blood … but alive. And I awoke … sweating, panting, but alive.

From Luke 22:

 The men in charge of Jesus began poking fun at him, slapping him around. They put a blindfold on him and taunted, “Who hit you that time?” They were having a grand time with him.

            

So one of the interesting things about not being a pastor right now is feeling a little freer in expressing my political views – which is especially fun given the current historical campaign. I chime in mostly on Eugene Cho’s excellent blog. Today, the morning after the best speech on American race and politics of this generation, Eugene’s been fielding comments – including whether or not people’s concerns about Obama and his relationship to Rev. Jeremiah Wright have been soothed. I heard a reporter on NPR this morning (I wish I could remember who it was…) make a brief comment about how our young brother Jeremiah in the Old Testament was thrown into a pit for criticizing his government, Israel. Now, I’m NOT saying Rev. Wright should be compared to the OT prophet Jeremiah (honestly), but it is interesting to look at their words and compare their experience: 

From Rev. Wright:

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye.”

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” (Sep 2001)

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” (2003)

From Jeremiah the OT prophet: 

Studying this is an interesting study in the role of the prophetic. Is there any credence to this regarding Rev. Wright? Wikipedia, every theologians best source, says of Jeremiah (prophet), “Others engage in rival acts that parody and critique his. He is taunted, put in jail, at one point thrown into a pit to die. He was often bitter about his experience, and expresses the anger and frustration he feels. He is not depicted as a man of iron, and yet he continues in preaching a praying for God’s people.” How would we have reacted to our young bible hero had we been a part of Israel – a nation convinced that they were in good standing with God as his chosen ones in the world? Or what if he appeared in 21st century America and said something like this to our government:

Ch. 5:
20     “Declare this in the house of Jacob

I really am not saying Rev. Jeremiah Wright is God’s prophet to America – or that America is equal to Israel as seen in this OT period. Of course I couldn’t say these things aren’t true with 100% certainty either – that’s too much for this hack theologian to own. But it is interesting to take this current debate and step back to ask ourselves whether we would be ones with ears to hear and eyes to see what the Lord might be saying to us – especially if we don’t want to hear it. ^