Time Out of Joint:

the Logical conclusion of Freedom and Diversity

This disturbing piece of news was passed along by friend and colleague.

The new 'oppressed' in Holland are . . . Pedophiles (which of course is a pejorative term). The new NVD party or The Charity, Freedom and Diversity party (still seeking legitimacy) is currently opposed by 82 percent of the Dutch but only 62 percent said promoting pedophilia should be illegal. I wonder how a generation of 'pedophile education' will change those numbers . . . since the only reason it is opposed is becasue we are closed minded.

You can read the Reuters article here.

It seems to me that the logical conclusion of 'progress' in the name of "Freedom and Diversity" is a place we may not want to go . . . we don't want to go.

what will we do?

Bono: The Independent (Red): An inbreaking

as summer approaches the sun has been rising earlier and earlier. amazingly, by 5 a.m. there is no qualitative difference in light from 10 a.m. Suffice it to say, sleep patterns are a bit wacked.

This morning I finally finished reading through The Independent edited by Bono. Half of the issue cover price donated to RED which is dedicated "to fight AIDS in Africa" by teaming with corporate sponsors. Needless to say the issue was a breath of fresh air from the usual dank air provided by most journalism.

From the front cover (by artist Damien Hirst) Bono reminds us the theme of this edition: there is a radical disjunction between Gen 1.27 and 6,500 Africans dying daily "as a result of a preventable, treatable disease. (HIV/Aids)".

Some notable moments in the Issue: 1) The opening article and image was incredibly powerful. "Aids and a lost generation: Children raising children" addresses what is at stake . . . an entire generation being laid waste an another growing up with no hope. Later, this is complimented by a unique first hand account by Internal Development Secretary Cahal Milmo . . . a witness to the suffering.

2) Two excellent articles highlight the connection between oil greed, the suffering of the poor and debt relief. . . "The woman who has the power to change Africa" is about Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Finance Minister of Nigeria) fighting corruption -both internal and external (IMF?!). Also, the article/interview with Hugo Chavez was intense . . . illuminating and frustrating. Chavez is responding to miserable conditions in Venezuela (The military suppressing an uprising which started because the IMF forced the government to divert money from the poor to the repayment of loans). The irony of both stories was that both Nigeria and Venezuela should be wealthy from their Oil.

3) A report of African immigrants washing dead (some alive) on Italian beaches provided the most chilling quote. "This is not Lampedusa's [a resort island] problem. It's Italy's problem, it's Europe's problem. We don't even see them. We have nothing to do with them."

4) The Independent magazine insert EXTRA had an amazing photo-essay by Sam Taylor-Wood on a road trip through the Deep South of the States which reveals "how little the modern world has touched America's rural underbelly". Done with a sympathetic and generous look at the South, the photo-essay addresses silent rural poverty in America.

The photo-essay is balanced by an editorial by Dominic Lawson entitled "Why we should give thanks for Wal-Mart" or how it does "more to raise the living standards of poor Americans than any government agency.

5) Contradiction is dealt with again with "A new nation of philistines: Russians prefer Hollywood to high culture". Basically, the TV and Internet is consuming Russian leisure time . . . a microcosm of the rest of the Western world. On the other hand, there is an interview with the Edge on the rebuilding of New Orleans (the culture).

These are just the highlights from the issue. The real genius though is in the details . . . one gets the sense that the magazine is crafted (like a fine concept album?!) rather than manufactured. There are no easy answers here only a mandate to address the problems and needs of a real world. Theologically, Bono's sensibilities allow for glimpses of the kingdom of God to shine through; an inbreaking of future concerns, possibilities, and prophetic critiques in the here and now. Bono's journalistic anomaly provides us with a  vision of what journalism could be, can, should be (and sometimes is) . . .

Bono's doing his part:

what will we do?

Jesus getting dirty in the Porn Industry

This is a great story . . . not becuase of the admittedly 'shocking' ministry name JC's, Girls, Girls, Girls but because founder Heather Veitch's interview was top notch. I can't remember a minister answering interview questions more authentically.

The following comes from her interview with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC:

"CARLSON: Now, what does your church think of your past? Anyone you worship with uncomfortable with what you‘ve done?

VEITCH: Well, you know, when I first walked into a church, I was judged heavily for my life, and how I had lived, and that‘s part of the reason why now I am trying to make a change in our churches, because what happened was it was almost like something I had to keep secret, when in reality, Jesus himself hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors.

CARLSON: Yes.

VEITCH: And reached out to them. So I knew that this wasn‘t right. So that is one of the biggest reasons that we have started this ministry, is to open the minds of the church and remind them that these are the exact people that Jesus himself reached out to."

XXX

"CARLSON: Well, that‘s an excellent point, and I mean, from all the evidence we have, the prostitutes Jesus hung out with were still working as prostitutes when he was hanging out with them. Certainly, the tax collectors were still collecting taxes.

Do you require that porn actresses, for instance, that you are ministering to, leave the industry before joining your group?

VEITCH: No, we don‘t. And in fact, what we ask them is to come, try out a relationship with God, start going to church, at least develop a relationship with him, and then let him be in charge of them.

I definitely do not want to police every girl out there, or tell them what they can and cannot do, but I know that God will do that. And God wants to be in their life and be in control of their actions and allow him to guide them through their life. "

XXX

This is Jesus getting dirty in the porn industry. This the kind of talk that get's you killed by Pharisees. A ministry designed to minister to the captives AND the churches own hypocracy. A ministry that is open to the "lifestyle" of it's congregants but never loses sight that liberation from their "lifestyle" is the goal. A ministry that understands that one cannot demand change from a person . . . a person must become changed.

Does it work? Check this out from a "charming" Porn Blog called Viviane's Sex Carnival:

Room 63

It's just not that easy . . .

the language of politics and diplomacy is duplicitous --at best. This rule applies to all politicians (do you hear that bleeding heart Liberals!!? do you hear that red state Evangelical America!!?) because the machine demands homage before the people.

but it's just not that easy . . . "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."

To the present war the States are waging I have heard many complaints as to it's "legality" its "justification" its "honesty" its "legitimacy". This may be true and it may not be, but what I do know is that life under Saddam Hussein was a life of real and tangible terror --not from militants but from their own sovereign state!:

read some of the first reports of Room 63 and the Iraqi nightmare here. . .

""I swear by God I walked by a room and on my left I saw a grinder with blood coming out of it and human hair underneath," said 38-year-old Ahmed Hassan, who said he had been kept in room 63 at the Hakmiya intelligence headquarters in Baghdad."

If we can't condemn that then what in the hell can we condemn . . . what a sad state of affairs when we are more concerned with legality than human life and shame on us (the US and the world community) for not acting sooner. Yet another example of the failure of modernity.

What will we do?

the Destruction of Israel

'Sigh' What a shameful and embarrassing blot in the history of Islam . . . 'Sigh' but alas,

I have no more patience for this madness. Any Muslim or friend of the Muslim who does not immediately come out and say that this is 100% wrong, let them be Anathema . . .

"Iranian Leader: Israel Will Be Destroyed"

"There is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will wipe off this stigma (Israel) from the face of the Islamic world," Ahmadinejad told students Wednesday during a Tehran conference called "The World without Zionism."

"Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury, any (Islamic leader) who recognizes the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world," Ahmadinejad [President of Iran] said.

***

I for one choose "to burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury" . . .

Dodging in Hyper-Reality

". . .And it's true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die

(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)"

U2 -- Sunday, Bloody Sunday from War

Since Rita was a Cat. 3 Hurricane it seems the whole U.S. has taken a sigh of relief. "Our Oil Refineries are ok.!" "Gas won't bloat to $5.00" a gallon!" "The economic impact won't be as great!". Don't get me wrong, it's a miracle that Rita downgraded as quickly as she did . . . hundreds of lives were spared and billion's of dollars (which otherwise go to education, healthcare, the poor, scientific research to rid us of Cancer . . . oh, the War) were saved.

But being close (even though we're here in Scotland) to the action it's amazing how Hyper-Reality operates. Hyper-Reality absolutely refuses the particularity and banality of human life which is antithetical to what we learn about God in the narrative of the Incarnation. Hyper-Reality favors the immediate and accessible over the distant and inaccessible.

My wife's family --who live in Orange, just east of Beaumont, TX where the eye of the Hurricane actually hit-- can't even find out whether or not they have power, a roof, a home left. They watch the news and surf the net from my parents house in Dallas to no avail . . .

Our friends David and Sabelyn are somewhere in LA along the path of the eastern eye wall. No word from them yet . . . Meanwhile, news and pics of New Orleans, Houston, even Beaumont flood the airwaves.

From Orange, TX to Cameron, LA entire communities have been wiped out, but as MSNBC Onthescene BLOG brilliantly posted, "if there aren't pictures it didn't happen . . ." We can all take a big sigh of relief because if we don't know about it, everything’s a okay!

When it comes to Hyper-Reality (which apparently Bono was clued in to twenty years ago) we only need to hear the rest of "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" to understand what narrative empowers us to break through the veil of indolent quietism to participatory action:

"The real battle just begun
To claim the victory Jesus won
On...

Sunday Bloody Sunday
Sunday Bloody Sunday..."

The only reality is the reality of God in the World, and the only world there is is God in it. From Darfur, Sudan to Orange, TX we need to search beyond the hyper-reality the world creates and remember the fragility of life . . .

what will we do?

100 minute bible

Arguably, 1880-1918 was the beginning of the end for Modernism. Darwin, Einstein, the Wright brothers, the automobile, the moving picture of the Lumier Brothers and Cubism collide with the promises and hopes of Liberal Democracy. There is an eerie scene in István Szabó's brilliant film Sonnenschein --with Ralph Fiennes who plays three generations of Hungarian-Jews-- when the Sonnenschein family toast to the future as the clock chimes in the new century, 1900. The 20th century began hopeful, with all the promises Modern existence afforded, and ended in utter shambles.

At the heart of Modernisms collapse was "the Culture of Time and Space" which is also the title of Stephen Kern's brilliant historical survey of 1880-1918. Modernism, fueled by the myth of Progress, experienced a collapse of time and space which in turn transformed the imaginative landscape into a wasteland of instantaneous gratification, insatiable desires and ultimately the death of the past in favor of the future . . . the new. We see J.R.R. Tolkien battling these forces in his mythic landscape Middle Earth. The Elves, The Ents, the Shire, and the crumbling civilization of Gondor battle the power hungry mechanized forces of Sauron.

And then we come to this . . . the 100 minute bible. Essentially, Bible Cliff Notes. This is Rowan Williams’ imaginative solution to the waning 21st century church? Is the answer really to make the Bible more accessible or to offer a more relevant reading of scriptural witness? Cutting the Bible down to size --so it can be digested along with a Happy Meal from McDonald's-- is like only watching the action sequences of Lawrence of Arabia or reading the children’s version of Moby Dick and claiming to have entered Melville's imaginative space. Rubbish.

While the Church is facing a crisis of a society running out of patience with her message, the answer is most certainly not appeasement. The Church is called to be a prophetic voice in the world, but most certainly stewards of a strange alien message. We need to breath new life into the Gospel message by recovering the imaginative strengths --hope, transformation, solidarity, liberation, reconciliation-- Christianity can offer a world enslaved by material fantasia.

Jesus the Revolutionary

I grew up in a family of missionaries, pastors and theologians . . . so it makes sense when I say one of the most intriguing books i had as a kid was "Jesus the Revolutionary" by H. S. Vigeveno. I loved the romanticized image of Christ as a South American Revolutionary fighting for the poor.

But the problem with this image (or equation) is that the idea of Jesus as a revolutionary is only analogical. There isn't a one to one equation in meaning. Marxist materialism is a poor excuse for the Kingdom of God manifest on earth. It robs creation of the numinous!

The Otherness of God incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth is the manifestation of a revolution unlike anything ever seen before. A revolution of creation, of being, of action, of existence which has no equal. I think Leonardo Boff comes the closest to making this point in his book Jesus Christ Liberator.

Suffice it to say, when I heard about the Churches Advertising Network's new ad campaign to make Jesus relevant I was a little suspicious. The Christ Child taking the familiar pose as El Che.

I still haven't made a decision about what I think . . . but I like the chutzpah! It isn't saying Jesus is El Che. It says that Jesus is as much --or even more-- the revolutionary as El Che. The image of Ernesto Che Guevara does not belong to him anymore. As far as an image relates to a person (say my picture is me . . . more or less) the image of El Che --through pop reproduction-- is synonymous with revolution, resistance, fighting for the oppressed.

Read the BBC article here and make up your own mind.

Social Welfare: truncating God's people?

Scathing article in the last issue of The Sunday Times: Scotland by John McWhorter --senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. [Read the article here]

McWhorter's thesis: Black poverty (exemplefied in the suffering seen in New Orleans where the majority of the victims were Black and poor) is the result of 30 years of misguided welfare rather than racism . . . he says, "white leftists in the late 1960's, in the name of enlightenment and benevolence, encouraged the worst in human nature among blacks and even fostered it in legislation."

Can socialism soft --which is intrinsically materialist-- replace a peoples need for Poesies (the imaginative power of God through our participation in Christ)? The great failure of Modernism's enlightened action is manifested in the ghetto like projects. Inspired by architects such as Le Corbusier, whose colossal failure Brasilia is the cornerstone example of urban modernism, the projects isolate the poor socially while the government policy teaches the poor "not to work as a form of civil rights." Entitlement replaces rights and responsibility . . .

The believer is called to another existence. We are called to struggle. We are called to defy. We are called to make the reality of God's future present here and now. We are called to throw ourselves totally into the worries, cares, and troubles of this world . . . that is the life divine. The only reality there is is God in the world and the only world there is is a world with God in it . . . our immersion into the problems of this world is the spiritual life.

So this all begs the question, isn’t social welfare consistent with he Xtian ethic? Not if it robs people of poesies . . . imagination, action, protest, responsibility.

what will we do?

Make Trade Fair: Tesco

Something as simple as grocery shopping can easily be taken for granted. We hit the local Tesco about three times a week to get fresh vegitables, coffee, scones for tea time, and other essentials. Tesco is really fantastic . . . great line of affordable Organic products. the Milk is especially great. So it makes me really sad to see that Tesco is part of the problem when it comes to systemic sin.

Read HERE to find out more from Oxfam on Tesco's problems.

Here is the letter you can send off to Sir Terry Leahy voicing your concern:

Dear Sir Terry Leahy,

You must take responsibility for the
impact of your buying practices in the
UK and overseas. As a market leader,
you should be setting an example for
other retailers to follow. We want you
to ensure that the way you behave as
a company gives farmers and workers
in the UK and overseas, who supply
your products, the opportunity to
earn a decent living in good working
conditions. For many this is their
only chance to work their way out
of poverty.

_______

what will we do?