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I am somewhat saddened over the state of the country. We have Bush and Cheney publicly denying that there have been serious abuses of human rights at Guantanamo Bay, with Bush even saying that the charges were made by “people who hate America”.

Um, Everyone in Europe knows about the way we have treated prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. I found out about this this past fall during a presentation by one of the lawyers involved in the ongoing lawsuit regarding the treatment of these prisoners. See here for a website organized to free Kuwaiti prisoners that have been held without due process for an extended period of time. If you don’t think there is a problem with the freedom of the press, compare and contrast the number of internet hits from when BBC and NYTIMES are paired with Guantanamo Bay. There are over three times as many hits for the BBC. It ranges around 125,000 hits. And yet, the BushAdmin thinks they can spin the story as exaggerated. It seems like the BushAdmin thinks it can spin almost anything, like it did with GWII as revealed by a formerly top-secrete British Gov’t memo revealed earlier this month.

The only reason they may get away with this is because of the apathy and cynicism about politics that so many USAmericans have. And yet this is the same apathy and cynicism that is harming our democracy and the institutions that have permitted us to grow and develop as a country.

Part of me just wants to stay here in Sweden and not come back until things change in the US. I believe that things could be a lot better if more religious/social conservatives cared more about their public witness to the world through “political means” and thereby developed deeper habits of political deliberation and more autonomy from the nat’l and state Republican Parties. But as it is, I am afraid that not enough leaders of integrity will stand up and decry the lies of Bush and Cheney about Guantanamo Bay.

dlw
ps, does anyone else wonder if Woodward’s revelation of the identity of Deep Throat is more than just a coincidence? Some have started to use the I word. I think that’s a mistake. One has to choose one’s battles and keep this from becoming overly partisan spiel like the whole MonicaGate descended into. Yes, I want consequences, but can there be wisdom in trying to impeach a president whose party controls the entirety of the US gov’t?

I see this summer being a very difficult and divisive one for the US. You got a lot of stuff hitting the fan, including the Torture Papers.

dlw

It seems that several objective psychological studies have shown that religious people that go to church are generally healthier, more psychologically sound and have happier marriages(and even more satisfaction with their sex lives within marriage).

How about that?
dlw

The newsletter from this past April by Tony Campolo to the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education is very personal. Tony describes how the basis for all of his inspiration is time spent in solitude in prayer and communing with God.

I find empty churches are good places for me. When I sit alone, especially in a darkened sanctuary, I find a peace that I seldom feel in other places. No telephone rings. No one breaks into the stillness of my solitude. The outside world seems to drop away, so that I often feel myself suspended in what a philosopher once called ‘one hundred thousand fathoms of nothingness’. At such times, I am overwhelmed by the realization that I am alone with God, and it is then that I realize how much He cares for me. It is His love for me, felt in my aloneness, which elicits my great love for Him in return.

This follows from following the word of God that when we pray, we should go into our rooms, close the door and pray to our Father, who is unseen. So that our Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward us.

Tony goes on to describe how his time alone with God stirs within him an intense compassion for other people and exhorts his spiritual brethren to spend more time in solitude in places of sanctuary, feeling the intimacy of God and letting it expand within us to make us more compassionate towards others.

I’ve critiqued Tony in the past, but I still view him as a spiritual mentor of sorts, even though I believe he has fallibly sought to portray various social concerns as apolitical rather than per se encouraging the wider and deeper inculcation of habits of political deliberation among evangelicals. I also can accept that his ministry has been too demanding for him to provide the sort of guidance that I’ve sometimes wished in the past that he could have given me.

dlw
ps, Speaking of habits of political deliberation, people interested in how political change away from an authoritarian structure is made possible can check out this absolutely wonderful article about the political-economic conditions that made the Orange Revolution in Ukraine possible that was written by Lucan A. Way. It is a lengthy read, but very informative and rich in terms of factual detail about Ukraine and political concepts. The notion of a competitive authoritarianism is a very interesting one and there is much here that other people who live or minister in countries with more authoritarian governments can learn from.

dlw

I received a free dvd from George Verwer of Operation Mobilization that involves a sermon he gave on how his notion of mission has developed and what are the serious global scourges that he believes we as good samaritans should be addressing.

Verwer begins the video with a prayer that we will be able to respond in a proactive way to the problems of today, rather than with the resignation of God’s “frozen chosen” ones. He cites how a third of the world today profess faith in Christianity and that, while not all who profess the faith may not truly know God, he states that nominal Christians tend to be more open to the Gospel. He describes how God often works in two or three steps with an illustration of how many in India had to come out of Hinduism before they would come to Christianity.

He uses Luke 10, the parable of the Good Samaritan, as the base text for his understanding of Mission. Jesus responded to the self-serving legalistic question of “who is my neighbor?” with a subversive story that called on Israel to show mercy to others(nations and individuals). He transitioned from there to describe how initially he felt only called to evangelize and give out Bibles and tracts with his organization, since there were other organizations like World Vision that took care of that other stuff. It took leaders like Tony Campolo and Samuel Escobar and a deeper understanding of the word of God to completely change him and make him see that he could not pass by people beaten up on the side of the road or just give them a tract or a Bible.

As such, he believes we need to try and meet peoples dire needs, but not if we are already over-committed. In that case, we need to contextualize his message and just take it into our hearts as part of our spiritual dna that we can pass along to others. An important reason for us to care about these issues is that it will appeal to Non Christians. When we sympathize with the issues others care a lot about and show some discernment of why they matter, we will find they are more open to talking about Jesus. In the post-modern world we live in, we need to affirm the good things that nonChristians do and avoid coming across as constantly negative or clubbing nonChristians with quotes from the Bible that they do not understand. Verwer believes that we Christians are responsible for a good deal of why there is so much prejudice among many against Christians. We need Holy Spirit discernment to understand our prevalent culture and be willing to see the potential for good in many cultural developments, like video games, and a willingness to change non-essentials like the songs we sing to reach out to others.

And so having set out his view of Missions, he describes the seven “persons” he believes that are on the road today in our world.
1. At Risk Children There are a billion children at risk today and many of them are dying, abused or sold into various forms of slavery.
2. At Risk Women Verwer touts the True Grit book mentioned earlier.
3. The Extreme Poor whom Verwer believes that God has a bias to. He mentions the Dalits, or Untouchables of India, many of whom are turning away from Hinduism and by the 100,000s are becoming Christians. In India, his organization is becoming involved with human rights, protecting the human rights of both Christians and Muslims in India. We need not just to evangelize, we need to build the kingdom everywhere, though this requires that we find a specific place to focus on and to get guidance for our actions. But if we capture the vision in our hearts, it will allow us to respond to do our part.
4. HIV/AIDS There are 40 Billion people with HIV. Verwer is going to go to Uganda with Patrick Dixon. The problem with the epidemic is that there is a lack of finances for combatting it. Verwer describes how his organization combines aid with the message of salvation and describes how many who are dying respond to the message of the Gospel, but that there is still a need to mobilize for prevention.
5. Thirsty Person: 30% of people do not have access to pure water. We need to pray for the release of money to help improve the quality of many people’s water supply.
6. Planet Earth/Environment Verwer describes how by listening/talking/sympathizing with others where you can about the need for creative solutions to the environmental problems of our time, we may be able to reach out to others.
7. Lukewarm Christians are the greatest problem of our time. The problem here is not to struggle with lukewarmness, but rather when we succumb or give in to lukewarmness and disappointment. We need to learn to survive, adapt to circumstances, become God’s marathon runners. This can include reaching out to people who may be lonely during Christmas. We must not let ourselves be overwhelmed, but we also need to realize that even a small thing done for those lying on the side of the road can have a transformational effect. For it’s “easier to cool down a fanatic than to wake up a corpse!”

Too much enthusiasm will never be a problem( so long as it open to the need to learn from our own and other’s experiences)!

You can contact George Verwer by email at
George at verwer point om point org
Operation Mobilization
Box 17, Bromley, Kent
England BR1 3JP
Tel (0) 20 8777 5268

dlw

On my birthday, we played Kubb. A Swedish game that goes all the way back to the days of the Vikings and involves throwing blocks of wood. Its kind of like bowling or bocce ball. In the middle there is a king who has to be knocked down last after all of the other teams blocks of wood are knocked down. Your team only gets six blocks to throw during your turn and if you knock down all of the other blocks, you must knock down the king or the other team wins. One gets to trash talk the other team while they are preparing to throw and they get to do likewise.

On wednesday, it was up to me to get the king at the end. I overtossed with my first block and then with the last block of the game I knocked down the king and felt very much affirmed.

Its a fun game and I’d like to pick it up again when I return to MN.

dlw

Gracias a Michael at Traveling Unpacked for this fun unpacking of the moves from the scenes in the hit independent film, Napoleon Dynamite.
dlw

Kudos a BethQuick, I just took a world view test.

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 81% Postmodernist 56% Romanticist 56% Fundamentalist 25% Modernist 19% Existentialist 19% Materialist 6% Idealist 6% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

It seems accurate for me, even though I am quite committed to organized religion. Though, my commitment to Swedish Baptist Pietism may evince this tendency, as early Pietism was quite critical of the organized religion of its time.

dlw

Just last year my friend Steve over at Knightopia, after begging for me to get a blog for quite some time, took the bull by the horns and just set one up for me, as a birthday present for me. The day after, I found out that my job as professor in Mexico was coming to an end. Since then, I’ve channelled a lot of my creative energies into this blog. I don’t want to post tomorrow, so I thought I’d create a best of the Anti-Manicheist post tonight(up until I arrived in Sweden in April).

As it will be mine and my blog’s birthday, if you’ve been blessed by my blog and are able, it would be good to receive some donations so that I may continue to blog more in the future after I return from Sweden and Ukraine.
Read more

Not all Gone over to the Dark Side has he!
But mainly because of cool Yoda fight scenes. My friend Matt has a far more favorable(and better written) review that reflects the extent he was immersed in the Star Wars phenomena when he was five years old in 1978(back when I was only two). ***spoilers****

I especially liked the scene in the Senate where the Yoda was fighting the Chancellor who was hurtling the senate seats at Yoda. It seemed a picturesque depiction of the failure of Democracy(or the consequences of when Democracy fails).

I, along with Ebert, couldn’t stand the dialogue between Anakin and Padme was terrible. I mean I don’t see why Lucas couldn’t have done better by taking a lesson from Spike Lee and let his more talented actors make up their own dialogue for these sorts of scenes. It was a pretty important dialogue, inasmuch as Anakin’s love for Padme was what led him to listen to and begin to repeat the Chancellor’s pop-pomo(post-modern) rhetoric. It was what led him to seek to become an Anti-Manicheist, neither of the Dark-Side nor Light-Side of the Force, but rather mainly committed to his wife. Lucas’s answer is that there is no middle ground. One must either be committed to being completely selfless or selfcentered, a position that is ironic given his reputation for using tricks to make more money off of his fans. And if only certain elites can transcend the interpersonal attachments that keep us from serving the public good, then democracy really is doomed to failure.

It is interesting that Anakin’s choice is quite similar to that of Neo’s in the Matrix Reloaded. Except that Neo’s decision to love Trinity more than anything else was what made it possible for him to escape the cycle that had led previous “ones” to perpetuate the system and Anakin’s choice led to many deaths, including that of his wife. Likewise with Selene in UnderWorld, where the startling revelation was that neither side was on the side of the angels and the only things really worth fighting for were peace and the safety of one’s friends. I guess that is a key difference between a manicheist and anti-manicheistic movie. And, of course, all of them have a strong existential element where what matters is really the choice made by the key figures.

I’m wondering whether there will be fewer or more Jedi warriors in Great Britain after this trilogy. It casts the Jedi philosophy/religion with a dark tone that is rather elitist and pessimistic about Democracy. I keep thinking that the middle three books were chosen for good reasons and wondering how the last three would continue the saga with the balancing of the force or what not.

dlw

I was blessed this past Sunday when I met George Verwer the founder of Operation Mobilization. I didn´t really get to meet him. I did enjoy the very humble sermon he gave at my church and the incredible amount of passion he has for so much of the suffering going on in our world. I was blessed with the chance to get to know his Timothy/assistant, Michael Kaspar. Michael is also a blogger over at Traveling Unpacked. He studied business administration and was moved strongly by Ron Sider´s book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. For some reason, he was impressed by me and tried to pick my brain on a number of issues.

He also gave me a copy of the book, True Grit by Deborah Meroff. It is part of the general strategy of George Verwer, detailed here, to give out challenging books like this and to communicate his message simply and clearly and humbly. Michael challenged me to blog about the host of vital statistics at the end of the chapters. But if you get the book, you won’t want to read just the statistics without also reading the stories about how people have been able to make a difference. The statistics by themselves are rather disturbing. Its difficult to accept that females are so terribly treated relative to males in so much of the world. A question that came to my mind when I was reading it was how old I would want my ten year old kid sister to be before she read this book. I think I was twelve years old when I first became strongly exposed to the depths of poverty in much of the world. I fasted for a short spell then and generally got angrier with my predominantly white lower to middle, middle class community where so many of my fellow students were both very materialistic and dedicated to doing as little as possible to get by in school.

But I think I probably will need to wait three or four more years to share this book with my kid sister. Its too much and too traumatic the sorts of things that so many females are put through in so much of the world. You read the statistics and wonder what can be done? Is the answer to make the UN a more effective institution of world governance? I have argued(contra David Brooks) in the past that the UN is indeed in need of reform so that it can be more effective and that increased international governance is a necessary consequence of the increased interdepency of globalization.

If one cares about the poor and oppressed, one must also care about the reasons why they are poor and oppressed and be willing to risk one’s own security to help reform the rules that keep others oppressed. Christ didn´t give us dem keys to da kingdom for nothing! They were meant to be used and can be used in a way that acknowledges the importance of capital and private enterprise in helping to organize our lives. But we should never treat such pursuits as absolutes in and of themselves, but rather means to create wealth that can empower ministry and check and channel human selfishness.

So sorry Michael, I´m afraid that if I post the statistics that I will be going against copy right law(you can clarify this for me). Hopefully, I´ll get around to posting some of the more gripping statistics later.

dlw

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