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This is a longer post that weaves together themes dealing with Christianity and Political Change. As I understand it, Romans 13 deals with obedience/submission to existing laws/ authorities, not whether Christians may participate in changes in laws/authorities or their administration, provided such participation does not require apostasy or interfere with their mandate to overcome evil with good. 

Though, I think I would go further in saying that Christian submission to existing laws does inevitably change their administration and effects.  This is because when more people generally obey laws, they become easier to enforce, as it is always costly to wield the sword of the State.  So, if Jesus’s command for us not to rebel against Caesar was meant to change the manner in which the Sword of the State is wielded to help the growth of Christianity then it begs the question of why we cannot help change the way the Sword of the State is wielded in other ways that would help/not impede the growth of Christianity.    Read more

Heaven and Earth was kind enough to update me about what’s going on in the controversy over whether the People’s Republic of China had been harvesting organs for profit from their Falun Gong religious dissidents.  He also provided the link to the Falun Data Information center. 

It seems a well respected critic of the PRoChina gov’t, Harry Wu, has spoken out against the veracity of the claims that there have been organ-harvesting.  Unfortunately, it seems a fair amount of money is at stake with the PRoChina slated to host the 2008 Olympics.  It seems other human rights groups are hoping it “will be an impetus for China to demonstrate greater respect for the human rights guaranteed to all under international law. “

I think only with US leadership will real reforms get made in PRoChina and that’s not going to happen so long as we have such a large trade deficit with them.  They have too many US dollars in too few hands and that power definitely corrupts…

dlw

I just found out from Sojourners about life-long nonviolent activist and respected scholar, David Cortright’s book “Gandhi and Beyond: Nonviolence for an Age of Terrorism“.  Cortright is a cofounder of The Center for Global Counter-Terrorism Cooperation.  It is “a nonpartisan research and policy institute that works to improve internationally coordinated responses to the continually evolving threat of terrorism by providing governments and international organizations with timely, policy-relevant research, analysis, and recommendations.” 

Here’s an excerpt. Read more

Nouriel Roubini is currently alone among macro-forecasters, but he is very well qualified and what he says does makes sense.  

Read more

This is an important precedent. 

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko was sentenced to nine years in prison and fined $10 million in a US court on Friday after being convicted in 2004 of extortion and money laundering.

…

Read more

Christians in Politics is a British Christian Organization.  It is a joint initiative of the recognised Christian groups in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. They, despite their political differences, respect each other’s political involvement and want to encourage more Christians - and other people of goodwill, committed to the common good - into public life.

Their Goals are: Read more

To see that one need only Google News Search Philippines and “Human Rights”.  You get 992 hits.  Now, let’s say we google search “New Zealand” and “Human Rights”, you get 603 hits and the top ones are about the human rights of transexuals or whether parents can authorize schools so they can “strap” their children.  That’s quite a diff…

Noticeably, it is Christian Churches who are trying to draw int’l attention to the killings of activists and reporters in the Philippines.  Read more

Check out his interview on the Conan O’Brien show.

See here for an interview where he reveals that he is a devout Catholic.  Here’s the best part, when asked

You created The Daily Show religious-satire segment, “This Week in God.” How do you square your Catholicism with comedy?

Read more

NT Scholar Ben Witherington tells the story of the King James Version and its antecedents.  It’s a good read and shows how the spread of the Word of God has long had political implications.  Read more

According to a recent article, the 1% initial victory margin of Conservative Mexican presidential candidate Felipe Calderon was quickly reduced to a .58% lead after a recount of 2.2% of the vote.  Now, they are doing a recount of 9% of the vote and there is an Orange Ukraine-style protesters in Mexico City.  The leftist candidate Lopez Obrador is calling for a complete recount and being slandered as “messianic” by the existing president Vicente Fox, who has not ruled out the use of force to clear away the protestors.  Read more

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