Bandits No More

August 20, 2010

Christian or Muslim?

Filed under: Barack Obama,Current events,Islam — rheyduck @ 11:21 pm

Whether President Obama is a Christian or a Muslim is back in the news. Apparently some pollsters had some free time on their hands so they asked people whether the president was a Christian or a Muslim. A surprising number – across the political and religious spectrum – appear uncertain.

I have never heard of Mr. Obama claiming to be anything other than a Christian. I  have heard of him claiming to be a Christian. In general, when I hear folks claim to be Christian I take them at their word.

I know that people can say they are Christian and be wrong in so claiming. They can be lying, confused about the concept, or fail to measure up. If you’d have asked me, “Are you a Christian?” before my senior year of high school I would have said, “Sure!” But by my later understanding it wasn’t until that year that I came to faith in Christ. I know, therefore, that Mr. Obama could count himself as a Christian but be wrong in his reckoning. Again, however, where through my experience of coming to faith in Christ I was able to recognize my own error of claiming the status “Christian,” I have no access to similar information about Mr. Obama. Having no such information, again, I have no reason to doubt his claim to be a Christian.

What of those who say that Mr. Obama is a Muslim because his father was a Muslim? Within the system of Islam that claim may be valid. But Mr. Obama, as a professing Christian, is not within the system of Islam. Here we are beginning to see that the question, “Is X a Y?” is always situated within a particular system of discourse. Within the Christian way of speaking, if you profess faith in Christ, you are a Christian. Within the Muslim way of speaking (at least according to some), if you are the child of a Muslim man, you are a Muslim. Observe that people can find themselves crossways with these systems. That is, according to Christian discourse one can be a Christian, while according to Muslim discourse one is a Muslim. These statuses are relative to particular systems of discourse.

So which is he? Is he really a Muslim or a Christian? Notice how emphatically I put that – even using bold letters! Not just “really”  but “really?” My argument is that there is no “really” apart from particular modes of discourse. Since my residence is within the Christian mode of discourse, I will use forms of identification inherent to that system. So will I say that Muslims are wrong to call Mr. Obama a Muslim (if they do)? Their opinions about Mr. Obama’s religious status are irrelevant to me. If they decide to act in some particular way toward the USA because of their understanding of Mr. Obama’s status (“He was born a Muslim – the son of a Muslim man – but claims to be a Christian, having renounced Islam and its prophet, so he is an apostate and we ought to treat him accordingly)” , then their opinions may become relevant to me.

So in the meantime, I will pray for Mr. Obama because he is the president of my country. And as a fellow claimant of faith in Christ, I can pray for him as one Christian for another also. I can also lament (perhaps) that news people and pundits are wasting their time on this issue, lacking anything substantive to talk about.

August 2, 2010

What about the Muslims?

Filed under: Clash of Civilizations,Current events,Islam — rheyduck @ 10:32 pm

A friend sent me this link today and asked what I thought of it. Here is my response.

Nothing surprising here. I’ve read enough literature on Islam – from Muslims and others – to have seen it before.

One thing Christians need to do is figure out how to differentiate their approach to Islam from that of secular Western modernity. Secular Western modernity is appalled that Muslims would want to influence the world and remold the world in its own image, out of obedience to God. Of course, those same folks are also appalled that Christians want to influence the world and capture all the nations and their peoples for the Kingdom of God in obedience to Jesus. Before 9-11, there was a rapprochement between Muslims and Christians as they discovered common ground in the face of the advances of atheistic secularity on nearly every front. That  rapprochement has, for the most part, been tossed aside since, and often replaced by a similar rapprochement between Christians and Western secularists (like Christopher Hitchens) against Islam. I don’t think this shift has been an improvement in the direction Christians ultimately want to go.

The advantage of bringing Taqiyya into the discussion is similar to the introduction of conspiracy theories. The great strength of the latter is that nothing can count as counter-evidence, since anything that appears to go against the conspiracy thesis is merely a sign of of how crafty and deep the conspiracy is. In the same way, Taqiyya leads us to believe we can never believe a Muslim when they say what we’d like them to say, only believing them when they say what our theories tell us they ought to be saying. (Here’s one instance of Muslim leaders saying something “nice:” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/us/01imams.html?_r=1)

Modern secularists and modern religious liberals tend to err in asserting that (deep down) all religions are the same. The secularists would say they’re all the same – evil, destructive, obscurantist, and wrong. Religious liberals would tend to say they all preach love, tolerance, openness and diversity. I think both groups are completely wrong and misguided, and that Christians are led astray insofar as we listen to either set. I’m one of those who even goes so far as to suggest that the category “religion” into which we put these diverse phenomena is itself mostly a creation of modernity and more likely to lead us astray than to help us. If “religion” is an artificial construct, then separating it from another artificial construct – like “politics” or “culture” is likely to lead us further in the wrong direction.

I find Alasdair MacIntyre’s definition of a tradition as an argument about the purpose, nature and goods of a group, extended through time, with forces and groups within and without to be very helpful. Contrary to the essentialist approach, Islam is not just one monolithic phenomenon. It is a complex movement of ideas, peoples and cultures through time. It has been shaped by arguments interior to the tradition and with traditions on the exterior. If a MacIntyrean approach like this is correct, we cannot lump Muslims into two groups, those who tell the truth about Islam (whether our expected truth is “religion of peace” or “die, infidel scum!”) and those who are deceptive. There is a contest within Islam as to the true nature of Islam – just as there is a similar contest within any other living tradition, whether Christianity or Western modernity. I’d even go so far as to argue that those who deny such a contest within their tradition are the real fundamentalists.

If we are right to use MacIntyre’s model to understand Islam, we non-Muslims are not in a place to define Islam. We can, however, engage them in conversation, recognizing that through engagement we, over time, can shape their understanding of what counts as Islam and what they as Muslims ought to be doing in the world. There is no guarantee that things will turn out the way we would like. But it’s worth a try.

So what do we do? My solution is to say that Muslims, like modern secular Westerners, need Jesus. My calling as a follower of Jesus is neither to kill them, restrain them or fear them. Instead, as I build relationships with them, I share Jesus with them through my words and actions. Jesus died for all sinners, whatever category we (or they) put them(selves) in.

Will it cost us to represent Jesus to these folks? Possibly. Some Muslims would like to do us harm. They say it quite openly. But we follow a Jesus who didn’t consider the potential for harm or suffering to be a primary determinant of his life. (“What – the authorities in Jerusalem want to arrest me and kill me? I guess I need to play it safe and avoid going to Jerusalem.”) If we really believe God wants us to make disciples of all nations (“ethne” – “people groups”), we can trust the guidance and empowerment of the Spirit to make it happen.

June 10, 2010

Dangerous Places

Filed under: Church & State,Consumerism,Culture,Current events,Ecclesiology,Public Schools — rheyduck @ 8:22 pm

What should we make of this story?

Apparently a school district in Indiana planned to hold its graduation ceremonies at a local church. I’m sure the church was thinking, “This is a way we can be generous and share with our community.” I’m sure the district was thinking something like, “This building seats more people than any of our venues, other than the football field, and since we can’t predict the weather, an indoor location would be perfect. Besides, the church is letting us use their space for free, so the price fits our budget.”

But as we see in the story, other people had other thoughts. One student thought ‘s/he would be “forced to submit to a religious environment that … will make me feel extremely uncomfortable and offended.”‘ A Jewish student ‘said s/he would not have attended the ceremony because s/he would “feel that the Cathedral is proselytizing its Christian beliefs … through its scriptures and symbols.”‘

Some of us might be inclined to respond, “But it’s only a church! How dangerous can a church be?” I agree with Mark Galli, the author of the piece in Christianity Today, that there is a good thing about these students being uncomfortable.

One the one hand, we need to relearn the power of our places. To do this, we’ll have to get beyond our buddy relationship with the American civil religion that sees a generic god underlying all religion and can find crosses and the Ten Commandments as mere “symbols,” and thus amenable to secular usage. While the god of civil religion is tame and fairly safe (as long as you’re an American), the real God, the Father of Jesus Christ, is dangerous. If one gets too close one just might become a believer, a follower of Jesus.

On the other hand, Christians need to recover a sense of the power of other places. As William Cavanaugh notes in his Myth of Religious Violence, the dividing line between “religions” and other socio-cultural phenomena is not as unambiguous as apologists for modern secularism would have us believe. Just as churches can be dangerous places for those who do not yet follow Jesus, temples of the other gods currently popular in our culture – Nike, Mammon, and Mars – can be dangerous for followers of Jesus.

Once we recognize the potential danger of these places, should we get engage these institutions through our court system? Bringing lawsuits has been the American way for several centuries now. I don’t think we ought to follow that strategy, however.

First, though our culture holds Nike, Mammon, Mars and their associates in high honor, it is mostly blind to the religious and devotional nature of their rites. Or to put it simply, we’d be laughed out of court. Given our Christian captivity to so many of these rites, we’d even have many of our fellow believers looking at us as if they need to call the men in white jackets to haul us away.

Second, Jesus has already declared that “all authority in heaven and earth has been given to him.” We also see that in his death and resurrection he has defeated all the principalities and powers. So toward these gods and their institutions we can have the same snarky attitude Isaiah exhibits toward those who make their own gods. More profoundly, however, we are called to go to their territory and rescue those who are now enslaved to those non-gods. A major way we do that is by publicly exhibiting a different lifestyle and allegiance to another kingdom.

A final consequence that comes to mind in this context is that Christians need to become more aware that the neutral institutions of our society – I think here primarily of our “public schools” – are rarely, if ever, neutral. In some communities, especially in small towns in the Bible Belt, there is still a veneer of Christian culture associated with the schools. But in the rest of the country, and in larger school systems, the point of the educational system is not merely a neutral and universally beneficial acquisition of “facts” and “skills,” but an enculturation into a particular way of living. Some Christians who recognize this withdraw and form their own schools. Others withdraw into home schools. Both can be effective ways of providing alternative enculturation (into the Kingdom of God). Of course, both strategies can be just plain withdrawal. When Christians pursue the strategy of keeping their kids within the educational structures of the dominant culture, they need to (a) stay aware of the power of enculturation into non-Christian ways of living, and (b) provide alternative enculturation that will enable young followers of Jesus to learn Kingdom living.

May 20, 2010

I’m Not Drawing Today

Filed under: Culture,Current events,Islam,Prayer — rheyduck @ 12:46 pm

Today is “Draw Muhammad Day.” I won’t be taking part.

One response will be, “Of course you won’t. You can’t even draw a straight line with a ruler!” Well, yes, that is true. But even if I could, I wouldn’t be joining in.

Some people will be “drawing Muhammad” today to mock those who kill (or threaten to kill) people who draw Muhammad. They observe that on some occasions drawing a picture can drive crowds into murderous frenzies. Others are happy to draw the pictures simply to mock Islam. “We’re more Enlightened than you are. So there!”

While mocking is better than killing, I can’t see either as an appropriate way for followers of Jesus to relate to outsiders. My primary calling is to help people become followers of Jesus. In my experience the practice of humility and respect has produced more fruit than mockery, derision, and superiority. I can’t imagine many people responding, “Your mockery has enlightened me. I think I will turn my back on Muhammad and embrace your ways.”

So what’s the alternative? Rather than simply not drawing Muhammad, how about a “Pray for Muslims Day?”

August 6, 2009

Public School & Public Health Care

Filed under: Current events,Education,Health Care — rheyduck @ 8:26 pm

My brother asks (well, actually he’s passing on Rachel’s question), “Why are people so in favor of public education yet opposed to public health care?” Here are my comments.

To the degree that this is the case, I think it’s largely because “public” does not mean the same thing as “public.”

With “public” education there is still a large, though continually decreasing (and often, therefore, bemoaned) degree of local control. My trust of “public” education is partially dependent on my personal relationships with teachers, administrators, and school board people.

Most models of “public” health care seem to imply control from the top down, the top in this case, being federal bureaucrats in DC. Will I ever be in a place where I will be anything more than a client seeking patronage from experts or my social betters?

But then I might be atypical. I am not an unqualified fan of “public” education. I do what I can to support it and make it better. My wife and I have both volunteered in the schools for years. But we’re also firm believers that one size/option doesn’t fit all. For most families today it is a great sacrifice to choose anything other than public education for their children.

In general, my main negative perception of public education is that they aim too low. “Let’s get the kids to pass the TAKS test.” Sure – but that’s a MINIMUM standard, not a maximum.

In the same way, some might fear that by make health care entirely public (and I think once a significant portion of health care goes public, the cost differential will crowd out non-public – i.e., non-governmental [which is NOT the only meaning of public, though it has been pretty much reduced to that of late] – health care even more than public schooling crowds out other options), the minimum standards will be adopted. Anything more is too expensive, after all.

August 1, 2009

Clunkers

Filed under: Current events,Economics — rheyduck @ 8:19 pm

My cars don’t quite count as clunkers. Sure, all of them have over 100k miles. Sure, the newest of them is a 2000. Sure, the car I drive doesn’t get great mileage. But none of them are listed as clunkers. But what if one was a clunker?

The ideas behind the “Cash for Clunkers” program include (a) stimulating economic activity (and the auto industry in particular) and (b) getting more fuel efficient cars on the road. Those are good ideas. But are they enough?

If my car were on the clunker list, then I could get up to $4500 for it. Then if I wanted a new car that cost $20,000 it would only cost me an additional $15,500.  The new car would get better gas mileage, so I would save some money that way, too. Let’s suppose my current car averages 19 mpg (if it were less, it would count as a clunker) and I “trade” it for a car that averages 35mpg, and gas averaged $4 a gallon, and I drove 20,000 miles a year, I would save just over $1900 dollars a year. Saving that much sounds like a good idea to me.

But if saving money is my goal, then I would save even more by not trading my car. It still has some life left in it – probably a few years. Each year I don’t buy a new car, I save more money. Sure, I spend more on gas than I would like, but since I’m not making a car payment, I can afford it.

I’m blessed with a job. I have a regular pay check. If I had to make a car payment, I could. But can all the folks taking advantage of “Cash for Clunkers” afford a new car – even if their clunker counts as a nice down payment? If the economy rebounds, and they can keep their jobs (or get jobs) and make the payments.

But I have a recollection that one of the major things that got us into this mess was our propensity to spend beyond our means. The economy needs us to spend more – for consumption to rise. But consumption will not reward us for long. The economy is not a very benevolent god for the long term.

July 2, 2009

A Couple Random Thoughts

Filed under: Barack Obama,Current events,Movies — rheyduck @ 3:24 am

Facebook keeps asking me if I want to be a “fan of God.” If by “fan of God” it means “love God,” then I suppose being a “fan of God” is natural for a Christian. But put into a context of being a “fan” of just about everything, being a “fan of God” seems to trivialize God. Are any of you Facebook “fans of God?” What do you think about it?

With the advent of Johnny Depp’s new role as John Dillinger, he’s thinking about the role of Dillinger. A couple of weeks ago I read that Depp said something about maybe people need to stand up to authority today like Dillinger did in his day. I understand that there is a certain class of people who think standing up to authority is the thing to do. That class of people seems to be more often of Democratic than Republican persuasion. That’s why it amazes me that Depp would look at Dillinger standing up against authority (FDR’s administration) and suggest that people need to stand up similarly today (when again the Democrats rule both Congress and the Executive branch). Does that strike anyone else as odd?

March 21, 2009

Foolish Spending

Filed under: Current events,Economics — rheyduck @ 9:57 pm

I’ve heard a lot about foolish spending lately. Most recently it’s million dollar bonuses at AIG. Before that it was a lavish executive retreat. A few months back it was an office bathroom renovation.

Foolish spending is nothing new. A few years ago I heard of a major corporation paying $210 million dollars to a CEO (who is now running Chrysler) to make him resign. Sounds pretty foolish to me.

But who’s to decide what counts as foolish? We’re going through a time when government is taking over large swaths of the business world and legislating definitions of foolishness. “Excessive” pay is now deemed foolish, and the tax code is being re-written to punish the recipients of foolish largess. They don’t seem to understand that if congress has to approve of economic activity to make it legitimate, there will be much less economic activity.

I think yachts are excessive. I’ve never had a yacht and never thought I needed one. Years ago when the luxury tax was increased to hit yachts, it didn’t bother me. I wasn’t one of those rich guys out to buy a yacht. It’s also a good thing I wasn’t one of the not-so-rich guys who built or maintained yachts. If so, when the rich guys stopped buying yachts (that’s the message they got from the increased taxation), the yacht builders took the hit. Didn’t hurt the rich guys. They were still rich.

I’m sure some people think my industry is foolish. Can you imagine giving ten percent of your income to something as foolish as a church?  If people stopped giving to churches just think what they could afford: new cars, second homes, nicer vacations. But then some of us would be out of a job.

I’m not a big spender. I never have been. Family members tell me it’s genetic.  If everyone was like me we’d have a much smaller economy. Do our political leaders want everyone to be like me? Or do they want people to spend freely (like they used to) so the economy will recover? Will they promulgate a list of acceptable things to spend money on?

Maybe the government is hoping to do all the spending itself. Their wisdom is surely greater than that of the ordinary human. They know how to save money, too. Some are really creative. I’d rather see them get out of the way of us ordinary fools at the bottom of the food chain.

March 19, 2009

My daughter is annoyed

Filed under: AIG,Current events,Economics,Politics — rheyduck @ 3:50 pm

I took my youngest child on a spring break trip to Washington. While there, the AIG bonus news was breaking (and breaking, and breaking) on every news outlet. She told me she was annoyed – more by the constant coverage than by the bonuses.

My thoughts on the mess are mixed.

First, why is everyone acting surprised that people want more money?Huge bonuses, some in the multi-million dollar range, sound attractive to me. They obviously sound attractive to people in congress who continually vote themselves raises and, when out of office, become lobbyists paid millions to get their former colleagues to do favors for their employers. I am not shocked that there is the appearance of greed on Wall Street. I am shocked that more people don’t see it elsewhere.

Second, I am unimpressed with the elite, with the “best and the brightest.” We fill our major financial institutions with the  “best and the brightest.” We put them in congress and the White House. We make them CEOs. Too many are overly impressed with themselves and too interested in forwarding their own interests. Sure, they’re smarter than the rest of us and so know what is best for us, but even then their execution isn’t what I’d expect.

Third, I have inadequate information on the mechanism of the AIG bonuses. What is it people are being rewarded for? Having a pulse? Working for AIG? Making money for the company? Only losing 2 billion instead of 3? The issue of retention has been mentioned. Are we trying to keep the guys who killed AIG corralled in one spot lest they inflict similar damage elsewhere? Or are they the realy good guys who might jump ship to go to a more successful company?

Fourth, do people who work for these companies have a social conscience? Sure, they probably vote for the correct political party and give token amounts to the correct charities, but is Mammon the chief of their pantheon? Do they ever think, “I could do this and make piles of money for myself and my company, but it’d destroy the lives of some and impoverish others, so I’m not going to do it – even though it is completely legal.”

Finally, is anyone in power willing to tell the truth – about their own actions, not just those sinful other guys? I precious few in either the business or political class willing to tell the truth. Instead, they’re prancing around defending their own righteousness and wisdom. I guess that at least those who like to see bipartisanship can rejoice that both parties are failing at the same time.

March 12, 2009

Tired

Filed under: Barack Obama,Current events,Economics,Prayer — rheyduck @ 9:00 pm

I’m tired.

I believe that what we call the economy is (at least largely) a human institution. The markets and regional components of the economy are driven by human actions. Human actions are sometimes driven by the thoughts and feelings of the person acting. When I talk the economy up, a couple people might come to think the economy is looking up. When the President, Speaker of the House, Rush Limbaugh, talk the economy up, many more people might come to think the economy is looking up. If the economy being up is taken as a good thing, i.e, manifested in people having basic job security with the possibility of wages to support their families, then I’d think talking the economy up to be a good thing.

I’m tired of people talking the economy down. Yes, yes, I know the “facts.” I know that by many current measures it is down.  But why do I have to go by these measures? Why must I take description as the only valid illocutionary act? All the reported measures are selected from many more that could have been selected. None of the measures (unless they’re meta-measures, that is, measures of measures) are perfectly current. All reflect human action driven to a great extent by thought and action. Therefore reporting on the measures feeds back into the system and affects the measures. We bring up just any thing by talking about it. I’m not a prosperity gospeller. But our attitude does have an impact on systems for good or ill.

Our president is a human. As the one currently at the top of the heap, the influence of his words and actions is tremendous. As a human being he can be talked up or talked down. I’m tired of people talking him down. (But then I was tired of people talking Bush – and Clinton – down in their time.) Whether I agree with his policies, decisions and actions is irrelevant. I believe he will be better off if I talk him up than if I talk him down.

I have not yet lived under a president who – in my estimation – was right about everything, even everything I think is important.  But so what? Even if I’m right about everything (doubtful), my calling as a follower of Jesus is to edify people. “Edify” means “build up.”Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” With the examples he uses one could add another phrase, “Even if he/she is wrong.”

I even wish Mr. bin Laden of Al Qaeda well. My wishing him well, however, is on my own terms. He is not my lord and master. When I wish him well, I express a desire that he would turn from sin to Jesus. I pray for him to learn of the truth and grace manifested in Jesus, so that he might become a follower of Jesus. Admittedly, Mr. bin Laden might not wish me to wish him well on those terms. That doesn’t matter any more than the intentions of the executioners mattered to the one who said, “Father forgive them they know not what they do.”

I understand what those who express a wish that our president fail are trying to say. I don’t have any evidence that they’re followers of Jesus, so I’m not terribly surprised.  Wishing your enemies well – even if they’re only ideological enemies – is profoundly unnatural. For me, it takes Jesus in my life.

But speaking simply on a practical level, I think wishing the failure of political opponents (instead of clearly and only aiming at policies or ideas or practices) is not good for anyone. I always want the president of my country to succeed. My wanting doesn’t do much good (who am I, after all). But I pray. When I pray for people to succeed (I confess I rarely use such a vague term in my prayers) I pray for their success on God’s terms. As when I pray rightly for my own success, I recognize that my personal standards of success and of what counts as success are not what ultimately counts. Judgment day will not be a self-grading exam. God’s word is what counts.

In this light, I believe that talking people down – especially people at the top – beyond being disrespectful, is counter-productive. It hurts me and innocent bystanders as much as hit hurts my target. Most assuredly it guarantees that the person I’m talking down will never listen to me. And I want people to listen to me. While I don’t want to talk people down, I do  think it is good to argue with them. Can you imagine that – Arguing in love! I take that as a variant of “Speak the truth in love.”

So let me put it plain and simple: In the same way that talking the economy up is better for the economy and those impacted (“enmeshed” might be a better word), talking the president up is better for him and for those who live under his leadership.

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