Stones Cry Out

President Obama has suspended war crime trials for the Gitmo detainees.  Is this his start to his phase of the War on Terror (or, as Scott Ott hilariously suggests, "The Case Against Terror")?  He’s already peeved family members of 9/11 victims with this first step in the closing of Gitmo, and he has no actual "exit strategy" for the detainees themselves.

How about the European Union, that bloc of countries so against Gitmo?

Across Europe, President Barack Obama’s decision to shut the Guantanamo Bay prison has raised an awkward question: Which EU states that railed against the camp will offer new lives to released prisoners?

The U.S. Defense Department says about 50 of the 245 prisoners awaiting freedom cannot go home again on security or political grounds, raising the need to find an alternative place to send them. But European Union members long critical of Guantanamo shied away on Friday from any firm commitments to help.

Ireland has joined Portugal, France, Germany and Switzerland in saying it probably would participate in an EU-organized plan that might take shape at a summit of foreign ministers starting Monday in Brussels.

But it already appears likely that Europe will leave some of Guantanamo’s inmates in limbo behind a policy of: No terrorists please.

Lots of talk, but little action from those who protested the loudest.  Classic.

And letting them go free is fraught with its own dangers.

A Saudi national released from U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in September 2007 is believed to be a key leader in al Qaeda’s operations in Yemen, according to a U.S. counterterrorism official.

The Defense Department recently estimated that more than 60 terrorists released from Guantanamo may have returned to the battlefield.

According to the counterterrorism official, freed detainee Ali al-Shiri traveled to Yemen after being released to Saudi Arabia and may have been involved in recent al Qaeda attacks in Yemen, including a car bombing outside the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa last year that killed nearly a dozen people.

"He is one of a handful of al Qaeda deputies in Yemen," the official said. "He is one of the top terrorists."

No, they’re not being railroaded through tribunals.  If anything, we’re apparently giving them quite a lot of benefit of the doubt. 

Not the way to start an administration.

I’ve been involved in many Christian causes and organizations over the last 30 years, many of which I still heartily support and advance. In recent years, I’ve added my voice to a new concern among Christians: environmental stewardship—taking care of God’s creation in a balanced, biblically informed way. I am concerned enough that I am helping to start a new organization, called FLOURISH, to equip the church to act on these concerns.

Some in the church and among my own friends and family have asked if creation care is important enough to be a major focus of the church. Yes, I do believe this is a vital issue for Christian churches and families, and one that is informed not primarily by current politics or policies, but by the teaching of scripture, deep traditions of the church, and even practices and values of our parents and grandparents. Modern trends have given us even more reasons to act. Further, genuine efforts to find balance in our lives and in the way we care for the environment fit well with many priorities and programs of the church and can give our evangelism and discipleship efforts more focus and effectiveness.

Perhaps the best way to present rationale for establishing FLOURISH is for me to present a Top Ten List of reasons why we as American Christians should make environmental stewardship a primary concern:

#10. As Christians we are called to be the very best citizens, and we can be obedient as families and churches by working to better the micro-environments of our communities. This may include activities such as planting trees, working for pedestrian and bike paths, or cleaning area watersheds.

#9. We are commanded to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves, and the current disruption of many of the delicate balances in the created world around us is causing health problems, and poses the potential of even greater problems for all of us. These dangers are particularly acute for our most needy neighbors, for those living in urban environments, and for our children. Did you know that childhood asthma rates in children are four times what they were 20 years ago?

# 8. Reducing our dependence on foreign oil is important not only for national security; it will also address religious freedom issues. Our reliance on oil makes us dependent on undemocratic, despotic foreign regimes that restrict the religious liberty of their peoples, and threaten the stability of democratic allies such as Israel.

#7. Pollution has become a serious life issue. When coal is burned, mercury is released into the environment. Mercury in the air eventually settles into water or onto land where it can be washed into water. Once deposited a highly toxic form builds up in fish, shellfish and animals that eat fish. More than 600,000 newborns each year– approximately one in every six babies– are born with harmful mercury levels in their blood. It is unacceptable for our expectant mothers to have to avoid many kinds of fish because we have polluted our waters so badly that their contamination is dangerous to unborn children?

#6. Learning to care for creation and to balance our activities prepares us for missions. The work of our missionaries around the world almost always includes an understanding of how to live on the land, maintain productive harvests, and assure sufficient healthy water. In many areas missions is a blend of evangelism and creation care.

#5. The daily lifestyle habits that lessen damage to the world around us also build faithfulness and family values—practices such as honoring the Sabbath and making it a day of rest, dampening our consumerism, and increasing family time that is relational and close to home.

#4. Through a range of energy-saving changes, churches and families can save a lot of money, which can in turn be used for the programs and missions of the church, for which it is intended. If America’s houses of worship – totaling more than 300,000 – cut energy use by just 10 percent, it would result in an annual savings of $200 million. Prestonwood Baptist Church, a megachurch in Plano, Texas, did a major energy overall and has saved more than $1 million on utilities and water.

#3. Effective evangelism is set on common ground with our unchurched neighbors. Many of them care about the environment, and when we conduct visible and active campaigns to protect and better the environment, this public service puts us side-by-side with others in our community, and enhances our contact and our witness.

#2. The works of God’s creation are, as Romans 1:20 tells us, evidence of God’s attributes. The natural world tells us so much about who God is that Paul says humankind has no good reason for not knowing its Creator. It would be irresponsible for us to allow our actions to diminish that witness.

And the #1 reason the church should make environmental stewardship a primary concern: God told us to. In the creation story God puts man in the Garden to tend and keep it (Gen. 2:15). That responsibility continues to today.

As you know, during the last several years there have been calls for Christians to support various national and international plans and policies to protect the environment. The majority of believers have responded favorably to the view that caring for God’s creation is a biblical imperative and an important part of Christian discipleship in the 21st century. A recent Barna poll indicates that 90 percent of evangelicals in America would like to see Christians do more to care for God’s creation.

Unfortunately, many of the calls for environmental stewardship have come from secular voices that traditionally have been critics of classic Christianity and that still advocate some positions that are contrary to biblical values. Even our evangelical brethren who have championed environmental concerns have made it appear that Christian response to the problems facing us have to be political and must begin with controversial government action on climate change.

This has resulted in overreaction by some of our leaders who have told the followers of Christ that even the most fundamental care for God’s creation is unnecessary and misplaced passion, and that it is laudable to do nothing to address these dangers.

That’s why we are starting FLOURISH, a ministry to equip churches and families to care for creation and advance their witness in our communities, our nation, and the world. For too long we have allowed liberal messengers of the environmental message and contentious government policy discussions to paralyze our faithfulness in creation care.

FLOURISH intends to stand astride the unhealthy chasm between those who prescribe only political solutions and those who would do nothing. We will offer prudent and biblical solutions for individuals, families, and churches—including a variety of training and study materials that will equip pastors, small groups, and youth groups to teach on these topics and to be involved in hands-on activities and missions.

We will be leading a communications effort on creation care in the Christian community through Web-based communications, a quarterly magazine, radio, and other efforts. And we will be providing a turnkey service—the Greater Light Project—to churches to help them audit their use of energy and other impacts on their local environments, and to assist in their efforts to make necessary changes.

Our inaugural project will be the Flourish National Pastors’ Conference on Creation Care  to be conducted May 13-15, 2009, at CrossPointe church in Duluth, Georgia (northeast of Atlanta). We intend to gather hundreds of pastors and church leaders at this conference, to continue this conversation in earnest and begin the invigoration of our witness and service in creation care.

Environmental problems, like all others, are of course the result of sin. We often carelessly and unnecessarily damage the world around us because of our sin, and the only complete solution will be found in the life-changing, sin-conquering power of knowing Jesus Christ and in living out that knowledge through the new life he brings. The Christian church bears this truth and, rather than being the tail-end of environmental care, can be the best hope for real progress.

Ed Darrell quoted this the other day, and I disparaged it. Mr Darrell gets exasperated when history is misquoted, misused or ignored. Which is ironic because this quote, ignores, misuses and offers a mistaken interpretation of history. The quote:

“In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ. Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome, where it became an institution. Next, it moved to Europe, where it became a culture. And, finally, it moved to America, where it became an enterprise.”

Shall we consider just a few ways in which this was wrong?

• There was no “church” when Jesus was performing his ministry prior to the resurrection. The church thing followed immediately after His Resurrection.
• Then the church moved to Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt, Rome, India and throughout the Mediterranean.
• The church was well established in Rome, recall Saints Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome well before Origen (a Alexandrian Copt) turned the tools of philosophy to the service of theology.
• Examine the early “Greek” church, and their early founders. St. Cyril and St. Athanasius … of Alexandria (Copts). The three Ecumenical Heirarchs, Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom … all Cappadocian, i.e., modern day Turkey (hint: not Greece). In fact, I have trouble identifying right off any prominent Greek Saints from Early Antiquity.
• Next actually examine the Eastern church which came out of “Greece”. It is known for its mysticism not its Aquinan/Aristotelian philosophical logic.
• The Christian church’s movement to Rome didn’t make it an institution. It made it a persecuted cult. Three centuries later, when “Rome” was supplanted by Constantinople as the capitol it became a state religion. It is dogma among modern political philosophers, who are amazingly ignorant of the next 1000 years of the Roman state, that state and religion don’t mix. They look at the Reformation and English history for their ideas on that. Conveniently ignoring any historical trends which don’t fit their preconceptions.

And that’s just a start.

A pet peeve. I saw somewhere a Holocaust Remembrance day is coming up. I also just saw A Boy in Striped Pajamas with my wife and youngest daughter. How is it that in the extermination camps 12 million were killed, of which over 6 million were Jews … yet in all the portrayals of the camps … they are populated by 100% Jewish populations?

That bugs me.

1. Well, what to do with illegal combatants. A deadline? It seems to me deadlines are a somewhat moveable feast.
2. Some thoughts on abortion.
3. The invisible dead. The global variant of the black on black violence of which nobody can speak?
4. Frankly my yearly fitness goals should really be a two year plan, but I’ll put it in ink. I’m hoping to ride a 58 minute 40k (I just barely broke the hour before my hiatus). That admission is spurred on by this.
5. Psychology and eBay bidding.
6. Girls in the springtime of their life.
7. Blaaaaasphemer!
8. The non-Islamic roots of our President’s moniker.
9. 1982’s economy and today. Until y’all start acting happy the beatings will continue.
10. Or the simpler explanation. He’s a crook.
11. In which Soviet failure to engender love of being ruled by Moscow is somehow relevant. Read the COIN manual.
12. One might as well wonder why the “don’t tread on me” state want’s to be tread upon.
13. Something else is going on here, doncha think?
14. Progress on an old simply stated but hard to make progress on problem.
15. In a word, blech.
16. Hmm.
17. A study running counter to the assumptions of those pushing progressive policies.
18. I don’t think they’ll notice.
19. What not to eat.

A while back I was considering the notion that angels and demons existed as intelligences operating at a different “level.” That is to say by analogy, if one considers an intelligent ant colony, then we are the ants to the the colonies demons and angels. That is to say, the demonic and angelic operate or interact with humanity as an emergent entity not so much as on an individual level.

Interesting idea or not, I’ve recently heard something that indicated that this idea is not new and in fact not in accordance to how these matters were viewed in early antiquity. Christian thinkers and writers in that period spoke of three realms. The angelic, the noetic, and the earthly. It seems clear to me that any emergent or other such behavior of humans would at best in the noetic realm … and a lot of it would be in the earthly.

That my idea is different does not make it a priori wrong. But it does give me pause, because these people who were thinking this, while not having the particular notions of emergent behavior did have the gist of it, in positing the noetic as a thing different from the earthly (which I take as the physical). That is to restate, smart people have different notions and it is clear that my notion is different. Especially inasmuch as I haven’t been thinking too long or hard about this, means I’m more likely wrong then they.

From Chuck Asay:

For the record, I disagreed with Cheney’s remark, and I disagree with Obama’s solution.  Putting the country in massive debt now and kicking the can down the road is completely wrong.

Jeff Emanuel at Redstate notes examples of how the Hollywood Left has decided that it’s cool to be patriotic again. 

Contra what many supporters would have us believe, this doesn’t demonstrate the mythic ability of Barack Obama to inspire folks to come together across the divide and sing kumbayah in harmony; rather, it shows that the take-my-ball-and-go-home-when-I’m-not-catered-to crowd (of which First Lady Michelle “For the first time I’m proud of my country” Obama is one) has decided to come back and play with the rest of us now that The Other is gone and one of “theirs” is in the Oval Office.

To the Hollywood actors, the liberal blogosphere, and my more leftward-leaning fellow Arena contributors: welcome to the party. Most of us recognize that America is America, however much hate you may harbor for its leaders, and have supported it the entire time — through Reagan, through Bush, through Clinton, through Bush again, and will continue to do so through Obama’s presidency. We won’t agree on everything — for example, I hope much of Obama’s domestic agenda fails utterly — but it won’t stop him from being “my president too,” or me from patriotically supporting my own country.

There were reports that it was suddenly cool to be an American again.  But such fair-weather patriotism isn’t patriotism at all.  It’s childishness.  The Right has been and will continue to be proud of our country, something the First Lady apparently wouldn’t understand. 

It’s been said that George W. Bush squandered the goodwill we had immediately after 9/11.  Matthew Kaminiski writing in Forbes last month, however, brings another perspective as we begin the Obama administration; don’t mistake sympathy with pro-Americanism.

One hates to spoil a good party, but here’s a bet that’s far safer these days than a U.S. Treasury bill: Even with Obama at the White House, they won’t really like us any more than before.

Read the rest of this entry

1. Looking at the beginning of Genesis.
2. Modern religious art from Moscow.
3. Pay them no mind … or not? Hamas tortures and kills members of Fatah.
4. Interesting poster, heh.
5. I’m assuming he knows that’s a Texas longhorn thing.
6. Part of a conversation on purgatory.
7. I have no idea what the problem is or why praying for Mr Obama’s family is racist.
8. Kind of what I was saying in last night’s post.
9. Prayers needed for Anastasia.
10. Difficulties faced by the corner marshal, I’ve done that job (at smaller races) and it’s difficult at times to cajole the people to keep the race (and themselves) safe.
11. A liberal unimpressed by liberal behavior.
12. Self-professed inaugural grinch?
13. David continues to relate his cancer journey.
14. Is it worse or just equally problematic?
15. Perhaps it should be said that “those who don’t know history, are bound to quote and say stupid things?” ‘Cause that quote is at best wrong, makes no sense, and means little.
16. Spiderman stops cars.
17. Two criticisms of Mr Obama’s speech yesterday. Here and here.
18. It remains to be seen if, as it seems, the current Administration co-opts for its own many of Bush’s strategies and policies. But if they do, it is highly unlikely that credit will be given where due.
19. Sometimes I wonder how the “don’t be consumers” cry comes together with “let’s all have gainful employment making stuff.”
20. PR and reality.
21. Obama -> Robert E. Lee or Lincoln?
22. Snow viewed from the South.
23. For uneasy nights?
24. End these cliches in fiction and cinema. Please.

From Mike Lester:

Is PETA still being taken seriously by anybody?

The Young America’s Foundation put together a list of the top 10 abuses by academia in 2008.  From banning conservative speakers, to threatening expulsion for praying (behind closed doors), to banning Thanksgiving, it seems that the more liberal our school become, the less they are the bastions of free speech, debate and tolerance they were intended to be.

We’ve just inaugurated our first black President.  I want to reiterate what I said some months back; I’m proud of our country for this accomplishment.  This by no means says that racism is completely dead in America.  But it does speak to the great progress made since Martin Luther King, Jr. had his dream. 

Telling a child of any race that they can, through hard work, be whatever they want to be, even President of the United States, isn’t some guilt-assuaging wishful thinking.  It has happened.  Racists, as with any sin, will always be with us.  But Barack Obama’s move into the Oval Office shows that it can be done.

Congratulations, America.

At least according to the incoming President Obama.  Charles Krauthammer explains, but I just have the bullet points here to get you to "Read the Whole Thing"(tm).  All lines below are quotes from the article.

• Vindication is being expressed not in words but in deeds — the tacit endorsement conveyed by the Obama continuity-we-can-believe-in transition.
• It is the repeated pledge to conduct a withdrawal from Iraq that does not destabilize its new democracy and that, as Vice President-elect Joe Biden said just this week in Baghdad, adheres to the Bush-negotiated status-of-forces agreement that envisions a U.S. withdrawal over three years, not the 16-month timetable on which Obama campaigned.
• It is the great care Obama is taking in not preemptively abandoning the anti-terror infrastructure that the Bush administration leaves behind.
• [On interrogation techniques]  Obama still disagrees with Cheney’s view of the acceptability of some of these techniques. But citing as sage the advice offered by "the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history" (according to Joe Biden) — advice paraphrased by Obama as "we shouldn’t be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric" — is a startlingly early sign of a newly respectful consideration of the Bush-Cheney legacy.

The upshot?

Which is why Obama is consciously creating a gulf between what he now dismissively calls "campaign rhetoric" and the policy choices he must make as president. Accordingly, Newsweek — Obama acolyte and scourge of everything Bush/Cheney — has on the eve of the Democratic restoration miraculously discovered the arguments for warrantless wiretaps, enhanced interrogation and detention without trial. Indeed, Newsweek’s neck-snapping cover declares, "Why Obama May Soon Find Virtue in Cheney’s Vision of Power."

Another "Now They Tell Us" moment in the mainstream media.  All the anger and disdain thrown at Bush, figuratively here and by a certain Iraqi reporter there, is over ideas and policies that the incoming administration has show it’ll be slow to dismantle.  Those policies have indeed kept up safe for the 7 years since 9/11. 

No, the ends do not at all justify the means.  But for some of us, these were just wars.  For others, neither Afghanistan nor Iraq were just, and the reflexively anti-war crowd will continue to push Obama, as they did Bush, to just do whatever our enemies want so they won’t get angry with us.  Or perhaps isolate them, which "worked" so well for the 70+ years of aggressive communism in the Soviet Union.  That even failed miserably with Hussein’s Iraq, with our own "allies" funneling aid to them through the back door. 

No, George W. Bush kept us safe, and, despite the rancor and alarmism, without shredding the Constitution or civil liberties.  Obama played on the fears of his supporters long enough to get elected President, but the time has come for action, and before you judge the actions of his predecessor, see what his actions are.  That will speak louder to the success or failure of George W. Bush than any pundit’s pen can write.

1. One bar set, will it move? Is that where you set the bar?
2. Isn’t the answer, shame?
3. Standing with your dirty undergarments exposed.
4. Will the next major political battle be between left and far-left?
5. A societal rejection to reject or … “is Outrage!”
6. More bingo.
7. Culture, rejection of same, and failure to reject what should be rejected.
8. Academic follies.
9. Pro-life in tomorrow’s nation.
10. MLK, Aquinas and law.
11. The “not indicted” as refutation of connection.
12. No.
13. Still ahead of the bronze age.
14. On the simulator, flight 1549.
15. Change … or not.
16. Not $45 million … in excess or $170 million … and much of the money from Wall Street beneficiaries of bailout dough.