The Book of Jim

Nuclear Hypocrisy

2009-05-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

North Korea recently conducted an underground test of a nuclear explosive device. According to an Associated Press news article, nations throughout the world are condemning the test. Here are some quotes from the article, along with the number of nuclear weapons each condemning nation possesses:

The U.N. Security Council was meeting later Monday in New York to discuss what President Barack Obama called Pyongyang's "blatant defiance" of resolutions banning the regime from developing weapons of mass destruction.

The U.S. possesses ten thousand nuclear weapons.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the test as a "danger to the world."

The UK possesses 200 nuclear weapons.

Russia's Foreign Ministry called it "a serious blow to international efforts" to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

Russia possesses 8600 nuclear weapons.

French officials said they would push for new sanctions.

France possesses 350 nuclear weapons.

China said it was "resolutely opposed" to the test.

China possesses 400 nuclear weapons.

Nations possessing hundreds, even thousands, of nuclear weapons can hardly claim to hold the moral high ground. If these nations want to have any credibility at all in condemning North Korea's nuclear weapons program, they must first dismantle their own stockpiles of nuclear weapons. To do otherwise is the height of hypocrisy.

Pot, meet kettle.

Two Questions

2009-02-16T13:43:00.000-08:00

While I am a Christian and believe that God created the universe and everything in it, I don't believe the Genesis six-day account of how he did it. I believe that God created it all, but I think that we have to turn to science to tell us how he did it. I have two questions for those who believe that God created the Earth in six days.

God is all powerful. What is impossible for man is not just possible for God, it's easy for him. He can do it immediately, doesn't even break a sweat. A mere thought, a blink of an eye, and it's done. Yet according to the Genesis creation story, he took six days to create the Earth. So, my first question is: What took him so long?

God is infinite, God is everlasting. He has always been, he will always be. Time has no meaning to God: a thousand years is no more than the blink of an eye. He had forever to create the Earth, yet he finished the job in just six days. Which leads to the second question: Why the big rush?

That's what I saw

2008-10-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

A dozen or so years ago, I wrote a song called “That's What I Saw.” The song is a series of short vignettes of incidents that I had witnessed, incidents that stuck in my mind and returned to my thoughts with some regularity. Here's the chorus of the song:

That's what I saw today;
I'm not saying it's wrong or it's right.
But that's what I saw today;
It's still on my mind tonight.

Three recent incidents stick in my mind; all three took place at the church I attend. As in the song, I'm not going to say whether what I saw is wrong or right; I'll leave that up to you. But here's what I saw; here's what's still on my mind:

About a year ago, I was talking to a man at church about Holden Village, a religious retreat village near here. He was planning on going to Holden soon, and knowing I had been there several times, wanted to know what it was like. Among other things, I told him that the people there were very open and accepting of others, and that he'd likely see openly gay people during his stay at the Village. A few months later, he came up to me after church one Sunday and told me that he'd been to the Village, and that he didn't see any gay people there - “They've really cleaned it up,” he said.

One Sunday shortly before the anniversary of the use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan (August 6 and 9, 1945), I took to church with me a couple dozen copies of a paper I'd written on the U.S. possession and use of nuclear weapons, intending to leave them on the literature table. (I had received permission from the pastor to do so.) A woman told me that I couldn't put my papers on the table; that some people might be offended by them.

A local trailer park was closed down recently, leaving its mostly low income residents to scramble for affordable housing. Churches and other groups agreed to each “adopt” a family from the trailer park, helping them to find affordable housing and otherwise helping however they could. My church adopted a family from the trailer park, and one recent Sunday a woman from the church asked me how the family was doing. I shared what little information I had on the family's current situation, and she told me she wished 'those people' would do more to help themselves out.

There you have it: that's what I saw, that's what's still on my mind.

The Butter Battle Book and Nuclear Weapons

2008-10-15T15:21:00.000-07:00

I have just finished reading “The Butter Battle Book” by Dr. Seuss. You may think that the book, being written by Dr. Seuss, is a children's book. It is, and it isn't.

The story is about the Yooks and the Zooks, who live on opposite sides of a great wall. But what really separates them is that the Yooks eat their bread with the butter side up, and the Zooks – horror of horrors - eat their bread with the butter side down.

In order to prevent anyone from the other side from coming over the wall, both sides post a guard along the wall. The Yook guard is armed with a Snick-Berry Switch. The Zook guard breaks the Snick-Berry Switch with a shot from his slingshot, and both sides launch into a race to produce a more powerful weapon than the other side has, producing Triple-Sling Jiggers, Jigger-Rock Snatchems, Utterly Sputters, and finally, the Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo, a weapon so powerful it can completely destroy the other side. The guard from each side goes to the wall, intending to destroy the other side once and for all with his Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo, only to find that the other side has one, too. The book doesn't really have an ending, it just leaves both guards standing on the wall with a Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo in his hand, waiting to see who will drop his first. And when one side drops his Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo, the other side will drop his too, resulting in the destruction of both the Yooks and the Zooks.

The real-life version of the book is, of course, the “Cold War Arms Race” between the United States and the Soviet Union (now Russia). Each side constructed more and bigger nuclear weapons in an effort to outdo the other side.

Like the Yooks and the Zooks in the Butter Battle Book, the real life story has, as of yet, no ending. The United States still has approximately ten thousand nuclear weapons in its arsenal, with half of those ready to launch at a moment's notice, while the Russians have approximately sixteen thousand nuclear weapons, with about five thousand of those ready for immediate launch.

I think the moral of the story is that nobody can win an arms race, whether in real life or in a Dr. Seuss book. The only possible outcome seems to be a standoff, with both sides ready and able to destroy the other, even though it will certainly mean their own destruction as well. As they discovered in the 1983 movie, War Games, “the only winning move is not to play.”

Unfortunately, we've already started playing the game, and we've been playing it for sixty years. But there's still hope: both sides could agree to stop playing the game, to dismantle their Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroos, or their nuclear weapons, as the case may be, and look for other ways to resolve their differences. That is the only way we might still win the game.

Work for nuclear disarmament. Contact your political leaders and tell them you want the United States to work with other nations to eliminate nuclear weapons from the world. Tell all your friends about the madness and futility of the possession of nuclear weapons, and ask them to work for nuclear disarmament.

And be sure to eat your bread with the butter side down.

Living the Sermon

2008-04-29T15:56:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading "Gandhi the man: the story of his transformation" by Eknath Easwaran. In the appendix, Gandhi is quoted as saying "There is no royal road, except through living the creed in your life, which must be a living sermon." To live one's life as a "living sermon" is a high standard to be held to. While Gandhi wasn't by any means perfect, he did in many ways live the sermon he preached. He not only talked the talk, he walked the talk, he practiced what he preached, and I think that is a major reason why people are still talking about him and looking up to him to this day.

Jesus also lived the sermon he preached. He talked of loving and serving one's fellow man, of being a neighbor to all, and he lived it. He healed and fed many people, he washed the feet of his disciples. He preached nonviolence, and when one of his disciples drew his sword and cut off the ear of a man who had come to arrest him, Jesus not only told Peter to put the sword away, but healed the man's ear. As with Gandhi, I think his living the sermon he preached is a major reason people are still talking about and looking up to Jesus, two thousand years later.

I have been known to "preach a sermon" now and then, here on this blog, and elsewhere. I have been known to tell people what they are doing wrong, what they should be doing instead, how they should live their lives.

I am no Gandhi, and I am certainly no Jesus. My life is not a "living sermon." I talk the talk, but I don't always walk the talk; I don't always practice what I preach. I don't expect I will ever live the sermon I preach in the way that Gandhi and Jesus did. And I certainly don't expect that people will still be talking about me or looking up to me two thousand years, or even a hundred years, after my death. But still, I hope and believe that I have something worthwhile to say, and I hope that people will listen to what I say, and will be able to overlook the fact that I don't always live my own sermons, at least enough to consider that there might be some truths in the sermons I preach.

The same applies to all of us, I believe. You also have something to say, we all have something to say. We all see ways that the world could be a better place, we see in those around us behaviors we feel are inappropriate and would like to see changed, sometimes missing the fact that we are guilty of the same behaviors. While I think that we should all strive to live the sermons we preach, I don't think that we should let our own imperfections keep us from preaching those sermons. We will probably have our hypocrisy pointed out to us now and then, people will point out our own failures. But as long as we can preach our sermons, not with condemnation, but with love, we should preach them anyway. We should listen to other people's sermons, looking for the truths they contain. And we should listen to our own sermons, for surely we need to hear them as much as anyone does.

God's will for me (and you)

2008-04-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

I've had a very frightening experience lately. I've found myself praying that God would show me what his will for me is, and that he'll give me the courage to do his will.

That's a scary thing. There are a lot of things that God could ask me to do that I really don't want to do; that I just don't think I have the strength to do.

Father Roy Bourgeois has spent years of his life trying to close the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, where the U.S. trains in torture and terror tactics. His work has landed him in prison more than once. Could I do that? I don't know.

Gary Smith spent 25 years living among and ministering to the poor, the homeless, the drunks and drug addicts, the mentally ill. I've read his book, “Radical Compassion: Finding Christ in the Heart of the Poor” and while I greatly admire Gary Smith for his work, I just don't know if I could do what he did.

I could give a lot more examples of people who live their lives ministering to the poor, working for peace, curing the sick - names you know and people you've never heard of. I suspect many of them also wondered if they were able to do what God called them to do. Mother Teresa spent years in Calcutta working with the sick, the dying, and the poorest of the poor, yet we are told there were times she had doubts about her ability to do her work.

My pastor wrote a song that includes these lyrics:

“Please don't send me to Africa,
I don't want to go. ...
Please don't make me do what I fear.”

Even Jesus, facing death on the cross, prayed: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me.” We're in good company when we fear what doing God's will may mean for us.

Soren Kierkegaard writes:

“The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined.”

Kierkegaard is right; if we do as the New Testament instructs us to do, as God instructs us to do, our lives will be “ruined.” How can I have my house in the suburbs with a two car garage and a white picket fence if God calls me to spend my life working with homeless people? How can I watch my favorite shows on a big screen TV if God calls me to work with people with HIV/AIDS in Africa? What will it mean to my career if I spend my life working for nuclear disarmament?

I don't know what God's will for me is; I don't know what God is calling me to do. It's easy for me to say “Please don't send me to Africa” or “let this cup pass away from me.” But I'm trying to listen for God's voice, to hear what God wants me to do, and I know there's more to it than “being a good person and going to church on Sunday.” For me, and for all of us.

Dear Lord, it is easy for us to see the “big picture” of what you want us to do on this Earth: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.” But it's not always so easy to see the smaller details, to see where we as indivuals fit into the big picture. Let each one of us see clearly what we are called to do, and give each of us the strength to do your will. Amen.

If You Eat Each Day

2008-03-22T14:30:00.000-07:00

I am a member of the local Catholic church's JustFaith program. JustFaith is a program intended to “empower people of faith to develop a passion and thirst for justice.” I'm not a Catholic, but I am willing, even eager, to get Christian teaching, and perhaps especially Christian social teaching, anyplace I can get it. And the Catholic Church is a good place to go for that!

As part of the JustFaith program, we read books, have discussions on what we read, have guest speakers, visit homeless shelters, and so on. Occasionally we listen to a song. A few weeks ago we listened to Bryan Sirchio's song, "If You Eat Each Day."

It seems Bryan was working in a clinic in Haiti, and was assigned to cut the hair of clinic patients. Well, you know how barbers are, they get to talking with their clients while they're cutting their hair, and just about any subject can come up. Bryan asked the man whose hair he was cutting, “Do you think I'm rich?” And the man responded, “How many days a week do you eat?” Seeing that Bryan was speechless, he asked, “You mean you eat every day? If you eat every day, you are rich.”

Does that affect you the way it affects me? Two-thirds of Americans are overweight. We eat at least three times each day, and many of us are eating much more than we need to. Myself, I am carrying around with me about 35 extra pounds. And here's a man who doesn't eat everyday, because he is too poor to eat every day. Ouch. That doesn't make me feel too good. But, I am inspired to do something about it.

Jesus said, “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath food, let him do likewise.” Clearly, we have more food than we need – most of us are overweight. Now, there's no way that I can give the excess food that I don't need to be eating anyway to this man in Haiti, but surely I can do more to see that he is fed every day. I can give to relief agencies who feed the poor. I can work with agencies who work to eliminate the root causes of poverty. And I can encourage you to do the same.

You may think, “What can I do? There's so much to be done, and I am just one person.” Well, you don't have to take on the whole job yourself. Find some small thing that you can do, and do that. As Mother Teresa said, “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” And if you can't feed even one person, then provide one person with one meal when you can.

Here are the lyrics to Bryan Sirchio'ssong, ”If You Eat Each Day”:

Bryan Sirchio
Songs For Justice Walkers
"If You Eat Each Day"

Haiti is the poorest country in this hemisphere
I go there now and then to get my vision clear
Sometimes it gets so hazy in this land of
I consume therefore I am

I was working in this clinic for the dying & diseased
Living skeletons with AIDS and TB
Organized and run by Mother Teresa and her sisters of Charity
I asked the nun in charge, Sister, what should I do?
She smiled and said I've got a job for you
Then she gave me a pair of scissors, and said,
See that man right there
He'd like for you to cut his hair
I said, oh, Sister are you sure?...

I mean its not like I have given
many haircuts in my day
But I was there to help, so I just smiled and said, OK
So there I was, this natural born Vidal Sassoon
just snipping that hair away

We struck up conversation as best we could
His English was broken, my Creole's not too good
But we managed to communicate enough for him to say
Something I never will forget

You see I asked him, do you think I'm rich?
And this was his response to me
He said, well how many times a week do you eat?
Well his question took my voice away
And then he said, you mean you eat every day?
And I said, yeah, and he just said this
Well if you eat each day, you're rich

Somehow that moment felt to me like Holy Ground
I finished his haircut and when I turned around
There was a whole line of customers
who kinda like the way I cut that one man's hair!

So I gave them haircuts but they gave me so much more
They gave me the perspective of the poorest of the poor
And I know I'll spend the rest of my life
trying to somehow respond

'Cause if its true as we often say that wealth is relative
It just might take the dying poor in a place like Port au Prince
To help us see this relativity from God's point of view
To cut through our first world denial with gospel Truth
And as for me, I know I need to receive this paradigm shift
That in a hungry world, if we eat each day...
We're rich

Haiti is the poorest country in this hemisphere
I go there now and then to get my vision clear
Sometimes it gets so hazy in this land of
I consume therefore I am.

Praying

2007-12-01T13:54:00.000-08:00

I don't ordinarily pray much. I know we are told in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to pray without ceasing, but I just never got in the habit of it. But this week I have prayed much more than usual.

At the church I attend, we wear stick-on paper name tags. Last week after the service, I noticed Lois was wearing her own name tag, and another that said “Lydia.” I asked her why she was wearing Lydia's name tag, and she said it was an idea Paul had come up with: take another person's name tag with you, and use it as a reminder to pray for that person during the week. And so I took Lois's name tag. When I was telling Mike about it, he asked that I pray for him, too. So, I wrote Mike's name on the tag, and stuck it to the dashboard of my car. Whenever I get in the car, and now and then while I am driving, I see that tag with Lois's and Mike's names on it, and I pray for them. I have been in the habit of sticking my own name tag to the dashboard when I get in the car after church, and now when I see it there, it's a reminder to pray for myself, also. And once I get started, I usually pray for other people I know, or for situations in the world that need praying for.

I now find myself praying at other times, too, and I like it. For whatever reason, it makes me feel good. It is perhaps as Soren Kierkegaard said, “Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.” It's been less than a week, but I do find that my praying has been changing me. I pray for people I love, and I find I feel my love for them grow stronger. I plan to keep putting up reminders to pray until the habit becomes ingrained in me and I no longer need reminders.

If you don't currently pray much, try it. Stick a reminder to pray on the dashboard of your car, or on your refrigerator, or wherever you'll see it often during the week, and pray each time you see it. If my experience is any indication, it will soon become a habit, and you'll be glad you did it.

Peace be with you - or not.

2007-10-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

I am a member of the JustFaith group at the local Catholic church. We have been meeting for 5 weeks now. At the end of each session, we have a “sharing of peace”, which consists of shaking hands with or hugging each member of the group, and wishing them peace, typically, “peace be with you.”

I'm having a bit of a problem with that.

We have read of families living in poverty in Jonathan Kozol's book, “Amazing Grace.” We've had the director of a local homeless shelter come speak to us. We've seen a film on the poor and hungry of the world, including an entire village of people who live, literally, in a garbage dump, and who live on what they can salvage from the garbage.

What we have learned does not bring me peace. It disturbs me greatly. It makes me want to do something. And I want the rest of the group to be as disturbed by what we've learned as I have been. I don't want them to leave after each group meeting with a feeling of peace. I want them to burn with the determination to do something.

Now, I really don't know how the rest of the group is feeling at this point. Maybe they're all feeling pretty much as I do. We haven't discussed it – yet – so I just don't know. But I'm sure going to bring it up at our next meeting. Until then, I will pray that they – and you, dear reader – will feel the peace that comes from knowing that you are doing for others all that you can do. And I will pray that I, too, will someday know that peace.

When it was just God

2007-08-17T13:40:00.001-07:00

One Saturday a few months ago, I attended the funeral of Tony DeRooy. I've known the DeRooy family since I was in high school, and I'm pleased to count several members of the family as good friends. Tony was eighty five years old. Besides being an accomplished singer and musician, Tony was a master gardener, and was well known for several of his large landscaping projects and his expertise with dahlias.

At the funeral, Tony's brother, Henry, mentioned Tony's first job after serving in the military during World War II. The National Parks were closed for the duration of the war, and after 4 years of no maintenance, Glacier Park Lodge was overrun with weeds. It was Tony's job to get the landscaping ready for the reopening of the park.

When the park reopened, a visitor remarked to Tony what a fine job he and God had done with the park. Tony responded, “You should have seen it last year when it was just God!”

God had continued to provide the rain and the sunshine, and to make the plants grow, but without someone there to pull the weeds and prune the shrubs, the Lodge landscaping was a mess. God had done his job, but man had fallen down on his part of the job during the war. The landscaping mess Tony had to deal with is what you get when it's “just God.”

A lot of things work like that. People sometimes ask, why does God allow all the poverty and hunger in the world? Well, God has done his part to feed us all. He's provided the earth with abundant resources, and he's provided the plants and animals we eat and the sun and rain to make them grow. It's not God's fault if we fail to distribute the food to the people who need it. That's our fault. People go hungry when it's “just God.”

And poverty? Same thing there: God provided us with the resources to make just about anything we might want. It's not God's fault that some people decided it was more important for them to have a new car, or a bigger TV, or a new iPod – or the world's most powerful military - than for others in the world to have basic necessities of life. As Gandhi said, “The earth provides for every man's needs but not for every man's greed.” It's not that there isn't enough “stuff” to go around. God has created the Earth to provide enough to meet the needs of all human beings; it is up to mankind to spread the wealth around as God intended. When those of us who have everything we need demand still more, we take it from those who are doing without the basic necessities of life. When I demand a two hundred dollar pair of running shoes, or a new cell phone with a better camera, or any of the other luxuries we take for granted, I'm taking from the impoverished people of the world, from the half of the world's population who lives on two dollars or less per day. Poverty? That's what you get when it's “just God.”

War? There's another example of what happens when it's “just God.” God's been clear on what he wants: “Thou shalt not kill.” “Blessed are the peacemakers.” He's even given us some pretty good advice on how to be peacemakers: “Love your neighbor.” “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” But instead, we go about the business of killing each other, and at any given moment, there are several wars going on in the world. That's what it looks like when we don't do our part, when it's “just God.”

Look around you. What other situations do you see where it's “just God”; where man is failing to do his part? What action can you take to work with God? How can you encourage others to work with God?

When Jesus came back

2007-08-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

It was never like this before Jesus came back. It used to be you could bash gays, or complain about welfare mothers, or walk past homeless people without so much as looking down at them. But since Jesus came back, no more of that, no sir.

It wouldn't have been so bad if He'd just come back to judge us all. I mean, isn't that the way it was supposed to happen? He'd come back, and He'd look to see whether you'd gone to church, and done a good job of raising your kids and stuff like that, then He'd send us off to our eternal reward or punishment, and that would be that. But no, He couldn't do that. He had to come back and make us do the things we were supposed to do. You know, like if you were supposed to be your brother's keeper, or if you were supposed to be merciful or something, He'd actually make you do it.

And remember how we used to make fun of all them punk hippie kids with their long hair and all? You could call 'em faggots, or ask 'em if they were girls or anything like that. Well, you can't do that anymore, not since Jesus came back. You'd think He'd wear a suit and tie or something, and get a haircut, like a decent human being, but no, there He is, just like in the pictures, with that long hair, and that beard, and half the time He's wearing them stupid sandals. Now how are we supposed to raise up our kids decent with that kind of example around?

And you just can't get away from him. Seems like everywhere you go, there's Jesus, telling you how you gotta live and what you're supposed to be doing. I suppose next thing you know he'll pop up and tell me not to spit on the sidewalk no more or something. He's even on TV. No kidding, there's Jesus himself, right there on the TV for Chri- well, you know what I mean. Sure, we've always had religion on TV, but at least you could get some entertainment out of them TV preachers, all asking for money and pretending to heal somebody. But this is different – Jesus gets on the TV, telling everybody what they gotta do and how they gotta live. I even seen him break in on the news show, talking about what the world leaders were doing wrong, and telling 'em what they gotta do different.

I'm telling you, things just ain't the same since Jesus came back.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The above is just a piece of idle speculation I engaged in one day: What if Jesus decided to do things differently than we're expecting? What if He came back to live with us again? What if He was there to give us guidance and correction, perhaps sometimes in a gentle, shepherd-leading-his-flock manner, and perhaps sometimes in a more overturning-tables, throwing-the-money-changers-out-of-the-temple manner? What if Jesus could pop up in front of you at any minute, to comment on what you're doing? Think about it.

The Lord's Prayer, Part Two

2007-05-26T22:08:00.000-07:00

I recently wrote on the Lord's Prayer, specifically on “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven” and the need for those who would follow Jesus to work to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth. There's a second part of the Lord's Prayer I'd like to talk about:

“Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.” (Matthew 6:12 ASV)

Various translations use “debts” or “trespasses” in place of “sins.” But that's not the pertinent word here. The pertinent word is “as.” The dictionary definition of “as” is:

To the same extent or degree; equally.

So, when we pray the Lord's Prayer, we are really saying:

“Forgive us our sins, to the same extent or degree we forgive those who have sinned against us.”

If this doesn't make it perfectly clear that we are to be forgiven only to the extent we have forgiven others, Jesus goes on to say:

"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:14-15 ASV)

Ouch. Count on Jesus to spell it out for us in no uncertain terms.

Forgiving people is hard. When someone has done you wrong, when you have suffered at another's hands, it seems natural to want to “get even.” It seems natural to hold a grudge against those who do us wrong. But this is not what Jesus tells us to do. Jesus tells us to forgive those who have done us wrong, and even goes so far as to say that if we do not forgive others, God will not forgive us.

So what do we do when we find it hard to forgive? I wish I had all the answers. I am still having a hard time forgiving the people involved in an incident that took place several years ago. It helps to remember that I have also wronged others, and of course I want them to forgive me. So, the Golden Rule applies here: “Whatever you want people to do for you, do the same for them.” (Matthew 7:12 ISV)

Prayer can help, too. If God wants us to forgive, it seems reasonable that he would expect us to call on him for the strength to forgive, and that he would give that strength.

Perhaps forgiving can be made easier if we remember that the primary beneficiary of forgiveness is the forgiver, not the forgiven. When we have been wronged, we carry the memory of that wrong, and its pain, with us. When we forgive, although we still have the memory of being wronged, we can leave behind the pain associated with it. As theologian Lewis B. Smedes tells us, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

Remember that forgiving doesn't always come easily, and that you may have to forgive someone more than once. If you find yourself feeling the same resentments and pain again, maybe you need to “re-forgive.” Remember too, that forgiving does not always heal the relationship. Some relationships cannot be healed, probably some relationships should not be. But forgiveness will always heal the forgiver, and open the way to forgiveness for ourselves.

I think we often say the Lord's Prayer by rote, without really thinking of what it means. Jesus only taught us how to pray once, when he gave us what we know as the Lord's Prayer. It seems to me that if Jesus only taught us one prayer, we should give more consideration to it; we should examine it to see what else is in it. Before the next time you say the Lords' Prayer, think about what the words really mean. Is there anything else in the Lord's Prayer that you've been missing? What actions do the words of the Lord's Prayer call you to?

Be like the plants

2007-05-26T22:04:00.000-07:00

Almost anywhere there are sidewalks, you will see plants growing from cracks in them.

A few miles from where I live, there is a rock cliff, several hundred feet high, and several hundred feet wide. Growing out of the face of that cliff is a pine tree.

While riding my bicycle along the highway one day, I saw a cornstalk, perhaps two and a half feet tall, growing from a tiny crack in the pavement.

Plants are persistent. They will try to grow anywhere. They will find any little crack and sink their roots into it. Sometimes they will live long lives, surviving on the tiny bits of nourishment that fall into their crack. Months or years may go by without rain, but as soon as the rain falls, the plants spring back to life. If their best efforts fail, and they are unable to survive, when they die they will leave their bodies in the cracks, to become soil, to nourish the next plant to come along.

We who are working to make the world a better place must be like the plants. We must plant ourselves in every tiny crack. We must be persistent. Even when it looks as though there is no chance of success, we must carry on our work. And if we should fail, know this: like the plant who dies, yet opens the crack and leaves its body for the next plant to grow on, we will have opened the crack for those who follow us; we will have left something behind that will nourish those who follow us. Our work will never be in vain.

The Lord's Prayer

2007-05-04T13:36:00.000-07:00

Have you ever said the Lord's Prayer? I imagine most of us have. I think it's important to consider what this prayer means, since the prayer comes to us from Jesus himself, who instructed his followers to pray:

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

I'd like to focus on a portion of this prayer:

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in heaven.

I think this is very significant: Jesus told us to pray for God's kingdom to come, and for God's will to be done, here on Earth. So let's think about what that might mean, for God's kingdom to come, and for God's will to be done, here on Earth.

Do you think that there would be any poverty or hunger in God's kingdom? Doesn't seem very likely, does it? Then, do you think that it is God's will that there is poverty and hunger here on Earth? No, I think it's fairly safe to say that the poverty and hunger that exist here on Earth are not in accordance with God's will.

What about war? Is there any war in God's kingdom? Not a chance, and if the kingdom of God is to come to Earth, doesn't that mean that war on Earth will have to end? Is it God's will that there be bombing and killing and destruction? Certainly not! Then if God's will is to be done, doesn't that mean that the bombing and killing and destruction on Earth will have to end, in order to make Earth like heaven?

We could probably come up with a fairly large list of things that we currently find here on Earth that we can be sure will not be found in heaven. We could probably think of dozens of things that are currently widespread on Earth that are not in accordance with God's will.

Do you think that Jesus intended only that we pray about these things, intended only that we pray that God's will be done, or do you think he intended that we also work to see that it is done? If we see poverty and hunger, did Jesus intend that we merely bow our heads, ask God to end them, then go on about our business? Or does Jesus want us to take action to end poverty and hunger?

When we see the wars in this world, the bombing and killing and destruction, did Jesus intend that we should simply pray that the killing will stop, then stand about wringing our hands in despair when we see that it doesn't stop? Or does Jesus want us to take action to end war?

I think it is clear what Jesus would have us do. When we see people in poverty and hunger, we are to remember these words of Jesus: “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath food, let him do likewise.” (Luke 3:11, ASV) Jesus intended that we take the action of giving a coat, or food, or whatever is needed, to those in need. And when we see war, we are to remember these words of Jesus: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” (Matthew 5:9, ASV) Jesus intended that we take the action of being peacemakers.

But I think the real significance of the Lord's Prayer is this: it applies not just to each of us personally, but to our systems – our social institutions, our governments, our corporations, our churches. We can all agree that there will be no poverty, hunger, or war in heaven. But why won't there be? Will there be no hunger in heaven because those who have food will feed those who do not? Will there be no poverty in heaven because those who have two coats “impart to him that hath none”? No, it will be because the systems in place in heaven will not allow for poverty, hunger, and war. If God's will is to be done regarding poverty, hunger, and war, it will mean replacing our current systems, which do allow such things, with new systems that do not allow such things.

Consider the great disparity of wealth which currently exists in the world. We currently have systems which allow some people to accumulate massive wealth, while simultaneously allowing others to remain in abject poverty. According to Forbes magazine, there are at this moment 946 billionaires in the world; 946 people who have accumulated personal wealth of one billion dollars or more. At the same time, half the population of the world, over three billion human beings, lives on two dollars a day or less. Do you think there will be this kind of disparity of wealth in heaven? I do not. Do you think it is part of God's will that 946 people have a net worth of over a billion dollars, while three billion people live on two dollars a day or less? Again, I do not. Yet, this is the situation we have today. This is possible because we have systems that allow it. If God's will is to be done in this regard, it will mean that those of us who pray “Thy will be done” must work to see that it is done.

Now, most of us are not billionaires, so let me give another example that hits a little closer to home: Let's suppose that you and I are the owners of 48 inch plasma television sets. Most likely, these televisions were built by people in what we call the “developing world” - people who, although they work long hours every day building these television sets, will never own one. These workers aren't paid enough to buy the televisions they spend 12 or 14 hours a day building. Plain and simple, you and I are exploiting these people. No, you and I don't personally own the factories where these televisions are built, and you and I don't personally decide what wages these people will be paid. But we do allow others to pay these people starvation wages. We could refuse to involve ourselves in this; we could refuse to buy the television set unless the workers are paid a high enough wage that they, too, might own one. But this would still allow the system to continue; this would still allow God's will to be denied. If we are going to say the Lord's Prayer, if we are going to pray that God's will be done, then we must be willing to do the work to see that the will of God is done. In this case, applying God's will and the rules of the God's kingdom might look like this: Instead of “Free Trade” laws – systems that allow this exploitation - we could demand Fair Trade laws – systems that do not allow this exploitation. If the factory workers aren't paid an acceptable wage, if the working conditions aren't within acceptable standards - “acceptable” meaning acceptable to God - we simply don't allow the product to be sold in our country. This is justice in the Biblical sense; this is a system in accordance with God's will. And we can make this happen. Right now, we have a system that allows people to pay these workers next to nothing, while reaping massive profits for themselves. We have that system because those who directly profit from that system have lobbied our government to create that system. But what's worse, we have that system because those who indirectly profit from that system, the people who buy those television sets - you and I - allow that system to exist. It exists because we have not refused to participate in it, and it exists because we have not insisted that our government change the system to one that is fair to the workers who build the products we buy. We must not only personally refuse to participate in systems which are not in accordance with the will of God, we must, as a body – the body of Christ - work to create systems that are in accordance with the will of God.

These same standards must apply to all the systems of our world. We must constantly look at the world around us and ask ourselves, “Is this the way God would have it done? Is this, here on Earth, the way it is in heaven?” And if it is not, we must work to change it.

Saint Augustine said, “Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.” I believe this is what Jesus had in mind when he taught us to pray the Lord's Prayer. I believe that the Lord's Prayer is not simply intended to ask God to make change in the world, I believe that the Lord's Prayer calls all believers to action. I believe that the Lord's Prayer demands not only that our personal behaviors are in accordance with the will of God, but that the systems we create are in accordance with the will of God, and that each of us acts to ensure that they are.

So, the next time you say the Lord's Prayer, think about it before you say it. Remember that the prayer calls for God's will to be done on Earth, as it is in heaven. Remember that the Bible is filled with specific instructions to take action: “Let him impart to him that hath none”; “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Remember that ensuring that the will of God is done will require changes not only in our personal behaviors, but in the systems which regulate our behaviors as a society. Then say the prayer, and let God inspire you and give you the strength to follow through.

New website: ncwpeace.org

2007-04-27T23:39:00.000-07:00

The local peace group has created a new website to keep you informed of peace activities in the North Central Washington area, ncwpeace.org. The site is new, but already we have a schedule of activities, from Wenatchee to the Canadian border, some resources to help with your peacemaking activities, and a page of links to other peace related sites. Check it out!

Why I Protest, Part Two

2007-03-28T23:33:00.000-07:00

I participated in two anti-war protests today. At the first one, a young man came up and talked to us. He had just gotten out of the Marines; a medical discharge due to the injuries he'd received in Iraq. He will be disabled for the rest of his life.

That's why I protest.

At the second protest, a young man was there who I had not seen before. I went over to introduce myself and welcome him to the group. He had just got the news that his step-brother was killed in Iraq. Today. He was in tears as he told me about it. There are tears welling up in my eyes now as I think about it.

That's why I protest.

Why I Protest

2007-03-22T15:38:00.000-07:00

I participate in a protest against the Iraq war nearly every Wednesday evening at a major downtown intersection in the town I live in. While I am completely convinced that the war is wrong, and that my opposition to it is right, I sometimes question whether standing on a street corner holding an “End the war now” sign is the right thing to do. (I think I tend to question it most often when it's cold and snowing outside!) While it is no substitute for other actions, such as writing to my congressional representatives (which I also do), I have decided our street corner protest is appropriate. Here's why:

1. Even though it is unlikely that the President, my Congressional representatives, or others who have the power to stop the war will drive by and see us holding our signs here in my little town, they are undoubtedly aware of the existence of street protests. Street protests have been covered in newspapers and on television. Our representatives in government are made aware that we oppose this war through our protests.

2. Anybody who drives by sees our protest, and knows that we are against the war. I have hope that those who do not (yet) oppose the war against Iraq will be encouraged to think about the reasons why we oppose the war, and that they may come around to thinking as we do.

3. There are others who oppose the war, but have been reluctant to publicly speak out against it. Seeing our public demonstrations against the war may encourage them to speak out against the war, maybe even to join our public protests.

4. Call it good vibes, or positive energy, or whatever. We are doing the right thing in protesting the war. We know we are doing the right thing. Others know we are doing the right thing. We are creating positive energy with what we are doing, and the overall “mood” or “attitude” of the world is better because of what we do.

Join us!

Wanted: Real Church, Real Leaders

2007-03-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

A group from my church is discussing Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren's book, “Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel.” During a recent discussion, it was suggested that we should start using “Fair Trade” coffee at church functions. (Among other things, Fair Trade attempts to assure that producers are paid a fair price for their products, and that the workers are treated fairly.) It was also suggested that we could make an announcement to the church, or perhaps put a small sign near the coffee pots, explaining what Fair Trade was, and why we were using Fair Trade coffee at church functions. One member of the group asked if the church was the appropriate place to be making such a statement.

I was shocked. That a church member could even ask such a question is, to me, yet another indicator of the tremendous failure of churches to do the work of Jesus. The Bible is filled with calls to justice. In Proverbs 21:3 we find, “To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to Jehovah than sacrifice”, and in Isaiah 56:1, “Thus saith Jehovah, Keep ye justice, and do righteousness.” What could be more just than purchasing products with a guarantee that the producers have been paid a fair price for their products? What could be more just than purchasing products with a guarantee that the workers producing those products have been paid and treated well? God tells us in Malachi 3:5, “I will be a swift witness ... against those that oppress the hireling in his wages.” When we buy Fair Trade products, we are assured that workers have been paid a fair wage.

And who better to teach these things than the church? The apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another”, and in Hebrews 10:24, “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” By setting an example for all the Church has an opportunity to teach and to stir up its members.

Martin Luther once said, “If you preach the Gospel in all aspects with the exception of the issues which deal specifically with your time you are not preaching the Gospel at all.” In a world in which we have constant war, poverty and hunger, exploitation of the weak by the powerful, and environmental destruction – and Christians who do nothing about them - a church which does not speak out against these things is not preaching the Gospel. The church must take an active role in seeking out injustice, speaking out against it, and taking action against it. Can you picture Jesus, when presented with an injustice, questioning whether it was appropriate to speak out about it, or take action against it? Of course not. Can you picture Jesus, when presented with a sick person, asking whether it was appropriate to heal the person? Of course not. If the church is to be the “body of Christ”, the church must do as Jesus would have done, and those who claim to be leaders of the church must lead the church in doing the work of Jesus. And now would be a good time to start.

Footnote: While I was writing the above, I came across a few quotations from Aiden Wilson (A.W.) Tozer, which I will include here:

We desperately need seers who can see through the mist---Christian leaders with prophetic vision. Unless they come soon it will be too late for this generation. And if they do come we will no doubt crucify a few of them in the name of our worldly orthodoxy.

Perhaps our greatest present need may be the coming of a prophet to dash the stones at the foot of the mountain and call the Church out to repentance or to judgment.

Could it be that too many of God's true children, and especially the preachers, are sinning against God by guilty silence?...I for one am waiting to hear the loud voices of the prophets and reformers sounding once more over a sluggish and drowsy church. They'll pay a price for their boldness, but the results will be worth it.

To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men. This is such a common truth that one hesitates to mention it, yet it appears to have been overlooked by the majority of Christians today.

Religion today is not transforming people; rather it is being transformed by the people. It is not raising the moral level of society; it is descending to society's own level, and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smilingly accepting its surrender.

I see that I am not the first person to notice the failure of the Church to do the work of Jesus. I hope that others will also notice, and will take action.

Thoughts after reading Martin Luther King's "Stride Toward Freedom"

2007-01-29T22:00:00.000-08:00

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day having just passed, I decided I should read more of King's writings. I read his first book, Stride Toward Freedom, which is the story of the struggle to integrate the buses in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 and 1956. Black people were at that time required to sit at the rear of the bus, and were also required to give up their seat to a white person if told to do so. For more than a year, the black people of Montgomery boycotted the bus system, organizing car pools and ride sharing, and walking miles to work rather than riding the buses. I won't tell the whole story here, but I do recommend that you read the book.

Several things struck me about the struggle for integration. The first is that King taught that the black people must always be nonviolent, even if they were insulted or attacked. What amazes me is that the black people did manage to remain nonviolent, even when the homes of black leaders and several black churches were bombed. I can easily imagine this violence being returned with violence, but they didn't do it. King must have been an amazing man to have this kind of influence on the black population of an entire city.

The second thing that struck me is that so many of the leaders of the movement were church leaders. Of the 45 members of the Executive Board of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization founded to lead the movement, twenty-four of them carried the title, “Reverend.” Many of the meetings were held in churches, and churches provided office space and other resources to the movement.

I have recently seen many churches refuse to get involved in struggles for justice (or to end wars, or to rid ourselves of weapons of mass destruction, or to stop our government from torturing people, or to stop changing the global climate), often saying that it is “too political.” I believe that God calls us to work for justice for all his children, and while some may see this as a political issue, I believe it is a moral issue. Church leaders and congregation members would do well to read Martin Luther King's books and speeches. Or simply consider this, also from Dr. King: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” That doesn't just apply to individuals, it also applies to churches. When the church fails to speak out about things that matter, it's as good as dead. Pastors, churches, Christian congregations, take a lesson from Dr. King: get active, do something, make things happen.

Can we morally justify our nuclear weapons?

2007-01-28T22:37:00.000-08:00

The United States possesses ten thousand nuclear weapons. As I have previously mentioned, this is enough to kill every human being on planet Earth, perhaps 8 or 10 times over. A single warhead could likely kill over 4 million people, and there are 192 of these warheads on each of the nine Trident submarines based at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor on Hood Canal in Washington State. Just the nuclear weapons carried on the Trident subs are enough to kill every man, woman, and child on Earth, and that's just a fraction of the total nuclear arsenal of the U.S.

I'd like to know under what circumstances we would be morally justified in using these weapons. Remember that these weapons are not intended for military targets, they are city destroyers. A bullet is intended to kill a single enemy soldier. An anti-tank weapon is intended to destroy a single attacking enemy tank. But a nuclear weapon is intended to kill civilians, millions of them, entire cities of them – men, women, and children. A nuclear weapon is intended to destroy millions of innocent lives, the lives of people who would like nothing more than to be simply left alone to go about their business. Under what circumstances would we be morally justified in vaporizing 4.4 million innocent human beings with a single warhead? Under what circumstances would we be morally justified in vaporizing 35.5 million innocent human beings with a single missile? Under what circumstances would we be morally justified in vaporizing 851 million innocent human beings with the firepower we could launch from a single Trident submarine? And under what circumstances would we be morally justified in ending the life of every single human being on planet Earth, something we have the capability to do 8 times over?

It is my contention that there are no circumstances under which we could justify using these weapons. It is my contention that there are no circumstances under which we could justify the destruction of millions, even billions, of innocent human lives. So why do we have these weapons? Again I ask you, are we really that insane, or that evil, that we would destroy all human life with our nuclear weapons? If not, why do we have ten thousand nuclear weapons? If we are to be honest with ourselves, we must admit that we are insane enough, we are evil enough to destroy all human life. We must admit that we have, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., allowed our scientific power to outrun our spiritual power.

Or we can regain our humanity by ridding ourselves of these weapons.

That is the path that I choose. I will not participate in the destruction of the human race. I will work for the abolition of nuclear weapons. I will work to remove from political power those who would give the order to use these weapons, and I will work to replace them with people who will dismantle our nuclear arsenal.

And I hope that you will join me. For it is likely that the survival of the entire human race depends on it. Certainly our status as moral beings depends on it.

Martin Luther King Day vigil at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor

2007-01-18T17:34:00.000-08:00

On January 15, 2007 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – I joined approximately 220 people in a vigil for peace and for the abolishment of nuclear weapons. The vigil was held at the gates of Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, located on Hood Canal/Puget Sound in Washington State. The action included hanging a sign from an overpass near the gates, with this statement from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “When scientific power outruns spiritual power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.” In a nonviolent act of civil disobedience, seven people blocked the highway into the base, holding a sign that said “Abolish Nuclear Weapons”, and were arrested on “suspicion of attempted disorderly conduct.” An additional six demonstrators were arrested after they entered the base in an attempt to deliver a statement to the base commander.

Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor is home to nine Trident submarines. Each submarine carries up to 24 D5 missiles, and each missile carries 8 nuclear warheads. Each of the 192 nuclear weapons on a Trident sub has an explosive power of 475 kilotons of TNT, more than 30 times the power of the bomb that killed 140 thousand human beings at Hiroshima. Assuming the same kill ratio as the Hiroshima bombing, each warhead could kill 4.4 million people, each missile could kill 35.5 million people, each sub could kill 851.2 million people, and the Kitsap-Bangor based nine sub fleet could kill 7.66 billion people, more than the current 6.3 billion population of the Earth.

In addition to the nuclear weapons on the submarines based at Kitsap-Bangor, there are an additional approximately 1000 nuclear weapons stored on the base. In total, Kitsap-Bangor is home to 24 percent of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and is quite possibly the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. Assuming that each of these warheads has the same killing power as the sub-based weapons, they would have the ability to kill another 4.4 billion people.

The total killing power of the approximately ten thousand nuclear weapons the U.S. possesses is beyond imagination.

Are we really that insane, or that evil, that we would destroy all human life with our nuclear weapons? Why do we have ten thousand nuclear weapons? We have truly allowed our scientific power to outrun our spiritual power; we truly are misguided men. If you care about your fellow human beings, work to abolish nuclear weapons. Write to your Congressional Representatives. Join a group working for the abolishment of nuclear weapons. Participate in vigils and demonstrations, and encourage others to join you.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “For years now, we have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can we just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence; it's nonviolence or nonexistence.” In a world in which a single naval base has the capability of killing every single human being on the planet, King has it right: we cannot continue this path of violence. We must dismantle our nuclear weapons. We must stop using violence to settle our disputes. And we must do it now.

The vigil at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor was organized by The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action. Visit their website for more information on their activities, and check out some of the other groups listed on their links page.

What is Social Justice?

2006-11-15T04:18:00.000-08:00

While talking with a friend the other day, I used the term “social justice.” When she asked what that meant, I really didn't have a good answer. I'm a member of the Social Justice Committee of the local Catholic church, a member of the League For Social Justice group on MySpace, and I could probably talk about social justice all afternoon. But I couldn't define it in just a sentence or two.

I did a little web searching, and asked everybody I thought might have a good definition of social justice. Wikipedia says, “Social justice refers to conceptions of justice applied to an entire society. It is based on the idea of a just society, which gives individuals and groups fair treatment and a just share of the benefits of society.”

At the website of the Social Justice Training Institute, I found this: Adams, Bell and Griffin (1997) define social justice as both a process and a goal. “The goal of social justice education is full and equal participation of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs. Social justice includes a vision of society that is equitable and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure.”

A friend from the Social Justice Committee gave this definition for social justice: “Social policies that allow all people to live with dignity, including access to adequate food, clean water, shelter, security, healthcare, meaningful work, and the freedom to participate in government.”

According to Rachel Brewer at The Centre for Social Justice, “Social justice involves the struggle to create societies where income, wealth and power are collectively shared rather than concentrated in the hands of a powerful few.”

H.G. Wells and friends, in their Declaration of Rights, tell us: “Every man is a joint inheritor of all the natural resources and of the powers, inventions and possibilities accumulated by our forerunners. He is entitled, within the measure of these resources and without distinction of race, color or professed beliefs or opinions, to the nourishment, covering and medical care needed to realise his full possibilities of physical and mental development from birth to death. Notwithstanding the various and unequal qualities of individuals, all men shall be deemed absolutely equal in the eyes of the law, equally important in social life and equally entitled to the respect of their fellow-men.”

Erika Nonken, Public Information Assistant at the Unitarian Universalist Association, says social justice is working to [or actions that] make society more just.

All these are good definitions, but this quote from Archbishop Helder Camara really helped clarify social justice for me, distinguishing it from charity: “When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist.” Social justice means asking the hard questions. Merely feeding the poor is charity. Charity is fine, but it doesn't address the question of why the poor have no food. Social justice asks the question, finds the answer, and works to see to it that, from now on, the poor will always have food. Social justice asks why some schools have 30 year old text books while others have the latest texts and a computer for every student, then works to make sure the latest texts and computers will always be available in every school.

There's an old story that takes place in a village on a river bank:

One summer in the village, the people in the town gathered for a picnic. As they leisurely shared food and conversation, someone noticed a baby in the river, struggling and crying. The baby was going to drown! Someone rushed to save the baby. Then, they noticed another screaming baby in the river, and they pulled that baby out. Soon, more babies were seen drowning in the river, and the towns people were pulling them out as fast as they could. It took great effort, and they began to organize their activities in order to save the babies as they came down the river. As everyone else was busy in the rescue efforts to save the babies, two of the townspeople started to run away along the shore of the river.

"Where are you going?" shouted one of the rescuers. "We need you here to help us save these babies!"

"We are going upstream to stop whoever is throwing them in!"

Social justice means going upstream to stop whoever is throwing babies in the river.

Happy Armistice Day!

2006-11-14T19:17:00.000-08:00

Happy Armistice Day! I know, you think it's Veterans Day, but it started out as Armistice Day, the commemoration of the signing of the cease-fire agreement - or armistice - that ended, on November 11, 1918, The Great War, The War To End All Wars, the war we now call World War One.

A proclamation by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 made the 11th of November an annual celebration. Wilson's proclamation ended with these words:

To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nation.

The “thing from which it has freed us” was, of course, the war; the bloodshed and killing.

In 1926, Congress recognized Armistice Day with a resolution including these words:

“it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.”

I like the original intent of Armistice Day: to recognize the armistice which ended war, to give America an opportunity “to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nation”, and an opportunity to “perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.”

Unfortunately, “The War To End All Wars” didn't end all war, and in 1954 Congress changed Armistice Day to Veterans Day, a day to honor the veterans of all wars. I don't mind honoring our war veterans, I suppose, I just don't want to make any more of them.

I'd like to see us make November 11th once again a day to celebrate that moment when the world believed it had just ended The War To End All Wars, and I'd like to see us work to make those dreams of peace into reality. I'd like to see us make November 11th once again a day when the councils of the nation show their sympathy with peace and justice. I'd like to see us make November 11th once again a day when we work to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations. I'd like to relegate Veterans Day, and war, to the dustbins of history. Instead of war heroes, I'd like to honor peace heroes. I'd like to bring back Armistice Day.

On Ted Haggard

2006-11-06T16:03:00.000-08:00

I feel kind of sorry for Ted Haggard.

Ted Haggard is the founder and senior pastor of the 14,000 member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and President of the National Association of Evangelicals. Or rather, he was, until it came out last week that he is also a homosexual and has been involved in an adulterous homosexual relationship for the past three years.

Teg Haggard didn't suddenly change one day late last week. If he was qualified to be senior pastor of New Life Church and President of the National Association of Evangelicals last week, then surely he is qualified for those positions this week. One's sexual desires, and what one does with them, do not define a person.

The discovery of one's shortcomings, and I'm referring here to Haggard's adulterous relationship and his lies and denial of it, not his homosexuality, also do not define a person. Ted Haggard was an adulterer, a liar, and a deceiver last week, just as he is an adulterer, a liar, and a deceiver this week, yet last week he carried out his responsibilities as pastor and NAE President to everyone's apparent satisfaction. The discovery of his status as adulterer, liar, and deceiver does not change who he is, nor does it affect his ability to carry out the tasks that he carried out to everyone's satisfaction last week.

So, why is Ted Haggard no longer the senior pastor of New Life Church and President of the National Association of Evangelicals? If you believe that homosexuality is a sin, and that adultery and deceit are sins, then Haggard is a sinner. But, as Jesus said, “let he among us who is without sin cast the first stone” (thus ensuring that no stones will be cast). May he who is without sin also be the first to ask Ted Haggard to step down from his leadership positions. If being a sinner was grounds for removal from one's job, we'd all be unemployed and nothing would get done.

So, let's acknowledge that Ted Haggard is a sinner, as are we all. Let us then acknowledge that Jesus loves sinners – every one of us – and let us continue to love Ted Haggard as Jesus does. Let's let Haggard get back to the work he does, knowing that he has done that work well in the past regardless of his being a sinner, and knowing that he can continue to do that work just as well now that we acknowledge his status as sinner as he did before we acknowledged his status as sinner.

Let us from this day forward acknowledge that all of us, like Ted Haggard, are sinners, and that Jesus still loves every one of us and expects all of us to love one another in spite of our being sinners. Let us not judge each other on the basis of the sins we know or believe the other has committed, but rather on the status of each one of us as a child of God.

And let us pray that those who choose to treat homosexuals differently than they treat other people – and that includes Ted Haggard and many of his followers - will recognize that the homosexual could be anyone: your neighbor, your brother or sister, somebody you work with, or even the senior pastor of New Life Church and President of the National Association of Evangelicals.

I am a racist.

2006-10-11T13:59:00.000-07:00

I am a racist.

And I'm not very happy about that.

A few weeks ago I visited the MySpace page of a woman I met online. On her page, there is a picture of her with her boyfriend. She's white, and he's black. And the first thing that came to my mind was: what is she doing with that black man?

Ouch! It hurt to have that thought.

In the town where I grew up, there were no black people. All I knew about black people was what I heard from others. My dad, as I recall, nearly almost called black people “niggers.” I saw as a child the news on TV about the riots in Harlem, Watts, and Detroit, and I'd hear people around me say, “Well, what do you expect from niggers?” And they might toss in a comment or two about how they were all on welfare, too. That's what I learned about black people as a child.

As an adult, I lived in North Carolina for 8 years. Unlike the rural Pacific Northwest town I grew up in, there are black people in North Carolina! And I got to know some of them. Griffith was a technician where I worked, and a good technician. He was quiet and soft-spoken, and I don't think I ever heard him speak a harsh word to anybody. Sometimes a bunch of us would go to lunch together, and I doubt it ever occurred to anybody to exclude Griffith. He wasn't a nigger to any of us, I don't think anybody even thought of him as a black man. He was just one of the guys.

Then there was Wheatley. Wheatley was bright, witty, pleasant to everyone, and beautiful. And married, which broke my heart! I don't think I ever thought of Wheatley as a black woman; I just thought of her as a woman, and a damn fine woman at that!

Back in the town I grew up in, there are now a few black people, and I know several of them. I've had two of them work for me in my electronics business. And I never really thought of them as black people, just people. One of them is married to a white woman, and I have never looked at the two of them and thought, “What is she doing with that black guy?” They're just another married couple.

So why the reaction to the picture of this white woman with a black man?

I think that what I am guilty of is not so much racism as it is prejudice. Prejudice means, literally, “pre-judge.” I looked at the picture of a white woman and a black man, and I pre-judged him. I know nothing about him, yet I made the judgement that he was not the right man for this woman.

It's a lot harder to do that face to face. When I see a person in front of me, I find it much easier to just see a person. I don't generally see a black person, or a white person, or a brown or red person, I just see a person. Maybe it's seeing their smile, or hearing their voice, or maybe it's feeling the presence of another human soul before me. But I am unable to pre-judge a person who is standing right in front of me. My heart feels what my eyes and brain have learned to not see.

I am not happy that I pre-judged that man in the picture. I'm not happy that things I learned as a child still come back to haunt me. That bothers me. But I am happy that I was bothered by it enough that I have been thinking about this ever since that day when I looked at that picture and pre-judged - wrongly pre-judged – a man I knew nothing about. I'm happy that I was bothered by it enough to talk to several friends of mine about it, and I'm thankful for their insights. I'm glad that I was able to see this prejudice, and to see the error of it.

Almost certainly, I harbor more prejudices that I am yet unaware of. I hope this experience will help me to see them too, and to deal with them. I hope that in the future I will not see skin color, or hair color, or whether a person is fat or skinny, or tall or short or old or young. I hope that instead I will simply see another human being, another person much like myself. And I hope that you have been inspired to look for any prejudices you may harbor, and to work through them.

It's too political.

2006-10-10T16:34:00.000-07:00

I've been rather disappointed lately, disappointed in churches, and the pastors who lead them. Or perhaps more accurately, should be leading them.

If we as Christians are called to love and serve our fellow human beings - and I believe that we are - then shouldn't we encourage each other in that? And shouldn't pastors encourage their congregations to show their love for their fellow human beings? It seems reasonable to me. Yet some pastors are actively discouraging their congregations from doing what Christians should be doing.

I attended the meeting of the Social Justice Committee at a local church a few evenings ago. Somebody suggested that the Committee should do something for Advent, maybe a book discussion or something. We started discussing a topic to go with, and somebody suggested “world peace.” But someone said they thought the pastor wouldn't like that, it was too political. I was going to say something right then, but the conversation moved on too quickly. Later someone suggested we could do a study of global warming, and maybe show Al Gore's film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” But again, somebody said the pastor wouldn't like that, it was too political.

That's when I lost it. When I hear something like that, I think, “there's a man on the fast track to hell.”

World peace is too political an issue for Christians to discuss? Global warming is too political an issue for Christians to discuss?

War may be a political issue, but peace is a moral issue, and therefore a Christian issue. Jesus, the man we sometimes call the “Prince of Peace”, said “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Shouldn't we all be blessed peacemakers for Jesus? What does it say when a pastor tells his congregation that world peace is “too political”? God's children are suffering and dying, and the pastor thinks world peace is “too political”? To me, he's not saying “it's too political”, he's saying, “don't be Christians.”

Is global warming a political issue? Although those who profit from the activities of man that are causing global warming make it a political issue, I contend that it is in fact a moral issue, and therefore a Christian issue. Global warming will make large areas of the Earth uninhabitable. Sea levels will rise and flood low lying lands. People - God's children - will suffer and die. And they will be dying because we refused to stop driving our cars, because we refused to stop burning coal and oil to generate electricity. They will die because we felt our lifestyle was more important than their lives. That is a moral issue, that is a Christian issue, and it is wrong for somebody who claims to be a church leader to not only refuse to lead his congregation on this issue, but to stand in the way of his congregation.

I have seen similar things take place at other churches. I have been thinking for some time that it would be good to have a public discussion of what can be done to decrease the number of abortions performed in this country. It seems to me that, pro-life or pro-choice, we should be able to agree that abortion is undesirable, and that it would be a good thing to reduce the number of abortions. I talked to the pastor at the church I usually attend about having a public discussion at the church about how to reduce the number of abortions. He wouldn't allow it at his church, because it's “too controversial.” This is a conservative, “pro-life” Baptist church, yet the pastor feels it's “too controversial” to discuss how to actually go about curtailing abortions. Interestingly, he didn't say it's “too political” an issue, and “pro-life” Christians are often politically active in trying to outlaw abortion. But apparently it's more important to make abortion illegal than to actually reduce the number of abortions performed.

C.H. Spurgeon once said, “I do not think the devil cares how many churches you build, if only you have lukewarm people and preachers in them.” A preacher who discourages his congregation from taking stands and taking action on moral issues is less than lukewarm. Pastors, if you are to be church leaders, then get out of the way and start leading.

Where have all the verses gone?

2006-09-03T19:49:00.000-07:00

I had the good fortune, last Friday evening, to hear the Kingston Trio perform at the Tsillan Cellars winery in Chelan, Washingon. The Kingston Trio has been playing folk music since 1957, and although the group's membership has changed over the years, I was pleased to find that the sound remains true to the original group. It was a wonderful show, with one glaring exception:

The group played many of the folk standards you'd expect from them, including Pete Seeger's "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" If you're not familiar with the song, it asks a series of questions, the answer of each leading to the next question: Where have all the flowers gone? Young girls picked them, every one. Where have all the young girls gone? Gone to young men, every one. Where have all the young men gone? Gone to soldiers, every one. Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to graveyards, every one. Where have all the graveyards gone? Gone to flowers, every one. Each verse ends with the question, "When will they ever learn?"

They left out a verse, and in doing so, they left out the whole point of the song. They left out "Where have all the soldiers gone?" The soldiers have gone to graveyards, that's where they've gone, and that's the point. War kills people, people who wind up in graveyards, pushing up daisies. And then the process repeats. When will they ever learn?

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them every one.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone to young men every one.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone to soldiers every one.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers every one.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

When will we ever learn?

Jim Allyn September 3, 2006.

They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love. Or will they?

2006-08-26T15:15:00.000-07:00

Last night I heard Simple Truth, a contemporary Christian band, play in the park downtown. I enjoy their music, but one of the songs they played always disturbs me a bit: "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love." It's a nice song alright, but will they? Will they know we are Christians by our love? I think not.

It seems to me that Christians, for the most part, aren't any more loving than anybody else. George Barna, director of the Barna Group, which conducts research to track Christian attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, says, "If Jesus Christ came to this planet as a model of how we ought to live, then our goal should be to act like Jesus. Sadly, few people consistently demonstrate the love, obedience and priorities of Jesus."

They won't know us by our love, will they? What can we do to make our love distinguish us from non-Christians? What can each of us personally do? What can we do to help our fellow Christians who also struggle with this?

Jesus the socialist

2006-08-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

In a recent blog post, a friend wrote, "I learned of Christian liberalism/socialism and that according to some, Jesus was the first communist. I could have been very closed minded about these topics because I don't agree with either."

Here's my response to her:

Communism and socialism have been given a bad reputation by governments that claimed to be communist or socialist but were neither.

I don't know that Jesus was the first Communist/Socialist; likely there were others before him. But I don't see how one can deny that Jesus tended toward socialist.

Acts 2:44-45 says "And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need."

In Acts 4, we find "The multitude of those who believed were of one heart and soul. Not one of them claimed that anything of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common." (Verse 32) and "For neither was there among them any who lacked, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles feet, and distribution was made to each, according as anyone had need." (Verses 34-35)

Where did the early Christians get the idea to live that way? From Jesus himself, of course: "to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required." (Luke 12:48) "Sell all that you have, and distribute it to the poor." (Luke 18:22) There's more, and I'm sure you can think of a few similar verses yourself.

Compare the words of Jesus and the lives of the early Christians with these words from Karl Marx: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

Doesn't that sound a lot like the lives of the early Christians? Doesn't that sound a lot like "to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required" or "Sell all that you have, and distribute it to the poor"?

It sure does to me. And to those who say "The poor you will always have with you", I give you this explanation of why we will always have with us: because of our failure to follow the words of God. In Deuteronomy 15, God says: "However there shall be no poor with you; if only you diligently listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to observe to do all this commandment which I command you this day..... If there be with you a poor man, one of your brothers, within any of your gates in your land which Yahweh your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother; but you shall surely open your hand to him." If only we observe God's commandment, which by and large, we do not. It is because of our failure to follow God's commandment to open our hands to our brothers that we will always have the poor with us.

Divine Obedience in Israel

2006-07-21T00:41:00.000-07:00

For the past ten days, Israel has been involved in what it calls "defense" operations in Lebanon. Reports from within Lebanon tell a different story: Israel has been committing atrocities and war crimes against the people of Lebanon: bombing roads, bridges, hospitals, power plants, fuel depots, grain silos, and other civilian targets. Over 300 Lebanese civilians have been killed, and the United Nations estimates that nearly one quarter of the Lebanese people have been forced to flee their homes.

One Israeli soldier is refusing to participate.

In an act of "Divine Obedience", that is, obeying the "Higher Law" of God, Reserve Staff Sergeant Itzik Shabbat has refused orders to report for duty in the West Bank in order for free up regular forces for Israel's actions against Lebanon.

According to Sgt. Shabbat, "I know people will attack me and ask how could I not take part in this war when Qassams are falling on my hometown and Katyushas on the towns in the north. In my opinion, only this type of opposition that I've chosen will put an end to the madness that is going on now and will shatter the false feeling that the entire home front supports this unnecessary war that is based on deceptive considerations. Someone has to be the first to break the silence and it will be me."

Israel has the right to defend itself, but its actions of the last ten days go far beyond what could reasonably considered to be "defense." By refusing to participate in these atrocities, Sergeant Shabbat has taken a moral stance against the immoral actions of his government and stands as a courageous example for others to follow.

"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it." - Albert Einstein

Think of how good that would feel!

2006-07-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

I wrote previously on the “speech” or “sermon” I
delivered at church a couple of weeks ago that
apparently resulted in record giving to the
church's Deacons Fund. If I were going to deliver
a follow-up, I'd probably say something like this:

A few weeks ago I appealed to you to be
especially generous in your giving to the Deacons
Fund, as we had church members in dire need and
the fund was empty. As you've probably heard, we
had record donations to the Deacons Fund, and
because of your generosity, the needs of a member
of our church have been taken care of. Doesn't it
feel good to know that your giving made a
big difference in someone's life?

When I appealed to you to be generous in your
giving to the Deacons Fund, I mentioned that the
early Christians would sell their belongings to
help others, and that they would fast to allow
others to eat. I suggested that if you felt you
weren't able to give anything right now, you could
have a yard sale and give the proceeds to the
Deacons Fund. I also suggested you could eat rice
and beans instead of steak and give the money you
save to the Deacons Fund, or stay home and watch
TV instead of going out to a movie, and give the
money you save to the Deacons Fund.

I doubt that anybody actually had to fast to be
able to give to the fund, but I wouldn't be
surprised if some of you actually did eat rice and
beans, or skipped going to a movie or other
entertainment.

Even if you had to sacrifice something to be able
to give, maybe especially if you had to
sacrifice something, didn't it feel good? When
you know that doing without something is doing
good for someone else who needs it, you really
don't miss it, and it actually feels good to give
it up.

There are a lot of people in the world who need
our help. We have much more than we need, while
others struggle just to feed themselves. Nearly a
billion human beings are chronically
undernourished, and perhaps as many as 60 million
of them starve to death each year. Consider this:
half the people on this planet live on two dollars
a day or less. Think how little you'd have to
change your life to make an enormous difference in
the life of somebody who lives on two dollars a
day. Buy the cheaper brands when you go grocery
shopping, and you could save enough at every meal
to feed a person for an entire day. Carpool to
work with a couple of coworkers, and between you,
you could feed an entire family every day. Make
do with the old car instead of buying a new one,
and you could feed an entire village.

Think of what else you could do to make a
difference in the lives of others. Think of how
little you'd have to give up to make a big
difference to someone else. And think of how good
that would feel.

North Korea missile launches - so what?

2006-07-08T01:06:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, North Korea performed tests of
its missile systems, launching a total of 7
missiles, including the first test launch of the
Taepodong II missile. All the missiles fell
harmlessly into the sea. The Taepodong II missile
failed and blew up shortly after launch.

Immediately after these launches, various nations
expressed “shock” and “outrage” at this
“provocation.” Proposals were made as to the best
way to deal with this “crisis” and “threat.”

I really don't understand what the fuss is all
about.

North Korea has a rather small stockpile of
missiles. They have approximately 600 Scud
missiles, with a range up to 500 kilometers. The
Rodong missile has a range of 1500 kilometers, and
North Korea has about 200 of these. In 1998, they
fired a Taepodong I missile, supposedly to launch
a satellite into orbit, but the satellite was
never detected in orbit and is believed to have
been destroyed when the third stage failed. It is
believed that the Taepodong I missile program has
been abandoned. And now North Korea has test
fired one Taepodong II missile, which failed
shortly after launch.

North Korea is believed to have possibly as many
as 7 nuclear weapons, however, they have never
tested one, and the device they are believed to
have weighs about 10 times more than the Taepodong
II could deliver at its maximum range.

So, in total, North Korea has maybe 800 missiles,
and up to 7 nuclear weapons, but no missile system
capable of delivering those nuclear weapons.

Let's see what the U.S. has. The Federation of
American Scientists (FAS) lists on its website 28
different varieties of air-launched missiles, 21
varieties of ground-launched missiles, 11
varieties of ship-launched missiles, and 7
varieties of submarine-launched missiles. Total
quantities of each of these missile types is
generally classified, but here's some examples:
Of air-launched missiles, there are at least 2400
AGM-158 Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles; at
least 600 AGM-130A missiles; at least 19,000
AGM-88 HARM missiles have been built; 35,000
AGM-65 Maverick missiles; 13,400 FIM-92A Stingers.

Of ground-launched missiles, the U.S. has 800 M39
TACMS and 50,000 M-47 Dragons.

Of ship-launched missiles, the U.S. has
constructed 438 ASROCs; at least 4,100 BGM-109
Tomahawks; 6,000 AGM-84 Harpoon SLAMs; 1,600
RIM-116 RAMs.

In addition, the U.S. has approximately 10,000
nuclear weapons, of which 5,000 are launch-ready.
The U.S. has conducted 1,030 tests of nuclear
weapons, and an additional 24 joint tests with
Great Britian. The U.S. nuclear stockpile
includes 529 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles
capable of delivering 1,490 nuclear warheads, 360
Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles capable of
delivering 2,736 nuclear warheads, and 77 bombers
capable of delivering 1,456 nuclear warheads.

So, why is it that North Korea, having maybe 800
missiles, mostly of relatively short range, and
maybe as many as 7 nuclear devices that have never
been tested and may not even work, with no
capability to deliver their nuclear devices, is
such a threat, but the United States' hundreds of
thousands of missiles and ten thousand nuclear
warheads is not a threat? Is it because we're the
good guys and they're the bad guys? Our hundreds
of thousands of missiles and ten thousand nuclear
weapons are only for peaceful or defensive
purposes, while their 800 missiles and 7 nuclear
weapons are going to destroy the world?

This is crazy, people. When we start reducing our
stockpile of missiles and nuclear weapons, when we
stop spending as much on our military as the
entire rest of the world combined, then we can
start talking about what the other nations have
got. Until then, we're the biggest hypocrites the
world has ever known. North Korea isn't the
problem. The rest of us are.

Oh, one more thing: how can the seven nuclear
weapons that North Korea has but can't deliver be
a bigger deal than the 11 nuclear weapons the U.S.
has lost and never recovered? I'm serious; they
were in bombers that went down, or submarines that
sunk, and so on. Then there's the 50 or so that
the Soviet Union lost.....

Divine Obedience

2006-07-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

I have to admire those who are willing to suffer
for their beliefs.

I've written previously about Father Roy
Bourgeois, who heads SOA Watch, an organization
dedicated to closing the School of the Americas,
where the U.S. teaches torture and terrorism to
soldiers from Latin America. SOA grads have been
responsible for horrible atrocities in Latin
America, and names you know – like Manuel Noriega
– are graduates of the U.S. “School Of Assassins.”
Believing that it is wrong for us to train
torturers, terrorists, and assassins, Father Roy
is committed to closing the SOA. To draw
attention to his cause, Father Roy has been
involved in a number of acts that some might call
“civil disobedience”, like illegally entering the
SOA at Fort Benning, Georgia, and playing a tape
of the last sermon of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who
was assassinated by SOA graduates. For his
actions, which he prefers to call “Divine
Obedience”, Father Roy has been imprisoned several
times.

I've also mentioned Sister Jackie Hudson. Sister
Jackie, with two other nuns, cut the chain on the
fence surrounding silo N-8, which contains a
Minuteman III missile armed with a 300 kiloton
nuclear warhead, poured their own blood on the lid
of the silo in the shape of a cross, and hammered
on the lid and prayed until they were arrested.
Sister Jackie and her companions were imprisoned
for several years for their actions, but they were
willing to go to prison in order to bring
attention to their cause of peace and the
destruction of the thousands of nuclear weapons
the U.S. possesses. Jesus said, “Blessed are the
peacemakers”; those who commit acts of Divine
Obedience to end the insanity of nuclear weapons
are surely blessed peacemakers.

The latest to commit an act of Divine Obedience is
First Lieutenant Ehren K. Watada. Lt. Watada is
the first commissioned U.S. Army Officer to refuse
to serve in Iraq. In a statement made on June 7,
2006, Lt. Watada said:

“It is my duty as a commissioned officer of the
United States Army to speak out against grave
injustices. My moral and legal obligation is to
the Constitution and not those who would issue
unlawful orders. I stand before you today because
it is my job to serve and protect those soldiers,
the American people, and innocent Iraqis with no
voice.

It is my conclusion as an officer of the Armed
Forces that the war in Iraq is not only morally
wrong but a horrible breach of American law.
Although I have tried to resign out of protest, I
am forced to participate in a war that is
manifestly illegal. As the order to take part in
an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as well, I
must as an officer of honor and integrity refuse
that order.

The war in Iraq violates our democratic system of
checks and balances. It usurps international
treaties and conventions that by virtue of the
Constitution become American law. The wholesale
slaughter and mistreatment of the Iraqi people
with only limited accountability is not only a
terrible moral injustice, but a contradiction to
the Army's own Law of Land Warfare. My
participation would make me party to war crimes.

Normally, those in the military have allowed
others to speak for them and act on their behalf.
That time has come to an end. I have appealed to
my commanders to see the larger issues of our
actions. But justice has not been forthcoming. My
oath of office is to protect and defend America's
laws and its people. By refusing unlawful orders
for an illegal war, I fulfill that oath
today.”

Like Father Roy and Sister Jackie, Lt. Watada is a
hero. Although his act of Divine Obedience will
likely result in several years of imprisonment,
Lt. Watada has chosen to do the right
thing, the moral thing – he has refused to
participate in what he believes (as I do) is an
illegal and immoral war.

You may ask what possible good can come from acts
of Divine Obedience that result in imprisonment?
Well, if it hadn't been for Father Roy, I might
have never heard of the School of the Americas,
and you probably wouldn't have, either. There are
now protests at the School of the Americas every
year, with up to 20 thousand people participating.
There have been bills introduced in Congress to
close the SOA. That probably would have never
happened if Father Roy had chosen to just stay
home and write letters to Congress. Because
Father Roy obeyed what he calls the “higher law”,
thousands, perhaps millions, of Americans have
become aware that we are training terrorists at
Fort Benning, and are working to put a stop to it.

Because Sister Jackie, Daniel and Philip Berrigan,
and many others were willing to go to prison for
having taken part in the acts of Divine Obedience
they call “Plowshares Actions”, millions of people
have become aware that the U.S. possesses ten
thousand nuclear weapons, enough to end billions
of innocent human lives, perhaps enough to end all
human life.

And now, because U.S. Army First Lieutenant Ehren
K. Watada has refused to participate in the U.S.
occupation of Iraq, millions will become aware
that there is more than one possible point of view
on the Iraq war, even if you're a soldier.
Millions will read about this in the newspapers,
see the story on TV news, hear Lt. Watada's
statements on the illegality and immorality of
this war, and they will have to think about it.
Some of them even may be inspired to take action
to stop the war.

I don't think I've got the courage to take that
kind of action. I wish I did, and who knows,
perhaps someday I will. In the meantime, I will
continue to be inspired by those who do have the
courage to engage in acts of Divine Obedience, who
do have the courage to obey the Higher Law,
regardless of the personal consequences. I will
continue to read their stories, I will continue to
tell their stories, and I will continue to speak
out on the issues they raise. And I hope you will
do the same.

To learn more about SOA Watch, visit:
SOA Watch.
To learn more about Lt. Watada, visit:
Lt. Watada.

A Wonderful Thing Happened To Me.

2006-07-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

I had another wonderful thing happen to me.

I get together with my pastor to talk for an hour
or so, just about every Wednesday afternoon. A
couple of weeks ago, he mentioned that a family in
the church had had several financial disasters hit
them, and they were really in a bind. Ordinarily,
the church helps out people like that, and we have
a “Deacon's Fund” just for that purpose. But the
Deacon's Fund was empty.

At the worship service the following Sunday
morning, the pastor mentioned that somebody in the
church was in need, and that the Deacon's Fund was
empty, and to please contribute generously.

I guess he didn't say it strongly enough for me,
as I felt compelled to say more about it. So I
stood up in front of the congregation, and here's
(approximately) what I said:

Some of you may be thinking you are unable to
contribute to the Deacon's Fund at this time. In
Acts 2, we are told that “All who believed were
together and had all things in common; they would
sell their possessions and goods and distribute
the proceeds to all, as any had need.” So if
you're thinking that you can't contribute, have a
yard sale this week, and give the proceeds of the
sale to the Deacon's Fund. One of the early
writers about the church wrote that if there were
hungry people among them, and there just wasn't
enough to go around, that some would fast for
several days to feed the others. Think of that:
“I will go hungry so that you can eat.” Now, I'm
not asking anyone to go hungry, but if you were
planning to go shopping this week, and maybe buy
some steaks, buy rice and beans instead. And give
the money you save to the Deacon's Fund. If you
were planning to go to the movies this week, stay
home and watch TV instead, and give the money you
save to the Deacon's Fund.

After the service, tha pastor told me that there
was more given to the Deacon's Fund that day than
had ever been given to the fund in an entire year,
and that much more money was taken in than was
needed! If you have been reading this blog, you
already know that I want very much to be a
positive force in the world. I want very much to
help people whenever I can. While driving home
from church, I realized that God had just used me
to make a difference in the lives of a family in
need. I thought, “Thank You, Jesus! You know how
much I want to do good, and you just used me to do
good. Thank You!”

I am amazed that God chose me to do this task. I
don't consider myself to be anyone special, I
don't know why God would even notice me. I've
only been a Christian for a couple of years; I'm
sure there are people in the church who could have
said it better than I; I'm sure there are people
in the church who are more respected and
influential than I. But God chose me to do that
job! Wow! I suppose in a way that makes me feel
special, to think that God felt I was able to do
that, but it also makes me feel rather humble: If
God chose me to do that job, it means he noticed
me; it means he sees me. Uh-oh, God is watching
me! If he sees me, and knows me well enough to
choose me for that job, he must also know about
all my defects and faults, and everything I do
wrong. Ouch! But in spite of that, he still
pushed me to the front of the church and put those
words in my mouth. It's kind of humbling.

So, is there a moral to the story? I'm not sure.
Maybe the lesson is that we should remain open to
the possibility that God may choose any one of us
to do His work. Maybe the lesson is that we
shouldn't be afraid to stand up and speak, and
that sometimes we really can make a difference
when we do. Maybe the lesson is that if you point
out to Christians that there's a need, and give
some examples of how Christians met other people's
needs in the past, they will do what needs to be
done. Maybe it's all of these, and maybe it's
something that I'm missing entirely, and maybe
you'll see what the intended lesson is.

I Love Everybody

2006-07-01T00:48:00.000-07:00

I had a most wonderful experience a few weeks ago.
I had been thinking for some time about Jesus'
command to love everybody. It's hard to do; there
are some people it's hard to even like. A while
back I had decided that if somebody that I really
didn't like were starving, I would certainly feed
them; does that constitute love? Hmmm, probably
not.

I was riding my bike on the river-front Loop
Trail, thinking about all this. I looked at all
the people going by, and I thought, “you know, all
those people are just like me. Sure, they have
problems, they're far from perfect, but then, so
am I. In spite of their defects and their
problems, Jesus loves them; every one of them.
And in spite of my defects and my problems, Jesus
loves me. If Jesus can love me in spite of all my
defects, and Jesus can love them in spite of their
defects, then I can love them, too.”

And for a few minutes, I think I actually did love
them all. Every one of them. It was wonderful!
I thought “wow, this must be how Jesus feels all
the time!” I think if anybody had looked at me
during those few minutes, I probably would
literally have been glowing. It's like when you
love everybody, maybe you feel the love of
everybody else coming back at you, or maybe God
pours a little extra love on you or something. It
was an amazing feeling.

If you're looking for advice on how to feel that
way, I'm afraid I can't help you. I don't know
how to do it. I don't know what it was that I
did, or that you should do. Pray a lot, maybe?
Ask God to fill you with that kind of love? I
just don't know, but I'm going to keep working at
it. I want to feel that way all the time.

Lars Clausen, activist and author

2006-05-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

Lars Clausen is a member of a group I am in
which is discussing and planning
a Cohousing/Intentional Community project. He
is also an engineer, a pastor, an author, and
a unicyclist. And an activist, which, in my
view, is a very good thing to be. In 2003, in
the "One Wheel - Many Spokes" ride, he rode
his unicycle through all 50 states to
raise awareness of the Inupiat people on the
Seward Peninsula and to raise money for the
Seward Peninsula Endowment Fund.

In 2005, Lars did a 1,000 mile "Straight Into
Gay America" unicycle ride for Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GBLT)
rights. Each of these rides is the subject of
a book by Lars.

Please visit his websites:

One Wheel

Straight Into Gay America

Read his newsletters about the rides, the people
he met on the rides, and the conversations he
had with them. Read about how he came to be
a supporter of GBLT rights. You can even read
the first three chapters from "Straight Into
Gay America" online for free, and who knows,
maybe you'll want to buy his books!

Jim Allyn's First Law of Forwards

2006-05-11T15:44:00.000-07:00

Today I received a forwarded email about the
“Olympic Torch” virus. Since it seems that nearly
everything I have forwarded to me is false, I
assumed this was too, and knowing that there are
several sites on the internet that research and
expose internet hoaxes, I Googled it. At the top
of the search results list were hoax warnings from
breakthechain.org, urbanlegends.about.com, and
hoax-slayer.com. There is no “Olympic Torch”
virus. It's a hoax.

A few days ago, I received one about a missing
girl, Penny Brown. So I did a Google search for
“Penny Brown”, and at the top of the search
results were hoax warnings from
urbanlegends.about.com, snopes.com,
breakthechain.org, and hoaxbusters.ciac.org.
There is no missing girl named Penny Brown. This
particular hoax has been circulating on the web
since September of 2001, almost 5 years now, yet
people continue to pass it on. When I told the
woman I received this message from that it was a
hoax and that she should check out things like
that before passing them on, she responded, “Who
is it harming?”

Who is it harming? Well, there have been several
different versions of that hoax circulated, and
some of them included a phone number or email
address to contact if you had information. And
these poor people were flooded with calls and
emails asking about Penny Brown. How would you
like to receive 200 phone calls or emails a day
about a missing girl who you don't know, who
doesn't even exist? I know I wouldn't care for
it.

The version of this hoax that I received said
Penny Brown was the daughter of the manager of the
WalMart store in Longs, South Carolina. Other
versions say she's the daughter of the manager of
Long's Drug Store in Southern California, or the
manager of a Metro-Richelieu grocery store. I'd
bet those stores didn't appreciate getting
hundreds of calls about a missing girl that
doesn't exist, either.

But there's more to the answer to “Who is it
harming?” than I realized. Besides the people who
wind up being annoyed with hundreds of calls and
emails, it harms real missing kids. Once you've
received enough of these messages, and you've
figured out that they are hoaxes, what do you do
when you receive a genuine report of a missing
person? That's right, you delete the email and
ignore it. It's the “boy who cried wolf”
syndrome. And the groups who actually help locate
missing children, like CodeAmber and
TeamAmberAlert, spend time looking for children
who don't exist. Several of these organizations
have posted warnings about the Penny Brown hoax and
others like it, and are asking people not to pass
these things on.

Please, if you receive anything of this nature,
check it out before you pass it on. If you find
that it's a hoax, let the person you received it
from know and ask them to to tell everyone they
sent it to not to pass it on.

Here's some of the sites that have the straight
scoop on internet hoaxes:

Snopes

Break the Chain

Urban Legends

Hoax Busters

Now, you're probably wondering, what the heck is
“Jim Allyn's First Law of Forwards”? Here it is:

“The likelihood of an email forward containing any
truth is inversely proportional to the number of > characters preceding each line.”

If you agree, pass this on.

2006-05-11T14:51:00.000-07:00

How often do you receive a forwarded email ending
with “If you agree, pass this on, if not delete
it.”? It seems to me I get at least one a week.
And how often do you agree? Most of the time I
disagree, since the author is generally someone
who seems to have nothing to say, but says
something anyway, and clearly didn't think before
saying it. Often they include statements which
are untrue, but are presented as fact.

When you get one of these, don't just delete it –
respond to it! Point out the errors and
misinformation in it, and present the facts. Then
email your response to the person you got the
forwarded email from, and ask him to pass it on.
If the email you received has the CC: list of all
the people the email was sent to, send your
response to all of them. Why just delete this
trash when you can respond with facts?

And remember:

If you agree, pass this on!

Ways We Resist War Conference

2006-05-09T00:09:00.000-07:00

On Friday, May 5, and Saturday, May 6, I attended
a conference entitled “Ways We Resist War” at the
University Friends Meeting House in Seattle. The
conference was presented by the Nonviolent Action
Community of Cascadia (NACC), in conjunction with
the Spring meeting of the National War Tax
Resistance Coordinating Committee.

The conference included a variety of panel
discussions and individual presentations, on
subjects including counter-recruitment, campus
organizing, war tax resistance, building
nonviolent alternatives, civil disobedience and
Plowshares actions, and veterans organizing for
peace. For me, the highlights of the conference
were definitely the talk Father Roy Bourgeois gave
on Friday evening, and the presentation of Sister
Jackie Hudson on Saturday afternoon.

Father Roy is the founder of SOA Watch, an
organization founded to watch and report on the
activities of the School of the Americas at Fort
Benning, Georgia, and to work for the closing of
the SOA. For those of you who don't know, SOA,
also known as School of Assassins, can only be
described as a training center for terrorists.
SOA graduates have been involved in the
kidnapping, rape, torture, and massacre of
hundreds of thousand of civilians in Latin
America, and in the assassination of religious
leaders like Archbishop Oscar Romero of El
Salvador. In addition, many Latin American
dictators, including Manual Noriega, were trained
at the SOA. (The name of the SOA was recently
changed to The Western Hemisphere Institute for
Security Cooperation, often abbreviated WHISC or
WHINSEC.)

I was very impressed by Father Roy. He speaks
very calmly and quietly, yet with obvious passion
for his mission. You can't help but seeing that
he cares very deeply for the victims of the SOA,
and he truly feels their pain. Father Roy has
been involved in a number of civil disobedience
actions to call attention to the SOA. In his talk
at the conference, he spoke of his first action.
He and two others bought military uniforms, and
entered the SOA as officers. They took with them
a very loud boombox and a tape of Archbishop Oscar
Romero's last sermon. They hid out until it was
dark, then climbed a tree and played the tape.
The Military Police soon showed up with guns and
spotlights, and ordered them to climb down from
the tree, or they would be shot down. They did
climb down, but left the boombox in the tree,
playing the tape in an endless loop. He spent
time in prison for this action and for others.

I was also very impressed by the presentation of
Sister Jackie Hudson. Sister Jackie has also been
involved in nonviolent civil disobedience actions.
On October 6, 2002, Sister Jackie and two other
Dominican nuns cut the chain on the fence
surrounding silo N-8, which contains a Minuteman
III missile armed with a 300 kiloton nuclear
warhead. They poured their own blood on the lid
of the silo in the form of the cross, hammered on
the lid, and prayed until they were arrested.
Sister Jackie showed a video, entitled
“Conviction”, telling the story of this action.
Watching the video, it was clear that all three
sisters are very serious about working for the
elimination of nuclear weapons in the world.

I admire Father Roy and Sister Jackie for their
dedication to peace, for their willingness to take
actions to call attention to the issues of the SOA
and nuclear weapons knowing they could be arrested
and imprisoned for their actions, and for their
amazing dedication to what Father Roy referred to
as the “higher law” - the law of God.

As the conference included the spring meeting of
the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating
Committee, there were many war tax resisters
present. War tax resisters are people who refuse
to pay all or part of their taxes because their
conscience will not allow them to support the
killing of other human beings in war. I hadn't
realized the war tax resistance movement was as
big as it is. One slogan I often heard from war
tax resisters, and also saw on bumper stickers and
buttons is, “If you pray for peace, why pay for
war?”

Also present at the conference were other
activists, including one who has attended the
annual protest at the gates of the SOA every year
since the protest began in 1990, and has been
involved in protests in Crawford, Texas, the home
of George W. Bush. Another participant in the
conference, Peg Morton, is a 75 year old activist
who has been involved in numerous protests,
including illegally entering Fort Benning during an
SOA protest.

Others speaking at the conference included Antonia
Juhasz, author of “The Bush Agenda: Invading the
World, One Economy at a Time”; Glen Milner, an
activist with the Ground Zero Center For
Nonviolent Action; Tom Brookhart, President of
Chapter 92 of the Western Washington Veterans For
Peace; Jelani Jackson, a student at Seattle
Central community College and counter-recruitment
organizer; and many more.

I would like to consider myself an “activist in
training”; a person who wants to make the world a
better place. It was tremendously inspiring to
attend this conference and meet with those who
have been on the front lines of the movement for
peace.

I highly recommend that you visit the following
sites for more information:

The Nonviolent Action Community of Cascadia: NACC

National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee: NWTRCC

SOA Watch: SOAW

A 40 page list of notorious graduates of the
School of the Americas, and some information on
the crimes they are responsible for can be found
at: Grad List (PDF)

The Wikipedia page on the SOA is here: SOA on Wikipedia

Information on the torture manuals used at the SOA
can be found here: Torture Manuals

In addition, I highly recommend you see the video
“Conviction”, featuring Sister Jackie Hudson, when
it comes to a theater in your area. For those of
you living in the Northwest U.S., the premier
showing will be June 4, 2006 at 6:30pm at the
Capitol Theater in Olympia, Washington. I suspect
the video will also be available for purchase
online, probably at the Ground Zero Center For
Nonviolent Action: GZCFNA

A Few Bible Stories, updated

2006-04-24T00:58:00.000-07:00

I recently wrote an essay entitled, “A Few Bible
Stories”, which I emailed it to my friends and
posted on my blog. I've been bothered ever since
about something I wrote in it, and I really
haven't been completely sure why it bothered me.
The offending lines?

“Is homosexuality a sin? Yes, it is.”

At first I thought the problem was that I was
uncomfortable making solemn declarations:
“homosexuality is a sin”, and that's probably part
of it. I thought that maybe I should have said
something along the line of “The Bible tells us
that it is.” I was also a bit concerned that I
might offend homosexuals and those who know and
love them, or that I might turn off people who are
not convinced that homosexuality is a sin, so that
they might miss the essential part of the message,
which is that discrimination is wrong. These are
also valid concerns. But these still didn't tell
me why I was so bothered by it.

I took a 40 mile ride on my bicycle today, and I
thought about this while I was riding. And I
think I know what really bothers me about what I
wrote:

The question is utterly irrelevant.

And so is the answer, regardless of what the
answer might be.

It doesn't matter if homosexuality is a sin.
There's probably some of you that think it is a
sin, and there's probably some of you that think
it isn't. It doesn't matter if it is or not.
It's completely irrelevant. Here's a question
that is relevant:

Is a homosexual a human being?

And the answer is: Yes, a homosexual is a human
being.

It really doesn't matter if you think
homosexuality is a sin or not. It doesn't matter
if God thinks homosexuality is a sin. What
matters is that this is a human being, and we
don't discriminate against our fellow human
beings.

For those of you who are Christians, you know that
Jesus said:

“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

When asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus told a
story that made it clear that everybody is our
neighbor. That means that we must love everyone
as we love ourselves. Everyone includes
homosexuals.

And for those of you who are not Christians, think
about this: If the person whom you dislike most
were starving to death, would you feed him? Think
about it: if you give this person food, he will
live. If you withhold the food, he will die. Are
you able to watch a person starve to death because
you won't give him food? I doubt that very many
of us could do this; we recognize a person's
humanity, whether we like them or not. Then how
can we justify treating this person differently
under any circumstances?

So there it is: it doesn't matter if
homosexuality is a sin, any more than it matters
if the person in question is a homosexual, a
heterosexual, a black, a Jew, male or female, or
anything else. A person is a person, and we must
love them all the same, and we must treat them all
the same. We cannot justify doing otherwise.

Universal Health Care: better health care for less money.

2006-04-24T00:19:00.000-07:00

I have recently been involved in an online
discussion of Universal Health Care. It has been
my observation that misinformation on this topic
is widespread. Many people have misconceptions of
the quality and expense of Universal Health Care,
probably largely because of misinformation spread
by those who are opposed to it, usually those who
profit from the current system, or those who
consider it to be "socialism" or "communism"
without considering what that really means. I've
taken the time to gather the facts regarding the
quality and expense of Universal Health Care, and
will present them here. One of the myths of
Universal Health Care is that it is expensive, and
if the United States were to adopt a Universal
Health Care plan, it would bankrupt the country.
Here are some examples of that misconception from
the recent discussions I've been involved in:

"......if universal health care is passed it will
bankrupt the country just as it has in France and
several of the European countries...."

"The hew and cry for universal health care is just
another form of entitelment which would invarably
be a huge, hemorging Government money pit."

Another common misconception is that Universal
Health Care means poor quality health care. Here's
an example:

"If universal health care is so good, why do so
many people in Canada, Mexico and the rest of the
world come here for medical services?"

The fact is that Universal Health Care does not
bankrupt nations. The United States spends more
per person on Health Care than any other developed
nation. Nations with Universal Health Care systems
spend less money per person than the U.S. spends.
Here are the statistics on Health Care
expenditures in dollars per capita, arranged from
highest to lowest. Obviously, spending more money
would be a bad thing, spending less money would be
a good thing, all other factors being equal.

Per capita health care expenditures: 

United States           5635 
Norway                  3807 
Switzerland             3781 
Luxembourg              3190 
Iceland                 3115 
Canada                  3003 
Germany                 2996 
Netherlands             2976 
France                  2903 
Belgium                 2827 
Denmark                 2763 
Australia               2699 
Sweden                  2594 
Ireland                 2386 
Austria                 2280 
Italy                   2258 
United Kingdon          2231 
Japan                   2139 
Finland                 2118 
Greece                  2011 
New Zealand             1886 
Spain                   1835 
Portugal                1797 
Czech Republic          1298 
Hungary                 1115 
Korea                   1074 
Slovak Republic          777 
Poland                   677 
Mexico                   583 
Turkey                   462

Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/530538806724

The U.S. spends more per person than any other
developed nation! But for our money, we get the
best quality health care in the world, right?
Wrong. The two most common measures of a nations
health are infant morality rate and life
expectancy at birth. Here's the numbers for
infant mortality, in number of deaths per 1000
live births:

Infant Mortality Rate (Deaths per 1000 live
births) 

United States         6.43 
Taiwan                6.29 
Cuba                  6.22 
Korea, South          6.16 
Faroe Islands         6.12 
Italy                 5.83 
Isle of Man           5.82 
Aruba                 5.79 
New Zealand           5.76 
San Marino            5.63 
Greece                5.43 
Monaco                5.35 
Ireland               5.31 
Jersey                5.16 
European Union        5.10 
United Kingdom        5.08 
Gibraltar             5.06 
Portugal              4.98 
Netherlands           4.96 
Luxembourg            4.74 
Canada                4.69 
Guernsey              4.65 
Liechtenstein         4.64 
Australia             4.63 
Belgium               4.62 
Austria               4.60 
Denmark               4.51 
Slovenia              4.40 
Spain                 4.37 
Macau                 4.35 
Switzerland           4.34 
France                4.21 
Germany               4.12 
Andorra               4.04 
Czech Republic        3.89 
Malta                 3.86 
Norway                3.67 
Finland               3.55 
Iceland               3.29 
Japan                 3.24 
Hong Kong             2.95 
Sweden                2.76 
Singapore             2.29

Source:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko
rder/2091rank.html

For the sake of brevity, I have not included the
entire chart of 226 nations in the CIA's database,
only the U.S. and those nations that have lower
infant mortality rate. You'd probably expect
Russia, China, and East Timor to have higher
infant mortality rates than the United States, and
they do, but why does the U.S. fall behind 42
other nations, many of which are social
democracies with Universal Health Care systems?

The other common measure of a nation's health is
life expectancy at birth. Here are the numbers for
life expectancy:

Life Expectancy at Birth, Years: 

1   Andorra                           83.51 
2   Macau                             82.19 
3   San Marino                        81.71 
4   Singapore                         81.71 
5   Hong Kong                         81.59 
6   Japan                             81.25 
7   Sweden                            80.51 
8   Switzerland                       80.51 
9   Australia                         80.50 
10   Guernsey                         80.42 
11   Iceland                          80.31 
12   Canada                           80.22 
13   Cayman Islands                   80.07 
14   Italy                            79.81 
15   Gibraltar                        79.80 
16   France                           79.73 
17   Monaco                           79.69 
18   Liechtenstein                    79.68 
19   Spain                            79.65 
20   Norway                           79.54 
21   Israel                           79.46 
22   Jersey                           79.38 
23   Faroe Islands                    79.35 
24   Aruba                            79.28 
25   Greece                           79.24 
26   Martinique                       79.18 
27   Austria                          79.07 
28   Virgin Islands                   79.05 
29   Malta                            79.01 
30   Netherlands                      78.96 
31   Luxembourg                       78.89 
32   Montserrat                       78.85 
33   New Zealand                      78.81 
34   Germany                          78.80 
35   Belgium                          78.77 
36   Saint Pierre and Miquelon        78.61 
37   Guam                             78.58 
38   United Kingdom                   78.54 
39   Finland                          78.50 
40   Isle of Man                      78.49 
41   Jordan                           78.40 
42   Puerto Rico                      78.40 
43   European Union                   78.30 
44   Guadeloupe                       78.06 
45   Bosnia and Herzegovina           78.00 
46   Bermuda                          77.96 
47   Saint Helena                     77.93 
48   United States                    77.85

Source:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko
rder/2102rank.html

Again, for brevity I have not included the entire
list of 226 nations, only the U.S. and those
nations that have greater life expectancy than the
U.S. In life expectancy, the U.S. ranks 48th in
the world, and again the list of nations that rank
higher than the U.S. includes many social
democracies with Universal Health Care systems.

With its per capita cost of health care greater
than any other nation in the world, with health
care expenditures 1.5 times higher than the next
nation on the list, you'd expect the U.S. to have
the best health care in the world. Yet the U.S.
ranks 43rd in infant mortality rate, and 48th in
life expectancy at birth. Clearly there is
something wrong with the health care system in the
U.S., and seeing that many of those nations who
spend less money on health care, have lower infant
mortality rates, and have longer life expectancies
do have a Universal Health Care system, it would
appear that the U.S. should change to a Universal
Health Care system. Spend less money, get better
health care, it's a win/win situation.

And now you can respond with the facts when you
hear someone repeating misinformation about
Universal Health Care systems.

A Few Bible Stories

2006-04-18T23:11:00.000-07:00

I'd like to tell you a few stories from the Bible.
You may think you know the Bible pretty well, and
you've surely heard these stories before, but you
probably haven't heard them quite like this.

There was a great multitude before Jesus, and they
had nothing to eat. Jesus called his disciples
and said to them, “I have compassion on the
multitude, for they have been with me for three
days, and have had nothing to eat. If I send them
away without feeding them, they will surely faint
on their way home.” And the disciples asked
Jesus, “But how can we feed them? We are in a
desert place, and where will we get enough bread?”
Jesus asked them, “How many loaves of bread do
you have?”, and the disciples said they had seven
loaves. He commanded the multitude to sit on the
ground, and he gave thanks, broke the loaves, and
gave them to his disciples to set before the
multitude. Jesus then took the few small fish
that they had, blessed them, and told the
disciples to set them also before the multitude,
which they did. Jesus then spoke to the crowd,
“You may all eat these loaves and fishes, except
any among you who are homosexuals; I will not feed
you.”

That doesn't sound quite right, does it? It
doesn't, because we know Jesus would never do
anything like that. OK, here's another Bible
story:

Jesus was walking into Jericho one day, and a
blind man sat by the side of the road begging.
Hearing the noise of the crowd, the blind man
asked what was happening, and was told that Jesus
of Nazareth was passing by. He called out,
“Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.” The
crowd told him to keep quiet, saying that he
should not disturb Jesus. But the blind man
called out again, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy
on me.” Jesus stopped, and commanded that the man
be brought to him. When the blind man was brought
to Jesus, he asked him, “What would you like me to
do?” The blind man replied, “Lord, please restore
my sight.” Jesus said to him, “But you are a
homosexual, and I will not heal you.” And Jesus
walked on, leaving the blind man at the side of
the road.

Hmmm, that's not right either, is it? Let's try
one more story:

Early in the morning, Jesus walked down from the
Mount of Olives to the temple. A crowd gathered
before him, and he sat down and began to teach
them. A group of scribes and Pharisees brought in
two men, and brought them before Jesus, saying,
“Teacher, these men are homosexuals; indeed, we
caught them in the act, laying together as with a
woman. The law of Moses commands us to stone
them. What do you say?” And Jesus said to them,
“By all means, stone them.” Then he walked away.

That one doesn't sound quite right either, does
it? Why don't these stories sound right? Because
we know that Jesus would never have done anything
like that. Jesus fed all of the multitude, and
denied food to no one. Likewise, Jesus healed all
who asked to be healed. And when a woman who had
committed adultery was brought before him, he told
them, “He among you who is without sin, let him
cast the first stone.” When the crowd dispersed,
Jesus asked the woman, “Where are they? Does no
man condemn you?” She replied, “No, Lord, no man
condemns me.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I
condemn you. Go your way, and sin no more.”

A friend of mine, a Christian man, recently told
me that he did not support full rights for
homosexuals. He said he felt he should be able to
refuse to rent to homosexuals, for example. And
there have been groups of Christians lobbying for
laws denying homosexuals the same rights as the
rest of us.

I disagree with them. Jesus did not discriminate
against anyone. He fed everyone, he healed all
who asked, he refused to condemn the adulteress.
If they really had brought two homosexual men
before Jesus, would he have told the crowd to go
ahead and stone them? Of course not.

Is homosexuality a sin? Yes, it is. In the Old
Testament, the punishment for homosexuality is the
same as for adultery: stoning. But Jesus did not
have the adulteress stoned, and he would not have
had a homosexual stoned. He would have told the
crowd, “He among you who is without sin, let him
cast the first stone.”

Jesus loves everyone, and commands us to do the
same: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
“Love your enemies, and pray for those that
persecute you.” Discrimination against any
person, or against any group of persons, is wrong
and cannot be Biblically justified. Although we
may disapprove of their behavior, we must love
them as all others, and we may not treat them
differently than anyone else.

Glaciers, Part Two: Ice Age Floods, or: My God is an awesome God.

2006-04-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I mentioned attending a
presentation on glaciers, and how any discussion
of glaciers must necessarily mention that
glaciers worldwide are rapidly disappearing due to
global warming. There's another related topic
that usually comes up in any discussion of
glaciers: the Ice Age Floods.

There are a number of geological features of
eastern Washington State whose formation is an
amazing story. About 65 miles from where I live
is an enormous waterfall. It's three and a half
miles wide, and four hundred feet high, making
Niagara Falls look like a mere trickle in
comparison. Why haven't you ever heard of this
waterfall? Because Dry Falls is just that: a dry
waterfall; having been dry since the end of the
last Ice Age.

Throughout Eastern Washington, in the area known
as the Channeled Scablands, you'll find coulees
and canyons carved hundreds of feet deep into the
basalt formations. One would guess that they were
cut by running water, but there's no water there
now. What happened? And the landscape is
littered with rocks that are clearly out of place
among all this basalt. How did they get there?

A geologist named J. Harlen Bretz found the
answers to these questions, and revealed them in a
series of papers he published starting in 1923.

During the last Ice Age, a lobe of the Cordilleran
ice sheet blocked the Clark Fork River near the
border of what is now the northern panhandle of
Idaho and the state of Montana, forming Glacial
Lake Missoula. At its maximum, Lake Missoula was
2000 feet deep, and contained over 500 cubic miles
of water – more than Lake Erie and Lake Ontario
combined. At the site of today's city of
Missoula, Montana, the water would have been
nearly 1000 feet deep. From time to time,
however, the water worked its way through the ice
dam, breaking free and spilling the contents of
Lake Missoula over a period of perhaps less than
two days. The leading edge of the ensuing flood
was over 200 feet high, perhaps nearly 10 times
that height, and tore through the landscape at 60
miles per hour. As this flood poured through
eastern Washington, it carved the coulees of the
Channeled Scablands and the great Dry Falls. And
the out-of-place rocks you'll find scattered
throughout eastern Washington, known as
“erratics”, were carried to their current resting
places in the flood in chunks of ice. Some of
these erratics are as big as a house.

This enormous flood didn't just happen once,
though. After the ice dam broke and Lake Missoula
was drained, the glacier once again found its way
into the path of the Clark Fork River, reforming
Glacial Lake Missoula and starting the whole
process over again. It has been determined that
the lake formed, broke through the ice dam, and
flooded eastern Washington at least 40 times,
possibly as many as 100 times.

So how do we know all this stuff? Besides the
obvious, like the Channeled Scablands and Dry
Falls, there's much more. In the area where
Glacial Lake Missoula formed, you can see the
giant “ripples” left as the water flowed out. And
you can see the high-water marks of the lake,
hundreds of feet above the valley floor. Analysis
of the minerals in the “erratics” rocks have
determined where some of them came from, many
miles away. But what I think is one of the
coolest pieces of evidence is the sediment layers
geologists have found. In several places in the
northwest, there are sediment layers that are much
thicker than the normally very thin layers
deposited by annual runoff, and contain much
coarser materials. These are the sediments left
behind by the great floods. Between the
flood-deposited layers, however, are the much
thinner layers left by annual runoff. By counting
the annual runoff layers between the flood layers,
geologists can determine how many years passed
between successive floods. And so we know that
these massive floods occurred every 50 years or so
on average, and continued for at least 2000 years.

By now, you're probably wondering why the
alternative title, “My God is an awesome God”?

I am not a Creationist, or a “young earth”
believer. I do believe that God created the
Earth, the Universe, and everything in it, but I
also believe the scientific explanations of how He
did it. I have no problem with this and I see no
contradictions in this belief. God created it,
science tells us how He did it.

To me, the notion that God simply waved His hand
on the third day and created the land, complete
with the Channeled Scablands, Dry Falls, and all
the other evidence of the Ice Age Floods, suggests
a God with limited imagination. But to cause an
Ice Age, to have a glacier block off a river and
make an enormous lake, to have the ice dam break
and turn loose a massive wall of water, hundreds
of feet high, that roared across the state of
Washington, and then to repeat this again and
again, 40 or more times over a period of several
thousand years, now there's a God with real
imagination! My God is not only the Creator, he's
an engineer, he's an artist. He dreams up
incredible ways of forming the landscape, then He
takes his time, carrying out His plans over a
period of thousands of years. What's more, He
leaves behind traces of His handiwork, little
clues that allow us to solve the mysteries of His
creation. My God is an AWESOME God, and science
shows us just how awesome He is!

Nukes in Iran?

2006-04-16T17:36:00.000-07:00

My preference would be that nobody had nuclear weapons. However, that seems to be unlikely to happen any time in the near future.

Iran currently has about 180 centrifuges. About 16,000 would be required to make the enriched uranium for a bomb, and Iran expects to have about 3,500 centrifuges a year from now. So it will clearly be some time before Iran could make a nuclear weapon. At the moment, as one reporter pointed out, their nuclear capabilities don't extend beyond making glow in the dark Mickey Mouse watches.

The U.S. has shown its willingness to attack defenseless nations, having attacked approximately 40 nations since the end of World War II. Most recently, the U.S. attacked Iran's next door neighbor, Iraq, who Bush lumped with Iran in the "Axis of Evil". The U.S. has not, however, attacked the third "Axis of Evil" nation, North Korea. North Korea does have nuclear weapons. If I were the leader of Iran, or any nation that has anything the U.S. might like to control, I would be working as hard as possible to obtain nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them to the U.S., as this seems to be the only way to avoid attack. Or I would do as several nations have done, and start making friendly with China. Or both.

If the U.S. is worried about nuclear proliferation, it should start by refusing to proliferate nuclear technology to other countries, such as India, and should start disarming itself of its own nuclear weapons. The U.S. should stop developing new nuclear "bunker busters" and other nuclear weapons. It would also help if the Bush regime hadn't stated they intended to develop the capability to construct 125 new nuclear weapons per year. In addition, organizations who have members like Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleeza Rice, and George H.W. Bush should refrain from publishing articles stating that the U.S. could launch a first strike nuclear attack on Russia and China and suffer little or no damage in retaliation.

There are also rumors that Saudi Arabia is developing nuclear weapons, and like Iran, who can blame them?

If the U.S. wants to prevent other nations from developing nuclear weapons, it should stop making it clear to other nations that they will need them to avoid being attacked.

Glaciers, Part One: Global Warming

2006-04-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

A few evenings ago I attended a presentation on
glaciers at the local museum. If you know
anything at all about glaciers, you're probably
aware that glaciers all over the world are melting
and disappearing at an alarming rate. Of course,
this subject came up at the presentation, and of
course, there was mention of human-caused global
warming as the cause of the disappearance of the
glaciers. One gentleman immediately started in on
“the scientists don't know what they're talking
about, volcanoes emit more carbon dioxide gas than
the activities of people”, and so on.

My mother was with me at this glaciers
presentation, and she mentioned that she knew the
man from church. My mother is a Catholic, and in
the past, I had observed that a lot of Catholics
weren't aware of the positions their church had
taken on a number of issues. As an example,
before the last Presidential election many
Catholics said, “You can't vote for Kerry, he's
for abortion.” Apparently many of them were
unaware that the United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops and even Cardinal Ratzinger, now
Pope Benedict XVI, had spoken on the issue, saying
that Catholics should not be one-issue voters and
could vote for a candidate who supported abortion
rights if they felt strongly enough about the
candidate's positions on other issues. And large
numbers of Catholics were unaware that Pope John
Paul II sent an emissary to George W. Bush to
speak against the Iraq war, or that Cardinal
Ratzinger also spoke out against the war, saying,
“There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a
war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact
that, given the new weapons that make possible
destructions that go beyond the combatant groups,
today we should be asking ourselves if it is still
licit to admit the very existence of a 'just
war.'”

It occurred to me that if the leaders of the
Catholic Church had made statements on global
warming, this gentleman was probably unaware of
them. So I decided to see what if anything the
Catholic leaders had said on global warming, and
possibly to mail the gentleman some information.

I found a number of statements on global warming
from Catholic Church leaders. The Holy See (the
office of the Pope) has even chimed in on this
issue. In a document entitled, “Intervention by
the Holy See At the Ninth Conference of the
Parties (COP-9) To The United Nations Framework
Convention On Climate Change (UNFCCC)”, we find
these statements:

“Climate Change stands at the crossroads of
environmental, scientific, technological, ethical,
political and economic concerns of the human
family. As such, UNFCCC implementation directly
impacts the future sustainable development
patterns of all States and of all peoples. Climate
is the overriding context for the consideration of
many other social and economic problems that the
world faces today.

“Both scientifically and politically, it has been
recognized that human activity is a significant
factor in climate change. Further, human actions
can play a crucial role in the mitigation of and
adaptation to climate change. The consequent
ethical responsibilities are not limited only,
however, to single acts of individuals, but apply
equally at the level of technical, economic and
social structures and at the government level.
There is, therefore, an ethical obligation
incumbent on all individuals and societies,
particularly certain sectors of society, to assure
that all activity is oriented towards the common
good, with special care and consideration for the
poor.

“While the human person is part of the ecosystem,
the person is distinct. We alone are free to make
choices, even sacrifices, to plan for the future -
for future generations - and to take steps to
implement them. We, therefore, bear the
responsibility for the choices that we make today
and must assure that the common patrimony of
humanity is improved and not destroyed.”

OK, it's written in “Popese”, but it's pretty
clear where the Pope stands. Global warming is
real, human beings are causing it, and we have a
moral responsibility to do something about it.
What about the Bishops? What do they think?

In 2001, the United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops released a statement entitled, “Global
Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence, and
the Common Good.” Here are some passages from
that statement:

“As people of faith, we are convinced that 'the
earth is the Lord's and all it holds' (Ps 24:1).
Our Creator has given us the gift of creation: the
air we breathe, the water that sustains life, the
fruits of the land that nourish us, and the entire
web of life without which human life cannot
flourish. All of this God created and found 'very
good.' We believe our response to global climate
change should be a sign of our respect for God's
creation.

“As Catholic bishops, we make no independent
judgment on the plausibility of 'global warming.'
Rather, we accept the consensus findings of so
many scientists and the conclusions of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
as a basis for continued research and prudent
action.

“Human behavior and activity are, according to the
most recent findings of the international
scientific bodies charged with assessing climate
change, contributing to a warming of the earth's
climate. Although debate continues about the
extent and impact of this warming, it could be
quite serious. Consequently, it seems prudent not
only to continue to research and monitor this
phenomenon, but to take steps now to mitigate
possible negative effects in the future.

“In facing climate change, what we already know
requires a response; it cannot be easily
dismissed. Significant levels of scientific
consensus - even in a situation with less than
full certainty, where the consequences of not
acting are serious - justifies, indeed can
obligate, our taking action intended to avert
potential dangers. In other words, if enough
evidence indicates that the present course of
action could jeopardize humankind's well-being,
prudence dictates taking mitigating or
preventative action.

“The common good calls us to extend our concern to
future generations. Climate change poses the
question 'What does our generation owe to
generations yet unborn?' ... we simply cannot
leave this problem for the children of tomorrow.
As stewards of their heritage, we have an
obligation to respect their dignity and to pass on
their natural inheritance, so that their lives are
protected and, if possible, made better than our
own.

“As people of religious faith, we bishops believe
that the atmosphere that supports life on earth is
a God-given gift, one we must respect and protect.
It unites us as one human family. If we harm the
atmosphere, we dishonor our Creator and the gift
of creation. The values of our faith call us to
humility, sacrifice, and a respect for life and
the natural gifts God has provided.”

As far back as 2001, the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops was convinced that global warming
was real, that human beings were responsible for
it, and that we are obligated to take action to
prevent it. The Office of the Pope issued a
similar statement in 2003. The evidence has only
grown since then.

If you are a Catholic, were you aware of the
position of the Church on global warming? If you
have until now dismissed global warming, perhaps
it's time you do some studying and learn why the
Bishops and the Holy See are convinced that action
is required on global warming. If you are a
member of another faith, do you know where your
church stands on this issue?

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same
God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and
intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” -
Galileo

Quotes for today

2006-03-25T13:24:00.000-08:00

I am constantly searching for ways to do good
in this world. One of the best ways I know of to
do this is to bring social issues which I feel are
important to the attention of everyone, and
perhaps especially to the attention of my
Christian brothers and sisters, many of whom I
feel have neglected some of these issues. In my
search for information with which to make my
points, I recently came across a couple of
interesting quotes. The first is from Tony
Campolo, an ordained Baptist minister, Professor
Emeritus of Sociology at Eastern University, and
well-known Christian author:

"I have three things I'd like to say today.
First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000
kids died of starvation or diseases related to
malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a
shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with
the fact that I said shit than the fact that
30,000 kids died last night." - Tony Campolo

He's right, isn't he? Some of you are more
upset that he said "shit" than with the fact that
30,000 kids died last night. Think about that.
It brings tears to my eyes. For those of you
reading this who are pastors, watch out if you see
me in your church some day; I just might stand up
and repeat Mr. Campolo's words.

I have noticed that a lot of pastors
generally don't preach on today's important
issues. Some of them think if they do it may be
perceived as political, and they don't wish to
make political statements in their churches. I
would argue that while some of the issues may also
be political, or the solutions may involve
politics, they are first moral issues, and
therefore they are Christian issues, and
appropriate material for sermons. With that
thought in mind, I bring you this quote from
Martin Luther, who probably doesn't require any
introduction to most of you:

"If you preach the Gospel in all aspects with the
exception of the issues which deal specifically
with your time you are not preaching the Gospel at
all." - Martin Luther

If you don't speak on those issues, you are
not preaching the Gospel. That's the words I've
been looking for, and Martin Luther said it so
well. If we don't speak out about all the people
in this world who live in absolute poverty, if we
don't speak out about all the people who don't
have enough to eat, if we don't speak out about
the people who will be adversely affected, or will
even die, because we live lifestyles that change
the global climate with our carbon emissions, if
we don't speak out about the people who we torture
and kill in our wars, we are not preaching the
Gospel.

I'll leave you with a "bonus" quote, from
another "Martin Luther", the Reverend Doctor
Martin Luther King, Jr.:

"The church must be reminded that it is not the
master or the servant of the state, but rather the
conscience of the state. It must be the guide and
the critic of the state, and never its tool. If
the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal,
it will become an irrelevant social club without
moral or spiritual authority." - Martin Luther
King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.

The Endangered Species Act: Noah's Ark

2006-03-22T10:06:00.000-08:00

I've often wondered why the religious community isn't more "environmentalist" than they are. After all, shouldn't they care about all the things that God created? Yet for many Christians, and especially among conservative Christians, the environment just doesn't seem to be a high priority item. How do you get the environmental message across to these people? For those of us who are environmentally concerned Christians, I know it can be extremely frustrating at times to talk to our fellow Christians about environmental matters. I came across this document a few minutes ago:

http://www.biodiversityproject.org/spiritguide.pdf

It's from The Biodiversity Project and it's entitled "Building Partnerships with the Faith Community: A Resource Guide for Environmental Groups." I had barely started reading it when I came across this:

"One of the most lasting—and perhaps most significant—contributions the religious community can make to biodiversity lies in its core teachings: the unique message it can proclaim about biodiversity. This message has sometimes transformed not just the particulars but the entire tone of the debate. For example, when religious leaders explain that species diversity should be preserved because “God saw all that God had made, and behold it was very good,” the discussion moves away from utilitarian calculations. While such considerations have their place, discussing biodiversity purely on utilitarian grounds sometimes leads to debates about the “usefulness” of a given species, which in turn can lead to “loggers vs. owls” conversations."

OK, so far, so good: God saw ALL that he had made, and it was good. And who are we to judge which portions of the Creation are "more good" or "less good" than the others?

The next sentence is this:

"Similarly, describing the Endangered Species Act as a 'Noah’s Ark' helps us understand that our relationship with the rest of the natural world is ancient."

Ah-ha! The Endangered Species Act IS Noah's Ark. It is, isn't it? Didn't God tell Noah to take male and female of every species and load them onto the Ark to preserve them? He didn't say, "Decide which species you think are most important to your economy, and load them onto the Ark." What he said was:

"And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them." (Genesis 6:19-21 KJV)

EVERY LIVING THING. So shouldn't Christians be the strongest supporters of the Endangered Species Act and other environmental legislation? From a Biblical point of view, wasn't the Endangered Species Act given to us by God?

I have barely started reading this document, but I can see that it has the potential to be extremely useful. If you ever find yourself in a position to talk environment issues with Christians, or expect that someday you might, perhaps you should read this document, too.

http://www.biodiversityproject.org/spiritguide.pdf

Book Report: “The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience”

2006-03-20T19:14:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading “The Scandal of the
Evangelical Conscience” by Ronald J. Sider. If
you're not familiar with Ron Sider, he is
professor of theology, holistic ministry, and
public policy as well as director of the Sider
Center on Ministry and Public Policy at Eastern
Baptist Theological Seminary. The subtitle of the
book is a question: “Why are Christians living
just like the rest of the world?”

Before I became a Christian, one of the
things that kept me from any interest in becoming
a Christian was that I thought Christians were a
bunch of hypocrites – they didn't practice what
they preached. In a recent Barna Group poll, only
44 percent of non-Christians had a positive view
of Christian clergy, just 32 percent of
non-Christians had a positive view of born-again
Christians, and only 22 percent of non-Christians
had a positive view of evangelicals. I suspect
that many of those who think poorly of Christians
do so for the same reason I did: they don't think
that Christians practice what they preach.

Now that I am a Christian, it's no longer
just about “them”. Since I am a Christian, it's
about me too; it's about “us.”

I'd like to mention a number of the points
Sider brings up in his book. The first is that
born-again Christians have a higher divorce rate
than non-Christians. We know that God hates
divorce, and we talk about “defending marriage”,
but we don't live up to God's expectations of us.

Although God calls on us to love all of his
children, many of us are still racist. A survey
by George Gallup Jr. and James Castelli found that
11 percent of Catholics and non-evangelical
Christians would object to having black neighbors.
Mainline Protestants came in next at 16 percent.
Seventeen percent of Baptists and evangelicals
would object to having black neighbors. Among
Southern Baptists, 20 percent objected to black
neighbors.

Although there is some disagreement among
evangelicals whether marriages should be
traditional, husband dominated marriages, or
egalitarian marriages, it is certainly the case
that evangelicals are more likely to have
traditional, husband dominated marriages. Several
recent studies have shown that wives are 3 to 4
times as likely to be beaten in traditional
marriages than in egalitarian marriages. Are
evangelical Christian men beating their wives more
than non-evangelical Christian men? Probably so.

One of the issues that greatly concerns me is
poverty, hunger, and inequitable distribution of
wealth. Sider mentions that dramatic economic
sharing was the norm among the early Christians:
“All who believed were together and had all things
in common; they would sell their possessions and
goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any
had need” (Acts 2:44-45) Although the early
Christians were not by any means a pure socialist
society, Acts 4:34 does tell us that “there were
no needy persons among them.”

In the middle of the second century, Justin
Martyr said of Christians, “We who once took most
pleasure in accumulating wealth and property now
share with everyone in need.”

In about AD 125, Aristides wrote of
Christians, “They walk in all humility and
kindness, and falsehood is not found among them,
and they love one another. They despise not the
widow, and grieve not the orphan. He that hath,
distributeth liberally to him that hath not. If
they see a stranger, they bring him under their
roof, and rejoice over him, as it were their own
brother: for they call themselves brethren, not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit and God.
And if there is among them a man that is poor and
needy, and they have not an abundance of
necessaries, they fast two or three days that they
may supply the needy with their necessary food.”

Read that last line again:

“And if there is among them a man that is poor and
needy, and they have not an abundance of
necessaries, they fast two or three days that they
may supply the needy with their necessary food.”

Most of us have large houses with
refrigerators, stoves, televisions and so on.
Most American families have more than one car. We
are well-clothed, well-fed, well educated, and
have time for recreation and leisure. Yet there
are 3 billion human beings in the world who live
on less than 2 dollars a day. There are over 1
billion human beings who live on less than 1
dollar a day. And every year, 15 million children
under the age of five die of starvation. The
early Christians would fast for several days to
allow others to eat, yet we live like kings while
allowing this sort of poverty in the world.

In the book, Sider not only points out what
we are doing wrong, he also talks about how we got
to be that way. One of the points he makes is
that we think of Jesus too much as “Savior” and
not enough as “Lord”. Yes, Jesus died for our
sins, but before he died for our sins, he lived
his life as an example for our lives, and he
instructed us on how we are to treat our fellow
human beings. In the New Testament Jesus is
referred to as “Savior” 16 times, but is referred
to as “Lord” 420 times. So why do we spend so
much time thinking about how Jesus has saved us,
and so little time thinking about what our Lord
has commanded us to do?

Sider also talks about what we can do to live
the lives that Jesus would have us live. I'm not
one to give away the ending of a story, so you'll
just have to read Ron Sider's “The Scandal of the
Evangelical Conscience” yourself, and I urge you
to do so.

My "Open Mic" Presentation

2006-03-20T18:54:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, the local coffeehouse
had an “open mic.” Ordinarily, I would play my
guitar and sing at such and event. But in the
past, they've had lots of spoken word performers
there, poets and story tellers and such, so I
decided to do a spoken word piece for the open
mic. Following are the words I spoke:

Although the notice of this event in the
paper said no vulgarity would be allowed here, I
am going to use the most vulgar, profane, and
obscene words that I know:

George Walker Bush

Now you may think I'm going to talk about
Bush's illegal and immoral war of aggression in
Iraq, and if I were going to do that, I'd probably
quote from the International Military Tribunal at
Nuremberg, Germany in 1946:

“To initiate a war of aggression ... is not only
an international crime, it is the supreme
international crime, differing only from other war
crimes in that it contains within itself the
accumulated evil of the whole.”

But that's not what I'm going to talk about.

Or you may think I'm going to talk about
Bush's refusal to do anything about global
warming, and his efforts to prevent anyone else
from doing anything about global warming. But
that's not it either.

Or you may think I'm going to talk about
Bush's giving tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans
while people right here in America are unable to
afford enough food to eat, or any sort of health
care. But that's not it either.

I'm going to talk about torture.

You probably heard some time ago about the
torture that took place in Abu Ghraib. You
probably even saw some of the pictures. You
probably didn't see the pictures and video of
Americans torturing that were recently aired on
television in Australia, because Bush did
everything he could to prevent any of that from
being released, and when it finally did get out,
the so-called “liberal media”, being George Bush's
lap dog, didn't cover it the way they should have.
Well, if you did see the pictures that came out
of Abu Ghraib a while back, but didn't see the
recent stuff, I can tell you that you haven't seen
anything yet. If you really want to see it, you
can find it on the web. It is not pretty.
Americans are doing things that you can not
imagine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Guantanamo,
and throughout the world.

When the word first came out about the
torture taking place in Abu Ghraib, Senator John
McCain introduced an amendment to the defense
appropriations bill that would ban torture. Not
that another law is really needed, since the U.S
is signatory to the Geneva Conventions and other
international laws forbidding torture. But since
Bush still believed that he had the right to
torture, McCain introduced that bill and even
though Bush had threatened to use the first veto
of his presidency to stop it from becoming law,
even though Dick Cheney went to Congress twice to
convince them not to pass it, Congress did pass
it, and seeing the handwriting on the wall, Bush
signed it. He also issued a signing statement
that said that he will interpret the law in
accordance with his powers as president and his
obligation to protect the American people. Which
means, in plain language, I will torture anyone I
please. Just last week, Bush had his lawyers
arguing in court that the McCain amendment banning
torture doesn't apply in Guantanamo.

I submit to you that torture is not only
illegal, but it is immoral, it is un-Christian,
and it is un-American. A friend recently
mentioned seeing a bumper sticker that said, “Who
Would Jesus Torture?” When Jesus talked about how
we are to treat our fellow human beings, he said,
“As you have done to the least of these, so you
have done to me.” So I'd like to ask you, not
“Who would Jesus torture”, but who would torture
Jesus? To repeat the words of Jesus, “As you have
done to the least of these, so you have done to
me.”

George Walker Bush would torture Jesus.

According to Jesus, he already did.

Is it our responsibility to do something
about it? I'd like to present the words of some
people who I consider to be great human beings.

The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.
said:

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved
in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who
accepts evil without protesting against it is
really cooperating with it.”

Albert Einstein said:

"The world is a dangerous place. Not because of
the people who are evil; but because of the people
who don't do anything about it."

Mohandas Gandhi said:

“Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is
cooperation with good.”

At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC,
you will find these words:

“Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a
perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a
bystander.”

Thou shalt not be a bystander. We all have
the responsibility to do something. We all have
the responsibility to not be a bystander.

You may think, “I am only one person, what
can I do?” What I can do is what I am doing at
this moment: bringing the horror of the torture
that our president practices to the attention of
as many people as I can, pointing out that we all
have a responsibility as moral human beings to do
something about it, and demanding that we all live
up to that responsibility. Each of you will have
to decide what you personally can do. If we all
do what we can, we will make a difference.

Margaret Mead said:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world. Indeed,
it is the only thing that ever has.”

Gandhi said:

“A small body of determined spirits fired by an
unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the
course of history.”

Anita Koddick said:

“If you think you're too small to have an impact,
try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.”

I'm asking all of you to be the mosquito in
the room. I'm asking all of you to stop the
torture. I'm asking all of you to stop George
Walker Bush.

More Insane Hypocrisy from the Bush Regime

2006-03-15T22:05:00.000-08:00

More insane hypocrisy from the Bush regime: now
Condoleeza Rice is concerned about an increase in
China's military budget, and says China "should
undertake to be transparent about what that
means."

Rice says we must "make sure that we're looking at
a Chinese military buildup that is not outsized
for China's regional ambitions and interests."

The source of all the concern is that China raised
its military budget to 35 billion dollars. Big
deal. The U.S. currently spends nearly 500
billion dollars a year on its military. When you
consider that the population of China is 4.4 times
the population of the U.S., the fact that they
spend one fourteenth as much on their military
doesn't seem like such a big deal.

If we look at military spending in terms of per
capita spending, the U.S. spends almost 1700
dollars per person on its military, while China
spends about 27 dollars per person on its
military. The U.S. spends 62 times as much per
person on its military than China spends!

A couple of months ago, the Bush regime was
concerned about the tiny amount Venezuela spends
on their military, now it's China. Considering
that the U.S. spends as much on its military as
the rest of the world combined, there is
definitely something wrong with this picture. Is
the U.S. concerned that other countries might have
the ability to defend itself from a U.S. attack?
Oh my, we couldn't have that, could we? What's
going on here? Why does the U.S. insist it must
have military superiority over the entire rest of
the world?

Do what you can, at EVERY opportunity!

2006-02-20T15:21:00.000-08:00

The following is an email I sent to nearly every friend and acquaintance on my email list:

***************************************

Greetings, all:

Yes, it's another mass-mailing from Jim
Allyn!

I believe there is much in this world that
can and must be changed - for the better. And I
think that we must all do our part to make those
changes, and to enlist others in making positive
change in the world.

Toward that end, I believe we need to speak
our minds at every opportunity, and I believe that
we have many more opportunities than we realize.
For example, I use Xandros Linux (not Windows!) on
my computers, and am an active member of the
Xandros Forums, helping out other Linux users
whenever I can. On every post I make on the
Forums, there is a "signature" line. For an
example, look here:

http://forums.xandros.com/viewtopic.php?t=21852

My post is the second one in that thread, and
at the bottom of my post you can see my signature,
a large red number, currently 2276. What, you may
ask, is the significance of that large red number?
And why does the number change now and then?
People do ask me that on the forums, and I give
them the answer I'll give you here:

http://icasualties.org/oif/

That is the current number of American dead
in Bush's illegal and immoral war of aggression in
Iraq.

As I am a regular on the Xandros Forums, by
now hundreds of people all over the world know
what the number in my signature means. And they see
the number go up on a regular basis.

The first time someone asked what the number
in my signature was, it was in this "Off Topic"
thread:

http://forums.xandros.com/viewtopic.php?t=21651

Having seen my signature, then at 2267,
another user asked what it meant. And I told
him. That poster responded, "That is sad, on all
levels, for everyone, for the world. I think you
have to add a 0 and multiply by some factor to
get the total dead in that poor, sad country."
Another responded, "2267 an unpleasant necessary
reminder."

That particular thread started with someone
asking, "What's with all the environmental stuff,
and sometimes the political stuff, in this forum?"
Most likely, the threads that triggered the
question were these:

http://forums.xandros.com/viewtopic.php?t=20059

http://forums.xandros.com/viewtopic.php?t=21391

http://forums.xandros.com/viewtopic.php?t=21635

http://forums.xandros.com/viewtopic.php?t=21187

If you have a look at those threads, you'll
see that I (and my big mouth) figure prominently
in all of them. The first thread was just a
mention that the color theme of the Forums had
been changed to something more winter-like. When a
Forums member added a comment about "global
warming alarmists", I took the opportunity to
educate and inform the Forums members on global
warming. Other members joined in, some asking
questions, which were answered with scientific
facts. Several other threads on global warming
ensued. In total, the threads linked to above
have now been viewed 4106 times. If you read the
threads (and I encourage you to do so!), you'll
see that in the course of the discussion,
people's minds have been changed, and much
misinformation was dispelled. And LOTS of good
information on global warming was made available
for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people to see.

As another example, there are two signs on
the back of my car. I printed them out with my
computer, and taped them up in the back window,
and everybody that gets behind my car has a pretty
good notion of how I feel about Bush's illegal and
immoral war of aggression - one of the signs says:
"Blessed are the peacemakers. - Jesus I'm a
war president. - Bush."

OK, I've gone on longer than I intended, but
the point is: we all have opportunities to
educate and inform, to do good, and to change minds,
everywhere we go, and in everything we do. And I
believe we have an obligation to do so. I believe
we have an obligation to do everything in our
power to make this a better world, both for
ourselves and for our fellow human beings. Think
about the opportunities you have in your everyday
life to change the world. Think of
the opportunities you have to reach people's
hearts and minds. Do what you can - everything
you can - and feel good about it.

Jim

P.S. My email signature (below) is another way I
try to change the world for the better!

--
This message was composed and sent with
Kmail running under Xandros Linux. Kmail
and Linux are Open Source/Free Software
projects. For more information, see:
http://www.gnu.org,
http://www.debian.org, http://www.kde.org,
http://www.xandros.com,
or do a Google search for "open source" or
"Linux". Get out from
under the Microsoft monopoly! Start using
fine quality, stable, and
free Open Source software today!

***************************************

What opportunities are YOU missing?

Whose Outsized Military?

2006-01-20T16:17:00.000-08:00

The U.S. State Department is grumbling over
Venezuelan purchases of military equipment, saying
the equipment goes beyond the country's legitimate
defense needs. State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack says the purchases are part of what “we
would consider an outsized military buildup in
Venezuela.”

Excuse me, but who has an outsized military?
Venezuela spends each year approximately 66
dollars per capita on its military, while the U.S.
spends 500 billion dollars a year, or
approximately 1700 dollars per capita. The U.S.,
with less than 5 percent of the world's
population, spends as much on its military as the
entire rest of the world combined.

Unless the entire world is planning an attack
on the U.S. - and there's no evidence for that -
those enormous military expenditures certainly
can't be intended for defense. One is left with
the conclusion that our military is intended for
offensive purposes, such as Bush's illegal and
immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq. Given
that Venezuela, like Iraq, is an oil producing
nation; given that the U.S. is currently consumimg
a quarter of the world's oil and has expressed and
demonstrated its intent to control world supplies
by military means, any military buildup by
Venezuela must be considered a prudent move on
their part.

Any objection by the U.S. to Venezuela
acquiring the means to defend itself and its oil
resources is the height of hypocrisy, and is not
based on a concern for Venezuela acquiring an
outsized military; rather, it is the concern of
the Bush regime that invading Venezuela for its
oil resources, as in Iraq, will turn out not to be
walk in the park.

Republicans Continue their War on Knowledge and Education

2006-01-19T17:08:00.000-08:00

In the continuing right wing war on knowledge
and education, the “Bruin Alumni Association” is
offering students at the University of California
at Los Angeles up to one hundred dollars for
recordings of classes, class materials, and
lecture notes. The stated reason: to show that
UCLA professors are liberally biased. The real
reason: to promote the right wing agenda by
removing qualified professors from their positions
and replacing them with right wing ideologues.

The project is the work of Andrew Jones, the
sole member of the Bruin Alumni Association. On
the project's website, Jones lists the political
affiliation of every tenure or tenure-track
faculty member for whom he could determine
political party affiliation. Indeed, according to
Jones' lists, a large majority of UCLA professors
are Democrats. But does this mean that UCLA is
liberally biased?

Hardly. What it shows is that UCLA is
concerned with providing the best education
possible. Obviously, university professors must
be highly educated, and those who support
Democratic candidates and policies are typically
better educated than the right wing. Evidence of
this is clear: of the states with the highest
numbers of college educated persons, 8 of the top
10 states voted for John Kerry in the 2004
Presidential election. Of the 20 states with the
lowest numbers of college educated persons, 18
voted for Bush. Democrats are more likely to be
highly educated than Republicans.

Since Democrats are better educated than
Republicans, and a university has an obligation to
provide the best faculty available and the best
education available, it is only natural that a
larger proportion of the UCLA professors will be
Democrats. UCLA doesn't hire by political
affiliation, they hire by qualifications. Should
UCLA be required to hire lesser qualified persons,
simply because they are Republicans? Should UCLA
be require to compromise their principles and
their quality of education just so they can hire
Republicans? The mere suggestion, coming from a
political party that opposes affirmative action
programs and claims that people must be judged on
their merits rather than their skin color,
national background, or other attributes, reeks of
hypocrisy.

Right wing Republicans have long voted to cut
funding for schools, opposed sex education and the
teaching of genuine science, and lobbied to
replace science with their creation and
“intelligent design” myths. The attempt to
replace qualified professors with right wing
ideologues is just the latest in their long war on
education and knowledge. The right wing's
attempts to return America to the Dark Ages must
not be tolerated.

In A Nutshell

2005-05-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

Why does the U.S. spend as much on defense as the rest of the world combined? Why is the current administration talking about creating new nuclear, chemical, biological and genotype-specific weapons? Why are we in Iraq? Is it all about the oil?

Here it is in a nutshell, with the numbers. The world production (and consumption) of oil is currently about 80 million barrels per day, of which the U.S. consumes 20 million barrels per day. It is widely believed that oil production will never rise much, if any, above current levels - the oil fields are being depleted, we're not finding new oil fields, we just can't pump it out any faster. Oil consumption cannot rise above current levels.

The oil consumption of China, with its 1.3 billion people, is only 5.8 million barrels per day. But Chinese people want the same standard of living we have in the U.S. They want cars, they want modern agriculture, they want all the goods that Americans enjoy. To get that, they will have to consume the same amount of oil per person that we do. That would increase Chinese oil consumption to 90 million barrels per day, more than the entire world is currently producing, and likely more than the world can produce.

Is China going to remain at its current standard of living just so that we can keep our current standard of living? Doesn't seem likely, does it? What will China do to get that oil for itself? What will we do to keep it for ourselves?

Although China will be America's biggest competitor for the world's oil, other countries will want their share of the oil, too. There are 1.1 billion people in India, who currently consume only 2.2 million barrels per day. When the citizens of India raise their standard of living and their oil consumption to the levels we are used to, they will consume about 75 million barrels per day, just a little less than total current world production. Will they be willing to remain at their current standard of living just so that we can keep our standard of living? What will India do to get that oil for itself? What will we do to keep it for ourselves?

So far, I've only mentioned the two most populous nations of the world. But China and India combined are only a third of the world's population. If everybody in the entire world raises their standard of living, and thereby their oil consumption, to our levels, the planet will require 444.5 million barrels of oil per day. We don't have it, and we're not going to have it.

I ask again, why does the U.S. spend as much on defense as the rest of the world combined? Why is the current administration talking about creating new nuclear, chemical, biological and genotype-specific weapons? Why are we in Iraq? Is it all about the oil? What do you think?

I am a Christian. And I Am Angry

2005-05-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

I am a Christian. And I am angry.

I am angry about abortion and gay marriage. Why? Because so many Christians have been led to believe that abortion and gay marriage are the most important issues facing us today. Because so many Christians have been led to believe that a politician's stands on abortion and gay marriage are all one needs to know in order to make one's voting decisions. I am angry because so many politicians have chosen to use abortion and gay marriage as "wedge" issues to get themselves elected while ignoring other issues that should be of concern to all Christians. I am angry because we have focused on abortion and gay marriage to the exclusion of any other issues.

I am angry about AIDS. I am angry that so many Christians seem completely unconcerned about the 3.1 million people who died of AIDS during 2004. I am angry that we are more concerned with preventing the use of condoms than preventing the deaths of human beings. I am angry that we have stood idly by while as many as 20 million children have been orphaned when their parents died of AIDS, and that we continue to stand idly by while AIDS makes orphans of over 2 million children every year, a new AIDS orphan every 14 seconds. As Christians, we should all be angry about this, and we must act now to bring about change.

I am angry about poverty. I am angry that one of every 8 persons in the wealthiest nation in the world - the United States - lives in poverty. I am angry that nearly one quarter of the world's population, more than a billion human beings, lives on less than a dollar a day. I am angry that half the world's population, more than 3 billion human beings, lives on less than two dollars per day. As Christians, we should all be angry about this, and we must act now to bring about change.

I am angry about hunger and starvation. I am angry because every day, forty thousand human beings - 15 million every year - starve to death; three-fourths of them children under five. I am angry that one third of all children in developing countries suffer from malnutrition, causing stunted growth and cognitive development, and decreased resistance to disease. I am angry that, in the United States, the fatty, grain-fed meat we eat is killing us with heart disease, while the grain we feed to our livestock could feed a billion human beings. As Christians, we should all be angry about this, and we must act now to bring about change.

I am angry about homelessness. I am angry that in the United States, we may have as many as one million of our people homeless at any given time; as many as 3 million homeless at some point during the year. I am angry that, worldwide, there are more than 100 million human beings who are completely homeless, and nearly a billion more - one-sixth of the world's population - who are squatters in houses or on land they do not own, or are residents of refugee camps or temporary shelters. As Christians, we should all be angry about this, and we must act now to bring about change.

I am angry that we are spending 500 billion dollars this year on bullets and bombs, as much as the defense budgets of the entire rest of the world combined. I am angry that we could - and should - be spending a large portion of this money on healing the sick, clothing the poor, feeding the hungry, and sheltering the homeless, and yet we do not. As Christians, we should all be angry about this, and we must act now to bring about change.

I am angry that we have allowed ourselves to be fooled by self-serving politicians into voting based on only one or two issues. I am angry that we have ignored our responsibilities as Christians to help those less fortunate than us, and I am angry that we have failed to elect leaders who will do those things that we as Christians know are the right things to do.

Let us all be righteously angry, as Christ was angry and grieved at the hardness of our hearts (Mark 3:5), and let our anger lead us to action.

Peak Oil and Food

2005-05-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

"The End of Oil." "Peak Oil." We hear these terms increasingly these days; on the TV news and in the papers. But what do they really mean? What is "Peak Oil"? When will it happen? How will the end of oil affect us? What will our civilization look like when we run out of oil? I have given this some thought, and it's not a pretty picture. I will talk briefly on what "Peak Oil" is, then look at one of the many ways in which it will affect us: our food supplies.

"Peak Oil" can be looked at in two different ways: the peak of discovery of new oil supplies, or the peak of oil production. When more oil is discovered, we have additional reserves to fill our energy needs. When the rate at which we discover new oil fields is decreasing, and we are no longer finding new oil supplies at the rate at which we are consuming oil, we say discovery has peaked. Then we develop the new oil fields we have found, drilling additional wells and pumping the oil out of the ground. As the oil field is depleted, the oil becomes more difficult to recover, and the production rate "peaks", then drops. The production rate gradually decreases until eventually no more oil can be removed from that particular oil field. The rate of discovery of new oil reserves in the United States peaked in the 1930's, and oil production in the United States peaked in the 1970's. World-wide oil discovery peaked in the 1960's. When will world-wide oil production peak? Some scientists believe it already has, others feel it has not peaked yet, but will soon. In any case, there is wide agreement that peak production of oil worldwide will occur before the end of this decade. Once that point is reached, unless we drastically reduce our demand for oil, the oil production rate will not be enough to keep up with the demand, and shortages will occur. Prices will rise. Nations will compete for what oil remains, even going to war over oil. Eventually there will be no oil available to anyone, at any price - the End of Oil.

I would now like to consider the impact that reduced oil supplies and the eventual end of oil will have on our food supplies, and how that might affect our civilization.

Our current agricultural methods are, for all practical purposes, a process of turning oil into food. Food production is dependent on oil at every stage between preparing the ground for planting and serving the food at our dinner tables.

Let's examine the part oil plays in the production of wheat, for example. The farms that grow wheat are highly dependent on oil. First, an oil-powered tractor is used to plow the field, then the same oil-powered tractor is used to plant the seed. While the wheat is growing, agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides will be applied, perhaps several times. Many of these agricultural chemicals are derived from oil, and again, they will be applied with oil-powered tractors.

At the end of the growing season, the wheat will be harvested by those same tractors, still running on oil. It will then be loaded into trucks or railroad cars for transport to the mills for processing. Trucks and trains, of course, both require oil. After the raw wheat is processed into breakfast cereal, bread, or flour, the finished product is packaged and loaded into oil-powered trucks or trains for delivery to the stores, and offered for sale to consumers like you and I. We then drive our oil-powered cars to the stores, buy the food products we need, and drive home in our oil-powered cars.

So what do we do when there isn't enough oil for our tractors, fertilizers, pesticides, trucks, trains and cars? How many of us are able to supply our own food needs? How many of us grow significant quantities of food in our gardens, or keep cows in our backyards? What are we going to eat?

Let's carry this a little further, by having a look at what the lack of oil-provided energy will mean to us in another area. Suppose that you live in a northern city where winters are cold. Suppose further that your house is heated with oil, and your electricity is generated at an oil-fired powerplant. It's the middle of winter, and, having no oil, you have no electricity and no heat. Your children are freezing to death. What would you do to keep your children from freezing to death? At first, maybe you'd cut the trees in your yard and burn them to keep warm. When your own trees were exhausted, maybe you'd cut the trees in the local park. And after that, then what? Cut and burn your neighbor's trees? Tear down your neighbor's house and burn it to keep your children from freezing to death? What would your neighbor do to keep you from tearing down and burning his house? Kill you? What would you do to keep your neighbor from tearing down and burning your house to keep his children from freezing to death? Would you kill him?

While you're pondering that, remember that your children aren't just freezing to death, they're starving to death, too. How are you going to feed them? You've already burned your neighbor's house to keep your children warm; will you now kill your neighbor to feed your children? Would your neighbor kill you to feed his starving children? Are you sure?

OK, you're not willing to burn your neighbor's house to keep your children warm, and you're not willing to kill your neighbor to feed your starving children. Instead, you're going to move to another region with a warmer climate, a long growing season, and plenty of rain for your crops - your new "paradise". First of all, how are you going to get there? Drive there in your car? No oil. Take the bus? No oil. Take a train? Sorry, no oil. Fly there in an airplane? Again, no oil. And what will happen if you do arrive at your destination? Do you think others won't have the same idea? How many refugees do you think that the natives of your new paradise will allow in? What if they are already overburdened with refugees when you get there? Will they send you away? Kill you to keep you from spoiling their paradise? Will you kill them and forcibly take your own piece of paradise? What if you already live in "paradise"? What will you do when the refugees show up in your paradise?

If you're not sure what you'd do in these circumstances, I suggest you watch the news on TV tonight, or read the evening paper, and find the solutions others have found to their problems of overcrowding and insufficient resources. You'll find that they are doing exactly the things I've described here.

And what are we going to do about it? I don't know what we actually will do, but I know what we must do: decrease our consumption of oil and other resources. Demand that car manufacturers make more fuel efficient cars. Require recycling. Insist that our government begin research to develop alternative energy sources, research on a scale not seen since the "Manhattan Project" to develop the atomic bomb or the "Apollo Project" to put a man on the moon. Or plant gardens in our backyards, get a couple of cows, and stock up on guns and ammunition. Think about it. What's it going to be?

George W. Meets His Maker

2005-05-25T10:10:00.000-07:00

I recently received a "forward" from an old
friend speculating on what the arrival of Osama
bin Laden at the Pearly Gates might look like. This
led me to speculate on what God might have to say
when George W. Bush shows up at the Pearly Gates.
Here's my “artist's conception” of what God might
say to George W. Bush upon his arrival at the
Pearly Gates:

George, let's have a look at your record, and
see whether you've complied with my commandments.
First of all, George, you started wars, attacking
those who had not attacked you, nor had they any
capability to attack you. Don't you remember me
saying, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they
shall be called sons of God"? (Matthew 5:9) You
have not been a peacemaker, George; you have been
a warmaker. How then can I call you my son?

In order to justify your wars, you lied about
weapons of mass destruction and connections with
terrorists where there were none. But I said, "
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy
neighbor." (Exodus 20:16) Why did
you lie about these things?

Many of my children died in the wars you
started: your own people, those who defended
against your attacks, innocent men, women and
children. As governor of Texas, you executed 152
of my children. As President, you oversaw the
first executions of Federal prisoners in nearly 40
years. How then can you say you have obeyed my
command, "Thou shalt not kill"? (Exodus
20:16)

I have commanded, "Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his
maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor
anything that is thy neighbor’s." (Exodus
20:17) When I say, "nor anything that is thy
neighbor's", George, that means his
oil, too.

I have said, "Lay not up for yourselves
treasures upon earth" (Matthew 6:19) and "the love
of money is the root of all evil" (1 Timothy
6:10), yet you and those you associate with do all
manner of evil to enrich yourselves, and to enrich
your friends at Halliburton, Bechtel and Carlyle.
Did I not say, "It is easier for a camel to go
through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to
enter into the kingdom of God"? (Matthew 19:24)

I have commanded that my people watch over
and care for my creation. (Genesis 2:15) Yet you
allowed industry to pollute the air, the land and
the sea. You allowed the extinction of the
creatures I placed on the earth. You
destroyed the wilderness for the profit of
yourself and those like you. When nearly all of
my children agreed to cut emissions that caused
the warming of my creation, you refused to
participate. Why did you not care for my
creation?

More than this, George, you cut programs that
could have fed, clothed, and healed the poor.
While you were President, there were 40 million
Americans who could not afford health care;
worldwide, billions more. In your own country, 1
of every 8 of my children lived in poverty;
worldwide, three billion more of my children lived
in poverty. While forty thousand of my children
died of starvation every day, fifteen million of
them every year, you gave tax breaks to the rich.
Millions died of diseases that could have
been easily treated, yet you refused to give them
the medicine they needed. My children were naked,
hungry, thirsty, and sick, yet you did not clothe
them, you did not feed them nor give them water to
drink; you did not comfort or heal them. George,
truly I tell you, in that you did not do it for
one of the least important of these, you did not
do it for me. (Matthew 25:45) Get away from me,
you who are accursed, into the eternal fire that
has been prepared for the devil and his angels!
(Matthew 25:41)

Big Trees and Sagebrush

2005-05-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

Although the following was written specifically for those in the Wenatchee, WA area, it's a safe bet that the area where you live has seen much the same sort of changes. Do a little observation, ask a few questions: you may be surprised.

A few weeks ago, I was in a group of people and the conversation briefly touched on a large tree stump that had been in the Cashmere area. One of the participants in the conversation commented that he was surprised that there were any trees that big around here, and that he thought the area had always been filled with sagebrush. I have long been interested in what effect we Euro-Americans might have had on the local area, and have done a bit of research and study on this, but before I had a chance to get my two cents worth in on the subject, the conversation moved along to another topic. Today I wrote down my two cents worth, maybe a quarter's worth, and emailed it to my friend who thought that there were no trees and that the area was always filled with sagebrush. It occurs to me that some of you might also be interested in this, so here it is:

***********************************

First of all, there wasn't much sagebrush in the area. In Washington state, sagebrush grows primarily where the ground has been disturbed. The disturbance of the ground can be from several different causes; among the most common are logging, grazing, agriculture and the plowing associated with it, and mining. Nearly everything in Washington that can be logged, grazed or plowed has been logged, grazed or plowed. As you drive around North Central Washington, look along the sides of the road, and on the hillsides. You'll often see areas that have no sagebrush next to areas that are covered in sagebrush. And you'll often see that the boundaries of the sagebrush covered areas have straight sides and 90 degree corners. (Next time you're in South or East Wenatchee, have a look up at Burch Mountain to the North.) If you get your map and/or your GPS device out, you'll find many of these divisions are on section lines - the imaginary lines we use to divide up the land into one square mile chunks. Only now the lines aren't imaginary, they're real - they're fence lines. These sagebrush covered areas are the areas that were fenced and overgrazed, or plowed, planted and abandoned, and the disturbed land has been taken over by sagebrush. The adjacent relatively sagebrush-free areas were either not grazed or farmed, or were not fenced in so that there were too many grazing animals in too small a space.

In the 1930's the Cashmere area had several flooding episodes - not from the Wenatchee River, but from out of the canyons surrounding Cashmere, Mission Creek and so on. Much soil and debris was washed into town by these floods. The cause of this flooding? The surrounding area had been overlogged and overgrazed, leaving little plant life in the soil to hold the water and check erosion. The flooding of Cashmere in the 1930's was largely caused by the activities of man.

The first white men to enter the Wenatchee area recorded that the valley floor was covered in prairie bunch grass, which grew waist high, even head high. Seen any prairie bunch grass lately? I do know where there are a few patches of it, but most people in the area have never seen it, or even heard of it. There are a few small patches in Number Two Canyon, alongside the road. This area was heavily grazed, but in the small corridors between the fenced grazing land and the road, you can still find small patches of it.

As the population grew in the Wenatchee valley, the prairie bunch grass was slowly replaced with wheat, then apples, pears and cherries, and finally, houses. You can still find wheat growing alongside the roads in many places, sometimes in patches only a few feet square. There are a lot of local areas where wheat hasn't been planted in over 100 years, but wheat is persistent, and it has come up again year after year. You can even find it in the alleys downtown. Next time you're in Wenatchee, go look behind Adam's swap shop; there's a small patch of it there. I don't know how long it's been since there's been any wheat planted there, but I do know that the Johansen's Machine Shop building has been there for more than 80 years. So the wheat growing there was probably last planted over eight decades ago.

As fruit trees began to replace wheat as the major crop in the area, boxes had to be made to pack the fruit in. The fruit boxes were made from pine trees cut from the local hillsides. I read an article from the early 1900's that said that it was not unusual for a pine tree to be cut in the morning, and by evening to be a box packed with apples, in a railroad car headed east. The same article said that if they kept cutting trees at the same rate, there soon would be no trees left in the Wenatchee area.

I have seen a picture of Twin Peaks above Wenatchee taken in the late 1800's or early 1900's. There appear to be no trees on it. Either the trees on Twin Peaks now are the first trees to ever grow there, or they are what has grown back since the area was logged. You will find many places in the area where all the trees appear to be about the same age. You'd think there would be trees of all ages there, wouldn't you? Fifty year old trees, hundred year old trees, two hundred year old trees? But the trees you see there now are all about the same age - they are what has grown back since the area was logged years ago.

The hillsides in the Chelan area have also been heavily logged. The first "Lady of the Lake" boat, built around 1900, burned 10 or 12 cords of wood per trip. Regular boat traffic on Lake Chelan started about 1880, and that boat was also wood powered. Being smaller than the Lady, it probably burned somewhat less wood, but I haven't been able to find figures on its wood consumption. They were cutting trees in the Chelan area a long time ago.

In some areas you will find straight lines between the wooded and non-wooded areas, or between areas containing nothing but young trees and areas containing trees of all ages. Again, these are old property lines, and often on section lines.

I've been told that much of the lower portion of Number Two Canyon, which is now mostly treeless, was logged years ago. I have been looking for cut stumps, and have found a few. I have noticed that the trees growing in the Canyon now are mostly the same age, and there are no really old trees. I do know of a Ponderosa Pine within the city limits of Wenatchee which I would estimate to be over 200 years old, so apparently they missed a few.

Have you been to the Columbia Basin? These days, you'll see lots of agriculture in the area, enabled by the building of Grand Coulee Dam, and the pumps and canals that bring Columbia River water to the Basin. Much of this used to be sagebrush, too, and it was covered with sagebrush for the same reason that much of the greater Wenatchee area is covered with sagebrush - overgrazing. Ranchers started grazing cattle in the Basin in the mid 1850's, and the sheepherders soon followed. By the 1870's, the cattle ranchers and sheepherders were warring with each other, each claiming that the other had made "their" land unsuitable for further grazing. As more and more of the land was grazed bare, ranching started to die out in the Basin in the 1880's.

I know a man who spent his entire career in the Forest Service. (He is now retired.) We often talked about the effect Euro-Americans have had on the area. He told me that the closest place to Wenatchee that he could think of that hadn't been logged, grazed or plowed was the top of Steamboat Rock on Banks Lake. You can't get a tractor or a cow up there, so it was left alone. Unfortunately, you still can't call this "pristine", since seeds have blown in from the adjacent overgrazed and over-farmed lands, and Steamboat Rock is now covered with sagebrush and other formerly unknown or uncommon plants.

You probably now know more about what we've done to the local area than just about anybody you know.

Defending Against What?

2005-05-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

 The budget recently proposed by George W.
Bush has clear winners and losers. The big
winner is defense, while the losers are
education, the environment, and social programs.
Mr. Bush will claim that increases in defense
spending are necessary to protect the American
people. But how does our defense budget compare
with other countries? How much do other countries
spend on their militaries? How much do we need to
defend against those who would be hostile to the
United States?

I will compare the US military budget with those
of other nations, so we can see where we stand
in our ability to defend against attack. All
figures given here are from the US CIA, and are
the latest figures available on their website.
Figures for the US are from March, 2003, others
are generally from 2003 or 2002, a few are from
2001, and a few are estimated. For whatever
reason, the military budget figures for Russia
are not available on the CIA's website;
estimates from other sources are approximately
12.3 billion dollars in 2003.

According to CIA figures, US military
expenditures for 2003 totaled 370.7 billion
dollars. So how does the 370.7 billion dollars
the US spent on its military compare with the
military budgets of other nations?

Using the latest figures available from the
CIA, the country with the next highest
military expenditures, after the US, is China
at 60 billion dollars. The US military budget
is more than 6 times that of our nearest competitor.

    After the US, the next 15 countries on the list are:


1.    China                  60 billion dollars
2.    France                 45.2 billion dollars
3.    United Kingdom         42.8 billion dollars
4.    Japan                  42.5 billion dollars
5.    Germany                35 billion dollars
6.    Italy                  28.2 billion dollars
7.    Saudi Arabia           18 billion dollars
8.    South Korea            14.5 billion dollars
9.    Australia              14.1 billion dollars
10.   India                  14 billion dollars
11.   Russia                 12.3 billion dollars
12.   Turkey                 12.2 billion dollars
13.   Brazil                 10.4 billion dollars
14.   Spain                   9.9 billion dollars
15.   Canada                  9.8 billion dollars

    Total                   368.9 billion dollars


The military budgets of these 15 countries total
368.9 billion dollars, just under the 370.7
billion dollars the US spent on its military.
The US spends more on "defense" than the next
15 nations combined! Most of these countries
are generally considered to be "friends" or
"allies" of the US, and certainly not someone
who we need to defend ourselves against.
Looking at it another way, military expenditures
for the entire world total 883.2 billion dollars.
The US military budget, at 370.7 billion dollars,
is 42% of the entire world's military budget.
One has to wonder, just what exactly is it we
are "defending" against?

    The nations Bush declared to be the "Axis
of Evil", Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, have
military budgets of:

  Iraq                   1.3 billion dollars  (2000)
  Iran                   4.3 billion dollars
  North Korea            5.2 billion dollars

  Total                  10.8 billion dollars

    The US military budget exceeds the total
military expenditures of the "Axis of Evil"
nations by a factor of 34.

The US military budget for 2005 is approximately
400 billion dollars, plus an additional
"supplementary appropriation" of an estimated
80 to 100 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, and an additional 30.5
billion dollars for "domestic security",
totaling over 500 billion dollars.

Since we clearly spend more than enough on our
military to defend against attack from other
nations (although perhaps not enough for
military adventures into countries who have
neither the intention nor the ability to
attack us, but do have large quantities of
oil), it seems to me that we could spend a
much smaller portion of our tax dollars on
the military, leaving more money for education,
environmental protections, health care,
development of alternative energy sources,
and so on. We might even consider spending a
little on our neighbors in the world who are
less fortunate than ourselves. And wouldn't
a safe, healthy and well educated population,
and a world no longer filled with starving
people be the best defense of all?

More "Defense of Marriage" Hypocrisy

2005-05-22T01:11:00.000-07:00

I was wandering around the website of the Washington Evangelicals for Responsible Government (www.werg.org), and came across their position paper on the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA). (You can find it at: http://www.werg.org/papers/DOMA.htm). I have often wondered why those “defending marriage” concentrate on homosexual marriage instead of their own divorces, which to me seems to be the highest hypocrisy. What are the thought processes behind believing that homosexual marriage – people getting married - is more of a threat to marriage than getting divorced – ending a marriage? I won't go into detail on the hypocrisy of this so-called “Defense of Marriage” as I have done that elsewhere. What I found particularly interesting about this paper was that they specifically mention that marriage is forever. Quoting from their position paper:

“Marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman and was created by God to be a life-long, sexually exclusive relationship”

“More than a century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court spoke of the 'union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony.'"

Since they make it a point to mention – twice – that marriage is for life, you'd think that they would be especially concerned about divorce, wouldn't you? Yet there is no mention of divorce whatsoever. If they truly believe that marriage should be forever, why isn't the “Defense of Marriage Act” about divorce? Why doesn't WERG's position paper on the “Defense of Marriage Act” speak about divorce? Why aren't they pushing for a Constitutional Amendment banning divorce?

As it turns out, there hasn't always been such a need to “defend marriage”. It used to be much harder to get a divorce in the U.S. than it is now. Although Oklahoma has had a “no fault” divorce law since 1953, the rest of the nation didn't pass no fault divorce laws until the example was set by the State of California. They say “as California goes, so goes the nation”, and that turns out to be the case here. In 1969, the Governor of California, Ronald Reagan, signed into law the “Family Law Act”, which eliminated the need to show evidence of wrongdoing to obtain a divorce. Most other states quickly followed suit.

It is interesting to note that, twenty years before signing no fault divorce into law, Ronald Reagan had himself been divorced, and is the only divorced person ever to become President the United States. (His first wife, Jane Wyman, had sued for divorce on the grounds of “mental cruelty”, although there is also speculation that Jane had been involved in an affair that contributed to the divorce.) What irony that a man greatly admired by the “Defense of Marriage” crowd is in many ways responsible for the real threat to marriage – divorce.

I hate to keep harping on the hypocrisy of the “Defense of Marriage” supporters, but the logic of their position escapes me. I challenge those who are genuinely concerned about marriage to work to reduce or eliminate divorce in America before worrying about who else may or may not get married.

"Defense of Marriage"

2005-05-22T00:54:00.000-07:00



     Much  has been said by the "Religious Right"
about the "Defense of Marriage".  When they speak
of the "Defense of Marriage", what they are
really talking about is forbidding homosexuals to
marry.  Indeed, they have proposed the following
amendment to the Constitution:

     "Marriage in the United States shall consist
only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither
this Constitution, nor the constitution of any
State, shall be construed to require that
marriage or the legal incidents thereof be
conferred upon any union other than the union of
a man and a woman."

     George W. Bush said, in a statement made on
February 24, 2004, "the Defense of Marriage
requires a constitutional amendment....  Today I
call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to
send to the states for ratification, an amendment
to our Constitution defining and protecting
marriage as a union of man and woman as husband
and wife."

     Right-wing religious leader Jerry Falwell
stated, "I agree that the only way to put
marriage out of reach of fanatical judges and
militant lawmakers is to pass the Federal
Marriage Amendment that defines marriage as a
union between one man and one woman, period."

     Richard Land, president of the Southern
Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty
Commission, says, "The best legal minds in the
country have come to the conclusion that the only
way we can protect ourselves from having the
judiciary force same-sex 'marriage' upon an
unwilling nation is to have a constitutional
amendment that says specifically that nothing in
the U.S. Constitution or any of the state
constitutions shall be construed as requiring
that marriage be anything other than the union of
a man and a woman."

     Clearly, these people are serious about the
"Defense of Marriage."  In order to defend
marriage, they are prepared to amend the
Constitution, which is a most serious matter, not
to be taken lightly.  But what does "Defense of
Marriage" consist of?  Is it only about
homosexuals getting married, or would it include
divorce?  Surely the best way to defend marriage
is to end divorce.  And so, one would expect to
find that the Religious Right has a very low
incidence of divorce, right?  After all, the
Bible is quite clear on these matters:

     In Matthew 5:32, Jesus says, "but I say unto
you, that every one that putteth away his wife,
saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her
an adulteress: and whosoever shall marry her when
she is put away committeth adultery."

     In Exodus 20:14, we find, "Thou shalt not
commit adultery."

     In Leviticus 20:10, we find, "And the man
that committeth adultery with another man’s wife,
even he that committeth adultery with his
neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress
shall surely be put to death."

     And in Malachi 2:16 we find this statement,
"For I hate putting away, saith Jehovah, the God
of Israel."

     In the Bible we see that the only allowable
reason for divorce - "putteth away his wife" – is
fornication, which the Merriam-Webster dictionary
defines as, "consensual sexual intercourse
between two persons not married to each other."
We also see that God does not like divorce: "I
hate putting away", and that marrying a divorced
person constitutes adultery, for which "the
adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put
to death."

     So, if we find that Christians do get
divorced, it must mean one of two things:  that
one partner or the other has been having sex
outside the marriage (fornication), or that there
has been no sex outside the marriage, and that
Christians have been getting divorced without
justifiable cause.  Do Christians get divorced?

     The Barna Research Group has done studies of
this.  The Barna Group was founded by George
Barna, who describes himself as an evangelical
Christian.  The stated mission of the Barna Group
is "to partner with Christian ministries and
individuals to be a catalyst in moral and
spiritual transformation in the United States."
They conduct research and polls on topics of
interest to Christians.

     Barna Group research in 2004 found that,
"Among married born again Christians, 35% have
experienced a divorce. That figure is identical
to the outcome among married adults who are not
born again: 35%."  And those divorces generally
did not occur before they became born-again
Christians, but after:  “If we eliminate those
who became Christians after their divorce, the
divorce figure among born again adults drops to
34% - statistically identical to the figure among
non-Christians.”

     Of course, the divorce rate among Christians
(and non-Christians) varies by denomination.
Barna research carried out in 1999, 2001, and
2004 found the following divorce rates:


Pentecostals:         44%
Protestants:          39%
Jews:                 30%
Baptists:             29%
Presbyterians:        28%
Episcopalians:        28%
Methodists:           26%
Catholics:            25%
Mormons:              24%
Lutherans:            21%
Atheists, Agnostics   21%


     It's interesting to note that among the
groups with the lowest divorce rates are atheists
and agnostics.

     If we assume that all of these divorces are
justified, that is, due to fornication, then
there must be a lot of fornication going on
amongst religious people.  The Barna Group also
finds that "nearly one-quarter of the married
born agains (23%) get divorced two or more
times."  If the divorces were not due to
fornication, then remarrying constitutes
adultery, for which they "shall surely be put to
death."

     Clearly, those in favor of "protecting
marriage" can best do so by changing their own
behavior: stop getting divorced.

     Perhaps the most appropriate statement on
this subject comes from Jesus, in the Gospel of
Matthew, Chapter 7:

     3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in
thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam
that is in thine own eye? 4 Or how wilt thou say
to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of
thine eye; and lo, the beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of
thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to
cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

     In other words, clean up your own house
before you start worrying about homosexuals
getting married.

Values Voters - Child Executions

2005-05-22T00:30:00.000-07:00

 On March 1, 2005, the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that children under age
18 who commit serious crimes such as
murder, may not be executed, and
stated that execution of children
constitutes a violation of the Eighth
Amendment ban on cruel and unusual
punishment.  It should be noted that
more than half of the countries in
the world have entirely eliminated
the death penalty, and that there are
four international human rights
treaties that exclude child offenders
from the death penalty.  In a worldwide
study of the execution of children
between 1994 and 2002, two-thirds of
the executions of children occurred
in the United States.

While it has been said that Bush was
elected by the "values voters", I have
previously found that the states that
voted for Bush in the November, 2004
election had higher divorce rates,
higher murder rates, and higher teen
pregnancy rates.  So, when I heard that
there were 19 states that had allowed
execution of children, I wondered if
the "values voters" states - those who
voted for Bush - were more or less
likely to allow the execution of
children.  Following is the list of
states that allowed execution of
children prior to the Supreme Court
ruling, and how they voted in the
recent presidential election:


Alabama              Bush
Arizona              Bush
Arkansas             Bush
Delaware             Kerry
Florida              Bush
Georgia              Bush
Idaho                Bush
Kentucky             Bush
Louisiana            Bush
Mississippi          Bush
Nevada               Bush
New Hampshire        Kerry
North Carolina       Bush
Oklahoma             Bush
Pennsylvania         Kerry
South Carolina       Bush
Texas                Bush
Utah                 Bush
Virginia             Bush


Of the 19 states that did allow
execution of children, sixteen
voted for Bush.  So, not only do
Bush's "values voters" have
higher rates of divorce, murder,
and teen pregnancy, they are also
more likely to execute children.
The notion that Bush voters have
higher moral standards is a myth,
and is not supported by the facts.

If you find this information useful,
feel free to pass it on to your friends.

Values Voters - Teen Pregnancy

2005-05-22T00:24:00.000-07:00

 We've heard how the "Values Voters" put Bush back
 in the White House.  But what kind of values do they
 really have?  Previously, we've seen that "Red"
 states - those that voted for Bush - have higher
 divorce rates, and higher murder rates than
 "Blue" states - those that voted for Kerry.  Well,
 OK, maybe they divorce and murder more, but
 surely those "Values Voters" wouldn't be running
 around knocking up teenage girls, would they?
 Teenage girls in "Values Voters" states surely 
 wouldn't be having pre-marital sex, would they?
 You'd think that, being raised by those oh-so-moral
 "Values Voters" parents, they'd have hardly any
 teen pregnancy at all.  Although the teen
 pregnancy rates are not as lopsided as the
 divorce rates, they are still interesting:


 Teen Pregnancy Rates by State,
 and how they voted for President

District of Columbia   128       Kerry
Nevada                 113       Bush
Arizona                104       Bush
New Mexico             103       Bush
Mississippi            103       Bush
Texas                  101       Bush
Florida                 97       Bush
California              96       Kerry
Georgia                 95       Bush
North Carolina          95       Bush
Arkansas                93       Bush
Hawaii                  93       Kerry
Delaware                93       Kerry
New York                91       Kerry
Maryland                91       Kerry
Alabama                 90       Bush
New Jersey              90       Kerry
Tennessee               89       Bush
South Carolina          89       Bush
Illinois                87       Kerry
Louisiana               87       Bush
Oklahoma                86       Bush
Colorado                82       Bush
Oregon                  79       Kerry
Wyoming                 77       Bush
Kentucky                76       Bush
Michigan                75       Kerry
Washington              75       Kerry
Missouri                74       Bush
Ohio                    74       Bush
Alaska                  73       Bush
Indiana                 73       Bush
Virginia                72       Bush
Connecticut             70       Kerry
Kansas                  69       Bush
West Virginia           67       Bush
Rhode Island            67       Kerry
Idaho                   62       Bush
Montana                 60       Bush
Massachusetts           60       Kerry
Pennsylvania            60       Kerry
Nebraska                59       Bush
Wisconsin               55       Kerry
Iowa                    55       Bush
South Dakota            54       Bush
Utah                    53       Bush
Maine                   52       Kerry
Minnesota               50       Kerry
New Hampshire           47       Kerry
Vermont                 44       Kerry
North Dakota            42       Bush


 Eight of the 10 states with the
 highest teen pregnancy rates
 voted for Bush.

 Twelve of the 20 states with the
 highest teen pregnancy
 rates voted for Bush.

 The 10 states with the lowest teen
 pregnancy rates split evenly
 between Bush and Kerry.

 Where's the value in that?

 Teen pregnancy rates, ages 15-19,
 Source: The Alan Guttmacher Institute.
 Election Results from CNN.

Values Voters - Divorce and Murder

2005-05-21T23:57:00.000-07:00

 Much has been said about the role of “Values
 Voters” in electing Bush.  This implies that
 Bush voters have higher moral values than
 non-Bush voters, does it not?  And during the
 campaign, we often heard about those
 “Massachusetts Liberals”, and their lack of
 values.  So let's consider a couple of things
 that I would consider to be related to moral
 values, and see how they correlate with election
 results.

 Let's see, divorce is a Moral Value, isn't it?


 Divorce Rates, by State, and how they voted
 in the 2004 Presidential Election.  
Arranged Lowest Divorce Rate to Highest.

1 Massachusetts          2.4       Kerry
2 Connecticut            2.8       Kerry
3 New Jersey             3.0       Kerry
4 Rhode Island           3.2       Kerry
5 New York               3.3       Kerry
6 Pennsylvania           3.3       Kerry
7 Wisconsin              3.4       Kerry
8 North Dakota           3.4       Bush
9 Maryland               3.5       Kerry
10 Minnesota             3.6       Kerry
11 Louisiana             3.6       Bush
12 Illinois              3.7       Kerry
13 District of Columbia  3.9       Kerry 
14 Iowa                  3.9       Bush
15 Nebraska              4.0       Bush
16 Vermont               4.0       Kerry
17 Michigan              4.1       Kerry
18 South Dakota          4.2       Bush
19 South Carolina        4.2       Bush
20 Hawaii                4.2       Kerry
21 California            4.3       Kerry
22 Maine                 4.4       Kerry
23 New Hampshire         4.4       Kerry 
24 Ohio                  4.5       Bush
25 Virginia              4.6       Bush
26 Kansas                4.7       Bush
27 Utah                  4.7       Bush
28 Delaware              4.8       Kerry
29 Montana               4.9       Bush
30 Missouri              5.0       Bush
31 West Virginia         5.0       Bush
32 North Carolina        5.1       Bush
33 Colorado              5.1       Bush
34 Georgia               5.2       Bush
35 Oregon                5.3       Kerry
36 Texas                 5.4       Bush
37 Alaska                5.5       Bush
38 Washington            5.6       Kerry
39 Mississippi           5.7       Bush
40 Kentucky              5.8       Bush
41 Arizona               5.8       Bush
42 Florida               5.9       Bush
43 New Mexico            6.0       Bush
44 Idaho                 6.2       Bush
45 Alabama               6.2       Bush
46 Indiana               6.6       Bush
47 Wyoming               6.5       Bush
48 Tennessee             6.6       Bush
49 Oklahoma              6.7       Bush
50 Arkansas              7.1       Bush
51 Nevada                9.0       Bush

 Divorce statistics from Divorce Magazine,
 compiled from Center for Disease Control,
 National Center for Health Statistics.

 Election Results from CNN.

 Fourteen of the 20 states with the lowest
 divorce rates voted for Kerry.

 Nineteen of the 20 states with the highest
 divorce rates voted for Bush.


 OK, so “Values Voters” have higher divorce rates.
 What else is there?  Well, how about murder,
 that's a Moral Value, too, isn't it?


 Murder Rate, by State, and how they voted in
 the 2004 Presidential Election.  
 Arranged from highest murder rate to lowest.

1 Louisiana             13.0       Bush
2 Maryland              9.5        Kerry
3 Mississippi           9.3        Bush
4 Nevada                8.8        Bush
5 Arizona               7.9        Bush
6 Georgia               7.6        Bush
7 South Carolina        7.2        Bush
8 Illinois              7.1        Kerry
9 California            6.8        Kerry
10 Tennessee            6.8        Bush
11 Alabama              6.6        Bush
12 Arkansas             6.4        Bush
13 Texas                6.4        Bush
14 Michigan             6.1        Kerry
15 North Carolina       6.1        Bush
16 Alaska               6.0        Bush
17 New Mexico           6.0        Bush
18 Oklahoma             5.9        Bush
19 Virginia             5.6        Bush
20 Indiana              5.5        Bush
21 Florida              5.4        Bush
22 Pennsylvania         5.3        Kerry
23 Missouri             5.0        Bush
24 New York             4.9        Kerry
25 New Jersey           4.7        Kerry
26 Kentucky             4.6        Bush
27 Ohio                 4.6        Bush
28 Kansas               4.5        Bush
29 Colorado             3.9        Bush
30 West Virginia        3.5        Bush
31 Montana              3.3        Bush
32 Wisconsin            3.3        Kerry
33 Nebraska             3.2        Bush
34 Connecticut          3.0        Kerry
35 Washington           3.0        Kerry
36 Delaware             2.9        Kerry
37 Wyoming              2.8        Bush
38 Minnesota            2.5        Kerry
39 Utah                 2.5        Bush
40 Rhode Island         2.3        Kerry
41 Vermont              2.3        Kerry
42 Massachusetts        2.2        Kerry
43 North Dakota         1.9        Bush
44 Oregon               1.9        Kerry
45 Idaho                1.8        Bush
46 Hawaii               1.7        Kerry
47 Iowa                 1.6        Bush
48 New Hampshire        1.4        Kerry
49 South Dakota         1.3        Bush
50 Maine                1.2        Kerry


 Murder Rate Source: FBI Uniform Crime Statistics for 2003.

 Election Results from CNN.


 Seven of the 10 states with the highest murder
 rate voted for Bush.

 Sixteen of the 20 states with the highest murder
 rate voted for Bush.

 Six of the 10 states with the lowest murder rate
 voted for Kerry.

 Twelve of the 20 states with the lowest murder
 rate voted for Kerry.