Son of Hamas gets asylum

I posted this afternoon on the trial awaiting Mosab Hassan Yousef, the "Son of Hamas." The answer is now out: he has been granted asylum:

Go here for a list of related news articles.

Pray for the Son of Hamas

If you subscribe to the Judeo-Christian faith then you will believe certain things. You will believe that the God of the universe condescends to hear the prayers of his people and not only hear but, in accordance with his will, to act thereupon. You will believe that a defining characteristic of this God is his חֶסֶד - covenant faithfulness to his people. Thus, if you pray for him to be faithful to those with whom he stands in covenant, will he not hear it?

Someone worthy of such prayer is Joseph, the son of the founder of Hamas and saver of hundreds of human lives: Israeli, Palestinian, American etc. For details on Joseph's life, further links and video interviews, go here. He currently stands, however, on the brink of being "betrayed" by the American government. Is betrayal too strong a word? If it isn't that, then it can only be an idiocy of such perversity that it makes George Bush's foreign policies look like case studies in cultural awareness.

Here's the situation, presented by Fox News:

For a later update, go here.

Can the Pope Bring Peace to the Middle East?

John L. Allen Jr., the senior correspondent of The National Catholic Reporter, reckons that

If he plays his cards right, Benedict could move things forward in four ways.

Read his article in the New York Times to find out how.

I wonder what people think of this bit:

Historically, Arab Christians have promoted a pluralistic vision of society, standing between resurgent Islamic fundamentalism and ultranationalist strains in Judaism. If they disappear, prospects for peace become dimmer. The pope must assure these believers that global Christianity will not abandon them.

Outrage in the West Bank

Can somebody please justify this to me.


Watch CBS Videos Online

A hard pill to swallow

is how I would describe my response so far to this war in Gaza. I tend to sympathize with Israel, but a fifty percent civilian death rate, in light of the fact that Israel itself has not always been as innocent as it claims, is too much for me. What do they expect after all this destruction? The result will be trauma, and trauma does not lead to the conditions of mutual trust necessary for any kind of agreement. I can't imagine what the future will look like after all this ... I know that Hamas are an "evil terrorist organisation" (to use a childish-sounding but true description, as these videos confirm), but Hamas are not the Palestinians and I can't help but wonder whether they voted for them in out of desparation with Israel's apparent lack of will to exchange land for peace ...

In order to form an opinion on this you need reliable information, and one theme of my posts over the last few days is that there doesn't seem to be any, or at least adequate criteria for judging. And not just reliable information, but also cultural and philosophical analyses to interpret what is going on (why did the Palestines dance with joy after 9/11, for example? What does that say about Israel's negotiation partner?). Nevertheless, the amount of information critical of Israel is overwhelming me at this point and I've not found too much to rebut it ... But then perhaps I haven't read enough.

The latest critical links come from a post by Roland Boer, the radical blogger at Stalin's Moustache, entitled Where have all the supporters gone? He links to a number of troubling articles on the rejection of Israeli action by Jews world wide. I struggle with some of their content (I cannot conceive how "genocide" is the best word to describe what is going on, it seems to me to be nothing of the sort; and when one article says that Hamas is "not a terrorist organisation" ... I'm sorry, but that article lost its credibility for me), but I also find myself looking around for some kind of justification of what's going on from the Israeli side. I need a response to each of the points that have been made, especially those in Avi Shlaim's article, which haunts me.

The latest troubling article is from Brian Hamilton of the blog Raids on the Unspeakable. The title says it all: Israel bans Arab parties from running in upcoming elections. Well, perhaps it doesn't. The fact that the motion is being taken to a high court, opposed as it is by other Israeli parties, and the fact that Arab parties exist at all, are, in my opinion, signs that Israel is not apartheid and not non-democratic.

But do feel free to contradict anything I say in the comments. In fact, I want you to. I'd just be grateful if you could provide evidence for your opinions.

Disclaimer: These are the relatively spontaneous thoughts of someone trying to follow a conflict in a foreign land, trying to find the time he has in an otherwise tight schedule. Nothing is absolute, and I welcome critique.

Update: I highly recommend you read the interesting and informative comment thread. In particular, Kevin, of the excellent blog biblicalia, has some eloquent statements of support for Israel in this current sitation (and in general), including a response to Avi Shlaim's Israel-critical article.

A blogger's view on the Gaza conflict

This blog has been such a blessing to me over the past year, as it's put me into contact with informed people from various spheres of life. I'm currently struggling to understand what is going on in Gaza. Kevin Edgecomb, author of the excellent blog biblicalia, has recently shared his views on the Gaza conflict, in response to my post A dialogue on the current Gaza invasion.I thought it was eloquent and interesting enough to deserve its own post. I'd also love to hear from others on this issue. Is Kevin right? Is he missing something? Are we all being brainwashed by the wrong media?

The shellings into Sderot began after Israel unilaterally decided to evacuate its settlements and end occupation of the Gaza Strip. This required the forced relocation of thousands of Israelis, and the end of profitable farms and orchards, to the detriment of the Gazans as well. This unilateral attempt at making peace has achieved nothing except putting Israeli communities in range of shelling from the Gaza strip. So, that was a stupid mistake. Relatedly, many of those families that were moved from the Gaza communities of Gush Katif and elsewhere have yet to be provided their government-promised new homes. This was a lose-lose situation for the Israelis all around. They have ruined the lives of thousands for nothing. Their attempts to make peace, following the suggestions bourgeois hand-wringers around the world, have failed repeatedly. Now, with Iranian Grad rockets having been smuggled into Gaza through the tunnels from Egypt, and these being used to extend the range of the attacks on Israel, the only response possible is the elimination of such a threat, through whatever means necessary. And, in keeping with international law, they are completely in the right, because of those continual mortar and rocket attacks over the last three years.

I've noticed another peculiarity in much of the coverage, calling Hamas' takeover of Gaza a coup. It was no such thing. They were elected by the majority of Palestinian voters to be the government of the Palestinians. (This should also give one pause, finding a populace with such a disgusting preference in representatives!) The Palestinian Authority (Abbas and the other "Tunisians"--the corruptocrats who followed Arafat around in his Tunisian exile and returned with him after the now-defunct Oslo Accords), however, was and is favored by the international powers, because they at least have the courtesy to lie to diplomats and pretend that they really want peace rather than the destruction of "the Zionist entity." PA/Fatah is no less culpable for suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks than Hamas is. (These, of course, were ceased not through any diplomatic skill, but through the construction by the Israelis of the security fence/wall, so that these terrorists couldn't just literally walk across the border to perpetrate their inhuman crimes.) But the PA now gets good press. It's just that diplomats prefer them for their diplomatic duplicity, and the news cycle (and apparently most of humanity) has a memory of approximately 24 hours.

So now in Gaza, we only have the two sides. One is Hamas, driven by a fanatical religious hatred of the Jews, their entire reason for existence being tied to the elimination of Jews. Number two, Israel, is the longest-lasting democracy and most vibrant economy in the entire region, which has been under assault by terrorists-cum-neighbors for the better part of forty years. And yet, this one little country is under so much more scrutiny than any other whenever it attempts necessary defense of its citizens, that they are required (and not only by outsiders, but by their own citizens) to jump through any number of nearly impossible hoops to effect that defense, and still they are cursed. Who has ever heard of phoning all the inhabitants of targeted buildings, telling them all to get out before they are bombed? It is extraordinary. It is also unnecessary. No other nation would ever have to do such a thing. And still, the outcry against Israel is vicious. It's pathetic. If this were fiction, I would throw it away as being completely unbelievable. And yet this is reality.

For a very different evaluation of the situation, see Avi Shlaim's article.

Bernard Lewis and Avi Shlaim on dimensions of the Israel-Palestine conflict

Bernard Lewis, an internationally renowned expert on Islam and the Middle East, (whom I have posted on here) published an interesting article while back on the basic issues facing peace negotiations in Israel. Here are excerpts, but do read the whole thing:

The first question (one might think it is obvious but apparently not) is, "What is the conflict about?" There are basically two possibilities: that it is about the size of Israel, or about its existence.

...

If, ... , the issue is the existence of Israel, then clearly it is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between existing and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.

PLO and other Palestinian spokesmen have, from time to time, given formal indications of recognition of Israel in their diplomatic discourse in foreign languages. But that's not the message delivered at home in Arabic, in everything from primary school textbooks to political speeches and religious sermons. Here the terms used in Arabic denote, not the end of hostilities, but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel can be resumed with better prospects for success. Without genuine acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, as the more than 20 members of the Arab League exist as Arab States, or the much larger number of members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference exist as Islamic states, peace cannot be negotiated.

Do read the whole article - it's not long - but contains information that is important to know.

For a more antagnostic view (admittedly on a different issue), also by an Israeli, see Avi Shlaim's article "How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe" (in the Guardian). The two articles don't actually contradict each other. Here's an extract:

Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial era. Jewish settlements in occupied territories are immoral, illegal and an insurmountable obstacle to peace. They are at once the instrument of exploitation and the symbol of the hated occupation. In Gaza, the Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land and the lion's share of the scarce water resources. Cheek by jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population lived in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them still subsist on less than $2 a day. The living conditions in the strip remain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.

The article makes difficult reading, especially for someone like me who has a real soft spot for Israel. I don't want to believe it, and often I can tell myself that the person is biased or twisting things (that certainly happens alot from pro-Palestinian sources). But this guy is a professor of international relations at Oxford, someone who actually supports the existence of Israel and has served in its army!

The current conflict is a bitter pill for me to swallow, and I'm looking around for guidance on this issue ...

Eine Fürbitte für die Christen im Irak

My Bible study group dedicated last night to learning about and praying for the Christians in Iraq (and I think we managed about a fifty/fifty balance of prayer and learning). Not only did we use the most recent articles on the topic, we also had the pastor of the arab congregation which meets on our premises. Eyes were opened (wide), emotions were stirred, souls searched, and horizons broadened. I hope and pray it wasn't a one off wonder, but that we will continue to bear our brothers in prayer and remember our responsibility to the larger church. The following is a litany I swiped from the EKD website:

Liturg: Gütiger und barmherziger Gott,
wir legen unsere Hände zusammen
und halten Fürbitte für die verfolgten Christen im Irak:

Sprecher I:
Gott, Ruhe und Sicherheit
gibt es noch immer nicht im Irak.
Die Situation ist so verworren, wie nie zuvor.
Die Bevölkerung lebt in großer Angst
und ihre Hoffnung wird kleiner
angesichts der vielen Anschläge und der vielen Toten.
So viele Menschen sind auf der Flucht -
Christen, Muslime, Yeziden,
Mandäer, Kurden, Araber, Turkmenen -
der ganze Irak scheint unterwegs zu sein.
Wo gibt es Sicherheit, wo Schutz, wo Geborgenheit
in diesem friedlosen und von Gewalt erschütterten Land?
Wann wird dieses geschundene Land
endlich im Frieden leben dürfen?

Höre unser gemeinsames Rufen: Kyrie eleison.

Sprecher II:
Gott, wir machen uns große Sorgen
um unsere christlichen Brüder und Schwestern -
grausame Nachrichten erreichen uns fast täglich,
sie müssen, um ihr Leben bangen.
Von fanatischen Islamisten werden sie gejagt und vertrieben.
Ihre Gotteshäuser sind Zielscheibe von Zerstörungen.

Höre unser gemeinsames Rufen: Kyrie eleison

Sprecher I:
Gott, wir können es nicht fassen,
dass Christen im Irak wegen ihres Glaubens
ermordet werden.
Stärke die Kraft ihres Glaubens;
halte deine Hand über alle,
die Angst haben;
gib ihnen Menschen zur Seite,
die sie schützen und für sie beten;

Höre unser gemeinsames Rufen: Kyrie eleison

Sprecher II:
Gott, wir denken an die vielen Flüchtlinge unter den Christen,
die aus Angst ihre Heimat verlassen haben,
deren Familien auseinander gerissen sind,
die um einen ihrer Lieben trauern.
Vor unseren Augen vollzieht sich gegenwärtig
der größte Exodus von Christen weltweit.
Wir denken an die Kinder,
die heimatlos geworden sind;
wir denken an die Eltern, die nicht wissen,
wie es mit ihnen in Jordanien und Syrien weitergeht;
Wir denken aber auch an die Menschen,
die sich um diese Flüchtlinge kümmern,
die sie begleiten und trösten.
Gib ihnen Kraft, barmherziger Gott,
und Mut für diesen wichtigen Dienst.

Höre unser gemeinsames Rufen: Kyrie eleison

Die unerträglichen Qualen der Christen im Irak

My Bible study group will be praying for Iraqi Christian refugees tomorrow night. For those who can read German, I've gathered some recent articles on the subject of their plight. Germany has decided to give Christians special attention in assigning refugee status, due to the severity of their situation (which reminds me of the EU's decision to give refugee status to Pakistani women on the basis that they are a persecuted minority).

- Eine Relgion in Todesgefahr
- Deutsche Freikirchen fordern von Politikern Soforthilfe für Irakische Flüchtlinge
- Die unerträglichen Qualen der Christen im Irak
- Irakische Flüchtlinge bitten Christen der Welt um Solidarität

Die Welt summarises the situation succinctly:

Die Liste der Gräueltaten gegen Christen im Irak ist lang: Schutzgelder werden erpresst, Läden geplündert, gebrandschatzt und enteignet, Kirchen in die Luft gesprengt, Mädchen vergewaltigt und zwangsislamisiert, Priester enthauptet oder gekreuzigt. Deutschland setzt sich in der EU für die Aufnahme von Flüchtlingen ein.

The Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) has typed up a Fürbitte für die Christen im Irak.

There is also an English language website dedicated to the Christians of Iraq.

Interview with MOSAD on a Palestinian blog

I'm delighted to have discovered a fascinating blog by a Palestinian journalist and mother, Raising Yousuf and Noor: diary of a Palestinian mother. It's not always easy to find balanced opinions and reportage on this part of the world, so I'm delighted to find the blog of a professional with strong ties to the land. Her posts not only concern current developments, but details of daily life in the Gaza strip and the struggles her people face (such as her father's recent e-mail from Gaza, or another e-mail from Ramallah) Here's here self-description:

I am a Palestinian journalist who divides her time between Gaza and the United States, where Yousuf's father, a Palestinian refugee denied his right of return to Palestine, and thus OUR right as a family to live together, resides. This blog is about the trials of raising our son between Gaza and the US, while working as a journalist, and everything that entails from potty training to border crossings. Together, we endure a lot, and the personal becomes political. This is our story.

Of particular interest is an interview she held with "former MOSAD spy chief cum Labor politician Danny Yatom" for Al Jazeera. Here's an interesting section:

Would Israel assassinate Meshaal today?

The Israeli policy is that as long as there is terror, the terrorist must understand that anyone who executes terror will not enjoy immunity.

So Mossad carries out extra-judicial assassinations?

The way I will refer to it is that whoever deals with terror should not enjoy any immunity.

Without regard to international law?

With regard to what [former president] Bill Clinton said: there should be zero tolerance for terror.

Israel in 2040?

In April of this year, the Economist published a special report on Israel. You can read the online edition here. I enjoyed all the contributions and found them to be informative and fair. I particularly found a citation in the opening article helpful, in which Yehezkel Dror, an Israeli political scientist, sets out two contrasting visions of how his country might look in 32 years time. It is taken from his book "Epistle to an Israeli Jewish-Zionist Leader" and represents a secular Zionist point of view. I found the scenarios helpful for getting an overview on the current options facing Israelis and Palestinians, especially as I struggle to see how a strictly Zionist solution can offer any long term justice (the Arab-Israeli arguments for "multiculturalism" in the article just seem more reasonable. But I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise!).

So, how realistic are the following scenarios? And is the first the best solution for all?

In the first [scenario], [Israel] has some 50% more people, is home to two-thirds of the world's Jewry and, as today, is four-fifths Jewish itself. The other fifth, its Arab citizens, have accepted the state's Jewish identity, thanks to efforts to end discrimination against them and to the creation of a viable Palestinian state next door. The country enjoys a flourishing knowledge-based economy, a thriving cultural life and a just society, and has good relations and strong trade links with most of the Middle East. A serene balance of Zionist and humanist values infuses both state affairs and everyday life. Reforms have stabilised the political system. Fast public transport has minimised the country's already small distances, encouraging mobility, and many of its citizens happily divide their lives between Israel and other countries.

In the second scenario, Israel has only half the world's Jews, their majority in Israel itself is down to two-thirds and shrinking, and “Zionism” has become a term of ridicule among the young. Jews abroad see Israel as increasingly backward and irrelevant to them, and Jews of different streams within Israel are at loggerheads. Pressure is rising, both at home and abroad, for Israel to become a fully democratic, non-Zionist state and grant some form of autonomy to Arab-Israelis. The best and brightest have emigrated, leaving a waning economy. Government coalitions are fractious and short-lived. The different population groups are ghettoised; wealth gaps yawn. Israel is in conflict with a hostile Palestinian state that was declared unilaterally; Islamic fundamentalism in the region is on the rise; and any peace deals between Israel and its neighbours—some of which now have weapons of mass destruction—are looking shaky.

British Religious Nationalism: "And was Jerusalem builded here ... ?"

This could be seen as visual representation of Barack Obama's recent comments.

My first thought was , "Wow, I'm glad we don't have anything like this in England or Germany."

On second thoughts, however, though no longer in currency, England does have a religious-national myth with quite a long history behind it. According to Meic Pearse (whose book I reviewed here), this myth has consisted of three elements:

1. According to the Arthur legends, King Arthur was a faithful Christian whose battles against the pagan Anglo-Saxons were interpreted on a higher plane. This was encouraged by the myth of the Holy Grail, a cup containing the blood and Christ and brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea, not long after the crucifixion. This enabled the English to claim that there was a strand of Christianity present in Britain stretching back to the apostolic period. The English Reformers were able to draw on this myth in order to answer the Catholic question, "Where was your church before Luther?" Apparently, it was the Synod of Whitby (663-664) that had eradicated the true faith that had been preserved by these Celtic Christians. The Celtic church became an early medieval Protestant institution, characterized by evangelical purity and wholly independent of Rome.


2. This was picked up by William Tyndale (c. 1494-1536), John Bale (1495-1563) and the martyrologist John Foxe (1516-1587). Foxe's book gave the impression that God is concerned in some particular way with England. The message throughout is that God as always had his Englishmen who will stand for the truth and that Protestantism is to be identified closely with Englishness. Queen Elizabeth was hailed as a second Emperor Constantine in her battle against the Antichrist, identified with the Pope and thus foreign powers (mainly Spain). According to Pearse, Foxe's religious nationalism informed English people's understanding of the ongoing conflict with Spain and of the thread posted by remaining Catholics in England.


3. Finally, there is the odd British Israel theory, first popularized by the Richard Brothers (1757-1824). Drawing on the Arthurian legends and the idea of English Protestant specialness, the theory holds that the British were and are the lost tribes of Israel. Their connection with biblical history therefore pre-dates Christ. This theory was widely credited in the 19th C. In World War I, Admiral Sir John Fisher,First Sea Lord of the British Navy advocated

"a great Commonwealth - yes a great Federation - of all those speaking the same tongue [English]. ... And I suppose now we have got [sic] Palestine that this Federal House of Commons of the future will meet at Jerusalem, the capital of the lost Ten Tribes of Israel, whom we are without a doubt, for how otherwise could ever we have so prospered when we have had such idiots to guide us and rule us?" (105)

Thanks to Halden for the image.

Political narcissism

Scott Stephens has written an interesting analysis of Barack Obama's campaign approach, entitled: The dangers of Obamania: why Barack Obama is bringing out the worst in the American public. For me, as someone who isn't following current events in the U.S. as much as I should be, the following quote was both shocking and sickening ... I don't want to be overly apocalyptic, but it seems to me that with an attitude like this Obama is simply affirming a fatal blindness that caused Bush to plunge America into its current crisis. Not that I don't think America can't be a force for good in the world, but this ... ?

And notice the way Obama expresses himself in the closing paragraph of his speech on the night of the last Democratic primary (3 June 2008):

‘I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment ... when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals.’

Doesn’t this demonstrate that, far from representing a seismic shift in the political landscape, Obama’s campaign is little more than a vulgar repetition of Reagan’s political narcissism? And to this extent, isn’t Obama’s message of change simply an appeal to latent antiestablishment sentiment among the public, and thus a craven affirmation of the status quo? No one has framed these concerns with more precision than Shelby Steele, who insists that Obama is ‘neither a revolutionary nor even a reformist’, but rather a gifted politician who is ‘simply infatuated with the possibilities of his own skin color within the world as it is’, and whose genius ‘is to know his currency within the status quo’. One can’t blame Obama for being such a politician; but neither should we confuse his campaign language with the kind of change that America so desperately needs.

Is religion a primary cause of war?

Many thanks to Chris Tilling for the following book. My review was first published on his blog here. Details: Meich Pearse, The Gods of War: Is Religion the Primary Cause of Violent Conflict? (Nottingham: IVP), 2007.

The current spout of religious warfare has generated a more vigorous secular critique of the religious worldview as inherently violent. Pearse reports that an opinion poll in Britain in late 2006 indicated that 82 % of adults “see religion as a cause of division and tension between people. Only 16 % disagree” (14). This is a sentiment expressed both in the media and amongst Western intellectuals such as Richard Dawkins, Anthony Grayling, and Sam Harris. In response to this misrepresentation, Meic Pearse has taken it upon himself to demonstrate historically that wars are multi-causal and complex, and are motivated by all ideologies, secularist as well as religious. His book attempts to substantiate four main arguments:

1.Irreligion has produced wars far worse and far bloodier than religion.
2.We must distinguish between belligerent and non-belligerent religion.
3.Cultures enshrine religion, and wars fought for one often appear as being fought for the other.
4.The global secularist campaign against religion and traditional cultures (as supposedly violent) is already and will continue to be productive of the most ferocious violence.

The first chapter opens with the truism that the 20th Century was the bloodiest century of all. The key question is whether this massive bloodshed was simply a result of more developed technology or whether it is connected with the prevailing secular ideologies of the time. Pearse illustrates how within the ideologies of the key thinkers of Communism, Fascism and the French Revolution, human life was considered expendable for the sake of the attainment of a particular abstract ideal, an understanding of “the grand scheme of things.” Within these secular creeds, the end not only justified the means of its attainment, it defined what it meant to be human. “People” had no intrinsic value grounded in the imago dei, rather they were a theoretical construct to which the “facts” must conform. This attitude, combined with technology, has had catastrophic consequences.

Not that religion can be excused. Chapter two looks at the question of religion as a cause of war. Religion is defined as “an interconnected system of beliefs and/or practices rooted in the numinous or spiritual world that gives meaning to the lives of those who embrace them or have been reared in them” (22). Yet when we try to analyse concrete historical examples, we are faced with the complexity of their causes. Were the Jewish revolts of the first century religious or political? How about the druids in Roman Britain? Christianity was peaceful for the first 300 years of its existence, and then became bloody from 330 A.D. An overview of the wars of the Greeks, Romans, Vikings, Mongols, French and Americans indicates that more mundane factors such as greed, security, booty, glory, territory and nationalism were the predominant factors rather than religion.

More clear cut cases are the subject of chapter three. Islam, in contrast to Christianity, was “cradled in war.” Pearce outlines its history of violence and notes that it shares a teleology or dynamic with communism: universal, this-wordly rule. In dividing the world between dar al harb (“sphere of war,” i.e. the non-Muslim world) and dar al Islam (“sphere of Islam”), the price of peace becomes submission to Islam. Christianity, on the other hand, had a different beginning and ideology. It has no equivalent of the Muslim ummah, the believers whose life must be expressed as a political entity. Though the Crusades were no less violent, Pearce argues that their causes are more “mixed.” Indeed, the undefined frontier of Europe has always been a source of war, regardless of the religious affiliation of each side. In a sense, war between East and West seems inevitable.

Chapter four offers an historical analysis of wars in which the situation is far more ambiguous. The English and American civil wars, the conquests of South America, the conflicts between the Orthodox church and the Ottoman empire. Often cultural identities are enshrined by a religion, so that a challenge to this identity leads to an increase in religious intensity. Often, religion functions as a morally convenient cloak for another cause. In the end, religion in inseparable from cultural, social and political issues.

The following two chapters look in detail and a particularly insidious mix of politics and religion: religious-national myths. In the cases of Serbia, Russia and England, the nation is deified and rendered immune to criticism.

So what causes war? Chapter seven offers a historical overview. In ancient times religion was hardly significant. The key issue was was access to property in the form of livestock, food, slaves, land and women. When religion was present, it often functioned as a restraint on war, as the fall of the Roman Empire, the medieval papacy and the Islamic umma indicate. For Pearse, it wasn't until the rise of popular rule that religion became a major factor in creating conflict. When loyalty to an absolute ruler is not enough to acquire popular support for a conflict, reference to an abstract principle that generates both group identity and enthusiasm is necessary. Religion becomes a handy framework of meaning to meet these needs.

This is, more or less, what Marxists have always said, and so Pearce draws on their arguments in chapter 8. Though for the first 300 years Christianity was spread by persuasion, the moment it was adopted as the meta-narrative of the state, the sanctification of that state's wars is inevitable. Marx helps us uncover the real aspirations that undergird a state's use of religious language: namely economics and politics. This can be seen in the transformation that Christian doctrine underwent from the time of Eusebius onwards, through the Middle Ages and into the Reformation, as various states adopted varieties of the religion for its own purposes. The same pattern, claims Pearse, can be seen in other religions.

Chapter 9 furthers these arguments by demonstrating that both historically and theologically the church was never intended to form the basis of a political order. When that has occurred, the church has strayed from its roots and a belligerent form of Christianity is the result. It wasn't until the Anabaptists, with their insistence on the split between the state and church, that a situation similar to that of the early church was rediscovered after the “Constantinian” development. In addition to this, the pluralistic political developments in the modern era have helped create a situation in which the church can stop trying to do that for which it was not designed—running society—and get back to it's original function: guiding individual lives. Today, though there is still an inner-ecclesial debate concerning pacifism, it is universally agreed upon that when war is waged, it cannot be fought to spread the faith.

So, can a Christian fight at all? Pearce doesn't provide an easy answer, as to do so is to sanitize war. War is an insoluble dilemma and neither pacifism nor theories of just war can adequately deal with it. Both arguments are analysed for their strengths and weaknesses, and Martin Luther King and Bonhoeffer are drawn on as role models. The solution: in war there is none, neither in theory or practice. The best we can do is take moral responsibility for our own actions and to keep those decisions conscious. No general or king can do that for us.

Pearse ends with a glance at our contemporary situation. In his final chapter, “The War Against Faith and Meaning,” he points out that apart from greed a principle cause of war is conflict over the shape of society. The principled irreligion of the West, spread through globalization, in which meaning itself is held to be the problem and thus must be banished, is an “absolutizing relativism” that is itself a cause of violence. Rather than being a universal pancea, the attempt to eliminate difference both inside and outside the West is just another unattainable utopianism which produces violence through its intolerance. The only real solution to world peace is genuine tolerance, which can accept different kinds of polity and the cultural spaces that make them possible. “And to that end, Christians, who know from Scripture and from their own painful, error ridden past that their faith is not a basis for governing society as a whole but a private choice and a transcendent calling, have far, far more to contribute than most” (207).

I thoroughly enjoyed this read and can recommend it to all. Whether one agrees with his construal of Christianity or not, this informative and eloquent book provides us with important categories for entering an important debate.

Update: Halden has posted a book review on a similar topic: Ramachandra's Subverting Global Myths. Looks well worth checking out. Here's an interesting quote:

“Consider the following analogy. Given the universality of sexual experience, it is hardly surprising that this powerful human drive should also be the site of rape, pedophilia, bestiality, genital mutilation and other grotesque acts. most of us woudl regard these acts as twisted perversions of a healthy and important part of our human identity and flourishing. (Indeed, we have been taught by feminists that rape is primarily about power, not sexual pleasure.) Why not apply the same reasoning to religious faiths? Given the universality of religious experience, it is hardly surprising that certain acts of grotesque violence should not only occur in religious communities but be imbued with religious meanings and justification.” (p. 79)

Contemporary Islam and the Modern Middle East: An Interview with Bernard Lewis

Bernard Lewis is an internationally acclaimed expert on Isalm and the Middle East. You can read a fascinating interview with him by the Jerusalem Post here. He discusses the role of women in the Middle East, attitudes to Israel and America, contemporary trends and future developments. He talks of the need to distinguish between Isalm as religion and Islam as civilization, and the perversion of true Isalm by fundamentalists. Here's his conclusion, a summary of the challenge that lies ahead.

People of my generation have not forgotten Neville Chamberlain's Munich Agreement with Hitler. That was a perfect example of "preemptive cringe" diplomacy. It was the sort of thing which gave the previously innocent word "appeasement" a bad name.

What we are facing now is the third major threat to the world. The first was Nazism, the second Bolshevism and now this. There are parallels. Germany is a great nation, and German patriotism is a perfectly legitimate expression of the pride and loyalty Germans have for their country. But Nazism was a monstrous perversion of that and a curse to the Germans, as well as a threat to the rest of the world.

The aspiration for social betterment and social justice is very noble. But Bolshevism was a monstrous perversion of that, as well as a curse to Russia and a threat to the rest of the world.

Now we have a third similar situation. Islam is one of the great religions that sponsored one of the greatest civilizations in human history. But it has fallen into the hands of a group of people who are the equivalent of the Nazis and the Bolsheviks. They are a curse to their own people, as well as a threat to the rest of the world.

In all three cases, defeat means liberation.

Hat tip Kevin Edgewood, via The Biblicalist.

The Hamas Dilemma

“Palestine remains more an idea than a state, and the battle to control its destiny is waged in coffee shops and classrooms, hospitals and mosques, and, through the waning months of 2006 and into early 2007, in bloody street battles between Hamas and Fatah supporters. Memories die hard in this troubled terrain, and the relative calm initiated in February by a fragile agreement to pursue a unity government is unlikely to erase the chaos and the killing that immediately preceded the new détente. Many believe that attempts to forge a unity government and institute democratic rule are premature when the occupation remains a stubborn fact and Palestinians are experiencing a collective identity crisis.”

—from Richard A. Johnson’s “The Hamas Dilemma,”, The Walrus Magazine