azimagery AZ Bike & Peace: Jesus in Afghanistan

Four Points Toward Peace in the Middle East

by Brian McLaren 04-16-2009

I’ve written a lot on Palestine and Gaza in recent years. Any of us who travel (or read) know that peace in the world can’t be separated from peace in Israel — peace for Jews, and peace for Muslim and Christian Palestinians. There is probably no single issue more important to helping Muslims and Christians and Jews live in peace world-wide than resolving the crisis of peace in Israel.

Not long ago I posted this song about the conflict:

In the coming months, I hope that more and more of us — especially those of us from evangelical backgrounds — will start speaking out on this subject, addressing four key issues with courage, passion, and persistence:

1. The equal rights of both Jewish and Palestinian people to security, equity, and prosperity, and the equal responsibilities of both groups to seek, not just good for “their own,” but the common good of all.

2. The need to confront the terrible, deadly, distorted, yet popular theologies associated with Christian Zionism and deterministic dispensationalism. These systems of belief — so common among my fellow evangelical Christians — too often lead people to act as if Jewish people have God-given rights but Palestinians do not. They use a discredited hermeneutic (way of interpreting the Bible) to imply that God shows favoritism — that God is concerned for justice for one group of people and not for others. They create bigotry and prejudice against Muslims in general … and in particular against Palestinians, many of whom are Muslim but many of whom are Christian too. These doctrinal formulations often use a bogus end-of-the-world scenario to create a kind of death-wish for World War III, which — unless it is confronted more robustly by the rest of us — could too easily create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you hold to a deterministic-dispensationalist or Zionist theology, I sincerely hope you will rethink your view. I grew up with these views as well, and have become thoroughly convinced that they are not only biblically unfaithful but also, in too many cases, morally and ethically harmful. I know that rethinking these things can make your life more difficult — friends, church members, and even family members may reject you, for example. But think back to the 1950s and 1960s: Wasn’t it necessary for many Christians to have the courage to differ when racism was acceptable and even justified in most American churches? Wouldn’t you want to have the same moral courage today you would have wanted to have back then?

If you are unwilling to reconsider your commitment to deterministic-dispensationalist or Zionist theology, I hope you will at least try to avoid extremist tendencies by your colleagues who share these beliefs, so you can be faithful to the scriptures that tell us God is not a respecter of persons, that God shows no partiality (try James 2, for example), that God cares about “the least of these,” and that love never rejoices in evil. If you are open and willing to rethink your views, here are three books I’d encourage you to read:

In God’s Time: The Bible and the Future

The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation

Blood Brothers

The longstanding atrocity of anti-Semitism of Christian history is a horrible atrocity that must be faced and repented of, and Christian Zionists should be applauded for wanting to turn the page on the anti-Semitism that was tragically common in church history. But we must remember that the cure to an old bigotry is not a new bigotry: It is a realization that God is creator of all people, that all people equally bear the image of God, and that the prosperity, equity, and security of some cannot be purchased at the expense of others.

3. The need to see and name injustice wherever it appears — in our allies as well as in our enemies — and to oppose injustice wherever it occurs. A case could be made that injustices committed by our allies hurt our national interests more than injustices committed by enemies … which means that we, as individuals and as religious and political participants, must call for an end to land theft being suffered by Palestinians, just as we must call for an end to all forms of violence and terrorism being perpetrated against Jewish people in Israel

4. The need to face the same injustices in our own history in the U.S. (or wherever we live). For example, the treatment of Palestinians in Israel bears many similarities to the treatment of Native Americans and racial minorities in the U.S. (right up until today) … both forms of bigotry have been theologically “justified” using lots of Bible quotations, and both require a change in theology — and a change in heart — so they can be healed.

Brian McLaren (brianmclaren.net) is a speaker and author, most recently of Everything Must Change and Finding Our Way Again.

http://blog.sojo.net/2009/04/16/four-points-toward-peace-in-the-middle-east/

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Did you have a good Easter weekend? If you were in Washington D.C. for the holiday, you may have noticed a different kind of Easter Bunny hanging around the Gallery Place/Chinatown metro. Instead of handing out jellybeans and chocolate, this bunny was handing out plastic eggs filled with a little toy soldier and a question about the war in Afghanistan. Here are a few examples of those questions:

“Without a clear mission, is escalating Afghanistan like escalating Vietnam?”

“What is the impact of the war in Afghanistan on the U.S. economy?”

“Should the United States stop using predator drones and assassination teams?” (civilians kills woman kids !!!!)

“Has anybody tried to find out what the people of Afghanistan want?” (Jesus Easter !!!!!)

These are just some of the questions that the Rethink Afghanistan campaign is asking about the war in Afghanistan. Robert Greenwald, president of Brave New Foundation, is directing and producing a documentary on the war and releasing it in “real-time” segments over YouTube. In a New York Times article describing the time-sensitive nature of public policy (especially when it comes to the war in Afghanistan), Robert says, “It didn’t seem to make sense to make a film that would come out even six months from now.”

Instead, Robert plans to release several segments over YouTube as they are created and then eventually string them together for a full-length feature. In honor of tax day this week, Brave New Foundation has just released the third segment of the Rethink Afghanistan documentary, titled “Cost of War.” (To see the first two segments, click on “Troops” and “Pakistan“; “Women’s Rights” and “Refugees” are still in production and will be released on YouTube as they are completed.)

The hope in all this is to contribute to the foreign policy debate and restore accountability to U.S. actions, especially military ones. Because I am a person of faith, I thought that Brave New Foundation’s Easter Bunny action was incredibly meaningful. There’s a new year, a new administration, and a renewed sense of hope and confidence that diverse (and even progressive!) voices are welcome and valued. For all you Sojourners, I also hope that this Easter Bunny and his questions signal the rebirth of a critical stance against violence and hyper-militarization, and a return to worshipping the God who triumphed over torture, execution, and the Roman empire.

Do you have some questions about the war in Afghanistan that you think Congress should ask? Join us on Facebook and submit a video question on our wall, or visit Rethink Afghanistan to write your question. Let’s push our Congress to ask the difficult questions and demand answers – before we commit even more money and more American lives to the conflict. http://blog.sojo.net/2009/04/16/video-the-easter-bunny-asks-you-to-rethink-afghanistan/

Anna Almendrala was a Sojourners intern from 2007-2008. She now lives in Los Angeles, California, and works for Brave New Foundation as the Marketing & Distribution associate. Follow her on Twitter to keep updated on the Rethink Afghanistan campaign. http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog/

http://blog.sojo.net/2009/04/15/might-will-never-make-right-in-afghanistan/?continue

Might Will Never Make Right In Afghanistan

by Randy Woodley 04-15-2009

I consider myself a peacemaker and a patriot. I come from a long line of warriors and military servicemen. But, along with other Americans in my generation, the idea of blind patriotism died for me during the Vietnam War. Then, after my conversion in 1975, I found Jesus had much more to say about making peace than making war. I now understand peacemaking to be the first, the wisest, and the most critical act of courage and Christian faith. With all that said, I can say without hesitation that I consider the continuation of a war in Afghanistan to be pure foolishness. It is a war that we cannot win.

What qualifies me to make such a statement? Certainly the history of our involvement in the Middle East is complicated since our government has been covertly active in the politics of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Israel, etc. for many decades. We have sided with both “liberal” and “fundamentalist” despotic regimes in this ancient part of the world.

As a Native American, I made it a point to become a student of the 500 plus years of history between Native Americans and Euro-Americans. My ancestors suffered genocide, displacement, assimilation to colonialism, and now to modernism, at the hands of Euro-Americans and, in particular, at the hands of the United States Government. One needs only to see the other (often untold) side of history, such as the Native American viewpoint, to understand how imperialism works. The principals of conquest and exploitation still held by the United States cannot gain anything but a demoralizing loss in Afghanistan. Here are just a few of the reasons:

No One Size Fits All

The U.S. likes to poise itself as “the good guys against the bad.” History shows that we look for broad sweeping approaches to complex problems. These simplistic storylines “sell” to the American people. This is how the American Myth is made and perpetuated. The same thing happened with my ancestors when Native Americans were considered to be the terrorists. Generally, the process went like this: The government would find a few chiefs who would sign a document that betrayed the others, and the U.S. pretended like the whole group was represented. This happened in spite of the fact that they knew our own systems never allowed any one chief or individual to speak for everyone. It’s much the same in the remote areas of Afghanistan. Even if the chiefs speak for their tribes, they will be forced into a unilateralism that employs few local strategies.

Lack of Indigenization

Afghani ideas of governance are not the same as American ideas of democracy. In fact, democracy is a “by-word” to people in the region. The tribes and the central government of Afghanistan are not even settled on their relationship to each other (read Taliban), much less with the tenuous role that Pakistan must play. These indigenous ideas mean very little to the United States. Cultural concerns over how indigenous ideas develop and whether or not the cultures are worth preserving are not on the U.S. radar. If you don’t believe this, just recall the lack of cultural appreciation exhibited by the U.S. in allowing the looting of ancient Iraqi cultural treasures from their National Museum. The people of the region soon come to understand that if we care nothing for their culture, we care nothing for their people.

Inability to Train True Leaders for the Long Haul

Because of our intransigence we have a terrible record of finding and influencing honest indigenous leaders who will give themselves in the way that they choose, for the best of the ideas we espouse. Instead, part and parcel of siding with America most often means that leaders trained by us become betrayers to their own people and culture. This process just increases the likelihood of continued instability. In time, another group must rise up to take back their country from foreign ideology and influence.

Renewed Patriotism

I do love America and I have traveled most of it. I love the land. I lovethe people. And, I love the government when it acts in the best of true democratic ideas. Most often this has happened when the government made room for the people to carry out those altruistic ideas that both soldiers and activists have died to protect and preserve.

Unfortunately, if we act in the same ways we have in the past, anyone can see that we cannot win in Afghanistan. Even if our government is determined that we must intervene in Afghanistan, no matter how hard we try, might will never make right. Minimally, the end result of our intervention will be a continued unstable region, including the escalation of Pakistani involvement, massive suffering of innocent Afghani civilians, and the heartbreaking loss of life to U.S. soldiers. And, the terrorists will live to fight another day.

So what should we do to gain influence in the region? Instead of increasing our military for conflict, let’s send them as an army of builders. Equip them in providing culturally sensitive opportunities for education, human rights, creating medical facilities, micro-economic development, agronomists, peace-makers, etc. This is the kind of army we should be equipping. Sure, it sounds starry-eyed and simplistic, but this is the only kind of army that can win in Afghanistan. The old strategies will not work. Perhaps if we tried what I would call a more Christian approach, we might even find Jesus in Afghanistan.

Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley is a Keetoowah Cherokee Indian descendent and the author of Living in Color: Embracing God’s Passion for Ethnic Diversity. He teaches history, theology, and culture at George Fox Evangelical Seminary in Portland, Oregon.