You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?
Let the genie be the combined energy, willpower and courage of one generation!
Christ is probably not visiting certain churches any more, and one might think that because Felonius I has not visited your church that you have nothing to say to rebuke him and all the other rogues seeking adulation. Because you’ve decked yourselves out with the trappings of Judaism or draped yourself in flags, cultural and national traditions does not mean you have contact with God or courage to face the foe. The foes that are exacting a cost from Christians are not foreigners to our several nations – that would end up in a racist and xenophobic fight – but the cowardly leaders who have failed to connect themselves with Christ and the apostles. Would they have rebuked Hitler? Would they have rebuked any of those abusive Roman emperors of the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries? Would they have rebuked Herod the fox? Did their ancestors deride the Ethiopian Emperor in 1936 at the League of Nations?
Your church’s name says something urgent and decisive about you, not just your church. It is unlikely that there is a theologian who does not have a few things in common with the representatives of the Messianic communities anywhere.
Failing to stand firmly for the weighty matters of faith and practice is confusing millions of people today. The focus so many people lack is the wonder of the cross. Of course those focused on this world will define themselves as acting responsibly for their small things, but small things are not Christ’s priorities. Incarnation is no peanuts. Atonement by blood is not a minor detour or inconvenience to God. The believer – prospective convert – loses his way by the time the church finishes its introductory speech. Looking away from the cross and expecting glory is like the horse calling the pond whither it was brought to drink a mirage. Christ is not Moses. Need I say Moses is not God’s Anointed? Understanding Levitical priesthood is not an essential for salvation and God’s way is his own Son.
The wielding of power by national leaders seems to begin and end with taxes and birth/death. The life and the living are not birthright issues. Most living people and the thirst for security are under the thumbs of unscrupulous and undisciplined persons. Some lessons are really hard to grab. For eight years the entire den of Jim Crow and White supremacist devotees watched their fiery darts fall at the feet of one Barrack Obama. The felon of Mar a Lago is America’s racist reaction – it is not a response – to Black intelligence and skill. Their noses will never lose the smell of their own excreta, even if they can design immunity for cops and presidents, or even if they can engineer a 3rd presidential term. “No one is able to serve two masters” is a lesson every generation has struggled to grasp. The slave trade and Jim Crow has drilled the idea of independence as a quality for some people, so expecting the agents of racism and xenophobia to wake up one morning and bring non-poisonous loaves of bread to their Black neighbours is not happening any time soon. The preachers of a money-loving Jesus will not call for justice. The third generation of American racists will not say Blacks are humans made in the image of God. That is how deeply ingrained American discrimination is. Imagine how steep a climb down it is for Jews, with millennia of a green light to stop denigrating Gentiles! Who indeed will effectively call for the beastly and prostitute nations to heed their master?
If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; (1 Peter 1:17)
Peter’s theology and Christology are respectively familiar and rare. He accurately separated rewards from the gift of salvation. For the children of God, judgment is a thing of the past. A strong delusion snaps relentlessly at the feet of those who see the church and the kingdom of God as matters of necessary indictment, inescapable conviction, and ongoing uncertainty, righteous idleness and terror.
The priority that comes from the exercise of faith in something other than creation is a breath of fresh air. Islam and Judaism are grounded in a Creator God, but they have nothing personal on which to build a life directly flavoured with divine finality as the creation was. Creation is over. The king and Lord of creation is not so lackluster as to have no essential channels for relating to humanity.
Peter’s disciple rolls out his gospel as sourced in God. John immediately declared the new creation. Matthew and Luke get to gospel after laying out the historical context.
John and Mark leave no opening for James and his Pharisee friends to align the grace of God with Moses and the prophets. We know the prophets could not personally relate to what they were being told, because what they were being told included the coming revelation of the messiah. It is catastrophic that so many Christians gather up under the flag of Mosaic tradition (prophets, temple, and law). We don’t know how many leaders like James existed in the churches in Palestine and Asia, but the absence of salvation by sacrifice from James’ letter puts him and all the people who think they have earned (or inherited) eternal life in a pickle. In some ways the dilemma of people who think that the cross can be relinquished at any point, is also like quicksand. Grace salts, unbelief pickles.
How much would you pay to go to the moon?
A trip to the moon would have interested me when Armstrong stepped on the moon’s surface and announced that he was pioneering a human journey. However, going to an uninhabitable place is the stuff of fantasy and extreme adventurism. Even to a mind brimming with creative energy, the vast sums spent of a single mission to the moon has to be reprehensible as long as hunger and poverty are still ravaging any part of the earth.
There are many humans who can easily spend the money for many trips to the moon, and that fact highlights the priorities of humanity. May the moon and earth that have supported life as we know it never become terminals in a one-way traffic industry for anyone.
It was the Allied Nations, led by the United States that retired German Nazism. Italian Fascism, and Japanese imperial adventurism. The cowardice of many in the face threats from China, Russia and the Middle eastern tigers has landed us in the lane of shallow slogans and inhumanity. In times of war nationalism facilitates an optimum military machine. Most nations have not built armies that can circle the globe, and many do not even have the forces to keep a nation safe from invasion and insurrection. Now that the United States is leading the charge back to borders, brutality and grandiosity it cannot be long before the Allied Nations cut the knot with mercurial governments.
While the United States and Canada remain joined in geography and North Atlantic security closet, Canadians and Americans are in a real tango for the foreseeable future. Decency will be seen in tatters and the things most feared will become commonplace. Haiti has come to America. Israel makes no convert and gathers no ally better itself. This is where the bloated generals and mighty men, the trades and cargo transporters start building shelters, even calling on unthinking entities. Canadian courage does not mirror US bravado.
When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
In my early teens, discovering ancestral heritage and the possibilities of romance, I felt I had arrived. I have spent the decades since then clinging to the glow of what should have been a speedy transition. I realize I have missed some of the essentials of growing up, but do not expect me to carry any guilt when a large number of my peers have also been clinging to priorities of the transition into adulthood.
The greatest experiment undertaken by God was the salvation of humanity. Islam has no salvation, America is currently reaching back for some dark and cruel greatness, and, sadly western Christianity has allied itself with Hitlerism and the barbarity of Italian fascism. Pastors are today saying Hitler did some good things. Instead of apologizing for the seven decades of trampling on the will of United humanity and the rights of their neighbours Israel’s PM milks the sympathy in the General Assembly of the United Nations with appeals for hostages to be returned, and sneers at the nations that are parting ways with the demoniac, genocidal megalomaniac government of Israel.
Today we shudder as we recall the United Nations forced to endure deceptive and divisive mumbo-jumbo from international criminal elements in the form of a speech by the 47th president of the United States. We can hold our commitment to truth and justice evermore tightly as the nations begin to distance themselves from the horrors of the US-Israel partnership. Viva the conscious quest for global peace and progress!
80 years ago the United Nations Charter was a hit. 77 years ago the Palestinian Problem began with the declaration of an independent Israel. 60 years ago an African leader summarized the optimism and challenges faced by what he called “mankind’s best hope”. Two years ago the government of South Africa brought action in the International Court of Justice against Israel.
Two days ago, with his ship severely listing, Captain Taco, polluted the UN podium and further added to the mountain of evidence that his dictatorial quest is on life support. Two days ago, Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, spoke at the UN virtually because Captain Taco refused visas to the Palestinian President (affecting 80 Palestinian representatives).
Here is the concluding portion of the speech of the venerable Haile Selassie I on June 27, 1965, when the UN Charter was 20 years old.
The activities of the United Nations Organization can raise the living standards of people throughout the world. However, how could it be possible for this great task to be accomplished satisfactorily when some states do not implement the decisions of the Organization? How could that last hope of mankind achieve its noble objective when some states are pursuing their own selfish ends of defying the authority of the international organization? Does it not mean that, if the solutions to the problems facing the world are not founded by the organization, and if these, when found, are not accepted by all member states, the international body is growing weaker and weaker? We feel that the United Nations in its efforts to provide a body of international law and to secure its respect as fallen short of expectation.
What course of action should the small nations pursue vis a vis the prevailing constitutional framework of the United Nations Organization and the existing international situation? Small nations ought to refrain from making themselves tools for igniting friction between the Great Powers. Receiving development aid and other forms of foreign assistance should not be conditioned by obligations to take sides. In order to achieve this goal, they must not only adhere to a policy of political non-alignment but they should also oppose and proscribe consistently all small conflicts brought about, and to be brought about, by the prevailing international cold war. At the time when We are striving hard to hold the arms race, We are convinced that a nuclear war would devastate the whole world. However, we must work together for the ending of the little wars which are consuming the energies of the small nations and decimating our people.
The untenable doctrine of racial supremacy, being a threat to the maintenance of international decent security as well as a serious set-back for establishing a salubrious atmosphere of understanding and corporation in the world, we must work together against the philosophy of racism.
I still like the nation’s organization with 30 for achieving these ends? Is the organization showing the zealous Spirit to pursue these ends consistently? If it has no authority for doing these things, are we ready and willing to invest it with enough power for the organization to carry out its task satisfactorily? If we are to survive the Organization has also got to survive. If the touch to survive, it should be strengthened. And, to strengthen its structure, the Organization must get the requisite authority. The weak must not be mauled or molested by the strong. All states are feeling conditions entitling them to membership should be admitted to the organization. Because peace cannot reign in an atmosphere reeking with poverty and hunger, We [sic] should explore and strengthen the means of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and enlightening the illiterate.
Today the Great Powers should also wake up to the realization of the fact that the key to their destiny and future happiness does not lie in their own hands alone. There is no peace without cooperation. Be it known that the principles enshrined in the Charter and the resolutions adopted by the Organization are not there only for the small nations to respect and implement. In efforts being made to ease the gravity of world problems, the small nations should have a say. Their voices should be heard. An atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence cannot be established when the rights of small nations are not accorded the same respect as those of the Big Powers. In order to accomplish these tasks, it is essential to rouse the conscience of mankind. Anyway, strength and mutual trust are two indispensable qualities for achieving the common goal. Even if there is strength, the common ground of mutual confidence must be established. To establish this, we must work diligently. Once we are able to do what is humanly possible, the rest could be left to the Almighty God. So that man whom He has created in his own image may not be destroyed, let us repose our faith in God.
(June 27th 1965)
International Criminal Elements will not prevail.
Life is Fun, But Not a Joke 