7/28/14

a Kempis on Humility

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.  - Romans 12:3

The saints who are highest in God's sight are the least in their own: and the more glorious they are, the more humble they are in heart, full of truth and heavenly joy and not desirous of vainglory.
Being grounded and confirmed in God, they can in no way be proud.  They who ascribe to God whatever good they have received do not seek glory from one another, but only that glory which is from God; and the desire of their hearts is that God be praised in Himself and in all his saints, and to this end they always tend.

-St. Thomas a Kempis (14-15th Century spiritual writer)

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7/22/14

Christians persecuted in chaotic Iraq

The CNN headline from this week: Facing fines, conversion, or death, Christians flee Mosul.

A couple years ago our media and political leaders were rejoicing at the "Arab Spring" that - everyone quite naively said - would bring a wave of (Western-style) freedom and democracy across the Middle East.  Instead we've got violence in Lybia, Egypt, and Iran, and all out civil war in Iraq and Syria.

Today there is much suffering among the civilian populations of these countries, but especially among our brothers and sisters in Christ, who have often been singled out for violence, and have been forced to flee their homes.  In the case described in the CNN report, Christians are compelled to convert to Islam, or pay a fine, or leave town.  Most seem to be choosing the last option (since they don't really know how safe they will be if they stay under the ISIS regime if they do pay), but it seems their homes and all their possessions are being stolen from them by ISIS.  This situation is all the more outrageous since Christians were living peacefully in these communities centuries before Mohammed or Islam were ever born.

What can we do who believe in Christ when we hear of such stories of persecution in the news?

First of all, we should pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Pray that they will be safe; that the hearts of their enemies will be turned away from violent ideologies; pray especially that the followers of Christ will be strengthened by the Holy Spirit to boldly hold fast to the Savior of our souls, even in the face of persecution.  Pray that they will not respond to hate and violence with more hate and violence, but will dedicate themselves to truly following the Prince of Peace.

We should also remember that Jesus warned his disciples repeatedly that we would be hated on account of his name, and we shouldn't let platitudes about "the progress of freedom in the 21st Century" distract us from the fact that his words are proving true all around the world - and there is no immutable guarantee that we too, who currently live in free countries, will not one day face similar situations.

We should also urge our elected officials to speak out and seek to uphold freedom of religion and freedom of speech all for all peoples around this world (including right here as they pass laws that affect us).  I am trying to get in the habit of writing more actual 'stamp and paper' letters to my representatives - what good is having a voice, after all, if I don't use it to speak up?

I think that we should also urge our elected officials to take a less hawkish and more cautious approach to foreign policy goals - just because a tyrant is oppressive it does not necessarily follow that the country will become a haven of peace and freedom if we forcibly remove that tyrant from power.  Today we might seriously ask the question of whether the Iraqi people would have been better off had we left Saddam Hussein in power.  Without any doubt, the Christians of Iraq would have been (not to mention the tens of thousands of Iraqis who died in the war).
To be clear, I do not stand for isolationism, I do not hold that we should give up engagement altogether, or stop advocating for the God-given rights of all people (see above) - but it seems to me that we have been far too optimistic about what can really be accomplished through military means, and far too optimistic about the ability of the West to impose our values on other cultures, or the willingness and ability of Islamic culture to welcome our Western-style free democracy, since even the best real world examples have a questionable record when it comes to protecting minorities, and especially religious minorities.

We can also urge our church leaders and church mission organizations to respond - as best they can - to the needs of refugees in all of these countries, as in fact The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is actively doing in the Middle East.

Any more ideas that you have?  What else can we do?

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7/4/14

Religious freedom news

It is Independence Day in the USA and we Americans celebrate our freedoms in this great country.   When the Founding Fathers ratified the Constitution of the United States they also amended to it The Bill of Rights - the first 10 Amendments - laying out the basic rights of every US citizen.

The very first of these Amendments in that Bill of Rights deals with Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, and Freedom of Assembly.  Of these most fundamental rights for a free and open society, Freedom of Religion is the very first one that is addressed.  It is at the very top of the list of the most fundamental civil rights.  This is appropriate for a nation that had been settled and founded in the early days by Puritan Pilgrims looking for freedom from an English Government that had sought to impose certain religious beliefs and practices on all its subjects.

We know that in many places today Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech are denied to many peoples; this is the case in Communist Countries, virtually all Muslim-majority countries, and other localities as well.

Many people within the Christian churches in the US are concerned that there is growing intolerance of and inflexibility towards religious practice even in the (mostly free and democratic) Western Nations as well.  Some of this concern may be based upon fear-mongering on the internet with no real basis to it; but I believe some is legitimate and well-founded.

SO as we ponder these serious subjects in the coming days, here are two news stories that connect to them.
First, I celebrate that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby and another family-owned (Amish) company.  Both of these companies objected to the new requirements under "Obamacare" (the Affordable Care Act) that they be required to pay for artificial contraceptives (even those which kill an already living human embryo) that the owners of these companies object to on religious grounds.  A common analogy I've heard in conversation about this issue is, "It would be like the government requiring Jews to buy pork for people."

For those who want contraceptives, they are widely available and quite cheap - no one is saying that employees cannot purchase their own contraceptives (plus there is always the common-sense and Biblically-based notion of not having sex if one is not in a position to support children).  Yet the government of a free society should not force people - including people of a family or religious group who band together to form an economic enterprise - to violate their own religious principles.

On the other hand, in Europe, the European Court of Human Rights has upheld a French ban on face-coverings commonly used among Muslims.  The logic of the decision, that face-coverings make "living together" in society "more difficult" is quite vague and seems to me more than a little bit flimsy since one would expect a very specific safety risk would be necessary to justify a law that will in fact limit the freedoms of a small and rather despised religious minority (in this case, French Muslim women).

In my view Europeans are right to be concerned about radical strains within Islam (which seem rather common, even among Muslims raised in the West).  And as a general rule, agree it is indeed a good thing not to live in a society in which people regularly wear masks (though I wonder about the unintended consequences of this ban for wearing masks in public for traditional French All Hallows Eve or Carnival celebrations).  But in a truly free country a religious exemption should have been provided (especially since we are talking about only a couple of thousand Muslim women in all of France) - even if such an exemption itself had qualifications and limitations 'built in' to address the public safety concerns.

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