Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over?

People on the lefter side of the political spectrum tend to represent blogs like Daily Kos as representing something like mainstream serious political and social thinking.

Now I normally wouldn’t dignify Kos with a link, but recently they’ve been discussing whether Bush will refuse to step down in 2009, and begin rounding up dissenters into camps.

These people are so utterly sheltered. I grew up in a brutal dictatorship, folks, and for any thinking person to even remotely consider such things of Bush or the USA — in terms of grubby reality on the ground, not even considering the ideals on which the US is based — is from where I stand proof of irretrievabe dementia.

Tell you what. If Bush refuses to step down in 09, I will personally pay a dollar to every single member of the Democratic Party.

Double Standard

A few years ago, the Israeli army fought its way into a fortified bomb-factory in Jenin, a city in the West Bank, ultimately killing several dozen people (mostly armed combatants, according to Human Rights Watch) and leveling several city blocks. Israel was voiciferously condemned by all and sundry for this apalling massacre.

Now the Lebanese government does the exact same thing, to resounding Arab approval.

Things that make you go hmm.

Stackhouse on Mission

John Stackhouse has an typically thoughtful article on Christian missions.

It has long been my opinion that Bible translation is the only ethically justifiable form of explicitly Christian mission (medecine and famine relief may be practiced by those of any religion, of course). If we Westerners, with all our economic and technological power, are going to go around telling other people what religion they should follow, then the least we can do is make our instruction manual as accessible as possible to them.

But if more missionaries worked from Stackhouse’s paradigm, I might have to become more sympathetic. The framework he presents is that missions is not about saving souls — only God does that, and She may do so in whatever way is pleasing, with or without legions of pasty-faced pith-helmeted Sinner’s Prayer-wielding Europeans — it is about saving the Earth, and all that is in it. It’s about reversing the curse. Thus it should be as much about justice, economics and environmentalism as counting souls.

Note that the Great Commandment does not say “go and make disciples”. It says “As you go, make disciples.”  Note that usually, disciples come to you, because they think you’re on to something.