Category Archives: May You Live In Interesting Times

Political Power And Forgiveness

 

You can’t help but feel sorry for the three Russian young women, displayed in the glass box for all the world to gloat at their humiliation. They stare out as though struggling to project a cool image amid their nervousness, the way young people do when called to account by their elders.

Their predicament is more serious than humiliation. A Russian court sentenced the women to two years in jail for singing a ribald song in a cathedral against Russian President Vladimir Putin. It went something like “Virgin Mary, Save Us From Putin.” It was disrespectful but mild considering that the recent election of Putin suggested grave improprieties and even fraud.

After protests developed over the election, Putin signed a new law that raised fines for participation in unauthorized protests to near the average annual salary in Russia. [link] Protesters and opposition bloggers have not only been fined but imprisoned.

The religious leaders of the Russian Orthodox church appeared outraged at the women’s actions and called their performance in the church part of an assault “by enemy forces.”  Finally, after accusing the young women and their supporters of sacrilegious acts, they called on the court to show mercy.

The young women said they did not mean to offend believers but were protesting the close ties between Putin and the Russian Orthodox church. Patriarch Kirill, head of the church, strongly supports Putin. [link]

Harsh punishment of the women is not likely to endear the church to the protesters, especially the younger ones. Wouldn’t community service have been a more appropriate punishment?

Bring Back the Military Draft?

 

A friend of mine believes that America began to decline as a nation when the military draft was abolished in 1973. I don’t know that I agree. Plenty of experts, it must be said, don’t think the American nation has declined, but believe that much of the rest of the world is simply catching up with us. Others believe our ability to adapt and innovate is as strong as ever.

I can see my friend’s point, though. We no longer have a citizen army, with most young men bearing equal burdens to fight, if necessary, in the country’s conflicts. New recruits are not as likely to come from the class of richer young people, those with privilege, as from those of the less advantaged. The bodies brought back from Afghanistan tend to be grieved by families of lesser education and money.

In a democracy, reality trumps policy. During a time of recognized threat to this country, young people of all levels volunteer for military duty, but they don’t understand long conflicts where even people they are supposedly helping sometimes kill them.

When a significant percentage of American citizens don’t believe in sending troops to a conflict, a draft leads to protests like those during the Vietnam War. If we had a draft today, we might not have entered Iraq and might already have exited Afghanistan. Less advantaged young people would not carry the burden of dying while the richer ones attend college and find lucrative vocations.

What if we passed a law that forbids our country from committing ground troops to a conflict for longer than ninety days unless we first reinstate the draft?

Syria’s Nightmare

 

Bashar al-Assad, the dictator of rebellion-challenged Syria, has threatened to use chemical weapons on his own people if outside nations come to the aid of the rebels that Assad’s forces kill without mercy. No one takes Assad’s threats lightly. His father, dictator before him, massacred thousands, including women and children, in the village of Homs, for their part in a 1982 rebellion.

Few people suggest that the U.S. become involved with ground forces, given Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, the U.S. works with contacts developed by the U.S. embassy in Damascus before its closure due to the war.

Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, remained in Syria as long he could with members of his staff. Very unpopular with Assad’s government, they risked their safety to stay as long as possible in order to maintain and develop contacts within the Syrian opposition.

Most believe Assad will leave, though no one knows when. At present, the forces opposing Assad are suffering serious losses after they took the battle to Syria’s major cities. The longer it takes for Assad to leave, the stronger the desire for revenge when he does exit the scene. To discourage this outcome and provide support for a country that will respect all ethnic and religious groups, the U.S. works with the Syrian opposition, now based in neighboring Turkey. Past contacts by the embassy prove valuable.

Fear of ethnic killings haunts anyone engaged with the Syrian conflict. The minority Alawites, a branch of Islam considered heretical by most Muslims, have ruled Syria for decades through the Assads. Revenge reprisals against innocent members of this sect are possible, as are actions against the minority Christians within Syria. The Christians have generally supported Assad, despite his brutalities, because his government is secular and not interested in religious extremism. Rumors float of al-Qaeda terrorists sending in fighters to vie for an extremist state.

Let us hope and pray that the engagement of the international community, including America’s diplomats, will find success against the tide of anger and hatred bubbling in Syria’s multi-ethnic cauldron.

 

Hope for Healing in the Holy Land

 

Conflict in the Holy Land has been around all of my life. Every U.S. president since the Second World War has dealt with it. My years in the Foreign Service acquainted me with diplomats who have invested considerable effort in attempts to bring the sides together. Yet the problems seem unsolvable, an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.

I recently read an article by Lynne Hybels, a co-founder of Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois,  in Sojourners (June, 2012). Hybels took part in a conference in March, 2012, called “Christ at the Checkpoint,” held in Bethlehem. Messianic Jews, Palestinian Christians, and American Christians presented Bible studies, lectures, panel discussions, workshops, and testimonies.

A friend of mine visited Israel and Palestine a few years ago as a Christian interested in peace between the two sides. He witnessed the coming together of Jewish and Palestinian families who had lost loved ones in the conflict.

It may be that Christians hold the key to a solution in that blood-soaked land. Neither “side” can expect complete vindication of their views. Too many wrongs have happened to expect complete justice. Can the Christian doctrines of reconciliation and forgiveness be the key?

Foreign Policy? You Mean Some Kind Of International Insurance?

 

The editor at the writing conference where I pitched a novel several years ago shook his head. “Stories with foreign themes don’t sell well.”

“Even with all the turmoil in the Middle East?” I asked.

“Even with that.” He didn’t offer to look at my one-sheet.

In the July/August 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs, Princeton Professor Robert O. Keohane reviewed a couple of books about the future of America’s place in the world. He discussed the disinterest of many Americans in international issues unless we are in a crisis situation. He mentioned the “intense domestic partisan conflict” that prevents problems from being resolved and that “constitutes a major threat” to our continued leadership abroad.

We seem unable to understand the opportunity we have for influence in the world. With the opportunity comes responsibility. How well we lead in the world depends on how well we govern at home. When our government appears dysfunctional, other countries tend to dismiss our advice to them about democracy and free elections. When we can’t work out compromises, as any democracy must, our efforts to defuse clashing Middle Eastern ethnic groups are ignored. We can’t keep our own house in order, so what right have we to advise other governments?

We will profit by an interest in the global happenings that influence us: the Euro currency crisis, the spread of Chinese commercial interests into Africa and South America, the Iranian nuclear crisis, and so on.

We are right to be concerned about domestic issues, but as Jesus said about the righteousness of the Pharisees: they were right to be concerned about such things as tithing, but they also should add justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

We need to add concern about issues beyond our shores to our domestic interests. If we don’t, the world will forget about us and our squabbles. They will look for leadership to a more internationally savvy nation, and who knows if that nation will be democratic and free?

After the Revolution Comes the Hard Part

 

Social media played a decisive role in kindling the recent revolutions in the Middle East. Now the hard part begins.  A revolution requires courage, to be sure, but a courage more often based on emotion than on reason.

Today’s revolutions accelerate with the instant communication of Facebook and text messages. Building a new nation requires a quieter courage: a patience to examine complex issues and an ability to find compromise between competing views of a nation’s future.

The revolutionists in Egypt and Tunisia vanquished corrupt dictators. Now can they survive the hard slogging? Compromise on cherished views to include the views of others? Set up impartial courts and rules of law that discourage the same corruption that bedeviled the old regimes?

Thomas L. Friedman, writing in the New York Times (June 9, 2012) compared the different processes as Facebook meeting “brick-and-mortar” politics.

Our country formally gained independence from Great Britain in 1783. But the first structure we accepted for the new country, the Articles of Confederation, failed. After a fierce struggle between competing factions, we began again with the creation of the U.S. Constitution, ratified by Rhode Island, the final former colony to do so, in 1790. It’s an amendable document, meaning that the founders of the nation knew it wasn’t perfect and never would be.

As Egyptians pick themselves up from an election that proved less than ideal, can they go to work with what they have so far produced?

Can we Americans survive our own paralyzing politics?

When Religion Is A Pawn

 

When the former Soviet Union was ruled by an atheistic communist regime, Christians in the West worried about the fate of Russian believers. The government shunned and sometimes persecuted them. After the fall of Soviet communism, Christians hoped the new Russian government would embrace religious freedom.

The situation has improved for Christians of the Orthodox persuasion. In fact, Russian President Vladimir Putin stands accused of using the Russian Orthodox church as a means of bolstering his less than democratic regime. Some Russians are concerned by the power the church appears to be gaining in Putin’s government. Reports suggest that the church’s influence may be one reason for Russia’s support of the bloody Assad regime in Syria.

Syria is Russia’s remaining ally in the Middle East and hosts a Russian naval base. The church, rightly, is concerned about the fate of their fellow Orthodox believers in Syria should the Assad regime fall and be replaced by a possibly Islamist government. However, to suggest that Assad should be allowed to slaughter innocent civilians so that Christians might—possibly—be better protected, seems contrary to Jesus’ teachings, to say the least.

Religious freedom must be at the forefront of any Christian agenda, for Christian believers as well as for adherents of other persuasions. We cannot equate religious freedom, however, with a tyranny that uses Christians to support a brutal regime. Christians must reject any power play which employs them as political pawns. Jesus lived his life in direct opposition to political gamesmanship, even to his willing death on a Roman cross.

A Concern Beyond American Idol

 

In my novel Singing in Babylon, the female protagonist, Kate, moves to Saudi Arabia from her native Tennessee to teach. She travels for her first time outside the United States. On a drive with her friend, Philip, an American journalist on assignment to the Middle East, she notices a veiled and gloved woman pushing a child on a swing in a public park. The woman glances at the unveiled Kate, and Kate wonders how the woman feels about this Western female’s intrusion into her world.

Later, she and Philip explore a seaside camp for Western expatriates on the shores of the Red Sea. She compares the women in bikinis with the veiled woman she saw earlier. For the first time, Kate understands the struggles of an ancient civilization to come to terms with the strange culture thrust into their lives by oil money.

Fast food restaurants, unveiled women, and automobiles bring unprecedented freedom and rapid change to a nation in one or two generations. These changes arrived in a country accustomed to centuries-old merchant towns, Bedouins herding camels and goats, and ancient tribes familiar with the customs of generations.

Kate’s exposure to other cultures allows her further understanding of her own country, what is of  value and what is neglected, and what directions it should take. Her experiences mature her perception of the world.

Travel to other countries is not the only path to an informed view. We have easier access to news reporting about world events today than at any time in the past. If we confine ourselves to the latest celebrity stories, however, and ignore the in-depth news, the advantage of this wealth of information will do us no good.

The unrest in the Middle East, for example, has a direct bearing on our future. The current brutality in Syria, where unarmed women and children were murdered this past weekend, and the unrest caused by Egyptian elections will affect us. When desperate millions thirst for security, they will choose whoever promises it: dictators, Islamists, or al-Qaeda.

Our response to such challenges will be wiser if we understand the problems. Ignorance and uninformed politics can lead to disastrous decisions.

 

Letter From Prison

 

Youcef Nadarkhani, a Christian pastor in Iran, has been jailed since October, 2009, for issues related to his faith. Recently a letter, reportedly from him and written in prison, was released by Present Truth Ministries. I don’t know if the pastor wrote it in English or it was translated, but I quote the entire letter as I found it. It is longer than my usual blog. I justify the length because I am touched by echos in the letter reminiscent of New Testament letters written by the apostle Paul while in prison,. The letter follows:

Greetings from your servant and younger brother in Christ, Youcef Nadarkhani.

To: All those who are concerned and worried about my current situation.

First, I would like to inform all of my beloved brothers and sisters that I am in perfect health in the flesh and spirit. And I try to have a little different approach from others to these days, and consider it as the day of exam and trial of my faith. And during these days which are hard in order to prove your loyalty and sincerity to God, I am trying to do the best in my power to stay right with what I have learned from God’s commandments.

I need to remind my beloveds, though my trial due has been so long, and as in the flesh I wish these days to end, yet I have surrendered myself to God’s will.

I am neither a political person nor do I know about political complicity, but I know that while there are many things in common between different cultures, there are also differences between these cultures around the world which can result in criticism, which most of the times response to this criticisms will be harsh and as a result will lengthen our problems.

From time to time I am informed about the news which is spreading in the media about my current situation, for instance being supported by various churches and famous politicians who have asked for my release, or campaigns and human rights activities which are going on against the charges which are applied to me. I do believe that these kind of activities can be very helpful in order to reach freedom, and respecting human rights in a right way can bring forth positive results.

I want to appreciate all those are trying to reach this goal. But at the other hand, I’d like to announce my disagreement with the insulting activities which cause stress and trouble, which unfortunately are done with the justification (excuse) of defending human rights and freedom, for the results are so clear and obvious for me.

I try to be humble and obedient to those who are in power, obedience to those in authority which God has granted to the officials of my country, and pray for them to rule the country according to the will of God and be successful in doing this. For I know in this way I have obeyed God’s word. I try to obey along with those whom I see in a common situation with me. They never had any complaint, but just let the power of God be manifested in their lives, and though sometimes we read that they have used this right to defend themselves, for they had this right, I am not an exception as well and have used all possibilities and so forth and am waiting for the final result.

So I ask all the beloved ones to pray for me as the holy word has said. At the end I hope my freedom will be prepared as soon as possible, as the authorities of my country will do with free will according to their law and commandments which are answerable to.

May God’s Grace and Mercy be upon you now and forever. Amen.

Youcef Nadarkhani

Welcome to Democracy

 

I search news reports for clues about a country’s first encounters with democracy. That country is Tunisia, where I once lived and worked. I scan the recent pictures. When I lived there, few women, and no younger ones, wore the head scarf.  Most of them dressed like counterparts on the streets of Paris. Now the head scarf appears more often. Plenty of women do not wear it, but it still surprises me that some do.

Compared to Egypt or Libya, Tunisia’s change from a dictatorship to free elections last year was remarkably smooth. Not completely so. Small groups of ultra-conservative Islamists occupied universities to call for a more religiously-oriented way of life, including the return of the veil for women. Thousands protested the actions of the ultra-conservatives and called for a continuation of Tunisia’s tolerant society.

The moderate Islamist party that won a majority of the vote in elections last year was embarrassed by the ultra-conservatives and pledged that it would not turn Tunisia into a conservative Islamic state.

Winston Churchill once said, “Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

I wish the Tunisians success as they enter the brave, exasperating world of democracy.

Reports of Religion’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

 

As countries modernized, some believed, religion would matter less, religion being a relic of a superstitious age. Religion would finally die. Instead, the modernization of nations has often brought opposite results.

The changes have even complicated relations between the United States and its allies. Cambridge Lecturer Andrew Preston notes two countries which surprised the United States by the strength of their religion. [link]

President John F. Kennedy was exasperated at the Buddhist resurgence in Vietnam which undermined a Vietnamese president we supported. As Preston points out, perhaps the president should have noticed that ninety percent of the country was Buddhist.

 

Another president, Jimmy Carter, underestimated the power of Islam in Iran, which led to the fall of the U.S. embassy there and the installation of an Islamic anti-American regime. Iran was a modernizing nation, a result of oil revenues, but religion’s hold did not vanish. In fact, modernization may have increased yearning for the certainty of religious belief in the face of rapid change.

The current election triumphs of religious parties in Middle Eastern countries, recently liberated from dictators, continue this trend. They join a long list of countries who were supposed to disavow religion as they modernized, but didn’t.

Some of the world’s fastest growing Christian and Islamic communities are in Africa. Exploration for Africa’s resources is pulling countries on that continent into the modern age, even as religion increases.

Perhaps religion is one area where the West lags behind.

Human Trafficking: Not Confined to American Expatriates

 

The recent scandal involving U.S. Secret Service agents and military personnel in Cartagena, Columbia, who hired prostitutes, reveals a seamier side of U.S. expatriate life. As one who worked overseas with American citizens, I occasionally dealt with Americans of questionable virtue who formed unwise relationships with locals. Thankfully, the countries where I worked did not encourage what is called “the sex trade.”

My colleagues assigned to those countries had to deal more often with the problems caused by U.S. citizens traveling abroad solely for promiscuous purposes. Taxpayer-funded employees should understand that these activities are off-limits for them. Period.

 

Trafficking of human beings for immoral purposes is not confined solely to foreign countries. Albert Mohler has written in the Christian Post of issues involved both in the U.S. and in other countries by this trafficking. He rightly calls on the United States to insure that the representatives the U.S. sends abroad do not in any way abet the industry that feeds on the vulnerable.

At the same time, we should demand zero tolerance for such activities in this country. We should offer safe refuges for those who want to escape and prosecution for those who force victims, often quite young, into prostitution. We should bring all the pressure allowed on publications that advertise such activities.

Our connected world demands a higher awareness of the good, the bad, and the ugly that this connectedness makes possible.

Living in a Connected World

In this connected world, when Arab revolutions threaten, gas prices in the United States rise because of uncertainty. An actual disruption of oil shipments from the Middle East would cause an even steeper rise in prices.

If the Euro currency collapses, American banks will be affected, and so will American exporters and American jobs.

As China’s middle classes increase, they will demand the same living standards as American middle classes, raising the price for oil and other commodities.

If drought causes famine in Somalia, the possibility grows that militant Islamists will take over the country, with the potential for bases that could foment terrorism elsewhere, including in the United States.

If corruption persists in Middle Eastern countries, the likelihood increases that citizens will bring in governments, either by revolution or election, directed by Islamists. Islamists often have a reputation of concern for the less well off, as well as less susceptibility to corruption. The new governments may or may not be friendly to U.S. interests.

What happens in distant places affects us, yet Americans remain woefully ignorant of other countries and cultures. A 2006 poll of young adult Americans conducted for the National Geographic Education Foundation, for example, found that six in ten respondents couldn’t find Iraq on a map, even though Americans had been fighting in the country since 2003.

Our elected officials make decisions based in large part on the expressed opinions of voters. If those opinions are not well-informed, the decisions probably won’t be, either.

Established versus Servant

 

The young United States struggled with an experiment. The first change (amendment) to the new Constitution forbade Congress to make laws “respecting an establishment of religion.” Some feared the nation would become godless. Almost every European nation (from which the country had its beginnings)  recognized one religion as the only valid one, some branch of the Christian faith. Other parts of the world also tended to respect one religious tradition above others, Hinduism or Islam or Confucianism or Shintoism.

To the surprise of many, Christians grew in number in the new nation and influenced its culture. Many thought of the country as”Christian,” almost as though the nation had produced an established religion, as in Europe. The Christian way became blurred, civil religion often equated with God’s spiritual kingdom.

Christians are called to be a prophetic voice. Sometimes people will listen, as in the early years in this country, and sometimes not. The Old Testament prophet Jonah fought God’s call to preach to Ninevah, his enemy. Amazingly, when Jonah finally carried out his calling and preached, the enemy listened and repented.

James, an early disciple of Jesus, also was called. Many listened to him, but he made enemies, too, and became the first Christian martyr. Interesting that James should be the first martyr. His mother had wanted her son to have a special place in Jesus’ kingdom, probably expecting it to be a political kingdom. Jesus pointed out to James and the other disciples how the Gentiles lord it over their subjects. His disciples, however, were to be different. They were to be servants.

Always, we are called to be a remnant voice, to value servanthood, not become entangled and ensnared by a quest after power “as the Gentiles do.”

The Downside of Literacy

 

Most Americans can read, can understand the written word. This ability is so commonplace that we forget how revolutionary it is. For most of humankind’s history, people knew only what they heard. Information was passed by word of mouth, was not easily verified, and was not retained in any permanent form. Most information was local.

The ability to share information by pieces of paper (and now electronically) meant that ideas could spread, could cross miles and even continents. Written words could be retained indefinitely and studied years later. Knowledge could be accumulated.

Along with such a blessing comes responsibility. We need wisdom as we read, watch TV, or study computer content. In our entertainment-driven society, the purpose of advertisements and political debates can appear as amusing pleasures, like a comedy sound bite or a  sitcom. The fact that much of our information now comes as a performance reinforces the idea of entertainment.

Geoffrey Crowther, writing in 1944 towards the end of World II, said: “The enormous development in the technique of propaganda and advertising, in the power to sway the minds of people in the mass, plays straight into the hands of the would-be dictator or any other manipulator who, for large ends or small, seeks to muddy the waters of democracy.” (Reprinted in Foreign Affairs, January/February 2012, page 38.)

The only defense against manipulation, whether for purposes of selling a product or selling a political candidate or selling an idea, is to read and listen responsibly, with reason overriding emotion.

Literacy without responsibility is dangerous.

 

Religion and Government

How much should religion and government interact? This issue plays out in the small North African country of Tunisia, a majority Islamic country where I lived from 1997 to 2000.

Tunisians began the “Arab spring” by ousting their secularist dictator little more than a year ago. In January they held their first fair election in years. A mildly Islamist party won the majority of the vote.

The leader of the new government, Hamadi Jebali, spent years in prison for his opposition to the government of dictator Ben Ali, much of it in harsh solitary confinement. Now he’s the popularly elected head of the Tunisian government.

Tunisia has a large, educated middle class, many of whom have made plain that they do not want repressive religious laws. Jebali has indicated his understanding of their apprehension. His party has formed the current government with two secularist parties.

The results in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Libya, and other countries of North Africa and the Middle East follow the ouster of regimes which were secular but often brutal against their opponents. Now that more power is assumed by the people, how will democracy and religion play their roles?

Some American Christians desire more religion in their government. How will church and state in this country compare to mosque and state in Tunisia?

Cultural Competition

Ethnic, political, and religious differences divide much of the world today, including the United States.  Global travel and instant communication force local lifestyles and centuries-old beliefs to compete with other lifestyles and beliefs.

Travelers before the modern era took months to travel from one area to another. Most people did not travel at all or know anyone except from their local villages and most could not read. When Americans began trekking across their continent, they traveled for weeks and sometimes months. First trains and then paved roads cut the time to days. Then planes shortened trips to hours.

Today, electronic communication means that Americans can instantly touch base with others all over the world. What happens in Mumbai, India, is available immediately on a computer or a cell phone in Chicago.

We are bombarded with other cultures and belief systems. Our own local group no longer shields us. The Iron Curtain, barricading the Soviet world from the West, fell with the advent of modern communication. Radio signals could penetrate it. Now the Internet, despite the efforts of some governments to block it, reaches savvy young people in most countries of the world.

American Christians no longer inhabit a culture influenced mostly by Christian beliefs. We share space with Hinduism, Islam, atheism, and a host of other world views. How do we react to this new world where we must again compete, as the early Christians did in the days of the Roman Empire?

How did those Christians operate? They traveled the Roman world from Arabia to the British Isles, but they did not force their views. They debated in the marketplaces, and they lived as examples that drew others to their faith.

 

Man: The Measure of ALL Things?

 

If man is the measure of all things, as the Greek philosopher Protagoras said, we may be measuring “things” by a very small measure, something like using a yardstick to measure the distance from Chicago to Moscow.

Take our brains. Neuroscientists study the activities of the brain and the nervous system. Studies have focused on the functioning of the parts of the brain, such as how they interact and specialize. Some studies have looked at the reactions of the human brain to other humans. These social activities appear to occur on another level, a more complex one. It includes the parts of the brain, but is more than the sum of the parts, this interaction between two humans.

We can prove that humans exist in the scientific sense, but God cannot be seen or studied the way a human brain can. So what of the claims of those of us who are Christian that we can interact with God? We might look at this idea as one that leads us to yet another level, beyond human interaction, one that faith opens to us.

Social interaction moves a person’s focus from self to another. Faith changes the perspective even further, from examining the inhabitants of a thin atmosphere on a small planet to—what? Perhaps to a spiritual level that cannot be quantified but can be experienced.

A Tale of Two Countries

 

Tahrir Square

Almost a year ago, the small nation of Tunisia began the current spate of revolts against despotic regimes in the Middle East. The country recently held its first elections since the overthrow of the country’s one-party rule. The elections appeared to be free, fair, and relatively unmarred by corruption or violence.

By contrast, violence has flared again in Egypt, where elections are held this week. The violence has included the deaths of demonstrators as well as the burning of Christian churches and the killing of Christians. Much of the protest centers on the Egyptian military, against their perceived unwillingness to relinquish power. The military partnered with the Egyptian people in the earlier revolution to rid the country of the corrupt rule of Mubarak, yet now appears unwilling to allow an unfettered civilian government to rule.

This is a recurring theme of newly freed nations. The group which plays the role in ridding the country of tyranny, itself refuses to relinquish power.

What would have happened to our own country if George Washington had followed the usual pattern? He could have used his powers as commander of the American armed forces after he successfully led them to victory over the British to seize power. Instead, he resigned his commission. Later, after two terms as president, he stepped aside, saying two terms was enough. By leaving the office voluntarily and allowing for a peaceful transfer of power, he established a valuable precedent for the country.

The decision of a popular individual to see power as a trust and a refusal to use it for selfish purposes is a rare choice.

Seeds of Hate, Seeds of Forgiveness

I’ve just finished reading Left to Tell, Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculée Ilibagiza,  survivor of the horrendous massacres in Rwanda in the 1990’s. Ethnic groups in that country, some calling themselves Christians, allowed themselves to be filled with unreasoning hatred that led them to commit these atrocities.

Much of the book deals with the author’s journey into forgiveness after hiding in unspeakable conditions during the massacre, then discovering that her parents, two brothers, and numerous friends and relatives had been brutally slain.

So-called Christians are not the only ones who commit atrocities, nor are wrongs committed only in the name of religion. We marvel, however, when countries with a Christian witness allow the Holocaust or bombings of Catholics and Protestants or the lynching of black Americans.

Jesus himself was killed because the religious leaders of his day sent him to die.

Yet a remnant may chose a different path, like Joseph of Arimathea, who dared disagree with those leaders. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Germany worked against the Nazis until they killed him. Some brave Rwandans defied their neighbors and hid members of the despised ethnicity.

What it says to us is that Christianity may be only skin deep, the seed thrown out in Jesus’ parable that seems to produce fruit at first but then is overcome with the desire for wealth or the fear of persecution. Yet some endure, make the hard choices, and produce the fruit of life and forgiveness.