Judgment
Thu 15 Nov 2007 • Responses: 1 • by Al Sikes
By many of today’s single-issue, polemic political tests, some of the most revered figures in biblical—and even American—history would be summarily rejected.
In the summer of 1989 I was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to be Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Several weeks later, as I was making the rounds of U.S. Senators on the Commerce Committee, I learned that my confirmation would be opposed by the Rev. Don Wildmon, of the American Family Association. His testimony was sponsored by then–Senator Al Gore, who was a senior Democrat on the Committee.
The Challenge of Cultural Influence
Thu 15 Nov 2007 • Responses: 5 • by John Seel
Coercion is just as harmful—and ineffective—in culture as in politics
John Seel notes a new humility among evangelical Christians who recognize the need for cultural renewal and the shortcomings of previous politics-heavy strategies. He offers some reflections that followers of Christ should keep in mind as they engage the culture, for doing the wrong thing may be worse than doing nothing.
Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations
Mon 05 Nov 2007 • Responses: 6 • by David Aikman
Cynics have already charged that in the Bush administration’s intensive focus on Israeli-Palestinian issues, we are seeing a repeat of the Clinton years. Supposedly, in the seventh and eighth year of any White House administration, there is an attempt to break the deadlock over one of the thorniest negotiating issues in the world: the confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians. Just as President Clinton, in his last year in office—indeed, in his final days in office—came tantalizingly close to an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord in 2000, so President Bush is trying the same ploy in 2007 and 2008. He has dispatched Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the Middle East region to try to prod the two sides towards an accord, and to mobilize support for any subsequent agreement among regional powers.
Intimations of Spirit
Mon 29 Oct 2007 • Responses: 2 • by T. M. Moore
Reflections on Spiritual Realities in the Art of Andrew Wyeth
T. M. Moore looks at the spiritual themes in the paintings of Andrew Wyeth and the different ways they challenge different audiences.
Turkey and the Armenian Genocide
Mon 15 Oct 2007 • Responses: 3 • by David Aikman
“This is a choice between condemning genocide and endangering our soldiers in Iraq,” was how Tom Lantos, Democratic chairman of the House committee and himself a Jewish Holocaust survivor, summed up the dilemma. Should the House Foreign Affairs committee approve a resolution designating a barbarous mass killing by the Turkish government in 1915 “genocide”? If the full House votes within a few weeks to pass the resolution, which is non-binding on the administration, the White House warned that vital transportation and communication links with U.S. forces in Iraq might be endangered. Turkey could slow down or even halt the passage of U.S. military goods and personnel through the Incirlik airbase in eastern Turkey. To underscore the threat, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan last week in a phone call with President Bush specifically threatened a Turkish retaliation against the resolution. The day after the Congressional Committee vote, Turkey recalled its ambassador to the U.S.
Being a Child of the Creative Age
Thu 11 Oct 2007 by Makoto Fujimura
Innocence, Experience, and the Monsters in our Hearts
Artist Makoto Fujimura, founder of the International Arts Movement, offers an extended reflection on the role of the artist as follower of Christ in this presentation given in New York City earlier this year. He looks extensively at the novel Jane Eyre to offer a model of a constructive and life-giving response that is also honest to the reality of our “ground zero” places.
What Fear Does
Fri 28 Sep 2007 by Jo Kadlecek
an excerpt from Fear: A Spiritual Navigation
Jo Kadlecek takes a look at what fear does to us—and what we can learn from it.
Burma: Monks vs. Generals
Fri 28 Sep 2007 by David Aikman
Is it possible that one of the most repressive regimes in the entire world, the reactionary and superstitious rule of the generals in Burma, is about to fall? It would be foolish to predict an imminent change of regime in a country where the ruling military clique has successfully resisted virtually all change for nearly half a century. But it is certainly possible. For the fifth straight day, up to 1,300 young Buddhist monks splashed through the monsoon-soaked streets of Yangon (formerly Rangoon), the capital of Myanmar (formerly Burma) in outright, but silent, protest against that country’s military regime. The generals, who rule the country, declared the Alliance of All Burmese Buddhist Monks, were an “enemy of the people.” The monks would not desist from protesting, they said, until they had “wiped the military dictatorship from the land of Burma.”
In the Interest of Character
Fri 28 Sep 2007 by Gary Moore
I was as surprised as others by the recent larger-than-expected reduction in short-term interest rates by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. Frankly, about the only good I can see in it is that it was an admirable attempt on the part of the new chairman, Ben Bernanke, to bail-out Alan Greenspan’s sinking reputation among even those speculators he’s encouraged during recent years.
Petraeus and Crocker: The Best of Their Generation
Thu 20 Sep 2007 by David Aikman
The performances of four-star General David Petraeus and Career Ambassador Ryan Crocker before Congress recently were startling for a number of reasons. First, Petraeus, the administration point man for the conduct of the war in Iraq, explicitly denied that his remarks had been even reviewed in advance by anyone above him in the military and civilian chain of command, much less cleared, before he presented them to the U.S. Congress. The White House, in effect, was not in the loop in his Congressional testimony. Second, neither Petraeus nor Crocker “promised” the American people victory in Iraq or suggested that it was even probable; the most they offered was that it was “attainable.” Third, after four and a half years of a war that has become increasingly unpopular in the U.S., here was a fighting general from that war on Capitol Hill being almost mobbed by Senators and Members of Congress who were climbing over each other to shake his hand. Fourth, after four and a half years in which the entire Iraq War has become intensely political, the key figures speaking about it to the American people were not politicians at all, but career professionals: one in the military, one in the Foreign Service.
