Saturday, August 30, 2014

stop it!, please, just STOP IT!

Wise words by Gandhi for our contemporary situation .... why should we allow history to continue to repeat itself?

 I am calling on my fellow citizens to please stop beating the war drums for intervention in Iraq. We tried that already, it didn't work the first time around and it will not work the second time around...


 


 I am not opposed to defending our borders or some strategic air assistance to regional allies. But this is THEIR war to fight not ours. In retrospect, we were wrong to invade Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11 in our thirst for vengeance. We could have invested a trillion dollars in enhanced border and homeland security and thousands of young Americans would still be alive, and 10s of thousands innocent Iraqi and Afghani civilians who have been victims of collateral damage, would also be alive. There would be less terrorists than we have now generated (many are outraged relatives of dead victims of collateral damage). If we had not invaded Iraq, chances are that the Islamic State would not even exist. Violence only breeds more violence.

 We Christians had our religious wars from the sixteenth century from the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572, 70,000 dead) through the Thirty Years War (1618-1648, the death toll was so great that the population of Germany fell from 25 to 40 percent) before Catholics and Protestants had their fill of bloodletting and nearly destroyed Europe. After exhausting themselves with religious killing, Christians of both persuasions came to the conclusion that a better system was warranted and created the modern nation-state system in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

Separation of church and state and religious pluralism soon followed and we have our modern democratic systems guaranteeing individual and human rights (far from perfect, but better killing people you don't agree with). If Sunnis and Shia extremists need to “fight it out” until moderate Muslims have had enough come to the same conclusions that Christian civilization came to in 1648 (and later in 1776 with guarantees of religious freedom), then leave them alone and stay out of it, or give some strategic and limited assistance to whoever seems more moderate and committed to human rights (although I have my reservations about this).

But PLEASE, to my fellow citizens and most especially to my fellow followers of Christ, the Prince of Peace, PLEASE stop whipping up fear and hatred, please stop beating the drums of war. We should have learned our lesson by now. PLEASE JUST STOP AND PRAY. If you don’t pray, then please JUST STOP whipping up the fear and hate.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Martin gets a haircut

Favorite Scene:

  • Johann von Staupitz (Bruno Ganz):  "Martin, I wanted you to reform the church, not destroy it"
  • Martin Luther (Joseph Fiennes): "When you sent me out so boldly to the change the world that day, did you really think that there would be no cost?"