Just how realistic is just war theory? The case for Christian realism

Ultimately, I think the lack of realism about realism by American just war advocates has everything to do with their being American. In particular, American advocates of just war seem to presume that democratic societies place an inherent limit on war that more authoritarian societies are unable to do. While such a view is quite understandable, I would argue that democratic society – at least, the American version – is unable to set limits on war because it is democratic.
Put even more strongly, for Americans war is a necessity to sustain our belief that we are worthy to be recipients of the sacrifices made on our behalf in past wars. Americans are a people born of and in war, and only war can sustain our belief that we are a people set apart.

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Republicans’ Immigration Bind, as Explained by Aristotle

But let’s not forget Aristotle. When contested legislation passes, it isn’t because its enactment is in the interest of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party as such. It’s usually because it’s in the interest of the particular Republicans, and the particular Democrats, who end up for voting for it.

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The Story: The Law of Moses (and Grace of God), Part 1

The Law of Moses is not about how to go to heaven when you die. That’s the mistake. It’s not that God didn’t save any of the faithful Israelites, but that they weren’t saved based on perfect obedience to the Law. That was about something else altogether.

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Missions vs. Missional? Why We Really Need Both

Mission and missions need to live together. Missional churches—those focused on living on mission where we are—must remember that Jesus called us to reach people where the gospel is not. I want us to be missional, living as agents of God’s mission in context, but you can’t take John 20:21 in isolation without also remembering Matthew 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8.

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The ugly flip side of Christian consumerism

If the church were indeed a business, then a pastor would be wise to view his occupation much as any businessperson sees their career. The goal would be to improve skills, land the role of greatest influence, gain the most responsibility, and be rewarded by the best compensation package, all while residing in the most livable city.
But if the local church is viewed biblically—less like a business and more like a family (Luke 8:19–21)—then moving up the “ladder” of pastoral leadership makes as much sense as switching out families every few years. In many ways, pastors leaving the leadership position of one church to go to the next more promising church could be as damaging as a family having a revolving father every couple years.

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Seven Secrets to Listening When Time is Short

Quick listening isn’t the best, but it may be your only option.

1. Explain time pressure. “I’m interested. I only have five minutes before my next meeting.”
2. Relax the tone in your voice. Take a breath.
3. Begin where most conversations end. Ask, “What’s important about this?”
4. Say, “Tell me what you want to tell me.” Help them get to the point.
5. Ask, “What can you do?” Avoid reverse delegation – that’s when their problem becomes your problem.
6. Establish accountability. “Call me tomorrow and tell me what happened.”
7. Stick with time limits. If you said, “Five minutes,” then stick to it.

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Japanese professor pushes for Hide and Seek at the Olympics

The committee has set formal rules for competitive hide-and-seek, pitting two teams of seven players against each other in a 10-minute match. In the first five-minute half, one team is given two minutes to hide on a “pitch” that measures 65ft x 65ft . The opposing team then has to locate and touch the hiding players.

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Outrage as toy company creates ‘crystal meth lab’ for children with Breaking Bad play sets

Children can now build their own drug dens with a shocking new play kit inspired by TV show Breaking Bad.
The sell-out £160 kit, branded ‘SuperLab’, lets any child or adult recreate Walter White’s notorious crystal meth lab.
Complete with protective masks, drug paraphernalia, figurines and a version of the car from the show, infants can even reenact scenes from the series.
The toy looks similar to a classic Lego set, although it is not connected to the Danish company in any way and was made by a separate firm.

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Iowa grants permits for blind residents to carry guns in public

Private gun ownership — even hunting — by visually impaired Iowans is nothing new. But the practice of visually impaired residents legally carrying firearms in public became widely possible thanks to gun permit changes that took effect in Iowa in 2011.

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Roma Downey: Christians in Middle East want U.S. to find diplomatic solutions in Syria

We did not meet a single Christian leader over there in support of further action in Syria. Not one. They believe such action will only escalate violence against Arab Christians, it will only serve to trigger more fear and violence. We must find another solution. I pray we do. Yes, it’s terrible what is happening in Syria but a violent response would be terrible as well.
I feel compelled upon my return to speak up and share the heart of what I heard over there.
The repeated message was that they don’t feel American Christians understand the Middle East. That we are not listening to those who live there.

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Mission Congo: how Pat Robertson raised millions on the back of a non-existent aid project

Its report concluded that Robertson made “fraudulent and deceptive” statements with claims to be ferrying doctors and medical aid to Goma when he was delivering diamond-mining equipment. It accused Operation Blessing of “misrepresenting” what its flights were doing, and of saying that the airstrip at Kamonia was part of the aid operation when it was “for the benefit of ADC’s mining operation”.

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Gay rights vs. religious rights: 7 issues to watch

Upcoming battles include whether religious opposition to same-sex marriage constitutes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender and/or marital status; and what happens when a discrimination claim bumps up against an individual’s or institution’s religious freedom.

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Blessed are the Retweeters …

Social network updates can give us the feeling of having contributed significantly to something of importance when all we have really done is passed on the message to someone else (with a distant hope in the back of our minds that surely someone will do something about it, right?) who has in all likelihood done the very same thing (knowing the people we’re connected to, right?).
Imagine, for a minute, if instead of forwarding the Kony 2012 video clip (or even better, in addition to) those 97 million people had each invited a homeless person into their house for a meal? Or gone down to the local hospital and visited two sick people they didn’t even know? Or taken a piece of paper and written an encouraging letter to someone who is behind bars?

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The Ache of Mortality

Have we considered that the One who causes each wave to rise and fall and each day to come and go is the same One who designed us to have eternity stamped in our hearts? When we feel the sadness of our quickly passing life, sometimes our instinct is to dismiss these feelings of sorrow into a tidy, cute category that we call sentimentality. But what if, far from it being merely sentimental, these feelings are actually our Creator whispering to us, teaching us about Himself, teaching us about the brevity of our lives.

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How to Criticize a Preacher

Well, I’m not going to tell you exactly what words to use. I’m simply going to give you ten questions to ask that I hope will produce the right words and the right way to say them should you ever have to offer criticism to a preacher.

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Shhhhhh! German parties appeal to voters’ aversion to noise

In their programs for the September 22 election and to an extent never seen before, political parties are outlining how they intend to make German skies and roads even quieter.
Noise is mentioned 12 times in the CDU’s manifesto, 19 times in the program of her junior coalition partners the Free Democrats (FDP), 38 times in the Greens’ election manifesto, 9 times by the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and 8 times by the far left Die Linke.

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Bombing Again? But It’ll Work This Time!

Still, the human propensity toward violence and its manifestation in the violence of nation-states is odd, to say the least. It doesn’t serve much of a purpose, either, does it? The human propensity toward violence does appear to be innate, though the fact that murder rates vary from one murder per hundred thousand people in many European nations to twenty murders per hundred thousand in the US argues that violence has a large cultural component. The US is a violent culture, and that violence spills out across the globe.

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Farewell, NIV

I liked the NIV, and I wish I got to have a funeral of some kind for it. In the eulogy I would wax eloquently (new NIV: “discuss”) about how it brought Scripture into the modern era, and freed translations from the grip of the Anglicans and the Victorians. I would shed a tear for its translation of Romans 9, which rhetorically towered above the other English versions. And then I would read a eulogy from perhaps Psalm 23—but I most certainly would not read it from the update.

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Did the early church affirm Jesus’ deity?

Though it’s not an exhaustive list, here are 25 quotes from a number of ante-Nicene church fathers demonstrating their belief in the deity of Jesus Christ. These early Christian theologians all lived before the time of Constantine and the Council of Nicaea. As such, they provide incontrovertible proof (from post-New Testament history) that Constantine was not the first person in church history to affirm this doctrine. Rather, the early church believed that Jesus is God from the time of the apostles on.

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Calvinism and Calvinists

The argument between Calvinism and non-Calvinists is a family issue between brothers and sisters in Christ. Believers need to understand it this way and approach it accordingly. The Gospel is the most important message that must be spread. Some of these other issues can be the wrangling over words that cause ruin to the hearers. No matter where you fall in this issue, let’s just stay focused on sharing the Gospel of Jesus!

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Rosh Hashanah 2013: The Jewish New Year Explained

Though Rosh Hashanah literally means “head of the year,” the holiday actually takes place on the first two days of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, which is the seventh month on the Hebrew calendar. This is because Rosh Hashanah, one of four new years in the Jewish year, is considered the new year of people, animals and legal contracts. In the Jewish oral tradition, Rosh Hashanah marks the completion of the creation of the world.

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Out Came This Calf!

When we sin (and that’s what we need to call it), we need to admit that sin and ask God to forgive us. We also need to ask Him to help us conquer that sin by the power of His Spirit. For as long as we keep claiming that the golden calf made itself, claiming that our sins aren’t really our fault, we’ll never live the way God wants us to.

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Storming Wikipedia

Wikipedia depends on readers and volunteer editors to write, edit, and correct its entries. Theoretically, the vast network of contributors will make for an online encyclopedia that is accurate, objective, and self-correcting. But this also leaves Wikipedia open to contributors with an ideological agenda. Which is the plan for an organized effort–for college credit, no less–“to advance feminist principles of social justice” by “writ[ing] feminist thinking” into Wikipedia.

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Say what? China says 400 million can’t speak national language

Ministry of Education spokeswoman Xu Mei said that only 70 percent of the country could speak Mandarin, many of them poorly, and the remaining 30 percent or 400 million people could not speak it at all, Xinhua news agency reported.

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What I – a Pacifist – Would say to Obama About the Crisis In Syria

So what do I think America should do in response to the Syrian crisis? The most important thing I would say in response to this question is this: whatever my opinion on this matter might be, I couldn’t consider it a distinctly kingdom opinion. Being a citizen of the peaceable kingdom of God does not give us any special insight into how and when the sword-wielding governments of this world should and should not use the sword. These governments operate by an entirely different set of rules than the kingdom we belong to and are called to advance. They defend their self-interest, while we die to ours. They are focused on doing what is practical while we are concerned only with being faithful. And they trust the power of force, while our only confidence is in the power of self-sacrificial love.

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Intervention In The Third World: A Case For Masterly Inactivity?

Cast your mind back to the 1950s, the last time U.S. policy was in the hands of an experienced and crafty gen eral, who knew well the foolish advice military men often give civil authorities and could see through the machina tions of the hydra-headed creature he baptized “the military-industrial complex.” General Dwight D. Eisenhower was President from 1953-61, a time when America’s superiority over the rest of the world was far greater than it is today. He received countless invitations and demands for U.S. intervention but always refused them. Only once, in 1958 and at the request of Leba non’s president, Camille Chamoun, did Eisenhower agree to station troops for a short while. He withdrew them as soon as possible, three months later, without having fired a shot.

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The Typecast Church

In my mind, a church that sets itself to help, as opposed to attempting to hold back the tide of moral decay, is positioned to yield both beauty and justice with alarming regularity. If we really mean everything we’ve said about human flourishing and the common good these last few years, I think it’s time we acknowledge that being antagonists isn’t going to get us there. Mentors, on the other hand, live to point the way.

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Criminalizing Christ: The Love Wins Incident and the Nationwide Targeting of Homeless

Conservatives love to tell folks that the best way to end poverty, homelessness, and need in our country is through the work and generosity of private individuals and private donations, not through government programs.
The answer, they say, is charity.
Yet in a stroke of cruel hypocrisy, when charities actually address these issues in real life, they aren’t commended for their work.
Rather, they are threatened with arrest.

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Ministry Is A Contest

Ministry is a contest. It isn’t a matter of winning; but a matter of finishing…who will finish?
Suffering and struggle are to be dominant. Joy and celebration are to be worshipfully engaging as well. To be like him, oh to be like him, will always be a new way for a new day.

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Stop Following Your Heart

The Bible tells a different story: We are not to be trusted, not even with ourselves. Joining the life of Jesus is not about being affirmed of every decision you make, but to be corrected in all of your ways, including your motives. New questions are asked, fresh and loving authority is in play—this is what it means to repent. God is our guide, our shepherd we follow at all cost, and we surrender this heart we want to follow to Him.

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Proper Online Communication for the Christian

1. Be Factual
2. Be Encouraging
3. Be Respectful
4. Be Biblical
5. Be Humble
6. Be Consistent

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FYI (if you’re a teenage girl)

And so, in our house, there are no second chances, ladies. If you want to stay friendly with the Hall men, you’ll have to keep your clothes on, and your posts decent. If you try to post a sexy selfie, or an inappropriate YouTube video – even once – you’ll be booted off our on-line island.
I know that sounds harsh and old-school, but that’s just the way it is under this roof for a while. We hope to raise men with a strong moral compass, and men of integrity don’t linger over pictures of scantily clad high-school girls.

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The Silicon Valley tycoon who’s paying young people to skip college

The fellowship is intended to encourage bright young people like Friedman to take a risk on their entrepreneurial ideas and avoid racking up student debt. Thiel, who nabbed two degrees from Stanford before forging his career in tech, has rankled some in the academic world for his high-profile skepticism of the worth of a college degree.

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He Looked Like a Sinner

For example, borrowing from the work of Paul Rozin, I’ve poured lemonade into a sterile bedpan and have asked students to take a drink. They know it’s just lemonade and they know the bedpan is clean. And yet still they refuse to take a drink. Lemonade in a bedpan just looks too much like urine and reason struggles to overcome our emotional response to that appearance. This is the appraisal of similarity. If something looks similar to a contaminant then it is a contaminant. Even if we know better.

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As the War Drums Beat Towards Syria

But how? I propose that we do it in exactly the way that Republicans are arguing against. We need to put boots on the ground.
Not to kill Syrians. Not to attack the Syrian Army, or to attack Hezbollah, or Al Qaida. But to keep the peace. Peacekeeping forces should be placed in Syria, with a mandate to actively protect Syrian civilians.

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Addicted to Outrage

I fear that outrage has become an addiction for many people of faith. I’m caused to wonder if certain endorphins are released when we feel anger over a just cause; an emotional, pseudo-spiritual “rush” that just keeps us coming back for more. In order for us to feel “righteous,” has it become essential that “indignation” be an inseparable companion? “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers… twerkers.” Reread the context of Luke 18:9-14 to be reminded of why Jesus told this parable.

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The Story: Passover, Part 2 (Don’t Forget the Tambourines)

As we sat in Ray Vander Laan’s class, my wife — the mother of four and the person in charge when it’s time for us to pack — asked, “Where did they get the tambourines?” And that’s what Ray asked the class. If you were packing to walk from the Land of Goshen to Palestine, taking only what you could carry, would you pack tambourines? We Westerners wouldn’t.
But Miriam and the other women did. Why? Well, there’s only one possible explanation. They packed tambourines because God was with them, and there’d surely be a need to celebrate! They packed anticipating the need to exalt God on the way. How else could they make it to the Promised Land?

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The 8 Last Words of a Dying Church

And then I heard them say those very words that must bring tears to the Lord’s eyes … it’s the last 8 words you’ll hear just before they close the doors of their church (or any church) for good…
“But we’ve never done it that way before!”
We weren’t talking unbiblical changes here. I wasn’t suggesting they start sacrificing animals or worshipping a different god, but simple changes that could produce outreach to their community of lost people. I realize that change is a scary word for some long time church members, but our churches constantly must be looking for new ways to meet needs, reach the lost and serve their communities. Continuing to do the same things, they same way, will only bring the same result.

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Recovering Confession

I don’t hear much talk about confession these days. There was a time when any good book on Christian piety dealt with it. Confession used to occupy an important place in the liturgy of corporate worship. But outside of a general admission that we are sinners, or the specific confession of the one “big sin” in our life, confession seems to have become something largely forgotten.

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Ordinary: The New Radical?

My target isn’t activism itself, but the marginalization of the ordinary as the richest site of both God’s activity and ours. Our problem isn’t that we are too active. Rather, it is that we have been prone to successive sprints instead of the long-distance run. There’s nothing wrong with energy. The danger is that we’re burning out ourselves—and each other—on restless anxieties and unrealistic expectations. It’s an impatience with the familiar, sometimes slow, and mostly imperceptible aspects of life.

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How Culture Stops Mourners From Healing

Experiencing the death of someone we love causes us mourners to review our beliefs and our personal understanding of death, dying and loss. Our loss experience can cause us to prepare for our inevitable end and for the life which still lies ahead for us. When our grief is short-circuited, we are robbed of the possibilities of navigating grief in a healthy fashion and of seeing life and death with a meaningful perspective.

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Random thoughts on spanking or not spanking as a parent

Again, I don’t have all the answers here. Most parents are doing the best they know how. My best advice is to be intentional. Have a goal and have a plan. For each child. What parent would not want to see the principle of the verse above come true in their child’s life some day? Good parenting should do what works best to accomplish the goal of parenting.

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London skyscraper accused of melting car

Developers of the unfinished “Walkie-Talkie” building — so called because of its shape — said Tuesday they are investigating the way the building reflects sunlight, after claims that the intense glare melted parts of a luxury car parked nearby and caused a small fire outside a shop.

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