The real story of the Syrian civil war We watched the TV, fascinated. We had been in Maraa for days, waiting for a driver who would take us further into the interior of the country. Not a single government soldier had been seen in this small city north of Aleppo in quite a while. Not even the artillery cannons in Aleppo were capable of reaching the town. Someone called an acquaintance living near the cultural center, and learned that everything was quiet there too. And the multi-story apartment buildings? There aren’t any in Maraa. The entire report, several minutes long and related in a breathless tone, was fiction. This time we ourselves were witnesses and knew the truth. More Pakistani aid workers murdered Six women and a man, working for a health and education charity, have been shot dead in a drive-by shooting after they left a community centre in northwest Pakistan, police say. The victims of Tuesday’s attack were all Pakistanis attached to the community centre in a Swabi village. 2012 was not a good year for FOX News In a discussion of the role of women in the military, Fox News contributor Liz Trotta expressed an opinion about new rules from the Pentagon that would permit women to serve closer to the front lines. Trotta’s take on this centered on the problems faced by servicewomen who are sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers whom she regards as whiners because they won’t shut up and accept the fact that if they work closely with men they should expect to be assaulted. And if that weren’t bad enough, Trotta went on to complain about the expensive military bureaucracy set up to “support women in the military who are now being raped too much.” I would really like to know precisely how much rape is acceptable before it crosses Trotta’s line. Is there any context in which she might have meant that that isn’t unfathomably repulsive? Pope Benedict XVI condemns “unregulated capitalism” for contributing to world tension The Pope also thanked the world’s peacemakers and said humanity had “an innate vocation for peace” […] He deplored “hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor”. Those “hotbeds” also grew out of “the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated financial capitalism”, as well as “various forms of terrorism and crime”, he said. Settlers leave illegal West Bank outpost ahead of eviction The unauthorized West Bank outpost of Oz Tzion was nearly empty on Saturday night, after the 200 or so young people who came on Friday with the intention of stopping the community’s evacuation by the Israel Defense Forces left voluntarily. The few permanent residents of the outpost still remain in the site situated between Jerusalem and Ramallah, near the Givat Assaf outpost. Its founder is Daniela Weiss, the former head of the Kedumim Local Council. It includes a few wooden structures, which the IDF says it will demolish at a time it sees fit. Why mostly men protesting rape in India? There are women out on the streets, some from India’s long-suppressed women’s movement, to fight for stronger rape laws and other legal protections. But those women risk being groped by fellow protesters or shouted down. And the men on these same streets seem to be operating just as much from a revenge instinct as from any desire for meaningful social, political and legal changes. A plea to report violence-related statistics thoroughly and honestly from AmidsTheNoise
A review of “Les Miserables” for the non-fan
Since the opening of Les Miserables on Christmas day, I have read no shortage of reviews from the professional critic and lay person alike. People on social media have talked about weeping and wailing, taking boxes of tissue, it being the best movie they have ever seen and the like. Viewers and reviewers seem to fall into one of these categories: 1) those who are admitted fans who think the movie version is the greatest thing ever filmed, 2) those who are admitted fans who think it was ok, but well short of the greatest thing ever filmed, 3) those who are not fans and did not care for it, and 4) those who are not fans and really do not get it. If you are in the first three groups well and good. In this post I want to address the fourth group because I have sympathy for them. I’m guessing it would be like coming into the 14th episode of the fifth season of Lost or any episode of Dr. Who. Here is a summary that might help if you are unfamiliar with Les Miserables but intend to see the movie. First, the movie is based on the book of the same name. Les Miserables was written by a Frenchman named Victor Hugo who apparently did not have anything else to do other than write for a long, long time, as the book is a million pages long. Several Parisian forests were leveled for its first printing. The story begins after the French Revolution and culminates with the 1832 June Rebellion, neither of which means anything to most Americans. One might as well say the action began during the first phase of the moon and ended during the penguin mating season. Same interest level, same knowledge level. It is estimated that only five people have ever read Les Mis in its entirety. It is the literary equivalent of a Claxton fruitcake. One of the five is Trevin Wax. Two of the others are Alain Boubill and Claude-Michel Schonberg. Or, maybe one of them read it and summarized it for the other. Regardless, these two had the idea that a story about an escaped convict, a dogged police officer, a bunch of hookers, street people, an orphan, a love-triangle and French social unrest–all based on a million page novel–would make a bang-up musical. Against all odds they were right. Les Miserables has truly become a worldwide phenomenon. The musical, as well as the current movie, are “sung-through” meaning that the entirety of the dialogue, save a hundred words or so, are rendered in song. The story is related in sweeping anthems, solos, duets, trios and heart breaking soliloquies. Contains spoilers Les Mis centers around a man named Jean Valjean. (For all you Duck Dynasty fans it is not “Gene Valgene.” It is pronounced something like “zhan valzhan.”) He is serving a 19 year prison sentence for stealing a loaf of bread in an attempt to feed his starving relatives. Police inspector Javert dutifully reminds Valjean he was sentenced to five years for stealing the bread and 14 years for trying to escape. What a relief. At the end of the 19 years he is issued a “yellow-ticket of leave,” which is basically a parole card. After a futile attempt to find work, Valjean takes refuge in the home of a priest whom he promptly relieves of the church’s silver place settings. The priest forgives Valjean and claims him for God. After a heartfelt soul searching, a contrite Valjean repents and vows to be a changed man. The problem is Valjean feels himself so changed that he is no longer Jean Valjean and will begin a new life, complete with running away from his parole and parole office, Javert. Javert does not overlook such an act, nor believe such a conversion. Years later we find Valjean, using the assumed name Monsieur Madeleine, in another town, a successful business man who is currently mayor. He has found wealth and success in the days of social upheaval, a time not unlike Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities or A Christmas Carol. Owing to bad timing and a misunderstanding a factory woman, Fantine–an employee of Valjean’s–is fired and due to the failed economy must turn to prostitution to support her daughter. Valjean later realizes what has happened and tries to make amends, but Fantine has become ill and will not escape death. Out of a sense of guilt and responsibility he promises to find her daughter, Cosette, and raise her as his own. This he does after paying off the French innkeeper and his wife, the Thenardiers, two wretched people so crooked they probably had to be screwed into their caskets. These are they to whom Fantine had naively entrusted the welfare of Cosette. Valjean returns to Paris (I think) to raise Cosette in anonymity. Years later they find themselves caught up in the June Rebellion (apparently these things were monthly) when a student rebel named Marius spies Cosette, finds out where she lives and pursues a forbidden relationship–forbidden by Valjean who does not trust anyone else to protect her. A would-be love triangle is formed between Marius, Cosette and Eponine the daughter of the Thenardiers who is the same age as Cosette, now a young adult. Eponine’s love for Marius is unrequited as he sees her, basically, as one of the guys. Nonetheless her love is real and is demonstrated as she rescues Cosette from a band of robbers led by the former innkeeper, Msr. Thenardier, and rescues Marius twice. The second time is at a barricade when Eponine takes a bullet intended for Marius. When the French army finally breaks through the barricade all of the student revolutionaries are killed with the exception of Marius. Vajean, who has joined the students, steals away the unconscious Marius and carries him through the vile sewers of Paris to freedom. Later, after recovering from his wounds, Marius returns to the cafe where the
Jesus Christ, marriage and sex
In a day when fewer people have a biblical understanding of marriage than ever before these reminders are apropos. Marriage is not simply a social arrangement as we in the West have come to understand it. It is not merely a means by which the state garners more little potential taxpayers or soldiers. It is not a man and woman who decide to live together. It is not two people of the same sex who decide to unite and call it “marriage.” It is a holy institution that has probably endured as much violence from Christ’s followers as from Christ’s enemies. Yet, it remains what it is. The following quotes are from the book, Who is This Man: The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus by John Ortberg. I highly recommend it. In the ancient world, sexuality was celebrated as a means of procreation and as an appetite to be gratified, much like appetites for food and drink. Greek physicians often diagnosed women with “hysteria,” which comes from the Greek word for “uterus,” a condition they said was caused by a wandering uterus. They said hysteria could be cured by intercourse. The Roman physician Rufus prescribed sex to adolescents as a cure for melancholia, epilepsy, and headaches. One imagines he had a thriving practice. […] The gods had little to say about marriage. The rules for a public cult in Pergamum demanded a day’s interval after sex with one’s wife but two days after sex with someone else’s wife. Zeus’s sexual history (one writer describes him as “the ultimate player”) did not suggest that restraint was an Olympian virtue. The silence of the gods about sex also led to a very different world of sexuality and children. Particularly in Greek culture, sexual relationships between adult men and younger boys, often between ages twelve and sixteen, were taken for granted. The Roman emperor Commodus is said to have had three hundred young boys available for sex. The Christian writer Tatian said that Romans “consider pederasty to be particularly privileged and try to round up herds of boys like herds of grazing mares.” […] Slave girls were made available for sexual purposes at the decision of the paterfamilias. Freeborn girls were often married by their families as early as possible: A study based on inscriptions indicated that 20 percent of pagan girls were married before the age of thirteen (in the Christian community it was about a third of that) […] Marriage, Jesus was saying, is not at its heart just an economic or social institution. It is a God-directed covenant that reflects the human capacity for self-transcendence and community. It is a joining of spirit and flesh. It does not serve the state; it precedes the state. […] Jesus connects marriage to creation. In Genesis God is making creation good by separating: he separates the light from the darkness, the dry land from the sea, the heavens from the earth. But now, with the man and the woman, he takes what was separate and joins them. And so Jesus says what God has joined let man not separate. […] Walter Wangerin wrote, “Marriage begins with a promise.” A man and a woman stand in a church or a chapel or a backyard before each other, before witnesses, and before almighty God. They make a vow. They say a promise. They give their word. That’s what a marriage is built on. A promise freely offered, fully embraced, joyfully witnessed, painstakingly kept —that’s what makes a marriage. Sometimes people will say: “I don’t need a piece of paper.” It was never about the paper. In Jesus’ day they didn’t have paper. It’s about the promise: “as long as we both shall live.” […] In the ancient world, one’s primary loyalty was to parents. But the man and the woman are to leave their parents to create a new primary loyalty—a union, and their union with each other is to be expressed through sexual intimacy, one flesh. In other words, sex is kind of a sacrament. It is an outward sign that points to an inward reality, to a spiritual state. […] In a broader way, something like this went on in the ancient world. For Greco-Roman culture, the idea of reserving sexual intimacy wasn’t quaint and old-fashioned; it was new and revolutionary. As a whole, it never did get established terribly well. And to this day, no one I know doesn’t struggle with it. But the framework that Jesus taught—the idea that marriage is a covenant relationship between and man and a woman, that sex has a spiritual component, that fidelity is a quality to be prized in men as well as women, that children are to be protected rather than exploited sexually — would come to shape our world. […] In the book of Hebrews, the eleventh chapter is called the Hall of Faith, and great heroes in the Bible—Noah, Abraham, Moses, Gideon, and David — are all listed there. Then there is this comment, “By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed.” The writer does not mention anybody else’s occupation — not David the king, or Samuel the priest, or Abraham the rancher, or Gideon the judge. Why Rahab’s? Grace. The same Jesus who was a magnet for sexual sinners who had flunked marriage was the same Jesus who redefined what a marriage could be. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” More marriages have been performed, more wedding vows have been made, more nuptial blessings have been asked in his name than any other. All quotes taken from Chapter 11: The Truly Old-Fashioned Marriage. Click below to order from Amazon.com.
One Minute Book Reviews, January 2013
The January 2013 edition of One Minute Book Reviews includes Blood Brothers, by Elias Chacour, Ordinary Injustice, by Amy Bach, and The Insanity of God, by Nik Ripken. Blood Brothers, by Elias Chacour, book review. The one book you must read to be fully informed about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Chacour was a 9-year old Palestinian Christian when the his generational homeland became the destination of a world-wide Jewish immigration. This is a firsthand account of dispossession, murder, terrorism, political scheming, ministry, forgiveness, and the hand of God. He recounts how his hometown of Biram was completely destroyed by the Israeli military on Christmas day 1951, for no other reason than disallowing the rightful owners back home. Chacour ministers to Palestinians and Jews alike to this day, as he writes: Before me stood my two commitments–one to God and one to my people. They were inextricably bound together. And suddenly, I knew I would rather be on God’s side which is stronger than human might. Then I knew where I should be–not living in comfort, but back in the place where villages and churches were being reunited, where schools and community centers and spirits were being built up, where, amid the terrible noise of violence I could hear the whispers of the Man of Galilee, saying, “Behold, I make all things new.” Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court, by Amy Bach, book review. Bach, an attorney with the New York Bar and a journalist, spent eight years observing, interviewing and writing about the legal system in the United States. Drawing from experiences in Georgia, Mississippi, New York and Chicago, she examines over-zealous prosecutors, over-worked public defenders, wrongful convictions, lack of prosecution, and judicial improprieties. This fascinating look inside our legal system is at the same time extremely disheartening. According to Bach problems are known, but accepted at every turn, regularly bringing injustice to defendants across the nation. That this is quite unremarkable is the problem. The injustice in our justice system is quite ordinary. For instance in Coweta County, GA: The Southern Center…charged that over a two-and-a-half-year period, more than half of the poor people found guilty in felony cases had pleaded to crimes without a lawyer present. And, after discussing Quitman County, MS: Prosecutor’s decisions are not transparent, except in those major trials, that make it to court. Prosecutors are not accountable and rarely have to justify their actions or identify the facts that contributed to them. With too little oversight on potentially momentous decisions that are made behind closed doors, prosecutors have no incentive to be neutral, fair, or to seek justice. The Insanity of God, by Nik Ripken, book review I’ve nearly finished The Insanity of God and recommend it for anyone who struggles with the big question: “Where is God in the midst of evil and suffering?” From the publisher’s summary: “The Insanity of God” is the personal and lifelong journey of an ordinary couple from rural Kentucky who thought they were going on just your ordinary missionary pilgrimage, but discovered it would be anything but. After spending over six hard years doing relief work in Somalia, and experiencing life where it looked like God had turned away completely and He was clueless about the tragedies of life, the couple had a crisis of faith and left Africa asking God, “Does the gospel work anywhere when it is really a hard place? It sure didn’t work in Somalia. How does faith survive, let alone flourish in a place like the Middle East? How can Good truly overcome such evil? How do you maintain hope when all is darkness around you? How can we say “greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world” when it may not be visibly true in that place at that time? How does anyone live an abundant, victorious Christian life in our world’s toughest places? Can Christianity even work outside of Western, dressed-up, ordered nations? If so, how? “The Insanity of God” tells a story—a remarkable and unique story to be sure, yet at heart a very human story—of the Ripkens’ own spiritual and emotional odyssey. The gripping, narrative account of a personal pilgrimage into some of the toughest places on earth, combined with sobering and insightful stories of the remarkable people of faith Nik and Ruth encountered on their journeys, will serve as a powerful course of revelation, growth, and challenge for anyone who wants to know whether God truly is enough. By ordering through the Amazon.com links below you help support this blog. You pay the same low price and I get a small commission.
Thanks for a great year
That would be last year, not this year…yet. But, I am expecting great, aren’t you?? For all readers of Kingdom in the Midst: please accept this great big “THANK YOU” for frequenting this blog in 2012. After an off year in 2011 (which saw a mere 22 posts), this blog was sort of resurrected in January of last year. Last year there were 233 posts on Kingdom in the Midst with many thousands of page views and visitors. My visitor numbers were skewed lower than my analytics recorded as I did not get re-started until the middle January. Another reason is my stat counter inexplicably stopped working for about six weeks at one point. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it. Overall, I’m very happy with last year and hopefully will provide meaningful content and host helpful conversations in 2013. On that note, some of you may have noticed I have installed a new commenting system called Disqus (pronounced “Disqus”). After trying Facebook comments for a while, and doing a brief trial of Livefyre comment service, I settled on Disqus. This is the same commenting system used by sites like NPR, Fast Company, CNN, The ATLANTIC, The Telegraph, Time.com and more. Having a Disqus account is not necessary to comment. You can comment using your Facebook, Google+ or Twitter accounts or just with your name and email (in normal WordPress style). Disqus, however, allows you to see your comments from various sites on your Disqus dashboard. The account is free. No matter you login method, I invite your comments and conversation. Maintaining consist posting is always a challenge. Now that I’m in a routine of sorts I hope to pass 250 posts in 2013. A continued focus on justice issues and exploring the multifaceted relationships between Christ’s followers and culture is another goal. I also hope to critique those areas of government that seem to contravene a Kingdom mentality. Book, music and movie reviews will continue, but I’ll also begin to do monthly “One Minute Reviews” of 3-5 books in a single post. I hope this will offset my tendency toward writing essay length reviews. Last year was the first year I attempted social sharing on a large scale. In my earliest blogging days, “social sharing” consisted of word of mouth or sending a link via email. I’m very appreciative for everyone who has shared my writing via social media. I had several posts that were shared hundreds of times. Please continue when I write something worth sharing! And, if you have not already, do not forget to “like” Kingdom in the Midst on Facebook. (It’s simple to click “Like” in the sidebar widget.) As always thank you for reading and recommending. Thank you for all who have supported Kingdom in the Midst in 2012. And remember you support this blog when you start your Amazon.com purchase by using the search box in my sidebar. Here’s to a God honoring 2013. Are you ready?