We’ve Moved!
We now our very own site which can be found at:
All the same old posts and comments will still be found at the new site. Hopefully in the coming weeks we will be posting more often and adding some nicer design and features.
The Belhar Confession
At the Christian Reformed Church Synod 2009, the delegates voted overwhelmingly to propose the adoption of the Confession of Belhar to Synod 2012. If the Belhar is adopted, it would be placed on the level of the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dordt, and the Belgic Confession within the CRC. Some people for whom I have great respect want to adapt it as a confession, one of those people being my pastor. He says that the major themes of unity, reconciliation, and justice are themes that our 3 forms of unity do not emphasize enough. A clarifying moment came for him at Synod 2009 when he was asked by one of the elders who was a delegate, “is there really much about justice in the Bible?” It disturbed him that somehow this person could reach the position of elder in the church and not realize that justice is a major scriptural theme. My pastor’s story is striking, and I admit that it could be the case that the current confessions of the CRC do not point people in the direction of justice, at least not to an appropriate extent. If this is the case, a new confession could be needed to augment the thinking of the denomination on the topic. However, if a new confession is needed, I do not think it should be the Belhar. These are my thoughts on the issue.
I think that there are a number of positive aspects to the Belhar. I do appreciate the focus on unity. I actually really liked how the Belhar states that unity is both a gift and an obligation. I think that makes a lot of sense, especially in the light of Ephesians 4:3, which tells us to, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” I’ve actually struggled for a while regarding what that meant after reading some comments from Synod in 2006 about unity. Some of what people said at that Synod made it seem as though unity was something that we needed to work for, and some suggested that it was something that was simply true regardless of our work, and thus something we merely needed to throw ourselves on. This statement that the Belhar makes unites those two sides of the issue in a way that I find entirely appropriate. I was blessed to read that section.
Section 3 ends in a way that is very strong and good, stating:
Therefore, we reject any doctrine which, in such a situation sanctions in the name of the gospel or of the will of God the forced separation of people on the grounds of race and color and thereby in advance obstructs and weakens the ministry and experience of reconciliation in Christ.
And the way the confession ends with a clear appeal to the uniqueness of God is wonderful.
However, the Belhar makes some statements that I simply cannot support. The first aspect of the Belhar that makes me uncomfortable is that it makes the claim, “that God, in a world full of injustice and enmity, is in a special way the God of the destitute, the poor and the wronged.” While Scripture makes clear that God cares for the poor, and Christ says in Luke 6, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God”, we go too far to say that God is in some special way God to those who are impoverished. According to the Scriptures, God is God in a special way to his chosen people, to go beyond that truth is to say more than the Scriptures do. This does really concerns me, because that particular portion of the Belhar seems much more indebted to contemporary liberation theology than it does to the Bible. We are lost if we start allowing our confessions to say that which God’s revealed written testimony does not give us the right to say.
The biggest problem with the Belhar, however is not with any specific statement – the problem lies with the confession itself and the fact that it is both too ambiguous and too specific. The Belhar was so clearly written for a specific situation that in order to derive any sort of benefit from the confession one must necessarily interpret it broadly. The CRC, I assume, would like to adopt a confession that speaks prophetically about unity and diversity for the people of God in contemporary life, not just a condemnation of a past event (a past event which should be resoundingly opposed). In order to accomplish this, however, the very specific statements of the Belhar must be understood in ways that go beyond the original meanings. Therefore, the Belhar is, for us, both too specific and too broad.
In relation to the potential for overly broad interpretation of the Belhar ambiguous language of the confession, some have raised the issue that adding the Belhar as a confession seems to be about advancing ones own political ideology rather than merely being opposed to apartheid. I think this could be a result of the fact that not everything is clear. Kevin DeYoung noted:
I am concerned about what it will mean to confess the Belhar Confession as a denomination. I understand that possible abuses of the confession should not be a knock against the confession itself, but adopting the Belhar Confession only makes sense if we are actually going to confess it together. Thus, it becomes important to listen to how others are already “confessing” the Belhar.
Those advocating the adoption of Belhar do not simply want us to affirm an anti-apartheid document. They are 
passionate about Belhar because of its many perceived implications. The Commission on Christian Action in 2007 lauded Belhar because it spoke to so many issues before them, including the farm bill, Sudanese refugees, the Iraq War, socially screening RCA retirement funds, immigration policy, minimum wage increases, and America’s embargo of Cuba. Others in the RCA have suggested that Belhar applies to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, global economics, green house gas emissions, abortion, social welfare, and taxation policies. For many in the RCA, Belhar’s talk of justice lends support for almost any cause that can be put in the broad category of “social justice”.
The nebulous way that so many define “social justice” is a problem as well, actually probably the biggest problem in relation to the broad way in which the Belhar could be used. Social justice means affirmation of a homosexual lifestyle for our culture, and unfortunately it meant the same thing for Allen Boesak, the man who oversaw the drafting of the Belhar. I believe that it was The Banner’s January edition that quoted Boesak when he, “dramatically insisted that the church’s Belhar Confession demands the defense of the full rights of gay members.” Richard Mouw blogged about Boesak and the fact that he still appeals to the Belhar to defend the ordination of practicing homosexuals (you can visit the post here):
Boesak was also instrumental in drafting the 1986 Belhar Confession, which I welcomed at the time as an important confessional statement about race relationships. He now appeals to that document in support of his advocacy for gay-lesbian ordination. In a recent insightful blog posting, “The Belhar Confession & God’s Final Revelation,” Violet Larson argues that this is a good reason to question the theological adequacy of the Belhar Confession, precisely because of the use to which it is being put these days by proponents of full inclusion on same-sex topics. I agree with her. While that document spoke forthrightly against the injustices of apartheid, it did not explicitly appeal to biblical authority. That it can now be seen by some of its drafters as capable of being extended to the full inclusion of active gays and lesbians in ministry says something about the weaknesses of Belhar—not as an important prophetic declaration in its original context, but as a statement that can stand on its own as a normative confession.
If the man who oversaw the confession’s drafting believes that the Belhar necessarily implies acceptance of homosexual practice and ordination, we should seriously meditate on that before taking one step further in the process of adopting it. In fact, or response should be to take some steps back.
Going back to the talk of specificity, at times the Belhar seems too specifically tied to the situation in South Africa in the 1980s. This can be a strength – I stated earlier that I love the ringing condemnation of apartheid that ends section 3, but I wonder how we might apply the end of section 3. We don’t experience apartheid in our North American context currently, and so it would be easy to read that section and think “mission accomplished”. The whole of the Belhar is very situated within one event, and as such lacks the enduring quality of any of the three forms of unity as well as the features of the three forms which make them great – the utter majesty of our Holy God, the complete depravity of sinful man, etc. The Belhar simply is not long enough to treat even the topic which is its focus – that God’s people should not be separated by race or ethnicity – with enough care.
Beyond that , because we don’t face a situation in the CRC which mirrors the struggle of South Africa in the 1980′s, I think it inappropriate to attempt to equate our situation to the one in which the Belhar was adapted. For us, addition of the Belhar would serve, I believe, to trivialize the struggle of those who actually have been through the evil of apartheid.
In regards to my pastor’s story, his conversation seemed to reveal Biblical illiteracy more than deficiency in confessional standards. However, it could be that a new confession or new testimony could help teach the CRC about the fact that the Scriptures do talk about justice. However, I don’t think that the Belhar should be that confession. I think that there are serious issues which should disqualify the Confession of Belhar from addition to any standard of the Christian Reformed Church.
The American Patriot’s Bible
The USA Today, in a recent article, has alerted me to the fact that there was a product delivered to the market in time for Independence Day celebrations. For the doubters who believe that Civil Religion is dead in this country, it is time to pick up your copy of The American Patriot’s Bible. You can order it from your favorite retailer today. If Amazon is your retailer of choice, there is the appropriate option of buying this Bible along with Mark Levin’s Freedom and Tyranny – which I have long thought should augment studies of the Bible, yet it never seemed fitting enough until now. Already two individuals have been inspired to look to niche Bibles beyond this one.
This new Bible is really helpful. I’ll be shelving it right between my Soviet Communist Bible for the Motherland (hint – see Acts 6 for the lengthy essay on how sharing within the proletariat leads inexorably to persecution from the Jewish bourgeois), and my Fascist Bible for Forward-Thinking Italians, whose foreward by Benito Mussolini draws on 1 Kings 10 to show that generation of a favorable import-export ratio is critical to fuel our mandate for imperial expansionism. Less helpful is Mikhail Bakunin’s Anarchic Bible, which, though it provides interesting revelations into the runaway lawlessness at the end of Judges (particularly supporting the theft of wives from one’s kindred), it seems to repudiate pretty much every ethical proscription from Genesis to Revelation (thanks Steve).
Oh, and on’t forget your Enviornmentalist Bible:
Some serious comments on the Green Bible: the latest issue of First Things includes a splendid piece by Alan Jacobs on the phenomenon of the Green Bible: “The Green Bible presents us with a curious kind of natural theology: We start with things we know to be true from trusted sources – Al Gore, perhaps? – and then we turn to Scripture to measure it against those preexisting and reliable authorities. And what a relief to discover that God is green. Because we already know that it’s good to be green – what we didn’t know is whether God measures up to that standard.”
Jacobs is right to poke fun at the project’s entire underlying methodology: “The project website tells us that ‘with over 1,000 references to the earth in the Bible, compared to 490 references to heaven and 530 references to love, the Bible carries a powerful message for the earth.’ I am not sure what to make of this argumentum ad arithmeticum, unless the point is that the earth is approximately 1.88 times more important to God than love and 2.04 times more important than heaven. Based on my own research into this topic and following the same method, I am prepared to say that the earth is 7.04 times more important to God than donkeys (which are mentioned 142 times in the Bible).”
And he is right to observe that scripture itself is a little more ecologically ambiguous than The Green Bible would have you believe. Exactly what ecological edification are we to draw from the story of Jesus cursing and blighting a fig tree? Or from a passage like Ezekiel 20: “Mortal, set your face towards the south, preach against the south, and prophesy against the forest land in the Negeb; say to the forest of the Negeb, Hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God, I will kindle a fire in you, and it shall devour every green tree in you, and every dry tree; the blazing fire shall not be quenched, and all faces from south to north shall be scorched by it.”
Perhaps (for a different niche market) we should also produce The Arsonist’s Bible, with verses highlighted orange wherever God burns, scorches, or blows shit up. “Because with 1134 references to fire and burning, and only 158 references to salvation, the Bible carries a powerful message for those who enjoy destroying things.” (thanks John)
Remind Me Again Why This is a ‘Complicated Issue’?
Twenty-four hour news networks and constant refreshes of the Drudge Report have done a lot to make people shockproof. Allow me to quote a few recent headlines - “Stimulus is anti-religious,” “Has the Obama Presidency already failed,” “GOOGLE wants to monitor your electric usage,” “FEAR: Rise of fascism amid gloom.” When all you hear is one provocative headline after another, there is a danger in losing sensitivity to the issues that should truly grip us.
Occasionally it takes the most barbaric and outrageous of stories to jolt us back into coherence. One of those stories rose to national prominence just last week. In 2006, a teenager was waiting to receive an abortion. She was given drugs and told to wait for the “doctor” to arrive. The “doctor” didn’t arrive in time and the baby was born alive at twenty-three weeks.
There is more. According to reports, a worker at the clinic saw what had happened, cut the umbilical cord, threw the live baby in a hazardous waste bag and then threw the live child into the garbage. Police found the infant’s remains a week later.
No one likes to hear these stories. They make you feel ill inside. It is easier to ignore them or look the other way. However, if that is not an option, a popular response is to raise your arms and cry “how could this happen?” Yet it is the unquestioned assumptions of some of these very people that allow these types horrific and barbaric acts to take place.
If you read the accounts of what happened, the worker who picked up the child and stuffed it into a hazardous waste bag acted with remarkable quickness. The worker seemed to know what they were doing. It is conjecture, but it would not be out of the realm of possibility to speculate that something like this had happened before.
Apparently the “doctor” had important business to attend to elsewhere. But what if he didn’t? What if he had arrived on time? Would there be a story? Of course not. This would go down as one of the millions of abortions that have happened in this country without a public outcry – rather unremarkable in terms of recent history.
So what is the difference between the two cases? In the first, we are allowed to get up in arms and scream out “how could this happen!” We are allowed to get angry at the worker and the callousness of someone who could take a living child and throw them into a bag as if they were garbage. In the second, we are not allowed to impose our personal views but must defer to the choice of the mother. The only recognizable difference with the second story is that this child is covered by a layer of flesh that belongs to the mother. That is the only difference. It is the same heartbeat, the same brain function, and the same twenty-three weeks of development.
Yet by some perverse logic our second example is a “complicated issue” that we as a society really can’t make policy decisions about, but should really just leave up to the woman. We would be surprised to find someone publicly advocating that the worker at the abortion clinic did the right thing in killing this child, but many would think it perfectly acceptable if the facts played out according to the second example. The same clinic. The same mother. The same child. And we stand idly by.
Gag Rules and NGOs
Repeat an erroneous statement long enough and someone is bound to believe you. Political mantras are no different. Repetition rather than reason has become the name of the game, and any attempt to look more closely at the unquestioned political assumptions of the day immediately affiliates you with either a. Rush Limbaugh or b. “the same old politics.”
Take the recent repeal of the Mexico City policy just days into the Obama administration. We are told that the old policy served as a “gag rule” on free speech of all things and denied medical and other assistance to millions worldwide. The “old” policy was to not fund NGOs that included as part of their “services” abortion or abortion counseling.
Make no mistake – the repeal of the Mexico City policy will result in the funding of abortions both here and abroad. Almost inconceivably, the Obama administration has justified the move as part of an effort to reduce the total amount of abortions. If I am following the logic the argument goes something like this, “If you want to get rid of something – fund it!”
The illogic doesn’t end there. Let me paraphrase. “Of course we are not funding abortions or abortion counseling. These NGOs have to use their own money for that. We simply fund these organizations’ other activities.” I’ll call this the “water bucket fallacy” – apparently it’s okay to pour water into the bucket as long as we restrict our pouring to the left side.
Obama has publicly bemoaned the “politicization” of the abortion issue, saying, “for too long [this] has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back-and-forth debate that has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate.”
Yet this action is worse than the previous “stale” debate. At least in a debate there is a possibility to work out conflicting policy goals with rational thought. What we have here is an attempt to take unilateral action and shut down debate – ironically this evinces the desire on behalf of Obama administration to “gag” civil discourse on this issue. It defies belief that the way to get ourselves out of this “back-and-forth” debate is to do another 180 on a policy position that has changed every time a different party has entered the White House since Ronald Reagan. Sounds a bit to me like the same old politics.
Mark Driscoll, the NY Times, the New Calvinists, and Men
A friend recently referred me to a couple of articles, one from the NY Times Magazine, and one from Christianity Today. Reading those articles gave me many things to think about, and I have placed a few of my thoughts down here. It would be wise to read the articles before reading the thoughts that they inspired – this post might make a lot more sense that way.
I’m certain that I am not being very original when I say this, but I often find myself frustrated by Evangelicalism, because of that I found the CT article INCREDIBLY tiring and worn out. It seemed so typical – “let’s find the center”, “we need to find out what is right AND what is wrong about this movement”. Why are we so milk toast (milquetoast)? I would have preferred if CT had two articles – one written by a avowed supporter of the masculinity movement and one opposed. Let people find their own center – the truth is rarely so easy or tidy as the “both sides are right” which Evangelicals seem to spew ALL THE TIME.
I thought the NY Times piece was good. My heart was cheered as a Calvinist more than as a Complementarian as I read the piece. I don’t know much about Driscoll, but I’m thankful that his ministry is thriving in the heart of the least churched city in the nation, and I am thankful that the ministry is an orthodox one – not the “let’s find the center” typical megachurch (not that “finding the center” makes one unorthodox, just boring).
The failure of the piece, however, was that it seemed to be addressing Driscoll and the new Calvinist movement (I prefer the Neo-Kuyperian movement myself) because Calvinism is “what is cool right now” – and in doing so it shied away from any truth claims. No doubt this would be a limitation in working for the NY Times, but I think that the successes of the movement is not that Calvinists have their finger on the pulse of Evangelicalism or the culture appropriately, but rather that we Calvinists and Complementarians are willing to own the harder truths of Scripture. John Higgins said something yesterday that will stick with me. He said that as Christians our first responsibility is to believe the Scriptures – not firstly to like them. I think he is right. It isn’t that I get off on the notion of the damnation of the unregenerate, but I find that I must believe it. In the same way, the new Calvinists are not Complementarians because the pattern of headship and submission in the New Testament is particularly attractive to our sensibilities, but because part of believing Scripture is believing that what it says about marriage and the Church is right.
The other strength of the movement is that it is willing to proclaim the hard truths (We don’t name and claim, we own and proclaim). People will respond to the uncompromised Gospel, and while clearly the uncompromised Gospel is more than Calvinism and Complemenarianism, the hard truths of those two systems of thought must be acknowledged – Scripture is clear in those areas. I think that in discussions of almost every matter there are and can be gray areas, but generally I think that truth is more black and white than we want to admit; we simply lack the courage to say so. This is the reason so many Evangelical leader sound very unlike Jesus or Paul or Luther or Calvin or Polycarp.
Still, I have a lot of questions. I am a man, but I don’t like UFC, and I don’t know particularly much about caring for a car or building stuff. Does that make me less of a man or less of a Christian? And, as all Christians are called to be imitators of Christ, does that mean something different for men than it does for women? Maybe you can answer that.
American Empire? A Defense of American Foreign Policy
The recent post entitled “Ron Paul and the American Empire” is admirable in many respects. It draws attention to the all too common tendency for governments to pass sweeping condemnations of other countries with little or no desire to call these countries to account for their actions in any meaningful way. However, despite this admirable motive, I respectfully disagree with the argument of the author for the following reasons.
I begin with the graphic at the bottom of the post, which portends to show the broad scope of the “American Empire.” A cool looking map, I admit, but it deserves some closer analysis. Let’s take a closer look at some of the countries where the so-called “American Empire” has flexed its muscles.
South Korea – This is a clear example of mischaracterization. First, the action of the Korean war was under the auspices of the United Nations. That the United States is singled out for their involvement only shows the dedication of Americans to sacrifice for the safety and well-being of people on the opposite side of the globe. I think we can all be happy the U.S. and its allies stopped the forces of North Korea from controlling the entirety of the Korean peninsula.
The Philippines – Here is another country that is the counterexample to any notion of an “American Empire.” In the time of the Spanish American War, America was beginning to develop something of an empire. The Philippines came under American control. Yet who was it that protected the Philippines from the Japanese. If you read history of the Pacific front of World War II, you will soon realize that the United States used disproportionate resources to attempt to rescue the Philippines from the Empire of Japan – hardly the efforts of uncaring despots. Then, on July 4, 1946, the Philippines was given their freedom, at the very time when the United States could easily have continued control.
Afghanistan – Anyone who knows anything about the brutal treatment of the citizens of Afghanistan would think twice about including this country on the list of proposed sites for the expansion of an “American Empire.” I can think of few better sources to quote than President Hamid Karzai, who asked for not less action, but more. Karzai spoke to American journalists about the threats of terrorism, saying “[w]ho did that? And where are they now? And how do we fight them, how do we get rid of them, other than going after them? Should we wait for them to come and kill us again? That’s why we need more action around the world, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, to get them defeated. Extremism, their allies, terrorists and the likes of them.”
I could go on to discuss how the “Domino Theory” was proven to be correct; how countries like Japan have flourished because of American involvement; and how other countries have fell victim to horrible crimes and tragedies because of American inaction and vacillation. I hope that we are getting the point. American action overseas has not been anywhere near perfect, but the notion that America’s foreign policy motivation is some attempt at global domination is simply inconsistent with the facts of history.
In the previous post, Ron Paul is commended for standing alone against 419 of his fellow legislators. This certainly takes a lot of guts. Yet to commend this independence as a virtue in one man and at the same time to condemn U.S. foreign policy for not meeting the wishes of fickle world opinion seems an untenable position.
The previous article is correct – “[o]ur actions have consequences.” We need to take a serious look at the world in which we live. These are extremely dangerous times. Before we commit to a course of isolation and indifference we should ask ourselves what effect American inaction would have on the world. The answer is an increasingly aggressive Iran; flourishing terrorist networks; and a defensive posture that can only respond when the next horrendous event transpires.
The argument goes, if all these world events are so important, “why don’t we intervene?” True, American forces obviously cannot be everywhere, just like every person can’t accomplish everything they would wish. Yet, the United States can still do a great deal. Just because we can’t do everything doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything. The stakes are just too high to sit and wait.
Statistics, visualization, and Radiohead’s “House of Cards” video
I just recently wrote a post about Radiohead and how their music is an apt description (and byproduct) of the alienation that seems to result from the age of mediation in which we live. I wasn’t really planning on returning to Radiohead, but then I came across a fascinating article and slideshow about infoviz art on slate.com. The article focuses on art created by representing statistical information in visual form, or “infoviz.” Some of this type of work was featured in a recent show at the Museum of Modern Art, entitled Design and the Elastic Mind.
Unfortunately I was not able to see the show in person, but the MoMA has provided great online images and summaries of some of the artwork in the show. The show gave attention to some really interesting topics and pieces that most people probably wouldn’t consider art. I found the works of visualization the most interesting, but the rest of the show is certainly worth browsing (if for no other reason than to see some of the odd and somewhat disturbing predictions about the future, like Mikael Metthey’s idea of a “counter-spa” where people will go to be voluntarily and temporarily infected with viruses in a future where all illness has been cured).
One reason I find art so significant is because it helps us see the world in a new way; what interests me about infoviz artists are how they remix information in such a way that it causes us to pause or think about something differently. Morgan Clements uses Google Maps to display a real time mapping of terrorist acts at globalincidentmap.com. On his site flickrvision.com, David Troy displays photos as they are uploaded to Flickr and ties them to their location in real time with Google Maps. Spending a few minutes on Troy’s site gave me an almost overwhelming feel for how many people are really living their lives at once. The site also acts as a strangely poignant reminder of time passing; this is especially striking if you try to click on an interesting photo a moment too late as it fades and you realize there is no way you would ever be able to locate it again.
The picture I’ve included at the top of this post is a piece called “The Graduate” by an artist named Jason Salavon. Salavon takes a different approach to statistics and mediation with his series 100 Special Moments, of which “The Graduate” is a part. “The Graduate” is a compilation of 100 different graduation photos merged together and averaged into a digital compilation; according to Salavon, “the final compositions are arrived at using both the mean and the median, splitting the difference between a specific norm and an ideal one.” This visualization lets you see some interesting averages in the 100 photos: typically fathers are taller than mothers, most graduation gowns appear to be a black or dark blue color, and many photos are probably taken in front of trees or some natural background. But what is even more interesting is that so many people want to capture and remember this significant life moment in exactly the same way.
Infoviz artists have started pushing our understanding of statistics and how we use them to comprehend the world. Unfortunately I haven’t yet seen these artists go so far as to challenge statistics in themselves as a way of seeing the world. This statement was part of the description of the MoMA’s exhibition: “We live in an age where information is more prolific and widely available than ever before, and to visualize it is to understand it.” That strikes me as a rather naive understanding of statistics and information. There is a lingering modernist idea that statistics and scientific findings are somehow more trustworthy and important than other seemingly more subjective ways of looking at a situation. Polling is a prime example of statistics that seem more significant than they should. Here is what Neil Postman says in his book Technopoly,
Generally polling ignores what people know about the subjects they are queried on…. Let us imagine what we would think of opinion polls if the questions came in pairs, indicating what people ‘believe’ and what they ‘know’ about the subject. If I may make up some figures, let us suppose we read the following: The latest poll indicates that 72 percent of the American public believes we should withdraw economic aid from Nicaragua. Of those who expressed this opinion, 28 percent thought Nicaragua was in central Asia, 18 percent thought it was an island near New Zealand, and 27.4 percent believed that ‘Africans should help themselves,’ obviously confusing Nicaragua with Nigeria. Moreover, of those polled, 61.8 percent did not know that we give economic aid to Nicaragua, and 23 percent did not know what ‘economic aid’ means. Were pollsters inclined to provide such information, the prestige and power of polling would be considerably reduced.
This brings me to Radiohead. This past July Radiohead teamed with artist Aaron Koblin to create the music video for their song “House of Cards.” Instead of cameras, Koblin used 3D plotting technology to create the video. Most infoviz art seems to celebrate the dazzling possibilities of information and technology; this is not the feeling I get from Radiohead’s video. The 3D mapping effect gives Thom Yorke a ghostly appearance to match his haunting vocals. As the video sweeps through empty city streets, buildings and telephone wires dissolve back into the pixels of information they were comprised of. Yorke wails, “denial, denial” as a house at the end of a culdesac dissolves into mist. This video almost acts as a foil to other infoviz art; it reminds me of the Biblical passage in James that describes life as a “vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” It’s a sobering thought, but it’s deeper than what I get from the rest of infoviz art. It makes me think about what’s behind the technology, mediation, and information that we surround ourselves with, what’s really important in life.
Ron Paul and the American Empire
Just before the House went out of session for a month, there was a vote on H. RES 1370 – “Calling on the Government of the People’s Republic of China to immediately end abuses of the human rights of its citizens”. If you didn’t hear about it, it was probably because there wasn’t much debate surrounding the resolution. It passed 419-1. The one dissenting vote, as you may have guessed, was Ron Paul, famously called “Dr. No” for his opposition to anything not expressly constitutional. At first I wondered why Dr. Paul wouldn’t be willing to call upon China to end their human rights violations, but then I read his rationale, and realized that he, once again, was right.
Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution, which is yet another meaningless but provocative condemnation of China. It is this kind of jingoism that has led to such a low opinion of the United States abroad. Certainly I do not condone human rights abuses, wherever they may occur, but as Members of the US House of Representatives we have no authority over the Chinese government. It is our Constitutional responsibility to deal with abuses in our own country or those created abroad by our own foreign policies. Yet we are not debating a bill to close Guantanamo, where abuses have been documented. We are not debating a bill to withdraw from Iraq, where scores of innocents have been killed, injured, and abused due to our unprovoked attack on that country. We are not debating a bill to reverse the odious FISA bill passed recently which will result in extreme abuses of Americans by gutting the Fourth Ammendment.
Instead of addressing these and scores of other pressing issues over which we do have authority, we prefer to spend our time criticizing a foreign government over which we have no authority and foreign domestic problems about which we have very little accurate information.
Of course Ron Paul is right. The House of the United States has the responsibility to create legislation for the United States. Anything else goes beyond the authority given to it by the Constitution. He is also right about the fact that this sort of action is exactly what engenders such dislike for the United States abroad. It seems to me that individuals in other countries just want us to mind our own business and stop meddling where we don’t belong. I am pretty sure if another country’s legislative branch decided to take the time to condemn the United States for one reason or another, the American population would be pretty well united in giving that country one giant proverbial middle finger.
H. RES 1370 is a wonderful example of how America has abandoned it’s commitment to the republic and has instead become an empire, for nothing would give us the ability to condemn China unless we somehow sat in authority over them. This is the way America seems to view the world – parts of its empire that can be commanded to act one way or another.
I guess another way to look at our condemnation is the following; if we can condemn China for violating human rights, then why will we stand by and let those abuses happen. Why won’t we intervene? The logical conclusion to such a resolution is to make sure that our desired outcome results. Why would we not make sure the human rights violations end in China? Clearly we have thought it important for one reason or another to intervene in such ways in other countries. Below is a map indicating the countries in which the U.S. either overthrew a democratically-elected government, or countries in which the U.S. helped to keep an existing brutal dictatorship in power despite democratic opposition.
Our actions have consequences. Condemnation will at best do nothing other than engender negative feelings toward the United States and at worst lead to the violent interventionism for which this country is becoming famous. The House should mind its own business and put an end to its own abuses.
Passing by Traditional Categorization?
The recent forum at Saddleback hosted by Rick Warren has garnered a lot of national and international press. While unable to watch the forum, I find the large attention it has drawn to be both interesting and indicative of the American (Evangelical) political culture–polarized on particular issues and enamered with finding the candidate who can give “the right anwswer.” What I would love is a renewed political dialogue, one that passes by traditional categorizations and asks new and pressing questions. In this vain, I find David Waters’ Washington Post article “What Rick Warren Should have Asked” a wonderful attempt to refresh our perspective on the presidential candidates.
Here is a sample of the Article. For the article in its entirety, click on the link above.
Even a cable TV commentator could watch Saturday’s Saddleback Church Civil Forum and figure out why John McCain did so well. In a sanctuary filled with conservative evangelicals, McCain decided to preach to the choir while Barack Obama decided to talk to the pastor. Obama had a conversation; McCain’s goal was conversion. Fortunately for McCain, Karl Rove could not have designed a better set of questions for him.
In his opening remarks, Rev. Rick Warren, Saddleback’s pastor and forum moderator acknowledged that ‘faith is just a worldview and everybody has some kind of worldview and it’s important to know what they are.’ Intentionally or not, understandably or not, Warren’s questions were grounded in the priorities and worldview of American cultural conservatives.
But as pastor of a church in a worldwide Christian community, Warren had an opportunity to go beyond conservative political talking points and ask questions grounded in the church’s alternative and countercultural worldview.
