Juris Naturalist

I was a little disappointed by my visit. Perhaps because I did it so quickly. 90% of the material there could have just as easily been viewed online. Very little artifact-based material, almost all text or video.
Perhaps there is something to be said about immersing oneself in a set of images and other elements for a long period of time. Video and text are often experienced more objectively, while immersion has a more formative effect.
Perhaps the experience was dulled also because I had been there before. I went while I was in DC for the Promise Keepers event in the ’90’s. The place was swarming with zionist Christians at the time. Well, it was swarming with zionist Christians yesterday, too…
There are certain events in history which have been better documented than others, or which capture our imagination more than others. The Holocaust, to me, is one such event. Placing it within the context of other mass murders by government over the last two centuries, it seems small and insignificant. The tens of millions who died at the hands of socialism, in particular, come to mind. But we can also look at those who have died at the hands of US imperial powers. How many Filipinos were slaughtered in Teddy Roosevelt’s splendid little war?
How many American citizens of Japanese descent were interred during WWII?
It is easy for nationalist Americans to point to others’ faults while brushing their own government’s under the rug. It is easy to try to make an argument that is was the Germanness of the Germans, the Japaneseness of the Japanese, the thick headed-ness of the Ruskies, etc. which was at fault, and thank God we don’t have any of those faults!
But it was statism, the belief in the effectiveness at government to control our lives and to extend beyond protection of rights and contracts into protection of jobs, of culture, and of prosperity which have motivated those who murdered in the name of justice. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom is right. We miss the point, in order to save our pride.
The Holocaust was awful, but it was not peculiar. It is the norm when the state extends beyond its limited capacity to preserve Rule of Law, if it is even capable of maintaining that.
Let me be clear, I believe that those who bless the Jews will be bless, and those who curse them will be cursed. But this blessing and this curse do not apply to the secular nation-state of Israel. They apply to the people.
The most interesting part of the museum to me was the testimony of those who escaped Nazi Germany, but were turned away by other nations, including the US. Boatloads of people were denied access to liberty, and were sent to the barren desert instead. There they did not purchase land from the peaceful inhabitants, but instead chose to take land by force.
I do not believe that there is a prophetic role for the secular nation-state of Israel. I do not believe in the Rapture. I do not believe in Christian manipulation of existing nation-states. Nation states are the mechanism for murder, both of people, and of liberty. I believe Christians should be engaged in subverting existing power structures by non-violent means and by giving of themselves sacrificially for the least of these.
We should have offered to take those exiled Jews into our homes. We should have offered to take Cambodians, Rwandans, Indonesians, and Haitians into our homes. But our own government prohibits us from making this sacrifice which our Lord commands. This may be a time to join the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer in standing against the state we live under through actions deemed illegal by that state, but which are more importantly mandated by our God.

The image, by the way, is from the Armenian genocide, not from the Jewish Holocaust.

Suppose illegal immigrants were not to be tracked by the government and sent home. Suppose they were all granted full citizenship. What would happen next?
Suppose there were more free and open competition for jobs in America, with applicants from around the world challenging each of us for our positions, what then?
Suppose further that social welfare entitlements were guaranteed to immigrants on day 1 of their presence on US soil, including access to public education, emergency services, disability insurance, food stamps, etc.
Finally, assume that the most of the immigrants have low job skills and little formal education.
What specifically is the Christian position for immigration reform, based on Biblical principles, with a full understanding of the social and economic consequences of that position?
Sojourners has yet to generate or publicize their analysis. So far they have only made symbolic statements.
This leads me to believe that they don’t actually believe immigration reform is politically feasible at this time. They are making cheap symbolic talk signaling solidarity and tugging at the heart-strings of their followers.
Unless Sojourners starts to be more specific, direct, and public – that is UP FRONT in every statement on the issue – what their actual preferred policy position is, I can’t help but interpret their statements as anything but symbolic.
I, for one, advocate open borders and full citizenship status for all immigrants from anywhere provided they are not guilty of crimes against others as decided by a fair and impartial jury of their peers.
Will Jim Wallis or anyone else at Sojourners dare to make such a direct statement?
No. Why not? Because they have to make strategic decisions about how to present consensus among a broad coalition, and this will require multiple levels of compromise, precluding them from taking any definable position for the time being.
What was it Burke said about enabling the conditions “necessary for the triumph of evil”?
Shame on you Sojourners, shame on you Jim Wallis. Take courage and declare what justice requires of this situation or shut up. You are accountable to an audience of One.

Diana Butler Bass is all emotional over sport today.

April 5 was a remarkable day for sports — especially sports and religion. With baseball’s opening day, Tiger Woods’ spiritual transformation, and the miraculous NCAA championship game, one only needed to watch American sports to see that the national soul is alive and well.

Soulfulness? Really?
How united was America Monday? Some watched basketball (like me), some watched golf (yawn), and some watched baseball (meh). This strikes me more as peaceful division and the satisfaction of individual preferences, not anything having to do with heritage or solidarity.
Why is this community/solidarity concept so important to you anyway? We have another community, the church, which has nothing to do with sport, or tribalism (nationalism), or classism, etc. America is not united, nor need it be! With a minimal agreement to get along with each other and through voluntary exchange we each have greater opportunity to pursue our individual goals. When solidarity is pushed too hard those individual goals are prohibited in order to force the group’s goals.
I don’t know why you are reaching for a touchy-feely kind of experience here.
And America does not have a soul. Each human being has a soul. For some reason, that which you are searching for through community, God has preferred to give to us through individuals.
The only legitimate community is when the individuals subsume their own preferences to another. This can be a national ethos, a government, or a club, in each of these cases it is idolatry. Instead we need to subsume ourselves under Christ, and Christ alone. There is no room for these other communal attachments for the Christian.

Wikileaks has a very suggestive interpretation of the event surrounding the video they are showing.  I sympathize with it.

Pajamas Media has another interpretation.  (Gavel bang to Adam Gurri)  It is a war.  People die.  The soldiers followed protocol.

I posted on the Pajamas site, and provided my email address to their readers.

In this post I tried to avoid the more incendiary issues at hand.

I appreciate the more in depth reporting this post provides when compared to the wikileaks version. I understand that many readers here believe the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is justified due to the 911 attacks, and threat of WMDs. I don’t know that we can ever eradicate all terrorist threats, however, and I am inclined to believe that continued war (it has been 8+ years now) has decreasing benefits.
The incident in question is important because American public opinion may shift away from support of the war if the brutality, justified or not, is shown to them more often.
Personally, I am in favor of bringing all our boys home now. The war is too expensive. For the price we have paid so far we could have given every innocent man, woman, and child Iraqi citizen almost $20,000. If we let the oppressed among them move here they would have shown their gratitude by becoming productive citizens, as many Iraqis who have been able to immigrate have done.
Also, all our soldiers could be at work building and making things rather than breaking them and tearing them down. It could help with economic recovery.
I hope that more videos like this are leaked, and that the American public does shift against war support. I only hope that condemnation of soldiers, who have been voluntarily putting their lives on the line, does not follow. The politicians and their bad decisions are to blame, not the soldiers.
End the war now.
Bring our boys home.
ndsnow@gmail.com

But it doesn’t really matter because I’m in grad school.