We Shall Beat Our Swords Into Plowshares

The title of this essay is a proverb that appears on a sculpture at the United Nations building in New York. It’s a wonderful aspiration, and it bears a striking resemblance to a prophecy in Isaiah:

"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. (Isaiah 2:3-4)

Notice the difference, subtle but significant, between the biblical quote and the UN version: “We shall”, according to the United Nations. “They shall”, in the biblical version, because the Lord “will teach us his ways” and because “He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples.”

The United Nations mantra implies that “we” can bring peace and prosperity. The 65 years of UN mandates give more than a clue about their ability or lack thereof to get it done. “We” can’t even achieve peace in our own neighborhoods let alone in the world as a whole. A critical something is missing, “something” the UN won’t acknowledge.

“He will teach us his ways.” “The law will out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.” “He will judge ... and settle disputes.” When human beings take the serpent’s words for truth (“Ye shall be as gods”), they must conclude that they can bring the millennium to earth through their own efforts. In relying solely on their own wisdom, they reject the only source who can truly bring peace, the Prince of Peace.

Isaiah again: “No one calls for justice. They rely on empty arguments and speak lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil. ... Their deeds are evil deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are evil thoughts; ruin and destruction mark their ways. The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks in them will know peace.” (Isaiah 59)

We shall beat our swords into plowshares, but first have to learn how.

Lenny C.
www.kccog.org

Surely politics has nothing to do with auto dealership closures

Well, some people seem to think so.

From a Doug Ross' blog: What we ask is: does it seem odd that the list of closed dealerships appears to have contributed a grand total of $200 to Barack Obama and millions to GOP candidates/causes?

Click here to read what he has learned so far .

If this is true, learn how to spell tyranny with capital letters.

Write It in Pencil

Some of us like to write comments and notes in the margins of the books we read, and that’s a good practice for Bible study too. For Bible study I recommend marking the book in pencil. You never know when you might change your mind about what you once held as dogma.

Benjamin Franklin in his autobiography relates how in the 1740s, when French and Spanish privateers were raiding towns along the Delaware River, even threatening Philadelphia, the Quakers, who controlled the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, refused to fund arms or a militia to defend themselves. They were pacifists. It’s what they were. They controlled the Assembly, and this most important doctrine had to be defended more than the people of Philadelphia. At least that was their official position.

The Assembly did, however, appropriate funds “for the King’s use” while not inquiring how such funds were to be used. Sometimes when they were considering appropriations for defense, Quaker members simply didn’t show up for the vote, assuring passage.

Another time the assembly approved funds for purchase of “bread, flour, wheat, and other grains”, the governor interpreting the term “other grains” as “gun powder”.

Franklin then describes a conversation he had with a Dunker, a descriptive nickname that described the mode of baptism of that denomination. When Franklin asked why they refused to commit to writing their set of beliefs, the Dunker replied, “When we were first drawn together as a society, it pleased God to enlighten our minds so far as to see that some doctrines, which we once assumed truths, to be errors; and that others which we once esteemed errors, were real truths. From time to time He has been pleased to afford us farther light, and our principles have been improving, and our errors diminishing. Now we are not sure that we have arrived at the end of our progression, and at the perfection of spiritual or theological knowledge; and we fear that, if we should once print our confession of faith, we should feel ourselves as if bound and confined by it, and perhaps be unwilling to receive further improvement, and our successors still more so, as conceiving we their elders and founders had done, to be something sacred, never to be departed from.”

Said Franklin, “This modesty in a sect is perhaps a singular instance in the history of mankind, every other sect supposing itself in possession of all truth.”

In reflecting on my own spiritual journey I am amazed how ideas I once accepted as undeniable truths of scripture I now erase from my Bible’s margin and replace with a more mature understanding. Thankfully, my personal insights were all written in pencil. I suppose that’s what Peter meant when he said to grow in grace and knowledge.

Lenny Cacchio
www.kccog.org

Dialogue? Really?

Sometimes cognitive dissonance is the only way I know how to react to something I see. Something bothered me about Mr. Obama's address at Notre Dame, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Then today Karen Hood Johnson posted an excellent commentary on New Radicals, a Facebook group which, if you are on Facebook, deserves your attention. It nailed why my antennae picked up those disturbing vibes. I post here her commentary.

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I watched with interest as President Obama spoke at Notre Dame. In his speech he brought up the abortion debate, reiterating many of the same points he made on the campaign trail:

"Reasonable people can respectfully disagree. Let's agree that we all have different ideas about when life begins. Let's agree to reduce the need for abortion. Let's agree that abortion is a difficult decision for women and is not taken lightly. Given the number of abortions performed each day, I suspect far too many women DO take abortion too lightly. But let's go beyond that."

Pro-choicers don't believe that women are taking the life of their child. They don't believe it is a viable life, so women are not doing anything wrong to abort. If this is your line of reasoning, then this conclusion is perfectly logical. But this is also where the argument that women "struggle" with the decision comes up short. If abortion is NOT about taking a life--if the fetus is just tissue and not a real, living human being--then why should a woman struggle? Isn't it just like getting an appendix removed? The only struggle might be the expense or inconvenience vs. the benefits--purely a cost analysis.

This is precisely is what I find frustrating in such a "call for dialogue." It's
dishonest. It is not a call to dialogue. It is an attempt to appear as the calm voice of reason. It is a suggestion that pro-lifers are not concerned enough about the social environments that might foster a desire for abortions.

But most importantly, it is a determination to bypass the issue of life. That's where the dialogue must begin. Is it life--or is it not? If you say it is not, then don't be false and patronizing about what a difficult decision it is. If it is not life, you should not be struggling. Nor should you struggle if that logic is applied to other "inviable" lives as it surely has been--the comatose patient, the mentally incapacitated, the patient suffering from dementia, or anyone else deemed "inviable" by some kind of intelligentsia that has tapped into a realm that qualifies them to make such frightening decisions.

Ironically, Obama once said that he did NOT feel qualified to say when life begins. Such an attitude seems humble enough, but if he really doesn’t know--why not err on the side of life?

Obama calls us to talk about what can be done to prevent the need for abortion: Deal with poverty. Create jobs. Provide child care programs for single mothers.

These are things we need to do anyway and things, incidentally, that the church, the target of these kinds of lectures, has been doing for ages.

But what has this to do with abortion? Are you saying that because a poor woman can't afford her baby, we should give her the option to end its life? No, you are saying that a poor woman can't afford her tissue matter, and it is cruel to make her feel bad about removing
it. In fact, we should pay her to do it because it will relieve society's
responsibility to take care of her and her child.

If you do struggle with abortion and find it a disturbing issue, think with your heart about why that might be.

Dialogue? Hardly. I am being asked to have no absolutes because we're all flawed human beings who can't trust our own instincts too much--yet I'm also supposed to trust the better instincts someone else who admits he doesn't know when life begins. I'm being asked to stop judging something that is clearly too weighty for me. And I'm being asked to stop being so stingy and pony up some resources for these poor women who are forced to get abortions. That's not dialogue. That's presumption, and it's being used to mask the truth of the horrifying and logical conclusions about "viability of life" which many refuse to face or deal
with.

Life is either sacred, or it is not. If it is not, God help us all.

Karen Hood Johnson

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Here's what I don't understand. Nancy Pelosi says George W. Bush is dumb. She also claims he deceived her. If that's the case, what does it say about her?

Someone explain to me again -- why is it illegal for the people to lie to Congress but not for Congress to lie to the people?

James Madison said, "The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted."

In Federalist 57 he also said, "The house of representatives...can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny."

Explain to me again why Congress is more important than the people.

The Strange Parable

One time Jesus told a strange parable. It’s often referred to as the Parable of the Unjust Steward.

The parable is about a fellow who is about to lose his job because of a bit of chicanery. He learns of his imminent termination, but before the pink slip arrives he goes to his boss’s customers and renegotiates the terms of their contracts in a way immensely favorable to the customers and much to the detriment of his boss.

Of all things, instead of condemning the unjust steward, the owner of the business commends him for his shrewdness! With other people’s money this character was buying himself some favors that he could cash in at a later time.

Reasonable people wonder how Jesus could use the metaphor of a dishonest man as an example of something to be praised. Here’s a clue from Jesus words. “The sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.”

The Message, a modern paraphrase, renders Jesus’ explanation this way: “Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits.”

This passage explains why so many followers of Jesus have a difficult time in the world of politics. They just aren’t shrewd enough. Like Nathaniel, Christians tend to be men in whom there is no guile. They are not wired to think the way an unjust steward thinks, putting them not just at a disadvantage but at personal risk. They are unable to manipulate the system because their yes is yes and their no is no. They are prone to tell the truth, they will shun bribes and political pork, all the while running the risk of being co-opted into the system. While Mr. Smith went to Washington and overcame evil with good, many a good public servant has been sucked into the vortex and made a two-fold child of corruption.

The instruction to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves should be posted before the eyes of anyone involved in the affairs of this world. The absence of such wisdom or the loss of one’s integrity is why decent, honest people have such difficulty in succeeding in politics. Their hearts are simply incapable of grasping the labyrinths of this world’s machinations, or for reasons of integrity are unable to follow paths laid before them.

But Jesus tells us we must learn how these machinations work so that we can defend against them. Learn their devices, but don’t live them.

Lenny C.

Governor Mitch Daniel - A Politician who tells the truth

I wasn’t sure what to do with this, so I’m sharing it with you. Mitch Daniels is the governor of Indiana, and this is the commencement address that he gave at Butler University on May 9. It starts getting interesting at the 5 minute mark of Part I, and be sure to segue into Part II.

Commencement Address: Part I

Commencement Address: Part II

Governor Daniels expresses the frustration I have felt with my own generation and its self-indulgent, self-righteous, whining attitude. We have given the country 3 presidents, each more divisive than the previous one, and I have almost promised myself never to vote for another Boomer for President. But if Governor Daniels decides to run, I could be persuaded to change my mind. Heck -- he could even convince me to become a Republican.

LC

Bible Study on John 4, The Woman at the Well

This video is a Bible Study I recently gave in the Church of God Kansas City in anticipation of Pentecost. Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman has some profound lessons for us and for the work he expects of us today.

The woman at the well.

LC

I like Jay Nordlinger’s take on the conventional wisdom that the Republican Party's woes are being caused by a drastic move to the right. Nordlinger says just the opposite, that they have moved to the left. Frankly, many of us do not self-identify as Republicans for this very reason, that they have no backbone when articulating – not to mention supporting -- conservative ideas.

The Republican Party lost the battle when they became more interested in winning elections than in standing on principles. Rather than providing leadership (articulating their vision and convincing others of its validity) they preferred to ascertain which direction the crowd was going and then running like hell to try to get out in front of it.

Leadership this is not.

Having said that, in order to succeed in a two party system, each party must build coalitions, and for those coalitions to be viable long term, they must form a consensus. The so-called Reagan coalition was not so much a coalition but an easily understandable consensus. It was simple enough that it could be articulated by anybody, and it made sense to a majority of the people: 1) strong defense, 2) limited government, 3) lower tax rates to spur private investment, and 4) traditional cultural values.

Today we see the various stripes of conservatives fracturing like shattered pottery. Everybody has a pet issue that brooks no compromise, while at the same time the left steals the country by warping the big picture. Conservatives tend to view consensus as an abandonment of core values, but by doing so they lose the ability to build coalitions.

Arlen Specter did not belong in the Republican Party. He should have left it long ago. But to believe that a rigid ideological purity is a way to win elections is to deny the reality of history. Even Reagan chose a moderate Republican as a running mate.

Mona Charen's "Will Obama Apologize?"

Mona Charen, long-time conservative commentator, makes some interesting observations regarding Mr. Obama and some of his not-so-publicized changes of position.

Excerpt:

You won’t find it on the front pages, but the Obama administration has been walking back its position on many national-security questions. Attorney General Eric Holder has asserted that the U.S. has the right to hold suspected terrorists without charges. Solicitor General Elena Kagan has reiterated that position. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently told Congress that military commissions were “still very much on the table,” and rumor has it that the Obama administration will soon formally reverse itself on Guantánamo. The New York Times reported that “Officials who work on the Guantánamo issue say administration lawyers have become concerned that they would face significant obstacles to trying some terrorism suspects in federal courts. Judges might make it difficult to prosecute detainees who were subjected to brutal treatment or for prosecutors to use hearsay evidence gathered by intelligence agencies.” No kidding? Not only that, but not a single detainee was read his Miranda rights when he was taken into custody. Additionally, Congress is balking at letting Guantánamo’s inmates anywhere near their hometowns. Sen. Dianne Feinstein even put Alcatraz off limits. “It’s a national park and tourist attraction,” she explained.

But why should anyone be surprised about this? Expediency is the name of the game in modern politics, kind of like $3 trillion dollar deficits after campaigning on fiscal responsibility, then claiming to make good on campaign promises by demanding his cabinet to find cuts of $100 million. (For those of you are mathematically inclined, amounts to about 10 seconds-worth of government spending. But who's counting?)

LC