Muslim terrorists (I’d add the adjective radical, but isn’t that redundant with terrorist?) killed 130 people and wounded 358 in Paris on November 13. Muslim terrorists killed 14 people and wounded 21 in San Bernadino on December 2.
Legislator-turned-University of Aberdeen (Scotland!) student Pastor Steve Hickey responded to those shootings with two vexing blog posts. After Paris, Pastor Hickey said bombing the Islamic State is a bad idea:
The President of France immediately announced France will respond mercilessly. Haven’t we learned since 9/11 this (a merciless response) isn’t working? We’ve mortgaged our future spending trillions on the sword. Selectively fiscal conservatives still think additional trillions in defence spending and ongoing war will make us safer and depopulate the world of bad guys. It has done the opposite. Maybe it’s time we push the leaders espousing those failed solutions aside. Where is the radical leadership of those who hold to the values of Jesus? Is it really nutso to say if they bomb our children we will only work harder to feed their refugees until they can be screened and relocated? There is a demonic spirit in radical Islam. You don’t disarm a demonic spirit with more bloodshed. That feeds it. You dislodge a demonic spirit by moving in the opposite spirit. My pushback here is fuelled by my concern that in Christian circles in America the same spirit of violence in radical Islam is also operating increasingly in us [Steve Hickey, “Holy Leaders Needed for This Holy War,” Gate Post, 2015.11.14].
Yet after San Bernadino, Pastor Hickey said it is prudence, not fear, that leads him sound the alarm on a Muslim invasion:
We should be hospitable to the stranger, but it’s not that simple. We need to pray for those responsible in government to identify and neutralise threats and not just write them off as lousy Christians. When the Christian left scolds us for being full of fear and xenophobic I only wish it were that simple. It sounds a bit like the echoes of the days when the religious leaders cried Peace, Peace when there really was no peace. Curious that passage (Ezekiel 13:10) mentions building a flimsy wall.
We should love Muslims. We should respond to refugees right now. Foreign aid is sorely needed. Resettlement issues for them are complex. European nations are being destabilised.
Is it fear mongering for me to say I believe there are clear signs of an Islamic invasion of the West, currently underway, particularly in Europe? I do have some measure of fear that Christians and Christian agencies are using the crisis as a cash cow. Resettlement is big business for them [Steve Hickey, “On Fear: Why Do You Lock Your Doors at Night?” Gate Post, 2015.12.07].
Even before Trump went full Hitler and advocated closing our borders to all Muslims, Hickey brilliantly turned the Nazi historical lesson to say that the real facilitators of fascism are the church leaders who fail to speak up against profitter-Left-refugee-lovers and gun control:
To invoke Godwin’s Law, no doubt in the 1930s the average churchgoer in Germany had very little sense of what was growing up in their midst. Pastors who did see a threat and said something about it were marginalised and later rounded up and silenced. Others feared reprisal on themselves and said nothing. Is it fear to have fresh discussions about how the Nazi’s used gun control? [Hickey, 2015.12.07]
Perhaps Pastor Hickey has absorbed a University of Aberdeen theology too subtle for this city of Aberdeen secularist to grasp. But I can’t make sense of these two posts.
We define demons differently, but I’m with Hickey when he says bloodshed only feeds the beasts who would destroy East and West to satisfy their lust for apocalypse. We must appeal to the Muslim terrorists’ recruiting pool with something other than the violence, fear, and bigotry that the Islamic State sows.
Yet I also recognize that when we are faced with the Muslims who have already turned terrorist, who are already imprisoning Raqqa and Mosul, killing journalists and Yazidis, and exhorting others to mayhem, virtuous discourse is not possible. Civilized nations are going to need a bullet or two to solve the immediate problem of putting certain thugs out of business. Sure, the bullets the President and I say we need to use will feed the radicals who survive and spawn new ones, but we lose less by wiping out terrorist strongholds and bracing for the backlash than by letting those strongholds get stronger.
That said, we can’t extrapolate the judicious use of military force against well-defined targets into a complete arming and lockdown of America. Consider that whitewashed wall Ezekiel decries. Read the full chapter: Ezekiel isn’t saying build better walls. He’s saying watch out for false prophets who tell you, put up a wall and everything will be fine. We can build a wall, hand everyone on this side a gun, and paint a sign on the other side saying No Muslims, and Ezekiel’s God says, “In my wrath I will unleash a violent wind, and in my anger hailstones and torrents of rain will fall with destructive fury. I will tear down the wall you have covered with whitewash and will level it to the ground so that its foundation will be laid bare. When it falls, you will be destroyed in it; and you will know that I am the Lord.” The false prophets build walls, and they don’t fare too well.
There is such a thing as prudent border control. We have that for Syrian refugees.
There is such a thing as prudent lawmaking to prevent theocrats from undermining liberty. We have that (though maybe not in Mitchell) when we respect the First Amendment and the separation of church and state.
But we can’t slap the word prudence onto our media- and candidate-hyped fears and sacrifice the basic principles that make us different from the Muslim terrorists. We want to build a free and prospering nation, not just a stopover training camp for those who would hasten Armageddon. We believe that believers in all gods and believers in no gods can be part of this nation and can all more surely and effectively live their beliefs under our constitutional political regime than they can under any other system. We will admit that sometimes we have to kill some bad guys, but unlike ISIS, we will not declare everyone outside our borders and our temples bad guys who deserve to die.
I don’t like any religion that can be read to justify violence or exclusion. Inimical as the Islamic State terrorists are to the pluralistic democracy on which my liberty depends, I cannot join Pastor Hickey in declaring Muslims invaders. I cannot advocate going any further than we already do in blocking refugees from the safety of our shores. I will not advocate higher walls.
To our shame as a fallen, fallible species, we must occasionally resort to violence to put down the rabid killers among us. But here in America, it is less prudent to cling to our guns and more prudent to cling to our principles. Guns kill the recruiters; principles dry up the recruiting.
Maybe we in the US are already doing our share or more than our share to combat ISIS. European countries and other affected nations are doing markedly less than we are. The fight against terrorism belongs to all of us, and it’s time the free riders start paying their way. Germany – step up to the plate. Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Brazil, Canada, Australia, China, Japan, India, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia … pony up. That includes accepting refugees.
With our cowardly and ineffective congress unwilling to even take a vote on whether to wage war on ISIS, the best thing the President can do is tell the country, and tell the world that we are already doing our share and everybody else needs to do theirs. This may mean that we have to cut off foreign aid until we see the aid recipients doing their share. Maybe some of those aid recipients ought to be paying us for years of carrying their water rather than vice versa.
Have only followed your blog a short time, since the fire to the south, but best post to date.
I’m kind of surprised to see an agnostic quoting scripture to make his point, Cory. While I agree with Reverend Hickey on a point that I think he makes, that trying to kill every would be terrorist is not the answer, I also cannot agree the other point that I think he makes that we have to put walls up against all Islamic refugees. For one that sounds like Trump.
As far as arming against ISIS and other would be “terrorists”, the first thing to do is to stop arming them as we have been doing for the past more than 30 years, starting with OBL.
The second thing that our President has to do, is get control of the fascism that exists within the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon, who seem to be trying to control all of the natural resources on the planet, as well as the shipping lanes to put those natural resources where we want them. And those three entities of the executive branch are also trying to determine what kind of government each country on the planet should have. That has to cease. If capitalism is the panacea that we are led to believe it is, let it stand on its own and eventually it will find its way into the other countries of the world. If it is not, then there is certainly no reason to foist it on others.
And thirdly we have to stop supporting the very countries that foment the terrorism that is being foisted on a good share of the rest of the planet, i.e Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Lanny, I’ve got to swim in the soup that the rest of society makes for me. I quote and analyze the scripture Hickey cites to suggest to those who ascribe authority to Scripture that Hickey misreads the metaphor and that Ezekiel advises something different from what Hickey suggests.
I agree that with Lanny and Steve that we cannot kill every would-be terrorist. No Minority Report here. If we must use force, we can only use it against actual terrorists. The would-be terrorists, the folks in poverty or despair or whatever else makes them vulnerable to recruitment, must be stopped by principles and community, by offering them inclusion and connection in a community that lets them exercise their faith and pursue their dreams without AK-47s and suicide vests.
A blog post very timely and hopefully developed much further. Thanks, Cory for it and those who put forth cogent thoughtful remarks–not snark! I thank you and Hickey both for carrying the discussion to a new level.
Our national self-image has been abused by those who claim the use of violent means has made us a great nation. But winning in a large way 2 world wars when the huge majority of our citizens participated wholeheartedly and selflessly doesn’t need to give us any feeling of being invincible.. History should remind us that Rome (undeniably a great power of its time) also fell through its own faults perhaps? Why do we as a nation wonder why others want the “bomb?” Can it be the power it shows one to have??
Always remember that every terrorist to us is a freedom fighter to someone else. The more you kill, the more that want revenge. The biblical eye for an eye, is always the common denominator of these kinds of actions. Three points to solve the whole mess. The first thing to do would be to demand a two state solution between Israel and Palestine by telling Israel that the spigot for the money train is stopped until they do what the Camp David Accords set out to do. Number 2 would be to close the 60 mile open border between Turkey and Syria as that is where the black market oil trucks go for the money to support ISIS. The third thing to do would be to inform Saudi Arabia that we will no longer tolerate their hegemony into Yemen, Syria and the rest of the Mid East.
When all these are done, you have peace and their is no need for further action…That is, unless all of this posturing is meant to be directed at the racial minorities right here in America’s borders. These war powers that are now being so callously discussed will mean that ordinary Americans civil rights will be taken away yet again by the relentless pursuit of our liberties. Soon, even our junk mail will be opened to see what the car dealers are sending us if we do not put the brakes on.
Cory- thanks for giving my ideas a second life here. For those who don’t like Scripture how about a Chinese proverb I found on FB?… “Only when mosquito lands on your testicles do you truly learn to solve problems without violence.” Forgive the crassness. Somewhere in there is a truth.
This eye for an eye thing is deep in Judeo-Christian culture though Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount to take justice to another level than merely responding in kind. (The prohibition originally was intended to reign in runaway retaliation– if someone kills your sheep you can’t kill their daughter. It wasn’t ever meant to mean we mutilate each other. His teaching was that if you really want to defeat them then love them and feed them. In doing so you’ll heap burning coals on their heads. In other words, you defeat a dark spirit not with more darkness but with light. It works. Toss the religious aspects aside if you like. Love works.
But few Christians are living the Sermon on the Mount (and there are days when it feels beyond me as well). However, if we really want to respond in kind, let’s get creative and not answer violence with violence. How about answering videos with videos?
I’m been noodling on this one and wonder about it. The weapon terrorists use against us is fear—terror. The weapon is not a little knife held to the neck of a guy in an orange outfit by a guy in a black outfit. The video camera is the tool that broadcasts fear around the world. Surely there is a way to take down this enemy with the very tools they are using: video that exposes them going viral. I like to watch these anonymous hackers do their work taking ISIS down on social media. Maybe overtime they tweet we hijack their tweet and turn it into flowers or whatever. Maybe there are better ideas. One picture of a scared, burned, naked and running vietnamese girl changed attitudes here in the US. Maybe there is something the moderate muslims can put out there that show who the true muslims are and aren’t.
I also wonder if we need to listen to (of all people) Putin who is saying the US is a purveyor of moral sewage and no wonder the Muslims hate us for it. Instead of hoping to change ISIS maybe we need to change ourselves for the better.
hear, hear! jerry for Secretary of State.
Reverend Hickey, there is another one about and eye for an eye. It makes us all blind.
Jake- Your reference to Rome’s fall ties into exactly the issue that I wanted to raise here although it may be off the main topics.
When you take a breath and step back from the fear that terrorists seek to impose, the most damage from terrorist attacks has been that imposed upon ourselves rather than what the terrorists did. Rome fell because it overextended itself. The US is well on its way to doing so as well.
We have spent trillions on the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East with little lasting positive effect. We could have taken out the Taliban for a few billion dollars. Instead, we invade the whole country of Afghanistan and occupy it for over ten years. Worse still, we make Saddam out to be a terrorist with WMD’s and spend another trillion bucks invading Iraq and occupying it. The ISSIS terrorists are spending a few hundred million dollars a year on their whole operation and we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on military operations. We lost nearly three thousand people on 9/11 and then proceeded to lose over 6800 people in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will be paying for the costs of over 30,000 people in our armed forces who were injured in these wars for years to come, not to mention the tens of thousands of cases of PTSD.
We have to be smarter about how we spend American treasure and lives and in how we react to the terrorists provocations. For instance, Trump plays into the terrorists hands by calling for a ban on Muslims. That is exactly what the terrorists want us to do. They want to say that this is a war on Islam and call the billion Muslims into action for ISSIS.
Jake, your comment gets me thinking…
Violence has not made America great. Sometimes we have to resort to violence to protect ourselves and our friends. But greatness lies only in principles.
Jerry, I’ll sign on to your #2 right away. Starve the Islamic State’s economic lifelines, just like freezing terrorist groups’ assets. I’d add cutting every communications and power cable going in or out of ISIS-held territory, waging cyberwar on ISIS IPs, and maybe unleashing some well-targeted non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse weapons to cripple their communications.
I recognize your #1 on Israel and Palestine could ease some tensions worldwide, but wouldn’t ISIS keep screaming and fighting?
I haven’t studied the Saudi situation enough to critique your #3.
And I agree that above all, we must protect civil liberties here in the U.S. Those are the principles we must show are strong enough to withstand hatred and radicalism.
Last hour on The World, I heard counter-terrorism expert Harleen Gambhir say that ISIS is trying to eliminate moderation. They want us to abandon any tolerance of Islam. They want us to view every Muslim and Islam as a whole as mortal threats.
Steve, I agree with the Chinese: mosquitoes get no mercy from me, even if they don’t target my testes.
But let’s confuse mosques, even small ones, with mosquitoes.
I like Steve’s suggestion that we wage creative social media counterattacks against ISIS propaganda. Anonymous has gone that direction; perhaps that’s something we can all do. I wonder… would a massive Twitter campaign to mock ISIS’s nihilism and counter it with statements of laughter and beauty (think Roberto Benigni’s Guido in Life Is Beautiful) constructively channel Americans’ fear and feeling of powerlessness? Could we keep such a campaign from devolving into overbroad anti-Islam insults? Or should a little religious ribbing be part of the campaign, like, “My God is bigger than bullets” and “Allah is so great, he doesn’t need a suicide vest”?
Moral sewage—that’s an interesting note, especially given that ISIS justified the attack on the Batclan theater as an assault on “hundreds of pagans gathered for a concert of prostitution and vice.” The statement hints of slut-shaming: y’all were engaged in depraved behavior, listening to rock music, dancing in skimpy clothes, looking to hook up or score some dope, so y’all should’ve expected some religious purists to come shoot you.
Mmm…. sure you want to go there, Steve?
I understand the impulse to exhort all artists to create beauty and all people to shun vice. But our objective here is to fight murderous SOBs who want to impose their moral code upon us or kill us if we don’t adopt. I don’t think we can in good conscience (or in fealty to our First Amendment principles) impose a moral code on our artists as part of our response to such tyranny.
Cory, You wrote, “But our objective here is to fight murderous SOBs who want to impose their moral code upon us or kill us if we don’t adopt.”
It’s the same old story, which came first the chicken or the egg? We have been trying to push our form of government (democracy), our system of finances (capitalism) and our form of religion (christendom) on the rest of the world, since long before our inception as a country. We have slaughtered millions in doing this and yet we expect no pushback or as they like to call it nowadays, “blowback”. That is never the way the playground worked and it certainly is not the way life works.
I do not like evil for evil. But there is an interesting side effect on the rest of the world, Russia, France, Britian, bombing Isis. They can no longer say it is just the USA that does not like their terrorist method. Russia bombed 455 isil sites for downing their civilian aircraft so isis may run out of posts. Not sure what Russia thinks we should have done about them shooting down a Dutch airliner.
Lanny, I think you make some great points. I doubt the accuracy, however, of the idea that we ever wanted to push our version of democracy on other countries, given the number of dictators we have supported over the years. For example, in the middle east, history suggests that we were more interested in oil than promoting democracy.
The following scholarly article is quite informative:
http://jah.oxfordjournals.org/content/99/1/208.full
Saudi Arabia supplies ISIS with funds for the proxy fight in Syria. Without a two state solution, there is always the rally cry that Israel has stolen the agreed upon lands from Palestine including their oil and water. That has always been a huge recruiter for any kind of radicalism.
Why are we so afraid of the world? We won two world wars and have more guns in our closets than all the rest of the world combined. We fought in Vietnam against full trained forces and those guys wore black clothes as well. They shot the same kind of Rocket propelled grenades at us. They fired the same AK 47’s at us and yet we did not keep them from coming to our shores when the fighting ended. They were not Christian either and we did not give a damn about it. Here are a few hundred young outlaws that cut somebody’s head off and we go into a panic. America, get a grip. Join the military if you are so scared, but stop trying to convince us that all is lost and we gotta go bomb these few hundred at the cost of trillions more dollars. Didn’t 2003 teach us anything?
This is who is going to go to the polls in this election. These unhinged people who are taken in with the charm of the reality network tee vee star, spooky. https://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/trump-supporter-goes-absolutely-bonkers-on-cnn-obama-comes-on-the-tv-and-he-lies-to-me/
Hickey, like all religionists, picks and chooses the “scripture” he follows. I don’t doubt his sincerity; in fact’s what makes him frightening.
He can seem like a reasonable, likeable fella. Then he goes and says some goofy crap like, “Scientists just add zeros to make things age as they want them to.” That doesn’t make him less likeable, but it sure makes him harder to take seriously.
What makes him less likeable is his use of a fairy tale to justify his attempts to govern the rest of us.
CAH, Apparently Anonymous is going to do what you suggested.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/anonymous-reveals-next-phase-cyber-war-isis-193041108.html
Bob Newland writes of Steve Hickey:
>“He can seem like a reasonable, likeable fella. Then he goes and says some goofy crap like, ‘Scientists just add zeros to make things age as they want them to.’ That doesn’t make him less likeable, but it sure makes him harder to take seriously.”
As a Bible-believing Christian, a pro-liberty noninterventionist, and a young-earth creationist who’s been studying the supposed scientific basis of deep time for over two decades, I feel that presenting my opinions here would likely generate more responses than I’d have time to answer.
Don’t worry about Trump supporters. His demographic includes a high proportion of people who just won’t bother to vote. He’s not going to be President, but with any luck he will run as an independent and siphon Republican votes from the GOP nominee guaranteeing a Jerry Brown win. (Don’t ask me how Jerry Brown will get the Democratic nomination. It’s complicated.)
People riding dinosaurs, Kurt? The hell you say!
“Rorschach” asks:
>“People riding dinosaurs, Kurt?”
Start here:
http://www.icr.org/article/9004
“How can soft tissue such as collagen survive intact for 68 million years when it has been experimentally established that at 10°C (around 50°F) only 1% of the original collagen in a bone sample can survive for longer than 700,000 years?”
Or if the words in that article are too big for you, try this two-minute video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWt8CT9nsaY
That’s 2 minutes I’ll never get back
Kurt, thanks for dropping out of that political stuff. You really need to stay focused on the dragons and the dungeons or vice versa. Then there is this, which must be true as well. http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/videos
It appears that one of two things may happen to Trump in the coming weeks, either a third party run or a brokered convention. I don’t know how long it has been since either party has had a brokered convention but it seems like awhile.
Trump may enjoy his rising poll numbers for now, but the reality is what will voters think when it comes down to making a check mark for him.
Americans are very fearful of another terrorist attack as well they should be, Americans are increasingly vocal about their fear of Trump and his instability.
Which fear will prevail and will these fears hold Americans hostage unto themselves.
Roger wrote:
>“I don’t know how long it has been since either party has had a brokered convention but it seems like awhile.”
I’m pretty sure the last true brokered convention was the one where Democrats eventually nominated Adlai Stevenson in 1952. (Walter Mondale entered the 1984 convention needing 40 more delegates but still won on the first ballot.)
Mr. C is wise. Mr. Evans is insaner than most.
Back when Bob used to bowl, and Bob was a very good bowler, we used to tease up some of the fellows out there on east Omaha street to try and take Bob on. Start for a pitcher of beer, maybe. Bob would lose and some of his roaddogs, me included, would pitch in for the tankard. Then they’d go again. Bob would come so close, but he’d lose again. We’d all gnash our teeth and pitch in for another tankard. Then on the 3rd game, which would be for a hundred bucks, Bob would cut all his shit loose. It was a beautiful thing. I’m just sayin…
Let me boil it down for you: Bob is right about Mr. Hickey.
If we matched every bomb dollar with a dollar of relief for the refugees created by the bombs, I believe we would soon see which was more productive towards World Peace.
Call it a dragon if you like, Evans but imagine Moses unearthing a fossil of Quetzalcoatlus.
But back on topic: imagine a white police officer tazing an American Indian:
http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/opinion/columnists/local/jim-kent/kent-another-cry-of-injustice-in-sd/article_b0c923ff-35a8-5be8-b884-4da7f62efdfa.html
With grudznick’s endorsement on my opinion, I may have to reconsider it. What a worthless POS grudznick is.
bcb-don’t forgot how and where the words banana republic got started. Or the US led coup of Allende in 1973 Chile. Or East Timor under Kissinger and Ford or….
Bob, Is Grudz’ bowling story true?
Lanny, Grudznick is a fictional character and so are all his stories. You need to read him as if he is Elmer Fudd. That’s not to say he isn’t right sometimes, or funny. But then, so is Buggs Bunny.
Pastor Hickey-if your god is so powerful,why not beseech him/her/it to smite all terrorists forthwith? Could it be that any number of known terrorists are of American nationality and pretend to have judeo-kristian values?
Nothing “grudznick” says is true. Grudznick is a POS.
Dammit Grudz, those boys were so close to winning last night.
Langely, Mossad and the IDF are creating the San Bernardino shooters but the GOP is creating the Robert Dears of America:
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/12/lying-evil-republicans-created-murderer
God loves terrorists too and there remains a window of time for them to change their ways. They are no worse to him than any of the rest of us. There are great stories coming out of the Muslim world of Muslims having dreams of Jesus and renouncing Islam. At one level there is already a measure of misery for the Muslim world under dark leadership. But most exciting is that instead of smiting His enemies there are awesome testimonies of God reaching them himself, in spite of the lousy witness of Christians like me. We pray for their salvation not damnation.
I saw this yesterday. Interesting… https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=688107297986463&pnref=story
See this, Steve?
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/10/459223058/catholics-should-not-try-to-convert-jews-vatican-commission-says
I didn’t but that is interesting.
Bite. Bit. Bitten.
Smite. Smit. Smitten.
Light. Lit. Litten.
Kite. Kit. Kitten.
According to the bible,young god was pretty hard on folks that pissed him/her/it off. What changed? Did he/she/it get tired or just fed up with rascals who refused to obey? One would rightly think there would be much more anger because of many more unbelievers. Maybe your god just got overwhelmed with sinners-if he/she/it exists.
Are you scared of Muslims, Pastor Steve? Which would be worse, your daughter bringing home a muslims to meet you or she saying she was a lesbian?
Would you be scared to go on a trip to Paris?
a muslim (I meant).
As a Christian, do you feel the call of God telling you to fight the muslim terrorists? Is this what Christians must be prepared for?
Read my post on fear, Jenny. I can tell you haven’t. Are you scared of guns? Me scared in Paris? I walk by a mosque every day here that flows into the streets there are so many men praying. Recently I started praying for them as I walk by this prayer which could also be prayed for churches: Let there be no evil that comes from without or within.
Nice poem Bob.
Here’s another one.
___________
“One Liner”
CHANCE > CHANGE.
You still didn’t answer my question about your daughter bringing home a muslim man or a lesbian woman.
I can tell you that even though I’m agnostic, and I have raised my daughter to be open minded, I would have some concern if my daughter brought home a muslim man. I wouldn’t care if she brought home a lesbian she was dating. Religion often times get in the way of love and that’s not right. See, we are being taught to fear Muslims.
Should Americans feel safe traveling to Europe, Steve? All this talk about terrorism, I would like to hear your answer on that also.
Europe is far far safer than Chicago. I have no fear walking the streets at night past people who are obviously Muslim. I am friends here with the Anglican priest, The Reverend Isaac Poobalan, who became famous a couple years ago opening his church here to Muslims next door so they wouldn’t have to pray in the rain. There is a book coming out on this story, written by a professor of political theology in my department. He’s writing the book on a leave right now in Toronto and I live in his home this year. We spoke yesterday about Muslims in Aberdeen feeling nervous right now but how they feel safe to pray in this Christian church. Here’s a link on that church. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-21953899
No I have not taught my daughter to be open minded about everything out there. We have shown her the dangers of crossing the streets and not let her find out the hard way. I view that as loving her. It is a Biblical mandate for families to impart the ways of God to their children and we have sought to do that – of course they can do the prodigal thing and we’d lovingly wait for them to return and pray they get sick of eating the pods of pigs, metaphorically speaking (using the vernacular of the parable).
You didn’t answer my question about being hoplophobic.
KELO is covering a local terrorist cell as i type this.
I must correct myself and say Episcopal priest not Anglican. Very big distinction here.
Barry, on matching bomb dollars with refugee aid dollars: given that one Tomahawk cruise missile costs $569,000, I think you are right. One cruise missile would stock a soup kitchen for a year.
Larry, you talking about these people?
http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.cfm/two-arrested-on-explosives-modified-gun-charges/?id=188397
Yep, Cory: what’s not to love about a public information officer named Sam Clemens?
No, I’m not afraid of guns I just don’t find the need to play with them or protect myself by carrying one.
I do have concerns about certain people that have own guns that shouldn’t be able to – mainly the mentally ill.
Thanks for answering my question about being safe in Europe.
The plan is for me to be in one of the refugee camps in Greece in the next few weeks. Cory and I have chatted on the side about me chronicling my experience and impressions. Some on my (former) staff in Sioux Falls have already been to the camps. Maybe you are aware we have ongoing work in Greece which takes me there a couple times a year. The only reason I share that is to communicate that as much as I think open borders are dangerous, and that we need to vet people first, I also know the world needs to respond to the refugees in need and I’m involved in that work of compassion and support it.
Isn’t that what Trump is saying too, vet them first, and if you can’t do that then the borders are closed to people from hostile places and ideologies? The more I check into what he is saying the more it seems he’s being misquoted. There are European leaders here, socialists, who are saying no more Muslims in a far more forthright way that Trump.
Religious left, Mr. Hickey? Is that what we denominational Protestants are called by you and your fundamentalist, born again, prosthelytizing zealots? I’m proud that my church is the only one in SD that recognizes and performs same sex marriages … and my church was the first in this country, brought here by the Pilgrims. Your religious mutation is a dangerous as the Daesh followers you emulate.
Sibson,
Refugees are being vetted, perhaps more rigorously than previous refugees, Trump leaves that out of his hate speech. The vetting process for Syrians refugees can take up to a year to a year and half.
Nobody just walks across our borders.
Do you notice any differences in the beliefs of your church between the time it was brought here by the pilgrims and today? I want some clarity on your notion of religious mutation. Jerk.
Paster Hickey, fortunately for you, you don’t have to try to guess what Trump is thinking. It’s right here in the first sentence of his press release, taken directly from his website:
“(New York, NY) December 7th, 2015, — Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
Clearly he’s advocating a violation of the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution. Pretty simple.
To bad Mr. Hickey is not a student of history. Then he would understand why open borders in Europe make sense. The more you close yourself off from the rest of the world or country, the more likely there is to be a war or terrorism. Europe found out before World War I and then found out again when World War II started about the importance of open governments. While you are in Greece, take a good look as this is exactly what your party wants for the United States.
“Jerk?” Unless this is a reference to a delicious Jamaican dish, isn’t such a comment contrary to Matthew 5:22, as well as Ephesians 4:29; and Ephesians 4:31-32?
Jerk? Who you callin’ jerk, bully? People of your ilk almost always do better when you attempt to answer your own questions. You certainly have no validity to question established and respected Protestant churches like United Church of Christ. What you want is clarity? The literal meaning of the name Porter is “Keeper Of The Gate” as in The Church of the Gate. Bury that with your haggis and let it ripen, insolent demagogue. PS … every time I speak with you your beliefs are challenged beyond repair and you retire crying. It’s Christmas and there’s no reason to hurt you, now.
Jerk, was a movie with Navin Johnson as the main dude, after reading the drivel from Sibson and Mr. Hickey, I am thinking either one would have the qualifications. Here are some quotes from Navin to compare with the two aforementioned. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079367/quotes
Porter you always are full-on with the bullying. So much so I have you pegged for a hyper personality. Jerk is a mild statement about your inability to be civil. BTW, you avoided my question about the significant religious mutation of the once orthodox UCC.
Jerry. Unbridled borrowing, spending, bloated government and entitlements produced the economic problems in Greece. You should go check it out yourself. Sad. Which party advocates those things? I’m confident of my appreciation for history in relation to the current border issues in Greece.
Peace! Time out and take a deep breath, breath in and out that hopefully nice clean air where you are at the moment. We don’t need Porter going on another trip to give another commenter two black eyes again. Aberdeen Scotland would be expensive in this instance.
Please just agree to disagree right?
I thought Zuul was the gatekeeper in Ghostbusters?
Stay safe in Greece, Pastor Steve! You and your family have a Merry Christmas.
I don’t argue to win thus there’s no benefit in reading responses to my assertions. Realize and synthesize your own beliefs and post them here. Responding to your emotions is invalid and lazy thinking.
We just don’t want you to blow a gasket again.
Mr. Hickey, once again you are not correct. The unbridled United States banking system bought the downfall of Greece. JP Morgan leads the pack on that. You can do the history on the banking debacle that shook the world and why we had to bail out the bums even in Europe. With Greece, they were the brunt of it because they had so little to begin with as they never should have been in the Euro in the first place. Take a look at there financials before coming on board and you will see that they were never in a position to be anything but a complete taker. Truth be known, they were welcomed to be a block to Turkey.
Jerk? Bully? Advancing the argument, or just brawling?
I always thought that the idea of gas lines and energy itself going through Greece made it irresistible for the world players to ignore. http://www.euractiv.com/sections/global-europe/athens-plays-russian-card-eyes-turkish-stream-313533
Here is how the South Stream would flow to southern Italy right through Greece. Interesting that there is not a lot of complaining about that.
http://burnanenergyjournal.com/the-ukraine-russia-conflict-flows-out-of-an-energy-pipeline/
American gun used in Paris terrorist attack, lovely. http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/gun-linked-to-paris-attacks-traced-back-to-florida-arms-dealer-implicated-in-iran-contra-scandal/
We have met the terrorists and we are them, one way or another. An American was gunned down there, maybe by the gun that came from an American. Sad.
Extremist, fundamentalist Christian preachers are tolerated as long as they stick to just bilking their weak minded flock out of their pledge money. But when the blood begins to flow from the false witness accusations that Planned Parenthood was “selling baby parts” aided by doctored videos, the bullying must be stopped.
You’re not a baby until you’re born and draw breath from God’s air. Calling out these preachers is everyone’s duty as mainstream Christians. Thank-you, Jesus~Praise God ✞
Unbridled borrowing, spending, bloated government and entitlements produced the economic problems in Greece. You should go check it out yourself. Sad. Which party advocates those things?
I’m guessing you are referring to dumbass dubya’s reign of stoopidity,Hickey. The majority of jobs created then were gubmint hires. Everything else-the spending and borrowing and entitlements for the wealthy exploded under stoopid’s watch.
An all knowing god, the one god that created everyone and everything, the god that already knows the answer to every question before it is asked.
There seems to be three questions that move this country more then others.
1. Should there be abortions?
2. Should we go to war as a nation?
3. And what god should we should be forced to pray to?
Self will is a pretty good out for those that would rather blame anyone instead of admitting their god was an ass hole. It sure looks to me like God created war, if there is a god. It further looks to me like God invented abortion “in the beginning,” or it wouldnt be.
If God already knows the prayers and their answers, why pray? And when prayers are tape delayed, when did that prayer go into effect?
Every religion has one of these gods. Every religion thinks that its god is the only true god, thats just the way it is and has always been. One religion pushes those people of another religion in the gutter and then builds another temple, or state or country on top of the dead bodies and distruction they have just caused.
While I understand the need to feel superior, thats the only way to keep people in the pews, I’m having a little trouble believing all the propaganda that leaks like swamp gas from each religions holy book of fables. Every religious leader knows exactly where to find the passages that suport their perticular beliefs, while marginalizing those that dont quite fit. Why would you have to pick and choose if it all really came from the one god you believe in, convenience, concience control, power over its own people, all the above?
Each religion seems to have two main factions, conservitive fundamentalist, and liberal interpretationist. For the record, I’ve never trusted either. Christianity, not only has those two groups, but a whole range of inbetweener belivers. These people pick what they want to believe, and also what was just incidental to the telling of the story from the book of fables.
Id be willing to bet that while the last couple years, from 9/11 to present, have shown many lives lost because of the hatrid of the fundy branch of Islam for Christianity, it would also show that lives were taken from the other direction as well. Yet those numbers pale in comparison to the numbers killed in our nations uncivil war, where 99.9% of those killed were Christians killing Christians. Go figure.
By using that same, maybe faulty, guestimation of percentages, I believe we could say the same about every crime committed in this country from its bigginning by people who profess to being Christian.
Our country is in the process of breaking itself, not from external terrorism, but internal extremism. The extremist in the country of “IN GOD WE TRUST” evidently dont really trust its god to fix any of those problems it created unless they can use guns or bombs to help him to do so. Their purity is not mine.
The Blindman
If God met you in your living room this Christmas, Bill, would that be enough to change all these conclusions you’ve drawn about matters pertaining to him? If so, that’s how I’ll pray for you this Christmas. That said, I’m sure some of his followers do embarrass him more than infrequently.
God better knock before coming into an American’s living room; I’d hate for Him to get shot for breaking and entering.
Steve, how would I know if that person was god? Because he, she, or it said so? Because you said so? Na that false profit thing keeps sticking it ugly head up.
If you aren’t questioning, you are following blindly. Even your own god warns of such things.
Why would any preacher, or any religious leader want to go to war? Of course the only answer is they dont really believe in their god.
The Blindman