Live by the sword, die by the sword

Look at this: Protection Or Peril? Gun Possession Of Questionable Value In An Assault, Study Finds.: "on average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. The study estimated that people with a gun were 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not possessing a gun."
No surprise to those of us whose reading of the gospels leads us to think that we reap what we so and that living by 'the sword' is to put ourselves in harm's way; not to deter.
Of course, there are some politically rightist Christians who appear to disagree about that, but it's interesting that this research seems to question their dismissal of gospel imperatives in favour of a version of Luther's two kingdoms theology.

Targum :: Romans 1.16-32

Brian Walsh wrote:
"Some months ago I posted a targum on Romans 1.1-25 that received a fair bit of attention. That piece was also criticized at another site because I somehow didn’t have the “courage” to continue my expansion on Romans 1 beyond verse 25 and deal with the thorny verses supposedly about homosexuality. This morning I expanded that earlier targum, only picking it up at verse 16 and then running with it until the end of the chapter."Targum :: Romans 1.16-32 (take two) � Empire Remixed. He makes the text available as a pdf. I tend to find that a bit tiresome but it is worth looking at, so I have taken the liberty of repo-ing it here. If I've done wrong, Brian, I'll take it down, but I've assumed that it is in the public domain ...

Romans 1.16-32 Targum (take two)
by Brian Walsh
Brothers and sisters, as we listen in on St. Paul addressing folks at the very heart
of the Roman empire, I want to put my cards on the table this morning.
I want to tell you, that...
In the face of the collapse of the dominant worldview of the modern West,
I’m ashamed when consumerism and greed is embraced
in the name of a false Christian gospel of affluence.
In the face of the crisis of capitalism,
I’m ashamed when Christians embrace free enterprise as God’s own
choice for an economy.
In the face of thousands dieing daily of malnutrition,
billions living in desperate poverty,
and the world on the precipice of irreparable ecological despoliation,
I’m ashamed that good Christian folks will appeal to “Romans one”
to legitimate homophobic gay and lesbian bashing.
These are, I submit, shameful gospels.
They leave me defeated, embarrassed and angry.
But I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This gospel is nothing less than the power of God for salvation.
A power that blows apart the empire,
dethroning its pretentious claims,
unveiling its lies for what they are.
Why am I not ashamed of this gospel?
Because through its power, life is put to rights.
Why am I not ashamed of the gospel?
Because in it we meet a justice achieved not through imperial violence,
but through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ,
who bore such violence
on an imperial cross.
Why am I not ashamed of the gospel?
Because such shame will paralyze me,
render me unable to heed the call to faithfulness
and so disempower me that I will not have the energy to live for justice.
Righteousness, justice, faithfulness – all in the shadow of empire.
This is the fruit of the gospel

that we long to proclaim and engender
in this Wine Before Breakfast community.
So let’s be clear about what is going on these days.
Let’s not engage in cover up with talk of market corrections,
or market misbehaviour.
Let’s not try to salvage this leaky ship of fools
with billions of dollars of tax payers’ money.
No, my friends, that’s way too cheap, and doesn’t begin to address the problem.
What’s going on in the present economic crisis
is nothing less than the wrath of God
being revealed against all ungodliness,
all injustice, all greed, all false gospels
and the distorted lives they produce.
But an empire of deceit,
an economy of lies,
is no surprise when we have become so adept
at suppressing the truth of God that is plain
from the very nature of creation.
What part of the finite and gift character of creation didn’t they get
when they adopted an ideology of infinite greed,
insatiable consumption
and an ever expanding and ever growing economy?
Doesn’t the very nature of creation
bear witness to a God of abundance rooted in justice?
Doesn’t the very goodness of creation
bear witness to the generosity of this God?
Doesn’t the very place of humanity in the order of things
teach us that are called to image the Creator
through loving and careful stewardship?
So here’s the sad truth, my friends:
this empire of greed,
this narrative of economic growth,
this whole house of cards is based on lies and deception.
This whole culture of consumption,
this whole empire of money,
is based on self-willed ignorance.
Creation proclaims a better way
because creation bears witness to a God of grace.
But we have suppressed this truth,
engaged in denial and cover-up.

Refusing to live a life of gratitude,
refusing to live a life of thanks to the God
who called forth such a rich creation,
refusing to honour this Creator God,
and embracing a culture of entitlement and ingratitude,
we abandoned the God of light and embraced the dark.
And in all of our complex theories
in all of our sophisticated and incomprehensible economic talk,
we became futile in our thinking
we ended up with lots of talk but no sense,
theories that are empty,
vanity of vanities.
And we thought that we were so wise,
we thought that we had it all figured out,
but the joke has been on us,
and it is now clear that we have been fools.
You see, that’s what happens when you get in bed with idols.
That’s what happens when you don’t image God in faithful justice,
but embrace graven images,
cheap imitations,
that look so good,
look so powerful,
but will always fail you,
will always come up short
because they are impotent.
Empty idols, empty minds.
Dumb idols, lives of foolishness.
Betrayal and disappointment.
Fear and terror.
Embrace the idol of economism,
believe its false promise of abundance,
allow your lives to be shaped by the greed of this idol,
and you will reap the bankruptcy of that false faith,
you’ll be “hooked on avarice”
you’ll be caught up in an “idolatry of ideology,”
and your life will be reshaped in the image of that pitiful idol.
Embrace the idol of economism,
believe its false promise of wealth and power,
and you will find yourself facing “No Options.”
You will find your life constricted and bound,

stuck in a moment that you can’t get out of,
and the economic freedom that you dreamed of will awaken to the reality
of lost value,
international terrorism
and a despoiled planet.
And God says, “to hell with you.”
And God says, “make your bed and lie in it.”
And God says, “go ahead and screw your idols”
And God says, “I’ll let those idols screw you right back.”
My friends, we are not facing an economic crisis.
We are facing a spiritual crisis.
The issue isn’t fundamentally the markets.
The issue is idolatry at the very root and foundation of our society,
at the very root and foundation of our very way of life,
at the very root and foundation of our very souls.
We are called to live in the truth,
we are called to embody truth in our lives,
but we have traded in the truth for a lie.
Our imaginations have been taken captive,
we can hardly dream of what life outside the grip of idolatry
would look like;
we can scarcely imagine a life that isn’t enslaved to consumption;
we can’t even begin to get our heads around justice and righteousness;
generosity and contentment are alien to us,
and an economics of enough is impossible to conceive,
let alone live.
And it is all so empty,
it is all so foolish,
it is all so senseless.
We have got into bed with idols,
and not known the Lord.
We have bent the knee to idolatry
and not worshipped the Creator
who is blessed forever. (Amen.)
Having embraced an insatiable idolatry of greed,
having been taken captive by an idolatry of consumption,
our desires are perverted,
our passions run wild,
and we are lost in a sexual fantasy land that is deathly.
Our young women package themselves as sexual products,

ready for consumption.
Our young men knotch up their sexual conquests,
egocentric proof of their prowess.
Our sexuality is divorced from covenantal intimacy
and reduced to cheap carnal entertainment.
But this is not why God created us as sexual beings.
All of this is a betrayal of who we are called to be.
The image of God is perverted by such sexual idolatry.
And remember, idols are insatiable.
They always require sacrifice and they are never satisfied.
And they have a terrible appetite for children.
There is no idolatry apart from child sacrifice.
This is the devastating truth of our culture.
Just as the economy will require the sacrifice of all of creation
to fuel its ever-expanding growth,
so will an insatiable sexual idolatry require the sexual sacrifice of children.
This is a predatory culture,
and children are the most vulnerable victims.
This is the bitter fruit of idolatry.
This is the sexuality of empire.
So it is no surprise that the God who gives us up to insatiable lust,
and who gives us up to perverted desire,
also gives us up to a debased vision of life,
a mind of debauchery.
That’s what happens when you refuse to know God
because you are too busy screwing with idols!
But make no mistake!
Such idolatrous copulation bears the bad fruit
of a deeply distorted life,
full of evil longing,
greed, hatred,
envy, death,
breaking community and destroying families,
arrogance, insolent disrespect,
foolishness, infidelity,
and a ruthlessness that is borne of a heart
that has turned its back on love.
All of this ...

this imagination,
this worldview,
this cultural practice,
this way of life,
... all of this is in service of a culture of death.
So don’t be surprised if this culture dies,
and don’t be surprised that this way of life will kill you,
even as you applaud and cheer everyone who lives this way.
And let’s be clear.
I’m not talking about “them”
somehow in contrast to “us.”
No my friends, we’re in this shit together.
I’m talking about me.
I’m talking about you.

Brown could -and should- do better

I'm pretty angry. Angry that Gordon Brown has fluffed the chance to do the right thing. Summarised here: Brown’s ideas don’t offer the change we need | POWER 2010 And here's the problem: "The PM promised a referendum on electoral reform - but not until after the next election and even then only on the Alternative Vote system which wouldn't move Parliament any closer to being proportional."
The government's first stab towards reform had a commission to recommend what voting system should be put to the vote in a referendum. That was way back at the end of the 90's. It recommended AV plus not AV because the former would not be proportional. The Labour manifestos since 97 have promised a referendum; so it's not like they haven't had time to consider and do this: so putting it off to another term of office (which is looking unlikely anyway) seems cynical in the extreme. GRRRRR!
Join the campaigns, write to your MP ... the fact that Brown has done this at all is probably because of pressure, he's trying to do something without actually doing anything; don't let him get away with it. Force this government to live up to its radical promise before it's too late and we could end up with the real smoke and mirrors of a Tory administration.

POWER 2010

If, like me, you think that more than a smigeon of reform is needed in the way that the UK governs itself, then you might want to acquaint yourself with this blog and campaign: POWER 2010: "Hi, and welcome to the Power2010 blog. This blog is where you'll be able to find all the latest developments in our campaign to take back power form politicians and reinvigorate democracy."

Willpower is depletable

As I read this report: Rough Day At Work? You Won't Feel Like Exercising, I found a question forming in my mind: is this, in God's providence, part of the point of Sabbath?
Here's the summary statement: "A new study, published in Psychology and Health, reveals that if you use your willpower to do one task, it depletes you of the willpower to do an entirely different task."
If we are trying to build communities where people are able to formulate and carry through moral choices which often may involve resisting temptations to do more easy or conformist things, then we clearly need to be helping people to find the time to rest adequately to 'rebuild their moral fibre'. This has implications for the way we run our churches, clearly. I feel vindicated in trying to help create less frenetic communities of the kin_dom...

But perhaps that's skipping too far ahead, after all the research is about resolving to exercise. However, it's hard not to think that it has wider significance. Sabbath is not the only strategy for 'building moral fibre' ...

"There are strategies to help people rejuvenate after their self-regulation is depleted," she says. "Listening to music can help; and we also found that if you make specific plans to exercise—in other words, making a commitment to go for a walk at 7 p.m. every evening—then that had a high rate of success."
She says that by constantly challenging yourself to resist a piece of chocolate cake, or to force yourself to study an extra half-hour each night, then you can actually increase your self-regulatory capacity.
"Willpower is like a muscle: it needs to be challenged to build itself,"

So routines and habits can help as can exercising moral fibre. I'm guessing a supportive social environment is going to help too.

Spanked kids =Lower IQs

Looks fairly solid research and it is certainly believable once you clock the fact that stress and fear inhibit learninng. The report article is here:
Children Who Are Spanked Have Lower IQs, New Research Finds
The theorising to explain the data, which is the most important thing, is this: "The research found that the stress of corporal punishment shows up as an increase in post-traumatic stress symptoms such as being fearful that terrible things are about to happen and being easily startled. These symptoms are associated with lower IQ.
Second, a higher national level of economic development underlies both fewer parents using corporal punishment and a higher national IQ."
I think I'd add my own theory too: that the alternative stategies for discipline tend to be more 'cognitively sophisticated' and encourage more sophisticated thought in the children and the generation of better life-strategisation down the line.

There are some Christian groups who, I would suggest, might want to reconsider their interpretation of 'spare the rod, spoil the child'. Particularly as 'do as you would be done by' gains an interesting spin in the light of this finding. Do you not want to be more intelligent? Would you not want that for your child? For all of the possibilities of people being able to sin more intelligently, other research indicates that a better educated population is one where on the wwhole there are better life outcomes for people.

Kelvin 2.0 by Stephen Baxter

New Scientist asked a bunch of authors to write some micro-stories about the year 2107. Stephen Baxter (again) shows how Sci Fi can explore important existential questions about technology and 'progress'. Here's the end; raising all the pertinent questions ...
Kelvin 2.0 by Stephen Baxter - 16 September 2009 - New Scientist: "And we need your help. The suicides have started... How did you cope with imminent cosmic termination? As Darwin said of your dying sun, 'Even personal annihilation sinks in my mind into insignificance.'
And, sir, our cosmologists ask: how was it to learn that you had been so utterly wrong?"

I trust I don't have to spell out to most of my readership why it's significant.