pura locura: band of brothers

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

band of brothers

this weekend, i came across the history channel which was airing "band of brothers", an original HBO miniseries. it is 10 hours long (10 one hour episodes). i watched the whole thing. :)

i was so obsessed with this series that i watched it in 10-15 minute spurts at times if that was all i had. i waited until sonia fell asleep and watched 2-3 hours every night. i had to sit close to the tv to hear it at times over her snori....i mean, lovely breathing.

band of brothers follows a group of american paratroopers in WWII from their training, to their drop into Normandy on D-Day, to the end of the war where they took the Eagle's Nest, a retreat high in the mountains of Germany that belonged to Hitler. they were decimated and lost the majority of their men over the course of the war. they uncovered a concentration camp before they knew what it was and had to discover the atrocities of Hitler's regime first hand and with no real warning.

i watched in awe of their experience. what a horrible thing to live through. war is truly humanity at its greatest depravity, killing each other over territory or ideals, or just plain hatred. it turned my stomach to watch this stuff. at what point can we kill a human being and be so desensitized to it that it becomes simply our job? it's horrible.

now, i know that many of you reading this are okay with what is happening in iraq, and war in general. but you know what, i can't imagine jesus in one of our army uniforms killing people so shamelessly. i think jesus had/has greater respect for humanity than a mortar shell and a baynette to the eye socket.

i will respect anyone's opinion that supports "just war"....but i can't swallow it.

i don't intend this to become another "i hate war" rant, but this miniseries reminded of me of how horrible we can be as humans, how deep we can sink to forget that we are human and that others are human too.

and i don't want to hear about "god did it in the old testament...". next time god tells you to invade a country, let me know and i'll support that. but until he says to do it, we are acting on our own accord.

sorry, band of brothers got me all riled up now. stinking war...

59 Comments:

At , pablo said...: wow, now that's a serious question. i don't know that i have an answer for that. i gotta think about it.

but my gut tells me that he would not have...no fact or reasoning yet, just a gut feeling. take that with a grain of salt.
At , Keith (Qoheleth) said...: Pableezy: brother, your post comes from the heart. War is surely one of the most inhumane actions on the face of God's Earth, and much of what took place in war will comprise some of the darkest stains we see when we look back at the fabric of human history from the vantage point of Heaven, and I would agree with you that wherever war can righteously be avoided, we should do so.

I think we can safely agree that the existence of war is the result of the Fall, and the product of evil that lies within men's hearts (Jas 4:1-3).

"There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, war is hell." This quotation comes from William Tecumseh Sherman, Union general during the American Civil War. He looked upon war from the point of view of one who had seen it firsthand.

I think it would be wise to take it from that stance. Many men of deep faith have had to wrestle with this same issue. George Washington was a man of intense faith (read his journals); nonetheless, he was willing to conduct war to throw off an oppressive regime. In the example of World War II which you've cited, in which six million Jews were herded to their death and gut-wrenching atrocities were being perpetrated by Adolf Hitler, I believe opposing him with war was the only solution; the alternative would have been to surrender the Jews and all of Europe to the Third Reich. As you know, appeasement was attempted with the Munich Agreement by Neville chamberlain in 1938, and once Hitler was gifted with the Sudetenland and set his eyes on Poland, it was clear that he intended to conquer all of Europe and annihilate all who he found undesirable. What alternative was there besides war?

War is not something to be sought; but when there is no remaining alternative, then in God's name it must be joined, and the enemy engaged. I will stick to the rules you've set and not try to persuade you with the examples of the Old Testament (although I would have you consider the example of the conquest of Canaan in Joshua and God's clearly spelled-out reasons). How about Paul's stance in Ro 13:4, in which he states that legitimate government - to which He has commanded us to be subject - is given the sword for a reason?

Perhaps we should make distinctions between wars of aggression and conquest (Napoleon's campaigns, Hitler's Germany, Hussein's assaults on the Kurds, the Iranians, and the Kuwaitis), which we can generally classify as wrong, and defensive wars (the American Revolution) or wars conducted by those who have been attacked (America's entry into WWII).

I'm reminded of an anecdote from the Civil War. In his Second Inaugural Address in March, 1865, Abraham Lincoln said "Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained...Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other...The prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes...Shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? So shall it be said 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'" The tale is told that a Union private once approached Lincoln and recounted to him that his pastor had preached a sermon that God was on the side of the North, but he was sure there were good pastors in the South saying the opposite. Lincoln was said to have replied "Young man, the question is not whether God is on our side; it's whether we are on His side."

And yet - we know that one last war will one day come upon us, that will be finished at Armageddon, and of that war, it is written: "If any one has an ear, let him hear. If any one is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes; if any one kills with the sword, with the sword he will be killed. Here is the perseverence and the faith of the saints" (Rev 13:9-10). I take that as saying that as far as THAT war goes, we are not to take up arms.

Memorial Weekend is a timely moment to discuss this, in light of the sacrifices of many who did go to war to protect us, and to oppose evil in this world. Thanks for bringing this up; I'll enjoy delve into this as the group gets further into the subject.
At , steve w said...: "War is a dreadful thing," wrote C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. "I can respect an honest pacifist, though I think he is entirely mistaken. What I cannot understand is this sort of semi-pacifism you get nowadays, which gives people the idea that though you have to fight, you ought to do it with a long face and as if you were ashamed of it."

Dick Staub says in War Is Not a Necessary Evil, once early Christians were able to join the Roman army, they "started joining in droves. So by the time you get to Constantine, in the early 4th century, you've got whole Christian battalions." IOW, most early Christians were not pacifists.

Mark Galli writes in Wielding the Sword,
"the apostle Paul specifically teaches that God instituted governments to practice violence in certain instances. [Romans 13:4 referenced previously by Qoheleth] John Calvin later intensified the point to bring out its deeper meaning: A magistrate dishonors God if he refuses to 'bloody his sword' in pursuing justice and defending people from evildoers."

Galli says the "no war" position held by so many modern Christians is "a stunningly new thing," more reflective of cultural influence than biblical influence. "Disillusionment with the military after Vietnam surely contributed to it, as has a growing repugnance for suffering, blood, and death in our antiseptic culture."

I recommend these two articles to you for your consideration.

Many of the effects, results and consequences of war are horrible. But I cannot argue with God when he says, "There is a time to kill . . . There is a time for war." Ecclesiastes 3:3,8
At , steve w said...: Pablo,
Did Jesus ever tell a soldier "you should not be a soldier"?

Like you, I do not think Jesus would have been a soldier . . . simply because it did not fit his mission. By the same token, God will never call me to die on a cross for the sins of others. Likewise, Jesus could not be a 21st century computer systems analyst, but there is nothing wrong with a Christian being a computer systems analyst. Some aspects of life can't be forced into the "what would Jesus do" formula.

Sammy,
Maybe the better (more instructive) question is, "Would Paul or Peter or James have gone to war if he had been drafted?" Historically we know they would not have been drafted into the Roman army [see War Is Not a Necessary Evil - "Early Christians did not participate in war because the Roman soldiers distrusted them and because in order to be a Roman soldier you had to participate in pagan rites."]. So maybe we should bump the question into the 2nd or perhaps the 3rd century . . . and there you have many Christians not responding to a draft, but volunteering to serve in Caesar's army. They are not infallible guides for us, but they provide for us the earliest relevant "majority" Christian position, if that is worth anything.
At , Keith (Qoheleth) said...: Steve W: Jesus never challenged a soldier's career choice - in fact, He had a fondness for a certain centurion I'm looking forward to meeting one day - but John the Baptist had an opportunity once to do so, and he didn't: in Lk 3:14, I read that some soldiers came to John asking what they needed to do to get right with God. He didn't tell them to turn in their commissions and desert; he simply told them to not extort, to not falsely accuse, and to be content with their pay. In short, to be soldiers of good character (officers and gentlemen, perhaps?). It seems at least John believed a man could be a soldier - even a soldier in an occupying army! - and still be right with God.
At , steve w said...: Springboarding on Qoheleth's last comment, what does it take to amaze Jesus? A soldier's faith?

Luke 7:1-9
"Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled at him, and turned and said to the crowd that was following Him, 'I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith.'"

Quite a contrast to "You brood of vipers" or "Go and sin no more" . . . don't you agree?
At , steve w said...: Hey Alex,

"Since people seem to only be offering questions"

For what it's worth, there's not one question in my 6:57pm comment, and links to two articles full of insights. :)

I know what you told me about long posts, so I thought I would just make note of that.

Love you bro!
At , Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
At , pablo said...: Also, putting a "must" on "no Old Testament" scriptures can make you sound like the new Testament is the only thing you believe we should live by

son, re-read my statement. :)

people like to say that war is automatically justifiable because god ordained it in the OT. i cannot agree with that idea. like i said, if god tells us to do it, then hand me a sword and i'll chop people down with the rest of you. but when was the last time god ordained the slaughtering of a people? yessir, the OT.

i never said ban the OT, i just said that that statement ain't enough to form a belief. something like steve's quote of Ecclesiastes 3 is perfectly acceptable. but no cop outs, you gotta give more than just "god did it in the OT". yes he did it, but HE (not us) chose specific events and times to do it.
At , pablo said...: Did Jesus ever tell a soldier "you should not be a soldier"

not that I can recall, but I also don't recall him telling anyone to be a soldier. not sure though, correct me if I'm wrong.
At , pablo said...: Perhaps we should make distinctions between wars of aggression and conquest...or wars conducted by those who have been attacked...

should we? did jesus tell people to turn the other cheek UNLESS they hit you first?

maybe the priciple cannot directly be applied, but is there something to learn about Jesus' intentions from this?
At , pablo said...: Many of the effects, results and consequences of war are horrible. But I cannot argue with God when he says, "There is a time to kill . . . There is a time for war." Ecclesiastes 3:3,8

i agree...
At , pablo said...: How is it that even Bonhoeffer, a hard core Christian Pacifist, even schemed a plan to have Hitler Assasinated?

i asked myself the same question when i watched the movie they made about him. my conclusion is that he was wrong to attempt it. i cannot justify a man taking another man's life on his own accord, even if the outcome would have been favorable.
At , pablo said...: Would jesus sit back and watch millions of people get murdered, including Christian converts who were killed because they were of "Jewish Ancestry?"

this is an illogical argument, based upon the fact that we have a God that has watched us sin for the entire human existence. he allows us to sin if we choose it.

by the way, he did sit back and watch the holocaust happen. you can argue that god sent in the allies, and i will accept that. but 10 million people died before god stepped in there.

if you want to argue that god would noit allow that to happen, then visit the Museum of Tolerance and be reminded that it did happen.
At , pablo said...: I asked you Pablo, about 1.5 years ago, "Are the insurgents (and Terrorists) evil people?" And if so, "Does that not make Iraq a moral and Just war?"

yes and not necessarily. the fact that people are evil is a given. the fact that terrorists are evil is a given. but that has nothing to do with the morality of war. either it is wrong or right on it's own accord, but has nothing to do with how good or bad the offender is.
At , pablo said...: Quite a contrast to "You brood of vipers" or "Go and sin no more" . . . don't you agree?

yep...strogn point
At , pablo said...: and for the record, i've said this before but i don't think that qoheleth has ever heard me say it, i am perfectly comfortable with someone that believes in "just war". clearly, i have concerns about the idea. but at the end of the day, people like you guys and sonia (among others) that i respect and trust hold to this. therefore, i respectfully disagree. if you were going to join the military (or the sherrifs for that matter), i would support you. i even said thanks to aaron on his blog for his time in the service. but you won't see me putting on the uniform of the Grim Reaper (just jokes, relax).
At , pablo said...: my mom was given this by the teacher i had for 5th and 6th grades. it was written in either 1986 or 1987. it just goes to show that i have felt like this for my whole life. i just didn't know why at the time.

please forgive the bogus writing...i was 10 okay!!

'war' by me
At , steve w said...: War by Pablo Tovar, age 10

hilarious . . . but profound!!!

LOL . . . then, hmmmm?!!
At , steve w said...: Pablo,
Is a strogn point a good thing? I'm still learning about blogging. :-)

...I also don't recall him telling anyone to be a soldier...
Jesus didn't tell anyone to work for the city of Pasadena fixing their sometimes jacked up computers either. :-) But he told a lot of people to repent of their wrong. So we can both point to Jesus' silence. It's just that he wasn't silent about sin that he encountered.

The NT uses "soldier" as a positive analogy, and that MAY communicate something. I don't recall prostitution being used as a positive analogy to be emulated.
see:
Phil 2:25
2 Tim 2:3,4
Philemon 2

I wholeheartedly agree with C.S. Lewis when he says, "I can respect an honest pacifist, though I think he is entirely mistaken." ;-)

Aaron,
I think you're on to something [not on something :-), but on TO something; something to think about]. But I'm not sure it would be good for a Pacifist to be forced into war. I know that's not what you're saying. The draft freaks a lot of people out, and I don't know how much of that is male commitment issues [threw that in just in case some ladies are reading], or how much of it is a rich or middle-class don't-want-to-get-my-hands-dirty attitude, and how much of it is that we just don't really believe war is necessary. Why do pro-war Americans freak out about the draft? I prefer a volunteer system, but a draft doesn't freak me out.
At , steve w said...: Aaron,
When it comes to military issues, I'm all ears when a soldier speaks. I don't think you got off track, and I think your words deserve genuine consideration. I am concerned that perhaps today it's not generals calling the shots as much as it is politicians. And I believe most politicians think first of themselves and their future, rather than the people that elected them, their country, or the well-being of other nations.
At , pablo said...: When your not the one going, its easier to be for war.

amen. son and i were talking about something like this last night, but in a different context. i told her that i wish i was more conservative and could shut off the voice in my head that says "turn the other cheek". but i can't. in more practical and everyday scenarios, it is very hard to think this way because when you choose that way, the implications always fall on you. you take other people's pain and suffering, even if it self inflicted, on your own back.

sound familiar???
At , steve w said...: One more thing, Aaron, Uncle Sam won't even talk to me about signing up . . . even as a chaplain. I've already checked. So this discussion is not totally theory for me. And I have two sons of draftable age.

But I'll go to Iraq and Afghanistan as a soldier of the Lord . . . I have and I'm doing a second tour of duty this fall.
At , Keith (Qoheleth) said...: WOW. This has gotten very, very good since I last visited. I'd really planned on keeping my next couple of answers short. Really.

Pableezy: I admire you, brother. I have rarely found a man who can so graciously stick to his guns and still make room for others to be different and accept them as equals. You've got corazon.

Pableezy's first at 9:10 AM: just about the only disagreement I have with you, and it's a mild one. God treats nations differently from how He treats individuals. He calls upon individuals to forgive those who sin against us; nowhere does he do that for governments. In fact, governments are called upon by God to be just, and not forgiving. Go back to the Ro 13:1-7 reference, and read carefully the commission to government: bringer of judgment (v.2), terror to those who do wrong, commender of the right (v.3), agent of wrath to punish the wrongdoer (v.4). Imagine if governments were commanded to forgive: the burglar who stole your television would not be punished by the court judge; the president of Enron would find cheap grace and allowed to go his own way. Imagine if government were called to turn the other cheek: "Thanks, Al-Qaeda, for that 9-11 thing in New York; here, let me give you a nice shot at downtown Los Angeles to balance things out." Not gonna happen, cap'n. A government like that would be like... Belgium, which really serves no purpose on Earth other than as a welcome mat every time Germany gets an itch to invade France. And thanks for those great sprouts, too, by the way, and the neat waffles.

Also, nations like ours, in which citizens participate in politics and have a say in ruling, are a recent invention on Earth. Our American sentiments about government would have been alien to the world in the days of kings and lords, and are still alien in much of the world today.

By the way, this means that only governments can conduct warfare, and not private individuals. A private American who was to go to Teheran to assassinate Iran's monstrous excuse for a president would be in the wrong. Similarly, abortion is a great evil, and I wish there were no abortion clinics; but a wrong-headed Christian blowing one up in a self-proclaimed war is also deeply in the wrong.

Pableezy's of 9:12 AM: Bonhoffer must have prayed long and hard about that choice, and I'm glad I wasn't the one to have to make that choice. I hope he'll be willing to talk that out with us one day.

Bullseye on Pableezy's of 9:16. God in Heaven sat back, and cried for every one of the millions who were slaughtered. But He did not intervene, and in fact, Hitler's life was miraculously spared several times, and God allowed it. And never forget one thing: he was elected Chancellor. People brought him to power who could have stopped it. German citizens could have kept him out of office, and the nations around him could have enforced the Treaty of Versailles and nipped him in the bud before he became a threat. The horrors of the Third Reich were allowed by man; God simply let us bear the consequences of our choices.

And we may be facing that situation again today. You know what they say about people who don't learn from the mistakes of history.

On Steve's on 12:23: tremendously perceptive, especially the last papragraph. We seem to live in a day and age now, as an anomaly to history, in which we aren't willing to punish wrong, criminals seem to go unpunished, and we don't have the stomach to "get our hands dirty." The World War Two generation understood that a genocidal monster in Germany needed to be stopped, and only a small minority argued that the war was wrong. Our generation seems to have a much harder time with a genocidal monster in Iraq. Some people are still debating the issue. Have we really changed so much in just sixty years?

I'll cut this off for now... REALLY trying to keep this short...
At , steve w said...: There is a long history of horrible genocide in Africa that is still raging today. I wish we could stop senseless killing everywhere, but we can't even stop it here! Over 16,000 Americans are murdered each year here in the U.S. (that's 44 people each day).

I wish we could quell the conflict in Africa, but I do not want us to invade Africa. I don't want us to invade Iran, or any other nation. I view war as a last resort, and want all other avenues to be exhausted first in dealing with global issues.

As bad as it is in Iraq, I think if we withdraw now, it will get worse. It may get worse anyway.

We need to faithfully and passionately obey 1 Timothy 2:1-2, and pray for our government leaders. That will do more good than our blogging, IMO.
At , steve w said...: Why Iraq and not Africa?

We can debate what the Iraq war is really about. Most likely, it is about a lot of things. It was believed by many that Saddam had WMDs, and would use them. He had already invaded Kuwait. He had tried to invade Iran.

Saddam's 1987-88 Anfal campaign of extermination against the Kurdish people living within Iraq’s borders resulted in the death of 180,000 people. This campaign made widespread use of chemical weapons, and included the wholesale destruction of over 2,000 villages--men, women, and children.

During the Iran-Iraq War in the 80s, Saddam and his forces used chemical weapons against Iran. No one is sure of the casualties of that war, but the best estimates range from 500,000 to 1 million. One of his tactics was to launch missiles at civilian populations in various towns. And again, he destroyed whole towns.

In 1991, Saddam’s forces killed approximately 60,000 Iraqis in southern Iraq to quell an uprising. Most of them were civilians, not resistance fighters. He tied women and children to tanks as human shields when invading towns and cities during these battles and then killed them if they were not killed in battle.

No one really knows what else he would have done in the Middle East. He ignored the U.N. resolutions that tried to curtail his threat of death and destruction. Many people seem to have forgotten the U.N. position regarding Saddam. America was not unilaterally opposed to him.

Saddam had plans to shift his oil sales to the Euro instead of the U.S. dollar. But there were global economic concerns, not just American economic concerns.

It's bad now. But no one knows what Iraq, the Middle East, or the world would be like if Saddam were still in power.

I know that radical Muslims are committed to world domination, through violence and genocide if need be. The situation in Africa involves internal factions only. They do not pose a threat to the world.
At , pablo said...: As bad as it is in Iraq, I think if we withdraw now, it will get worse. It may get worse anyway.

yeah, we opened up a can of worms. leave now and you basically start a civil war.
At , steve w said...: So maybe the lesson is a can of whoopa** is no match for a can of worms?
At , steve w said...: And Pablo, if you get in the mood to write another letter to our current president about war, feel free to ask him for some reassurance before he does anything rash regarding Iran ... has he learned that a can of U.S. whoopa** is no match for a can of Middle East worms?
At , steve w said...: Sammy,
I agree that good questions -- or even sometimes garbled questions -- put us on the path to right or good answers. I also agree that allowing others to learn by being prompted with good questions is very often the best way for them to learn. I like to ask questions, and I've asked a few in this discussion. I like dialogue. I enjoy honest give and take ... of which there has been quite a bit here, I think. In fact, I was hoping you'd jump back in. I like dialoguing with you.

Questions are extremely helpful; yet never arriving at any answers leaves us further from the whole truth than finding some of the answers, verdad?

One person's cheesy is another person's preference. I can live with that. (For more on this see the comments on Pablo's American Idol discussions.) haha :)

Somehow, many people find Jesus amid all the garbage Christians surround him with. Can the same be said of Islam, and Muslim's garbage?

Plenty of Christian churches and Christians are guilty of your charges. Are not Muslims also guilty of those things?

However, I have not heard Christians saying this regarding Christianity...
There are two conditions for us giving up our jihad:

First, chase out the invaders from our territory in Palestine, in Iraq and everywhere in Islamic land.

Second, install sharia (Islamic law) on the entire Earth and spread Islamic justice there. The attacks will not cease until after the victory of Islam and the setting up of sharia.

Oh young Muslims everywhere in the world, and in particular in the neighboring countries and in Yemen, I call you to jihad.
' . ' . ' . ' -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Jan 2006

Am I wrong in thinking that jihad, added to Islamic lies, guilt, oppression, mass confusion and diversion, etc. makes it a bit more dangerous than sinful, misguided Christians that at least sometimes point people to Jesus and his words?
At , pablo said...: sammy, you can't throw out the baby with the bath water. yes, we have a lot of baggage and skeletons in our closets. but we have to evaluate faiths based on their tenets, not their tenants (wow, that was cheesy, but i swear it just came out...)

would jesus be a christian today? yes, i believe so. he would have been able to sift through the misconceptions and issues to see that the true god was at the core of christianity and not islam.
At , pablo said...: i have a good friend here at work that is "real deal" muslim. he is a man of character and i respect him fully. he ALWAYS sets himself apart from the radicals, and i believe him when he says that they are not following islam just like our abortion bombers are not following christianity. that is a clear distinction to make.

samdog - i disagree with you about jesus here. if we look at what already did do when he was on earth, he aligned hinself fully with judaism. he went to temple, attended all the feasts, was baptized by a man that didn't want to but did it anyways because jesus said it was the right thing to do. did jesus need to be baptized?

all the while, he challenged the leaders and rocked the boat on things like the healing on the sabbath, but he was a jew through and through.

if he was here today, i can see jesus going to church and being a part of what is going on while still challenging the leaders. his M.O. would be the same.

regarding reaching conclusions, there are things that we can reach conclusions on and things we cannot. we just need to learn to differentiate. your aversion to conclusions for the sake of conclusions seems fair though.

by thw way, on the way to work, i was thinking about that song we have been working on about our crazy media representatives. i have had a new lyric floating through my head all morning.

"why are all the christians on tv
in line for the presidency
they don't speak for you or for me
they only want to sit in the power seat"

in your face jesse and al!!!!!!!
At , steve w said...: (My comments are short. It's the quotes that are long.)

>> If we are always infinitely away from the whole truth, then not finding concrete answers actually does not leave us any further away than just asking the right questions.

I don't see that perspective from Jesus, or Peter, or Paul, or James, or Mary, or Martha, or Priscilla, etc.

“But you,” He asked them, “who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!” (Matthew 16:15-16)

Sounds like a conclusion ... a conclusion that Jesus was God.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

Seems like someone else came to the same conclusion.

“When the centurion and those with him, who were guarding Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they were terrified and said, “This man really was God’s Son!” (Matthew 27:54)

>> Did anybody even know he was God? Sounds like they did ... many more than I've quoted.

“...I couldn’t be more sure of my ground--the One I’ve trusted in can take care of what he’s trusted me to do right to the end.” (2 Timothy 1:12 - The Message Bible)

Could be called absolute confidence, or an unshakeable conclusion ... I think.

“Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” (2 Timothy 2:7) hmmmmm?

Christ created the church. He is building the church. And this is how he views the church:
“...as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:25-27)

If Jesus is part of the church now, I can't see why he wouldn't be if he were here physically.

Perhaps I'm wrong Sammy, but I get a very different sense reading your words, and reading Jesus' or Paul's, or Peter's, or any other biblical author. They had confidence. They built their lives on certainties and conclusions. And they passed them on to us.

The church today is no worse than the church (churches) that received the New Testament letters. And she has survived; and Jesus still delights in her. And he is doing his work through her. That is amazing and wonderful!! It never has been about the goodness or greatness of the church ... it has always been about the goodness and greatness of God, identifying with and working through human weakness, imperfection, flaws, and frailty. I wasn't justifying our garbage, I was saying God still works through our garbage like he always has.

Isn't that what you see in God's written revelation to us?

(Sammy, I hope I don't seem hardnosed, or harsh. I'm enjoying the dialogue.)
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At , pablo said...: there is great value though fellas to asking questions. how do you learn if you don't ask questions? reading the bible even is essentially asking the question "what does the bible say about ....."

i don't think sammy is necessarily saying to come to NO conclusions. but the truth is that people today take dogmatic positions on things that we do not, perhaps cannot, know the truth about.

free will vs. predestination is a great example. how about jesus being married? people that will not even give science a chance to explain creation. those are all things that are not said explicitly in the bible. we cannot and should not take a position of dogma with them. even the topic of this blog is something we cannot draw conclusion for.
At , pablo said...: steve, i see your point about those scriptures and the confidence they had, and the conclusions they've drawn. however, can ever really know? REALLY know? faith fills many a hole...

my muslim friend once told me that he knows, 100% without a shadow of a doubt, that allah is god. i remember immediately thinking how naive a statement that was. the real man admits that faith is an animal that we cannot explain or prove. we just believe....
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At , steve w said...: >> The democrats have not, can't, and will not win back congress or the presidency. The conservatives are a party of "solutions" where the Democrats are a party o questions.
[...]
This post was about war and now we are discussing question asking problems. How did this start?

hahahahaha, ROTFLOL, hahahahaha

I'm wiping the tears off my face I'm laughing so hard.

Alex, do you see the irony and humor? And that's why CONSERVATIVE V DEMOCRAT ... TALKING POINT ... [picture emphatic gesture here] this post was about war, how did we get off topic?!?!

hahahahaha, ROTFLOL, hahahahaha

[Alex, I'm not making fun of you. I do the same kind of thing all the time. Look at all of our comments. :) ]

Can we ALL just go ahead and laugh at ourselves? We're just having a friendly discussion. Sammy's on to something. We all have about a thimble full of knowledge, but we're ready to rumble over it ... well, not actually, but you know what I mean. (LOL ... still laughing)

I learned 3 new words this week on another blog:

1. onosecond: the brief amount of time that lapses between taking any sort of action and regretting doing so.

2. stupiphany: a seemingly brilliant idea... until you start to tell it to someone

3. anticluistic: describes a person who actively resists any attempt at getting a clue

Back on topic in my next comment. Still have to get more tears out of my eyes. They're bluring my vision.
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At , pablo said...: Does Jesus live in the grey? Or is He Black & White? I say the Latter.

clearly B&W, but he knows everything. he can take always a stance and always be right. we don't know everything so we can't.
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At , steve w said...: Papaseasy said
>> however, can ever really know? REALLY know?

Paul said, "I KNOW THAT I KNOW THAT I KNOW!" (actual Greek translation ... kinda sorta) I quoted The Message Bible for 2Timothy 1:12 because the Greek is much more emphatic than a simple "I know." You can say those two words while yawning, but Paul wasn't yawning when he said "I KNOW THAT I KNOW THAT I KNOW!"

In my mind, "we are always infinitely away from the whole truth" is separated by miles from "DOGMATISM" (especially presumptuous dogmatism). I don't think God wants us living at either end of that spectrum.

I'm confident about things. And I offer my comments regarding the whole predestination debate on Jose's blog as an illustration of my non-dogmatictic confidence. Confidence and certainty are very, very different from dogmatism (esp. presumptuous dogmatism) - IMO.

“There are some things the Lord our God has kept secret, but there are some things he has let us know. These things belong to us and our children forever so that we will do everything in these teachings.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)

There are unknown, hidden, secret things. There are revealed things. We can be confident about that which is revealed ... and there is a WHOLE lot that is revealed.

I'm being assertive or confident here, but I'm giving Sammy and Papaseasy, and everybody else a fair hearing, I think. Please tell me if I'm not.
At , pablo said...: There are unknown, hidden, secret things. There are revealed things. We can be confident about that which is revealed ... and there is a WHOLE lot that is revealed.

this is a true statement. however, what is revealed? is it that jesus is god? yes. is it that he wants us to love our enemies. yes. is that he wants us to wage war? the best we have for that is a maybe and an opinion...that's what i'm trying to get at.

and regarding 2 Tim 1:12, i know where you are going with that, and I accept it. but don't you think that there is a realistic chance that having faith is a little more complex than discovering a fact? in other words, faith is EXTREMELY complex to understand and to have. why do i have faith and not someone else? what concinved me to have faith that didn't convince the next person? i know in my heart that when i say that "i know that jesus is god" that i cannot prove it to you or anyone else...or myself for that matter. all i know is that i believe it...

so do i know? or do i believe? or both?

note: don't even bother to try to answer that one...not even i know the answer.
At , pablo said...: But are we not called to be like God in our actions? And if so, Why should we be in the grey? I don't see how that makes any sense. Please tell me.

we should try to discern the will of god and do it. but a humble man will admit when he does not know rather than just take a stand even if he does believe it is the right thing.

think about when jesus told the people to throw the first stone at the adulterous woman in John 8. why didn't jesus enforce the Law and have her stoned? after all, he wrote the book right? jesus was right to have mercy on her. but he also would have been right to throw a stone with the rest of the town. do you think that jesus was being grey there, or that he was not taking a stand for the Law?
At , Keith (Qoheleth) said...: Guys, it's killing me to be lurking at work and not be able to participate. We've gone from war to phenomoneology, ontology and epistemology.

May I propose this: somewhere between "thinking we have all the answers" and "being infinitely far from having the answers" is having substantial knowledge. I now see through a glass, darkly - but I do see. I'll be the last person here to try to tell anyone I know it all, but I do know something. If I didn't, there would be no point in my being a teacher (hence the handle). In fact, I am under obligation to be a teacher.

Some things we know because we discover it for ourselves; other things we know because we have been assured of it by a reliable source.

"Fifteen hundred years ago, everyone knew that the sun revolved around the earth. Five hundred years ago, everyone knew the world was flat. Yesterday you knew that we were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."

I'm with Pableezy and Steve. My figuring is that if God knows something, and if He's smart enough to be able to find a way to communicate that to us, and if He can show us that He is reliable and can be trusted - I've pretty much got to go along with that.
At , steve w said...: >> don't even bother to try to answer that one...not even i know the answer.

I wouldn't presume to be able to ‘splain it to you, but God says he is gives us confidence, certainty, understanding that bypasses the rational or "natural" processes of our mind and does something spiritual or revelatory.

Check these out:
Romans 8:16
1Corinthians 2:10-16
Ephesians 3:19
"to know the Messiah's love that surpasses knowledge" -- What does that mean? I can't ‘splain it, but I can know it. Would you agree with that?

I haven't been talking about a rationalistic or natural understanding. But God tells us over and over and over we can know with confidence. Is faith involved? Definitely! But even that comes from God. oops...just crossed a line...sorry. tehe

Can you fully explain the mystery of "we have the mind of Christ"? I can't fully explain it, but I can live in the truth of it, and that truth is most comforting and reassuring.

Let's live in the supernatural instead of in the natural!

And for what it's worth, I think C.S. Lewis' statement about Pacifism is as confidently non-dogmatic as it gets.

[hey, we really have been on topic]
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At , steve w said...: Sammy you say, "...OH NO, we have to ask the question, what does that mean?"

I affirmed the value of questions earlier, so I'm not sure what you mean. I'm not sure how I communicated that I was threatened by questions, but I'd appreciate knowing so I can try not to do it again.

I think there has been a lot of misunderstanding on my part. Sorry, please forgive me.

For example, you start the paragraph containing the question "Did anybody even know he was God?" with the statement "What did he do for the first 30 years of his life?" Towards the end of that paragraph you're saying, "Wouldn't he just preach love like he did when he was alive? Why would he join an organization where the only possible thing that could happen is that his message could get watered down and distorted? WHY?"

I just didn't understand from the context what you were asking since his preaching was obviously after the first 30 years of his life. (I didn't understand where the God question was on the timeline of that paragraph.)

You quote me in your last comment (9:56PM) as saying, ""Perhaps I'm wrong Sammy, but..." I was trying to communicate that I was allowing for the possibility of my misunderstanding.

I hope you'll always feel free to say directly that I did misunderstand, or I didn't get your point.

Part of my misunderstanding, I think, is that I don't know when your questions are rhetorical and when you want a response. But like I've said more than once, and more than in just this blog posting, I really do enjoy dialoguing with you.

Regarding the church, I think perhaps you and I have a different view (maybe not). There are plenty of witnesses that can testify that I say with some regularity (or you could just get it from my recorded words) the church has plenty of faults and problems. I don't just mean the 501(c)3 organization, I mean the actual church. But I believe the actual church that Jesus started -- not "Paul and those guys" (Jesus was working through Paul and those guys) -- has always existed from the time that Jesus started it. Peter, James, Paul, and those guys did not start what became the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church pulled away from the actual church, so to speak. Martin Luther was trying to get the organization, if you will, back in line with the actual Church (or at least that's the best way I can think of to say it). It is my understanding that Jesus does delight in his bride ... always. We let him down. We're unfaithful. We hurt him. Yet he still delights in us, and is doing exactly what he says he is doing in Eph 5. I believe he is the head of the church right now. I believe he is involved with his church. He's as joined as he can get since we are in union with him.

I really have to pull out of this conversation because of time. But Sammy I would enjoy trying to clarify one thing face to face sometime. I think if I try to do it here, it will get lost in translation ... or lost in bits and bytes ... or something.
At , trazomfreak said...: In response to the FIRST comment of this ENTIRE post:

1. Yes.
2. Chaplain.
3. No.
4. Yes.

These are "definitions" of "conclusions.
At , Keith (Qoheleth) said...: Brava, Trazom.
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At , pablo said...: i disagree with you trazom. although i can see this being the case under some circumstances, i cannot say "with finality" that this would always be the case. do you think that jesus would have obeyed the draft if he was a german in the 40's? would he have done his duty by joining the SS and cheerfully cooked 6 million jews just because it was duty?

neither do i. :)
At , Keith (Qoheleth) said...: Pableezy: good point, but it's a bad hypothetical to begin with. We read: "But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law..." (Gal 4:4). Jesus was sent when the time was right. God's chosen people languished under the Law for 1800 years, and when the time was right, God then sent Jesus into the world. If Augustus' reign was the right time, Hitler's Germany was then not.

For the sake of argument, had He lived in the 30's in Germany (remember, America got into this was late) and been of draft age, (1) He would have been ineligible for the draft because He was a Jew, and probably would have been rounded up and put in a railroad car, and (2) He would have been rounded up as a dissident, as I'm sure He would have opposed Der Fuhrer every bit as vocally as He did the Pharisees. I would like to believe that had Jesus walked the earth as a German subject in those times. He would have been opposed to the rise of Hitler and His ideas, would have spoken against them, and (assuming His message would have been as well-known as it had been in Judea 1900 years earlier) many genuinely Christian men considering military service would have heard Hitler was not doing the work of Gott im Himmel - as they SHOULD have heard from German pulpits.

I hope that when future dictators arise, we of faith have similar courage and devotion to do just that. If the movies are to be believed, THAT one comes this Tuesday, 6/6/06. Pray that you and I will stand firm and not lose faith when THAT one comes, and perhaps he is among us even now.

I stand by my brava to Trazom - brief, on topic, and a very gentle rebuff to us menfolk.
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At , J-Lou said...: Pableezy... 70 comments. you are the man. i am gone for a week or so and you guys have a great discussion. i am trying to read and catch up, so my first view is that i am more aligned with pablo and sammy (becuase i am j-lou's confusion), but i will try and come with definitive conclusion for our conservative brotha. but it may take me awhile, because some of these comments are long. it's good to be back in the blog world.

peace.
At , pablo said...: You asked it in a form of an unanswerable response

Q answered...and he answered differently than i did. so no, it was not unanswerable. we just disagree.

to Q, i think your argument about "bad hypothetical" is kind of a cop out. we are talking about a principle here, and saying that jesus would never have done this or that because he had a club foot or a bad hair day or whatever is just avoiding the question.

then you go on to...agree with me? not sure what happened there, but it sounds like you think that you thought jesus would have spoken out about it. cool, welcome to the land of questions but no answers. :)

yep and trazom - the chaplain thing sounds nice but is not really the point. even if it was, are you then saying by implication that he would have been against the common SS soldier? if not, then you would have to CONCLUDE that jesus would have been an infantryman had he been drafted. simple logic...

you guys might disagree with me, but i think jesus would have opposed hitler and would either have ended up dead or in jail, which makes more sense than jesus going along with something immoral.

i'm open to the other point of view...you're just wrong (i hope you guys hear the sarcasm in that statment)
At , Keith (Qoheleth) said...: Pableezy: you're on the money, I did both - I started by saying your hypothetical couldn't happen, but then agreed with you that He would not have served if it were to have happened that way. We just got there by two different routes. You made Him a conscientious objector, and I made Him an active dissident. We both agree He could not serve in the cause of the wrong side in an unjust war. I'd bet good money everyone reading this blog would agree He would not have served in the German military - and especially not in the SS - during World War Two.

A more difficult question would have been whether He would have served with the Allies, had He been British or American. The sharp edge of the moral issue turns on whether there is such a thing as a just war, and if so, whether the Allied efforts against Hitler and Germany qualified as such. I believe it did, and I totally respect you, my brother, if you disagree - because it's a hard choice. I want Him to be the Prince of Peace, and I wish there were no war. It may even be that it is His will for one genuine Christian to fight a war to liberate the oppressed while He calls another geniune Christian to preach peace and work for the end of war. They - we - are still brothers.

I believe Jesus was present in that war. I believe He allowed Hitler to rule for a little while; perhaps to call the world to repentance, perhaps to show us in bold type what happens when we forsake Him and go our own way. And then He let Hitler go no farther, and brought him to an end. And I believe He graced us with horror and outrage when our soldiers liberated the concentration camps and saw for the first time, up close and personal, Jews and others who were starved to death, and near death, and He broke our hearts, and His heart broke right along with us.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
“As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet;
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free;
While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is honor to the brave;
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of wrong His slave,
Our God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our God is marching on.

- Julia Ward Howe, "Battle Hymn of the Republic," 1861

I can picture a day when you and I will see a believer before the throne of God on that day. He will be a true believer, and he will be among our number in Heaven. And he will be crying, because he will have been a German. He will be crying because he didn't know; his pastor never told him Hitler was evil. He didn't know they were exterminating Jews. He only wanted to serve his country nobly, and to take his impoverished country and help build it us, and to throw off the forces that had broken Germany economically. And he will have committed no atrocities. And you and I will be called upon to welcome him as a brother.

I'm sure that there were some very misled Christians who served in the German military. If you are working for peace and teaching Christians right from wrong, you are doing God's work, and for all I know, you may be preventing a war. You are today preventing that German boy's mistake from being made again. Blessed are the peacemakers.

And for the record, take note that there is not a single question mark in this post.

pura locura

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

band of brothers

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