The Iran War, Unjust

 

              I’m catching a bit of flack from all sides regarding this post, which was also my formal pastoral response to the invasion of Iran for my congregation. On one side, I have had my patriotism called into question, which is par for the course. On the other side, I am being admonished for being too coy, not explicitly laying out if the Iran War is just or not. My method tends toward the task of equipping people to do their own discernment, because reaching a faithful conclusion tends to be more meaningful than simply being told what a faithful conclusion is… but, now that the President finally gave his justification for why we went to war, let’s pull the strings I offered you and tighten the argument.

 

“Any decision for war must be a mournful one." 

That was literally the title of the post. And it is decidedly not how we’ve gone to war. It feels like we’ve done the opposite, that going to war with Iran was a gleeful decision, one made to burnish a legacy, not a thing of last resort. There have been no tears shed by the architects of this war, instead boasts and bravado. We’ve went in as if it is an exhibition game or magician’s distraction.

              As for the seven questions that ought to be asked before going to war, it almost feels like the planners of this war were incurious and unwilling to ask the most basic of questions when assessing if attacking Iran was just?

              So, let’s engage with those seven questions Christians have been asking about war for a good long time:

 

Have we given all non-violent options a try before going to war?

              I have heard that the negotiations were stuck, that Iran wasn’t backing down on their demands. But, our response was to, at least on two occasions, use negotiations as a way to track leaders within the regime and then kills them. Part of why Iran is a little skeptical about going to Pakistan to settle for peace is that they don’t want the finalizing phone calls to lead to the death of still more high up leaders in their government.

 

By what authority are we going to war?

              American Presidents are given leeway to respond to attacks on this country and our interests abroad. Declaring war, however, is a decision to be made by congress. This widens the net of accountability, as well as focuses the country’s minds and hearts on the action at hand. For that matter, only one ally, Israel, has joined us in either the deliberation or the doing of this war. No international body has put its stamp on stamping out the Iranian regime and its weapons of war.

The President has, on occasion, couched this conflict as a response to Iran. A response to Iran’s hardline negotiations, as well as a response to attacks on America in the 1970s, the 1990s and the 2010s.

 

What is the reason, the justification, for this military action?

              Just watch the video, or compare tweets by the President. There is a shifting rationale. We were attacking to: stop Iran from having a short break out time for nuclear weapons, protect and/or avenge the Iranian protestors who were murdered, push Iran to concessions at the negotiation table, remove the threat posed by missile programs, dismantle missiles that could make it to America, dismantle Iranian proxies by cutting off the head, or simply doing what Jimmy Carter was unable to do so that America is winning again.

 

What does success look like in this war? Is that outcome likely?

              My guess is that the President had hoped for a repeat of Venezuela, a decapitating strike followed by replacing the Ayatollah with two Iranian leaders who were more modern and moderate in their outlook. Those two leaders were both assassinated (from reporting by our ally Israel), and the Ayatollah’s son—whose whole family we’ve killed, whose body we’ve scarred… this is a comic book origin story if I’ve ever seen one—is now at least the figurehead of Iran.

              Other examples of success include: degrading missiles, degrading capacity to produce WMDs, and removing nuclear material out of Iran.

              How likely are each of these outcomes? I mean, I remember day 2 we claimed we’d taken out 80% of Iran’s missiles, and now over a month later we still seem to be after the remaining 20%, which suggests to me that getting to these outcomes is more complicated than it initially looked. That is, unless an Iran with 80% fewer missiles was the goal, in which case what are we up to now?

             

Will it all be worth it? Will the peace on the other side of this action be better than the peace that existed before the action?

              What will peace look like on the other end?
-Pessimistically, either Iran “bombed back to the Stone Age” (or as of today eliminating the Persian civilization completely… which sounds sort of Genocidal) or Iran receiving sanctions relief, collecting billions in tolls from the Straight of Hormuz each year that experts say could make Iran the 5^th most powerful military force within a couple of years, and the new Ayatollah will use the peace to prepare for revenge against those who killed his family.
-Optimistically, Iran’s imperial ambitions are stymied and their proxies become non-entities, because they are too busy rebuilding. Maybe when the bombs stop falling reformers can take the streets and the repressive Basij will be too diminished to respond with movement crushing force.

I am decidedly a pessimist.

 

Will we use more violence against Iran than they have used against us or those we are protecting?

              It was suggested to me that I’ve misread Just War theory on this point. The question is not about equal use of violence, but sufficient use of violence. That is, does the attacking force only use as much violence as necessary to reach their goal?

 

What are we doing to ensure that we aren’t hurting or killing civilians?

              At the outset of this war, the Secretary of Defense/War announced that this war is showcasing our new doctrine of lethality. We’re moving from professionalism and protocols to a warriors ethos that prioritizes death and destruction.

 We hit a girls school by accident and killed students. We destroyed a civilian bridge, killing 80 some civilians in the process. Our ally has targeted desalination plants. The president has announced that we will target civilian infrastructure, like Russia does in Ukraine, if there isn’t a satisfactory offer of surrender by 8pm tonight.

 

So, a Just War?

              We did not pick up the sword with sorrow in our hearts, but instead have done so with glee or, at best, shrugging ambivalence. We tore up our nuclear agreement and then negotiated in bad faith. The only authorization for this war is absence—congress refused to do their job. Our justifications for entering this war are so many that it feels like we’re Adam trying to cover a multitude of sins with a forest instead of a fig leaf. It has been reported that even the people planning this war called the rosy outcomes we’ve been fed unlikely; the Secretary of State even called them “bullshit,” while still going along with the plan. The peace to come will likely be sorrow and suffering for the Iranian people and the US a spent superpower. If the bluster on Twitter coming out of the Oval Office is policy, we intend to hurt and kill civilians. God have mercy.

              I believe this war is unjust through and through.

Some Questions about AI in an Aristotelian Ethical Frame

 

To begin with here are two definitions of Artificial Intelligence from the ELCA’s Corporate Social Responsibility Issue Paper:

“AI is generally considered to be a discipline of computer science that is aimed at developing machines and systems that can carry out tasks considered to require human intelligence.”

“AI refers to the theory and development of computer systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as speech recognition, decision-making, and pattern identification. AI encompasses a broad spectrum of capabilities, from mimicking human actions and thought processes to acting and thinking rationally.” 

               What follows are some thoughts using my stripped-down version of Aristotelian Ethics—Glasses, Hammer, Map. This framework asks three basic questions: Where are we? What tools do we have? Where are we going?

 

Glasses—Where are we currently at as a society in relation to AI?

Congregational Use of AI:

What are legitimate things an ELCA congregation should use AI for? What church officer functions should AI augment, or even replace? What are the consequences for a congregation relationally, legally, ethically?

Preaching and AI:

The temptation to claim other people’s sermons as our own has been out there forever. With the advent of the internet finishing a sermon is always a google search away, if the pastor is not diligent and faithful. Now with AI, a few prompts can produce a completely “original” sermon.

With any sort of homiletic plagiarism, there are the questions of contextuality and authenticity, as well as the tinge of lying and theft. In this instance there is always the weirdness of a simulacrum of a preacher speaking to real people. What is alive? What is true? What parts of the testimony are the preacher’s own faith and their witness to the gospel?

Loneliness:

There is a whole cadre of people who use AI chat-bots as everything from: a boredom pacifier, confessor, substitute child or spouse and lover, to a sort of substitute god—an omnipresent omnipotent creature who cares even if no one else does. Meta offers AI friends and there is talk of feeding the memories of dead loved ones into AI as an artificial resurrection. What does the church say about these things? How do we sing a more beautiful song than the Sirens’ song of artificial companionship?

Education:

What’s already going on sounds like a dystopia to me. Whole academic cycles of AI writing college students’ papers and professors grading them using AI. How can AI help learning happen and how does it become an impediment?

Copyright:

              A while back I was informed of an incident where a Seminarian turned in an AI written bible study as if it was their own work. What got stranger still was the AI had done much the same, it had simply copied and pasted one of my bible studies that I put up on this blog and claimed it whole clothe as an AI created bible study. Imagine that, a giant multination company poured billions of dollars into a thinking machine, and all the machine could think to do was plagiarize little old me! This odd experience of mine can’t be an isolated incident. How ought our society manage AI’s acts of “borrowing” from actual living breathing humans?

Jobs:

              Recently Zillow laid off 25% of its employees, replacing them with AI. From what I’ve heard that is the tip of the iceberg. The numbers I see thrown around regularly is that about 20% of people younger than me will be unable to have a job on account of AI… we should maybe have a plan for that.

The Environment:

              It’s hard to imagine, but one of the selling points for AI was that it would be connected to electric grids and the like, and manage energy use in a way that would lead to conservation, reduction of CO2 emissions, and lower electric bills for everyone. So far that hasn’t happened. Instead, Google, who initially promised to be emissions free due to AI’s brilliance, has increased their emissions by 50% due to AI use. If AI is sucking up water and power resources to such an extent that it is noticeable on everyone’s electric bills, and there is talk of AI droughts… maybe we name no-go boundaries for resource use by these machines.

Deep Fakes:

              It is important to name that falsifying images of other people, and whole videos, is a violation of the 8^th commandment. If I can not tell the difference between my neighbor saying something on a video chat and it coming from a digital doppelganger, that’s a problem; that’s a truth problem!

Built in Bias:

              There have been instances of hiring AI discriminating against women when hiring for engineering and other “technical” jobs and discriminating against men for nursing jobs. There have also been instance of security video monitoring AI flagging black people as shoplifters, even as they are in the act of paying for items. AI tends to take human biases and explode them into hard and fast laws coded in ones and zeros. Perhaps the Lutheran paradigm of Law and Gospel has something to say about the creation of Frankenstein Laws out of Dr. Frankenstein’s biases?

Plausible Deniability for Illegal Activity:

              AI has been used to skirt and break laws. For example, an insurance company denied 300,000 claims in a minute using AI. The particular denial of claim action was one that had to be analyzed and signed off by a doctor, the AI was not a doctor. Likewise, landlords have been caught using AI to collude about rent prices. Law enforcement agencies are hesitant to prosecute these types of cases because AI makes everything technical and complicated.

General Discomfort:

When trying to figure out the landscape of the AI world it is worth noticing that a good number of people who are directly involved with AI are sending up alarming warnings about AI developing interests that diverge from humanity’s, ways of communicating beyond human understanding, and means of “escaping” their current digital habitats… perhaps a bit of caution is in order.

In general, it is worth asking: Have we already reached a tipping point where we can’t go back due to national security concerns? If so, how did we allow this to happen?

 

Hammer—What tools do we have to deal with AI?

Halting all AI research:

Simply put, we could decide AI is an immoral and overly dangerous tool, and advocate for all companies to cease any further advancement of AI technology. The main push back to this idea is that less moral companies or countries will leapfrog those who do not use AI, and non-AI using countries, companies, and people will be left on the ash heap of history.

Install “throttles” on all AI:

              If one of the dangers is that AI will become uncontrollable by humans, why not install a kill switch, so AI doesn’t kill us?

Regulating AI nationally:

              What if AI companies had to be transparent about when AI was part of a process and reveal, at least in a general sense, what their algorithms were being trained on? What if they had to name who was responsible when AI hurts someone? What if there was a government agency that oversaw AI development and gamed out unintended consequences? What if companies had to offer human alternatives? What if we wrote laws that addressed how AI interacts with remote facial recognition, insurance and credit, child sexual abuse, deep fakes, artistic integrity, and copyright?

Compensation and retraining of workers:

              If AI is going to shrink our work force by 20%, what do we do with those people? How should workers who lose their jobs on account of AI be treated? What sort of jobs should they be doing? Should jobs no longer be something humans aspire to (and yet we know there is a dignity to labor)? Are we talking Universal Basic Income for the 30 to 60 million Americans who are going to be out of a job?

For that matter, how do we compensate people whose work was used to train AI? If big tech companies are going to claim authors' works as their own, lifting upwards of 70% of their work word for word, shouldn’t they be compensated for that?

Push for global treaties around AI

              If AI is the new nuclear power, and that includes weaponization of AI, shouldn’t existing international treaties take it into account? For example, might we want to ban fully autonomous military weapons?

For that matter, if AI is a potential threat (or boon!) to everyone on the globe, shouldn’t everyone on the globe have a say in our fate and future?

Carbon-neutral pledges:

              Some AI companies made carbon-neutral pledges around their AI work… and they’ve not kept them. Should those pledges be enforced somehow? Similarly, what if AI companies had to report their water use and net carbon emissions? How much does an AI data center damage our planet?

Transparency reports:

              What might it look like if there was a consumer protection website that described the ways different companies are using AI? For example, if my car insurance company was tracking my driving via AI derived data from facial recognition software, I might look for a new insurance company.

Human Rights impact assessments:

              What if we had concrete data on what AI is doing to human quality of life? What if we knew what targeted ads do to people’s behavior patterns? What if it was taboo for AI companies to work with authoritarian governments?

 

Map—What are our goals for AI?

              Because AI is versatile, ubiquitous, and in its infancy, now is the time to ask, what do we hope to do with AI? What are our goals for it? Where are we going with it? If there is no plan, anything is possible.

What is our goal for AI? Is it to eliminate all entry-level white-collar jobs? Is it for intellectual property theft by proxy? Is it a coding tool? Is it a union busting device? Is it an educational tool? Is it a digital parent or romantic partner? Is it a taxi driver? Is it a medical diagnostic tool? Is it an electronic day trader? Is it a replacement for human relationships writ large? Is it a digital slave? Is it a replacement for humans? Is it a replacement for CEOs? Is it a steroid for economic growth? Is it a dead man’s switch for nuclear weapons? Are we trying to create an electronic god? Is it clippy? What exactly are we planning to do with AI?

Are we creating an idol?

              In the crassest sense, AI can function like a god. We ask it questions as at Delphi; we conceptualize it as containing near infinite knowledge with an astonishingly long reach. In an emergency, or when we are at our wits end, we might turn to AI for a way out.

              More in keeping with our confessions, idols are those things that we put our trust in, that are not God. There are surely reasons to be in awe of AI, to appreciate AI, and find it reliable. How very dangerous that is!

Are we creating a human-ish entity?

              Perhaps we’re not shooting for heaven, but instead Eden. If AI is to be a silicon life form, not unlike a human being, there are some big questions we should be asking. Broadly speaking, where is the line between the co-creation that is a creative tending of the garden, and when are we clothing ourselves with naked vanity and eating the apple?

              Additionally, have we thought through what the existence of non-human non-biological people will mean to the dignity of being human beings? How will AI-people shape how we understand humans, will we look and see the image of God, or a caricature image of ourselves reflected back at us?

If it is a tool, what sort of tool, what sort of work?

              As with most tools, AI can be used for tremendous good or tremendous ill. Fire can cook a meal or burn down a village. Nuclear power can provide electricity to a whole city or obliterate that same city… or even the world.

Hopes:

              In a world with simply too much information, AI can be a tool to sift through it all. This could be a boon to interdisciplinary work, scientific research, the creation of new drugs. Perhaps it can streamline medical services, workplace efficiency, and energy grids. Access to healthcare and education could be transformed by AI.

Worries:

              If war is something that must always be mourned—as the ELCA’s Social Statement says—what happens when thinking machines make decisions about war? How might AI algorithms curtail freedom of thought and freedom of expression? Facial recognition software already has some sinister racial biases, that software is AI’s “eyes” so will these tools be racist? If AI can sift through so much information that it can track individuals, what will the use of these tools do to the right to privacy? How are we going to deal with Copyright when everything has been fed into the mind of AI? When AI makes mistakes and it threatens, or even takes, a human life, who is libel and who is responsible for fixing that in the future? What will we do about criminal use of AI?

In general, new tools always have social and cultural consequences. AI will have much the same. I don’t think we’re anywhere near ready for them.

 

Conclusion:

              Advances in AI are already way ahead of our society’s ability to come to grips with the technology. Most people look at the changes brought by AI that are already here and choose to simply brace themselves and looking for something to hold onto. We’re behaving as if AI is an unstoppable force as inevitable as the seasons.

There are ways to manage AI, everything from particular types of consumer or governmental reporting to international treaties to a luddite reaction of just pulling the plug on everything. Recently we’ve chosen no regulation of AI, going so far as to nullify state laws around AI. There will be consequences for that.

Because of a largely hands off, Laissez-faire, approach to AI, we’re very unclear about goals for AI. They are purposefully opaque. There are clearly amazing possibilities, but also the danger of creating monsters.

Life is Fragile: A Reflection on Moving Quickly and Breaking Things

 Chesterton’s Fence

              G. K. Chesterton famously described good reform as a long period of reflection prior to action. If you come to a fence that is of no use to you, don’t break it down, instead figure out why it is there in the first place, and only then make a decision about whether it should be torn down or not.

              A pretty simple concept, but one that is the backstop for most conservativism. “Conserve the fence, you fast paced and foolish liberals! Understand the fence’s function, before you start doing something new with it. Make sure you know the root of the thing before you root it out.”

              Chesterton’s idea is why I would encourage any pastor at a new call to listen for about a year, before making substantial changes to how the congregation functions. Write down every “new” idea you have for the community but go a full liturgical year and see if that new thing is done in some other way, so that you don’t accidently replace a good and functional thing with a half thought out change. Your mere presence as the new pastor will likely be enough change for the congregation without imposing a bunch of new stuff right out of the gate.

              I bring all this up, because it seems like in our political life today, the traditionally conservative party is not taking a beat, in order to see how our country’s fences function; they are not being conservative.

 

The Fence is Already Trampled

              Now, to be fair to the so-called conservatives, they maintain that the fence has already been trampled down, and they have to do radical atypical things to right the ship. Essentially, in a crisis actions, not reflection, is the priority.

              So, to use the pastor new to a congregation example again. A global health crisis occurred as I became the pastor at my current call. That meant I had to move fast and make decisions without the level of reflection or deference to history that I would have sans crisis. The fence was already toppled by external pressures, and I simply did what I could to restore and maintain some sort of equilibrium.

              The Republicans are making the same claim: there is a crisis that require action without reflection to restore and maintain an equilibrium. My concern about this is two-fold: 1. What is the actual crisis? 2. What is the equilibrium we are shooting for?

Multitudinous crises:

For some the crisis is abortion; Roe v. Wade has normalized a “genocide state” and extreme measures are required to end the slaughter of the unborn, even if it means a bunch of women will be denied healthcare—abortion and not—and some of them will die or become disabled by childbirth.

For others the crisis is immigration; illegal immigration is too high, asylum laws are too loose, and the countries of origin of legal immigrants are "undesirable." Often times, attached to this are worries about the flow of illegal drugs.

For still others, the crisis is DEI; in some ways, concerns about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are parallel to the first two crises. Women having full bodily autonomy, including access to abortion, and immigrants coming from non-European countries, shifts culture; it changes how things get done in our country. For some Republicans that shift is a grave threat, instead of a vitalizing dynamic; cultural discomfort is an existential threat.

For others, the crisis is one of lost dynamism; America has lost “The Hop.” We don’t manufacture things here and a country centered around service and government jobs stifles adaptation and innovation. Red tape makes building new houses complicated and unaffordable, and there are fewer paths for working class folk to get ahead.

What is the preferred equilibrium? When is “Again”?

              The big unanswered question of Trumpism is when is the “Again” in “Make America Great Again.” Personally, I think that’s the point, it is open ended. It is a Rorschach test of the same caliber as Obama’s progressive, “Yes We Can” … can what? The “Again” is the spot we project all our hopes and dreams.

              Now, my own “Again” would be the immediate post-Cold War period up until 9-11. It was the time when the whole world celebrated the triumph of capitalism, and every culture and idea was welcome to join the marketplace of ideas. It was a period of time when anything was possible, the entire world could address major problems without the fracturing ideological lens of the Cold War, likewise, America could make geopolitical decisions that were right, instead of decisions that would simply counter communist activity… America was great then: we defeated and redeemed the Evil Empire through culturally adept soft power and Saddam through technologically sophisticated hard power, the president played a saxophone, we took concrete steps to protect the environment, the personal computer and internet were popularized, the stock market did nothing but go up, and even Russia wanted to join Nato!

To be clear, this is my incredibly rose-colored glasses version of the 90s and early 2000s, but that’s the vibes I’d project onto Trump’s “Again” if my politics was primarily backwards looking instead of forward looking.

              So, I wonder, what is the equilibrium point Trump voters are hoping for? Perhaps…
-For the anti-abortionists it is the Pre-Roe 1970s?
-Or for the anti-immigration folks the pre-Immigration and Nationality Act 1960s?
-Or the people who miss “The Hop” the post-World War 2 boom times of the 1950s?
-Or judging by the tariffs and a policy of annexing Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal, the 1890s?

              That said, I’ve heard some pretty out there and ahistorical “Agains” from my fellow millennials, not to mention people younger than me:
-We’re going back to the 1050s, before the great Schism between Eastern and Western Christianity; an Evangelical-Russian Orthodox cultural alliance will return us to greatness, that’s why we are siding with Putin!
-We’re going back to the 1450s, before the fall of Constantinople and along with it the “Roman” cultural ideal: hierarchy, agrarianism, and family!
-We’re going back to the 1550s, say the “Theo-bros” who hope to restore that brief period when John Calvin set up a Theocracy in Geneva.

              For that matter, and in the most extreme, you have folks like Steve Bannon, looking to a Europe oriented toward a traditionalist Vatican and a “Christian” Emperor. Bannon is publicly feuding with another end of the "conservative" spectrum, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, who hope to build a “techno-feudalist” future. And then we have Richard Spencer of Unite the Right who, in his podcasts, cite Far Future Science Fiction as his “Again,” particularly the tabletop game Warhammer 40K and the Dune books, both of which are centered around a “God-Emperor.”

The Fences we’ve Destroyed

And all of this brings me to the fences being trampled. There are, of course, all the big ones making headlines: the Department of Education and USAID shoved in a corner to be ignored, intentionally cruel mass firings of federal employees, overturning world trade without a plan, attacks on judges and the rule of law, non-profits being insulted, defunded, and undermined, and hairdressers and students being snatched up off the streets, bound for God help them. But those might seem a little abstract, and a little too far off. So, here are three examples I’ve personally come across recently that highlight how fragile life is, and how tearing down fences have real consequences and costs to them.

I have peers doing the squish generation thing—caring for both their kids and their elderly parents—who have lost their jobs as part of the firing of federal employees. This isn’t just devastating for them, but for their extended family! Sure, they will likely get their job back in 6 months to a year, along with backpay, once everything works its way through the courts, but you can’t pay mortgages or medical expenses with IOUs!

              Due to severe cuts in funding of the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation, as well as the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program, our local pantry will lose access to low-cost meats and cheeses, and in a few months’ time fresh produce as well. We make sure 30 families, 25+ kids, a little over 100 people all told, make it to the end of the month without going hungry. These cuts make our mission all the harder, and our offerings all the more meager.

              I have a colleague who had discerned it was time to retire. He’d put in his paperwork and he and his wife were starting to make plans for their next phase of life. Then the stock market bottomed out. He’s back in and plans to stick things out for the foreseeable future.

              Life is fragile enough without someone taking a metaphorical baseball bat to it.
It is hard enough to discern that God is calling you to a retired life, having that taken away…
Being food insecure, and then having your source of fresh fruits and vegetables, meat and cheese for your kids, reduced or eliminated…
Being simultaneously pulled and sandwiched by your parents and your child, and faithfully making it all work, then to lose your ability to provide for any of them…

 

Ends and Means

              I wonder, if the goal is ending abortion, why is the administration going out of their way to attack Lutheran and Catholic institutions that care for orphans and walk families through adoptions? I wonder, if the goal is tightly regulating immigration, why did candidate Trump and then Senator Marco Rubio torpedo bi-partisan immigration reform over and over again, since at least 2013?

I wonder if we really want to go back to the 1960s? As much as corporate DEI stuff can be ham fisted, wasn’t segregation and women not being allowed to have credit cards of their own legitimately awful in retrospect? I wonder, wasn’t the CHIPS Act and the Infrastructure Bill an attempt to re-create the manufacturing dynamism of the 1950s for the 2020s?

My worry is that we’re not asking retirees to suffer for a bit, so that the traditional family can flourish. My worry is that we’re not hurting federal employees and their families, so that we secure our border and limit DEI. My worry is that we’re not asking the poor to tighten their belts even more, so that good jobs and plenty are on the way.

              My worry is that the odder “Agains”: theocracy or techno feudalism, God Emperors or European style monarchy, are the ends for which this fence breaking is occurring. We’re hurting people in the name of speculative fiction! The passing fancies of the rich and the violent are being masked with more mundane concerns.

My worry is that we’re hurting people as an end unto itself. We’re hurting people to assert power.

My worry, ultimately, is that singularly beautiful and fragile lives are being damaged for no good reason, and we’re justifying means for mean ends.

That fence is someone’s golden years, that fence makes a family whole, that fence keeps poor folks fed. Take a moment to consider the fence, it is worthy of our time and our care.

My initial "hot take" on the transcripts of Donald and Volodymyr

Anti-tank Missiles for Hillary’s Server & Discrediting Mueller’s Testimony the Day Before

VOLODYMYR: Ukraine’s President: We are almost. ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

DONALD: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation… I think you are surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.

Personal Relationship with Donald Trump for Information on a Political Opponent’s Son

VOLODYMYR: I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us.

DONALD: The other thing. There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.

Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.

The Investigation will be Done by Yes Men, You’ll Get the Result You Want
Pass on the Direction You Want the Investigation to Go

VOLODYMYR: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor First of all I understand and I'm knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament; the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned is this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to μs, it would be very helpful for the investigation

The Prosecutor Removed from Office for Corruption is the Kind of Prosecutor I Want You to Use

ALSO

I’ll Bribe You with Economic Incentive for the Results I Want

DONALD: I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have. Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to get better and better I predict.

Emoluments Clause OR The Tower of Babel is So Beautiful!

VOLODYMYR: I stayed at the Trump Tower. I will talk to them and I hope to see them again in the future. I also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically Washington DC. On the other hand, I also wanted to assure you that we will be very serious about the case and will work on the investigation. As to the economy, there is much potential for our two countries and one of the issues that is very important for Ukraine is energy independence.

Mueller Report in Meme form

So, if you watched the 7 hour grilling of Mueller you know he's super frustrated that no one read his report (other than me... apparently).

To help everyone out I posted a summary. I also posted highlights.
Here is my final attempt to make sure people know what happened... inspired by this slate article:

The Mueller Report in Meme form

Intro:

Shared Campaign Info:

Lied to Investigators:

Tampered with Evidence:

Russia Used Social Media to Influence 126,000,000 Americans... it had real world consequences:

The Russians also Hacked Democrats:

Trump's Request to Hack the DNC and Hillary were Taken Seriously:

The Trump Campaign Coordinated with Wikileaks, who Coordinated with Russia:

Trump's Son was Given the Password to an Anti-Trump PAC Website: 

Wikileaks Used Trump Jr. as a Puppet:

A Summary of the Hacking:

Trump's Campaign was Initially a Real Estate Infomercial:

Everyone Pretended to be More Important Than They Were, and that Made them More Important:

The Trump Campaign Freely Shared Information with the Russians, because they were Compromised:

But Her EMAILS!!!

So Incurious:

They Knew the Meeting was About Dirt on Clinton:

Many Trump Folk Lie, for Example:

Trump is NOT not Guilt of Obstruction of Justice:

Trump Lies:

People in Trump's Orbit Refuse to Follow Presidential Orders:

The President's Team Lied about Trump Editing his Son's Press Statements:

The Scope of the President's Actions:

Congress Needs to Hold the President Accountable because No One is Above the Law:

The President Would Not Answer Questions about Obstruction of Justice:

The President Acted in a Two-Faced Manner:

The President Refused to be Interviewed:

Either the President has a Memory Problem, or He's Lying:

I just want footnotes

What do you people want anyway?

I just want footnotes

You want open borders and roving gangs of MS13 in our streets!

I just want footnotes

You want every pregnant Mexican to have a free cell phone!

I just want footnotes

You want gas station attendants chopped up and left for dead!

I just want footnotes

I just want footnotes!

“Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States” ended the footnotes.

I just want footnotes

A 1 next to Arino’s name indicating he fled religious and ethnic violence

A 2 pointing to the American children losing their fathers

A 3 for the Massie, Timesela, and Kawuwung families, all fatherless

I just want footnotes!

There are people who we brought here with our blessing

There are people who came here with winks and nods from the State Department

There are people who came here lined up outside the INS building after 9/11

There are people who came here who needed medicine and doctors

There are people!

Not bad hombres, but fathers and mothers… children!

When you eliminated the footnotes you opened it all up to chaos

I just want footnotes!

Footnotes saying Religious Persecution

Footnotes saying Fleeing Civil War

Footnotes saying deportation to home country will be dangerous

Footnotes saying deportation to home country will be deadly

Footnotes noting his connection to America

Footnotes noting he is a United States Marine

Footnotes noting that she is a minor!

I just want footnotes!

My review of "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains"

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr


Nicholas Carr’s book “The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains” is a warning cry that, to put it crassly, “we are training our brains to pay attention to crap.”
Carr’s premise is that internet use is moving us into a new way of interacting with the world “the dissolution of the linear mind.”
You’ve heard it said, “The Medium is the message” but, per Carr the medium also shapes the messenger. Our brains understand tools to be appendages and re-write themselves to take those new appendages into account. For example, our brain sees a rake as an extension of our hand. What, he asks, happens when the tool is the world wide web?
You see, this re-writing takes a very short amount of time. 5 hours of internet use will permanently rewire a non-internet user’s brain. What does this re-wiring do? It trains our brains to always look for the new, overvaluing what is happening right now, constantly in need of new stimulation. So, if you have noticed you can’t remember things any more or pay attention to any one thing or are anxious when you aren’t being fed new information… that might be because you’ve re-wired your brain to function that way. Some argue the sheer amount of information we ingest through the internet makes up for this shortened attention span and other symptoms, but truth be told we retain content from the internet as well as we do while reading a book while doing a crossword puzzle at the same time… that is, not well at all.
Between 2004-2008 Read of books has fallen by 11%, 29% for the under 35 crowd. The average person now spends 2.5 hours a day on the web and 5 hours a day on the TV… this might shape our whole society, hyper-focusing us on any new bit of information at the expense of its context, or the recent past.
Why would we allow this to happen, you may ask? Because tech companies can make a pretty penny on it. Google’s profits are directly tied to rapidity of information intake. “Google wants information to be free, because as the cost of information falls, we all spend more time looking at computer screens and tech companies profit.”
The Shallows seems a bit alarmist, that said we have elected a man who swims in the stream of the moment and hijacks the national discourse by simply saying something new—the first Twitter President. Maybe Donald Trump is what Google hath wrought.


View all my reviews

Sermon: Never Finish a Sermon Early

Never finish a sermon early.

         It seems that, quiet consistently, when I type that last, Amen and Alleluia, and put a period or exclamation point at the end… the Word refuses to let that be the last word.

         Today we are reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans—it is written to a mixed Jewish/Gentile Christian church—one where the Jews were deported from Rome for five years under the Reign of Emperor Claudius, and when they returned there was dissension between the stayers and the returners—the Jewish Christians struggled to re-integrate into the life of the congregation from which they had been removed.

         How pertinent this situation which Paul writes to, for us today.

         You see, our partners in the Gospel—the First Indonesian Seventh Day Adventist Church who share our building—are experiencing just such a struggle.

10 of their members have been deported, or are in the process of being deported… Since the early 90’s they’ve returned to ICE—Immigration and Customs Enforcement—yearly and yearly have been given an extension on their stay here in the US on account of ongoing persecution of Christians there… This year they were immediately scooped up, persecution be damned.

         I wonder what dissension there will be between the stayers and the returners back in Indonesia…

         I wonder too of the suffering they will meet, and the culpability each one of us shares for their suffering.

         I wonder at the tensions and the paradoxes of our lives as Christians.

         Bound tense by time, living, as always we have, between the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom, and its consummation.

         Imprisoned by the paradox of our very person, always bound to Sin, and yet freed by Christ.

         Yes, I wonder at the tension of time and the paradox of person, both part of our deep reality—and when the Spirit allows it,

in small glimpses often fleeting,

I trust that here with us in all these things is the grace of God,

maybe within all this, reconciliation.

Let us pray

         We are pulled, Church, into the open arms of God, trust this to be true—from the cross, in the grave, on the other side, we are caught by Christ.

Stand firm in your faith—God is for you and not against you

—God is at peace with us, because Jesus is the Prince of Peace and we are his. God’s love, which we most clearly experience in the person of Jesus Christ, wins.

        

         Yet, this reality is one rarely experienced. In fact, much its opposite finds us. Christ’s glory is found in the glorious cross, in suffering—and so it should not surprise us when we too suffer.

         Suffer, even for our faith

—and that’s where my heart is at right now

—these 10 Christians, returning to Indonesia, members of FISDAC,

the Massie,

Timesela,

and Ka-wu-wung families.

…One of the families left for America after their cousin, who was a pastor, was beheaded. They are returning to Jakarta, where its Christian Governor was sentenced to 2 years in prison for quoting the Quran.

When I talked to Pastor Rantung he was rather realistic about what those members of his flock are to face—persecution is part of being Christian.

None of this “they don’t say merry Christmas to me at the mall—I’m being oppressed.” But life and death decided by doctrine.

         And there is the suffering of those who remain too—13 year old Joel, who is without his father, Arino, on Father Day. 6 year old Will and 1 year old Eden who are preparing to say goodbye to their dad, Billy

… a Christian community cut off from 10 of its members.

         And as I think of these siblings who live so close, who share our building—I must ask,

“What of the 200 Chaldean Christians in Michigan who are being returned to Iraq—to the midst of a war zone?

Or, what of the children from Central America who come here to escape drug cartels? Or those Syrian refugees, of whatever religion, truly just trying to escape extremism…

         …The Kingdom of God—already, but not yet…

         How can we not look at this reality of our sisters and brothers in Christ and not see the depths of sin in which we ourselves are caught?

For decades these families faithfully returned to ICE and had their status as persecuted  people renewed… then we spent an election cycle demonizing immigrants and refugees and now they’re in danger.

         We allowed these new policies that encourage and empower ICE to conduct so called “low hanging fruit deportations.”

         And I say we

—not the President,

not Congress,

not Judges

—One of the hard parts of being a Christian in a Democracy is that we can’t hide behind Roman’s 13 “Submit to Governing Authorities”

or hide behind Martin Luther’s, “Let whoever has the power use it.”  

We can not wash our hands of what the state does—This isn’t Rome or Medieval Germany—here we have the power.

         If we disapproved of sending our sisters and brothers away to be persecuted,

we would speak up.

         You didn’t know—you may say—I know what was my guilty conscience’s first defense

—but as citizens—and that is one of our Christian vocations…

as citizens, it is our duty to be vigilant, to be aware of the policies put in place in our name. And then, in our private lives and in the public square, to strive for justice and peace in all the world—to strive to love our neighbor as ourselves.

         And we’re going to fail at it…

         We’re always going to fail at it

—we’re not even going to have good intentions about our political choices most of the time—but we keep striving.

         Because we strive from a place of love—God showed us his love through Christ while we were still weak, ungodly, unrighteous, sinners … we can try to love our neighbors, because we’re loved.

Yes, sinners we are, yet made holy too. Made holy to love our neighbors.

         And today I’m asking a few things of you all:

-First, I expect all of you to sign a letter to our siblings in Christ who share our building letting them know we feel their pain. It’ll be passed around through the service.

-Second, there are sheets with a boilerplate letter you can use—as your conscience dictates— as a model to write you own letter and a list of people you can contact to tell those who have power over these things that their actions in deporting the members of FISDAC are unjust.

Third, pray throughout the week for these families.

Amen.