Miltonus's Xanga

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:45:15 GMT

Presently, one lamb neck and one lamb shank are simmering merrily on the stove in a good deal of wine, on a bed of aromatic vegetables. I have already imbibed half a six pack of the Red Menace and feel just a little guilt at the money I will drink before the night is over and we retire.

Lauren's shift at the cafe ends in a little less than two hours. I have the exclusive privilege of picking her up when she is done. The simple truth that she is my wife has done more to convince me than any theology text that providence and not human will determines our lot. It is absurd to think that my human volition could ever engender beauty and pleasure that so obviously transcends the human realm.

How remarkable is it that this divine blessing is so empirically enjoyed and not some spiritual vibration? Passionate, covenant marriage is incarnational. No wonder Paul used it to convey the mystery of Christ's unity with the church.

Isn't it strange that Paul in Eph.5, after all that practical guidance to married couples, says, "This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church." It is as though he was not giving a session of marriage counceling, as our bible headings would have us believe. Perhaps he was developing an allegory and perhaps we are too quick to read didacticism into the passage.

Indeed, we are too often prone to think that the Bible is about us and making our lives better. Not for a moment do I suggest that we should not take practical ques from this passage. Rather, I question whether or not allegory and description are separate from didacticism, teaching and counceling.

I have always thought that counceling today is so distasteful because it is artless. How can people expect to learn anything, much less grow in any way without soulish inspiration? No one will change their lives for bullets on an outline, but beauty has launched a thousand ships.

And what is more beautiful than sacrifice? I submit that there is nothing that pulls at the heart more than the narrative of willful sacrifice... and damn good delivery. Unfortunately, we cannot separate the two: good material and delivery. It is futile to give twig-boy Shakespeare and expect not to fall asleep, but give a Cherios box to Richard Harris and you will weep.

Does this imply that the content is inefficacious? Is not the Bible good enough on its own to inspire absolute obedience? We feel as though we are comprising the worth of scripture if we even hint that art sharpens its edge. Sola scriptura means it doesn't need anything else, right?

Perhaps the problem is on our end. We have stripped the art from scripture in the name of reformation theology. Refusing to acknowledge it as a text, written in numerous literary modes and subject to the vagueries common to the written word, we have impoverished its message. It has been reduced to an impotent history textbook and ten step guide. Its correlation with what we have determined is real and historical has obfuscated its transcendent authority over the "real," in our estimation.

And what is authority if not the very act of defiance? And what does Eph.5 do if not defy our convenient delimitation of that passage to the category and application of marriage counceling? Perhaps it is a great poem and given the delivery worthy of its origin, it would not be some useless bible study topic that no one else in the world cares about.

If your church shut down today, would the nieghborhood it is in even notice, much less suffer the loss? Eph.5 has in this way been shut down. It is irrelevant; it means nothing to your nieghborhood because ultimately, it only means to us, the Christians.

We have relegated it to informative meaning, expressly limited to the abstract because we cannot fit poetry in a bulletin or a bible study outline.

Speaking of the which, I must go now and pick up Lauren at the cafe. When we return, the soup she has been simmering all day and the lamb I have been braising will be our feast; his body and his blood our meat and our wine. This is intoxication.

Lay the Axe to the Root

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:24:57 GMT

     I have nothing profound to say. I used to have the luxury to read and blog for hours. I could organize abstractions in my head and then communicate them in a way that entertained and stimulated my readers.

     That luxury is gone from me now. Work has replaced it. Lauren and I build our home on our weekends and during the week, I work 10 to 14 hour days.

     The temptation for me is to think that there are two kinds of living: the contemplative and the active, Il Penseroso and 'L Allegro, as Milton would have it. Life and material necessity have driven me to the field and to toil. I am tempted to think that my mind is now less active than my body.

     All of these thoughts, however, are false. They are the alluring call of discontent. They are complex because there is a brilliant ideology inculcating them. I know that such an interpretation of my circumstances is untrue because it would corner me, it would ostensibly victimize me into being discontent and unhappy.

     We know, however, that circumstances are indifferent and irrelevant. Obedience is always possible and blessed.

     We know also that my mind is part of my body. The stimulation thereof is no less sweet in the field than it is with a text. The field is a text. I read it everyday to see if it will yield the pasture to sustain the lambs and the cows.

     My mind is no less fed by food than by propositions. I know that the meat from the industrial slaughter plant and the irradiated, dead milk from infected cows will sap my energy and leave my mind and body vapid and ill.

     It is a cruel trick for a human to feel that relearning how to grow and prepare food is a blue-collar, lesser concern than the cloistered luxury of contemplation and the deceptive ease of shopping at a grocery store. To confuse convenience with prosperity is an illusion. To subsequently equate freedom with convenience and ease is crafty tyranny.

    Convenience and ease create dependence and precipitate the loss of the ability to be truly independent. To be the master of your own material existence, that is freedom. To raise, slaughter, prepare and consume your own meat is independence.

     Do not be deceived. Your right to affordable, quality food in the supermarket is not a right all. It is coached in the language of entitlement so that you think it is in your best interest.

     We heard this after 9/11. We were told to go and consume. Our great retaliation to the terrorists was to go to the mall to spite them. Shop, buy and trade, and you will be a freedom fighter. Go, you courageous American, and fly in an airplane to prove to those bastards that you do not fear them.

     This lie functions only to lull you into impotence. To rob you of your God-given dominion over his creation and turn it over to those who would exploit it for filthy lucre.

     All of these structures of consumer comforts serve only to lift the burden of sustaining life off of our shoulders and thus transform us all into children. We do not know what it means to be responsible to produce our own food. The Lord's prayer suddenly becomes obsolete when our daily bread can always be found on the supermarket shelf.

     The worth of a man is placed in the management of his debt. Of course, it is not expressed this way. Rather, our phraseology conceals how shallow this standard is. We say instead that owning a home is a mark of maturity.

     Is it? Is it really ownership if you pay an institution every month for the privilege to inhabit your own home.

     Does this not sound more like a monarchy? How is a mortgage any different than a property tax? Instead of the government, we pay the bank. Recently, the banks and the government can scarcely be distinguished. The Federal Reserve determines your worth by inflating or deflating the currency with which you exchange your material goods.

     The fruit of your labor is exchange value, not food and sustenance. It is an abstraction whose pith is measured by a few men telling you how much you can sell it for. We think that by determining an hourly rate or by setting a price on goods we sell that we control the value thereof. But the unit of exchange, the dollar, is not under our control. Our food, consequently, is given to us rather than being produced by us. We are all reduced to beggars, being alloted our rations if we bring enough green food stamps, a welfare state indeed.

     We are estranged from the work of our own hands. It is mediated to us by fiat currency.

    A revolution would serve to delay the implosion of this empty value strategy. The lasting remedy, however, that can see fulfillment in this life, I have yet to fully grasp though I know from whence it springs: The resurrection of Jesus.

When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
Col 2:15.

Outlawed Meat

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 03:55:39 GMT

     As I said in my last post, fresh meat sold in an outdoor market is illegal in Seattle. I would say that the sale thereof constitutes a crime, but the enforcement is so vague that I cannot tell if it is violation of code or of law. There is a power in indefinite authoritative standards that makes coercion particularly difficult to resist in any intelligent manner.

      I feel oppressed by this power at every market. I stand there, in my stall with the best meat in Seattle, without question. There is no more healthy source of animal protein available. Accordingly, it is also the most delicious because truly good food does not please the pallet without gratifying the hunger it expresses.

     In short, it's food as God intended it.

     This food however, is not enough to rid me of fear. I know and am convinced that it could cause no possible harm to anyone who buys. Still, I fear.

     After market, I realized that I fear surveillance. I cannot focus on the customer or enjoying my task because I am scanning the passing bodies of the crowd for the black necklace name tag and clip board. I am afraid of being seen without seeing the inspector first.

     Foucault relates this to prison architecture. The panopticon is a cylindrical prison with all the cells facing a central guard tower. EAch prisoner in his cell can see nothing but the cells accross from him and the guard tower, creating the nagging awareness of being ceaseless monitered. Every movement is observed.

    The force of this kind of subtle coercion is so pervasive, that I can be anxious all day even though they never show. I know they will not show up because I know they are lazy, being government bureaucrats.

     I must leave the computer; my wife is done with work at the cafe on whose computer I type.

These thoughts were leading somewhere...something to the affect that outlawed meat is more than just a diet restriction; it is tyranny.

M

Friday, September 19, 2008

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:23:01 GMT

I woke up this morning to our rooster crowing louder than I have ever heard him crow before. His voice is developing. We took away his competition a couple days ago and braised him. He is now free to express his chicken soul without being pecked by a more dominant cock.

Today I work on the farm. This afternoon I will pack my box truck for the long weekend of farmers' markets ahead. We sell lamb, pig, eggs, broilers, milk, cheese, charcuterie and wine, all raised and perpared on Vashon Island. I work with the animals when I am not at the markets.

The Health Department shut us down a couple weekends ago for selling fresh meat (we are the only source of fresh meat in Seattle) unwraped in an outdoor market. The inspector and his sidekick surprised me. I did not think that adulthood allowed humans to develop into chronic tattlers.

I realized later what made my gorge rise at their presence in utter disgust: smug immaturity. They, as government officials, assume authority over everything we do as a farm, yet they have never farmed or sold food at market. Still, they march into your stall without asking and make fiat pronouncements regarding its worth.

Is this not the epitome of inexperienced childishness? There is something about obsessive adherence to the rules that smacks of abject dependence. The rules themselves are absurd. Europeans have been selling unwrapped fresh meat in open air markets for centuries.

The inspector wore a fanny pack. I instantly percieved a batman complex. His skin was pale, the same color as his graying hair. He was the most sanitized human I have ever seen. I think he bathes in alcohol every morning to sterilize his existence to the sheen of a white lenolium counter top illumind by phlorescent lights.

Because we value our customers over the inspectors, we of course continued to sell illegal meat after they left. A few of our customers actually yelled at the inspectors.

Illegal meat. The MacDonalds in the city can sell fecal burgers with their approval. In fact, the inspector's role is to eliminate competition for the industrial meat processing plants who buy the legislation with their lobbyists.

The most troublesome part of this is that the inspectors are convinced of their own great worth. There is no wink. No nod. No gesture to let us know that, yes, this code is ridiculous, but I must follow orders. They believe in the code.

This, above all, frightens me. How far would they go to enforce the code? If I continue to disobey, would they eventually come with guns? The liquor control board officers are armed and wear bullet proof vests.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:49:15 GMT

Is the evil of our government a secular distraction?

What does this have to do with Jesus?

Is it a temptation to shift our focus as Christians?

These are the questions I have encountered from Christians. My family has been ordered to leave a church because we have invited people to dinner and discussed what we believe about 9/11.

These are the questions we need to ask:

Why is the church siding with the government?

Why are our pastors promising to keep their people submissive under marshall law? These are FEMA pastors:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrypChFrcSk

I submit to you that you do not have the choice. Whether or not you think this is a secular distraction, it will come to your front door. Isn't it obvious that even the question ("what does this have to do with Jesus?") is only the luxury of a people who do not have marines invading their homes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOU934hhuEQ&feature=related

It is easy to speculate about the propriety of involvement when involvement is a choice. The question becomes irrelevant when they make that choice for you.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:22:13 GMT

    Today I got a job with a local and organic farm on Vashon. The job description, according to the owner, went something like, "long days covered in mud, shit, blood and piss."

     The cows, chickens, goats and pigs are all happy and, lo and behold, all live off of the grass that grows beneath their varying styles of feet.

     Did I mention that they make wine by stepping on grapes and then ferment with wild yeast enticed by open fermentors?

     Oh yes... mud, shit, blood and piss will be to me a salve to renew the soul.

9/11: press for the status of faith

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:34:15 GMT

I want to qualify my "press for 9/11 truth."

The "truth," as that which is lurking behind the curtain of media-deception, is not my ultimate concern. This is also the "truth" of what really happened on 9/11.

It is the affect that this "press" has on the episteme.

     I still align my support with the bold bull-horn activists who have the abject courage to scream "9/11 was an inside job" even though it threatens their life.

     I admire these people. With the increase of the insanity of their image and its violation of our social sensitivities and insecurities, my respect deepens.

     So I do not wish to separate myself from them or even to carve out a distinct effort in the fight. I march with them.

     The point is this: no change will occur without changing how truth is thought.

     Therefore, rather than protesting on behalf of truth, we need to fight for the status of truth (Foucault, Truth and Power). If truth remains the legitimating gesture between right and wrong or the symbol for what is real, then it will always be an inhibition, not setting anyone free. The gestures and symbols can be owned and therefore, exploited.

     For example, the TV: the blank talking face speaks truth. Perhaps we don't think of it as truth, but we do interpret it as information about the world that we would otherwise be without. If the information accords with reality, it is true. Hence, the convenient appellation of a news "reporter." They are merely a channel for information that they receive from those who gather it in the field.

     This is a gesture or a symbol of truth. It is a means to meaning that we accept. It doesn't even have to play by its own rules. The reality and the truth don't have to mirror each other. The proper gestures are all that is necessary.

     As I've said before, pay attention to the cinematography during a news show. At the end of the report, the camera cranes back, revealing the other cameramen, the edges of the stage and the warehouse darkness of the studio. This gives us the impression that they are not trying to convince us that the "news room" is anything other than a stage. This is a friendly gesture of "we're not going to trick you... see, here's what's behind the camera."

     In this way, we get the behind-the-scenes look; the truth behind the curtain. Unfortunately, our brains turn off at that point. We forget that we are still looking through a camera and while we can see the cameramen on the ground, what about the one behind the camera framing our view? More importantly, why would they show me what appears to be behind the scenes? What is the reason?

      This is a gesture of truth. It is an error to think that truth in our culture is an entity to be discovered. It is a status that is maintained by gestures, and like I said, gestures are easily commodified, manipulated and dominated.

     These gestures are limitless: statistics, scientific phraseology, 'common sense,' nonfiction, true story, Dr. So and So, an Expert in Such and Such...

   We must divorce truth from these gestures. Only then will people be able to think it. All these examples demand immediacy. In other words, they are formulated for acceptance and not discernment. How do you question the expert opinion of Dr. You-could-never-study-as-much-as-me? Well, you could ask another degreed expert... The very status of "Dr." means that you, his hearers, are not experts.

   Unfortunately, Christians lend this kind of legitimacy to their pastors, but that is for another post.

Truth, as Gramsci said, is hegemonic. We need to disillusion the viewers of this form of truth, not only because it is a lie (tricking us into believing that the gesture is the evidence), but because it makes us dependent upon a form of truth.

     This is why Christians write books trying to prove the death and resurrection of Jesus. These authors are addicted to a form of truth and feel the need to tailer Jesus (the Truth) to a system that people are more comfortable with.

     I can think of few things more antithetical to faith than this. Faith is the opposite of comfort; the opposite of legitimation. By definition, it cannot satisfy our mental requirements for the 'real.' These requirements are determined by commodified media to control us.

     Thus the "official account" is always a lie because the status of truth it operates around. It is hostile to the rhetoric of faith. These gestures signal and support the verity. Faith has no support whatsoever.

     The 9/11 press for truth therefore is more than an investigation into what really happened. It is a battle for the possibility of faith in our episteme.

-M

PS
     Example: When lobbying/marching/rallying/picketing in DC two weeks ago, my brother-in-law and I accosted almost everyone we came upon with a big orange sign that said "Run for Office" on one side and "Shoot your idiot TV" on the other.

     We approached DC cops, groups of students, taxi drivers and people in suits. After a pitcher of beer, we became more bold and our interactions became more meaningful. The image of filthy, sun-burnt activists with an orange sign usually turns people off, but when they saw "Run for Office" and felt the personal flattery as we encouraged them, their attitude became cordial. DC cops lifted their shades and conversed with us, rather than trying to "crowd control" us, which is why they are there.

     Why did people respond so well? I think it is because we empowered them to pull truth out of the hegemony. We have been conditioned to think with the help of the gestures of the three piece suit and the status of the law degree that we the people could never run for office.

     When you break this inhibition with the grace of encouragement, the discursive powers lose a little bit of their monopoly on truth and, I hope, the unsettling yet invigorating risk of faith becomes more attractive to a mind accustomed to too much safety.

Imperialist Jesus

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:19:09 GMT

     Regarding the apparent arbitrariness of picking "terrorism" in my previous post as though no other word could work, I want to clarify that any word would work. The rub is in the usage.

     "Christianity" is a satanic word/usage when Dick Cheney seizes on a quote from the Bible to imply that Jesus supports imperialism: "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?" This was in the Christmas card his office sends out.

     Christians claim to care so deeply about the 'name of Jesus' and 'bringing glory to God,' but we reduce the concept of glory to a personal effusion of good feelings and the name of Jesus to a mechanized prayer-ender. Right now, "one nation under God" is slaughtering millions all over the globe and spending trillions supporting 700 military bases in 130 countries because a an empire can't rise without Jesus' help.

     I would not hesitate to equate our foreign policy with terrorism. My prayer is that "terrorism" in this sense would instigate repentance among Christians who have been actively supporting a evil empire, terrorizing in Jesus' name, by withdrawing their opposition to it.

M

Tyrannical Ambiguity

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:28:06 GMT

Example of deceptive discourse: "TERRORISM"

Terror: intense, sharp, overmastering fear.

It is an abstract noun. By this I mean that it denotes an abstraction, a feeling, a state of being. You cannot point to it in material reality. This distinguishes it from "table" which denotes something concrete, an object.

ism: a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school.

This is more concrete than "terror." Here we have a functioning network that manifests itself in the action and organization of a people group.

Words, we assume, tell us about something. They impart some meaning or reference to something that gives us information about it.

Our faith in words functioning this way is betrayed by words/usages like "Terrorism." It mystifies rather than add definition. A group of people dedicated to spreading mindless fear for its own sake?

The designation "terrorist" assumes that their violence is mindless and without cause. This is why the establishment media/arbiters of discourse accuse any investigation into what motivated the 9/11 terrorists as being blasphemous:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD7dnFDdwu0

Who are these 'terror supporters'?

Well, obviously they are the same people who believe in badism and I-don't-like-you-ism. We must fear them because we believe in safism and goodism.

Pardon my sarcasm.

I know this sounds meaninglessly subtle. The implications however become harrowing in the application of this kind of word/thought engineering.

For example, under the Patriot Act a new crime was created called Domestic Terrorism: "activities that involve acts dangerous to human life, that violate laws of the US, and any state and appear to be intended to influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion."

You are a terrorist if you try to influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion. Homeschoolers, if you threaten to not vote for a local government official because of their position on education policy in your district, you are a terrorist. Pro-lifers, coercing your government officials with signs while you picket against murder is a terrorist act and you can be locked up without a trial. The potential here for making 'redress of grievances' a terrorist act should be unnerving to us.

"Activities that involve acts" - what can I say about this? Now our government writes like Jacques Derrida. Why can't they just say, "acts?"

Tease this out with me: 'acts' seem to be limited to one time and one event. 'Activities' seem to be referring to a broader category that 'involve(s)' numerous 'acts.' Oddly enough, it is not the isolated 'acts' themselves that are criminal! A dangerous act is not what is being called a crime here. The broader spectrum of 'activities' is the crime.

The key here is that not all the 'activities' have to be harmful in and of themselves; they just have to 'involve' (?) harmful acts somehow.

The wording tricks the reader into thinking that only "acts dangerous to human life" are crimes. This is not the case. "Activities" that "involve" these acts are outlawed. Which activities involve harmful acts and who decides this? What does "involve" mean? Does it imply activities that lead to harmful acts, that cause harmful acts, that inadvertently inspire harmful acts through hearsay...? No one knows, but the decider.

"...appear to be intended to influence..." These criminal acts are not limited only to those that intend to influence government policy, they just have to appear to be intended to do this unthinkable thing. Even worse, with this provision, the intention is the crime, not the harmful act. Having the intent to influence government policy is terrorism.

Ever heard of thought police?

How do you punish the appearance of an intent to influence your government?

I use hyperbole to illustrate that there are no limits to who can be called a domestic terrorist.

Perhaps "hyperbole" is too hyperbolic a word because this seems to be how the current administration thinks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIFqYVAOosM

The word 'terrorist' means nothing specific while also maintaining the usefulness of meaning anything that will expedite the prosecution of anyone whom the ruling authorities do not favor.

It is Satan's "craft, By mixing somewhat true to vent more lyes." These sayings are indeed "Ambiguous and with double sense deluding" (PRI.433,5)

The Innocent Eye, Mark Tansey

-M

Terror-ism?

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:45:34 GMT

Back to blogging

     I find myself at a loss as to where I should begin.

     In short, my life has changed radically.

     When I used to blog daily, I strove to avoid autobiography. I sought only to record my thoughts. It soon became obvious, however, that severing what I was thinking from the events of my life was not only impossible, but uncommonly boring reading.

     I used to post almost daily. It was the luxury of being an unemployed student, living with magnanimous friends. With all the time to write came the unusual opportunity to shape my online image as someone full of conviction and courage. While I did live many of those convictions, I have found that it takes infinitely greater virtue to do so without the time that idleness affords to host little rallies for myself; you start to believe that what you read in books is true of yourself just because the thought has entered your mind, even before it moves your hand.

     As my brother-in-law and I recently discovered while marching in DC, actively shaping one's self image is a reaction and not an unadulterated expression. The husband who has to tell his wife in an argument, "I'm the man!" is obviously anything but THE man. Similarly, I can't help but think that claiming to be "the decider" has identical implications.

    The assertion defeats itself. It is in fact the best evidence that the very claim itself is doubtful. This is what "fiat" means.

     I have gained a new appreciation for this word because of the thoughts it makes possible. I see it in all that I do. The claim of legitimacy is precisely illegitimate.

     I am married. The intrinsic beauty of my wife is labyrinthine and terrible because it pushes me right up to the edge and requires that I leap into the dark of obedience. I have never been more filled and happy in my life. I did not know, in spite of ceaseless day dreaming, that covenant marriage under God was so ineffably lovely.

     Fiat can destroy it like a worm devouring its root. When I feel my self image being threatened by some form of humiliation, I start to separate my image from myself and begin to nervously care for it. I argue with her to defend what I perceive to be its nobility.

     Jesus never said, "I am Jesus, so you must obey me!" If he did, its content would be true, but as a humble servant, he would be lying.

     Like Oedipus, I pursue 'truth' until she cries, only to find that I have been running full speed towards Satan's lies. "'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage And pious action we do sugar o'er The devil himself."

     This is the power of fiat.

     Being the ruler of this earth and every culture therein, Satan uses this lie in all of its machinations. Nothing is exempt. Satan does not adhere to the convenient delineations we put on things. He does not separate life into the sacred and the secular. He will devour it all.

     He does not stop at the church doors and turn around to infest the gutter, nor does he leave the secular world order and its massive edifices of power to parley for simplistic platitudes of Hallmark piety. The battle ground is everywhere.

     He wants you to believe that secular concerns are distractions. He knows that if he can get you to believe this, then you will leave him alone and lock up God's truth inside the sanctuaries to breed generations of apathetic, misfit christianites.

     If ever the Holy Spirit awakened the heart of Jesus inside you and unsheathed the piercing sword of judgment that is his word, Satan would have to work much harder. The Word of God does not limit itself to personal spiritual growth! Satan has discovered how to relegate the followers of Jesus into abstract and insipid moralists, looking to the gluttonous mass media for the terms of its moral debate.

     The choices are rigged and the full force of fiat is being exploited everyday in the guise of strength and adherence to principle to make it impossible to think these false choices; we can only receive them. As result, in the name of freedom of choice, we have lost the ability to articulate our unfreedom (Zizek). We do not think beyond the given choices!

     Do not be deceived Christian, the issue is not democrat verses republican, democracy versus fundamentalism, terrorism versus freedom, passivity versus activism. These are not choices at all. They are coercive. These terms have been co-opted to make only one option possible. In the guise of freedom of choice, no one could ever choose democracy over fundamentalism or terror over freedom.

     But the call of obedience destroys these categories like it did for Abraham. He became a murderer.

     Let me make this as extreme as possible because that is the nature of the "foolishness of God":

     We must be ready without question to become terrorists in obedience to God!

     It is not a matter of christian activism or passivity. This is a false choice. We are all of course pacifists for peace. We are also the active makers of peace. Action and inaction in and of themselves are irrelevant. That there is a difference between the two is a myth! To do nothing is to actively support those in power. Inaction is an action that God will judge. He will not turn his head and say that he cannot judge us because we haven't done anything to be judged.

     When God gives a command, there is no time to think about how it should be done. When God says, "love your nieghbor," to ask "who is my neighbor?" is flagrant disobedience. We do not learn commands and then obey. It is through obedience that we come to understand the commands. We learn obedience through obedience (Bonhoeffer). There can be no qualifications or explications; this only results in narrowing the scope of our obedience to that which is convenient for us, to tailoring the command of God to our comfort and moral sensitivity.   This is idolatry through self worship.

     Where does this lead? There are thirty thousand pastors in America who have pledged that under marshal law, they will encourage the subjection of their people to government authority, turning over their bodies as slaves to the officials, rejecting the God who bought their bodies with the price of his own.

     On a larger scale, can you think of one pastor or one church that operates without a tax exempt status? A church will lose this status if it supports one candidate over another. Brothers and sisters open your eyes! Churches are taking money to be silent. Should the body of Christ silence itself for filthy lucre? Could Peter and John be silenced? This is idolatry: we cannot serve God and mammon at the same time.

     It should be painfully obvious now why none of us are being imprisoned or suffering! (Lk21) We have bought the lie that the gospel of Jesus is basically the American dream. I submit to you that there is nothing more inimical to the life of Jesus than gluttonous consumerism and callous apathy.

     Open your ears to the cry of the orphans and widows around the world who are victims of American foreign policy. In Poland, El Salvador, Guatamala, Ecuador and the middle east, America has squashed democratic formations to install murderous tyrants. This has been our policy since WWII. Read NSC 68.

     Evil men who rob and maim are moving foward with "in God we trust" feeding their brassy disregard for the lives of the weak.

     They are killing in the name of our God and by letting them, the blood is on our hands.

Miltonus