God's Changing Moods

The following article " Decoding God's Changing Moods" is a well reseached peice and gives a lot of hope to mankind in their pursuit of happiness and co-existence. I have made a few comments before and after the article.

The article is an evidence of Pluralism taking root with all the writers now; it is good news to the world and hope for mankind.

The writer Robert Wright has taken the time to find the Zero sum play in all the faiths, and my hats off to the writer to equalize the tense verses to wash off the claims of superiority of one over the other; a source of conflict. The vacillations between tolerance and intolerance may have a different explanation than the Zero sum approach the writer has taken.

The singular drive to push the people into monotheistic belief is amazing and I do not believe it was God commanded, but a cover up for the insecurities of the kings to prevent insurgencies and protect from the risk of getting beheaded or get thrown out of the crown. Indeed, that was the sole business of kings at that time, usurp the land of next door king, take their women and rob the wealth of a neighbor. No wonder the Ten Commandments addressed those issues squarely.

Mike Ghouse
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Decoding God's Changing Moods
By ROBERT WRIGHT Monday, Jun. 15, 2009
Symbols of the three Monotheistic religions.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1902851-3,00.html

Jun. 15, 2009
Decoding God's Changing Moods
By ROBERT WRIGHT

The ancient Israelites got straightforward guidance from Scripture on how to handle people who didn't worship Israel's god, Yahweh. "You shall annihilate them — the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites — just as the Lord your God has commanded."

The point of this exercise, explained the Book of Deuteronomy, was to make sure the "abhorrent" religions of nearby peoples didn't rub off on Israelites.

Yet sometimes the Israelites were happy to live in peace with neighbors who worshipped alien gods. In the Book of Judges, an Israelite military leader proposes a live-and-let-live arrangement with the Ammonites: "Should you not possess what your god Chemosh gives you to possess? And should we not be the ones to possess everything that our god Yahweh has conquered for our benefit?" (See pictures of spiritual healing around the world.)

The Bible isn't the only Scripture with such vacillations between belligerence and tolerance. Muslims, who like Christians and Jews worship the God who revealed himself to Abraham, are counseled in one part of the Koran to "kill the polytheists wherever you find them." But another part prescribes a different stance toward unbelievers, "To you be your religion; to me my religion."

You'd think the Abrahamic God would make up his mind — Can he live with other gods or not? What's with the random mood fluctuations?

But the fluctuations aren't really random. If you juxtapose the Abrahamic Scriptures with what scholars have learned about the circumstances surrounding their creation, a pattern appears. Certain kinds of situations inspired tolerance, and other kinds inspired the opposite. You might even say this pattern is a kind of code, a code that is hidden in the Scriptures and that, once revealed, unlocks the secret of God's changing moods.

And maybe this code could unlock more than that. Maybe knowing what circumstances made the authors of Scripture open-minded can help make modern-day believers open-minded. Maybe the hidden code in the Bible and the Koran, the code that links Scriptural content to context, could even help mend the most dangerous of intra-Abrahamic fault lines, the one between Muslims and Jews.

The first step in seeing this code is to look to the world that gave us the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament) and the Koran — the world that embedded the code in them. There we'll see how consequential God's mood changes could be — how, indeed, a burst of vengeful intolerance helped give us monotheism itself; we'll see that the birth of monotheism left us with what you might call a bad God.

But we'll also see that this God then had bursts of moral growth — within both Judaism and Islam — and that the proven ingredients of that growth are around today, just when another such burst is needed.

In the beginning — or near the beginning — was King Solomon. Israel's third King, he reigned in the 10th century B.C.E. (before the common era). In addition to being famously wise, he was flagrantly polytheistic. The Bible handles this awkward fact by blaming it on his many wives of foreign extraction, who "turned away his heart after other gods."

The Bible has the logic backward. In ancient times, when a man of royal blood married a foreign woman of royal blood, it wasn't on a romantic whim. It was part of foreign policy, a way to cement relations with another nation. And that cement was strengthened by paying respect to the nation's gods. Solomon's many wives didn't lead to his many gods; his politics led to both the wives and the gods.

Solomon believed Israel could benefit — economically and otherwise — by staying on good terms with nearby nations. As game theorists say, he saw relations with other nations as non-zero-sum; the fortunes of Israel and other nations were positively correlated, so outcomes could be win-win or lose-lose. His warmth toward those religions was a way of making the win-win outcome more likely.

Again and again in the Bible, this perception of non-zero-sumness underlies religious tolerance. This doesn't mean religious tolerance is always consciously calculated. The human mind does lots of subterranean work to pave the way for social success. But whether the calculation is conscious or not, people are more open to the religious beliefs of other people if they sense a non-zero-sum dynamic.

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The flip side is that perceptions of a zero-sum dynamic — of a game in which one side will win and one side lose — can foster intolerance of other religions and their gods. Indeed, a close look at the Bible shows how this worldview helped move Israel from the polytheism of Solomon's time toward monotheism — a monotheism that (contrary to the standard story of Christians and Jews) doesn't seem to have taken root until the middle of the first millennium B.C.E.

Paving the way for this eventual triumph of monotheism was a series of prophets who cried out for exclusive devotion to Yahweh, railing against the polytheistic ways of Israel. These prophets aren't necessarily monotheists; they don't deny the existence of gods other than Yahweh. They seem to be what scholars call monolatrists, insisting that Israelites worship only one God.

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Among the earliest of these prophets is Hosea, who is thought to have written in the 8th century B.C.E. Rejecting a Solomonic view — that immersion in the larger world could make Israel richer — Hosea insists the game is zero-sum: when Israel "mixes himself with the peoples ... foreigners devour his strength." Hosea's suspicion of the foreign isn't surprising. Israel, a small nation in a tough neighborhood, often did get pushed around.

The monolatrous prophets gained a following, but they had trouble winning consistent support from Israel's leaders. So in the early part of the 7th century B.C.E., decades after Hosea issued his sermons, Israel was still awash in religious pluralism. The Jerusalem Temple itself, according to the Bible, was home not just to Yahweh but also to Asherah, a goddess who, scholars increasingly believe, was Yahweh's consort. And there were "vessels made for Baal," the Canaanite God.

Then, in 640 B.C.E. came an intense Israelite King named Josiah who would lend brutal support to the monolatrist cause and push Israel closer to monotheism. He took the figure of Asherah out of the Temple and "beat it to dust." The vessels for Baal didn't fare well either.

Was Josiah, too, driven by a zero-sum worldview in which the worshippers of gods other than Yahweh looked like enemies?

Apparently, but in his case the enemies included Israelites — domestic political rivals — not just foreigners. In ancient times, political power flowed from the divine. Prophets who could claim to speak for a god with a large following thus had influence. If that god was Yahweh, these prophets would be concentrated in the King's court, since Yahweh was Israel's national God. But prophets of other gods were less amenable to the King's control and so a threat to his power.

And so long as polytheism reigned, there were lots of those prophets. At one point, Israel contained "400 prophets of Asherah" and "450 prophets of Baal," the Bible reports darkly. Josiah's cleansing of the Temple was good strategy in a zero-sum game: the less influence these prophets had, the more he had.

Josiah was probably a monolatrist, not a monotheist. But within a few decades of his death, true monotheism would finally emerge. In 586 B.C.E., Israelite élites were exiled to Babylon after conquest by the neo-Babylonian Empire. In passages from Isaiah that are thought to have been written during the exile, Yahweh says unequivocally, "Besides me there is no god." Does this extreme intolerance of other gods — the denial of their very existence — flow from a zero-sum view of Israel's environs?

It would seem so. The author of these monotheistic passages (known by scholars as second Isaiah, to distinguish him from the author of earlier chapters in Isaiah) sees an Israel long tormented by "oppressors" who are due for a comeuppance. The punishment that Isaiah envisions for these enemies seems to include subjugation and, as a bonus, the news that their gods don't exist. Isaiah's God promises the Israelites that, come the apocalypse, people from Egypt and elsewhere will "come over in chains and bow down to you. They will make supplication to you, saying, 'God is with you alone, and there is no other; there is no God besides him.'" So there.

Happily, after the exile, life got more non-zero-sum. The Babylonians who had conquered Israel were in turn conquered by the Persians, who returned the exiles to their homeland. Israel was no longer in a bad neighborhood. Nearby nations were now fellow members of the Persian Empire and so no longer threats. And, predictably, books of the Bible typically dated as postexilic, such as Ruth and Jonah, strike a warm tone toward peoples — Moabites and Assyrians — that in pre-exilic times had been vilified.

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A more inclusive view is also found in a biblical author (or authors) thought by many scholars to be writing shortly after the exile — the priestly source. The priestly source, or P, uses internationally communal language and writes not just of God's covenant with Israel but of an "everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth."

A zero-sum, isolationist worldview had moved Israel from polytheism to belligerent monotheism, but now, as Israel's environment grew less threatening, belligerence was turning out not to be an intrinsic part of monotheism. Between second Isaiah's angry exilic exclamations and P's more congenial voice, Israel had segued from an exclusive to an inclusive monotheism.

A millennium later, this same dynamic — swings between zero-sum and non-zero-sum — would have a similar impact on Islamic monotheism, moving it back and forth between belligerence and tolerance.

Muhammad's preaching career started in Mecca around 613 C.E., and he seems to have had hopes of drawing Jews and Christians into a common faith. In the Koran — which Muslims consider the word of God as spoken by Muhammad — the Prophet's followers are told to say to fellow Abrahamics, "Our God and your God is one."

This hope of playing a win-win game shows up in overtures to Jews in particular, made mainly after Muhammad moved to the city of Medina and became its political and religious leader. Muhammad decided his followers should have an annual 24-hour fast, as Jews did on Yom Kippur. He even called it Yom Kippur — at least he used the term some Arabian Jews were using for Yom Kippur. The Jewish ban on eating pork was mirrored in a Muslim ban. Muhammad also told his followers to pray facing Jerusalem. He said God, in his "prescience," chose "the children of Israel ... above all peoples."

As for Christians: having denounced polytheists who believed Allah had daughters, Muhammad couldn't now embrace the idea that Jesus was God's son. But he came close. He said Jesus was "the Messiah ... the Messenger of God, and His Word ... a Spirit from Him." God, according to the Koran, gave Jesus the Gospel and "put into the hearts of those who followed him kindness and compassion."

Muhammad's ecumenical mission seems to have failed. Certainly, he sensed rejection from Christians and Jews. A Koranic verse captures his disillusionment. "O Believers! Take not the Jews or Christians as friends. They are but one another's friends." Once you're convinced that non-zero-sum collaboration isn't in the cards, the bonhomie dries up.

In his new, zero-sum mode, Muhammad changed the direction of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca. According to Islamic tradition, he expelled three tribes of Jews from Medina — and killed the adult males in the third tribe, which was suspected of collaborating with Meccans in a battle against Medina.

Still, in the end, Christians and Jews get a favored place in Islamic tradition as "people of the Book." The Koran repeatedly says they're eligible for salvation.

Within years of Muhammad's death in 632, Islamic leaders started conquering lands far and wide. This imperial expansion gave birth to the doctrine of jihad, which mandates battle against unbelievers with the aim of conversion.

But once the conquering was done, Muslim leaders found that trying to compel uniform belief in a multinational empire was a lose-lose game. Doctrines granting freedom of worship to Christians and Jews emerged promptly. And later, such freedom would also be granted to Buddhists and polytheists.

Meanwhile, the doctrine of jihad would be dulled through amendment. And the notion of a "greater jihad" — struggle within oneself toward goodness — would arise and be attributed to Muhammad himself. As in Israel after the exile, the Abrahamic God, having found himself in a multiethnic milieu rife with non-zero-sumness, underwent moral growth.

In neither case had the growth been smoothly progressive, and in both cases, there would be backsliding. Still, in both cases, God spent enough time in benevolent mode to leave the Scriptures littered with odes to tolerance and understanding, verses that modern believers can focus on, should they choose.

Will they so choose? Maybe the code embedded in the Scriptures can help. The key, it suggests, is to arrange things so that relations between Muslims and Jews are conspicuously non-zero-sum.

Sometimes this may mean engineering the non-zero-sumness — for example, strengthening commerce between Israel and the Palestinian territories. Other times it will mean highlighting a non-zero-sum dynamic that already exists — emphasizing, for example, that continued strife between Israelis and Palestinians will be lose-lose (as would escalated tensions between the "Muslim world" and the "West" more broadly). Enduring peace would be win-win.

This peace would also have been foretold. Isaiah (first Isaiah, not the Isaiah of the exile) envisioned a day when God "shall arbitrate for many peoples" and "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." And in a Koranic verse dated by scholars to the final years of Muhammad's life, God tells humankind that he has "made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another."

This happy ending is hardly assured. It can take time for people, having seen that they are playing a non-zero-sum game, to adjust their attitudes accordingly. And this adaptation may never happen if barriers of mistrust persist.

But at least we can quit talking as if this adaptation were impossible — as if intolerance and violence were inevitable offshoots of monotheism. At least we can quit asking whether Islam — or Judaism or any other religion — is a religion of peace. The answer is no. And yes. It says so in the Bible, and in the Koran.

See pictures of spiritual healing around the world.
See the top 10 religion stories of 2008.

# # #
_______________________________________
Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1902851,00.html

My Comments continue:

Wright quotes Qur’aan "kill the polytheists wherever you find them." I wish he had done justice by just reading two lines before and after the verse. It would have given him a different idea, the reference was made to those individuals who were chasing them and persecuting them and then it continues, if they stop butchering you, you must stop retaliation immediately and reconcile. I have written about it at: http://quraan-today.blogspot.com/2007/12/slay-idolaters-95.html
and http://quraan-today.blogspot.com/2007/12/ruthless-to-infidels-4829.html

As far as the relations between Jews and Muslims go, all of us need to work on it. If we can find solutions to the Palestine and Israel issue, the conflicts will fade and solutions will emerge. As Muslims we have taken initiatives that have never done before; we have commemorated the Holocaust event twice in Dallas, to be human in each others pain and suffering and we have continued to build bridges.

Thank God the end time for the extremists among Jews and Muslims is on the horizon, where the few bad guys were lying to their constituents to keep the conflict on and were cashing in on their fears. Films were shown at the Muslim and Jewish centers to frighten the crap out of Muslims and Jews respectively and of course, collect funds to protect’ them. Heck no, to frighten them more. People should stop paying these rascals who deepen the chasm and prolong the conflicts, and instead pay to support efforts that mitigate conflicts and nurture goodwill which is good for all. People are waking up to this idea now.

The frightened European kings in the 11th century deliberately mistranslated Qur’aan to paint Muslims as bad guys, and a Muslim have done the same after the fall of Ottoman empire. Most of the non-Muslim Islamic experts today are brainwashed with that false foundation; it enriches them to sow hatred between the peoples. (http://quraan-today.blogspot.com/2008/01/unlike-jews-or-christians-17.html ).

We the people should not be a victim of these thugs and instead work on mitigating conflicts and nurturing goodwill. What is good for me has got to be good for you and vice versa for it to sustain.

I believe the role of religion is to bring a balance to an individual and what surrounds him or her; the people and the environment. A religious person is one who mitigates conflicts and nurtures goodwill.

Mike Ghouse is a Dallas based Speaker, Writer, Thinker and a Moderator. He is a frequent guest on talk radio and television networks offering pluralistic perspectives on issues of the day including Pluralism, Interfaith, Islam, Peace, India and Civic issues. His comments, news analysis and opinions are on the Blogs listed at his personal website http://www.mikeghouse.net/. Mike is a Dallasite for three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at Ghousemike@gmail.com

Please feel free to leave your comments below,

thank you.

Hell fire & Non-believers

HELL FIRE, NON-BELEIVERS AND INFIDELS

Aaron Zelinsky has done an honest job of researching every critical sentence that the President used in his speech, regardless of whether it was referred in Bible, Qur'aan or Torah.

As a Pluralist thinker and as a Muslim, the phrase "hell fire" was interesting to me to study and think about its implications.

Every word starts out with a certain meaning, and over a period of time, it gets narrowed or broadened. Then what the hell the phrase “hell fire” really means? To a lot of people it conjures up the image of real fire which is hot, unbearable and painful. That is how Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Hindu parishioners have put it out for consumption; Hell, Jahannam & Naraka in English, Arabic and Sanskrit respectively. Although the description is not there in Buddhist, Jain and several other scriptures, the cultural belief is out there in the society at large. Did those masters have an experience watching any one burning? Do they relate burning as the ultimate pain?

I wonder if God would have chosen a different language to describe the punishment. (Per the faith they are the words of God) Had God delivered that message in Texas, would he have used "electric chair" instead? Given the rope to hang in Nigeria? Or ordered incarceration in Europe or stoning to death in Afghanistan or something else in other parts of the world? God only knows.
The phrase "hell fire" is looked down upon as primitive, without giving a regard to what it means; punishment for wrong doing. The threat of punishment to the violators of the law of the land is consistent in every society. Without the threat of punishment, the society will become chaotic and no one will feel secure and safe. Imagine a day where our Criminal laws say - "there shall be no punishment for murderers" and the "rapists go free". Think about it, the phrase "hell fire" may simply mean severe punishment and may not be the imaginary fire.

Non-believer and the hell fire; religion is an instrument of peace, following which brings tranquility to individuals and peace and orderliness in the society. Non-believers are not those who do not subscribe to a particular format of God, but those who do not believe in the laws of the society designed to keep law and order leading to justice and peace.

It is a paradigm change for many believers, but we have to start finding means to create societies where all of us can co-exist despite our differences. The societies are not exclusive any more; the day is not far where no neighborhood will have exclusive faith, race or ethnicity. All of God's creation will live in every neighborhood. God's words are larger and we need to expand our brains to embrace that largeness of the creator.

Punishment is indeed a deterrent to a larger extent in any given society, an overwhelming majority of people are law abiding, and for the ones one margin, punishment is a deterrent. However a small fraction of (Less than1/10th of 1% of any group) the population will commit the crimes and nothing deters them.

The hallmark of civil societies is to take the responsibility for creating a better society. We know that physiological and psychological make up of an individual is usually responsible for the crime he or she commits. We need to take some responsibility for that make up, and instead of putting them on electric chair, we need to work on rehabilitating them and bring them back into the society as productive members. Condemning the individual is the last thing we need to do.

Mike Ghouse is a Dallas based Speaker, Writer, Thinker and a Moderator. He is a frequent guest on talk radio and television networks offering pluralistic perspectives on issues of the day including Pluralism, Interfaith, Islam, Peace, India and Civic issues. His comments, news analysis and opinions are on the Blogs listed at his personal website www.MikeGhouse.net. Mike is a Dallasite for three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at Ghousemike@gmail.com

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Cooperation and Conflict - Cairo speech

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-zelinsky/conflict-and-cooperation_b_211678.html

In Cairo, President Obama employed a variety of historical, liturgical, and political references to express America's hope for a new beginning with the Islamic world.

Obama also noted that, "The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars." His speech's references embody this tension, containing potential for both cooperation and conflict.

Here are ten critical lines from Obama's Cairo speech and the potential for cooperation and conflict they embody:

1. "I am also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: assalaamu alaykum."

Obama opens by invoking the customary greeting, "Peace be upon you," and he uses the appropriate plural ending. He also sets the cooperative tone of the speech, in which he hopes for a new beginning of peace.

2. "As the Holy Koran tells us, 'Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.' That is what I will try to do - to speak the truth as best I can[.]"

This line, from Surah al-Ahzaab, illustrates the admirable desire to speak freely and frankly. However, the Al-Ahzaab focuses on the confederacy of the non-believers that the Muslim armies fought. Surrounding passages describe the "Fire" awaiting non-believers and the leaders who have misled their people.

3." I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America's story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, 'The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.'"

The history of the Treaty of Tripoli exemplifies the history of cooperation and conflict between America and the Islamic world. On the cooperative front, the Treaty's signature line reads: "Signed and sealed at Algiers, the 4th day of Argill, 1211--corresponding with the 3d day of January, 1797."

However, Obama quoted only the second half of the first sentence of Article 11 of the Treaty, likely because of the contemporary domestic conflict the full sentence would engender. The first sentence of Article 11 reads in full: "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of Mussulmen." Mindful of the domestic conflict the opening line may bring, Obama avoids its discussion.

Additionally, Obama does not provide the Treaty's complete title: "Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary." There are at least two reasons for Obama's truncation. First, the full title is too cumbersome. Second, and more significantly, the complete title reflects the troubled aftermath of the Treaty: The Barbary War against the Barbary Pirates. In 1801, the Treaty was broken by the Pasha of Tripoli, and Thomas Jefferson responded with war. The conflict lives on in the opening lines of the Marines' Hymn: ""From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli."

4. "We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum: 'Out of many, one.'"

These words appear on every coin minted since 1873 and on the Seal of the United States. While the phrase originally referred to the political unification of the thirteen disparate colonies into one nation, Obama employs it to reference the pluralistic and multicultural nature of America. The famous phrase echoes a tension between cooperation and conflict present in both federalism and pluralism: How much must the individual surrender to become part of the collective? How much power should states retain, and what restrictions can society place on individual autonomy?

5. "The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind."

Here, Obama quotes a famous passage from Surah Al-Maidah, This Surah is also cited by extremists, who point to the later verse: "Surely (as for) those who disbelieve, even if they had what is in the earth, all of it, and the like of it with it, that they might ransom themselves with it from the punishment of the day of resurrection, it shall not be accepted from them, and they shall have a painful punishment."

6. "Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: 'I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.'"

The preceding line in Jefferson's letter of June 12, 1815 is more ominous and less multilateral: "Not in our day, but at no distant one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble."

7. "All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when . . . when the Holy Land [is] . . . a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer."

The Isra is documented in the Surah Al-Isra, and is more widely explicated in the Hadith, the Islamic oral tradition. The Isra (together with the Mi'raj) is known more widely in English as the Night Journey, when Mohammed's journeyed from Mecca to Jerusalem, ascended to heaven, and returned in a single night. The Surah Al-Isra also contains the more divisive phrase: "And that (as for) those who do not believe in the hereafter, We have prepared for them a painful punishment."

8. "There is also one rule that lies at the heart of every religion - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples - a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian, or Muslim or Jew."

Here, Obama references Luke 6:31: "Do to others as you would have them do to you," which he also referenced at Notre Dame. Luke 6:49 is less supportive: "But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great."

9. "The Holy Koran tells us, 'O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.'

"The Talmud tells us: 'The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.'

"The Holy Bible tells us, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.'"

First, Obama quotes the Surah Al-Hujurat, which earlier declares: "He has made hateful to you unbelief and transgression and disobedience." Second, Obama references Talmud Gittin, which, on the proceeding page, refers to Solomon's execution of his teacher, Shimei Ben Gera. Finally, Obama references the Book of Matthew, which contains harsher words later in the chapter: "But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell."

10. The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth. Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.

Obama ends the speech with the English translation of his opening "assalaamu alaykum," which is also the traditional departing greeting. Thus, while Obama's speech contains the echoes of cooperation and conflict, he opens and closes with an unambiguous hope for a new beginning of peace, cooperation, and co-existence.

Full disclosure: I have checked all Aramaic, English, Hebrew, and Latin references myself; for the references to the Koran I have used an English translation.

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Muslims in America not for domination

Muslims are in America to live their American dream, and NOT to dominate or impose Sharia Laws.

$5000 REWARD

The Neocons* are fabricating and propagating the idea that Muslims are invading America to dominate and impose Sharia Laws without any substantiation. Cashing in on fears is Neocon modus operandi. They know how to scare the devil out of those few self proclaimed conservative Americans, and get them to open their check books, and the poor suckers pay the ransom.

Muslims have no ambitions of making Islam a dominant religion or imposing Sharia Laws in the United States. A few individual may say that for a few claps, but for every creep who runs his mouth with a Muslim label, you will find a lot more of them with other faith labels. The good news is that there are thousands of Muslims out there who will speak out against such non-sense and I am one.

Full article: http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2009/05/5000-reward.html

Mike Ghouse
Sounding off the voices of a majority of Muslims.

Mike presides the World Muslim Congress, a think tank with a mission, what is good for Muslims has got to be good for the World and vice-versa to sustain it. He believes that to be a Muslim is to be a peacemaker, one who constantly seeks to mitigate conflicts and nurtures goodwill for peaceful co-existence. God wants us to live in peace and harmony with his creation; life and mater. Indeed, that is the purpose of religion, any religion.

.

Empathy and Democracy

Empathy, Sotomayor, and Democracy: The Conservative Stealth Strategy
Sunday 31 May 2009
by: George Lakoff, t r u t h o u t Perspective

The Sotomayor nomination has given radical conservatives new life. They have launched an attack that is nominally aimed at Judge Sotomayor. But it is really a coordinated stealth attack - on President Obama's central vision, on progressive thought itself, and on Republicans who might stray from the conservative hard line.

There are several fronts: empathy, feelings, racism, activist judges. Each one has a hidden dimension. And if progressives think conservative attacks are just about Sotomayor, they may wind up helping conservatives regroup.

Conservatives believe that Sotomayor will be confirmed, and so their attacks may seem irrational to Democrats, a last gasp, a grasping at straws, a sign that the party is breaking up.
Actually, something sneakier and possibly dangerous is going on.

Let's start with the attack on empathy. Why empathy? Isn't empathy a good thing?
Empathy is at the heart of progressive thought. It is the capacity to put oneself in the shoes of others - not just individuals, but whole categories of people: one's countrymen, those in other countries, other living beings, especially those who are in some way oppressed, threatened, or harmed. Empathy is the capacity to care, to feel what others feel, to understand what others are facing and what their lives are like. Empathy extends well beyond feeling to understanding, and it extends beyond individuals to groups, communities, peoples, even species. Empathy is at the heart of real rationality, because it goes to the heart of our values, which are the basis of our sense of justice.

Progressives care about others as well as themselves. They have a moral obligation to act on their empathy - a social responsibility in addition to personal responsibility, a responsibility to make the world better by making themselves better. This leads to a view of a government that cares about its citizens and has a moral obligation to protect and empower them. Protection includes worker, consumer, and environmental protection as well as safety nets and health care. Empowerment includes what is in the president's stimulus plan: infrastructure, education, communication, energy, the availability of credit from banks, a stock market that works. No one can earn anything at all in this country without protection and empowerment by the government. All progressive legislation is made on this basis.

The president wrote of empathy in The Audacity of Hope, "It is at the heart of my moral code and it is how I understand the Golden Rule - not simply as a call to sympathy or charity, but as something more demanding, a call to stand in somebody else's shoes and see through their eyes."
President Obama has argued that empathy is the basis of our democracy. Why do we promote freedom and fairness for everyone, not just ourselves or the rich and powerful? The answer is empathy. We care about our countrymen and have an obligation to act on that care, and to set up a government for the protection and empowerment of all. That is at the heart of everything he does.

The link between empathy and democracy has been established historically by Professor Lynn Hunt of UCLA in her important book, Inventing Human Rights. To hear her speak, go tohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZVD1G4q0bA.

The link between empathy and progressive thought is spelled out in my book Moral Politics and in my new book The Political Mind, just out in paperback (http://www.amazon.com/Political-Mind-Cognitive-Scientists-Politics/dp/0143115685).

In describing his ideal Supreme Court justice, President Obama cited empathy as a major desideratum. Why? Because that is what our democracy is about. A justice has to take empathy into account because his or her decisions will affect the lives of others. Before making a decision you have to put yourself in the shoes of those who your decision will affect. Similarly, in judging causation, fairness requires that social causes as well as individual causes be taken into account. Empathy forces you to notice what is crucial in so many Supreme Court cases: systemic and social causes and whom a decision can harm. As such, empathy correctly understood is crucial to judgment. A judge without empathy is a judge unfit for a democracy.

President Obama has described Justice Sotomayor in empathetic terms - a life story that would lead her to understand people who live through oppression and deprivation and what it does to them. In other words, a life story that would allow her to appreciate the consequences of judicial decisions and the causal effects of living in an unequal society.

Empathy in this sense is a threat to conservatism, which features individual, not social, responsibility and a strict, punitive form of "justice." It is no surprise that empathy would be a major conservative target in the Sotomayor evaluation.

But the target is not empathy as it really exists. Instead, the conservatives are reframing empathy to make it attackable. Their "empathy" is idiosyncratic, personal feeling for an individual, presumably the defendant in a legal case. With "empathy" reframed in this way, Charles Krauthammer can say, echoing Karl Rove, "Justice is not about empathy." The argument goes like this: Empathy is a matter of personal feelings. Personal feelings should not be the basis of a judicial decision of the Supreme Court. Therefore, "justice is not about empathy." Reframe the word "empathy" and it not only disqualifies Sotomayor; it delegitimizes Obama's central moral principle, his approach to government, his understanding of the nature of our democracy, and progressive politics in general.

We cannot let conservatives get away with redefining empathy as irrational and idiosyncratic personal feeling. Empathy is the basis of our democracy, and its true meaning must be defended.
But the attack can be sneaky. Take David Brooks' column in The New York Times (May 29, 2009). He frames what he calls "The Empathy Issue" in terms of the use of emotions in decision-making. He is doing a conservative reframing of the issue. What is sneaky is that he starts by saying a number of true things about emotions. As Antonio Damasio pointed out in Descartes' Error, you can't make rational decisions without emotions. If you have a brain injury that wipes out your emotional capacity, you don't know what to want, since like and not-like mean nothing, and you can't tell what others will think of you. Here is Brooks:
People without emotions cannot make sensible decisions because they don't know how much anything is worth. People without social emotions like empathy are not objective decision-makers. They are sociopaths who sometimes end up on death row.

Supreme Court justices, like all of us, are emotional intuitionists. They begin their decision-making processes with certain models in their heads. These are models of how the world works and should work, which have been idiosyncratically ingrained by genes, culture, education, parents and events. These models shape the way judges perceive the world.

Note the mixture of truth and non-truth. Yes, sensible decisions require emotions. Yes, people without empathy are sociopaths. Yes, we all make decisions based on models in our head of how the world works. That's basic cognitive science. Mixed in with it is conservative reframing. No, empathy is a lot more than a "social emotion." No, using models of the world in decision-making need not be a matter of emotion. It's just how real reason works. Then the conclusion:
But because we're emotional creatures in an idiosyncratic world, it's prudent to have judges who are cautious, incrementalist and minimalist. It's prudent to have judges who decide cases narrowly, who emphasize the specific context of each case, who value gradual change, small steps and modest self-restraint.

Right-leaning thinkers from Edmund Burke to Friedrich Hayek understood that emotion is prone to overshadow reason. They understood that emotion can be a wise guide in some circumstances and a dangerous deceiver in others. It's not whether judges rely on emotion and empathy, it's how they educate their sentiments within the discipline of manners and morals, tradition and practice.

Empathy here has been reframed as emotion that is "idiosyncratic" - personal - a danger to reason. "Sentiments," that is, emotions, must be "disciplined" to fit "manners and morals, tradition and practice"- in short, the existing social and political order. This is perfect radical conservatism in the guise of sweet, moderate reasonableness. Where Rove and Krauthammer have the iron fists, Brooks has the velvet glove.

The attack on empathy becomes an attack on feelings, with feelings as not merely at odds with justice, but at odds with good sense. Where Brooks' tone is sweetly reasonable, G. Gordon Liddy is outrageous:

Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when she's menstruating or something, or just before she's going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/29/liddy-sotoyamor-menstruating/).
Liddy is saying what Brooks is saying: Emotion is irrational and dangerous. Only Liddy is not nicely-nicely. The attack on feelings is of a piece with the old attack on "bleeding-heart liberals." And one step away from Cheney's attack on Obama and defense of torture.

What about Newt Gingrich calling Sotomayor a racist? It is linked directly to the personal feeling argument: because of her personal feelings for her own kind - Latinos and women - she will discriminate against white men. It is to support that view that the New Haven firemen case keeps being brought up.

The real target here goes beyond Sotomayor. In the last election, conservative populists moved toward Obama. Conservative populists are working people, mostly white men, who have conservative views of the family, of masculinity, and of the military, and who have bought into the idea of the "liberal elite" as looking down on them. Right now, they are hurting economically, losing their jobs and their homes. Empathy is something they need. The racist card is an attempt to revive their fears of affirmative action, fears of their jobs - and their pride - being taken by minorities and women. The racist attack has a political purpose, holding onto conservative populists. The overt form of the old conservative argument is made regularly these days: liberalism is identity politics.

Incidentally, Democrats are walking into the Gingrich trap. I heard Ed Schultz defending Sotomayor by saying over and over why she was "not a racist," and using the word "racist" next to her name repeatedly. It was like Nixon saying, "I am not a crook." When Democrats make that mistake, I sometimes wonder why I bothered to write Don't Think of an Elephant!
The attack on Sotomayor as an "activist judge" completes the pattern of radical conservative reasoning: Because of her empathy, which is personal feeling, which in turn is a form of racism, she will interpret the constitution not rationally, blindly, and objectively, but to suit her emotions.

It is vital at this point to understand how conservatives get away with the "activist judge" ploy. As any cognitive linguist knows, there is no such thing as "strict construction" of the Constitution. The reason was given by, of all people, David Brooks, as we discussed above.
Supreme Court justices, like all of us,... begin their decision-making processes with certain models in their heads. These are models of how the world works and should work ... These models shape the way judges perceive the world.

These models also shape they way the most "strict constructionist" of judges read the Constitution. Such models are physically part of the brain and typically operate below the level of consciousness. Conservatives are thus as much "judicial activists" as anyone else.
So how do conservative Republicans get away with the "activist judge" ploy? Democrats hand it to them. Why? Because most Democrats grew up with and still believe a view of reason that has been shown in cognitive science and neuroscience to be false. The sciences of mind have shown that real reason is largely unconscious, requires emotion, uses "models" (frames, metaphors, narratives) and so does not fit the world directly.

But Democrats tend to believe that reason is conscious, can fit the world directly, and works by logic, not frames or metaphors. They thus believe that words have fixed literal meanings that fit the world in itself, regardless of models, frames, metaphors, or narratives. If you believe this, then original meaning could make sense. Democrats don't fight it when they should.
Democrats make another move that allows them to keep their view of reason. They adopt the view of the "living constitution," which opens them up to charges of "judicial activism," charges made by conservative judicial activists. The source of the problem lies in the Democrats lack of understanding of their own unconscious reasoning processes. One of many Democrats deepest beliefs contradicts the facts about the brain and the mind and allows conservative judges to be activists while claiming to be strict constructionists.

Taken together, the attacks on Sotomayor work as attacks on Obama and progressive thought. They are also attacks on "moderate" conservatives, who think with progressives on many issues. The attacks activate radical conservative ideas in the brains of those who voted for Bush and the 47 percent of the voters who voted for McCain.

Radical conservatives know that Sotomayor will be confirmed. They also know that their very understanding of the world is being threatened by Obama's success. But they have a major strength. They have their message machine intact, with trained spokespeople booked on TV and radio shows all over the country. Attacking Sotomayor, even when they know she will win, allows them to rally their forces and get swing-voting conservatives thinking their way again.

How should Democrats respond?

Democrats should go on offense. They need to rally behind empathy- real empathy, not empathy reframed as emotion and personal feeling. They need to speak regularly about empathy as being the basis of our democracy. They need to point out that empathy leads one to notice real social and systemic causes of our troubles and to notice when and how judicial decisions and legislation can harm the most vulnerable of our countrymen. And finally that empathy is the reason that we have the principles of freedom and fairness - which are necessary components of justice.

Above all, Democrats should be aware that the attack on Sotomayor is not just about Sotomayor. It is an attack on the basis of our democracy and must be answered.»

George Lakoff is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of "The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st Century Politics With an 18th Century Brain." His latest book, "The Political Mind," appears in paperback on June 2. To contact George Lakoff, email him atlakoff@truthout.org.

Empathy and Democracy

Empathy, Sotomayor, and Democracy: The Conservative Stealth Strategy
Sunday 31 May 2009
by: George Lakoff, t r u t h o u t Perspective

The Sotomayor nomination has given radical conservatives new life. They have launched an attack that is nominally aimed at Judge Sotomayor. But it is really a coordinated stealth attack - on President Obama's central vision, on progressive thought itself, and on Republicans who might stray from the conservative hard line.

There are several fronts: empathy, feelings, racism, activist judges. Each one has a hidden dimension. And if progressives think conservative attacks are just about Sotomayor, they may wind up helping conservatives regroup.

Conservatives believe that Sotomayor will be confirmed, and so their attacks may seem irrational to Democrats, a last gasp, a grasping at straws, a sign that the party is breaking up.
Actually, something sneakier and possibly dangerous is going on.

Let's start with the attack on empathy. Why empathy? Isn't empathy a good thing?
Empathy is at the heart of progressive thought. It is the capacity to put oneself in the shoes of others - not just individuals, but whole categories of people: one's countrymen, those in other countries, other living beings, especially those who are in some way oppressed, threatened, or harmed. Empathy is the capacity to care, to feel what others feel, to understand what others are facing and what their lives are like. Empathy extends well beyond feeling to understanding, and it extends beyond individuals to groups, communities, peoples, even species. Empathy is at the heart of real rationality, because it goes to the heart of our values, which are the basis of our sense of justice.

Progressives care about others as well as themselves. They have a moral obligation to act on their empathy - a social responsibility in addition to personal responsibility, a responsibility to make the world better by making themselves better. This leads to a view of a government that cares about its citizens and has a moral obligation to protect and empower them. Protection includes worker, consumer, and environmental protection as well as safety nets and health care. Empowerment includes what is in the president's stimulus plan: infrastructure, education, communication, energy, the availability of credit from banks, a stock market that works. No one can earn anything at all in this country without protection and empowerment by the government. All progressive legislation is made on this basis.

The president wrote of empathy in The Audacity of Hope, "It is at the heart of my moral code and it is how I understand the Golden Rule - not simply as a call to sympathy or charity, but as something more demanding, a call to stand in somebody else's shoes and see through their eyes."
President Obama has argued that empathy is the basis of our democracy. Why do we promote freedom and fairness for everyone, not just ourselves or the rich and powerful? The answer is empathy. We care about our countrymen and have an obligation to act on that care, and to set up a government for the protection and empowerment of all. That is at the heart of everything he does.

The link between empathy and democracy has been established historically by Professor Lynn Hunt of UCLA in her important book, Inventing Human Rights. To hear her speak, go tohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZVD1G4q0bA.

The link between empathy and progressive thought is spelled out in my book Moral Politics and in my new book The Political Mind, just out in paperback (http://www.amazon.com/Political-Mind-Cognitive-Scientists-Politics/dp/0143115685).

In describing his ideal Supreme Court justice, President Obama cited empathy as a major desideratum. Why? Because that is what our democracy is about. A justice has to take empathy into account because his or her decisions will affect the lives of others. Before making a decision you have to put yourself in the shoes of those who your decision will affect. Similarly, in judging causation, fairness requires that social causes as well as individual causes be taken into account. Empathy forces you to notice what is crucial in so many Supreme Court cases: systemic and social causes and whom a decision can harm. As such, empathy correctly understood is crucial to judgment. A judge without empathy is a judge unfit for a democracy.

President Obama has described Justice Sotomayor in empathetic terms - a life story that would lead her to understand people who live through oppression and deprivation and what it does to them. In other words, a life story that would allow her to appreciate the consequences of judicial decisions and the causal effects of living in an unequal society.

Empathy in this sense is a threat to conservatism, which features individual, not social, responsibility and a strict, punitive form of "justice." It is no surprise that empathy would be a major conservative target in the Sotomayor evaluation.

But the target is not empathy as it really exists. Instead, the conservatives are reframing empathy to make it attackable. Their "empathy" is idiosyncratic, personal feeling for an individual, presumably the defendant in a legal case. With "empathy" reframed in this way, Charles Krauthammer can say, echoing Karl Rove, "Justice is not about empathy." The argument goes like this: Empathy is a matter of personal feelings. Personal feelings should not be the basis of a judicial decision of the Supreme Court. Therefore, "justice is not about empathy." Reframe the word "empathy" and it not only disqualifies Sotomayor; it delegitimizes Obama's central moral principle, his approach to government, his understanding of the nature of our democracy, and progressive politics in general.

We cannot let conservatives get away with redefining empathy as irrational and idiosyncratic personal feeling. Empathy is the basis of our democracy, and its true meaning must be defended.
But the attack can be sneaky. Take David Brooks' column in The New York Times (May 29, 2009). He frames what he calls "The Empathy Issue" in terms of the use of emotions in decision-making. He is doing a conservative reframing of the issue. What is sneaky is that he starts by saying a number of true things about emotions. As Antonio Damasio pointed out in Descartes' Error, you can't make rational decisions without emotions. If you have a brain injury that wipes out your emotional capacity, you don't know what to want, since like and not-like mean nothing, and you can't tell what others will think of you. Here is Brooks:
People without emotions cannot make sensible decisions because they don't know how much anything is worth. People without social emotions like empathy are not objective decision-makers. They are sociopaths who sometimes end up on death row.

Supreme Court justices, like all of us, are emotional intuitionists. They begin their decision-making processes with certain models in their heads. These are models of how the world works and should work, which have been idiosyncratically ingrained by genes, culture, education, parents and events. These models shape the way judges perceive the world.

Note the mixture of truth and non-truth. Yes, sensible decisions require emotions. Yes, people without empathy are sociopaths. Yes, we all make decisions based on models in our head of how the world works. That's basic cognitive science. Mixed in with it is conservative reframing. No, empathy is a lot more than a "social emotion." No, using models of the world in decision-making need not be a matter of emotion. It's just how real reason works. Then the conclusion:
But because we're emotional creatures in an idiosyncratic world, it's prudent to have judges who are cautious, incrementalist and minimalist. It's prudent to have judges who decide cases narrowly, who emphasize the specific context of each case, who value gradual change, small steps and modest self-restraint.

Right-leaning thinkers from Edmund Burke to Friedrich Hayek understood that emotion is prone to overshadow reason. They understood that emotion can be a wise guide in some circumstances and a dangerous deceiver in others. It's not whether judges rely on emotion and empathy, it's how they educate their sentiments within the discipline of manners and morals, tradition and practice.

Empathy here has been reframed as emotion that is "idiosyncratic" - personal - a danger to reason. "Sentiments," that is, emotions, must be "disciplined" to fit "manners and morals, tradition and practice"- in short, the existing social and political order. This is perfect radical conservatism in the guise of sweet, moderate reasonableness. Where Rove and Krauthammer have the iron fists, Brooks has the velvet glove.

The attack on empathy becomes an attack on feelings, with feelings as not merely at odds with justice, but at odds with good sense. Where Brooks' tone is sweetly reasonable, G. Gordon Liddy is outrageous:

Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when she's menstruating or something, or just before she's going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/29/liddy-sotoyamor-menstruating/).
Liddy is saying what Brooks is saying: Emotion is irrational and dangerous. Only Liddy is not nicely-nicely. The attack on feelings is of a piece with the old attack on "bleeding-heart liberals." And one step away from Cheney's attack on Obama and defense of torture.

What about Newt Gingrich calling Sotomayor a racist? It is linked directly to the personal feeling argument: because of her personal feelings for her own kind - Latinos and women - she will discriminate against white men. It is to support that view that the New Haven firemen case keeps being brought up.

The real target here goes beyond Sotomayor. In the last election, conservative populists moved toward Obama. Conservative populists are working people, mostly white men, who have conservative views of the family, of masculinity, and of the military, and who have bought into the idea of the "liberal elite" as looking down on them. Right now, they are hurting economically, losing their jobs and their homes. Empathy is something they need. The racist card is an attempt to revive their fears of affirmative action, fears of their jobs - and their pride - being taken by minorities and women. The racist attack has a political purpose, holding onto conservative populists. The overt form of the old conservative argument is made regularly these days: liberalism is identity politics.

Incidentally, Democrats are walking into the Gingrich trap. I heard Ed Schultz defending Sotomayor by saying over and over why she was "not a racist," and using the word "racist" next to her name repeatedly. It was like Nixon saying, "I am not a crook." When Democrats make that mistake, I sometimes wonder why I bothered to write Don't Think of an Elephant!
The attack on Sotomayor as an "activist judge" completes the pattern of radical conservative reasoning: Because of her empathy, which is personal feeling, which in turn is a form of racism, she will interpret the constitution not rationally, blindly, and objectively, but to suit her emotions.

It is vital at this point to understand how conservatives get away with the "activist judge" ploy. As any cognitive linguist knows, there is no such thing as "strict construction" of the Constitution. The reason was given by, of all people, David Brooks, as we discussed above.
Supreme Court justices, like all of us,... begin their decision-making processes with certain models in their heads. These are models of how the world works and should work ... These models shape the way judges perceive the world.

These models also shape they way the most "strict constructionist" of judges read the Constitution. Such models are physically part of the brain and typically operate below the level of consciousness. Conservatives are thus as much "judicial activists" as anyone else.
So how do conservative Republicans get away with the "activist judge" ploy? Democrats hand it to them. Why? Because most Democrats grew up with and still believe a view of reason that has been shown in cognitive science and neuroscience to be false. The sciences of mind have shown that real reason is largely unconscious, requires emotion, uses "models" (frames, metaphors, narratives) and so does not fit the world directly.
But Democrats tend to believe that reason is conscious, can fit the world directly, and works by logic, not frames or metaphors. They thus believe that words have fixed literal meanings that fit the world in itself, regardless of models, frames, metaphors, or narratives. If you believe this, then original meaning could make sense. Democrats don't fight it when they should.
Democrats make another move that allows them to keep their view of reason. They adopt the view of the "living constitution," which opens them up to charges of "judicial activism," charges made by conservative judicial activists. The source of the problem lies in the Democrats lack of understanding of their own unconscious reasoning processes. One of many Democrats deepest beliefs contradicts the facts about the brain and the mind and allows conservative judges to be activists while claiming to be strict constructionists.
Taken together, the attacks on Sotomayor work as attacks on Obama and progressive thought. They are also attacks on "moderate" conservatives, who think with progressives on many issues. The attacks activate radical conservative ideas in the brains of those who voted for Bush and the 47 percent of the voters who voted for McCain.
Radical conservatives know that Sotomayor will be confirmed. They also know that their very understanding of the world is being threatened by Obama's success. But they have a major strength. They have their message machine intact, with trained spokespeople booked on TV and radio shows all over the country. Attacking Sotomayor, even when they know she will win, allows them to rally their forces and get swing-voting conservatives thinking their way again.
How should Democrats respond?
Democrats should go on offense. They need to rally behind empathy- real empathy, not empathy reframed as emotion and personal feeling. They need to speak regularly about empathy as being the basis of our democracy. They need to point out that empathy leads one to notice real social and systemic causes of our troubles and to notice when and how judicial decisions and legislation can harm the most vulnerable of our countrymen. And finally that empathy is the reason that we have the principles of freedom and fairness - which are necessary components of justice.

Above all, Democrats should be aware that the attack on Sotomayor is not just about Sotomayor. It is an attack on the basis of our democracy and must be answered.»


George Lakoff is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of "The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st Century Politics With an 18th Century Brain." His latest book, "The Political Mind," appears in paperback on June 2. To contact George Lakoff, email him atlakoff@truthout.org.

The crisis of Christianity

The crisis of Christianity

There are two ways of interpreting the word of God; the esssecne of it or the literality of it.

Those who seek the essence of the word of God, seek peace and harmony among God's creation, they are driven by what God means, rather than get hung up with the words that may conjure archaic interpretations. They are committed to making the world a better place to live for every one of us, this group forms over 90% of the people in every religious group.

Whereas, the literalist reduce God's words to bare words like " the belief in Armageddon and the thier desire to pre-empt God to make it happen sooner " the land of Israel was given to the Jews, so bulldozing the homes of the ones that lived there for generations is justified" and "killing the infidels" gives these literalist right to kill anyone who does not subscribe to their understanding. All the literalists, be it Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or others do not value human life to them God says so, so I do it.

It is not the books or the religion that is a problem because greater than 99% of people don't do what these guys do. Murders in Washington DC does not make the DC'ites murderers, or the law books of DC flawed, it is the individuals.

As his highness Aga Khan puts it, there is a clash of ignorance in operation rather than the clash of civilizations. As members of the Civil society, it is the responsibility of each one of us to build bridges and work on creating societies that value co-existence, accepting the otherness of other and respecting the God given uniqueness of each one of the 7 billion of us.

Mike Ghouse
# # #

The crisis of Christianity:
The meltdown of evangelicalism
June 1, 2009
Fred Hutchison, RA analyst

This is part 2 of an essay in which we are considering the "emergent church" — a postmodern cult disguised as a church — and the "seeker-sensitive church" that is a real church, but is in bondage to postmodern culture. Part 1 was mainly devoted to the emerging church, and part 2 is mainly devoted to the decadent seeker-sensitive church — and what went wrong with evangelicalism that it would backslide into a bondage to the culture.

Faithful evangelicals must fight a two-front war against postmodernism. One front is the fight against the "emerging church" that is postmodern and heretical. The other front involves delivering the seeker-sensitive church from captivity to the postmodern culture.

The Babylonian captivity of the church

The seeker-sensitive mega-churches are real churches, unlike the "emerging churches," which are cults. However, the seeker-sensitive churches are churches in captivity. They are in captivity to the postmodern culture. The mushrooming of seeker-sensitive mega-churches throughout the land has had zero influence on the postmodern culture. They have had little influence on divorce rates, abortion rates, or the prevalence of sexual immorality. They are impotent in resisting the anti-family agendas of the feminists and the gays.

Seeker-sensitive mega-churches have no influence on the culture because they have been captured by the culture. Conservative friends, that is why we lost the culture war. All the conservative activism in the world cannot compensate for a decadent church. The church must be set free of its bondage to the culture before we can win the culture war.

Presently I shall discuss how God's process of sanctification sets us free from the world, the flesh, and the devil. Freedom from the "world" includes liberation from the popular culture — which now is postmodern.

I like to call the seeker-sensitive phenomenon the "Babylonian captivity of the church." Postmodern culture looks to me like "Babylon." It is every bit as depraved as the idolatrous Babylon that took the kingdom of Judah into captivity.

The early church used "Babylon" as a code word for the Rome of the Emperor Nero. In spite of furious persecution by Rome, that splendid church of the martyrs remained mostly separate from the world and was mostly undefiled and pure.

In contrast, seeker-sensitive evangelicals have suffered very little real persecution, yet have declared unconditional surrender to the culture and have soaked themselves in the polluted waters of the postmodern world.

At the judgment seat of Christ, there is a reward for fighting the good fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil. But will there be a loss for the Christian who capitulates to the world? Will Christ view the present seeker-sensitive ways as a capitulation to the world? In my opinion, the answers are yes and yes.

Those who disagree with me might consider that seeker-sensitive folks are very vulnerable to the siren songs of the heretical emerging church. In part 1 of this essay, I referred to the pampered spiritual babes of the seeker-sensitive world as defenseless marshmallow people. A marshmallow Christian suffers from a weak and sickly spiritual constitution.

A healthy physical body has a strong immune system. An unhealthy body has a weak immune system. For reasons I shall describe presently, I have concluded that the seeker-sensitive church has no defenses against postmodernism and the emerging church. Therefore, I conclude that many seeker-sensitive Christians are spiritually sickly.

A lot of backsliding in evangelicalism occurred over a period of decades to bring us to this sickening dead end.

However, God sometimes brings wisdom out of the mouth of babes (Psalm 8: 2), even perhaps marshmallow babes. Last week I read a report about a group of young evangelicals who were so starved for transcendence and meaty theology that they went over to Calvinistic churches of the Reformed tradition. In this case, the marshmallow babes had a better understanding that something had gone wrong than did their leaders.

The great backsliding: what went wrong?

The beginning of the great backsliding started with a change in the way the gospel was preached. Less and less was said about Christ being punished for our sins on the cross. Sin and repentance were increasingly glossed over. The perils of hell fire were hushed up. The gospel presentation increasingly resembled a sales pitch in which the preacher manipulated the people to make a choice for Christ. This approach to evangelism produced a lot of weak and vulnerable converts who had no assurance of salvation.

These methods are similar to the kind of methods used by the pelagian heretic Charles Grandison Finney (1792–1875). The deluded Finney denounced the venerable Westminister Confession as disguised popery. Finney did not believe that the mind or the will have been corrupted by original sin. Thus, he introduced the idea that man can choose his way into faith and into righteousness. He inaugurated evangelism as salesmanship. Finney had a lot of converts who had a superficial understanding of their sinfulness — just like the contemporary converts of evangelicalism

If one has only a superficial understanding of his sinfulness, he will have a shallow repentance. He will nourish the illusion that he is essentially good at heart. Therefore, he will partly trust in himself and partly trust in Christ for salvation. He will have one foot on the rock, which is Christ, and one foot on the sinking sand of self. Therefore, he will have no assurance of salvation.

Two factors make this situation worse. if the evangelist does not bring the seeker to the cross, or if the doctrine of the atonement is never explained, the seeker will not understand that Christ did a complete and finished work of atonement for our sins on the cross. He will not understand that through Christ's cross and resurrection, he has given us a right standing with God and that his resurrection gave us the power of eternal life. Christ did the complete work of eternal salvation for us and there is nothing that we can do to add to it.

If the evangelist is preoccupied with getting the people to make decisions for Christ, the seeker will tend to think that he can choose his way into faith and might fail to realize that faith is a supernatural gift of God that often comes upon one when he least expects it. The assumption that one can choose his way into faith will intensify seeker's perception that salvation is partly what he does and partly what God does. Such a one is not likely to enjoy the assurance of salvation.

A victorious death or a defeated death

The early 16th century reformer Martin Luther noticed that Roman Catholics had no assurance of salvation because they tried to get to heaven through a combination of grace and works. Even the most dedicated among them suffered and strived to earn God's favor all their lives and still died in fear and doubt. Luther himself found that no quantity or quality of his own good works, penances, or spiritual exercises could relieve him of the fear that he might be damned. Actually, the more Luther did, the more certain he was that he was damned.

A perfect contemporary example of this horrific phenomenon was the spiritual defeat and depression of Mother Theresa on her death bed. Probably no twentieth century Christian had done more charitable good works than her. But her mountain of good works availed her nothing at the hour of her death. Only the works of Christ on the cross and his works in resurrection can avail the believer any peace or assurance in the hour of death.

Shaken by this morbid phenomenon of the Catholic works treadmill leading to a shadowy and defeated death, Luther renounced Catholic soteriology and taught the finished work of Christ and salvation by grace through faith alone. Luther's doctrine makes it possible for the most humble believer to enjoy the assurance of salvation.

As one who enjoys the assurance of salvation, the happiest moment of my life was when I thought I was on the verge of death! Why should I die in peace and joy while Mother Theresa died in fear, doubt, and grief? Because I have both feet on the rock which is Christ and she had one foot on the rock and one foot on the sand of works — works by which she tried to save herself. She was a vastly more admirable Christian than I, but she followed false teachings pertaining to salvation and I follow biblical truth.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man may boast" (Ephesians 2:8).

The multitudes of contemporary evangelicals with no assurance of salvation remind me of the Catholics who worried Luther because they had no assurance of salvation. Evangelicals seem to have lost the most important blessing that Luther recovered for us during the Reformation.

I never doubted my salvation

Since I was born again, I have never doubted my salvation. That is what I mean by assurance of salvation. I have had my share of fiery trials, but never at any time doubted my salvation. Why did I never doubt? These five points sum it up:

1) Prior to my conversion, I had a high level of self-esteem and a positive appraisal of my moral worth. But this was a delusion. Even though I had studied the doctrine of original sin and believed it in my mind, I had a blindness in my heart and could not internalize this truth. I needed a spiritual revelation before I could see depravity in my nature. God gave me this revelation without showing me any particular sin. He showed me my fallen nature as a whole.

In a sudden and crushing revelation, God showed me my sin nature and I realized that I was rotten to the core. I knew I was damned and experienced horror and agony about my desperate condition. I was terrified by the presence of a God who is almighty, holy, and just. With a groan, I sensed his righteous outrage at my sinfulness. Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) got it just right in his classic sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

2) I deeply understood that I had nothing good to offer God in order to win my salvation. I abandoned all hope of my own righteousness and cast myself entirely upon Christ for salvation. With the wild despair of a drowning man, I pleaded to Jesus for mercy and rescue from the deadly waves of death and damnation which I thought were dragging me down at that very moment.

Suddenly, my hellish despair vanished and a heavenly confidence took its place. Faith miraculously appeared in my heart! In the power of supernatural faith, I calmly and boldly said, "I am cleansed with the blood of the Lamb." Notice that faith appeared at the moment I least expected. It came as a gift of God and was an utter surprise.

3) Before I had finished speaking these words of faith, I had the uncanny sense that the blood of Christ was washing over me. Before the sense of the warm flow of blood receded, I had a vision of Christ on the cross suffering for my sins. I saw only his face as he looked into my eyes with great sorrow and mercy for me. He was bearing my sins and cleansing me with his blood.

4) As the image was fading, I could feel the Holy Spirit flowing into me to impart the new birth. The Spirit felt like a vital living electricity.

Suddenly it was over and I was calm and tranquil as though I had not been in desperate trauma a moment before. I knew I was saved and never questioned my salvation after that. How can one question a salvation so comprehensive and complete and so utterly the work of God alone?

5) I wish to emphasize to the reader that Christ is the rock that cannot fail. I have assurance of salvation mainly because I threw myself entirely on that rock and stayed on that rock as he did all the work. Ever since, I have rested in complete satisfaction that his saving work is finished and perfect. I have never been tempted to try to add something to that complete work of grace.

However, the assurance of salvation is only the beginning of my long journey of sanctification. Many never really start the journey of sanctification or have much spiritual growth, because the issue of their salvation is never decisively settled. Many stay babes in Christ all their lives.

Christian, the moral of the story is that if you love Christ but have no assurance of salvation, it is because you have one foot on the rock and one foot on the sinking sand of trusting in yourself. You need to get both feet on the rock. Renounce the foolish trust you have placed in your weak, sinful self and trust in Christ alone.

A false sanctification

The popular misunderstanding of the gospel has led many people to an even greater misunderstanding of sanctification. If a person thinks he caused his faith to awaken through works or choices, or thinks that he has some good within him that God can accept, he will suppose that sanctification can come from good works or from keeping the law.

As I traveled through evangelicalism in the 70's and 80's I found two grave errors in many places: 1) salvation through grace and sanctification through works, and 2) Christians seeking to pump up their "self-esteem."

The false teaching of self-esteem easily snares those with no assurance of salvation because they lack the sweet sense of being adopted sons of God. "Self-esteem" is a silly, foolish thing in comparison with the glory of being an adopted son of God.

Many people who are genuinely saved are nevertheless committed to the idea that they have a goodness that God can admire. Therefore, they are determined to sanctify themselves through good works or through law. No true sanctification can ever come to man in this way. Some spectacular moral failures of evangelical leaders have come because they tried to get holy through their own willpower to keep God's laws. They have trusted in their own righteousness and failed. Reader, if you wish to taste of bitter failure in your spiritual walk, a sure way to do it is to trust in your own righteousness and your own willpower.

Many of leaders of evangelicalism of this generation no longer understand God's way of sanctification. Allow me to describe the hyper-works approach of a very popular evangelical leader. Then let me describe God's way of sanctification, which I wrote about in my book The Stages of Sanctification. The contrast between God's way and the way of this popular leader could not be more stark or shocking.

The hyper-driven life

Four years ago, I went to Oxford, England, to attend a conference on C.S. Lewis. Rick Warren was a guest speaker. I sat about ten yards away from him. I had read his bestselling book The Purpose Driven Life and enjoyed it and expected good things from his talk.

Warren started talking about his human father, and his face and his voice changed. It was clear to all that he loved and idolized his father. He described his father as though he was the very archetype of spiritual maturity. His father was in the ministry and was driven by works. He was a hyper-manic workaholic. The greater the flurry of works his father did, the more that Warren stood in awe of him.

At that time, it seemed to me that "purpose" was only a prop in Warren's "purpose driven life." It seemed to me that being "driven" was what really enthralled him. He is a works-driven obsessive. As we shall see, recent events have convinced me that Warren does indeed have a purpose. It is inordinate personal ambition!

During Warren's feverish talk of four years ago, I felt oppressed and restless. Something about him didn't smell right. I worried that there was more of neurosis than Jesus Christ in his hyper-driven life. Warren described how he is sometimes dazed, paralyzed, and nearly blinded by the weird fits he often suffers just before he gives a message to a crowd. This is not an anointing of the Holy Spirit. It might just be the oppression of another kind of spirit. Warren is not being sanctified by his unhealthy works obsession.

It is no accident that Warren has the largest and most successful ministry in America. It is not because he works the hardest — although he might well work harder than anyone else. He is the perfect embodiment of the American evangelical cult of sanctification by works. Therefore, multitudes of evangelicals have gathered eagerly around him. Everywhere in America, frustrated evangelical pastors envy Warren's ability to whip his people into a frenzy of works.

Sanctification comes only by grace through faith

Just as salvation comes only by grace through faith, sanctification comes only by grace through faith. Man's way is works. God's way is by faith and grace which are vivified by the moving of the Holy Spirit. God's way is the only way salvation or sanctification can come to man. The multitudes of evangelicals who insist on being sanctified by good works or by keeping the law remain unsanctified. That is why the church is so worldly. That is also why so many evangelicals remain spiritual babes all their lives.

When the pastor looks down on a congregation full of babes, he will probably give them milk and not meat. Or, he might give them cotton candy to delight them, instead of serious doctrines to sink their teeth into. This is how the seeker-sensitive movement got started.

False sanctification came first. Christian workaholism followed. A works burnout came next. Stagnation and apathy among the spiritual babes came with the burnout. Then came the seeker-sensitive pandering that turned the apathetic babes into spoiled babes.

God's process of sanctification

When we follow God's way, what is the process of sanctification? Well, there is no salvation without the cross and the resurrection. In like manner, there is no sanctification without the cross and the resurrection.

In salvation, Christ died for us in a work of "substitution" so that we can be "justified." Our sinfulness is imputed to the crucified Christ. The righteousness of the risen Christ is imputed to us. His resurrection imparts to us the power of eternal life.

In sanctification, we die with him in a work of "identification" or "participation," so that we can be delivered from the power of sin. As we die with him, the power of the cross supernaturally destroys the power of sin within us.

Subsequently, we enter into the resurrection of Christ so that the supernatural power of Christ's resurrection might dwell in us — so that we can live a holy life. We can participate in the resurrection to the extent we have participated in the cross. The only holy life that exists on this earth is the crucified and the risen life.

Good works naturally flow from a holy resurrection life, but it is impossible to obtain a holy life through works. The laws of God are written upon the heart of a Christian living a supernaturally holy life. These laws can be naturally expressed through life as it flows out of the sanctified heart, but it is impossible to become holy through the works of the law.

Salvation often occurs in a moment in time, but sanctification occurs in stages over a lifetime. The fruit of this lifetime process of sanctification is progressive stages of maturity. Evangelicals no longer produce very many authentically mature men and women, precisely because they no longer understand God's way of sanctification.

The world is crucified unto me

"God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Galatians 6:14).

As we die with Christ in the process of sanctification, we are "crucified to the world." Only through this means can we correctly understand what God desires of us when he commands us to be separate from the world. But what if an entire congregation is seeking sanctification through works or through law? How then can they have a coherent understanding of separation from the world? Uncrucified Christians love the world and have no desire to separate from it. Therefore, it is very easy for an entire church to be taken captive by the culture. This is exactly what has happened at the seeker-sensitive churches. Separation from the world is never preached at seeker-sensitive churches. If it were preached, it would not be understood, because being crucified with Christ is not taught at those churches.

The sanctified Christian loves his home in heaven and hates this evil, passing world. The typical seeker-sensitive Christian loves the world and lacks assurance of salvation. The typical "emergent" (member of an emerging church) loves the world and is indifferent to eternal life. Emergent gatherings never speak about eternity, but endlessly chatter about changing society.

The Christian who is crucified to the world glories in the cross. The seeker-sensitives are ashamed of the cross. The cross is an offense to the people of the world. Seeker-sensitive ministries are scared to death that someone will be offended. Therefore, they are ashamed of the cross which causes offense.

Seeker-sensitive churches water down teachings about sin and the atonement for fear that someone will be offended. They have largely abandoned mention of the wrath of God, hell, and Satan.

Other touchy subjects are generally excluded, such as no sex before marriage and no sexual perversions such as what the gays practice.

St. Paul's limitations on women in ministry in the church is a taboo subject. Why? An associate pastor said to me that he avoids this subject because "I like to choose my battles." In other words, he elects not to fight this battle because it is a hot potato. After all, the feminists might be offended if we tell them the truth, and we can't have that.

Comfort rules

Seeker-sensitives mimic the postmodern culture because they fear that someone of that culture might come into the church and be uncomfortable with a different culture.

Well, what if experiencing a better culture than what one is used to might do the new person some good? Maybe he has come to church because he is disgusted with his life and his culture and wants to change to a new way of life. Would such a person want to come to church to see a duplicate of the culture out there?

The prime directive of the seeker-sensitives is that the new person must not feel uncomfortable. But what if God wants him to be uncomfortable with his life? "Sorry, God, we will not allow that kind of thing to happen in this church."

Comfort rules in the seeker-sensitive church. One such church I am familiar with lost their nerve about following God's will at their existing location. Instead, they sold out and moved. A cheap motel chain bought the land and put up a sign that said, "Comfort Rules." When I saw the sign I said, "That says it perfectly."

Seeker-sensitives use a variety of rationalizations for their cowardice about offending someone with truth. One rationalization is that we must make the message relevant to the culture for the sake of the gospel. I don't believe this rationalization, because the very people who use it are ashamed of the gospel.

My own church had a program to encourage people to evangelize. However, all they taught us was "building bridges." My outspoken comment was, "You can build bridges from now until doomsday and nothing will come of it if you never mention the cross." In retrospective, I wonder if building bridges without the cross was first and foremost a tactic for getting people into the church. If we really cared about the souls of men, I cannot believe we would forget to mention the cross.

The great evangelism train wreck

Several years ago, I read a study by George Barna that most of the growth at mega-churches was merely a recycling of people from one church to another. Barna accounted for a modest amount of the growth by the birth of children. His numbers indicated that none of the growth could be accounted for by evangelism — that is to say, people saved through the ministry of the church and who kept on attending the church.

The shattering irony of this story is that seeker-sensitive innovations are justified in the name of evangelism! Year after year, the evangelism fails — and year after year, seeker-sensitive innovations are rationalized by the need for evangelism!

There is something about the seeker-sensitive mind that makes groups of people unable to learn from their failures and compels them to endlessly repeat their mistakes. The inability to learn from mistakes is a characteristic of a fool.

We should have known without the statistics that wherever comfort rules, the people will be lukewarm. Lukewarm people are unfit for evangelism.

The cross and talk of sin make people uncomfortable, so let us forget about the cross and sin. Maybe if we make folks comfortable they will come here and be comfortable with us. After all, comfort rules at our church. Let us all go comfortably to hell together. Would someone please give me an example of Jesus of Nazarus making someone feel comfortable? He discomfited those who were at ease. Even when he comforted the broken hearted, he did not exempt them from his uncomfortable expectations of faith, obedience, and discipleship.

The kingdom of the babies

In the 1980's, I attended a church that was filled with spiritual babes, yet was specially blessed by God. The sermons were entirely milk without a shred of meat. I approved of this for a season because I felt the babes needed their milk. I assumed that when the babes grew up, the pastor would start serving meat. I stayed in that church for four years. The babes did not grow up, and the sermons were all milk the entire four years. I noticed that not only were the babes not growing, the pastor, elders, and staff were not growing. However, many were increasingly subject to strange doctrines and deceptions.

Christians who refuse to grow up will eventually be deceived. The great deception has come — meet the emerging church. This monster has come to swallow up our stunted spiritual babies.

The great dumbing down

American evangelicalism is devoted to dumbing down the content to reach the babes and the unchurched. Recent translations of the Bible are geared down into the language of a twelve-year-old child. Layers of meaning are shaved off the Bible text in order to achieve this feat of reductionism. Evangelicals have become so enamored of seeker-sensitive innovation that they have tolerated the mutilation of their precious Bible. Their two-edged sword is now shortened, dulled, and bent.

If anyone dares to smarten up, it scares the comfortable nursery full of babes, and howls of protest will be heard that we must not shoot over the heads of the people.

Any success I have as a writer comes from my determination to ignore the ubiquitous practice of dumbing down to reach a wider audience. The more I smarten up, the more successful I am as a writer — except at my own church.

Once upon a time, I had my own column in the church magazine. I endeavored to explore the difficult doctrines of orthodoxy in an intelligent, spiritually profound manner. I was fired after four months to make room for men who wanted to write about their experiences when they go fishing, and teen age girls who wanted to tell what they feel while they are running. That boring, mediocre magazine soon failed, of course. No one read it because the poorly written rambling narratives had little solid content. This was a perfect example of how dumbing down is foolish and ineffective.

Why can't we have a message that the people must stand on tiptoes to reach, instead of one so low that it makes them crawl on hands and knees to reach like a baby?

Multitudes are leaving the seeker-sensitive evangelical churches out of sheer boredom. Even the teens are running away from a steady diet of fluff. They can get all the fluff they want out in the world. However, in all my years in churches, I cannot remember a single case of a member of long standing leaving a church because the message was over his head.

The crisis of our age

I had a disagreement with a young Associate Pastor. He thought we were teaching the teens too much. He did not want them to learn any more until they were applying what they had already learned.

I said, "The crisis of our age is exactly the opposite of what you say. Our crisis is that the teens know almost nothing about basic biblical doctrines." The young pastor went out among the teens to find out the truth. He came back to me and said, "Fred, you are right. The teens know nothing."

This pastor had a lot of courage and integrity to do a survey, face up to painful facts, and admit he was wrong. However, I do not entirely agree that the teens know nothing. The teens had intuitively learned some good things through the seeker-sensitive venues of stories, dramas, testimonies, and entertainment. Unfortunately, they had no conceptual handles on what they learned and they could not put it into coherent words. Such will-of-the-wisp "knowledge" can be blown away like autumn leaves before the strong winds of deception.

Wispy intuitive learning through narratives and through dramas, testimonies, stories, and entertainment venues is widely used both by seeker-sensitives and by emerging churches.

Mimicking postmodernism vs. being postmodern

Unlike the seeker-sensitive churches. the emerging church does not mimic postmodern culture to make people feel comfortable. Emergents try to be at the cutting edge of postmodernism because they want to be the vanguard of postmodernism as the wave of the future.

Seeker-sensitives water down the atonement because they are ashamed of the cross and are afraid of offending someone. When emergents deconstruct the doctrine of the atonement, it is because they do not believe in the atonement.

King snakes versus coral snakes

Some variants of harmless king snakes are easily confused with deadly poisonous coral snakes. Some seeker-sensitive churches (king snakes) are easily confused with emerging churches (coral snakes). Let me give you an example of a church for which I cannot decide whether it is a king snake and a coral snake.

At a men's ministry of my church, we used materials written at Bill Hybel's Willow Creek Community Church, one of the largest churches in the nation. One of the sections of the material included the line, "Jesus died for society." I was the only one at my table who objected. For the sleepy slackers at my table, it was just fine to say "Jesus died for society."

The unanswered question for me was are they ashamed of the cross at Willow or do they reject the doctrine of the atonement? "Jesus died for society" sounds to me like something an emergent would say.

I e-mailed the author of the piece at Willow, and she said that she originally wrote "Jesus died for our sins" and it was edited by another person. She also said that she believes in the atonement and is not ashamed of the cross. A man above her in the ministry hierarchy had blotted out "Jesus died for our sins" and substituted "Jesus died for society." I e-mailed him and he agreed that he had made the change and insisted that the change was OK. It was impossible to figure out if he was a king snake or a coral snake.

I later read Faith Undone by Roger Oakland of the Lighthouse Trails ministry. Oakland claimed that Bill Hybels, senior pastor of Willow, was one of the founding fathers of the Emerging Church. I was skeptical because I could not independently confirm this information outside of the Lighthouse Trails ministry.

Then I went to the Leadership Network web site. The first wave of emerging churches was influenced, trained, inspired, and promoted by the Leadership Network, and this influence and promotion still continues. When I entered the Leadership Network web site, they were celebrating their 25th anniversary. I watched their 30-minute anniversary video. Bill Hybels was one of a select group of speakers on the history of the Leadership Network. He talked about his early, continuous, and present association with the Leadership Network. There is no question that Hybels was and is enthusiastic about this organization.

However, it is not clear to me whether Hybels is an emerging church man in his heart of hearts, or is a seeker-sensitive man who was to some degree influenced by emerging church ideas through his association with the Leadership Network. Perhaps, he is cleverly using both movements to maximize his ministry success, defined as the number of people in the pews. He has experimented with cutting edge churches within the larger church, which might turn out to be little emergent churches tucked away within a mammoth seeker-sensitive church.

Hybels has one foot in the emerging church and one foot in seeker-sensitive evangelicalism. Is he a king snake or a coral snake? I don't know. Perhaps Hybels himself doesn't know. Nothing can confuse the mind quite like inordinate personal ambition and exhaustion from an over-scheduled calendar.

The church growth cult

Hybel's church, Willow Creek Community, is an archetypal example of the church-growth cult that is driven by the inordinate personal ambition of pastors. This cult might provide a solution to the riddle of why churches like Willow can be a hybrid of emerging church and seeker-sensitive.

The Leadership Network has a famous church growth program that was inspired by the late Peter Drucker, a legendary management consultant for business. Drucker was influential not only in developing the church growth program, but was an early advisor at the Leadership Network about what the emerging church should be. Drucker is deceased, but his wife was one of the speakers on the 25th anniversary video of the Leadership Network.

Churches like Willow might enthusiastically adopt Drucker's church growth ideas and also adopt a variety of seeker-sensitive techniques. In the process, Emerging church ideas may be absorbed from the Leadership Network by osmosis. Voila, a seeker-sensitive/emerging church hybrid comes into being. Such a creature is a two-headed snake, like the two-headed king snake I saw as a child at the San Diego zoo.

As mentioned in part 1, the worst of all possible worlds is a seeker-sensitive church with emergents freely circulating in their midst. It is open season for the emergent wolves to prey upon the seeker-sensitive lambs.

Who is Rick Warren?

Roger Oakland claims that Rick Warren was one of the founding fathers of the emergent church and was on the board of the Leadership Network in the early days. However, Warren was conspicuously absent from the 25th anniversary video of the Leadership Network. Links on the lighthouse trails web site to evidences of Warren's leadership of the emerging church movement have been purged from the Saddleback Church's web site. Warren seems to be distancing himself from his emerging church associations.

The "Tides of Change" (1995), by Rick Warren and Leonard Sweet, is said to have been a trial balloon for the emerging church. Copies of the video are rare, hard to get, and extremely expensive. Leonard Sweet's later book The Church in Emerging Culture (2003) established him as a leader of the movement.

What hard facts can we know for sure about Warren? Rick Warren and Brian McLaren (a leader of the emerging church) both wrote introductions to The Emerging Church, by Dan Kimball (another leader of the emerging church). Warren did not seem to understand what he was endorsing. He wrote as though the emerging church was a very innovative and dynamic seeker-sensitive church. Was Warren blind to what he was endorsing, or was he playing a game?

Warren said "a marriage should be between a man and a woman" during the election campaign, when gay marriage was on the ballot in Warren's state of California. More recently, in a television interview with Larry King, Warren denied that he said marriage is between a man and a woman, and insisted that he would never say such a thing in the future. I have video links to the before and after statements. Warren lied. As an evangelical, Warren is supposed to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. As an emergent, he is supposed to support the gay agenda. Is he playing a game, as his lie suggests, or did he lose his nerve when challenged by Larry King, because he is torn between being an evangelical and an emergent? Is he like Bill Hybels, who has one foot in the seeker-sensitive movement and one in the emerging church?

In the international venues, Warren is setting himself up as a world leader of the emerging church. He has joined the board at Tony Blair's Faith Foundation, which is an ecumenical project sponsored by the United Nations. They propose to unite the peoples of six different religions to solve social problems and bring world peace. It is a one-world utopian project. It is aimed mainly at the "Abrahamic religions" — namely Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hindu, Buddhism, and Sikhism.

The problem here is Hindu, Buddhism, and Sihkism are not Abrahamic religions. Are Tony and Rick afraid to say so, or are they so muddled with postmodern spirituality (as per the emerging church) that they can't tell the difference?

Tony and Rick are too careful and diplomatic to tip their hand away, so I turned to Eboo Patel, the leader of the Interfaith Youth Core, which is in partnership with the Faith Foundation. Eboo is an American Muslim who is much more straightforward about what he is thinking than Tony or Rick. I listened to his 30 minute talk on the streaming web. Eboo repeatedly contrasted "religious pluralism and diversity" with "religious extremism." His repeated point is that you are either one or the other. Terrorists are extremists, but so are doctrinally-orthodox evangelicals who adhere "rigidly" to theological dogma. In other words, anyone who believes in universal transcendent truth is an extremist and is in the same camp as the Taliban, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Eboo implies that anyone who insists that you can get to heaven only through Jesus Christ is an extremist. This is definitely a postmodern point of view.

Eboo talked about the "tolerance, pluralism, and diversity" that is "emerging" from the six religions of his focus. "Emerging" as per the "emerging church"? Well, Eboo is clearly postmodern, and his talk came across to me as emerging church light. He is not yet as far gone as Leonard Sweet with the "deep ecumenicism" of the "cosmic christ." But give Eboo time. He is still young.

However, Rick Warren is not young and has accepted world leadership of a postmodern, spiritual, and utopian organism. What price personal ambition? As someone living an "ambition-driven life," as Warren is, the further from home he is and the more exalted the office, the more postmodern he gets.

Warren is a seeker-sensitive evangelical in California, but is a postmodern when he is interviewed on television by the networks, and is "emerging church-light" when he is in Europe. He reminds me of King Henry IV (Henry de Bourbon, 1553-1610) who converted to Catholicism in order to be eligible to receive the French crown. Henry said, "Paris is worth a mass." To Warren, world leadership is worth faking an emerging church dance.

Test the spirits

I attended two different Bible studies in which a different emerging church book was discussed and praised in each study. In both cases, I alone identified both books as emerging church books — even though I had read neither books. My doctrinal orthodoxy helped me, but others who were also doctrinally orthodox were fooled.

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1).

How then did I know these were bad books? How did I know that Rick Warren had a "bad smell" when I heard him in person? Why was I the only one to object to the materials from Willow? Was I the only one with a good spiritual immune system? Perhaps.

But, there is more to it than being spiritually healthy. We must test the spirits.

"Test the spirits to see if they are of God" (1 John 4:1).

"The spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thought of a man except the man's spirit within him. The same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we may freely understand what God has freely given us.... the spiritual man makes judgment about all things..." (1 Corinthians 2:10-15).

As an intellectual type, I have learned that I often discern wrongly if I lead with the intellect. I must allow "the spirit of man" that is to say, my human incorporeal spirit called "pneuma" in the Greek — to stay a step ahead of my intellect. Contrary to philosophers Descartes and Kant, it is not the intellectual mind that "knows," it is the human spirit that "knows." Discernment is all about knowing. However, the human spirit can be deceived. That is what happened to the false prophets of the emerging church.

All who are born again have the Holy Spirit of God indwelling in their human spirit. When the Holy Spirit, who is the "spirit of truth," takes the lead and the human spirit follows, we can discern what is of God and what is of the spirit of the world. The spirit of the world at this time is postmodern.

Those who are crucified with Christ are also crucified as to the world. Those who are crucified as to the world are repelled by postmodernism, instead of being attracted to it.

I spiritually discerned that those emerging church books were not of God, but were tainted with the bad smell of postmodern.

Therefore, early in the conversation I interjected, "postmodern!", "the emerging church!", and "heresy!" No one in the two Bible studies believed me at that time. I later did research and discovered that I was right in the case of both books.

The wolf is almost upon you

None of those people in these Bible studies are young, and none is a spiritual novice, yet they were all fooled. Suddenly, I realized how quickly the emerging church could deceive us and swallow us up, from the oldest to the youngest.

I wrote these two essays to sound the alarm. Remember how Delila awakened Sampson and said, "The Philistines are upon you!" I say, "Wake up, you sleeping seeker-sensitive sheep! The emerging church wolf is upon you!"

P.S. I am presently attending the Truth Project seminars, which are a perfect antidote for all this postmodern confusion.

© Fred Hutchison
RenewAmerica analyst Fred Hutchison also writes a column for RenewAmerica.
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/hutchison/090601