Monday, August 08, 2005

Jennings, and etc.

As I mentioned on my other site, I realized that I missed Peter Jennings. He somehow spoke to a stability that transcended what we're experiencing right now. Anyway, for what's it's worth, I wish I could see Peter on tonight's news. It's emotional, I know. But I know that I could trust that he would "try" to get things right. And that's something.

Anyway, I recently finished the "Between Pacifism and Jihad" book, and was fairly dissappointed in it. I had hoped that it would provide a serious "Christian" perspective on just war and the problems that we face today. It turned out to be a defence of the "hyper-interventionist" policies that have become the "Christian" response to our international crises. It seems that this book is not much more than a dealing with the ghosts of the author's pacifistic past. This has colored the author's perspective in such a way that he cannot adequately deal with the current circumstances accurately.

The left will continually critique what we do, and sometimes from a good perspective, but ultimately from a fundamentally anti-christian perspective, so that we end up with a perspective that contradicts the basic Christian message of who God is and who we are. As y'all know, I am no more a fan of the right. Some of what they have to say is spot on. Yet they also contradict what Scripture has to say on other points.

The two new books that I'm reading right now are:

1. Dying to Win, by Robert Pape; a University of Chicago prof. who argues that we have seriously misunderstood the terrorist threat.

2.The War on Truth, by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed; a director of a well known peace institute in Brighton England. What impresses me most is his unwillingness to give in to the conspiratorial thinking that pervaded post-9/11 thinking; both from the right and the left.

Anyway, I hope y'all are doing well.

Irenicum

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