I almost never post anything political here, but now I find it necessary for the sake of future reference.
History:
I took some classes in college about warfare and politics, and read books about the American experience in Vietnam. Long story short, in the course of my studies I discovered some principles of guerrilla warfare that are applicable to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Similarities: In Vietnam there was a large, conventional military (U.S.) with a supported, ineffective puppet government, South Vietnam (SV). These forces were fighting a smaller, weaker guerrilla campaign (VC) with North Vietnamese support (DRV). All of these characteristics define the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
Differences: Vietnam is a highly homogenous nation, whereas Iraq and Afghanistan are highly fractured nations. Therefore Vietnam was primarily fought over political distinctions (and disenchantment with endemic corruption in SV). However, Iraq is much more defined as a religious conflict with tribal aspects, and Afghanistan is also highly tribal just as Afghani society is tribal in nature.
My thoughts:
First, pulling out of Iraq is a mistake if anyone wants a stable Iraq. Saddam was enforcing stability in Iraq through a combination of very savvy balance of power dynamics between the various rival factions, and most relevantly, through ruthless brutality against his enemies. He was a real dictator with a widespread and powerful intelligence agency and he didn't tolerate dissent.
Ultimately, it was his power that maintained stability in Iraq. Now that Saddam has been killed, the US is providing stability through sheer force. If the US pulls out, the best case is that Shi'ite groups take control of the country and simply dominate. The worst case is the Sunni south revolts and they have a civil war. Kurdistan is another possible civil war fault line. I have no idea how these three countries (in reality they are three countries) are going to stay politically united without a strongman to keep them together. My bet is that a strongman is going to emerge and simply take over when the US leaves.
Now a positive aspect is that if the US leaves, then Al Qaida and many of the int'l fighters lose their reason to stay, so they pull out and stop destabilizing the nation. However, it's possible that these Sunni fighters will stay to topple any Shi'ite government. You can similarly expect the resurgent Iran to want a piece of the political pie, and to insert Shia agents to strengthen any Shia government that might emerge.
The Sunnis have been historically dominant though (Hussein was Sunni), so they will not take this one sitting down.
To be honest, I don't know what most people want to happen in Iraq. Do Americans not care if thousands or more Iraqis die from the ensuing chaos of an American withdrawal? Do they simply not realize what's going to happen? I'm inclined towards the second, with an unconscious helping of the first.
Let me start by disillusioning anyone of the following notion. Iraqis dying is not a problem fixed by removing the American military. Yes, we have caused this problem by removing Hussein, for the reasons I stated above. However, there must be a strong central government to take over before America can withdrawal. Otherwise, many, many more people will die. I'm not in a good position to judge when the Iraqi government is strong enough to take over, but it's my opinion that we haven't reached that point yet. Of course, Iraq is kicking us out now, so legally we have no choice. Let's hope that they are ready to take over.
The biggest different between Iraq now and Vietnam is that I am not aware of any external nations at war with Iraq. As far as I know, there isn't any RVN army waiting to march in as soon as America pulls out. So that means their state failure isn't guaranteed in my opinion. But it's definitely a strong possibility.
A lot of this calculus applies to Afghanistan as well. An American withdrawal will mean civil war, and possibly a Taliban takeover. The Afghani government is corrupt and generally unstable. They do not have a competent military. I don't know what Americans think about Afghanistan, but an American withdrawal will mean civil war in Afghanistan, which the Taliban might win. Many people will die.
P.S. I wrote this really quickly and without going into much depth, so I've probably mis-stated a bunch of things. I will correct these points as they are raised to me.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
How I categorize dreams
Many people in the world have many dreams, but only a small subset of those are what I call "prophetic". The term "prophetic dream" can seem ambiguous and even nonsensical to a lot of people and can mean a lot of different things to different people.
I am using the term in a strictly Christian sense, deliberately ignoring what it might mean to people with different religious or philosophical backgrounds. I am using the term in the sense of the Christian "prophetic" of 1 Corinthians 14:3, which broadly speaking says that a prophetic word "encourages, comforts, and instructs".
This is contrary to the modern notion of a prophesy as a declaration of future events (most popularly, the end of the world). While that is a valid type of prophesy, it is only a subset of real prophetic utterances. Other people might question whether such prophetic words can be given through dreams, and if they are given, by whom.
I will answer that prophetic dreams are recorded in the bible and that all true prophetic words come from God, by the Holy Spirit. I will not justify this position for the sake of brevity.
So anyway, what I look for in dreams is encouragement [strengthening, direction, impetus towards some God-directed action(s)], comfort [solace], or instruction [teaching about doctrine, knowledge of future or present events/circumstances, knowledge of other people or myself].
Sometimes dreams can be what I would call a "prophetic experience" more than just a "prophetic word". This means that it isn't God filling me with knowledge about something, but I am actually experiencing events in the spiritual world, or experiencing a dream as a metaphor for some spiritual reality.
Since dreams are the gateway into the spirit realm, it makes you more open to receive prophetic words from the Holy Spirit. It also opens you up to travel into places in the spirit realm or to have encounters with other spirits (of people, angels, demons or God). There are some cases when I see angels in my dreams and they are figurative/symbolic images in the dream. There are other cases where I believe that I have real encounters with real spirits of angels. For instance, Joseph the father of Jesus encounters a real angel in at least two separate dreams.
One can very reasonably ask how to discern between the two cases, where a being is a real angel vs. a mental representation of an angel. I do not have a clear, hard rule to answer with. The best I can say is you need the gift of discernment (see 1 Corinthians 12:10, "distinguishing between spirits"). Discerning dreams is an area of a lot of confusion, understandably so. I do the best I can to understand what's real, what's symbolic, what's figurative, what's literal, what's my own emotions coloring things, what's a "pizza dream". I do this imperfectly, leaning upon the excellence of Christ to guide me.
Much of the time, I record a dream and consider it prophetic simply if it feels.... unusual to me. There is no hard rule to say what that is, because God does new things, not always predictable things.
I am using the term in a strictly Christian sense, deliberately ignoring what it might mean to people with different religious or philosophical backgrounds. I am using the term in the sense of the Christian "prophetic" of 1 Corinthians 14:3, which broadly speaking says that a prophetic word "encourages, comforts, and instructs".
This is contrary to the modern notion of a prophesy as a declaration of future events (most popularly, the end of the world). While that is a valid type of prophesy, it is only a subset of real prophetic utterances. Other people might question whether such prophetic words can be given through dreams, and if they are given, by whom.
I will answer that prophetic dreams are recorded in the bible and that all true prophetic words come from God, by the Holy Spirit. I will not justify this position for the sake of brevity.
So anyway, what I look for in dreams is encouragement [strengthening, direction, impetus towards some God-directed action(s)], comfort [solace], or instruction [teaching about doctrine, knowledge of future or present events/circumstances, knowledge of other people or myself].
Sometimes dreams can be what I would call a "prophetic experience" more than just a "prophetic word". This means that it isn't God filling me with knowledge about something, but I am actually experiencing events in the spiritual world, or experiencing a dream as a metaphor for some spiritual reality.
Since dreams are the gateway into the spirit realm, it makes you more open to receive prophetic words from the Holy Spirit. It also opens you up to travel into places in the spirit realm or to have encounters with other spirits (of people, angels, demons or God). There are some cases when I see angels in my dreams and they are figurative/symbolic images in the dream. There are other cases where I believe that I have real encounters with real spirits of angels. For instance, Joseph the father of Jesus encounters a real angel in at least two separate dreams.
One can very reasonably ask how to discern between the two cases, where a being is a real angel vs. a mental representation of an angel. I do not have a clear, hard rule to answer with. The best I can say is you need the gift of discernment (see 1 Corinthians 12:10, "distinguishing between spirits"). Discerning dreams is an area of a lot of confusion, understandably so. I do the best I can to understand what's real, what's symbolic, what's figurative, what's literal, what's my own emotions coloring things, what's a "pizza dream". I do this imperfectly, leaning upon the excellence of Christ to guide me.
Much of the time, I record a dream and consider it prophetic simply if it feels.... unusual to me. There is no hard rule to say what that is, because God does new things, not always predictable things.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Another quote
"Shall we stop at that poor line, the grave, which all our Christianity is always trying to wipe out and make nothing of, and which we always insist on widening into a great gulf? Shall we not stretch our thought beyond, and feel the life-blood of this holy church, this living body of Christ, pulsing out into the saints who are living there, and coming back throbbing with tidings of their glorious and sympathetic life?" - Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks, D. D.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
C.S. Lewis quote
This quote corroborates something that I saw in a dream once. Not gonna go into the whole thing, but read this and think about it:
"'Did they see Napolean?' 'That's right. They went up and looked through one of the windows. Napoleon was there all right.' 'What was he doing?' 'Walking up and down - up and down all the time - left-right, left-right - never stopping for a moment. The two chaps watched him for about a year and he never rested. And muttering to himself all the time. "It was Soult's fault. It was Ney's fault. It was Josephine's fault. It was the fault of the Russians. It was the fault of the English." Like that all the time. Never stopped for a moment. A little, fat man and he looked kind of tired. But he didn't seem able to stop it.'"
C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce.
"'Did they see Napolean?' 'That's right. They went up and looked through one of the windows. Napoleon was there all right.' 'What was he doing?' 'Walking up and down - up and down all the time - left-right, left-right - never stopping for a moment. The two chaps watched him for about a year and he never rested. And muttering to himself all the time. "It was Soult's fault. It was Ney's fault. It was Josephine's fault. It was the fault of the Russians. It was the fault of the English." Like that all the time. Never stopped for a moment. A little, fat man and he looked kind of tired. But he didn't seem able to stop it.'"
C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Ways to enter into God's presence
This will qualify as yet another one of my 5 minute posts about a 5 hour (or more) topic, but I just want to record something to remind myself to maybe, if I ever feel inspired, write out a more detailed version of the revelation that I got yesterday. It's funny how this happens, but I was just praying in front of a group of people and somehow I shifted into a teaching mode and I started talking about how different people enter into God's presence in different ways. Basically, what it comes down to is that each person relates to God in a different way. I relate to God by music, by nature (wind, mountains, rain, sunshine, etc), by a variety of different things. That's how God speaks to me, with a set of very specific symbols. You could almost call it a vocabulary of concepts that he brings up or emphasizes differently at different times.
I believe that this vocabulary, this language of how God speaks to a person and how that person speaks to God, is very specific and unique to each individual. Apart from the personal examples I could give, I can also offer this: Rev 21:12: "12It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel."
This is speaking of the gates into the New Jerusalem, which can be taken figuratively for God's presence (not going to elaborate, but I think scripture firmly shows this). There are 12 gates, and each gate has a different name written on it. While I think there are a variety of valid interpretations for this passage (once again, not elaborating), it also shows that there are a large number of ways into the New Jerusalem, and each one has a name written over it. I believe this shows that each person has a unique "gate" into God's presence.
Yes, John 14:6 says that Jesus is the way, so many people say there is "only one way to the Father", which is a pretty reasonable argument from a biblical point of view. This is a good counterpoint for people who would try to take Rev 21:12 too far, which is not my intention. As noted above, when I speak of the "different ways to God" I'm really talking more about the symbolic language and the unique relationship that each person has available to himself or herself, that even though we're all headed to the same God (i.e. New Jerusalem), we each have our own path to walk in life, and that the "gate" open to each one of us is only open to us, and nobody else will ever experience God in the exact same way. I think this is really cool, because in my mind it validates the importance of each individual, which is something that I think God also highly values, that he truly does value each individual for who that individual is and how that individual has been created to relate to God.
And that's the 5 minutes. :) For further reading, look at the verses I quoted and also: Ps 25, Ps 119, Isa 30:21, and many other passages I can't think of off the top of my head.
I believe that this vocabulary, this language of how God speaks to a person and how that person speaks to God, is very specific and unique to each individual. Apart from the personal examples I could give, I can also offer this: Rev 21:12: "12It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel."
This is speaking of the gates into the New Jerusalem, which can be taken figuratively for God's presence (not going to elaborate, but I think scripture firmly shows this). There are 12 gates, and each gate has a different name written on it. While I think there are a variety of valid interpretations for this passage (once again, not elaborating), it also shows that there are a large number of ways into the New Jerusalem, and each one has a name written over it. I believe this shows that each person has a unique "gate" into God's presence.
Yes, John 14:6 says that Jesus is the way, so many people say there is "only one way to the Father", which is a pretty reasonable argument from a biblical point of view. This is a good counterpoint for people who would try to take Rev 21:12 too far, which is not my intention. As noted above, when I speak of the "different ways to God" I'm really talking more about the symbolic language and the unique relationship that each person has available to himself or herself, that even though we're all headed to the same God (i.e. New Jerusalem), we each have our own path to walk in life, and that the "gate" open to each one of us is only open to us, and nobody else will ever experience God in the exact same way. I think this is really cool, because in my mind it validates the importance of each individual, which is something that I think God also highly values, that he truly does value each individual for who that individual is and how that individual has been created to relate to God.
And that's the 5 minutes. :) For further reading, look at the verses I quoted and also: Ps 25, Ps 119, Isa 30:21, and many other passages I can't think of off the top of my head.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Abraham, Sarah and Hagar cont.
I received a question on my last blog post, and I started writing a very voluminous answer such that I decided to just post it as a new post, for more visibility. The question is with respect to the "conflicting instructions" that were given to Abraham, and essentially how should Abraham have responded to the situation he was placed in.
"but God also asked Abraham to have a child that he could only have by having intercourse out of wedlock, then should we conclude that God was expecting Abraham to use his judgment as to reconcile the conflicting instructions in a manner most consistent with honoring God?"
Calling it conflicting instructions is a bit of a stretch. God never "instructed" anybody regarding Sarah's barrenness, it was simply a noted fact. Here's the order of events with Abraham/Sarah/Hagar:
God says, you will have a son (to Abraham), specifically saying "of your own body" meaning his physical descendant, but not necessarily Sarah's;
"Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children";
Sarah then offers for Abraham to sleep with Hagar, to "build a family through [my maidservant]", which Abraham does having a son;
13 years later, God comes again and says that Abraham will have a son through Sarah, and that he would be the 'child of the promise', that is, the son that God had promised to Abraham at the beginning.
So like I said, there was no instruction for Sarah to not have a child, it's really more like reconciliation of the promise (you will have a son) with its apparent non-fulfillment (Sarah was barren). In that situation, at Sarah's suggestion Abraham slept with Hagar to produce the son they were expecting, and 13 years later God comes in and clarifies that the son he had (Ishmael) was not the son promised before (although God doesn't say this directly, many commentators implicitly read it from what God does say about Isaac)
This is where I think a lot of commentators come into disagreement, over this question: did Abraham sin by sleeping was Hagar? I think there are a lot of valid perspectives on this question, one of which I raised (the issue of marriage being between one man and one woman), but there are many other perspectives about how Abraham should have responded to the promise, should he have just waited for Sarah to have a child when they thought it was impossible? Etc.
Nevertheless, it seems inaccurate to say that God gave conflicting instructions, but there is definitely a conflict between promise and reality. This is a very common theme in the bible, and it's very much related to the issue of faith, or as Paul puts it, the "things visible" and "things invisible" (2 Cor 4:18). How does one reconcile the unseen promise ("I am with you", Matt 28:20) with the present reality (I don't see Jesus right now)? It's a very deep subject that I'm not really going to address, other than to say that this is very related to Abraham's situation.
"but God also asked Abraham to have a child that he could only have by having intercourse out of wedlock, then should we conclude that God was expecting Abraham to use his judgment as to reconcile the conflicting instructions in a manner most consistent with honoring God?"
Calling it conflicting instructions is a bit of a stretch. God never "instructed" anybody regarding Sarah's barrenness, it was simply a noted fact. Here's the order of events with Abraham/Sarah/Hagar:
God says, you will have a son (to Abraham), specifically saying "of your own body" meaning his physical descendant, but not necessarily Sarah's;
"Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children";
Sarah then offers for Abraham to sleep with Hagar, to "build a family through [my maidservant]", which Abraham does having a son;
13 years later, God comes again and says that Abraham will have a son through Sarah, and that he would be the 'child of the promise', that is, the son that God had promised to Abraham at the beginning.
So like I said, there was no instruction for Sarah to not have a child, it's really more like reconciliation of the promise (you will have a son) with its apparent non-fulfillment (Sarah was barren). In that situation, at Sarah's suggestion Abraham slept with Hagar to produce the son they were expecting, and 13 years later God comes in and clarifies that the son he had (Ishmael) was not the son promised before (although God doesn't say this directly, many commentators implicitly read it from what God does say about Isaac)
This is where I think a lot of commentators come into disagreement, over this question: did Abraham sin by sleeping was Hagar? I think there are a lot of valid perspectives on this question, one of which I raised (the issue of marriage being between one man and one woman), but there are many other perspectives about how Abraham should have responded to the promise, should he have just waited for Sarah to have a child when they thought it was impossible? Etc.
Nevertheless, it seems inaccurate to say that God gave conflicting instructions, but there is definitely a conflict between promise and reality. This is a very common theme in the bible, and it's very much related to the issue of faith, or as Paul puts it, the "things visible" and "things invisible" (2 Cor 4:18). How does one reconcile the unseen promise ("I am with you", Matt 28:20) with the present reality (I don't see Jesus right now)? It's a very deep subject that I'm not really going to address, other than to say that this is very related to Abraham's situation.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Abraham, the friend of God
I'll try to keep this one brief because of time constraints, but God spoke to me recently about Abraham. The chief phrase that came to my mind is, Abraham is a friend of God.
Abraham lived in a time before the bible was written, in a life completely devoid of Judeo-Christian traditions, churches, denominations, etc. The only pattern of worship or prayer he had ever seen was essentially pagan in nature (that is, polytheistic and possibly tribal in nature; nothing like modern Christianity). So I was absolutely fascinated to see how Abraham relates to God, because Abraham as the "father of the faith" lived an Adam-like life of breaking new ground, being the first in a new tradition. Unlike Adam though, we are given numerous accounts from his life, whereas Adam has almost nothing written about his life (he appears in Genesis 2 and is dead by Genesis 5, while Abraham has about 13 chapters devoted to his life from Genesis 12 to 25).
So Abraham is a great person to study to see how a man ascribed as a great man of faith relates to God, without the influence of hollow religious traditions in the same way that modern Christians have to discern between things from God and meaningless Christian traditions. Of course, I'm not trying to say that all traditions are meaningless or negative, but simply that one must practice discernment to see where traditions truly represent the nature and will of God, and where traditions come from human or political origins. E.g., is a given tradition one that was put into place to build a political system or to perpetuate human systems, or to establish the kingdom of God on earth and in that culture?
One example of a human tradition would be the biblical interpretations of Noah's cursing Ham/Canaan as a justification of Europeans enslaving Africans. It was a theological position used to justify a human, economic system that does not represent God's will. Over time, it hybridized Christianity with the economic system of slavery, such that even to this day atheists or skeptics will quote slavery as an example of the failings of Christianity.
Anyway, what does one see in the life of Abraham that speaks of his faith? One thing is clear, he builds a lot of altars. He sees God frequently, and he speaks with God face to face. He honored God when the Lord visited him with two angels, and then he petitioned God, face to face, to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if there were 10 righteous men there. All of these deserve long discussions, but I don't have the time.
What I was thinking about tonight was Abraham's affair with Hagar. It is a very perplexing event to me, for a couple reasons. First, God never speaks for nor against Abraham's relationship with Hagar. Nowhere in scripture does it say that Abraham did well or sinned by his relationship with Hagar. We know that the child of the promise is Isaac, but God blesses Ishmael. That's perhaps what perplexes me the most, because we know that in the beginning God created Adam and Eve, so God did not intend for a man to have more than one wife, but he nevertheless blessed Ishmael.
What I see when I think of this is a very complex social situation. People will argue that Abraham sinned or that he didn't sin, but what's clear to me is that it's a very difficult situation, as the outcome shows. It leads to strife between Hagar and Sarah, it leads Sarah to accuse Abraham of doing wrong (even though it was her idea), and ultimately it leads to Hagar's expulsion from Abraham's camp. After that, the Ishmaelites occasionally collide with the Israelites, and the Ishmaelites are described as being "wild", and "against everyone". So the end result seems to be a lot of strife, and God is involved in almost a neutral position (he blesses Ishmael, he blesses Isaac).
So what I see when I read this is, Abraham's heart towards God never waivered. In the midst of this difficult situation, trying to fulfill a promise of God (you will have a son) by human means (sleeping with Hagar), God still blesses Ishmael, and he blesses Abraham to still have the son of the promise. Abraham was not in an easy situation but in his heart he stayed true to God.
God bless you (the reader), and may you be filled with wisdom and understanding about this topic.
Abraham lived in a time before the bible was written, in a life completely devoid of Judeo-Christian traditions, churches, denominations, etc. The only pattern of worship or prayer he had ever seen was essentially pagan in nature (that is, polytheistic and possibly tribal in nature; nothing like modern Christianity). So I was absolutely fascinated to see how Abraham relates to God, because Abraham as the "father of the faith" lived an Adam-like life of breaking new ground, being the first in a new tradition. Unlike Adam though, we are given numerous accounts from his life, whereas Adam has almost nothing written about his life (he appears in Genesis 2 and is dead by Genesis 5, while Abraham has about 13 chapters devoted to his life from Genesis 12 to 25).
So Abraham is a great person to study to see how a man ascribed as a great man of faith relates to God, without the influence of hollow religious traditions in the same way that modern Christians have to discern between things from God and meaningless Christian traditions. Of course, I'm not trying to say that all traditions are meaningless or negative, but simply that one must practice discernment to see where traditions truly represent the nature and will of God, and where traditions come from human or political origins. E.g., is a given tradition one that was put into place to build a political system or to perpetuate human systems, or to establish the kingdom of God on earth and in that culture?
One example of a human tradition would be the biblical interpretations of Noah's cursing Ham/Canaan as a justification of Europeans enslaving Africans. It was a theological position used to justify a human, economic system that does not represent God's will. Over time, it hybridized Christianity with the economic system of slavery, such that even to this day atheists or skeptics will quote slavery as an example of the failings of Christianity.
Anyway, what does one see in the life of Abraham that speaks of his faith? One thing is clear, he builds a lot of altars. He sees God frequently, and he speaks with God face to face. He honored God when the Lord visited him with two angels, and then he petitioned God, face to face, to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if there were 10 righteous men there. All of these deserve long discussions, but I don't have the time.
What I was thinking about tonight was Abraham's affair with Hagar. It is a very perplexing event to me, for a couple reasons. First, God never speaks for nor against Abraham's relationship with Hagar. Nowhere in scripture does it say that Abraham did well or sinned by his relationship with Hagar. We know that the child of the promise is Isaac, but God blesses Ishmael. That's perhaps what perplexes me the most, because we know that in the beginning God created Adam and Eve, so God did not intend for a man to have more than one wife, but he nevertheless blessed Ishmael.
What I see when I think of this is a very complex social situation. People will argue that Abraham sinned or that he didn't sin, but what's clear to me is that it's a very difficult situation, as the outcome shows. It leads to strife between Hagar and Sarah, it leads Sarah to accuse Abraham of doing wrong (even though it was her idea), and ultimately it leads to Hagar's expulsion from Abraham's camp. After that, the Ishmaelites occasionally collide with the Israelites, and the Ishmaelites are described as being "wild", and "against everyone". So the end result seems to be a lot of strife, and God is involved in almost a neutral position (he blesses Ishmael, he blesses Isaac).
So what I see when I read this is, Abraham's heart towards God never waivered. In the midst of this difficult situation, trying to fulfill a promise of God (you will have a son) by human means (sleeping with Hagar), God still blesses Ishmael, and he blesses Abraham to still have the son of the promise. Abraham was not in an easy situation but in his heart he stayed true to God.
God bless you (the reader), and may you be filled with wisdom and understanding about this topic.
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