"It Were Better for Him that a Millstone..."

"It were better for him that a millstone..."

From antiquity 'til now, wars between men often have the most devastating impact on the innocent children caught in the crossfire: from Pharoah's edict of death on the first-born of the Israelites ("...[they've] become too numerous for us...if war breaks out, [they'll] join our enemies"--Exodus 1:9, 10 & 22) to children in Wilkinsburg, PA shot by rival gang gunplay (just last week on WPXI-TV news here in Pittsburgh). The most vulnerable among us are often the most damaged and exploited among us when the strongest among us seek more power, seek to exact revenge or seek to abducate responsibility for their actions.

Also, according to the examples sited above, the prevalence of this phenomenon is not only timeless but universal (after all, Egypt is a half-world away from suburban Pittsburgh). Men and women at war of various kinds, often unwittingly and at times by design, bring untold harm to the children around them--whether in the case of the breakup of a marriage by divorce, an absentee father abandoning his progeny or in the case of rebel factions fighting against the national government. This is precisely the case in Uganda today.

The so-called "Lord's Resistance Army" (LRA) has been in a self-imposed armed rebellion against the Ugandan government for 21 years now. Led by Joseph Kony, by their own claim, they want to replace the Ugandan government with one based on the Ten Commandments (you know, the one in the Old Testament). By UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Fund), almost 2 million people have been displaced in what has been called one of the world's worst crises. Inside that number, a crisis of biblical proportions has been unfolding: between 25,000-50,000 children are being abducted each year either to fight for the rebels or to become sex slaves for the commanders, according to the UNICEF child protection officer in Gulu, Michael Copland.

Several years ago, three filmmakers went to Uganda to film whatever they could related to this story. They found thousands of people affected by the insurgency of the LRA. They found thousands of children fleeing homes, neighborhoods and villages nightly in order to escape being abducted. They discovered that many children in Northern Uganda are regularly abducted by the LRA to be trained as child soldiers. The children who run from their homes walk miles to find shelter in hospitals or bus parks - virtually anywhere far away from rebel camps.

As a result, the filmmakers launched a non-profit organization called Invisible Children, Inc. designed primarily to send volunteers to affected regions in Northern Uganda, to aid former child-soldiers in re-integration into normal civic life through education and extensive psychological evaluation and treatment.

This is not God's creational intent for childhood...anywhere on the planet, whether in ancient Egypt or in present-day Wilkinsburg, PA. or Acholiland, Northern Uganda.

I hold with sheer contempt the intentions and actions of Joseph Koney and the LRA--actions that destroy the lives of thousands of children. I think it's safe to say that God does also.

One day a few millennia ago while on a parable blitz--addressing tax collectors, Pharisees, an indescript crowd of followers and his disciples--Jesus of Nazareth, using a child as an object lesson on faith, said, "But whoso[ever] shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matt. 18:6). For forcing thousands of children to take up arms, to kill--often members of their own families; to stand as eyewitnesses to heinous atrocities and for many more to take flight into the night for their very survival--I imagine there's gotta be a stone quarry somewhere in the heavenlies where massive limestone chunks are presently being cut and ground, looking like 500 lb. donuts, made ready for the necks of hundreds of men in Northern Uganda to take long suffocating trips to the bottom of Lake Victoria...figuratively speaking, that is. In otherwords, God's judgement stands most acutely against Joseph Koney & the LRA and many throughout the world whose selfishness, greed and abuse of power often make the children of the world the most devastated population on earth.

As I examine Scripture, I find that God's intentions for childhood lead to life not death (certainly not exacting it from another), stability & security, not fear and uncertainty (certainly not abysmal hopelessness and terrors in the night) and growth toward maturity not arrested development (certainly not disintegration toward beastliness and barbarity). These are the characteristics Jesus described as the net objectives of our Adversary--to kill, steal and destroy. But in a shining proclamation of hope to counter the dark night of existential despair, Jesus declares, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).

The inherent tendency of children to trust the adults around them is their gift to the world. When this trust--honorable in the eyes of God--is exploited, it is tantamount to exploiting God Himself. Woe to those whose audacity leads them to do so. There's nothing worse than the moral confusion set in motion in the mind of a child when love (as in the case of John Karr and the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder confessions) or honor (as in the case of the LRA in Northern Uganda) is fronted as the motivating principle behind the death-producing ways of adults they're creationally designed to trust without question.

Seeing all this, I'm tempted to hate these men. Despite my satirical imaginations about millstones and drownings, Christ's love is unquenchable toward those whose actions are in a sense animated by principalities and powers in heaven places. I am also to love these men instead of hate them; to hate them prohibits my ability to pray for them.

Maybe there's a marginal chance that these men hold somewhere deep (obviously very deep) within themselves genuine sentiments for biblical truth, albeit profoundly distorted. Maybe, seeing themselves as representing the "Lord" and as devotees of the "Ten Commandments", there's a slim opportunity for God's grace and mercy (obviously needed in liberal supply) to breakthrough, reigning their dark hearts toward the light of life, exposing the nefarious deception that has lurked there for so long. I'm reminded that God's patience is long toward us all, providing ample opportunity for all to come to repentence. Certainly, it was true for me in the darkness of my life without Christ over 23 years ago.

I commit myself afresh to pray for this Invisible Children of Uganda situation (as well as support the cause in more practical, tangible and material ways such as funding and advocacy work), however this time, I'll include the evil men who prey on children to do their evil bidding. Maybe...just maybe, if the Church Universal were to commit its vast spiritual and moral resources to an epoch of concerted intercession for these culprits and not just on behalf of their child-victims, then maybe...just maybe we'll see in the not-too-distant future transformation come to the world's 39th largest country in the heart of the world's second largest continent. What an impact that would make! How exciting that would be...to see this in our lifetime!

Saints, let's pray up a storm for these children and their captors--this is the least we can do, lest we find ourselves candidates of our own millstones of complicity by negligence and cast into a sea of guilt for generations to come.

Amen? Amen.

ARE WE?
Today, I awoke to the latest news fodder. On this day, not just your typical channel clutter about auditions for a new season of American Idol or the most recent Hollywood super couple breakup. On this morning--solemn and stark coverage of a thwarted terrorist plot in the U.K. involving potential flights to the U.S.

As I cleared my eyes and unplugged my ears to better pick up the on-going live special report, officials from Homeland Security were responding to reporters' questions. As I focused in more closely, I began picking up more details about the plot as investigations by British intellegence had revealed: "This was a very sophisticated plot...as sophisticated as we've seen since 9/11"; "The alert level is at Orange (high) for all air transportation in the U.S.; Red (severe) for all flights from the U.K. to the U.S."; "No liquids, gels or creams will be allowed in carry-on baggage on any flights arriving to or departing from the U.S."

From what I could gather, British authorities had been for months investigating the activities of 21 or more U.K.-born Muslim extremists who had hatched plans to board U.S.-bound flights from the U.K. with common, non-alarming liquid and gel items--whether pharmacutical or household chemicals--that once combined and possibly ignited, would unleash enormous explosive power, obviously enough to bring down a commercial jumbo jet. According to reports, the plan was that the plotters would board 10 or more planes, assemble the chemical products on-board, maybe in the plane's bathroom and bring down several planes at the height of the U.S. summer air travel season, thus maximizing the impact of death and destruction.

This is serious stuff, frightening enough to heighten the threat spectre of your average U.S. citizen considering travel anywhere close to an airport, let alone, anywhere in the country over which an airplane would fly (10 or more fragmented, massive burning fuselages falling from the sky like End-Times sulphurous rain would scare the bejesus out of the most hardened sceptic). That, plus the heightened official government alert level certainly sets the right psychic climate for decreased scrutiny of Homeland Security and increased deference to the recently-expanded scope of U.S. Patriot Act powers.

In the midst of this mounting sense of alarm and anxiety generated by the onslaught of official governmental briefings and endless news coverage, a very peculiar comment was made by Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security that, for me, stands out as most memorable: "U.S. airports are safe right now" But are they, really? Well...ARE WE?

Recent findings by investigative news reports and security experts show that today, as many weapons and flight-threatening items are being confiscated as before 9/11. For that matter, U.S. borders aren't much more patrolled and safeguarded than before 9/11...or so that's what I hear from people who pay more attention to this stuff than I do.

I'm certainly appreciative of the British and U.S. intellegence agencies for their diligence in looking out for the safety of the citizenry of our respective countries. In the words of Colonel Jessup in the movie A Few Good Men, "You want me on that wall; you need me on that wall!" I'm so very glad they're on that wall for all of us in this global war against terror.

However, since 9/11, especially since the U.S. invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003 and the spectre of new terrorist plots raised the national level of alert to Orange back then, I've been waging a little bit of a war of my own. This is a war waged not with weapons that are carnal, but those that are mighty for the pulling down of strongholds; spiritual warfare, not against flesh but against principalities and powers in the heavenly realm that send earthly authorities to do their bidding--sort of a cosmic proxy war of the ethereal.

Amid the charged air of terror threats and heightened warnings, I began feeling helpless to both better discern the truth and provide support to better protect our country in my own small way. I and a small handful of students in our ministry at the University of Pittsburgh back then began consulting the Scriptures for comfort of a different kind.

We were reminded that throughout biblical history, there have always been terrorists whose plans were thwarted by divine intervention. Especially in the case of official acts of governmental terrorism and conspiracy, God has protected His interests by bringing to light the plots of The Wicked One hatched through his human subjects: whether in the case of Pharoah and Abram's wife, Sarai (Gen. 12:20), Pharoah's plot against the firstborn of the Hebrews (Exo. 11), the oppposition of Sanballat and Tobiah against the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem (Neh. 4:1-7), Haman's plot against the Jews (Esther 7), Belshazzar's wise men's plot against Daniel (Dan. 5, 6), Herod's plot against the 'King of the Jews' (Matt. 2) or in Herod's persecution of the Church and Peter's escape (Acts 12). God has demonstrated over and over again that when the people of God come together in a righteous cause, discerning His will and beseeching His name for deliverance from evil plotters, He is more than willing and able to undo The Enemy's efforts played out through his proxies.

Another thing we noticed...and you might do well to notice also: In each case, God stepped in on the side of the righteous (and those far less-empowered to defend themselves) to balance out the equation of power when up against the highly-organized, well-financed, societally-affirmed schemes of governmental might, whether against the Egyptian Empire, the Persian Empire or the Roman Empire.

As I watched the newscasts today, I tried to recall the last time that I could remember when we had a serious national, post-9/11 alert.

Alas, I remembered!

It was the summer of the Democratic and Republican conventions in 2004. You remember that don't you? Remember the sort-of-vague terror threats that Homeland Security officials and Vice-President Dick Cheney unveiled during that vital election year; plans potentially targeting the respective national conventions as well as vital New York hard targets--threats that, by the way, were later revealed by an independent investigation report as not having had specific intelligence-backed data, but was really based on a standard, ol' fashion general warning based on the thousands of pieces of suspicious intellegence interceptions collected every month in the U.S. since 9/11.

I can still remember it as if it were yesterday, sitting in front of the T.V. with my wife, watching the many breaking news reports and the flood of press coverage on this impending danger. My wife can attest to the fact that as I continued listening to the story in light of the then-current political climate, I blurted out of my mouth, "This is a lie, of sorts!" I said to my wife, "I'll bet you that in due time, a report will come out verifying that there was no real credible and imminent danger at all, at least no more than usual or, that would warrant this level of public alarm. This is a political tactic during an election year!"

I'm not a conspiracy theory-type. But as a Christian (and as an African American, representative of a people with a long history of staring down the barrel of real-life, modern-day governmental and private-sector collusions to undermind black human rights in the U.S.) who believes deeply in the perspective revealed by God in the biblical-historical record, let's face it, conspiracies do happen, even those hatched by the world's most powerful governments. Whether I was right or not in making my prediction when I did (I always hope I'm wrong), I couldn't help myself regarding what I did at that time.

And I can't help what must continue to do now.

I must continue to pray for and against the terrorists from within our borders and those outside our borders--God is able to not only thwart their nefarious plans but also to win the hearts of a few who are no more than one pray away from Godly sorrow which leads to repentance. I must continue to pray for and against our government--God is able to expose in the light things hidden in the dark should elements within our government find themselves gripped by a spirit of duplicity and misappropriation of our democratic ideals and social capital. Of course, as Christians we're commanded in Scripture to pray for those to whom authority has been given by God to administer over us. This I certainly do, regularly.

However it's important for those of us who call Christ Lord, called to be in the world but not of the world, to not be naive or incomplete in our prayer life regarding national and world affairs. We're not called to the position of blind sanction or approval of a U.S. Christian nationalism that indistinguishes between Christ as Lord of All and Christ as Benefactor to All Things American. We're certainly called to seek the welfare of the Republic just as we're to seek the welfare of the cities in which we live. But then so are we to do so regarding the whole world and all they that dwell therein. This means doing so with our eyes wide open, remembering that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil and there is no one righteous...no, not one. And that all political ideologies and systems fall short of the glory of God--and so do the leaders who represent them, therefore, any government, like any person, is capable of the most heinous, atrocious acts if given the right opportunity.

The terrorists and the government of the United States of America are well-covered in prayer for their good and for the good of the world. Heaven help those among either who plan to do evil should the Body of Christ take to prayer as did the Jews in Esther's time facing Haman's concealed plot. He was overthrown and shalom was restored.

Saints of God, let's pray! ARE WE...ready. Let's roll!

Shalom.

Does Israel still represent divine privilege to be protected as far as God is concerned? (...and if so, then, O.K....but if not, then, why are we still acting like it?)

Several weeks ago, I involuntarily mumbled, "Lodehammercy!" (a "black-ism" for Lord Have Mercy), as I listened to updates on the 19th day of Israel's so-called strategic assault on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon. "When in God's name will this conflict end?!" (there has since been a cease-fire declared as of August 14; this post is a "save draft" originally from date listed above) I find it extremely difficult to justify such knowing commitment to the inadvertant escalation of collateral damage among innocent children, women and men. Israel's U.N. ambassador Gillerman reminds us that Hezbollah is the real culprit by forcing poor Lebanese families to provide cover for Hezbollah fighters, thus being caught in Israel's crossfire. Lebanon's P.M. Siniora says this is nothing but the acts of "Israeli war criminals", acts of "massacre".

Who's right? Is the one right who reacts to provocation by attempting total annihilation of the enemy? Is the one right who's being annihilated but who supposedly committed the initial act of violence in the first place, all in the name of fighting off an oppressive regime heavily supported by the West?

Another question: Is it right that the U.S. government should give almost unconditional support to Israel based on a tacit affinity for Israel's historical significance to Western Civilization and a shared religious heritage? More importantly, do Christians (not those by cultural precedent but my faith in Christ as Lord) have an obligation to support Israel merely on the basis of shared theological-historical heritage?

I won't comment anymore (maybe another time), but what do you think? Please share your comments on this very troubling and provocative matter.