Iranian pastor, Youcef Nadarkhani will remain in prison:

In late September of this year, he was given four chances to recant his faith in court and refused each time. His case then was referred to the ayatollah. The American Center for Law and Justice reported one of his court exchanges.

“Repent means to return. What should I return to? To the blasphemy that I had before my faith in Christ?” Nadarkhani asked.

“To the religion of your ancestors, Islam,” the judge reportedly replied.

“I cannot,” the pastor responded.

Related: Youcef Nadarkhani’s Letter to His Church

Until today, I was unaware that there was an assassination attempt on former president Theodore Roosevelt. 99 years ago today, he survived an assassination attempt while campaigning in Milwaukee as the Progressive (or Bull Moose) Party presidential nominee. Despite having his shirt bloodied and the bullet still lodged in his chest, Roosevelt delivered an 80-minute speech that started out this way:

“Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet — there is where the bullet went through — and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.”

Below are some pictures. Here is where you can find more information.

This week, we’ve been reflecting on the terrorist attacks that took place ten years ago this Sunday. Two days ago, I wrote about some of the theological ramifications of this event. Yesterday, several well-known pastors weighed in, describing how ministry has changed in a post-9/11 world.

Today, I’d like to provide space for readers to reflect on 9/11 in their own words. Few (if any) of us were present at the scene, whether in New York or Washington, D.C. But all of us have recollections about that day.

Last week, I read Escape from the World Trade Center, the first-hand account of Leslie Haskin, a woman who escaped from her office on the 37th floor of the North Tower. Her recollections overflow with raw emotion:

I have lived and relived those moments at least a million times. A million times lost and searching for words to describe what happened on the inside—the torment and vulnerability, the confusion, the carnage, and the sheer visceral terror of it all. I struggle still in my description of witnessing the heart of humanity colliding with gravity and of dreams of the slaughtered Twin Towers covered in dust and blood while a somber last breath cries for justice.

Most intriguing to me was Leslie’s contrast between being inside the towers and then seeing them on television later:

My recollection was of a building defeated on the first blow and crumbling from the moment of impact. There was no pretense on the inside. Beams were contracting, walls were caving in, and floors collapsed seconds after the first impact. That building was coming down.

What I experienced was not a conspiracy or question of how many bombs went off and caused the fall. It was quite honestly a towering inferno, and its demise was like 110 stories of dominos, the first one tipped when an American Airlines weapon of mass destruction crashed into Tower One.

Every channel showed what they thought they saw, which was two towers after the initial attack with some damage from the crashes and a lot of smoke. What cameras saw from the outside was NOT what was going on inside. They showed the world the towers severely injured but standing strong and still fighting. It is no wonder the world was surprised when they fell. It is no wonder that the shock wave was so all-consuming that it left our president speechless. They never saw it coming.

If Leslie is right, and the people inside the building knew that the towers would collapse, then the actions of the firefighters were an even greater picture of self-sacrifice. They didn’t engage in their mission with the knowledge that they might not return, but with the knowledge that they would not return. What sacrifice!

Where Were You on September 11?

I’d like to provide some space here at Kingdom People for us to talk about where we were when the attacks took place. I’ll start us off, but I’d like to hear from others as well.

On September 11, 2011, I was 20 years old. My first year of Romanian education and mission work was behind me. I had been visiting my parents in Murfreesboro, TN and was looking forward to flying back to Romania on September 13 (through Washington, D.C. actually).

On the way into work at the family printing company, Mom called and told us to turn on the radio. It looked like a missile had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. Once I got to the office, I looked for information online, but found nothing except the disputed claim that a plane had flown into the building.

A few minutes later, Mom called again. This time, she was startled. She had seen the second plane hit the second tower. Dad went home to be with her. I gathered around the radio with my co-workers, and we listened to the news.

It seemed like every few minutes, the radio told us of another event. News about the Pentagon changed the atmosphere in the shop. Our first thought had been “freak accident.” After the second plane hit, we thought “terrorist attack.” Once the Pentagon hit, one of my coworkers looked at me and said, “This means war.” About 15 minutes later, we heard a report about the Capitol being bombed, although this turned out to be false. The minutes passed slowly. Everyone was huddled in the office listening to the reports on the radio, imagining the burning buildings in New York.

A little later, Mom called and told me she wanted me to come home. While I was on the phone with her, I heard a loud rumbling overtake the sounds on the radio. At the sound of that mighty building falling to the ground, everyone in the office gasped. We began to consider the loss of life that would be associated with this tragedy. A little while later, the reporter told us that the other tower was leaning funny. Then, the horror was repeated as the second building collapsed.

When I got home, I saw the reality on TV. This was a rare time when my imagination failed to completely capture the horror that was captured by the cameras. As we watched the towers fall again and again, we wept. I remember hearing the name Osama Bin Laden for the first time that day. I also remember hearing my dad (who never, ever cusses) call Bin Laden an SOB. The label seemed too light a description for a person capable of such weighty evil.

That afternoon, our whole family went to church. Where else could we go but to be with our church family? It was a Tuesday, and there were no scheduled services. But church folks were everywhere. We prayed and cried in the sanctuary. We processed the events together, and we surmised that the world had changed and wondered what the future would hold.

Needless to say, I did not fly back to Romania on September 13. It took me another week to make new arrangements. On September 18, one week after the tragedy, I passed through the same security checkpoint that five of the hijackers had passed through in Washington’s Dulles airport. By the time I reached the gate, President Bush was on television in the Rose Garden, asking for a moment of silence in honor of the victims who had perished at that precise moment one week before. Whereas the DC airport was usually roaring with hustle and bustle of travelers, there was an eerie silence on that day. As I flew back to Europe, I knew that the world had changed.

What About You?

Where were you on September 11? What do you remember? Who were you with?

In 2007, Mark Dever wrote a series of blog posts titled “Where’d All These Calvinists Come From?” He listed 10 reasons for the blossoming of Reformed theology’s Tulip within evangelicalism, including influential pastors like Spurgeon, Lloyd-Jones, Piper, and MacArthur. He also referenced the inerrancy controversy within the Southern Baptist Convention, authors like J.I. Packer, and publishers like Banner of Truth. From this wide range of sources, Dever unearthed the roots of the recent Reformed Resurgence.

I agree with all of Dever’s choices. But I wonder if there is a significant cultural event that could be added: September 11, 2001. It may be true that a variety of practices, preachers, and publishers laid the groundwork for the recent swell of Reformed theology. But why has the greatest growth of the movement taken place only in the past decade? What role has September 11 played in the Reformed Resurgence?

In speaking of September 11, I am referring not only to the terrorist attacks, but also the events set in motion by the terrorists. Two costly wars. Terrorism scares. The Great Recession. These related events compounded the cultural change initiated by the hijackers.

Furthermore, the past decade has delivered a number of horrible disasters (two massive tsunamis, Hurricane Katrina, earthquakes in Asia and Latin America, tornadoes in the Southeast). Though not related to September 11, perhaps these tragedies have also played a role in the New Calvinism by forcing Christians to wrestle with difficult doctrines. For many of us, the result has been an increased appreciation for the sovereignty of God in the midst of human suffering.

There is no way to measure the impact of September 11 on evangelicalism. At best, we can see hints here and there as to its theological repercussions. Other than the people who were there and experienced the horror, it’s unlikely that many people would attribute any sort of theological shift to the events of that dreadful day. I doubt that many of the Young, Restless, and Reformed would consider September 11 to be an important moment in their turn toward Reformed theology.

But sometimes, it’s not our personal journeys that carry the most influence. It’s the cultural air that we breathe. Is it possible that September 11 and its cultural aftershocks “changed the air” so to speak, so that a wide segment of evangelicalism began entertaining questions that didn’t seem as pressing before?

Let’s look at a few ways in which the post-9/11 culture may have created an environment conducive to the rise of New Calvinism:

1. September 11 forced “the problem of evil” to the forefront of theological reflection.

Terrorism brought the concept of “evil” back from a purgatory of positive thinking and practical theology. Politicians started using the term again. Preachers began sermon series on the reality of evil and suffering. Our society’s aversion to words like “evil” and “sin” suddenly appeared like an ostrich trying to avoid the truth.

But many young people went beyond mere recognition of evil’s existence. We began working through questions related to God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. The classic problem of evil (“If God is good and all-powerful, why does evil exist?”) came roaring back as a topic of intense discussion.

Before September 11, my beliefs about evil and suffering had always bowed to the reality of free will:
God wants to be loved.
Love cannot be forced.
Therefore, God gives us free will.
Anything bad that happens is a result of humans using their free will.
God cannot be blamed.

After September 11, this standard line of argumentation crumbled. Having witnessed the carnage of the terrorist attacks, I questioned whether free will was worth the trouble. Is it worth it having free will just so God can be loved without force? Isn’t there something bigger than our love for God?

I also realized that the free will response didn’t get God off the hook; it just pushed His presence into the distance a little further. I remember thinking: With a word, He could have altered the plane’s direction to miss the building. In an instant, He could have alerted security screeners’ eyes to the terrorists and exposed them before they ever got on the plane. He could have empowered the passengers of United 93 to not only burst into the cockpit but also take control of the plane before it crashed. Could, could, could. But He did not. Why not? Does choosing not to stop a tragedy you could prevent make you, in some way, partly culpable?

2. September 11 created an environment in which the easy answers of pop evangelicalism were no longer satisfying.

The typical evangelical response to “9/11 problem of evil” questions was to shrug them off and take comfort in the “God-moments” that occurred on that day. Emails circulated telling the story of the woman who narrowly escaped the tower before it fell, or the two beams forged together in the heat as a makeshift cross, or the Bible that was preserved in a smoldering section of the Pentagon. Rather than wrestle with the big questions, many Christians took comfort in the kindness of a providential God who kept the worst from occurring.

But I remember how these responses seemed so inadequate. The towers fell. Some people survived. Praise God! But others died. Do we still praise God? If God were involved in a person’s survival, was He not also involved in the life that perished? 

Then, there was the sentimental response. “Where was God on 9/11?” He was there, in all the heroic acts of that day. God was in the firefighters who plunged to their deaths with the towers. God was in the rescue workers treating people on the scene. God was in the volunteers who spent days trying to rescue people from the rubble.

But this response was inadequate too. It merely drew attention away from the bigger and more intense questions: Where was God when the hijackers took over the planes? Where was God when it really mattered? The vision of God put forth by many evangelicals was that of a doting grandfather who arrived too late to stop the tragedy, but in time to help us put the pieces back together again.

3. The post 9/11 culture was ripe for a generation of young people to dig into the Bible for answers to some of life’s most perplexing questions.

The typical evangelical responses were superficial, and I rejected them. They offered temporary comfort by pushing aside the hard questions. Judging from conversations I’ve had with many friends, the sentimental response didn’t resonate with them either. And the next few years only intensified the problem. The schmaltzy, family-friendly banter of Christian radio and books didn’t tell us why our friends were coming home from the Middle East in body bags.

September 11 did more than rock the foundations of the Twin Towers. It changed the cultural ethos and rocked the theological foundations of many younger evangelicals. We started questioning things we had always assumed. Many of us started digging deep. We wanted answers. And Reformed theology didn’t shy away from the hard questions.

When I think about the Christians I went to school with and the friends I had in my church youth group, I see two directions. Some of us wrestled with these issues and then stepped back, staying in the safe, sentimental view typical of evangelical responses. But the majority wound up becoming Reformed or at least Reformed-leaning. They found John Piper and the depth of his insight related to human suffering. They found other pastors and teachers who were not afraid to tackle the hard questions. My brother, who returned from Iraq last year, told me that the books being read by his fellow soldiers were written by men like Piper and Sproul, not Rob Bell and Donald Miller.

In a post 9/11 world, shallow evangelicalism didn’t have the answers that many younger evangelicals were longing for. Many of us eventually came to grips with a majestic, ferocious, and irresistibly attractive God who burst all the boxes we had wanted to keep Him in.
God was in control.
The evil of 9/11, though not approved by God, is somehow part of His master plan.
The cross reminds us that God can bring the greatest good from the greatest evil.
No pain is therefore senseless.
And God will one day defeat evil forever. 

Reformed theology gave a younger generation a vision of a God who is big enough to have unknown reasons for allowing evil acts to take place and big enough to defeat evil for good. The doctrine of God’s sovereignty wasn’t about scoring debate points with theological nerds, but a haven of rest and assurance in the midst of turbulent times.

4. September 11 has marked the ministry of a younger generation of pastors.

Many of today’s young preachers and teachers have different sensibilities than the baby boomer generation that proceeded them. Listen to Matt Chandler and David Platt and you won’t hear messages filled with practical tips to bettering your life today. Instead, you hear men with distinctive styles addressing some of the toughest questions of life. Chandler preaches through Habakkuk while recovering from brain surgery for a tumor. David Platt leads his church to reflection (theology) and action (service) on behalf of a Birmingham ravaged by tornadoes. The preaching ministry of many younger pastors has been significantly shaped by the reality of life in a post-9/11 world.

Yes, health and wealth teaching continues to rise unabated. The Emerging Church burst onto the scene and then faded. Some have found answers in Open Theism. Joel Osteen is America’s most influential pastor, and he is about as far from preaching about real pain and sorrow as any pastor could be. And yet, there is a large number of younger evangelicals who aren’t impressed with any of these other options. The post-9/11 culture indirectly shaped the questions and issues of younger evangelicals. Those of us who went looking for answers found help from the people and publishers mentioned in Mark Dever’s series.

I’m not sure we can connect the dots from September 11 to the rise of the New Calvinism in a way that makes sense of all the data. Still, when asking “where did all these Calvinists come from?” it’s interesting to note that in the 1990′s, there was a Reformed rumbling. But only after September 11 was there a Reformed resurgence.

I’ve long admired the work of Sarah Pulliam Bailey, a Christianity Today editor whose work online keeps me informed regarding current events around the world of interest to evangelicals. Today, Sarah joins me for a conversation about the media and religion.

Trevin Wax: Sarah, thanks for stopping by. Tell us a little about yourself.

Sarah Pulliam Bailey: During the day, I am online editor for Christianity Today, where I write and edit for the print and online magazine. I tend to focus on news, update our blogs and social media, and pursue book interviews, profiles, and features. On the side, I write 2-3 times a week for GetReligion.org, where we critique mainstream coverage of religion news. I also write a monthly column for the Indianapolis Star on culture and politics. I grew up in Indianapolis, went to Wheaton College, and now I live in Green Bay where my husband works for the newspaper. Needless to say, my day is filled with journalism, especially of the religion variety. On the side, I attempt to cook and enjoy a good board game with friends.

Trevin Wax: Let’s start with your work on GetReligion, which has recently become one of my favorite blogs. The tagline for that site is “the press just doesn’t get religion…” Why do you think this is the case? What are the main blind spots that the press has when it comes to religion reporting?

Sarah Pulliam Bailey: Reporters work really well with concrete data, numbers that prove some thesis or trend. It’s difficult to capture religion because you can’t always quantify it. Journalists don’t always know what to do when someone says they did something because “it was God’s will” or “God called me to do this.” We’re told to capture who, what, where, when, why, and how questions, but reporters often gloss over the “why” question. Why would people give away money, why would people volunteer their time, why would they hold certain beliefs about politics, money, sex, family, entertainment, etc. Sometimes reporters just miss one of the key factors in a story.

We often stumble across interesting stories that miss an underlying religion angle, what we call a ghost. Sometimes it might be skepticism (such as in sports writing) or sometimes it’s ignorance. A 2007 Pew report suggested that 8 percent of journalists say they attend a church or synagogue weekly and 29 percent of them never attend services. You do not have to be religious to report on religion or find religion angles, but your personal experience might impact how important you think religion could be in a story. Then we often see stories that just miss the mark, such as calling Jim Wallis a face of the religious right. Even for those data-driven reporters, there are several sociology, political science, history, etc. scholars offering research or “expert advice” on recent trends to keep reports accurate.

Trevin Wax: I wonder how detrimental this oversight is to reporting on other issues. I’m often amazed at how the Middle East conflicts are so often conceived of in purely secular terms, as if religion is not a key factor in the battles raging in other parts of the world. Stephen Prothero has pointed this out in God is Not One. Many Americans tend to think that religion is relegated to the realm of speculation and private spirituality, and many journalists appear to follow that pattern in how they report on news stories in other parts of the world. Do you think “not getting religion” hinders our ability to understand some of the world’s great conflicts?

Sarah Pulliam Bailey: Yes, I think your point is key: journalists often look at international events through a political or economic lens. I’m amazed at how many events are seen through election coverage (“Libya a political challenge for Obama“) and not through other factors, such as religion. For instance, the local response to the Japan earthquake is likely very different from the Haiti earthquake, just based on the religiosity of the people impacted. Even if a story has foreign policy implications, some reporters underestimate the impact religion plays in another country’s leadership. Most religion reporters are locally or nationally focused, so we don’t see much international religion coverage from those who are on the religion beat. Newsrooms have time, budget, and manpower constraints, and a story on Justin Bieber’s haircut will probably see many more hits than an angle on Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. However, Reuters’ FaithWorld blog is one mainstream outlet that does a nice job at finding the international religion angles.

Trevin Wax: Occasionally, the media does pick up on a religion story, but it’s usually about something sensational. So you get media outlets camped out in the yard of a tiny church where Terry Jones plans to burn a Koran, or they take out of context the pope’s quote about Christian names and make it out that he is condemning other kinds of names. Is there an anti-Christian bent that causes media outlets to jump on stories like this? Or is it a desire to be first in reporting the most sensationalist news out there?

Sarah Pulliam Bailey: Pew recently released its annual report that includes the state of religion coverage. Last year it doubled–to just 2 percent of overall coverage. Of course, these are stories that are particularly focused on religion, as opposed to a story that might have an underlying religious angles (Haiti earthquake, for instance). The top five were the Park 51 controversy, the Catholic abuse scandal, Terry Jones, religion and the Obama administration, and Sept. 11. It’s interesting to see a few items like Park 51 covered so heavily and then dropped almost completely.

I don’t necessarily see evidence of an anti-Christian bent from most reporters, but there are probably elements that contribute to why they cover Christianity a certain way. For instance, the Terry Jones story was partly fueled by statements from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (again, that political filter). Or Pope Benedict XVI statements are often poorly translated due to language and distance constraints or theological and historical misunderstandings. Plus, there aren’t always obvious leadership structures. For instance, Protestants don’t have someone like Pope Benedict XVI to determine when something is significant, so the diversity can be confusing.

Occasionally, we’ll see an agenda-driven reporter or someone who just doesn’t understand Christianity or religion broadly, but it depends on the outlet. There probably is some pressure to jump on something before the next reporter, and it might get messy if the outlet doesn’t have a religion reporter or editor on staff who is at least guiding the coverage. When you see a quick blog post or tweet take off, it’s hard not to want to follow-up with more full-blown coverage, even if it might not be the most important story to cover.

Trevin Wax: A lot of attention in the blogosphere in recent weeks has gone to Rob Bell’s Love Wins and the controversy surrounding the semi-universalist beliefs put forth there. Martin Bashir of MSNBC interviewed Rob in a rather confrontational manner, and his interview raised some bigger questions about how journalists treat pastors and religious figures. Some folks have complained that left-leaning religious leaders are given softballs, whereas traditional Catholic or conservative evangelical leaders are asked tough questions, framed in a no-win situation for the leader. How do the assumptions of a television host influence the way interviews are done with religious leaders?

Sarah Pulliam Bailey: You’re right that Martin Bashir was pretty confrontational in his interview with Rob Bell, and we’ve had some discussion about whether it was appropriate. On one hand, it was refreshing to see someone challenge Bell after seeing some softball interviews but on the other, he was pretty pushy in such a short interview.

Part of a journalist’s challenge is to figure out what’s new, so if conservative leaders reiterate what’s been said for thousands of years, the reporter might feel the need to come up with more provocative questions to break new ground. If a more left-leaning religious leader says something provocative to begin with, the reporter might just feel like throwing softballs will make it a spicy interview anyway. There’s an underlying journalistic challenge that might shape the way reporters do interviews.

It’s clear that Bashir has some theological background that informed the way he conducted the interview. He asked the kinds of questions that someone without religious background would probably not know to ask. Some might argue that the questions risk going over the head of most MSNBC viewers, so it’s better to have someone who is less theologically literate. But regardless of Bashir’s approach, the kinds of questions assume a more intelligent audience that raises the interview past the surface level. Someone with a religious background might be more attuned to the theological issues, but any journalist can become more literate in these areas.

Trevin Wax: Sarah, thank you for the good discussion on the media and religion. And keep up the good work in your writing and reporting!

“How are you doing today, sir?” a European missionary asks his neighbor.

“Good,” he replies. “Any day without a war is good.”

No, these are not the words of a man who saw the carnage of war as a soldier on the battlefield. These are the words of a man who was only a child during World War II, but who remembers the horror of battles being fought in his own backyard. His thoughts about “a good day is one without war” are echoed throughout Europe, as my recent visit to Moldova reminded me.

Though the War in Iraq continues to be unpopular in Europe, I am convinced that most Europeans are not actually dismissing the merits of this particular war. Instead, they are reacting to a general impression of American foreign policy as constantly flexing its military might. Put simply, many Europeans believe Americans are too quick to rush to war.

Share these insights with many Americans, and you hear some good reasons why preemptive strikes might be necessary. Had we preemptively struck Hitler, we could have avoided World War II. Had we preemptively struck Russia, perhaps the Cold War would never have taken place. War is a sad and sometimes inevitable reality. We see the stark reality that sometimes we must not only talk about peace, but actually fight for it.

Americans tend to be more open to the idea of war, and Europeans seem to be knee-jerk in their immediate opposition. Therefore, many Americans see Europe as naïve and hopelessly pacifistic in its orientation. We do not understand why there is so much talk and so little action. We think that Europeans would let evil run wild, and that their reticence for war to solve worldwide problems is rooted in dangerous passivity.

But there is a reason why Europeans tend to be more pacifistic: History.

World War II was a necessary war – even a just war, we would probably agree. In World War II, we saw the best of many young Americans die. We know that the war came with a terrible price.

But the war was not fought on our terrain. Yes, the war snatched away some of the best of our youth, but it did not destroy our country. (In fact, some historians believe it was the War that lifted the U.S. out of the Great Depression.) On the other hand, Europe was in ruins after World War II.

Talk to older Europeans and you will quickly discover that they see life as “before” and “after” the War. Our national consciousness is not shaped by war fought within our borders. Europe’s is.

The great cathedrals that crumbled, the art museums that were razed to the ground, the villages that were burned, the cities that were bombed – not only did Europeans lose the best of their young, they saw much of the greatness of their culture destroyed. Destroy a nation’s cultural artifacts and you destroy something deep within a nation’s psyche. Destroy a nation’s infrastructure, and you destroy the country’s sense of security for decades.

For Americans, war is something done somewhere else. For Europeans, war destroys more than just human life; it also puts an end to human flourishing. It is no wonder that Europeans are more pacifistic in outlook. They have seen the destruction of war up close.

Many European evangelicals are also deeply pacifistic and regularly challenge their American brothers and sisters on issues related to violence. Tomorrow, I will follow up with a few thoughts as to why evangelicals tend to see non-retaliation as a more central theme in the teachings of Jesus than we do.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2008 Kingdom People blog

The full text of Wright’s response can be found here. Here are some highlights:

On the Media Frenzy

The astonishing misrepresentation of Archbishop Rowan in virtually all newspapers over the last few days, and the scorn and anger which this has fuelled, have caused many people within the church to ask what on earth is going on. The issues are complex, but let me try to highlight the key points. Obviously it would be good for people to read the whole lecture, which is available on line at his website together with further clarification.

On Christianity as a Comprehensive Worldview that Stands Against Secularism

For 200 years it has been assumed that these operated in separate spheres: the law regulates my public life, faith or religion operate in private. This was always a dangerous half-truth, since many of the great world faiths, including Christianity itself, actually claim that all of life is included within religious obedience. As some of us used to be taught, if Jesus is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all. In recent years various governments, including our own, have pushed the other way, to suggest that the secular state is itself master of all of life, including religious conviction. That’s why we’ve seen an airline worker sacked for wearing a cross, while in France the government has tried similarly to ban Muslim women from wearing their traditional head-covering. Because we haven’t had to address these issues before, our society has tended to slide round them by emphasizing words like ‘multiculturalism’, which often doesn’t actually mean that we celebrate our different cultures but rather that we subordinate them all to whatever the secular state wants. That is as much a problem for Catholic adoption agencies, as we saw last year, as it is for Muslims who want to follow their traditional teaching about (for instance) the prohibition of interest on loans while living within a society where the mortgage system is endemic. +Rowan was going to the roots of these problems and coming up not only with fresh analysis but fresh solutions, particularly what he calls ‘interactive pluralism’. The question of how we live together as a civil and wise society while cherishing different faiths is a deep and serious one and can’t be pushed away just because people take fright at certain misunderstandings. His point was precisely that neither the secular state nor any particular religion can ‘monopolise’.

On What the Controversy Teaches Us

What the whole sorry affair highlights is that our society is extremely touchy not only about Islam (and not only because of terrorism), but also about the whole, normally unspoken, set of assumptions about society, law, culture, freedom and religion by which we have operated. We live at a time of massive cultural change, and we shouldn’t be surprised that attempts to understand what’s going on and do something about it are deeply threatening. This is somewhat like what happens when a couple are having their first session with a marriage guidance counsellor after years of unspoken puzzlement, and find some of the questions threatening. But unless we can ask the difficult questions, and try to address them wisely and maturely, we will drift into worse problems by far.

Just a few short hours before American Idol went on the air with its San Diego auditions tonight, the news broke that Heath Ledger, the 28-year-old actor best known for his work in A Knight’s Tale and The Patriot was found dead of an apparent drug overdose.

How ironic that even as news coverage of Ledger’s death runs together with another batch of wanna-be singer/stars, we are still prone to miss the correlation between idolatry and despair.

Aspiring artists appear on American Idol, hoping for the limelight of Hollywood. Many of the singers have made an idol of the American Dream, worshipping the idea of success and glamor. The singers that make it big then become idols to the fans that adore them.

And yet, like all idolatries, what is sweet to the tongue is cancerous to the body. The culture chews up and spits out these young “stars.” How the famous have fallen!

How many Britney Spears-like cases do we need to see before we stop wanting to live their lives? How many young men like Heath Ledger have to die in despair in the prime of life before we will stop idolizing movie stars? Why do we continue to fall for the Evil One’s lie that fortune brings freedom, that money brings happiness, that fame brings satisfaction? 

Worldly success does not solve the problems of young men and women. It exacerbates them. The idolatries of our heart lead us further into the darkness of our souls until we are captive to our own desires.

My heart sunk when I saw the body bag carrying young Heath Ledger’s body being wheeled toward an ambulance. Heath was just two years older than me. How tragic that a life would be cut so short! But even more tragic is that countless people will continue to idolize Ledger and envy the sad, unfulfilled lives of Hollywood stars like him.

In March, we will celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – whose thirty-three years on the earth split time into B.C. and A.D. It is because of Jesus, his perfect life, death for our sins, and triumphant resurrection that we can be delivered from the grip of the idols that hold our hearts captive. 

I can’t help but mourn tonight – not because I was a great fan of Heath Ledger, but because I have such a burden for twenty-somethings like him who (without the fame and fortune) are living out their days from drink to drink, pleasure to pleasure, distraction to distraction – without the hope of eternal life or the purpose that comes from being a citizen of God’s Kingdom.

Blessed are those who mourn.

Blessed are the ones who take part in the suffering around them.

Blessed are those who run with arms wide open to the places of deepest pain in our world.

Blessed are those who grieve with the grieving.

Blessed are those who are not calloused at the pain we see through the flickering images on our television sets.

Blessed are those whose hearts beat faster and whose tears flow more freely whenever our thoughts go to the coming Kingdom and the Resurrected King.

Yes, we will be comforted. For we know that our labor is not in vain.

written by Trevin Wax © 2008  Kingdom People blog 

What is the Christian response to the death of an earthly tyrant? Surely we are not to delight in the death, any death, of another human being – one who bears the image of God. And yet, it seems that at least a measure of justice has been carried out. We acknowledge (with a mixture of sadness and relief)  that one responsible for so much death and terror has been punished.

Some may question the purpose of an execution, especially a public one. Corina and I were discussing the event this morning, recalling the overthrow of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in the final days of 1989. The images of the Romanian dictator and his wife being shot to death in a courtyard were seared into the consciousness of my wife, who was only 9 at the time.

But those images, haunting and gruesome as they were, had to be released. Otherwise, rumors would have continued to persist that maybe Ceausescu had escaped. Perhaps he was planning to take over the government again. Maybe he was secretly watching to see who was supporting the revolution, and then plotting the moment he could pounce on those who had desired freedom. The people were gripped by the widespread fear that Ceausescu would soon restore his reign and mete out his “justice.”

For a people who have lived in terror and oppression under a dictator’s thumb, only the death – the public death - of the leader will suffice. Any other solution simply creates the ghastly ghost of a tyrant, a ghost whose shadow can loom greater than his existence.

Jesus’ death on the cross was perhaps the most unjust sentence ever carried out, for He, the innocent One, was condemned to die the brutal death of a criminal. And yet, the cross is where true justice took place, where injustice and sin and Satan were defeated at their own game. The cross is where satisfaction was made, where forgiveness was purchased, where reconcilation was put into effect.

The resurrection brought the defeat of death itself. Christ’s cross and resurrection represent the triumphant victory of God – the defeat of Satan, the tyrant whose influence is greater and more deadly than any earthly ruler that may come to power. The cross, the very instrument upon which Jesus was hoisted up as a public spectacle, the punishment that defied anyone to argue with Roman power – that cross was actually the place where God turned the tables, ”disarming the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” (Col. 2:15)

For those who have lived under the tyranny and oppression of the Evil One, enslaved to sinful and selfish desires, nothing else will do but the glorious, public defeat of evil that took place in the cross and resurrection of our Lord.

written by Trevin Wax. © 2007 Kingdom People Blog