Islam

Mark LeVine on the Phone Forum

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Many commentators, including Michael Lerner in a current editorial, welcomed President Obama’s speech in Cairo on June 4. There has been positive comment by, for example, Muslim writers at altmuslim here and here, and by Hussein Rashid at Religion Dispatches. The substantive differences from Bush Cheney policy were summed up by Gilbert Achcar at ZNet as:
a criticism of the U.S. invasion of Iraq; a commitment to withdraw all troops from that country; an acknowledgement of the Palestinian people’s more than sixty-year old tragedy (implicitly recognizing the Nakba); a clear and firm rejection of Israel’s expansion of its settlements in the occupied West Bank; a relatively open attitude toward Hamas; an acknowledgment of Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy within the boundaries of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and a willingness to talk to the Iranian government, without preconditions. But in a powerful presentation that that you can listen to here Mark LeVine makes the case that this was a great speech… for President Clinton to have given in his time.

Politics & Society

Doing Conflict — the LGBT Experience

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The Left are inherently doves, advocates for peace, and they place their own peaceful existence above any involvement in any worldwide conflict. That assessment is by a right winger, quoted on TD by Peter Marmorek. But it sounds all too true. I’m happy with the “inherently doves.” Not with the idea that we place our own peaceful existence above involvement in any worldwide conflict.

Christianity

How Sen. Blanche Lincoln Shifted on the Public Option

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In a well-named post, PRESSURE FROM THE LEFT CAN HAVE AN EFFECT, the Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen reports that Senator Blanche Lincoln (Democrat, Arkansas), who “has been one of the least likely Democrats to support the public option endorsed by most Democratic lawmakers, the president, and the public” is coming round to supporting it after all. TPM and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (in an email, not on their site) ascribe this to the TV ads run by Blue America. And as TPM noted, Senate leader Harry Reid is hot for Democratic uniformity on this issue. But in a phone call with me this morning Jennifer Butler, the Executive Director of Faith in Public Life, wondered if a further influence had come into play: Rev. Joyce Hardy, archdeacon of the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas and deacon of Christ Church Episcopal Church in Little Rock, AK. Hardy was the voice of the religious coalition for universal, affordable health care on Christian radio in Arkansas during the July 4 Congressional recess.

Culture

On Michael Jackson

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Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, the symbol, the carrier of an extraordinary charisma, touched the lives of people all over the world. Veterans of the Iraq war speak of seeing children moon walking in Baghdad. A reporter speaks of a child in Central America asking him about Miguel Jackson. We are familiar with his music that calls us all to care about making the world a better place. Healing the world is a personal moral responsibility.

Judaism

A Canadian Perspective

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A couple of months back a Canadian rabbi wrote to me objecting, in friendly but strong language, that Tikkun magazine was ignoring Canada. I had no doubt he was right. The U.S. is nothing if not U.S.-centric, and that infects even those of us who are campaigning for a Global Marshall Plan and a U.S. foreign policy based on generosity not domination. We can all use our friends to point out our shortcomings. So I invited the rabbi to provide a Canadian perspective on our upcoming blog.

Rethinking Religion

Loving the Mystery

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If God is not a mystery but rather is another name for mystery, then the command to love God can be understood as simply another way of saying that we must strive to love the mystery around us and in us, rather than to be afraid of all that we cannot understand… With this conception of God we are not striving to love what we cannot know, but coming to terms with the fact that we will never know and embracing our place in the world. To seek to always love God means, from this view, to seek always to accept our place in a Creation that will always be mystery, no matter how much science teaches us about specific parts of that Creation around us and in us, through physics and biology. To love God is not a command to stop seeking knowledge, but rather a reminder to have a sense of the limits of our knowledge and embrace that which is beyond knowledge. Nothing in this view demands that we reject science, but instead reminds us to be aware not only of what science illuminates but what is beyond its reach.

Politics & Society

Kosovo was actually not the Good War

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I was happy to get an email today from David Gibbs saying, “I see that the Kosovo article is being noted on electronic bulletin boards, and was prominently featured today on antiwar.com.” He is referring to his groundbreaking article “Was Kosovo the Good War?” in the new issue of Tikkun. Gibbs wrote there:
Now, a decade later, the Kosovo war is recalled as an exemplary case of humanitarian intervention, and is widely viewed as a model for possible interventions in Darfur and elsewhere. Indeed some of the key figures in the Obama administration, notably Samantha Power, have advocated that “humanitarian intervention” on the model of Kosovo should be a basic theme of U.S. policy.

Environment

When Life Kills Life

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I thought the major extinctions of life in Earth’s history had mainly been caused by wildcards like asteroid strikes and massive volcanic eruptions. But it turns out that the biggest wildcards may have been delivered by life itself. I had almost no science education at high school, but I did eventually hear in my thirties, I guess, that our oxygen on this planet was created by photosynthesis. Before living creatures developed that ability this was an oxygen-free world. When the oxygen was first produced by living beings, it was a terrible pollutant, and most creatures then existing died.

Christianity

Prophetic Voices in the Health Care Wars

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I participated in a fascinating press conference on Tuesday, organized by Faith in Public Life (FPL) to promote a campaign in which “local pastors are taking to the airwaves in five key states over the Independence Day Congressional recess, urging their Senators to support health care reform.” If you are Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska, or North Carolina you may hear ads on Christian and mainstream radio featuring local pastors from each state asking their Senators to support reform. This is great. The progressive religious folks are stepping up to argue for affordable health care for all. But I wish they would read Michael Lerner’s editorial on health care in our current Tikkun: now that’s prophetic.