it seems too easy for some people to 'be good christians' by coming to church and singing the songs & setting out the flowers & holding hands, while outside the doors, the wars rage on (both War & also economic & social & other struggles). 

The pleasant worship times have to breed real conversation.  The conversations must bring action.  

Case in point- the Tamils & Sri Lanka - 2 days ago, the Toronto Tamil community actually blocked a major major highway, and have been scolded by the Mayor & Prov. gov't.  Meanwhile, a 3sq. km 'safe zone' in Sri Lanka is being bombed (presumably to wipe out what's left of the Tamils). 
I'm not going to wade in on the politics that I know little about, but what action is appropriate?  How many of us slept well last night, despite knowing about this massacre? 
I dont' know the answers, but faith with blind eyes is tragic.

Excellent post, graeme.

It concerns me that the church is often preoccupied with  organizational details, rather than significant issues such as how wrong wars are.

Maybe there should be less Martha's - and more Mary's, in our congregations!

hey, I want someone to argue with me.

the value of wondercafe is first that we have to put our ideas into words - and that often is enough to tip us off that there are serious holes in our thinking. The next value is that we see how others react to what we say. Whether we agree with them is not important. What is important is that we come to see it is possible to see things very differently from what seems obvious to us. Communication involves us as speakers. But it also involves others as hearers. We really need to know how other hear us.

So let's hear the criticism.

graeme

The difficulty in arguing with you, graeme, is that you have the bad habit of making solid cases for your position.

As to war being impractical, I think you're right. However, I don't think that their role is moving toward "police" so much as it needs to be toward humanitarian work. Canada has demonstrated what even a cash strapped military can do when called to respond to a flood or earthquake or such. And there are still situations where the nuclear arsenal is a deterrent - Pakistan and India, although portrayed in western media as whack jobs, know that to use their nukes is self-defeating. Their situation is similar to the US and USSR in the 50s and 60s.

The fear of nukes also held Bush back from attacking Iran. But it isn't a deterrent in the case of Israel, whos "we're victims" refrain grows increasingly strident as the generation that experienced WWII passes. They are beginning to find themselves cast as the aggressor and they can't figure out what to do about it.This is also true for many minorities in this generation btw, but that's a different thread.

I agree with you that, if studied and applied, religion can be practical. But it is not presented that way. And because it isn't, the people are simply either paying lip service or walking away. And leaders large and small seem unwilling or unable to recognize what is so obvious to the people outside the institution. I just had this conversation with RevJohn who gave the same stock response I've gotten from clergy for years.

Hell, you can imagine, given what I've written about over the years, how I felt when the only really "religious" statement in Obama's Proclamation for the National Day of Prayer was the Golden Rule.

And still, the Pope wears his little gold hat, and smiles that grin that makes him look like satan incarnate, and he can't figure out why people don't cotton to him the way they did JPII.

And the UCCan moderator makes speeches that all but concde defeat in the struggle to rejuvenate the church. I know he doesn't intend them that way, but that's the message that's heard.

And evangelicals gather a few thousand and make believe that, at a few percent of the population, they have a multitude and start humming Onward Christian Soldiers.

Just as it was two thousand years ago, so it is today - the institutions that our parents depended on have lost their moral authority. By clinging to outdated superstition and dogma the church makes itself irrelevent. The people will retain what is, as you say, practical, - which seems to be emerging as the thing dear to my heart, and the rest, as some guy once said, will be pruned and thrown into the fire.

(I have a pretty good sense that I'm rambling here. Sorry. Time to go to bed methinks)

Mutually assured nuclear destruction really isn't a deterrent at all. To believe in it, one has to accept two assumptions. \

1. That all of the people in charge of the many nuclear powers will always be sane and clear headed, will never panic, will never under the most severe pressure ever make a mistake. Oh? Was Stalin a clear headed and perfectly balanced person? We know that Nixon almost begged his advisers for a reccomentation to u se nuclear weapons in Viettnam. Hilarly Clinto, during the election campaign, publicly threatened a nuclear attack on Iran. Several Israeli leaders have publicly called for a nuclear attack on Iran.

To depend on all the world leaders always being sane and balanced is like playing russian roulette every morning while having your breakfast. Eventually, the gun will go off.

2. MAD also depends on there never being an accident or confusin. But there already been one - at least one - probably more because this is not the sort of thing nations brag about. Some 20 years ago, a Russian colonel was on duty. If there was a warning of an attack, he had authority to launch nuclear weapons in retaliation. It happened. The systems lit up with an attack warning. Luckily, the colonel was an  unsually cool headed person. He doubted the warning, and gave orders not to retliate.

MAD doesn't work. One day, it will  happen against all common sense it will happen. 

graeme

OK, you're wrong, and I don't like your runners.

Happy????

IT

Russ

I don't argue with people who wear cast iron buckets on their heads.

graeme

Adamantine steel, not cast.

My concern is less for a "prolonged' nuclear war as it is for the "On The Beach" outcome.  Want to not sleep tonight, try humming Waltzing Matilda after watching the movie.

Nutcase #1 launches, nutcase #2 retaliates as we all wait for the cloud.

IT

Russ

graeme,

I think we have to distinguish what is belief and what is simply ritual or tradition. I cannot say I have ever met anyone who thought the essence of Judaism was dietary laws. Then again, I know few Christians that the essence of their faith is gold paved streets in heaven.

The only way sometimes to move beyond long held beliefs is by fretting them and mulling them over.

You view them as abstract or pointless because you have deemed them to be, because you have either worked them out or others did before you.

I do not believe war makes much sense, but I do not believe we are at a point where war makes no sense. As long as there are invaders there will be defenders.

A war between  major powers does not make much sense and that is among the reasons they negotiate instead of bombing each other.  I do not buy the leaders pushing buttons facing a loss. Russia did not do so in Afghanistan. The US did not do so in Vietnam or Korea or all the other things they like to fail to admit they lost. If the "nuke" response was easily triggered then doing it one someone who did not have nukes of their own would have been far more probable than the scenario of two trying to out-nuke each other.

There are still colonial wars that are cheap and easy profit. The major powers are not doing them much anymore, because they require marchers with guns to be profitable and cheap. You cannot take some people's equipment out without it costing millions.

Cost is measured in dollars and cents and in loss of life. Different peoples place value on different things.

The lessons have not yet been learned by all major powers and we will have a long time pass before some places ever think about studying anyone's lessons.

I agree the face of warfare and the face of religion is changing.

Nothing works forever. So far, and your example is a case in point, it has worked. The question is, will we outgrow the "need" for standoffs before it stops working?

I'm not sure that's true. I know many Christians, especially in the evangelical mold, but also those in more mainstream denominations who think "like sucks and then you die", who think the purpose of religion is to get to heaven/avoid hell. Those streets of gold are where they want to be and to them this life is just the thing they must suffer to prove their worth.

generally agreed - except - there was discussion of a nuclear attack when the Americans were losing in Vietnam. This came out of the Watergate tapes, as I remember it. Nixon was looking for support for that. And we don't know what Russia considered in Afghanistan because we don't have any Moscow tapes. And, certainly, there has been talk of a nuclear strike against Iran at various times in both Israel and the US.

Then there's the danger of the accident that almost happened...

graeme