Faith

From an article of the same title by Christian author Philip Yancey in Christianity Today:

Several years ago a Muslim man said to me, "I find no guidance in the Qur'an on how Muslims should live as a minority in a society and no guidance in the New Testament on how Christians should live as a majority." He put his finger on a central difference between the two faiths. One, born at Pentecost, tends to thrive cross-culturally and even counterculturally, often coexisting with oppressive governments. The other, geographically anchored in Mecca, was founded simultaneously as a religion and a state. As a result, in strict Muslim countries, religion, culture, and politics are unified. Whereas in the U.S. school boards debate the legality of one-minute nonsectarian prayers at football games, in Muslim countries commerce and transportation screech to a halt at the call to prayer five times a day. Many Muslims seek the official adoption of Shari'ah law, derived from sacred writings and similar to the all-encompassing code in the Pentateuch... Theocratic culture also opens up the potential for moral coercion-as Christians know from our own history. In Algeria, radical Islamists cut off the lips and noses of Muslims who smoke and drink alcohol. In some Muslim countries, the morals police publicly beat women who dare to ride in a taxi unaccompanied by their husbands, or who drive a car alone. Adultery or conversion to Christianity may warrant a death sentence... Hearing firsthand about Islamic culture increased my understanding, but it also made me nervous about my own society. The very things we resist in Islam, some Christians find tempting. We, too, seek political power and a legal code that reflects revealed morality. We, too, share a concern about raising our children in a climate of moral decadence. We, too, tend to see others (including Muslims) as a stereotyped community, rather than as individuals. Will we turn toward our own version of the harsh fundamentalism sweeping Islam today?

Via digg, from an article of the same title from BBCNews.com:

The Netherlands is the rich nation which does the most to improve lives in developing countries, a Center for Global Development (CGD) report says. The UK is 12th in the annual Commitment to Development Index of the world's 21 richest nations and Japan ranked last... The CGD's measures a broad number of factors for the index, rather than merely the amount of aid countries provide. It also examines several policy areas - such as trade investment migration and environment - while aid is measured not only in terms of quantity but as a share of its income and the quality of aid given... Meanwhile, despite the US giving the largest amount of aid that donation was the smallest in relation to the size of its economy.

From an AP story of the same title:

The minister of a church that dismissed a female Sunday School teacher after adopting what it called a literal interpretation of the Bible says a woman can perform any job _ outside of the church. The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on Aug. 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years. The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." The Rev. Timothy LaBouf, who also serves on the Watertown City Council, issued a statement saying his stance against women teaching men in Sunday school would not affect his decisions as a city leader in Watertown, where all five members of the council are men but the city manager who runs the city's day-to-day operations is a woman. "I believe that a woman can perform any job and fulfill any responsibility that she desires to" outside of the church, LaBouf wrote Saturday.

This, IMO, is a major weakness of the traditional view of "women's roles" commonly held by members of the church of Christ and others. The Rev. has spelled it out. Apparently, in his opinion, there are two distinct sets of rules governing how Christians should interact with one another: one set that governs "secular" or "outside the church" activities and another that governs "spiritual" or "inside the church" activities. This duality is not something that I see supported in scripture. If you hold the extremely restrictive view of the role of women (as, admittedly, you might reasonably do based on a certain interpretation of passages like the one quoted above..I don't pretend that the case is a slam dunk for either extreme), then IMO you must apply the same principle to other interactions between Christian men and women "outside the church" if you are to maintain consistency (as some do). On the other hand, if you are unwilling to apply those same principles "outside the church," maybe you should ask yourself why and re-examine your view of what should go on "inside the church." Or at least justify why Biblical principles regarding the role of women apply only "inside the church."

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will give $500 million over five years to the United Nations' Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (for example, see an article in the Toronto Star). In contrast, prominent evangelical James Dobson (among others) is erecting roadblocks in the path of the Global Fund because it relies on condoms rather than abstinence and faithfulness as the most pragmatic means to limit the spread of AIDS. Way to let your light shine, James! From a recent article in The Onion titled "U.S. Dedicates $64 Billion To Undermining Gates Foundation Efforts":

The Bush Administration unveiled a new $64 billion spending package Monday for a joint CIA-Pentagon program aimed at neutralizing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's global humanitarian network. "The fight against Gates will not be easy, will not be quick, and will not be without enormous cost," said Director Of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte of the new program, which calls for the creation of a new $20 billion counter-philanthropy unit aimed at punishing those countries that accept or use, directly or indirectly, any financial support from the Gates Foundation... "Our enemies want to eliminate disease in the Third World, which is exactly why we're creating a $900 million pro-AIDS campaign that makes the deadly disease available to millions of uneducated poor people," said CIA Africa specialist Alberto O'Hara, who briefed the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Monday. "We're also considering an $800 million food-interception initiative."

A quote on sectarianism by Robert Henry Boll (from Clarke's blog):

It has long seemed to the writer that many if not most doctrinal differences are caused by a partial apprehension of the truth, rather than from a wilful desire to depart from God's word. A man perceives some special point of the truth, and loyally contends for that. If then he closes his mind to further teaching, or even tries to nullify the Scriptures that seem to conflict with his limited view, he becomes a sectarian. But if he accepts all that God says, and seeks to take hold of all in growing apprehension, he realizes to that extent the privilege and doctrinal position of a simple Christian. This is a distinctive mark. -R.H. Boll, The Kingdom of God.