New Quaker Notebook

Christian Peacemakers Fast, Wait For Meeting With President Bush

WASHINGTON - Members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) will hold a public fast and witness in Lafayette Park outside the White House beginning 9 am, January 6, as they wait for a meeting with President Bush. CPT confirmed on November 29, 2005 that the four human rights workers missing in Baghdad on November 26—Tom Fox, Norman Kember, Jim Loney, and Harmeet Singh Sooden—are associated with their organization. CPT has maintained a presence in Iraq since October 2002, working to expose detainee abuses and offer nonviolent alternatives to end the occupation and militarization of the country.

In a letter requesting a meeting with President Bush, CPT Co-Director Doug Pritchard wrote, "For the past three years CPT has had an almost continuous presence in Iraq. That presence has allowed us to work closely with Iraqis from varied perspectives. We wish to share those stories and words of wisdom as a support and encouragement to the wise decisions you need to make as the President of the United States of America." Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, who has served as a delegate to CPT's Baghdad project said, "January 6th is the church's celebration of the feast of Epiphany, when we remember the magi and the gifts they brought to Jesus and his church. As part of our celebration this year, we want to bring the wisdom of the East to Washington and share with the President what we have seen and heard. We bring our experiences as gifts that we hope can make for peace."

CPT will maintain a continuous presence outside the White House until noon on Sunday, January 9, or until a meeting with the President is granted. Participants in the "Follow the Light Epiphany Fast" will pray together on the hour and read statements from Iraqis who call for an end to the occupation of their country and request due process and humane treatment for all detainees. CPT Iraq Team member Cliff Kindy, who will participate in the fast, may be contacted via cell phone at 312-933-0546.

Getting carded at school again. A story at AlterNet today has Intelligent Design (ID) again being considered for inclusion in school classrooms—this time in Jewish schools, as part of the science curriculum at "a handful of schools in Miami, a city that has long been a stronghold of traditional Judaism."¹

I should point out that there was a broad science-based survey of the issues published in August 2004 in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. Stephen C. Meyer's long article, "Intelligent Design: The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories," is now available in its entirety as an HTML document at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Meyer argues that "no current materialistic theory of evolution can account for the origin of the information necessary to build novel animal forms" and "proposes intelligent design as an alternative explanation for the origin of biological information and the higher taxa."² The article is a good starting point for understanding the ID paradigm in biological science—and why Intelligent Design won't go away.

In praise of faithless politics. On Monday, NPR commentator Joseph Loconte contributed to the New York Times an op-ed piece in which he concludes:

"Democrats who want religious values to play a greater role in their party might take a cue from the human-rights agenda of religious conservatives. Evangelicals begin with the Bible's account of the God-given dignity of every person. And they've joined hands with liberal and secular groups to defend the rights of the vulnerable and oppressed, be it through prison programs for offenders and their families, laws against the trafficking of women and children, or an American-brokered peace plan for Sudan. In each case believers have applied their religious ideals with a strong dose of realism and generosity.

A completely secular public square is neither possible nor desirable; democracy needs the moral ballast of religion. But a partisan campaign to enlist the sacred is equally wrongheaded. When people of faith join political debates, they must welcome those democratic virtues that promote the common good: prudence, reason, compromise—and a realization that politics can't usher in the kingdom of heaven."¹

In getting to that conclusion he also takes shots at Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Rev Jim Wallis, and others who espouse a Christian faith-based angle on American politics and seek to "link faith with public policy." His concern, of course, is that Democrats now appear to be copying the Republican's playbook and passing the football of religious faith to the left, in a running game for a touchdown in the next election quarter. Alas, Loconte doesn't take his argument far enough.

I want to say that it's really a moral impossibility for a Christian to be a politician, or at least to be successful as one.² If we accept that a politician must make compromises in the political process, then in those decision-situations where Christian principles are in conflict with an otherwise prudent course of action, a politician who professes Christ as his savior cannot accept as a compromise any course of action which conflicts with Christian principles. The politician who does so either sins or betrays his faith community. A real theocracy does not need politicians.

This is perhaps why we are so easily outraged by so-called Christian politicians: if they seek no compromise on the basis of faith, they betray their duties as politicians; if they accept compromises which conflict with Christian principles, they betray us. Christians at least should always stand down and not run for any political office, for either they will be bad Christians or lousy politicians.

As for the "moral ballast of religion," the wrong ballast, or too much of it, can send any democracy to the bottom of the sea. Watch Afghanistan and Iraq as their new governments begin sinking. Or, for that matter, watch ours.

1. "Nearer, My God, to the G.O.P.," New York Times, January 2, 2006. His editorial is archived at Theocracy Watch.
2. In order to make that declaration, I assume two things: One, a politician is an official who practices politics, the art or science of governing in controlling the affairs of political entities such as villages, towns, cities, counties, states, and nations. Two, politics requires compromise.

What not in 2006. I expect that I won't be talking about the Busheviks anymore, at least not this year. Our president has at last revealed that he is a plain run-of-the-mill liar. I mean, surely we already know he's a liar, having been given much evidence for that judgment, at least enough for well-founded suspicion, but he's finally let it all out for us. In April 2004 he said:

"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires—a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."¹

So all the while he's telling us that his administration gets a court order before wiretapping, he's already ordered the NSA to wiretap US citizens without court authorization.² Isn't it a lie when someone affirms something they know to be false? Doesn't that make this president a liar? I expect that I won't be talking about the Busheviks anymore, at least not this year.

1. "President Bush: Information Sharing, Patriot Act Vital to Homeland Security," White House Press Release, April 20, 2004.
2. See President's Radio Address, December 17, 2005. While it's been reported that he authorized the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens in 2002, reauthorizing the program thirty times since that time, he says here that he gave the NSA the command "in the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation."