Ain't Complicated

Potential implications in stories like this one interest me very much.

Ukrainians cast ballots for a new parliament, with Russia-friendly forces poised to make a strong comeback in the first electoral test for the nation’s bickering “orange revolution” leadership and its pro-Western drive.

Russia and the West, which wrangled over the bitterly contested 2004 campaign, are once again keenly watching the ballot in this strategic country.

While the Kremlin sees Ukraine as its historic backyard, the West has encouraged Yushchenko’s drive to enter its ranks, safe from an increasingly confident and authoritarian Moscow.

Ever since it happened, I’ve been suspicious of the Break-Up of the Soviet Union.

So events of the last year or so in particular have left me wondering if a leaner and meaner “upgrade” of the USSR is in the works.

Maybe I’m just being kooky. Or at least spooky.

Perhaps.

…if they weren’t being so diplomatic?

Iraq’s embassy to Canada lashed out at the Christian Peacemaker Teams Friday, calling them “phony pacifists” and “dupes” after the anti-war group responded to the rescue of three of its kidnapped activists by condemning the U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq.

In a statement obtained by the National Post, the Iraqi embassy called CPT “willfully ignorant” and “outrageous,” and accused the Chicago-based group of being on the side of anti-democratic forces in Iraq.

Just wondering.

🙂

Finally!

British-led forces rescued three Christian peace activists from captivity on Thursday after finding them tied up in a house in western Baghdad, two weeks after their American colleague was killed.

Thank God and everyone He used.

And may He continue to comfort the family and friends of the American killed.

Now…how will the “invaders” be bashed by CPT, I wonder.

UPDATE 1: This evening, around 6:10 Oregon time, I read the CPT statement, of which I include these three sentences:

Our hearts are filled with joy today as we heard that Harmeet Singh Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember have been freed safely in Baghdad.

We have been especially moved by the gracious outpouring of support from Muslim brothers and sisters in the Middle East, Europe, and North America.

We pray that Christians throughout the world will, in the same spirit, call for justice and for respect for the human rights of the thousands of Iraqis who are being detained illegally by the U.S. and British forces occupying Iraq.

freed safely — Freed by their abductors? Freed by allied forces? Granted, I used freed in my original headline, though I had “freed by allied forces” in mind. Perhaps CPT did also.

Muslim brothers and sisters — Huh? Are they putting Christianity and Islam in the same bucket?

detained illegally — by those Anglo occupying forces, of course.

Oh well.

Politics as usual.

UPDATE 2: Then I noticed their site had an addenda posted at 6:00 pm my time. (It’s presently 6:25 pm here in Oregon on Thursday, March 23.) Here are the first two paragraphs of the addenda:

We have been so overwhelmed and overjoyed to have Jim, Harmeet and Norman freed, that we have not adequately thanked the people involved with freeing them, nor remembered those still in captivity. So we offer these paragraphs as the first of several addenda:

We are grateful to the soldiers who risked their lives to free Jim, Norman and Harmeet. As peacemakers who hold firm to our commitment to nonviolence, we are also deeply grateful that they fired no shots to free our colleagues. We are thankful to all the people who gave of themselves sacrificially to free Jim, Norman, Harmeet and Tom over the last four months, and those supporters who prayed and wept for our brothers in captivity, for their loved ones and for us, their co-workers.

Stories like this one leave me bemused:

Children exposed to sex in TV programmes, films, magazines and music are more likely to engage in sexual activity than those who are not, according to research out today.

There is a direct relationship between the amount of sexual content a child sees and their level of sexual activity or their intentions to have sex in the future, the study found.

Such media also has at least an equal influence on sexual behaviour as religion or a child’s relationship with their parents and peers, the study said.

I suppose the marketers and advertisers out there are no more surprised than I.

Business puts information (marketing and advertising, you know) in front of people knowing that it will affect the behavior (desiring and acquiring, you know) of many.

So why should it even be a story that exposure to sex (as in marketing and advertising) affects the behavior (as in desiring and acquiring) of many?

Reuters reports:

The spiritual leader of the world’s Anglicans does not believe that creationism — the Bible-based account of the world’s origins — should be taught in schools.

Williams, head of a church which has no problem with the Darwinian theory of evolution, told the Guardian newspaper: “I think creationism is, in a sense, a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory, like other theories.”

Uhhhh, sir?

Do you mean only theories should be taught in school?

Here I thought facts, history, and reality were to be taught in schools.

There! I exposed my own quaintness!

Oh, for the record, here are two more paragraphs from the story:

Williams’ stance echoes the position of the Roman Catholic Church, the world’s largest single Christian denomination, which has weighed into the debate by praising a U.S. court decision that rejected the intelligent design theory as non-scientific.

Catholicism, which has never rejected evolution, teaches that God created the world and the natural laws by which life developed.

So where does your denomination/religion stand?

Where do you stand?

A Shi’ite man cuts his head with a sword during the Arbain mourning rite in the Iraqi holy city of Kerbala, March 20, 2006. (from Yahoo!)

…this:

An Afghan man who allegedly converted from Islam to Christianity is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death, a judge said Sunday.

The defendant, Abdul Rahman, was arrested last month after his family went to the police and accused him of becoming a Christian, Judge Ansarullah Mawlavezada told the Associated Press in an interview. Such a conversion would violate the country’s Islamic laws.

“We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law,” the judge said. “It is an attack on Islam. … The prosecutor is asking for the death penalty.”

Free elections. Democracy on the march. Etc.

Let this be a reminder to Christians to continue praying for fellow believers in Islamic countries, even Afghanistan and Iraq.

Let us remember that “democracy” and “liberation” in these countries does not automatically grant followers of Christ safety and freedom of expression.

HT: Joel Rosenberg