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Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC

Put on a happy ecumenical face (not)

From the USCCB website: Polish National Catholic-Roman Catholic Dialogue Explores Transfer of Clergy, Doctrinal Statement

WASHINGTON—”The Polish National Catholic (PNCC)-Roman Catholic Dialogue explored the transfer of clergy and a doctrinal statement at their fall meeting, that took place in Baltimore, November 6-7. Bishop Edward U. Kmiec of Buffalo and Bishop Anthony Mikovsky of the PNCC Central Diocese in Scranton, Pennsylvania, presided.

The meeting began with a progress report from the Roman Catholic members on a proposal to ask the Holy See if the PNCC could be considered to be in the same position as the Orthodox on two matters. First, PNCC faithful would be allowed to act as godparents at Roman Catholic baptisms in addition to a Roman Catholic. Second, mixed marriages performed in the PNCC without a dispensation from canonical form, even if not lawful, would be considered valid by the Roman Catholic Church. This proposal is under consideration by USCCB committees.

Dialogue members also discussed recommendations to both churches on how to handle cases of clergy transferring from one church to the other. A first draft of such recommendations that draws upon a parallel agreement that already exists in Germany was examined. The draft will be revised on the basis of the discussion and considered once again at the next meeting.

The dialogue also discussed at some length The Declaration of Scranton that was issued by the PNCC bishops last April 28. This text, which was to clarify the PNCC’s position on issues for groups that seek to come into full communion with the PNCC, raised questions for the Roman Catholics that were outlined by Msgr. John Strynkowski, Ph.D., a pastor from the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York. The Declaration highlighted divergences between the two churches regarding the teaching authority of the pope, and pointed to a need for further consideration by the dialogue of the Roman Catholic teachings about the Blessed Virgin Mary. The meeting concluded with a discussion of misunderstandings at the local level between the two churches and the best way to deal with them.

Members decided to meet once in 2009 in a longer session than usual, slated for September 28-30.

As such statements go, they attempt to put a happy face on a situation, a situation this writer opines, is going no where. A sure sign is the decrease in the frequency of these meetings.

The reality is that we, along with the Orthodox and Oriental Churches have a far different opinion on the Bishop of Rome, synodality, Roman pronouncements concerning Marian doctrine, (and you can throw in the filioque and the man-made discipline of celibacy for good measure). Once the downward spiral begins, occasioned by the intractable position of the Romans (positions they cannot abrogate without a redefinition of the role of the Bishop of Rome, denouncing that bishop’s full, immediate, and universal jurisdiction, and admitting an error in proclaiming the Marian doctrines that flowed from the “exercise” of said “authority”), then the issues, going beyond core issues, can be piled on as well.

Further, do we need to spend meeting time “discussing” Rome’s opinions on Marian doctrine or the Papacy? Does any Catholic Church need an explanation on this? Does Rome really think that it will win Churches over by demonstrating its arguments — arguments it has promulgated by itself. Does Rome expect anyone to sit there, listening to this, while wistfully gazing at them. We, in the PNCC, know scripture, and the Fathers, and the Councils. For the Roman Church it may make for a fun day of symposia, giving cover for travel, expense accounts, and meals with like minded gents in black suits, but otherwise it isn’t worth the trip. These doctrines are well known, written upon, theologized over, and discussed at ecumenical meetings ad nauseam. In business its called spending time spinning your wheels.

To be plain, the PNCC is the Church. It is Christ’s Church in the manner and style of our Savior who called His people to love one another. The commandment of love lives in the Church, is its teaching, and has Christ as its center. We cannot place our focus, our central focus, on a far off bishop. We cannot bifrucate our love, making love dependent on man-made laws and man-made discipline that bears no relationship to the furtherance of our climb up to Christ, that bears no resemblance to the humanity Christ came to save. Is unity in love to be based on glorification of one bishop over unity itself?

While we are obligated to pray to the Father, with our Lord and Savior, for the unity that seems to elude us, such prayer does not occasion a caving on core issues. If that were so we would not be Church, we would be politicians and businessmen. Prayer occasions action and that action includes our duty to speak truth to power. May God bless our witness, may He endow us with the gift of love.

Perspective

What happens when…

Mario’s children were cruel to Maciek’s children. They used to steal their property, and after leaving Maciek’s children penniless and broken, they would throw papers at them, condemning them to death.

Mario’s children thought they were very powerful of course. Mario’s far off uncle was a king you see. He had lands and money. He wrote tomes of laws and made grand declarations, requiring that people believe things no one had ever believed. Mario’s children liked that. They believed in their great uncle’s power, in his laws, and truly loved his declarations, especially when he made those declarations from his special chair.

Eventually Maciek’s children found a way to protect their property. They rejected the declarations of the far away uncle. He had no say over them. They had their own uncles. Even so, Mario’s children would still take occasion to beat Maciek’s children, call them cruel names, and spit at their houses. Those were bad times.

Many years passed and, eventually, Mario and Maciek realized that they had a greater responsibility. They had to meet, to talk, to work things out.

Maciek and Mario met, and began to discuss all they have in common. Things went swimmingly for a while. They talked, and found much to agree on. Each seemed to like the other. Each took a risk or two to accommodate the other. Marciek made dinner for Mario and Mario made dinner for Maciek. They ate from the same table. Maciek and Mario even wrote letters — telling all their children, relatives, and friends about their advances in trust and harmony. Mario even started to step-in when some of his unruly children beat-up on Maciek’s children. They seemed to like one another — this is going somewhere.

Maciek was wary, but happy and positive. He wanted to explore more areas of agreement and commonality. He thought — maybe — brotherhood and accord are not unreachable. Mario is trustworthy and open. He’s keeping his naughty children in line. Maybe we can go forward building trust upon trust. One day Maciek said, ‘Mario, let’s go further down this road. Let’s explore more of the things that bind us as brothers. Let’s make life better for our children.’

Mario suddenly stopped. He forgot the things he shared with Maciek. Mario sat there incredulous and said — ‘Look, I no longer wish to explore the things we share, or might share. Rather, I want to focus on me. I want to talk about Mario, and only about Mario. Let’s start.’

Christian Witness, Perspective, Poland - Polish - Polonia, ,

On Veterans Day (Rememberance Day)

A World War I veteran at work
(A World War I veteran at work)

Prayer of a Soldier in France
Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918),

My shoulders ache beneath my pack
(Lie easier, Cross, upon His back).
I march with feet that burn and smart
(Tread, Holy Feet, upon my heart).

Men shout at me who may not speak
(They scourged Thy back and smote Thy cheek).

I may not lift a hand to clear
My eyes of salty drops that sear.

(Then shall my fickle soul forget
Thy Agony of Bloody Sweat?)

My rifle hand is stiff and numb
(From Thy pierced palm red rivers come).

Lord, Thou didst suffer more for me
Than all the hosts of land and sea.

So let me render back again
This millionth of Thy gift. Amen.

Perspective, Political

Where prayer and politics meet

Prayer and politics meet in the intentions we put before God.

I have commented, over the past few months, on my views concerning bishops and clergy members who inject themselves into partisan political battles. That is not where the Church should be. Where we should be is in prayer, begging of God His beneficence toward our nation. We should be asking Him to inspire leaders to be like David – a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22).

There are many views on voting. I will vote (I haven’t missed an election since I was 18 years old, even school board elections). In N. Dan Smith’s reflection on the book Electing Not to Vote: Christian Reflections on Reasons for Not Voting he points to the fact that Christians may elect not to vote, but more importantly must move beyond “just voting” to real action in living the Gospel.

Whether you choose to vote or not, offer up a prayer today. Spend a few minutes placing yourself in the Lord’s presence and ask His mercy in sending us leaders who are after His own heart.

For your consideration I offer two texts from the Book of Common Prayer (1979):

Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers
and privileges: Guide the people of the United States
in the election of officials and representatives;
that, by faithful administration and wise laws, the rights of
all may be protected and our nation be enabled to fulfill
your purposes; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

…and

O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us,
in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront
one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work
together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.

Christian Witness, Perspective, Political

A Bishop speaks

From the Albany Times-Union an editorial by Bishop Paul Peter Jesep of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church Kyiv-Patriarchate:Please do not beleaguer me with all sorts of comments about Ukrainian politics and Canonical vs. non-Canonical Churches. I know the history here. What I am pointing to is this Bishop’s Christian witness. Real Christians accept differences

Efforts by Christian conservatives to discredit the Democratic presidential nominee highlight how they secularize the country. They attempt to influence an election with fear.

It is the misuse of something sacred that drives the spiritually hungry from God while making them jaded, critical and suspicious of faith. Ironically, those seeking God will be called anti-faith for challenging the improper behavior of not-so-loving Christians.

This letter is not an endorsement of Barack Obama. But it is an endorsement for Christian love and intellectual honesty. There are ways to respectfully disagree with Sen. Obama’s policies without trying to unleash the darker angels within voters. America is home to Christian denominations that dramatically differ from one another. Getting into a debate about who is the “real” Christian is divisive and smacks of hubris.

There is one fundamental bond that should keep God’s Christian children together as a family, though a dysfunctional one. Love God and one another as Jesus unconditionally loves us. No Christian conservatives must like Sen. Obama but they must love him as a brother equally cherished by the same creator.

The politicking of some Christian conservatives proves why a strong metaphorical wall to separate church and state must exist. It keeps politics from compromising the holy. At a time when faith is misused and criticized, the Christian Right shows why the wall must be higher.

Christian Witness, Fathers, Perspective, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia

In the Shadow of Steel Mills – Czerwony Maki (red poppies) and Remembrance

Chuck Konkel wrote a beautiful reflection on family, memory, nation, and the souls of our fathers in In the Shadow of Steel Mills.

I grew up in Hamilton Ontario in the mid 1950s, in the very shadows of steel mills that were still vital and a football team that still won games, the only son of a refugee family who didn’t own a car, nor a television, nor a cottage and whose idea of a vacation was a yearly trek to the Canadian National Exhibition in far distant Toronto and a day’s outing to the great and bustling metropolis of Buffalo.

The neighborhood was diverse and vibrant, ringing with the voices of immigrant families from the wasteland that was postwar Europe, Poles, Ukrainians, Italians, a rag tag bundle of hopes and dreams and frustrations who knew their place in the scheme of things, though they might bridle at it, for it was the Irish who were the Lords of the Manor having arrived a generation before. And Canadians who thought of themselves first and foremost of British stock and only with much prodding admitted that they too were once immigrants with the same insecurities finding themselves at the bottom of the social ladder in a stranger and daunting land.

My father worked the mills and cleaned the open hearth and toiled and sweated in the honest labour it took to put food on our table. My Dutch mother learned to make (kapusta) – cabbage in a barrel and (polskie ogórki) – Polish pickled cucumbers and (pączki) – Polish doughnuts. And every night, without fail, we ate hearty helpings of potatoes and red beets and (kaszanka) -black barley sausage and Polish pierogi. Every Sunday we dressed up in our best for church, a long, languorous service held in a language that I could never master (Latin).

I was an altar boy; it was a rite of passage for all Catholic boys at the time. That was just the way it was. There was no shortage of servers for weddings and funerals and at the three daily masses held in St Stanislaus, the Polish parish church, sandwiched between the Irish rigidity of St Anne’s and modernist cubist lines of the Italian St Anthony of Padua. At Christmas, St Stan’s held two midnight masses, one in the church proper and one in the very basement of the building, there were 40-50 altar boys at the High Mass and the church was full to overflowing.

The ushers and sacristans were veterans all, strong, spare men with florid faces and piercing eyes, brushed back straw coloured hair, booming voices and loud raucous laughs and brown pin striped suits. Men with unpronounceable surnames and remarkable personal histories, Tobruk, Monte Cassino, the Eastern Front, Fallaise, Arnhem, the crinkle blue skies over Europe and the turbulent oceans of the North Atlantic. And among them the remnants of the Home Army and the doomed Warsaw Uprising of 1944, heroes – gallant, brave and foolhardy as only a Pole in battle can be.

Such men could be meek as lambs during Mass, kneeling obediently as knights errant before a gilded altar that was the work of a previous generation of equally stolid Poles, as they listened intently to a sermon from a twinkle-eyed Franciscan who’d been a paratroop chaplain at Arnhem; a bridge too far on Poland’s bloodied road to true nationhood.

They were members of the Royal Canadian Legion, one and all, using the Legion Hall to keep alive, if for only a few precious hours a week, the comradeships they so cherished and the memories of the many friends they had lost in far off lands.

Yet if the Legion branch was the heart of the community …the church was its soul. Replete with chanted hymn, “Boże, coś Polskę” (God Save Poland), Byzantine gold, heavy incense and babcie (grandmas) sitting glowering in the first few pews as, with gnarled fingers, they click-beaded their rosaries and waited for the Black Madonna to free a Poland once more enslaved, this time under the Soviet boot.

…

Time has passed. It is November and a fitting time for reflection.

The veterans are almost all gone, the graves of southern Ontario holding the soul of a truly valiant Polish generation; a lilt sometimes holding in the wind like the “Hejnal” so played long ago by that lone trumpeter of Krakow, a whispered dream of wandering souls, a faint fleeting memory in a widow’s failing eye.

Perhaps they are all together about us, singing and laughing forever young in our renewed recollection of their glories. I like to think that and I also like to think that you and I, good readers, though proudly Canadian, do carry their torch.

I buried my father in his 89th year. It was a cold Canadian December day and the Legion provided and escort, frail old men they were with the fire dimming in their eyes. They played the Last Post and uttered the words that all veterans do at the graveside of a fallen comrade.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

And we answered solemnly: We will remember them!

Then, in the somber tradition of all Poles and dutiful sons from time immemorial, I retrieved some soil from the graveside to keep as a remembrance…

Eternal rest grant onto them O Lord and may the perpetual light shine upon them.
May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.

Wieczne odpoczynek racz mu dać Panie, a światłość wiekuista niechaj mu świeci.
Niech odpoczywa w pokoju, Amen.

Perspective, PNCC,

History of German parishes in the U.S.

Also from Miguel José Ernst-Sandoval at Philadelphia Roamin’ Catholic: The Decline of the German National Parish.

It is a testament to the multi-cultural history of these United States that there are national parishes in many of the American dioceses. National parishes serve the spiritual needs of any ethnic group not belonging to the local culture or speaking the local language. Of course there are many national parishes in Rome for the multitudes of pilgrims, but there is also a multitude of them in North America due to the many waves of immigrants that sailed to our shores. Wikipedia defines a national parish as such:

National parishes are Catholic parishes that serve particular ethnic communities. They are distinguished from the other type of parish, the territorial parish, which serve a geographic area of a diocese. National parishes have existed in North America since the late eighteenth century, when they were established to meet the needs of immigrants not speaking the language of the majority population. The first national parish was Holy Trinity German National Parish founded in 1788 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In the eastern United States the territorial parish is where the Irish-American, and the small number of English (or Anglo-) American, Catholics worship. In California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and Louisiana, the territorial parish is often Spanish-American, Mexican-American or French Cajun. The first national parish in the United States, however, served the many German immigrants coming to Pennsylvania…

Not to be confused with National Catholic parishes, i.e., PNCC parishes, the article presents an illustrated history of the parishes built by German Roman Catholics. It also provides a glimmer of hope for the future of these magnificent edifices in light of the proliferation of church closings.

As I noted on my post Reflections on national, cultural, and religious identity, Bishop Hodur taught that each person, nation, and culture has specific gifts and insights which add to the totality of the Christian experience. In part this article supports that, for instance in pointing to the contributions of German Catholics in the areas of music and architecture. This is not a bygone philosophy, but a philosophy that supports the gifts of God that exist within every person, nation, and culture. The National Catholic movement embraces that idea – in its democratic component, in its life. The Church supports each man and woman in expressing their gifts, supports each culture in offering its gifts – all for the building up of God’s Kingdom.

Those efforts, imperfect though they may be, look to the totality of the human experience and our encounter with Emmanuel, God with us.

Christian Witness, Current Events, Perspective, Political

For Bishops and Church leaders pushing Mr. McCain

Miguel José Ernst-Sandoval at Philadelphia Roamin’ Catholic quotes from an editorial by Chuck Baldwin (a presidential candidate for the Constitution Party) in Pro-which? An excerpted version follows:

Once again, “pro-life” Christians are doing back flips to try and justify their compromise of the life issue by trying to convince everyone (including themselves) that John McCain is truly pro-life. However, these same people know in their hearts that John McCain shares no fidelity to the life issue in any significant or meaningful way. Like many in the Republican Party, McCain’s commitment to life is about as deep as a mud puddle.

Dare I remind everyone that the “pro-life” GOP controlled the entire federal government from 2000 to 2006 and nothing was done to overturn Roe v. Wade or end legal abortion-on-demand? When George W. Bush took the oath of office in January of 2001, over one million innocent unborn babies were being murdered in the wombs of their mothers every year via legal abortions in this countryNot technically correct. The CDC’s Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2004, the latest volume published in November 2007, indicates that abortions have been steadily declining since 1990. A total of 839,226 “legal” abortions were performed in 2004 – horribly sinful, but accurate.. And when George W. Bush leaves office in January of 2009, over one million innocent unborn babies would still be murdered in the wombs of their mothers every year via legal abortions in this countryibid.. Eight years of a “pro-life” President and six years of the “pro-life” GOP in charge of the entire federal government and not one unborn baby’s life has been saved. Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land, and abortion-on-demand is still legal in America.

Had John McCain and his fellow Republicans truly wanted to end legal abortion, they could have passed Congressman Ron Paul’s Sanctity of Life Act. Year after year, Dr. Paul introduced this bill, and year after year, it sat and collected dust in the document room on Capitol Hill.

…

How can John McCain, and his fellow Republicans in Washington, D.C., look pro-life Christians and conservatives in the eye in 2008 and expect that we take them seriously when they say that they are “pro-life”? If the GOP had truly wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade and end legal abortion-on-demand, they could have already done it. They controlled the White House, the U.S. Senate, and the House of Representatives for six long years, for goodness sake. The reason they did not do it is because they did not want to do it. They merely want to use “pro-life” rhetoric as a campaign tool to dupe gullible Christian voters every election year. And the disgusting thing about it is–it works.

The vast majority of notable “pro-life” leaders in the country are now trumpeting the candidacy of John McCain…

John McCain openly embraces embryonic stem cell research. In 2000, he boldly said he did not favor the overturn of Roe v. Wade. John McCain was a member of the infamous “Gang of 14” senators from both parties whose purpose was to oppose pro-life, strict constructionist judges.

Speaking of judges, John McCain voted for the pro-abortion justice, Stephen Breyer, and the radical, pro-abortion, ACLU attorney, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. So much for the argument that we need John McCain for the sake of appointing conservative justices to the Supreme Court. For that matter, Republican appointments dominated the Court that gave us Roe v. Wade and the one that later gave us Doe v. Bolton. Proving, once again, that the Republican Party, as a whole, has no real commitment to the life issue.

John McCain also gave us McCain-Feingold. This is the law that keeps pro-life or pro-Second Amendment organizations from broadcasting ads that mention a candidate by name 30 days before a primary election or 60 days before a general election. This proves that John McCain believes neither in the right to life nor the right to keep and bear arms. (This is one reason why the Gun Owners of America gives McCain a grade of F.)

In a debate with George W. Bush in May of 2000, John McCain attacked Bush’s support for the pro-life plank in the Republican Party. Still today, John McCain believes that babies who are conceived via rape or incest should be murdered. I remind readers, however, that there are no “exceptions” in the womb, only babies.

If all of the above is not enough, as a senator, John McCain has repeatedly voted to fund pro-abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood with federal tax dollars. In fact, McCain has voted to use federal tax dollars to support abortion providers at home and overseas. Yes, this “pro-life” senator (along with “pro-life” President, George W. Bush) has significantly increased federal spending for abortion providers to levels eclipsing even the appropriations authorized by President Bill Clinton and his fellow Democrats.

…

Tell me again, Mr. Christian Leader, how “pro-life” John McCain is. What a joke!

Bishops and their clergy should make bold statements, about the Gospel. Preach and teach. Catechize. Do not embroil yourselves in earthly politics, but proclaim the heavenly kingdom. Learn from history. Tying oneself to the fortunes and foibles of political leaders is a sure road to hell. Tie yourself to humanity, to the salvation of souls, to lifting up the sinful… Instead of encouraging the vote, ask the faithful to spend that hour or two helping in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter. Heaven knows, those will proliferate as the global economy continues to sour. Get into gear and touch others with the love of Christ rather than the seeds of division.

For all the Roman Catholic bishops, priests, and Evangelical leaders out there making bold political statements, and a specific bishop doing radio ads discouraging votes for the other major party candidate, believers might as well put their feet up and stay home. You haven’t done the simplest research on these candidates, but selected one as “better” than the other? Really?!?

I previously pointed out Mr. McCain’s horrid track record on life issues. As the Young Fogey repeatedly points out – don’t get played. No one running is a champion of moral courage on life issues. They are simply using issues to corral votes. It really is about money and power for its own sake. If you are voting for a platform based on promises, or based on a bishop’s choice of candidate, as you can see from the editorial above, that and about $2 will get you a Starbucks – and you can enjoy that in less than 4 years.

Perspective, PNCC,

Reflections on national, cultural, and religious identity

Corwin Smidt, a college professor from Michigan, writes in Religion and Nationalism – a Reflection from Hungary:

When language, nationality, religion, and state are basically the embodiment of different facets of the same underlying sociological entity, it is difficult to discern just where culture, religion, nationalism, and loyalty to the state begin and end. This linkage of national identity, language, and religion has important consequences. Probably two of the most basic, and firmly rooted, identities that can be forged in human beings are one’s religious and national identities.

Sometimes, these identities begin to overlap to such an extent that the two become linked together—” making it is difficult to separate them without some serious, and concerted, effort to do so. This is particularly the case when, embedded in one’s particular culture, one seeks to discern just where one’s fundamental loyalties lay —” whether to one’s nation or to one’s religious faith. This is difficult enough in the American context, but when culture and language get added to the mix, it becomes even more difficult.

As he walks through different ecclesiastical models he ponders the intersection between culture, nationalism, and religion. In the Christian context that intersection can be problematic, as he points out, but it can also be fruitful.

I would love to see the professor do a comparative between his experiences and insights from Hungary and Bishop Hodur’s writing on this very subject.

In short, I think Bishop Hodur took a far more anthropological view of nations and religion, with nations as a tool in God’s hands. Each nation and culture has specific gifts and insights which add to the totality of Christian experience. Religion cannot espouse the dissolution of national and cultural boundaries as its goal — a sort of straw man argument for those who define everything in terms of separation, but must focus itself on the transcendent nature of God. God speaks to every nation and draws no distinction between Jew or Greek, slave or free (Galatians 3:28) — using each to declare His name (Acts 17:26-28).

And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation,
that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us,
for `In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your poets have said, `For we are indeed his offspring.’

Personally I understand it this way: Our gifts are particular. Our faith is transcendent. In Him we are all one body.

Current Events, Perspective, Political, ,

Does this scare anyone?

From Fox News (I know…): U.S. Army Says Blogging Site ‘Twitter’ Could Become Terrorist Tool. The emphasis is mine.

The U.S. Army is flagging the popular blogging service Twitter as a potential terrorist tool, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported Sunday.

A recently released report by the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion contains a chapter entitled “Potential for Terrorist Use of Twitter,” which expresses concern over the increasing use of Twitter by political and religious groups, the AFP reported.

“Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences,” according to the report.

“Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives,” the Army report said.

The blogging service and social networking site has previously sent out messages known as “tweets” faster than news organizations during such major news events as the July Los Angeles earthquake and the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.

“Terrorists could theoretically use Twitter social networking in the U.S. as an operation tool,” the Army report said.

Let’s analyze this. Twitter is a communication tool. Like any tool, it can be used by anyone. It’s sort of like water. Think about that. What if the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion had said something like this:

A recently released report by the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion contains a chapter entitled “Potential for Terrorist Use of Water,” which expresses concern over the increasing use of water by political and religious groups.

“Water has also become a tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others,” according to the report.

“Water is already used by some members “to further extremist ideologies and perspectives,” the Army report said.

Water has previously been used in blessings and baptisms – which are a form of indoctrination. It has also been used for drinking and washing during such major news events as the July Los Angeles earthquake and the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.

“Terrorists could theoretically use water as an operation tool,” the Army report said.

Twitter Anarchy

I think that a report (which we as taxpayers funded) highlighting things that are self evident can only have one purpose – to scare people. Do you see that dark skinned man with the fez Twittering there in the corner – I wonder what he’s up to…

What’s really disturbing is that the report makes a direct connection between religious groups and terrorism. Further, it bunches together all sorts of groups that might challenge conventional, government approved ideologies. It is an attempt to instill fear in anyone who might challenge the status-quo, who might be labeled as having extremist ideologies and perspectives (a hugely undefined category – the government can make it out to be whatever it chooses).

By definition we, as Christians, hold extremist views. The Gospel is not about the status-quo. It challenges us personally and as a society, and in its totality it demands justice. We cannot close our eyes to the sins of the world and act apart from the world. We must meet every sin, personal and societal, with a demand for repentance and reform.

I wonder — if someone is in a religious community that is vegetarian and supports human rights — will they be the first to be interred?

Maybe, just to be funny, we should all vote for one of those nondescript parties at the bottom of the ballot. Would that officially label us as extremists? In New York our choices include the Socialist Workers Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

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