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The past several days have entailed reading, some writing, going downtown, and picking up goods for our distribution during the time between Christmas and New Years. We had a wonderful group of congregation members for the Bread of Life downtown Tuesday. With the opening of the Winter Shelter downtown, the density of folk is less, and there is a more peaceful feel. A group of young people, for whom living on the streets is harder and rowdier and more violent than those who have lived there awhile, have taken up playing touch football in between the library and the post office at night. As they said, "It's better than fighting." I've gotten to know Billy who is the leader. I once broke up a fight after he had responded to racial slurs this fall -- and have a pair of tweezers in my office that he had used as a weapon. As Billy says, "I won't take no disrespect." I have told him that he doesn't need to, but that violence doesn't help. He has seemingly had enough of the racial bigotry faced by a 22 year old African-American male.

Today I picked up around 40 pumpkin pies from Vons Sweetwater -- it seems that they overproduced what the Christmas market would be! Last night I picked up the goods from Panera. It is interesting that what people pay exorbitant prices for has so little value to people when it is placed in a garbage back and then into an ethnically diverse, poorer area in the city. The people in Mid-City would much rather than the cheaper, mass-produced bread.

I just finished a piece that will go up on the Biologos forum -- an introduction to Conor Cunningham's Darwin's Pious Idea, a work that I have seen in process for over a year, but that finally made it out in December. The work is incredible. The goal is to publicize the work via Biologos, as well as give a wider audience the tools to understand and appreciate it. Conor has brought together the biological sciences with a philosophy of biology, with the philosophy of mind and then a phenomenology of consciousness. The result shows that by faith, evolutionary theory signs the Triune Creator God revealed in Jesus as witnessed to in the Scriptures. Quite remarkable. Of course I resent that Conor is still so young and so bright and so well-read and such a good person.

Yesterday I received 2 more seconds of my 15 minutes of fame -- I was quoted on the front page of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The San Diego Episcopal Diocese had evicted a congregation in Ocean Beach from their building after it had joined communion with an Argentinian bishop from the Anglican communion that had not defied the Lambeth communion agreements. It is ironic to read how the San Diego Episcopal bishop accused them of breaking communion after the US Epicopal church had defied a Lambeth agreement that they had signed merely a few years earlier.

Finally, I just finished a most wonderful book -- I'll probably comment on it later. The work is Timothy Stanley's Protestant Metaphysics after Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger. It shows the ontological significance of the early Luther to both Heidegger and Barth, but also how Heidegger's "post-metaphysical" move develops Luther's "concealed God" while skipping God's revelation in Jesus as the "revealed God." While Barth owns Luther's "concealed God," he does not take the negative theology except as a means to speak of the reveal God in Jesus -- and thus rebuilds a theological ontology based in Jesus Christ. This is important because many -- and many within the Nazarene academic community -- have conflated, with many, Barth with Heidegger as doing "theology without being." As I read the book, it seems to me to push in a similar direction as Ken Oakes did in his Aberdeen dissertation, which will hopefully soon come into publication schedule. Barth is being saved from a Kojeve/Hegelian me-ontology that has become a fashionable Derridean reading of him. What emerges is a Barth very close to Thomas and the pre-nominalist Augustinian tradition.

Posted by johnwright at 1:26 PM

The past several days have entailed reading, some writing, going downtown, and picking up goods for our distribution during the time between Christmas and New Years. We had a wonderful group of congregation members for the Bread of Life downtown Tuesday. With the opening of the Winter Shelter downtown, the density of folk is less, and there is a more peaceful feel. A group of young people, for whom living on the streets is harder and rowdier and more violent than those who have lived there awhile, have taken up playing touch football in between the library and the post office at night. As they said, "It's better than fighting." I've gotten to know Billy who is the leader. I once broke up a fight after he had responded to racial slurs this fall -- and have a pair of tweezers in my office that he had used as a weapon. As Billy says, "I won't take no disrespect." I have told him that he doesn't need to, but that violence doesn't help. He has seemingly had enough of the racial bigotry faced by a 22 year old African-American male.

Today I picked up around 40 pumpkin pies from Vons Sweetwater -- it seems that they overproduced what the Christmas market would be! Last night I picked up the goods from Panera. It is interesting that what people pay exorbitant prices for has so little value to people when it is placed in a garbage back and then into an ethnically diverse, poorer area in the city. The people in Mid-City would much rather than the cheaper, mass-produced bread.

I just finished a piece that will go up on the Biologos forum -- an introduction to Conor Cunningham's Darwin's Pious Idea, a work that I have seen in process for over a year, but that finally made it out in December. The work is incredible. The goal is to publicize the work via Biologos, as well as give a wider audience the tools to understand and appreciate it. Conor has brought together the biological sciences with a philosophy of biology, with the philosophy of mind and then a phenomenology of consciousness. The result shows that by faith, evolutionary theory signs the Triune Creator God revealed in Jesus as witnessed to in the Scriptures. Quite remarkable. Of course I resent that Conor is still so young and so bright and so well-read and such a good person.

Yesterday I received 2 more seconds of my 15 minutes of fame -- I was quoted on the front page of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The San Diego Episcopal Diocese had evicted a congregation in Ocean Beach from their building after it had joined communion with an Argentinian bishop from the Anglican communion that had not defied the Lambeth communion agreements. It is ironic to read how the San Diego Episcopal bishop accused them of breaking communion after the US Epicopal church had defied a Lambeth agreement that they had signed merely a few years earlier.

Finally, I just finished a most wonderful book -- I'll probably comment on it later. The work is Timothy Stanley's Protestant Metaphysics after Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger. It shows the ontological significance of the early Luther to both Heidegger and Barth, but also how Heidegger's "post-metaphysical" move develops Luther's "concealed God" while skipping God's revelation in Jesus as the "revealed God." While Barth owns Luther's "concealed God," he does not take the negative theology except as a means to speak of the reveal God in Jesus -- and thus rebuilds a theological ontology based in Jesus Christ. This is important because many -- and many within the Nazarene academic community -- have conflated, with many, Barth with Heidegger as doing "theology without being." As I read the book, it seems to me to push in a similar direction as Ken Oakes did in his Aberdeen dissertation, which will hopefully soon come into publication schedule. Barth is being saved from a Kojeve/Hegelian me-ontology that has become a fashionable Derridean reading of him. What emerges is a Barth very close to Thomas and the pre-nominalist Augustinian tradition.

Posted by johnwright at 1:26 PM

What better post-Christmas gift than a rant? I finished grading very late --0 2 o'clock in the afternoon on Christmas eve. The record rain of the past week in Southern California, much which missed us in San Diego, nonetheless rained havoc on those who live on the streets -- and to keep the building open for the shelter took much work. Soosan and Ken, Mike, Cody stepped up as much of those who care for our "pilgrimage way-station" had departed the area. Al and Johnny spent ours pumping water out of our basement -- at least Johnny bought a new wet-vac to help suck the water up as it seeped out from between the foundation and the wall. It probably is not a good thing to have now four different places where water seeps in when it rains between the floor and the wall. Also, we discovered one new leak in the ceiling of the main foyer to the main sanctuary -- nothing that a couple of big storage containers couldn't collect.

But that's not what I want to rant about. I want to rant against United States continued war in Afghanistan that has spread into Pakistan through the use of drones -- without any legal warrant. The United States continues to utilize its tax resources for non-defensive wars -- wars that do not even come close to even traditional Christian just war principles. The use of drones in Pakistan to kill/assassinate suggests to me that President Obama now occupies a place with many US presidents of being a war criminal. Even worse yesterday it is my understanding that he went to a church service in Hawaii, and was admitted to the Lord's Supper without requiring repentance and penance. It is interesting how the Christian left has become so silent about such things now that the political power has shifted to "their side" and how the United States war machine has lost the vocal support of the Christian right now that the "opposite team" owns the power. This fact shows the common presuppositions in the supposed opposite sides of the Christian right and left in the United States, and that both are more about "right" and "left" and political patronage to the governing powers in the United States than they are about being "Christian."

The whole issue came to me again today as I scanned, as I do daily, juancole.com. COle is obviously committed to the liberal political program of the Enlightenment. But he is a historian of the relationship between Egypt, Western Asia, and Europe in the modern era. He at least provides a stream of information from these areas that are not prone to the obvious distortions by the mainstream, conservative American corporate media -- media such as the New York Times and Rush Limbaugh.

Here is juan coles post for today. I hope that it is a fitting end to this rant.

Top Ten Myths about Afghanistan, 2010

Posted on 12/27/2010 by Juan

10. "There has been significant progress in tamping down the insurgency in Afghanistan."

* Fact: A recent National Intelligence Estimate by 16 intelligence agencies found no progress. It warned that large swathes of the country were at risk of falling to the Taliban and that they still had safe havens in Pakistan, with the Pakistani government complicit. The UN says there were over 6000 civilian casualties of war in Afghanistan in the first 10 months of 2010, a 20% increase over the same period in 2009. Also, 701 US and NATO troops have been killed this year, compared to 521 last year, a 25% increase. There were typically over 1000 insurgent attacks per month in Afghanistan this year, often twice as many per month as in 2009, recalling the guerrilla war in Iraq in 2005.

9. Afghans want the US and NATO troops to stay in their country because they feel protected by them.

* Fact: In a recent [pdf] poll, only 36% of Afghans said they were confident that US troops could provide security. Only 32% of Afghans now have a favorable view of the United States over-all.

Afghan poll Dec. 6, 2010

Dec. 6, 2010, ABC/BBC et al. poll of Afghans

8. The "surge" and precision air strikes are forcing the Taliban to the negotiating table.

* Fact: The only truly high-ranking Taliban leader thought to have engaged in parleys with the US, Mulla Omar's number 2, turns out to have been a fraud and a con man.

7. The US presence in Afghanistan is justified by the September 11 attacks.

* Fact: In Helmand and Qandahar Provinces, a poll found that 92% of male residents had never heard of 9/11.

6. Afghans still want US troops in their country, despite their discontents.

* Fact: one poll found that 55% of Afghans want the US out of their country. And, the percentage of Afghans who support Taliban attacks on NATO has grown from 9% in 2009 to 27% this year!

5. The presidential elections of 2009 and the recent parliamentary elections were credible and added to the legitimacy of Afghanistan's government.

* Fact: Karzai stole his presidential election and the parliamentary elections were riddled with fraud. One fourth of the votes for parliament this fall had to be thrown out because of suspected ballot fraud, and 10 percent of victors were unseated for serious irregularities.

4. President Hamid Karzai is "a key ally" of the United States.

* Fact: Karzai has repeatedly threatened to join the Taliban. He has also admitted to being on a $2 million a year retainer from Iran. All he has to do is cozy up to North Korea for a trifecta!

3. Shiite Iran is arming the hyper-Sunni, Shiite-hating Taliban in Afghanistan.

* Fact: Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates told Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini last February "that intelligence indicated there was little lethal material crossing the Afghanistan-Iran border." This according to a wikileaks cable.

2. Foreigners are responsible for much of Afghanistan's fabled corruption.

* The trail of big corruption usually leads back to people around President Karzai. Karzai insiders bankrupted a major Kabul bank with their shenanigans, forcing the government to bail it out. A significant portion of the $42 million in medicine given by the US for Afghan soldiers this year has disappeared and the Karzai-appointed official concerned has just been fired. US officials have alleged that Karzai's brother in Qandahar has run interference for illegal businesses and the drug trade.

1. The US is in Afghanistan to fight al-Qaeda.

* Fact: CIA director Leon Panetta admitted that there are only 50-100 al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan! The US is mainly fighting two former allies among the Mujahidin whom Ronald Reagan dubbed "freedom fighters" and the "equivalent of America's founding fathers:" Gulbaddin Hikmatyar and his Hizb-i Islami, and Jalaluddin Haqqani and his Haqqani Network. These two organizations, which received billions from the US congress to fight the Soviets in the 1980s, are more deadly and important now than the 'Old Taliban' of Mulla Omar. The point is that they are just manifestations of Pashtun Muslim nationalism, and not eternal enemies of the United States (being former allies and clients and all). Hikmatyar has roundly denounced al-Qaeda.

Posted by johnwright at 12:02 PM