A Reset
It is crazy that 2025 is here. Weren’t we just yesterday concerned with Y2K? Time flies when you’re watching the world burn. I don’t mean to sound excessively pessimistic. Personally, I cannot complain. I am doing better than I deserve, and that’s a fact. I, however, do not inhabit the world that so many unfortunate ones do. Gaza, Syria, Ukraine, large swaths of Africa, all give sad witness to humanity’s fallen status. This bloody list does not even cover the economic depredations that are the sine qua non of the ruling class. These are interlinked anyway, as the rip-off is what feeds the war machine.
Given this terrible, and terribly dangerous state of the world, I think a reset is in order. Toward that end I am refocusing believeandobey.net. I will still post commentary on the upcoming Gospel reading every Thursday. However, I will post less frequently about issues of the day than every week. The nearly exclusive focus of these posts will concern issues of war and peace. This will comprise two tracks; how war is being waged, and how we can build peace, and the Gospel case for the absolute peace Christ calls us toward. These are likely to appear at least once per month, and hopefully will be deeper and more thorough than my previous format.
There will be very little in the way of economic analysis or stewardship pieces, except as they impact the funding of the war machine.
It Must Start with Peace
The reason for this shift is that nothing else is as objectively important as waging peace. Whatever issue you may care about is rendered moot inside of 30-minutes, since that is the time it takes for ICBMs to find their targets. We cannot care for the least among us if they are at the bottom of a pile of rubble. The greatest failure of the followers of Jesus is that we ever allowed the hoary notion of war to ever be justified under the banner of the Cross. His was the way of absolute love, forgiveness and nonviolence. Since we have been eternally forgiven, and filled with the love of God, it is way past time we act like it. We have allowed the warmongers to coopt our movement since the time of Constantine. It is time to take our movement back, and to wage ceaseless peace in the name of the Prince of Peace. I will take aim at all who stand in favor of war, conquest, and empire, regardless of position or party. In this process I aim to misbehave and piss off as many of the War Pharisees as I possibly can. I may even step on some of your icons, and heroes. So be it. Given the example of a fully human life that Jesus modeled, how can I attempt anything less?
To briefly underline the point, my focus will be on US policy. First, God planted my ass here in the good ole US of A, so here, as a citizen, whatever impact I have will be greatest. Second, the greatest terrorist organization on the planet today is the Unted States government. So, like the thief Willie Sutton said when asked why he robbed banks, “that’s where the money is”, I will go where the blood flows. It flows from Washington DC. Pissed off yet?
It is to this cause that I will devote all my public ministry efforts. I do not wish to stand before God and say that I did anything less than the best that I could do to safeguard His Creation and all in it. We may fail. We may yet destroy all of Creation that God has given us in stewardship. However, if I am to go out in a mushroom cloud it will be with the Peace of Christ on my lips. That is my pledge before you the reader, and more importantly before God. Peace Now!
Praise Be to God
