Enclave Theology

Via Mike Bird:

By ‘enclave’ theology, I mean a theology based narrowly in a single tradition that seeks not to learn from other traditions and to enrich them, but instead to topple and defeat them, or at least to withstand them. Enclave theology is polemical theology even when it assumes an irenic facade. Its limited agenda makes it difficult for it to take other traditions seriously and deal with them fairly. Whether openly or secretly, it is not really interested in dialogue but in rectitude and hegemony…Because of its temptation to misrepresent or devalue traditions with which it disagrees, such theology is finally divisive and futile … Enclave theology makes itself look good, at least in its own eyes, by making others look bad. George Hunsinger (“The Eucharist and Ecumenism”, p. 1)

Sadly, I encounter these type of people way too often.

Debate in Australia between Richard Dawkins Vs. Cardinal George Pell

Fox news, the most biased news network EVER

Via Zwinglius Redivivus

Since his tragic death on February 26, Trayvon Martin — an unarmed 17-year-old African-American shot by “neighborhood watch volunteer” George Zimmerman — has become national news. Martin, a good student with no criminal record, was killed by Zimmerman on his way home from the 7-11. Zimmerman was carrying a 9 millimeter handgun. Martin was carrying a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea. (If you are unfamilar with the story, check out our primer on what everyone should know about Trayvon Martin.)
Martin has merited coverage by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and USA Today. The story has been covered by all three broadcast networks and extensively on cable. But there is one outlet that has barely mentioned Trayvon Martin — Fox News.
Here’s a breakdown of the coverage of Trayvon Martin on the three major cable networks from the day of his death through today at noon:

 Fox news, the worst news network ever!!

N. T. Wright on the Death Penalty

I've heard an interview in Issues Etc. Tim Goeglein, author of the book, “The Man in the Middle: An Inside Account of Faith and Politics in the George W. Bush Era”.

From the interview, I gather that the man wants to sell his book, which is ok. But while listening to him, I kept asking myself, how can he say he has been the most pro-life president if he started two wars, approved of rendition kidnappings, bombed thousands upon thousands of civilians in Afghanistan while searching for Osama Bin Laden, and left more dead in Irak than when Saddam Hussein was there. Either he was a very stupid person, along with his other White House staffers, who believed Malaki and all the others Iraki opposition members, or his god doesn't guide him, period.

I don't think Bush he was a pro-life president. How inconsistent, you defend life before you get out of womb, while you don't have any qualms with killing innocent people just to get one man. And like I said before, not killing 1 or 5 personas, but thousands. Americans have to go out of their national news to find out what really is happening, since the news networks, not only FOX, are so patriotic as to be objective in their news coverage.

But regarding the death penalty. I guess N. T. Wright is not well liked, because he tells it like it is. Americans have shown that they don't like to be lectured by anybody, even when they are totally wrong. The issue becomes worst when you see that even American Christians don't like to be told another view that does not go along with their view of American exceptionalism, which means that Americans along have the right to say what's good and right for the rest of humanity, due to their closeness to God. Although the USA is a very religious country, that doesn't make it faithfully christian. But when Americans hear such a thing, from an outsider like me, or an insider, they totally lose control, and tagged such people as "haters", and say that everybody else is just jealous of them. Well, I live in a country that has been voted as #1 so many times, that when they tell me that, it sounds totally senseless.

Here it's a short entry by N.T. Wright regarding the death penalty in the USA, and how people see that from the outside.

American Christians and the death penalty

You can’t reconcile being pro-life on abortion and pro-death on the death penalty. Almost all the early Christian Fathers were opposed to the death penalty, even though it was of course standard practice across the ancient world. As far as they were concerned, their stance went along with the traditional ancient Jewish and Christian belief in life as a gift from God, which is why (for instance) they refused to follow the ubiquitous pagan practice of ‘exposing’ baby girls (i.e. leaving them out for the wolves or for slave-traders to pick up).

Mind you, there is in my view just as illogical a position on the part of those who solidly oppose the death penalty but are very keen on the ‘right’ of a woman (or couple) to kill their conceived but not yet born child...

From where many of us in the UK sit, American politics is hopelessly polarized. All kinds of issues get bundled up into two great heaps. The rest of the world, today and across the centuries, simply doesn’t see things in this horribly oversimplified way...

While we’re about it, how many folk out there were deeply moved both by the reading of the 9/11 victim names and by the thought that if they’d read the names of Iraqi civilians killed by your country and mine over the last ten years we’d have been there for several days?

N.T. WRIGHT | SEP 15, 2011 10:29 AM

Luis A. Jovel

Deep within him Dick Cheney knows he is a war criminal

Former Vice President Dick Cheney's memoir, "In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir," is out Tuesday, and it's full of criticism and attacks on his Bush administration colleagues -- from describing Condoleezza Rice as "tearfully admitting" he was right on the war in Iraq to revealing private conversations with George W. Bush on the eve of the Iraq war.

He reserves much of his ire for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and now Powell and his longtime aide and chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, are attempting to set the record straight. In no uncertain terms. Cheney, Wilkerson told ABC News, "was president for all practical purposes for the first term of the Bush administration" and "fears being tried as a war criminal."

At least it shows that although he may be one of the nastiest individuals in the planet, he has a conscious, and it's telling him that he is no better than Bin Ladden, Gaddafi or Mubarak. There will be no true justice, until war criminals, they being either dictators or democratically elected, be brought to justice. Yes, just because they were elected, and served their term, does not excuse them of their crimes.

For my friends who may point out that I am anti-American, pay a look at who are saying this things. They are people that have served the United States more than my critics ever will in their life times.