Lynn Green

Category: Current Events

  • Paris shooting – Contrast of Kingdoms

    Paris shooting – Contrast of Kingdoms

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    By the time you read this, perhaps the two gunmen who killed so many of the staff of a satirical newspaper in Paris will have been captured or killed.  But as I write, they are believed to be in a building that is surrounded by police.

    Will this event serve to light the fire of anti-Muslim violence in Europe?  Will it increase the willingness of our nations to use their superior military power to punish Muslim nations?  Will tens of thousands more Muslims die or be deported or suffer from hatred  in their home towns?  If so, what will you think and feel about that?

    Wait a minute!  Don’t stop reading because you think I am just another misinformed person claiming that “Islam is a religion of peace”.  That statement has been made ad nauseam by many of our public figures, beginning with George Bush not long after 9/11.  Islam is not a religion of peace.  If judged by history, neither is Christianity (nor Buddhism nor Hinduism for that matter).  All religions have been co-opted into men’s violent ambitions.  Violent ambition has only been adequately remedied once—by God’s incarnation and surrender to death at the hands of violently ambitious men.  But it was followed by resurrection!

    Does that help make my position clearer?

    If you know any Muslims, whether in Muslim-majority nations or in “Christian/secular” nations you will know how frightened and discouraged the vast majority are.  They feel that their religion has been hijacked by a small percentage of their faith who are mostly angry young men.  What makes it all the worse is that they condemn the actions of the violent few, but no one is listening to them.  Our press continues to train the cameras on, and hold the microphones in front of, the violent minority.  To compound it further, some of our public figures have used the situation to make comments that increase fear and hatred and strengthen stereotypes.

    The consequences of this are potentially much more deadly than all the terrorist attacks put together.  The 20th Century was the most deadly in history and the majority of the premature, violent deaths were the consequence of “Christian” nations going to war against other “Christian” nations in Europe and then drawing the rest of the world into the disaster.  Our democratic nations can only go to war when most of the population is convinced that it is necessary.  When fear and hatred are cultivated sufficiently, war becomes the “will of the people”.  This cycle has happened again and again and the only people who “win” are the banks and bankers that fund our national debts.

    Just a few weeks before Christmas Marti and I were in a gathering in Jerusalem where Jewish and Arab follower of Jesus made a high-profile, public covenant to stand together in unity—come what may.  It was a very dangerous thing to do!  They were well aware that their commitment ran against the tone of the communities in which they live.  Most Arabs and Jews in the Middle East are ready and willing to go to war against the other, whom they see has implacable enemies.  But the Spirit of Jesus can change that hatred and fear, even when it seems too strong to be challenged.  I will write more about this later.

    In this past year, similar commitments have been made by Chinese and Japanese followers of Jesus and by a great number of other nationalities and ethnic groups that have been enemies for decades or centuries.

    As fear and hatred grow and the world seems to become darker, the Kingdom of Light is also growing.  It rarely gets the headlines, but the growth is steady and momentum is increasing.

    Recent events, with the Paris terror being the latest, will provoke our nations to restrict international movement.  Governmental authorities will tend to feel that they have a mandate to alleviate their citizens fears with tighter and more invasive controls. They may feel that they are ramping up for all-out war.  But Jesus told his followers to GO to all nations.  That means his followers from all nations going to all nations.  Closed borders, fear of others based upon nationality, religion or ethnicity has no place in the Kingdom of God.  As His followers, we really do possess the antidote to the current fear and hatred.

    Where is your citizenship?

  • Is the United States Tearing Itself Apart?

    Is the United States Tearing Itself Apart?

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

     

    I have heard a few people voice that opinion recently.  As for me, I am of two minds.  On the one hand, I am an American citizen and on the other, I am a British citizen who has been resident in England for over 40 years.  So, part of me is a patriotic, loyal American and another part has the perspective of one who is influenced by the British/European perspective.  Does that make me unusually objective?   Well, as you might imagine, I would like to think so.

    Over the past few weeks, the American media has been focussed on a few discouraging incidents—first there was the Ferguson shooting and then the “I can’t breathe” incident in New York.  Both of these served to magnify the racial and policing issues in the USA.  They were both tragic, but neither one represents a true picture of American race relations.  Americans of all races reacted with dismay, sympathy with the victims and their loved ones and a desire to know more about what really happened.

    But that is not what I want to comment on today.  Right now I am more concerned about the results of the Congressional Report on the CIA.  The the release of the report, and the global publicity surrounding it, has put American lives at risk.  The lives of those who might look like Americans and those from nations that are seen to be allied with America are also at risk.  So, my immediate concern was to warn those whom I know and who fall into those categories, to give serious consideration to their personal security and the safety of their families.  Let us hope and pray that the jihadist reaction will not be either widespread or effective.  (By the way, let us also pray for the reasonable and moderate Muslim leaders who are dismayed at the rise and prominence of violent jihadist movements and are working hard to defuse them.)

    So what should a “Resident Alien” think about these charges that the CIA used torture to obtain information from jihadist operatives they had captured?  Firstly, we will want to agree with CIA Director, John Brennan’s statement today, that he thinks some of the methods used for extracting information were “abhorrent”.  He acknowledged that these were used by agents who went beyond the authorized methods for interrogation. These include waterboarding and confinement in a coffin-like box.  Surely no-one can accept such abuses of fellow human beings.

    Then we want to be grateful for an open and reasonably transparent governmental system that scrutinizes the use of power, especially coercive or lethal power.  I have to admit that, in the wake of the first few newspaper articles about the Congressional Report, I was beginning to think that the CIA was “off the leash and running wild”.  But when I read the response by six former Directors and Deputy Directors, I was surprised to learn that there was considerable Congressional and Presidential oversight of the CIA with regular briefings to both branches of government and clear operational guidelines laid down by the elected officials.  So there should be.

    There is a bigger issue here for those of us who try to think and act consistently as Biblical Christians:  What do we think about the use of coercive and lethal force to combat evil?  And an obvious corollary  of that question, is there a place for a spy agency?  To be honest, I have gone back and forth over the years on that issue—sometimes I have leaned towards pacifism and at other times I have conceded that the use of such force is a necessary evil.  That is where I stand today.  I believe that, in the light of a world populated by sinful people, God has mandated government at its various levels to resist evil with force.  The first epistle from Peter makes an important statement in chapter two and verse 14 when he writes that the Head of State and his officials are “sent to punish those who do wrong…”

    But the use of force to corral evil is a tricky business.  Those who are forced to “toe the line” against their will, can never be fully trusted, so issues of lawlessness are not really resolved by force.  In addition, those who exercise the force to limit evil, are very often corrupted by the process—hence the policing problems we referred to briefly above and the atrocities a few years ago at the Abu Ghraib detention centre in Iraq where US troops used terribly degrading methods on prisoners.  Undoubtedly some CIA agents have become warped by the business with which they are engaged.

    However, my conclusion on this subject today is that the “sins” of the CIA area real and serious, but they have been used for party political purposes.  As the letter from former CIA officers says,   “The country and the CIA would have benefited from a more balanced study of these programs and a corresponding set of recommendations. The committee’s report is not that study. It offers not a single recommendation.”

    So as Americans abroad and the citizens of allied nations run for cover in the wake of this highly publicised report, let us hope that the political posturing will give way to healthy examination of the issues and greater adherence to the values that make a nation great.  There was an encouraging comment today and I close with that.

    ”David Petraeus , a retired Army general who served for more than a year as CIA director under Mr. Obama, said Thursday that, “If you want information from a detainee, you become his best friend, and that is what worked for us with our special operators as well as our conventional forces in both Iraq and in Afghanistan.””

    If this subject has grabbed your attention, you can read the entire letter from the former CIA officers at:  http://on.wsj.com/1wX7eHy  Details of the report released by Senator Feinstein will receive widespread report in the days to come.

  • An Open Letter to the Red Cross CEO: Bryan Barkley Dismissal / Traditional View on Marriage

    An Open Letter to the Red Cross CEO: Bryan Barkley Dismissal / Traditional View on Marriage

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

     

    A couple of months ago, a long-term Red Cross volunteer, Bryan Barkley was dismissed because of his traditional view about marriage and the inappropriate use of that term for same-sex relationships.  Since his dismissal, the Red Cross has received an outpouring of public disapproval of their action.  I thought it was important to add my voice, so the CEO in Britain received the following from me….

    Dear Mr. Adamson,

    Just a few short years ago there was no such thing as same-sex marriage.  Had polls been commissioned on the subject, the majority of people would have stated their belief that marriage was a solemn agreement between a man and a woman, or a covenant before God between a man and a woman.  In the past 5 years or so, there has been a high-profile, expensive media campaign to change public opinion and, failing that, to create the appearance of a change in public opinion to support “same-sex marriage”.  Having achieved, by undemocratic means, a change in the law, that campaign then transitioned into a campaign of intimidation towards anyone who believes otherwise.

    The Red Cross was founded as an organization with deeply held convictions.  Its foundations are firmly laid in Christian compassion and action.  As a leader of this movement you should not be “a reed swaying in the wind” (to borrow a phrase from Jesus), but one who holds firm to the values that made the Red Cross great. 

    It was only a few decades ago that any serious student of law and the history of law would have been sure that there was such a thing as Natural Law and all our civil laws were made in such a way as to harmonize with natural law—and that set of foundational beliefs was the underpinning of the Red Cross.  Now, the law professions have abandoned that idea in favour of the idea that law and social values are evolving and that law should only be a reflection of the values of society.  I am sure you can see that once such a change is accomplished, then all social and legal values can be manipulated by those with the power to shape public opinion—or in a more sinister tone, those who claim to have their fingers on the pulse of public values, whether they actually do or not.  We are a ship without a rudder.

    The Red Cross should not be blown about by the whims of public opinion or what is presented as public opinion.  Stick to the foundational values and the Red Cross can be great.  Abandon those values to the whim of public opinion and your useful days will be over.

    Yours Sincerely,

    C L Green

    (photo used with permission of Richard Hodgkiss)

  • Thoughts from a Resident Alien: Blog Intro

    Thoughts from a Resident Alien: Blog Intro

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

     

    Sometimes, I feel I don’t fit into this world and yet much of the time I feel I belong. Do you know what I mean?

    I am an Alien, in that I belong to a different Kingdom with different values with an emphasis on loving relationships, family life, honesty, diligence, reliability, consumer resistance, good stewardship, quiet reflection, a growing knowledge of the Bible… But I have no real interest in the lives of celebrities. I am often shocked at the callousness of people.  I am sick and tired of scams and frankly disillusioned with just about everything to do with politics. I am concerned about the absence of clear ethics as science and technology change our world at an unprecedented and ever-increasing pace. The love of money seems to drive everyone and everything and yet it is so shallow…

    I am a Resident, in that the whole world still belongs to the One I follow: I am at home in His creation with all its variety and magnificence; His ways still work even in this corrupt society; marriage and family are wonderful gifts that I enjoy to the full; smiles and kind greetings, even to strangers, are often returned with the same. I am constantly surprised at the creativity and explosion of knowledge that enrich my world. Most of all I live with the expectation that this world will be renewed and I will be renewed with it!

    I am one of the relatively few, in the history of life on this earth, who had the privilege to live in a social and physical environment that was virtually crime-free, economically prosperous and stable, with families that stayed together and a vast majority of people who agreed on what good character looked like. Everyone accepted that our sexuality was created for expression within a committed marriage and outside of that it was wrong. No one I knew took drugs and my friends and I grew up knowing nothing about that.  Undoubtedly some people drank too much, but that was behind closed doors and we were largely unaware of that too. Pornography was simply unavailable and no one thought about locking the doors to their houses or cars.

    Such was life in small-town, USA.   Of course, I was just a boy living an ordinary life like so many around me, unaware of my privilege.  That privilege undoubtedly sharpens my awareness of alienation today.  I know how good life can be, even in this imperfect age.    However, it does not just sharpen alienation, it also keeps alive in me a realistic hope that life can be better in this world.

    The Apostle Peter was the one who coined the title phrase for these thoughts.  He wrote to the “resident aliens” of the Roman Empire, first century Christians. The dominant society of Rome had many similarities to today and it is my persistent hope that followers of Jesus can and will think and behave much like believers of the first century. He wrote to them to strengthen them in spirit and in mind.  Perhaps a thought or a report here and there in this weblog might have the same effect.

    I have had another advantage:  for more than 45 years I have had roots in the United Kingdom, but have travelled the world living with, teaching and encouraging young believers in scores of nations. I have driven overland to Afghanistan twice, have organised and led a walk from Germany to Jerusalem, preached to large churches and outdoor crowds of up to 100,000, slept on church floors and in parking lots, led teams of as many as 150 through nations in the Middle East, hunted with a small remote tribe in the Amazon—quite a list, now that I think about it. All those experiences and many more have shaped a perspective that might be different than most others.

    My hopeful expectation for the thoughts, ideas and reports that follow is that they will encourage faith, provoke Christian thinking about important current events and issues and make discipleship possible and practical in our fast-paced and increasingly complex world.   With these lofty aspirations in mind, I hope website will also be enjoyable!