What Threatens Peace: A Mountain of Hate or A Few Nasty Words?

From Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com

What Threatens Peace: A Mountain of Hate or A Few Nasty Words?
Posted: 30 Aug 2010 09:05 AM PDT
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By Barry Rubin

About twenty-five years ago I had my great success in affecting mass media coverage of the Middle East in one newspaper for one day. I had been complaining to a New York Times correspondent, who was briefly covering the Middle East beat, about the incitement, hatred, and extremism that appeared daily in the Arabic media was never mentioned in its Western counterpart.

To his credit, he came over to my office. I took a big desk and spread over it a couple of dozen issues of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), a publication with which, in those pre-paperless days, I had filled whole bookcases. If you’ve never heard of FBIS it was a daily publication from the U.S. Department of Commerce that came out in different colored editions for each region of the world. All it did was translate radio and television programs along with some important speeches. Using or not using FBIS, for me, marked the difference between a serious researcher and a dilettante.

One after the other I showed him examples of the lies, the hatred, the calls for Israel’s destruction, the screams for blood and murder, the slanders against America that appeared in the most prestigious and widely circulated and official of Arabic-language publications. Impressed, he actually wrote an article on it that appeared on the front page.

That happened once. And this was in the days when journalistic standards meant something and newspapers actually focused on publishing the news rather than ideological guidance to direct people toward believing the proper things.

Day after day throughout the Arabic-speaking world, Iran, Pakistan, and beyond, in schools and mosques, in the speeches of leaders and oppositionists, in mass media, hatred of Jews and Christians, of the West and America, rises into the air. This structural hatred has consequences. The best single sentence I’ve heard on this comes from a Saudi woman who wrote that what the big Usama bin Ladin did, the little Usama bin Ladin learned in the Saudi schools.

This massive system of hatred and extremism—known to everyone who lives in the Middle East—is largely kept hidden from the West. Why?

One reason is fear of the Islamists. In editing the two-volume Guide to Islamist Movements–a study of Islamist movements, leaders, ideas, and activities in 55 countries—I often met with the refusal of scholars to write chapters due to fear. In one case, I appealed to a professor in a small European country that he was merely being asked to write an objective scholarly overview, not to take any political positions or make any recommendations. He responded: “The local Islamists don’t look at things that way.”

Another reason is fear of their colleagues. To report on the hatred of others leads to accusations of being oneself a hater.

These are, of course, two major reasons why the Western media and politicians so downplay the issue of incitement and extremism among Muslims. But there is one more: the belief that their own people are so stupid and bigoted that they will respond to being told the truth by massive anti-Muslim pogroms. These elites believe that a public that accepts without murmur the construction of thousands of mosques is horribly intolerant because it objects to one being built at the site of the World Trade Center attack by a radical group with shadowy financing.

We don’t have reliable studies of what goes on in North American mosques because academics and journalists won’t do much beyond repeating what Muslim groups say. But we do know from infiltrators (sometimes with video tapes) or moderate Muslims that the incidence of radicalism and antisemitism among imams and activists is high. Recently, an outspoken moderate Muslim told me that he was unwelcome in all of his cities mosques. Asked to name mosques dominated by a moderate viewpoint, he could only come up with one, in a city hundreds of miles away from him.

A few years ago, I was at a secret conference on a tiny Mediterranean island. When I brought up the issue of incitement to murder Israelis in a conference, a high-ranking Palestinian (today a member of the Palestinian Authority cabinet) made a speech about how incitement was a terrible problem on both sides (not true, of course) and how he proposed a joint commission to investigate this issue. The audience applauded.

Immediately afterward, without illusions but because it seemed a neat thing to do, I went up to him and proposed that he and I form such a commission. He laughed in my face. Of course, there was not the slightest interest in doing so.

There is remarkably little hatred and bigotry in Israeli society. Of course, one can find it without doubt, but given what this country has been through it is, I repeat, remarkably small. It is not sanctioned in the mass media or the schools or in the overwhelmingly vast majority of religious institutions.

This brings us to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. A few days ago, in a sermon, Yosef reportedly said that Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas, “and all these evil people should perish from this world….God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians.”

This statement instantly became a global story. It will no doubt be used to delegitimize Israel. Yosef’s statement was also quickly condemned by the U.S. State Department in words that invite derision: “These remarks are not only deeply offensive, but incitement such as this hurts the cause of peace.”

Of course, Yosef’s statement should be condemned and no one in Israel will do anything other than condemn it. Yet as a left-of-center Israeli intellectual once put it, we have our Kahanes–referring to the extremist hater Meir Kahane–but most of the other side’s leaders are Kahanes.
What Yosef uttered, however, is a curse, not a political program. It is a call for the divine being to act, not for humans to commit terrorism. No one will praise what he said; no one will take up this as instructions to carry out violence. Ten years ago, in the midst of a massive wave of terrorism, Yosef made a parallel statement.

It is worth mentioning, which the news reports didn’t, that Yosef is currently 90 years old. The progress of senility has been clear for him during the last decade. His role in Israel has been a fascinating one. He led Sephardic Jewry to demand religious equality. He practically created a whole new Sephardic system of worship and worldview. Sadly and ironically, it imitated the more rigid Ashkenazic Haredim (European-origin Orthodox) rather than the traditionally more flexible Sephardic religious style.

Yosef also created Shas, a party which might be best thought of as a patronage group for the poorest and mainly Moroccan-origin Sephardim. Think of it as being like an old, corrupt Democratic big-city machine that provides goods and services for its constituents in return for their votes and a cut of the money. By putting them into a very bad educational system which downplays worldly skills in favor of religious ones, Shas is not doing its followers a big favor.

But Shas cannot be classified as much of the Western media portrays it, as merely a “right-wing” party. During the 1990s’ peace process, for example, Shas and Yosef advocated trading territory for peace on the religious basis of saving lives. Even now, the Shas position, for example, is that buildings should only be constructed in the limited number of settlements just across the pre-1967 border that Israel wants to claim. The party is thus supporting turning over the vast majority of the West Bank to a Palestinian state, presuming (which is doubtful) that the PA ever make Israel a good and serious offer in exchange.

What makes Crowley’s statement a joke, of course, is that the U.S. government ignores the avalanche, tsunami, tidal wave, or whatever weather-related metaphor you want, of hatred, incitement to murder, delegitimization with an aim toward genocide, and actual terrorist violence that daily spews out against Israel, and also against America itself and the Western world.

During the dozen years since the signing of the Israel-PLO agreement in 1993, it is virtually impossible to find a single–and I do mean, even just one–statement in Arabic by a PA, PLO, or Fatah leader (don’t even mention Hamas) calling for peace, recognition, conciliation, or empathy wit Israel. In contrast, there are thousands of statements rejecting Israel’s existence, calling for armed struggle, urging children to become terrorists, insisting that one day the Palestinians will achieve total victory and eradicate Israel, and demonizing Israelis. Here’s just one rather typical example.

Consider the above paragraph. That is not a statement of my politics but of unfortunate facts. And notice I said Arabic directed to their own people, not English directed to the Western suckers.

These words and the organizing efforts designed to implement them have immense consequences. They explain why millions of Muslims take such extreme stances in supporting revolutionary Islamism. They explain September 11 and the London subway bombing; thousands of acts of terrorism; the PA’s political inability and refusal to make peace; the transformation of the Gaza Strip into a mini-state with a genocidal agenda; the seizure of Lebanon by Islamist forces that will once again carry that country into war; and the horrors in Iraq; and the expansion of Iranian influence; and the driving of Christians out of Iraq and Gaza; and the murder of tens of thousands of Muslims by radical Islamists in Algeria and elsewhere; and the decapitation of Buddhist peasants in southern Thailand, and the murder of Christians in the Philippines, Nigeria, and Indonesia; and far more.

All of these things hurt the cause of peace–Let me put it plainly: They make peace impossible–but are not fully taken into account by Western policy or spoken of in the universities because their power requires real courage to do so. Yet it is precisely because of their power and thus the threat they pose that they must be exposed and fought against.

Abraham talked the divine being into sparing Sodom and Gomorrah if only he could find ten righteous people there. Today, Israel and Western societies are condemned as evil when one finds only a handful of non-righteous there. What of the societies where there are millions of bigots and haters calling for blood and murder? Millions who, by current Western definitions, are racists? That is the difference between individual evil, which will never vanish from this earth, and structurally approved evil maintained by political and ideological systems that must be changed.

What we need to do is to proclaim that all men are created equal but that some societies and world views are proven to be more stable, free, materially successful , and all-around preferable to others. True, one attribute of such societies is that they have a much higher level of tolerance toward others. But if that’s so then it is clear that these societies–even if marching under the banners of preserving multiculturalism and Political Correcntess!–must combat the threat from those states, movements, and ideologies that extoll the destruction of liberty, preach intolerance, and are full of violently implemented hatred and lies.

PS: In response to readers’ requests for the reasons why such “double standards” are so prevelant, here’s a brief summary in no particular order:

a. Fear of Islamist violence;
b. Fear of colleagues’ or the elite’s ridicule as being racist, Islamophobic, etc, with a negative effect on their career and reputation. They can thus shiver with fright (this also applies to point a) but portray themselves as courageous simultaneously;
c. Hope for profit (financial, electoral);
d. Belief that national interests are best met by flattering those who might otherwise (that’s the theory any way) enemies who will then become friends or at least not attack them;
e. Fear of their own people who they think are bigoted yahoos who if not held back would massacre all the Muslims around. Thus, the crazed racists must be lied to in order to soothe them into unconsciousness.
f. Dislike of their own societies and systems which they view them as inferior to those of others. this includes an element of romanticism and masochism. A belief that attacking your own people, nation, religion, system is noble but to do so to any other is an unforgiveable sin.
g. Hope (wrong) that if they feed the Islamists other victims (Israel, Lebanon) that will satisfy the appetite for conquest.
h. The following definition of racism: If you criticize anyone of any other nationality for any reason whatsoever, that makes you a racist.
i. The following definition of Islamophobia: If you criticize anyone who is a Muslim or any Muslim belief or action this makes you a dreadful bigot.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.

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An Amazing Look Into the Past

From Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com

An Amazing Look Into the Past
Posted: 29 Aug 2010 08:49 AM PDT
By Barry Rubin

Although this is a bit outside what I usually discuss (but I have an excuse coming up in a moment), I recommend to you some truly remarkable pictures of the Russian empire, taken a century ago.

Here’s my excuse: A number of them are in the Caucasus and Central Asia which can be regarded as part of the Greater Middle East.

I hate it when people recommend photos or You-Tube items or jokes to me that turn out to be a waste of time, or that take my time from something else I’d rather do. This, however, is different.

For what makes these photos—excellent in their own right—totally amazing and unique is that they are in color. Not colorized, color. The photographer, operating before the Russian Revolution, figured out a clever way to create color photographs a half-century before these became common.

Given their clarity, they show how closely people and places of a century ago resemble those of today or, to put it another way, it brings out the distinctions in dress, customs, and technology differ.

It also makes me wonder about an alternative history: Suppose the Russian Revolution, or at least the Communist part of it, had never happened? Would the world, and certainly those places that became part of the Soviet empire, be better off?

To begin with, there would never have been any Nazi imitators of Bolshevism—I’m not saying they were the same but the fascists did see Communism as both inspiration and an enemy that required extreme measures to combat—World War Two, Holocaust, or Cold War, among other things.

And this made me wonder about today’s “wonderful” schemes for fundamentally transforming Western democracies or imposing revolutionary Islamist regimes in the Middle East that are bringing so much waste, suffering, and roadblocks to true progress.

It is not enough to talk about helping the poor and downtrodden or saving the earth or fostering diversity or all those other slogans. The policies, ideas, and programs proposed must actually work in making the world a better place. All too often they don’t do so, but rather make things worse and leave large blood stains behind.

The problem with using historical analogies is that only so many people understand them. Let me give you an example, here’s a passage from the incomparable Shai Agnon about pre-World War One Austria-Hungary. That country was the very model of a diverse, multicultural country, with extensive autonomy for Hungary and a lot of freedom for all the different peoples therein:

“And so, Isaac sits [in a train] and rides through the realm of Austria, that same Austria that rules over eighteen states, and twelve nations are subject to it. One and the same law for the Jews and for the people of the land, their well-being is our well-being, for the Emperor is a Gracious King, he protects all who take shelter with him….Her earth is lush and fertile and the produce of er land is greater than the need of her inhabitants….”

But Agnon, writing thirty years later, during World War Two no less, knows what happened: quarrels among these diverse people plus the defeat in World War One, tore the country apart in strife. The same happened with another multicultural empire called Russia, albeit that was far less tolerant, dubbed the prison house of nations. On its ruin rose the Soviet Union, which claimed to be a paradise of plurality but was actually a Russian-dominated empire of persecution and oppression under the most enchanting slogans and carefully cultivated lies.

The post-1918 conclusion was that multiculturalism didn’t work but actually provoked conflict. The countries that flourished were those who promoted a democratic sense of national identity along with freedom, like the United States, Britain, and France. Teaching people that they are separate groups who are victims of the majority plants mutual hatred, consolidates separate identities, and ensures that many will seek revenge.

But enough about that. Meditate on these marvelous photographs and look deeply into the faces of these long-gone individuals and their societies. Here and here. [Go to Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com to view photographs.]

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A vicious man has no government of himself

Proverbs 25:28
28 He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.

Here is, 1. The good character of a wise and virtuous man implied. He is one that has rule over his own spirit; he maintains the government of himself, and of his own appetites and passions, and does not suffer them to rebel against reason and conscience. He has the rule of his own thoughts, his desires, his inclinations, his resentments, and keeps them all in good order.

2. The bad case of a vicious man, who has not this rule over his own spirit, who, when temptations to excess in eating or drinking are before him, has no government of himself, when he is provoked breaks out into exorbitant passions, such a one is like a city that is broken down and without walls. All that is good goes out, and forsakes him; all that is evil breaks in upon him. He lies exposed to all the temptations of Satan and becomes an easy prey to that enemy; he is also liable to many troubles and vexations; it is likewise as much a reproach to him as it is to a city to have its walls ruined, Neh. 1:3.
- Matthew Henry Commentary

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The excellence of Wisdom; The caution given is not to envy sinners

Proverbs 24:1
1 Be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them. 2 For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief.

Here, 1. The caution given is much the same with that which we had before (ch. 23:17), not to envy sinners, not to think them happy, nor to wish ourselves in their condition, though they prosper ever so much in this world, and are ever so merry and ever so secure. “Let not such a thought ever come into thy mind, O that I could shake off the restraints of religion and conscience, and take as great a liberty to indulge the sensual appetite, as I see such and such do! No; desire not to be with them, to do as they do and fare as they fare, and to cast in thy lot among them.”

2. Here is another reason given for this caution: “Be not envious against them, not only because their end will be had, but because their way is so, v. 2. Do not think with them, for their heart studies destruction to others, but it will prove destruction to themselves. Do not speak like them, for their lips talk of their mischief. All they say has an ill tendency, to dishonour God, reproach religion, or wrong their neighbour; but it will be mischief to themselves at last. It is therefore thy wisdom to have nothing to do with them. Nor hast thou any reason to look upon them with envy, but with pity rather, or a just indignation at their wicked practices.”
- Matthew Henry Commentary

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We are tempted to envy those that grow rich, and raise their estates and families, by such unjust courses as our consciences will by no means suffer us to use

Proverbs 24:3-5
3 Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: 4 And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches. 5 A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength. 6 For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety.

We are tempted to envy those that grow rich, and raise their estates and families, by such unjust courses as our consciences will by no means suffer us to use. But, to set aside that temptation, Solomon here shows that a man, with prudent management, may raise his estate and family by lawful and honest means, with a good conscience, and a good name, and the blessing of God upon his industry; and, if the other be raised a little sooner, yet these will last a great deal longer.

1. That which is here recommended to us as having the best influence upon our outward prosperity is wisdom, and understanding, and knowledge; that is, both piety towards God (for that is true wisdom) and prudence in the management of our outward affairs. We must govern ourselves in every thing by the rules of religion first and then of discretion. Some that are truly pious do not thrive in the world, for want of prudence; and some that are prudent enough, yet do not prosper, because they lean to their own understanding and do not acknowledge God in their ways; therefore both must go together to complete a wise man.

2. That which is here set before us as the advantage of true wisdom is that it will make men’s outward affairs prosperous and successful.

(1.) it will build a house and establish it, v. 3. Men may by unrighteous practices build their houses, but they cannot establish them, for the foundation is rotten (Hab. 2:9, 10); whereas what is honestly got will wear like steel and be an inheritance to children’s children.

(2.) It will enrich a house and furnish it, v. 4. Those that manage their affairs with wisdom and equity, that are diligent in the use of lawful means for increasing what they have that spare from luxury and spend in charity, are in a fair way to have their shops, their warehouses, their chambers, filled with all precious and pleasant riches–precious because got by honest labour, and the substance of a diligent man is precious–pleasant because enjoyed with holy cheerfulness. Some think this is to be understood chiefly of spiritual riches. By knowledge the chambers of the soul are filled with the graces and comforts of the Spirit, those precious and pleasant riches; for the Spirit, by enlightening the understanding, performs all his other operations on the soul.

(3.) It will fortify a house and turn it into a castle: Wisdom is better than weapons of war, offensive or defensive. A wise man is in strength, is in a strong-hold, yea, a man of knowledge strengthens might, that is, increases it, v. 5. As we grow in knowledge we grow in all grace, 2 Pet. 3:18. Those that increase in wisdom are strengthened with all might, Col. 1:9, 11. A wise man will compass that by his wisdom which a strong man cannot effect by force of arms. The spirit is strengthened both for the spiritual work and the spiritual warfare by true wisdom.

(4.) It will govern a house and a kingdom too, and the affairs of both, v. 6. Wisdom will erect a college, or council of state. Wisdom will be of use,

[1.] For the managing of the public quarrels, so as not to engage in them but for an honest cause and with some probability of success, and, when they are engaged in, to manage them well, and so as to make either an advantageous peace or an honourable retreat: By wise counsel thou shalt make war, which is a thing that may prove of ill consequence if not done by wise counsel.

[2.] For the securing of the public peace: In the multitude of counsellors there is safety, for one may foresee the danger, and discern the advantages, which another cannot. In our spiritual conflicts we need wisdom, for our enemy is subtle.
- Matthew Henry Commentary

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A thorn in the flesh

2 Corinthians 12:7
Lest I should be exalted… there was given to me a thorn in the flesh.

‘And He said unto me…’ In our praying about our trial we have been so busy saying things to God that it may be we have not had time to listen to what He wants to say to us. And it may very well be that what He wants to say to us will be rather like what He said to Paul. He talked to Paul about purpose in his trial. We can gather this from the fact that Paul speaks twice of this purpose – ‘Lest I should be exalted above measure.’

Paul was out in his valuation of this thorn in the flesh: it seemed to him not only useless, but a positive hindrance; and here he discovers that it is intensely important and valuable as God sees it. As long as the pressure of the thorn persisted, Paul could never be a proud man.

As long as he was made aware and kept conscious of the old nature dwelling within, he could be none other than ‘the chief of sinners’. We may ask, Why was it necessary? Surely a man of Paul’s insight knew his own weakness – this man who could say, ‘In me… there dwelleth no good thing’: why this trial?

All I can say is that God must have known best what Paul needed, just as He knows best what you and I need. With such a man as Paul – I say it reverently – God could not afford to take any risks. God wanted to make it as sure as He could that Paul’s usefulness was not lost, and that he was kept for ever the humble, meek soul that God could beautify with His salvation and use in His service.

I cannot begin to think what may be God’s purpose in the trial He permits in your life. I believe He will tell you. It may be a purpose concerning you and your character; or it may be a purpose that God is interested in through you: but, child of God, there is a purpose behind the pressure. – George B. Duncan: The Discipline of Disappointment, 1948.
- Daily Thoughts From Keswick.

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Global currency around the corner?

From WND.Com

If the International Monetary Fund gets its way, the U.S. dollar will be replaced by the “bancor” as the world’s reserve currency. According to a report published April 13, the IMF would like to adopt a plan of action that would expand the use of SDRs (Special Drawing Rights) to replace the U.S. dollar as the storehouse of value and eventually create a global currency called the “bancor.”

“Bancor” is the name suggested by John Maynard Keynes, the British economist who headed the World Banking Commission that created the IMF during the Breton Woods negotiations, which preceded the United Nations.

The new global currency would be issued by a new global central bank that would have the authority to levy taxes for various infractions. The bank would have to be, according to the report writers, “accountable to member nations, but remain independent.” This statement sounds much like the defenders of the Federal Reserve, which was created by Congress and is supposed to be accountable to Congress, but refuses to allow Congress to audit its activities or even to answer congressional questions about to whom it lends U.S. dollars.

A global central bank has long been a goal of those who advocate global governance. America’s school system has failed to teach students about the century-long conflict between those who want a global governing authority and those who do not. Schools barely teach that Woodrow Wilson and his colleagues created the League of Nations, or why this institution failed. Schools never explain that many of the same people who promoted the League of Nations continued their efforts through non-government organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations until Franklin Roosevelt was elected president.

Schools do credit Roosevelt with helping to create the United Nations, but they never explain that Roosevelt brought into his administration dozens of people from the Council on Foreign Relations to draft his “New Deal,” as well as plans for the United Nations.

Schools do not teach that President Kennedy planned to turn over U.S. military power to the United Nations to give the emerging global government the power to enforce its policies. People who refuse to accept this statement are encouraged to read “Freedom from War: the United States Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World,” Department of State Publication 7277, released September 1961.

The people who believe the world should be governed by a global authority have been working toward this goal for more than a century. They are relentless; they are driven; they are convinced that they know best how people should live. They believe that all nations and all societies should be controlled by an elite, benevolent intelligentsia that can ensure social justice by enforcing what has now become known as sustainable development. These people are closer to achieving their goal than at any previous time in history.

Woodrow Wilson assumed his political power would be sufficient to impose the League of Nations. He underestimated the determination of freedom-lovers such as Henry Cabot Lodge and other senators who refused to ratify the treaty that created the League. Roosevelt assumed that the devastation of World War II would be sufficient to usher in the era of world government under the authority of the United Nations – and he was right, until political reality crushed his utopian socialist dream of a global community.

Kennedy’s 1961 plans for complete disarmament evaporated in 1962, when the USSR began building missile-launching sites in Cuba. It became abundantly clear that despite all the warm and fuzzy global-neighborhood talk, the Soviets fully intended to gain the military power to crush the United States. Fortunately, President Kennedy confronted Soviet military power with U.S. military power, and the Soviets backed down.

This historical fact is a powerful lesson that should teach current and future leaders that this nation cannot risk meeting military threats with anything less than superior military strength. Those who seek to dissolve threats with rhetoric and double-barrel teleprompters are a more dangerous threat to America than any external enemy.

Those who advocate global governance have changed their tactics, but not their goal. They have made great strides through a variety of treaties, and particularly through the implementation of Agenda 21 and the concept of sustainable development. The erosion of freedom that is inevitable under any system of global governance has been painted green, packaged in a bundle labeled “social justice” and sold to a generation of Americans eager to make the world a better place.

The global currency proposed by the IMF is just the latest step toward that ultimate utopian vision pursued for so long by so many. The freedom that powered America’s rise to greatness cannot exist in a system of global governance. Individual freedom, granted by the Creator and guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution is at best diminished by global governance, and at worst completely denied.

Global governance in any form must be rejected.
- Prophecy News Watch

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In New Orleans, Black Churches Face a Long, Slow Return

From NY Times.Com

Five minutes past 9:30 a.m. on a Sunday this month, which is to say five minutes past the time the worship service was supposed to start, Shantell Henley pushed open the front door of her pastor’s house in the Lower Ninth Ward. She entered the living room to find a gospel song playing on the stereo, two ceiling fans stirring the sticky air and 25 folding chairs for the congregants waiting empty.

“Am I late?” she asked the pastor, the Rev. Charles W. Duplessis.

“No,” he replied, smiling. “We’re Baptists.”

His joke, though, could not dispel the truth. The problem at Mount Nebo Bible Baptist Church had nothing to do with any Baptist indifference to punctuality and everything to do with Hurricane Katrina, even as its fifth anniversary on Aug. 29 approached.

Having lost his house and his church to the broken levees in the Lower Ninth, Mr. Duplessis had managed by grit and will and fathomless faith to reopen in early 2009, using his rebuilt home to replace the sanctuary he couldn’t afford to replace, the sanctuary that had stood in some grim coincidence on Flood Street.

He installed an electric piano and a computer with a projector. He collected several dozen copies of the Baptist Hymnal. He put out weekly editions of the church bulletin; he put up a lawn sign declaring, “Our Church Is Back!”

What was not back was the bulk of his congregation. Of the 120 members before Hurricane Katrina, only 40 had returned. The rest were still strewn across the map — Alabama, California, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas. And Mr. Duplessis could not in-gather the exiles, as the Bible commands, because most of the Lower Ninth remained a ruin of buckled roads, cracked foundations and swamp grass six feet high.

“It’s church — it’s serving the Lord,” Mr. Duplessis, 59, said in an interview in his house. “If I linger on what I don’t have, I can’t see what I do have.” He paused. “But I know this isn’t where God wants us to be.”

In his plight and his persistence, Mr. Duplessis represents the experience of churches, ministers and congregations throughout the Lower Ninth. While the fifth anniversary of Katrina offers much reason to celebrate New Orleans’s revival, this neighborhood that once thrived with a black working-class of homeowners and churchgoers continues to stand as a desolated disgrace.

As every level of government has failed to restore more than a fraction of former residents to habitable homes, the black churches have tried desperately to return through a combination of sacrifice, insurance and charity. And anyone with an even cursory understanding of African-American life knows that without vibrant churches, the Lower Ninth can never truly rise again.

Where about 75 churches operated before Katrina, barely a dozen have been able to reopen, according to the Rev. Willie Calhoun, a local minister who has closely tracked the process. Even among those churches that have rebuilt, what were once congregations of 150 to 200 now number in the dozens. The monthly intake of tithes and offerings, previously $20,000 or more, has fallen to the low thousands.

“You got those that are still struggling to come back,” said Mr. Calhoun, the assistant pastor of East Jerusalem Baptist Church, “and you got those that came back but the congregations are so small they’re struggling to keep their doors open. And without the churches, you got no community.”

East Jerusalem, for example, has only $55,000 of the $150,000 it needs to replace the church building that was destroyed when the floodwaters propelled a house into it. In an especially perverse touch, which several other congregations have faced, New Orleans officials are requiring the church to buy land for off-street parking, as if the pressing problem of the Lower Ninth is traffic gridlock.

“I remember that film — ‘build it and they will come,’ ” said the Rev. Hall Lanis Kelly Jr., 62, the pastor of East Jerusalem. “I believe in that. The Bible tells us, you plant the seed, God will do the watering. But we sure thought that in two, three years, we’d be back.”

The Rev. Michael Zacharie did get back, rebuilding Beulah Land Baptist Church for nearly $400,000 with a combination of savings, insurance money and a grant from Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian relief organization. On the Sunday in early 2009 when he rededicated the trim red-brick sanctuary, Mr. Zacharie preached to only 50 of the 400 pre-Katrina members. Etched in the church cornerstone were the names of four who had died in the flood.

“We were determined to come back so we could be the light shining in the darkness,” Mr. Zacharie, 54, said in a phone interview. “We want to be there for anyone that needs comfort, counseling, compassion.”

Such balm in Gilead has long been the mission of the Lower Ninth’s black churches. When Mr. Duplessis first inspected the wreckage of Mount Nebo’s building — pews tossed aside like toothpicks, chunks gone from the roof, the rear wall knocked loose — he also learned that several boats had been tied to the steeple. With 20 feet of water around, the second floor of Mount Nebo was, in more ways than one, a sanctuary.

And so he has persevered in his living room. On this particular Sunday, the faithful finally did arrive, a dozen by 10:15 a.m., nearly 25 by 10:35. Mr. Duplessis preached from the Book of Joshua, all about determination. He conducted a baby blessing. And he joined his people in singing lyrics that were almost unbearably freighted with double meaning:

“Storm clouds may rise

Strong winds may blow

But I’ll tell the world wherever I go

That I have found the Savior and he’s sweet, I know.”
- Prophecy News Watch

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Survey: 1 in 8 Americans Switched Out of Christianity

From Christian Post.Com

About one out of every eight adults is an “ex-Christian,” a new survey reveals.

These include those who left the Protestant or Catholic tradition that they were a part of as a child and who now report being atheist, agnostic or some other faith, according to the Barna Group.

Meanwhile, those who switched from a non-Christian faith or non-belief (from their childhood) to Christianity as an adult represent three percent of the American population.

Findings are based on telephone interviews derived from a random sample of 2,004 adults in the U.S. The interviews were conducted in the fall of 2008 and summer of 2009. Participants were asked to identify their childhood faith and their current faith allegiance.

A second survey asked respondents if they had ever “changed to a different faith or significantly changed their faith views” or if they were “the same faith today as they were as a child.”

According to the Christian research group, the most common reasons for leaving Christianity included life experiences, such as gaining new knowledge or education; feeling disillusioned with church and religion; feeling the church is hypocritical; having negative experiences in churches; being in disagreement with Christianity about specific issues such as homosexuality, abortion or birth control; feeling the church is too authoritarian; wanting to express their faith outside of church; and searching for a new faith or wanting to experience other religions.

The top motivations for becoming a Christian, meanwhile, were going through difficult life events; getting older and seeing life differently; wanting to connect with a church and grow spiritually; discovering Christ; or wanting to know what was in the Bible.

The median age at which respondents changed their faith was 22. Sixty-eight percent of respondents had a major faith change before the age of 30.

David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group and director of the research, emphasized the importance of “staying in tune with people’s questions and doubts.”

“Clergy are typically older than those going through significant questions about their faith and are less likely to have personally experienced a period of major faith re-orientation themselves,” he noted. “What’s more, not every person goes through a crisis of faith, so individuals who are going through spiritual transitions often go unnoticed.”

Overall, the Barna Group, based in Ventura, Calif. found that less than a quarter (23 percent) of respondents switched faith traditions – including those who switched between Catholicism and Protestantism but not including those who changed from one Protestant denomination to another.

Twelve percent of adults shifted affiliations within the Protestant tradition.

“The study underscores that the spiritual allegiances of childhood are remarkably sustainable in our society.” said Kinnaman. “The most common faith journey that people take is to form spiritual commitments as children and teenagers that typically last for the duration of their life.”
- Prophecy News Watch

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Survey: 2 in 3 Say Religion Losing Influence on American Life

From Christian Post.Com

Two-thirds of Americans (67 percent) currently say that religion is losing its influence on American life, up from 59 percent who said the same in July 2006, according to the latest national survey by the Pew Research Center.

And, as in the past, most of those who say that religion has less influence on American life see this development as a bad thing – 53 percent of the total public says it is a bad thing while just 10 percent see it as a good thing.

Meanwhile, when it comes to the involvement of churches and other houses of worship in political matters, Americans are more divided, with a narrow majority (52 percent) saying houses of worship should keep out of political matters.

Forty-three percent, meanwhile, say houses of worship should express their views on day-to-day social and political questions. But when it comes to endorsing specific candidates for public office, 70 percent of American surveyed said churches should not come out in favor of candidates during political elections while just a quarter (24 percent) supports such endorsements.

“More than half of every major religious group opposes such endorsements,” authors of the latest Pew study noted.

Pew’s latest study, based on a national sample of 3,003 adults living in the continental United States, was conducted in English and Spanish from July 21 to Aug. 5.

The survey covered a number of questions pertaining to religion and politics – the main topics being President Obama and Religion, Religion and the 2010 Elections, and Religion and Politics in general.

Though opinions regarding houses of worship and politics changed little since 2008, the percentages saying the Republican and Democratic parties are friendly to religion have declined over the past two years.

A plurality of the public (43 percent) sees the Republican Party as generally friendly toward religion while 26 percent say the Democratic Party is friendly toward religion. In 2008, a narrow majority of the public (52 percent) said the Republican Party was friendly to religion while 38 percent said the Democratic Party is friendly to religion.

Notably, there is no political or religious group in which a majority views the Democratic Party as friendly to religion. Even among Democrats themselves, just 42 percent say the party is friendly to religion, down slightly from last year (47 percent).

Another interesting finding of the study is that, while the public expressed reservations about churches’ involvement in politics, there was widespread agreement that politicians should be religious.

According to Pew, 61 percent say it is important that members of Congress have strong religious beliefs while just 34 percent disagree.
- Prophecy News Watch

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