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Re: I have come not to bring peace, but a sword






Submitted by granttheking98 on 10 January, 2009 - 00:34.








Tom Wright offers an interesting proposal on the “sword” statement. Perhaps it needs to be viewed in light of its historicity, and the story of Israel. Those who followed Jesus would be vindicated as true Israel, the true people of God. Those who clung to the old way, of nationalistic zeal and the temple would indeed experience the “sword” of Gods judgement, carried out by the Romans in AD70.





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Re: I have come not to bring peace, but a sword




Submitted by Andrew on 10 January, 2009 - 16:20.





Exactly. That makes perfect historical and literary sense. Historical because that’s what happened. Literary because that’s how the language was used in the Old Testament, which is by a very long way the most relevant interpretive background for the Gospels.



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Why does the US number seem so high when the budget announced $517.9 for the Department of Defense?

Unfortunately, the budget numbers can be a bit confusing. For example, the Fiscal Year budget requests for US military spending do not include combat figures (which are supplemental requests that Congress approves separately). The budget for nuclear weapons falls under the Department of Energy, and for the 2009 request, was about $29 billion.

The cost of war (Iraq and Afghanistan) is estimated to be about $170 billion for the 2009 spending alone. Christopher Hellman and Travis Sharp also discuss the US fiscal year 2009 Pentagon spending request and note that “Congress has already approved nearly $700 billion in supplemental funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and an additional $126 billion in FY'08 war funding is still pending before the House and Senate.”

Furthermore, other costs such as care for vetarans, healthcare, military training/aid, secret operations, may fall under other departments or be counted separately.

Source: 43% Percent of Your 2007 Taxes Go to War, Friends Committee on National Legislation, February 14, 2008

Is "pacifist" a word that you use to describe yourself?

Hauerwas: I oftentimes say in public that I'm a pacifist, but I don't like the word for two reasons. One, it's just so passive, and I think Christian nonviolence is very active confrontation with violence. Second, I think the word pacifism sounds like you have a position that is somehow separate from your worship of the crucified Savior. Christian nonviolence is entailed in the very heart of what it means to worship a crucified God. So I don't like the idea that pacifism has some further implication for my belief in Jesus.

I often remind my right-to-life friends that Christians took their
children with them to martyrdom rather than have them raised pagan. Christians believe
there is much worth dying for. We do not believe that human life is an absolute good in
and of itself. Of course our desire to protect human life is part of our seeing each human
being as God's creature. But that does not mean that we believe that life is an overriding
good.

To say that life is an overriding good is to underwrite the modern sentimentality that
there is absolutely nothing in this world worth dying for. Christians know that
Christianity is simply extended training in dying early. That is what we have always been
about. Listen to the Gospel! I know that today we use the church primarily as a means of
safety, but life in the church actually involves extended training in learning to die
early.

For economic growth and almost all of the other indicators, the last 20 years [of the current form of globalization, from 1980 - 2000] have shown a very clear decline in progress as compared with the previous two decades [1960 - 1980]. For each indicator, countries were divided into five roughly equal groups, according to what level the countries had achieved by the start of the period (1960 or 1980). Among the findings:

• Growth: The fall in economic growth rates was most pronounced and across the board for all groups or countries.
• Life Expectancy: Progress in life expectancy was also reduced for 4 out of the 5 groups of countries, with the exception of the highest group (life expectancy 69-76 years).
• Infant and Child Mortality: Progress in reducing infant mortality was also considerably slower during the period of globalization (1980-1998) than over the previous two decades.
• Education and literacy: Progress in education also slowed during the period of globalization.^Source

Consider the global priorities in spending in 1998

And compare that to what was estimated as additional costs to achieve universal access to basic social services in all developing countries:

However, it appears that much of the poverty reduction in the last couple of decades almost exclusively comes from China:

• China’s poverty rate fell from 85% to 15.9%, or by over 600 million people
• China accounts for nearly all the world’s reduction in poverty
• Excluding China, poverty fell only by around 10%