Iran

Over the past few days I have reading and following the events in Iran.  I am nowhere near any kind of expert and my thought probably include a good deal of baseless speculation.  However I have some thoughts on what is going on in Iran.  There certainly appear a lot of questions about the accuracy of the count but I do not know enough to claim fraud or a coup or anything else.

What is going on in Iran is not a blank slate that the U.S. can write its own wishes and desires on.  Mousavi, the reformist candidate, had the approval of the clerics who run Iran.  Many of those who are protesting look to be hoping that Mousavi can recapture the spirit of the revolution of 1979.  Mousavi supporters, in other words, are not agitating for Western style secular democracy but they demanding that Iran return, or perhaps newly embrace, a certain form of Islamic Republicanism.  Of course, the forces unleashed by these events might cause events to go further than Mousavi supporters ever imagined.

Since this a debate of the direction of Iran's particular version of Islamic Republicanism then the U.S. should stay out of these events as much as possible.  Over the past 60 years the U.S. and the U.K. have intervened in Iranian affairs.  The results have not been prodeuctive for eith side.  The U.S. endorsed a coup of a democratically elected governments and tolerated torture from the Shah's secret police.  History seems to indicate that the U.S. should stay out of Iranian affairs.  President Obama appears to get this and is acting in a wise manner, and I hope he continues to do so.

God's Inviolable Promises?

Liturgygeek subscribes to The Christian Century and the cover story deals with Israel's attachment to the land.  On the front cover is a quote from professor Gary Anderson which says "If the promises of God are inviolable then Israel's attachment to the land is underwritten by God's decree."  Professor Anderson then writes an article that about how an understanding of God's promise to Abraham helps us to understand Israel's claim to the land to the responsibilities based on that claim.  

I would like to take issue with Professor Anderson's assertion the God's promises are always inviolable.  I think one of the themes of the New Testament is that God is no longer willing or able to fulfill earlier promises.   Jesus, as God incarnate, dies at the hands of the Romans instead of establishing a new Davidic kingship.  This tension between what God said God would do and what Jesus was announcing that God is doing fills the New Testament.  God promised to rebuild the temple into a better temple than the original but the Temple of Jesus time was built by Herod and would be destroyed by the Romans.  The narrative tension of the Gospels is propelled by those who hear the voice of God anew in Jesus and those who still cling to the old promises.  The disciples often fall into the latter group and serve as a foil to Jesus.  

I think it would be more productive to instead of trying to fit the events of the Middle East into a pericope of ancient promises and instead try to hear what new things God is saying.  Instead of trying to base our understanding of today's events on what God said to Abraham, I thinkwe need to hear what God is saying through the Palestinian whose home is being invaded or to the Israeli whose lives in constant fear of rockets.

Just Wondering

Is there any functional difference between Hamas refusing to recognize Israel's right to exist and Israel's refusal to allow the Palestinians any sovereign control over Gaza?