an apology - and you know who you are

bruce and i enjoy many discussions about theology, faith and religion. he has not only taught me much about subject and offered me differing perspectives, he's helped me learn the right way from the wrong way to question, explore and at times, differ outright.

you and i also had many such discussions, only we didn't much enjoy them.

why? well... its my fault actually.

as a theology student with a VERY expensive education, i often replied to your honest and thoughtful questions and comments as though i was possessed of the wisdom of the ages. i regret that.

i regret not making it perfectly clear that when i brought up a point of theology, it was not to make you seem like an ignorant fool, but rather to try to unpack a lesson i'd learned in class and was struggling to get my head around. i wish i'd asked your opinion more, and listened harder.

i regret not making it clear that when i contradicted you, it wasn't actually me contradicting you; but rather me bringing up a point that stood alongside the one you were making, one that sometimes honestly stood in direct opposition to it.

i regret every time i said "oh, no, that's not right! martin luther says............" instead of "i hear what you are saying. do you know, i was just reading something martin luther had to say on the subject and was wondering how you felt about it"

i am sorry that would say things like "well, reformation theology has come to the conclusion that......." rather than "well, this is what i have been taught. what is your understanding?"

i regret that my enthusiasm for my subject allowed me to run roughshod over 47 years of hard-won experience of living a christian life; i am sorry that my passion came across as arrogance and judgementalism.

i am deeply grateful to bruce for helping me learn the finer points of managing the minefield of theological debate; and i am grateful for your patience at my clumsy attempts to balance passion, enthusiasm and education and exploration.

you are both amazing men. i am very lucky to love you both.

what's this thing called, love?

loving him is the easy bit. in fact, i can't help it. he is so smart, so insightful and so generous in sharing himself, his mind and his heart with me.

one of the conversations we have had recently is one i find myself still reflecting on: the one in which he raised the difficult notion that sometimes, previous relationships that we have had - no matter how intense or emotive they were - may simply have been preparation for something better to come.

i think he has a tremendous point, because all the pain of the past has taught me not to love him (as i say, that has been the easiest part of it all), but it has taught me to appreciate him in ways i might never have without the lessons of history.

you see, i would never have come to appreciate the love and the Truth of Jesus Christ without having lived through the spiritual wasteland of paganism.

and so it is with him.

were it not for the painful lessons of the past, when we discuss faith and theology i'd never have learned to appreciate his thoughtful, introspective responses; his ease with the give-and-take of the open and unfettered exchange of ideas; or his faithful, gentle and loving spiritual leadership...

were it not for the painful lessons of the past, i'd never have appreciated a man that lives his life at the foot of the cross.

were it not for the painful lessons of the past, i'd never had learned to appreciate the way he builds me up. and i'd never have so thoroughly appreciated a man that takes it one step further and not only joins me in my passions, but shows me how its done!


were it not for the painful lessons of the past, i'd never have learned to appreciate being accepted and loved for who i am, and encouraged along my path.

were it not for the painful lessons of the past, i'd never have learned to appreciate his happily accepting coming second in my life, and my coming third in his.

if i'd never been repeatedly criticised for having more than one brain cell, i'd never have learned to appreciate being referred to as "a smart cookie"

if i'd never loved men who allowed their own insecurities to rob them of the joy they deserve, i'd never have learned to appreciate a man whose confidence lets him reach out and seize life and happiness by the short and curlies.

as deeply as i regret every moment of pain i have every inflicted on all my past loves; and as much as i struggle to forgive each and every one of them the hurts they have carved into my heart, i cannot help but be grateful for whatever passed between us, because if it had not, i might never have seen this man for the jewel and the gift he truly is.........

is this what it means to "click" with someone?

being an "independent" woman all my life, i have always seen it as somehow important to speak up for myself, voice my own opinion, let my feelings be known. i have never understood the idea of "deferring" to a man, and i struggle with the idea of man and woman "surrendering" to one another that paul goes on about in his epistles.

but i am starting to think that it might simply be a matter of never having yet met a man that i felt i could enter into that sort of a dynamic with...

see, for the first time, there i a man posting here whose words are not only smart, wise and insightful; but with whom i agree, and in whose ideas i can take comfort - and as strange as this sounds.... someone that i can finally rely on to say something that makes sense and is interesting, meaningful, Godly and comforting - someone that seems to have completely relieved me of the feeling that i have to jump up and down with some yippy and unecessary commentary to add to his thoughts.

i look at this man's ideas (and not just here - i am the very happy recipient of many lovely emails, and a happy partner in many an hour-long phone conversation) and i think "fair enough. i couldn't have said it better myself". on the other site, where he entered into a discussion with a wonderful and fiercely intelligent friend called "sparrow", i realized that while my beloved sparrow had raised some brilliant talking points, i had no need to wade into the discussion because bruce already had the conversation well in hand, and i trusted that he would handle the it in an intelligent, respectful and thoughtful manner, leaving me to pursue other ideas.

the growing sense of being part of what may shape up to be an amazing team is unlike anything that's come before.

and i will candidly admit i am not sure where my point is going, so i will simply ask - does anyone else know what the heck i am talking about? '-D

NOT to be confused with a mike myers character...

"fat baptists"

Islam: A Religion of Peace?

(thank you, james, for the link)


Interpreting the words of Muslim scripture so that they pose no threat to peaceful coexistence with non-believers is a large challenge.
by Gordon Nickel

The problem of Muslim radicalization has been on the agenda of all nations since 9/11. But Canada faces a unique dilemma because the doctrine of multiculturalism is seen as intrinsic to our national identity. The [June 2006] disruption of an alleged homegrown Islamist terror plot has caused many Canadians to ask: How can multiculturalism—which preaches tolerance above all else—be squared with a militant, intolerant creed that demonizes non-believers? [Here] … Gordon Nickel examines the claim that Islam is inherently a "religion of peace."

Since the London bombings of 7/7, there has been a renewed effort among Muslims in the West to present Islam as a religion of peace. This has come in response to persistent probing of the relationship between Islam and violence. Here in Canada, this issue leapt to the front pages following news that all 17 suspects in an alleged Ontario-based terror plot are Muslim.

The Koran contains five commands to kill and 12 commands to fight …

For some Muslims, the rise of homegrown terror has meant an interest in re-examining the foundational texts that extremists have used to justify their attacks—the Koran, the Hadith (traditions of what the prophet of Islam said and did), the Sira (earliest biography of the prophet), and works of Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). Some are challenging classical interpretations of these texts that have held sway for centuries.

When the Koran is cited by Muslims in response to questions about violence, it is often discussed in such a way as to shut down a meaningful exploration of the text. One or two mild passages are usually offered, as if these fully represented the contents of a scripture containing 6,000-plus verses. But the Koran—literally "recitation"—is a collection of diverse materials that include polemic, praise, eschatology, law, narrative, battle calls, and details of the domestic life of the prophet.

In particular, the sourcebooks contain a great deal of material relating to violence. This article reviews that small part of the material that is directly relevant to any debate about the link between Islam and terror: the commands to fight and kill.

The Koran contains five commands to kill and 12 commands to fight (literally, "try to kill"). Most are found in the second (verses 190, 191, 193, 244), fourth (vv. 76, 84, 89, 91) and ninth (vv. 5, 12, 14, 29, 36, 123) suras.

The commands address a number of different situations, from "fighting those who fight you" to "fighting totally." The objects of the fighting and killing include the unbelievers, the "associators" (mushrikin, or polytheists) and "the friends of Satan."

In classical Muslim discussions of these verses, two verses attracted more attention than any others. They came to be known as "the sword verse" (9.5) and "the verse of tribute" (9.29).

The verse of tribute concerns the "people of the book"—generally understood by Muslims to be faith communities possessing a scripture, especially Jews and Christians. The command is to fight those who have been given the book "until they pay the tribute (jizya) out of hand and have been humbled." The command in the sword verse is to "kill the associators (mushrikin) wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush." At face value, therefore, polytheists appear to be at greater risk than Jews or Christians.

The Arabic verb in all of these verses is not the verb related to jihad. Rather, it is the verb qatala in its first ("to kill") and third ("to fight, try to kill") forms. The Koran contains many other verses using forms of qatala which—though not imperatives—appear to encourage fighting or killing. Among these is 61.4: "Allah loves those who fight in his way."

These are the commands. But what do they mean? That is, of course, a matter of interpretation. Those who want to give a peaceful interpretation to these verses face challenges from both the classical medieval Muslim consensus and the interpretations of popular figures within the 20th-century Islamic revival.

Muslim scholars have produced lively commentaries (tafsir) on the verses of the Koran from the second Islamic century up to the present. The earliest complete commentary on the Koran was written by Muqatil ibn Sulayman (d. 767). Muqatil seems to take the commands to fight and kill at face value.

One of the interpretive principles that Muqatil and later commentators used was to link passages in the Koran with events in the story of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. These events are arranged in a continuous narrative in the Sirat Rasul Allah of Ibn Ishaq (d. 767).

Muslim scholars assigned each of the Koran's 114 suras to initial recitation by Muhammad in either Mecca or Medina; and within those main divisions, they gave each sura a place in a definite chronology. The establishment of such a chronology permitted the concept of abrogation—by which recitations originating later in time took precedence over apparently contradictory passages recited earlier.

The classical Muslim understanding that developed from these principles was that the commands to fight and kill could be arranged chronologically in the prophet's lifetime—from the initial permission Muhammad gave to his followers to fight, to instructions on defensive warfare, to conditional aggression, to open unrestricted warfare as the prophet's forces grew stronger later in his life. Peaceful passages in the Koran were considered to be superseded by materials with a warlike tone, especially Sura 9.

David S. Powers, professor of near eastern studies at Cornell University, has noted that Muslim scholars of abrogation such as Ibn Salama (d. 1020) claimed the "sword verse" cited above (9.5) had abrogating power over 124 other verses, including "every other verse in the Koran which commands or implies anything less than a total offensive against the non-believers." U.S.-born historian John Wansbrough found that the sword verse "became the scriptural prop of a formulation designed to cover any and all situations which might arise between the Muslim community and its enemies." Influential Islamist authors such as 'Abd al-Salam Faraj, Maulana Maududi and Sayyid Qutb have all expressed their agreement with the classical interpretation of the commands to fight and kill.

A famous illustration of this Islamist tendency is in the pre-9/11 communiqués of Osama bin Laden. His "Declaration of War" of October, 1996, makes prominent use of Koranic commands to fight and kill. His Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders of February, 1998, opens with the sword verse and applies it directly to those he considers to be the modern enemies of Islam.

Indeed, one of the greatest challenges facing peace advocates in Muslim nations is that the Islamist voices that seem to have the greatest appeal to youth are those that portray the Koranic commands to kill as clear and unequivocal. Some of these Islamists have already carefully processed Western criticisms and have deliberately reasserted the classical understandings. For instance, Egypt's Sayyid Qutb, a guiding force of the Muslim Brotherhood (from which al-Qaeda sprang), wrote that the tendency to interpret the Koran as if it enjoins only defensive war is an error of Muslims' minds "defeated by the pressure of unfavorable conditions and the treacherous propaganda of the orientalists."

But this need not be the only way of interpreting these texts. One alternative—quite common in some faith communities—might be to decide that these were commands for a very particular set of circumstances, but that they no longer apply to modern believers in this time. Another option, advanced recently by the Turkish scholar Israfil Balci, is to reject the classical interpretations of these commands as a product of the political tensions of the period.

Muslims are not the only scriptural community to face challenges of interpretation. Jews and Christians who regard the Hebrew Scriptures as the Word of God must deal with the conquest of Canaan, the commandment of total cherem destruction, the violence of judges like Samson and the bloodshed of kings like David—among many other materials that suggest godly approval for aggressive warfare against non-believers.

Conversely, warring Christians who accept the authority of the Gospel must deal with the apparent prohibition of violence in the teachings and life example of Jesus. This discussion has been going on among Christians at least since the Crusades, when critics were heard to say "that it is not in accordance with the Christian religion to shed blood in this way, even that of wicked infidels. For Christ did not act thus."

Within the Christian community, one interpretive option is to read the Hebrew Scriptures through the prism of the Gospel. According to the Gospel, Jesus said that He had come not to abrogate the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. Jesus then immediately replaced the law of retaliation with non-resistance, and commanded love for enemies (see Matthew 5:17, 38, 39, 44). This way of dealing with difficult materials raises many questions, but it has allowed Christians to pursue pacifism while holding to the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Unfortunately, the Islamic principle of abrogation runs in the opposite chronological direction in relation to violence. Because the commands to fight and kill in the Koran are considered by Muslims to be among the recitations made very late in the life of the prophet of Islam—at a time when his conquest of Arabia was almost complete—Muslims scholars have been inclined to read the peaceful texts as subordinate to the later ones.

In other words, Muslims seeking to find a peaceful message in the Koran must fight not only the plain meaning of the Koran's text and the current fashion for militancy, but also the arrow of Muslim history.

Interpreting the words of Muslim scripture so that they pose no threat to peaceful coexistence with non-believers thus seems a large challenge. In view of the high stakes in the world today, however, it is certainly a challenge worth taking up. Otherwise, Canadian proponents of multiculturalism will have a harder time arguing that traditional Islam is just another peaceful element in Canada's multicultural quilt.

Gordon Nickel has a PhD in the earliest commentaries on the Koran and teaches at the Acts Seminaries, Langley, B.C.

Originally published in the National Post, June 13, 2006.

lost and found

a passing acquaintance and i were having a conversation about "men's spirituality", and the fact that in the modern world, and particularly in the christian paradigm - which lacks any sort of ritual that marks the transition point between childhood and manhood - men seem to have lost something critical. some basic component of their masculine identity has been laid by the wayside for reasons i can only guess at (and no doubt guess wrong) and i think that both men and women are the worse for it.

i like to think i am "in touch" with my femininity. granted, i have a very "male" outlook on the world (i am spiritually and politically conservative, i love science fiction and am called to traditionally male-oriented jobs), but i am also very happy being a "nurturer": i cook, i clean, i do laundry, i will run and fetch things for the person i love, take care of children, and move heaven and earth to secure a loved one a lazy sunday in bed. in no way do i feel that those tendencies compromise me as an individual in any way.

by the same token, i realize that more and more what i look for in a man are more "traditional" masculine traits: courage, forthrightness, candor, a fiercely protective nature, and yes, as unpopular as it may be to say, a measure of aggressiveness, combined with an enlightened and spiritual outlook on life. never having found those traits in men i have dated in the past (which naturally makes me question what it was i was looking for in a man), i was coming to despair of the fact that such a creature even existed.

now, i am not looking for the testosterone-fueled caveman that eats with his hands and beats his woman; but rather a man that is bold, courageous, willing to take chances, self-aware, gainfully employed, sensuous, artistic, a good provider and strong leader; a man who is powerful in many and diverse ways. but the older i get, and the more i become involved with men nearing or immersed in middle age, the more i realize how many of them have given up on their basic, masculine instincts simply to survive.

for better or for worse, i am a woman with more than two brain cells, and brain cells that occassionally bang together, and i have been told be several men that they find that intimidating. now, invariably it is intelligent men that tell me this (which makes it doubly disheartening and slightly ridiculous); so imagine my delight to meet a man that told me (no doubt with a twinkle in his eye) "oh i am not intimidated. i'm a big boy, i can take it..."

i am also someone, who by circumstance, can only become involved at this time in a long distance relationship. now, while that state of affairs is only temporary, (in my view) it affords two individuals the opportunity to thoroughly connect as people before the immediacy of physical intimacy becomes and issue. several men, again, have told me very politely that for differing reasons, they choose not to get involved with anyone they cannot poke in the ribs; so imagine my delight to meet a man that is unafraid to let himself be known as a spirit first and a body second; who is willing to flex that masculine courage and take a chance on letting someone really get to know him for who he is, first and foremost. it takes a ridiculous amount of courage for a man to let a woman get to know him as a person without that safety net of physicality to fall back on...

but faith and courage go hand in hand. being a Christian is just about the scariest, toughest thing anyone can do. having faith in the Lord, while invariably the right thing to do, is so much "easier said than done". imagine my delight to find someone that lives that faith out loud: that can look at a questionable situation, see the potential, and place his courage not only in God, but also in his God-given ability to manage a challenging situation and to turn it to his own advantage. it is devastatingly attractive to find a man that sees what he wants, and despite the apparent obstacles, lets nothing stand in his way...

now, take someone with those strong, sexy masculine traits, and make him a musician, a father, a poet and a spiritual warrior.

is it any wonder i am starting to feel like the luckiest woman on earth.......?

dear prayer warriors...

and you know who you are...

THANK YOU for your care and support, and love and prayers at this time.

i decided to post this here in case any visitors might wish to have a word with the Big Guy about margot and her family. for those of you i haven't contacted directly, here is the story:

margot (my best friend in the world, who lives in new zealand) is about to lose her father. he has been diagnosed with a brain tumour, and it all came on terribly suddenly.

here is her latest note:

We've had the 'family meeting' and here are our options: leave everything as is and he'll have up to 2 months, and be in constant pain and discomfort.

Or have a debulking (scooping out what tumour they can) and radiotherapy for 5 weeks then he gets another 10 months (ish).

Dad wants the latter option.

He's much better today, speaking relatively normally and walking a bit. Exhausted by all the visitors; every Hungarian in CHCH thinks they are 'family', so the nurses have given me the hard word to restrict visitors drasticaly.

Anyway, I have to go up now.

Thanks for all your calls and support. They mean a lot to me and dad hears about them too

if you are so inclined, please take a moment to pray for them; and to those of you that have already been praying - please accept my heartfelt thanks.

i will keep you all posted......