By Dwight Swanson

The Editor has been critical of Christian opposition to universal health care in the US. Unsurprisingly, even those who have read the Gazelle have remained unmoved. The Gazelle has also commented before on the questionable dualism of Christian Fundamentalism—the division of the world between the Religious Right and everyone else along lines of good vs evil. The commonly repeated assertion that President Obama is evil, and therefore anything he proposes is evil, is the case in point raised by the health care debate.

On one hand this can be argued at a political level, if there was any hope of rational discussion. But, the shouting at town meetings across the country is ample evidence that this will never happen.

What is a Christian approach to such questions? How does a Christian interpret current issues in the light of Scripture? Or, to put this another way, how do Christians relate to their own societies and cultures? Do the categories of ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ apply?

One of the greatest problems the Gazelle finds with current American Religious Right reaction to the election of President Obama is its parochialism. That is, Bible Belt America thinks that the details of Armageddon are based on American politics, as though God’s plans are wholly based on the affairs of this late-comer to global history.

Christians need to think beyond their own national(ist) concerns. There is a lot of world outside the US.

The Editor will be on hiatus for the next three weeks. When the Gazelle returns, the focus will be on a biblical theology for Christians in these times of fear.

By Dwight Swanson

A cartoonist has a go at American hysteria about the NHS link

An American in Britain figures he’ll stay over here.link

Columnist Simon Hoggart speaks about his 91 year-old father’s hospitalisation in response to the claim that the elderly are denied health care under the NHS: ‘I was thinking of this during a visit to my 91-year-old dad who is still in an NHS hospital after three weeks, recovering from a broken hip. He has had fantastic care, including a new metal hip, blood transfusions, different antibiotics to match every aspect of his condition; all administered by nurses who remain cheerful even when asked to perform tasks on men – the lethal combination of pain and old age makes some in the ward exceedingly grumpy – that I would not want to do for £1,000 a time. If he was in an American hospital he'd be using up half his life savings to get that standard of care, and few ordinary Americans could afford the insurance that would provide it. (This is because health insurers spend a large part of their income on PR against the "socialised medicine" and on sending pro forma letters explaining why your policy doesn't cover actual illness.) All over the US there are people whose lives are being destroyed for lack of proper health care provision, and there is no sight more odious than the rich, powerful and arrogant trying to keep it that way.’

Think of the NHS as kind of like the Church. Or, vice versa.link

By Dwight Swanson

Opponents of the Obama administration’s health care proposals have increased the volume of their terror tactics, going as far as equating the plan to Nazism. Footage of people in town forum meetings shouting down those attempting to explain the concept do not reflect well on the average conservative American on international news.

A common target of the horror stories is taken from the UK National Health Service (NHS). This has been noticed in the UK—and, the response from experts reveals the extent of blatant lies being propagated in the US.
If the number of false assertions by opponents to the Obama proposals debunked in this article is any gauge of the level of argumentation, then it is clear that little or no evidence offered from these sources is to be trusted.

Brits are not well-pleased with this, either (BBC)Another news report put it, ‘People are outraged.’ Both Labour and Conservative leaders are reacting in defence of the NHS. Note this, American people! This is not a matter of conservatives against liberals.

Apparently Fox Fiction (aka Fox News) pays a UK Conservative MEP (Member of the European Parliament), to spread misinformation. He is not representative of his own political party—indeed, note that he is so far to the right that he was expelled from the centre-right group of the European Parliament! His evidence is not to be taken seriously—it is highly unlikely he has made use of the NHS recently to have any idea of what he is talking about.

When the level of disinformation is so high, one has to ask who is willing to go to such extremes to destroy this proposal. Clues: they have lots of money already; they are afraid of losing lots of money; they are not the people who are already paying high premiums for insurance.

The Gazelle has nothing more to say than has already been said in the previous article--and the response to the comment under the article on assisted suicide.

By Dwight Swanson

Gardening is a respected British occupation. It is not a pastime. England’s ‘green and pleasant land’, in fact, is a garden. Anyone who has flown over the countryside on a clear day has marvelled at the patchwork parcels of fields, the work of millennia of farmers working the land.

In 2000 we moved, for the first time in our lives, into our own house; and I became a gardener. At one time I thought I would log the hours I spent on the garden. But, before the three years of clearing out the jungle and rubble to reach ground zero were complete I lost track. In the fourth year the joy of creating something new out of nothing began with the planting of a lawn and the first bushes.

This Summer, following two drenched Summers, the back garden attained the level of maturity which has allowed me to sit and enjoy the form, colour, and chaos of my English garden.

One afternoon this week, just home from the day at the desk, as I sat taking in the view, with the late sun casting shadows through the leaves of the western bushes while setting the eastern blossoms afire; and, wondering at the transformation of this small patch of earth from nine years ago; I was struck by the recollection that God was the first gardener; the first to set apart a space of order in the midst of the chaos of creation.

Jews and Christians praise the God of creation, in wonder at the diversity and beauty of ‘nature’ formed by His Word. At the same time, that creation left alone is either jungle or desert. But, the Human in service of the earth has repeatedly wrestled the ground into form and patterns of beauty, too.

According to Genesis 2, God himself set the Humans in his garden as gardeners, to take part in his creative work. Even my paltry effort at an English garden is a partnership with the Creator in creation. In some way, his work is not complete without Human involvement.

By Dwight Swanson

An Iraqi correspondent meets with Taliban warriors in Afghanistan, and their sense of doing God’s will is prominent in their conversation.link

A Christian who seeks to understand and do God’s will for her/his life will be able to relate to a statement like this:

‘God told us to fight the occupation so the people are against the occupation.’

(Replace ‘the occupation’ with ‘abortion’, or ‘the Antichrist’, or ‘those socialists’, or …)

So, too, the affirmation of faith later spoken later on in the interview will ring familiarly. When a drone flies over and the journalist closes his eyes and ‘waited for the whoosh of a missile’. The commander laughs and says, ‘We believe in God, so don't be scared’. A warrior adds, ‘If you stand still in the dark and not move they can't see you. It's written in the Qu'ran’.

So, too, the concern for an education that is compatible with faith is not a world away from Christian academies and home schooling. When asked why they have closed schools, the reply was, ‘We have no problem with education, it's the curriculums that we have problems with. Under our [Taliban] government, when we taught the children the letter J it stood for jihad. Now it's jar [meaning neighbour]. So we closed the schools, but we have madrasas for the children’.

Yes, of course, they are just ignorant Afghanis, not sophisticated Western Christians. Their God is not really God. The Qu’ran is not truly God’s word; that is the Bible. They are just repeating what they have been taught by their religious leaders. We all know that J stands for Jesus.

By Dwight Swanson

Mehdi Karroubi, one of the presidential candidates who lost out in the recent Iranian elections, likens the treatment of protestors in prison to the treatment of Iraqi prisoners by Americans in Abu Ghraib.link

In a statement he is reported to say that protestors who were arrested were ‘forced to go naked, crawl on their hands and knees like animals, with prison guards riding on their backs’, and forced to lie naked, on top of one another’.
He is a brave man, for the immediate response from a prominent religious leader was that this statement was ‘full of libel, a total slander against the Islamic system’ and a boost to Iran’s enemies. An aide to the ‘Supreme Leader’, Khameini, called for him to be prosecuted.
The chief of Iran’s police has admitted that torture took place, and the head of the prison has been dismissed (hopefully not removed). But allegations of rape of both male and female prisoners, and deaths, have been denied.
As I read this story, it seemed I was peering through a looking glass. This mirrors to a remarkable degree the response of the American administration when the Abu Ghraib story came out. The significant, and crucial, difference, of course, is that the open democratic society in the US did not allow trials for those who were responsible for revealing what was going on.