Africa: How do we Respond?

I strongly urge everyone reading this blog to read these two articles - Jubilee: A Sabbath from Suffering and Bearing Witness.  Both deal with problems in Africa and other third world countries.  I found myself both moved and convicted as I read each article - moved by the very human faces they put on the problems (especially the second article) and convicted because I feel like I need to do something.  Problems like debt relief and HIV seem so big - and I'm not really sure what it is that I can and should do.  But the more I read about these issues, the more I think I need to do something.

Why do I feel such a great need to act?  Because more and more I realize that the way we live in the U.S., and the politcies made by the politicians that we elect, has a great effect on people in third world countries.  Our extraordinarily high levels of consumption, when coupled with trade agreements that favor wealthier nations (see this article on how trade agreements often work), have an effect on poor children in Africa who don't have enough to eat.  Our willingness as a country to forgive debt that should never have been incurred in the first place has an effect on mothers and fathers trying to make a better life for their children.

I'm new to many of these issues, and I realize that there are different sides to every issue.  Economics, global trade, HIV in Africa - these are enormously complicated issues - but I'm convinced I need to learn more.  I'd love to know what all of you think.

The First Lady Goes to Mali

During First Lady Laura Bush's trip to Africa in late June, she visited a school in Mali. The Washington Post's article on her visit can be found here. While the Post notes her praise of the U.S. education efforts there, an NPR correspondent gave a different perspective on the First Lady's visit. As reported in NPR's "Foreign Dispatch" podcast on 7/6/07 (at roughly 14:15 into the report), the school went through "weeks of work" in preparation for the First Lady's arrival. This included the installation of electrical outlets and fans in one of the classrooms (all run by a mobile generator, as the school does not have electricity). It also included the purchase and laying down of gravel over the usual mud courtyard (only over the parts the First Lady would see), the transportation of water to the site over a period of weeks to make the trees and bushes green, the tearing out of some of the water spouts used by the children so that they would not block Mrs. Bush's path from her limo to the school, and the painting of the entrance door (and only the entrance door). Additionally, the students whose classroom the First Lady would visit spent the four days leading up-to the visit learning a 6-line song they would sing for Mrs. Bush. It took 4 days to learn because the song is in French, the official language of the country (and not one the children speak). The First Lady's visit was over in a few hours. The electric outlets, fans, generator, and furniture were torn out of the refurbished classroom the same afternoon of the visit. Said a teacher at the school, "Mali is a poor country . . . but despite the poverty level, we still want to impress the West, which, to me, is pointless. If I am poor and sleeping on the dirt and you are coming to visit me, let's hang out on the dirt. And maybe I'll have a better chance to get some help from you." I couldn't have said it better.

The Dangers of Torture and Denying Human Rights to Terrorists

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . .

-The Declaration of Independence

What is interesting to note about this statement is where it claims human rights originate. It says that the rights we enjoy come from our Creator and that those rights are "unalienable." It is therefore disturbing when people, both Christian and non-Christian alike, say that it is okay to torture terrorists or to deny them other human rights because they are enemies of America and / or not American citizens. Here is the danger in such thinking: it makes one believe that our rights come by virtue of being American and not by virtue of our Creator endowing us with them. In fact, it was the very argument that these rights do not originate from one's government that made the founding fathers feel justified in rebelling against the sovereign of England. Putting aside, for now, the question of whether, in fact, our Creator has endowed us with certain unalienable Rights or whether the revolutionary war was Biblically justified, if as Americans we stand behind this document and the reasoning behind its arguments, then it is impossible for us to also claim that those captured outside this country should not enjoy the same rights to fair justice as we do. Saying that our rights come by virtue of our Citizenship places the origins and foundations of our rights in the hands of government. If a government can grant rights, it can also take them away. Such a thought is antithetical with the Declaration of Independence. Our justification for setting up our own country is that our rights originate not from the government, but from our Creator. When we begin to lose sight of this understanding, we open the doors to allowing our freedom to be stripped from us, even under the guise of security.

Do Some Evangelical Leaders Perpetuate Cycles of Domestic Violence?

That's a pretty sobering question, isn't it?  The contention of this article is that some evangelical leaders (James Dobson and John MacArthur) help perpetuate domestic violence and endanger victims through their teaching.  I highly recommend reading the article - if the author's contentions are true, its pretty disturbing.  Here's one of the relevant quotes from the article regarding John MacArthur:

Andersen also takes on MacArthur: According to a tape titled Bible Questions and Answers Part 16, a member of Grace Community Church asked MacArthur how a Christian woman should react “and deal with being a battered wife.”

MacArthur’s answer contained “some very dangerous advice to battered wives. He said divorce is not an option to a battered wife, because the Bible doesn’t permit it.” While saying that it was okay “for the wife to get away while the pressure was on” it was with the understanding that she would return. “He warned wives to be very careful that they were not provoking the abusive situations. Because, he said, that was very often the problem.”

It seems at best irresponsible to indicate that wives are responsible for the abuse they endure (or husbands if the situation is reversed). Even if some case could be made that they were provoking their husbands, there is never an excuse for domestic violence. Ever. And if MacArthur is correctly represented here, the language he uses could easily be seen as justifying the abuse, whether or not that is his intention.

Religious leaders need to think deeply about the implications of the things they teach. I'm confident neither Dobson or MacArthur would ever want to condone, justify, or in any way help perpetuate domestic abuse. But that doesn't mean that the things they teach are not responsible for exactly those things.

Read the article - what do you think?

prejudice, profiling, proof-in-the-pudding (?) . . . what's the point being made?

Yahoo news, on behalf of the Associated Press, released this recent study on "racial disparities in prison".[1] I read the article in about 2 minutes and spent the next 5 minutes wondering what point the writer was trying to make. Nothing is ever clearly stated over why they statistics are presented.[2] There is one line that makes me think this article was leaning toward the idea of racial prejudice:

Such figures "reflect a failure of social and economic interventions to address crime effectively," as well as racial bias in the justice system, said Marc Mauer, the group's executive director. (emphasis added)[3]

My question would be: what proof is there in the overall findings that would justify a charge of racial prejudice? Unless I completely misread the article, there is absolutely nothing to support such a conclusion. The article is spotted with ratios and other key figures; but the inclusion of these numbers does not--in and of themselves--point in any direction other than what the numbers merely state. It would be the same as me saying: for every Dogwood tree in the state of Georgia, there are 58 evergreen trees.[4]

Let me take one more blurb from this article in order to highlight my struggles with its implicit argument:

In Iowa, blacks are imprisoned at a rate more than double the national average. For every 100,000 people, Iowa incarcerates 309 whites and 4,200 blacks, the study said.

Now, if the facts were: for every 4,200 blacks who were incarcerated only 10 of them actually committed crimes, then that would be proof of a serious flaw--i.e., a "racial bias in the justice system". The same would hold true for the other variable: if for every 309 whites who were incarcerated there were actually 5,000 who committed crimes worthy of jail time, and only the 309 were locked up; that would be a serious problem. But, if the facts were: if all 4,200 blacks who were jailed did in fact commit crimes that justified imprisonment, that's not prejudice or profiling--that's simple justice. The same holds true for the 309 whites who were sentenced--if they did it, they do the time.

If we as a people are going to uphold and promote social justice in this country (if not throughout the world), then we must face the facts and deal with them accordingly. We cannot simply alter our commitment to justice or cry out "racial prejudice" because the numbers are not comfortable and/or appealing to one race of people. Lady Justice, last time I checked, is still wearing a blindfold. She wears such a garb because the commitment to maintain justice is not racially determined. If for every 100,000 people, 4,509 people in the state of Iowa commit crimes, then justice requires that they are appropriately punished.

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[1] If the link ever goes cold, just Google "racial disparities in prison" and see if it gives you a link.
[2] See my post on the problems with statistical analysis, found here.
[3] Note that the implication of racial prejudice comes from the article writer and not Marc Mauer.
[4] I have no idea if this ratio is true. I simply made it up to illustrate the point.