Community

This week Kodiak voted down a new school because it would entail an increase in property taxes. Housing is already expensive here. As one young couple said to me, "We can't afford a house now so why would I vote to make it more expensive?" We don't have a huge tax burden here like say someone from New York does (where I am from) which leads the US in tax burdens. But, lots of other things are much more expensive here than New York.

From Kodiak, this week, we could see the continuing market meltdown. No one seems to know what to do. It has put a scare into a lot of people. Some are pulling their money out of the market. Some see a conspiracy by the government to take control of our financial institutions. Some see plain old fashioned greed coming home to roost. But, when the average person watches his or her retirement lose 30% to 40% of its value from just one year ago, it is cause for concern and considering alternative plans.

I remembered this week when we lived in Philadelphia in the early 80s. We were part of a Christian community. Most of us owned our own homes. They were in a part of the city where housing was very cheap and we bought a row house that needed a lot of work. People helped each other out working on their homes. We bought food cooperatively. We shared cars so not every family needed one. We met for Bible study during the week and worship on Sunday in a rented space at a community center. We worked together on mission projects like making sure a nearby apartment building had heat for it's elderly residents. It was located right down the street from where our church met and the first time I visited one of the elderly tenants there was a thick block of ice which had formed on her window sill. She sat in a chair covered in blankets. We managed to draw attention to the problem and it was fixed.

It was not perfect. No community is. We always had personal issues to sort out. But I wonder if this financial crisis - if it is long lasting - will make alternative communities like that one more attractive. Most of us are used to very independent living. We are used to having plenty of choices and options moment by moment. We don't like to have someone or something "cramp our lifestyle". Most of us were looking forward to enjoying our retirement doing what we always thought we wanted to do, whatever that is.

Soaring energy prices which impact the cost of just about everything else have taken more of each paycheck. Now our future paychecks which we have been saving for are dwindling daily. Seems like we need a plan.

Kodiak is not Philadelphia but some of the principles translate pretty well. We could have a potluck and Bible study once a week. We could buy staples in bulk and break them down to share with each family unit every month. We could share fish during the summer months. We could have a storage shed filled with a variety of tools that members could borrow when needed and return. We could have a church vehicle that was available to be loaned out in emergencies. Shared housing is another area we might explore. The parsonage, for instance, could be made into two living units and rented to members. We might acquire other property or use an area of the church building for short term shelter.

This may just be some thinking out loud on my part. It would not be easy to make some of these changes. But some people are already hurting. If the financial downturn is long lasting, more people will be soon. As I read the Bible, we are a dependent people, on God; and an interdependent people, on each other. I don't read much about independence. Do you?

The Great Bailout

Tonight the Senate votes on The Bailout #2. Many Americans are up in arms about it. There are good reasons to feel anger at the indulgences and excesses of the Big investment houses and banks. However, not passing this Bailout (an unfortunate name for what is a financial rescue operation that will benefit all of us) will have a grave impact on us all as we try to get credit or we try to retire on funds that are dwindling by the day. Monday's no vote led by conservative Republicans in the house has already caused great fear and panic, especially among the elderly. There was no need for it. It is surprising that God favored bailouts in the Old Testament. Debt was not something sinful but it was seen as part of life and God's People were to be quick to make loans to those who needed them. In Deuteronomy 15:7-10, God's Word says: If there is a poor man among your brothers ... do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs. Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: 'The seventh year, for canceling debts is near' so that you do not show him ill will and give him nothing. He may appeal to the Lord against you and you will be found guilty of sin. Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all you do..." This is quite an amazing text. It refers to the "seventh year" in which all debts were canceled.

In the Old Testament God's People are urged often to loan freely to foreigners (interest bearing) and to fellow Israelites (interest free). These were hard times and poor harvests, bad weather, or raiding enemies could imperil small family farms and the small family living off the farm. The debtor was to be treated compassionately. Indebtedness was taken seriously and the debtor was responsible to repay. However, every seventh year (the seventh seven year period was called the Year of Jubilee) all obligations were canceled whether the debtor deserved such compassionate treatment or not. It seems like God was concerned that a permanent debtor class not be allowed to form in Israel. The family unit needed to be secure and economically stable. That was God's will. Besides interest free loans, God's laws provided for a tithe for the poor (Dt. 14:28-29) and gleaning (Dt. 24:19).

Now it is true that these "debtor laws" were meant to sustain poor farmers down on their luck and not commercial businesses. But the underlying principle is: Debt can be canceled if it achieves a greater good. The question can be asked: what greater good is achieved when a bunch of unscrupulous debtors and lenders get off the hook. Still, there are a great many people who are paying a huge price - and will keep paying - because of the economic malpractice of others. As it was in the simpler Old Testament times so it is today: no good comes from greater insecurity and more economic instability in the family home.

Debt in the Old Testament was neither good nor bad. It is a result of the very precarious conditions of life. God's concern was that "there be no poor among you." Some would say the impending Bailout is going to make some rich people richer and not penalize the guilty parties in this banking crisis for their malpractice. However, it seems certain that a great many others will be made poorer and much unneeded stress will be added to hard working families if this Bailout is not passed.

Market Mess

Can anyone explain what just happened? The past couple of weeks, I mean. The Dow Jones goes into meltdown and headlines predict a global economic collapse. Banks are failing and large investment firms go bankrupt. Ordinary people are wondering if their savings will be there when they wake up the next day. Then, the government steps in and bails out the whole stinking mess. Then the stock market soars for two days and the experts say the problem is fixed. Now Congress is debating the bailout plan while investors are jittery and the stock market jumps up but mostly down. Some financial pundits caution us to consider the proverb: pay now or pay later. I get the Wall Street Journal and have tried to follow what is going on but it is beyond me and I expect anyone else without a PH.D in economics. Although there is sure no shortage of economic experts on CNN, MSNBC and FNC who try to convince us they know what is going on. They talk for a living and they are paid to talk as long as their show is on so the longer they talk the faster they run out of things to say. Here is what I do know: God owns the cattle on a thousand hills; that's what the Bible says. That means He owns it all. He is not affected by sub prime mortgages defaulting or oil speculators or short selling and all the other words for greed in our present day vocabulary. What I have is a gift from him. My trust is in Him, not the stock market. I am called to be a good steward of what He has given to me. That means use credit wisely which means not just for stuff I think I want at the moment. Save for big ticket items. Pay off the credit card every month. Don't go into debt (even though our government does - there is a payday due some day). Tithe and trust God for what you need. Invest in kingdom work where the returns are heavenly. Save for a rainy day but don't get hung up on watching the daily DJA and beware the so-called experts on the aforementioned cable news shows! Be thankful for what you have. In Haiti, people get by with lots less and no government crutches to help them out. Invest in Haiti and other poor places (Luke 16:9) because that is the right thing to do. Don't worry about the ups and downs of the global economy (Matthew 6). That's God's word which makes a whole lot more sense than the words of most of the financial experts spewing forth from the various media sources today.

Sarah Palin: An Easterners Point of View

From the For What It Is Worth Department: here is my take on Sarah Palin. I have lived out in New York State for most of my life and I have heard from friends out East this past week wondering what I think of Sarah Palin. I have lived in Alaska almost ten years which is not a long time but I guess it qualifies me, in some eyes, to have an informed point of view. Here is what you need to know about the East. Easterners think the country (world?) revolves around them. Notice how everything is based on EST. They think anyone living west of - say New York City - is culturally deprived. So Alaska is way out there. They think it is located somewhere west of Seattle out in the Pacific Ocean because that is where it is found on most maps. In fact, a lot of maps like those weather maps in most Eastern papers don't even show Alaska! How can they leave someplace so huge off the map? Out of sight, out of mind. Some Easterners think Alaska is a foreign country. Do you need a passport to get in? They ask. For most Easterners Alaska might as well be a foreign country. They have never been here and probably never will. Why should they? It snows all the time, people live in igloos and polar bears are a constant threat to life. They think ANWAR is a state park sorta like the Adirondack State Park in New York and they would not want oil companies mucking that up with their drilling so why should they allow drilling there. In general, they have no clue why anyone would want to live out here unless they had to. Alaska is a nice place for some people to visit; maybe it would be a good idea to keep it as a National Park because no one in their right mind would ever want to live there. Most Easterners are surprised to learn about PFDS: the state government actually pays people to live there. They are amazed. They are equally amazed when they hear that the state gets more federal dollars percapita than any other state. They don't know that the federal government owns most of the state. The only things they know about Alaska's congressmen is that there are only two and they are old. One more thing: they are angry old men (probably because they have to live in Alaska).

So when Sarah Palin came to the attention of the national media last week it was understandable that they were incredulous. Can anything good come out of Alaska? They quickly answered No! McCain's vetting committee let him down. He could not have known what he was getting into. His judgement is suspect. He was led astray. You see, no one knew her but they knew one thing about her: she was from Alaska. They expected her to show up in mukluks and gnawing on the jawbone of a moose. Her husband is a world champion snow machiner ( Easterners call them snowmobiles). Her 17 year old daughter is pregnant already (see what happens when you preach abstinence only education). She did get some high marks for actually practicing her Pro-Life convictions and carrying a Downs Syndrome baby full term when it is not a common practice today.

So I didn't expect Sarah Palin to translate very well into Eastern. But even I was surprised at the nasty and unrelenting negativity. She was unknown but her instant media critics thought they knew her. She was from a small town and a small state ( surely her critics know how Big Alaska is) so she must be small minded. She had no experience; she had only governed for 2 years and that was in a small state ( being mayor of Wasilla didn't count). She was only chosen because she is an attractive woman. How could she possibly govern with 5 kids ( Mitt Romney has 5 kids and I don't recall anyone making that point about him). Even our own Anchorage Daily News piled on this week printing editorials and comments from people who thought the people who favored her addition to the Republican ticket had taken leave of their senses. I guess they want to be taken seriously by the Eastern media elite. There were lots of Eastern reporters up here last week and they didn't want to appear uncritical in their evaluation of Palin. With polls showing Palin's popularity rate at over 80% it must be tough to find enough negative opinions to fill an editorial page.

So as I watched Palin's acceptance speech at the Republican convention Wednesday night, I couldn't keep from smiling. Although, I choked up a time or two like when she told special needs families they had a friend in the White House if she gets there. She demonstrated what a gifted speaker she is who can really connect with people. I checked out some of the media responses afterward. Keith Olbermann on MSNBC was his usual insufferably, pompous self noting that her tone seemed overly harsh and asking if this was going to be indicative of the campaign. Fred Barnes on Fox said what most everyone else was thinking: She has it all! She was poised and not intimidated in the least. She showed what a lot of Alaskans already knew. Alaskan experience builds character. She is a perfect running mate for McCain. She is a straight shooter, too, and she doesn't really care what the self professed cultural elites out East think.

Missions

A couple weeks ago my wife and I headed south to Oregon for a missions conference. It had been awhile since I had been to one and I wanted to get updated on what was going on in missions in our denomination. It was billed as the Northwest regional conference. There was one in the Midwest and the East, as well. First impressions: First, our upper middle aged selves were among the youngest attendees which caused some concern and the turnout from the Northwest was pretty poor which either meant the Northwest cares less for missions or there are fewer churches to draw from (most of the attendees seemed to be from Oregon); Second, there seemed to be a whole lot of cheer leading for missions going on from the denom admin folk which was a cause for concern cus if they were anxious about the missions program of the denom what were we supposed to do about it; this was reinforced by the missions offerings that were taken at every meeting; Third, there seems to be a requirement that every time you have a church meeting today you have to have a worship band and contemporary music. This was the case here and I had a thought that the composition of this audience was mostly the group of people who had fought the worship battles in their churches .... and lost.

Second Impressions: By the time we got around to the content of the missions conference, ie, the reason we were there, things had improved. There are some deeply committed people who are open to God using them to make a difference in the part of the world they serve. There was a woman working with young men and women caught up in the trafficking of bodies for sex and/or work in Asia. There was a couple working in a seminary in war torn Lebanon. There was a couple training pastors in Costa Rica and a man doing the same in Congo. They all had fascinating stories to tell about what God was doing in their lands. This was why we came and we wished for more of it. But what we got was a push for short term mission trips. It must be harder to get people to commit to a full time career in missions today or maybe the money isn't there to support them. Surely, the offerings that were taken were not going to solve this problem.

Final Impressions: It was hard not to leave with the impression that missions in the mainline church and perhaps American Christianity is a sideshow. Mainline denoms are dying and the megachurches are too self absorbed. Missions is what we are doing with the leftovers. As was evidenced at this conference missions today is still a heroic work at the heart of God. It is the lifeblood of the local church and if missions is going to be revitalized it will not be the big denoms that do it but it will be the local church. I remember hearing when I was younger that the church exists for missions like a fire exists for burning. We need a fire for missions rekindled in our local churches.

All Eyes on China

Most of us have heard by now that one of the big reasons we are paying more at the gas pump is China. China's economy is booming and so it's energy needs are booming, as well. The world's demand for oil is not meeting it's ability to supply. China's growth in the past decade is truly incredible. Consider: China has four times more people than America; since 1978 China's economy has grown over 9% annually (in 1978 China made 200 air conditioners - in 2005 it made 48 million!); Pudong, China's main financial district is about the size of Chicago; Chongqing is the world's fastest growing city adding 300,000 people a year (the 20 fastest growing cities in the world are in China); to prepare for the Olympics Beijing has built six new subway lines, a 43 KM light rail system, and a new airport terminal that is now the world's largest; China is the largest producer of coal, steel and cement in the world; it is the largest cell phone market in the world; it has more square feet of space under construction than anywhere else in the world (5x more than the US); it's exports to the US have grown 1,600% over the past 15 years; it manufactures 2/3 of the world's photocopiers, microwaves, dvd players and shoes (Walmart alone imports 18 billion dollars worth of goods from China every year); by2010 Starbucks will have more cafes in China than the US. Today, Fareed Zakaria says, "China is the world's largest country, fastest growing major economy, largest manufacturer, second largest consumer, largest saver, and second largest military spender." (The Post-American World, p.92)

If all eyes are not on China yet, they will be in August when China hosts the Summer Olympic Games. Some American Olympians have thought about boycotting the Olympics this summer due to China's awful human rights record. For all its emphasis on public relations for the upcoming Olympic Games, China is still one of the world's greatest human rights violators. Christians, especially, are targets. China's state government controls what happens in China. If it says you may only have one child, you only have one child or face the consequences. If it tells you to move because a major employer wants to build on the property you and all your neighbors live on, you move or face the consequences. If it tells you to register your house church with the state controlled church, you register or face the consequences. Many non-registered Christians and house churches have been persecuted. Pastors are arrested and sent off to hard labor for "re-education".

That's why a prominent house church leader has asked Christians in the US and throughout the free world to remember to pray for China during the Olympics. China Aid has a helpful website to keep up with what is happening as far as persecution of Christians goes (http://www.chinaaid.org/). They are offering bracelets to be worn during the Olympics as a reminder to pray. These bracelets are being offered in China, as well, so our brothers and sisters in Christ can pray for us, too. You can order then on the China Aid website. I ordered mine today.

July 4th

This week we celebrate the birth of our country, again. I will confess to being more impressed with a day off than the celebration of our nation's birthday in the past. Not this year. I have done some reading about events of 1776 and I am approaching July 4th differently this year. I have read David McCullough's 1776 and his later volume on John Adams and my wife and I have just finished viewing the HBO series on John Adams on DVD. I recommend both the reading and the viewing. I came away with the overwhelming sense THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED! This country, I mean. In the midst of an impending war with the strongest military power at the time, a small group of ordinary people risked their all to declare our independence and usher in a whole new government - the likes of which had never been seen before! It is an amazing story. One surely worth more than the few paragraphs most high school history texts give it. More than one of our founding fathers saw God's hand in it. For if He was not involved how could this thing have happened? George Washington called it a "miracle". The later historian Joseph Ellis (American Creation, 2007) does not want to believe this and comes up with a rational explanation. But his historical analysis does not detract from the fact that people who were there, who were living it, called it nothing short of miraculous and gave the credit to God (Washington, and Adams, at least). If you don't have time to read these books or watch the DVD this week, you might at least read the Declaration out loud and the list of signers who put their names on the line knowing that if they were caught they would be hanged as traitors. If you have a family, what a great exercise in citizenship to read it aloud as a family. Then pray for our country, thankfully, for what God did then and with petitions for what God needs to do now. As Adams prayed, let freedom which was gained by the sacrifices of so many, ring true today.