Saddam Hussein Hangs

Killing Saddam Hussein is no solution, say churches -05/11/06

The Vatican has said that it would be wrong to execute former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and other opponents of the death penalty – including peace churches (Mennonites, Quakers, and Brethren in Christ) and ecumenical bodies – are likely to argue that such an outcome would be counterproductive as well as morally corrosive.The concern of church and human rights comes after the verdict of death by hanging was passed upon Saddam after the first of two projected trials in Iraq, following the ex-president’s seizure by the Americans after the US-led invasion and occupation of the country in 2003.Reaction on the streets of Baghdad and in other parts of Iraq was mixed, and largely divided on established political and sectarian lines – highlighting one of the major concerns for the fragile future of the country.Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, said today that carrying out the death sentence by hanging would be an unjustifiably vindictive action, even though Saddam Hussein has committed crimes against humanity, because every life is sacred."For me, punishing a crime with another crime - which is what killing for vindication is - would mean that we are still at the point of demanding an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," reported Italian news agency Ansa.Added Cardinal Martino: "Unfortunately, Iraq is one of the few countries that have not yet made the civilised choice of abolishing the death penalty." In 2003 he angered the United States government when he criticised US troops for treating Saddam like an animal when they took him captive, dragging him out of a hole in the ground.The pictures of Saddam’s medical examination broadcast on national TV were said by some lawyers to be in flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention. Insurgents subsequently meted out the same treatment to captured coalition troops.Groups like Christian Peacemaker Teams, whose reconciliation work inside the country began before the invasion, have long argued that it is important to break rather than feed the cycle of violence.Questions have also been raised about the conduct of the trial. But opponents of the brutal Saddam regime and many of his victims were mainly celebrating the execution verdict tonight.The British government is against the death penalty, but its protests against the verdict have so far verged from non-existent to muted. A spokesperson said that the handling of the case “was a matter for the Iraqi government and people.”Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said that it would be wrong and unhelpful for the ex-dictator to be killed, however. At the same time he recognised the thirst for justice among Saddam’s victims.English clergyman Dr Andrew White, vicar of St George’s Anglican Church in Baghdad, said on BBC radio this morning that the verdict was an appropriate one. But many other church leaders in the USA and Europe disagree.Simon Barrow, co-director of the UK Christian think tank Ekklesia, said that the churches needed to speak out consistently against all kinds of violence, both by states an by armed terror groups.“The British government was complicit in the war, and it cannot evade its responsibility in this”, he added. “Humanly speaking, the desire for revenge against Saddam is entirely understandable – but it is politically unwise, and morally it contributes to the climate of increasing sectarian murder which is threatening to unpick what remains of Iraqi society in the aftermath of an armed intervention that has brought little justice and no peace.”Ekklesia, which relates to Christian Peacemaker Teams, has highlighted the destructive consequences of the “myth of redemptive violence” within the world order – the quasi-religious but also secular ideology which encourages to believe that killing is a solution.


Meditation XVII
from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions
Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.
Perchance he for whom this bell tolls1 may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me and see my state may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that2. The church is catholic, universal, so are all her3 actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too4, and ingrafted into the body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author5 and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language6; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice7; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves8 again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another9. As therefore the bell that rings a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention10 as far as a suit (in which piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled) which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early11, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit12 again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world? No man is an island13, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory14 were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee15. Neither can we call this a begging of misery or a borrowing of misery16, as though we are not miserable enough of ourselves but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbors17. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion18, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current moneys, his treasure will not defray19 him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels as gold in a mine and be of no use to him; but this bell that tells me of his affliction digs out and applies that gold to me, if by this consideration of another's dangers I take mine own into contemplation and so secure myself by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security20.
John Donne (Anglican priest) 1624
Hear the Meditation read aloud at Global Language Resources

Kerry or Bush

Hello again, I hope you all had a Happy Halloween!
Yesterday I opened a letter from my member of Congress that talks in part about (H.R.6166) Military Commissions Act of 2006. That's the bill that passed recently defining what the United States government calls torture. It's sort of a supplemental to the bill passed last year sponsored by Sentator McCain that so many people called The Torture Bill.
Pay attention to the actual number of the bill and then read the World Net Daily article below.

www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44169

Sunday, May 8, 2005
TESTING THE FAITH
666 wrong number of prophetic beast?
Newly examined Scripture fragment lends credence to argument it's 616
Posted: May 8, 20052:17 p.m. Eastern
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com-->© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
For centuries, people have been intrigued by the number 666, the "number of the beast" from the Book of Revelation in the New Testament.
Not only is it mentioned in the Bible, it has been associated with the Satanism, universal price codes and the game of roulette, as the numbers on the wheel add up to 666.
Now, the legendary number is getting a fresh look, as researchers are re-examining evidence the number may actually be 616.
Fragment from Book of Revelation mentions 616 in the third line – chi, iota, sigma (courtesy Egypt Exploration Society)
In the King James Version of the Bible, the well-known verse of Revelation 13:18 reads:
"Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."
While many Bible have footnotes saying the number translated from the original Greek could be 616, experts say new photographic evidence of an ancient fragment of papyrus from Revelation indeed indicates the number is indeed 616, instead of 666.
Scholars in England have been using modern technology to scour some 400,000 bits of papyri which were originally discovered in 1895 at a dump outside the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus. Many of the sections have been damaged and discolored, but an imaging process is shedding new light on the sacred text, believed to have originally been penned by John, one of Jesus' 12 apostles.
"This is a very nice piece to find," Ellen Aitken, a professor of early Christian history at McGill University, told Canada's National Post. "Scholars have argued for a long time over this, and it now seems that 616 was the original number of the beast."
The papyrus in the spotlight is believed to be from about 300 A.D.
"This is very early confirmation of that number, earlier than any other text we've found of that passage," Aitken said. "It's probably about 100 years before any other version."
The main researcher promoting the 616 claim is David Parker, professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Paleography at the University of Birmingham in England.
"This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people's names," Parker told the UK's Independent. "Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula."
Many commentators have gone with later copies of text which assign the number 666 to "the beast," believed by some to be the End-time world power.
Some have also linked 666 with Nero, the ancient Roman emperor known for persecuting Christians.
Parker points out the possibility of 616 was considered by the second century church father Irenaeus, who rejected it.
Regarding this new text, Parker told Britain's Church Times, "This adds weight to those who believe that it is a reference to Caligula's attempt to desecrate the Temple in Jerusalem, by having his statue erected there as part of the cult of emperor worship.
"There may be a reference to it in Mark [13:14], where he refers to the 'the abomination of desolation.' But this was overlaid by the Neronian persecutions. People believed that you could get from '666' to Nero because in Greek he is the emperor Neron Caesar. And 666 is one number less than the perfect 777. The text [showing 616] is quite legible to the naked eye. It was published in 1999, but it has taken people time to catch up."
The National Post quotes Elijah Dan, professor of philosophy and religion at the University of Toronto, as saying the new number won't likely have an impact in the popularity of 666.
"Otherwise, a lot of sermons would have to be changed and a lot of movies rewritten," he said with a laugh. "There's always someone with an active imagination who can put another interpretation on it. It just shows you that when you study something as cryptic and mystic as the Book of Revelation there's an almost unlimited number of interpretations."

Halloween is past and it's now All Saints Day . The holiday season is upon us. The air is crisp and the leaves are turning golden. Take a ride in the country or the mountains. God keep you and all you love.