Who are our neighbors?

On my way through town the other day I noticed that several yards contained the same sign, with a message in Spanish, English, and Arabic. Now, I happen to be proficient in all of these languages, so I was able to discern some differences in the translations.

First of all, it was obvious that the English version was the original one. It read, "No matter where you're from, we're glad you're our neighbors."

Now, all three of these language have the capability to address someone in either a formal or a familiar way; as it happens, the familiar is obsolete in English, so the original is in what would have earlier been considered the formal construction, but is now the only way of expressing such a sentiment. However, the formal construction is rarely so used in Arabic--as is the familiar in Spanish. So one would not expect the two translations to have the same construction. They don't; but ironically, the Arabic uses the rare formal construction, and the Spanish the rare familiar. Thus the Arabic is more a formal equivalency translation than the Spanish.

But ironically, given that English no longer distinguishes between number in the second person, the Spanish version is an exactly literal translation of the English, while the Arabic version is more of a paraphrase. It would literally read, "It doesn't matter where your country [is], but we're glad that you're our neighbors."

I wonder if the owners of these signs first looked up the online database of registered violent and sexual offenders to see how many had moved into their neighborhood, before so welcoming them.

ETA: I just realized why the Arabic is in the plural. In Arabic, one has to distinguish between male and female in the singular (not so in Spanish); this construction is the only possible way to translate in a gender-neutral manner. Thus the Spanish and Arabic separately convey different nuances of the English.

In which twelve people display a little-known and seldom-seen Christian virtue

[You can begin a chain of linked articles on this topic by clicking here.]

There's something striking about the Charleston Massacre that's not, to my knowledge, yet been commented on. According to news reports a week in (early reports of tragedy always being overturned by later ones), on June 17, 2015, a young man named Dylann Roof joined a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. The twelve others present at the Bible study welcomed him, although he had apparently never been seen by any of them before.

What they didn't know was that Dylann had come with one purpose in mind, and that was to kill them--evidently in hopes of starting a race war. What happened was probably different than anyone would have expected, because when he pulled out a .45 pistol and started shooting, none of the twelve resisted him. Rather than a war, it was nothing but a massacre, and when the shooting stopped, nine more martyrs had joined the celestial ranks.

What's unusual about this is that Methodists aren't known for non-resistance. Yes, several Methodists were persecuted for refusing to take up arms against England during the Revolution, but that was probably more due to their loyalist sentiments than their adherence to any biblical doctrine. Yes, the senior pastor of the church, as a South Carolina state senator, had voted for gun control and had even banned guns from his church--but gun control, far from being about the elimination of firearms, is all about the concentration of firearms in the hands of law enforcement, denying them to everyone else but criminals.

Yet for all their lack of theological reasons for doing so, all twelve victims practiced the primeval Christian response to violence: they didn't fight back. Some even jumped in front of the gun, like the girls did in the Nickel Mines shooting, to take a bullet for their friends.

So confused was Dylann by this turn of events that he forgot to count his bullets, and, after reloading twice, failed to save the last one for himself. He put the gun up against his head and pulled the trigger on an empty chamber. Not having had an escape plan, he fled in disarray and was easily captured the next day.

So, in taking all 15 of his bullets, the congregants at Mother Emanuel saved one more life: that of their killer. There's no other explanation for this, other than that non-resistance, and loving one's enemies to the point of laying down one's life for them, is an inherent Christian virtue.

This was reinforced at Dylann's bond hearing, where the survivors were unanimous in offering him not hate or acrimony, but love and forgiveness. In short, the Methodists of Mother Emanuel acted like Christians.

All hail the martyrs of Mother Emanuel. All hail the Christian virtue of non-resistance.

Turns out we were never at the brink of war with Iran, after all

Taking a break from my coverage of the Indiana Revival, I return to a topic which I covered heavily a few years ago: Iran's impending production of nuclear weapons, and the likelihood that Israel would attack to forestall it. This scenario made it into Joel Rosenburg's thriller The Tehran Initiative. But it turns out to have been largely based on Israeli misinformation: Netanyahu knew that Iran wasn't that close to having The Bomb.

 According to Spy Cables – a cache of hundreds of leaked secret intelligence papers from all over the world, published by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit in collaboration with the Guardian newspaper – at the time of Netanyahu's statement, Israel's intelligence service concluded that Iran was "not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons," estimating that Iran had 100 kilograms of uranium enriched to a level of 20 percent.

It's a bit ironic, that the Telecommunications Revolution which has made it all the easier for the government to spy upon its citizens, has also made it a lot easier for citizens to spy upon their government.

And thus the History books continue to be rewritten, with yet another version of the story.

UPDATE MAY 2015
Something happened to the cookie settings on my computer, and Google won't let me comment again. This is in response to Marko:
Thanks for joining in. I don't dispute that Al Jazeera has an agenda--but so does every  news outlet. You have to listen to both sides to know what either is being less than truthful about.

Ken Miller's piece about peace

Interest in the Kenneth Miller case is higher than ever. Most of what I've seen concerning the case is already online, but here, for those who haven't seen them, are excerpts from a letter he wrote following his conviction (he's approved it for publication):

"I asked my boys as we were preparing for bed in the motel room whether they would be comfortable sleeping in the same room as a convicted felon. They didn't seem to have any problem with it at all.

A convicted felon. As of August 14, 2012, that's what I am. What about all those prayers around the world today that didn't get answered--or did they get answered? I say yes, a thousand times YES, they got answered. For one, I and my family have felt so incredibly lifted up by all those prayers around the world that we are able to be irrationally happy in the middle of a conviction and now a civil action lawsuit.

Just after the verdict was read, while we were sitting there trying to absorb it all, Sara Starr--bless her (and I mean that)--walked over to the defense table where I was still sitting and served me another thick legal document which charges me along with about 10 other people and organizations with various racketeering charges in regards to Isabella's disappearance. That should have finished me off, but instead I felt irrationally calm and at peace. Right now I'm just about ready to head off to bed for a good nights sleep. And I intend to sleep real good.

I know that the prayers of people affected the outcome of the trial. I believe the prayers being offered were done in yieldedness to the will of God. We remember that throughout history advances in the Kingdom have almost always been preceded by struggle and tribulation. God works not in spite of persecution and tribulation, but by and through it. I don't know how God wants His kingdom to advance through this, but it will, mark my words, if we stay true to Him."

The Mennonite Drug Trade

Whenever a universal draft is levied against a populace, Mennonites opposed to shooting humans come under persecution, and start looking for somewhere else to live. This is what brought them from Greater Germany to America in the first place, back when the King of England guaranteed their right to live peacefully in his overseas dominions.

The war between England and her American colonies was the impetus behind the Mennonite immigration into Canada, still under the King of England. The Civil War drove even more Mennonites northward, as their only other choices were conscription or going into hiding. [UPDATE: This is not the history of the Mennonites in our story, who, over the centuries, were driven in turn from The Netherlands, to East Prussia, to the Ukraine, and finally to Canada.] By the time World War I came along, there were sizable communities of Mennonites throughout Canada. Many of these, seeking to emigrate, bypassed the troublesome USA and moved directly to northern Mexico, filling out the colonies recently vacated by polygamous Mormons such as those in the ancestry of Willard Romney.

Over the years, these Plattdeutsch-speaking Mexicans have kept in close contact with their Canadian cousins--thus setting up the Mennonite version of the NAFTA Superhighway. As everyone knows, labour costs in Mexico are low. This results in Mennonites building their famous Deutsch furniture in the Mexican colonies, and exporting it northward--often all the way to Canada, where it is sold as authentic Mennonite artistry. And thus the steady stream of Mennonite truckers hauling furniture out of Mexico.

Turns out that a lot of times, this furniture is tucked full of drugs. The Mennonite drivers claim not to know anything about it when it is found, and the Mennonite furniture stores claim not to be expecting anything hidden inside their furniture consignments. Either one or the other is lying, or someone on either side of the border is surreptitiously dipping into the furniture shipment unbeknownst to any of the Mennonites.

At any rate, border guards have been alerted that just because a driver is a Mennonite, it doesn't mean he is any less needful of having his load searched for illegal drugs.

May 2014: This topic made the news recently.

UPDATE June 2016: and again.

October 2019: It's big news in Canada.