More on Arab public opinion

Marc Lynch discusses the implications of the Guantanamo Bay policy for  relations with the Arab world.  He believes that the decision will be critical because of the common criticism that Obama has not kept his promises.  Lynch includes this description of the mainstream of Arab public opinion:

Who is the relevant public? The broad mainstream of Arabs and Muslims, who are generally hostile to U.S. foreign policy and suspicious of American motives, but are tentatively hopeful that Obama will change it in a positive direction. This broad middle has little sympathy with Al-Qaeda’s salafi-jihadist agenda, but shares much of its critique of U.S. foreign policy. It tends to watch al-Jazeera and to identify with its framing of core Arab issues (especially during moments of crisis), supports the idea of resistance (muqawima) but is outraged about terrorism (especially where there are Muslim victims), backed Hezbollah in 2006, suffered over Gaza in 2009, and came to be convinced during the Bush years that the U.S. was waging a war with Islam.

Guantanamo has for many long years been a key symbolic node in that shared narrative. While the U.S. debate usually focuses on the “worst of the worst”, the Arab discourse generally focuses on people viewed as innocent and unjustly detained — such as the al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj. This epitomized in their eyes all that was wrong with Bush’s war on terror. It helps that Guantanamo can now be portrayed as the stuff of the past, a sin to be redeemed. But this in turn plays into one of the most prominent themes in current Arab political discourse: that Obama’s attractive words have not yet been matched by deeds, and that he hasn’t really changed anything significant about U.S. policy.

This characterization agrees with most of the information that I’ve encountered so far, although I would like to see hard data and more in-depth discussion to back it up.  I imagine that his assertions are based on his other work, and he may discuss them in his book as well.

The second question is how much the U.S. can or should do to adapt to, engage, or change Arab public opinion.  That’s a complex question that’s way out of my league for now.

Music in the womb

Chuck Colson’s BreakPoint reports on a sequence from the PBS documentary The Music Instinct: Science and Song:

The program was an exploration of, among other things, music’s “biological, emotional and psychological impact on humans.”Part of this “exploration” included how music affects babies. If we are, as some scientists believe, “wired for music,” then babies are ideal test subjects since their reactions are, by definition, instinctual.

Part of this research involved the effect of music on fetuses. While we knew that mothers often sing to their unborn children, we weren’t sure that the unborn child could hear them.

We are now. A segment of The Music Instinct featured Sheila C. Woodward of the University of Southern California, who has studied fetal responses to music. A camera and a microphone designed for underwater use were inserted into the uterus of a pregnant woman. And then Woodward sang.

The hydrophone picked up two sounds: the “whooshing” of the uterine artery and the unmistakable sound of a woman singing a lullaby.

Then something extraordinary happened. Upon hearing the woman’s voice, the unborn child smiled.

It was one of those moments that makes you catch your breath. The full humanity of the fetus could not have been clearer if he had turned to the camera and winked.

Apparently, fetal responses to music aren’t limited to smiling. They have been observed moving their hands in response to music, almost as if conducting. They have been soothed by Vivaldi and disturbed by loud tracks from Beethoven. They have even responded “rhythmically to rhythms tapped on [their] mother’s belly.”

The commentary laments that Woodward’s research is not available on the website for the program, and suggests that the pro-choice worldview of PBS blinded them to the significance of this portion of the program.  I don’t know for sure, but I’m glad that BreakPoint put this out there for people to see.  I hope that I can watch the program sometime.

Has anyone else seen it?

Christ’s triumph over earthly powers

Scholars have begun to think about the way that Jesus and Paul called the Roman Empire into question.  I think that it was this Christian Century article from 2005 that turned me on to the trend.  Peter Leithart’s article in First Things also explored the idea of Paul’s assertion of Christ’s triumph over earthly powers:

Paul taught Christians to expect a lot from the gospel, politically as well as personally. He taught that the crucifixion of Jesus had a direct impact on the powers-that-be. He told the Colossians that Jesus went to the cross as the firstborn—the only-begotten of the Father, the new Israel, the heir, the Passover sacrifice—to pacify the powers. The same Son who created the powers (Col. 1:16) has “made peace through the blood of His cross” by reconciling powers in heaven and earth to Himself (Col. 1:20).

Paul borrows from the propaganda of the Roman Empire to make his point. According to Roman imperial ideology, the emperor was a cosmic “peace-maker,” bringing to earth an image of heavenly peace. The apostle says, on the contrary, that God has his own peace-maker, another Lord who reconciles all things. As Paul says later in Colossians, Jesus renovates all things and unites Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, slave and free (Col. 3:10-11), extending his empire even to “barbarians” (Col. 3:10-11).

Obama, Netanyahu, and the Palestinians

Marc Lynch says that there’s been a change in Israeli policy under the radar:

It’s important to again emphasize the crucial context here:  Obama’s pressure has actually been quietly working.  Lost in the public pyrotechnics over Netanyahu’s grudging utterance of an emasculated two state phraseology, Israel has over the last few weeks actually been making serious changes to the checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank and to the blockade of Gaza. The siege of cities such as Nablus has been lifted, major choke-points on key West Bank roads have been significantly opened, and journalists report being able to drive to Jenin without being stopped at a checkpoint. This is new.

For most Palestinians, the more than 600 major West Bank checkpoints and roadblocks are their top daily complaint, the major obstacle to travel and internal commerce, and a major ongoing humiliation. Every Palestinian we spoke with mentioned the checkpoints as the single most important short-term issue Obama could take on.  So did every American and international aid official, as well as even most of the Israelis.   Easing internal travel and the checkpoints should have a major positive impact on the every day lives and economic prospects of Palestinians, which could start generating some enthusiasm for a resumed peace process.  Of course, they also emphasized as firmly as possible that this would only be welcomed if accompanied by a clear political horizon, and not as an alternative to it (Netanyahu’s ‘economic peace’ argument has few takers even in Ramallah).

Lynch thinks that the two-state solution endorsed by Netanyahu is “emasculated” rather than a true solution, and that the “natural growth” argument for Israeli settlements doesn’t hold water, as the government continues to encourage people to move to the settlements.  Lynch believes that Obama’s “tough love” approach to Israel is only approach that has gotten results.  He also believes that Obama’s policy depends on demanding a full settlement freeze.

I wanted to post this as information rather than as advocacy as I am still trying to define my own opinion.

Evangelicals and the Building of an American Culture

Chapter 10 of America’s God discusses the cultural consequences of the rapid expansion of evangelicalism.  How, he asks, did evangelicalism come to play such an important role in the culture?

While crediting the interpretations of Gordon Wood, Robert Wiebe, and Nathan Hatch that stress the importance of the destruction of hierarchies by the American Revolution, he also believes that the evangelical churches helped to build the national culture in a way that has been underappreciated by historians.  He agrees with John Murrin’s statement that American society at the time of the adoption of the Constitution (1787) was “a roof without walls” (195).  In other words, it had a political framework without the national culture to support it.  Evangelicalism helped to supply this national culture.

This happened in two ways.  Evangelicals built social organizations, and not only denominational networks.  By the 1830s, voluntary agencies like Bible and Christian literature distribution societies contrasted with the local nature of most publishing.  Missionary societies that targeted the frontier and the world represented important means of connection to the frontier and non-European world.  Societies that aided the poor and promoted access to higher education took on roles that had not yet been taken on by any governments.  Noll compares the proliferation of Methodist churches and clergy with post offices and postal employees, finding similar patterns of expansion.  The post office was an important means of unifying the nation, but evangelicalism easily outdid the post office.

Secondly, evangelicals helped to supply an ideological base for the nation.  As Noll described earlier in the book, evangelical theology had come to terms with two pillars of the American Revolution, republican political theory and commonsense moral reasoning.  Noll writes that republican political theory held that freedom required virtue, and many of the founders believed that virtue needed to be upheld by religion.  This religion largely came to be evangelicalism, even though many of the most critical founders were publicly attached to it.  Churches did well in this new environment as they were not formally established but became a critical part of the cultural establishment.

This passage summed up Noll’s point well:

If for evangelicals during the Revolution “the cause of America” had become “the cause of Christ,” as the Pennsylvania Presbyterian Robert Smith put it in 1781, then the achievement of independence meant that, for many patriots, “the cause of Christ had become also “the cause of America.”  The belief that the United States was a land chosen and protected by God for special, if perhaps even millennial, purposes may not have been as widely spread during the War for Independence as is sometimes suggested.  But it did flourish in the decades after the war.  If networks of evangelical denominations and voluntary societies were building national walls under a constitutional roof, so also was the sense of elect nationhood, which was a peculiarly evangelical construction, making a significant contribution as well. (206)

This chapter was quite provocative, providing examples of how evangelicalism integrated itself into the national framework.  As Noll wrote, his explanation needs more than a few pages to be completely persuasive, but he seems to provide at least a plausible explanation for this process.

After this, I will be posting shorter entries on each chapter.

Tom Ricks on Iran

Tom Ricks believes that the Obama administration has taken the right approach on Iran so far.  He explains why in these two posts.  I don’t pretend to know what to do, but I thought that I would pass on the links that he recommended.

One of the links that Ricks posts is an interview with Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour.  He provides a glimpse into the mindset of Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei: don’t back down.  He believes that the regime is reasserting its authority and that Mousavi now must make the critical decision about whether he will back down.  Here is his advice for the Obama administration:

This is extremely delicate and the situation is so dynamic. We clearly have to be on the right side of history here, but I think if we try to insert ourselves into the momentous internal Iranian drama that’s unfolding we may unwittingly undermine those whom we’re trying to strengthen. Historically that’s often been the case in Iran.

It goes without saying that the Obama administration should clearly not acknowledge the results of these contested elections. This would demoralize people. We should also be pushing all of our allies not to acknowledge the results of these elections until justice prevails in Tehran. I was disappointed that Turkey’s Abdullah Gul and Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai did not hesitate to congratulate Ahmadinejad.

But again, I think if we overtly take sides the regime could well react with a massive and bloody crackdown on the demonstrators using the pretext that they are acting against an American-led coup. And the sad thing is that much of the global media would focus more on what Obama said than what the Iranian government did.

That said, I do think the President should condemn the flagrant violence against innocent civilians, including women and the elderly. The Iranian regime likes to talk a lot about justice, and we should make it clear we want to see justice and the will of the Iranian people prevail.

Ricks also posted an article by Robin Wright.  She describes the internal dynamics of Iranian politics and culture in this short piece.  If she’s right, the status quo in Iran can’t last much longer:

At the same time, however, hundreds of thousands of Iranians have not taken to the streets to reject the current constitution but rather to demand that the individual rights it guarantees are enforced.

Past international crises are now being invoked to forecast Iran’s fate: Mousavi supporters fear Iran’s security forces will reenact China’s crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Regime supporters compare Mousavi to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, fearing the undoing of their own revolution if he prevails.

But whatever happens in Iran will be distinctly Iranian in style and outcome. The movement has already invoked Shiite symbolism. Mourning is traditionally marked in commemorations on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, a cycle also used to galvanize greater public outrage when the shah’s forces killed protesters in 1978. The commemorations often led to new clashes and more deaths — and then volatile new cycles of mourning.

It was no accident that Mousavi called for the mass demonstration Thursday to mourn the dead killed on Monday. And the cycle is only beginning. The 40th-day commemorations are traditionally most important.

I’m as eager as you are to see how all this turns out.

Karim Sadjadpour

America’s God, Chapters 7-9

In Chapters 7-8 of America’s God, Mark Noll shows himself to be a careful historian as he documents how traditional and “innovative” theologies did not become “American” theologies during the period of the American Revolution.  In other words, even as “commonsense” moral philosophy and republican political theory became more accepted by evangelical Christians, they did not produce a paradigm shift in American theology.  Evangelicals like Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Baptists became comfortable with the republican and commonsense language, though.  Noll intends to show that after the 1790s, American evangelical theology would be transformed by these ideas.  But the American Revolutionary period was not the period where this happened.  Even the nonevangelical theologies of liberal Congregationalism (marked by rationalism and universalism) and Deism did not fully acclimate themselves to American society after the Revolution.

For Noll, the transformation of evangelicalism goes along with the evangelical transformation of America.  Chapter 9 shows the amazing growth of evangelical denominations, especially the Baptists and Methodists, in the late 1700s and early 1800s.  Interestingly enough, evangelicals had not been a major force during the Revolutionary period, certainly not at their level during the Great Awakening in the 1740s.  Revivals were a local rather than intercolonial or national phenomenon.  But in the new climate after 1790, evangelicals returned as a major cultural force, bringing new members into the fold and expanding along with the American population into the western frontiers of the nation (at this point not very far west from our perspective).

Raising your kids right

John Kass is one of the Chicago Tribune’s treasures (his only flaw, to my knowledge, is that he’s a White Sox fan).  Most of his columns explore Illinois’ political culture in a unique way that mixes laugh-out-loud sarcasm with a true hatred of Illinois’ ubiquitous political corruption.  Sometimes, though, he takes a break from the good fight, as when he recently gave advice for parents on how to keep your kids loyal to the team that you raised them to root for:

Just dress the kids in your team’s gear, hat and jersey and so on, and take them to the other ballpark when the game is on during the Cubs-Sox series. Sox fans, take your kids to Wrigley. Cubs fans, take your kids to Sox Park.

It works best when the kids are about 6 or 7 years old, young enough to trust their parents and be completely impressionable. And you don’t even need a ticket to the game.

Just stand outside, holding your child’s hand, until a crowd of boisterous drunken fans from the other team approaches, fans shouting “Sox [stink]!” or “Cubs [stink]!”

Now here’s the tricky part. Just let go of your child’s hand and run away.

That’s right. Run. Leave them there, alone in the teeming crowd, with the screaming, angry, drunken fans cursing the Cubs or the Sox. Yes, the kid may be terrified. But it works.

After a few minutes, return and hug your child. With some kids, you must repeat the process for several games. But once indoctrinated, they’ll remain loyal.

“You did that to us,” said one of my sons, with Hawk Harrelson and Steve Stone calling the glorious 4-1 Sox gem pitched by John Danks over the Cubs on Wednesday.

“I’ll never forget it,” said the other boy. “There was a big fat Cubs fan, he was drooling all over his shirt, saying Sox [stink], Sox [stink]! He was drunk and he smelled!”

“That traumatized us,” said his brother. “The drool flopping down, the beer breath, more drool. Thanks, Dad, you’re the best.”

On the Justice Journey

From Monday through Saturday this week, I will be going to some of the famous civil rights movements sites with about 40 white and black Chicagoans from several different churches.  We hope to learn about the history of the movement and also work on racial reconciliation.  I hope to have some interesting experiences to write about when I come back.

Of course, the Cubs and Sox have their first series against each other this week, so I hope that won’t create other reconciliation issues as I’m sure that the group will include fans of both teams.  For what it’s worth, here’s some research on the characteristics of Cubs and Sox fans that appeared in today’s Chicago Tribune.

You may or may not know about the stereotypes of Cubs and Sox fans.  The Cubs’ Wrigley Field is in a trendy part of town (Wrigleyville on the North Side) and the Sox’ US Cellular Field is on the South Side, near the old public housing project corridor.  I like to think that Wrigley is great but not nice (it was built in 1914 and isn’t in the best shape) and “the Cell” is nice but not great (it was built as a sterile new stadium in the early 1990s but looks a lot nicer now).  The two groups of fans have stereotypes about each other: Cubs fans often look at the Sox fans as low class, and the Sox fans often look at the Cubs fans as privileged, soft frat boys/yuppies who don’t care about the game that they’re watching.

I root against the White Sox at almost every opportunity, but I do like their fans.  The average serious Sox fan is pretty hardcore and hates the Cubs.  You see some Cubs fans who will root for both teams, but almost never a Sox fan who could ever think of rooting for the Cubs.  Talking with knowledgeable fans of the other team can be a lot of fun, although the fact that the Cubs haven’t won a World Series in over 100 years and the Sox had one lucky year a great run in 2005 means that the Sox fans always have a trump card.

Go Cubs!

Chinese Catholicism on the rise, too

Chinese Christianity seems to be a hot topic these days.  In a comment on my post on Chinese Calvinism, Joel referred me to an article in First Things on Catholicism in China.  Here’s the setup by author Francesco Sisci:

Not since late antiquity has the world seen a migration of peoples like the great urbanization of China now in progress. By 2025, migrants will make up two-fifths of China’s billion-strong urban population, a fifth of all the Chinese, according to the McKinsey Global Institute.

Many analysts have observed that this great confluence of ethnicities and languages has prepared the ground for a great wave of Christian conversion. At the end of World War II, with a nationalist government supportive of Christian missions, barely two percent of Chinese were Christians. The World Christian Database now counts 111 million Chinese Christians, while an internal survey conducted in 2007 by China’s government puts the number substantially higher: 130 million, nearly 10 percent of the total population.

Far less often observed—and potentially more important—is the fact that this exponential growth of Christianity in China would not have been possible without the forbearance and tacit encouragement of the regime. In recent years, the Chinese government has shifted from persecution of Christians to subtle—and sometimes even open—encouragement of Christianity. Christianity never will be a state religion in China, to be sure, and the Communist party in China is still officially atheist. But it is not an exaggeration to say we are near a Constantinian moment for the Chinese Empire, as the government looks to Christianity—particularly Catholicism—for an instrument of social cohesion.