Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire
SEARCH and ARCHIVES options are at the bottom of all website pages. The website is dedicated to: The Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire. More on Empire below. PLEASE NOTE: the Sitemap. There is also a list of all Book Reviews separately, and alongside each post. You may search the Blog too. Please consider […]
Jesus Was a Victim of Empire. Acknowledging This Should Transform Christianity.
Jesus Was a Victim of Empire. Acknowledging This Should Transform Christianity. By Christine Mungai, Truthout Part of the Series: Religion’s Role in the Struggle for Justice December 16, 2020 photo above: howafrica.com WN: This is the central theme of this website! A significant portion of what follows is from the previous highlighted part. There is […]
Jesus, Evangelicals, and American Empire
image above: thenile.com.au WN: “Empire” by nature is gargantuan evil. There is none known to history that has not been such. Most American Evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics amongst other religious instinctively oppose thinking the United States is precisely such an Empire. Billy Graham and a host of lesser religious routinely prayed for Empire victory […]
Rwanda Dispatches May 18 to July 12, 2018
At 30 years on to this day, April 7, 2024, the Rwanda Genocide broke out, that saw more than 1 million Rwandans murdered. CBC did the interview you see below. 30 years after Rwandan genocide, Roméo Dallaire feels ‘rage’ amid global crises | Watch (msn.com) Roméo Dallaire led the UN’s peacekeeping mission when more than […]
Was America Great When It Burned Native American Babies? (Audio and Transcript) – Truthdig
Posted initially on Aug 5, 2016 Interview by Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer “Benjamin Madley1 has changed the conversation on genocide and American Indians. After An American Genocide, it will no longer be possible to debate whether or not genocide took place. Instead we will need to confront the questions of how and why […]
Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 356 pages WN: This is one of the few times I also posted a book review to this Blog. This is a highly disturbing–and informative–book. In an interview with Religion […]
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 356 pages WN: This is one of the few times I also posted a book review to this Blog. This is a highly disturbing–and informative–book. In an interview with Religion […]
The Great Sumas Lake Heist: A Guilty Little Secret in Plain Sight
Sumas Lake until a century ago covered about 10% of the Fraser Valley’s fertile farmland. Then it was ‘disappeared.’ Whatever happened? And what to do about it? NOTE: There are several footnotes that add related material to the article, that for some may be of interest. NOTE 2:It was exactly a year ago that the […]
Focus On: Mapping Militarism 2020
by David Swanson May 6, 2020 WN: The article highlighted below represents a brilliant and multiplex presentation of the worldwide realities of the premier world blight of militarism. One could call it the Ultimate Virus, the Unremitting Pandemic–that few even recognize for the Monstrous World Nightmare it is. The other day I was forwarded an […]
The Mumbai Bombs, July 2006
July 12, 2006 Dear Editor: Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Peter MacKay predictably was the pot that called the kettle black in (otherwise legitimately) condemning the bombing horror in Mumbai this week. Last July Prime Minister Tony Blair likewise as hypocritically called the London bombings “barbaric attacks.” On September 1, 1939, President Roosevelt similarly wrote […]
Is Violence Master of Us All?: Fight, Flight or Just Peacemaking
WN: The host was the affable lawyer Gerry Palmer, quite well-known in Abbotsford for his work with numerous non-profit organizations, and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Business at the University of the Fraser Valley. Is Violence Master of Us All?: Fight, Flight or Just Peacemaking Philosopher’s Café: Legal Grounds Coffee House, Abbotsford, April […]
Engagement With “Frances Haugen: ‘I never wanted to be a whistleblower. But lives were in danger’”
Dan Milmo Global technology editor October 24, 2021 WN: Now this is wonderfully gracious theology from Frances Haugen: Because the point of moral bankruptcy is … saying you deserve a chance to start over, that we as a society do better when people get a chance to wipe the slate. I can only add: Amen! […]
Interaction With “The CIA: 70 Years of Organized Crime”
September 22, 2017 by Douglas Valentine – Lars Schall photo above by Tom Thai | CC BY 2.0 WN: Welcome to America the Beautiful. As kids, my brothers and I loved the highlighted song, as sung by George Beverly Shea–who performed in front of more people than any other singer in history. We played it […]
Legacy of Shame:
October 19, 2021 by Kenn Orphan photo above: Photograph Source: Reagan White House Photographs – Public Domain WN: Saint Augustine recounts this story of Empire: The king asked the fellow, “What is your idea, in infesting the sea?” And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, “the same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because […]
On A letter from Hell
By Robin Schumacher, Exclusive Columnist photo above: pxhere.com WN: It is interesting that the photo chosen for the article highlighted below (not shown above) is along the lines of what Larry Dixon wrote (The Other Side of the Good News: Contemporary Challenges to Jesus’ teaching on hell 1 in apparent approval of an instance of […]
9/11 was a test:
Essay by Carlos Lozada Illustration above: by Patrik Svensson Sept. 3, 2021 [pullquote]. . . the official response to 9/11 unleashed some of its worst qualities: deception, brutality, arrogance, ignorance, delusion, overreach and carelessness.[/pullquote]WN: Below are excerpts from an outstanding essay by a Pulitzer Prizer winner for criticism in 2019. But the last lines, though […]
Opinion: It’s ‘The Code’ of the NHL, and it has no cure for stupid
Opinion by Ken Dryden May 27, 2021 photo above: Toronto center John Tavares is taken from the ice on a stretcher on May 20 after being injured during Game 1 of the Maple Leafs’ first-round playoff series against Montreal. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP) Ken Dryden, a former goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens and […]
Why Canada’s special forces ‘shadow army’ is still fighting ISIS
By Adnan R. Khan May 11, 2021 photo above: Spec Ops Magazine WN: In short, Canada’s Special Operations Regiment (CSOR), are a bunch of trained hitmen. There is no declared war Canada is in1. Testimonials are ubiquitous that intelligence gathered by CSOR and others by its very nature is often faulty, frequently manipulated, at best […]
Joe Biden’s War Powers:
Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill April 28 2021 Recording: Go to website and listen to Joe Biden’s War Powers 2021-04-28·36 min. Transcript excerpts below. illustration above: Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can’t Kick Militarism by Joel Andreas. WN: In the end, Joe Biden’s devout Catholicism, his profound empathy from personal tragedy, his commitment to the welfare […]
Restorative Justice: Peacemaking Not Warmaking; Transformative Justice: Penal Abolitionism Not Prison Reform
by Wayne Northey for The Kenarchy Journal, Volume 2. image above: cccu.org PLEASE NOTE: Below are excerpts of my paper for the above-noted Journal. At the very end of this post, one may click on the highlighted text, and read the full article in PDF. And of course one may also read it on the […]
The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America
Of the extraordinarily valuable and informative works for which Mr. Valentine is responsible, his latest, CIA As Organized Crime, may prove to be the best choice as an introduction to the dark realm of America’s hidden corruptions and their consequences at home and around the world. This new volume begins with the unlikely but irrevocable framework by which Mr. Valentine’s path led to unprecedented access to key Agency personnel whose witting participation is summarized by the chapter title: “How William Colby Gave Me the Keys to the CIA Kingdom.”
By illuminating CIA programs and systems of surveillance, control, and assassination utilized against the civilian population of South Vietnam, we are presented with parallels with operations and practices at work today in America’s seemingly perpetual war against terror.
On Some Bad House Manager Language
February 12, 2021 by Paul Street photo above: Backbone Campaign – CC BY 2. WN: The highlighted article is a succinct dismantling of any notion that the United States is a democracy. We Canadians and other democracies are plagued by some of the same issues. But the so-claimed “oldest democracy” was never intended to be, […]
Reckoning with the Toxicity of Christian Nationalism
By Bill Berkowitz February 8, 2021 WN: The article highlighted below is very disturbing for followers of the one Mark Lewis Taylor dubs The Executed God (book review here, with the subtitle: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America). I stand in perpetual amazement at how the New Testament Jesus is read to be […]
On the Relative Vileness of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene
February 10, 2021 by Gary Leupp photo above: via The Huffington Post WN: One can imagine with the above photo Trump himself readily carrying out family separations at the border . . . The writer of the article below however makes a compelling observation about U.S. leadership and comparative “vileness.” My only quibble is: he […]
Book Review of Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World
Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World, Jean Bethke Elshtain, New York: Basic Books, 2003, 240 pp. WN: My friend Ron Dart commissioned this review back in 2009. The author was a bright, productive Christian scholar. Incredibly naïve and blinded by ideology as well . . . The review […]
Life Under the Bomb Means a Life of Resistance
Published on Thursday, August 06, 2020 by Common Dreams by Rev. John Dear photo above: “Our message over the years has been simple and urgent: Nuclear weapons have totally failed us. They don’t make us safer; they don’t provide jobs; they don’t make us more secure—these are age-old lies. Instead they bankrupt us, economically and […]
Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act
Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act July 22, 2020 Bats With Napalm Vests and Other Great American Innovations by David Swanson WN: This is horrible! Unconscionable! Despicable! Exponentially Hypocritical! . . . and whatever other superlative expletives can be thrown at U.S. planning, developing, experimenting, and deploying […]
Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act
Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act July 22, 2020 Bats With Napalm Vests and Other Great American Innovations by David Swanson WN: This is horrible! Unconscionable! Despicable! Exponentially Hypocritical! . . . and whatever other superlative expletives can be thrown at U.S. planning, developing, experimenting, and deploying […]
Cornel West Says ‘Neo-Fascist Gangster’ Trump and Neoliberal Democrats Expose America as ‘Failed Social Experiment’
WN: Please see in light of the title this outstanding article by Canadian Wade Davis: The Unraveling of America. [pullquote]One knows a “civilization” is dying when small men cast long shadows.–anonymous American pastor, 2020[/pullquote] 1. Introduction to the Post: This post, updated numerous times, has become a kind of dog’s breakfast. One could spend hours […]
Saying Goodbye to Sam
Oct 28, 2019 Opinion | TD originals sketch above: Mr. Fish / Truthdig Chris Hedges Columnist Chris Hedges is a Truthdig columnist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a New York Times best-selling author, a professor in the college degree program offered to New Jersey state prisoners by Rutgers… And so much more! WN: Chris Hedges is […]
Why this ‘genius’ scholar is mapping out the world’s largest jail system
photo above: Kelly Lytle Hernández, who received the MacArthur ‘genius’ grant, views prison abolition through the eyes of rebels Fri 11 Oct 2019 by Sam Levin WN: In a revised forthcoming publication by Wipf and Stock Publishers, namely Volume One of Justice That Transforms, I write: Longtime Restorative Justice promoter Howard Zehr once directly critiqued […]
Beyond Impeachment: Remove This Regime from Below
October 1, 2019 by Paul Street photo above: White House – Public Domain WN: This is a powerful broadside against the Ultimate Bad Guy on the Planet: the Evil Empire of the United States of America! The vehemence is found not only in the colourful language, but even in the typos . . . Mr. […]
Donald Trump Is Finished
Sep 30, 2019 TD originals Bill Blum photo above: President Donald Trump, with Vice President Mike Pence at left, takes part in an Armed Forces event at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Va., on Monday. (Evan Vucci / AP) WN: Of all the vile presidents I have lived through, Trump is clearly the worst: as I […]
On the Record: Jody Wilson-Raybould’s Devastating Testimony on the SNC-Lavalin Scandal
On the Record: Jody Wilson-Raybould’s Devastating Testimony on the SNC-Lavalin Scandal Trudeau tried to pressure justice minister to cut deal to let corporation avoid bribery prosecution, she says. By Tyee Staff February 27, 2019 | TheTyee.ca photo above:Jody Wilson-Raybould: ‘I come from a long line of matriarchs and I am a truth teller in accordance with the […]
Obama’s Imperial Presidency
September 14, 2018 by Carl Boggs photo above: The U.S. Army | CC BY 2.0 WN: It is astounding that Obama (no less Hillary Clinton) was through and through a warmonger on a grand scale exceeding both Bushes, and far more so far than Trump. This is laid out in the article below. Obama is […]
Reckoning With John McCain
Respecting the best of McCain requires grappling with the rest of McCain. By Timothy Patrick McCarthy Twitter August 27, 2018 photo above: John McCain in 2007. (Dennis Van Tine / MediaPunch / IPX) WN: In my view, the article highlighted below is a respectful, balanced assessment of Senator McCain, when seen through the lenses of […]
Millennial Evangelicals Diverge from Their Parents’ Beliefs
The separation of families at the border, climate change, and various progressive causes have galvanized young Christians. By Eliza Griswold August 27, 2018 WN: I have a white Canadian Evangelical friend who expresses being fed up with white Evangelical-bashing — in particular towards white Evangelicals south of the border1. I argue on the contrary that […]
The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism
The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean August 24, 2018 Slavery and the Origins of Capitalism by Louis Proyect WN: I wrote the following in introduction to a book similar in its findings about 19th-century American capitalism to 17th-century colonial capitalism, entitled The Half Has Never […]
How Does This All End? How Do We Come Back Together?
August 1, 2018 by Tim Suttle 8 Comments WN: In the article highlighted below, we are told — again by this author — that America has a wisdom problem. I have no doubt that he is right. What must be asserted however much more so is that America has an Evil Empire problem. When an […]
Willow Creek, Your Time Is Now
August 6, 2018 by Scot McKnight 68 Comments photo above: Pat Baranowski was the executive assistant to the Rev. Bill Hybels at the Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., one of the largest megachurches in the country. CreditAlyssa Schukar for The New York Times WN: What can one add — that is not […]
Pope revises catechism to say death penalty is ‘inadmissible’
Commits the church to working toward its abolition worldwide1 Aug 2, 2018 by Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service Theology photo above: Pope Francis gestures before speaking about the death penalty at an event marking the 25th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, at the Vatican in this Oct. 11, 2017, file photo. […]
Trump is now dangerous – that makes his mental health a matter of public interest
Bandy Lee This world authority in psychiatry, consulted by US politicians, argues that the president’s mental fitness deserves scrutiny Sun 7 Jan 2018 00.05 GMT Last modified on Fri 9 Feb 2018 18.35 GMT WN: Today in Rwanda, we discussed why many African leaders have destroyed home and people over whom they rule(d). When traits such as […]
The Last Temptation
How evangelicals, once culturally confident, became an anxious minority seeking political protection from the least traditionally religious president in living memory Michael Gerson April 2018 Issue Politics WN: This is a greatly informed, wise and even hopeful assessment of what has happened to white Evangelicals in America since their embrace of Trump (81% voted for […]
The Last Real Evangelical: Evangelist Billy Graham
Feb 23, 2018 photo above: Evangelist Billy Graham speaks in Dallas at the 1974 Southern Baptist Convention. (AP) by Mel White / MelWhite.org1 WN: On the day of Billy Graham’s death (February 21, 2018), I posted a critical commentary on Graham. Today I post a positive reflection by Mel White, who counted Graham as a […]
Billy Graham and the Gospel of Fear
February 21, 2018 byCecil Bothwell Photo above by Richard Bromley | CC BY 2.0 [NOTE: For a differing view with my reflection on it, please also see my February 23, 2018 post about Billy Graham.] WN: Billy Graham’s passing (February 21, 2018) will occasion countless eulogies the world over; he will be touted as the […]
Kipling, the ‘White Man’s Burden,’ and U.S. Imperialism
by John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney (Nov 01, 2003) photo above: The Moro Massacre (March 9, 1906): Phillipines – emblematic of the real meaning of “the white man’s burden” WN: The “white man’s burden” has ever been the white man’s horror, or the white man’s alibi, or the white man’s curse, or the […]
The Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, and American Exceptionalism
Posted on July 21, 2015 by christian hegemony Challenging Christian Hegemony Practical tools for recognizing and resisting Christian dominance WN: Every time I read an essay so well presented as that highlighted below (and so beyond tragic!), as a committed follower of Jesus, I know that I don’t have to wear the blame, but I […]
Hellrazed? — edited by Kevin Miller
WN: Kevin Miller produced the movie Hellbound? five years ago to look at changing views on the doctrine of hell. As he began “exploring” hell, partially motivated by having read his friend Brad Jersak’s book, Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: Hope, Hell and the New Jerusalem, he was alerted to the publication of Rob […]
Pope Denounces ‘Mentality of Fear’ Caused by Nuclear Regimes, Urges Disarmament
Published on Friday, November 10, 2017 by Common Dreams At a seminar at the Vatican, Pope Francis praised the U.N.’s recent anti-nuclear weapons treaty by Julia Conley, staff writer photo above: Pope Francis called for nuclear disarmament at a Vatican summit on Friday, a week after an emotional anti-war speech at a military cemetery in […]
Exploring the Shadows of America’s Security State
Or How I Learned Not to Love Big Brother By Alfred W. McCoy [This piece has been adapted and expanded from the introduction to Alfred W. McCoy’s new book, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power.] WN: A family member once quipped about the United States that she would […]
Why Trump Could Be Gone Before 2020
AUGUST 18, 2017 by PAUL STREET excerpts: Increasingly, though, one really must wonder if the arch-authoritarian racist idiot Donald Trump will make it to 2020. The supreme madness and evil of the rolling atrocity that is the Insane Clown Trump presidency has just now reached a new level of bizarre and scary-weird ruling-class dysfunction. Just last […]
Worried About Those Global Cyber Attacks? They Were Started by Washington
Worried About Those Global Cyber Attacks? They Were Started by Washington The notorious US spy agencies invented this monster, first with the Stuxnet virus against Iran—but then they lost control over it. By William Greider JUNE 30, 2017 WN: Of course, the United States has never been the “peacekeeper that upholds the world’s higher values”, as […]
White Supremacy Is Anti-Gospel. I’m Glad the Southern Baptist Convention Agrees
WN: I copied the entire article below. It is about an historic decision by the Southern Baptist Convention. Russell Moore has been the head of the (SBC) Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission since 2013. As you can see from the links, he has been an amazing voice within those ranks for actually […]
Obama: a Hollow Man Filled With Ruling Class Ideas
Obama: a Hollow Man Filled With Ruling Class Ideas JUNE 2, 2017 by PAUL STREET WN: The review below of the recent massive biography of Barack Obama is scathing with reference to Obama’s supreme narcissism (matching Trump’s one could argue, though not in constant bombast). Paul Street powerfully demonstrates how Obama, in a long line […]
“Born Again” in Deir Nidham: Against the Illegal Military Occupation, from a Black-American Prophetic Christian Perspective Jadaliyya
by Taurean J. Webb (a FOSNA Board member) Tactics of Racial Supremacy photo above: A checkpoint in the Israeli Barrier in the West Bank, near Abu Dis. Photo taken by Justin McIntosh, uploaded via Wikimedia Commons an excerpt: There is a voice emerging from the prophetic Black Christian faith tradition, called to speak directly against the […]
Trump, America, and the Abyss
November 3, 2016 4:47 p.m. By Andrew Sullivan I have decided to post a few articles warning against Trump’s America. It is that dire. The world never has seen a potential evil dictator like Trump, in terms of capacity to do evil like no other before. Period. An evil dictator heading up the most evil […]
An Open Letter to Michelle Obama, October 13, 2016
WN: A friend reminded me, in response to that below, that none of us in the first world is untainted vis à vis violence. And with that taintedness is a bending at least towards hypocrisy and Pharisaism – which my friend also reminded me about. So with that mea culpa, please read on.: Dear […]
Iraqi Woman (Sundus Saleh) Uses Chilcot Report in War Crimes Lawsuit Against George W. Bush
Sunday, 04 September 2016 00:00 By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout | News Analysis photo above: President George W. Bush discusses the Iraq war in Washington, May 24, 2007. (Photo: Stephen Crowley / The New York Times) WN: As David Swanson in his updated book, War Is a Lie, relentlessly argues, the only justifications for any war […]
Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
September 26, 2014 by CHARLES R. LARSON WN: There is someone of my acquaintance who rails against the US Black community for its violence of Black on Black, while almost completely downplaying police violence against Blacks. He also rails against them for their poverty: they just are not enterprising, and therefore deserve their state, end […]
There’s No Business Like the Arms Business
photo above: A mural near the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran. (David Holt / CC-BY-2.0) July 26, 2016 Tomgram: William Hartung, How to Arm a “Volatile” Planet Editorial by WN It is a very strange world: Michelle Obama makes a highly impassioned, brilliant speech at the Democratic National Convention – one nearly universally praised, […]
The London Bombs, July 2005
By Wayne Northey July 9, 2005 Dear Editor: Prime Minister Tony Blair hypocritically called the London bombings “barbaric attacks.” On September 1, 1939, President Roosevelt similarly wrote to the major powers that aerial bombing of civilians had “profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity” and was “inhuman barbarism.” He later as disingenuously referred to the December 7, 1941 […]
Mr. Harper, But Emperor Bush Has Nothing on At All!!!
By Wayne Northey Stephen Harper is a scary man. He is at best sycophant, at worst dupe, of the confidence racket called American Foreign Policy. There is a growing collection of articles on my computer about American Empire and “Emperor” George W. Bush. The assortment exceeds to the point of crescendo journalist Serge Schmemann’s agonizing […]
“Not Enough!” and International Restorative Justice
Colloquium on Violence & Religion (COV&R) Presentation, May 31 – June 4, 2006, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada WN: When I finally decided to register to present a paper at my friend Vern Redekop’s urging (he was the Conference host), there was only a slot left under French language workshops. I immediately asked two bilingual colleagues about […]
Restorative Justice
NOTE: Some of what follows is excerpted from Chapter One of Justice That Transforms: Volume 1 WN: From a Canadian vantage point, Dr. Herman Bianchi, a Dutch criminologist, is one of the three “grandfathers” (if one must use that term) chronologically of Restorative Justice, together with Mark Yantzi and Dave Worth, the first and longstanding […]