war
Journalist Jeffrey Gettleman asserts, “There is a very simple reason why some of Africa’s bloodiest, most brutal wars never seem to end: They are not really wars. . . . The combatants don’t have much of an ideology; they don’t have clear goals. . . . I’ve witnessed up close—often way too close—how combat has morphed from soldier versus soldier (now a rarity in Africa) to soldier versus civilian.”
laughing gas
Normally I dread having dental work done. But a recent trip to the dentist to repair a fractured tooth may have permanently changed my attitude.
March 21, 2011
With a new battle raging in Libya, consider these words from Augustine: “War should be waged reluctantly and with tears in one’s eyes.” When is war justified?
fear at Christmas
A glance through the headlines sets off a warning siren in our collective soul. One country, reeling from years of civil war, reports more than 2,000 civilians killed in 2 months. No tribe, no nation, no people-group is free from the threat of violence.
It’s a tired tune we’ve heard down through the ages. More than 700 years before Christ,…
tending lives
Liberia’s civil war ended in 2003, but the scars still linger on the streets of its capital, Monrovia. That tangle of weeds and concrete used to be a fountain, that mound of rubble was once a radio station, and that pockmarked building was an office.
As my host pointed out one devastation after another, we felt like the Pevensie children…
a mighty fortress
You might know of Martin Luther as the father of the Reformation and that he translated the whole Bible into German. But what is less known is that Luther was also a composer of 37 hymns. His best-known hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” is also called “The Battle Hymn of the Reformation.” There are at least 70 different…
rejoice!
Throughout Africa, from Sierra Leone to Uganda, rebel leaders have abducted hundreds of thousands of innocent boys and girls and converted them into soldiers. Forced to commit unspeakable crimes and murderous acts, often against their own relatives, these child soldiers are seldom able to forgive themselves or to reenter society after the rare event of being freed from their conscripted…
the prayer of the forgotten
In places like Darfur, the western region of Sudan, where genocide and starvation run rampant, human crises move far beyond the theoretical. Recent UN estimates suggested that hundreds of thousands of people have perished due to disease and war. Tribal warfare exacerbated by competing national political interests has laid this province to waste (literally).
The most incomprehensible part of this…
