Afghanistan and its Aftermath
It was a mistake from the beginning.
Through four administrations—two Republican and two Democratic—American foreign policy was flawed to its core. It was a public repeat of the catastrophe of Southeast Area: if we just have enough guns and big enough armies, we can force people (and nations) to do what we want them to do.
All of it cloaked in the flag, of course, with patriotic fervor substituting for truth and transparency. Throughout my adult life, these twin travesties of American military intervention (Southeast Asia and the Middle East) have undermined public confidence in America’s righteous vocation.
All along, it has not been the soldiers and their generals who were displaying the highest of American values but rather those journalists, scholars, prophets, and marchers who denounced these foreign policy disasters. Now we know who was telling the truth about Afghanistan, just like we all eventually realized who was telling the truth about Vietnam.
Like John Prine who, as a 20-year-old postman and parttime troubadour, wrote the haunting song Sam Stone. “I wrote it many years ago,” he once said (and I paraphrase). “I never thought it would ever be relevant again.”
But what to do?
Our national embarrassment and personal anger must flow into a sturdy resolve to bring some measure of redemption to this god-awful tragedy. The sadness of the day must work its way into sane and sanctified action.
The words of Pope Francis just might be what we need. He stood on the sixth-floor balcony above St. Peter’s Square and called upon every Catholic parish in Europe—all 120,000—to receive and welcome at least one refugee family from the Middle East.
It is called hospitality.
It is the practice of doing what Jesus described when he famously said, “I was a stranger, and you took me in.” He was foreseeing the great Judgment Day when some nations (not people) would be consigned to destruction and some would be ushered into eternal life based on whether they fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the prisoner, and welcomed the stranger.
Hospitality is one of the nine “practices for revitalizing the church and renewing the world,” according to Korean-American scholar Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Australian scholar Graham Hill in their book Healing our Broken Humanity.
The Afghan people flooding the airport and cowering behind barricades are strangers to us: their religion, their language, their ways in the world—all strange to us. Except this: they also love their children and tend to their parents; they also rejoice at weddings and weep at funerals; they also kneel to pray and stand to dance; they also honor a promise and despise a cheat. They also are people who aspire to live with faith, hope, and love.
They are people, made in the image of God, redeemed by the blood of the lamb, and destined with us to inherit a world renewed by the purposes and power of God. The Christian prophet and apostle John saw a new heavens and a new earth with the river of life flowing from the throne of God and the tree of life growing on each side, its leaves for the healing of the nations.
Here are two nations in need of healing: America and Afghanistan. One way this miracle of God might occur is for all of us—Americans—to fling open the doors of our hearts and homes and welcome all of them—Afghans—as if they were Jesus himself.
According to the National Congregational Study Survey, there are approximately 380,000 congregations in the United States. Every one of them, yes, every one of them can take down any version of that old and ugly sign NO ROOM IN THE INN that too many nailed up when God’s people were flooding across the Rio Grande. We need to replace it with some version of the words of Jesus, Come, blessed of our father, receive the guest room prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
It just might be what so many struggling congregations—in Owensboro, Hendersonville, and elsewhere—need to stave off their implosion and infuse a fresh dose of the Spirit into their life and worship. Obeying the commands of Jesus does that, you know!
(August 2021)
Afghanistan and its Aftermath
It was a mistake from the beginning.
Through four administrations—two Republican and two Democratic—American foreign policy was flawed to its core. It was a public repeat of the catastrophe of Southeast Area: if we just have enough guns and big enough armies, we can force people (and nations) to do what we want them to do.
All of it cloaked in the flag, of course, with patriotic fervor substituting for truth and transparency. Throughout my adult life, these twin travesties of American military intervention (Southeast Asia and the Middle East) have undermined public confidence in America’s righteous vocation.
All along, it has not been the soldiers and their generals who were displaying the highest of American values but rather those journalists, scholars, prophets, and marchers who denounced these foreign policy disasters. Now we know who was telling the truth about Afghanistan, just like we all eventually realized who was telling the truth about Vietnam.
Like John Prine who, as a 20-year-old postman and parttime troubadour, wrote the haunting song Sam Stone. “I wrote it many years ago,” he once said (and I paraphrase). “I never thought it would ever be relevant again.”
But what to do?
Our national embarrassment and personal anger must flow into a sturdy resolve to bring some measure of redemption to this god-awful tragedy. The sadness of the day must work its way into sane and sanctified action.
The words of Pope Francis just might be what we need. He stood on the sixth-floor balcony above St. Peter’s Square and called upon every Catholic parish in Europe—all 120,000—to receive and welcome at least one refugee family from the Middle East.
It is called hospitality.
It is the practice of doing what Jesus described when he famously said, “I was a stranger, and you took me in.” He was foreseeing the great Judgment Day when some nations (not people) would be consigned to destruction and some would be ushered into eternal life based on whether they fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the prisoner, and welcomed the stranger.
Hospitality is one of the nine “practices for revitalizing the church and renewing the world,” according to Korean-American scholar Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Australian scholar Graham Hill in their book Healing our Broken Humanity.
The Afghan people flooding the airport and cowering behind barricades are strangers to us: their religion, their language, their ways in the world—all strange to us. Except this: they also love their children and tend to their parents; they also rejoice at weddings and weep at funerals; they also kneel to pray and stand to dance; they also honor a promise and despise a cheat. They also are people who aspire to live with faith, hope, and love.
They are people, made in the image of God, redeemed by the blood of the lamb, and destined with us to inherit a world renewed by the purposes and power of God. The Christian prophet and apostle John saw a new heavens and a new earth with the river of life flowing from the throne of God and the tree of life growing on each side, its leaves for the healing of the nations.
Here are two nations in need of healing: America and Afghanistan. One way this miracle of God might occur is for all of us—Americans—to fling open the doors of our hearts and homes and welcome all of them—Afghans—as if they were Jesus himself.
According to the National Congregational Study Survey, there are approximately 380,000 congregations in the United States. Every one of them, yes, every one of them can take down any version of that old and ugly sign NO ROOM IN THE INN that too many nailed up when God’s people were flooding across the Rio Grande. We need to replace it with some version of the words of Jesus, Come, blessed of our father, receive the guest room prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
It just might be what so many struggling congregations—in Owensboro, Hendersonville, and elsewhere—need to stave off their implosion and infuse a fresh dose of the Spirit into their life and worship. Obeying the commands of Jesus does that, you know!
(August 2021)
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